Bound by Darkness

by Annette McCleave

  She unfastened the front of her khakis, sliding the zipper open to reveal just a hint of low-slung underwear.

  Brian groaned. Christ. He had miles to go. He was only on step four. Why the hell hadn’t he gone to more meetings?

  Even as he wondered, he knew the answer.

  He was stuck on step five. The thought of telling someone—anyone—about his past made him want to run. Fast and far, until he left it all behind him. And yet, no matter how far he ran, he never seemed to shake it entirely. Every time he paused, the past crept up on him again, like it was doing now. How the hell was he supposed to open up to another person when he had trouble admitting his crimes to himself? Looking beyond the surface image in the mirror to the self-centered bastard beneath gave him the shakes.

  Everyone thought he was funny and smart and charming. Lena thought he was funny and smart and charming. But if she knew the truth, she’d spit on him. The same way his cousin Mark had spit on him at Melanie’s funeral. Not literally, of course. But his scathing comments during the eulogy amounted to the same thing.

  He should walk away.

  Brian forced his eyes open, made himself look at Lena’s beautiful face. Problem was, she had laid herself bare here. In more ways than one. If he pushed her aside, if he rejected her flat out with no explanation, he’d hurt her. All she was asking for was a casual roll in the hay, no strings attached. She wanted some pleasure, and it was possible to give her that without breaking his vow. Technically.

  “Tell you what,” he murmured.

  Her eyes popped open.

  “I’ll help you get lucky, if you help me enact a little fantasy.”

  She frowned, and because that was so Lena, he kissed her. “Don’t worry, I’m not a sexual deviant. I’ve always wondered whether I could make a woman come three times using only my hands and my tongue.” Her frown did not fade. “I’d love to give it a whirl. But give it serious thought, because if you agree, absolutely no part of your body will be off-limits.”

  “Is that a rule or a suggestion?”

  “Rule.”

  She straightened, her expression easing into something less disapproving and more thoughtful. “Am I allowed to touch you?”

  Oooh, boy. Good question.

  “Yes,” he said, with an involuntary shiver of anticipation. This was going to be torture, any way you looked at it. “Anyplace is fair game except Mr. Billy. I have my doubts I’d be able to finish the fantasy if you go there.”

  “Mr. Billy?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  A glimmer of a smile loosened her exotic features. “It’s called a penis.”

  “No guy calls his dick a penis. Honestly, it sounds like some kind of disease, and that’s the last place we want to catch anything.”

  “In your fantasy, do you come?”

  Brian drew in a deep breath and slowly let it out. “No.”

  “Won’t that be ... uncomfortable?”

  Hell, yes. But so worth it. He shoved himself to his feet. “I’ll get a huge thrill out of watching you come.”

  “Three times?”

  He grinned at the catlike smile on her face. “That’s the plan.”

  “Hmmm.” She trailed a finger from her navel up between her breasts, giving herself goose bumps. “Is there a lock on the door? Because the thought of being ravished on the desk with my hands tied is stuck in my mind.”

  His skin suddenly felt itchy and tight.

  The image was now amazingly vivid in his mind, too.

  The self-discipline he’d worked so hard to develop over the past few months was about to be tested, big-time. The notion of sinking slowly into her body, of losing himself in her silky, hot embrace, was already making his mouth so dry he could barely form words.

  Ah, Christ.

  Who was he kidding? If he ever actually did make love to her, there would be nothing slow about it. He’d wanted her the instant he saw her, and every moment since had simply added to a very long, unbearable stretch of foreplay. Imagining the unimaginable was only going to make this harder. He shrugged out of his suit jacket and his leather baldric and tossed both on the sofa.

  “The desk it is,” he said.

  Crossing to the door, he depressed the lock with a definitive click. Then he strode to the desk, lifted the flat-screen computer monitor to the floor, and swept aside the tooled leather blotter, leaving the wooden surface clean. Already envisioning her spread before him—open, willing, begging—he tugged off his silk tie with a barely restrained jerk.

