by Raven Dark
He crawled onto the bed with me and in a moment, he was between my legs.
“Get on your knees.”
“Are you dressed again, Sir?” I grinned over my shoulder at him. Yep, his crisp white shirt was still on, while I was still nude, only his silky white sheets covering my ass and thighs. He was nothing if not consistent.
“Deal with it.” The amusement in his voice only softened the words a little. I bit the pillow, my pussy throbbing, and pushed up on my knees. He whipped the sheets off me.
“I thought you didn’t do morning afters.” It wasn’t really morning yet, but I would have thought coming back for more was against his rules.
“Shut up.” His zipper sounded, harsh and quick, and then the wide head of his cock ran along the crack of my ass. I heard him snap a condom on. “Spread your legs.”
“Make me.” It was the wrong thing to say, but he was so damned arrogant, I couldn’t help challenging him.
One of his hands grabbed my hair, pulling it just hard enough to let me know who was in control, and the other crashed down on my ass. The sting that spread across my ass cheek made my clit ache and I cried out at the pleasure-pain. The mixture of both shocked me, each one as foreign as the other, and both frantically arousing. I spread my knees wide and his hand pressed my shoulder into the pillows. There was something inherently dirty, nasty about having him take me this way, and I put my ass up a little further, giving him better access.
“Oh, good girl. I like that.”
I chuckled nervously into the pillows.
“Are you sore?” His fingers stroked slowly through my wet folds, teasing. A slight scratchy feeling met his touch, but the pleasure overrode any urge to stop him.
“Not enough to worry about, Sir.” I pressed back into his fingers and he slid two of them into my sheath. I moaned and fucked his touch.
“Stay still.”
I smiled at him over my shoulder and pushed back. His palm stung my ass again, the other cheek, and harder this time. I whimpered. Slid myself up and down on his hand.
Another slap, and this one sent a sting across my ass cheek so intense my eyes watered a little, even while the pain made my whole pussy ache. His other hand pulled on my hair again and his mouth brushed my ear.
“Would you rather have your ass tanned instead of being fucked?”
“No, Sir.” I shook my head, any need to challenge him vanishing. I loved the way he spanked, but I needed him.
“Then stay still while I give it to you, girl.”
Fuck, yes, yes, yes. “Yes, Sir.” I waited, holding my breath, needing him with every fiber of my being.
“You smell good. Like my shampoo.” He licked my ear, then ran his cock up and down along my folds. When I groaned, he pushed the head against my pussy.
“Damn, you feel so good. I had to have you again.” He turned my face to the side, possessing my mouth in a hard, deep kiss. I moaned. He thrust into me, hard and fast, balls deep, making me whimper against his kiss. When he sat up, he slid in and out once or twice, almost gentle, but that’s as long as the warmth lasted. The next instant his pace turned savage and, with one fist in my hair, the other bruising my hip, he pounded me, wild and hard.
“Oh, oh, God, fuck…” I loved that he gave me no time to acclimate to his sudden ferocity, the frightening intensity of his need sending me into a tailspin of arousal. Still, this was different than the last time he’d taken me, and not just because it was rougher. He was different, darker. Why?
I barely had time to process what he was doing before his hand in my hair let go and his fingers slid around to my jaw, holding it in place. Jesus, I’d never imagined anything so possessive, so crazy. So hot.
The fingers of his other hand slid into my mouth. I licked and sucked them eagerly, groaning around them. He didn’t slow even a little, pounding me as if he’d never tire. I hoped he wouldn’t, dreaded that he might not.
“You like that, girl? You like my fucking you good and hard?”
Unable to answer with his fingers in my mouth, I moaned my agreement, almost weeping with the helplessness of it. He controlled every inch of me just right, every movement, every word calculated to let me know who was boss. I ate his fingers, making love to them with my mouth the way he’d showed me how to do with his cock. My climax crashed over me and I screamed around his hand.
“Fuck, you’re so damn sexy.” He slammed into me a half a dozen times and then grunted in release, then pulled me up and against him. “I’m not going to like letting you go, angel, and that pisses me off.”
