Are you thinking that he was too demanding, too controlling? But you see, he knew how much I loved him that way. Hemi knew all my dirty secrets, and he loved every one of them. It was like he’d said back in that café. We were wired the same way, and he’d never given me anything I hadn’t wanted. He gave me tenderness when I needed it, and maybe when he did, too. And he gave me ferocity when we both needed something more.
Like right now.
“Well, um…” I said. “I bought this bra. It’s, well, it’s got lace trim, and it has little bows at the bottom of each strap, and you can see through it. Well, actually, I bought it so you could see through it.”
“So I could watch your nipples harden,” he said. ‘So I could touch them through it.”
I had to swallow. “Yes.”
“Show me how you want me to touch you, then,” he said.
My gaze flew to the partition, and Hemi said, with the barest twitch at the corner of his mouth revealing the smile he was hiding, “Charles won’t stop until I tell him to.”
“You…” I had to stop and breathe. “You told him it would be a while?”
He didn’t bother to answer that. “Show me.”
I looked at him some more, and then I did it. I lifted a hand slowly to my face, ran it down my jaw, then over my lips, tracing their shape. Hemi loved my mouth, and I knew it.
It worked. He didn’t say anything, but I could swear his own breathing had picked up.
I didn’t smile, even though the satisfaction was warming me as I watched his reaction. Instead, I ran my hand down my throat, tipping my head back as I did. My lips parted to let in the breath that was coming harder already, and Hemi watched that, too.
Fingertips tracing over my collarbones, now, teasing out a response from my sensitized flesh, my tingling nerves. Up and down between my breasts, that spot where the touch of Hemi’s lips could make me squirm in exactly the way I was starting to squirm now, until, at last, I reached the low-cut edge that stopped halfway up my breasts and began to trace over it, still with the lightest touch, still excruciatingly slowly.
Surely my nipples had never been this hard, or tingled this much without even being touched. But then, the bra’s fabric was so thin, they’d been stimulated just by the cotton of the dress rubbing over them all day long. Or maybe it was something else. Maybe it was just my treacherous body, and Hemi’s effect on it. All I knew was that right now, it was telling me the wait had better be over.
So I ended it. I put a soft hand on each breast and began to run my fingers over the lightly abrasive material, circling around my nipples, then brushing over them. Drawing out the response, reveling in it.
The ache between my legs was almost unbearable now, sending up an answering throb with every squeeze of my fingers on those tender peaks, with every second that Hemi watched me. The flames were licking me as if it were his tongue there. I could feel his tongue there. I needed his tongue there. Why didn’t he do it?
“Lift your skirt,” he said, his voice coming out hoarse. “Pull it above your waist.”
Yes. I didn’t play games, because I wanted it. I forced myself to do it slowly all the same, though, even though all I needed was for him to take off my clothes and touch me.
When he saw what was under the dress, he got more still than ever. He was frozen, in fact.
I wasn’t. My dress was still on my shoulders, but lying open to the waist, the full skirt pulled up high and spread on the seat around me as I lay back on the seat and showed Hemi the rest of my purchases.
First, my beautiful ankle-strapped heels. Above them, stockings so sheer they were barely a whisper against my skin, ending in tops edged with white lace. And above that…a G-string to match the bra. A piece of lingerie so skimpy, it could barely justify its existence, let alone its price tag. It was made of the same pearl-pink material as the bra, the tiniest triangle of sheer fabric in front, and absolutely nothing else to it but a couple of ribboned straps.
Oh, and there was the garter belt. It matched, too. Delicate, lacy scallops ran along my lower belly, offering up a semicircle of pale skin for Hemi’s viewing pleasure before the G-string hid me from view. Well, partially.
Hemi still hadn’t moved, and he didn’t speak, but the dark flush on his cheekbones sent a message I had no trouble at all reading.
“Do you like what you see?” I asked in a throaty voice that belonged to a much curvier woman.
“Not yet,” he said, making my head jerk up in surprise. “But I will when you’re touching yourself.”