  He met her gaze.

  “Get naked, sweetheart.”

  Lena’s pulse skittered madly.

  This was... unexpected.

  The Brian she thought she knew had been replaced by someone completely different. Lazy and charming he was not. Intensely hot? Yes. Demanding? Yes. Amusing? Not in the slightest. He looked as if he intended to devour her, a prospect she found surprisingly exciting.

  Off came her shoes, both this time.

  “Should I remove each item slowly?” she asked, her voice thickening as she watched him unravel the knot in his tie. “Or do it quickly?”

  His eyes were locked on her. “Whichever makes you wetter.”

  Oh God. That worked. She shucked her khakis and her socks and kicked the clothing aside. Standing there in only her underwear, she waited for some kind of response. Anything.

  And she got it.

  As his gaze drifted over the mounds of her breasts and followed the flare of her hips, his hands fisted around the narrow strip of his silk tie. His eyelids dropped to partially cover his eyes. “Turn around. Slowly.”

  She did as he asked, closing her eyes as she spun around, not daring to wonder what he was thinking, but loving the smoky demand of his voice.

  “Nice ass.”

  She gasped. He was closer than she expected. His breath was warm on the back of her neck, sending a host of tiny shivers down her spine.

  A calloused finger slid beneath the waistband of her panties. Dragging the material down a fraction as he went, he migrated over her hip and around to the front. There he paused, splaying his hand over her belly, absorbing the erratic rhythm of her pulse for a long, titillating moment.

  Then he bit her neck. Firm, but not hard.

  The jolt of sensation was so intense, Lena whimpered, and she let herself fall back.

  He was there, right behind her, and his body took the weight of hers. Her submissive gesture invited his hand to delve deeper into her panties, and he took her up on her offer. As his fingers slid into the damp curls between her thighs, her breaths grew short and shallow, as did his. Heat bloomed all over her skin, and beads of sweat rose on her chest.

  She opened her legs wider.

  “I want you,” she urged.

  Not that he needed the prompting—Brian’s fingers were already working magic, sliding in and out, teasing and circling. Driving her crazy. His mouth nibbled up the side of her neck, found her ear, and sucked on her lobe. Hard. It was all too easy to imagine him sucking on another part of her body with the same enthusiasm.

  “Oh God.” Her knees gave out.

  Brian chuckled as he bent and scooped her into his arms. “Time for the desk, I think.”

  He laid her gently on the cool wood and pressed a quick kiss to her lips before standing back to admire. Taking his time, he eyed every inch of her skin from her toes to her face, his expression more serious than she’d ever seen it. “You are absolutely gorgeous,” he said.

  Feeling a faint flush rise to her cheeks, Lena shoved her hands behind her back, intent on unclipping her bra. He hadn’t even seen her best assets yet.

  “Whoa.” His hands grabbed for hers. “I’ll take care of that,” he promised. “These naughty hands are getting punished, remember?”

  She ceased her efforts to unclip her bra and held her hands out to him. “I remember.”

  Loosely but firmly, he wrapped his tie around her wrists and knotted it. Then he coaxed her arms above her head,
gave her a burning hot look, and said, “Stay.”

  He wasn’t finished.

  Tugging her panties down her legs, he slid them off and tossed them over his shoulder. They landed on the upper corner of a bookcase behind him, and she briefly wondered how she was going to get them down. But with his hands gliding over her hips and up to her bra, that thought didn’t last long.

  Instead of unfastening the bra, Brian shoved it up, exposing her breasts, but not freeing them. The rough scrape of the cotton-encased underwire, combined with the excitement of her vulnerable situation, beaded her nipples to painful hardness.

  He stared.

  Then he shook his head. “I knew they would be great.”

  Lena frowned. He sounded almost disappointed. She glanced down her body at the twin ivory peaks. No blemishes, no unsightly creases left by her bra. The dusky pink nipples were rosier than normal, but other than that, everything appeared fine. “What wrong with them?”

  “Absolutely nothing,” he said. “They’re perfect.”

