Devoted to Pleasure

by Shayla Black

  “Jesus . . .” He thrashed under her restlessly. “Sweetheart.”

  It gave her the opportunity to shift herself between his legs, where his scent was strongest, where she could bask in it and let him make her dizzy with desire.

  Shealyn sensed he was trying to gather his wits to protest her seduction—or maybe turn the tables on her—so she acted quickly, pressing butterfly-soft kisses on the insides of his thighs and trailing the backs of her knuckles up to his heavy testicles.

  The male body was a beautiful mystery to her, and she lost herself in exploring Cutter’s exemplary form.

  He gripped his thighs tightly as she pressed her face into his soft sac, then ran her tongue up the textured skin. She could taste his essence and need. They poured off him, into her nose, onto her taste buds. Shealyn dipped her head in for seconds, then thirds. She moaned. This scent could addict her. His groans could tempt her into lingering just to hear his stark, naked need.

  Cutter had other ideas.

  He grabbed her by the arms and hauled her up his body as if he didn’t even need to expend effort lifting her . . . or as if desire had given him superhuman strength to crush her to his chest and roll her on her back.

  It only took an instant for everything to change. Suddenly, he was on his knees in front of her, chest heaving as he reached for the condom. Shealyn heard the foil packet ripping, saw his silhouette backlit by the kitchen light as he worked the latex over his thick, protruding length.

  “Spread your legs for me,” he demanded.

  She’d never heard his voice so rough, so deep, so absolutely male.

  Belly tightening, sex aching, she did. His stare focused between her thighs. His nostrils flared. Even she could smell her own pungent need in the air between them.

  “Cutter . . .” But what could she say? She wasn’t about to apologize for arousing him. “I wanted to make you feel good.”

  “No, you wanted to drive me out of my mind. I plan to return the favor.”

  Shealyn expected him to settle himself between her legs, plunge deep, and fill her so completely she’d swear she could feel every inch of him scraping her sensitive walls into a frenzy. Instead, he dipped his thumb inside her, humming when he found her drenched. Then he coated his digit with her moisture and dragged it up to cover her sensitive clit. He began circling her with a barely there touch. Shealyn gasped and arched, looking to him for mercy. His face said he had none.

  With relentless precision, he drove her up, tormenting her with his tease of a touch, arousing her without granting her ecstasy. Tingles sparked. The ache turned fiery. Her womb clenched, cramped.

  Writhing, she gripped his arms. “Cutter . . .”

  “I only want to make you feel good.” He tossed her words back in her face. “I’m almost done.”

  But she knew better. He wanted her sweet compliance. He wanted to dominate her. He wanted her total surrender.

  He wouldn’t settle for less.

  No matter how much she wriggled and whimpered, he didn’t change course or ease up. That thumb and his piercing stare were unraveling her, shutting down her mind, messing with her breathing, overtaking her body.

  Her heart revved uncontrollably. The rush and flood of her blood filled her ears. She twisted up to him, her nipples stabbing the air, wordlessly pleading for his fingers, his tongue—whatever relief he would give her. But Cutter kept on his single-minded path, proving that when he teased, he wasn’t stealthy or cunning. He was ruthless and more than willing to play dirty.

  She loved it.

  From their last encounter, she knew exactly what it felt like when the climax he gave her approached. She felt that now—the need, the tingle, the breathless anticipation, the feeling as if she would come out of her skin if she couldn’t have him soon.

  The smile that suddenly played at his mouth said he knew it, too.

  “You’re close.”

  “Yes,” she gasped.

  “Your pleasure is mine.” He pinned her down with his gaze, forcing his will on her. “Right now, you’re mine.”

  His words ignited her even more. She panted and stared, no longer merely wanting the relief of the dizzying thrill, but needing it.

  “Say it,” he demanded. “Tell me you belong to me tonight.”

  She had no defenses left to ward him off. And she didn’t want to. “Yes. My orgasm is yours. I’m yours.”

  “Damn right,” he growled.

