An Unexpected Attraction (Love Unexpected Book 3) (14 page)

His hands clenched. He wanted to slam his fist into the wall. He stared at the door because he could no longer look at her. Not when looking at her meant thinking about Nick’s filthy hands on her body, his mouth on her soft skin—licking, kissing. Doing what Jay wished for years he could do.

“Fuck all of Atlanta for all I care.”

“Wonderful. I finally have your permission. I can sleep better tonight.” She made glib comments while he was going out of his mind with wanting her.

Jay swung his gaze back to her face.

Maybe it was the defiant tilt to her head. Or maybe it was the way the thin robe enveloped her body and forced his halfway erect penis to become even harder as his eyes slid over her lush curves.
Something
pushed him over the edge, past the point of no return.

Jay charged across the hall and Brenda backed up against the wall. He caught her chin in his hand and forced her to look him in the eye. She grabbed his wrist and tried to yank away his hand, but he didn’t budge.

“
Gesù
, why couldn’t you stay in Chicago?” he rasped.

He slammed his mouth over hers and gathered her tight to his body. Her clenched fists pounded his shoulders, but he refused to let go. One hand ran up her side, over her ribcage to the opening of her robe. He pulled it aside and exposed a ripe breast. Full and supple, he caressed the soft skin and stroked the nipple until she moaned into his mouth. Her fists loosened and her fingers splayed wide, climbing up the back of his neck and into his hair.

He tore into her mouth, concentrating his hot, angry kisses on lips as sweet and perfect as a full-bodied wine. His tongue climbed into her moist mouth, met hers, and sparked a fire in his blood that had him fumbling for the belt on her robe. He released her long enough to see what his busy hands had revealed. Full, heavy globes with engorged, melanoid nipples. He groaned with satisfaction and dipped his head. He couldn’t resist pulling a plump bud into his mouth. And she was so responsive, grabbing onto him, holding him in place as she arched her back.

Jay loved it. Loved hearing her moan, loved making her whimper, loved watching her tremble. He swiped a hand between her legs, but it wasn’t enough to have his fingers down there. He wanted to gorge on her taste and fill his senses with her smell.

He lowered to his knees and came face to face with cotton panties. Peach-colored. So simple yet so sexy. He kissed the wet spot and ran his thumb over her covered clit, stroking back and forth over her swollen, damp crotch. She inhaled sharply and her fingers tracked into his hair. He sucked her through the cotton, merciless in his objective to provide satisfaction and get what he’d been denied.

Lifting her foot onto his shoulder, he splayed her leg wide and peeled back her underwear. Her body practically dripped with moist excitement, and he licked her shaved privates, dragging his teeth along the plump lips. Pulling her clit into his mouth, he sucked the turgid bud. She cried out and instinctively tried to jerk away, but his hands grabbed her ass, squeezing and keeping her glued to his mouth.

Damn, she was delicious. Tasty. Better than he imagined. This was what he’d been after. The minute Nick had taunted him, the minute he’d said he fucked her, a beast had been unleashed. A jealous beast that wanted a taste. A beast that had her pinned to the wall with a foot propped on his shoulder, wide open so he could sate his hunger with what he felt should have rightfully been his.

He ate and ate and ate, swirling his tongue in and around her aroused flesh. Calling forth an orgasm. Demanding a climax. Her head fell back against the wall, and her breathing fractured into laborious, irregular patterns.

“Jay,” she wailed, as her fingers tightened in his hair, and tremors erupted deep within her thighs. He continued to lick, he continued to suck, until she let out a weeping cry, one that echoed in the empty hall and begged him not to stop.

The one leg she stood on shook uncontrollably. She pressed against his mouth, his head fastened to her body. He knew the moment the tremors turned into a full-on explosion. She gasped and rolled her head from side to side, every disjointed breath as encouraging as a round of applause. She pumped her hips against his mouth, clenching around his tongue.

Once again she cried out, a throaty, husky sound of undisguised pleasure, and her body went taut. She then whispered incoherently, shuddered in the aftermath, and slumped against the wall.

Nowhere near done, Jay stood upright. He wanted all of her. Everything.

