by Flora Dain
I stay pinned. I’m so overcome I hardly notice but he continues to hold my wrists way over my head for long after I’ve calmed down. When he withdraws he’s still watching me. When he finally releases me I rub my wrists and see his eyes flicker. ‘Are you OK?’ His troubled frown is instant and touching.
I rub against him like a cat and kiss his cheek. ‘Of course I’m OK,’ I murmur, my eyes filling again. ‘Who wouldn’t be after that?’
He grins briefly, his eyes flickering again, watchful now. ‘Hey, just checking. We’ll go back now.’
* * *
The ride back is slow and romantic as the evening sets in and the radio airwaves fill with crooners and love songs. We talk about silly things – the taste of our first ice-cream, the first time we ate a cherry. He glances across at me from time to time and touches my hand before folding his over mine and holding it firm while he steers with the other. I lean against his shoulder and put my other hand in his lap and try hard not to probe too deep and put him off his driving but I make him laugh every time I do.
It’s not until we’re sitting in the suite and switching on lamps and ordering room service that I remember something I’ve been meaning to ask him. ‘Darnley, do you know a woman called Freda?’
Slowly he puts down the hotel phone and stands very still. ‘Yes. She screws your ex. Why?’
I stare at him, puzzled. ‘You knew her name? You know the names of all the people who screw your employees?’
His face stays blank but I sense an air of tension. ‘I know that one. I told you Mitchell took one of our best technicians when he left us. She was the one. She was head of her section, set to rise even further after the launch.’
His expression is opaque, but I notice the fingers of one hand are bunched into a fist, like there’s tension somewhere inside him that needs to get out. He’s holding something back, something important.
I know instantly I should drop this, but I’m curious. That woman was really attractive – and knew it.
‘Ryan said he knows someone who knows you really well. Is that her?’ I want to ask him how well she knows him and why.
Frankly, if they’re an item.
He’s watching me closely, his gaze opaque. ‘Yes. What’s she been saying?’
I stare at him. ‘I’ve no idea. I just wondered –’
Eyes blazing, he steps in front of me as I make for the shower. I stand before him for a moment, draped only in a skimpy towel. All at once I feel vulnerable.
‘Wondered what? What did she say?’
‘She – he – Ryan, that is, just said you were dangerous.’ Is this so surprising? Powerful men are always dangerous, especially when you’re standing in front of them with nothing on. ‘Darnley, was she your lover?’
My question hangs in the air but he ignores it. ‘What else did she say?’
I frown. ‘You haven’t answered my question.’
At that moment there’s a knock on the door announcing our meal. I skip into the shower brimming with questions, impatient for answers. But when I emerge some ten minutes later, damp and soft, the waiters have gone, the table is set, candles are lit and he’s pouring the wine.
‘Come here.’
His look could torch a forest. I clamber onto his lap and instantly he pins my hands firmly behind my back with one hand and touches his lips to the dip in my neck. I long to touch him, to stroke his hair. No chance.
He pushes away the towel and eases my thighs wide apart with his other hand so I’m sprawling across him, naked and shamefully moist, my head leaning back on his shoulder, my breasts thrust boldly upwards, my sex splayed wide across his thighs, pulsing and growing wetter by the second.
‘I can’t eat like this.’ I try to make a joke of it but his eyes gleam as I laugh softly and make a feeble move to sit up.
Instantly he prevents me, his restraining hand now an iron clamp. ‘Oh? Who says?’
CHAPTER TWELVE
Naked and still damp from the shower I sprawl across his lap like an open book. Heat flares along with fiery, pounding arousal. Darnley seems to be suppressing his excitement. It’s like something between us has come alive. Has he finally come to a decision about me? I can only hope he’s decided to believe me.
I lean on him like a cat on heat while he feeds me morsels of food, dipping his fingers into sauces and holding strips of chicken for me to lick.
Our meal is fun. Food is foreplay. Dinner becomes a game of hide and seek as he makes me guess what’s coming next, holds it out of reach then makes me arch to catch it and commands me to lick him clean while he traces the line of my throat with small jabs of his tongue.
Wine is allowed only from his lips, sauce only from the ends of his fingers. As we clear our plates and the candles burn low he smiles at me, crushes one last strawberry against my lips with his teeth and murmurs in my ear. ‘Ready?’
