Ruthless Pride Read online

  Shock rippled through her. At his explicit words and that he’d wanted her as far back as when she’d charged into his office. A tenderness that had no place between them tried to infiltrate the lust, but she battled it back. Self-preservation. She had to keep this about the sex.

  Joshua didn’t give her an opportunity to respond—if she’d been able to anyway—because he knelt between her legs. After whisking off her shoes, he stroked his hands up her calves, over her knees and palmed her inner thighs. Her breath, loud in her own ears, soughed in and out of her chest as she waited for him to graze the swollen, damp flesh covered by black lace. Air whispered over her but did nothing to cool the heat building inside her, stoked by his words and caresses.

  His fingertips danced over her, and with a mewl that would probably embarrass her later, she rocked into the too-light but too-much touch. Sensitive and so deprived, her sex clenched hard, sending a spasm through her. She was ready to beg, to write a freaking formal entreaty, if he would only give her what her body literally wept for when he tugged aside the soaked panel of her panties and plunged a thick, long finger inside her.

  She screamed.

  And shattered. The release swept through her, over her, the pinched quality of it bordering on pain. It was good. So good. But still not enough. Even as the final waves of orgasm ebbed, the need returned, brewing underneath the blissed-out lethargy.

  With a snarl curling his lips, Joshua yanked her panties down her useless legs and spread her wide for him. He dived into her, his mouth covering her still-quivering flesh, his tongue curling around the pulsing button of nerves cresting her mound. He growled against her, the sound vibrating against her, shoving her closer to sensory overload. He lapped at her, sucked, feasted on her in a way that should’ve been lewd, but instead was hot as hell.

  “Josh.” His name burst from her, a half shout, half whimper. Pleasure ratcheted from simmering to full-out conflagration. Her fingers drove into his hair, gripping his head, holding him to her. Pushing him away.

  Too much.

  Oh God, not enough.

  He had to stop.

  She’d kill him if he dared to stop.

  If her mind was conflicted, her body knew what it wanted. What it craved. Her hips bucked and rolled under his mouth, urging him on. Demanding he give her everything he had. And as her lower back tightened and tingled in that telltale sign of impending orgasm, she gasped. Never, as in never, had she come more than once. She didn’t think it possible for her. But the jerking of her hips, the shaking of her limbs, belied that belief, proving that she just needed the right partner to bring her to the brink of pleasure—and surpass it.

  No. Not the right partner.

  Joshua.

  Another scream built in her throat, scratching its way up when he pulled away. Leaving her aching, throbbing, hurting on the edge of release.

  “What?” she rasped. “Please.” The two words were all she could manage, lust and an aborted orgasm confusing her.

  Above her, Joshua surged to his feet. He snatched his wallet from his pants and tossed it on the floor next to her shoulder. In seconds, he wrenched his pants, shoes and socks from his big body, leaving him standing extraordinarily, unbearably beautiful before her. Joshua clothed in suits and tuxedos was gorgeous. Naked, stripped of all signs of civility, was...devastating.

  As if drawn to him by an invisible thread, she sat up, rising to her knees, settling her palms on lean, powerfully muscled thighs that flexed under her palms. She sighed, sliding them up the defined columns...reaching for the thick, heavy, long length of him.

  “No.” His long fingers caught her hand before she could touch him. He knelt between her legs again, pressing her palm to his mouth and placing a searing openmouthed kiss there. “If I let you get your hand on me, this would be over quick. And, sweetheart, when I come, I plan to do it buried balls deep inside you, not on these pretty fingers.”

  He leaned over her, grabbing his wallet and removing a square foil packet. Quickly, he ripped it open and sheathed himself, then, thank God, he was over her, his erection nudging her entrance. Slowly pressing into her. Stretching her. Burning her.

  Branding her.

  Pain and pleasure mixed in a wicked, confusing blend that sent quakes rippling through her.