He held me with his gaze, and if I’d been melting before? Now, I was liquid.
I said, when he didn’t go on, “What? Now?”
“Yeh. Now. And while you show me how you do it, you’re going to talk to me. You didn’t do so well describing your lingerie, so I’m going to give you a failing mark and move on. You’re going to tell me your nastiest, dirtiest, most secret fantasy. The one you use when I’ve been gone too long, the one that makes you come the hardest and moan in spite of yourself and blush the most to remember. The one you can’t believe you let yourself even think.”
“What if it isn’t about you?” I asked sweetly. I still had a little push-back left, it seemed. I treated him to my most innocent look, pretending I wasn’t so wet I was embarrassing myself.
If I’d thought I’d disconcert him, I’d been wrong. “Ah,” he said, nothing but dark satisfaction in his melted-chocolate voice. “Then you’ll give me something else to take up with you later, won’t you? Make it dirty, sweetheart. Seems I’ve got to remind you of a few things tonight. So go on. Inspire me.”
I didn’t want to do it, and I was dying to do it. Well, to be honest, I was dying for him to do it. But one of us had better do it, because the throb between my legs needed attention, and it needed it now.
I didn’t give in entirely, of course. I made him wait. I started by stroking the bare skin between the scalloped edge of the garter belt and the top of the G-string. Over and over, my fingertips pleasuring, stimulating, my other hand going to my inner thigh above the top of the stocking, tracing, moving slowly up.
When my eyes drifted shut at the intensity of it, Hemi said, “Oh, no. You’re not doing that. Eyes open. Look at me. And tell me. Don’t disappoint me, Hope.”
I forced my eyes open, and there he was, his dark gaze pinning me in place exactly like the butterfly I always felt with him. I said, “Uh, I guess…I imagine, uh…” My fingers stilled, and so did my tongue.
“No,” he said. “Tell me like it’s happening. Tell me what I’m doing. And get busy. I want to see your hand disappear in there, and I want to see it now. I’m going to watch you come, and you’re going to show me. Right now.”
I took a breath, looked into his eyes, and did it. It wasn’t exactly an effort to find the right place. My hand smoothed over the damp fabric, which felt pretty fabulous all by itself, then edged inside, and I hauled in a hard breath as my fingers finally touched me where I needed it most.
All I wanted to do was close my eyes and enjoy it. Instead, I talked, because Hemi had ordered me to, and I needed to obey him exactly as much as I’d needed to disobey him earlier, but for an entirely different reason. For a reason that had nothing to do with logic and self-determination and independence, and everything to do with being the other half of the woman I was, here in the secret spaces, in the dark.
“We’re in a restaurant,” I began. Haltingly, because…could I really say this? “A fancy one. Candles on the tables, white tablecloths, good silverware, classical music, you know. You’ve taken me there, but you’ve told me it’s going to be different tonight, but I don’t know how, or when it will happen, and I’m nervous. It’s, um, dark outside, low lights inside, so people walking by can, uh, look in and see.”
Touching myself felt so good. So incredibly good. “There are all these men at the other tables,” I went on, part of me burning with embarrassment at what I was saying, what I was doing, the other part drawn irresistib
ly onward. “Men in suits. They’ve been…looking at me all night long, because I’m wearing something…” I could feel myself blushing even as my hand found its pace and started to carry me up, riding that wave.
“What?” Hemi asked. “What are you wearing?”
“Something…too revealing.” My fingers were a whisper over swollen, aching flesh. “A jersey dress, red, and a bra like this one. They can all see my nipples getting hard, and they’re all looking. And you’re not…” I drew in a shaky breath. “Not sitting across from me. You’re beside me. You’re telling me to eat, making me drink my wine, and I’m doing it, but you…you…”
“Yes?” His gaze was burning me, compelling me onward.
“You’ve got your hand under the tablecloth. It’s on my thigh, and you say, ‘Take a drink, sweetheart,’ and when I do…you lift up my skirt under the table and put your hand on me. Inside my…my thong. You’re rubbing me, and you’re telling me…”
“What am I telling you?”