With her eyelids at half-mast, her face held a drugged look, but they locked eyes. He removed her panties, dragging the cotton down to her ankles and kissing her smooth thighs on the way back up.

He unzipped his pants and shoved them and the boxer briefs to the floor.

Bracing his hands against the wall, he breathed words of outrage into her mouth. “Twelve years. Twelve. Fucking. Years.”

Jay lifted Brenda from the floor and impaled her on his engorged length, plunging deep.

“Oh god,” she gasped, instinctively wrapping around him. “Jay. Jay.”

The tremor in her voice spiked the temperature of his blood. His knees caved and he almost tumbled with her to the floor. But he found the strength to endure and pinned her against the wall.

Shoving deeper, he gripped her sweet ass and muttered a stream of Italian expletives. Dripping wet, warm, and tight, she felt incredible. He couldn’t think in coherent sentences. Right then, he knew no other words.

He bit her neck. He licked her ear. He sucked her nipples. And all the while kept on pumping. Each powerful stroke bringing them closer to the brink, and her rotating hips a maddening, weakening agent of pleasure.

“I’m coming,” she gasped, sounding surprised, as though she couldn’t believe it was happening again so soon after the first.

He moaned her name into her shoulder, and when she screamed his loins erupted, shooting warm cum into her body. Winded and weak, he lost his footing then. Leveraged with a hand on the wall, he lowered his knees onto the hard floor.

She remained clamped around him, breathing heavily. His own breath tore from his chest in painful, loud huffs that made his chest rear up and down.

Slowly, her breathing regained normalcy and she lifted off of him. After gathering the edges of the robe to hide her nakedness, she knotted the belt.

Jay rose to his feet and pulled up his clothes. After all the noise they’d made, the hall seemed oddly quiet.

“Satisfied now?” Brenda asked in an emotionless voice. Sadness filled her eyes. “Now you can go tell Nick you fucked me, too.”

He regarded her in silence. Her eyes challenged him to deny what she thought to be the truth.

“That’s not why I came,” he finally said.

“No? You don’t want bragging rights? You didn’t come here for the sole purpose of getting what Nick got?” She crossed her arms. “You got it. Now you can check me off your list. You finally bagged me.”

Shame heated his face. “I know what you’re doing.”

“Everything Jenna said was true. You really are amazing. You really are intense.”

“You’re held hostage by misguided guilt. There’s absolutely no reason why two consenting adults—”

“You’re so upset about me sleeping with Nick—”

“What now, Brenda?”

“I have a conscience. I have personal ethics. Do you?”

“So we pretend tonight never happened?” he asked, aghast.

She took a calming breath and stared down at the floor. “We were never a couple and look how you reacted when you found out about me and Nick. What do you think will happen if Jenna finds out about us?”

Dumbfounded, Jay stepped back into the wall. “Are you that worried about what other people think?” he asked in a low voice.

Brenda’s eyes remained downcast. Deafening quiet filled the hall.

“I thought…” His voice trailed off on a harsh laugh. If after the passion they’d shared she could still hold fast to the same absurd code of conduct that had kept them apart all these years, he wouldn’t waste his breath. “I hope your conscience and your ethics keep you warm at night.”

With the pain of rejection attacking every cell of his body, Jay walked out of the house and left her alone.

Chapter
Fourteen

Red carpet events in Atlanta had the same glamour, pomp, and circumstance as star-crammed Hollywood extravaganzas. Covering the performing arts fundraiser for
The Entertainment Report
meant a night of work, but Brenda still had to dress with a certain amount of glamour to match the occasion.

For the evening, she went with a sleeker hairstyle, bangs swept away from her face, edges smoothed at the hairline with pomade and lifted higher on top than usual. The dress she chose was a strapless number. The bronze bodice sparkled and fitted to her waist before pooling out at the hips into a bronze and sapphire organza skirt.

Standing in the mirror, Brenda applied lipstick and spent extra time adding a liberal amount of makeup to her eyes. By the time her driver arrived, she felt pleased with her appearance, grabbed the matching shawl, and hurried out to meet him.

“It’s going to rain,” her driver said conversationally, looking skyward as he opened the door.

Brenda looked up, too. The sky held dark, ominous clouds that appeared even more so in the fading afternoon light.