  “Shh,” Joshua crooned, brushing a kiss over her cheekbone, temple and, finally, lips. “Easy, sweetheart. You can take me. All of me.” Until his reassurances, she hadn’t been aware of the whimpers spilling from her or the restless shifting to get closer, to back away... She didn’t know. The pressure of his possession... It filled her almost to overflowing. It overwhelmed her.

  For a stark second, panic seized her. In this moment, she felt owned. Not just herself anymore. With him planted so deep inside her, she didn’t belong to herself—she belonged to him. To them.

  “Look at me, Sophie,” he murmured, the soft tone carrying an underlying vein of steel. She couldn’t help but obey and opened her eyes to meet his. Golden flames burned in a nearly dark brown field, scorching her. “Do you have any idea how you feel to me? So wet, tight like the most brutal fist but utterly fucking perfect surrounding me, squeezing me. Holding me. It’s the sweetest hell. I might be covering you... I might be so goddamn deep I don’t know if I can find my way out... But you have the control here. The power. So what are you going to do with me, Sophie? What are you going to do with us?”

  His corded arms bracketed her head, and he held his large frame suspended above her, a very fine tremor running through him and belying the gentleness of his voice. And his words. God, they seeped into her, heating her, relaxing her tense muscles, dulling the edges of pain until only the pleasure of his dominance, his possession remained.

  She released her grip on his upper arms and, sliding her hands up and over his shoulders, wound her arms around his neck, pulling him down for a slow, raw kiss.

  “I’m going to take you. I’m going to wreck us,” she whispered against his lips.

  Hunger, dark and fierce, flashed in his gaze, but also delight flared bright and quick. Claiming control of the kiss, he pulled free from her body, then sank back inside, dragging a soft cry from her. Lifting her legs, she wrapped them around his waist, and he hissed, surging deeper. Filling her more. Thrust for thrust, she met him, taking him just as she promised. Wrecking them with each roll of her hips, each wet, voracious kiss, each scratch of her nails and whispered demand for “more, harder.”

  Carnal. Wild. Hot.

  Joshua rode her hard, granting her no mercy. He buried himself inside her over and over, setting off sizzling currents with each drag of his cock through her channel. She cried out with the intensity of the pleasure, from the onslaught of it. Twisting and writhing beneath him, she chased the orgasm that loomed so close.

  “Josh,” she pleaded, desperate, greedy.

  “Give it to me, Sophie,” he ground out. “Come for me.”

  He palmed one of her thighs, spreading her wider, lifting her into his thrusting body. Sliding the other hand down between her breasts, he didn’t stop until he circled the nerve-packed nub nestled between her folds. Thrust. Circle. Thrust. Circle.

  The scream ripped from her throat as she exploded. For a moment, she fought against the release, afraid of the sheer ferocity and wildness of it. But it swelled stronger, swamping her, threatening to break her. Then reshape her into someone she was afraid she’d no longer recognize.

  Closing her eyes, she surrendered.

  Seven

  Joshua stared at his computer monitor, but just like the previous hour, the report from his chief financial officer remained a blurred jumble of numbers.

  “Dammit.” Disgusted, he threw his pen down on his desk and shot to his feet. His chair rolled back, bumping against the bookcase behind it.

  He scrubbed a hand down his face, then wrapped it around the back of his neck. Massaging the tens
e muscles there, he strode to the floor-to-ceiling window and stared out. Usually, the sight of the parking lot full of his employees’ cars sent a surge of satisfaction spiraling through him. There’d been a time after he’d taken over Black Crescent when the lot had been almost empty. Only he, Haley and a few other loyal staff members had remained when the company fell apart. Those days had been...grim. Though he’d kept up a stalwart front for everyone, he’d been terrified. Of failing to rebuild the company and paying back the families his father had devastated. Of letting down those few who’d still believed in and trusted him when his father hadn’t given them a reason to.

  Of proving those who’d condemned him with “like father, like son” right.

  His father. It always came back to him.

  But it wasn’t Vernon who had him distracted and unable to concentrate this Monday morning. How easy it would be to place the blame on him instead of her.

