His Only Hope: The Maison Chronicles, Book 2 (17 page)

“Oh Gabriel, I told Hope that you are crazy about her. And I am always right about these things.”

His deep brown eyes bored into hers. “She’s right, you know.”

Every nerve ending whooshed alive and the whole world came into sharp focus. “You…you are?”

“Of course he is,” Kat piped up. “I am not wrong about such things.”

Gabe rose and came to sit beside her. He took her plate and put it…somewhere. She didn’t notice or care because all she knew was Gabe, the feel of his hands around hers and his dark, manly smell, the seriousness in his eyes.

“Yeah. When you left, I was devastated. And I know it wasn’t the most noble thing to do, but I’m glad I convinced you to come here this weekend. Closure,” he laughed, “the only closure I want is knowing that you’re mine.”

Tears filling her eyes, weak vulnerable tears she could care less about showing, she leaned in to give him a passionate kiss. She moaned at the feel of his tongue dancing along hers, eager to feel his tongue caress other parts of her body.

A throat clearing broke the spell.

Gabe still held her face between his palms and he had a goofy look on his face. “Love you,” he said, giving her a swift peck on the lips.

With that, he rose and looked over at Kat, who Hope had forgotten was still in the room. Hope’s cheeks blazed with embarrassment, but Gabe had no such problem.

“Kat, you know how to spoil a perfectly good moment,” he said.

“Oh, Gabriel, I always have impeccable timing. And I will leave you two paramours alone as soon as I finish my business here.” She turned back to Hope. “So I hear you are an interior designer. What do you think of my resort?” Katrina cocked her head, expectant look on her face.

Hope bit her tongue and tried to formulate a response that was flattering yet left room for improvement. The moment stretched on and her blush deepened.

Then Kat laughed and patted her shoulder. “
Cherie
, I was just, how do you say, messing with you. Gabriel told me you are quite the insightful designer and practically demanded I hire you.”

Hope shot Gabe a mortified look, to which he responded with an unrepentant shrug.

“We shall need to negotiate terms, of course, but I would like to offer you the contract.”

Hope wanted to squeal, but managed an enthusiastic, “I’d be honored” instead. She glanced at Gabe, who nodded at her, heart in his eyes.

Kat stood and grabbed her plate, setting it on the cart as she headed to the door. “Call down to the kitchen and they will send someone to pick this up. You children have fun now!”

A wave over her shoulder, a click of the door, and Hope was alone with Gabe.

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” she said, “for everything, Sir.”

He patted his thigh. “Come sit here, love.”

She obeyed, heart racing with each step she took. His lap felt as if it was made for her, his shoulder was at the perfect height to cradle her head, and his arms embraced her with ease.
Home
. The word floated through her mind and instead of questioning it, Hope let the idea settle over her. Damn, did it feel right. “You feel like home, Sir.”

He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I was going to say the very same thing.” He pulled back from her and tilted her chin so she met his eyes. “We do have a few things to iron out, though.”

Her eyebrows rose. “Oh? Do tell.”

“For starters, I’d like to take you on a real date. Are you free this Friday?”

“I have to wait until Friday?” She pretend sighed. “If I must…I suppose I can cancel that other date I had planned.”

He caught both hands behind her back and clamped a hand around them. “Hope,” he said, warning in his tone, “you will not have a date with another man. Only me. And I would have suggested a date tomorrow, but I wanted to give you time apart if you needed it.”

Dizzy from the sensual grip in which he held her, she barely responded. “Okay, got it. No dates.” Her eyelids fluttered shut. “And I don’t need time. I know what I want.”

His lips captured hers, his fingers threading through her hair. She drifted in the sensation. When he broke the kiss, they were both breathing heavily.

“Love you,” he said, settling his arms around her waist.

“Love you too.” The words rolled from her lips so naturally, it felt as if she’d been saying them her whole life.

She wanted to spend the rest of her years saying them.

A comfortable silence fell upon the room, echoed by the glittering snow outside. She had no idea how much time had passed when Gabe said, “So, Hope, where are you living these days?”

“You don’t want to know,” she groaned.

“Yes I do, because I think you’re living with me.”