“That you’re going to…” I was so close. The tingle had long since turned to a hum, and then to a pulsating beat that resonated deep inside me. “That you’re going to take me home and…”
I looked into his eyes, seeing in his face the absolute confirmation of everything I was saying, and feeling it pushing me higher.
I wanted to stop telling him. I wanted to close my eyes, too. But I couldn’t do either thing, because Hemi wouldn’t let me, and because I needed to watch him looking at me, to watch him being so turned on by me, and I needed to say it out loud, too. I needed to share it, because it was too exciting not to.
“You tell me,” I went on, “that you’re going to take me home and tie me to your bed, and you’re going to spank me, and then, when I’m all pink and warm for you, when I’m shaking, when I’m moaning and begging you to stop…you’re going to fuck me hard, over and over, until I scream. Until I can’t walk. Until I’m your slave. And while you’re telling me…you’re making me come. I’m sitting at the table, and every man there is watching me, and I’m coming so hard, grabbing the edge of the table, biting my lip and trying to hide it, but I can’t. And you let them all watch me. You let them all see what you’re doing to me.”
It was too much. I broke off, gasping as the wave of pleasure broke over me and dragged me under. I kept my hand moving, because I couldn’t have stopped it, desperate to keep it going, to release the unbearable tension.
I came again and again, one orgasm after the other, climbing up and falling back the tiniest bit only to climb again. And Hemi watched that, too.
Hemi
If a man sets out to play with fire, he may just get burned.
I’d made Hope do it to excite her. And, yes, to dominate her, too, because that excited both of us. Neither of us may have had the best day ever, but this part of it? This part was going to be perfect.
When she’d walked out on me this afternoon, it had taken every bit of self-control I’d had not to go after her, throw her over my shoulder, haul her back into that room, and…yes. To do all those things she’d just said.
But I hadn’t done any of it, had I? She’d drawn the line, and I’d respected her decision. I’d waited until seven to collect her, too, even as my focus grew harder to maintain and my eyes kept straying to the clock. Even as the disciplined part of my brain continued to deal with the disastrous consequences of three weeks away from the office, of a hand missing from the tiller.
I’d waited because, as much as I desired Hope, as much as I needed to take her body physically, I did respect her mind, and her will, too. She’d had the nerve to speak up in that meeting today, and what was more, I knew she’d have said the same thing even if she hadn’t been sleeping with me.
Because she thought for herself, and she told the truth. And because she believed in me, and she’d believed in what she’d said. She wouldn’t have agreed with me to be a yes-man, the way so many people did. That had come from her heart, and Hope’s heart was a very pure place.
Her imagination, though…not so much. That had been a very dirty little fantasy indeed, which was the other reason I’d asked her to tell me, besides that telling me had aroused her so much. I’d wanted to know what she imagined, what excited her most. I wanted to hear her secrets, and I wanted her to give them up to me.
Her “no” had meant “no.” Now, I wanted to show her the meaning of “yes.”
At the moment, though, I had a problem. Hope was half-naked, trembling, still stroking herself as if she couldn’t stop, wearing a pair of shoes that made a man’s mind go irresistibly to wrists tied with ribbons, to bound hands dragged overhead and fastened down tight while she arched her back and thrashed from side to side and couldn’t get away.
Or maybe that was just me.
Meanwhile, here I was, as hard as iron, sitting next to a half-naked woman who wanted me to spank her and tie her down and fuck her. All of which I was more than willing to do. But she was hungry, too.
So difficult.
I picked up the phone built into the armrest, pressed a button, and Charles said, “Yes?”
“We’re ready,” I said. “Restaurant.” I couldn’t even remember the name. Hopefully he did. But then, he’d presumably been less distracted than I had.
“Five minutes,” he said, and clicked off.
“Sweetheart,” I told Hope, who’d sat up again, looking horribly self-conscious, “you’ve got five minutes to put yourself back in order.”
