Breaking All Her Rules Read online

  Kind of a funny thought, up in a suite that overlooked Central Park, but hey, there were more important things in life than a room with a view.

  He’d rather go back to living poor, on a ranch in Pine Ridge Falls, with the people he loved most, than be here alone. But that was another lifetime. Another man. He wasn’t even going to think about it.

  “Then why is it?” she asked.

  “Hell if I know. Life never seems to be the way it’s supposed to be,” he said. “All you can do is enjoy the little things. Which is why I was thinking porn and chicken.”

  “I have no little things I enjoy,” she said. “I enjoy nothing. And I think I hate everything.” She was breathing hard, her eyes wide.

  “Everything?”

  “I don’t even have a life. I don’t even think I have any friends left. I work at this job, and I go back to my apartment and order takeout and I watch DVR’d TV shows. I don’t date I don’t...I don’t...” Her eyes clashed with his, a hard sock of heat hitting his gut.

  “What else?” he asked.

  She looked away. “If I don’t date I think it’s pretty obvious what else I’m not doing.”

  Oh, yes, he was well familiar with that problem. He hadn’t gotten laid in so long he was afraid his long uprooted virginity was starting to grow back. If such a thing was possible. He hadn’t seen sex since his twenties, and sitting where he was at thirty-five that seemed damn sad.

  He’d had a lot more than getting some on his mind, though, but now...now it seemed like maybe he needed to do something about it. Maybe it was time to let another person touch him. Not a handshake or anything, but hands on naked skin. On skin that was normally covered by clothes.

  He hadn’t been tempted to connect in so long. He’d been avoiding it. He’d been too raw. But everything had scarred over now. Had come out tougher than he’d started. It would never heal, but he wasn’t vulnerable anymore. He doubted he possessed the ability to be hurt at this point, to feel loss.

  He’d maxed out that garbage a while ago.

  “Yeah,” he said, his voice rough. Affected. “Obvious.”

  “I guess maybe not because some people just...I can’t believe I’m having this conversation with you. You officially know more of my baggage than my best friend, who I haven’t talked to in four months because I’m an unhappy, terrible workaholic, and she’s just as bad.”

  “Well, you’re in my hotel room, I’m half-dressed.... It seems logical really.”

  “My phone?” she asked.

  “Oh, yeah.” That was why she was here. Her phone. The one on his bed. He’d completely forgotten. It hadn’t seemed to matter.

  “Yeah,” she said, her eyes wide. “I kind of forgot. About my phone. Which I never do, because I’m addicted to using my phone. How sad is that? I am addicted to my phone. To keeping plugged into my office when I’m not there. Sometimes I get so caught up in work email during dinner that I forget to pay attention to the show on my DVR. So I record shows, because I’m too busy to watch them when they come on, then I put them on and I ignore them! I am a mess.”

  “You really are.”

  “I need to relax.”

  “I agree.”

  “Do you know what I need?” she asked, her small breasts rising and falling with the sharp pitch of her breathing.

  “What?” he asked, his stomach tightening.

  “I just need to relax.”

  “I agree.”

  “I need...” Her eyes had dropped back down to his chest. “I need to...make a decision instead of just flying under the radar. I think I need to cut loose.” Her eyes met his again. “Got any ideas?”

  “I do. But I’m a stranger and I’m pretty sure none of the ideas I have are appropriate for strangers.”

  “We shared a cab,” she said, a desperate light in her dark gaze now.

  “Well, then, I guess that changes things. Kiss me.”

  Chapter Four

  Grace thought she might pass out. All of the blood drained out of her head and pooled in her feet, her lips cold, her brain fuzzy.

  Her skin was chilled, but inside she was burning up.

  She didn’t know what she was doing. She’d led the conversation here, that was undeniable. She’d been baiting him. Baiting this sexy stranger so that she could see just what he might do. So that she could...what, exactly, she didn’t know.

  Well, now it had culminated in a request—no, a demand—for a kiss.

  His eyes were burning, golden fire, and she could feel it streaking through her.

  She didn’t kiss strangers. Ever.

  Especially not shirtless strangers in hotel rooms that were probably more than her month’s rent for one night. Especially not big rough, cowboy-type strangers. Who drew foxes and swore and took her phone and freely confessed to the desire to order porn.

  Neither of her exes would have ever admitted to such male crassness.

  Likely they engaged in it, but they never would have confessed it.

  Though, maybe Zack wouldn’t have confessed if she wasn’t a stranger. Maybe he was feeling freer, too.

  Maybe this would be good for both of them.

  Sliding down the slippery slope, Grace?

  She wanted to punch inner Grace in her smug perfect face. Except, inner Grace had a point. Inner Grace was thinking of Hannah. Of the bad sister. The one who had gone off the rails, into parties and drugs and now, to the point where no one had a clue where she was.

  Hannah, the daughter who made her mother cry, and her father sit in a dark room and just stare ahead sadly, at nothing.

  The daughter Grace had spent her teenage and adult years trying to make up for.

