by Linde, K. A.
My throat bobbed at his words. At the way he cut straight through me.
I was consumed by rage, and I wanted to burn the city to the ground. I was fearless in my desire to make the people pay for what they’d done to me. Finally free and wild.
But not in the way he was talking about. He was seeing me as he had seen me before. The Natalie who had let herself get run over, manipulated, used, and crushed under a stiletto heel. I wouldn’t let that happen again.
He must have seen some of that flair in my eyes because his widened. But I didn’t back down. I didn’t douse the spark that had grown to flames in my eyes. I let him see a part of the person I was now. Let him get his fill.
Then I stepped forward and captured his lips with my own. The tension sizzled between us, flames building, steam rising. The world ceased to exist around us as we set it on fire in that one searing kiss.
Chapter 4
Natalie
It was all I could do not to rip his tuxedo off. My hands were making quick work of the buttons. Hastily tugging them out of each individual loop. The restraint I’d felt evaporated.
Then Penn’s hands grasped each of my bare wrists. My arms were pushed up over my head. The grip tightened until he was once again in complete control.
My breaths came out in hot pants as I stared into his impossibly blue eyes. Dark lashes framing those midnight-ocean orbs that only got wider and wider as his pupils dilated and his gaze shifted down my naked form.
“Tell me this isn’t like last time,” he instructed.
“It isn’t like last time,” I said on instinct. At his command. The words were out before I thought of what he was asking.
Last time. When I’d found out about Lewis and we’d fucked like animals. He said yes to me when I confessed I’d always wanted him. But it didn’t make it any better. It was pure and primal need. Anger mixed with lust that fed into carnal bliss. Nothing more. I hadn’t been able to give anything more then. And he’d accepted it.
The look in his dominating eyes said he wouldn’t this time.
“Natalie.”
I huffed out a short breath and released the tension in my body. Turning into water against his hard touch. Was it different? This had nothing to do with Lewis. Nothing to do with what came next. I didn’t have to do this to reel Penn in. He wanted to talk first and foremost. But I wanted this. And I was tired of holding back. Tired of hating him so much. Of pretending that I didn’t want him when I did.
“It’s different,” I assured him.
He read my own eyes as if he could see all my secrets laid bare before him. He must have approved of what he saw in me because he nodded once. “Then we have all the time in the world.”
He stepped forward, releasing my arms, and scooped me up into his. I felt weightless in his grasp as he carried me out of the living room, down the darkened hallway, and into his bedroom.
The space was enchanting in how closely it reflected the professor, whose body was pressed tight to mine. The bookcases filled with tomes and skinny philosophy texts and a row of leather journals. The navy-blue comforter that beckoned as he laid me out like a feast. The glass window that opened onto a balcony overlooking the park, fireworks already bursting in the distance even though it wasn’t yet midnight.
I propped myself up on my elbows, so I could get a better view of him. Something had shifted in his features at my acceptance. At whatever he’d seen on my face before he picked me up. Now, he was the Penn Kensington that I’d fallen hopelessly head over heels for. He was all male. Standing taller with those wide shoulders that fell down to his narrow hips. The bulge straining at the front of his slacks. My fingers itched to remove his length and feel that hardness against my skin, in my mouth, but one look from him held me in my place.
He was in control here. We might push and pull, fight, argue, and debate outside of the bedroom. But here, I was his.
No, this wasn’t some midnight romp to expunge my anger. This was finally taking back what I wanted despite the costs.
Penn untied the bow tie at his throat and let it hang loose around his neck. Then, he finished where I’d started, unbuttoning his shirt and tugging it from his pants to bare his defined chest before me. I wanted to run my fingers down his chest, lick my way down his abdominal muscles. Feel each ridge under my tongue. Watching and not touching was torture.
And maybe he knew that because one corner of his mouth lifted at my response.
“Tease,” I murmured.
“You have no idea,” he said with that same heady grin.
“I think I do.”
“We’ll test your theory.”
The heat in his look went straight to my core. “Okay, Professor.”
He dropped his shirt off of his shoulders at my comment. He snapped open his slacks and dragged the zipper down, revealing the erection hidden beneath.
“Let’s see if you can pass the exam.”
“Oh dear,” I said, playing along. My body ached all over at his playful words. “I didn’t study.”
“Who knew that you were such a bad student?” he said. “Let’s see how fast you can learn.”
“I’m definitely a fast learner,” I breathed.
He smirked. “We’ll see.”
He stepped forward, his erection still straining against his boxer briefs, but he was attentive to me. His fingers hooked into the soft material of my thong, and then he slid it down my body, effortlessly tossing it away. His strong hands came down on my inner thighs, spreading me wide open before his face.
My pussy pulsed with anticipation and need. He leisurely stroked one finger down my core, and I trembled with the desire for more. More, more, more. I couldn’t stop the need. Then he was spreading my lips apart, slicking through my wetness, hitting every nerve ending, and making my back arch off of the bed.
How could one finger make me this fucking needy?
“Don’t move,” he said, withdrawing.
I pushed toward him and felt a slight smack against my pussy. I yelped at the same time fire struck me with desire.
