No Romance Required

by Cari Quinn

  At his silence, she glanced at him, expecting to see the familiar light in his eyes. But he wasn’t playing anymore. He hissed out a breath and grasped her breast, nearly making her lose her footing. His thumb flicked her beaded nipple while his eyes roamed her face. “You’re fucking beautiful.”

  He scooped her up and laid her out on the table, shoving aside the candles and bowl of ice and tucking her head on the pillow with infinite care.

  She looked around. “I can’t believe I’m on my dining room table. I eat here.”

  His mouth quirked. “Believe me, so will I.”

  To distract herself from blushing—and hopefully distract him from noticing—she squinted up at the light. He grabbed her patterned scarf off one of the chairs, tossing it over the chandelier so that the light bled through the vibrant reds and blues.

  “Better?”

  “Much.”

  He loosened her hair from its pins and ran his fingers through the long strands. “Hair ties on the dresser, too?”

  Already he sounded breathless, and as excited as the thick cock she’d felt pressed against her bottom indicated.

  She craned her neck to get a better look, but he tipped her chin up and gazed into her eyes from above. “Don’t look at me unless I tell you to. Okay?”

  That question tacked on the end smoothed out all her arguments. “Okay. Yes, they’re on the dresser.”

  He disappeared again, returning with two bands in his hands. He swiftly tied her hair off in twin ponytails, giving each a testing tug that might’ve made her whimper had her teeth not been sawing into her lip.

  “Normally a blindfold makes the sensations sharper, but I know how visual you are.” He undid another of the chair cushions and slipped it under her ass, lifting her almost embarrassingly high off the table. “You’ll come as much from what you see as what you feel.”

  “You told me not to look at you.” She cheated and sneaked a glance at him.

  His eyes darkened as he feasted his gaze upon her, spread out for his taking. “You’ll be looking at you.”

  He picked up one of the candles and the lighter and she relaxed. Somehow she’d never thought Cory would be the type to spend much time setting a mood. She smiled as the flame caught and he cupped it in his palm before lighting the other two. It was nice to see she could be wrong.

  She eased up on her elbows as he set the lit candles between her legs, one after the other. They were small, but the heat coming off them still warmed the insides of her thighs. And other parts of her. She angled a little closer. The heat felt so good—

  “You’re not to move.” His hand on her belly was a secondary warning. “No matter what. Look at me now, Victoria.” She did, and nearly shuddered from the power in one simple shared glance. “You have your safe word, and you’re free to use it when you need to. But until that moment, you’re not to so much as twitch without my okay. Your safety is most important. Understand me?”

  Her mind whirled. Safety? He hadn’t gathered any ropes or ties. What was he planning on doing?

  Mutely, she nodded.

  “Say it, Vic.” He reached for the oil and with the scent of cherries came understanding. Oh. Wax play. After her offhand joke the night he’d made his fake girlfriend proposition, she’d done her research. Suddenly the intoxicating heat licking up the sensitive insides of her legs didn’t seem quite so playful. “I don’t want to take any chances with you.”

  She stared at the jumping flames. “I won’t move.”

  And then his broad hands, coated in her fragrant oil, were on her body and she couldn’t think, much less worry.

  He stroked his talented hands over her stomach, hips, and thighs, working in the oil with an almost brusque touch. She’d always enjoyed deep-tissue massage but this one hit pressure points she’d never realized she had, invigorating her nerve endings until even the flicker of the flame closest to the apex of her thighs tore a whimper from her throat.

  Without pausing, he slicked his hands and palmed her breasts, drawing them upward and manipulating the stiff tips while she tossed her head back and forth. The music was still playing, but she could barely hear it over her tormented sighs. He scraped her nipples hard, as hard as her clit was throbbing, then twisted them, causing them to stand up from her glistening breasts in tight red nubs. She’d never seen them that hue before, as if all the blood in her body had rushed to those two points.

