The Lost Tycoon

Chapter Fourteen

Misty’s stomach was doing handsprings, her emotions were all over the place, and her whole world had been flipped upside down, but one thing was certain: being pressed up against Bryson, with his strong hands kneading the taut muscles up and down her back, felt so right.

Her anguish faded; the questions running through her head stopped. All she could feel, all she could think about, all she could concentrate on, was Bryson. She needed him to take this away — take away the choices, the decisions, the life-changing questions.

She needed him to take…her.

“Please, Bryson. Please touch me,” she begged. She turned her head and leaned upward, her lips softly flitting across his solid jaw, satisfaction filling her when he trembled in her arms.

“You’re vulnerable right now,” Bryson argued, fighting to maintain control, but his rebellious hands moved down past the small of her back and gripped her luscious behind, pulling her tightly against his solid erection.

“That’s why I need you. Too many people have hurt me…too many times. I can’t remember sleeping one night — not a single night — where I felt safe, where I felt that, when I woke up, the world would be a little bit better. I just need this night. I need to be in your arms, and I need to feel what real pleasure is. Just once,” she begged, her mouth now at his neck. She bit down gently on the skin before sucking it, wetting it with her tongue.

He knew this was it. Either he pulled away, took her into the living room and held her until she fell asleep, or he took her lips. There was no turning back if he did this. No way of redeeming himself. When she nipped his neck again, his mind shut off.

At least hell was warm…

“I have to have you,” he groaned before one hand flew up her back and clasped the back of her head, tilting her face upward so he could bend down and taste her beautiful mouth.

Their lips crashed together like a wave hitting the shore, shattering any and all doubts that this could possibly be wrong.

He wanted her — there was no doubt about it, from the urgency of his mouth to the feel of his arousal pressing against her stomach, demanding to be freed from the tight confines of his clothes.

If she didn’t have him, she would never make it through this storm; she would just float out to sea, never to be found again. She moved her arms up his body, wound them around his neck, and pressed even closer.

His tongue explored her mouth, sending sensations through her unlike anything she’d ever known, and making her core tighten in anticipation.

She’d never felt any craving for sex, not even once. It had been something she was either forced to have or thought she had to have, but it had never been pleasurable. Yet from the way she was feeling now, she hadn’t a single doubt that this would be earth-shattering. This would be what she’d dreamt about when she read a romance or watched a sappy movie.

This would be worth the buildup of the games they’d been playing for weeks, months.

If this was the only night the two of them had together, she wanted it to last. She knew she was pushing him, and she knew he’d regret it. He was too ethical and this broke the rules. But to hell with the rules. For this brief moment, she felt nothing but pleasure, and she deserved that — deserved to feel alive and free.

He broke away and she dragged oxygen inside her lungs while his mouth moved down the curve of her jaw, and then his teeth clamped on to the skin of her neck, causing a sting that he quickly soothed with his tongue.

“What are you doing to me?” he growled, passion and confusion in his voice. But his mouth traveled back to hers, and he took her lips again, accepting nothing less than her complete submission.

She could ask the same of him, ask for his surrender — but she already had it.

One minute she was fully clothed, and the next she wasn’t. She’d been so focused on his mouth that she hadn’t even noticed when he stripped off her slacks and her panties. But she noticed now, when his long fingers gripped her backside and he lifted her, spreading her thighs apart as he set her on the counter, slipped between her legs, and, still clothed, pressed his erection against her aching core.

“Oh, my,” she groaned, her head falling back. “Too much…” It was all too much — the sensation, the feelings, the raw need.

“Do you want me to stop?”

Did she hear fear in his voice that she had changed her mind?

“Never!” she cried, and he immediately plundered her mouth again, capturing the moan rumbling through her as his hands squeezed the flesh of her bare behind.

“I can’t get enough of you,” he groaned. He trailed his tongue down her jaw, but this time he didn’t stop. He let his hands move up her sides, then captured the top of her blouse and yanked. The material gave way easily, ripping apart and offering her panting chest to his mouth.

