by Angel Payne
He took a heavy breath. There was nothing convenient about this. There was nothing about this that was easy, lucky, auspicious, or advantageous—because there wasn’t a goddamn thing he could do in this place, with this woman who looked at him with her magical indigo eyes and her luscious lip caught in her teeth, that wouldn’t haunt them both in the end. The only thing missing to this ongoing torture session was the itchy silver T-shirt, which he gladly ditched in a trash can.
I’m not even her Mr. Right Now.
The words had come out of his mouth, yet he hated them. He turned his hands into fists with the longing to crush them out of existence. And fought back at them with the vicious snarl he threw at her.
“So what the hell are you still doing here? Lemare didn’t offer a lift back in his Lamborghini? Or was he slumming it in the Rolls Royce today?”
Her eyes flashed, but he couldn’t tell if she was peeved or hurt. “I came in my own car. And I was waiting on you.”
Hmm. Peeved and hurt. Where was the Chinese symbol for I’m a jerk-ass when a guy needed it? And why did he care? She clearly didn’t. The path he’d yearned to take to her heart had been blazed and shit on twice already, so she roped off the lane before he had a chance to start. The best thing he could do now was his goddamn job, to get Ephraim Lor out of her life before she decided to let down the barrier for his slick, smarmy ass.
“Why?” he finally challenged.
“Because…” She let out a petite, and damnably cute, snort. “Because I’m concerned about you.”
“Why?”
“I’m not fucking Lemare.”
He was both troubled and grateful for the relief that flooded him. “Thanks for the status update, but you still didn’t answer my question. Why are you ‘concerned’ about me?”
She dropped her gaze to the floor. “You’ve seemed sad.”
The confession stopped him cold. And for some reason, made him want to laugh. “Sad?” His voice went quiet as he took a step toward her, though it was a compulsion more than a decision. He was fascinated by why she’d said it. And by why there was such a melancholy note in her own voice.
“Uhh…yeah. Like your head’s not all here most of the time.”
Hell. Was she actually worried about him? God, not now. He fought against the husk of her voice, the somber oceans in her gaze. “I’m not your concern anymore Ava, remember? You told me it was for the best. We had ‘closure.’” He bracketed the last word in sardonic air quotes.
She straightened her spine. “So that means I can’t care at all about you? That we can’t still be friends?”
“We’re not friends!” He hurled it back the second it left the incredible curves of her mouth. “From the second we knocked noses on the floor at Garrett and Sage’s, we weren’t friends, Ava. You know it as clearly as I do, and don’t you dare put it into pretty words to make yourself feel better. This”—he raced a finger between his chest and hers—“isn’t words. And it sure as hell isn’t ‘friends.’” As much as he longed to let that serve as their finality, the tears that gleamed in her eyes were like beacons, pulling him closer until the curves of her jaw were fitted between his hands and her cheeks were warm, wonderful, and soft beneath his combat-roughened thumbs. “I know it’s hard for you. I know you still carry the ache from what happened with Colin and Flynn and that you don’t think you can handle a third blow. So don’t. Let me take the hit instead. But goddamnit, don’t cheapen it by slapping on a label that isn’t true and never will be.”
She drew in a shaky breath. He felt every shudder of it. “I won’t use the label,” she whispered, “but you can’t take all the pain.” She squeezed her eyes. The salty drops fell and puddled against his fingers. “It’s impossible.”
Against every instinct of survival he possessed, he shifted closer to her. The smart pad on her lap slipped to the floor. He stepped in again, pressing their bodies together. Dear God, she was so sweet, so silken, so right. “I’m Special Forces, sunshine. We specialize in impossible.”
Her eyes darkened even more, pulling him down like dual whirlpools of her raw emotion. “You can’t take away something that’s already sewn into my heart.”
Her words heated the few inches left between their mouths. As Ethan bent to close up that space, he let his senses cave to a single, inexorable certainty. If his heart was killed tonight in her hands, then so be it. It wasn’t a bad way to commit suicide.