I’ve no need to ask for what. I’ve been ready for hours, for months, ever since he left me with the scent of white roses and a taste for Wolfe. I’m tingling with arousal, thrilled with the new possibilities of restraint and our luscious, provocative meal, dripping with lust.
He tips me off his lap, leads me into his bedroom and takes me in his arms. ‘Are you sure?’
I grin up at him, playful now. ‘That I’m ready? What, you have to ask?’
His excitement is catching. I’m almost scared of the tornado I’ve unleashed. With swift movements he removes his clothes while I tear at buttons and fasteners, trying to help, and then he pulls me towards the bed.
‘Close your eyes.’ Obediently I do it, excitement building as I feel his hands explore me, admiring me with his touch, the heat in his fingers almost as telling as his expression earlier.
He knows me already. He knows which buttons to press. He turns me round and pushes gently at my neck so I bend over slowly like a compliant doll, ready to play. ‘Keep them closed.’
His command seems odd, but I realise that without the use of my eyes everything is sharper. His touch is burning me up, making me squirm as my skin ripples under his fingers.
‘Keep still.’ His tone has an edge and I sense irritation. The game just got edgy, his tone hinted danger. At this rate still will soon be impossible.
He leans away from me to reach over to the bed and holds me in place with one arm wound firmly round my waist. I’ve no idea what’s happening but I hear the whisper of fabric and a faint metallic clink. All at once he curves over me, his hand deep between my legs, and slowly he raises me upright, and turns me round to face him, capturing my mouth with a finality that stops my breath, plundering me with his tongue, slipping his fingers over my nipples, testing their rigidity, their hard, swollen points nearly numb with desire.
In seconds he finds them and he gives a low growl as his fingers brush them lightly and then close round them, pinching them hard and pulling them to stretch them out, making me gasp.
‘What’s this? These want some attention? Don’t worry. They’ll get plenty. I can do a lot with these.’ He kisses my neck with long, hot plunges of his mouth, nipping me with his teeth as he covers me like an animal poised to mate. It’s thrilling and disturbing, and makes me feel feral. Where has he been all my life? How can we have done without each other for so long?
At last he pulls away, brushing my lips with soft touches of his own and now I see a new gleam in his eyes. I want him inside me now. I’m so ready I’m burning up, raging for him. He knows this and yet he stands over me, prolonging my wait, making me ache. His expression is rapt, his intention plain – hot and erect, jutting between us as it scorches my belly in a twitching, white-hot column of heat.
‘I want you in a certain way.’ His voice is low, his tone soft. All at once he’s very still, like he’s holding his breath.
What? Something in his look sends a tiny thrill of alarm through me. It fuels my arousal, fanning it even hotter, my aching bud scorching with need.
You can do it any way. Every damn way. Just do it.
But he’s waiting, unnaturally still.
I pause. ‘What do you mean?’
His eyes flicker, his gaze piercing me like steel. Beyond my line of sight his hand makes a sudden move. Slowly I tear my eyes away from his gaze and focus on the swirl of movement as he pulls a satin drape away from the bedrail.
What I see chills my blood.
Handcuffs.
Attached to the rail I see the gleam of metal and the hard reality of full-strength, brutal engineering suspended over the soft, silken pillow, alien and frighteningly out of place.
‘I want you in those.’
All at once I can’t breathe. I feel like I’ve had a shove in the chest. My sluggish brain jerks into action.
These things were already in here. How long has he planned this? Does he always do this?
And then the killer question – why me?
My eyes drift back to his and now they’re filled with questions. Our eyes lock. His have no answers, just the steady, unwavering gaze of the predator. TheWolfe primed for the kill.
‘Why?’ I say at last. The sudden flare of heat in his expression almost sends me over the edge as I see how much he wants this.
‘Because that’s how I like to fuck.’
‘Why?’ It’s a question too far. A flicker in his eyes tells me there’s no ready answer. But the compulsion is there. I can sense it all around me. I feel it in the zing of tension all around us. I see it in his intense expression, his rigid jaw and his searing look.
He’s still waiting. He wants permission.
I lick my lips. ‘Do women usually let you do this?’
