“I’m pretty sure I can get rid of them.”
“I know you can. And it’s exactly why I didn’t want to see you tonight. I can’t think when you’re around.”
“And that’s a bad thing?”
For a moment, she closed her eyes, as if she couldn’t stand to look at him.
“You were right.”
“Was I?”
“Yes.” She looked at him, determination turning her gaze hard and bright. “I never should have started this thing. Please, David.” She lifted her bound wrists, hiding her face behind them. “Please just let me go.”
Chapter 14
SEX, for David, had always been a means to an end. The only thing he’d ever found capable of blasting the pall of death from his psyche, straight out his pores. But for Ephie, it represented something very different. A gift to be bestowed on a man she loved or, at the very least, respected. For the rather dubious privilege of sleeping with him, she’d abandoned her principles, and it seemed her confidence had begun to suffer. An unintended consequence he could no more accept than ignore.
Pressing her bound hands to his chest, he offered a compromise.
“What do you say to a little quid pro quo first?”
“What do you mean?”
“How about we forget about rules and promises? You ask me whatever’s on your mind, and if I answer, I get to do whatever’s on mine.”
She licked her lips, drawing his focus to her mouth.
“I can ask you anything?”
“Yes,” he told her simply, leaning forward.
“What are you doing?”
“You asked. I answered.” He lifted his gaze to hers. “Now I get to take my reward.”
“Oh.”
She closed her eyes, her fingers fisting in his shirt as she strained to meet him. But instead of kissing her, he grabbed her wrists. Rolling onto his side, he drew her hands overhead, securing the ends of his tie to the leg of the chair above them. He looked down into her startled brown gaze.
“Your turn.”
“Do you really expect me to carry on a conversation tied to a chair leg?”
“That’s entirely up to you.” He ran his hand down her side and up beneath the hem of her T-shirt.
“You can’t expect—”
Ephie’s objection was cut short by a sigh of pleasure as David found the dimple at the top of the crease between her butt cheeks with the tip of his middle finger.
“Yes.” He massaged the sensitive spot. “I can.” Her hips rocked with each deliberate circle, her eyes rolling up beneath her fluttering lashes. “And you can either ask me your next question or ask me, again, to let you go.”
Slowly, she focused on him. He imagined the gears turning in her head, struggling to appear calm though his heart pounded so hard he thought, for sure, she must hear it. At last, her gaze sharpened, a sly smile slanting her lips.
“I’ll play.”
He gave a nod of approval. “Fire away.”
“Are you sleeping with Melanie Price?”
He grinned, sliding his hand up her back and gripping the base of her neck.
“Right to the point.”
“Of course.”
“I’m sleeping with you, fireball.” He urged her toward him. “Only you.”
He kissed her, taking his time, exploring with his tongue. When he pulled back, she kept her eyes closed.
“Is that how it works?” she whispered. “One woman at a time?”
He didn’t think it necessary to divulge it depended on the woman. In her case, he couldn’t imagine dividing his attention.
“Yes,” he told her, tightening his hold as he dipped his head and mouthed a taut nipple through the thin cotton of her shirt.
“Oh, David.” She wriggled in his arms, and he imagined it wouldn’t take much more before she begged him for what he knew they both wanted most. “And if you weren’t sleeping with me? Is she really…is she the type of woman you prefer to be with?”
He lifted his head. The judgment inherent in the question chilled him to the core. Bringing his hand to rest on his leg, he angled away from her. Without his support, Ephie rolled onto her back. She looked up at him, bewildered.
“What is it?”
“I’m not interested in justifying my choices to you.”
“No, that’s not what I want, David. I want to understand. Melanie…she just seems so…so…”
“Needy?”
“And you find that attractive?”
“No. Not exactly.” He paused to gather his thoughts, his wandering gaze coming to rest on her bound wrists. “I told you. It’s the lack of complication I find attractive.” Reaching up, he traced the red silk twining her pale skin. “Women like Melanie…their needs are simple to understand.” He followed the progression of his fingertips as he swept the graceful arc of her arm in a barely-there caress. “And it’s easy for me to give them what they want.”
He found the outer curve of her breast with his palm.
“But what about you? I mean…” Her forehead creased with effort, her eyelids heavy with desire. “Haven’t you ever wanted more?”
The hoarsely whispered question stunned him, striking at tender places he’d thought impervious to attack. Of course he had, but in his experience, want brought pain. He’d settled for taking care of his needs and leaving the dreaming to people like Ephie, who had a fortitude for disappointment he simply didn’t possess.
“Maybe once,” he admitted. “A long time ago…but not anymore.” He grazed the pad of his thumb over the crest of her breast.
She gasped and then arched into his touch. His attention shifted from her parted lips to the tented peaks of her well-worn tee. Something about the shirt had been bothering him since he’d seen it through the gap in the door.
Eyes narrowed, he announced, “I have a question for you.”
“What do I get if I answer?”
“I think the real question is”—catching her nipple between thumb and forefinger, he gave it a gentle tweak—“what will I do to you if you don’t?”
“That’s not fair.”
