“Owen, I—”
He withdrew his fingers and stopped licking her. She bucked in frustration against him, her hips still moving as she searched for her release.
“Not yet,” he told her again, holding her thighs open as she thrashed against her restraints.
“You’re the worst,” she said. But with a wicked grin, even in her frustration.
“I don’t know,” he mused. “I’m not sure you want it enough.”
“The worst man I’ve ever met,” she repeated.
He had to agree. “It’s so shitty when a guy wants to drive you wild instead of just getting off, rolling over, and falling asleep.”
“I’m beginning to see the merit of that kind of fuck,” she said with a whimper.
He laughed. Was there anything better than laughing in bed? Anything better than seeing Rose smile?
“I still don’t know if you’re ready yet.” He slid his hand up her thigh and slipped his thumb inside her. She was so slick, opening for him. She wasn’t the only one who groaned at his touch.
“Please,” she said, raising her hips to him.
“Please what?”
“Fuck me, Owen.” She looked down and held his eyes as she said it. Nothing bashful, nothing shy. Nothing fighting her desire.
It wasn’t just that she said it. It was the way she said it and everything in her body that screamed it louder than words ever could. It was time to give her what she wanted.
He couldn’t hold out anymore.
…
Rose squirmed in her restraints as Owen slid off her. She didn’t want him to leave her. But she couldn’t complain when she realized he’d only gone to grab the condom from the nightstand. He ripped it open and slid it on. His eyes never left her as he stroked himself, slow and firm, and walked back to the bed.
There was no getting away. The cuffs were snug around her wrists and ankles. No matter how much Owen teased her, no amount of thrashing would release her.
But it was pure pleasure to feel the restraints tighten as she pulled, knowing she was completely bound. Pure pleasure to see how it excited him to watch her fight it—in order to watch her give in.
And pure torture. She was starting to realize they were two sides of the same coin, a give and take, tension and release.
He’d driven her out of her mind, until she was a panting, quivering mess, lying there begging for more. But that wasn’t enough for him, was it? Because he still wouldn’t let her come, that bastard.
It didn’t make sense. Shouldn’t he have been racking up her orgasms like notches on his belt? I gave you yours, so now you’re mine?
But the more Owen kept telling her not to come, the harder it was to hold back. It was like he knew that if he went down on her just to get her off before he fucked her, her mind would have been whirling at a million miles an hour, thinking about everything but what felt good.
Thinking about how she looked, what he thought, if he was bored yet, if she was taking too long.
Not thinking about the flick of his tongue, the press of his fingers, the way he opened and opened her until she was nothing but a bundle of sensation radiating from the hot, electric center of her.
That he wanted her to not come, and then made it more and more impossible for her to comply…she didn’t know whether to wring his neck or kiss him deeper than she’d ever done before.
Not that she could really do either right now—or that she had a choice. She was lying there at his mercy. And she didn’t know which one of them was loving it more.
She’d never felt as vulnerable as she when he climbed on top of her. As vulnerable, open, or as naked in her desire. She didn’t recognize the woman who was bound like this, panting like this, begging for all those filthy things—telling him how she wanted his cock, wanted him fucking her, wanted him to come.
But it didn’t matter. She couldn’t stop. There was no point hiding how much she wanted him. No reason to remember why she might have felt like she was supposed to hide in the first place.
Because she wasn’t supposed to be so obvious in her desire? Or was it, also, that there’d never been someone she’d desired quite like this? Who’d made her feel quite like this.
She gasped when he pushed inside her. And she didn’t stop gasping. Whimpering. Begging as he thrust into her again and again.
She wished she could draw her arms around him and feel his strong shoulders, the muscles flexing as he propped himself up. She’d run her fingers through his hair, tease him at the nape of his neck, and draw him close.
She’d wrap her legs around him, tilting her hips up, taking him deeper, making contact over every inch of their skin.
But wasn’t that, too, the point of being bound? To realize how much she wanted? To touch him, taste him, feel him. To be as close as two people could get.
Yet all she could do was lie there with her legs and arms spread wide and feel it.
“You feel so fucking good,” Owen said, taking long, delicious strokes inside her.
“You’re making me insane.” She could barely get out the words, she was breathing so hard.
“Good,” he grunted. “I want to make you lose your goddamn mind.”
His pace quickened. Her own cries became sharper, louder, closer together. Like it was coming from somebody else, someone who could throw her head back and fuck with abandon. Not the perfect, cookie-cutter dream wife Jason had constructed, but someone she had never met before.
“Don’t you dare,” he groaned, his lips close to her ear. She was so close to coming. So close. He must have sensed it from her body, her cries. Everything in her tensed, pulled as tight as the cords strapping her limbs to the bed. Tight and vibrating and ready for release.
