The one reality among all her six years of fantasies.
“I barely had time for a quick grope last time,” he went on, apparently on the same memory wavelength, “before—”
He stopped, perhaps recalling just who’d called the halt.
“You mean, before you backed off, told me to catch my plane, then vanished off the face of the planet, leaving me with just your amazing piece of epistolary talent, and leaving my father short his best worker.”
Yes! Now she was getting back on track. On why she was here.
“Exactly. But tonight there’ll be no backing off. It’s all going to happen.”
The cool evening air on her breasts turned her nipples into knots of desire, but not half as much as his words.
“You can’t hold me here like this indefinitely.”
“No?”
Christ! The single word, delivered soft and sweet, was all dominance. And so was his next move. Releasing her hands for only a moment, he dragged the bra down her arms and pulled it around her wrists, relentlessly knotting it, binding her into immobility.
A hot thrill seared deep within her at his taking charge, but in another lightning move, he jerked her arms upward and she found her hands attached to some immovable object above her.
Looking up, she saw with a stab of shock and dismay she was suspended from a heavy hook screwed into a low ceiling joist. She twisted her wrists within the bonds, straining for possible escape.
Not a chance.
Not even the chance of protecting her exposed breasts from his unwavering stare. His clear, dangerous eyes bore deep into hers as the impact of his intent roiled excitedly in her gut and down into her vagina.
“Okay, Corbett. What’s your agenda? Or have you thought that far ahead?”
A coarse laugh escaped his lips.
“What’s to think about? This is sex, Calloway. Mindless, head-banging sex.”
“Is that all it ever was?”
“Hell, girl, you came to me. Both times. Though granted, I never dreamed you would actually show up a second time and beg me to finish what we started.”
“This isn’t how it started,” she said. “And I’m not begging.”
He ignored this. “As for my agenda, you already know it. I’m going to fuck you. Long and hard. And deep. And rough.
The words themselves drew out, equally long and hard. And deep. And rough.
“In ways you’ve never been fucked before.”
“Don’t be so sure I haven’t.” Her voice sounded weak, but it was half trepidation, half anticipation. And all challenge.
“Ever been stripped and bound and immobilized before?”
“Sure. Plenty of times.” In her dreams.
“Not like this, you haven’t. All invasive, while I explore every infinitesimal piece of your heretofore untouched flesh as I expose it.”
“Big words for a man who works with his hands,” she whispered. Those wonderful hands that could build a house, or tear one down.
“And don’t you forget that I do.” His next move with his hands made it clear he was very good at working with them.
She couldn’t help gasping, and now he put a hand under her knee and raised it up to unfasten her boots and draw them off her, and then her socks. And then the other leg. His hand caressed her naked foot and eased up the leg of her jeans as far as it could.
Then he let her foot drop to the floor again, and stood back to survey her.
“Look at you, Calloway. Not the smart-assed little tease anymore.”
That hurt. “I never teased you.”
His fingers rested on the button of her jeans.
“These go next.”
She looked down and watched in fascination and submission as he slid the button through the hole, grasped the zipper pull and eased it down a tooth at a time. With every click of the zipper her heat rose, until at last she was undone.
Her mouth now as dry as her vagina was wet, she tried to speak, but couldn’t.
Corbett slid his hands, hard and callused, beneath her waistband, across the skin of her abdomen and her hips and eased her jeans down, over her hipbones, her thighs, her knees, and divested her of them, removing her next-to-last line of protection.
Corbett. This was Corbett, baring her body, invading her privacy, demanding and winning access to her sexuality.
“Not bad,” he remarked, with an appreciative sweeping glance over her virtually naked body.
“You’re not finished,” she pointed out, acutely aware of the last of her modesty just barely covered by her thin silk briefs.
“I’m just beginning.” He stepped closer, heat emanating from his body, just near enough not to touch her, but still capable of sending quivers of agonizing anticipation throughout her frame.
Now the tips of his fingers trailed across the slim band of lace at the top of her briefs; her involuntary flinch quickly turned to a shudder of anticipation. She closed her eyes and let her head fall back, but her skin still sent the image to her brain as his hand slid inside her briefs, feeling its way lower, seeking her heat, till at last, at last…the tip of one work-roughened finger found her clit.
The intimate touch, barely grazing the ultra-sensitive nub, sent vibrations zinging through her body, down her spine, up to her fingertips, into her sexual core.
How long…how long before this whole promise of intoxicating conquest came to a head? How long could she hold out against giving him the satisfaction of bringing her to an orgasm with just the touch of his fingers.
As if she would have a choice.
“You are so ready for me,” he whispered, his voice husky with—what? Anticipation? Arrogance? She’d been ready since the moment she’d seen him leaning against that doorway.
Since six years ago.
He moved his fingers against her and shifted them farther down her skin and hair, spreading her apart, edging between her labia. The breath of a moan escaped her.
Damn!
A triumphant half-smile flicked across his lips at the sound.
“I’m not made of stone,” she snapped.
“No. You’re not.” He prodded deeper, appreciatively, into her flesh.
