by Kim Karr
Just then I saw her rushing into the room looking around for me almost frantically. I could tell something was wrong. Dread pitted in my stomach. What had happened? Had someone said something to her? If it was Avery or Emmy, I wasn’t going to be so nice. Men like me where supposed to be cold and intimidating anyway, I might as give them what they expected.
I pushed through the crowd to reach her. She spotted me across the room, and there was a fear in her eyes I didn’t like. Had someone physically accosted her? My gut knotted just thinking about it.
When I finally reached her, I pulled her to me. Her body was soft and warm, and I knew then that I loved this woman. She was not demanding or ostentatious. She didn’t give a flying fuck about my money or what it could buy. She only cared about me, and whether or not we were compatible.
“Where’s Jeremy?” she asked, her voice full of worry.
“He went to the men’s room, a while ago. Why? What is it?” I glanced around for Phoebe, but she nowhere in sight.
Lindsay hesitated, her breath blowing through her lips.
“What the fuck happened?” I exploded.
Fear seized me by the balls. And that knot that had formed in my gut turned to dread.
“I’m not sure,” she said in a whisper, “but Phoebe left after overhearing something Avery said in the bathroom.”
“Son of a bitch,” I bellowed.
Lindsay flinched from the frustration in my voice, but soon she recovered and nodded.
“What did Phoebe say?” I asked, trying to keep my anger at bay.
“She told me to tell Jeremy she had some things to work out and that she’d call him in the morning.”
Understanding the severity of what had happened, I took her by the hand, “Come on, we need to find him.”
Finding him was easy.
Phoebe, not so much.
After we brought Lindsay home, Jeremy and I searched the whole night for her, but we never did find her. Lindsay had stayed up, keeping in contact with me. It wasn’t until Jeremy and I went to Phoebe’s mother’s house the next morning that we figured out she’d spent the night at her hotel. By the time I returned home to Lindsay, it was after eight in the morning, and I was exhausted.
When I slid into bed beside my wife, she stirred. I reached for her and pulled her close. She was naked, and the satisfaction I felt at having her silky skin beneath my touch was almost as good as sex.
“I love you,” I whispered.
She yawned and rubbed her eyes. “Hmmm?” she asked.
“Nothing,” I said as I kissed her head. “Go back to sleep.”
Her eyelashes fluttered, but she never opened her eyes.
Exhaustion had taken me over as well, and I buried my nose in her hair, content to snuggle as close to her as I possibly could.
As I closed my eyes, I smiled to myself. When we woke up, I planned to lick her from head to toe, and enjoy every square inch of her.
I couldn’t wait.
Chapter 11
You Want What?
Lindsay
Everything was going so smoothly, until it wasn’t.
Somehow I had completely forgotten that I had to fly out Sunday afternoon for a two day photo shoot. The dates were booked months ago, but with my life having changed so much, I neglected to check my schedule. That had never happened. Ever. I couldn’t believe it. For some reason I thought the shoot was next month.
Right after the call came to confirm the airport transportation, I disentangled myself from James and tried to wake him.
He murmured and attempted to pull me closer. I shrugged away. I had to get ready. I should have woken him, but he was tired after staying up all night, so I left him a note.
In my defense, I was in a rush, and I knew he wasn’t going to be happy. I figured discussing it over the phone would be so much easier.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Hey, I had things to learn, too.
Let’s just say when he woke to my note, he wasn’t at all happy, as I had anticipated. What I didn’t expect though, was that he would barely speak to me the three days I was gone.
My plane landed late this afternoon, which left no time for us to talk it out. Previously arranged dinner plans caused us to have to go straight from the airport to the Perry Street Restaurant to meet Phoebe and Jeremy.
We probably should have canceled.
By the way, things worked out for Jeremy and Phoebe. Whatever it was that Avery said to Phoebe, Jeremy explained it, and then he and Phoebe got engaged.
Crazy.
Crazy good.
James and me, on the other hand, were not talking. He was still brooding, which meant he was barely speaking to me.
I tried to cozy up to him when I slid into the car, but he remained still and unaccepting. “James, I said I was sorry. It won’t happen again.”
He glared over at me and closed the partition between Hal and us. The space we were sitting in grew darker. Obviously he didn’t want anyone to hear what he had to say, but hope flickered in my chest that at least he was going to talk.
I knew this was about control. And if I hadn’t forgotten about the damn shoot, I would have invited him along. And if he said no he couldn’t go, then I would have made sure to ask him. Yes, ask him. I had decided to give him what he wanted. I just hadn’t told him yet. Hell, I had decided that morning I agreed to remain married to him.
I placed my hand on his knee. “There is no need for you to be jealous,” I said. “There were no men around. Even the photographer was a woman.”
“Jealous? Don’t be ridiculous. I’m upset because I woke up and you had just taken off for three days without even telling me,” he scowled.
“I didn’t just take off. I had to work. And I explained everything to you in my note.”
He shook his head. “Not only was upsetting, but it was unacceptable. If I would have done something like that, I highly doubt you would have been happy with me.”