  His touch gentled as he ran his hand up her throat, the tips of his fingers pushing her chin back until her head and the pillow nearly dangled off the table. The blood not trapped in her nipples rushed to her brain and she shut her eyes to try to stem the overflowing sensations.

  It was useless. He commanded her wholly. Unforgettably.

  “So lovely.” His breath whispered over the shell of her ear and she startled. He slapped a hand on her stomach to hold her still. “Goddamn it, I told you not to move.”

  “Sorry. I just…sorry.” She bit her lip and reached up to grasp his shoulder, digging into his muscles. What she wouldn’t give to see him slicked down with oil as she was right now. “I didn’t expect you to be so close.”

  Instead of reprimanding her again, he gave her a quick, hot kiss. “I’m about to get a lot closer.”

  He didn’t give her time to puzzle that out before he was prying her thighs apart, opening her more to the teasing heat from the flames for a heart-stopping instant. Then his mouth was there, building a whole other kind of fire as his tongue slipped over her where she was already slippery with need.

  With her hips lifted and her sex exposed to him, she’d become his very own unvirginal sacrifice. Completely at his mercy. And it aroused her beyond belief.

  She wasn’t some neophyte. She’d had guys do this to her before, without the oil and candles. It just had never been Cory’s lips sealing over her center or Cory’s tongue prodding her eager clit. Definitely hadn’t been his tongue coasting through her folds and spearing her in one certain thrust. Driving in again and again, provoking her hips to rise to meet him despite the hand he flattened on her belly. It held her still, giving her a point to concentrate on in the maelstrom of passion he created with strong, unrepentant sucks on her flesh.

  Yoga had trained her to focus, to delay gratification, to hold a pose until the discomfort disappeared. But it hadn’t trained her not to moan and jerk at the insistent pressure of two fingers gliding deep, so deep that the renewed blood flow in her nipples tingled. The colors above her blurred into a wild swirl and she breathed in and out in steady pants. He nipped her thigh in warning, clearly feeling her building, and she fisted her hands at her sides.

  “I want to touch you.” She didn’t sound like herself. Her voice was thready, weak. As if all the energy inside her gathered in the area he worked so skillfully with tongue and fingers. And lips. Damn, his lips. “Please, Cory.”

  Rather than answer—his mouth was a little busy—he turned the hand on her belly palm up, and hell if the sight of his broad palm extended to hers didn’t make her eyes go damp.

  She gripped his hand, squeezing tightly at his increased suction. He whispered things against her she could barely hear but somehow understood. Words like beautiful and perfect and the one that confused her and thrilled her most.

  Mine.

  He said that one over and over until it became the soundtrack to the torrent of pleasure crashing through her body, tipping her over into a climax so strong that she didn’t know if he groaned at the gush of wetness against his tongue or her vicious hold. Maybe both.

  Afterward she drifted, barely aware of him moving back. She sighed at the loss of contact but she didn’t open her eyes, content to just float. A sound like ice clinking a glass made her eyelids flicker just as his warm palm covered her face.

  “Wait, Vic.”

  She was so far gone that she obeyed without thought. Her own scent on his skin filtered into her consciousness and made her smile.

  “Ah, there it is. I haven’t seen that smile since the
orgasm I gave you in the yoga studio. I’m greedy for them.” He pressed kisses to the corners of her mouth. “I want to watch you smile every time you come. If you don’t, I’ll just keep trying.”

  Eyes still closed, she tried to follow his lips as he drew away. He chuckled while he moved the candles between her legs, his wrists brushing her with casual touches that drove her insane. Her heart pounded, the roar growing louder as she quaked with anticipation. She couldn’t decipher all the sounds and it was getting harder to keep her eyes shut—

  Then she felt the first heated drop on her skin.

  She fell back against the pillow and moaned. The sting swiftly transformed into a spreading warmth. At the end of the table, her heels clattered against the wood. She wanted to plant her feet and raise her hips, anything to get him to soothe the flash that arrowed straight between her legs.

  “Do. Not. Move, Victoria.” His tone brooked no arguments.

