I’d never been voluptuous. Never even close. I was too small and much too finely boned for that. But now, I shivered under Hemi’s gaze, and I let the robe fall to the floor, stood there, and let him look.
“Get on the bed.” It wasn’t a request.
I thought about being sassy, but I didn’t do it. I turned around and climbed back onto the bed.
“Lie down,” he said.
My heart was hammering a mile a minute. I told myself, This is the man you love. This is the man who danced with you by the ocean. Except that he didn’t look like that man. He looked like the Maori chief he should have been, powerful, fierce, and all-conquering. He looked like a man who was going to win, because nothing else was an option. Too bad that was exactly the kind of man who excited me most.
So I lay down. I displayed myself for him, and he looked his fill, and if I did, too? Well, he was worth looking at.
He sat beside me, and then he turned the tables on me again. He drew a thumb along my jaw and said, his voice quiet, almost gentle, “I want to make you scream tonight.”
I swallowed, and I knew he saw it. He drew his hand down my neck, trailed his fingers all the way down my inner arm, and brushed them over my wrist, up my forearm. Back and forth, the rhythm hypnotic, mesmerizing. My skin was quivering under his touch, and just like that, my legs were parting. And then his hand went to my inner thigh and began that same leisurely, gentle brushing, until I was squirming, and he sat there and watched me do it.
“But I can’t,” he finally said. “We’re going to have to keep you quiet, eh. Do you want to be quiet for me?”
“Yes.” I could barely get the word out.
His eyes softened, and his hand whispered up my thigh. So close. Almost there…and stopped. “That’s so good, sweetheart. You’re going to have to trust me, too. Do you trust me?”
I nodded, hardly daring to breathe, and he said, “Good, because that’s all you’re going to be able to do. Nod, or shake your head. While I fuck you.”
He said it in the same low, controlled voice, and my whole body jerked at the word. He smiled faintly, stood up, and went to the dresser in the corner of the room, and I lay there, tried not to tremble, and failed.
He came back carrying a paper bag, still looking nothing but calm, but it was obvious that he was a whole lot more affected than he was pretending. I stretched a hand out to touch him through the black fabric, and he sucked in his breath and said, “Better enjoy that, because it’s all you’re going to be able to do.”
I did enjoy it. I loved it. I looked at him, smiled, and said, “Promise?”
“Always saucy.” He sat down beside me again. “This is going to be a bit different, so I’m telling you now. I’ll be checking in with you. If you want me to stop, if you want to tell me no, if you want me to let you go…you shake your head. If you want me to keep going, you nod.” This time, his hand traced down the front of my throat, then drifted over my collarbone and down into the sensitive spot between my breasts, and stroked me there. “Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I whispered. I was already aching for him, but then, I’d been aching for him for about three hours now.
He pulled two candles out of his bag, set them down on the bedside table, struck a match, and lit them, then turned off the bedside lamp. And just like that, the fire within me turned up about ten degrees. The flickering light, the delicate smell of honey and roses. All softness, and nothing like softness, because Hemi was pulling something else out of his bag.
A white silk scarf.
I sucked in a breath, but I didn’t let it out, because Hemi had put the scarf over my mouth and was wrapping it around my head. Twice, so the material was caught between my teeth, forcing my mouth open.
I knew my eyes were wide. I’d expected this, and yet, I hadn’t been able to actually imagine what it would feel like to be gagged. It felt…almost frightening. Way too dirty. Much too exciting.
“First chance,” Hemi said. His chest was rising and falling more rapidly, I could swear. “To nod if it’s OK, and shake your head if it’s not.”
He was looking at me so intently, watching for my answer.
I nodded.
“Do you trust me?” he asked.
Another nod.
“Good,” he said. “Because you’re about to find out just how helpless you can be.” He took one of my wrists in each hand, dragged them up above my head, and was wrapping another length of fabric around them, and I felt the jerk as he fastened me to the bar of the headboard.
“Pull,” he said, and when I didn’t do it fast enough, he yanked at the tie, making me feel the stretch. “Pull.”