  Sophie.

  As if just the thought of her name jammed open a door he’d padlocked shut, images from Saturday night rushed through his head, a ceaseless stream of erotic snapshots.

  Sophie, hips rolling and bucking to meet his devouring mouth as he held her thighs spread wide for him.

  Sophie, twisting and undulating beneath him, voice cracking as she begged him to possess her harder.

  Sophie, body arched tight, beautiful breasts pointed toward the ceiling, eyes glazed with pleasure as she came so hard it required every bit of his tattered control to prevent immediately following her.

  Sophie, curled up against his side, her head resting on his shoulder, her soft, even breath caressing his damp skin. Her small, delicate hand splayed wide on his chest.

  If the mental flashes of her uninhibited passion had his body hardening and arousal clenching his gut, then it was the memory of her cuddled into his body, sleeping so trustingly, that had a vise grip squeezing his heart.

  And that grip unnerved him.

  One night. No strings. That had been their agreement. The reasons for it—for him, at least—hadn’t changed come the morning when they dressed in silence and he drove her home.

  She was a reporter who had just done a story on him and his family. How he’d let his guard down Saturday night and confessed his unhappiness about his life and the jacked-up state of his family even before the scandal still astonished him. That—his penchant to reveal things he’d never told another soul—was her superpower. And his downfall. He’d basically handed her information for her follow-up on him, and if she did write it, he had no one to blame but himself.

  What was it about this woman that made him so vulnerable? That had him ignoring every self-protective instinct?

  He couldn’t do that again. Couldn’t afford to. Couldn’t afford to open Black Crescent up to any more controversy and couldn’t afford to let her in. To open his heart.

  Everyone he’d ever loved had abandoned him. His father with going on the lam. His mother by mentally leaving him. His brothers by withdrawing from him, then icing him out of their lives.

  No, if she hadn’t set the limits on their one night of the hottest sex he’d ever had or believed possible, then he would’ve.

  “Joshua, I’ve been buzzing you,” Haley announced from behind him. He pivoted sharply, bemused. He’d been so deep in thought he hadn’t heard the phone intercom or his assistant enter his office. “Where were you just now?”

  He shook his head, slicing a hand through the air to wave away her question. “Just going over my eleven o’clock appointment with Clark Reynolds from Venture Investments. What’d you need?”

  Haley tilted her head, studying him through a narrowed gaze. She didn’t outright accuse him of lying, but the speculation in her hazel eyes did. “Nice try. But deflection has never worked with me. Are you sure you weren’t just mooning over Sophie Armstrong?”

  He snorted, striding back toward his desk. “I’ve never mooned a day in my life.”

  “I know. And that’s your problem.”

  “My problem?” He sank into his chair. “I wasn’t aware I had one. Well, other than a bossy executive assistant who doesn’t know when to let stuff go.”

  “Oh, you have one,” she drawled, folding into the armchair across from his desk. Leaning forward, her dark blond eyebrows drew together in a frown. “When was the last time your life didn’t revolve around this company, the employees or paying back the families affected by the scandal?”

  “Haley,” Joshua said, stiffening. “I don’t—”

  “I know you don’t want to talk about it. You never do,” she cut him off. “That’s another problem. You might be the savior of Black Crescent, Josh, but that’s not all you are. You deserve more. You deserve to have time to yourself, take a vacation. Leave this place at a decent hour. Have a private life. Yes, you’ve had relationships in the past, but when was the last time you just let yourself fall for someone? Let them interfere with your carefully regimented schedule and order? Let them make your life messy with laughter and love? I know the answer to all those questions. Never.”

  Joshua clenched his jaw, trapping the heated words that threatened to burst free. He didn’t want to hurt her feelings. Haley might be his assistant, but she was also family. Like his younger sister. But this topic was off-limits. “Haley, I don’t want to hurt your feelings. But this is—”

  “None of my business, I know. But this—” she stood and set down the tablet she held on the desk, sliding it toward him “—makes it everyone’s business.”