  Not that she had any to give. She was too loose and soft, too pliable and ready for whatever he had in mind. Pressing her lips together, she gripped the table and waited.

  More drops trailed down her torso. She gasped freely, incapable of halting the sound. Lightning-quick, the burn worked its way inside her, lighting her up like a Roman candle. The singe straddled the line of pain as the wax accumulated, the heat growing until it changed into a sensation so pleasurable she nearly blacked out.

  His hand was on her again, caressing the hot wax, his breath seeping out while he molded it. A subtle pressure on her belly made her go still. He tugged on her silver navel piercing, bringing her environment sharply into focus though she didn’t open her eyes.

  She didn’t need to. Everything was so vivid. The pulsing music, the faint scent of the candles mixing with cherries and smoke, the delirious comfort of his touch.

  She was his, had always been his, and now they both knew it.

  His palms on her torso brought her back, warming her impossibly, trapping the fireball inside her as she fought not to writhe. The area at the apex of her thighs smoldered, and her body clenched futilely to be filled.

  “Look now, Victoria.”

  Fuzzily, she opened her eyes to the near-darkness and gasped at the candle sitting in a pool of its own wax on her stomach, the dancing flame transfixing her before she shifted her stunned gaze to Cory’s face. His eyes looked almost blue in the flickering light, the color more intense than she’d ever seen it.

  “You…you shut out the light.”

  “We don’t need it anymore.” Watching her, he drew his fingertips up the flame and she shredded the table with her nails to keep from moving. The sight was so erotic, so beyond anything she’d ever experienced before, that she couldn’t suck enough air into her lungs. “You’re the light now.”

  His eyes riveted to hers, he lifted the candle and she moaned as the cooling paraffin left her skin. The remaining wax tightened and the feeling traveled through her body, inciting a powerful spasm in her core. Holding the candle close to her breasts, building her fearful anticipation, he tipped it slowly, letting the drops encircle first one nipple then the other.

  Each strike made her gasp. And beg. Her vision blurred, her hands so tight on the table that they cramped. Another spasm seized her, more earth-shattering than the first. Ripping her open with its intensity. Then when she was sure, absolutely positive she couldn’t take another second, he set the candle back in the holder between her thighs and grabbed an ice cube, holding it against her bared nipple, surrounded in hot wax. His other hand cupped her, fingers spearing deep.

  And she screamed.

  Her climax sliced through her like a whip. She came harder than she ever had in her life, her orgasm even more devastating because that taunting flame between her legs never let her forget the consequences of giving in to her body’s demands.

  If she so much as twitched, she’d get burned. In her necessary stillness she found the purest pleasure she’d ever known.

  Panting, he dropped his forehead to hers. “Thank you,” he said, voice ragged.

  Vicky cradled his head as her eyes flew open and locked on his. There weren’t words to describe what they’d shared or how open she felt to him. She couldn’t hold anything back in this moment. Not her love or her fear.

  Lost to it, to him, she simply hung on.

  Eventually he eased back and stroked the melting ice over her trembling belly, making her shudder. “Shh, Vic. Shh. This will feel good, too. Trust me.”

  She tried to nod but wasn’t sure she managed to move. He slicked the ice over her skin, sending rivulets of cool water down her hot flesh. She gasped again just from the contrast in sensation. From the longing on his face, so naked and raw that her throat closed with emotion.

  Now he was so careful with her, working off the wax with the ice and his fingers, finally scraping the remnants away with a butter knife. He coasted the ice over her again and again, circling her nipples, freezing them and then setting them ablaze with the pressure of his tongue and teeth.

  She called on everything she’d learned in yoga not to shake in earnest, but when his agile fingers slid a chunk of ice along the slick lips of her sex, she gave into the climax poised to leap inside her. She came and came, shuddering through the ecstasy spinning through her system. Drowning in it while she chanted his name like a song on repeat.

  When she finally became aware of her surroundings again, she was cuddled against Cory’s strong chest, her wet face pressed into his throat. Back and forth he rocked her while he murmured words of comfort against her hair.