“I said, don’t move.”
I froze in place. Torn between wanting to move while demanding more than the little he was giving me, the torture I was enduring, and following directions so that I could get more. My eyes tracked him across the room to where the sound system was located.
Because, of course.
Penn liked his music. I’d almost forgotten. Indie music, as unknown as possible, was his preference. Though I knew he also liked some mainstream stuff if he was pushed for it.
The melody picked up, and my smile grew as I forgot all about my needs. “Is this obscure enough for you?”
“It felt poignant. I do have a taste for timing,” he said with a hint of the pain he’d felt in the last year touching his eyes.
“I love it,” I breathed as “This Year’s Love” by David Gray filled the room through surround sound speakers.
When he returned to me, the pain was gone, but I could feel the tension in the room. The tension of a year of separation. A year of fractured trust. A year of other people who never quite satisfied.
And I wished that I could wipe the slate clean. Start over. Fresh and shiny new, but I couldn’t. It wasn’t possible to erase the pain we’d caused each other. There was no do-over. This wasn’t a video game. We didn’t have unlimited lives. Just this one. So while it hurt, it had also somehow brought us to this moment. While it was far from perfect, it was still perfection. Perfection to imagine that I could trust him enough for sex after what he’d done. Perfection to imagine that he could trust me enough to be intimate and vulnerable after what I’d done.
Penn slipped out of his pants. I admired the strong lines of his thighs. The pure strength and control from a methodical obsession with running. He wasn’t overly bulky but so defined. The very shape of him aroused me in a way that I had never understood about myself until him. Everything about our connection made me want to be adventurous. Break all my boundaries.
Lay myself bare.
“Where’s your head?” he asked softly.
“I was cramming for the exam.”
He chuckled. Then his hands came down on my thighs, and he yanked my body toward him until my ass nearly fell off the bed. A gasp escaped my mouth, and then he was between my legs. No gentle coaxing or teasing, just tongue straight to my clit. Another gasp followed, but this one was of a wholly different nature.
This one had all to do with the motion of his tongue swirling around my most sensitive area. The flick against that nub. The sucking and gentle, unexpected nibble that had my eyes rolling into the back of my head and wetness pooling in the exact place his fingers were stroking to life.
I could feel my orgasm right on the verge, close enough that I could reach out and grab it. But as if Penn knew that, he slowed his strokes, pressed a kiss to my clit, and then glanced up at me with a devilish look on his princely features. How could someone that good-looking be so very bad?
“Not yet,” he told me.
As if I had an option.
“Please,” I asked him because I wasn’t above begging here.
This was nothing compared to my finger or a vibrator. This was prolonged need that shook me to my core and made me incapable of functioning beyond the precise thing that he was doing to me. And right now, that was circling my pussy opening like he was about to finger-fuck it at any moment. And the wonder of when made it all the more intense.
But he didn’t stop. He continued on as if he could do this all day. Bring me to the edge and then pull me back and then bring me forward again and again. My body protested, and yet I’d give anything for more of this. Whatever he was giving.
“Are you ready to come for me?” he asked, flicking his tongue against my clit again.
I nearly jumped off the bed at the unexpected motion.
“Yes, yes, yes,” I murmured.
“And do you want my fingers?”
“Please, Penn,” I panted.
“Tell me where.”
My eyes snapped open, and they locked on his. He stared back just as hotly, waiting for my answer. I could see he was holding on to control like a whip, waiting to wield it with a crack.
“Inside me.”
“What was that, love?” he purred.
“In my pussy,” I gasped out.
At my words, he entered me. One finger delving into my heat, getting the feel for me again. My walls contracted around him, and I whimpered.
“So greedy,” he said with a laugh before giving me what my body had not-so-subtly asked for.
A second finger went into me, stretching me but not filling me. I knew what I wanted for that. I knew at this point of the warm-up that I’d give anything for it.
He dipped his head back down to my clit and sucked on me with his fingers buried deep inside me. My body bucked, as the edge I’d been hanging on to came closer and closer.
Then another finger swirled through my wetness. I groaned at the feel, but then he was moving, going lower and lower. I tensed for all of a second in surprise as he pressed the liquid to the pucker of my asshole. But then he gently rubbed me in slow circles, drawing out my orgasm even deeper. Something I hadn’t thought possible.
He dipped barely a digit into my back door, and I shattered into pieces. Just the feel of that much stimulation rocked through me like a tidal wave. I had been so close as it was that, by the time he went further, there was no chance I wouldn’t come on the spot.
It took a few seconds before I realized the cries of pleasure were coming from me. I tapered off as I came down from my high. I lay back on the bed, my chest heaving, as Penn straightened with a satisfied smile.
“If I’d known that you’d respond that well to anal, I would have started a long time ago.”
My cheeks flushed at the comment. “Well, you learn something new every day, Professor.”
“I suppose that means, you passed.”
I slid off the bed and landed on shaky legs. “Thank god. Wouldn’t want a mark on my transcript.”
