Caught Up In You ( Edgeplay Part 1) (2 page)
Read Caught Up In You ( Edgeplay Part 1) Online
Authors: Jenna McCormick
The hand not securing my wrists traces the bumps of my spine. “Yeah, you want a good, hard, wet ride. The way you’re rubbing up against me like that tells me everything I need to know.”
I hadn’t realized I was pushing my backside against him until he said so. My body is on fire, hotter than ever, needing something I couldn’t put a name to. Something my instincts tell me only he can give.
His hand reaches the waterline and continues its journey south. The slow drag down the crease of my butt makes me shiver. He’s slow, methodical in his touch, exploring carefully, as though mapping my body.
I hold my breath when he comes to the puckered ring of my anus. I’ve never been touched there, never even imagined it.
He traces the tiny spot with his fingertips slowly and chuckles low. “That’s more than you bargained for, isn’t it, beauty? Have you ever taken a man here?”
“I’ve never taken an anything there,” I blurt, then wince at my candor. This conversation is the definition of the word surreal.
His low groan surprises me. “I like that. The idea of getting you ready to take me in your sweet ass, working you open slowly until you fit around my cock like a snug little sleeve. You would let me.”
He doesn’t phrase it as a question, but I nod anyway, completely lost to the sensual spell he’s cast over me.
When he moves his finger away, I shiver with a mixture of regret and relief, at least until it traces the outer lips of my vag with that same maddening slow and steady pressure.
“Are you all wet here, thinking about fucking a billionaire? What do you think he’ll buy you for the privilege of slamming into your greedy cunt? A car? A new fall wardrobe? Just how much is this pussy worth?”
No one has ever spoken to me that way before, using such crude words. Instead of shaming me, they add kindling to the fire inside me, making it burn higher, hotter, until it rages out of control. I’m more afraid of this sensation than I am of him. A token protest rises up past my lips. “Let me go. I’m not some whore.”
“No, you’re not, because you’re going to give it to me for free,” he growls.
Releasing my hands, he lifts me out of the pool. I scramble to get away, but not fast enough, because he clamps onto my hips and buries his face between my legs. I groan when I feel his tongue tormenting my throbbing clitoris and shiver when he laps through the folds. More wetness spills from my channel, my body preparing for him in ways I’ve only ever read about.
“Finger your clit while I eat you out,” he orders me between strong licks.
Trembling all over at the thought, I shake my head back and forth, though whether I’m denying him or myself, I have no idea.
A firm hand slaps my ass. “Do it,” he growls again in insistent demand.
Can I really help him with my own seduction? Letting him do the things he’s been doing is one thing, but truly participating is a giant leap off a cliff.
It’s been so long though since I’ve been compelled to touch myself. The way he pushes me makes me realize what I’ve all but forgotten - that I’m a woman with sexual urges and needs.
Pressing one cheek against the concrete, I spread my knees wider. He makes a sound of approval when my index finger slides between the slippery lips of my sex. His tongue thrashes over the pad before he goes back to licking up every drop my body yields for him like it’s liquid gold. I work my nub faster, pressing harder, craving release.
“Yes, just like that.” His hands are clamped down on my upthrust hips, his view of me massaging my open pussy unimaginably graphic. His mouth is thorough in its exploration of my secrets. Bold swipes cross my folds, dipping into my well and then dragging up over my perineum. He stops short of my anus, though I get the feeling it’s for my comfort more than his own. The way he brushes the pad of his thumb over the spot tells me nothing on my body is truly out of bounds.
“Do you want to come?” he asks, between dips into my blood-engorged pussy.
“Yes,” I breathe.
“Beg me,” he demands, landing another stinging slap on my backside.
“Please, let me come,” the words spill out. I’m poised higher than ever before, my thighs trembling, blood pumping. The fall from this height may kill me, but I want it.
No sooner have my words left my mouth than he’s working two blunt fingers into my channel. My excitement eases his way, and his lips seal over my busy finger and clit, sucking both into his mouth.
I fly over the edge, coming in a wet rush and crying out at the sensations bombarding me. His fingers, his lips and tongue, the fact that I haven’t seen his face, don’t know his name, and let him do this to me anyway, all coalesce into an explosion of self from the inside out.
Slowly, his fingers slide from me and his lips let me go. He’s breathing hard behind me, and I’m too dazed to wonder what he’ll do next. What I’ll let him do next.
“Now, get out before I have you arrested for trespassing.” The anger is back in his voice. Where a minute before he was hot and lover-like, now there is only a frosty coolness.
Shame burns through me. What I’d perceived as a naughty thrill morphs into a cheap sexual act. He did this to prove a point, to put me in my place. And I let him. Hell, I
helped
him.
Snarkarella rises to the rescue.
Leave before you beg him to do it again.
Though my muscles are weak, I somehow push myself up from the undignified position, walk slowly, so I won’t trip, toward the chaise where my things sit. Not bothering to dry off, I pull my robe over my shoulders and pick up my towel, phone and keys.