He leaned forward and kissed her.
“Life’s not fair.”
“No, it’s not.” She gave him a look he could only describe as deeply sympathetic, nearly distracting him from the mystery of her nightshirt. “Go ahead, then. Ask.”
“Are you a fan?”
“Fan?”
He nodded toward her chest.
“Star Wars.”
“Oh.” She glanced down as if needing to be reminded of what she was wearing. “No, not really. I stole it.”
Her anxious twitter did little to reassure him.
“From whom?”
He knew he wouldn’t enjoy her answer.
“My first…boyfriend.”
The pause confirmed it. Of course Ephie would have kept a memento. It had to be at least ten years old, but the thought of a former lover’s T-shirt lying against her skin triggered a blinding squall of emotion David couldn’t control. She didn’t react when he rose onto his knees, but her gaze locked onto his when he grabbed at the neckline of the shirt with both hands.
“David!”
Ignoring her objection, he tore the offending garment down its center. She stared at him as if he’d gone crazy. Much later, when he recalled the incident, he would wonder if he had.
“Game’s over,” he pronounced, tugging off her panties and tossing them to the side.
He stood over her. The play of firelight over her bared skin helped to soothe him. Mesmerized, he unbuttoned his shirt and shrugged it off his shoulders. Her quiet intake of breath brought his gaze to her face. Framed by the smooth, white skin of the undersides of her arms, she watched him intently. He undid his belt and fly, her focus locking in on his pelvis. Bending his erection beneath the dual waistbands of his pants and boxers, he exposed himself inch by inch, enjoying the show as she squirmed agai
nst her bonds, biting her lower lip and scissoring her legs.
By the time he’d finished, she virtually levitated with need. It crashed over him in electric waves, sweeping away his smug satisfaction and eroding his already compromised self-control. Tightening his grip on the unopened condom he’d miraculously remembered to retrieve from his clothes before kicking them into a pile beneath the coffee table, he worked the packet between thumb and forefinger as if it were a talisman capable of blunting the effect of having Ephie laid out and begging. But he found no relief.
“Fuck it.”
As he tore open the foil, David seized onto a single thought. Ephie Jones would never need a graphic T-shirt to help her remember him.
Chapter 15
STRIPPED and shackled, Ephie panted quietly as David towered over her, reflected firelight licking over his skin in tongues of orange and red. She imagined the dark portrait they made. Him, a demonic god hell-bent on obliteration, and her, his willing sacrifice.
He dropped to his knees at her feet, leaning forward and grabbing her by the hips. Fingers biting into her flesh, he drew her toward him, her bottom rasping over the rug. Just as the silk began to dig uncomfortably into her wrists, he released her, pitching forward onto all fours.
Pinned beneath his penetrating gaze, she watched her reflection appear in the expanding blacks of his eyes—subjugation revealed in duplicate. Fascinated, she took in the stretch of her arms, the vulnerability of her upturned breasts, the shameless invitation in her quivering pout. She looked exactly as she felt, helpless and exposed, but aroused in a way she’d never imagined possible, unable to conceive of what would happen when he actually touched her. And then he did.
Dipping his head, he swept his mouth over hers, the trifling caress provoking her body into action. Her back arched as she pulled her knees in toward her chest, fur from the rug catching between her grasping toes. He teased her lips with tongue and teeth, keeping the part of him she wanted most maddeningly out of reach.
“Please,” she begged. “David, please.”
She nearly balked at the triumph in his smile. But then he was settling over her, his forearms tight to her sides. And the delicious relief of his skin blanketing hers seemed well-worth the sacrifice of her ego. Draped in molten flesh, his hard length sliding steadily inside her, Ephie conceded her weight to the floor. And her will to the man who’d seized it so deftly.
“Fuck.” He groaned as the hard plane of his stomach settled atop her trembling belly. “There it is. The sweet center.” He closed his eyes, his expression softening. “So fucking sweet.”
He rolled his hips, the subtlest of shifts, but more than enough to send a burgeoning charge of sexual energy exploding along her nerves. Her muscles contracted, the wood floor squawking in protest as the chair to which she was tethered lurched forward, the sound jarring over the quiet crackle of the fire and her gasp of devastation.
At each subsequent, deliberate thrust, her tummy grew tighter, the bundle of nerves in her lower back bunching in expectation. Insentiently, she twisted against her bindings. The night—famished and greedy—gaped before her. How would she bear it?
And then, as if in sympathy, David’s thighs and torso turned to stone.
“Come for me, fireball,” he demanded, his mouth still on hers. “Come now.”
Her body obeyed without hesitation, limbs going rigid before convulsing with waves of twitching pleasure. Eyes closed, she heard him growl, felt his muscles tremor around her. And then stillness save the overlapping beats of their hearts.
The staccato of passion had tempered to a hypnotic lullaby when David gently withdrew, hushing Ephie’s whimper of protest with a tender kiss. He tucked her to his side and then reached up and untied her, massaging her wrists as he helped her lower her arms.
“Bathroom?” he murmured over her sigh of appreciation.
