by Mari Carr
“Take off the blindfold. Please.”
“No.”
He paused briefly, and she wondered if he was considering reaching for the gag. While she’d thought that sounded hot at first, she was starting to panic.
Lucas ran his hand along her hair. “Breathe.”
She sucked in one deep breath and then another. Lucas ran his fingers around the clamps, but he didn’t tug on the chain, didn’t seek to increase the pleasure or the pain.
After a few minutes, she managed to calm down. She tried to imagine Lucas’s face, tried to envision what he might be seeing. She didn’t want him to stop.
Caitlyn slowly centered herself and did the one thing she’d never managed to do in her life. She cleared everything out—work, family, fear, stress—and simply felt.
Her breasts were hot, on fire, and she could feel that fever spreading to other parts of her body. She bent her knees slightly and wished he’d tied her ankles to the bed as well. Strange as it sounded, there was freedom in the restraints. It was as if she could write off all responsibility for once. She could say “I couldn’t move so whatever happened wasn’t up to me.”
That wasn’t true. She only had to say “blue” and Lucas would stop. She wasn’t sure where that assurance came from, that utter trust. After all, they were practically strangers. Regardless, there was something about him that told her he was a man of his word.
Letting go was incredible. It felt as if everything was always up to her, and she was so fucking tired. A tension she didn’t realize was there loosened in her shoulders and vanished, and her breathing slowed, deepened.
“Beautiful,” Lucas whispered.
Had he noticed the change in her? Recognized that the fight was over? What would she give to see those piercing, intense, sexy eyes of his? She didn’t have long to regret the loss of her vision when he moved lower, his tongue traveling along her stomach to her pussy.
He parted her with his thumbs and lost no time sucking her clit into his mouth. He treated the sensitive nub to the same treatment he’d just given her nipples—nips, sucks, bites, the rough stroking of his tongue.
Caitlyn’s body tingled. She could almost imagine it shimmering like the lights on the water outside.
Lucas moved even lower, running his tongue along her slit from ass to clit and back again. His fingers moved toward her pussy and he pressed two inside.
Her heels dug into the mattress as she lifted her ass, seeking more pressure.
Lucas halted her attempts by grasping her legs, pulling her knees over his shoulders. It opened her even farther, but gave her precious little opportunity to move. He added a third finger and drove in harder. Her back arched.
“Next time, I’m using rope. I’m restricting all your movement.”
She hissed the word “yes” even as her head screamed there won’t be a next time.
Tonight.
Only tonight.
She fought to remember that. To keep it front and center. It was becoming more and more impossible with each passing minute.
Lucas knew too much about her desires. As he revealed them, each hidden piece was moved out of the inky-black darkness and into the light. If they kept going, if she came back for another night, and another, there was no way he wouldn’t eventually see it all.
He pulled his fingers out of her pussy, and she sighed with relief. She needed him to fuck her. So badly.
However, it appeared playtime wasn’t over when Lucas pushed one finger into her anus. It was wet from the juices of her pussy, so his entrance was made easier. He thrust it in three times, and then he added a second finger.
It was a tight fit and it pinched. She liked it. He wasn’t gentle, didn’t treat her with kid gloves, didn’t constantly ask if she was okay or seek permission. Somehow she trusted that he’d know if she wasn’t all right, and there was freedom in that too.
Lucas drove his fingers in faster. Caitlyn was only vaguely aware of the sounds coming from her lips—the grunts, the groans, the cries, the pleas.
For more. For harder. For faster.
“I’m going to stretch this tight little ass with a plug. Then I’m going to fuck it.”
“Do it,” she demanded. “God, please.”
As always, Lucas pushed her right to the brink, and then he left her there teetering for balance. The bastard refused to give her a shove over.
When she heard him chuckle, she realized she’d called him a bastard aloud. His amused response fired her temper.
“Oh my God. You’re an asshole and a dick. Fuck me. Fuck me now!”
One minute she was in utter darkness, the next, light. While Lucas’s room was somewhat dim, the only light provided by the lamp across the room and the city lights below, she hadn’t expected him to pull the blindfold off.
She blinked, trying to focus her vision, but all she could see was Lucas’s blurry face mere inches from her.
“Are you finished?”
He was pissed? Seriously?
She opened her mouth to remind him that he’d already come tonight, but he kissed her, roughly.
“Hold your breath,” he demanded, mere seconds before he released the first nipple clamp.
Shards of pain shot through her, and her pussy clenched. She pressed her legs together, wishing he were inside her.
He released the other, and then he suckled them, soothed them with his gentle tongue and his warm breath. All the time, her inner muscles throbbed looking for something, anything to fill her body.
She had wanted her vision earlier, thinking she’d understand Lucas’s feelings better if she could see him. She’d been wrong. His face revealed more than she wanted to see.
He wasn’t going to let her walk out of here tonight, wasn’t finished with her.
If he took her now, everything was going to change. Everything.
“I should go,” she whispered.
“No. You shouldn’t.” Lucas opened the nightstand drawer and pulled out a condom. Caitlyn wanted to cry with relief that he was finally going to take her—and then with fear. She was in so far over her head, there was no hope she’d survive this.