  His thumb pressed and circled, changing angles slightly. That’s all she needed to feel a sharper pleasure-pain that sent her soaring toward the pinnacle.

  “That’s it. Show me how I make you feel. Come.”

  The words had barely left his mouth when the ecstasy pooled and converged, then burst in an explosion of hot tingles and excruciating bliss. Shealyn howled out in wretched need. She had no control over her body because she’d surrendered that to him. And he took it with greed, plunging his length suddenly into her spasming sex, her body sucking him deeper, one inch at a time.

  The pleasure was blinding, beyond words. Something that, like the man, she’d never forget.

  “Cutter!”

  “This is going to be fast and rough. Hold on. I’ve got to fuck you now.”

  He thrust past her clenching entrance and probed at her very depths as he gripped her hips in his insistent hands. Then he set a brutal pace—deep, consistent, fast enough to extend her orgasm but too slowly to do anything more than prolong her agony.

  “More! Please . . .”

  “No. This is exactly what we both need. Feel it,” he demanded. “Feel every inch.”

  Shealyn couldn’t do anything else. He was around her, all over her, inside her, surrounding her. Taking her. Sensitizing her. Transforming her.

  The pulses went on and on, the peak falling into a gentle lull, only to be revived into a frantic need when he sat back on his heels and dragged her onto his lap, holding her ribs and using his massive arms to lift her up and down on his shaft. Gravity drove him deeper. Her body took more of him. Her nerve endings flared higher.

  “Put your arms around my neck.”

  She did it without question, shocked when he managed to stand, barely breaking the pace of his stroke. She wrapped her legs around his waist to hold on, but the gnawing climax still wouldn’t let up. She cried out at the ceaseless pleasure bending her mind and body.

  She’d never be the same again. Shealyn knew that without question.

  And that was before he stalked to her dining room table, kicked away the chair at the head, then laid her down on the cold, flat surface. He braced his palm near her head and plowed deeper than ever.

  As he found his rhythm again, her body convulsed once more, and she finally screamed out with frustrated delight. The ecstasy was too intense, too overwhelming, too much.

  “I-I can’t . . .”

  “You can. Take me.”

  He hit her again with the dual sensations of the friction of his cock lighting her up inside and his thumb scraping over the tip of her hard, lip-bitingly sensitive clit.

  “Ah . . . Cutter.”

  “Fucking take all of me. I’m coming with you!”

  He plunged in again, submerging himself in her flowing heat. Breaths began sawing from his chest. His shoulders and arms bulged and worked as he pinned her with his hips. His cock hardened even more. His teeth gritted with a hiss before he bellowed out in pleasure.

  And then he let go, filling her relentlessly with one stroke after another, nailing her to the table as he sliced her heart wide open and left her bleeding out something she was terrified to name.

  Shealyn would have pushed him off and scrambled away to protect herself except for two things: she could not move a single muscle in her body right now and she knew the self-protective urge had come far too late.

  She loved Cutter Bryant.
>
  20

  As Cutter and Shealyn headed for the prearranged meeting point the next evening so she and Tower could make their grand entrance at the restaurant, he gripped the steering wheel and clenched his jaw to stop himself from saying something angry and futile—something he had no right to spew.

  He’d spent nearly every minute last night and early this morning inside Shealyn, giving her pleasure, letting her please him. They’d lain together, slept together, breathed together. They hadn’t talked.

  The last thing Cutter wanted to do right now was let her go, especially to spend the evening with Tower. Every moment he wasn’t inside her was another moment he wanted to rail and howl, bare his teeth and fight. Yeah, he had it bad.

  This wasn’t something he’d ever recover from. He loved Shealyn West and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it. Worse, he had to deliver her like a prettily wrapped package to a man who thought he wanted her for all the wrong reasons and watch the bastard crawl all over her for the press and their adoring public.

  Cutter wondered how he was going to hold on to his sanity.

