Rescued by the Woodsman Read online

  I did, and his weight was suddenly bearing into mine as he began to ride me, his hips slamming into my ass, his dick filling me.

  “Are you ready to come?” he demanded.

  “Yes…please…yes.”

  “Then do it.”

  I came. Hard and brutal.

  But he didn’t stop until he made me come a second, then a third time.

  When he freed me from the restraints, I sagged against him.

  He picked me up and carried me to the bed.

  I turned toward him…but he didn’t lie down. He simply adjusted his clothes and turned away.

  I told myself not to take it personally. All we had was sex – the best sex I’d ever had, everything that had been missing with Aaron, for sure.

  At least for me.

  But Lukas…he was still holding back.

  I could feel it.

  18

  A whirlwind week later, I found myself tied spread eagle to a four-poster bed.

  It wasn’t even the most erotic thing he’d done to me this week.

  There was a tie for that. It was either the time he’d grabbed me and pulled me into the employee bathroom for a quickie, or the day he’d had me strip off my panties – again – then pushed a vibrating egg into my pussy before processing to set it to buzzing at various intervals through the day via a remote control he’d kept in his pocket.

  By contrast, being in a hotel with relative privacy almost seemed tame.

  Except he came toward me now carrying what he’d told me was a velvet whip.

  “Ready to cry wolf?” he said for what seemed to be the tenth time this week.

  “No.”

  He nodded and flicked his wrist.

  It sent the silken lashes of the whip flicking over me.

  One curled around my right nipple, and I gasped.

  The sensation was caught right between pain and pleasure, and I shuddered. If I could have withdrawn into the mattress at that point, I would have as my mind struggled to take in the mix of delight and torment.

  But he didn’t give me even a few seconds to process what he was doing before he did it again, then again.

  He lashed me across the breasts, the belly, the upper thighs.

  Then his gaze locked on the core of me. “Lukas, no–”

  The very tip smacked against my clitoris.

  It was a good thing he hadn’t told me not to come, because I wouldn’t have been able to stop it.

  A shriek peeled out of me and I thrashed on the bed, jerking at the restraints and begging.

  I had no idea what I was begging for.

  Lukas had a better idea, and I felt another velvet lick between my thighs, the ends of the whip coming in contact with the folds of my pussy. Exposed, bare, swollen, the sensitive parts of me felt like they’d been set on fire as he stropped me lightly.

  I was whimpering, desperate when he finally threw the whip aside and came to mount me. His hands went to my hips, and he knelt between my thighs. “You’re sensitive now. I bet you can’t tell if it feels good or not.”

  I shuddered. “I think it feels good. But it’s too much, Lukas.”

  “Then what do you say?” He bent over me, his blue eyes catching mine, holding them in challenge.

  A question popped into my mind.

  Why are you so determined to scare me away?

  If I could have reached up then, I would have caught him in my arms and held him.

  “I’m not saying anything,” I told him, determined.

  Something flared in his eyes, but whether it was shock or satisfaction, I had no idea.

  He drove into me, hard and deep, knocking the building scream right out of me with the force of the impact.

  As I struggled to catch my breath, he fucked me hard and deep, his blue gaze relentless, his passion merciless.

  And yet…

  Yet there was still a wall.

  I jerked against the restraints. “Let me go,” I demanded.

  “No.”

  “Yes!”

  It became a challenge of wills, his head bending to mine. “If you want me to let you go…cry wolf.”

  I bit him instead, turning my head and sinking my teeth into his neck.

  His body stiffened, and his cock swelled to near massive proportions. A growl rumbled out of him, and he battered me with his thrusts. The orgasm welled up, a leviathan that had slept inside me now rising to take me under. I cried out as it broke over me.

  And still, he drove into me.

  Teeth clenched, eyes locked on something I couldn’t fathom, Lukas took me.

  I came a second time, then a third before he finally found release.

  I was breathless and shaking, my limbs sore and aching.

  And still, I knew he was holding back.

  * * *

  He carried me into the shower nearly a half hour later.

  The tenderness of his hands on me was what undid me. I’d swear it to my dying day. I knew he wanted nothing more than sex, but some part of me was starting to believe he lied – to himself and me.

  When he stroked that rag over me, handling me like I was made of spun glass, I couldn’t help but wonder if he lied.

  That was what weakened the stone wall I’d built inside me.

  Nothing else would have done it.

  A hundred times, I bit the words back, but after he carried me back out to the bed and started to dry my hair, I couldn’t do it anymore.

  “I saw you in the shed,” I blurted out.

  He tensed, and the towel slid from my head.

  Lifting my gaze to his, I swallowed.

  His eyes had gone cold.

  For the past hour, they’d been lambent, almost warm. I thought I’d glimpsed emotion in that slate blue gaze.

  But maybe I’d been wrong.

  Now, swallowing, I struggled to find my footing.

  “I…um…”

  He fell back a step, his hand tightening on the towel.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I was looking for you, the day we left the mountain. I heard noise coming from the shed. And I…I saw you. You were hurting yourself.”

  Lukas turned away from me.

