ROMANCING THE BULLDOG (3 page)

were supposedly superior to everybody else. So she did. Only she hung out with the ones that

were wilder and crazier than any ghetto kid she’d ever met, but that was beside the point to her

father, anyway. They were rich and well-connected and that was all that mattered to him.

And although she wasn’t about to study business in college so that she could return home and

work in her father’s businesses and remain under his total control, she never told him that. As

far as he was concerned she was planning to follow right along in his footsteps.

But he still showed nothing but contempt for her. Maybe if she went to Harvard and

graduated top of her class. Maybe that would do it for him. But she wasn’t betting on it.

Besides, she barely made it into Harvard. Finishing first in class at a school like Harvard was

about as realistic as finishing at all. But that was a battle for another day, she thought, as her

eyes grew heavier, and she finally began to fall asleep.

Jason wasn’t so lucky. His sleep had been interrupted a little too completely. And besides,

his naked body couldn’t stop thinking about the naked body lying beside him. He thought it

would be a good idea, a way to ensure she wouldn’t try anything crazy. Now, as the reality of

her presence beside him began to crystallize, he wasn’t so sure. She was young, she was only

eighteen, but she had it going on in every direction. And every time he saw her, whenever, on

those rare occasions, she stopped by her father’s office, his loins would pulsate. Literally throb

in his pants. And the way she looked tonight. Her small, tight ass, her flat, ribbed stomach,

her long, thin legs, her dark brown, magnificently gorgeous face. If she hadn’t been Hamp’s

daughter, if she hadn’t been related to Hamp Morgan, he would have been all over her. But

she was related to Hamp, she was his daughter, and that, for Jason, was all there was to say

about it.

The screaming came over an hour later, just as Jason was beginning to feel as though he

might actually doze off. It was such a loud and guttural sound that Jason first sat up straight in

bed, as if the sound was from outside of his apartment, not from within. But when he realized

it was Liz, he turned quickly toward her and grabbed her to wake her up.

“It’s okay,” he said, cradling her, as her frightened eyes opened and stared at him, tears

already filling their beautiful orbs. Jason’s throat caught at the sight and he pulled her into his

arms. “It’s okay,” he said again. “You were having a bad dream.”

The tears came freely now for Liz. And she cried and cried. Jason held her, rocked her,

and allowed her to cry. He leaned back against his headboard, and pulled her onto his lap, and

continued to let her cry. He could feel her nakedness beneath him, and his manhood kept

bumping against her, but he held her as if he was holding the most precious thing in the world

to him.

It took nearly five minutes before her shivering and crying completely subsided. When it

did, a frown crossed Jason’s face. “What’s the matter, Liz?” he asked her.

Liz wanted to tell him, to talk about it, but it was about her father. It was always about her

father, and he was her father’s right hand man. How could she explain to somebody like him

that the man he idolized hated his own daughter? And that was what it was. Hatred. Not

disappointment, not even dislike. But bald-faced hatred. Liz just couldn’t understand why.

“I just had a nightmare,” she decided to say.

“About what?”

They were in such an intimate position that it almost made her more inclined to talk. But

she knew she had to keep her guard up. Jason Rascone was loyal, she knew that. But his

loyalty was to her father, not to her.

“It was about, I don’t know, this man and this girl.”

Jason hesitated. Was she talking about him, he wondered. “What about this man and

girl?”

“I don’t know, it was stupid. She did everything she was supposed to do but that was

never enough for him and he stabbed her and kept stabbing her.” Liz said this and quickly

looked up at Jason, to see his reaction.

Jason was an attorney, a very good one, and knew how to hide his concern. But he was

concerned. She wasn’t talking about her and him. She was talking about her and Hamp.

“Why was he stabbing her?” he asked her.

Liz looked away from him. “I told you already! Aren’t you listening? Because she could

never measure up. She was a waste of a human being and he was taking her out of her

misery.

Jason found himself pulling her body closer to his. “But she wasn’t a waste of a human

being, was she, because she couldn’t please some guy.”

“It wasn’t just any guy, you make it sound like it’s just anybody. It’s was, he was, not just

anybody.” Then she dismissed it all. “But bump it.”

And that was all she would say about it. Bump it. Jason wanted to say more, a lot more,

but he held his peace. Hamp was a hard man when he wanted to be, he knew that much about

him, and he knew he could have done a whole lot better by Liz. He gave her every material

thing she could have wanted. But where was the love, Jason wondered now that he was

looking back. Hamp had nothing but great things to say about his son Malcolm. But when it

came to Liz it was always something negative. She runs with the wrong crowd. She’s sleeping

around. She’s got a big mouth. She’s too out there. Jason used to believe that Liz was the

problem, that she didn’t know what good she had. Now he wasn’t so sure.

He looked down at her, at her flawless dark skin, her beautiful big, bright eyes, her lips.

Those infinitely kissable lips. Lips he now had to kiss. He leaned toward her, to see if she

would allow it, and when she didn’t pull back, when she didn’t resist his tease, he did it. He

kissed her. Chaste at first. He didn’t want to scare the woman. But then he drank her up,

almost uncontrollably, terrifying her.

But he couldn’t stop himself. He moved her closer to him and kissed her harder, longer.

