You Really Got Me (2 page)

“That’s it,” he continued, tapping her again. Then he palmed her cheek and rubbed it a little.

He rained a few more fiery caresses on her butt, warming it. The music reached a crescendo around them.

He drove into her, again and again. Sensation built inside him, hot and thick. The backs of his thighs tingled and his balls pulled up tight. A groan rose in his throat. Amazing. Desire for her burned from inside him right to his skin.

He slid his other hand around her front, down over the patch of curls, and found her clit. The sensitive bud swelled at his touch and then her pussy squeezed him, rippling around him and she cried out. Jason drove into her, harder, faster, fingers on her pulsing clit, extending her pleasure, and then his entire body seized, heat pouring through him. He gave a long, low groan and held her hips tight against him as he came too.

When his vision cleared, she had turned her face into the bed, her breath choppy and uneven. She began to tremble.

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” he murmured, his voice rough. “Hang on, gotta get rid of the condom.” He took care of that with speedy efficiency, needing to attend to her, knowing she’d been pretty high and coming down was going to suck. He returned to gather her into his arms and lift her off the bed. He managed with one hand to sweep the covers back and gently deposit her on the sheets, and then he joined her, tugging the soft duvet up and over them. He tugged the blindfold off, then his arms circled her and hauled her up against him. He wrapped her up in both his arms and his legs, pressing her cheek to his chest with one big hand in her hair. “There. I’ve got you. It’s okay.”

The trembling intensified and she squirmed closer to him. He knew she was drawing warmth from him and he slid his hands up and down her back, over her hip and thigh, then up. He held her close, a warm sensation swelling in his chest. They lay there for long moments while he massaged and petted and caressed her, easing her back into reality.

She pushed at his chest. “I have to go,” she said, struggling out of his embrace.

What the fuck?

She climbed out of bed and looked around in a daze for the clothing he’d removed earlier.

He pushed up on one elbow. “What’s wrong, Kendall?”

As she dressed, she avoided looking at him, but then once she had her clothes on, she faced him. “I can’t do this.”

He held her gaze steadily. “Do what?”

“This.” She swept an arm out. “The…the sex. The kinky stuff. You and me.”

His gut tightened. “What exactly does that mean?”

“I can’t see you again, Jason. This isn’t me. I can’t…I just can’t do it. It’s not right. For me, I mean.”

Was she serious? He’d never met someone so sweetly submissive, someone who needed it so much. Someone who’d taken it all inside her and flown with it. He couldn’t be wrong about this.

“Kendall. Babe. Don’t go. Talk to me.”

“No.” She shook her head stubbornly, edging toward the door. “You’ll have to…find someone else….someone who likes that...”

“You liked it.” He
wasn’t
wrong about that.

“No.”

“Christ, Kendall.” He threw back the covers and stood. She took a step backwards. His insides twisted at that. Fuck. Was she seriously afraid of him? Jesus. He closed his eyes briefly.
 
“You don’t need to be afraid of me. I thought you trusted me.”

“I-I…do but…”

“I saw how you responded to me. To everything we’ve done.”

“My body responded,” she said stiffly, reaching for the doorknob behind her. “Not my mind.”

“Bullshit. You were flying high.”

“I’m sorry. Really. Find someone else…”

“Kendall. Stop.” The firm command he laced into his voice made her hesitate. “I don’t want anyone else. We’re right for each other. I wouldn’t have done these things with you, taken you down this path, if I didn’t fucking believe that.”

She shook her head and opened the door. “I’m sorry, Jason. I can’t.”

He let her go.

He lowered himself to sit on the bed. Shit.

He’d fucked up. He’d been so sure of her. From the first time he’d met her, something inside him had responded to her, to her natural submission, her need to be dominated. Something about her brought out every dominant, protective instinct in him, everything he’d been trying to repress.

Now, faced with her hasty exit, clearly terrified, all those doubts came crashing back down on him, and he lowered his head into his hands.

Chapter Two

One month later

You can’t have a wedding without a bride.

Kendall pressed her fingers to the throbbing space between her eyebrows, cell phone against her ear, listening to Natalia’s phone ring unanswered. Two hundred guests were arriving at the winery next weekend, a dozen people still hadn’t replied to the invitation, the caterer wanted the final guest tally, boxes of reception favors sat on the living room floor, waiting to be wrapped, and the bride wasn’t answering her goddamn cell phone.

Kendall punched the button to end the call and tossed her phone onto the family room coffee table. She rubbed the knot of tension at the back of her neck and took a big breath as she tipped her head back. The ceiling fan twirled lazily above her and autumn sunlight streamed in the tall arched windows overlooking the vineyard. The frequent sounds of car doors opening and closing, distant voices and laughter told her things were busy over at the tasting room today. She should be there helping.

Even the groom had disappeared. Kevin wasn’t answering his cell phone either. She hadn’t seen him since he’d gone out Friday night.

Just effing great.

Once again, her brother had charmed her into doing anything he wanted. She’d spent months planning this wedding, a lavish celebration of Kevin and Natalia’s love, making sure every detail was exactly what they wanted. Since Natalia’s family lived two hundred miles away in Pine Creek, California, and had next to no money for the big wedding Natalia had her heart set on, Kendall had done it all. Natalia also had her heart set on a wedding at Vioget Estates.

The winery would be a beautiful location for a wedding, a dream wedding.

Kendall’s lips pursed as she carried the box of favors to the dining room and set it on the table. She opened the carton and pulled out one of the chrome bottle stoppers adorned with two lovebirds atop it. It gleamed silver in the afternoon light. Very pretty. Almost a thousand dollars’ worth of them in the box, and all two hundred of them had to be tied with the shimmery white ribbon and a small tag that read “Natalia and Kevin” and the date of their wedding. Which was only a week away.