  But no one has to know about this. No one would ever know.

  She was fighting against this strange, icy feeling inside of her. The one that had kept her mouth frozen shut and her words carefully chosen while her boss had effectively ripped her a new one. The one that always checked with her parents before she made major decisions, to ensure that her decisions were good ones.

  The one that kept her head down and worked hard, her entire life a big demonstration of just how good she was so that no one would ever question it.

  And after that showdown in her boss’s office, she was tired of that. Tired of trying to be the Grace everyone else wanted to see. The problem was she didn’t know how to be anything else.

  But no one was here to question this. Zack was a stranger. He didn’t know anyone at work. He didn’t know her parents. He didn’t know her.

  This room was out of time, this man out of context with everything else in her life.

  Why not? Why not do this. Why not take this.

  No one will ever know....

  “One kiss,” she said. And even as she said it, she knew it wouldn’t stop at that.

  But she was tired of being frozen in indecision. Tired of being scared to act.

  So now she was acting. Just for now. Just for her.

  “Sure,” he said, arching a brow and moving toward her.

  He hooked an arm around her waist and pulled her up against him, pinning her arms, his chest hard and hot against her wrists. “If you want to stop at one,” he said, his breath fanning across her cheek.

  He smelled good. Like skin and soap. No cologne or any other artificial scent. Just man. And she’d never really appreciated the smell of a man before.

  “Well, we haven’t even gotten to the one yet. You’re counting your chickens before they’re hatched.”

  “Am I still the fox in this scenario? Are the chickens in the same henhouse?”

  “I don’t know. Shut up and kiss me.”

  He did. His lips were hard on hers, taking, not asking. And there was nothing about that she should find hot. She wasn’t i
n to being taken. She wasn’t in to brute strength and big hands. Traditionally speaking. Right now his brute strength and big hands were really doing something for her.

  Like, lots of somethings.

  He curved his arms around her, his palms flat on her back, pulling her in, his large frame enveloping her. He curled blunt fingers onto her skin, her mouth rough on hers, his tongue delving deep.

  She arched into him, and his hand slid downward, down the dip in her spine, curving over her butt. She should be...shocked. At the very least she should be shocked. She shouldn’t be aroused. She shouldn’t want to push her hips back so that his grasp on her was even firmer. So that he was holding her harder.

  She certainly shouldn’t be angling her head so she could kiss him deeper. But she was. She was doing all those things.

  His touch was hot and sure, his tongue slick, his lips firm. She could feel his erection hardening against her stomach. And that was something else she should be offended by. But she wasn’t.

  She moved against his body, relished the feeling of his hard, thick length against her body. It was amazing. To make a man react like this to her.

  She couldn’t remember the last time it had been like this, if ever. And that was just from the man’s end. From her end...well, it had never felt like this. Sex was something she did because if she was in a relationship, it was part of the package.

  She’d never been desperate for it. Had never felt like she wanted to—no, needed to—run her whole body against her partner’s, just so she could feel every inch of him on every inch of her. But she did now. She ached for it, the surface of her skin hypersensitive, tingling, desperate for his touch.

  Suddenly, she was very aware of her nipples. She usually wasn’t. They didn’t do much, after all. A little tightening when it was cold. But now...Wow.

  They ached. Honestly. She pressed herself against his chest in an attempt to get some relief. It sent a shock of heat down between her thighs. But it wasn’t enough. She needed more. She needed everything.

  She freed her trapped wrists and moved her hands over his chest, rough hair over hard muscle abrading her skin.

  He was so very much a man, a stupid observation maybe, since obviously he was a man. But everything about him was like some kind of testosterone-laden candy land, designed for her own personal pleasure. There were men, and there were men.

  He was a man.

  He moved his hands lower, to her thighs, and then she was being lifted up off the ground. She wrapped her legs around his waist, scrabbling to get ahold of him, looping her arms around his neck. And they managed not to break the kiss. Technically, they were still on only one kiss.

  He walked them both into the bedroom, them turned and pinned her against the wall, his body hard against hers, his whiskers burning her cheeks as he deepened the kiss. She rolled her hips forward, rocking her clit against his hard abs.

  This was crazy. She was crazy. Certifiable. And immoral and wicked. And her parents would kill her dead if they knew she was even considering begging him to take her over to the big bed in the center of the room.

  But they will never know. That’s the beauty of it.

  It was still crazy. She didn’t know anything about this man beyond his name.

  Well, that wasn’t true. She knew he kissed like sin incarnate and that, even covered by denim, his erection promised pleasure she’d never known before. Pleasure she hadn’t thought possible.

  Right now, that was all she needed to know. She’d made a decision, the decision, and the consequences could go to hell.

  That was a more exhilarating thought than she’d ever thought it possible to have. To not care, for just a little bit, what people thought, what would happen next.

  She needed it. Almost more than she needed his mouth on hers.

  He lowered her a bit so that his arousal lined up with where she ached for him the most. He thrust his hips, hard, fast, against her, sending streaks of heat through her veins.