I resisted the strong urge to tell him not to let me go. He made it so easy to forget that a relationship with him was against my rules, too. “Sorry to make things hard on you, Sir,” I teased, running my hands through the side of his hair.
“You have a real mouth on you, don’t you, girl?” His palm clapped my ass, just hard enough to sting, then he squeezed it, while his other hand slid around the front of my throat. He didn’t use any pressure, only kept his huge palm there, letting me know the power he had over me. A thrill raced through my blood, knowing what he could do to me, the danger in it. His mouth was everywhere, leaving hot trails along my shoulder, my neck, my cheek. I panted.
“I can’t help it. I like pissing you off.”
“Mmm. If I could keep you, that would change. The things I’d do to you, you’d learn respect fast.”
A fresh ache started between my legs at his words. “But you can’t, so I guess I’ll stay mouthy.”
“Good. I like you that way.”
Why did I hear strong regret in his voice? I tried to make sense of what I felt in him, but I couldn’t.
“Now what, Sir?”
He sighed and flopped onto the bed beside me, pulling me down into his arms. “Now you sleep.”
The logical extension of that statement was hard to ignore. I’d sleep, but he wouldn’t, because if he did, he’d risk staying longer than his rules allowed.
I snuggled against him and smiled into his chest as he put his arms around me. “I know you don’t think so, but you are a good man. I can feel it.”
Something changed in his breathing, the rhythm of it altering, but then it evened out again. His palms roamed over my back, large and warm. “Hush, girl. Sleep.”
“Yes, Sir.” I kissed his neck.
I barely remember closing my eyes, or wishing daylight would never come.
5
I woke to the unfamiliar feeling of a strong male arm around my waist. Sunlight from the full window along the wall poked at my eyes and I turned my head into the pillow to block it out. I slid my hand along the rippling muscles that surrounded my waist and joy trickled through me. He was still there. It was morning, and he was still with me.
“So much for no morning afters.” I chuckled quietly, turning over to look at him. Fuck, even in the morning, with his dark, wavy hair rumpled and a thickening shadow of a dark beard on his jaw, he was gorgeous. Listening to his even breathing, I pushed a lock of hair off his forehead, noticing the light sprinkle of silver through the rich, blue-black.
Exactly how old was he? The smoothness of his face and his incredible muscle tone made it impossible to tell his age, but his features had a look of experience and hardness that said he had to be in his mid-thirties, if not older. His age was another thing I’d never know about him, and it made my throat tighten.
His arm slid from around me in sleep, and I looked at his hand on my waist. That gold ring with its red stone and the elaborate “D” on the face glittered in the sunlight. I lifted his hand, looking at it, brows scrunched. Yet another unanswered question.
The bubble of happiness that he was still there, still mine for a little while longer, burst and I sighed. I couldn’t stay to ask him who he was, even if he would have told me. I’d already taken too great a risk being here. And the less I knew about him, the better. The sooner I left him, the safer I’d be.
Unwilling to risk waking him, I slipped from the bed. If he
woke before I was gone, a man like him would be too proud to allow me to leave him first. I bent over him, risking a kiss on his whisker-roughened cheek. Oh, I wanted to do so much more, but I didn’t dare.
A chuckle left me when I went around the bed and saw his clothes, folded with frightening neatness on a chair in the corner. Mine were obviously still out in the living room, where he’d taken me the first time. The bittersweet memory made me smile.
The smart thing to do was to dress quickly and leave, but I needed to pee. I headed for the bathroom, but stopped when I noticed his silk shirt hanging on the bathroom door instead of with the rest of his clothes. Then I saw why. A large spot of dark crimson stained one white sleeve. I lifted the sleeve, fingering it, throat going dry.
Blood? I swallowed hard and looked over at his motionless form. His back was to me. I glanced back at his bloody sleeve. The blood could have been anything, a cut on his hand, a nosebleed. Then I looked at my feet again and noticed the key to the nightstand drawer on the floor near the chair. I guessed it was supposed to be in his blazer pocket and had fallen out without him noticing.
