He stared at her, the expression on his face utterly unreadable. But the taut stillness in the air around him wasn’t. He was royally pissed, and like a lion he was poised to attack.
With a certain amount of deliberation, he pushed back his chair and rose to his feet. “And why the fuck would I want to do that?”
“Because I asked.” Then, hating the way he loomed over her, she stood up too, holding his gaze, daring him to do his worst.
For one impossible, stretched-out minute, a silence filled the room. The kind of silence that happened before a storm broke or the instant before an earthquake.
Then Levi was moving, kicking aside the chair with one booted foot so it skittered across the floor and hit the wall. He skirted around the side of the table in a slow, intent stalk that had her heart racing.
Dimly, a small, primitive part of her brain screamed a warning, but she ignored it. She wasn’t going to run, not from Levi. Not this time.
He came closer and closer, the expression on his face intent, and her heart battered itself against her ribs. She had no idea why the fear inside her felt like excitement, because none of this should be exciting. All she should be feeling was rage.
Yet when his hand came up and slid around her throat, his palm lying heavy and hot on the pulse at the base of her neck, it wasn’t only rage she felt, but something else. A thrill that shot straight down between her legs.
Jesus Christ. He had his hand on her throat, and yet all she felt was . . . turned on? What the hell was wrong with her?
She inhaled sharply, but his grip was firm and it didn’t hurt, didn’t choke. She could breathe.
“And why the fuck,” Levi said quietly, his tone rough with menace, “would I give you anything you asked for?”
The thrill inside her deepened. Her throat had closed up, and it wasn’t to do with his grip. It was the heat of his hand, the aching awareness of his fingers on her skin, and the dominant way he was holding her. She didn’t want to be aware of any of that, but she was. She couldn’t seem to help it.
With gentle, inexorable strength, Levi walked her backwards until she hit the wall behind her, then, still holding her throat, he leaned in close, his body almost covering hers, his mouth near her ear. “This isn’t about what you want, Rachel. Remember?”
His hand was a hot, iron collar around her throat, his body a wall of heated muscle at her front, the smell of his aftershave like a drug. She wanted to shove him away just so she could breathe, but she was afraid to touch him. Not because of what he might do, but because she wasn’t sure of her own reaction. “Kick out Sugar Ink if you have to,” she forced out, her voice croaky. “I don’t care. But if you want me, you’ll give me that damn building.”
There was a moment’s taut silence, and then Levi pulled back, staring at her.
Shadows moved in the depths of his eyes, currents of heat and darkness. Desire and fury. The lines of his perfect features hardening.
She’d pushed him, maybe too far. But it was too late now. She needed something from this. She had to have it. She wasn’t going to put herself through this and walk away with nothing.
Sure, he could refuse, and then she’d have to figure out where to go from there, but until then, it was worth the gamble.
It all depended on how badly he wanted her.
Levi’s hand dropped from her throat, and he stepped back, the sudden loss of his touch a shock. “Take off your dress,” he ordered flatly.
It took a moment for it to sink in. He wasn’t refusing.
She straightened against the wall, staring at him. “Does that mean—”
“Take off your fucking dress. I’m not going to ask again.”
No, he was going to say it. She would make him. “The words, Levi. Give me the goddamn words. Or else this dress is staying on.”
That menace, that danger, was back. It glittered in his eyes, thickened the atmosphere in the room. And it made that trembling, excited part of her lie down and roll over in surrender.
“Fine,” he said coldly at last. “You can have the fucking building.”
She didn’t smile; that would have been pushing things too far. But she allowed herself a tiny sliver of satisfaction all the same. Then she stepped away from the wall and reached behind her for the zipper of the dress, pulling it down, then shrugging out of the fabric, letting it slide down her hips and thighs until it pooled at her feet. Kicking it to one side.
She hadn’t worn a bra—not when the dress left one shoulder bare—so all she wore was the black lace thong she’d put on earlier and her black platform Mary Janes.