She allowed it, but he knew he was being too rough. But he couldn’t stop himself. When he

stopped and looked at her, and she looked those big eyes up at him, his control broke again.

He laid her on her back and began kissing her again. Even longer, even harder. When she

wrapped her arms around him, he was beyond help. He wrapped her into his arms tighter and

kissed her and kissed her and couldn’t stop kissing her. Her mouth, her cheeks, her neck, her

breasts. He kissed and sucked and kissed and sucked her breasts until he was practically out

of breathe.

But he still didn’t stop. He kept kissing her. Her chest, her stomach, her thighs. He wanted

to go between her legs. Desperately he wanted it. But he had to get in a different way, and he

didn’t know if he could wait another second. He saddled her, reached into his drawer, and put

on a condom. He stared at her as he put on the condom, to make sure she wasn’t resisting.

She was scared, he could see fear in her eyes, but he saw the lust there too. Unbridled and

ready. And that was all he was after. Some kind of consent. He parted her legs, as wide as

they could go, and entered her. When he realized he had touched the essence of her, he

plunged on in.

“Oh, baby!” he kept saying as he ravaged her. And Liz held him. She wanted him. She

wanted him to make her feel better. All she wanted was to forget her father and feel better.

And she did. It felt exhilarating. Until he plunged in further, and further still, and broke her,

and suddenly her eyes flew open as she began to feel the pain.

Jason was stunned when he pushed in further and realized what he was dealing with. She

was a virgin? This wild child? This nightclub hopping bad girl? He thought for sure she was

experienced. The way her father talked, she was anything but virginal. She’d acted so sure of

herself every time he’d see her at the office, and would flirt with a few of the younger

associates right in front of her father’s eyes. How could she have lasted this long without

giving it up? But she had.

And Jason, to his shame, to his inability to control his own base emotions, was taking it. He

couldn’t stop. He should have. But he couldn’t. It felt too good, and too tight, and too juicy

for him to stop gyrating her and pumping her and doing all he could to drink her dry. He

wouldn’t look at her. If she was crying, it would melt him, because the one thing he never

wanted to do was to hurt her, yet it might have been the very thing he was doing.

Liz felt the pain of his large manhood deep within her, and the further he plunged, the more

painful it felt. But she was able to bear it. It had gone from pleasurable to painful, but

somehow she still didn’t want it to end. Her virginity was important to her and she had hoped,

in truth, to wait until she had a full commitment, a marriage, before she went there. But her

life never worked out so neatly. She personally doubted if she would ever get married,

anyway. Who, she wondered, would want to take her on? Her own father hated her, how

could she ever believe that anyone else would love her?

Besides, she couldn’t turn this down. Not Jason Rascone. Not the man every woman in

her father’s club wanted to have for herself. And he was here now, big and pulsating and

gorgeous, wanting her. She was tired of pretending that she could ever win her father’s love.

All of her life she had been trying to win him over. Now she was going all the way to Harvard

to win him over. Harvard! She didn’t want that. She had wanted to go to the historically

black college in town, to Edward Waters College, but her father insisted on Harvard. The best

to impress, he’d called it, when Liz didn’t care about impressing anyone. The only reason she

even applied to Harvard was to gain his approval, when all she gained was his rebuke, his
you

should have graduated valedictorian then this wouldn’t be so difficult,
after she graduated

third, not first, in her class
,
and it was beginning to look like Harvard didn’t want her, either
.

She
needed
this!

And she was getting it, from a playboy like Jason Rascone, a man who probably wouldn’t

know a serious commitment if it bit him in the butt. But she wanted him to keep giving it to

her. She wanted him to never stop. That was why she held on, as his massive manhood

shoved in and out of her, in and out, over and over, the sweat from his body so perfuse that it

was sticking her to him. And she tried to give as good as she got, meeting his plunges with her

own little wiggles and lifts, something that caused Jason to scream her name. And plunge even

deeper.

When it was all over, and Jason had struggled to re-regulate his breathing and then rolled off

of her, Liz lay still. She didn’t quite know what to make of this. Jason, however, was pained.

Was he out of his mind? This was Hamp Morgan’s daughter, you idiot! And she was a virgin!

Jason looked at her. And exhaled, a frown creasing his face. “I’m so sorry,” he said,

heartfelt.

“For
what
?” Liz asked with irritation in her voice. She never understood why people always

felt she was wild, but then treated her as if she was fragile. “You didn’t do anything I didn’t

let you do.”

Jason grinned. This kid actually thought she had this all in control. Then he stared into her

eyes and his smile left. Because she very well might, he feared, if they ever did something this

wonderful again. He lay on his back beside her, a sense of dread overtaking him. But it

wasn’t about the fact that he’d just branded Hamp’s kid. It was about the kid.
Her
. This

naked, cocky, beautiful ball of innocence lying beside him. She was leaving within hours. To

go to Harvard of all places. And this moment would eventually become just another night for

both of them. But that wasn’t the fear for Jason. The sense that it would mean so much

more to him, and there was nothing he could do about it, was the fear.

Liz, however, refused to go there. The last thing she needed right now was some hot and

heavy love affair. Especially with her father’s assistant! Especially since she knew that neither

one of them were in love. This was lust pure and simple, great sex with a great looking guy, a

one-night stand, and that was all, if she had anything to say about it -and she did, it was ever