Her heart, which had slowed, resumed its racing pace, thudding so hard it almost hurt.
“The safe word is still there, Cait.”
Blue.
Blue.
Blue.
The word wouldn’t come. “I don’t want to say it.”
“Good. Because I don’t want to hear it.” Lucas rose from the bed, stripping off his pants. He’d lost the shirt and his shoes at some point while she was blindfolded. Once the condom was in place, he returned to the bed. He undid the straps at her wrists. She was glad. She wanted to touch him.
He resumed his place above her and placed the head of his cock at her entrance. Lucas paused.
She sensed he wanted to say something, but she was afraid to ask what. Mainly because she could see it in his eyes.
He wanted to explore more of these submissive tendencies of hers. He’d mentioned rope and a butt plug, the gag, pierced nipples. And there was that leather belt.
But it felt like there was something more there as well. Something that had nothing to do with sex.
Caitlyn reached up and cupped his cheek in her hand. It was a tender gesture, one laced with more feeling than she was smart to allow.
“Come inside me,” she whispered. “Please.”
Lucas turned his lips toward her palm and placed a soft kiss on it.
And then he was there, seated to the hilt after one hard, deep thrust.
Her head flew back against the pillow, her legs wrapped around his waist. Whatever restraints had been holding both of them back were gone. In this, they knew what they wanted and they took it. Gave it.
After a few minutes, Lucas rolled to his back, pulling her on top. She straddled his hips and found her own pounding pace.
Lucas twisted her still-sore nipples, adding just the right amount of pain to throw her into overload once more. When she was
on the verge of coming, he lifted her off his cock, despite her protestations.
Her curses ceased the second he tossed her facedown on the mattress and grasped her wrists, tugging them behind her back.
“Get up on your knees,” he demanded.
She bent her legs, her ass rising. Lucas kept hold of her hands in one of his as he used the other to guide his cock back inside her. She screamed at the force behind his motions. It was so deep this way.
“So fucking good,” she cried.
Their skin was slick with sweat from their exertions. Her wrists slipped out of his grasp, so he moved to her hair. Gripping a large handful, he used it to pull her chest from the bed until her back was upright, pressed against him. Through it all, he pounded inside her, reaching around to stroke her clit.
Her scalp stung and her pussy tightened. She saw stars. Her orgasm struck hard and fast and painfully. He’d kept her on the edge for hours and her body was pissed, taking every ounce of pleasure it could soak up, tired of being denied.
She shook roughly and expected Lucas to come as well.
“Fuck,” he said through gritted teeth. She could only imagine what her orgasm must feel like against his dick. Even to her, it seemed vise-tight. Was she hurting him?
As the final ripples of her orgasm began to wane, Lucas loosened his grip on her hair, letting her collapse face-first back to the bed. Despite her sudden stillness, he continued to thrust inside her, though his motions were slower, easier.
Every now and then, her body trembled with an aftershock, and she was beginning to give up all hope of ever catching her breath again.
And still Lucas was there, his cock stroking all the uber-sensitive places. On one retreat, he withdrew completely.
“Roll over, Cait. I want to see your face.”
Grace was gone. She turned from her stomach to her back like a woman devoid of bones and muscles. She probably looked more like a fish flopping on the shore.
Lucas pressed her legs open, and she sucked in a harsh gasp of air as he pushed inside once more. He came over her, his elbows resting on the mattress.
And then he kissed her. More of those soft, sweet, beautiful kisses that messed up her head and her heart and had her thinking romantic, mushy things that had no place in this bed.
She’d tried to warn him, to tell him that kissing was a bad thing, but he’d taken her words as a dare, a challenge. The man was too competitive for his own good. And Caitlyn was nothing if not a hopeless romantic.
Caitlyn turned her head to the side, determined to make him understand this time. “Please, Lucas. I can’t—”
“I’m not going to be the villain in your life story.”
She frowned as she looked at him, confused by the resolve in his gaze. “What?”
Lucas slowed his thrusting even more, but as they spoke, Caitlyn didn’t forget he was there, filling her, taking her in a way that was just as powerful—maybe more so—as their fast-paced, rough fucking.
“Kiss me, Cait.”
He waited for her to initiate it, but she couldn’t. Couldn’t he see that? She wasn’t the type of woman who could turn her feelings off and on like a faucet. When they kissed, she felt…something dangerous. Scary. Something that would definitely strip her of all control.
When she didn’t move, his face hardened, not with anger, but with determination. “I’m not just a cock for you to play with. And I’m not a dick. I’m a man. And you are going to kiss me.”
He shoved her out into the light completely, seeing not only what she was, but what she thought he was.
A one-night stand. A chance to explore her fantasies with a heartless man. The asshole trying to steal the pub. She’d pigeonholed him in all those boxes because she believed that would keep her safe.
All it had done was hurt him.
“I’ve been a selfish bitch,” she whispered.
He shook his head. “If that were true, I wouldn’t still be inside you.”
