Rachel Bailey - Return of the Secret Heir

Eyes flashing with the challenge and innuendo, he reached out a hand and helped her up. Twenty minutes later, after she’d seen the theater room, the conservatory, the million-dollar views of the night skyline and the spa room, he guided her through another doorway.

“This is the library.” And sure enough, the walls were lined with shelves of books on three sides, but the fourth side had something altogether different. A motorbike mounted on the wall. A familiar bike.

“That’s it,” she breathed. The bike he’d built when they were teenagers. The one he’d whipped her away on regularly. The one they’d ridden to the beach where she’d given JT her virginity.

It was cleaner than she’d ever seen it, the chrome gleaming, the tires jet-black. She reached out and touched the spokes of the front wheel. It was like JT-the same as before but different.

“Yep, that’s it,” he said, his voice tinged with nostalgia.

She stepped back to better see the entire bike at once, and found JT behind her. He wrapped his arms around her waist and she leaned into his solid, warm chest. “I can’t believe you’ve kept it all these years.”

She felt him shrug broad shoulders. “It reminds me of where I came from. Reminds me never to take what I have now for granted.”

Very sensible. Not at all where her thoughts had roamed. “It reminds me of riding on the back of it,” she said, her voice rougher around the edges than she would have liked. She remembered being pressed against him, her thighs tightly wrapped around his hips, breasts pushed into his back, arms clinging to his torso. A flash of heat spread across her skin.

He ran a blunt fingertip from her shoulder down her arm. “It took us to some great places.”

“You took us to some great places.”

“I didn’t care where I was,” he said softly, turning her to face him, “as long as you were there with me.”

Looking into his vivid green eyes, she was flooded by the feelings, the yearnings, of her sixteen-year-old self. “I loved you so much back then,” she whispered.

He looked away, up at the bike, and said fiercely, “You were my whole world.”

Her heart felt as if it were tearing in two for everything they’d lost, and tears filled her eyes even as she tried to blink the dampness away. “I miss that feeling.”

“I think it’s something only the young can feel,” he said, gaze still on the bike. “When you’re still full of naпvetй and optimism.”

The words themselves were heartrending, but his tone was so melancholy that she could barely stand it. And the worst part was, she believed him. Nothing in her life had ever come close to the teenaged passion she’d had for this man.

“So we’ll never have it again with anyone else?” she asked, afraid she already knew the answer.

His gaze fell back to her, eyes burning with intense, unreadable emotion. “I know I won’t.”

JT watched emotions tumble over each other on Pia’s face. Then her bottom lip quivered as she drew in a breath. “Can we try and reclaim it-just for one night?”

Last night had been torture-and it had only been a single night apart. He’d gone for a late-night ride to release some of the tension, but then he’d realized his bike had been his first response when Pia had left him fourteen years ago. Annoyed with himself, he’d turned for home. This was nothing like then. He’d been a teenager desperately in love.

This time he was a man who simply missed spending his nights with one particular woman. Missed them beyond measure. And didn’t that just reinforce what she’d said at the restaurant?

He cleared his throat. “You said we needed to be careful about falling into a marriage by default, and you were right.”

“It’s only one night,” she said quietly, tentatively, as if she knew he’d say no. “One last time.”

He watched her sensual mouth as she spoke and his skin tightened. It was as if he was addicted and another night with her would be his fix. And that would mean starting the withdrawal from scratch again once it was over. He’d made it through the first night; theoretically, it should be easier from here-it’d be madness to put himself back on the starting blocks.

Although with her in his arms, her darkened violet eyes looking up at him, his body burning with need for her, he shuddered with the effort of not pulling her close. “We’re playing with fire-you told me so yourself. How would it be any easier to stop tomorrow than it is now?”

Her forehead puckered and her tongue touched her top lip as she considered. “I don’t know if it’s the right thing or the wrong thing. But after the paparazzi, the mad scramble leaving my apartment, feeling that everything is unraveling no matter what I do…”

He threaded his fingers through the luscious firefall of her hair and unable to resist, he feathered a kiss over her forehead. “What about the dangers?”

“I know, I know,” she said, her eyes tortured. “But, JT, I need you to hold me tonight.” She laid a hand on his chest and it seared even through his shirt.

It’s only one night. One last time.

The words were like a drumbeat in his head. He dragged in a sharp breath and made a silent vow to make it special.

As JT lowered his head and took her mouth, desire ripped through him like a flash fire. Sensations threatened to overwhelm-he locked his muscles and stilled, attempting to wrest back control, but she writhed impatiently against him.

“Please, JT,” she said, her voice almost a whimper.

Of its own volition, his body loosened and he pulled her close-he’d never been able to deny her much of anything. Withstanding demands and playing his own game was pretty much his business model, and it came easy to him. With everyone except Pia-he’d never had any defenses against Pia saying please.

He wrapped her left leg around his hips. Pressing her against the wall, he lifted her other knee so she could link her ankles behind him. The core of her pressed over his erection and he shuddered-even through their clothes, he could feel the siren’s call of heat.

With her shoulders braced on the wall behind her, her breasts were laid out before him like a banquet. He traced fingertips down the sides and underneath their fullness, then up to lightly graze their peaks through the fabric of her clothes. A rosy bloom crept up her neck to her cheeks as her breathing grew labored.

Her eyelids fluttered closed. “How far to your room?”

He drew in a sharp breath, forcing his brain to work. “Down the hall.”

“Too far.” She began to unbutton his shirt.

She was right-the bed seemed continents away with her fingers fluttering against the sensitized skin of his chest as she worked to remove the shirt. But hadn’t he just vowed to make this special for her?

“I’ll walk quickly,” he said and pulled her against him. He strode down the long hallway, Pia kissing and nipping at his neck the whole way, testing his resolve not to take her before they reached the master bedroom.

They made it to his bed and she released her legs but he held her high against him for extra moments, savoring the warm, silken feel of her. Then he let her slide slowly down, until her feet reached the floor, and he caught her mouth in a hungry kiss.

He’d dreamed of this moment-over the years and even recently. Sharing her bed had been one thing, but having her in his apartment, beside his bed, brought out something deep down inside of him. Something proud and primal. Mine.

His legs shook with the power of the thought, and he sank to the side of the bed, pulling her to stand in the V of his thighs. He looked up into her passion-darkened gaze. He’d never wanted her more than he did in this moment.