Take Me Tender

by Christie Ridgway

  He was the supreme insider. Mr. Well-Connected, Mr. Most Popular. She was outside all loops, unfamiliar with family ties, un—Well, not exactly unlovable maybe, but unable to open a path to her heart. That was okay, though. As a Weasel Number Two, she didn’t do the love thing. And loving Jay, Mr. Most Likely to Seduce the Female Masses, would be disastrous.

  He deepened the kiss and she tightened her grip on the long scarf, pulling him even closer. His hands brushed her shoulders and then pushed the towel to the floor. As her belly met the hardening erection behind his pants, his palms slid to the small of her back.

  Nikki moaned against his mouth. He’d provided her a job transition and sexual satisfaction. Now she wanted to use him for just one more thing.

  Leaving the knitted material looped around his neck, she went to work on the buttons of his silky shirt. When she brushed bare skin, one of his hands wandered between her legs, but she hastily reached behind and returned it to her waist, even as the flesh between her thighs heated and went wet. When Jay touched her like that, he owned her response.

  But nobody, nobody owned Nikki.

  It was time to prove that. It was time to prove that just as she was able to receive sex now, that she could give it, too.

  She was going to make it so good for Jay that she’d be able to walk away from him, smiles on both their faces. Then the balance of power between them would be equalized forever—and she’d be whole like she hadn’t been since she was fifteen years old.

  His shirt slipped off as she pushed him toward the end of the bed. The backs of his legs hit the edge of the mattress and he went down, his fingers creating a trail along the backs of her thighs that her goose bumps finished for him at her ankles.

  Eyes at half-mast, he let her go to work on his pants and soon he was naked, too, except for that Jay-blue length of yarn she’d knitted. It was nearly long enough to bind him like a mummy, but she wanted more access to his skin than that.

  She clambered onto the bed to press against his side. He brushed her hair off her forehead with his hand. “How’s your knee, cookie?”

  His concern gave her a sweet little shiver. “This is not about my knee.” She pressed a kiss against his raspy chin, then another on the side of his neck.

  He groaned, his fingers sliding along her scalp. “Come up here and let me give you a proper kiss.”

  “I don’t want a proper kiss.” Her mouth found his nipple and she rolled the tip of her tongue across the tiny, hardening point.

  His back arched, pushing his hot skin against her lips. She sucked.

  His free hand closed around her upper arm. “Nikki, God.”

  Leaning over his chest, she found his other nipple and swirled her tongue around the areola. “Bruja,” he whispered. “Get up here.” His hand tried to drag her toward his mouth.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head as she pulled back to sit on the mattress. “You keep your hands to yourself, handsome.”

  “Can’t. Can’t not touch you.”

  She loved the guttural tone. But he wasn’t getting his way this time. This time it was her way, her choice, her power.

  His response.

  Her hand brushed the length of scarf and she pulled one end, sliding it from behind his neck. “What are you doing?” he asked, as she positioned his wrists together and rested them on the flat of his stomach.

  “What does it look like I’m doing?” She wound the fabric around and around, creating a soft set of bulky handcuffs.

  “Hey, wait,” he protested. “I believe I called this kinky game first.”

  “You talk too much. Haven’t I told you that?” Still, she was amazed at his cooperation. Not every man, she suspected, would cede control like this. “It’s time for you to shut up and take what I’m going to give you.”

  He grinned. “You should have put it like that in the first place.”

  Her gaze jumped to his. “You’re so bad.”

  “I love it when you frown. Come up here.” His tone cajoled, laughter danced in his eyes, and she could tell he wasn’t really letting her have her way. Instead he was trying to talk her into what he wanted. “Let me bite that pouty lower lip.”

  She sucked it back. “I do not pout.”

  “Only when I complain about your commando boots. But right now I could sing hosannas to some thigh-high leather and a bustier, the pink tip of your breast between my—”

  She bent, and the rest of his blather was lost on a choked-in breath as she took the head of his erection into her mouth. Her tongue circled the ridge of flesh before moving to the smooth skin of his shaft. Her gaze drifted to his.