‘Not for long. But one day, one of them will. And when that day comes, I’ll start to have fun. Until then, you have two choices. You can say no and we’ll do it like this anyway and then we’ll forget about it.’
‘For good?’
‘For good.’ The hard line of his lips as he says this tells me he means it. Small wonder he’s rarely linked to women. The gossip columns don’t know what they’re missing. Nor do the women, if the heat in his look is any guide.
My mouth’s gone dry. I feel like a deer trapped by the waterhole but I try one last kick. ‘And if I say yes?’
His slow smile masks passion and triumph but chillingly it has no warmth.
‘Then we’ll maybe do it again. Often. And you might even start to find it’s fun.’
Fun is somehow not the word I’d link to the white heat in his eyes right now but I sense he’s sweetening some pill.
And he’s still waiting for permission.
Even in the throes of his passion and with me helpless in his arms he wants my consent. The idea is deeply touching. And all at once I think I’d like a taste. Not of the sweetener he’s offering but of the deep, driving force below it, a chance to match his passion with my own.
Does he know what he’s unleashed in his prey? Maybe this particular deer has hidden strength. Go on, surprise him.
I lick my lips. ‘Yes, then.’
‘Put your hands together.’ His voice is low and dangerous. Sweet romance just morphed into scary porno but I hardly care. Try it. He likes it.
I make my mind a careful blank but the haze of lust still lingers between us, deadening all my other senses. As I stretch out my arms he grabs my wrists, jams my hands together and snaps one of the cuffs shut over them both together.
They’re clamped tight in cold, unforgiving steel and it hurts.
Now I’m bending low over the bed and I hear him give a low growl as he slaps my rump. This part’s in play, I can tell. It feels hot. I feel hot. I hear him chuckle as he does it, his hand lingering after each blow in a fond, loving caress as he soothes my bottom cheek. Heat flares in my belly but with it a twinge of fear.
I’m trapped. I can’t get away, even if I wanted to …
After what I’ve been through today the thought is new and scary.
When he does it again I jerk hard against the metal gripping my wrists. ‘Ow.’
The pain is so sharp it clears my mind, which floods instantly with blind panic. ‘What are you doing?’
Something about this is deeply, gut-wrenchingly hot but at the same time it’s too soon, too sudden. I’ve had a long and terrifying day.
I faced, or thought I faced, death. I tasted, or thought I tasted, love. And now this. I’d have liked some warning …
He leans over me and now his erection is prodding eagerly at my backside as he fondles me with loving, intimate sweeps of his hand. ‘This is how I like to fuck. It’s time you tried it.’
Any other time I’d have pleaded with him for this, startling and new to me though it is. Any other time … ‘No. No. Not now. Not right this minute. I’m not ready for this. It’s too soon. Darnley, let me go.’
He hangs over me for a full moment, his heat covering me like a quilt, and all at once I see the flash of a key and he unlocks the cuff. I straighten up and rub my wrists, shocked and angry as sudden, unscripted tears spill over. ‘That hurt. You might have warned me.’
He’s staring at me in utter disbelief. He looks so surprised I wonder for a whole second if I’m being unreasonable but one glance at the red marks forming just below my hands fills me with nausea.
‘What’s the matter? You said you were ready.’
I have to defend myself? I glare at him. ‘Not for this. I nearly got kidnapped today, remember? I might have been killed, remember?’
He’s glaring down at me, his eyes dark, troubled, his face contorted with frustration and disappointment. ‘All this time … I thought you were different. I thought for once I’d found somebody … won’t you even try it?’
I stare up at him, willing him to understand. ‘Darnley, I want to please you, truly. I want to pay you back for everything you’ve done for me, but today’s not the day –’
His face contracts in rage. ‘Pay me back? What is this, a bargain hunt? You give me sex in exchange for your protection, is that it?’
He tries to touch me but I flinch away in an automatic reflex. The effect on him is electrifying. Pain flickers over his face.
‘I see it now. You’re no different from the others. They use sex to buy things. You use it to pay me.’
‘No, that’s not what I meant. You’re twisting my words.’ I see new heat dawning in his eyes and I pause as arousal pulses deep down. A second later he looks away, his expression saying something is broken and may never be repaired. Once more I stare into a void – but now the wire he stretched for me has snapped. From the look on his face there’s no way over.