Taking one step toward the door, I pause. Somehow seeing his face, knowing his name, will only shame me more, but skulking into the night like a bad dog who’s been swatted for nosing through the trash isn’t an option either. “My name is Baily Sinclair, and Thomas Sinclair is my grandfather. Please tell Mr. Edge I’m sorry for overstepping my bounds. It won’t happen again.”
He doesn’t answer, though I hear water sloshing as he exits the pool. Whatever his intentions are, I’m not prepared to stick around and find out.
With my head held high, I leave the pool area, unwilling to look back.
Chapter Two
I
rise with the sun, as usual, but feel worse than before I went to bed. Memories from the night before kept me thrashing until dawn. Would my mystery security man tell Mr. Edge who I was and what I’d been doing? Would he convey my remorse for crossing the line?
My hair still smells of chlorine so I take a hot shower, wincing at the stinging along the abraded parts of my body. My knees and shins are raw from where I’d pressed them into the concrete, and the palms of my hands and the left side of my face haven’t fared much better.
Though the weatherman predicts it’ll be in the upper nineties, I pull on jeans and leave my hair down, hiding the marks from last night’s shenanigans as best I can. I rarely wear makeup. Working outside, I’d sweat it off before noon. After toasting a bagel and brewing a pot of coffee, I slather my fair face with sunscreen and pull a Yankees ball cap on, then set off to meet the landscaping crew at the front gate.
A black convertible sits in the circular drive, along with an extended edition black SUV. My stomach cramps and I regret eating the bagel when a man wearing a tight black T-shirt and black slacks emerges from the passenger’s side of the SUV. Could this be the person who caught me?
“Ms. Sinclair?” The voice is smoother, lacking the rough edges of my assailant. The fact that he turns my name into a question clinches it.
“That’s me.” I smile and try not to look nervous. Or guilty.
“Mr. Edge would like to see you in his office this afternoon.”
Crap. I started to sweat. “Okay, what time?”
“Three o’clock, Ma’am.”
“I’ll be there. Now, I’ve got to go let the landscapers in.”
He steps back and I pick up the pace, my brain scrambling for purchase. Edge is going to fire me, maybe even have me escorted from the property. Pops is my only family. I have nowhere else to go.
Serves you right.
Snarkarella pipes up.
You played fast and loose with his security man and the bastard told him everything.
Shoving her bile aside, I move to the gate and try to not let my anxiety get the best of me. As Pops use to say, there’s no time to fret, there’s work to be done.
A new copse of flowering shrubbery has been ordered for the estate gardens and grabbing a shovel, I literally dig right in, working up a decent sweat. Rosasharn is an easy shrub to maintain if put in properly, and it flowers in several different colors. I’ve acquired several hundred saplings from a nearby nursery as part of the landscaping budget and plan to plant two rows of them leading up to and around the dolphin fountain in the back yard.
By midday, sweat runs down my back and my jeans are filthy. I pause to take a hit from my water bottle. On the east lawn of the estate, mowers run in a telling drone, making that neat chessboard pattern on the expansive front lawn.
I will miss this place, not just because it’s the only home I’ve ever known, but also because I’ve put so much of myself into it. Even before Pops started deteriorating so quickly, he lost interest in planning the grounds, but he’d already passed the love down to me. I’m the one who arranged for the installation of the stone wall separating the east and south lawns. I winterized the gardens on the south lot and made the call to take down the tree with the fungal infection that caused it to lose its leaves last fall. I know every type of plant growing on these twelve acres.
Looking around, it hits me like a ten ton anvil from above. This might be it, my last day, my last project here. Needing to sit down, I move toward the bench by the fountain and stare at the dolphin spouting water from his blowhole.
At first I think panic is making a buzzing sound, but soon realize the noise is coming from the cell phone stuffed deep in my pocket. “Hello?”
“Ms. Sinclair? This is Rebecca Green from Golden Oaks.”
“Is my grandfather all right?” Rising to my feet, I move away from the chatter of the lawn crew.
“I’m sorry to tell you, but he fell this morning. He’s been transferred to Vassar Hospital.”
The world spins around me and I can’t think over the roaring of my blood. “Has his doctor been called? Do we know how bad it is?”
“I’m sorry, that’s all I know.”
I disconnect the call without saying goodbye and sprint for the cottage and Pops’s rusted-out pickup that looks like hell but runs like a dream. Ten minutes later I’m on the road, heading down route 44 into Poughkeepsie. Using my handsfree device, I call the doctor who’s been treating Pops and discover he’s already been notified. His office assistant tells me he’ll meet me at the hospital.
Since I’ve lived in this area all my life, I know Vassar Hospital well. A few of my friends from the nursing program at Dutchess Community College work here now, just as I would if I hadn’t taken over for Pops at the Rosemont Estate two years ago.
The nurse at reception directs me to a waiting room on the radiology level. Too agitated to sit, I pace back and forth while I wait, figuring, better to move my body than get lost in my own head. It’s too easy to imagine a worst-case scenario. Doctor Fletcher arrives a few minutes later. “He’s all right, Baily. It’s not a break, just some bruising.”