Then she got rid of the thong too.
It wasn’t cold, but his gaze roaming over her made her shiver and her nipples harden.
She looked away, down at the floor, imagining the sun on her skin and the sand under her feet, distancing herself both from him and from all the sensations she didn’t want to feel.
There was a long silence.
“You don’t want to look at me?” Levi murmured. “Fine. You don’t have to.”
His footsteps retreated, and, when she glanced up, she saw him going over to the kitchen area and pulling open a drawer. He took something out, something white, and then returned to where she stood.
“Turn around,” he instructed, his voice hard.
She turned without hesitation, already pulling away from the situation, not letting it touch her.
And then something white and soft was laid over her eyes.
She tensed in shock, her hands going to the piece of material that Levi had put over her face. “What the hell?”
The material tightened as he knotted it behind her head. “I’m blindfolding you.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to.” His hands settled on her hips, pulling her hard against the heat of his body, the buttons of his jeans digging into the small of her back. “Because I know what you’re trying to do.”
Her heart lurched, a sinking sensation in her gut.
“That’s right,” he murmured in her ear. “You’re trying to keep me at a distance, turn this into some kind of transaction, right? Well, I’m not going to let you. This is not a fucking transaction, and there will be no goddamn distance. I’m going to make you feel, Sunny. I’m going to make you beg. I’m going to make you fucking scream.”
Chapter 10
She had no time to protest the use of that name, no time to protest the blindfold. No time to figure out how he knew what she’d been thinking or even hold out against that fiercely stated intention.
One minute he had his hands on her hips; the next, her world was tipping sideways as he swept her up into his arms, gathering her close to his chest. Then he was walking, and she thought he was carrying her back through into the living area, though she wasn’t quite sure until he bent and she was deposited onto something cool. Leather, which meant the couch in the living room.
Her heartbeat was a loud drum in her head, her whole body starting to shake.
She didn’t want to feel. That had been the point of the last eight years. That was the reason she’d made herself into who she was now. So she didn’t have to feel the hurt or the guilt or the grief. Or the shame and humiliation.
So she could be hard. Cold. Sharp.
Like the roses etched into her skin, she’d been forged in pain. And, like them, nothing would erase her; nothing would wash her away. Fragile-seeming blossoms that were nevertheless permanent.
Nothing could crush her. Nothing could tear her apart.
Except Levi. He can do both.
No. She couldn’t let him. She just wouldn’t.
His hands were hot on her shoulders, pushing her back onto the couch so she was lying stretched out on it. And then the cushions dipped as he put one hand near her head, rough denim rubbing against her skin as one powerful thigh eased between hers. Then he eased his other knee there too, so her legs were forced apart, held spread open on either side of his.
“Hands above your head.”<
br />
She was breathing fast, trying to visualize the waves of her beach and not feel the desperate vulnerability opening up inside her, the ache of a desire that was getting too big to ignore.
Clearly she hadn’t moved fast enough because suddenly his big, warm hands were taking her wrists and lifting them, putting her arms up and back on the soft, cool leather of the couch. “Keep them there.” Another flat, hard order.
Rachel took a deep, silent breath. She could do this. Sure, last time, up against the wall, she’d lost her head, but she wouldn’t now.
Levi trailed his hand down the length of her body, from her throat down between her breasts, over the trembling plane of her stomach, and farther still, through the curls at the apex of her thighs and down to cup her sex. The wake of fire that followed the touch of his fingers made her skin tighten and the breath catch in her throat.
“You’re going to have to beg for your orgasm, Sunny,” he said softly, using that name again, the one that hurt so much. “You’re going to have to want it. And not because I told you to, but because you’ll die if you don’t come. Understand?” That name might have hurt, but his hand didn’t as it moved from her sex, trailing back up to her throat, then down again in a long, easy stroke. “I want you to say my name.” His fingers were unexpectedly gentle, warm as they brushed her skin, stroking her like a cat, awakening every single nerve ending she had. “I want to hear it all desperate and sobbing.”