Crappity crap crap. This was not what she wanted to be doing. It wasn’t what she
should
be doing when the tasting room was busy. But it had to be done.

The silence of the empty house made her teeth clench. She crossed to the stereo system where she’d docked her iPod and selected a playlist. Music to improve her mood. She waited for the first song to start…the chords, the drums, then the lyrics of “Louie Louie”.

Sixties rock n’ roll was the answer to every question.

She danced across the room back to the dining room table and reached for the scissors and a roll of the sheer ribbon, her body moving to the beat of the music. She’d get to work and have this done in no time.

The music changed to the Rolling Stones singing about not getting any satisfaction. Huh. Yeah, she could relate to that. She sighed, unable to stop herself from thinking about Jason Holloway.

She hadn’t heard from him since that night a month ago when she’d run out of his house like a terror-stricken virgin. Even though she’d been the one to end things, she found herself disappointed that he’d never called, and still thought about him a lot—hot, wicked, bone-melting thoughts about what he’d done to her, her emotions veering from shame that she had let a man do that to her, to heated arousal, to a strange pride in herself, and then back to shame at the fact that she’d actually enjoyed it.

Letting someone like Jason take control of her was bad, bad, bad. She could not let that happen. She had responsibiliti
es–a business to run, people who depended on her for their livelihood, a brother to look after. Even though he was an adult on the verge of becoming a husband.

Head bobbing and foot tapping to the driving beat, she pushed away thoughts of the sexy police chief she’d had a brief relationship with, and mentally sorted through the wedding plans to make sure, yet again, that every detail was attended to. Never mind her mental list, she had a file folder full of lists. She bopped over to the hutch containing her file of lists and other paperwork. If only the freakin’ bride and groom would show up and help out a little.

A couple of hours and a lot of sixties rock n’ roll music later, she had a table heaped with silver and iridescent white, ready to be packed back into boxes to be arranged at each place setting for the wedding dinner.

And still no Kevin. He hadn’t even come home last night. That wasn’t unusual; he often stayed at Natalia’s small apartment in town, especially if her roommate was away for the weekend. But where had the two of them disappeared to all day when there was so much to be done?

Her head whipped around at the sound of the door opening into the kitchen. Finally!

Expecting to see Kevin and his fiancée, she frowned at the sight of him alone as he appeared in the entrance to the dining room. Hair mussed and clothes rumpled, he looked at her with bloodshot and bleary eyes. Crap.

“Kevin! Where the hell have you been? I’ve been trying to call your cell phone all afternoon.”

“Battery died.” He rubbed his face, so handsome and boyish, though his usual charming grin was absent. “Sorry.”

“Natalia’s not answering hers either. I thought you two were together somewhere.”

Kevin’s mouth twisted. “No.”

Kendall’s frown deepened. “Oh. Then where were you last night?”

“Does it matter?” He shrugged off his light jacket and draped it over the back of a chair, avoiding her eyes.

“There are a million things to do to get ready for the wedding next weekend! I need Natalia to confirm some of her family’s guests. They haven’t replied to the invitation, and the caterer needs the final head count.” She swept out a hand. “I just did all these favors and there are more decorations to make.”

He rolled his eyes. “We’ll do it next week.” He rubbed his face and heaved a long sigh. “I’m beat. Think I’ll go lay down.”

And he disappeared down the hall as if he couldn’t wait to get away from her. Kendall set her hands on her hips and stared after him. Holy Angelina Jolie, she’d put so much work into this wedding, not just today, but for weeks. Kevin was her only family, and Natalia was going to be her sister-in-law, and she wanted them to be happy. She wanted them to have the wedding they wanted, the wedding Natalia had dreamed of, the wedding her parents couldn’t afford to give her. Natalia was a busy, hard-working grad student whose education was a priority, so Kendall had gladly taken on a lot of the work.

But as she stood there, still stunned by Kevin’s cavalier attitude toward everything that needed to get done, still shaking her head over the fact that neither he nor Natalia had bothered to even be around to help a week before the wedding, she began to feel…taken advantage of.

Crap. She let out a long sigh. She didn’t do this for any kind of reward; she did it because she wanted to. But man, a little help or even a thank you would be nice.

Jason Holloway dumped his plate and cutlery into his sink, leaning there while he drained a glass of cold water. Eating alone wasn’t much fun, and he wasn’t much of a cook, so a frozen dinner quickly nuked
and eaten took care of a necessary chore. Now he could get back to the fun part of his day–stripping paint off the banister in his house.

He shook his head as he left the kitchen. Yeah, spending his weekend stripping paint was a rip-roaring time for a single guy. But he’d discovered he got a deep satisfaction from taking something old and making it look new again. He also found he needed an outlet for his physical energy. His new job in Las Colinas was a lot different than the adrenaline roller coaster of his old one. Which was what he’d wanted when he’d moved there from L.A., but… Well, at least while he was toiling at manual labor in his house, he could burn off some energy and let his mind mull over things—cases at work, staffing problems, political problems that went along with being chief of police. Kendall.

His gut clenched as he picked up the heat gun and the putty knife and started blasting away at the many layers of paint.

He was staying as far away from Kendall Vioget as possible. That night he’d screwed up, she’d run out of here like the house was on fire. He’d scared her.

Fuck. Somehow she brought out those parts of him he was trying to subdue. His dominant tendencies and the kinky things he liked. The parts of him he swore he was also leaving in L.A. when he’d moved here to start over. He wasn’t just starting over with his career—his sex life was going to be vanilla all the way, baby.

Only “celibate” was a more fitting description of his sex life, since Kendall was the only woman he’d met in Las Colinas who interested him and he’d epically fucked that up.