His eyes penetrated deep into her soul, and Madison became convinced he knew she had no idea what she was talking about. “Really? Tell me one of your fantasies.” He waited, hovering inches away from her. “Do you have any fantasies?” he probed.
Shit! She remained calm, on the outside anyway. “Perhaps.”
“You’re lying. You don’t allow yourself to have fantasies, do you, Madison?” He nodded while evaluating her reaction. “How many boyfriends have you had since me? Serious ones, ones you let touch you.”
She lowered her eyes to the hardwood floor. “Only two,” she softly answered.
He was so close to her that she could feel the heat from his skin coming through his white shirt. “Who were they?”
“Do you really want to talk about this?”
“I need to know everything about your experiences with men, Madison.”
“Why?” she argued.
“Can you just answer the question and not debate it?”
“Fine.” She cleared her throat. “Dwight was the first after you. He was in my Advanced Design class. It didn’t last long.”
“And the second?”
He rested his hand on her shoulder, making her jump. “Martin. We dated right after I graduated from college.”
He stood behind her. “How were they with fondling you, making you come?”
“I don’t know…fair, I guess,” she admitted, thinking fair was being generous.
“Fair?” His chuckle was highly arousing. “Then I take it none of them made you scream…not like me.”
Now she was getting flustered. No man had ever spoken to her like this. The idea of discussing her sex life with anyone, let alone the man she had already slept with, was a bit daunting. “They, ah…tried, I guess I should say.”
His hand moved down her back to her butt. Pressing the fabric of her jeans into her backside, he whispered, “Tried?”
She closed her eyes. “They didn’t succeed.”
His hands went to the fly of her jeans. “So, back to my original question. Do you have any fantasies?” He slowly lowered the zipper on her jeans. “Things you want a man to do to you?”
She shook her head. “I haven’t really…no.”
He curled his body into her back. “Then we shall have to make some up for you. Play out some roles to see which one you like.” Hayden pushed her jeans and silky beige underwear down her thighs, all the way to her ankles.
“What are you doing?” she questioned, looking down at her jeans.
His hands went up the back of her red sweatshirt, unclasping her bra. He then pushed the thick sweatshirt over her head. “I want you naked.”
“What about the pizza?”
“You can eat it naked in front of me.” He chucked her sweatshirt and bra to the stairs.
Madison become instantly self-conscious and clasped her arms about her breasts and hips.
“What is it? You weren’t shy with me last night.”
“That was last night,” she mumbled.
“Madison, you need to feel comfortable being naked in front of me; comfortable with me doing anything I want to your body.”
She wasn’t sure if she’d heard him right, and suspiciously cocked her head to the side. “Anything? What exactly are we talking about?”
He kissed the tip of her nose. “Trust me, you’ll love it.”
She tightened her arms about her body. “I trust you, Hayden.”
“Forgive me, but that’s not what I see.” He stood back from her, his eyes rising to her face. “If you trusted me, you would lower your arms.”
Madison dropped her arms to her sides, allowing him an unencumbered view of her body. “See? I trust you.”
His eyes drank in her figure. “From now on I think this should be an exclusive arrangement. Only me, no other men. Understood?”
“Like going steady?”
He grinned, appearing amused. “I was thinking of something a little more grown up than that.”
Blushing, she quickly nodded. “Sorry. It just came out.”
Hayden arched closer to her. “I don’t like to share. I’ve had enough of women playing the field in order to get my attention.” His gray eyes turned to two dark slits. “Like what you did with Adam the other evening at the bar. Was that to make me jealous?”
She looked away to the stairs. “You made it pretty clear that first night at my apartment that you didn’t want me…he did.”
“He didn’t want you, Madison. He wanted to wear you like a trophy he had won at some competition.” Hayden’s eyes zeroed in on hers, appearing strangely menacing. “I’m not looking for a prize.”
Madison was intrigued by his statement. As his stern features softened, she contemplated what he had planned for her. “What are you looking for, Hayden?”
His sexy smile returned. “Something more.” Taking her hand, he announced, “Time to eat.”
Hayden led her to the kitchen and motioned for her to sit at his glass breakfast table. When her naked butt hit the cold seat on her hard white chair, she flinched. As Hayden went to a large pizza box on his stainless counter, the aroma of the cheesy bread and tomato sauce concoction drifted to her nose.
“Smells good.” Madison tried to find a way to be comfortable at the table, but dining in the buff was a new experience for her. Awkwardly resting her arms on the glass table, she prayed she did not look as foolish as she felt.
“There is this great little pizza place not far from here that makes the best thin crust I’ve ever eaten. It’s small, but cozy.” He grabbed a plate from one of the white cabinets overhead and slid a slice of pizza onto it.
After he put the plate in front of her, Madison glanced up at him. “Where’s yours?”
He pulled another chair from around the table and set it right next to hers. “I’m not hungry, but you go ahead.” He waved to her plate.
Shrugging it off, Madison snapped up her slice of pepperoni pizza and bit into it. The tomato sauce ran down her chin and she wiped it away with her hand.
“I need a napkin.”