She sat upright and stared. “You’re kidding, right?”

A rakish smile lit his face. “Hell no, woman. I lost you once. This time, I’m keeping a close eye on you.”

She liked the sound of that. ‘Well,” she hedged, “I guess I can get behind that. But you’re going to have to help me move. Three times in two years is just too much for me.”

“Deal.” He sealed it with a soul-searing kiss.

“What are we waiting for?” She bit her lip, having the crazy urge to run to her apartment, throw everything in her car and invade his loft.

“That.” He took her lips again. “I just wanted to hear a little enthusiasm,” he said, a smug smile on his beautiful face.

“Well in that case, take me home, dammit, before I get violent and you have to punish me. Then who knows when we’d ever leave here.”

Packing and driving back to Los Angeles was a blur. They had to travel separately, but Gabe’s motorcycle stood in his driveway when she arrived at his new artist loft. The sun hung low in the Sunday sky and the smell of rain filled the air. She loved LA winters, barely cold at night and mild during the day, with the occasional rainstorm to sweep aside the smog.

She shut her car door and walked into the open garage. Machines and leather and metal covered every conceivable surface and, despite being crowded, it seemed well-organized, though her fingers itched to rearrange things. Leave it to Gabe to be king of controlled chaos. “Hello?”

Arms wrapped around her from behind. She would have been alarmed, except she’d smelled his cologne a moment before he’d touched her. “Mmm, hey, baby. Welcome home.” He nibbled the crook of her neck and she swept a hand back to cup his head.

“A girl could get used to this kind of greeting.”

“That’s the idea.” He picked her up in his arms and carried her to the door leading inside. She gasped. “You really shouldn’t carry me across—”

“Well, I just did. Looks like you’re stuck with me.” His eyes sparkled with unparalleled love. Settling her on her feet, Gabe entwined his fingers with hers.

She looked up at him, chest and throat choked on her love for him. “I love you, Gabriel Cassidy. Thank you for bringing me home.”

He kissed her hand. “Always, baby. Always.”

About the Author

Skylar Kade, self-avowed hedonist and princess extraordinaire, started her writing career after throwing aside yet another romance she could not bring herself to finish. The run-on sentences! The purple prose! Oh, the horror of it was just too much. So she sat down to write her own tale. Her favorite part about writing is the extensive research.

She currently resides in sunny southern California, alternately cursing the polluted air and adoring the often-perfect weather. Skylar spends her time asking the cabana boys to bring her more mimosas and feed her strawberries while she dreams up her next naughty adventure.

Catch Skylar at her website (
www.skylarkade.com
), the Nine Naughty Novelists blog (
www.ninenaughtynovelists.blogspot.com
), or Twitter (
@skylarkade
).

Look for these titles by Skylar Kade

Now Available:

The Maison Chronicles

Maison Domine

His Only Hope

Taking bonding and exothermic reactions outside the laboratory…

Maison Domine

© 2009 Skylar Kade

Organic chemist Lara Brunner is at loose ends. Since childhood, her life has been focused on work and achieving success in her field. Only now, weeks away from her tenure review, she realizes she’s pushed herself too far. Casting about for a way to release her stress-crazed body from career tension, she visits a BDSM retreat, hoping a weekend of sexual submission will do the trick.

Inducting her into the lifestyle is her at-work nemesis—Jaxon Greene. But the sinful intent she encounters in Jaxon’s sexy eyes makes her heart race with desire…and fear. Gorgeous men like him don’t go for zaftig academics like her. Once the fantasy weekend is over and real life returns, he’ll forget all about her.

Jaxon is blindsided by his intense attraction to Lara. The more time he spends with her, the stronger their invisible bonds become. Bonds that are stronger and more permanent than any knot he can tie. He’s not normally into converting vanilla women to his lifestyle, but something makes him want to cast his inhibitions aside and claim her for his own.

First, though, he has to free her from preconceived notions of proper sex…and love.

Warning: This story contains bondage and whips and sexy professors—oh my!