“You’re right.”
“You have no idea how much I really want to take you over my knee right now.”
I openly gaped at him. “For what?”
He glared at me, and this time I saw the hurt in his eyes. “I already told you, for neglecting to inform me, your husband, about your trip in person.”
Okay, so I should have done that. I should have woken him. I was wrong. And with this realization I gave him what he wanted. “Then do it.”
“This isn’t a joke, Lindsay. I’m serious.”
“So am I. What I did was wrong. I didn’t want to argue with you, so I took the easy way out. That wasn’t fair of me. I asked you to prove you were husband material, and what I did was in no way proving I was wife material. So I deserve to be punished.”
His head jerked in my direction. “Pull your dress up and your panties down.”
A shiver worked its way up my body. I should have told him to go to hell. I should have been repulsed by the thought of him spanking me, but I wasn’t. Instead, anticipation coiled in my belly. This was what he needed to show he had control, and I wanted to give it to him.
I had worn a dress on the plane because I wanted to look nice for him. Underneath it, I was wearing a pretty thong that I bought for him to see. I eased them down, and then decided to just pull the dress over my head. After which, I took my bra off too.
Completely naked, I looked at him, but he wasn’t looking at me. “I’m ready,” I said, albeit, a little snappy.
James continued to look straight ahead as he pressed the speaker button and spoke to Hal. “Keep driving until I tell you to stop.”
“Yes, sir,” he said.
James finally looked toward me and met my gaze, and his eyes were filled with a heat I remembered from the night we first fucked. Hot and liquid. Volcanic.
My heart leapt into my throat. The sexual tension that had been building between us seemed to all surface at that moment, and I couldn’t believe it, but I wanted this for us.
H
e took my upper arms in his grip and stared at my naked body for a few short moments. I could see his chest rising and falling a little faster, and then he blinked and pulled me across his lap with my belly over his thighs.
Beneath me I could feel his cock hardening, and my pussy clenched. I did that to him. Me. His palms splayed across my bare cheeks, and he began caressing them. I shifted restlessly to try to alleviate the unrelenting ache.
James continued circling his palms up the middle of my ass, down each of my cheeks, and back up. I clenched my hands around the side of the seat as best I could to try to stop my clit from pulsing and tightening. James was now using his fingers to caress me. And I was on fire. He was getting so close to my pussy that I shifted a bit to try to catch the friction.
When he deliberately moved his hand to avoid touching me there, I turned to look at him. “Just do it,” I said, so breathless it came out as a whisper.
His laugh was wicked. “Oh Lindsay, baby, this is much more fun.”
“What is?” I squeezed the seat harder.
James didn’t answer my question right away. Instead he thrust his erection against my body. “Do you feel that, Lindsay?”
I closed my eyes. “Yes.”
His fingers kept moving, circling, pinching. “I’ve been walking around like this since you declared no sex until I proved myself to you, and my feel of you taut body, and all the clenching and squirming you’re doing, I’d say you’ve been struggling yourself.”
I jerked my head back in his direction. “How long are you going to do this?”
He drew a finger up the center of my ass. “Until you beg me to fuck your brains out.”
My eyes narrowed and my lips pursed. “But we said no sex until we felt we could make this marriage work on it’s own.”
He smiled at me then, and his fingers were still moving. “No, Lindsay, baby, that was all you, and I have been the dutiful husband respecting your wishes. Now, I think I’ve done a really good job, don’t you?”
Oh, God, between the potholes and his erection and his magic hands, I wasn’t sure I wasn’t going to just orgasm. “Yes, I do,” I said, biting my lip.
“Don’t come,” he warned, his voice not so sweet this time.
I turned my face away from him. “I don’t understand, I thought you wanted to spank me?”
He spoke calmly. “Yes, but if I were to do that, the gratification you would feel wouldn’t be fair. After all, what would I get except for the satisfaction of seeing your ass turn red. You, on the other hand, would feel the pain, but with that the pleasure, and like I said, that just doesn’t seem very fair.”
The logic behind his words was enough to make me curse.
“Are you wet, Lindsay?” he asked as his fingers teased just far away from my pussy that there was no satisfaction.
“I don’t know, James, why don’t you find out?”
I didn’t expect he would. Honestly, I thought he might torture me for the entire car ride, but then he dragged his fingers up my channel and found me drenched.
He groaned at that.
I had no idea where we were, but the car was at a complete standstill. I estimated that we weren’t even halfway between Kennedy Airport and the city, which meant we had plenty of time.
Despite the cool of the air conditioning, heat flushed through my body. I couldn’t take another minute of this. I turned and looked at him. “James, I want you to fuck me senseless.”
Triumph twinkled in his eyes. And I had to smile. He had no idea how much I had grown to crave the alpha in him. No one had ever taken care of me, and I wanted him to do just that.
With his sleeves rolled up, he lifted me and rolled me onto my back. The leather of the seat was cool beneath me, and I shivered. My legs were bent, and my toes dug into the side of his thighs, but not for long because soon he was up on his knees, yanking his pants down. His erection sprang free, and I gasped.
