CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Carrie
I can feel how edgy Reid is the entire dinner after he and Cat have their talk, and yet, he’s present. He wants to be here, listening to his sister talk about her future child, talking with Reese about his recent case, talking about our merger. Something is bothering him, though, and I know my future husband well enough to know that he’s in one of those moods where he might just shove me against a wall, fuck me, and then repeat. Then, maybe, he’ll talk.
We’re enjoying chocolate cake for dessert when Christmas comes up. “Can you all do Christmas here with us?” Cat asks.
“As long as I can buy my part of dinner and bring it, I’m in,” Gabe says.
“We’re in,” I say. “Family is one of the reasons we came home instead of going to Paris.”
Cat’s eyes warm. “When and where is this wedding going to be?” She looks at Reid. “We need to lock her down and fast.”
He laughs, his mood easing and he agrees, squeezing my leg under the table. “Yes, we do. If we could make it happen at Christmas in Rockefeller Center, Carrie would be happy, but I’m not waiting a year.” He kisses me. “We’re going to figure this out this weekend. That’s an order.”
I laugh, warmed by the fact that when he talks about our wedding, a bit of that edge in him fades. “For once,” I tease, “I’ll happily take one of your orders.”
Everyone laughs now, and soon we are talking about everything and anything again. We’ve moved on to coffee in the living room, and Reid and Reese are talking when Gabe leans over to Cat and says, “Did you know the whole time?”
“Yes,” she says, her expression solemn. “I knew. Reese didn’t. I wasn’t going to have this ruined for him. I wanted it to be special.”
“You should have told us. You didn’t need to deal with that alone.”
“I wasn’t telling you before Reese, but I wasn’t alone.” She squeezes his hand. “You and Reid were there for me.”
Whatever they’re talking about, I’m now certain it had a lot to do with how Reid responded to the news about the baby. Maybe I interrupted them before he could ask the question Gabe is now. “Carrie,” Cat says, drawing me back to the moment.
“Yes?”
“Do you want to go to lunch on Sunday?”
“I’d love that,” I say. “And I need to Christmas shop if you have time?”
“Oh me, too,” she says. “It’s a date.”
“And right now,” Reid says. “We have a date with our bed. The time change is working a number on me.”
“We’d better rest,” I say. “We have a date with Snowflake tomorrow.”
“Snowflake?” Cat asks.
“A kitty that lost her human. She needs a family.”
Cat laughs. “Reid with a cat. Next thing I know you’ll be pregnant, too.”
“No,” Reid and I say at the same time. “We’re going to get a cat and a dog,” I add. “They will be our children.”
“That’s how it starts, I hear,” Gabe jokes.
Reid stands up. “On that note, we’re going to bed, where we will not be making babies. We’ll visit our niece or nephew.”
“We find out in two weeks,” Cat says cheerfully.
A few minutes later, Reid and I step onto the elevator, and he pulls me to him. “What happened in there that I don’t understand?”
He kisses me, a hungry kiss that tastes of hot, bothered man. “Reid,” I whisper, a question in his name.
He doesn’t reply and the doors open behind me. He turns me to the door, walks me out and in a few minutes, we’re in the back of a hired car with our legs melded together and one of his hands pressed between my thighs. I was right. He’s on edge. He’s in one of those fuck me and talk later moods. His hand slides up my skirt and right when his fingers brush my panties, I catch it, giving him a warning look. He answers by cupping my head and kissing me, and in one stroke of his tongue, I lose control. He slips under the silk between my thighs and he’s stroking the now wet seam of my body.
I fight the sounds I want to make. I grab his hand, but his finger slides inside me. I grab his jacket and give him a warning look that earns me another kiss. His tongue and fingers all but undo me when the car stops. “Your destination, sir,” the driver announces.
Reid slides his fingers from inside me, licks them and then says, “Thank you,” though I’m not sure he’s talking to the driver.