The heel of his hand pressed down slightly on her clit, an electric shock of sensation, making her breath catch. Then he shifted it in a gentle grinding motion, increasing the intensity of the sensation.
She tried to swallow, but there was no moisture left in her mouth. The movement of his hand was light, but insistent, making the deep, dragging ache between her thighs get fiercer.
It was such an exposed position to be in, with her arms over her head and her legs spread around his. He must be able to see everything. It made her want to turn her head away, run and hide.
You’re lying on the sand. The sun is on your face, and you feel like going for a swim because you’re hot.
Yes, she was. So goddamn hot. Because the pressure on her clit kept changing, his hand moving in small, hard circles, making her hips shift restlessly, trying to relieve it.
“This feels good, doesn’t it?” There was a soft, dark note in his voice, one she’d never heard before. Full of sensual heat and smoky desire. “I can tell. You’re moving around, wanting to rub against me, aren’t you?”
She stared into the blackness behind her blindfold, trying to see the waves and the sand. Trying to be there, not here, but the terrible, insistent pressure between her thighs kept growing, kept pulling her out of her fantasy.
“Y-yes,” she stuttered, because that was clearly the answer he wanted, and, if she gave that to him faster, then this would be over faster.
But then he shifted, the pressure of his hand easing. And yet that didn’t make the ache any less intense. If anything, it only made it worse.
His hands were on the insides of her thighs, pushing them farther apart, increasing her sense of exposure. She tensed in instinctive resistance, but he ignored her, pushing her thighs even wider.
Stop. You’re letting this get to you.
Oh God, she was. And she really needed to keep thinking of that fucking beach, but it wasn’t working. Why the hell wasn’t it working?
Her breathing was coming faster now, his palms burning against the inside of her thighs, holding them apart. “You keep running away from me, Sunny. I can feel it. But that ends tonight, understand? I don’t want you running from me anymore.” One of his hands moved, and then his fingers were sliding through the folds of her sex like they had that night in Gideon’s office, a slow, leisurely caress.
And yet there was nothing slow about the pleasure that exploded in the darkness behind her blindfold, a cascade of violent sparks that seared her already sensitive nerve endings, and she had to bite her lower lip hard to prevent the ragged gasp from escaping. But somehow the sound got trapped in her throat, releasing in a low groan.
The cushions beside her head dipped again, and she felt Levi move, the heat of his body along hers as he leaned over her, his breath against her throat. “Christ, I’ve wanted to touch you for so long,” he whispered. “Wanted to stroke that pretty little pussy of yours, feel your cunt all hot and tight around my fingers.” His hand shifted, one finger slowly, gently, circling the entrance to her body, around and around. “Tell me you want that too, Sunny. Say it.”
Her head was shaking in denial almost before he’d finished speaking. Because she didn’t want that. She really didn’t. Pleasure threatened everything; it cracked the armor and made all those other feelings she hated slide in through the fissures. The painful feelings that tainted everything, that made her feel worthless.
Well, isn’t that what you are? Worthless?
His finger was relentless, circling and circling, making her back arch and her hips lift toward the touch, as if he was right, as if she craved more.
No, she damn well wasn’t worthless. That was fucking pathetic. She was strong, and she was stronger than this.
The teasing finger stopped. She felt his breath against her throat and then his mouth. Then his teeth as he bit her, a gentle pressure, not hard enough to hurt, but enough to send a jolt arcing through her. And this time the sound escaped her before she could stop it, a shuddering gasp of shock that ended on a harsh cry as he followed up the bite with two fingers thrusting deep into her pussy.
She shuddered, the scalpel-sharp edge of pleasure beginning to peel her open, cutting through her ridiculous beach fantasy as if it were made of tissue.