I let out a relieved breath and sink into a nearby chair. “Do we know how it happened?”
Doctor Fletcher looks perturbed. “Someone left the door to the parking area open when they were unloading a supply truck, and he wandered out and fell down the incline leading to the main road.”
Closing my eyes, I drop my head into my hands. “He could have been hit by a car.”
“The staff has already been chastised and the orderly who propped the door open reprimanded.” The doctor places his hand on my shoulder. “Have you thought about upgrading him to a better facility? I could recommend some excellent ones that deal exclusively with Alzheimer’s patients. They’re better prepared to cater to Thomas’s particular needs.”
Of course I’ve thought about it. Problem is, I can’t afford it. “I wish I could.”
The doctor escorts me to the room where Pops is resting. His heart monitor beeps a steady reassuring rhythm. Sitting in the chair beside the bed, I take his hand. Paper thin eyelids lift. His gaze is foggy under the heavy medication. “Hiya, Pops.”
He smiles and closes his eyes again. “Tired.”
“It’s the meds,” Doctor Fletcher tells him. “Does anything hurt?”
“At my age, everything hurts,” Pops says wryly, a ghost of his old self. “Beats the alternative though.”
“We’re going to keep you overnight for observation.”
Doctor Fletcher pulls me aside.
“Thank you for getting here so quickly.” I smile up at him, my constant advocate. Doctor Fletcher has been with me throughout the downward spiral of Pops’s health and I appreciate everything he’s done.
His gaze fixes on my face. “Is everything all right with you, Baily? You sleeping okay?”
I think about my moonlight swims, about being pleasured the night before by a total stranger and how it was such a relief from the nonstop heartache and worry of my daily life. Except that by letting it happen, I inadvertently made things worse.
Glancing at the clock on the wall, I gasp at the time. “Shoot, I was supposed to be at a meeting forty five minutes ago! I’ll be back later.”
“Drive safe,” Doctor Fletcher calls out as I hurry toward the nearest bank of elevators.
Snarkarella is in fine form the entire thirty-seven minute drive back to the estate, mentally flagellating me for standing up my boss.
Soon to be ex-boss.
“It was a family emergency,” I reason aloud as I turn up the drive. It’s ten to five. I’m almost two hours late for my meeting with Mr. Edge. “I’m sure he’ll understand.”
Actually, I’m sure of nothing. I’m unable to decide if I ought to duck into the cottage and change out of my grubby clothes, or if that will only compound the problem.
In the end, I decide that my extreme tardiness is more offensive than my bedraggled physical state. As head groundskeeper, Mr. Edge must be aware that I work for a living. Doubtful a clean pair of jeans or even a dress would change the outcome of today’s meeting.
I take the stone steps two at a time and enter the cool foyer. Marble tiles and a vaulted ceiling give the entrance to the house that grandiose feel. An antique mahogany table and a gilded mirror sit to the right of the double doors. A curving staircase straight out of
Gone with the Wind
leads to the second story, eye level with the crystal chandelier. Pausing by the mirror, I do my best to scrape my out-of-control hair away from my face. Humidity wreaks havoc with the natural curls, giving me that wild Man of Borneo effect.
Snarkarella snorts in derision.
Just as I recognize that I might have to search the entire house for Mr. Edge, the click of heels comes from the back hallway.
“May I help you?” A beautiful brunette raises one sculpted eyebrow in my direction. She’s wearing a gray checked sheath dress, with a wide cherry red belt. Her waist is about the size of one of my thighs. Red four inch heels and a red beret perched jauntily on her head match the belt. Her accent is distinctly French, and her tone implies she believes me to be beyond help.
“I have an appointment with Mr. Edge.” I offer a pleasant smile which she does not return.
“And you are…?”
“Head groundskeeper.”
Lined brown eyes grow bigger until they almost pop from her head. “You’re Thomas Sinclair?”
“Baily Sinclair. His granddaughter.” That is all this snooty pill will get from me. Edge sure has plenty of guard dogs, the Rottweiler from last night and now a perfectly coiffed French Poodle. Who is this guy?
“Wait here.” She pivots on her heel and sashays to the back of the house. I deliberately refuse to look in the mirror again, not wanting to acknowledge the world of difference between myself and the poodle. At least I’m not a condescending troll in disguise.
“Ms. Sinclair, I presume.”
My heart stutters in my chest at his voice. The man from last night. Slowly, I drag my attention up his body, which is just as broad and solid as I imagined it to be, until I reach his face.
One I recognize from supermarket tabloids. How many times have I stood staring at that same face, believing he couldn’t be half as handsome in person as the magazine portrayed? I was wrong—he’s even better in the flesh, more compelling, those blue eyes piercing, the aquiline nose and perfectly set cheekbones a work of art. His smoothly shaven chin is at odds with the stubble scrape I experienced against my skin last night. And his mouth….
My brain shorts out as I look at his mouth, remembering all the things he did to me last night.
Holly hell, I’m working for Connor Edge, the billionaire playboy!
Enjoy it while it lasts,
Snarkarella pipes up.