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Claim Me: The Stark Series #2 - Softcover

Buch 2 von 8: Stark Trilogy

Kenner, J.

 
9780345545831: Claim Me: The Stark Series #2
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0345545834 ISBN 13: 9780345545831
Verlag: Random House Publishing Group, 2013

Inhaltsangabe

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The second book in the sexy, emotionally charged Stark trilogy—a romance between a powerful man who’s never heard “no” and a fiery woman who says “yes” on her own terms

He owns my body. Owns my heart.

Yet he can only promise me one night at a time. 
 
Haunted by a past that was buried long ago, Damien Stark says he has nothing left to give. But when shadowy old secrets come to light, I’ll learn just how much he actually has left to lose.
 
I may be the only one who can save him. The only one who wants to. But leaving him behind was never an option.
 
I need him to be fully mine. Want us to possess each other beyond the sweetest edge of our ecstasy, into the deepest desires of our souls. To let the fire that burns between us consume us both.
 
Damien Stark has lived a tortured existence, but I’ve got secrets too. And soon our troubled pasts will either bind us close . . . or shatter us completely.

Don’t miss any of the Stark Saga, intended for mature audiences.
Begin your journey with RELEASE ME, CLAIM ME, & COMPLETE ME

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

J. Kenner is the author of Release Me. She spent more than ten years as a litigator in Southern California and central Texas, using her rare free time to indulge in her passion of writing. She lives in Texas with her husband and daughters, where she is at work on her next novel, Complete Me.

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1

“Almost done?” I ask. “The sun’s been down for at least five minutes.”

Several yards away, Blaine tilts sideways, partially emerging from behind the canvas. I don’t move, but in my peripheral vision, I can see his shoulders, bald head, and shocking red goatee. “In my mind, you’re still bathed in light. Now stand still and be quiet.”

“No problem,” I say, and hear his growl of irritation at my blatant flaunting of his rules.

Despite the fact that I am standing naked in a doorway, our exchange seems perfectly normal. I am used to this now. Used to the way the chilled ocean breeze causes my nipples to peak. The way the sunset stirs something so deep and passionate in me that I long to close my eyes and abandon myself to the violent tapestry of light and color.

I’ve become blasé about the way Blaine’s eye sweeps critically over me, and I no longer flinch when he leans in so close that he almost brushes my breast or my hip as he adjusts my stance to the proper angle. Even his murmurings of, “Perfect. Shit, Nikki, you look perfect,” no longer make my stomach tighten, and I’ve stopped imagining my hands closing into tight fists in protest, my nails digging into the soft skin of my palms. I am not perfect—not by a long shot. But it no longer makes me crazy to hear those simple words.

Never in my wildest dreams had I imagined that I could feel so at ease despite being so fully on display. True, I’d spent most of my life parading around on a stage, but during my pageant days I was always clothed, and even during the bathing suit competitions, my girl parts were modestly covered. I can imagine my mother’s mortification if she saw me now, chin lifted, back arched, a red silk cord binding my wrists behind me and then trailing between my legs to twine gently around one thigh.

I have not seen Blaine’s canvas for days, but I know his style and I can imagine how I look captured in pigment and brushstrokes. Ephemeral. Sensual. Submissive.

A goddess bound.

No doubt about it—my mother would have a cow. I, however, am enjoying it. Hell, maybe that’s why I’m enjoying it. I’ve shaken off Proper Princess Nikki for Rebel Nikki, and it feels pretty damn good.

I hear footsteps on the stairs, and I force myself to remain in my pose even though I want nothing more than to turn and look at him. Damien.

Damien Stark is the one thing about which I’ve not become complacent.

“The offer stands.” Damien’s words drift up the marble stairs to the third floor. He hasn’t raised his voice, and yet it is supported by such strength and confidence that it fills the room. “Tell them to take a good long look at their P and Ls. There isn’t going to be any profit, and by the end of the year, there won’t even be a company. They’re in free fall, and when they crash and burn, every one of their employees will be out of work, the company dead, the patents tied up in litigation for years as creditors fight about the assets. They take this deal, and I’ll breathe life back in. You know it. I know it. They know it.”

