The second she felt his breath against her moistened sex, hear heart seemed to stop. The second she felt the brush of his tongue on her, all she heard were erotic, breathy cries. Desperate. Needy. She didn’t realize until a bit later that those cries came from her. All she felt was pure bliss, unselfish and giving. Adoring and reverent. Decadent.
Her body twitched with every quick flick of his tongue and shivered with every long lap. She gripped the sheets tightly, and her toes felt as if they were about to pop off. “Please... Oh, God, Day. I… I can’t…so good…”
He ignored her plea. His fingers gripped her hips, not digging in but holding her still as he carried on. With his tongue, he ruthlessly flicked the hard nub of her clit, circled it, then swept long, hot strokes across it. He nibbled, and he teased, never once letting up or letting her catch her breath until her body was literally trembling with need.
Rollie buzzed with an unprecedented erotic high. With each stroke and lap, he brought her closer and closer to the brink, until she couldn’t take anymore. One last flick of his tongue against her tortured clit, and she came apart in an explosive force that took her by surprise. She was so out of breath that her cries of fulfillment strained to a weak whimper, and her body felt frozen by the delicious, paralytic bliss of her orgasm. But despite that, Day didn’t stop, and once again she felt herself starting to climb toward the pinnacle of another orgasm.
He waited until her body passed through the boneless satisfaction stage, until her arousal started to build again. Then, when her h*ps started to rock, seeking more sensation, he gave her a last slow lick and pulled away.
“You’re amazing, sweetheart.” His voice was low and husky as he moved over her, parting her thighs wider with his knee. She was almost on the edge again. Dipping his hips, he brushed the swollen head of his c*ck at the slick entrance to her body, rubbing a little as he rotated his hips. Not enough to satisfy but more than enough to tease.
At that moment, she felt his c*ck against her sopping p**sy, and her trepidation escalated to a slight panic. Would she be able to satisfy him? She debated on whether or not to tell him. She was afraid of how he’d react, but despite one massive orgasm, she was still incredibly aroused and in serious need of him inside her. Filling her. She couldn’t have it any other way. She wanted to be so good for him…the best she possibly could.
“Day, I’m…I need…please…” She moaned, trying to form a coherent sentence as she arched herself towards him, trying to feel more of him against her. She rubbed hands all over him in disorganized desperation.
He heard her plea, but he was too far gone to think much on it. He settled for making soothing noises as he pressed into her. It was like sinking into bliss. Her hot, tight body closed around him, and Day nearly lost it there and then.
He moved slowly, a soft rocking of his h*ps as he worked his way deeper into her body in small degrees, giving her time to get used to him and allow her body to stretch to accommodate him. She was so tiny; he didn’t want to hurt her.
Then he hit a barrier, and his blood ran cold. “Rollie?” he said warily, stopping stock-still.
“No, please don’t stop,” she pleaded as she tried to get closer to him. “Please, Day.”
She wrapped herself around him so quickly he could literally feel her worry. Not worry over what they were doing, but worry about what? That he wouldn’t go through with it? Amazed, he kissed her forehead, feeling an unaccustomed rush of tenderness. Didn’t she know she was too good for him, that she could have any man she wanted? Any man would give his eyeteeth to bed her, never mind take her innocence. But for some reason, she’d chosen him. Why, he didn’t know.
Her small hand swept up his back, along the sensitive skin over his spine. He groaned. He should stop. But there was no way on earth that was happening.
“I’m sorry, babe. This is going to hurt,” he whispered, and in one quick move, drove himself deeper into her body until he was seated to the hilt.
He held still, the muscles in his neck standing out as he waited for her body to relax around him. Then he started a slow, seductive rhythm.
Triumph filled him.
Not only was she his, but he was her first, her only lover. He murmured something and pulled her closer. His arm looped under her neck as his other hand pulled her thigh over his hip, allowing him to sink deeper with each thrust. Thrusts that got harder and heavier as his control began to slip.
She could feel his every stroke deep inside of her. As he moved slowly, she savored the moment, and the infinite care with which he treated her emboldened her. As quickly as it arrived, the pain faded, and she didn’t ever want to let him go. She groaned in pleasure as he stroked harder, deeper, and faster. He was her first, and she was happy that it had been him. He was so tender, considerate, and magnificent. It was then that she knew she had fallen in love with him. Smiling with the secret knowledge of her feelings, she pressed herself closer to him and answered every thrust with a movement of her own, bringing him deeper inside her so he filled her completely.
Chapter Seven
He was going to break her heart.
Day dug into the breakfast the diner waitress slid in front of him with the enthusiasm of a starving man and put the thought out of his mind. He was starving. He’d been up half the night, and there was no way a guy could make love to a woman like Rollie for that length of time without needing serious sustenance afterwards.