“Through there.” Without opening her eyes, she nodded in the direction of the hall, stifling a yawn in her shoulder before adding, “Past the fridge.”
“I’ll just be a second.”
He touched his lips to the tip of her nose and then was gone, leaving Ephie to tug at the ragged edges of her T-shirt in a futile attempt to make up for the loss of his heat. But the ruined top offered no protection. She gave up, shrugging it off and shoving it under the coffee table to join her damp panties and his crumpled suit. Turning away from the damning evidence of her utter lack of self-control, she curled closer to what remained of the fire, her bleary gaze settling on the embers glowing in the pile of ash on the floor of the hearth. It seemed the perfect metaphor for her frame of mind. For beneath the spent trappings of limbs and muscle, a hot core of confusion continued to burn within her.
She couldn’t quite believe he’d actually come after her. For a man who claimed to only be interested in women for the singular escape they provided, he’d taken quite a chance. As she’d told him, she’d had no intension of opening the door, planning to play possum until he’d assumed she’d gone to bed. But then he’d called out to her, and she’d been unable to ignore the longing she’d heard in his voice. Pretext gone, along with the heat from the fire, she’d resisted as best as she could.
But then he’d made an extraordinary concession of his own. Granted, he very well might have thought answering a few questions would be the most effective way to get her back where he wanted her…under him. And, quite obviously, he hadn’t been wrong. But Ephie couldn’t help feeling she’d been given a rare privilege. She only hoped it would be enough to keep her nagging conscience at bay, at least for the next four weeks. Afterward, well, none of it would matter.
Sighing, Ephie curled tighter against the chill.
“Cold, fireball?”
She looked toward the sound of David’s voice. Naked yet self-possessed as ever, he angled over the hearth, one hand braced on the mantel, the other lowering behind the fireplace screen as he considered her with concern.
“A little.”
The log he’d been holding landed in the grate, sending a flurry of sparks rising into the air. They wafted and disappeared as David straightened, turned, and then strode across the room. He paused briefly at the couch before moving to join her.
A throw pillow landed with a soft thump next to her head before he lowered to the floor. He arranged the afghan her grandmother had knit for her over them. Then, beneath the achingly familiar weight, they curled together, David tucking his knees behind hers, his arm winding her waist. With a sigh, she rested her head on the cushion formed in the bend of his elbow, bemused by their easy transition from torrid sex to tender spooning.
The seasoned wood in the fireplace caught and began to burn. Ephie stared at the climbing flames, their heat warming her cheeks, as she tried to parse out her feelings. Anger had seen her most of the way home, the car ride dedicated to reducing David to an unfeeling predator, cunningly culling the weak for his own selfish needs. But by the time she’d settled in front of the fire, she’d realized how unfair and petty her assessment had been.
David had been nothing but honest with her from the start. She had no reason to believe he’d behaved differently with the other women he’d been involved with over the years. And reducing them to hapless victims was not only insulting, it was hypocritical. After all, she was one of those women, no more his victim than he was hers.
“Ephie.”
She startled and David cinched her close.
“I’m sorry. Did you fall asleep?”
“No. I was just thinking.”
“I see. I’d offer you a penny, but I find myself without any change at the moment.”
Ephie smiled.
“Or pants.”
“Or pants,” he agreed, pressing against her. “Would you be willing to accept an IOU?”
She nodded. But her current thoughts carried too great a cost to share. She searched her mind for a cheaper topic.
“Do you think we should have a safe word?”
&
nbsp; She felt his grin in the hollow behind her jaw.
“Are you feeling at risk?”
“No, not exactly. But, I mean, you did tie me up.”
“Yes, I did.”
“So, I guess…I mean, I was wondering…Well, how far do you think things might go between us?”
“That is entirely up to you.”
“Me?” She craned her neck, searching for him from the corner of her eye. “What have I got to do with it?”
“Everything.”
The single word whispered over her skin, sending a shiver down her spine. She turned back toward the hearth, quiet as she tried to understand.
“You really don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?”
“That you have all the power.”
She huffed in disbelief.
“What? You don’t believe me?”
“Let’s just say I find it difficult, when you’re the one who’s made all the rules.”
“Yes. I’ve got rules governing the nature of our relationship. But you’re the one setting the tone for what we do when we’re together.”
She wriggled around in his arms to face him.
“And exactly how am I managing this amazing feat? Because I don’t remember asking you to barge into my house and seduce me.”
“Not in so many words.”
“Not in any words!”
“Fireball,” he crooned, smoothing her hair away from her face before trailing his fingers down her side to settle over the curve of her hip. “You opened the door.”
It was true. She had. Against her better judgment, she’d given him just enough room to slip by her and work his magic.
“And that meant I wanted you to come inside?”
“Yes.”
“So I suppose I shoved you because I was hoping you’d tie me up?”
Instead of answering, he lifted a single brow.
“So, I’m what? Topping from the bottom?”
He chuckled
“Where in hell—”
“Lexi.”
“I should have known.” He got serious. “And yes, you are.”
“So then I’m either a masochist or a sadist, right? I can never keep those two straight.”
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