“Feeling better?” A trace of knowing mockery, a deep, sensually husky voice whispered the words.

Tess flushed at Cole’s voice. Damn him.

“I haven’t been sick,” she bit out, her eyes closing as her vagina pulsed. She smoothed her fingers over her clit, feeling the increased stimulation there. Damn, she could get off with just his voice.

“No, just trying to get off,” he said lazily. “I would help. All you have to do is ask.”

Ask, ask, her inner voice begged.

“In your dreams.” She winced as the words burst from her mouth. Damn him, he put her on the defensive faster than anyone she knew.

“It would appear in yours as well,” he said, his mockery suddenly gone. “I know how you sound when you’re aroused, Tess. Don’t try to lie to me. Let me hear you. Touch yourself for me.”

Tess felt her breath strangle in her throat.

“You’re a pervert, Cole.” She fought for her own control at the sound of that sexy voice. “Isn’t phone sex illegal?”

“I’m sure most of what I want to do with you could be termed illegal,” he chuckled. “Let’s talk about it, Tess. Come on, tell me what you were doing to yourself. Are you using your fingers or a vibrator?”

“I do not have a vibrator.” She clenched her teeth over the lie.

“Dildo?” he whispered the words heatedly. “Are you fucking yourself, Tess? Thinking about me, how much I want you?”

“No!” She clenched the receiver in her hand, shaking her head despite the fact that her fingers had returned to her suddenly pulsing cunt.

“I’d like to see you in my bed, Tess, your legs spread, your hands touching your pretty cunt, fucking yourself. Did I ever tell you I bought that dildo I promised you? It’s nice and thick, Tess. Almost as large as my cock. I want to watch you use it. See you fuck yourself with it.”

“God, Cole,” she gasped. “We’re on the phone. This is indecent.” But her fingers were sinking into her cunt.

“What were you doing before I called, Tess?” His voice was dark, hot. “I know you were touching yourself. I know the sound of your voice when you’re ready to come, and you’re ready to come, baby.”

“No—” She tried to deny the obvious truth, but she couldn’t keep her breath from catching as her fingers grazed her clit once again.

“Son of a bitch, Tess,” he growled. “Are you close, baby?” His voice deepened. “If I were there, I’d make you scream for it. I’d fuck you so deep and hard you wouldn’t be able to stop it. You’d cum for me, Tess. Come for me now, baby. Let me hear you.”

His voice was so deep, so sensual and aroused it caused her womb to contract almost painfully. Her body bowed, her breath catching on a near sob. He brought all her darkest desires, her deepest fantasies to the forefront of her mind. It terrified her.

“Cole,” she whispered his name, wanting to deny him, but her fingers weren’t listening as they stroked her clit, sank into her vagina, then moved back to repeat the action.

She was so hot she could barely stand it. So horny she was on the verge of screaming for relief.

“I’m stroking my cock, Tess, listening to you lay there, imagining you touching your juicy cunt, wishing I were with you, watching you fuck yourself with the dildo I bought you.” His words caused her to gasp, her womb to contract painfully, her hips to surge into her plunging fingers.

“No.” She tossed her head. She couldn’t do this.

“Damn, Tess, I want to fuck you,” he growled, his voice rough. “I want to be buried so deep and hard inside you you’ll never forget it or deny me again. Come for me, damn you. At least let me hear what I can’t have. Fuck yourself Tess, give this to me. Those aren’t your fingers buried in your pussy, it’s my cock. Mine, and I’m going to fuck you until you scream.”

Tess’s orgasm ripped through her. She shuddered, whimpered, her body tightening to the point of pain before she felt her vagina explode.

“Oh God, Cole,” she cried his name, then heard his hard exclamation of pleasure, knew he was coming, knew her climax had triggered his own as well.

“Tess,” he groaned. “Damn you, when I get hold of you I’ll fuck you until you can’t walk.”

Tess trembled at the erotic promise in his voice, the dark sensuality that terrified her, made her want to give him whatever he wanted.

“No,” she whispered, fighting for breath, fighting for sanity. “I asked you to stay away.”

She wanted to whimper, she wanted to beg.

There was silence over the line.

“Stay away?” he asked her carefully. “I don’t think so, baby. I’ve stayed away too long as it is. You’re mine Tess, and I’m going to prove it to you. All mine. In every way mine, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let you deny it any longer.”

CHAPTER THREE

Her mother was waiting on her when she came down the stairs, her suitcase in hand. Ella Delacourte was a small, spare woman, with dark brown hair and sharp hazel eyes. There were few things she missed, and even less that she was tolerant of.

“So you’re still going,” she snapped out as she eyed the suitcase Tess set by the front door. “I thought you would have more pride than that, Tess.”

Tess pressed her lips together as she fought to keep her sarcastic reply in check.

“This has nothing to do with pride, Mother,” she told her quietly. “He’s still my father.”

“The same father who destroyed your family. Who ensured you lost the home you were raised in,” Ella reminded her bitterly. “The same father that married the whore who meant more to him than you did.”

