by Maren Smith
As if that made any difference to him at all.
Up on the patio, Maddy snapped around on her heel and stalked back into her apartment. He couldn't hear it from where he was, but she shut the sliding glass door hard enough to make it bounce back open again.
Shit.
* * * * *
Just because she'd licked him didn't mean she got to keep him, Maggie angrily told herself. It wasn't like she was dating the man; she hardly even knew him! He was just doing his job, and his responsibilities extended to all the Island guests, not just her. In fact, she wasn't even a guest. She was a privately contracted employee. She didn't have one good reason to be this upset about what she'd seen pass between Dominick and Tessa.
But she was.
She was furious.
Her whole face flamed hot anger, unhappiness… humiliation. She couldn't keep watching. Maddy snapped around on her heel and, though she didn't mean to, when she stormed back inside, she shut the sliding glass door much harder than she intended. The window shuddered from the force. As far as tantrums went, it was a mild one, but Maddy felt instantly ashamed of herself.
It wasn't fair. Tessa could have anyone, here or anyplace else in the world. She did, in fact, and she'd even brought him with her. Where was her boyfriend, or her husband for that matter, and why wasn't she showing her tits off to them instead of to Dominick, the only guy to show any real interest in Maddy in four very long bread-and-water years? It just…
It wasn't fair!
She blinked rapidly, fighting back angry tears she was much too grown up and far too practical to give in to. She didn't have a single, solitary claim to Dominick. So what if they'd shared a plane ride to the Island? So what if they'd shared a meal together, and a kiss… kind of? Did licks even count as kisses?
Not unless you were puppies.
Or three-year-olds.
Hell, he probably did that sort of thing to all sorts of women all the time. For all she knew, what they'd done in the dining hall was the equivalent of some super-secret BDSM handshake and she, quite stupidly, was blowing it all out of proportion. She did that. Off the top of her head, she couldn't remember a single time when she'd ever done it before, but if it was happening now, then she probably had a history of it somewhere in her past. Had she not already been mind-blowingly pissed about all those other things—
…pick up a damn carrot once in a while…
—it likely would have made Virgil's list that awful day in the therapist's office. The one that still haunted her dreams.
"Maddy!"
She heard Dominick call before she ever saw him.
"Go away!" she snapped back, but he ignored the request.
Hopping the patio rail, he stormed as far as the open sliding glass door. "I know what you saw, but it's not what it looked like."
Without bothering to knock, he shoved the door open far enough to get his wide shoulders through it, and every effort Maddy was making to calm her temper down erupted in a fit of thrown-up hands and shouting. "Oh, it's never what it looks like! Get out!"
Had there been anything near enough, she'd have thrown it at him, but the only thing within reach was her laptop and she was a writer. Her laptop would take a flying leap when the world came to an end and they pried it out of her cold, dead fingers.
"Just wait a minute." Ignoring her command, Dominick came the rest of the way inside and shut the door.
Funny how he could fill her apartment just by standing in it. Funny how his nearness, bigness, and maybe some of that dark storminess she could see flashing like muted lightning in the backs of his brown eyes suddenly filled her with the need to run away. Chalk it up to her non-confrontational nature (and maybe all that innate cowardice), but like a train already mid-jump off the tracks, she was helpless to stop the wreck from happening.
Her hands shaking, she backed away from him even as she thrust out a pointing arm and ordered, "I said, get out!"
"Not until you give me a chance to explain," he ordered back. Any other man in his situation would have been wheedling or apologizing, but not Dominick. He was still giving orders.
"You're insane." It couldn't have been less funny, yet she still laughed. "What do you want to try explaining? The part where you and I were supposed to have dinner just as soon as you got off work, except that you chose instead to go to the beach with Tessa, or the one where she flashed you her tits? You know what?" She stopped him before he could do more than open his mouth. "We both know what this is and what it isn't. You don't owe me any explanations."