I pulled, and he watched me do it. I wanted to say something, and I couldn’t. I was naked, I was gagged, and I was tied to Hemi’s bed. And I was already halfway gone.
“Can’t get free, eh,” he said. I looked at him, knowing I was wide-eyed, and he said, “I’m afraid it’s going to get even harder now, sweetheart. Lift your hips for me.”
I swallowed, my mouth already dry, and did it, and he shoved a pillow under my hips, then added another one, so I was raised high. And then he went to the foot of the bed, took hold of one of my ankles, and dragged it slowly to one side.
I couldn’t see what he was doing, but I could feel it. The spider was tying me to his web. He’d fastened the other ankle now, and my legs were spread wide, my hips raised for him, and I was trying to pant, but not able to.
I expected him to come over me, to pleasure me with his hands and mouth until I wanted to beg him, needed to pull him to me, to hurry him up…and wouldn’t be able to do any of it.
It would be too much to take. I knew it. And I couldn’t wait.
He didn’t do it. Instead, he stood over me, drew his hand between my parted legs, and began to explore me, touching me with nothing but that hand.
I was so wet, I could tell. I was making some noises in the back of my throat, too, but I couldn’t get them out.
Hemi was talking, though. Low. Dark. Fierce. And his hand…his hand…
“Who’s saucy now?” he asked. “I’ve got you bound and gagged, and you’re going to see what happens to girls who tell me no. I’m going to make you scream, but you won’t be able to scream. You’re just going to have to lie there and take it.”
He was rubbing hard, taking me up fast, and I was stiffening, everything in me tightening, needing to get there. Needing to make noise, and not able to.
Almost there. Almost…
Just like that, he took his hand away, and I was breathing hard through the fabric, trying to shift, trying to moan, and not able to do any of it.
He stood up, drew the black trousers down his body, and tossed them aside. And then he was over me, on his elbows, so big and so strong, and I wanted to say Yes. I wanted to say Please. But I couldn’t.
He stroked a hand over my hair, brushed it back from my cheek, and asked, “Do you want this?”
I nodded frantically, and he…smiled. He rolled off me, was down at the foot of the bed, unfastening my ankle, and I wanted to say No. Please, no. Please do it. And then he unfastened the other one.
“Changed my mind,” he said. “This is just too good.” He got both hands around my hips, and he was flipping me. Turning me over, so the fabric crossed about my wrists in an X, pulling my arms even tighter, and then he had my ankle in his hand again, was fastening it tight, then doing the other one.
The pillows were under my stomach now, and I was shaking with need and nerves. Hemi was over me again, his hard body heavy against mine, his hand drawing my hair back from my face again.
“Time to nod, sweetheart,” he said in my ear. And the second I did it, he plunged home.
He’d been right to gag me, because there was no way I wouldn’t have called out. Yes, I was saying frantically inside. Yes. This was it. The angle of it, the wonderful friction…it had my eyes closing. I couldn’t move, couldn’t ask, couldn’t moan. And every single bit of my attention was centered
on one thing. On Hemi inside me.
A hard thrust, a slow withdrawal. An achingly long pause, and then the thrust again, hard enough that my hips jerked. I could hear my blood roaring, Hemi’s labored breathing over me, and that was all. I could see his heavy arm propping him up, there beside my face, golden candlelight flickering over bronzed skin and swirling tattoo, and nothing more.
But I could feel. Oh, could I feel him, plunging and retreating. The tension was building, higher and higher, and I couldn’t move.
When his stealthy fingers sneaked around and found me again, I moaned into the gag. He heard me, I could tell, because he began moving more slowly inside me even as the tempo of his fingers increased. Focusing on my pleasure, not his own. His lips brushed my ear as he murmured, “Feels good, eh?”
I nodded twice, jerkily, willing him to go on, and he said, “You’re so pretty, baby. So pretty. So I’m going to touch you some more.”
Please, I wanted to say. Please touch me.