  When they reached an empty parking garage about two blocks from the restaurant, he put the SUV in a corner spot and turned the engine off, then shifted to Shealyn. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “I wish I didn’t. But for the next six months, it’s unavoidable. As we say back home, my wagon is hitched to his.”

  When she reached for the door handle, he stayed her with a hand on her arm. “Is this life really making you happy?”

  Where the hell were these questions coming from? Unfortunately, he knew. Some stupid part of him refused to give up the fairy tale where she turned her back on her stratospheric career to come live a simple life with him, one where he didn’t have an obligation to give Brea his name, where Shealyn didn’t have to keep up appearances. Where they could simply be together.

  God, he sounded naive. That was never going to happen.

  “Honestly, I’m not sure.” She looked out the window at the rest of the empty garage, her gaze anywhere but on him. “But I went after this life. I signed contracts. I keep telling myself I would be a fool to walk away when I have a career so many aspiring actresses would kill for.”

  “If it weren’t for that, what would you want?” Cutter knew he had to stop pushing, but the stupid part of his heart all tangled up in her kept on, maybe because he ached to hear that he wasn’t the only one with fantastical hopes. Because he wanted to believe he wasn’t the only one irrevocably in love.

  At that moment, Tower and his limo pulled up. Raoul opened the back door so the star could exit. The actor stood, waiting, bouquet of flowers in hand.

  She sniffled. “The impossible. I have to go.”

  Before he could stop her, she was out of the car. With a curse, he exited and locked the vehicle behind him. When he turned, Tower was handing her the roses and moving her body against his for a hug he clearly hoped would turn into a passionate embrace. She gave him a friendly kiss on the cheek, then shifted subtly to put distance between them.

  Cutter was proud of her for handling the situation, but he still had to restrain the urge to dangle Tower by his neck and tell him to mind his manners.

  Quietly, Raoul opened the door to the back of the limo for them, and Cutter watched Shealyn slide into the darkened space, where he already saw two glasses of chilled champagne bubbling in wait.

  Tower waved his bodyguard off. When Raoul rounded the back of the car to head to the driver’s seat, the actor sent Cutter a glare and a low-voiced growl. “What the hell did you do to her?”

  Cutter refused to say he’d done nothing to Shealyn because he’d done everything possible to imprint his body on hers so she would never forget him. “Besides deliver her on time for this farce?”

  “She’s all . . . heavy lidded and glowing. Her lips are swollen.” Tower sent him a thunderous scowl. “She looks well fucked.”

  A little smile flirted at Cutter’s mouth. He didn’t deny it. He’d thought the same thing when they’d left her driveway. He couldn’t proclaim his feelings out loud for Shealyn West, and while he hadn’t consciously put that satisfied look on her face, he also couldn’t think of a more eloquent KEEP OUT sign to maintain professional space between her and her “boyfriend.”

  “If you noticed, chances are the press will, too. When they see you together, they’ll draw conclusions that will make them think you’ve more than kissed and made up.” That burned Cutter deep. It burned him even more that he couldn’t do anything but let it happen. “You’re welcome.”

  “I see right through you, asshole.”

  Cutter propped his elbow on the top of the open door and shot Tower a mocking glare. He didn’t worry that the actor was two inches taller and forty bloated pounds heavier. Cutter was very secure in the knowledge he could kick Tower’s ass. “Oh, I see through you, too. At least I want Shealyn for the woman she is. You took up with her as a publicity stunt so she’d make you look good. And you’ve treated her like a prop. After a year, you’re suddenly eager to try a real relationship with her because you finally realize the woman you love doesn’t care whether you’re a big star or whether you can get all the pussy you want. You can’t have hers because she belongs to your brother. So now you want to use Shealyn as a substitute. She deserves better.”

  Tower lunged in his face. “Maybe I haven’t always been a real boyfriend to her, but I’m going to start now. You’re right that she deserves the best, much better than a hick from the sticks whose sole claim to international travel is a fucking war zone. I can give her the rest of the world—the cultured part. I can take her so far from that nowhere town she came from and mold her into the most chic, fascinating woman.”