Caitlyn lifted her head and kissed him. It was a quick, soft, almost platonic kiss, but it seemed to be enough. When her head returned to the pillow, Lucas followed her, deepening the kiss as he started thrusting harder.
She clung to his shoulders, and then ran her fingers through his thick hair. Lucas framed her face with his large palms, his tongue stroking hers as he moved faster.
They continued to kiss, their faces only parting when they reached the peak together.
“Caitlyn.” Lucas called out her name as he came, his climax triggering another in her.
Neither of them moved for several minutes.
Lucas was the first to rouse.
“Back in a minute.” He rose from the bed and disappeared into the master bath. She listened as he cleaned up, but reality crashed in quick.
Soon the pounding of her heart, the blood thudding in her ears, drowned out everything else.
She’d made a mistake of epic proportion.
Caitlyn forced herself to sit up and then to stand, even though her legs were shaky. Glancing around the room, she realized her clothes were still in the living room, on the floor where she’d dropped them after stripping for Lucas.
Why had she thought she could have sex with the man and not feel anything for him? How many times had she listened to her aunts and uncles talk about meeting their significant others? How many times had she been told that when a Collins falls in love, they fall hard and fast? Passionately. Recklessly. Irrationally.
She had tried to force those feelings with her previous boyfriends, insisting what she felt was that same love her parents shared. How many times had her mother told her to stop trying so hard? How many times had she warned Caitlyn that when it was right, when she found the one, she would know?
Lucas wasn’t the one. He couldn’t be.
Padding down the hallway, she’d only just managed to get her bra on—despite her shaking hands—when Lucas found her.
“What are you doing?”
“I need to get home.”
“Caitlyn—”
He was going to fight her on this. She couldn’t let him.
“I told you, Lucas. One night. This could only ever be one night.” She hated how high-pitched her voice was, despised the outright panic in her tone.
He looked at her for an uncomfortably long minute and then he nodded. “Let me get dressed. I’ll drive you.”
“Uber would be easier.”
“I’m driving you home, Caitlyn.”
She let him have that battle. Only because it seemed like the quickest way for her to get out of here.
She tugged on her stockings, dress and shoes and was standing by the door when Lucas returned. He’d pulled on the same pants he wore earlier, but given the wreckage she’d wrought on his shirt, he had found a plain black T-shirt to wear instead. She would have preferred anything else, as the T-shirt accentuated his muscles, his beautiful chest, his sexy build.
Caitlyn turned her head. Looking at him wasn’t helping.
Lucas picked up his keys and held out his hand. “Ready?”
She nodded, walking by his outstretched fingers. Touching wasn’t any more advisable than looking. He frowned, clearly displeased to have his offer ignored.
Good. Perhaps her rude actions would help burn down the bridge between them, make it impossible for her to cross back over.
They rode in silence and she was grateful for the reprieve, his easy acceptance of their deal.
Perhaps he was even glad she was upholding it, and his apparent annoyance was based on the fact he’d had to drive her home tonight rather than in the morning.
Caitlyn’s mind whirled as she tried to come to grips with so many warring emotions. It felt like twenty years had passed since she’d left home a few hours earlier.
As they pulled up in front of the pub, Caitlyn reached for the door handle, ready to sprint from the vehicle.
“Thanks for—”
Lucas grasped her wrist firmly, halting her escape. “Three days.”
“I’m giving you three days to get your shit together. To figure out and accept something that you already know, even if you don’t want to admit it.”
Caitlyn lifted her chin, trying to give the appearance of a boldness she didn’t feel. “And what’s that?”
“This isn’t over. Not by a long shot.”
6
Lucas sat with his back to his office door, to his desk, to his computer. Hell, he’d turned his back on everything except the view from his twenty-fifth-floor window.
He was on day two of three, and kicking himself for giving Caitlyn so much time. Actually he never should have driven her home that night to begin with. If he’d been thinking clearly, he would have dragged her back to his bed, tied her to it and fucked her until she realized…
Realized what?
The answer to that question was why he’d driven her home. He had been just as confused, just as blindsided as she’d been. Lucas didn’t do relationships. He didn’t do commitment. And he sure as fuck didn’t do love.
Yet every fiber of his being told him he could very easily do all three of those things with Caitlyn. So he was smart to put some distance and time between them. At least, that’s what he’d been telling himself for the past—he glanced at his watch—thirty-seven hours.
“Where do we stand on the Sunnyside project?”
Lucas spun his chair toward the door and his father’s voice. “I spoke to the foreman. They’re two days behind schedule due to the weather.”
Dad scowled. “Tell him to make that time up or it’s coming out of his paycheck. What about the Collins building acquisition?”
The idea to purchase the building that housed Pat’s Pub, the accompanying restaurant and apartment above had been Lucas’s idea. Actually, the plan for that whole city block had been his. His father had actually tried to talk him out of the acquisition, claiming the area wasn’t lucrative enough. Lucas had insisted, and then persevered. He was very convincing when he wanted something and he’d done his work well. His father was now one hundred percent behind the purchase, which meant Caitlyn’s family had a snowball’s chance in hell of holding on to their business.