by Lilia Moon
Her growl would get her top grades in Dom school. “Shit. I asked for rough and I meant it. Ignore that last thing I said.”
Her words are a hot mess, and her insides too. And while I don’t have consent to do anything about that by controlling her, I can control me. I move my mouth back to her uncovered breast, but I don’t give her the hard and thoughtless she wants. Instead, I let my tongue trace the ring, tasting the light tang of metal mixed with salt and skin.
Her fingers dive into my hair on an inarticulate moan.
Chapter Eleven
India
Danger. I can hear the warning bells going off, the ones that have tried so hard to walk the straight-and-narrow for the last seven years, and the loud, ominous rumbling from the rest of me that doesn’t give a fuck. I want to be touched like this. I need to be touched like this, like I’m fucking precious and not just a fun bedmate for the afternoon.
Except that’s not what I came in here for, and I will not let myself fall down this hole of weakness again.
I tighten my fingers in his hair and pull. Hard. “Up.”
His chuckle vibrates around my nipple. “No.”
I hurl myself backwards, putting way too much space between us. “Fuck me or don’t, Rafe. This is your last chance.”
I hate that something that looks like understanding shines in his eyes. “I am fucking you, but you want this vanilla, sweetheart. Which means you don’t get to ride my ass any more than I get to ride yours.” His fingers reach out and flick my wet nipple ring. “I want to taste you. I want to feel you get a little shaky in my arms before I bend you over a desk and fuck you until neither of us can breathe.”
That’s air-raid-siren levels of dangerous. Which should be stopping this cold, but the idea of not having his hands on me anymore makes me want to weep.
He smiles up at me, this guy on his knees who is somehow owning the room despite my very best efforts to keep that from happening. “How about we compromise. You bare that sweet, curvy ass of yours and bend over the desk behind you and I’ll suck on your pussy instead.”
I’m gurgling. Like a fucking stream. One that doesn’t know which way to flow, because I’m stuck between two pictures in my head, my danger compass broken, and I just want to feel.
And that’s absolutely the most hazardous place of all.
His hand skims around my hip and settles on my belly, resting on the sexy lace I was a dumbass to put on this morning. “Turn around, India.”
It’s not Dom voice—not at all. But it’s Dom instinct. I know it is, even as I back away a step, and then two. My ass runs into the edge of the desk. I try to come up with a snarky comeback, some way of turning this into what I need it to be without shredding my soul or his.
His eyes watch as my fingers snag the waistband of my utilitarian black leggings.
Slowly, a warship turning in a field of ice, I turn my back on him. And then I see the sculpture he fondled earlier, and something inside me snaps. I don’t need coddling or softness or a sweet orgasm delivered by his tongue. I need filling. I need to break apart without him needing to catch me, and there’s only ever been one way that happens.
I flick my hips as I shove my leggings down to my ankles. “No oral. I want your cock.”
I hear his swift intake of breath as I bend over. I plaster my chest against the poor desk that gets to bear witness to my desperation and lay my cheek flat on its cool surface. I flick my hips again. If he doesn’t get a move on, something inside me is gong to die.
Then he’s up, bent over me, his weight pressing me into the desk as his fingers thrust into my pussy.
I jerk, but there’s nowhere to go. Which is so fucking exactly what I need. I let the fear of that shudder through me for a moment, and then I let it go as his fingers start a dance in my pussy that causes an entirely different kind of quaking. He’s not being gentle. He’s invading. Taking.
A Dom in everything but name.
Chapter Twelve
Rafe
I’m walking one of those insanely delicate lines that should never be done without a safety net, but it’s way too late to get cold feet. I’ve got nothing to restrain her with but my body, and she wouldn’t allow anything else anyhow, so I let skin do what skin has done since the beginning of time and anchor her to me while I stoke her fire.
It’s an easy job. I let my fingers swirl in her heat and thrust again. Zero finesse and all action, but it’s what her body is craving. Her soul wants something entirely different, and I’m trying to take care of that too. She might not want a Dom, but we both need me to be one right now. Shape and form to catch her surrender.
Her body quivers underneath me, right on the edge. I bury my face where her shoulder meets her neck. “I can’t wait to feel you come all over my hand, Bright Eyes.” It’s not an order—quite.
She goes rigid, but there’s no holding in the quaking that breaks her apart.
I put a hand on the small of her back and reach for the condom in my bag. She doesn’t move. She just breathes, the small, panting gasps of a woman tossed into the deep.
I get my cock out of my pants and dressed for action and then I decide he can wait. She’s still limp, and some of the rest of what she needs is shining through the cracks her orgasm left behind. I drop to my knees and bury my face in her pussy. Not gently, not with the kind of city manners she keeps accusing me of with her eyes. I suck on her clit and plunge my tongue deep inside her, letting the not-at-all civilized scents of what we’re making together fuel my own fire.
She tries to move, but I slap my hands against the back of her thighs and keep her pinned where I want her. If she doesn’t want Dom Rafe, she gets the caveman version, at least until I hear that beautiful wail of hers again. Which won’t be as easy this time. She’s fighting me, fighting herself, fighting everything except my hands because she wants to be where they’ve put her.
