The One Read online

  Tear-roughened, aching with the emotions he’d wanted to deny she felt, her voice was like a caress against his senses.

  She’d been making him hard for more years than he’d wanted to admit. Definitely more years than he would have allowed her to know.

  “Do you think I haven’t needed you?” he asked as he stepped beside her bed and stared down at her. “Years, Brenna. I’ve spent six years watching you, so fucking hard for you it was all I could do to survive the need. You were barely eighteen and every fucking night for months I was jacking off with the imagine of you in my mind.”

  And she liked the thought of that. She loved it, if the look in her eyes was anything to go by.

  “Jase…” she whispered, an edge of uncertainty in her voice now. “Then why—”

  “Why act like a bastard?” he asked as he watched her slowly sit up and move to him before her fingers curled around the heavy shaft. Sitting at the edge of the bed now, her lips almost, just almost in line with the engorged head of his cock, all Jase could consider was the thought of her lips surrounding it, her tongue curling around it. All he could think about was watching as he fucked those pretty lips before filling her mouth with his release.

  “Why?” she whispered, her voice dazed, her look almost mesmerized as her lips parted.

  “Because the things I want to do to you would probably send you screaming,” he bit out between clenched teeth. “A virgin should be eased in, baby,”

  But she was determined she didn’t need to be eased in. He watched that knowledge glitter in her eyes, in the adventurous little tongue that peaked out and licked over the wide, mushroomed crest of his cock and brought to life one of his most arousing fantasies.

  “Ah fuck!” His entire body tensed at the heat and silken moisture that seemed to attack his senses.

  One hand moved quickly to the back of her head before she could pull back, slid into the heavy strands of blonde hair, clenched and held her in place as he gripped the base of his dick.

  She didn’t know what she was doing. She couldn’t know what she was tempting, what he wasn’t certain he could hold back.

  As he stared down at her, fighting to pull back for just a second, that industrious little tongue came out again, flattened against the underside of his cock head and then rubbed.

  It was like having heat melt every cell of his body. Hell, that weakening, completely energizing ecstasy shot through him like a burst of electrified rapture and nearly had him spilling his seed then and there.

  Instead, a small amount of pre-come eased from the tip, the bead of moisture instantly drawing her attention.

  Jase had never seen anything so erotic. He was certain he must have experienced this very same act more than once in the past, but the memory of those acts faded in his mind to be replaced by nothing but the sight, the feel and the incredible pleasure of her hot little tongue lapping up the moisture as her expression morphed to one of complete, sensual abandon.

  He knew for a fact no woman had ever given herself to him as she was at this moment. Never had he seen complete surrender fill a woman’s eyes as she touched him, as he touched her.

  He should have known that with Brenna, it would be like nothing he had ever experienced before. She was like no other woman he had ever known. Hell, he’d never known…

  “Fuck, Bren, baby,” he groaned as he felt her wrap the fingers of both hands around the wide shaft. Her lips parted, hunger gleamed in her eyes and as he watched, waited, lost his breath, her lips covered part of the engorged head before she sucked him inside.

  He could have fucking come then and there. His fingers clenched in her hair as he applied pressure against the hold, forcing her, or rather encouraging her, to take more of his flesh until the cock head disappeared completely within the heated confines of her mouth.

  It was incredible.

  Jase swore that he would never find pleasure like this anywhere on the face of the Earth. It wouldn’t matter how hard he looked. It wouldn’t matter where he looked. He’d never find pleasure like this again, pleasure that had him groaning with need as he felt her mouth beginning to work the heavily engorged head.

  Sensitive, painfully swollen, the thick flesh throbbed with need as pleasure began to sear his nerve endings.

  And he couldn’t help but watch her. Holding her hair in his grip, keeping her in place, watching as he pulled back, pushed in, as he slowly fucked her lips and felt the tight, suckling motion of her mouth each time he returned.

