Knowing that one of the men Kimberly should be able to trust was no more than a Judas sent by her father was more than he could stomach. The Senator was beginning to piss him off in ways that Jared knew wasn’t healthy for either of them.

Kimberly should have never been a pawn in whatever fanatical vision her ancestor had. The Trust was bad enough, holding over her head the preservation of an estate that should have rightfully been hers without such extreme conditions. But to know that her father, the man who should have cared more for her happiness and welfare, cared only about the preservation of her chastity, that should be criminal.

Kimberly hadn’t been born to restrain the natural sensuality that burned within her body. It was like a flame, white-hot and intense, threatening to burn the man lucky enough to tap into it. As Jared had. His body tightened at the knowledge that he had released a passion inside her that he knew even she had been unaware existed.

His ears still rang with her screams, her pleas for release. The scent of her arousal had been like the dew, fresh and wild, sweet and clean. Her body had been like a flame, undulating beneath his lips and tongue, spilling the sweet essence of her need to his greedy lips. He’d be damned if he’d let her pay for the pleasure she had found in his arms.

He moved silently through the house, his eyes narrowed as he entered the hall in time to see his office door closing silently. Within seconds, he had opened the door, pushing it forcefully into the bastard on the other side before stepping in and grabbing the bodyguard by the back of the neck and shaking him like a recalcitrant pup.

For a bodyguard, the bastard was a simpleton. Jared had seen more experience in street thugs than he saw in the moron he threw away from him.

“Hey… Dammit, what’s your problem?” Tim Adams turned on him, his body moving into an attack position before he saw Jared.

Jared smiled in anticipation. He could see the other man’s desire to jump, to attack. It quivered in the muscles of his body, glittered in his hazel eyes and flushed his pale face with an unattractive ruddy color.

“Go for it,” he said simply, his body relaxed, ready for any move the other man would make. “I dare you.”

Adams tensed, then evidently thought before attacking the man he had been sent to guard.

“This is my office,” Jared said simply, warningly as the other man stood down. “You don’t have any business here.”

Adams’ lips firmed as his gaze went around the room before pausing at the couch. There was no mistaking the dampness that still lingered on the center cushion, proof of Kimberly’s passion and her need.

Jared watched as fury built within the younger man, his body shaking with it.

“Sorry,” he finally snapped with no sign of apology. “Wrong turn.”

He moved to pass Jared and escape.

“I don’t think so, junior.” Jared caught Adams in a neck hold that had him gasping for breath, his body tensing in surprise.

“I think you know just how easy it would be for me to snap your neck right now,” Jared kept his tone pleasant despite the fury pouring through him. “Someone as well trained as yourself, Adams, should know better than to ever turn your back on your enemy. And trust me, you just made an enemy,” he growled at the other man’s ear. “Now you listen here, and you listen good. Kimberly is none of your business. Period. And don’t think you can report this to the Senator and get away with it. Won’t happen, son, I’ll hear about it. And when I do, I’ll kill you. You understand me?”

Adams choked with fury, the harsh sounds of his anger and his fight to breathe filled the room for long seconds before Jared loosened his hold enough to allow him to take a breath.

“You understand me, Adams?” he repeated the question, keeping his voice soft, deadly.

“He’ll find out,” Adams gasped. “She won’t get away with it.”

Jared smiled tightly. “As long as she remains a virgin, she can get away with whatever the hell she wants to, right?” He tightened his hold as Adams struggled vainly for release. “Answer me, boy, before I break your neck now.”

“Yes,” Adams hissed.

“Exactly.” Jared loosed the grip on his neck further. “But whether she does or not, you’re not going to be spreading any tales are you, pissant? You want to know why? Because you know who I am. You know what I can do. And you know I will kill you. Don’t you, Adams?”

“Yes.” Raw helpless rage echoed in the voice.

“Good boy,” Jared commended him mockingly. “Now, you make sure you remember this little lesson, because I would sure hate to have to spill blood in my house. My housekeeper gets real testy when she has to clean up the mess. We wouldn’t want that, would we?”

Jared released him slowly, watching with narrowed eyes as Adams tore out away from him. The smaller man turned back, his eyes flashing with anger.

“Do you think the Senator doesn’t know what she is?” Adams snarled. “Do you think he won’t have her checked first thing after this assignment?”

Jared stilled the need to kill the other man. Hiding the body would be a pure pain anyway.

“Won’t matter,” he finally said, his voice chillingly cold. “She’ll be a virgin. He won’t win and neither will you. I’ll make certain of it. Now get the hell out of my office before I lose my control and show you just how far you’re pushing me right now.”

He evidently didn’t have to give a second warning. Adams shot out of the room, the curse that fell from his lips echoing in the room behind him.

“Get fucked.”

Jared sighed wearily. If only…

Chapter Eleven

Kimberly admitted she had little experience with the male of the species. And she had even less experience with this relationship deal that Jared seemed to want. She felt unprepared for him, inadequate in the face of the experience she was beginning to suspect he had.

