“What are you thinking?” he asks.
“You know what I’m thinking about.”
“Tell me,” he orders, working the zipper to my pants.
“You.”
His hand slides over my face, down my side, over my hip, settling there, a flex to his fingers. “What are you thinking about, Aria?” he repeats, and it’s not a question. I quiver inside at the erotic command, surprisingly enticed by this game he’s playing, we’re playing, and it is a game.
“You,” I say. “Nothing but you.”
Amber heat flecks in his deep blue stare and he nuzzles my neck before his lips travel a delicious path to my ear. “Where do you want my mouth?”
My sex clenches and heat floods my body at the bold question. “Kace—” I whisper and I’m not sure if his name is a question or a plea.
“That’s not an answer,” he says, and I am quickly pinned in his smoldering stare. “Where do you want my mouth?”
My belly trembles. “My mouth.”
He leans in close, his lips near my lips, his breath a warm tease, that next taste of him just out of reach. “Just your mouth? Only your mouth?”
“No.”
“Where else?” he presses.
My fingers curl on his belly. “Can I just be surprised?”
“You want to be surprised?”
“Yes.”
His fingers twine in my hair, a rough erotic tug, that draws my eyes to his. “Then I have your permission to put my mouth anywhere I want to?”
“Is this a trick question?”
“Do I have permission, Aria?”
“Yes,” I breathe out, impatiently now. I’m eager. I’m burning alive. “Yes you can put your mouth wherever you like, just do it. Do it now.”
“What about my hands?”
“Yes. What are you doing, Kace?”
“Giving you something to think about.” He releases my hair and his hands caress over my shoulders, teasing a path over my fingers. His hands fall away, and I crave their return. He’s doesn’t immediately give me what I want. He lets me burn. I reach for him. He presses my hands to the wall. “Wait,” he orders.
“Wait for what?”
“Until I tell you to touch me.”
“Don’t you want me to touch you?”
“Do you want me to touch you?”
‘Yes.”
“Then wait.” He releases my hands and presses them to the wall, his legs lifting from my legs. “What are you thinking?”
My lashes lower with the fury of my body’s need. “That this game is dangerous.”
His slides a finger under my chin, willing me to look at him. “Why is it dangerous?”
“Because I want to hurt you for teasing me.”
His lips twitch. “Is that right?”
“Do you doubt me?”
“I don’t doubt you one little bit.”
His finger slides over my lip. “Better?”
“No.”
His hands wrap my waist. “Better now?”
“Not yet,” I say, breathless now.
He lowers his heads and licks my nipple. I gasp and when he suckles it, I arch my back and my fingers dive into this thick, lush locks. He heads lifts, his eyes burning amber, and when I think he might deny me his touch he doesn’t. His hands slide under my waistline, caressing my pants down, my panties with them, and with remarkable ease on his part, I am naked and he’s on a knee in front of me. His hands grip my hips, his lips press to my belly. I moan with the intensity of my reaction, with the anticipation of where his mouth might go next.
His eyes lift and find mine, and when I shiver, he gives me what I burn for. His tongue does a wicked slide over my clit but when I reach for him again, he suddenly stands up, pressing my hands to the wall. “I told you not to touch until I said so, and you agreed. There’s a price for that. Always.”
“I don’t remember agreeing.”
“No?”
“No.”
“What are you thinking about now?”
I am not the me of the past right now. I have no shame, no inhibitions, but I do have wants. I do have needs. “About all the places you aren’t kissing me.”
“What else?”
“I’m naked and you’re not.”
“And who has control, Aria?”
“You do.”
His hand is on my face, forcing my gaze to his, fingers closing around my hair. “No. You are in control.”
“I’m naked, you’re not,” I repeat. “You are in control.”
“No, baby. I’m not. You let me undress you. Did you not?”
“Yes.”
“Did you want me to undress you?”
“Yes.”
“I won’t do anything you don’t want me to do. No one gets to say what happens to you, but you, Aria. Ever. Me included. I need you to remember that. That’s how you win. That’s how you get our life back.”
“If only it were that easy.”
“It is that easy. I want to spank you. Can I?”
I blanch. “You—you want—” My mouth goes dry. “—to spank me?”
“Yes. I want to spank you. And if you say yes, when you are waiting for my palm on your pretty little ass, I promise you that you won’t be thinking about violins and danger. You’ll be wet and hot and ready, filled with anticipation. And then the pleasure comes wicked hot and fast. It’s pleasure, baby. Only pleasure.”
My fingers twist in his shirt. “I don’t know.”
“I know.” His grip in my hair tightens ever so slightly. “What are you thinking about?”
“What you just said.”
“Which is what?”
My thighs are slick, my nipples so swollen they ache. “You spanking me.”
“What do you want, Aria?” Kace presses.
My backside tingles with the idea of his hand. “I seem to want you, in all kinds of ways I didn’t think possible.”
I’m over his shoulder before I know what’s happened, and he’s walking, while his palm rests possessively on my backside. Blood rushes to my head and my cheek beneath that hand of his. Is he actually going to spank me?