  It was all he could do to go slow. It was all he could do to ease her into the act, to push past her lips with slow, measured thrusts. Possessing the sweet, hot confines of her mouth.

  It was incredible. It was like paradise, pleasure, ecstasy and rapture combining to burn through any barriers that could have existed within her.

  So far, he hadn’t found a single one. Brenna took to his touch as though she had been born for it.

  “There, baby,” he groaned as she tucked her tongue against the underside once more and did that little rubbing thing with it. Hell, it was fucking incredible.

  “Beautiful little baby,” he groaned, his voice rarely recognizable as her hot tongue flickered over the heavy cock head and stroked it with primitive need. “That’s it, sweetheart, lick my dick just like that.”

  He had to tighten his legs to remain where he stood, to keep her from stealing the last of his strength and leaving him a weakened heap on the floor at her feet.

  With each draw of her mouth, each hungry moan from her lips, he could feel his balls drawing tighter, feel the need to come racing through his senses.

  He wasn’t going to make it much longer. He could feel his release building, reaching that point of no return where he would fill her mouth with each heated spurt of his seed, rather than filling the lush confines of her pussy.

  Pulling back was nearly impossible. The pleasure was so intense, so damn extreme.

  But he did it, slipping from between her lips as a whimper of longing left her lips.

  “Here, baby, get those clothes off.” His fingers were at the knot in her robe, desperately untying it, knowing that if he didn’t get inside her soon, he was going to go crazy with the need.

  He stripped her quickly. The small robe that covered the tiny scraps of material she called a bathing suit. The bottoms of which were no more than a small triangle to cover the pretty mound of her pussy and a string that went up the crack of her ass.

  It was sexy as hell.

  “Jase…” She whispered his name as he pushed her back on the bed, coming over her and pushing his knees between her thighs to part them.

  The head of his cock raked through the heated moisture of her pussy, pressing against the swollen folds of flesh as his lips found hers.

  This was living.

  That thought seared his mind as he kissed her with ravening hunger, unable to quench the needs tearing through him.

  This was what he had lived for, ached for and searched for so many damn years.

  He had lived for Brenna.

  As she felt the thick heat and throbbing hunger that filled his cock, Brenna arched closer to him, her legs lifting, her knees bending to part her thighs farther and get closer to him.

  His arms surrounded her, holding her to him as his lips and tongue caressed her, spreading a fiery, aching need that only intensified by the second as she felt the blunt tip of his cock beginning to work inside her.

  He didn’t take her easily. She didn’t want easy. She wanted the hard, fierce thrusts, the fiery pleasure-pain, the need that raced through her system and left her crying out, pleading for release.

  And Jase didn’t disappoint her.

  With a powerful surge of his hips, he buried his flesh no more than an inch inside her as she cried out into the kiss that only seemed to feed the need raging between them.

  Each thrust buried him deeper inside her, stretching her farther as she arched, her body writhing beneath him as the stroke of thick, fiery flesh across the
naked nerve endings sent burning shafts of pleasure tearing through her.

  She was coming apart in his arms, she could feel it. She was burning inside and uncertain who or what she would be when the flames settled and the aftermath claimed them.

  A low, desperate cry left her lips as he broke the kiss, his head rising, his gaze dark and glittering with hunger as he stared down at her.

  How she managed to keep her eyes open with each fierce thrust inside her, she wasn’t certain. What she did know was that the sensations were so incredible, so filled with pleasure and nearing rapture, that she was nothing but a mass of tortured pleasure seeking release.

  Her clit throbbed and burned, the ache centered inside it was like a clawing beast fighting to escape.

  Her hips rose and fell with his as the sound of damp flesh slapping together began to fill the room. Their moans became a symphony of pleasure and need as the intensity seemed to become a living, breathing entity binding them.

  As his hand clenched her hip, each thrust surging harder inside her, his pace quickening, the heavy throb of his flesh adding to the intensity, Brenna felt the sensations suddenly explode into rapture.

