by Sabrina York
“Okay.”
“All right. Are you ready?”
She opened her mouth to respond then snapped it shut and nodded.
Pleasure twined with disappointment. She learned fast. That meant he would have to work hard to catch her off guard. Or there would be few opportunities for delicious punishment.
“Okay. Close your eyes.”
“Close my eyes?”
Excitement scored him. He ticked a finger at her. “Ah ah ah, Pansy. No talking.”
She blew out a breath and flopped back down on the sofa and though she didn’t say it, he heard her think, “Oh, all right.”
Once he was certain her eyes were closed, once he had her arms arranged as he wanted them over her head, he began.
He started slowly, scudding his palms beneath the terrycloth and cupping her breasts. She sighed, but that was all. Ah. Innocent thing. She had no idea. Slowly he caressed her, in a provoking spiral, one that walked up the swell of those delicious globes, just to the crest…and then he stopped.
She whimpered, so he did it again.
Then he pushed back the material, exposing her, and bent to take a fat nipple between his lips. Ah. It was glorious. He suckled and nipped, but schooled himself to be tender. No need to rush his fences.
Painstakingly, he drew his palm over every inch if her skin, her chest, her belly, her legs, her feet. It was gratifying to discover she was ticklish on her arch and he filed that bit of information away for later. The backs of her knees were sensitive too, and the crease at the bottom of her ass. Each touch in those places made her moan and squirm.
But she was a good girl. She didn’t open her eyes or speak or even move her arms.
It was time to incite her to rebellion.
Though he had avoided her cleft until now, he brushed it with a feather-light tease. She whimpered. Her lashes fluttered.
But still, she kept her eyes closed.
He opened her with two thumbs and bent low, to blow on her sensitive skin. She launched up with a wail.
He had trouble maintaining his glower. “What did I tell you?”
“I…don’t…but you…”
God, she was good.
“Pansy. Lie down and close your eyes.”
“But…”
“Go on. Remember what I said about self-restraint?”
She nodded.
“This is what it is. You may not move. But part of the excitement is knowing you could. Knowing you have accepted these restrictions. Because you know the pleasure will be far beyond anything you’ve ever known.”
Her eyes widened. “It already was, with you,” she said softly, and he nearly crumbled. But he didn’t. He couldn’t.
Self-denial was part of his game, part of his pleasure, as well.
Without a word—he was incapable of one—he guided her back down.
Oh lord in heaven above. This would be the most mind-blowing orgasm she’d ever had. He was determined to make it so.
Pansy tried to hold herself as still as she could, but she could not stop the quivering. It came from somewhere far too deep within. It was a blessing to have her eyes closed, because it was too painful to look at his beautiful face, the harsh lines of it, the rigid hunger.
To know he wanted with the same ferocity—that his pulse thrummed and his soul wailed for this, this connection, this agony—was almost more than she could bear.
She didn’t know from where he dredged up the control to move so slowly, to tease, torment and arouse her without tossing her over the back of the sofa and mounting her like a stallion. Because God, if she really was the one in control, that was what she would demand.
She wanted him so bad, she could taste it.
She’d never truly understood that saying before.
She did now.
Ah it was exquisite anguish, lying still as he continued his delicious torture. He didn’t touch her slit again and she found herself willing him to do so with every fiber of her being.
When he commanded her to keep her eyes closed and roll over, she nearly wept, because she realized he wasn’t done. Her body was already ready for him, her skin awake and alive, her womb weeping.
But still, it was heavenly, the feel of his broad palm trailing down her spine, over her shoulders, across her hips. Cupping her bottom. She shivered a little at that. Her legs drifted apart.
The light smack on her ass was a shock.
Also a shock was the howl of delight that followed.
He set his hand to the sting and rubbed it away. “I said no moving, Pansy.” She almost muttered, I said no spanking but then thought better of it. She hadn’t actually told him no. Besides, she had liked it. “Put your legs back together.”
She obeyed and then shuddered as he traced the cleft of her ass. He stopped when he reached her closed thighs and she longed to arch up, giving him more territory to explore. But she didn’t. Well, not completely. She must have a little, because he chuckled.
His attention drifted lower—much to her consternation—to the back of her knees.
Oh, he really was a bastard of the first order. She tried very hard not to squirm as he tickled her mercilessly.
He deserved to be punished for this, but she wasn’t sure how she could…without moving and all.
And then it hit her.
Hit her hip, to be precise.
His erection.
It was unmistakable, with the heat of it, the hardness, the percussion of his pulse.
Surreptitiously, she leaned into it.
He froze. His fingers on her ass tightened.
She wriggled again.
His breath hissed out.
“Pansy…” A warning growl.
“Mmm?” As innocent a murmur as she could manage. It was hardly her fault his cock was goring her. His palm scudded up her side and she made it a point to shudder against him.
“Pansy.”
She bit back a smile. Yes. That was the tone she wanted to hear. Something feral and hungry, close to the brink of disaster.
Another wiggle. She couldn’t resist.