He exits the car and pulls me with him, shutting the door behind me. “I can’t believe you just did that.”
He drags me under his arm, and against him. “I can’t believe I didn’t make you come, but I will,” he promises.
“Because you’d rather fuck than talk about whatever that was back there at Cat’s?”
He doesn’t reply which is my answer. He doesn’t want to talk. He’s going to have to talk. For now, though, I let him have what he wants: control. He needs it. He’ll take it to fulfill that need and I get that. I understand him and so I don’t speak. I let him lead me into the elevator and once we’re there, he pulls my back to his chest, the hard wall of his body absorbing mine. The thick ridge of his erection is pressed to my bottom. His fingers stroke my waist, sending waves of heat through my body. My nipples ache. My sex clenches. I’m reminded that this demanding, controlling side of Reid turns me on and more so now that I know I can trust him.
The car halts and we exit as we entered—without words. He leads me to the apartment and once we’re there, he catches me from behind, his lips at my ear as he orders, “Undress right here in front of me and then walk to the bedroom and wait for me on the bed.”
I open my mouth to object, but this is Reid and clearly, something about tonight hit every nerve he owns, and perhaps cut open a wound or two that is now bleeding. He needs his control and if there is one person in his life who’s taken it, it’s me. Right now, he needs me to give it back. “Do you trust me, Carrie?” he asks as if he senses hesitation in me, and the question is telling. This is about trust as much as control. He wants to deserve my trust. He feels like control prevents him from letting me down. That’s how he protects me. With control and trust, he feels he can stop whatever bad might come my way.
“I trust you, Reid,” I say, twisting in his arms to face him. “You know I do.”
“Show me. Show me you trust me, because you always hold back just a little. Almost all of your trust, almost all of you isn’t enough.”
I don’t believe I hold back, but he does and that’s what matters right now. I step back from him and start to undress. He leans on the door, crosses his arms in front of his chest, and I swear he’s trying to intimidate me, but it won’t work. It’s never worked but he’s going to try harder tonight. I feel it. I see it in his eyes. He’s going to push and demand and press me beyond a comfortable limit.
And I’m going to let him.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Carrie
Reid leans against the front door of our apartment, his arms crossed in front of his broad chest, his piercing blue eyes fixed on my face, demand and a dark, edgy energy radiating from him. The demand is familiar but the energy is not, it’s that part of him he hides beneath the arrogant asshole. That part of him he doesn’t want to exist, but tonight it does. That part of him I think he needs me to accept and even embrace.
I stand a foot in front of him and peel away my jacket, tossing it to the floor. I then pull my silk camisole over my head and do the same with it. “I trust you,” I say.
“Taking your jacket off doesn’t prove trust.”
“You want more,” I say and I’m not talking about my clothes and he knows it.
“I always want more, Carrie.”
A pebble of concern forms in my belly. “What happens when I have nothing more to give?”
“Then I’ll have all of you, but I don’t right now.”
“You do. No one has ever had all of me but you.”
His eyes darken and I swear they harden. “Undress, Carrie, then wa
lk to the bedroom and wait for me.”
I inhale and let air trickle from my lips. I don’t know why I’m hesitating. I’m going to do everything and anything he wants me to do and like it. My nipples are hard. My thighs are slick. I want this. I want him. I just wish I knew what set him off because it wasn’t just that night in college. I kick off my shoes and unzip my skirt, letting it slide down my hips and pool on the floor. I kick it away and now I’m in nothing but my bra, panties, and thigh highs.
Reid’s eyes stay on my face when they would normally travel my body. “All of it. Even the thigh highs. I want my mouth wherever I so please with nothing in the way.”
Apparently, my body anticipates where his mouth might be soon because my nipples tighten all over again and my sex clenches but I don’t back down. I unhook my bra, drag my panties down, kick them away, and then roll down my thigh highs. He doesn’t move, but his gaze rakes over my body, a slow, lingering inspection before he pushes off the wall, and yes, please, touch me, fuck me, do it right here and now.