Her clit swells under my tongue, reveling in the rough treatment.
There’s a pounding sound somewhere, and it takes me a moment to process that it’s fists. Two of them, beating on the desk. I grin and suck a little harder, timing it to the thudding of her hands.
“Damn you.” She pants and grabs the far side of the desk, trying to crawl away even as she thrusts back into my face. “Damn you and the horse you rode in on, Rafael Clark.”
Insults to my plane can be dealt with later. I slurp my tongue through her folds one last time and use my hands on her ass to pull me to my feet. I shove my pants down far enough to keep them out of the way and line my cock up at her entrance.
She grunts and wiggles back against me.
I grin and fondle her ass.
She mutters something that probably curses the next three generations of Clarks and looks over her shoulder, eyes mad and wild and filled fathoms deep with desire.
I hold her eyes with mine and thrust, all the way into her center.
Chapter Thirteen
India
He’s just split me in two. Not with his cock, although I’m pretty sure the construction crew down the road is missing their jackhammer.
It’s not the pounding that’s breaking me. It’s his aim. He’s cracked open walls I’ve kept hidden and protected and buried for seven years, and what’s rushing out of them terrifies me and won’t let me stop. I can feel it flooding me, molten and unrelenting and desperate to be free.
His cock changes angle and discovers something new to torment. His grip on my hips tightens, trying to protect me from bruises—or cause them. I used to be the kind of woman who loved that, who loved carrying the marks of two people who let themselves explode together. I want to say I’m not her anymore, but my fingers clutching the edge of the desk say differently.
I close my eyes, entirely overwhelmed by the rising tsunami inside me and all the sadness and fear and yearning I can’t get out of its way.
He bends over me, his body shielding mine. The wave’s still going to hit, but somehow he’s promising, with all the heav
iness of who he is, to help me survive the onslaught.
Only a fucking Dom would dare.
I try to find my feet, my voice, my brain, my long-ago safeword. He needs to go. I know how to swim in this. Nobody else ever has. I know this as certainty, right down to my DNA, except my hips are still seeking that fierce, holy union with his.
He slows his thrusts to a seismic, intense grind.
“I’m here and I’m fine.” His whisper is harsh against my ear. “Nothing that you’re feeling right now scares me. Let it happen.”
He should be scared, except I can somehow feel that he’s not. Which is totally fucked, because nobody should be balls-deep inside me and cucumber fucking calm. I feel myself snap out of whatever weird jag I just went on. I’m mad now. Offended. Wholly intent on finding his cucumber and breaking it in two.
He laughs in my ear, both of us plastered against a desk, as our hips find a new beat that shouldn’t even be possible. His arms somehow work underneath me, cupping my breasts and taking all my weight as he thrusts. I feel his teeth, finding the tender skin where my neck meets my shoulder. His tongue, licking salt that might be mine or his. His fingers, playing with my nipple rings like he knows exactly what to do with them.
I curse, long and profusely. Coming twice this close together is near impossible for me, but there’s no damn way we can stop now or my broken places will find new ways to break.
He stills on top of me. “What do you need, Bright Eyes?”
That damn, fucking nickname. I want to choke him with it, but too much of me likes it. “I need your fingers on my clit.” I press my face down into the desk, chasing away the traces of shame. Not all the lessons of kink were bad, and I won’t be embarrassed by what my body needs. “I won’t come otherwise.”
“Good to know.” Another chuckle, and then somehow we’re levitating. I flap my arms like a hapless puppet, trying to find the controls for my limbs or even my eyelids, and then my knees meet soft leather.
His hands guide mine to the back of the couch we’ve landed on, and he nips my neck again. His fingers make their way down to the slick folds of my clit. “Much better. You want a slow fuck to the finish or a hard one?”
My brain tries to explode as a Dom gives me choices. Which must be how the truth somehow sneaks out. “Some of both.”
His rumble in my ear sounds pleased. He pulls most of the way out of me, teasing me with just the tip of his cock. His fingers, however, get straight to business. Firm, intense circles that mostly rim my clit but never completely leave it alone. His other hand starts playing around in my ass crack.
I whimper and lean into both, seeking the narrow, hard-to-find door to one more orgasm.
He chuckles. “Quit trying so hard, beautiful. I’ll get you there.”
This whole mindreading thing is getting old really fast—except it isn’t, because he’s finding all my buttons to push and in exactly the right order. I rock on my knees, and suddenly the door isn’t narrow and hidden anymore. It’s right in front of me and he’s throwing me through it with both hands and a cock that’s gone back to being a jackhammer.
I toss my head back, gasp for breath, and go where the entire fucking universe wants me to go.
Chapter Fourteen
India
I look out the window of my studio toward the back garden for the third time in ten minutes. Which isn’t smart when I’ve got a torch in my hands and really ornery copper on my firebricks.
Annealing is a basic chore of jewelry makers, even a sometimes tedious one, but wire that needs help to be bendy and resilient again isn’t the problem here.
More than the copper needs annealing, and I know it.
I sigh and shut off the torch, keeping my eyes on the narrow strip of metal I’ve just heated. I need to set eyes on Rafe and know he’s okay, but I don’t have enough of my shit back together yet to actually go looking for him.