He didn’t say a word about the decision. He let her see it in his eyes—in the two seconds before he crushed her mouth in his conquering kiss.
Chapter Eighteen
Yes.
It was the only word, the only thought that filled Ava’s being as Ethan filled her mouth, ignited her blood, accepted her tears…consumed her heart. With a surrendering sigh, she gave it all to him. Opened herself for him. Rejoiced in the completion of his embrace, the rightness of his kiss, the heat of his passion. One moment, this perfect moment, and the world fell away. It was as if they stood in a magical forest again and he was touching her for the very first time. Just like that misty morning, she lifted her face and offered him one word in supplication.
“Tighter.” She guided his hands down, against the small of her back, before wriggling her wrists inside them. “I need it tighter, Ethan…please.”
A growl rolled out of him in degrees that matched his constriction around her wrists. He dipped his head and sank possessive teeth into her throat, chopping her aroused sigh in half. “What else do you need?” He spoke it against her jugular before lapping away the burn of his bite with the flat of his tongue.
Her head fell back and her lungs struggled to keep up with her racing pulse. “You…you already know,” she uttered. After a purposeful pause, she added, “Sir.”
He squeezed her wrists harder. “If you’re going there, sunshine, then you’ll go the rest of the way—and you’ll tell me, clearly and proudly, what you need from me.”
Every syllable he issued sent a new wave of arousal through every inch of her pussy, unfurling ribbons of fire down her legs. But gee, it all still found ways to lend some of that heat to her face, which flamed anew from his command. She flushed deeper as he brushed his mouth across both her cheeks, gazing at her with unflinching purpose, unmitigated desire.
“I need the words, Ava. Six days ago, you called us closed. I’m not going back in unless you open the door.”
She lifted her gaze to look fully into his. She had to see in there what she’d heard in his voice. The visceral need. The brutal honesty. That “going back in” wasn’t just a physical action for him. He wasn’t just summoning the obedience of her body. If she opened again to him, he’d demand access to the bridges of her mind, the connections to her soul.
As if she could give him anything less.
She longed to preface her next words by stroking his strong, perfect face. With his hands binding hers, she did it with her eyes instead. “I’ve never been able to fully close it. And I think you know that too…Sir.”
For a long moment, nothing in his mien changed—until he let out a long breath through his nose. Its cadence told her he’d not only heard her honesty but absorbed it, cherished it.
Ava smiled as he slowly lowered his lips to hers again. Her heart crashed against her ribs. The last time he’d kissed her with this tenderness, they’d been picking wedding bouquet flowers in the woods. Just like then, his embrace filled her with a thrill of awakening…and desire old as the ages. Also like then, his muscles coiled from the pressure to keep the pressure chaste. It was all too easy to remember what she did next…the tiny cry she’d released into his mouth, telling him the gentleness wasn’t what she craved, wasn’t what her body and soul needed. That in his arms and beneath his control, she longed for more. So much more.
She didn’t let out the cry for him now. She gave him a full moan.
Ethan responded with a harsh growl—before ramming her mouth wide and plunging his tongue in.
She gave him access to
everything. And he began to take. As he incinerated her with his mouth, he unlocked her hands to tear his hands beneath her skirt, feverishly searching for her panties. Ava took advantage of the chance to touch him in return, scraping the massive plateaus of his naked shoulders, gripping his biceps at the moment he coiled them to tear off her underthings. Her mouth fell free from his as she gasped in shock and panted in lust. That didn’t stop her from watching the mesmerizing tension of his face while he slid a hand beneath her shirt, seized her bra clasp, and twisted it apart in one ferocious move. Inside a second, her breasts sizzled with the same hot exhilaration as the rest of her body. Dios mio, nobody had made her feel like this before her clothes even left her body.
She drew in a breath, shivering in anticipation of the kiss that was sure to follow, but found herself trembling instead. He’d pushed her back by a step and now raked her from head to toe with eyes that held fathoms of cobalt hunger. He’d dropped his arms but flexed his fingers. His mouth parted to reveal the feral lock of his brilliant teeth.