He stops in front of me but he doesn’t touch me. I want him to touch me. “There are rules tonight,” he says. “My rules.”
“What rules?”
“You touch me when I tell you to touch me. I touch you when I decide it’s the right time to touch you. You do what I say. If you want to stop, you say stop, but mean it, because I will stop.”
“Am I going to want to say stop?”
“What do you think?” he challenges.
He’s testing me, pushing me just like I knew he would, and perhaps some part of him wants me to fail. I won’t fail and he won’t either which I think is really more the point. His failure in the past. His fear he’ll fail to protect me. My eyes meet his and I let him see my confidence in my words as I say, “No. I’m not going to want to stop.”
He walks around me, stopping behind me, his lips warm on my neck, at my ear, goosebumps lifting on my skin, all over my body, which is where I want his hands and his mouth. “Do you want me to touch you now?”
“Yes. Very much.”
“Then go to the bedroom. Wait for me.”
“How long do you plan to make me wait?”
“As long as I want to make you wait,” he counters.
“And if I don’t go?” I challenge.
“I’ll spank you and we’ll go to bed without fucking.”
“You wouldn’t,” I say, rotating to face him and when my hands would land on his chest, he catches my wrists. “Rules, Carrie. As for the spanking, try me, baby.”
I inhale at a promise that shouldn’t turn me on, not in the manner he’s described it, but it does, but then, his hand on my backside has never been anything but erotic. The fucking that follows nothing but pleasure. He releases me and steps aside, giving me room to pass, to follow his orders. I lift my chin and walk past him, aware of his hot stare on my naked body. I enter the bedroom and I don’t turn on the light. I walk to the bed and sit down on the edge of the mattress.
Seconds tick by and turn to minutes. I sit. I wait. I’m naked and aching and in need of my man, who isn’t here. And that’s the idea. For me to want and need and anticipate what he will do to me. He finally appears in the doorway, a shadowy silhouette in the center of the darkness. I think he might leave us in the darkness, but he doesn’t. He turns the knob controlling the lights to dim them, casting the room in a haze of shadows, but now I can see that his shirt and shoes are gone.
He crosses to stand in the center of the room, directly in front of me, but he leaves several feet between us. “Come here,” he orders.
I am not a submissive. I do not want to be a submissive and yet, I’m incredibly aroused by the dominant side of Reid, and apparently, his control tonight. I don’t feel fear. I don’t feel uneasy. I feel nervous and excited, every part of me alive and tingling. I want him to know this. I think he needs to know this. I stand up and walk to him, stopping directly in front of him.
He doesn’t touch me and I follow the rules. I do not touch him despite how badly I want to. He stands there, towering above me, his eyes raking over my face, my lips, my breasts before they lift and he orders, “Get on your knees.”
“You want me to—”
“Yes. Get on your knees, Carrie.”
My nerves radiate through me. I’ve never been ordered to my knees and with anyone but Reid, I’d say no. I won’t say no, but I do hesitate. This is unfamiliar. I don’t know what to expect. Reid’s hands come down on my arms and he drags me to him, his lips at my ear. “Giving up control is the ultimate control, baby. You decide what I can do, where I can go, and where we do it by accepting the command. If you trust me, if you put your pleasure in my hands, it’s the ultimate escape, a time when you don’t have to be in control. A time when I’m the only one that owns you because you let me. Trust me.”
“I do. I trust you completely.”
He tilts my gaze to his, his thumb strokes over my jaw and his lips caress my lips. The touch is light, but I feel it like a blast of heat rushing over my body, I feel it everywhere, I feel him everywhere. “What happened to not letting me touch you?” I say, my fingers flexing on the hard wall of his chest.
“You hesitated. I felt it. I was scaring you.”
