Nine Kinds of Naughty

by Jeanette Grey

  “Shh. I know what you want.”

  He did, didn’t he? Always, even when she didn’t.

  Curling his hand around her wrists again, he nudged his knee between her thighs and patted at her hip.

  “Spread for me, gorgeous. Show me how much you want to get fucked.”

  The words sent hot rushes along her spine, zinging to her breasts and clit. She shuffled her legs apart, wider at the hint of a smack he landed on the inside of her thigh. When she was positioned right, he stopped her, dropping to crouch behind her and picking up—

  Was that a curtain rod?

  She didn’t know, but in a flash it was between her feet. With two more scarves he tied her ankles to each end, and a whole fresh wave of wetness soaked her through.

  Oh, hell, she couldn’t close her legs and couldn’t move her hands. She was supposed to be showing off how much she wanted to get fucked, and now there was nothing else for her to do. She was exposed like this, a body to be taken and used. She was on display, and he could have her any way he wanted to, and the freedom of it threatened to swamp her.

  She moaned as he kissed the insides of her knees. He slid the roughness of his palms up her inner thighs, then took a stroke over her opening. Her breath caught, the sudden burst of pleasure almost too much when he grazed her clit, then pressed two fingers inside.

  “Fuck, Lex, I knew you wanted it, but this is unreal.”

  In the mirror, she watched him place those fingers in his mouth and suck, his eyes rolling back as if he’d never tasted anything better.

  “Tell me,” he said, pressing his face against her hip. “Tell me you want me to fuck you while you’re all tied up like this, tell me—”

  “I need it.” God, shit, she was vibrating, her every muscle tensed, even as the liquid gold of submission made her mind soft. “Please. Please, fuck me just like this. I need you, need your cock, I want—”

  In one smooth motion, he stood. With a hand at her shoulder, he bent her over, and all the blood rushed to her head, her balance lost, but before she could fall, he caught her. He grabbed the slip of fabric between her bound wrists and held on. It yanked her arms even farther back, her shoulders straining to support her weight, and her knees went wobbly.

  Her head spun. This was impossible. No way she could hold the pose without his keeping her in place. Without his supporting her, holding her up. She was helpless. At his mercy.

  She was flying.

  He gave her ass a couple of rough slaps. She grunted against each one, the swollen ache between her legs only growing. Her eyes leaked, desperate tears flowing off her lashes, and she was so empty, but she was safe. He had her.

  And then in one rough thrust, he pushed in.

  She screamed as she was split open. Fuck, he was so big, but it was good.

  “Like that?” he asked, not pausing for her response. He drew back only to drive forward again, pushing the air from his lungs. “Is that what you needed?”

  “Yes, yes, God, yes.”

  Dizzy, she closed her eyes, but he tugged harder at her arms. She forced herself to look again. In the mirror, her breasts were doing just precisely as he’d said they would, bouncing with every pounding thrust. Her wet hair hung around her face, and her cheeks were flushed, eyes glazed.

  She looked wanton, like a—a slut, and she was completely under his power, and she felt alive. Like his cock and his knots and the weight of his hands had filled up something in her life.

  And he—

  Jesus Christ, she’d never seen him like this. All those ropes of chiseled muscle were drawn tight, the tendons and veins on his arms and pecs and neck standing out. He was still damp from the shower or he was sweating, and either way, every thrust of his hips threw the ridges of his abdominals into even sharper relief.

  His eyes, a stormy blue, shone almost black, and the way they focused on her sent her pleasure spiraling higher.

  He looked at her as if he saw her. Deep beneath all the things she tried to be to the world. He saw her flaws and he saw her like this, and he chose to be with her.

  He held her up.

  On a shimmering cloud of pleasure, she floated, pulled into the rough motions of his hips and driven forward. Every stroke hit the perfect place inside her, but she hovered just there on the precipice, waiting.

  Finally, his cock slammed into her even harder, his pace quickening. She flexed around him, and he squeezed her hip sharp enough to bruise.

  “Can you do it, gorgeous? Come on my cock? Just like this?”

  She nodded, and her head spun faster.

  “Do it. Come—wanna feel you—let go—Lex—”

  Climax swept her off and took her to another planet. She was there in that room with him panting her name behind her, pouring his release into her, and she was floating in space, and it was perfect. It was everything.

  And she never, ever wanted to come down.

  chapter TWENTY-EIGHT

  Something was making noise. Lexie groaned and rolled over, tugging her pillow over her head. Dane made a vague grunt of protest as she rolled away, but the guy was a fucking octopus when he slept. He followed right along, wrapping his arm—and maybe a leg—around her to pull her close.

  Finally, the sound cut off, and she breathed a sigh of relief, settling her hand over Dane’s. She started to drift away again—

  Only for the damn thing to start right back in again.

  “Shit.”

  She poked at Dane until he let go enough for her to at least sit up partway and fumble a hand toward the side table where she’d left her phone. She winced against the brightness of the screen in the darkened room, and then bit off another curse when she saw Rylan’s face.

  She answered midring.

  “What the fuck—”

  “The Escudo deal fell through.”