She was about to get up from her chair when Hayden took her hand. “You don’t need one.”
His mouth came closer, and then he licked the drizzle of sauce away from her chin. Taking the hand she had wiped her mouth with, he tasted her fingers, making sure to suck on each and every one.
Madison damn near fell out of her chair.
Seeing the flabbergasted expression on her face, Hayden pulled her index finger from his mouth and nodded to her plate. “Go on,” he ordered. “Eat.”
“What are you doing?”
“Being your napkin.”
Warily, Madison took another bite of her pizza as Hayden looked on. When a crumb of crust fell on to her chest, Hayden rose from his chair and dutifully licked the crumb from the top of her right breast.
When he sat back down, the glint in his eyes was so seductive that Madison had to turn away. The only question she had was who was enjoying this more. Another bite led to another morsel of red sauce dripping on to her left breast.
Madison immediately glanced up from her breast to him. The smirk across his thin red lips made her smile. Within seconds he was out of his chair and kneeling next to her. His lips kissed her left breast, his tongue languishing over her left nipple. She almost dropped the pizza in her hand. This time, however, Hayden did not return to his chair. He stayed on his knees next to her, continuing to let his mouth and tongue explore her chest, neck, and breasts. Madison was convinced she would never look at pizza the same way again.
“Did you pack your office clothes in your overnight bag?” he inquired, taking her empty plate away from the breakfast table.
She sat back in her white chair and watched as his perfectly curved butt walked toward the sink. “Sure. I didn’t want to have to run home in the morning to change for work and risk being late again.” She shifted in her chair, her naked butt sticking to the seat.
“The Martins want to speak to you abo
ut the plans for their house,” he stated. “I have a feeling they’re getting cold feet about the project.”
“Cold feet? But at the party they seemed so excited.”
His eyes shifted to the plate in the sink and she could see the concern in them. “This evening when I pulled up, Pat came across the street to tell me they want to make a few changes to the plans.”
“Changes? But I’ve already made so many changes.”
He came back to the table. “You haven’t been in this business long enough to realize the first rule of designing houses is that the client always changes their mind.” He stood over her at the table. “I just hope they don’t change their mind about selling me their house. I want that property.”
Spying his smooth, muscular chest through his half-open white dress shirt, she tried to concentrate on the topic of conversation. “What will you do if they don’t sell?”
Taking her hand, Hayden helped her from the chair. “I can’t think that way. I want their land and I always get what I want.” He glanced around the kitchen. “And I have to get out of here.”
A chill settled about her and she rubbed her hands along her arms. “Have you made any designs for the kind of place you will build?”
“I was thinking you might be able to help me with that.” He unbuttoned his shirt and slipped it from his shoulders. “I like the house you designed for the Martins, and was thinking you could draw something similar for me.” He eased the shirt around her body. “Might be fun to design something together,” he added, kissing her forehead.
Madison pulled his shirt closer. “I got the idea for that house from the land. I guess I would have to see the Martins’ property in order to design something that could work.”
“Great idea,” he happily proclaimed. “You can do that tomorrow when you visit them. I told Pat you would be there in the morning to go over the changes.”
Madison froze. “Me?” her voice cracked. “Aren’t you going to be there?”
“No. I have meetings all day tomorrow with assorted clients and contractors.”
“I don’t know, Hayden.” Madison was convinced standing naked in Hayden’s kitchen would pale in comparison to taking on the Martins alone. “Maybe you should have someone there with me. What about Garrett or Don Worthy? What if I say something wrong or screw it up?”
He placed an arm about her shoulders, guiding her back toward his den. “I have every confidence that you can handle this on your own. Besides, there is no one else to go with you. Don is off tomorrow and Garrett will be tied up with Adam in the morning.”
“Adam? What’s he doing with Adam?”
They strolled beneath the archway that led to his foyer while Madison gazed up into his suddenly stoic face, waiting for an answer.
“They’ll be working on that new project I told him about this morning.”
Madison remembered Adam being excited and dashing from their office after Hayden had come to see her. “Yes, of course.”
They came to the stairs and he picked up her overnight bag, slinging it over his left shoulder. Madison thought about the handcuffs inside, doubting she would have the courage to put them on Hayden. Perhaps I’ll save that little game for another night.
“You’ll be fine with Pat and Stevie,” Hayden continued. “I really need you to get a good look at their property, so we can start planning my house.” His arm went around her shoulders and they started up the stairs together.
His embrace made Madison feel safe, but something about the way he was acting was different. Maybe it was Madison’s imagination, but she got the impression that tonight their relationship had changed. It was as if he was asserting his claim on her, not that she minded being his. Madison just began to consider what being his actually entailed.
In the master bedroom, he put her bag on the bed and sat down next to it. His eyes went to the dresser in the corner of the austerely decorated room. “There’s an empty drawer on top for your things,” he commented, motioning toward the dresser. “I’ve cleared out a portion of the closet for you as well.”
Madison paused. She had never experienced a relationship that had been serious enough to leave things at a man’s home before, let alone be assigned a designated drawer and room in his closet. It was an odd moment for her. Sort of like a rite of passage, where a relationship went from being fun to something special…but had they already reached that point?