Thoughts racing, I bit my lip. Last night, he’d put something in the drawer and then locked it quick, like he didn’t want me to see what it was. Was it something dangerous, something he’d picked up while out at 3:00AM? Temptation swirled through me, sharp and strong.
Heart beating too fast, I bent and snatched up the key, then went to the stand and fumbled open the lock. I opened the drawer and my eyes widened. An expensive looking grey pistol lay on top of a stack of personal papers. I didn’t know guns, but I’d seen some of the ones the men who’d harassed my dad and I carried on their hips. They looked expensive. I’d also seen the basic one my dad carried sometimes. Something told me the one I was looking at now wasn’t used for protection. It looked…professional.
“Shit,” I rasped. I looked over at him again. A gun in his drawer and blood on his shirt, after being out at an hour made for trouble. He’d said he wasn’t a good man. A chill snaked up my spine. Was he a hitman? Was he like the men after us? Fuck, was he a Gavini, sent to find me?
Something close to terror I hadn’t felt in four years, since we’d moved to New York the last time we’d run, filled me. He’d made our encounter sound casual, a matter of happenstance, but was it? He was still there. Had he broken his rules because he couldn’t bring himself to leave me, or because the playboy act was a ruse?
Breathing shaky, I shut the drawer and locked it as quietly and quickly as I could, and then found and threw on my clothes before he could wake up and find me there. No. He couldn’t be after me. If he was, he wouldn’t have allowed himself the risk of my waking up first. Realization of my own stupidity hit me, and yet it didn’t calm me down. Fear still gripped me like a vise and I pulled on my shirt, the image of that gun imprinted in my brain.
In the bedroom, I heard the bed squeak and my pulse jumped. “Angel? You still here?” His deep, gorgeous voice filled the hall. Was it just me, or did he sound bigger, more lethal?
I cursed and grabbed my runners, racing for the door and trying to pull them on at the same time.
“Angel? Something wrong?”
I dashed down the hall for the elevator, almost tripping on my laces, and hit the button for it a bunch of times. He was calling me still. I thought I saw him through the crack in the open door and my heart leaped into my throat.
“Come on…” The elevator dinged open and I almost leaped inside. The doors closed before I could get a chance to see if he followed me that far. I scrambled to do up my laces, and as soon as the doors opened, I raced across the lobby. Outside, I whistled for a cab.
“Miss? Do you need a lift anywhere?”
David. Shit. I ignored him and jumped in the cab that pulled up to the curb. No doubt David would tell him how I ran off like a scared rabbit.
“Where to, Miss?”
I shut the cabbie’s door. It hit me I didn’t know where to go. My shift at the hospital didn’t start until noon. For some reason I didn’t feel safe going home, or being alone. No way could I go to my dad’s. I wouldn’t be able to face him right now. “I don’t know yet. Just drive.”
The cabbie gave me a confused look, but nodded and got the car moving. I didn’t know if the man I’d slept with had come out looking for me before the cab pulled away. Rubbing my temples, I leaned back against the seat and closed my eyes, trying to think. To figure out how much danger I was really in and what I needed to do about it.
If I was in danger, so was my Dad, but I didn’t want to panic him needlessly. If we needed to disappear again, we needed to know for sure before we uprooted our lives again. I was probably panicking over nothing. Lots of people had guns in this city. But I couldn’t take the chance there was more to it, and that meant finding out who I’d slept with last night.
“Miss? The meter is running here. I—”
“Yeah, okay.” I gave him Fran’s address. Old habits my dad had ingrained in me set in and I had the cabbie make several random turns, doubling back twice, the way we did when there was a chance we were being followed. If that man was dangerous, I didn’t want him knowing where Fran lived, but I needed her help. That would mean telling her some of my past. I closed my eyes again at the thought. The last thing I needed was to scare the only friend I had away.