  Her body tightened, back bowing, the feel of her pussy beginning to clench and spasm around the shafting flesh thrusting hard and deep inside her, pushing her over the edge of an inferno of sensations.

  Pleasure became pure, blinding ecstasy. His name was a litany of pure bliss on her lips as her body erupted and exploded, clenching so desperately as the feelings poured through her that she didn’t know if she would survive it.

  As the explosions tore through her, she felt that final, furious thrust of his cock a second before Jase tensed, and the feel of his seed spurting inside thrust her higher into the fireball of sensations that had overcome her.

  She was shuddering, trembling in his arms as her womb clenched, the muscles of her pussy rippling around his dick. Her clit became so sensitive, so ultra-responsive, that each shift of his pelvis against it sent spasms of ecstasy racing through it.

  She was a mass of pure sensation. She was a creature whose only purpose was the pleasure she had been given and the pleasure she had given in return.

  Her only purpose to be in his arms, to hold him in hers and to love him.

  Chapter Seven

  She must have fallen asleep. Brenna could understand how it had happened despite the fact that she had slipped into one of the deepest sleeps she had known the night before.

  Emotional exhaustion, combined with a climax so intense she could have sworn she felt her hair straighten, could do that to a woman.

  What surprised her when she awoke was to find Jase still in the bed with her.

  At some point, he had managed to get them both beneath the comforter. He kept the air conditioner on frigid through the summer, and Brenna liked the cold-bedroom, warm-blanket effect. The lower rooms weren’t kept as chilly, it was mostly Jase’s suite and a few of the upstairs rooms that were kept below the sixty-five mark.

  Awaking cuddled close to him was a respite she needed from the intensity of the emotional battle she was fighting. The fact that Jase had all but asked her to leave her home had been enough to throw her into a rage of anger and pain. To have him show up again, minutes later, and throw her into an orgasm that sucked the strength straight out of her body, was so typically Jase.

  He could be the most irritating man on the face of the earth when he wanted to be. And the fact that he was still furious with her over the will was never more apparent than it had been earlier, when he had all but informed her that she no longer had a room at the ranch and that perhaps this wasn’t her home.

  That or, as she had guessed earlier, he simply wanted her to leave.

  Yet here he was, sleeping as deeply as she had slept, his chest rising and falling lazily as he held her wrapped in his arms. He held her as though he never intended to allow her to leave. As though he hadn’t torn her heart out earlier.

  What was she supposed to feel? What was she supposed to do? It wasn’t as though she could read his mind, and he damn sure didn’t try to read hers any longer.

  What was she going to do?

  Staring into the now dim room—Jase had closed the heavy, rubber-backed curtains over the windows—she tried to make sense of what she thought her next step should be.

  She’d decided that perhaps the best option would be to try to wait out the three months in silence before returning home. She had already taken the time from school, she couldn’t get it back. As much as it would kill her, at the end of the required stay, she would at least have the satisfaction of throwing the deed to the ranch in his face.

  At least, that had been her plan. Until Jase had shown up in her room and the words that had come from his mouth made her hope.

  Hope that he wanted more from her than just the few times he could fuck her before he insistently forced her out the door.

  A part of her was still screaming this was her home, that it wasn’t right that he could ask her to leave or, even more insistently, force her from the house.

  “What are you thinking about so hard?” There was a lazy quality to his voice despite the deep drawl and predatory roughness.

  She was silent for long minutes, considering how best to choose her words.

  “Why do you want me to leave so badly, Jase?” she asked.

  There was no way to ask the question carefully or to pose it with more tact.

  “Am I so hard for you to care about that you want me to leave entirely rather than have to deal with my presence?”

  He was silent, and she needed that question answered so desperately.

  “Do you love me, Brenna?”

  The question surprised her.

  She hadn’t expected it and she had no idea why he would ask it.

