by Rynne Raines
On his next strategic thrust, Eve’s orgasm erupted.
“Donavan,” she choked into his mouth, severing their kiss. She needed air. Desperately. She couldn’t breathe. Her lungs seemed to pause, hovering between the decision of whether or not to work when her body was experiencing such pleasurable trauma. When he thrust his cock again it was like a surge of electricity jolting her lungs back to life.
The muscles in his abdomen undulated as he entered her body with an upward thrust of his hips. He creased his brow. Donavan? Eve rarely called him Donavan. Oh, but he liked the sound of his name on her lips. He could easily get used to hearing her scream it.
A drop of sweat beaded down his temple. The sweat wasn’t from exhaustion, though. From the moment he slid his cock inside her sweet pussy, he’d been fighting the need to come. As her cunt tightened into a merciless sleeve of quivering flesh around his shaft, the fight was beyond over. It was obliterated.
With the onslaught of sensation his thighs burned and his abs quaked. The head of his cock felt massive and swollen as it slammed against the spongy internal wall of her soaked pussy. In a flash of white hot pleasure, every nerve in the crown awoke and demanded release.
“Fuck,” he swore against the soft skin of Eve’s throat.
Shudders assaulted his body like the impact of machine gun fire and the muscles throughout his shoulders went piano wire taut. Donavan released a groan. Half animal and half human, the low throaty rasp boomed throughout the walls of their private sex chamber as his heavy sac tightened and an upsurge of scalding fluid erupted.
Tremor after violent tremor, Donavan clung to her body. He cradled her against his sex sated frame as ragged breathing echoed in his head. For a long time he couldn’t decipher her breathing from his. For now, they were one being, fused together by flesh and pleasure.
Eventually confident that his legs would obey the signals sent from his brain in order to walk, Donavan reached up and released the snaps on the restraints. Her arms dropped limply around his neck and she shivered against his chest. The tips of her fingers grazed between his shoulder blades like slender rods of ice on his hot skin. Her hands were freezing. As he carried her to the bed she proceeded to curl them in and out, seemingly trying to regain some of the circulation.
Slowly, like a stream of warmed honey Eve poured out of his arms and onto the rich, satin sheets. For a moment, he studied her. Her long dark hair spilled in a tangled mess of frays and curls around her flush face while her supple breasts rose and fell with labored breaths. She was so simply beautiful a knot formed in his chest. So beautiful, he was already growing hard with the need to take her again. And he would. Over and over. He would. But not now.
“Don’t move,” he murmured, brushing his knuckles gently across her forehead.
Eve said nothing when he left her on the bed and crossed into the adjoining bathroom. He wasn’t sure if her silence was from exhaustion or because she was busy plotting his painful death for shackling her up like a prisoner. A slow smile spread across his face as he ran warm water into a basin. Painful death or not, he would gladly do it again.
“You seem to know your way around this place very well,” Eve commented when he returned from the bathroom. Her mundane tone had him briefly lifting his gaze to her face. She was looking away from him and hugging her arms tightly over her breasts. A defensive posture. It wasn’t the usual reaction he was accustomed to after making love to a woman but then again there wasn’t anything usual about Eve. “Do you bring a lot of women to this room?” she asked casually.
He set the basin on the nightstand and rang out the cloth. Truthfully, he didn’t bring many women here. The theme of the room was romantic and he rarely mixed romance and sex. The combination often sent mixed signals when he only meant for his rendezvous to last a few hours at a time. At most, a few days.
However, Eve was not just some woman he’d met at the club interested in an evening of domination and fucking. She was the only female he had ever managed a lasting relationship with. True, they were colleagues but somewhere between the court battles and childish banter, they had become friends. A friendship, Donavan was beginning to realize, he cherished.
And now, they were lovers.
“Well? Do you bring a lot of women here?” she prompted, propping herself up on her elbows and finally looking at him.
“Only the very naughty ones,” he lied. “Spread your legs a little.”
