Private Property (Rochester Trilogy 1)

He rewards that with a firmer grip. It’s possession, the way he holds me between my legs. I feel owned by him. Other men might die to have me, but he already does.

My mouth is captured by his hand, so he can’t kiss me. Not there. But he does kiss me on the forehead, on the tip of my nose. Innocent places that are made filthy by the way his hand fucks me without mercy. A kiss beneath his hand, right on my chin. And then one at the hollow of my neck. He puts his tongue against my pulse and licks.

I won’t survive him. It’s too much, too hard, too fast.

Too much feeling after a lifetime of trying to be numb.

I bite his fingers, and it’s like he was waiting for that. As if it’s the switch that turns him on, that small amount of pain. He fucks me proper, then. Hard enough that I’m caught up in the current. There’s no more thinking, no more doubt. Only the endless rapids that carry me on and on and on. Farther than I knew existed. And then there’s the cliff at the end. I go over the edge of the water, clenching my thighs around his hand, biting down on the flesh of his palm, holding tight to him as if he can save me from coming apart.

He pulls back when I flinch, but he keeps rocking his hand against me with soft pulses, carrying me through the final eddies of climax until I’m lax against the wall.

For long moments there’s only the mingled sounds of our breathing, the scent of sex in the air. It’s thick with the knowledge that he’s still hard. Will he ask me to join him in his bedroom?

What will my answer be?

Strange that I don’t know.

He pulls my panties up with a too-kind gentleness. I don’t like this side of him. I don’t trust it. I open my hands, and my nightgown covers me. We are decent again, except for the glisten of my arousal on his fingertips.

“Tell me about that boy you have back home. The one who’s always texting you.”

I stiffen against the wall. “Why do you care so much about Noah?”

His lips curve. “Well, you just confirmed that he texts you.”

It is a night for secrets. “He’s like a brother to me.”

“So he doesn’t do this?” Mr. Rochester asks, brushing his lips against mine. He brings his palm up to my hip. “He doesn’t hold you like this?”

“No,” I whisper.

“Does he know? Does he know he’ll never have you?”

“I don’t know.” I don’t know how to tell him. He’s never made an overt advance, but I’ve seen the way he looks at me sometimes. Maybe it’s just my imagination. That’s what I keep hoping.

“You should tell him.” The words come out on a sigh. I breathe him in, and he breathes me back. “It’s better to cut him loose, better that he doesn’t keep hoping.”

“Are you speaking from experience?”

He rests his forehead against mine. He’s large and strong, but in this moment it feels like I’m holding him together. “There are worse things than never having the woman you want.”

“Like what?”

“Go to sleep, Ms. Mendoza.”

There are worse things than never having the woman you want. Having her? Finding out she isn’t who you thought she was? Losing her? The secrets have reached the end of their tether. It is a fire that’s burned out, leaving only ice in its wake.

There will be no invitation to his room. I feel both disappointment and relief.

“Good night, Mr. Rochester.”

CHAPTER TEN

Beau Rochester

I return to my room smelling of sex.

Jane’s arousal dampens my fingertips.

I’m hard as iron beneath flannel. There’s no way I’m going to sleep like this. Instead I hit the shower in my room, turning the water hot. Cold water would be one option. The restrained option. The stop-lusting-after-your-nanny option. Instead I turn the knob all the way to the right. Water burns my shoulders and my chest. It runs in rivulets down my abs, down my legs.

I grasp my cock in a tight fist, eyes closed, imagining Jane’s dark eyes. Her sweet pussy. Her slender legs, revealed in that hallway.

She should have been afraid of me. I held her slender neck in my hand. God, she should have run away from me. Called the agency and told them what I did. Sued me for sexual harassment. Instead she lifted that pointed little chin and asked me to touch her.

One thing, she said. You can do one thing to me.

The list of things I want to do to her lithe body is long and inventive, but if I can only do one thing then I wanted to kiss her. Simple. Innocent, even. Though there was nothing innocent about the way I claimed her mouth or the way she responded to me.