Instead, he stopped, and I did want to scream, then. He was gone, and I moaned again, and knew he heard me, but he didn’t say anything, and I couldn’t even see him. What was he doing?
A long few seconds passed. I wanted to find him, to make him do it more, to do it hard, but I couldn’t. I was all frustration, nothing but aching, panting need.
Then he settled over me, his weight pressing me down, and his hand was on me again at last, but there was something strange about it. Something cold and impossibly stimulating, a wet, icy-hot sensation that was sending me straight to the sky, and somehow, I’d found a way to wriggle, to ask for it. And at that moment, the thumb of his other hand, slippery, wet, and cold, eased its way inside me at the back.
If I could have gasped, I would have. As it was, I tensed, pulled up tight, and then tighter still. Which was when he plunged into me again and…held still. He was inside me, stroking me with one hand, rubbing that cold into me while he shoved his thumb deep and hard into my backside, stimulating me so much. Too much.
It was all…it was all too much. I couldn’t take it. I was trying to get away, trying to call out, my entire body rigid as the tension inside me wound higher and higher, the orgasm coming closer, then closer still. I was biting down on fabric, my hands twisting around the cord tying me to the head of the bed, my legs held tight…
I screamed. I shook, and I convulsed, and he didn’t stop.
I wanted to tell him I couldn’t do it. I wanted to tell him to stop, and all I wanted was for him to keep going. And he did. Again and again, while I heard his ragged breath in my ears, and finally, jerked again at the feeling of his teeth closing over the back of my neck.
He bit me. He held me with his teeth, and all I could do was lie still and feel his hands and mouth and body taking over every bit of me, making me shake, making me his.
He burned me down.
Hemi
Sometimes, I honestly thought that being with Hope would kill me.
I’d kept her quiet, but I hadn’t stopped to think about how hard it would be for me to stay that way. When she was coming so hard I could barely stay inside her, when my own climax punched into me like a wrecking ball, I bent my head, held her tight with my teeth at the back of her neck…and still couldn’t stop the groans that escaped me. I shook and spasmed as Hope’s sweet body took me in and squeezed me tight, as I felt her quivering beneath me, heard the muffled moans that made it out from behind the gag, and lost track of time and track of myself. I lost it entirely. I drowned in her.
When I came back to myself, I realized that I was sprawled over Hope, squashing her, and she was still tied fast. Still gagged, too. I hurried to unwind the length of silk scarf that had been holding her quiet for me with hands that weren’t entirely steady.
“All right?” I asked in her ear. I massaged the back of her neck where the red mark showed livid, then her cheek, where the gag had been. Had it hurt her? Had I? “Tell me.”
“Y-yes,” she said, barely a breath. “H–hold me. Please, Hemi.”
I knew I should untie her, but I didn’t. I lay over her and held her, my hands gripping her forearms, my chest pressing her down beneath me, and thought, See if I let you go. See if I do.
I untied her at last and got myself washed up. I washed her, too, as slowly and tenderly as I’d been fierce before, and loved doing it. When I blew out the candles and pulled her into my arms from behind, she moved back into me and said, sounding sleepy and so satisfied, “I didn’t think you could get any more possessive. Look how bad you’ve been, though, since I agreed to marry you.”
“Mm.” I rubbed a hand over the silken skin of her arm and felt her legs twining with mine. “Reprehensible. Next time, I’ll be gentle, eh.”
She breathed out a long sigh, sounding so contented, I had to hold her a little tighter. “The problem is,” she said, “I like it both ways. I told myself that I wouldn’t ask you for anything tonight, in case you couldn’t. But I wanted it. What was that? That…cold thing?”
I had to smile, there in the dark. “Something I picked up. I heard it worked. Seemed like it did. And…in case I couldn’t? What?”
“Well…you’re thirty-seven.”
This time, I laughed. “I still can. No worries.”
“Noise, though.” She sounded sleepier than ever. “What are we going to do about noise? If Karen and I do move? That’s going to be awkward.”