Seemingly baffled by his request, Eve stared at him. Donavan sighed then slid one hand between her thighs to edge them apart. Her muscles tensed under his palm and her legs snapped shut even tighter than they were before.
“Oh you—you really don’t have to do that. I can—”
“Relax,” he coaxed, cutting her off mid-sentence. She was slick and sticky with her own juices and since he had a hand in causing it, it seemed only fair that he help clean up. “I want to. “
She hesitated but only for a second before she gave in and lay down.
Donavan waited until the tension eased out of her legs then gradually nudged them apart. He fought a groan. She had the most incredible thighs—toned and firm and milky white. He pressed the damp cloth to the inside of one leg and heard her suck in a sharp breath. He shifted his gaze to her face but continued cleaning the sticky residue from her skin. Her eyes were shut tight while her pouty beautiful lips contorted into a frown. She hardly resembled the unabashed woman who demanded he fuck her harder only a short time ago.
“Am I hurting you?”
Finally, her eyes opened but they remained locked on the ceiling.
“No.”
“Then why do you look like I’m sawing off one of your limbs with a dull blade?”
“I don’t know. I guess I’ve never had a man…clean me off after sex.”
“Well now, try not to make it sound so terribly romantic. Kissy-kissy talk is one of my turnoffs.”
Her lips twitched and a smile broke out of her face. The smile turned to laughter. Low. Throaty. Genuine laughter. Donavan savored the musical sound as if it were a lunar eclipse. Eve rarely let her guard down. This could be a turning point. It always boggled his mind to why Eve insisted she was a Mistress when she was so obviously a submissive. This could be his first real step towards getting answers. If it wasn’t a turning point, he still had two days with her. Two sinful days.
Oh God, I can’t spend two more days with him like this! Eve could already feel her defenses lowering inch by inch, the walls she’d built in order to protect herself, her career and her life were crumbling like a house of cards. Here she sat with the King of Hearts, naked and laughing as if they’d been lovers for years.
It was no wonder women flocked to him, she thought, daring to lift her gaze to his face. Candlelight played over Donavan’s striking features, accenting his perfectly straight white teeth as he smiled back at her. The man had such an easy, open way about him. What you see is what you get. No secrets. No lies. Just him. How wonderful it must feel to live life like an open book, with no regrets or importance on the opinions of others. How wonderful it would feel to live her life like that.
“Here,” said Donavan, reaching across to the fruit basket on the nightstand beside her. He plucked a branch of plump purple grapes off the bunch and began contemplatively rolling one between his fingers.
“I thought you weren’t feeding me grapes this weekend,” she said, then opened her mouth wide like a baby bird waiting on dinner.
“Feeding is one thing,” he said, dropping the grape into her mouth. “Peeling is another. A man’s gotta draw the line somewhere.”
“So…it’s a compromise?”
“Of sorts.”
“I thought Doms didn’t compromise,” she teased, unable to conceal her smile.
“Some don’t, I suppose.” He fed her another grape. “Some are just in it for the power trip, the rush of adrenaline that comes with having absolute control over another human being.”
“But not you.”
“No.” He shook his head. “Not me. My father on the other hand, that’s a different story.” The note of resentment in his tone had Eve pausing mid-chew. His eyes were different now, solemn. She’d never seen him quite so serious. Although consideration for his privacy told her to bite her tongue, the need to know more about him urged her on.
“If your father is a Dom then that would make your mother his—”
“Poorly treated submissive,” Donavan finished and flexed his jaw. “By my definition she’s nothing more than a slave.”
“I hadn’t realized there was a difference.”
“There’s a difference.” He locked eyes with her. “A Dom values his submissive’s opinions and ideals as much as he values his own, even though he is the one in control. He respects and cherishes her, and in everything he does, he keeps her best interest in mind. A true slave is viewed as nothing more than a fuck-toy on a leash, a human shell made for pleasure and whatever else their Master sees fit. Although some Doms refer to their submissive as slave that’s all it is, a term their using to clarify the role between Master and sub.”