The footsteps stop, and I realize he is now standing at the top of the stairs. The room is open, designed for entertaining, and normally someone climbing the stairs would be treated to a view of the Pacific Ocean spread wide across the far side of the room.

Right now, what Damien sees is me.

“Make it happen, Charles,” he says, his voice now tight. “I have to go.”

I have come to know this man so well. His body. His gait. His voice. And I don’t need to see him to know that the tension in his tone isn’t tied to the thrill of chasing a business deal. It’s about me, and that simple fact is as intoxicating as champagne on an empty stomach. An entire empire needing his attention, and yet in that moment, I am his whole world. I am flattered. I am giddy. And, yeah, I am turned on.

I’m also smiling, which draws a sharp censure from Blaine. “Dammit, Nik. Get rid of the grin.”

“My face doesn’t even show in the painting.”

“I can tell,” Blaine says. “So stop it.”

He’s teasing me now. “Yes, sir,” I say, and then almost laugh when Damien coughs, obviously hiding a chuckle of his own. The “sir” is our secret, our game that we play. A game that will officially end tonight, now that Blaine is putting the final touches on the painting that Damien has commissioned. The thought is a melancholy one.

True, I’ll be happy not to have to stand stock-still anymore. Even the thrill of flipping the imaginary bird to my mother’s overbearing sense of propriety pales in comparison to the way my legs cramp at the end of these sessions. But I will miss the rest of it, especially the feel of Damien’s eyes on me. His slow, heated inspections that make me damp between my thighs and force me to concentrate so hard on remaining still that it becomes sweetly painful.

And, yes, I will miss our game. But I want more than a game with Damien, and I can’t help the eagerness with which I face tomorrow and the knowledge that it will simply be Damien and Nikki with nothing between us. And as for any lingering secrets . . . well, with time, those will be brushed away, too.

Hard now to believe that I’d originally been shocked by Damien’s offer: one million dollars in exchange for my body. For my image, permanently on display on a larger-than-life canvas; and for the rest of me at his command, whenever and however he wanted.

My shock had been replaced by blatant pragmatism laced with equal parts of ardor and outrage. I’d wanted Damien as much as he’d wanted me, but at the same time I’d wanted to punish him. Because I was certain that he saw only the beauty queen, and that when he got a peek at the damaged woman beneath the polished veneer he’d reel from the affront to his expectations as much as from the lightening of his wallet.

I’ve never been so happy to be wrong.

Our deal had been for a week, but that week turned into two as Blaine buzzed around his canvas, the wooden tip of his brush tapping against his chin as he squinted and frowned and mumbled to himself about wanting just a little more time. About wanting to get everything—that word again—perfect.

Damien had agreed easily—after all, he’d hired Blaine because of his growing reputation as a local artist, and his skill in handling erotically charged nudes was undeniable. If Blaine wanted more time, Damien was happy to accommodate him.

I didn’t complain for less pragmatic reasons. I simply wanted these days and nights with Damien to last. Like my image on the painting, I was coming alive.

I’d moved to Los Angeles only a few weeks ago, intent on conquering the business world at the ripe old age of twenty-four. The thought that a man like Damien Stark would want me, much less my portrait, was the furthest thing from my mind. But there’d been no denying the heat that had burned between us from the moment I saw him at one of Blaine’s art shows. He’d pursued me relentlessly, and I’d tried my damnedest to resist, because I knew that what he wanted was something that I wasn’t willing to give.

I wasn’t a virgin, but neither was I widely experienced. Sex is not something that someone with my history—with my scars—rushes into. I’d been burned by a boy I’d trusted, and my emotions were still as ragged as the scars that marred my flesh.

Damien, however, doesn’t see those...

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Verlag
Random House Publishing Group
Erscheinungsdatum
2013
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0345545834
ISBN 13 
9780345545831
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
384
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