“So, tell me about the woman the press think is you,” he said, careful not to mention her by name. He didn’t think anyone would be listening in on their conversation in a small-town diner, but he couldn’t be too careful.
Compared to his ravenous hunger, Rollie poked at her food and drank too much coffee. She didn’t seem very happy, yet she managed the weak smile of a sleep-deprived, sexually satisfied woman.
“Some companies over the years have hired figureheads to sit at the top as the image they project,” said Rollie with a kind fondness in her tone. “Marie was like that, and so much more. She was my mentor. Growing up as rough as I did, I might have ended up dead in a ditch somewhere or worse, a crack whore. She taught second grade science, and we met after I hid in her tool shed when the rain hit.”
She picked up her coffee and started to drink but then set it down, picking up a piece of toast instead and nibbling on it. “Fortunately for me, she didn’t turn me in. She took one look at me and all the science books of hers scattered all over the place that I had dug out from her boxes, and she took me in. She wanted to adopt me, but there were certain circumstances, and it was impossible. Despite that, I’ve been with her ever since, and I couldn’t have imagined a better way for my life to turn out.
“In every sense of the word apart from biological, Marie was my mother. When I started rising, I took her with me. There was no way I was leaving her behind. When I finally started the company after my first few projects took flight, she was more than happy to assume my identity when I asked her.”
She laughed. “She knew how much I hated the politicking and the limelight. She knew it bothered me and disrupted my workflow. I’ve always liked to work with my hands. Mixing other things in it just messed things up for me.”
Day nodded slightly and tried not to let his surprise show on his face. From the way Rollie acted and talked, he’d pegged her for some fat cat’s daughter, raised in luxury and educated at the best schools money could buy. His respect for her rose more than a few notches at the revelation. She was a kid off the streets. Like he was. They were kindred spirits.
Day speared a sausage and glanced over at her. “So, the million-dollar question. Who would want to kill you?”
Rollie shrugged. “That’s just it. I can’t think of people who would want to kill Caroline Gavilan. They would want to kidnap her, but killing is counterproductive,” she stated, referring to herself in third person. “But then, I guess I can’t think of anyone who would want to kill me, either. The real me.” Then a thought seemed to have struck her, and her brow furrowed in thought. “Unless…sonofabitch,” she muttered. “Those greedy bastards.”
“Talk to me. Which greedy bastards?”
“Of course. This has everything to do with the Icarus Project. Dammit.” She pounded the table in emphasis and causing everyone else to look at her in surprise. Dropping her voice, she spoke in a more discreet tone. “The Icarus Project is the latest, and biggest, project GTC has ever done. It’s something I’ve been working on for years, even before I started the company. Basically, we’ve developed a new kind of energy system that taps the high yield of photon particles.
“Can you imagine? High yield from a relatively small amount of potential energy. It’s cheap, efficient, safe, compact, and best of all, it’s renewable. This will change the world. And, as you can imagine, put quite a few energy companies out of business. They’d either want to get their hands or this or do whatever it takes to stop it from coming out including…”
“Assassination. Yeah, I’m with you. Your competitors don’t want you to finish development, or even talk about it.” Day shook his head. “Who are we talking about? The guy who hired me was a middleman but, whoever it is, they’ve got money, that’s for sure. Those goons that came after us were a professional outfit.”
“It’s not just the competition that’s involved here. There are a lot of people out there who stand to lose a lot if we bring this tech into daylight. Marie was supposed to make a presentation of the project at the Global Energy Summit next week, and if she had, it would have been the beginning of the end for the traditional energy companies.”
She picked up her coffee cup but seemed to think twice about it and set it down, hard, as her lips curled into a rueful smile.
“That’s why they had Marie killed, and that’s why they had you kidnap me and then have the both of us killed out here in the middle of nowhere. To the world, Caroline Gavilan is already dead, and Icarus dies a silent death.”
She snatched the toast from her plate and instead of nibbling, took a big bite from it. “Though, if I were to pick a suspect? The best guess would be Blackwell Industries. Not only do they have tech development like GTC, but they are much larger than we are. They have agricultural, mining, and transportation interests, but their biggest investment is their energy empire. Plus, George Blackwell hates my guts.”
Day thought about that for a moment. “Why Blackwell? It sounds like he’s got a grudge but what else makes him your prime suspect?”
“They’ve just signed a deal with the European Union to outsource management of their nuclear plants to them, and it’s a deal worth billions. He’s got another deal going with Washington to do the same thing for even bigger money. They’ve already given up quite a bit of their other investments just for this project, and rumor has it that they’re already having some financial issues. Imagine what would happen if I suddenly came along with my little reactor?”
“He’d do anything to stop you.” Day put his cutlery down, his expression grim. “This is serious, Rollie. If he’s got that kind of money, he can just keep paying people to come after you. What do you want to do?”