Tess’s chest clenched with pain, and with anger. She wasn’t a child anymore, and there were times when she could clearly see why her father had been unable to get along with her mother. Ella saw only one view, and that was hers.

“He took care of us, Mother,” she pointed out. “Even after the divorce.”

“As though he had a choice.” Ella crossed her arms over her breasts as she stared at Tess in anger.

“Yes, Mother, he had a choice after I reached eighteen,” Tess reminded her bleakly. “But I believe he still sends you money and provides whatever you need, just as he does me. He doesn’t have to do this.”

“Conscience money,” Ella spat out, her pretty face twisting into lines of anger and bitter fury. “He knows he did us wrong, Tess. He threw us out—“

“No, you elected to leave, if I remember correctly.” Tess wanted to scream in frustration.

The argument never ended. It was never over. She felt as though she continually paid for her father’s choices because her mother had no way of making him pay.

“He’s depraved. As though you need to spend a week in his house.” Ella was shaking now with fury, contempt lacing each word out of her mouth. “Those parties he throws are excuses for orgies, and that wife of his—“

“I don’t want to hear it, Mother—“

“You think your father and his new family are so respectable and kind,” she sneered. “You think I don’t know how you watched that brother of hers. That I didn’t know about the flowers he sent you last year. They’re monsters, Tess.” She pointed a thin, accusing finger at Tess. “Depraved and conscienceless. He’ll turn you into a tramp.”

Tess felt her face flame. She had fought for years to hide her attraction to Cole. She had heard all the rumors, knew his sexual exploits were often gossiped about. He had more or less admitted them to her on several occasions.

“No one can turn me into a tramp, Mother,” she bit out. “Just as there’s no way you can change the fact that I have a father. I can’t ignore him or pretend he doesn’t exist, and I don’t want to.”

Tess faced her parent, feeling the same, horrible fear that always filled her at the thought of making her too angry. Of disappointing her in any way. But as she faced her fear, she felt her own anger festering inside her. For so many years she had tried to make up for the divorce her father had somehow forced. She knew he took the blame for it. Just as her mother vowed complete innocence. She was beginning to wonder if either of them would ever tell her the truth.

“You’ll end up just like him,” Ella accused, her eyes narrowing hatefully.

Tess could only shake her head.

“I’ll be home in a week, Mother,” she said, picking up her luggage.

In the back of her mind, she knew she would not be returning though. She had stayed out of guilt and out of fear of failing somehow in her mother’s eyes. She was only now realizing, she could never succeed in her mother’s opinion though. She was fighting a losing battle. A battle she didn’t want to win to begin with.

* * * * *

Tess was still trembling when she pulled into the large circular driveway of her father’s home. The shadows of evening were washing over his stately Virginia mansion, spilling long shadows over the three-story house and the tree shrouded yard. The drive from New York wasn’t a hard one, but her nervousness left her feeling exhausted. She definitely wasn’t up to facing Cole. Her face flushed at the thought. She had tried not to think about the phone call that morning, or the core of heat it had left lingering inside her.

It had nearly been enough to have her turning around several times and heading back to her safe, comfortable life in her mother’s home. She would have too, until she thought of her mother. Ella was too frightened of the world to draw her head out of her books and see the things she was missing. She had lost her husband years before their divorce because of her distaste of his sexual demands. She told Tess often how disgusting, how shameful she found sex to be.

Tess didn’t want to grow old, knowing she had passed up the exciting things in life. She didn’t want to ache all her life for the one thing she needed the most and passed up. But she didn’t want her heart broken. And Tess had a feeling Cole could break her heart.

She wanted him too badly. She had realized that in the past months. The dreams were driving her crazy. Dreams of Cole tying her to his bed, teasing her, touching her, his dark voice whispering his sexual promises to her. She was awaking more and more often, her cunt soaked, her breathing ragged, a plea on her lips.

Tess had known he was bad news even before her father married his sister. His eyes were too wicked, his looks too sensual. He was wickedly sexy, sinfully sensuous. She moaned in rising excitement and fear.

Leaving her keys in the ignition for the butler to park it, Tess jumped from the car. Night was already rolling in, and she would be damned if she would sit out in that car because she was too scared to walk into the house. Hopefully, Cole wouldn’t be there. He wasn’t always there.

“Good evening, Miss Delacourte.” The butler, a large, burly ex-bouncer opened the door for her as she stepped up to it.

Thomas was well over fifty, Tess knew, but he didn’t look a day over thirty-five. He was six feet tall, heavily muscled and sported a crooked nose and several small scars on his broad face. He was Irish, he said, with a mix of Cherokee Indian and German ancestry. His thick, brown hair was in a crew cut, his large face creased with a smile.

“Good evening, Thomas. Is Father in?” She stepped into the house, more uncomfortable than she had thought she would be.

This was the home she had grown up in, the one she had raced through with the puppy her father had once bought her, but her mother had gotten rid of. The home where her father had once patched skinned knees and a bruised heart. The home her mother had taken her out of when her father demanded his rights as a husband, or a divorce.

“Your father and Mrs. Delacourte are out for the evening, Miss,” he told her as she stepped into the house. “Will you be staying for a while?”