  She wrenched her lips from his. She was the first to break. But she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t...

  Pleasure tightened down low inside of her, a wire drawn tight, running through her core. So tight, she thought it might break her.

  Grace shifted against him, making sure everything lined up just right. He leaned forward, growling, taking her mouth with his, his teeth sinking into her lower lip.

  And the wire snapped.

  Release flooded her, internal muscles clenching tight as her climax ripped through her. She opened her lips on a silent scream, her body tightening, shaking. She felt wrecked when it was over. Drained, sated and, at the same time, hungry for more. She needed her clothes off. They were too tight, the fabric heavy on her skin, constricting.

  Weird because it was a tailored outfit and it had felt fine earlier.

  But she didn’t feel like the same person. She didn’t feel like she was in the same body.

  That could have something to do with it.

  “I broke the rules,” he said, kissing the side of her neck, his teeth scraping the delicate skin there. “Sorry about that.”

  He didn’t sound sorry at all. Fair enough. She wasn’t, either.

  “No need to apologize,” she said.

  “Good. Because I’m going to need you to take your clothes off now.”

  He helped her get her feet back on the ground, and he released his hold on her. “Take your clothes off,” he said, his eyes burning into her.

  She found herself obeying. Immediately. Because it was what she wanted. To get rid of these clothes. To be pressed up against him. Skin-to-skin.

  “You, too,” she said, working the buttons on her blouse with shaking fingers.

  She’d never been entirely comfortable with her body. She lacked curves. There was no dramatic swooping in at her waist. Her torso was slim, but straight up and down, and her hips were barely bumps. To say nothing of her A-cups.

  She felt like he was expecting her to unveil a work of art, and instead of Matisse, he was about to get Spaghetti Splattered on a Canvas by Monkeys. Okay, not that bad, but she didn’t really consider herself worthy of the level of concentration, the level of excitement, in his eyes.

  She undid the top button, then the next and he put his hand over the front of his jeans, squeezing himself. That big masculine hand caressing his own body was a sight that nearly sent her over the edge.

  Again. Already.

  He was magic, or something. Orgasm was a rare, elusive creature for her. One that she caught glimpses of through the forest, only to have it vanish into nothingness the moment her partner sneezed while still inside of her, or something.

  She doubted even a sneeze could scare this one off. It was some kind of super breed of climax. Rarer, it seemed, than the regular ones, but not as skittish.

  He wasn’t even touching her, and she was close—so close her heart rate was in high gear. With each button opened, he looked more intensely at her.

  She shrugged her top off and let it fall to the floor, and he groaned, curling his hands around his length and squeezing. He didn’t seem to mind that her cups did not overflow.

  Boosted by that, she reached behind her back and unclasped her bra, letting it fall down her arms. Then she shook it loose and let it join her shirt on the floor.

  Not the sexiest move, perhaps, but he didn’t seem to care. He was looking at her like she was the first woman he’d ever seen naked.

  Though, she wasn’t naked yet. She pushed her pencil skirt down, wiggling her hips and taking her underwear down along with it.

  “Now you,” she said, not sure where she found her voice. Her throat felt too tight to force words out, and somehow she had. Maybe because she needed to see him naked. More than she needed air. Like now.

  He unsnapped the jeans a
nd shoved them down his thighs. Those thighs. They were every bit as amazing as she’d imagined. People would go broke putting coins in those old peepshow things just to see those thighs.

  Hot. Damn.

  Then she looked up just a bit and she really couldn’t breathe anymore.

  Never mind. If all that was on offer in the peepshow she would go bankrupt. She would be found on her hands and knees on the sidewalk looking for spare change. Because he had absolutely the most impressive piece of male equipment she’d ever seen in her life.

  “What?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “You’re staring.”

  “Well...yes. I am.”

  “Why are you staring at my cock?”

  The way he said that word, such a dirty word that you didn’t hear in polite conversation, made her heart skitter. “I am staring at your...your...because well, because you’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. And also, I’m interested in having sex with you. So that seems a perfectly good reason to stare.”

  A slow smile spread across his face. “Say it again.”

  “What?”

  “That you want to have sex with me. So direct and prim.”

  “How is it prim?” she asked, blinking.

  “Because if it would have been me...I just would have said I wanted to fuck you.”

  Heat seared her cheeks. “Oh.”

  “Did I offend you, darlin’?”

  “No.” It was just that she’d never before had someone say something like that to her. It was a far cry from Aiden’s “Wanna do it?” back in freshman year of college, and it was an even farther cry from David’s vague grunting noise he’d always made before he’d rolled over to give her a kiss and get a little action before they fell asleep at night.

  It was direct. And...earthy. And she liked it.

  “Is that what you want?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said, without even hesitating. “I do. I want it.”

  Then he pulled her back into his arms, kissing her, bringing them down onto the bed with her on top of him, his...cock sliding against her clit.

  She leaned over and kissed him, his hand curving around and cupping her breast, teasing her nipple.