  He stared at her for several moments before dropping his gaze to the screen. His irritation evaporated, dissolved by shock.

  Pictures from Saturday night’s art gala. Some depicted him and other partygoers, including the redhead he’d been seated next to at dinner, who’d propositioned him with a nightcap after the event. Those images didn’t ensnare his attention or had his heart pounding like an anvil against his chest. Didn’t have desire flaming bright and hot inside him.

  The photograph of Sophie, so beautiful in the silver strapless gown that had molded to her slim figure and highlighted every curve, and him standing outside the museum had him battling back the surge of lust brewing low in his stomach.

  Unlike with the redhead, he’d lost the polite but aloof mask he usually donned at those occasions. Though a small distance separated them, he stared down at her with an intensity—a hunger—that was anything but polite. And Sophie, head tipped back, exhibited a vulnerability that he immediately hated the photographer for capturing.

  He tore his gaze away from the image and scanned the caption underneath.

  Black Crescent Hedge Fund CEO Joshua Lowell and mystery guest...or date? Could it be the famous—or infamous—businessman is finally settling down?

  Flicking a glance to the top of the page, he glimpsed the name of the site. And fisted his fingers next to the tablet. A notorious gossip website that focused on dishing dirty on high society. If he had a dollar for every time his or his family’s names had been mentioned in this column, he’d have been able to compensate the bankrupted families years ago, and with interest.

  Dammit. Had Sophie seen this? Possibly not. She might be a reporter, but she was also an investigative journalist. Not some gossipmonger.

  “What’s going on between you and Sophie Armstrong?” Haley asked softly.

  He jerked his head up, having momentarily forgotten she stood across from him. “Nothing. She happened to attend the same gala as I did, and we were leaving at the same time. She wasn’t my date.”

  “The columnist mentioned you two left together. That she got into your car,” Haley persisted.

  Dammit. Anger pulled hard and tight inside him. Fucking media. “I gave her a ride home since we were both headed back to Falling Brook. End of story.” If the end of the story included his driving into Sophie’s sweet body on a rug that he wouldn’t ever be able to walk by again without se
eing her coming apart on it.

  Haley silently studied him again, her scrutiny too seeing, too knowing. “Neither of your faces say ‘casual acquaintance’ or ‘friendly ride home.’” Before he could snarl a reply, she continued, voice soft, “And I’m glad.”

  He frowned, taken aback. “You’re glad my privacy was invaded and I’m now a topic of speculation and gossip? Again.”

  Haley straightened, a flicker of emotion rippling across her face. But before he could decipher it, she arched an eyebrow, her eyes direct and unwavering. “No, I’m positively delighted that someone has managed to get through that thick layer of ‘back the hell off’ that you’ve wrapped yourself in these past fifteen years. I’m happy that you’ve found someone that you would let down your guard long enough to be captured by some random photographer. Because whether or not you want to admit it—or are ready to admit it—she is important to you. Now I’m just praying that you don’t mess it up by pushing her away.”

  She turned away and strode across his office and left, closing the door behind her with a quick snick. But her warning reverberated in the room like a report of a gunshot.

  I’m just praying that you don’t mess it up by pushing her away.

  Mess it up? Push her away?

  He’d have to let her in first.

  And that wasn’t happening. Ever.

  Eight

  What the hell am I doing here?

  The question ricocheted off Joshua’s skull as he sat in the back seat of his Lincoln town car outside Sophie’s apartment building. Showing up here after the photo of them on the gossip site didn’t rank among his smartest decisions. If anyone saw him here, it would only feed the fires of speculation. But he’d tried to call her to see if she’d seen it and give her a heads-up if she hadn’t. Either she hadn’t seen his phone call or she’d refused to answer, because he hadn’t been able to reach her.

  Logic argued that he leave it alone—leave her alone. But the thought of her being blindsided... Well, here he was sitting outside her home like some kind of goddamn stalker. Growling a curse, he shoved open the back door.