“Scaring me?” I don’t like these words from him. I don’t like the way he is making himself the monster and me the timid little girl. This, I realize, is what he’s made himself since the shooting. The monster, the scary monster. “You don’t scare me, Reid Maxwell. You should know that by now.” And suddenly, I understand. He’s right. I have the control right now. I’m the one who gives and takes trust. I’m the one who makes him worthy of that trust.
I ease down his body and onto my knees.
I give myself to him and show him I’m willing to go, and do, anything with him.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Reid
I know that some part of me is reacting to events that have nothing to do with Carrie, and everything to do with other things. I’m pushing her, pushing her away, and that’s not what I want.
The minute Carrie is on her knees, naked and willingly submissive, I’m on one knee in front of her. “I’m not afraid of you, Reid Maxwell,” she declares, her voice thick with emotion.
I tangle my fingers into the silky strands of her hair and drag her mouth a breath from mine, breathing her in, her naked body pressed to mine. “I don’t want you to be afraid. That’s the point.”
“You’re the one who’s afraid,” she accuses, “and I no longer accept that from you.”
“Of your fear. Of you holding back. Of you not trusting me.”
“You have all of me. My God, Reid. You have all of me. I have nothing else to give.”
She’s wrong. She does. She just doesn’t know it and I can’t help myself. I’m going to take it tonight. Where I didn’t want trust from anyone before her, I have to have it with Carrie. Trust is the ultimate commitment, almost more so than love which is why I never wanted it from anyone, except her. Now I want it from her in a way that I cannot even understand. As if her willingness to trust me makes me worthy of it and her.
“Are you sure about that?”
“Whatever you want from me, Reid, you can have it.”
“More, Carrie. And when you walk down that aisle, every part of you will be there with me.”
“Show me what that means.”
“My God, woman, what are you doing to me?” I demand, my mouth crashing down on hers.
And just like every moment when I’m with her, when I’m touching her, I can’t remember why taking what she offers is a problem. I can’t remember anything but how much this woman consumes me, how much I need her. How much I can’t live without her.
My tongue strokes against hers, caressing, taking, drinking in the taste of her, all sweet with submission and ripe with demand, one part willing woman, two parts challenge. I know I’ll never fully control her, and that scares the hell out of me. I can’t protect what I can’t control and yet she�
��s perfect as she is, everything I need and want.
I tear my mouth from hers, breathing her in.
“What don’t I know that you still haven’t told me?” she whispers. “Where are you right now, Reid?”
“I’m right here, baby, with you.” My hands go to her arms, my gaze sweeps over her high, full breasts and return to her face, challenging her, “Do you know what I want, Carrie?”
“It’s not what you want, now is it? It’s what you need. What do you need?”
“Everything and I’m not sure that will be enough.” I lean in and kiss her again, and even as I demand control, it would be so damn easy to let go right now, to just fuck her, love her, get lost in her because that’s what this woman does for me, but I meant what I said. When she walks down that aisle she will be all mine, every last part of her, inside and out.
I tear my mouth from hers. “Ease all the way down, baby. Relax into the rug.”
She leans into me and kisses me. “I will do anything for you and with you, Reid Maxwell. Husband. You’re going to be my husband. That’s how it’s supposed to be. That’s what I dreamed of, not a dress or a big wedding.”
“And it is, Carrie. I won’t ever hurt you. Ever. I will always protect you. And this, tonight, is about pleasure. Only pleasure.”
“I know that,” she whispers, her hands sliding down my chest, over my hips, to settle on her knees as she sinks into her heels. “Now what are you going to do with me?”
***
Carrie
He reaches behind him and pulls a pair handcuffs from his pocket, dangling them in front of me. “I want you to trust me.” His voice is hard with demand, and erotic promise.
Nerves rip through me. I inhale and let air trickle from my lips, my gaze lingering on those cuffs.
“Carrie,” Reid prods softly, that tenderness back in his voice.
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