‘You’d better go now.’ The fury in his face takes me by surprise but is instantly veiled. He ushers me quickly out of his room, slams the door and leans against it, taking deep, juddering breaths, naked and beautiful as a stricken god fresh from combat, closing the gate on his demons.
I gaze at him in despair, trembling and tearful, still in the grip of delayed shock and overwhelmed by my frustration. The sight of his magnificent body, gleaming in the low lighting, lithe, lustful and primed for action, only makes things worse. From the way he’s looking at me, his eyes growing darker by the second as he slowly scans my nakedness, lingering on my stiffened, purplish nipples and my eager, rippling abdomen, my sex – visibly blushing at the root of my belly – must be having the same effect on him.
The shaft of pain that stiffens his jaw tears at my heart but now I’m too upset to relent. I need some space.
He recovers first, a faint lift of his eyebrow the only movement in his still, stone-carved face. ‘It’s late. I’m turning in. You too. You’ve had a long day.’
* * *
All at once my phone rings and I jump a mile, still twitchy from our ruptured encounter. It’s Billy, still frantic.
I feel instantly guilty. I should have called her back. She may have saved my life.‘Billy? Hi. Look, thanks so much –’ I break off as she screeches down the phone, ‘Ella? It’s such a relief to hear your voice. You OK? Really? What happened? Did Ryan try something?
’
I take a deep breath and try to fight down the rising panic as her shrill questions bring it all back in waves. ‘I’m fine, I –’ I start to tremble, unsure where to start or how much to tell her and frankly too weary to bother. I look up to see Darnley towering over me, his warning frown dark and forbidding. Holding my gaze he prises the phone out of my fingers.
‘Ms Brown? Wolfe. Yes, we found her. She’s fine, thanks to you. Thanks for letting me know – much appreciated. But she’s too upset to talk right now. She’s just off to bed. Call tomorrow, would you?’ After a slight pause he speaks again, his tone impatient. ‘Sure. I’ll tell her.’
He ends the call and slips my phone into his pocket, making me gape. His mouth clamps into a firm line. ‘She hopes you’re OK and she’ll call again in the morning. I’ll keep this for now. I don’t want you making panicky phone calls. In your present state you’ll give too much away. We have things to discuss but now’s not the time. We’ll talk tomorrow.’
He eyes me for a moment and then his expression softens. ‘Get some sleep, Ella. You’ll feel better in the morning.’
After he’s gone to his own room I clamber into my bed and lie awake for a long time, too rattled to sleep. I drift off in fits and starts, waking in jerks every so often, still jumpy at the slightest sound. After a while I lie staring at the ceiling and slowly it dawns on me that that man is talking again.
Not now. Wearily I climb out of bed, reach for a robe and track the sound through the darkened suite.
It’s coming from Darnley’s room.
I open it quietly and peek inside. The voice is louder in here. Instantly I know whose it is and why I thought I knew him.
But what he’s saying makes no sense. Nor does what I’m looking at.
I can only stare in growing horror at the scene before me.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
‘Hey, kid, this car’s really sumpn, eh? Goes like a panther. How old are you? Eight? You wanna car like this? Maybe you’ll git one of your own some day. Fer now we’ll play with mine. We’re gonna play a game. I’ll sit in the driver’s seat and switch on the engine and you lean over the door an’ grab hold of the steerin’ wheel with both hands. That’s it. Hold tight. What are these? They’re handcuffs, like you seen in the movies. Feel tight, huh? Good. This’ll be fun. I’m Batman and you’re Robin. You’re cuffed to the steerin’ wheel and I’m gonna drive real fast towards that cliff over there. Hear that engine rev up? Goin’ real fast, ain’t she? See that cliff?’Sreal deep, like the Gran’ Canyon. Now we’re goin’ right over the edge and now the engine cuts an’ you gotta save us both … STOP SCREAMIN’ – that’s better. Not so easy with my hand over your mouth, is it? Stop bitin’. This won’ take long unless you bite. Then it’ll take a damn sight longer. C’mon, kid, think of sumpn or we’re gonna die. We’re flying in space and only you kin save us. THINK, KID, THINK … an’ stop that screamin’ …’