“You’re enjoying this,” he said, stepping into my space. His hand came to the back of my neck, taking hold of my mass of hair in a way that said he was in control and also like I was going to come again at any moment.
“I am,” I gasped out as I tilted my head up to look him in the eye.
“Open your mouth.”
I did as I had been told without thinking about it. He inserted the two fingers that had been in my pussy into my waiting mouth. I tasted my own hot desire as I licked his fingers clean of my arousal. His nostrils flared at my easy acceptance and the feel of my lips going to work on him, just like I intended to do to his cock.
My hands reached for the hem of his shorts. He was so aroused that the tip was jutting out of the top of his boxer briefs. The pad of my finger skimmed the head, glistening with pre-cum. I licked my lips, anxious to get on my knees for him.
“You’re going to have to wait for that,” he told me with a ragged, barely constrained tone.
“I don’t want to wait,” I said impishly.
“One touch of your hot mouth, and I’d come all over you.”
My smile ticked up at the power of that statement. “What’s wrong with that?”
“I’m going to fuck that smart mouth later,” he said confidently. “But I need to get inside of you.”
My heart skipped a beat at the coarse words that had left his mouth. The sophisticated professor devolving into the sex-god playboy who owned the Upper East Side. It shouldn’t have turned me on as much as it did. But fuck, I understood how he ruled his own kingdom. I saw why everyone fell to their feet for him when he growled commands at me and made me eat my own cum off of his fingers. I’d crawl for him. And he knew it.
“I’m yours,” I breathed, running my thumb across the tip of his dick one more time before he freed himself entirely, dropping his boxer briefs to the floor.
The song switched to something even I didn’t recognize. But the rhythm was hypnotic. The bass rocked through us. The words flowed like silk, driving us together. There was just us, the music, and the clock ticking down to the New Year.
“Mine,” he said roughly.
He twisted me in place and then folded me in half at the waist. My hands reached out to grip the comforter as he temptingly pressed his cock against my opening.
I was primed for him, and still, he teased, pushing the head in and then out, back and forth against my clit until I thought I would burst with waiting for him to take me. But he didn’t make me wait long. His hand braced himself against the small of my back as the other gripped my hip before he drove his cock home.
My body shifted forward with the force of his motion, but it wasn’t painful. A moan escaped me at the sweet feel of surrender. The pleasurable stretch of being completely full. Then he started moving, and my moan turned into gasps. Out and then fast in. Out and then faster in, slamming into me. Taking my body. Owning my body. Slicing through any last hesitation I’d had that he wouldn’t fit.
Penn Kensington had been my first.
Seven years later, still, no one compared to him.
Penn’s voice became incoherent as he thrust deep into my pussy and took his pleasure, coupled with my own. Something coiled in my belly, low and urgent. Something begging to get out, to be released. I tensed all over as I felt the first hints of it strike my body.
I clenched down on the comforter hard as he penetrated me one more time, and then I loosed my scream into the bed as it burst forth. I came to new heights, seeing stars in the night sky. I saw the planets and galaxy and even beyond that. I saw heaven in my den of sin.
Penn groaned and grunted loudly as he finished right after me. I felt the sheer force of his orgasm and sighed with pleasure.
It was a minute before he could move again, and my core immediately begged for him to return. A small mewl left my lips in protest, and he chuckled softly, rubbing my back again.
“There’s time for round two.”
&
nbsp; I uneasily stood up and looked at his naked form, his cock still erect, jutting out between us. “There’d better be.”
Fireworks exploding noisily behind us kept him from a reply. We both watched the night sky light up with fervor out the window.
Penn stepped back into me with a tender smile. He pulled my mouth to his. A chaste kiss compared to what we’d just shared. But somehow, it fit perfectly. “Happy New Year, Natalie.”
“A new year for a new us,” I breathed against him.
He grinned at my choice in words. “To a new us.”
Then he kissed me again, and we lost the rest of the night to that toast.
Chapter 5
Natalie
I stretched like a cat as I woke to a brand-new world. A distinctly delicious male figure slept soundly on the other side of the bed. And between us was the smallest and yet largest ten-pound dog in existence.
I rubbed Totle’s belly and planted a kiss on his head. “You’re so lucky that you’re cute.”
Pulling Totle’s sleeping body closer to me, I rolled over him and onto Penn’s side. Then I wrapped my arms around his waist like I was the big spoon and sighed in pleasure. This felt right. Unbelievably right.
Like maybe I could live in this life right here, right now. Maybe I didn’t need anything else but this. Especially after the night that we’d had.
But this wasn’t the real world. Penn’s room was like a magical fortress that no one could possibly access. They’d have to slay a fire-breathing dragon to get inside. And there were no white knights in this city. Only dark sorcerers and evil witches set to ruin a princess’s life.
As soon as we left this sanctuary, we’d have to deal with that world out there again. Which I knew and hated and wished weren’t true. But Penn had told me time and time again that, once you were in on the Upper East Side, there was no out. He was proof of that. And while Katherine was trying to drag me out of the Upper East Side by my silvery-white hair, I wasn’t here to play nice. I was here to make sure she never hurt anyone ever again.