Best Kept Secret (Rochester Trilogy 3)

I don’t want to avoid him. My body responds to him, nipples tightening, slickness between my legs. He’s testing me. This is a test to see if I’ll break, or if I’ll beg him to stop. Run out of the room, maybe. Run back to Houston. Admit I’m the most dangerous person you’ve ever been with, and that I’m ruining your life.

Beau’s going to take what he wants, but he won’t get everything. I won’t admit that to him. It’s not true, no matter how much he believes it.

He shoves a hand down my shirt and pinches one nipple hard enough to pull a pained sound out of me. “Enough?” he demands. “Say the word, sweetheart. Tell me to stop.”

No. I’ll be damned. I’ve survived worse to get to Beau Rochester in the first place, and I’m not going to give in. I press my lips closed. He lets out a frustrated growl and turns me to the bed. Bends me over it. He’s rough taking my clothes off. Beau tears at the fabric in a way that’s almost clinical. It burns as he yanks my shirt, my pants, everything away. I could be an object, or a doll, for all the care he takes undressing me. It’s so hot it has me panting. So very, very wrong.

He pins me to the bed with one hand. The only move I can make is to turn my head to try to see his face. His eyes are dark. Pained. And distant. Like I could be anyone on this bed. Like he’s just using me. “Enough?”

“No.”

The first smack against my ass makes me gasp, and the second brings tears to my eyes. The third makes them spill over. He’s not holding back at all. My feet kick up off the floor involuntarily. Beau stops only to feel between my legs. “You’re wet for this,” he says. “You like it mean.”

On some level, I do. I do like this. It makes me feel strong, the way he doesn’t have to be gentle with me. But it’s harsh now. Meaner than he’s ever been. He rains blows down on my ass like it was me who left him. A punishment for what he did to himself. What he did to us both. When he stops, my skin is fiery and my tears are just as hot.

Beau undoes his belt buckle and shoves his pants to the floor. There’s nothing sweet in his touch when he moves me onto the bed. It’s only to brace my knees and push my face down to position me for him.

“Look how much your cunt wants this,” he taunts, thrusting two fingers in, then adding a third. He twists them and I moan. “Look how much you want this.”

“What about you?”

“I want this.”

He takes his fingers out and pushes himself in. Beau’s wild behind me, with no consideration for whether I’m ready, or whether I can take it. I am ready. And I can take it. Worst of all, I want it. I can feel myself clenching around him as he takes me. His motion drives me into the covers. I can’t catch my breath. I can’t slow my racing heart.

“Do you wish I would play with your clit and make you come? You look like you want that, too.” I can’t speak. He slaps my ass again and shoves in deeper. To the point of pain. “Do it yourself.”

I don’t know whether this is part of the test or not, but I think it is. I reach between my legs.

Beau curses, but he doesn’t slow. I can’t find any rhythm. The only pleasure I can feel right now is that he’s close, and it’s a painful one. He takes me with deep strokes, his hips meeting my body with violence. I don’t need to touch myself. I just need him.

I reach back for his hand. Desperation presses at my lungs. I just want to connect with him, just need some sign that the man I love is in there, but he traps my hand against my body and holds it there.

This is how far I’ve fallen.

Bent over on this bed at the inn, my former boss behind me. My face in the covers. My ass in the air. It’s a humiliating, degrading position and he doesn’t care.

“You’re tight,” he says, and it sounds like he’s gritting his teeth, sounds like he’s putting everything into fucking me. “You’re a good fuck, Jane. Tight on my cock. I could come like this.”

I can’t get any lower. He’s being cruel and rough and terrible. Beau’s trying his best to push me away, and he’s succeeding. He’s inside me but it feels like there are miles between us. His heart is completely closed off to me. His emotions. There’s only this physical, animal thing.