“It will. I hope it doesn’t rain too hard.”

“Hopefully the storm won’t hit until after the event.”

She slid into the vehicle. “Let’s keep our fingers crossed.”

The performing arts center was awash in flashing bulbs and the usual TV correspondents as prominent community members and celebrities rolled up in their chauffeured cars and stepped out to be photographed by the press and onlookers. Brenda made her way down the line, took a few photos, and answered questions about the magazine. As a co-sponsor of the event, tonight was an opportunity to bring awareness to their publication and its impact on the local entertainment scene.

Inside, attendees floated around, talking and laughing with each other. She searched the open space for the photographers and writer assigned to cover the event. She spotted two of them in a corner with their heads together.

“Hey, how are you guys doing?” she asked.

Liza, the photographer, looked up from fiddling with her camera. “Great. I took some good shots of the arrivals.”

“Is Bill here tonight?” Brenda asked. Bill was the other photographer.

They both nodded.

“He’s still outside, and I’ll get the candid shots in here,” Liza explained.

“This is amazing,” Lincoln said, looking around. “I can’t believe all the big names who came.”

“Remember, we’re not only interested in the celebrity perspective,” Brenda said. “We want to hear from the community leaders. Make sure you get a quote from the lieutenant governor, and definitely seek out DJ Terror.” She glanced at her watch. “He should be here in a few minutes and he promised us an exclusive. Do you have your press badge?”

Lincoln patted the spot over his heart. “Right here. I didn’t forget it this time,” he said with a sheepish grin.

Brenda gave him the thumbs up sign. “Perfect. I’ll see you guys later. I’m going to circulate a bit.”

She walked away toward one of the many buffet tables set up in the atrium. On the way, guests stopped her and expressed appreciation for the event, or in the case of several movie directors, they wanted to know how to get a write-up in the magazine. Each time she smiled graciously, chatted, and handed out cards that she pulled from her Gucci wristlet.

Finally, Brenda arrived at one of the hors d’oeuvres tables. The spread included a host of gourmet choices, but she had her eye on the shrimp and the finger sandwiches.

She paused midway through placing a shrimp and grits cake on her platter when a familiar scent invaded her nostrils. Jay. Few men smelled as good as he did. Or maybe she simply didn’t notice. He’d come up beside her and looked spectacular.

Dashing in a black tux, dark hair coiled onto his forehead. His eyes slid over her dress, and her stomach fluttered.

“You look…” His mouth tightened, as if he’d reined himself in. Then a reckless gleam came into his eyes, and he boldly stated, “You look incredible. I watched you walk in and told myself I’d leave you alone, but here I am. I can’t seem to stay away.” He averted his eyes and muttered in Italian.

“Hello, Jay.” Stay cool. Stay calm.

The corners of his mouth looked strained. He was about to speak when an excited female voice interrupted them.

“Jay Santorini, how are you!” An older woman opened her arms wide and gave him a big hug. “I’ve been telling everyone about you and the campaign Omega did for the children’s hospital. Did you have a hand in tonight’s event?”

“No, but we work with one of the entertainers who’s performing tonight. Have you heard of DJ Terror?”

“Oh yes! He’ll be doing the artistic performance later, am I correct?”

“That’s correct.”

Brenda swept a champagne flute from a passing server. She needed something to do with her hands. She half-listened to Jay and his gushing admirer and wasn’t surprised when the woman pulled him away to speak to another woman a few feet away.

She tried not to let the heaviness of her heart affect her mood, but the coolness between them pained her. She’d lost him for good. They couldn’t even be friends now.

She sipped her champagne and mingled with the rest of the guests, but her eyes followed Jay from person to person. He worked the room, smiling and shaking hands and exchanging business cards with potential clients. While no one openly ogled him, he definitely had a presence and attracted attention.

Women laughed hysterically at his jokes or batted their eyelashes or tugged his jacket sleeve while looking up at him through their lashes. She’d behaved similarly in the past, hadn’t she? Stroked his arm, given him a playful shove.

Right now he was flanked by a songstress who’d flown in from New York and a documentary filmmaker. The singer was quite touchy-feeling, and the heat of jealousy rose in Brenda’s neck.

Would he take her home tonight, or someone else?