She tried to walk away but he followed her, down the short hall to the fully furnished bedroom. He caught her arm just before she reached it. "I need you to stop and listen…"
Her need to get distance between them soaring beyond her ability to contain it, Maddy yanked back out of his grip. She had no idea where on this island she was supposed to go, but she grabbed her purse off the end of the bed and one of the three pairs of shoes still lying in her partially unpacked suitcase. She didn't stop to put them on, but made a beeline for the bedroom patio door.
"Maddy, damn it," he growled. Growled! As if she were the one being unreasonable! For the second time, she slammed (still without meaning to; her hands wouldn't stop shaking) the sliding door just as fast as she was through it. Dominick had it open again before she took her first leaping step off the sandstone tiles onto the walkway. Bare footed, so of course she immediately stepped on a piece of gravel. Now she was limping. "I said, stop!"
But she didn't. Breathing hard, Maddy quickened her pace. She had angry-limped as far as the next apartment before he caught her arm again. But this time when he spun her around, as if with a mind all its own, her hand—the one still holding her daisy-dotted flip-flop and a beige sneaker (because damn if she hadn't grabbed two completely different shoes in her haste to get away)—lashed out. She slapped him full across the cheek.
That blow stopped him, but it shocked the hell out of her. Horrified, she dropped both her shoes and her purse. For the second time in one day, the contents scattered. She could hear the tink-tink-tok of a plastic lipstick case bouncing end-over-end off the tiles and into the plant bed, but she didn't dare take her eyes off him long enough to go looking for it. They stared at one another, her eyes as huge as dinner plates, appalled by what she'd done. His were narrowed, growing dark as thunderclouds while that flush of rosy pinkness in the shape of her sneaker sole's pattern lit up the left side of his face.
She'd never hit anyone, ever, not once in all her life. The shame of having done so now rocked her, dissolving her anger and leaving her with nothing but that awful shaking which kept her rooted in front of him.
"I'm so terribly sorry!" she whispered, but apologies couldn't undo the damage and the next thing she knew, he had them both off the walkway and shoved into the manicured flower bed.
The rough bark of a citrus tree bumped against her back. She caught her breath; there simply wasn't time for her to do anything else before his mouth crashed down hard on hers in the most brutal of kisses. He stole her only breath, conquered it and made it his with the same measure of savagery that buckled her rapidly weakening knees. The bruising grip of his hands on her upper arms abandoned her, but only so he could shift his hold. He grabbed her ass just as fiercely, his fingers digging in, scrubbing her up against that tree as he jerked her off her tiptoes and yanked her hips into his.
She caught his shoulders, but instead of getting stability, he lifted her all the way off her feet. She didn't fall, though. With the tree at her back, the sheer size of him held her pinned.
"No," she panted against his hungry mouth. "Put me down. I'm too heavy."
His right hand left her ass, but he didn't put her down. She barely dropped an inch before it came cracking back in a single stinging swat that made her gasp all over again. His next kiss stole that breath, too, and between the smarting hurt of his swat and the disciplinary squeeze that followed it, his fingers dug back into the swells of her bottom. He hadn'
t even told her to turn around first. How could anyone spank so hard without needing a wind-up beforehand? She almost felt betrayed.
Almost.
His teeth caught her bottom lip, a nip that could so easily have hurt but which never quite went that far. "Call me by my name," he demanded, still growling, still dark as a storm. The hard bulge of his very aroused cock ground through all the layers of their clothes against her pussy, already pulsing, swelling, heating with liquid fire.
She melted. "Dominick," she whispered. Her fingers tapped uncertainly at his shoulders, feeling the rippling strength that made his muscles bunch and flex as he pulled her off that tree. She honestly didn't know if it was him or the world that spun as he dropped her down, laying her out on her back amongst the red tubular gartenmeisters and purple zinnias. He pinned her to a bed mixed with dirt and sand, every inch of him as hard as the root or rock or the hump of whatever plant she was crushing under her shoulder blades. His weight was a heady blanket, rocking over her with each slow grinding movement of his hips as he rubbed his captured cock against her.