  “I’ve got you. You’re with me, baby.” Her tears only flowed harder as he said those most prized words once more. “You’re mine.”

  She clung to him, shameless in her need. Right then, the moisture splashing his skin seemed like another gift she could give him, one even more precious than her body. He just held her while she held him, their chests so close that his racing heartbeat mirrored her own.

  As her trembles began to slow, he removed her heels, then carried her upstairs to the bathroom. He set her down gently in the shower and stepped in behind her, closing the door and turning the water on warm. She couldn’t stop shivering.

  He pulled her back against him, enveloping her in his powerful arms again, kissing the side of her neck so gently, so lovingly, that she couldn’t help the renewed flow of tears. She spoke, she knew she did. But she couldn’t make sense of the gibberish that tumbled out of her while she gave herself up to him. Again.

  He ran his hands up her torso, over her breasts, up her shoulders, and finally her face. She leaned back, the water hitting her full-on as he caressed her, his fingers as reverent as his mouth on her throat. Everything she’d bottled up for so long—her love, her fear, her overwhelming need—poured out of her and he took it all.

  Under his patient touch, everything but the love that burned hotter than the brightest flame dissolved.

  …

  Cory held Victoria in the crook of his arm, her soft sleep noises making him smile. That he could still smile even while contemplating the destruction of the most precious relationship he’d ever had said more than he cared to examine.

  Their night together had exceeded his greatest expectations. He hadn’t even come and he’d never experienced anything more powerful.

  Granted, he’d had occasion to regret his missed orgasm during the long, sleepless night. But it was a small loss in the scheme of things.

  He glanced down at the tangle of blond hair on his chest. She’d curled one fist against her mouth and her lids twitched occasionally as if she were dreaming. Her soft, bare breasts pressed into his skin, an almost unbearable torment. Even the sheet twisting over his hips when she moved made him grimace.

  Instead of snuggling with her—at least they weren’t spooning—he should get up and take care of his erection. She would be safe in bed for a few minutes. He just couldn’t bring himself to let her go.

  She probably didn’t realize the vulnerable state she would be in
for quite a while, but he did. After play like they’d engaged in, her emotions would likely be all over the place, and he wasn’t about to leave her by herself.

  Even if he desperately wanted to be alone so he could kick his own ass for taking things so far to begin with. And maybe rub a few out, just to take the edge off.

  What the hell had he been thinking, pushing her to that extent when he knew how on edge she was? She’d had a rough day and he’d pressed his advantage until she’d been a gorgeous, volatile bundle in his arms, her tears scoring his skin as heatedly as every drop of wax.

  She’d come so beautifully, without reservation. Her body had been his to pleasure, and protect, and cherish. He just hadn’t planned on getting her heart, too.

  He shut his eyes, willing away the picture of her body in his arms in her shower. Hair dripping in two long tails, head bowed, shoulders shaking. It wasn’t her sobs that had shaken him to the core. With how tightly she’d held herself together since the first night they’d talked about her mom leaving, he’d known she was a powder keg ready to blow. But things had progressed way beyond that.

  “I love you, Cory.”

  When he’d done his research, he’d learned the importance of aftercare once a scene was over. He’d read about how the endorphin rush released during orgasm, especially the kind of orgasms often achieved during a scene, could lead to a painful emotional drop afterward. Most likely that drop accounted for her whispered declaration.

  Would she realize that though? Did he even want her to?

  He’d been prepared to fight for her love. To earn it like he’d earned everything else in his life: with patience and hard work. He’d never expected she would just give it to him before he’d proven himself worthy of it.

  She shifted in his arms and he smoothed kisses over her brow until she settled. Sure she was on the verge of sleep again, he let his gritty eyes close.

  “Cory?”

  Somehow he managed not to groan. She sounded so…tremulous. He couldn’t deal with a vulnerable, naked Victoria at three-flipping-a.m. while he had the hard-on from hell. “Go back to sleep.”