  “See, that’s the funny thing. I think she’s already the most fascinating woman. She doesn’t need to see a bunch of museums and cathedrals to qualify as chic. You don’t understand her much. She doesn’t really want Comfort in her rearview mirror.”

  “I don’t know what you two are snarling about out there, but I hear your growls,” Shealyn pointed out. “I’m sure you’re sniping at each other about me. Maybe you’d like to include me in the conversation?”

  “Sorry, babe. Coming now,” Tower said, then bared his teeth at Cutter. “Back off.”

  Not happening. “Fuck you, Dean Reginald Jones.”

  Tower said nothing more, simply jerked his big body through the opening to the back of the limo and slammed the door behind him. Cutter hurried into the passenger’s side, next to Raoul, who tapped his thumb impatiently on the steering wheel. The electronic buzz heralded the raising of the privacy partition. Tower wrapped his arms around Shealyn’s stiff shoulders and tossed Cutter a gloating, acidic smile in the rearview mirror.

  It took everything inside Cutter not to lower the partition, climb back there, and beat the shit out of the star once and for all. If he touched one hair on Shealyn’s head, especially against her will, Tower would find himself minus his balls before they even left the parking lot.

  “You need to back off,” Raoul offered unsolicited. “Tower Trent is important. He’s going to get the girl, and you just look like a bitch for whining otherwise.”

  Cutter did his best not to roll his eyes. “At least I’m not the kind of guy who blindly follows a bigger bitch because I have my nose too far up his ass to know better. And I’d sure appreciate it if you’d shut the hell up.”

  That pissed Raoul off enough that he clamped his mouth closed and focused on the thick swirl of L.A. traffic, gripping the wheel tightly.

  It was the longest twenty minutes of Cutter’s life. He had no problem putting Tower in his place. He knew a dozen ways to gouge out Tower’s eyes with his bare hands and another five to separate his penis from his body. Shealyn didn’t have the benefit of his training. Was her co-star the kind of prick who would force himself on her? Cutter didn’t like the odds in fa
vor of yes.

  Shifting in his seat for the third time in five minutes, he withdrew his phone from his pocket. He didn’t like being shut away from Shealyn and he didn’t like being outmaneuvered. To quote another southern saying, there was more than one way to skin a cat.

  He sent Shealyn a text to see if she was all right. Earlier, he’d asked her to turn her phone back on and set it to vibrate, just in case. Being in public was always dicey, and no one could ever predict when a call to 911 would be in order.

  A minute passed. Two. A million worries dive-bombed his brain. Shealyn wasn’t the sort of woman who cared more about stardom and museums in Milan and high-profile jetsetting than her heart . . . but she couldn’t walk away from her obligations and the show that had launched her into fame. How far was she willing to go for that? Was there any chance Tower understood her better than he did?

  Finally, his phone buzzed in his hand, and he glanced at the message.

  I’m fine. Not sure I can say the same about Tower’s balls.

  So Tower had tried something and Shealyn had shut him down painfully. Cutter smiled, beaming with pride. He loved that woman so hard right now. Oh, he’d definitely put the prick in his place as soon as they were out of this moving gas can. But the fact that she’d said no in a physical way made him beyond happy.

  The restaurant finally came into view. As expected, the paparazzi was already assembled behind a velvet rope, cameras in hand. Sienna, Shealyn’s PR person, had tipped them off in advance. It was showtime.

  Raoul stopped the car, then turned to him. “You want to do Shealyn a favor? Stay here.”

  “No.”

  “What happens if someone recognizes you from the video and puts two and two together? Her efforts to publicly kiss and make up with Tower go down the shitter. It will be twenty times harder to sell the happy-couple shtick to the public. You’re used to guarding people who don’t have a romantic image to maintain. But this is my town and things are done a bit different here. If you want to make Shealyn’s life easier, back down, loverboy. I got this. I won’t let anything happen to her.”