Her thighs hugged his hips, pulling to bring him in closer while her hands gripped at his biceps. He dug down under the sand and her skirt to grip her bare skin. Cloth tore, jerking at her crotch and her hip and leaving her with one less pair of underwear to pack when it came time to go home.
"Try again." He evaded her hungry lips and dipped down to bite the side of her neck instead, soothing that minute pain with a heated suckling that melted Maddy all over again. "Don't make me get my paddle."
Her pussy contracted at the threat, clenching in so tight that all she could feel in that instant was the unhappy emptiness of not having him inside her. Need shuddered her. He both laughed and growled when he felt it.
Shifting his grip to the backs of her knees, he heaved, folding her over and pinning her bent damn near in half with her bottom raised up off the ground and her pussy, torn out of her underwear, now laid bare to the aggressive press and rock of his hips. Smooth black leathers felt rough and hot, every fold—now forced into being by the swollen expansion of his own growing need—hitting her in all the right places.
"Say my name." He teased her lips with kisses she ached to taste, yet which he only brought so close before pulling back again.
"What do you want me to say?" she both panted and moaned, finding it hard to breathe and not just because of the position. Her knees were hooked over his elbows. His hands were braced against the ground on either side of her ribs. Her thighs almost touched her chest. It was both awkward and alarming. A lot like the one and only time her cousin had convinced her to try yoga, and at the same time nothing at all like it. For one thing, had that instructor been anything like Dominick, or cocks like this been involved, she probably would have gone back at least once more.
"You know what I want," he coaxed, with a mock thrust that only made her aching pussy feel that much emptier. "Say it."
She flushed hot all over, though not for the same reason this time. Suddenly she knew what he wanted her to say.
"N-no…" She shook her head, but only until he thrust again. Hard this time. A single, pounding 'hup' that clapped his hip full into the cradle of her thighs, rustling the plants around them and scrubbing her deeper into that flowerbed of sand.
Embarrassment burned at her. Titillation made it impossible to hold still. She squirmed, her bottom finding a rhythm that rubbed back on him in time with the soft, steady pounding motions he now gave her. She opened her mouth but then closed it again, hesitant to give what he wanted for fear it might cost her more than she was capable of giving. She wasn't even sure exactly what that 'more' might be. It was hard to think past what he was doing to her, all those minute sparks of molten awareness that each pump sent flying up inside her like sparks flying up from a bonfire.
"I-I can't."
"You can," he challenged. "Say it. Say my name. Let me hear it on your lips one time before I fuck you. Say it, or I'll stop right now."
The threat made her cry out. She clutched at his shoulders, unable to think beyond the riotous wanting burning through her core, coaxing from her a molten stream of arousal so hot and wet that it made that aggressive bulge in the front of his leather pants glisten in the last of the failing sunlight.
"Oh," she moaned, need pricking at her like pins. Embarrassment turned those pins into tenterhooks. Her reluctant excitement just at thinking the 'M' word built upon every stretch and pull of those hooks, until all she could feel was the pulsating throb of her ache not to say it overwhelming every other sensation. She no longer felt the uncomfortable rock or root or whatever it was beneath her shoulder blades. Instead it was the scrape of her nipples rubbing themselves raw inside her bra that dominated her. It was the heady heartbeat caught in the swollen flesh of her pussy, aggravated by the steady grind of his hips.
Maddy tried to turn her face away, but Dominick caught her chin and forced her gaze back to his.
"Look at me," he commanded, releasing her chin to shove his hand down between them. She heard the chink of his belt buckle, followed by the metallic zip of his opening fly an instant before he jerked his leathers down far enough to be just out of the way. He fumbled with his pocket before catching her knee again and heaved, folding her thighs back up on her chest, forcing her bottom off the sand and bringing the heated maw of all her burning lusts back into sizzling contact, not with the bulge straining against his leather-clad fly, but with the source of that bulge itself. His cock was both girth and length, power and hunger, the promise of pleasure, a dark and swollen potential for pain, already beading at the tip with a single glistening drop of pre-cum.