“Ah.” I rubbed my nose and grimaced. “No. That’s sorted.”
“Hemi.” She’d rolled over to face me. “How?”
“Ah…” Geez. Could I go one night without getting myself into trouble?
Apparently not. “Suppose you tell me,” she said sweetly, “as I’m this woman you want to share your life with and all. We’ll start with the little things and work our way up.”
I cleared my throat. “I may have talked to Josh about that.” My assistant. “By the time we get home, it’ll be done.”
“What?”
“Soundproofing in the walls,” I muttered. “In my bedroom. Because Karen.”
“Oh,” she said. “Huh.”
“I can’t do that to you every night,” I pointed out. “I like hearing you make noise, and you like to do it.”
“I do.” She was snuggling closer, to my relief, getting comfortable on my shoulder, accepting my hand stroking over the sweet curves of her backside with another contented sigh. “But I don’t know how I’ll ever look Josh in the face again.”
I didn’t say anything, and she sat up and said, “Oh, no.”
“What?”
“He already did your office.”
I flung an arm over my face. “Hope,” I said. “Go to sleep. Please. Before I confess anything worse.”
Hemi
I hadn’t taken Hope to Queenstown yet when I got the call from Walter. I hadn’t got her and Karen farther than Rotorua, in fact, which turned out to be just as well.
The call came through in the car at one o’clock on Thursday afternoon, when I was driving around the lake in preparation for a few hours spent exploring the forest canopy, which involved a lot of zooming down flying foxes. A totally tourist activity, and totally all right by me, because I suspected the adventure would lead to Karen laughing and being excited, and I hoped it would lead to Hope screaming and needing a cuddle.
Clearly, I wasn’t as evolved as I could have been. I knew she was brave. I still needed to know that I could protect her, and to have her know it, too.
She hadn’t complained a bit about the wedding, or asked me about the divorce, either. There was one of us who seemed to be chafing at the delay, and it wasn’t her. Now, I saw Walter’s name come up on the display and didn’t even consider ringing off, which was something.
“Te Mana,” I said.
“We’ve located your wife,” he said. “She’d like to see you.”
The atmosphere in the car had been relaxed. It wasn’t anymore.
“Not a good idea,” I said.
“I don’t do
family law,” he said, “as you know. But I’ve been consulting with an attorney over there, and he says she’s adamant. He says that…” He cleared his throat. “‘Kiwis are different,’ whatever that means. Less adversarial, apparently.”
He didn’t have to say the other bit. Which I wouldn’t have known, judging by you. Instead, he went on, “He believes that you’re more likely to get an amicable resolution if you work it out with her.”
“If I could’ve worked it out with her,” I said, “we wouldn’t be divorced.”
“You’re not divorced,” he said, and I thought, Oh. Right. “We’ll work with what you decide, of course,” he continued, “but he seems to think you’ve got a shot at making this go away faster.”
I glanced at Hope. She didn’t say anything, just sat still and listened, and I focused on taking the curve in the road, then said, “It’s not contestable, though. Not like there’s anything to decide. If one party wants the divorce, it’s done.” That much, I remembered from the first time around.
“There’s the matter of the property settlement,” Walter said dryly.
“You said three years.”
Hope said, “Hemi…” just as Walter said, “I’m getting indications—” then stopped. “Are you alone?”
“No,” I said. “Hope’s with me.”
“Hope? Is that the lady’s name?”
“Yeh, and you may as well meet her, as we still have that trust to take care of, and something for her sister as well. Hope Sinclair, this is my attorney, Walter Eagleton.”
“Hi,” Hope said. “Um…nice to meet you.” I could feel her eyes on me, questioning, but I focused on the road.
Walter said, “It might be better for you to call me back when we could speak freely.”
“You can speak freely now,” I said.
“Are you sure?” he asked. “The property settlement could impact your…” He gave a dry cough, a lawyer specialty. “Your future prospects.”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m sure.” Comfortable, no. Sure, yes.
Fractured (Not Quite a Billionaire #2) Page 10