Hired: A Bride for the Boss: The Playboy Boss's Chosen Bride / The Corporate Marriage Campaign / The Boss's Urgent Proposal. SUSAN MEIER
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out at the loss of the strangely sweet torment as he released her from it, lifting himself up to position himself for the plunge into ultimate intimacy.
Her hands kneaded his back muscles in desperate wanting. Her legs curled around his taut buttocks, her feet urging him to a fast entry. The need was so compelling, nothing else existed for her. She hated the enforced pause for him to slide on a condom, savagely wished there’d been no need for it. But it was sheer bliss when he came into her, filling the aching void. The relief of it sent ripples of pleasure through her entire body. She felt herself pulsing around him, melting, and the glorious heavenliness of it put an ecstatic smile on her face.
‘Don’t hide from me, Merlina. Open your eyes.’
He was deep inside her, beautifully wonderfully deep. It was difficult to tear her concentration away from how it felt, yet Jake was giving her this pleasure. It wasn’t fair to keep it to herself. She opened her eyes, not even thinking of what she might see in his.
‘You’re smiling,’ he said, smiling right back at her, happy that she was happy with him.
‘Feels good,’ she said, only just stopping herself from blurting out that she loved the sense of having him like this.
‘Only good?’ he quizzed, his smile tilting into a teasing quirk.
‘Great?’ she offered, wishing he wasn’t asking for a rating of his performance. It smacked of playboy games and this was no game to her. She wanted to think this was more than just sex for him—an important connection that was being heightened, deepened by the physical union.
‘Great is good but—’ the joyous twinkles in his eyes fused into a look of burning purpose ‘—I aim to improve on that.’
His mouth claimed hers in a kiss of driving passion, his tongue invading strongly, then matching the plunging rhythm of his body, reinforcing his possession, doubling the intense intimacy. Merlina was swamped with wave after wave of incredible sensation, taking her to the crest of climax and spilling her into it, over and over again.
Her arms and legs were suffused with a weird weakness. She couldn’t hold on. Jake slid an arm under her to keep her with him, keep the momentum going. It was awesome, fantastic, the constant chaotic roll to pinnacles of creamy pleasure. If this was just sex she didn’t care. She’d take this blissful ride with Jake wherever it went.
She couldn’t imagine anything more exciting, but there was. His body tension seemed to explode into a much faster pumping, and she knew his control had been stretched to the limit. Somehow the sense that he was losing it—in her—was wildly exhilarating, and when she felt the spasms of his release, a huge swell of satisfaction triggered a very primal possessiveness. Jake…hers…and her own inner muscles suddenly leapt into squeezing tightly, holding him there.
He carried her with him as he rolled onto his side, still maintaining their union with a gentle rocking, one of her legs lying between his, the other loosely hooked over his thigh. Breath whooshed out of his lungs and he scooped in more before moving his mouth over hers in sensual little kisses.
‘Tell me it was right for you,’ he murmured against her lips.
Right? The question rolled around her dazed mind. It didn’t matter any more whether it was right or not. ‘Yes,’ she said on a contented sigh. It was the truth, no problem at all for her to say it and if Jake wanted to hear it…right at this moment she wanted whatever Jake wanted.
He moved his head back onto the pillow and smiled at her, his dimples deepening, warm pleasure dancing in his eyes. ‘You see? You had to be with me, Merlina.’
‘Yes,’ she said, not even caring if this was only about winning for Jake.
‘Stay right here!’ He dropped a kiss on her forehead as he slowly disentangled himself. ‘Got to go to the bathroom. Where is it?’
‘First door along the hall.’
‘Be back in a minute.’
Getting rid of the condom. He’d kept his promise about protection. Even so, she would feel safer taking a contraceptive pill if they were to have an ongoing relationship.
The back view of Jake as he strode away was just as awesome as the rest of him—a perfectly proportioned male physique. Surely every woman he’d ever been with had wanted to hold on to him. She was no different. She could only hope she was different in Jake’s mind—a woman he wanted to hold on to.
He moved into the hall, out of sight. She heard the bathroom door being opened. A few moments later the sound of another door being opened made her wonder why he was checking out the guest bedroom.
‘Merlina?’
She jack-knifed up from the pillows, shock pumping through her heart.
That was not Jake’s voice calling out her name.
It was her father’s!
CHAPTER TEN
MERLINA bolted out of bed. She was stark naked. And so was Jake in the bathroom! Their clothes were on the living-room floor. Any second now her father would see them and…a string of loud Italian curses told her he had.
‘Merlina, get out here this minute!’ came the thunderous command.
‘Coming, Papa!’ she yelled back, frantically hoping Jake would hear and understand the warning to stay in the bathroom and let her handle her father.
Almost sick with panic, she raced to her clothes cupboard, grabbed her silk dressing-gown off its hanger and put it on as fast as she could. Her hairbrush was in one of the bags Jake had carried in so the best she could do was a finger-comb. It was impossible to make herself look respectable, anyway. Her father was probably still staring at the evidence that she wasn’t.
Why, oh, why hadn’t he rung the doorbell instead of appropriating the spare key and letting himself in? She would have had time to hide the discarded clothes, time to…but there was no time!
On the dubious principle that attack was the best form of defence, she fronted up to him in the living-room and asked, ‘What are you doing here, Papa?’
‘What am I doing here?’ he repeated incredulously. He threw his hands up in the air in his usual histrionic fashion. His thick, wavy, grey hair was tossed back. The black eyebrows rose, mocking the question. His hawkish nose sniffed the air in battle-readiness. His barrel chest was all puffed out and his teeth—very white against a face darkly weathered by working outside in the vineyard—gnashed before biting out the words again. ‘What am I doing here?’
He was starting to sound like a Greek chorus but Merlina knew this was venting in the Italian style, building up to the storm where hail stones would rain on her head.
‘You don’t usually drop in without warning,’ she slid in quickly.
‘How can I warn you when you do not answer your telephone?’ His dark eyes flashed furious accusation as he wildly gesticulated to punctuate every point he made. ‘Not on Saturday. Not on Sunday. Not today. And when we ring your workplace we are told you are not employed there any more. Told by a stranger. No news of this from our daughter.’
‘I would have got around to telling you,’ she excused, shrugging off the necessity for instant communication about everything—her family’s favourite pastime. ‘Why were you calling me? Is something wrong at home?’
‘And look where this precious independence of yours has got you!’ he lashed out with a sweeping gesture of disgust at the clothes on the floor.
Merlina unclenched her jaw, took a deep breath and persisted with her question. ‘What’s happened? What’s brought you here? Is Mamma okay?’
‘No, your mother is not okay,’ he retorted fiercely. ‘She is worried sick about you. All day she is saying, something bad has happened to Merlina. I feel it here.’ He slammed his hand over his heart, play-acting her mother’s distress. ‘I