“Have you ever had a real slave?”
“Never,” he snapped, seemingly appalled she would ask such a question.
“I—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
He lifted a hand to stop her apology then plucked another grape off its stem and held it up like a peace offering. This time when he reached over to drop the fruit in her mouth, she clasped his hand in hers and squeezed. Instantly his eyes softened, shadowed by the hint of a painful smile. In that moment, Eve wanted to drag him down on top of her and encase him in a comforting embrace but the intimacy that came with it stopped her from doing so. That type of intimacy would only bring them closer, putting her secret in further jeopardy.
“I’ve spent a lot of years worrying that I might have unknowingly inherited some asshole genetic from my father that I just haven’t tapped into yet. One that could turn me into what he is.” Donavan was looking at her but at the same time somehow looking past her. “I’ve also spent a lot of years trying to convince my mother to leave the bastard. Unfortunately, she’s a very loyal woman.”
“On the upside, that quality must make her a very good submissive,” Eve said, trying to shed light on a grim situation.
“I suppose it does, but it’s also the reason she makes very stupid decisions.”
Although his words were harsh, Eve understood where the passion came from. She knew first hand it wasn’t easy watching someone you loved make bad choice after bad choice.
“Well, at least your mother’s loyalty lies with an actual human being. My mother’s only loyalty is at the bottom of a bottle. I can’t tell you how much time I spent as a little girl wishing she took half as much interest in me as she did in any cheap bottle of whiskey she could get her hands on.” The words were out of Eve’s mouth before she could stop herself. That was the most information about her past she’d confided in anyone other than Caitlyn.
“She must have done something right.” He smoothed her hair back from her forehead and then ever so lightly brushed his knuckles down her cheek. “You’re quite the woman.”
The conviction in his tone and the sincerity in his eyes somehow transformed her into a puddle of complete mush. Things between them were teetering dangerously towards total honesty and although the moment would have been perfect to confess her secret, fear wouldn’t allow her to tell him the truth.
“Yeah, I suppose she did something right,” Eve started as she edged away from his touch. “She gave me a guideline to remind me of the type of person I never wanted to be.” With that said, she swung her legs over the edge of the bed and sat up. Emotion choked her as she searched the room for her clothes. She needed to leave before things between them became anymore intimate.
“What are you doing?” he asked when she crossed the room to collect her gown from the floor. Tension knotted in her shoulders as she stood with her back to him, clutching the dress in her hands.
“If I leave now I won’t have to drive through downtown after midnight. In my experience all the crazies come out after midnight on a Friday.”
“The terms of the bet were for the entire weekend,” he reminded. “Not for one night.”
“I know what the terms were,” she said casually, then stepped into the safety of her gown. She tugged it up until it loosely hovered around her breasts. Though she couldn’t manage the laces on her own at least she wasn’t naked any more.
“As far as I’m concerned,” she continued. “You didn’t win the bet. I still won the case like I said I would.”
“Ah, and we enter into a shade of gray. I say it’s a matter of perspective.”
“Look,” she started in her most logical tone. “We argue for a living and could both come up with supporting cases on who won what but wouldn’t it make more sense for you to walk out that door and find a more than willing ass to flog rather than hold me to the terms of what we both know was a ridiculous bet?”
“Eve, the only ass I’m interested in flogging this weekend is yours.”
A shiver raked through her.
When the trembles subsided, she placed a firm grip on her dress and turned, fully prepared to tell him exactly what he could do with his flog. She didn’t get that far. Her lips parted but no words came out. Only a faint, appreciative sigh. Her eyes traveled the length of his very naked, very heavenly body. Candlelight flickered over his tanned skin, making the lean muscle throughout that much more pronounced. Eve nearly moaned.
No man has a right to look this good naked.