Her muscles tightened around his finger and he emitted a gasp of unmistakable pleasure.
Who was enjoying this more? she wondered.
Suddenly, he slid his finger out of her, his hand out of her briefs.
“I need you naked.”
And with one quick jerk he ripped the silk and lace apart, and the last shred of her decency fell away.
She nearly had an orgasm there and then. With her total consent, this once-gentle man, a stranger to her for six years, had bound her and imprisoned her and invaded her and stripped her.
Slightly breathless and slightly sweating and unmistakably, unbelievably hard inside his jeans, he stood back, oh so casual, his thumbs hooked in his pockets, for a long, intense scrutiny of her now total nakedness.
Tara endured his raking look like a physical offensive as it rolled over every crest and probed into each valley of her suddenly unbearably vulnerable body. No part of her exposed flesh was shielded from his sharp, unyielding gaze as it roved over her from top to toe, lingering first on her breasts, then her abdomen, then her pubic hair, penetrating her most protected private parts, invading her deeper and harder and stronger than his restless, talented fingers had just done.
“Oh, Calloway…” His voice broke, hoarse and weak. His bravado vanished.
With a moan he dropped to his knees. And leaned in.
Hell…oh god… His breath on her skin… The tip of his tongue, hot and rough as a summer sidewalk, flicked onto her clit. Rubbed her. Scraped her.
Thrust into her.
She squirmed unbearably against him, trapped between his generous mouth and the rough wooden boards rasping her backside, no doubt gouging her with slivers as Corbett gouged her with his teeth. Twisting and writhing against him, against her imprisonment as he held her thighs immobile with t
he iron grip of his hands, only increased his feral onslaught.
If I come now… What? Remnants of thoughts dissolved into nothing as he coaxed her, drew her magically into the realm of dizzying desire, as every atom of her defenseless body heated and steamed and seemed to fall away until her entire being focused on this man’s inspired gift for reaching the core of her sexual existence with his tongue, his teeth, his lips.
No wait… Not so fast! But she was powerless against the tsunami of violent reaction emanating from point zero as she succumbed to Corbett’s oral mastery. It swept over her and around her and through her, and finally washed away, leaving her lifeless and drained and spent.
“Corbett…” she managed to murmur as he stood up and grinned at her.
“You liked that, I gather. Judging from your comment.”
“What comment?” she snapped, a modicum of energy flaring up.
“That heartfelt cry of—I’m guessing—anguish and ecstasy I heard just now.”
Guilty. Probably.
“Yeah. Okay, I liked it. Who wouldn’t?”
“Good. Because there’s more where that came from.”
She had to roll her eyes. “You never used to be so damned arrogant, Corbett.”
“Yeah, well, people change in six years.”
“No kidding.” She pushed onward with this line of thought. “You’re getting off on more than the idea of sex here. It’s the power trip. The power you have over me—tying me up with my own bra, stripping me. The power to decide when you’ll let me go—” She looked up at her imprisoned hands, nearly numb from their ordeal. “You do plan to let me go at some point?”
“Eventually.” He reached up and tapped gently at the bonds. “You’re bound pretty tight, but don’t fret.”
He slipped a hand into his pocket and withdrew an object the size and shape of a pocket knife.
A bittersweet memory clenched at her heart at the appearance of the intricate talisman.
She’d carved it for him that last summer from a small piece of arbutus. The sight of it brought back the feel of the reddish brown wood under her fingers as she’d fashioned it into a sampler of fanciful twists and turns. The smooth surfaces so enticingly sleek, the ridges precariously edgy.
“You kept it,” she murmured. And he carried it with him.
“When I’m finished with you, I’ll set you free.” He held it up as though a surety on his word, and some dark thought seemed to flicker over his eyes.
“But first…” He lowered his hand and with a shock she saw just what was about to happen. He gently prodded one end of the talisman into her curls, its hard, rounded tip pressing between her labia, stroking her lightly.
She gasped at the contact. At his daring.
He found her clitoris with a hard edge and she jerked in stark reaction at the feel of it rubbing against her most sensitive spot.
Driving…her…crazy…
His eyes holding hers, he dragged the carving the length of her throbbing sexual groove, both smooth and rough surfaces stimulating wildfire between her legs and setting her edge of reason aflame.
“Oh please…” she breathed. Was she crazy? Her lovingly created gift desecrated in this callous libidinous manner?
“Please stop?” he whispered.
“Please. Do it.”
He did it.
The invasion of her innermost private place came with a shock of pain and pleasure. She gasped as he continued to look deep into her eyes, his own eyes glazing over with a kind of driven desire, as though the charm were an extension of his own body, as though he himself were inside her.
Thank heaven she was bound, as her knees turned to straw and gave out beneath her.
He twisted it within her, its curving surfaces caressing her even as the hard edges scraped at her, grating away her hold on civilized behavior, turning what was left of her thoughts to pure animal lust.
Powerless to hold back the shockwave, she was struck with the force of a second orgasm, wilder than the first, thrashing against her and in her and around her and through her, waves emanating from the core of her sexuality and spreading through her with overwhelming force, submerging her, carrying her sanity and nearly her consciousness with it, until it rolled on past her, and left her weakened and motionless, exhaling a faint moan.