  His tone suggested perfect was a flaw. “But you don’t like them.”

  He lifted his gaze. A banked fire burned in the sooty depths. “I like them just fine.”

  “Stop saying that. It’s obvious by your tone of voice that you don’t mean it.”

  A rueful smile curved his lips. “Do I sound upset? Sorry about that. But it’s hard for me to act like nothing’s happened when you just ruined me for every other woman on the planet.”

  Lena blinked. And a delicious wave of damp heat stole all the tension from her body.

  “Just shut up and kiss them,” she said grumpily.

  He grinned. “Lena Sharpe, you’re too bossy by half. I’ll get to those beautiful breasts when I’m ready and not a second before. Lie back and take it like a woman.”

  “Now who’s being boss—”

  He halted her retort with a hand over her mouth. “New rule. No sound from you unless it’s a moan or a groan or a scream.” Watching her eyes closely, he let the anger die out of her before he lifted his hand. “Deal?”

  She nodded.

  “Good girl.” He vanished from her line of sight for a moment, then returned with two small accent pillows from the sofa. Tucking one under her tailbone and the other in the small of her back, he said, “You might as well be comfortable. You’re going to be there for a while.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  He caught the gesture and punished her by suckling a breast, first with delicate, wet pulls, and then with deep, rhythmic suction. The sparks that set off went all the way down to her fingers and toes. Lena mewled, squirmed, and thrust her breasts higher.

  Not content with that response, he rolled the other nipple between his finger and thumb. A lick of exquisite fire ripped through her veins, dampening her hairline. She moaned.

  Brian smiled against her skin. “Begging is also allowed.”

  Not wanting him to see the desperate hunger for him she was sure lay in her eyes, she closed them. Had her hands been free, she would have expressed her desire by thrusting her fingers into his hair and pressing his face harder against her breast. But that option wasn’t available, and she was forced to admit her need out loud.

  “More,” she demanded weakly.

  But he didn’t immediately deliver. In fact, she was left alone on the desk, wanting. Lena opened one eye to figure out why.

  He had attacked the buttons on his shirt. At the third one, growling with impatience, he gave up and yanked the shirt over his head. But he forgot to free his wrists. Lena grinned. Thanks to a tightly clenched jaw and the most perfectly sculpted muscles she’d ever seen on a man, even with his hands wrapped like a baby’s, Brian looked capable of slaying demons.

  “Fuck me,” he snarled.

  She closed her eyes and smothered her smile. “I would, but you said that was against the rules.”

  “Don’t be a smart-ass.”

  Two sharp rips. Then his warm hands were on her breasts.

  Kneading, stroking, adoring, his fingers alternately drew circles on her skin and plucked at her nipples. He pressed and rolled and massaged. Never too hard, yet never giving her a moment’s peace. He seemed to know exactly how to tease her to distraction. Lena’s belly tightened under the flood of sensation. The urge to have him inside her started as a vague itch, but grew steadily under his attentions, developing into a relentless ache that wouldn’t go away.

  That was when his mouth replaced his hands on her breasts, and his hands went south. One found the round flesh of her buttock and the other ...

  She hissed in a breath.

  “Oh, baby, you are so wet,” he said hoarsely against her chest. The edge of desperation in his voice matched what she was feeling, so she groaned her agreement. His thumb played with her, gently flicking, pressing, and circling. “You have no idea how badly I want to be inside you.”

  “Do it,” she said, her jaw tight.

  “No,” he said, on a heavy sigh of regret. “Not this time.”

  His finger slid in. Not too deep, just far enough to strum the chords of her desire. At the same time, he suckled first one breast, then the other, licks, nibbles, and sucks on wet, swollen flesh. The hand on her ass squeezed and kneaded. He was everywhere, serving up a buffet of delightful sensation.

  Her breath came in short gasps, her toes curled, and her pulse pounded, but it wasn’t nearly enough. The ache inside her ran deeper than that, fiercer than that. She needed more. Arching her body, she thrust her hips up against his hand.