She had merely played at The Club. A visit every three months, a quick tumble across whatever table was handy and off she would go. There had been no emotional attachment, no sentiment. And she hadn’t wanted any, couldn’t afford any.

But she was learning that Jared intended to play the game by a whole other set of rules. The truly frightening part was the fact that rather than feeling intimidated or threatened by the intimacies he had warned her were coming, she was instead, excited, nervous, balanced on a laser point of uncertainty and exhilaration that should have been terrifying.

As she stepped from the shower later that evening and toweled off slowly, Kimberly admitted she was in deep trouble where Jared was concerned. But she had known for months now that he represented a danger to the goals she had kept firmly in mind for the past six years.

She had only five years left to go. Remain a virgin for five more years and she would win. She would do what no other woman in her mother’s family had been able to in five generations. She would laugh in the face of the edicts that had governed her life since adulthood and in her father’s face in particular.

Five more years.

She sighed deeply as she smoothed lotion over her body, paying particular attention to the waxed folds of her cunt and her firm breasts. Her nipples were peaked and hard, her flesh sensitized as she remembered Jared’s touch.

A small smile tipped her lips as she shook her head, drawing her hands firmly away from her body and picking up the blow dryer. The unruly mass of long, red gold curls took forever to dry. But she loved the sensuous feeling of it as it slid over her bare back and curled around her shoulders. She felt feminine, desirable. And when Jared’s fingers threaded through it, flexing and tugging at the long strands, sending shards of pleasure and intense sensuality erupting along her nerve endings like wildfire, it increased the wanton sensations.

He was a creature of sexuality, of pleasure. A grin tugged her lips at the thought. Jared would understand why it felt good to lay naked in the sun, or to swim nude in the ocean. He might not do it, man that he was, but he would understand her need to do it.

A frown tipped her brow at that thought. Why should she care if he understood? He wouldn’t be a part of her life; she couldn’t allow him to be a part of her life. Five years could be an eternity if she let her emotions for Jared get out of hand. Or it could slide by without a ripple if she kept her heart free.

She had a feeling though, her heart was already involved.

She flipped off the dryer and laid it carefully on the sink as she closed her eyes, drawing in deep, controlled breaths. Just the thought of him made her more aware of her own body and the satisfaction she was denying it.

She had accepted years ago that she would be tormented by the same desires that her father claimed were demons inside her mother. An intense sexuality, a need to be touched, a need to feel more than just a tame caress from her lover.

She wanted to be spanked. She loved having her ass opened, feeling a cock boring deep inside that forbidden entrance. Having her nipples roughened, her hands restrained. And the thought of experiencing those acts with Jared sent moisture weeping desperately from her vagina.

“Now there’s a look that could bring a grown man to his knees.”

Kimberly breathed in roughly as she jerked around, staring back at Jared as her blood began to race through her veins, her heart pounding in double-time to the throb in her clit.

“You don’t believe in knocking?” she asked him, wondering at the husky pitch of her own voice.

He leaned against the doorframe, crossing his arms over his chest, and watched her intently as she pulled the blue silk robe from the hook beside the sink and shrugged into it.

“It’s my house,” he excused himself with an amused smirk as she belted the robe.

“Lord of the manor, huh?” she asked him with a smile, her gaze going over his tall body, and feeling the helpless femininity he never failed to inspire in her.

“If I can get by with it.” His eyes gleamed with laughter as the sensual curve of his lips deepened.

She shook her head, feeling something inside her loosen and lighten with his laughter.

“You’re too arrogant for your own good,” she warned him then. “One of these days, someone is going to knock you down a peg or two, Jared.”

He grunted at that, a sound of disbelief and superior male self-assurance all in one.

“You can try if you want, baby,” he told her, the smug smile firmly in place as his gaze went over her body. “The struggle could get interesting.”

Kimberly licked her lips as she fought the nervousness determined to attack her system. Nerves or uncontrolled arousal, at this point she wasn’t certain which it was, the only thing she knew for certain was her inability to fight the attraction building between them.

“Think you’ll win, do you?” she asked as she approached him slowly, watching his eyes narrow, darken with lust.

“Definitely.” His voice was laced with such arrogance she didn’t know if she wanted to grit her teeth in irritation or laugh at the subtle challenge she knew he was deliberately laying in front of her.

“And what is it you’re playing for?” She stopped directly in front of him, staring up at him, determined to stay as cool and amused as he appeared.

She could feel the subtle undercurrents though, the tension rising between them as her breasts became more sensitive, her nipples harder. She could feel him, his very presence, sinking into her. It was a strange, oddly comforting feeling, and all the more terrifying for it.

His lips tilted self-mockingly as his eyes gleamed with rueful laughter.

“Whatever the hell I can get,” he growled as he reached out for her, his expression changing abruptly from amused arousal to hard, driving lust.

Before she could do more than gasp his name, he was pulling her through the connecting door and into his bedroom. She had a quick impression of heavy, dark wood furniture, reflected in the dim light from the bedside table before he picked her up and tossed her on the thick mattress of the bed.