  Just like that, she was awake. Behind her, Dane grumbled, but she shhed him, wriggling free of his arm and sitting the rest of the way up. A glance at the clock read six a.m. She did the mental math. That was nine in New York and three p.m. in Barcelona. Plenty of the way into their day.

  Throwing off the blankets, she rose, reaching for the robe she’d left . . . right around here somewhere. “Talk.”

  “The rest of the team has been trying to hammer out the provisions you were working on, but there were sticking points.”

  Of course there were, but they’d had a plan to handle them. She’d briefed the team the whole flight back to the States. “Such as.”

  Rylan ticked off half a dozen.

  She stopped him partway through, finally locating her robe and tugging it on. “Wait, wait. We had a solution for that.”

  “Well, apparently Miranda changed his mind.”

  “Did they go through Carlos?”

  Dane had been the one to show her that trick. Miranda’s assistant had his ear, and it was a hell of a lot easier to get through to him.

  “Hell if I know, Lex.”

  “Let me make some calls.” Surely she could put this to rights. Hell, Evan was feeling better. When they’d stopped in to see him after dinner last night, he’d almost been cheery, comparatively speaking. If he could spare her all day yesterday, he probably wouldn’t mind a couple more days. The time changes would kill her, but maybe she could sneak away long enough to fix this mess. As long as she was back before they tried to discharge him . . .

  Rylan stopped that train of thought before it could leave the station. “Lex. Lex, stop. It’s dead in the water.”

  “What are you talking about? It’s only been a couple of days. I’m sure I can turn it around.”

  She plunked down at the desk in the corner, turning on the little lamp and starting her laptop, already making lists in her head of all the ways she might be able to make this right. Over in the bed, Dane stretched and groaned before sitting up. It was too dark to really make him out over on that side of the room, but she shot him an apologetic glance all the same. Waving her off, he padded to the bathroom and closed the doo
r.

  Shit, she was going to owe him big-time for this.

  “I’ll just—” she started.

  “No,” Rylan said, and it was the tone of his voice that made her pause. It sounded so final. So much like their dad’s.

  A cold shiver racked her spine.

  “No?”

  “I’ve been personally involved since yesterday, and I’m telling you. They aren’t budging, and neither are we. It’s an impasse, and it’s like I said. The board’s breathing down my neck. It’s time to look elsewhere for our turnaround.”

  “Oh.” A numbness crept over her, pins and needles shooting from her hands.

  “It was a good idea. But it didn’t work out. Nobody’s fault.”

  “Right.”

  No one’s except hers. If she’d stayed . . . if she’d kept a better eye on things after she left. Stupid. Evan had chased her off yesterday, and she should have spent it digging back into the account. Not running around jumping off mountains and—and getting tied up and having the best sex of her life.

  “I mean it.” Rylan’s voice softened. “This was nobody’s fault.”

  “Uh-huh. Well, thanks for telling me.” She blinked against the dampness forming on her lashes.

  This whole idea had been about saving the company. It was what she did, and she’d been so sure of herself. It should have worked. Rylan had been depending on her. A win would have shown everyone—would have proved to the whole place that she wasn’t just Daddy’s little girl. She had the business skills and the know-how. She could deliver.

  Instead she’d just let everybody down.

  Her vision cleared by a fraction. Except Evan. The way he’d looked at her the first time he’d woken to find her by his bedside. The relief there. Worse, the disbelief. He’d really never imagined she would come.

  Except for Dane.

  She rubbed the back of her wrist across her eyes. There was more to life than just the company, and there’d be another chance to prove herself.

  Rylan’s frown came through the line. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah.” She sniffed. “I mean, I’m pissed. Disappointed. But . . . I’ll be okay.”

  “You sure?” He sounded wary now.

  And she could understand why. Levelheadedness when it came to setbacks at work wasn’t exactly her MO. But maybe she was working on a new MO.

  Maybe it was less about being the first one into the office and the last to leave. Maybe it wasn’t about always closing the deal.

  The sound of running water caught her attention, and she glanced over her shoulder to see Dane stepping out, still naked as the day he was born. The most gorgeous thing she’d ever seen.

  Maybe it was about this. About people and love and . . . and family.

  Maybe there was a world where she could have both. It might mean making sacrifices at work.

  But she could live with those. She would. The people in her life . . . She wasn’t so sure she could survive without them anymore.

  “Well, we’ll get the next one,” Rylan said.

  “Yeah, sure.” Her distraction showed in her voice, and across the room, Dane tilted his head to the side in question, but she shook hers.

  The haze lifted from her eyes, until all she could see was this bright, new vision of her future, one she’d glimpsed before but never with such clarity. It was a world where she still had her ambition—of course, who would she be without it? Where she ran the company at her brother’s side, but at her right hand was this man.

  Dane. Who accepted her for who she was. Admired her strength and her business savvy and did what she needed him to before she could even ask.

  Who gave her what she needed in the bedroom and in all the other aspects of her life.

  Her subordinate at work and her Dom at night. Her partner. A real, true partner she could count on.