  “Shutting up now,” he whispered. “Quiet as a mouse. Noiseless as a nematode…”

  She sucked him deeper, sucked hard to take the flavor of him into her body. Her tongue painted passion along his slick skin.

  His body shuddered. “Silent as surrender.”

  It was what she wanted. Him taking, Nikki giving. It was what she needed, and she couldn’t damn the man for the suspicion that he understood exactly that. He understood women.

  So many times he’d understood her.

  The palm of her hand brushed up his hair-roughened thigh. He twitched at her touch, then his thighs parted to give her access to the round, cooler warmths at the base of his shaft. She cupped them in her palm and then moved her mouth to suck lightly at their baby-soft skin.

  “Nikki,” he whispered. “Cookie. God, you’re good at that.”

  The praise was like an aphrodisiac. Like warm chocolate running through her veins. She slid against his body, cuddling closer so that her nipples pressed against his flank and then she slid her good knee over one of his thighs to hold him still for her ministrations.

  Someone was moaning—oh, it was her—as she rubbed her breasts against the hot skin of his leg. She ran her tongue up and down the glistening shaft of his erection and then pressed a smacking kiss on the very top of the swollen head. From the corner of her eye, she saw his fingers flex, as if he had to move even though she’d constrained him.

  She licked another path downward, then up again, stopping when she saw the droplet seeping from his body. Her gaze jumped to his, saw the burn there, that was all for her. No, from her.

  I did this. I do this to him.

  Power shot through her as she reached out her forefinger to claim his body’s tear. “Wet,” she whispered, looking at her fingertip, then at him. “Wet, like me.”

  Holding his gaze, she sucked her finger into her mouth, savoring his taste against her tongue.

  “Enough.” He reared up, his arms breaking free of her yarn chains in one swift movement. Before she could pull her finger free of her lips, she was flat on her back and Jay was leaning over her.

  “Hey,” she said, pushing against his chest. “Hey, this isn’t…that’s not…” The last words were lost against his lips.

  Lost in his kiss. All of her, lost.

  He lifted his head as her hands slid to the mattress. “My chance now, cookie.”

  “But…but…” The words died. Surrender was so sweet and she’d proved her point, hadn’t she? He’d trusted her enough to let her truss him up and she’d tasted how far she’d taken him, how far her power over him could take them both. It wouldn’t hurt to let him have his turn.

  He made her muscles gelatin in a matter of seconds. His mouth traced her ears, her jaw, the length of her neck. He had passionate revenge on her breasts, not stopping until she was lifting off the mattress and begging him for…something.

  Then he turned her over. He was silent a moment. “That ass,” he finally said, running his palms over both round curves. “I’ve neglected that ass for much too long.” His fingers kneaded her there, and then moved upward, massaging the small of her back and then the muscles across her shoulder blades.

  Her eyes closed in sensuous delight. “Jay…what you do to me—”

  She shrieked, startled by a nip on the apple of her bottom. Jerking her head from the pillow, she gl
ared at him over her shoulder. “What are you doing?”

  “I’ll make it better.” He covered the sting with a sucking kiss.

  Her heart stuttered. “Are you…did you…”

  At a matching place on her other cheek, he nipped again, then sucked. She jerked, unsure if it was pain or pleasure buffeting her senses.

  “Twin hickeys on your ass,” he said, his voice smug. “Beautiful. And our little secret.”

  Outrage wouldn’t come. Only more heat, more wetness, more want that ached and pulsed between her thighs. “Jay…”

  She moaned as something round and cool rolled down her spine. The scent of citrus reached her nostrils. “What are you doing now?”

  “Putting one of the lemons you left on the table here to good use.”

  “I needed the counter space in the kitchen.” Her bottom was still throbbing from those heated little marks, but that firm, smooth fruit was confusing her nerve endings. She squirmed as he rolled the lemon firmly down the bumps of her spine and then horizontally in the dip at the base. “I thought a bowl of fruit was more manly than flowers for your bedroom.”