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Maison Domine:

As soon as Jaxon Greene’s hand settled around her neck, Lara was pulled under his wicked spell. It had to be magic. It was the only way she would be shamelessly flirting, and in public nonetheless. She was surrounded by people, and he wasn’t even caressing her, but she was wet. Soaking, actually. What was happening to her? She never let her dates manhandle her, never gave them such control over her body.

“You…jerk! Let me go.” Lara felt the need to put up a token resistance. Who was he to stalk in and claim her like a caveman? She was a renowned scientist, dammit! And more importantly, why the hell was he interested in her? Lara may have accepted her body, but she was a realist. Jax ran in Hollywood circles, and she would never be that type of woman.

Jaxon let his fingers slide from her neck. Callused fingertips brushed across her collarbone and down to her hand. She looked down, surprised to find their fingers intertwined. “I can’t let you go.”

Preoccupied by the delicious texture of his large, warm hand, she didn’t respond right away. And when she did, Lara could tell her voice was…distracted. “Can’t? Or won’t?”

“Can’t, Lara. I’m shocked to see you here. Although, I’m not too surprised. Had I known you were into the lifestyle, I would have asked you out much sooner.” He lifted their locked hands to his mouth. Warm, damp lips brushed over her knuckles. The caress was brief, but she felt the aftershocks zing through her body and settle in her clit. It throbbed in time to her heartbeat, which had started racing as soon as she saw Jax walk into the room.

“Why?” she squeaked, wincing at the undignified sound. Chemistry professors of her caliber were not supposed to be unnerved. She was becoming a disgrace to the profession.

He chuckled, and the vibrations tightened her nipples to the point of pain. She needed to escape, to go back to her room, and bury herself in grading and experiment research until she forgot the feel of him. Or come over and over until this desire went away. The latter was definitely more appealing.

She had visions of Jax looming over her, his hard cock filling her. Or of his mouth, his tongue, teasing her to the brink over and over, before filling her perfectly with his long fingers to send her careening into an explosive orgasm.

Lara came back from her wet daydream to see Jax smirking at her. The rat bastard. He knew she’d been thinking about them having sex. How dare he not offer to help her out of her misery, to take her over and over until she blacked out from the pleasure, instead of just offering to train her? As Sam had told her before she left, orgasms were not part of the so-called training sessions unless offered by the Dominant.Maison Domine www.samhainpublishing.com 19

Damn, she was not the kind of woman to swoon for a man the second he looked her way!

He brought her hand to his mouth again, this time scraping his teeth lightly across the pad of her palm. Shivers zipped across every nerve ending in her body again. She let out a little whimper before she could bite off the sound.

“Because you are different from the others,” he said in between little nips and licks to her skin. “There is something seductive about seeing a woman submit for the first time. Especially one as controlling as you are. I can see it in your eyes, in the lines of your body. You don’t know how to revel in your sexuality, and you’re afraid of embracing it, for fear of losing yourself beneath the intense feelings you would be opened to.”

He, the famous Jaxon Greene, PhD, wanted her. The mousy little nerd. It was a sign of the Apocalypse, for sure. She opened her mouth to protest his assessment of her, true though it might be, but his mouth covered hers, shutting her up.

Oh, the taste of him! It was like sweet mint and sin, simultaneously cool and blistering hot. His tongue reached out to lick across her bottom lip, silently begging entrance. Who was she to deny him, especially when he was making her knees oh-so-weak? She forgot she was not that kind of girl.

Her fingers tangled into the lapels of his jacket, bringing the intoxicating scent of leather closer to her. Lara’s head swirled and her knees buckled under her. But Jax was there with an arm around her waist, holding her up. The other twisted into her hair, pulling on her scalp with little pinpricks of pain. It only served to turn her on more.

Lara distantly heard a throat clear. The second “ahem” was a little louder, a little more forceful. With great difficulty, she pulled her lips away from Jaxon’s and looked over his shoulder. Kat stood there, hands on her slim hips, and a smug smile on her delicate face.

“I’ll take the tonsil hockey to mean you’ll work with her, Jax?” She looked like she was barely suppressing her laughter.

He groaned, rolling his forehead across Lara’s in a gesture of part frustration, part tenderness. He looked into her eyes and smiled wryly. “I lost track of where we are.”