  All this time, she’d been keeping at least this little bit of mental distance from him, just waiting for the day he would eventually leave. But she was flying without a net here. She’d just lost the biggest deal of her life, and she barely cared. Because she had him—in her bed and as her assistant and by her side.

  How the hell would she have handled this without him?

  Rylan cleared his throat. “I have a couple of ideas for next steps. We can talk them through when you get back.”

  “Of course.”

  “Any idea when that might be?”

  “I don’t know. But soon.”

  “Okay . . .”

  She shook her head to clear it. The vision of her future receded, replaced by her present, and it might not be exactly perfect. But the view from here, of muscles and sinful lips and ink . . . It wasn’t too bad, either.

  She closed her eyes and turned away. “I’ll talk to Evan’s doctors today. I should be able to get a better idea of what’s going on.”

  “All right. Keep me posted.”

  Nodding, she ended the call. As she set her phone down, she twisted to face the bed again. To face the man who had changed the equation entirely.

  And her heart felt so full it could burst.

  To an outside observer, it was just like any other day. Dane drove them to the hospital, where he did whatever work needed doing while also running random errands and trying to keep the peace when Lexie and Evan’s sibling bickering took a turn for the serious. He fetched food and coffee and liaised with the New York office and hunted down whatever color Jell-O Evan was jonesing for at any particular moment.

  And he quietly, cautiously, impatiently waited for Lexie to have a complete and total meltdown.

  El Escudo had been her baby. She brought an intensity of focus to all her work projects, but this one had been special. He’d expected her to lose her shit or hop on a plane the instant she got off the phone.

  But she’d been calm to the point where it had kind of freaked him out. All day long, he’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop. For Evan to push one of her buttons and for her to go flying off the handle. For some other random bit of news from New York to come in and become the straw on the proverbial camel. But if anything, she was extra nice to Evan, even when he was between doses of his pain meds and particularly difficult. The couple of reports that came in from the home office she dispatched with her usual efficiency. No comment. No lashing out. No nothing.

  Finally, at dinner, he couldn’t take it anymore.

  They were eating Thai carryout in their hotel room, using the desk in the corner as a table. He put his fork down and sucked in a deep breath.

  “You’re really all right, aren’t you?”

  She furrowed her brow, swallowing her last bite before cocking her head to the side. “Excuse me?”

  “Things in Barcelona falling apart. I’ve been waiting for you to say something about it all day.”

  “What is there to say? Deals collapse sometimes.”

  “Sure, but this was your deal.” He was playing with fire here, but if the last few weeks with her had taught him anything, it was that sometimes she needed to be prodded. “Are you trying to tell me it doesn’t bother you?”

  She looked at him as if he had two heads. “Of course it bugs me, but what am I supposed to do about it? Cry or something?”

  “If you want to, sure.”

  “I think I’m good.” Rolling her eyes, she reached for a napkin and dabbed at her mouth.

  “So that’s it? No reaction at all?”

  “I mean . . .” She trailed off, taking a sip of her drink, and he recognized the strategy. She was buying herself a second. “When Rylan first told me, I started to freak out. But then I thought about it and I realized . . .”

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s just . . . It’s not the end of the world, you know?” She glanced up at him, the cool blue of her eyes somehow warmer than usual as she shrugged.

  And he did know. Of course he did. He was good at his job in part because he let the problems at work slide off his back. It wasn’t his passion, though.

  It was h
ers.

  “That’s a . . . healthy perspective.” And an unexpected one.

  “I’m trying for more of those these days.” She extended a hand, the tentativeness of the gesture showing in how lightly her palm settled on his thigh. “Someone’s been helping me out with that, you see.” When he didn’t rebuff her, both her tone and her touch firmed up. “Really, Dane. I don’t know what I’d do without you at this point. Great assistant, great in the sack.” She smiled at the bit of flippancy, but there was genuineness there, too. “You’ve helped me see what’s really important here.”

  His throat tightened. He’d been trying. Only a fool would mistake the progress she’d made over their time together. But there was still this part of him that had been expecting her to regress and take it all back. Subconsciously, he’d been waiting for exactly this—some big defeat at work to have her regretting every missed day and every hour she’d spent away from her desk.

  But no. She was really okay.

  She was a marvel.

  A rough surge of emotion clawed at his ribs, squeezing hard around his heart. He grasped her hand in his and held it tight. “You’re amazing, you know that?”

  “Hardly.”

  “No, you are. You’re this incredible, successful, powerful, beautiful woman, but there’s even more beneath it all.” More than he’d dared to hope the first time he’d made his move. “You just—you’ve got it all right now. It’s inspiring.”

  It was inspiring him.

  Having it all had never even occurred to him. Lexie had so many people’s expectations to live up to—the most lofty of them her own. And here she was, defying them. She was forging her own path, and he had never been so proud.

  At the same time, a chasm opened up inside him. He stood at the edge of it looking down, without a rope or a line or even a harness.

  And the emptiness beneath him howled.

  What if he could be that free? Take that many risks? He jumped off literal mountains all the time, but to do that in his own life . . .

  What if Lexie could be his rope? His safe thing, tying him to solid land. He could fall and fall and fall forever, and know without a doubt he’d make it back.