She felt the jerk of his strong body and heard the plastic rip as he tore into a condom packet with his teeth. Before she realized what it was, Dominick fit the condom over his cock and enclosed the length. Then he leaned into her again, and that burgeoning solidness of rock-hard flesh, newly cased in a sheath that was ribbed for her pleasure and already pre-lubricated, thrust its way right to the lips of her aching sex.
"Say it, Maddy," he growled.
She shook, the whole of her being thrilling at the gliding caress of his cock sliding along her folds, brushing the sensitive peak of her clit, coating the dark head and sinewy underside from tip to high, tight balls in the slick, wet shine of her feminine oils. She could smell herself in the thin space he allowed between them. She could smell him, too. His deodorant, just a hint of aftershave clinging to the side of his neck, the musk of a fully aroused male ready to fuck.
"Say my name."
Her back arched when he brought his mouth close enough, but he deftly evaded giving her the kiss she so craved. Hers was a breathy whine, a whimper, because she knew what she wanted, needed, desperately had to have, and yet the price…
The price…
For the first time, her hands left his shoulders. She caught the back of his neck, wanting to hold him, distract him with another kiss to evade while her other hand shot down between them. She caught him. Her fingers closed around his shaft, a contact that sent that now familiar shower of molten sparks dancing through her belly. It didn't last even a second before he retaliated, ripping himself out of her hand, out of her arms, off her entirely.
For half a second, Maddy lay in the sand of that flowerbed, bereft, staring up at him as he reared back off her. The darkness in his eyes danced—at first, she thought, with amusement, but then she thought annoyance. After that, she just couldn't tell. The crazy part was, for that half second before he grabbed her again, something in the way he was looking at her made Maddy wonder if he could tell, either.
"Little girl," he tsked once, that single shake of his head like an expression of paternal regret just before discipline was handed down. "Did I give you permission to touch me?"
"You didn't say I couldn't."
The darkness danced in his eyes all over again, that same mixture of amusement, annoyance, and now an added glimmer of piqued interest. "You," he said, almost mildly, "just
back-talked the wrong man."
Her pulse turned giddy with excitement and maybe just a little apprehension. She had no idea what possessed her. "How can it be the wrong man when you're the only one here?"
He rumbled, a low chuckle that shivered her all over again, then tsked again, and then he grabbed her. It happened so fast. One second, his hands locked around her upper arms, and in the next, she was flipped and all the weight of him came crashing down on her back, pressing her belly-down in the sand.
It was a crushed plant; that uncomfortable tubular lump she'd been lying on. Now it was digging into her ribs under her left breast. She tried to get her hands under her but he grabbed them next, one wrist after another, wrenching her arms behind her back. Rough as it was, as startling as it was, even when he whipped off his belt to bind her hands behind her, he did it all without actually hurting her. She felt the pull in her shoulders when he forced her bound wrists up behind her back, but though the strain pulled at her joints, it never quite reached the point of pain. His knee was in the small of her back.
"You have sand on your ass," he commented. "Want some help dusting it off?"
Solicitous as he was, he didn't bother waiting for an answer before his broad open hand began a brisk dusting clap all over her bottom. The sound was loud. Her squeals were even louder and before he'd delivered more than a handful of swats, she was wriggling to get out from under the pinning force of his knee, grinding and bucking, legs thrashing and feet digging into the sand and uprooting plants in what she could only imagine was the lewdest display of bad-girl comeuppance that she had ever given anyone. Ever. In her life.
Her bottom stung, but that throbbing in her pussy soared, filled to the molten brim with an aching need for more, despite her bottom's protests that they had had enough. This was starting to pass sting and enter territory suffused by real discomfort, but just as her cries began to reflect that, he stopped. His hand caught a large portion of her right nethercheek and squeezed, adding to the pain. Adding to the erotic humiliation, as well, when she realized he'd just pried her bottom cheeks apart. There was no part of her now that he could not see.