Tugging on her bra, he freed her breasts, and they spilled out, reaching for him. He didn’t keep her waiting. His mouth found one nipple and suckled it to a pointed peak before he moved over and gave the same pleasure to the other one.

“More,” she demanded.

Misty fell backward, her back held up only by the cupboards behind her while his mouth worshipped her breasts, leaving her even hungrier than before.

When he moved downward to her navel, she shook, but not in alarm at his clear intent. She needed more, and that’s what he gave her. His mouth circled her wet heat and then his tongue was doing things to her she’d never dreamed of. She screamed when the first pulses slammed into her, then moaned long and deep as he sucked on her swollen bud, drawing out her pleasure in wave after wave of sensation.

Before she could gain her breath back, he was standing again, his mouth glistening with her pleasure, his eyes wild as he gazed at her, animal-like, hungry.

“You are even more beautiful than I imagined,” he whispered, his voice raw with passion. “And I imagined being with you. I imagined it a lot.”

“Take me, Bryson; take me right now.”

It didn’t seem possible, but his eyes grew even more feral and predatory as he reached down and freed himself. She felt an instant of disappointment that she didn’t get to see him in all his glory before he was pressed against her. But he was now sliding inside her and any thought of disappointment vanished.


“Ohhh…” was all she got out before he began pumping his hips, a sublime pressure mounting within her as be began moving quickly in and out of her flesh, building an even more intense explosion inside her body.

All she could do was grip his arms and moan as she looked into his face, his eyes and their powerful heat shining back at her. He held her buttocks as he moved harder, faster, longer with each stroke.

When he leaned in and kissed her, his mouth almost frantic, his body quaking, she released again, crying out as this second round of pleasure seemed almost to tear her in half with its intensity.

With his own cry, Bryson pulled out and she felt hot liquid spill out on her thighs, the sensation heating her all over again.

“I’m sorry,” he gasped.

“I’m not,” she said.

“No. I…I forgot to protect you. I’m sorry. I pulled out, though…I think in time,” he said, his face against her neck.

She wasn’t sure who was holding up whom.

“Oh” was her only reaction. That had been foolish, very foolish. It would be fine, though. He’d caught it, right?

“Let’s get you cleaned up,” he said. He moved away reluctantly, leaving her shivering on the counter and unable to move. She was too afraid her legs would fail her.

He quickly returned with a washcloth. Was this the end of their night? Would he now leave? The thought left her full of dread, but she’d done enough begging tonight.

If he wanted to go, she wouldn’t stop him.

Neither of them spoke.

Then, so gently that her eyes stung with tears, he slid his hands beneath her legs and back, cradled her close, and began carrying her through the house. When he reached her room, he laid her on the bed, reached into his back pocket and set something on the nightstand, and then removed his clothes. Sliding beneath the covers, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her with aching sweetness.

“With the power out, it will take two of us to keep warm,” he said, though a heater was the last thing she needed. Her body was on fire.

“Great thinking.”

No more thoughts intervened, because he was kissing her again, taking his time now — they had all night, after all. He drew away her ragged shirt and kissed her stomach. He let his hands glide slowly up her bare back, and that’s when he felt the light ridges there.

He froze for a moment, and then, after turning her on her stomach, he kissed along her spine. The candlelight didn’t give him much of a view, but it cast enough of a glow to reveal scars from what looked like years of torture. He knew what she’d been through with Jesse — he just didn’t know what she’d been through before that man. Her body was trying to tell him the story.

His heart ached as he kissed each scar he felt.

“Bryson?” She murmured his name as she tried to turn from his scrutiny. “Don’t look at my back. It’s grotesque,” she said, her voice choked.

“It’s beautiful, just like the rest of you, Misty,” he replied, preventing her from twisting away as his fingers gently drifted across her skin. “You are so beautiful,” he repeated over and over again until she stopped struggling against him, his lips and fingers just a whisper against her delicate skin.

If he did nothing else this night, he needed to show her how incredible she was — that the scars didn’t detract from her exquisite beauty. Not one whit.

Seeing them made him only more protective of her, filled him with a greater need to make sure she was never hurt again.

Caressing her body — this time, he was unhurried — he got lost in her once again, for the rest of the stormy night.