The glow of the copper is easing, and I pick up my pliers. It will need a cold bath and likely another go with the torch. Most metals only need to be annealed when they’ve been worked too long. This stuff needs it before I even start. Cranky-ass collection of molecules.
I snort. That label applies pretty well to my molecules too. I can’t shake my discomfort—or my guilt. He took care of me and my temper and everything riding under the knife-sharp attitude I threw at him, and the last thing he deserved was for me to peel my panting self off the couch after the most mind-blowing orgasm of my life and run away.
A walk of shame, India Jennings style.
One that means I owe the guy temporarily inhabiting my garden shed something that resembles an apology, but I haven’t seen any sign of him in the last hour.
I pick up the metal strip with my pliers and gingerly slide it into a water bath. It hisses, which doesn’t surprise me. Ornery copper. It’s easily the most frustrating substance I’ve ever worked with, but it makes fantastic jewelry.
“Safe to come in?”
The voice from the door makes me jump, partly because I didn’t hear it open, and partly because it isn’t deep and male. I turn to eyeball one of the two women who make my life living hell and worth living, depending on the day. “Did you bring snacks?”
Daley snorts and holds up a basket. “I know the rules for entering your lair.”
Rafe doesn’t, but he damn well strode in anyhow.
I reach for the basket. Baskets mean baked goods. Brownies in this case, which means either her artwork is stuck or there’s a global emergency. “Are these procrastination goodies, or did the world end in the last hour?”
She snags a brownie and drops into the comfy chair I keep in the corner of my studio for guests who don’t seem to care about all the things in here I could stab them with. “I got a call from Liane.”
I raise an eyebrow and lift my copper out of its bath. It needs another go with the torch, but that can wait until after I overdose on baked goods. I pick the biggest brownie in the basket, because maturity has never been one of my best skills. “Is she surviving Matteo’s family?”
“Yes.” Daley’s voice has a wistfulness that gets my attention. “And loving being an auntie.”
That’s a loaded word. “They’ve adopted her, have they?”
She nods. “Sounds like. Matteo’s kind of bemused by the whole thing, but he sounds happy enough too.”
Only Daley would insist on talking to both of them. Then again, maybe she had a reason. I eye her. “What else happened?”
She gives me a wry look. “Apparently Matteo spent most of the drive down confessing to his various misdeeds. Like parking one of his friends in your back yard for a week without bothering to mention he’s a Dom.”
There’s never been any point lying to Daley, even if it’s about to strip parts of me I thought would never have to get naked again. “So I discovered.”
She makes a hiss that sounds like a snake winding up—and then turns, ready to strike, as the back door opens for a second time.
Rafe is smart enough not to take his eyes off the woman in the comfy chair, which says a lot about his survival instincts. He somehow still wraps his presence around me, though. Checking in. Feeling for bruises.
Daley raises a dangerous eyebrow. “Did you know about this?”
He doesn’t pretend to misunderstand her. “No.”
She stares him down for a long moment. Then she reaches for the basket and holds it out. “Good. Here, have a brownie.”
His grin is slow and careful. “Are they poisoned?”
She cackles, and the energy in my studio abruptly eases to yellow alert. “No, but they can be if you cause trouble.”
His lips quirk as he finally looks at me. “Do you have any more scary friends I need to meet, or is this the last of them?”
That depends on how he feels about a seventy-year-old opera singer with more notches on her bedpost than the average rock band. “I collect them.”
He chuckles and takes a big bite of brownie.
I look
over at my copper. It really needs to be torched again before it forgets it’s supposed to be more cooperative now.
“You go right ahead, dear.” Daley waves her hand at my workbench, well used to my artistic foibles. “Your metal needs you. We’ll just finish up these brownies and get to know each other.”
I snort. My torch isn’t the biggest one in the room. “Be nice to him. No crispy garden gnomes.”
She raises an eyebrow and gives him a very pointed once-over. “You think he needs protecting, do you?”
Shit. Yes. No. Maybe. There are implications to each of those answers, and she’ll see all of them, so I don’t answer. I just roll my eyes and turn around to my workbench.
India, slinking away one more time.
Chapter Fifteen
Rafe
Sometimes it really sucks to have empathic radar. I can feel the complicated layers of emotion from the woman with a butane torch in her hands, and the compassion and worry from the pixie goddess in the corner chair who just pulled out a notebook and a black tube.
What’s tumbling around inside me isn’t that straightforward either.
I hop up onto the high window bench I’ve been leaning against and settle in. I came to check on India after giving her as much space as the pacing Dom in my head would allow, but a friend changes things. Maybe for the better.
After meeting Liane, Daley isn’t who I expected as the remaining member of their trio. She’s quite a bit older than India, but the energy flowing between them isn’t remotely maternal. They’re sisters.
My eyes stray to India. My high perch has a good view of her work. She’s running a torch along a strip of metal laying on something that appears to be entirely unconcerned with being on the business end of a butane flame. Her hands are steady, competent, like this is a mundane task she does often. She’s focused, but it’s a casual kind of attention. Respect for the flame, but no fear.