She hung cold and naked and exposed and completely wrung out in the fading light.
And Corbett stood before her, arms folded.
“I think maybe you liked that too.”
She forced her knees to function again, found her feet and straightened up.
“Oh, like you didn’t,” she snapped. “You enjoyed that, fucking me with my own handmade gift to you. No doubt you’ve got all kinds of tricks planned.”
“No doubt.” He slid the talisman back into his pocket.
She gathered some threads of dignity. “You look damned pleased with yourself.”
“Why not? How many times in your life have you come twice, so hard, so close together?”
“Never.” It wasn’t worth the strength to lie; he deserved full credit. “Never that hard. Never that soon.”
His grin widened as he stepped closer. Damn, he was still fully dressed, fully in charge, while she felt more than naked. Weak, vanquished.
And utterly, utterly fulfilled.
“And now,” he said in an even tone as he reached up to the hook above her, “I think you’ve been through enough.”
She jerked up her head at this. Enough? Been through?
“What!”
“The game stops here and now, Calloway.” His air of supreme self-assurance had vanished. “I thought I could carry it off, carry out everything I said in that letter but there’s no way I’d ever do that.”
“Oh, right!” Lost energy now came surging back to her limbs. “You can stand there with your erection bursting out of your pants and tell me you can’t carry it off. Like you don’t want to drop your jeans this moment and get it into me so fast.”
“Don’t push me,” he warned, a wary note in his tone.
What the fuck?
“Don’t push you? Since the moment I walked in here you’ve made it clear that your entire agenda is to fuck me blind and merciless and rough and endless and raw.”
He shook his head, his eyes betraying uncertainty.
“Aw shit, Calloway. I hope, even now, you know me better than that. Better than I know myself. That I can’t take such blatant, obnoxious advantage of you like that. I couldn’t do it six years ago. I couldn’t do it now, though God knows I meant to. Just to have one good, unforgettable piece of you.”
Burning resentment took over her body and soul, where just moments ago she’d been all desire and eagerness.
“Couldn’t do what?” she demanded.
“Tie you up against your will and fuck you. I hope you know that’s not me.”
“Not you? Hell, Corbett, haven’t you been paying attention? You just did exactly that. Tied me up and fucked me. Twice. First with your tongue, then with your—our talisman. Or are you one of those guys who conveniently thinks it doesn’t count if it’s not the actual personal, private cock?”
He blushed. Apparently, he was indeed one of those guys.
“And as for that bit about against my will. Do you think for one moment you’d have got this far with me, or even as far as removing my jacket, let alone tying me up, stripping me, eating me alive, penetrating me with the carving, if I hadn’t been perfectly willing? If I hadn’t let you?”
At least he wasn’t going to run away with the idea that things had gone all his way.
“Oh yeah?”
He stepped back and spent a long moment or twenty just staring at her. Every part of her. Until she felt herself flinch under his look.
“You? Let me?” The words were quiet, puzzled. “And yet, Ms. Calloway, ma’am, which of us is standing here unfettered and fully dressed, and which of us is bound and naked and powerless—”
“Right. And—oh, the hardship
—suffering from a pair of back-to-back over-the-top orgasms. Inflicted on me by a guy who, I have to admit, is pretty good with his hands. And mouth. And that trick with the carving.”
“I repeat, you’re the one tied up.”
“And I have a pair of legs that could have broken your ribs if I’d chosen to defend myself. Or cracked your nuts. If I hadn’t been a willing partner in what just went on, you’d be lying on the floor right now, doubled up in agony, clutching your balls.”
He winced. Then he rallied and a slow smile split his face. Warmth flowed through the evening air, over her exposed body and into her battered heart.
It’s going to be all right…
“Aw, Calloway, you were always so damned feisty. You’d no more kick me in the balls than I’d force myself into you, or any woman.
He stepped closer, the heat of his body beneath his rough clothes emanating onto her naked skin, and one hand caressed her buttocks, drawing her against him, as the other ran a gentle path down her cheek, his thumb outlining her lips.
He moved in to kiss her, his tongue now coaxing and caressing, where it had been all force and demand earlier.
And she melted. This time with the helplessness of passion and tenderness.
It’s right. So right. After all these years.
He pulled away slightly and again reached up to the hook. “I swear, Calloway, if I don’t release you now, I’ll be inside you so fast—”
“I dare you,” she found herself saying. And wouldn’t she just love it.
“What?” His eyes said ‘Oh god yes’ and ‘Are you crazy?’ at the same time.
“I can’t wait a moment longer. Let me see you now, just a taste of you. Time enough for long and sweet all night long. But now—oh please, Corbett. I just need you now, just like this.”
And, longing and desire all over his face, he was clearly powerless to refuse.
His hands went to his belt buckle. She grabbed a quick breath and watched in blood-stopping anticipation as, with deftness and deliberation, he undid his belt, opened his zipper and released his penis.
Oh lord. Joe Corbett in all his manifest glory. Two simple reality bytes hit her.
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