  “If you haven’t figure that out, then you’re not as good at reading people and situations as I thought you were, Jase,” she told him quietly. “I’ve loved you for as long as I can remember.”

  She didn’t doubt she had fallen in love with him the summer she and her mother had come to the ranch, just before her mother married Poppa Jason.

  “Have you ever been so terrified of something being taken away from you that you simply refused to have it? That way you didn’t have to deal with the loss?”

  “You,” she whispered. “Just after mother died.”

  She had stayed away from him for over a year, avoiding him every time there had been a chance they would even be in the same room.

  “I remember.” He nodded as his hand caressed down her hair. “I lost my mother when I was young. No sooner than I had grown used to your mother’s warmth and acceptance, she was gone as well. When Dad died, I swore I’d never watch anyone else I love be taken away from me. The only way to ensure it didn’t happen was to turn you against me. To make you so angry you left.”

  She stared back at him in surprise. “The will—”

  He gave a shake of his head. “I expected Dad to ensure you were taken care of, baby. He ensured you couldn’t sell it, give it away or control it. It’s still mine, nothing changed that. He just made certain you were always mine as well. I just thought I could ignore it. I thought I could make you hate me, and then the hunger for you that was destroying me would go away.”

  “Did it work?” she asked him with a hint of smug certainty.

  He laughed at that. “No, love, it didn’t work for long, did it? Every time you’re around, I want nothing more than to touch you, to hold you, to show you exactly how hungry you make me, and how desperate I get to touch you.”

  She sat up slowly. Pulling the sheet around her breasts as she curled her legs beneath herself, she watched him somberly.

  “What do you want from me?” she finally asked, the need to understand where she stood with him nearly as imperative as the need for his touch and the need for his warmth.

  “To never leave me,” he said with a small, self-depreciating smile. “And yes, love, I understand exactly how n
aïve that request is.”

  “I would never willingly leave you, Jase,” she said. “As long as I’ve known you, I’ve loved you in one way or another. You’ve always been my hero. You’ve always been the one who’s made me want to dream of happily ever after, even though I felt you and Poppa Jason raised me to believe that few things are forever without a hell of a lot of work.”

  His lips twitched at the statement. “Dad wanted you to know how to take care of yourself, Brenna, but he also wanted you to be free to love.”

  “And are you free to love, Jase?”

  He breathed out heavily. The expression on his face somber and hinting at the fact that perhaps it was a question he didn’t want to answer.

  “How can I be free to love, Brenna, when you own my heart? When you’re every breath I’ve breathed for far too many years and every dream that’s haunted me when darkness falls? So no, I’m not free to love. I love you far too much for anything to be left over for anyone else.”

  Joy exploded inside her.

  With a burst of warmth and fierce, overriding emotion, it surged through her, filling the darkened corners that had begun growing inside her at the thought he didn’t love her. That she would lose everything she had dreamed of having because he couldn’t love her.

  “Jase,” she whispered.

  His hand lifted to tuck back a long strand of hair that fell over her shoulder.

  “And I know about the true nature of the will,” he told her. “I know the extremes you were willing to go through to ensure no one could take this land from me, Brenna. No one else would have done that for me. There is no one I know as selfless as you, to give up what could amount to millions of dollars in the future in order to secure the inheritance that has stayed in the Samuels family.”

  “But how?” Confusion raced through her. Had she given it away somehow?

  His lips curled into a smug smile. “Because, baby, I knew Dad, and I know how he works. Besides, he left me a letter as well. One the lawyer gave to me after everyone else left. Even his attorney didn’t know what he had written there.” He touched her face, his expression gentling. “He didn’t want me to be angry with you. He wanted me to see and to understand what you were prepared to do to protect me, because you loved me. And you were willing to do it too, weren’t you? Even thinking I hated you? Even knowing how angry everyone was after rumors of the will began circulating. You were still going to abide by his wishes, even to the point you returned here willing to endure the possibility of my anger for three full months.”