  “More,” she demanded again.

  One finger became two, and she writhed, feeling the tension build. “More.”

  His two fingers played her with finesse, knowing precisely where and how to touch her inside, and the heel of his hand pressed against her mound, teasing and coaxing and driving her mad. Her womb clenched in anticipation and she moaned, seeing the pinnacle. So, so close.

  “Imagine me inside you,” he whispered, steamy hot against her skin. “Filling you up, fucking you hard.”

  Lena whimpered. In her mind’s eye, his body was completely naked and his lower half matched the upper in muscular perfection. She could feel the tautness of his buttocks as he thrust into her, smell the spice of his musky skin, taste the salt of his flesh on her lips.

  “Brian,” she urged restlessly, not exactly certain what she was asking for, certain only that he could provide it.

  His hand still teasing, still stroking, still coaxing her toward the brink, he joined her on the desk. His naked chest rubbed against hers, the hairs gently abrading her now sensitized breasts. He was slightly sweaty, too, and the tug of skin on skin proved a delightfully erotic addition to the overture. His lips nibbled their way up her throat to her chin.

  “Open your eyes,” he said.

  She did. Her focus was not what it usually was, but the intensity in his eyes was impossible to miss. The look was significant; she knew that, but what did it mean? “I—”

  He kissed her. A rather rough kiss that bruised her mouth and stole her breath. It was equal parts frustration and possession, the kind of kiss a man gave a woman when drawn to her in spite of himself, when he wanted to own her, but knew he couldn’t. It was hard and deep and totally devastating.

  The crush of his kiss created the perfect storm of sensation. Lena shuddered with pleasure and fell headlong into the abyss.

  A sharp rap on the door forty minutes later brought Brian’s fantasy to a crashing halt.

  “Webster? You said you wanted to attend Emily’s next training session. That would be now.”

  Brian kissed Lena’s inner thigh. “I’ll be right there.” He waited until Murdoch’s stomp faded, then muttered, “Asshole. If he’d been stupid enough to come in, I’d have killed him.”

  “You locked the door,” Lena reminded him as she lowered her feet from his shoulders and wriggled to a sitting position on the edge of the desk. She held out her tied hands in a silent request for freedom.

  He obliged, run
ning his thumb over the delicate skin of her wrists to make sure the silk hadn’t done any harm. She was softer than the tie. “Yeah, but Murdoch reminds me of that big guy in Harry Potter. One rattle of the doorknob and he probably would have torn the damned thing off.”

  “He doesn’t look anything like Hagrid,” she disputed. She pulled her bra back into place, drawing his attention to the lovely post-O flush on her chest. Just a hint of girlish pink. “No potbelly, and he’s quite handsome under that beard.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I said he’s actually quite handsome.”

  “I heard you,” he said grimly.

  “Oh, stop it. I haven’t let Murdoch kiss my hand, let alone any of the other places you’ve been permitted to go. Any chance you could get my panties down?”

  Brian followed the direction of her finger and grinned. Rising to his full height, he reached for her underwear, but the top of the bookcase was nine feet up. He actually had to use his Gatherer skills to reach them. “Score.”

  “You look pretty pleased with yourself, considering you failed in your mission.”

  He tossed her a hard look. “We got interrupted. And I didn’t see you complaining a few minutes ago when you came for the second time. In fact, I think the double shudder you gave could technically count as two and three.”

  “Nice try.” She accepted the scrap of white cotton. “But I think I’ll keep number three in reserve for when I really need it.”

  He smiled. “Fair enough.”

  “How’s Mr. Billy doing?”

  “You need to work on your expression of sympathy. It’s not really striking the right note.” He glanced down at his tented trousers. “But since you asked, he has a wicked case of finger and tongue envy, but he’s getting over it.”

  Lena scooped her shirt up from the floor in front of the couch and shoved her arms in the sleeves. Then she wrinkled her nose and sniffed the material. “I need a shower. Are you going to mention the demon attack when MacGregor calls?”