Page 121 of Bitter Secrets

Aloud bang woke Jasmine from a sound sleep. She jolted and then growled into the bedsheets. If that was a maid, she was going to… She registered the sound of heavy, deliberate footsteps making their way through the suite. Not a maid. It was the motherfucker who kept dragging her all over the globe without giving her time to acclimate or settle into a routine.

Three countries in five days. Even her father had never set such a brutal pace. She was so jet-lagged, she could barely function. The excitement of traveling to new places was starting to wear thin. This wasn’t about exploration and leisure; it was strictly business. Roth didn’t keep regular hours, often waking her in the middle of the night to hustle her to the jet and hop through multiple time zones. How he could function on such a hectic schedule with so little sleep, she would never know.

The first time they were together, she noticed he didn’t sleep much, but that wasn’t out of the ordinary for a businessman just getting his start. But even all these years later, nothing had changed. He seemed incapable of sleeping more than three hours at a stretch. Roth showed no signs of discomfort or fatigue, and neither did his employees. She did the least and was showing the most wear and tear. It was bad for her self-esteem and brought home how ill-equipped she was for this lifestyle. She knew what busy was. She had grown up watching Maximus’s insane work ethic that her sisters emulated. Rami and Lyle were no slouches either. She grew up around overachievers, but Roth was something else.

No matter how much she slept, she still felt like shit. The short days and long, winter nights weren’t helping. Although tasting foods from different regions was a perk, she was starting to unravel. She needed an anchor, a small shred of normal to keep her grounded. Unfortunately, Roth was the least likely person to inspire feelings of comfort and home.

Another slam had her flipping onto her back and glaring at the bane of her existence, who kicked the door in with such force that it hit the wall and shuddered. She opened her mouth to ask him what his problem was, but the way he yanked at his tie and tossed it to the floor made her freeze. He stared at her as he impatiently, savagely ripped at his clothes and tossed them carelessly to the ground, as if they had somehow offended him. What the hell?

When he was naked, he stepped up to the foot of the bed. Belatedly, she realized she should have made her escape during his temperamental disrobing, but shock and confusion made her slow and stupid. He grabbed her ankles and yanked her toward him, bunching her nightgown around her waist. Even as she tried to figure out what in the ever-loving fuck was going on, he parted her legs, placed his knee on the bed, and gripped his cock.

He wasn’t going to…

He fucking was.

She used her elbows to scoot up the bed a precious few inches, just enough to avoid being penetrated. He gave her a seething glare and tried to tug her back into position, but was distracted by the foot she placed on his chest to keep him at bay.

“What the hell are you doing?” she snapped.

“What the fuck does it look like?”

“I’m not one of your whores! You can’t just come in here and fuck me like I’m—”

When he bent his head, clearly ready to eat her out, she placed her second foot on his chest.

“No.”

Hot eyes bored into hers. “I’m through waiting for you.”

She didn’t play dumb. It would have been pointless to. Ever since that mile-high fuck, he had been doing his damndest to keep her in a constant state of arousal, to force her to take the same initiative that she had in her sleep. So far, she managed to hold out, but just barely.

Several nights ago, she had awoken to find her cheek on his thigh and her hand fisted around his cock. He has been sitting up in bed, light on, laptop on the side table as he waited to see what she would do next. The fact that she was acting out in sleep was horrifying. To her knowledge, she hadn’t done this with anyone else, so why him? Roth encouraged her bad behavior by wearing nothing to bed.

This morning, she woke with his hand on her mound. Half asleep and a little horny, she had placed his fingers where she wanted them and was immediately rewarded when they got to work. By the time she’d realized it wasn’t a hallucination and actually happening, her self-control was in tatters. The strength it had taken to roll away and ignore the alluring scent of his musk left her shaking. Roth didn’t feel the need to deny himself. She was forced to listen to the sound of him beating off before he wrapped himself around her. He’d whispered filthy things in her ear as he lifted her thigh and rubbed his cock over her slit, pushing her to the brink. She’d bitten her pillow to stop herself from begging him to take her. Thankfully, he broke before she surrendered.

“You haven’t been denying yourself,” she pointed out.

He gripped her calf before sliding the back of his hand behind her knee and lower before she kicked, forcing him back, so he stood at the foot of the bed.

“It’s not the same.” His eyes focused on the space between her legs as he began to stroke himself. “What do you need?”

She ignored the flush that spread across her chest and traveled up her neck. “You said you wouldn’t take me unless I begged.”

“I underestimated your stubbornness,” he growled as he climbed onto the bed.

When she started to scoot back, his hand flashed out. He gripped her thigh hard enough to immobilize her as he prowled over her.

“I thought you had more self-control than this,” she mocked as he pinned one of her thighs wide.

“I have you for a year. I’m not going to waste a day on self-control.”

She braced her hands on his chest as he pressed himself against her. “I’m not ready!”

“You didn’t want my mouth on you. We’ll let your body prepare itself.”

“What are you—?”

She sucked in a breath as he pushed, stretching her until he couldn’t go any deeper before retreating. He painstakingly worked himself inside her. Her body, out of self-defense, secreted, easing his passage. When he was halfway in, he braced himself on his elbows and arduously rocked until he was sheathed to the hilt.

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