  “That’s me, manly man.” The lemon made another erotic trip over her back. “I always see you rolling lemons like this. How come?”

  Her face burned. She forced herself not to squirm again. “To…to release the juice.”

  His hand froze. The lemon pressed hard into the small of her back, and she clenched her bottom muscles in reaction, setting those silly hickeys to throbbing again.

  “Is it working?” he asked, turning her over to face upward again. “Are your juices released?”

  “Jay.”

  “Nikki?” One of his eyebrows lifted as he waited for her response. When she stared up at him, silent, his mouth kicked up. “Okay, then, I’ll just have to find out for myself.”

  He grabbed up the abandoned length of scarf. Her heart tripped. Maybe he could see it in her eyes, because his face went serious and there was a sexual hardness to it that he usually disguised with laughter and charm. With a slow movement, he reached for her left wrist.

  She couldn’t help but stiffen. Being held down, feeling forced in any way, this fear was the final legacy of her old experience, no matter how much she wished it away. One look at Jay’s intent face, no longer playful, told her he knew exactly how nervous this made her.

  “I trusted you,” he said. “Show me you trust me, too.”

  Shivers ran hot and cold over her skin. Though they’d never discussed that what she’d claimed happened to her “friend” at that drunken, dark party had really happened to her, she understood Jay knew the truth. He’d known it from the first. So what was he doing?

  Oh, God, she knew what he was doing.

  She’d thought taking over would give her back what she’d lost. He thought the same…that if she gave over to him, she’d get herself back. If he took the power and gave her only pleasure in return, all the while allowing her no way to escape him…

  Would it work? She only knew she couldn’t display her panic, not even now. Never let them think you’re weak.

  Watching her face, he wound the scarf around her right arm then fastened it over her head to the headboard. A long tail trailed free on one end, an even longer one on the other. Threading the longer tail beneath her naked back, he didn’t smile. His chest moved up and down with heavy breaths as he tied her left hand to her left ankle, bending her good knee so that her heel met her hand. The rest of the scarf dangled from this new knot.

  She inhaled a test breath as she pulled on the fastenings. He’d tied her firmly, but she realized now that as his gaze ran over her flushed skin it was passion, not panic, that drove her thrumming heartbeat and pounding pulse.

  “Jay,” she whispered. “Look at me. I’m okay.”

  “Yeah, baby. I’m looking. But we’re not done yet.”

  He moved over her and she arched for his kiss, but he ignored her proffered body to grab the end of the scarf attached to her right wrist. Leaving plenty of play between them, he tied it to his left one.

  “What?” Her heart slammed against her breastbone. The skin covering her belly jittered. “Why?”

  His free fingers snatched up the extra length attached to the knot on her left. He wrapped it around his right wrist and used his teeth to yank the fastening tight. Though there was enough free fabric between them that his hands could roam freely, the two of them now were—

  “Attached,” he said, satisfaction glittering in his eyes. “Both of us tied up, Nikki. Tied together. Connected to each other.”

  No. No. She wanted to say it out loud, but the sound she made was half-wordless plea, half-moan. This wasn’t what she wanted!

  This was what she was truly frightened of.

  Connection.

  Words, arguments, refusals struggled to form inside her, but they didn’t coalesce beyond mere whimpers. And then he went further. Then he kneeled between her thighs and pressed the knee of her bent leg toward the mattress. Opening her to him. Opening her body that was attached to his, opening it to his gaze. His fingers separated her folds, holding them apart so that the most secret, inner part of her was exposed to him. Even when so vulnerable, heat washed over her and more liquid rushed to the place where he was looking. It trickled wetly onto her thigh.

  She felt his eyes on her there, avid with desire, and then his mouth found her, kissing her in a way so erotic and intimate that she could only whimper again.

  Oh, God. He was melting her with every swipe of his knowing, expert tongue. Her heart started slamming against her breastbone as he kept up the amazing, experienced torture. His tongue thrust inside her. “Jay.”