  The sight of his back, broad, beautiful and scarred, was like a fist in my gut. I rose from the bed, clutching the towel he’d wrapped around me.

  “We’re over, Stella,” he said quietly.

  But there was a controlled rage in his voice.

  The words hit me like a full body slap – the sting came with confusion. “What?” I whispered.

  He slanted a look at me, and I caught the coldness in his gaze then. “You heard me. We’re over.”

  He walked away then, and I stared at his back as he proceeded to dress, quick, economical motions that made short work of the everyday task.

  “Lukas, wait,” I said, gripping the towel in my fist. “I…look, I wasn’t asking for answers or anything–”

  “Shut up, Stella,” he said icily.

  It was so brutally delivered, I felt like I had no choice but to do just that.

  I shut up.

  Numb shock gripped me for almost an hour after he left.

  I sat there, wrapped in the same towel I had grabbed when he stormed out, watching the door in the hopes that he’d come back.

  But it didn’t happen, and I knew it wouldn’t.

  That didn’t keep me from freezing my ass off, unable to move. Finally, my hair tangled and dried in twisted ropes down my back, I dragged myself upright and looked around. He’d left his stuff here. His watch, his jacket. Hell, even his wallet…

  His wallet.

  Seizing on that opportunity, I lunged for it, the towel dislodged by my sudden movement. It fell to the floor, but I didn’t bother to pick it up. I grabbed the wallet and opened it.

  His driver’s license was in the neat front compartment, and I stared at the address, feeling like I’d been given a second chance.

  I could go after him, find him. Apologize. Hell, I’d camp out on hi
s front step for the duration if I had to. Even if he still wanted to end things, I at least needed to tell him I was sorry.

  I never should have said anything.

  He had made it clear he didn’t want things going into emotional or personal territory, and I’d known what I’d seen in the shed was something deeply personal.

  I dressed hurriedly and went into the bathroom, intending to make only a cursory attempt at straightening my hair but changed my mind. I knew the importance of making an impression, and the last thing I wanted Lukas to think was that I was so desperate that I’d come running after him.

  Even if it was close to the truth.

  I took my time straightening my hair, even dampening it and using my round brush and the hotel blow dryer to smooth out the tangles. It took longer than I liked, almost fifteen minutes, but I used that time to smooth out the tangles inside me as well.

  It wasn’t good that I felt so deeply enmeshed in this – in him.

  Maybe it was a good thing this had happened, I told myself. It was fortuitous, perhaps, a way of keeping me from getting in over my head.

  That had been coming for quite some time, if I was honest.

  It had started the moment I let him talk me into taking off my panties in the office.

  If he asked me to go braless under a silk top, I just might consider it.

  And that was insane.

  He was like poison, like candy, like a drug, all wrapped up into one, and I was addicted already.

  Maybe it was good that he’d ended things.

  But I didn’t want them ending like this.

  * * *

  The area where he lived was clearly set aside for the well-to-do.

  Even if I hadn’t come from money, I’d know what I was looking at – the insanely, ridiculously rich. Just like my parents.

  But from everything I’d read about Lukas, he’d earned his money the old-fashioned way.

  He’d worked for it, making big business gambles that any sane investor would have ran away from – possibly screaming. He’d taken those risks and come out on the other side, smelling like a rose.

  Maybe it was because it all bored him.

  I could see it in his eyes during the group meetings he held with the company.

  Maybe the risk was the rush, the reason he did it.

  “Maybe you’re stalling,” I muttered.

  Maybe I was. No. There was no maybe about it. I’d been sitting at the foot of the drive for nearly ten minutes, and that was after breaking nearly every traffic law known to man – or at least to me – to get here.

  Heaving out a sigh, I threw the car into drive and started forward.

  The drive wound through the grounds, treating the visitor to a view of the house that was nothing short of mind-boggling. It was done in a way that made me think the designer of both house and land had wanted to disturb the lush natural beauty as little as possible. It wasn’t about showing off. I couldn’t describe it, but the five-minute drive to get to the house made me appreciate the beauty of the land all that much more.

  And the house – wow.

  Tumbled timbers, panes of glass, natural stone. My heart ached a little seeing it.

  It ached even more when I saw the car parked in front – a familiar car.

  Lukas’s.

  He was here.

  Drawing in a rough breath, I parked close to him, although it was just as close to the door as it was to him. That was what I told myself.

  As I climbed out, I grew aware of how sweaty my palms were, how quickly my heart beat. I couldn’t do much about my heart. I had never learned to meditate. It was something I might need to pick up if I expected to keep working around Lukas.

  But I swiped my palms down the sides of the narrow-fitting skirt I wore. That took care of the damp palms, and I felt a little more prepared to face him.

  “You’ll probably get a butler with a stiff upper lip,” I said, thinking of Eustace – George Eustace, to be precise – back home. He had been the family butler since I was five, and he’d taken over from his father. Also George Eustace. Our Eustace was the fifth in the line. The Eustaces had been with our family since the third Eustace.