“Ah, thanks.” Stepping up to the bed, she unzipped the blue canvas bag.
Hayden sat on the bed watching as she unpacked. Feeling a little awkward as his eyes registered every item she removed, Madison kept reaching in, hoping to avoid Mrs. Leder’s handcuffs. She could only imagine what he would do if he spotted them.
Taking out her black dress slacks and blouse for work the next day, she went across the room to the dresser. When she turned around, Hayden was smiling at her.
Approaching the bed, she knitted her brow. “What is it?”
He stood from the bed, held out his hand, and dropped the handcuffs on the burgundy bedspread. “Are those for me?”
A thousand and one excuses shot across her mind, but none of them would explain the handcuffs better than the truth. “My landlady gave them to me. Mrs. Leder.” She gestured to the silver handcuffs. “She’s eccentric, wealthy, and she gave me that dress I wore to the party last weekend.”
He picked up the handcuffs and held them before her. “But why did she give you these?”
Madison hesitated, wringing her hands. “She wanted me to…keep it interesting. That’s how she put it.” Her shoulders sagged forward. “She thought you would get bored with me.”
“I’ve never even met Mrs. Leder and I don’t like her already.” Pressing his lips together, he scrutinized her face. “Have you ever used handcuffs on a man before?”
“No, of course not.”
He took a step closer to her. “Have you ever fantasized about being handcuffed?”
Before she could raise her eyes, he had positioned the handcuffs over her right wrist and snapped them closed. Alarmed, Madison tugged at the handcuffs with her left hand.
“Relax,” he whispered, placing his hand over hers. “I’m not going to do anything you don’t want me to do. This is about trust. If you trust me, then you know I would never hurt you.” His finger traced along the supple skin on her inner right wrist. “But to do that,” his finger edged along the silver bracelet, “you must give yourself to me…willingly.”
Madison pushed the rising panic back down to the depths of her gut and lowered her left hand from the silver shackle. This was Hayden. A man she had been with more than once, and he had never done anything she did not enjoy. Maybe he was right; she needed to trust him. Letting out a long breath, she nodded her head.
He pressed his hands on her shoulders, pushing her down on the bed. “This is going to be a lesson in disclosure. You need to learn to open up to me. That’s what lovers do, Madison.”
After she was seated before him on the bedspread, he peeled his shirt from about her body; pulling the last sleeve over the handcuffs, he dropped it on the floor. Standing before her, his eyes were filled with a new kind of light Madison had never seen before. He was highly aroused, and thinking perhaps he wanted her to help him undress, she reached for the zipper of his pants.
“No,” he stopped her hands, “not yet.” He nodded toward the head of the low bed. “Scoot back and place your hands over your head.”
Still not sure what he had in mind, Madison began to reason that maybe this was some kind of game he liked to play. She had heard of sex games—Charlie was always regaling about Nelson’s newest one—but she had never experienced any. Settling her head back on the pillow, she raised her hands above her head, watching the handcuffs sparkle in the recessed lights above.
Once she was in position, Hayden came up to the side of the bed, took her hands, and secured them to the corner post of the oversized headboard. When Madison heard the click of the handcuffs, she swa
llowed hard.
At first he said nothing, just sat on the side of the bed, gazing up and down her naked body, as if deciding what to do first. Madison nervously shifted her legs, but he placed his hand on her left knee, pushing it back down to the bed.
“Lie still.”
Slowly, his fingertips caressed the top her left thigh, tickling her flesh along the way. Madison normally would have laughed out loud, but being handcuffed to the bed—naked—made it more sexy than humorous. His hands journeyed up along her hip, over the contours of her stomach and around the full swell of her left breast. His fingers rose upward, tracing the outline of her collarbone and neck until they came to a stop right below her chin. Raising her head slightly, he admired her face, and then tenderly kissed her lips. His mouth brushed over her chin, along her throat, and down her chest, stopping only briefly to tease her right nipple. While his lips descended further, his hands crept between her knees, nudging them apart. He was kissing her stomach when his fingers roughly reached into her folds. Madison flinched, pulling against the handcuffs.
Hayden removed his hand and sat up next to her. “You’re still tender. What shall I do with you?”
Perplexed, Madison stared at him, unsure of what to say. “I thought you wanted to have sex.”
Clucking, he shook his head. “Sex? No, I want much more than sex.” He stood from the bed and lowered the zipper on his trousers. “Sex is just the act. Like this morning in the shower. Right now, I want something else from you.”
“What?” she griped, feeling completely stumped.
He lowered his trousers and briefs to the floor and stepped out of them. Reaching for the nightstand, he opened the drawer, removed a red foil package, and flung it on the bed next to her. She watched, a little mystified, as he reached back into the drawer and palmed something else; something she could not see. Coming back to the bed, he sat down next to her. While eyeing his erection, she tried to figure out what he was going to do.
He ran his left hand along her thigh and pulled her left knee closer to him. “Tell me you want me.”
“I want you, Hayden.” Her voice was flat and emotionless.
That Night with You Page 17