He licked her, then bit her again, his thumb finding her clit, his fingers pushing deeper. She gave a sob, her hips lifting into his hands, her body wanting more even if she didn’t.
“Come on, sweetheart,” Levi murmured, husky and hot in her ear. “Don’t hold out on me. Give me the words.” He drew his hand back, his fingers withdrawing before pushing in deep again, driving that sharp, piercing edge of pleasure against her skin.
His thumb stroked over her clit, and another sob collected in her throat, because it felt so good.
His mouth was trailing down her throat, his tongue on her skin, licking her. “You want it. I can feel it.” His breath was hot against her breast now. “God, I love how you’re all hot and so fucking wet.” He thrust again with his hand as if to illustrate the point, his fingers slow and slick inside her. “But you’re holding back, and I’m not going to let you.” His thumb circled, everything inside her drawing into a tight, aching knot. “I had eight years of being alone. All those nights I thought about you. All that time I missed you. It was too long, Sunshine. Far too long. And now I want it. I want you. Let me in, sweetheart.”
She was shaking, trying to resist the thread of emotion in his dark voice. An emotion that wasn’t cold or distant this time, but hot, ragged, pulling at her. Yet something in her wouldn’t let her surrender. And she didn’t know why, only that to give in would be to destroy herself.
Hot, wet heat around her nipple. The pressure of suction drawing hard on her, adding a layer to the almost unbearable pleasure. His fingers slowing, the circular movement of his thumb on her clit matching the tempo.
“You promised me,” he whispered against her breast. “You promised me you’d give me this.”
She had promised. In return for her building she would give him this.
A simple transaction. Just like the one she’d had with Evan.
But this isn’t Evan.
Her throat tightened, her eyes prickling as realization knifed through her. She’d been lying to herself. Of course this could never be a simple transaction to her. Of course it couldn’t. Because it wasn’t Evan. It was Levi, and that made everything different.
Levi, who hated her. Levi, her enemy.
Who’d missed her.
And now his thumb was on her and his fingers insi
de her, pleasure undermining her resistance, desire making her desperate. And it was wrong to feel this way, so goddamn wrong, but she couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t hold it back any longer.
Sensation was swamping her, drowning her, overwhelming all the barriers she’d erected, closing the distance.
The pad of his thumb did another slow, aching circle, and this time she couldn’t stop the words coming out of her. “Oh God . . . please . . . Levi . . .” His name sounded as if it had a hundred cracks running through it, the truth pouring out of each and every one.
“Yes. Tell me, Rachel.” The dark satisfaction in his tone made her forget everything she’d told herself. Shattered the fantasy of her stupid beach as if it had never been. All that she was aware of was the touch of his hand, his heat, and the rough sound of his voice in the flaming blackness behind her blindfold.
“I want you.” It spilled out of her, just like it had before when he’d had her up against the wall and she’d pleaded.
“What do you want me to do?” His fingers spread apart inside her, stretching her, making her arch her back in ecstasy.
“I want your hands on me,” she gasped, trembling, hardly even aware of what she was saying. “I want your mouth. I w-want you to make me come.”
Everything went quiet except for the sound of her panting breaths, so loud in the silence.
Then she felt him shift, the hands on her body falling away, the feel of his breath moving away from her breast. But he didn’t get off the couch; the rough denim of his jeans stayed against her thighs.
“Don’t stop,” she whispered, caught in the grip of a hunger so intense she could hardly breathe. “Please don’t—”
“I won’t. Just tell me who you want.”
“Y-you.”
His hands were on her thighs, gripping her. “My name. I want to hear it.” There was a ragged edge to his voice now, an edge of desperation.
“I want you, Levi.” It came out hoarsely, but she didn’t care. Not now.
“Yes. Fuck yes.” He was pushing her legs apart even wider, his fingers trailing through her slick folds. “And this, all of this is mine, isn’t it? You’re mine.”
Wrong for Me Page 15