“This isn’t getting us anywhere,” she muttered and tried to divert her eyes from his body. “I think I won the bet, you think you won the bet—we’re back at square one.”
“The only difference is I hold the key to the door. That means I call the shots. So, this can go one of two ways—I can chain you up for the weekend or you can willingly climb back into bed with me.”
His cock-sure smile snapped her eyebrows together. “You’re not serious.”
“Oh, deadly serious.”
An unwanted quiver teased her pussy and she subtly squeezed her thighs together. Damn him. He was right. He did hold all the cards right now. She couldn’t convince him that she didn’t want him sexually. Not after the steamy bout of sex they’d just shared. Hell, she couldn’t even convince herself of that. Regardless, it didn’t change the fact that every minute she stayed with him put her secret at further risk and without the key she was as good as his prisoner. She needed that damned key.
Eve lifted her gaze to his and narrowed her eyes but he merely smiled.
“Might I suggest the second option?” he replied, light amusement in his tone. “Rumor has it, sleeping in chains isn’t overly comfortable.”
Chapter Four
The sound of rushing water carried faintly beneath the closed bathroom door. Eve squinted one eye open and gripped the bed sheet. After three minutes passed, she decided Donavan would be at least another ten in the shower. That gave her ten minutes to find the key, get dressed, and leave before he was none the wiser.
Silent as a church mouse, Eve swung her legs over the bed, dragging the top sheet up with her as she rose. Pick your battles. That was a motto she lived by, and last night she had laid down her sword and crawled into bed with hopes of fighting another day. Today was that day.
After Donavan had fallen asleep, without the candelabras ablaze and no windows in the room she hadn’t managed to find a light switch, let alone the damned key. This morning, though the candles remained snuffed, an artificial glow hummed from a set of fluorescent track lighting lining the walls. Surely she would have better luck searching for the key now that she wasn’t bumbling around in the dark.
Quickly, Eve tip toed over to Donavan’s side of the bed and pulled open the drawer, careful not to cause a clunk or scrape. Her heart pounded as she shifted her gaze toward the bathroom to make sure he hadn’t stepped out yet. Deciding the co
ast was clear, Eve focused back on the drawer. As she peered down into a vacant hole, her shoulders sank. Damn it. The key has to be around here somewhere.
As quietly as she’d opened it, Eve slid the drawer shut and took a quick scan of the room. The last time she saw him with the key was before he chained her up. That had to mean he’d stashed it somewhere on his person before things got out of hand. Her eyes locked onto the dark slacks lying on the floor near the ankle restraints. Bingo. She chewed up the distance in three long, light-footed strides and then dropped into a crouch.
It has to be in his pants. I’m running out of time.
She secured the bed sheet around her breasts so she had both hands free to search then began rummaging through the pockets frantic as a junkie in search of her next fix. Shit. Empty. Chewing her bottom lip, she snatched up his shirt, turned it upside down and gave it a shake.
“Looking for this?”
Eve launched to her feet and swung her gaze toward the bathroom. She met Donavan’s arched eyebrow with a look she was sure screamed, ‘guilty as charged.’ Her heart pounded as she spotted the key dangling from his fingers. No wonder she couldn’t find it. He had the damn thing on him the entire time—the little weasel probably slept with it under his pillow.
“As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what I was looking for.” she said, making the mistake of lowering her gaze from the key down his damp, muscular chest and washboard abs. Hypnotized, she followed a series of water droplets beading down his tight, tanned flesh. With only a towel slung around his lean hips and a smaller one over his shoulder, the man looked good enough to eat. Eve fought hard not to lick her lips and forced her eyes back up to his face.
“Did you really think it was necessary to take it with you into the shower?” She arched a pointed stare.
“Well,” he took the towel off his shoulder and scrubbed it over his wet hair a few times, “considering you didn’t give up looking for it last night after bumping into the wall three times, and the second time actually did sound quite painful, I figured if I wanted you to stay the rest of the weekend then taking it with me would be a smart move.”