He responded with a growl and a light smack.
She retaliated with a sinuous undulation.
“Goddamn it.” He launched forward, moving so quickly she didn’t have time to brace herself and she nearly rolled off the couch. But he held her with one hard hand as he reached for and grabbed something off the coffee table. She knew what it was. The box of condoms.
She knew what it was, because she’d peeked.
What was it about her? He did not know.
Mason’s mind spun. His fingers fumbled as he desperately tried to untie the knot in the ribbon that encaged the box of condoms. The knot would not come undone. He should have fucking done it earlier, when he still had a modicum of control left. God knew, he had none now. It had all been burned away by a scorching passion. There was nothing left but a raging need to fuck her.
Goddamn knot.
He tried to pull it off but it was too tight. He ripped at it with his teeth. No dice.
The fucking concierge was not getting a fucking tip, the fucker.
“Do you need a pair of scissors?”
Her tone was far too amused. He glared at her. Oh, she would pay for that barb. She would pay.
Once he got a goddamn fucking condom out. He only needed one. For now.
Savagely, he smashed the box and pried it open and reached in with his fingers, but they were too large, or the hole was too small and he couldn’t—
“Let me.” She took the box from him and easily slipped a foil wrapped packet out. Then she waggled it teasingly before him.
He narrowed his eyes and growled at her.
For some reason she seemed undaunted. Apparently she had no idea how close he was to turning into a wild fucking beast. “I’m going to fuck you,” he snarled.
“Good.”
Oh, damn her. She was good. Prodding him right where it counted.
He shoved the table back away from the
sofa and pushed her down on it. He yanked the condom from her hold and tore into it with his teeth—yeah, they worked just fine for that—and rolled it on. And yeah. God. He loved the sight of her splayed before him, her breasts pressed against the cool glass, her ass up and ready. He shoved his knees between hers and forced them apart. He rubbed his cock along her slit. It was wet. Dripping.
“Do you want it?” He hissed into her ear.
She whimpered.
“Do you?”
She shot a look at him over her shoulder. “I’m not supposed to talk,” she reminded him in a whisper.
Fuck.
His hand landed on her ass hard and harsh. The swat echoed through the room. She wailed. It wasn’t enough. He wanted more. Needed more.
Needed everything.
He shoved his fingers in deep, though that wasn’t really what he wanted to shove. His cock ached, howled, screamed for release.
But he was a man of control.
He would make her beg first.
“Do. You. Want. It?” He asked, punctuating each hard word with a savage plunge. “Yes,” she wailed. “Ah, God. Yes. Fuck me, Mason. Fuck me.”
Absolute fucking exhilaration rained through him. Exhilaration and glory and lust. He set himself to her entrance. Nudged in, but only a tiny bit, only enough that he could feel her shivers, her breath, her pulse sucking at the tip of his cock.
“Beg for it.”
She froze. “What?”
“Come on, sweetheart. Say please. You know you want to.”
She shuddered then, hesitated and something like fury and need, or a fury of need, scalded his bowels. He thumbed her clit. Pinched it. Gave it a gentle smack. She winced. “Oh God.”
“No. That’s not it. Say please.”
He thought she might resist. He thought she might refuse. But, God bless her. She didn’t.
“Please Mason, Please! Fuck me. Fuck me hard.”
Oh. Yeah.
He plunged in. His entire body seized at the bliss of the kiss of her body, the tight, wet, heated squeeze of her channel. He hadn’t expected it to be such a close fit, but he couldn’t complain. Other than the fact that her hold on him made his eyes cross. Made shivers of electricity prickle along his spine and dance down to coil in his balls.
There was not much time. He was far too close to perdition.
He pulled out and shoved in again and again and again, and with each lunge she groaned, wailed, thrashed beneath him. He thought to smack her ass again, but it was only a thought flitting merrily through his head, along with all the other thoughts of things he wanted, needed to do to her and with her and for her.
The sound of flesh slapping flesh filled the room, punctuated by the protesting screech of the table legs as it walked across the floor.
Mason had no patience for repositioning himself, so—without disengaging—he grabbed her hips and turned her at an angle and arranged her on the carpet with her ass high. He held her there, and pummeled her.
It was fantastic.
She was fantastic.
She responded beautifully, opening to his every thrust and closing as he tried to withdraw. Like a lioness fucking her mate, she went wild. Her ferocity met and matched his on every level.
He kicked her legs wider and drove deeper and she stilled. Only for a fraction of a second. Only long enough for him to take a breath. And then…oh God. She imploded.
Her body seized, wracked by a series of quakes and mind-numbing clenches that made lights dance before his eyes.
They were there. Nearly there.
He reached beneath her and stroked her clit and she sucked in a breath and came again.
This climax was his undoing.
As she closed on him, he threw back his head and roared. His soul surged, his body exulted and his essence rose. And he released. He released it all. The tension, the need, the worries, the fears, the glory. He took what she had to give and he gave it all back.
When it was finished, he was empty.