My stomach was full of butterflies as I waited, breathless with anticipation, for him to position himself above me.
Once he was kneeling in-between my legs, I raised my arms over my head until my fingers were wrapped around the padding of the door. “Don’t move your hands,” he commanded.
I nodded.
Then he spread my legs even wider and stared down at me with intense, glittering eyes. “I hope you enjoyed that, Lindsay, because the next time I will spank you.”
I ran my tongue over my top lip. “I look forward to it, James.”
“Oh, baby, so do I,” he said, and then he lowered his mouth to my breasts, tugging with his lips and sucking.
My lips parted in a quick gasp.
James immediately raised his head and then positioned his cock at my entrance. He pushed in deep with one forceful thrust.
I gasped louder and arched my back, clutching the door as tight as I could.
He withdrew, pulling out until just the head of his cock remained inside me. And I got it, he was still punishing me. Bringing just a small amount of pleasure and then ripping it from me.
I looked up at him. “James, please, stop.”
“Stop what?”
“Teasing me. It’s driving me crazy.”
His grin was devilish, and I imagined he was feeling very smug. But then he crashed his lips to mine in a hard and punishing kiss that drove me even wilder with need, and thrust deep inside me.
Over and over he shocked me with the intensity of his possession, and every movement sent a twinge of unbelievable joy soaring through my core. I was his, and he was claiming me.
I threw my head back and closed my eyes. My mouth opened and his name was the scream that escaped my lips.
His cock was diving deep. “I’ve never felt anything like you before,” he ground out.
I smiled then, and knew I couldn’t hold back any longer. “I’m going to come.”
“I’m almost there,” he panted out.
My orgasm rose higher and higher, out of control, it was spiraling and spiraling, and then finally it exploded and sent me over the edge.
James came seconds after me, but I couldn’t hear his cries of satisfaction because my ears were still roaring with pleasure.
“Tell me again why we waited so long?” he asked as he pulled me into his hold and leaned back.
My body was tingling from head to toe and my blood was pounding, but I still managed to say, “I have no idea.”
His responding laughter was more like a roar.
I sighed a happy sigh, and then I rested my check on his chest. Suddenly, everything felt right in my world with his heartbeat beneath me. I looked up into his beautiful eyes and I wasn’t afraid to tell him how I felt. “I love you, James.”
He stroked my hair with his hand, and without any hesitation he said, “I love you, too. More than anything in this world.”
That’s when I knew that I had it all wrong.
James never had to prove to me that he was husband material, because the only thing that really mattered was that we loved each other.
With that, everything in our world would always turn out all right.
And that I never doubted.
Epilogue
It Wasn’t A Time Machine, But It Was Close
Lindsay
Anniversaries were a silly thing.
Lovers celebrate how long it has been since the first day they met, they measure the span of days since their first date, and they count the period of time since they wed.
For James and I, those markers were all the same.
It was our sixth month anniversary.
With winter still clinging in the air, I turned the fireplaces on and looked around at the space James and I had redone to make it ours.
Gone were the large black sofas and the masculinity of the stark gray walls, replaced with softer fabrics and lighter colors.
It felt so much like home.
Our home.
He’d given me my anniversary gift last night when he took me out to dinner. I guess he co
uldn’t wait. It was a brilliant diamond that sparkled endlessly. I stared down at it, and felt the twinge of my heart beating even faster. Just the mere of thought of him did that to me.
For a man who had the world at his feet, there wasn’t much I could give him that he didn’t already have, but what I had come up with was something I knew he would really want—me, naked, at his feet.
James had called about twenty minutes before, and when I knew he’d be home on time, I got to work building my own time machine.
Frank Sinatra played throughout the room and I’d made a pitcher of martinis that I set on the glass table near the door. Beside it sat the Ashton family photo, which included me. I wouldn’t say his mother welcomed me with open arms, but she did accept me in James life, and that was all that mattered.
One last glance in the mirror assured me that I looked like I’d just rocketed from the fifties. Pearls hung around my neck and pierced my ears, I’d styled my hair like Marilyn Monroe, and wore a pair of old-fashioned high heels.
Ready to give him his gift, I dropped my robe and stood naked. I smiled at myself. He was going to love this. I wrapped the mink stole I’d bought at a vintage shop around me, poured a martini, and then with the glass in my hand, I stepped down into the living room to wait.
I positioned myself in a chair, but when I heard the jingle of keys, I decided to move to the couch. I sat with my back to the armrest and crossed my ankles. At the last minute, I decided to do something even more daring. I slipped to my knees on the sheepskin rug in front of the sofa and put my hands behind my back.
When the door opened, I sucked in a breath. I was really doing this. James strode in like he always did, dropping his keys on the table where I’d set the shaker of martinis. Then his head jerked in my direction. The minute our gazes connected, I knew I’d made the right choice.
A wickedly charming smile curved his lips. “Well, hello,” he said. “What’s going on?”
“It’s our anniversary,” I said, as I stood and twirled, “and I’m your present.”