  He didn’t let up, instead drawing closer so that the looped ends of the Jay-blue scarf brushed like gentle fingers against her inner thighs. Endless rounds of goose bumps chased after previous sets of hot-cold chills as she yanked on her wrists so she could do something…

  Push him off?

  Pull him closer?

  Retreat?

  Advance?

  But his knots held firm, held her as much as fear had imprisoned her so long ago while her muscles tightened in expectation of climax. But could she let go when Jay held her down like this? When she’d been powerless before, there’d been pain, but now there was only warmth, his wet tongue meeting her wet flesh, the liquid sounds of his taking in her pleasure loud enough to make her blush. Instead though, they only pulled the tension tighter, as she was reminded of the lush sweetness of fresh summer fruit.

  Ripe.

  Ready.

  Bursting.

  “Jay.” Her voice was urgent. “Jay.”

  His gaze jerked to hers and his tongue jumped to her clitoris. Oh, oh, oh. She was close, so close, her flesh tingling, throbbing beneath his wet mouth. But orgasm seemed just out of reach. Every other time they’d been together, in the crucial final instants Jay had always coaxed her to touch herself. So smart he was, letting her own the moment of sexual release.

  Letting her keep a part of herself from him.

  But with her hands tied…

  Her body writhed against the sheets, and those crazy hickeys made their presence known with a renewal of their exotic sting. A bit of scarf tickled the crease between her thigh and torso as his lower hand reached down and a finger pushed inside.

  Her womb clenched, her inner muscles clamping down on the masculine invasion.

  Heat flushed over her skin as her female body reveled in the demand. Oh, God.

  His hand moved in counterpoint to his mouth. Filling her, stimulating her. Stimulating her, filling her.

  Oh, good.

  Nikki’s eyes stung. She blinked rapidly. This was too, too much. “I’m going to scream,” she said quickly. He had to let her go or…or something was going to happen. “Untie me before I scream.”

  He lifted his head, his mouth glistening, his eyes unconcerned. “Go ahead, it’ll only make me hotter.”

  “No.” He needed to let her go now. If it wasn�
�t a scream, some other, dangerous thing might come out of her mouth. “Please.”

  “Trust me,” he whispered, his breath hot against her thigh. “Let go.”

  Bending his head once more, Jay licked a hot path over her throbbing flesh. Three fingers worked their way into the wet place where she ached to be filled by him. Her hips shot up.

  That scream, those tears, the unsayable emotions she wanted to hold inside her continued to bubble dangerously. Her head thrashed on the pillow, and her cheek encountered cool, citrus smoothness. The lemon.

  She remembered it against the heated flesh of her back. In her mind’s eye, she saw another Nikki-Jay tableau, his tanned hands rolling it near her round behind, with the twin hickeys burning there. A deeper, almost painful yet exquisite thrust of his fingers brought her back to the present. Her shoulders pressed hard into the mattress as she arched. And then accepted another swipe of his tongue. Another drive of his hard, long fingers. His mouth moved down the slick flesh between her legs then up again to her clitoris. One light, teasing circle, and then he took it between his lips and sucked.

  Her body convulsed against his mouth. She opened her mouth—to scream, to cry, to declare things that should never be said—and in the last second she remembered that lemon against her cheek. Turning her head, she managed to bite down on the fruit, first tasting its clean oil and then its bitter pith. The flavors slid down her throat as her body shook with wave after wave of frantic contractions.

  Then the lemon was gone and it was Jay she tasted as he covered her body and kissed her. Ah, but not just the taste of Jay. It was Jay and herself. Still attached. Connected.

  Dangerously bonded.

  He groaned as he ground his hips against hers and his sex filled her body.

  Another attachment.

  Connection.

  Bond.

  He murmured against her lips. “Take me. Have me.”

  She tilted her hips to meet him, to open herself to his body and to his passion. And with a last wild thrust, he went over, his release as violent as hers. He whispered against her ear as his heavy, sated body pressed down damply. “Love me.”