I dug into my jeans pocket for my phone, about to call Fran and let her know I was coming. My hand slid into my empty pocket. I checked the other side. Empty.
“Damn.” Where the hell was my phone? I glanced out the cab’s back window, in the direction of the hotel, now left far behind. Had I dropped it back at the hotel in my rush to escape?
Ugh. It was probably somewhere in his suite. I wouldn’t go near him again, not when he might be dangerous. I’d get the damn thing deactivated and the account cancelled as soon as I could, if I was lucky, before he found it.
The driver pulled up to Fran’s two-storey walkup a short time later, and I paid him, ignoring his odd look, probably for all the detours. I prayed Fran was home and went up the steps to ring her bell.
As soon as she opened the door, Fran’s face paled. “Anika, what’s wrong?”
How much of my distress showed on my face? I must have looked a mess, too, having fled that hotel without taming hair wild from sleep, clothes thrown on haphazardly.
“Can I come in?” It bothered me how shaken I sounded. Suddenly my eyes stung as it slammed home what a foolish mistake I’d made, sleeping with a stranger. I’d wanted to let go, to just have a moment of pleasure all to myself without worrying about tomorrow, and now I was paying the price for that recklessness.
Fran let me in and put her slender arm around my shoulder, pulling me close. “What happened? Was it the guy you went out with? Did he hurt you?”
I shook my head for the second question and my eyes stung harder for the first. “I did something really stupid, Fran, and now I need your help.”
She nodded and sat me down on her ugly, secondhand floral-patterned couch. She got me a coffee without being asked and brought one of her own. Dressed in hot pink leggings and a muscle top with her hair gathered up in a messy ponytail, she looked like she’d just gotten up.
“You look like you need it, girl.” She handed me the coffee and brushed my bangs from my forehead, looking closely at my face.
I took the mug gratefully and gave her a weak smile, my heart twisting at her calling me girl, the same name he used sometimes.
“What? What did I say?”
“Nothing.” She moved to curl up beside me with her coffee and I stopped her. “No. You’ll need your laptop for this.”
“Okay…?” She set the coffee down on the coffee table. “Anika, what’s going on? What happened?”
I looked up at her. Drew a deep breath. “I… I need you to help me find something out.”
“Which is?”
Another long breath, while shame and guilt fought for headspace. “I need to know who I slept with last night.�
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“Damn it.” I flopped onto the sofa in my hotel suite and ran a hand through my hair, muttering to myself. “Well, this wasn’t how it was supposed to go.” I gave a wry chuckle. Women didn’t leave me, and especially not in a frenzy, as if they couldn’t get far enough away fast enough. I left them. The tables had turned, and I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it one bit.
The urge to find Anika and punish her for running out on me without any explanation raced through my blood, hot like a drug. I wanted to rain destruction on that pretty ass and then claim her all over again.
When I’d heard her flee, I’d thought there was something wrong, but then I realized she was only running out before she had to face me. She’d violated a personal code, one I understood all too well. Apparently she didn’t handle the whole unwanted morning after thing as well as me. The commonality made me smile in spite of my irritation. She should take lessons from me, playboy extraordinaire. My smile widened.
Except now she was gone and I had no idea who she was, or how to find her again. The grin turned to a scowl, which deepened when it dawned on me how much that bothered me, and not just because she’d taken what was my right. It wasn’t supposed to matter that I wouldn’t see her again, yet the awareness of that fact burned in my brain, begging to be rectified. The need to feel her in my arms, to feel her mouth surrendering to mine again seared my blood. I needed my fix of her.
I reached for my laptop, which David must have brought up from the car and laid out on the coffee table, along with the daily news. Faintly, I heard the door to the adjoining room David used open and dishes clattered in the small kitchenette. David. I opened the computer and turned it on, intending to find out all I could on sweet Anika before my first business meeting of the morning. The trouble was, I had no more about her to go on than before. I needed fresh clues.
I stood up and padded across the carpet, meaning to ask David to look into her again, but something hard pressed into my foot. “What…” I looked down.