“Oh,” she said, patting at her hair, then seeming to realize just how undressed she was. She pulled her dress down and started to fasten it again with hasty hands, as if I hadn’t just watched her, dressed in the sweetest scraps of barely-there lingerie a man could hope to see, pleasuring herself into one toe-curling orgasm after another. “Are we having dinner? Now?”
“Yeh,” I said. “We are, because you’re hungry, and I want to make you happy tonight and give you exactly what you want. But I’m afraid I can’t give you your fantasy, because nobody but me is going to watch you come. Ever.”
“Well,” she said, doing up the tie on her dress and beginning to look wonderfully cross, “that’s kind of the point of a fantasy, isn’t it? And if you didn’t want to know, you shouldn’t have asked.”
I took her hand, which had been shoving at her hair, set it on my thigh, covered it with mine, and held it there. “I wanted to know. I loved hearing. And if you think it’s going to be hard for you to behave yourself during dinner? Imagine how I feel.”
“What? You just said you didn’t want anybody to know. I sure don’t want them to know. It was a fantasy. That doesn’t mean I actually want to do it.”
“Mm. But what’s killing me, you see, is that I’ve got to sit through the entire evening and watch you while I’m feeling like this, knowing what you want me to do, counting the minutes until I get to take you home and make all the rest of it come true.”
And I did. By the end of the evening, Hope’s pretty bottom had been gorgeously pink and thoroughly warmed, she’d been tied to my bed and fucked to a point where she’d feel it tomorrow, and she’d told me she was mine.
She may even have used the word “slave.” I can’t remember.
Hope
I still had something to discuss with Hemi. Last night hadn’t exactly been the time, but the next morning, I knew I couldn’t put it off.
Too bad it was another thing he wouldn’t want to hear, and that there was no amount of sex that would make him like it.
I slept late, the effects of the day before probably catching up with me, and woke up alone, still feeling draggy and a tiny bit tender, which last part wasn’t exactly horrible to notice, or to remember.
It wasn’t that Hemi had actually been rough. He never was, not really, no matter what he told me beforehand to excite me. More that he’d paid me a lot of attention, and when you worked anything out that hard, you were bound to be sore the next day.
I did finally get myself out of bed and get dressed, tho
ugh, then went in search of intelligent life. I found Hemi in his office, his back to me, absolutely still and completely focused, and decided not to disturb him. The one benefit of yesterday’s meeting, besides that I’d found out where I stood—which was useful, if not comforting, to know—was that I understood better the kinds of pressures he faced, and how alone he was in facing them.
Designing a brilliant line wasn’t enough. You also had to sell it, and now that the heat of the moment was over, I couldn’t help worrying about what would happen if things didn’t work out. With the risky launch, or with that other thing. With Anika.
I knew, even though Hemi never mentioned it, that she was still there at the back of his mind. I suspected that was one reason he’d been so possessive with me since I’d moved in, which was why I hadn’t pushed back harder than I had. He was afraid of losing his money, and the power that came with it. And he was afraid of losing me, which was stupid, but at the same time…I got it. I probably felt a little bit the same way about Karen.
You never just reacted to what was happening now. You reacted to everything that had happened before, and that’s what Hemi was doing. I sometimes thought that I knew him better than he knew himself, because I saw that, and I wasn’t sure he did. But then, it was always easier to see inside other people than it was to look in the mirror.
This clearly wasn’t the time to charge in there and have a chat about that, though, so I left him undisturbed and went into the kitchen, where I found Karen. She’d apparently also slept in after a shift that had ended at midnight, and was looking a little zombified herself this morning.
I made myself a cup of tea and shoved a couple pieces of wholegrain bread into the toaster while Karen poured herself an enormous bowl of cereal and made a very messy smoothie that seemed to involve most of the contents of the produce drawer, not to mention a couple cartons of yogurt.
I asked her, when she was sucking the drink down in big gulps of viscous, nearly purple liquid, “Are you OK if Hemi and I take off this morning for an hour or so?”
Fractured (Not Quite a Billionaire #2) Page 25