  While my family wasn’t the kind to do so, there were those who’d refer to Lukas as new money, so he wasn’t likely to have a Eustace V, and somehow, I couldn’t see the man who’d served my family for so long being with a man like Lukas.

  There would be somebody though. Maybe not a butler, I didn’t know.

  But Lukas would have people who tended to this house.

  As I started up the walk, I found myself hoping it was a daytime staff. I didn’t want to have to deal with a stern butler – or an even more stern housekeeper.

  Grimacing, I looked down at myself, checked to make sure there weren’t wrinkles in my dress. Some sins, after all, were unforgivable. According to my mother, at least.

  Deciding it was better to hope for the best, I started for the door. My hopes were dashed when a gorgeous woman answered, dressed in severe black, her sharp eyes homing in on me. “Yes?”

  “I…um…” My mind blanked out on me. I didn’t know what to say, and the words that blurted out of me would have horrified my mother – and Eustace. “I’m looking for Lukas. Who are you?”

  She cocked her head at me. “I’m Gracie. His wife.”

  19

  His wife.

  “Excuse me?” I said, the words coming out of me weak and thin.

  “I’m Gracie.” She smiled a friendly, polite smile. “Lukas is my husband.” She hesitated a moment, then asked, “Are you a friend of his? Should I get him?”

  My mouth dropped open at her words.

  Here I was, dressed in a red silk blouse, a narrow skirt and a pair of fuck me heels, and she was offering to get her husband.

  Suddenly, I understood what an oh, honey moment was.

  I wanted to start sobbing out an apology, but when I spoke, the words that came flying out were anything but an apology.

  After all, I wasn’t the one who’d made vows.

  That was her fucking husband.

  “Your husband is a lying, cheating bastard, Gracie.” That said, I turned on the heel of one of the fuck me heels I’d bought with Lukas in mind and stormed back to my car.

  She called out behind me, but I ignored her.

  I had to get out of here before I started to scream.

  She’d asked if I was a friend of his.

  And what pissed me off was the fact that I couldn’t even say yes.

  * * *

  There was something to be said about long, monotonous drives in cool, clear mountain air.

  They proved to be very eye-opening.

  I’d had some reservations about moving to Denver from the beginning. After the plane crash, they’d gotten stronger, but I’d never been one to quit just because things seemed hard. Then there was the mess between Aaron and Terri. Well, at that point, it would have felt like quitting, but maybe I should have just been okay with quitting.

  Mom and Dad had told me they wanted me to get experience elsewhere before I went into the family business, and I understood the sense behind that, although I sometimes thought it was more that they’d rather I had my first major fuck-ups elsewhere than with the family non-profit.

  But I’d actually had job offers while I was still in school. Maybe it was time to look into one of those. I didn’t need Aaron or my family name to get me a job. I could do it – had done it – on my own.

  And one thing was clear…I was done with Denver.

  I should have left after the plane crash, and if not then, after finding Aaron and Terri practically in the act.

  But I was a glutton for punishment.

  By the time I pulled up in front of the small condo complex where Breanna lived, I’d made my decision.

  I was quitting the firm. I’d wrapped up the project for the non-profit. What few odds and ends needed to be dealt with, Breanna could handle. She had more experience than I did an
yway. I’d write up my resignation and send it off…fuck two weeks notice.

  Something of what I was feeling must have shown on my face because Breanna took one look at me and the spoon full of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream froze halfway between the carton and her mouth. “What is it?” she asked warily.

  “Men,” I said, my voice full of venom. “They suck.”

  Without bothering to elaborate, I continued onto my bedroom and sat down on the bed with my laptop.

  I wasn’t surprised when Breanna appeared in the doorway. She lazily ate another spoon of ice cream as she watched me, swallowing before she asked, “Is this about Aaron?”

  “No.” I shot her a look and debated less than fifteen seconds before I answered, “Lukas.”

  Her brows shot up into her hairline, and once more, the spoon froze. It was empty this time, and to my surprise, she ended up putting it into the carton and leaving it there as she came closer. “You and Lukas?” she whispered. She pumped a fist in the air. “I knew there was something going on between you two! I could smell it. The chemistry…the pheromones…” She fanned a hand in front of her face, then went back to her ice cream. “So. What did he do?”

  I bared my teeth at her. “He forgot to mention he was married?”

  This time, the spoon didn’t freeze. She did, and her hands must have gone numb, because the ice cream and spoon slid right out of her hands and hit the floor.

  She didn’t even notice. After a few seconds, she blinked and rubbed her eyes. “What did you say?”

  Instead of answering, I pointed to the floor. “You’re wasting good calories.”

  She scowled and scooped up the pint carton and spoon, turning around and hurrying into the kitchen.

  While she was gone, I launched the word processing program on my computer and started typing up my resignation letter. She was back before I finished and done with cleaning up the small mess the ice cream had made. As she sat down next to me, I tried to ignore the press of guilt. I didn’t really want to leave one of the few friends I’d made.

  But those few friends weren’t worth the misery that had come along with this job.

  The plane wreck.

  Finding out my boyfriend was cheating on me.