My answer comes when we enter his bedroom, and he lays me down on his bed, removes his T-shirt, and then and comes down on top of me. “One day,” he says, “I will spank you.”
“If I let you.”
His really sexy mouth quirks. “Yes. If you let me.” His voice lowers, roughens up. “Just not now.”
I’m not sure if it’s relief or disappointment I feel, but my reaction is forgotten quickly as he adds, “Now,” his lips brush mine, “I’m going to make love to you, Aria.”
The words pulse in the air.
Make. Love.
Not fuck.
Not have sex.
Make love.
I don’t want to read into his meaning, and yet, there is no denying the many levels or the response he’s stirred in me. Nor is there any denying the yearning inside me that I can’t quite name. His lips find my neck and my fingers slide into the soft, dark strands of his hair, a shiver running down my spine. My feelings for this man are dangerously close to love, and I know it. I’m falling in love with Kace. Perhaps I have been since the day our eyes met in that restaurant. His lips caress over my jawline, my lips, down my neck and he inches lower, spreading my thighs, cupping my breasts. He lowers his head, his hair brushing my collar bone, his lips, tongue, and teeth teasing one nipple and then the next. And when he suckles, I moan and arch into those sweet pulls.
He’s back then, kissing me, claiming my mouth only to deny me another taste, as he moves lower again. His hands are on my hips, his lips pressed to my belly, tongue doing a little tease that I feel in every part of me.
“Don’t go away,” Kace murmurs, but he does. He pushes off the bed, and I have to catch my breath from the loss of his body on my body. I sit up and he’s already slid out of his pants and underwear
, his cock thickly veined and jutted forward, a condom package in his hand.
My mouth goes dry at the sight of him, tall, broad, tattooed, muscled, powerful. This man is as much a work of art as his music. He tears open the package and I scoot toward him, taking it from his hand. “I’ll do it,” I say.
He stares down at me, his eyes heavy-lidded, a pulse of desire in the air between us. My hand wraps the hard length of his cock, and I watch pleasure slide across his handsome face. Leaning in, I lick the tip of him and then swirl all around. He groans and pulls back. “As much as I want your mouth all over me baby, not that. Not tonight.” He snatches the condom from my hand and rolls it over himself.
The minute it’s in place, he’s taking me down on the bed again, the sweet weight of his body back on top of mine. He perches on an elbow, one hand on my face. My hand finds his jaw, the rasp of his whiskers beneath my fingers.
He leans in closer, our breaths mingling, a tease of a kiss yet to happen. The air thickens around us and I can’t explain what passes between us in those next few seconds, but it’s as if we speak a million words and say nothing. What I find in the depth of that silence is the truth I cannot run from. I’m connected to this man. I’m connected in a deep, powerful way, in a way that I never believed possible.
I crave him, every part of me craves him, but still, he does not kiss me. His hand slides over my body, under my backside, and his cock nestles thickly between my thighs.
His big body perched on his elbows, he presses inside me, stretching me, filling me. A deep thrust buries him to the hilt, and I moan with the feel of him, with the sensations lighting my nerve endings on fire.
“God, woman,” he murmurs, and his voice is a low timbre, tight, a tremble in its depths.
And then finally, finally, he kisses me. His lips meet mine, his tongue stroking long, the taste of him all spice and man, etched with demand. He begins to move, a slow dance and sway, and when his lips part mine, he’s watching me, his expression drawn tight with desire, and something else I cannot name, something that’s like a sweet floral blossom, tender and sweet.
In contrast, he thrusts hard, his hand squeezing my backside, the mood shifting between us. His lips find my nipple, teeth scraping roughly. My next moan is swallowed by his kiss, and then we’re bucking with each other, desperate to the point we might as well climb under each other’s skin. I’m right there, almost over the edge, and I grab his hair, and not gently. He scrapes my neck with his teeth and I pant out, “Kace,” so very close to tumbling over the edge.
A low, raw, hungry growl rumbles from his perfect chest, and his hand slides over my hair, tilting my head back, delivering my mouth to his. “You are mine, Aria. Say it.”
I’m lost in the claiming of my body and the demand of his, lost in the moment, in the man. “Yes,” I say. “Yes.”
He lifts my hips, thrusts into me, once, again, driving, thrusting. The world fades, the room disappears. I could be floating in the air, and all I would know is his body pressed to my body. He doesn’t stop and thank God for it. The power of him consumes me. He owns me and I should care, but I don’t. Nor can I hold back any longer. My body spasms around him, sex clenching his cock.
He moans, the muscles of his shoulders and back tensing, and then he’s shuddering, with his release. We spiral together and then sink into the mattress and each other. Kace rolls to his side and takes me with him. Our limbs are tangled together, our bodies warm and sated. He didn’t spank me but did so much more. He made me see a part of me I’d never seen, a part with needs and wants, beyond survival.
The part of me that is still to my core Aria Stradivari, my father’s daughter. And Gio was right. My father would never hide, nor would he approve of me hiding.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Kace and I share his clothes.
