Jeremy had never felt so flabbergasted in his life. Not that he objected. In the last five minutes, he’d been reevaluating every assumption he’d ever had about Bernie. He’d taken it for granted that if he hit her with a little sexual intimidation, it would just piss her off. She’d snap back at him, and that would be that. In reality, the woman he’d believed to be stone cold was hot as a river of lava, and he’d been standing on the rim of the volcano when it exploded.
Her gaze traveled leisurely from his chest to his abdomen, and then to the area below his belt, where it lingered for several seconds on the monumental hard-on he couldn’t have hidden if he’d wanted to. She met his eyes again, giving him a wicked smile.
“Take off your pants,” she said.
Jeremy blinked with surprise. Take off your pants? Had those words actually come out of Bernie’s mouth?
She removed her hand from his throat and slowly stood up, towering over him. Under normal circumstances, his first inclination would have been to give her a smug smile. Turn on the sarcasm. Find a way to get back on top, figuratively speaking. But since any of those things might short-circuit what was getting ready to happen here, he kept his mouth shut. He’d never had even a passing thought of having sex with this woman, but right now he wanted it as much as he wanted his next breath.
He came to his feet, kicking off his shoes. He unbuckled and unzipped, dropping everything from the waist down, only to catch one foot in the leg of his pants as he tried to pull them off. He lost his balance and hopped on the other foot to his oversized leather sofa, letting out a string of curse words all the way there. He fell onto the sofa and finally jerked off his pants, pausing only to retrieve the condom from his pocket and put it in place. Breathing hard, he turned to see Bernie glaring down at him like an Amazon woman hell-bent on revenge. She still wore her dress, but she’d kicked off her shoes.
And her panties dangled from one fingertip.
With a flick of her wrist, she tossed them aside. She took three hip-swiveling steps forward, smacked her palm against his chest and shoved him to his back on the sofa. In the next breath, she was straddling him, gripping his shoulders as she slid herself along the length of him. Once. Twice.
Then again.
And again.
He sucked in a breath, astonished at the sheer carnality of it, at the unbelievable sensations she was creating. On the next stroke, she shifted her hips and took him inside.
Holy shit.
He closed his eyes with a heavy groan. She rose, almost sliding away from him, only to slam her hips down again. She began a steady rise and fall, slowly picking up the pace until her strokes were hard, fast, and punishing. At the same time her dark-eyed gaze bored into him so completely that she could have pinned him to the sofa with that alone. His entire adult life, the instant he had felt another human being reaching for control over him, he had cut that person off at the knees and done everything in his power to ensure that he or she never tried to run over him again. But right now, with his head swimming in a sea of alcohol and lust, all he wanted was her next ferocious stroke. He remembered earlier in the evening when he’d wondered if there was a woman inside her somewhere.
He wasn’t wondering now.
Then her gaze seemed to lose focus. A crimson flush spread across her chest, then rose to suffuse her cheeks. Still riding him relentlessly, she squeezed her eyes closed and ducked her head, as if she’d forgotten all about him and was lost in sensation. The raw sexuality of her expression, the pressure she was creating, the heat, the friction, the astonishment that it was Bernie on top of him right now, bringing both of them to a place he’d never counted on—all of it was pushing him to the edge so fast it shocked him.
Seconds later, a wave of indescribable pleasure hit him with the force of a battering ram. He gripped her thighs and thrust his hips up off the sofa, driving up into her as she drove down onto him, jerking convulsively as searing pulsations tore through him. Seconds later, Bernie threw her head back, clasping his shoulders with savage force. He knew he’d have bruises in the morning, but he didn’t feel the pain. All he knew was that the woman who usually controlled every move she made was suddenly shuddering like a leaf in a violent wind, a groan of satisfaction ripping from her throat.
Then little by little, the shuddering stopped. She dropped her chin to her chest, her hair clinging to her sweaty temples, her breath coming in short, shallow gasps. Then she raised her head and opened her eyes to look down at him.
For a moment, she seemed lost. Disoriented. Those eyes that spent all day every day narrowed sarcastically slowly widened with bewilderment. Her mouth dropped open slightly, as if she wanted to say something but the words wouldn’t come. It was as if a window had opened just enough for him to catch a fleeting glimpse of the woman inside, and she was as stunned as he was at what had just happened.
And then the telephone rang.
She jerked around to look at the phone, then turned back to him. In the blink of an eye, her expression became hard and impenetrable again. She moved away from him and rose from the sofa, giving her skirt a couple of quick tugs to put it back in place as she walked over to pick up the phone.
He sat up slowly, making out just enough of what she said to know that the danger was over. After she hung up, she turned and walked back across the room, grabbed her shoes, and put them on. She scooped up her panties, stuffed them into her purse, and headed for the door.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Anywhere but here.”
“But you’ll need to talk to the police.”
“I no longer work for you.”
“The hell you don’t.”
“I’d have to be willing to take a bullet for you. As of right now, I’d step aside and let the bullets fly.”
“But—”
“I told you I’m done with you. Once and for all.”
Jeremy felt the strangest trickle of desperation. But why did he care if she walked out? He wasn’t completely sure. He only knew that women didn’t walk away from him. He walked away from them.
“So you’re done, are you?” he said.
She unlocked the door. “Completely.”
“I notice you didn’t mind screwing me on your way out the door.”
Bernie froze, then slowly turned back, her expression cold as ice. “You started it, Bridges. I just finished it.”
God, how she’d finished it. He felt as if he’d been hit by a freight train.
“And by the way,” Bernie said, “if you ever get the urge to tell anyone what happened here, I’ll deny it to my dying breath.”
With that, she turned and left the room, closing the door behind her.
Jeremy just sat there, furious that she’d had the nerve to leave. Most of the women he’d been with barely climbed out of bed before they were on the phone to tell their friends they’d screwed a multimillionaire, so Bernie’s reaction stunned him. Then again, in the past half hour, pretty much everything about Bernie had stunned him.
He went to the bathroom. Cleaned up. Yanked on his pants. He knew the cops were out there waiting to talk to him, but he couldn’t seem to focus on that. Instead he went to the bar, anger and irritation still eating away at him. He picked up the bottle of Crown, but instead of pouring a drink, he slammed down the bottle, grabbed the glass, and hurled it across the room. It hit the wall and shattered into a thousand pieces, which did not one blessed thing to make him feel better.
Damn it. Why should he even care what she thought of him? There were dozens of bodyguards in this town who could do everything she could, and without the endless barrage of insults she fired at him. But for some reason, when he imagined a big, nameless guy shadowing him saying, “Yes, sir,” and, “No, sir,” he felt sick inside.
He shouldn’t have pushed her, but he hadn’t been able to stop. From one second to the next, he’d gone from lobbing his usual sarcastic remarks at her to wanting her so badly he’d do anything to have her. What the hell had gotten into him? Whatever it was, it had made him feel helpless and exposed and out of control, which meant he needed to bury it thoroughly and completely so it never saw the light of day again.
When she came back—and she would come back, because money talked—he’d be calling the shots again, and everything would be back to normal.