He didn’t slacken his pace. He didn’t change positions or ease up or do anything to pull her back from the brink. He’d been edging her for so long, she could no longer see the line between coming and not, the ledge she wasn’t supposed to go hurtling over. It was all a stream, a single thread connecting his body to hers, from her mounting pleasure to the one last thrust that sent her unraveling.
“Come for me,” he growled low in her ear, urging her on, telling her to take it. Come on his cock. Let go and come all over him.
Someone was screaming, panting. Someone’s body was coming and coming, wave after wave. But it wasn’t her because there was no her. There was only the pleasure coursing through her, the depth of her cries as she came.
“Come inside me,” she said as the waves kept coursing through her, and she couldn’t think about how she’d never said anything like those words before.
“Fuck, I love to hear you say that.”
His thrusts became quick and deep, his breathing heavy and hard. His every muscle tightened—and then he let go.
After he was finished, he lay on top of her for what felt like a long time, his heart thumping against her chest. He kissed the side of her neck with such tenderness, it was hard to believe he was the same person who’d said and done those things to her only moments before.
He reached down to pull off the condom then got up and threw it away. When he came back, he stood by the bed, looking at her. She was still strapped in, and she was sure she looked terrible—limbs spread, hair a bird’s nest, all of her exposed.
“What are you looking at?” She squirmed in her bonds.
“You.” He didn’t stop staring.
“Me, what?”
“You, being you. Being beautiful.”
“You going to untie me anytime soon?” she asked, avoiding how ridiculous he was being.
“I’m thinking about never. You look too good. But I guess I’ll be nice.”
“How generous of you.”
He took his time releasing her. First one hand, then the other. Kissing every part of her as he moved. He pressed her palm to his mouth. Traced his lips along
the inside of her arm. Brought her hands to fall gently by her sides.
Then he moved his way down, kissing her softly. When he reached her ankles, he took off the straps and sat at the foot of the bed, drawing her feet onto his lap. He pressed his thumbs to the soles of her feet, rubbing them until she groaned with almost as much pleasure as she had when he was inside her.
“My God, that feels good.”
“You know how much I love to hear you say that, right?”
She blushed, shy again, as though the woman who’d just bellowed out her orgasm had already left the building and regular Old Rose was in her place again.
“Wearing heels all day is murder,” she said.
“You know what else is murder?” he asked.
“Wearing comfortable-looking boots and jeans to work?” She made a face.
He laughed. “Thankfully, that’s the one major perk. But no, I was thinking more like having a killer cardio workout without having eaten.”
“Killer?” She couldn’t help laughing.
“Forget the gym. You made me work,” he said.
“That’s because you were on top the whole time.” She grinned. Wickedly. “I just had to lie there.”
He sucked in a breath. “As if I could forget.” Then he winked at her. “I’ll have to make sure you get on top next time.”
She swallowed. She was completely relaxed. But even so, nerves and excitement bubbled up again. What am I doing, thinking about a next time? But she was too loose-limbed and comfortable to worry about the answer.
Gently, Owen took her feet off his lap and slid out of bed. “Don’t move.”
He headed for the fridge.
Some part of her was aware that she should probably object. At least get dressed, sit at the table, be more formal and put together about it.
Owen may have planned to stay for dinner, but that didn’t mean he was spending the night. Even if he did, that still didn’t mean this was anything more than the fruition—finally—of the officially sexy, officially toe-curling one-night stand New Rose had steeled herself to have.
But she stayed naked in bed and watched his naked butt move deliciously throughout her apartment as he brought her a glass of wine then went to grab plates.
I could get used to this.
She couldn’t tell if that was a good sign…or a very, very bad one.
Chapter Fifteen
Owen lay awake in Rose’s bed, listening to the sounds of her breathing. He should rinse the takeout containers and stick a cork in the wine. But he didn’t move. His arm was wrapped tightly around her, and he didn’t want to wake her up.
Or that was what he told himself.
That was also why he couldn’t slip out of bed, get dressed, and leave. He had to spend the night. And keep holding her.
It felt so good lying there, he didn’t want to close his eyes. If he did, the next thing he knew, it’d be morning, and the rest of their lives would be waiting.
Just thinking about it should have been the reminder he needed not to get too comfortable in her bed.
But no matter how much he told himself to be careful—that he’d be better off keeping this a one-time deal and sleeping in his own bed tonight—his legs wouldn’t obey him and move.
All he could do was hold her closer and feel that steady comfort of her body. The tickle of her hair where it tumbled over her shoulders and down his arm. The warmth from her skin.
He lay awake, knowing he was going to be exhausted the next morning. But he didn’t care.
He didn’t want the night to end.
He did sleep, and morning eventually came. He had to get up and tear himself from her.
But not before exploring her all over again, the first time slow and sleepy as she climbed on top of him and rode him until they were spent and gasping. And again in the shower, turning to press her against the tile as his fingers circled her clit and brought her to ecstasy again.
Was he was still dreaming?