We’re now sitting on his bed, me in his T-shirt, him in his pants, while we eat tacos and talk about his upcoming charity events. I’ve just stuffed a taco in my mouth when Kace suddenly says, “You do have a perfectly sweet, spankable backside.”
I all but choke as I try to swallow and Kace hands me the large drink we’re sharing. I recover to Kace’s mischief-filled stare.
“You did that on purpose. Why would you say something like that while I’m stuffing my face?”
He holds up his hands. “In my defense, I didn’t mean to catch you mid-bite. Off guard, yes, mid-bite, no.”
“Why off guard at all?”
“The same reason I got you naked in the hallway. I took your focus off the wrong things. In this case, being embarrassed.”
I hand him the drink. “That was unfair play.”
He sets the cup down. “Not intentionally, but since we’re talking about a spanking.”
My lips part. “Are we?”
“We are,” he assures me.
“Which was your point.”
“Actually, not my point at all.” He doesn’t expand on that thought but moves on. “I know you said you have never—”
“I haven’t.” I sound prim and proper because I am mostly vanilla and prim and proper. He’s my only other flavor. I cut my stare before we both drown in my inexperience.
He reaches over and gently strokes hair behind my ear, a barely suppressed shiver sliding down my spine. “You hate the idea?” he asks.
I dare to meet his stare, and while I can’t read his expression, I read his anticipation. I could retreat. I could play coy. I could dodge and weave but this is Kace I’m with. One of the many things that draws me to him is how raw and real everything feels with him when so little else does in my life. And I believe we get what we give. And so I dare to step outside the confines of my comfort zone. “No,” I say, giving him my version of raw and real. “No, I don’t hate the idea and I really don’t understand that about myself.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“A compliment?”
“That’s right,” he says. “It requires trust for someone who’s a total control freak to even consider something that places you in a submissive role even for a few minutes.”
My lips press together. “You think I’m a control freak?”
Laughter rumbles from that perfect chest of his. “Is that a real question?”
I smirk, but concede quickly. “Okay, I am.”
“You are, and a chance to hand it over, in a safe place, for just a small escape, is underrated. Think about it. Just talking about me spanking you has you hyper-focused right here in this conversation.”
He’s right, of course. It did. It does. It is. “What do you get from a spanking?”
“Once you give me the control, I have the control. We are then sharing it by choice, a ball we’ve volleyed. But getting to why I brought this up, which wasn’t about a spanking at all. I used the spanking earlier to shift your attention away from your fear. This is not something I have to have. It’s not something you have to turn into a fear between us. Fear is our enemy. It’s not about control. And control isn’t hiding. It’s not running from me or this world I live inside, Aria. It’s your world, too.”
As he does often it seems, he’s managed to slide right into my mind and home in on what matters. I shut the lid on my takeout container and shove it away. Kace does the same with his. “I’ve been thinking.”
“And?”
“Well, for one thing, I know that my mother meant well in every action she took. My father disappeared. She believed he was dead. She believed all eyes looking for the formula would turn on her, and endanger us.”
“You don’t think that’s true?”
“Maybe. Probably. But didn’t running send the message that she had something to run from?”
“I believe that might be true, but it doesn’t sound like she had the resources to face the threat and defeat it. You do. You have me.”
“We talked about this and I can’t rely on—”
He arches a brow and challenges. “Me?”
> “You know this isn’t about you.”
“Isn’t it?” he challenges. “Trust isn’t a group activity. I’m not going anywhere.”
Easily, perhaps too easily, I’m reminded of how many people once were with me and now are gone. “Everyone says that until they do.”
“One day,” he promises, “you’ll know I’m not everyone else.” He presses his hands to his knees. “Now. How about I play some violin and you critique me?”
Just that easily, he snaps me out of the past, and settles me firmly right here in this room with him. “There’s nothing to critique.”
“There’s always something to critique. Your father told me that, by the way.”
And now I’m back in the past. “What else did he tell you?”
“That you would one day teach me a few lessons about the violin.”
I blink in surprise. “He said that?”
“He did. Obviously, you wanted to play.”
“I did,” I admit. “but that was then and this is now. I listen to you play and I don’t feel any urge to play at all. I feel the urge to relish in the beautiful man and the music the violin creates. In some ways, I feel like I’m discovering myself again, through you.”
His hand slides under my hair to rest warmly on my neck and he presses his forehead to mine. “I still think you can teach me a few things. You already have.”
“I doubt that.”
“Then you would be wrong, Aria Stradivari.” He stands up and offers me his hand. Oh how quickly times have changed because I don’t even hesitate. Any question he could ask me with that action is a sure “yes.”
A few minutes later at my request, he’s playing Tchaikovsky’s “Concerto No. 1” beautifully and I’m thinking about more than his music. I’d expected a man who is dominant, who wants to spank me, to tell me to trust him. Instead, he’s showed me the depth of his character that is not all about power, control, and success, certainly not about a world that revolves around himself. He’s stunned me by telling me to do what no one else has, and what I have never done in my life: trust myself.
A Wicked Song Page 11