And somehow, fulfilled at the same time.
He pulled her up into his arms, though they were both still on their knees. He pulled her up into his arms and held her. He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling and sent up a prayer of thanks—though he was not a praying man—that he had met her, had found her, had had her.
This was heaven. This was bliss. This was—
Through the miasma, a strange trickling sound captured his attention. That, and a warm wetness on his bare foot.
He glanced back just in time to see Lola lower her leg. She looked at him. Her lip rippled up in a show of teeth.
It looked like a smug grin.
Chapter Seven
After the most mind-blowing sex she’d ever had, Pansy and Mason finally made it to the bed. It was nearly dawn. She should be exhausted, but she wasn’t. The evening—specifically those interludes with Mason—kept running through her head.
It was funny, she didn’t think of herself as a submissive woman in the least, but she had enjoyed that. Being taken by a commanding man. Having him hold her down and pummel her in a frenzy. It made her feel fragile and feminine, protected and safe—none of which she really was. But she couldn’t deny the yearning to be so.
She’d enjoyed the erotic touches too. And the smacks to her bottom, though those still—even now—made her blush.
But she wasn’t submissive.
She wasn’t sure how she felt about all this, but what she did like was the prospect that she determined the parameters.
It wasn’t as though she was lowering herself before a man—which, frankly, was never going to happen—as much as a mutual agreement to explore power…and restraint.
She very much liked the idea of tormenting him the way he’d tormented her.
She wondered if he’d allow it.
With a smile, she leaned up and stared down at his sleeping face. She resisted the urge to trace those alluring lines because she didn’t want to wake him. He’d had a rough day yesterday. He needed his sleep. The rise and fall of his chest, the thud of his heart against her palm was soothing.
She curled up against him and set her head on his shoulder. She liked the way he murmured and pulled her closer.
God, she could get used to this.
It was a pity she had no idea how long it would last.
If only there was a way to get him to stay with her.
She’d have to think on that.
But she didn’t.
Once her eyes closed, she drifted off to sleep.
Oh thank God.
When Pansy’s gentle snore rippled through the room, Mason nearly collapsed in relief. How hard was it to pretend to be asleep with her watching him? With her hovering over him, her soft breath caressing his face? When she touched him, riffling her fingers through the hair on his chest?
Did he really want her again? Already?
He’d come twice tonight in her. There was no reason for this flickering flame. He should be bone dry. Devastated. A wasteland.
Not.
The fact that he wanted her so much, with such intensity, threatened to disturb his calm. But that was a lie, wasn’t it? He wasn’t really calm. Not if he was being honest.
She’d tipped his world on its ear. Made him think things, want things, do things he’d swore he’d never even contemplate. Just the fact that he’d fucked her, his client—and man, what a fuck it had been—was enough to make him question his sanity.
How hard was it to lie there…and not leap on her again?
How hard was it to show some crumb of restraint?
Hard.
Damn fucking hard.
But he had to affect some element of self-control. It was who he was, who he’d always been. He had to cling to that.
It had always been something of a challenge for him, grappling with the two divergent sides of his personality. There was the dominant part of him—the cool, calm unemotional warrior who was in absolute possession of every faculty and executed all de
cisions and actions with exquisite precision and forethought. And the other side, the one that lived in shadow and rose up when he least expected it, the part of himself he had to keep enchained? That part of him was a roaring savage with absolutely no control.
That this woman poked the beast with a stick every time she so much as glanced at him was concerning. Hell, she didn’t even need to glance at him. He only needed to catch a whiff of her scent, hear a soft moan—fuck—think of her.
He wasn’t sure what all this meant, but it couldn’t be good. It certainly threatened all he was, how he thought of himself as a man.
If he had any balls at all, he’d get up right now, call Jon and demand to be replaced.
He should.
He really should.
He even lifted a hand to ease her off his chest. But that was as far as the noble intention got before something else squashed it like a bug.
He couldn’t do it. Because he really didn’t want to leave. Didn’t think he could walk away. Not from her. Not now.
Funny that.
If someone had told him yesterday that he’d be holding her, wanting her, needing her tonight, he’d have laughed in his face. Yesterday she’d been an annoying, feckless brat it was his job to protect. Today…protecting her had become his passion. As necessary to him as breathing. Tonight, somehow, she’d become someone he couldn’t really contemplate living without.
And in one night.
Hell, not even that.
How on earth had that happened?
To him?
It wasn’t as though he hadn’t heard of a man falling so fast—hell, his friends Ryder and Drake had. And Mason had mocked them mercilessly for their weakness. They’d gone from being big bad heartless SEALs to overgrown lap dogs, slavering and panting over the women who had waltzed into their lives with no warning whatsoever.
And yeah. That part shocked him the most.
No warning whatsoever.
He’d never envisioned himself in a situation like this, feeling like this and he wasn’t sure how to handle it.
Drake had joked that the Navy didn’t train a man for this kind of assault, but Mason hadn’t understood what he meant.
He did now.
Ho, brother did he.