But her orgasms seemed pretty damn real. His certainly were.
He was hard again just from watching her get dressed, sliding on her underwear, snapping her bra into place. Rose putting on a pressed silk blouse was almost as arousing as tearing it off her—if only because now he knew exactly what was underneath it.
Heading to the subway together, his fingers itched to take her in his arms. She walked quickly, as though she didn’t dare linger. They were late enough as it was.
But as her train came rushing into the station, she turned to him. Her lips found his, and she kissed him. Not a little peck good-bye but a real kiss, long and urgent, her tongue searching and warm.
“You have to go,” he told her as the subway doors opened.
“I don’t want to.”
“I’ll call you.”
She smiled with her lips still pressed against his. “You’d better.”
He couldn’t stop fantasizing about it all day, imagining her at work with her game face on, saying and doing all the right things. Meanwhile, he could guess that underneath that blouse, her nipples were throbbing. He loved the way they peaked in his mouth and rolled between his fingers. He knew how she tasted, how she shivered and gasped. The goose bumps that rose up her thighs when she came.
There were only two people in the world who had any idea that underneath Rose’s suit jacket she had two faint bracelets around her wrists: the marks from her restraints, the signs of how hard she’d pulled last night as she came apart for him. Rose was one. And he was the other.
The knowledge made it almost impossible to get any work done. He was making progress on his commission, but it was slow. The work was painstakingly detailed. The fact that his thoughts were all Rose, Rose, Rose on a twenty-four hour loop didn’t help.
He thought his desire might lessen the more time that passed. But it didn’t seem to work that way.
Not even when he spent the night at her place again. And then a third night, and a fourth.
It should have made him less out of his mind with need. Shouldn’t he have been able to think about other things if he knew he was going to see her again?
But somehow, it didn’t work like that. The more he saw her, the more he thought about her. The more he thought about her, the more he wanted her. And the more he wanted her…
The more he was determined to take.
The restraints were just the beginning. He loved to tease her for hours, never pushing her all the way over the edge until she was practically screaming for it. Or else he’d go straight for the kill, tongue her and fuck her until she was bucking against the bed, coming faster than he’d ever thought possible.
Every time was a new sensation, a new chance to see how he could drive her wild. Every time, he came harder than he did the time before—even though it seemed like that shouldn’t be possible. Shouldn’t there be a limit to desire? A time when all this stopped making his heart race and his dick stand up straight as a rod?
But he couldn’t help it. It was too damn hard to stay away.
She was busy at work. He was, too. He tried not to tell her too many details or ask questions in return. There was a line they both knew not to cross.
But he was sure her schedule was full of meetings about what new, brutally effective ads CUBE was going to come up with next. How else they could chip away at businesses like his.
It should have been the reality check he needed. But somehow, it made him want her even more. She may have worked in their offices…but he knew she was thinking of him.
He pulled out his phone.
He’d better hold off. Give her space. Let this thing slow down before he lost his head.
But he was already too far gone by now.
Did you have fun the other night? he texted her then added a wink and pressed send.
Not like he didn’t know the answer
. But it was so much better to hear her say it.
…
Rose sat in her cubicle, staring at her phone. She’d been texting with her friends for the better part of the day about how her smoking hot one-night stand had been coming around now for a lot more than one night.
She still wasn’t sure what to tell them. Because something more was happening? Or were they just having fun?
She should have been more certain. At least tried to nail down an answer. But wasn’t she trying to be more relaxed? Spontaneous? Go with the flow?
He was supposed to be a rebound. She couldn’t fall for someone so soon.
And she’d just seen the numbers for their latest quarter—including the predictions for how their competitors were faring in turn. The better things went for CUBE, the worse for Crowley & Sons.
Yet when she saw it was Owen who’d just texted, asking if she’d had fun their last night together, it was hard to feel as confused as she did when her friends were asking about him…or when her co-workers were congratulating themselves on a job well done.
Her answer to him was simple. Seriously. Could he have any doubts?
I can’t believe you’d even ask me that, she texted, glancing up to make sure no one was looking.
She felt a little flushed. But if she was okay messaging her friends during work…shouldn’t she be okay texting him, too? It wasn’t like her conversation was being broadcast on some screen for everyone to read.
Your wrists aren’t still sore, I hope?
Rose’s face flamed. Yeah, no. This was not like texting with her friends.
She risked raising her sleeve to see the marks he was talking about. The rings had faded since that first morning, but the last bit of evidence was persistent. She’d been lucky it was cool enough that no one found in strange she was always wearing a blazer. She was careful to keep them covered…even if catching a glimpse of them gave her a thrill.
They’ll be okay, she typed slowly, deliberately, trying to measure her words before they went ahead and popped out without her permission.
How much time before she broke down anyway and was begging him to show her things that had absolutely nothing to do with furniture sales?
Wrong Bed, Right Man Page 9