Private Property (Rochester Trilogy 1)

“A grumpy boss man?” He’s clearly holding back laughter.

I stand up because he can’t. Then I’m leaning on the arm of his chair, the same way Zoey did. The leather’s still warm from her butt. Mr. Rochester has to look up at me this way.

We’re so close. So close I can feel the heat coming from his body.

It’s hotter than the fireplace.

I look him directly in the eyes. The dark gaze reflects the flames. “I’d say, shove it up your ass. And then you’d say, you’re fired, Jane.”

“You want to tell me to shove it up your ass?”

“Then again maybe we can just get drunk every day. Then you’d never be angry. And I’d never have to be sad again.”

He tugs me onto his lap, and I squirm, trying to avoid hurting his leg with my weight. Only then do I feel something hard that’s definitely not his leg. “You’re always sad. And the worst part is, I want to make you happy. I promised myself I’d never go down this road again.”

“Because of the woman you loved before.”

“No,” he murmurs against my neck, and I realize we’re even closer than I thought. We’re all wrapped up in each other. He’s holding my waist and my leg. I’ve got my arms on his shoulders. “I didn’t love her. I wanted her, and I almost broke myself trying to have her.”

“You built a billion-dollar company trying to win her.”

“And how do you think you build those? By becoming someone ambitious, someone cold and hard, someone unethical. I didn’t even recognize myself by the end.”

I pull back and push a lock of dark hair from his forehead. Part of me knows I would never do this if I weren’t drunk. The other part of me doesn’t care. It feels good. Maybe it would always have felt good, if I’d have had the courage to do it before. “The playboy Beau Rochester.”

“Yes.”

“The one who had sex with lots of supermodels.”

His hand tightens in my hair. “Did you like when they touched you?”

I blink slowly. It takes me a second to realize what he means. “They made me laugh.”

“But did you like it when they touched you?”

My forehead leans against his. “They weren’t you.”

“You break me apart.”

I press my lips against his. The other times we were together, in his study and outside Paige’s room, he initiated it. I enjoyed what he did, but I was passive. Obedient, even. Good little Jane Mendoza who does what she’s told.

This is another side of me. The ocean during a storm.

I’m the one crossing boundaries tonight.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Beau Rochester

Jane sits on my lap. It shouldn’t feel so good, not with my leg aching and my heart heavy. But of course my cock is hard as iron. It has no problem with the idea of fucking her even though I ignored her for the past few days.

She doesn’t seem to have a problem with the idea either.

Her hands keep running through my hair, and it feels so good I close my eyes and turn my head toward her like some wild animal being tamed by a fairy. She’s surrounding me—her touch, her scent. It’s only because she’s drunk. I shouldn’t take advantage of her. I shouldn’t, but I’m upside down in the dark water, unable to breathe.

I turned my back on her, and now I’m going to drown.

“You don’t really want me,” I tell her. She wants safety, and she thinks I can give that to her. But I can’t. It’s a mirage. I’m no more capable of being the man she needs than the cliff itself. We are both impenetrable, indestructible. Made that way through decades of erosion.

Because she’s drunk, that makes her giggle. “You don’t know what I want.”

“Then tell me, sweet girl.”

She puts her hands on my head on either side and looks me right in the eye. I don’t know whether she’s doing it to appear very serious or whether she just can’t focus on me. I shouldn’t have let Zoey serve her drinks. “I want the fourth thing. What’s number four?”

I lost every principle I held dear building my shipping company, trying to win Emily Macom, trying to become more than the dirt-poor son of a lobsterman.

Who the hell am I now? That’s what I asked myself.

I swore that I’d never need anything so badly again. Then this young woman sits on my lap and asks for number four. Number fucking four. As if there’s a little kama sutra book sitting on her nightstand that she’s working through, ever the diligent straight A student.

And I’m helpless against her wishes.

You’re making a real sacrifice here, Rochester.

I drop my head back in the armchair. “You’re too drunk.”

“And you’re not the boss. You don’t get to make the decision for me.”

She’s adorable. And technically incorrect. I am the boss. “We should wait.”