“Take it off,” he ordered in a rough, low voice. “Every last stitch.”
Another shiver washed over her. Instinctively she wet her lips, causing him to pull in a harsh hiss. It made her feel gorgeous and powerful, even while she acquiesced to his order, pushing away her dress and her bra until they tumbled to her feet.
“The shoes too,” he instructed. After she stepped from her pumps, he released another rasp. Softer this time but longer. So much longer. “Dear Christ,” he murmured. “I really am bound for hell.”
The exigency in his voice made her brave again. She gave him a tentative smile. “Why?”
He stopped flexing his hands. With his long fingers extended out instead, he advanced on her by a step. “Because of everything I just imagined doing to your beautiful body.” With one of those hands, he pulled at her hair, guiding her head up. “And your incredible mind.”
Right. Some “incredible” mind. Only one word pulsed through the neurons beneath her skull, screaming at her for release. She set it free once more, turning it into a desperate plea this time.
“Yes…yes.”
Ethan’s face tightened. His wolf-bright eyes searched her face. “Yes what?”
“Do them,” she returned. “All of those wicked things.” She swallowed hard. “If you’re going to hell, then take me with you.”
His grip curled harder against her scalp. He leaned in closer, now pressing the prominent ridge in his leathers into the space between her lower ribs. “You need to know everything you’re asking for, sunshine.” He firmed his jaw and locked his gaze with hers. “I haven’t fucked Bella this week.”
He acknowledged her surprise with a sweep of his free hand, grabbing hers and pushing it against the erection that throbbed heavier with each minute. “But if you beg me to dominate you again, if the word yes leaves your lips one more time”—he turned her to make her look at the bondage bed, with its hooks and chains and shadows—“then I will be inside you tonight…probably in several different ways.”
His promise filled her with as much fear as it did arousal. Looking at the bed, practically seeing the scene his mind painted for her in it, was daunting, terrifying…and wholly irresistible.
He’d control her. And she’d let him.
He’d penetrate her. And she’d permit him.
He’d hurt her. And she’d adore him.
Her mind spun. Her body trembled. She took one last breath of sanity and then let it out, giving into the madness with a grateful whisper.
“Yes.”
For a long moment, Ethan didn’t move. He kept one hand braced on her hip, the other wound in her hair. His body remained a powerful but motionless tower behind her.
Ava gulped, unsteady and unsure. Was she supposed to do something else now? Drop to her knees? Call him Sir? Say some weird submissive oath of fealty?
“Ssshhhh.”
His admonishment came so softly, she almost thought it was a rush of wind against the building. She frowned and tried to pivot her head around. “Wh-What?”
He seized her harder, keeping her locked in place. “Sssshhh.” It was a harsh slice off his lips now, released into her ear before he ran his teeth along the length of her lobe. “Quiet it all down, baby. Your thoughts are so loud you can’t hear your feelings.” His hands finally relaxed, the top one kneading her head, the bottom caressing her stomach, her breasts, her hips. Again into her ear, he coaxed, “There’s no right. There’s no wrong. There’s only you, surrendering to me. Everything. All of it.”
He curled his fingers, scoring her skin with his nails, dissolving her insecurities into dust. “Yes, Sir,” she finally said with a sigh.
He clawed her harder and charged, “No. I don’t expect your Yes, Sirs tonight either. I expect your obedience, without hesitation or argument. Call a red light if we hit one, but other than that, you will simply be.”
While her mind was a tornado in her attempt to comprehend that, she managed a little nod. “Yes, S—”
He bit into the flesh just below her ear. “That protocol begins now, sunshine.”
It was the hardest damn thing in the world to simply still herself, to let him take over. And mierda, he did just that.
Though maintaining his position behind her, he widened his stance and pulled her tighter back, pressing her into the frame of his leather-clad legs. The ensuing minutes were torture and paradise combined. There wasn’t an inch of her arms, breasts, stomach, or thighs that he didn’t explore with worshipful slides, glides, and strokes, setting her skin ablaze with steady purpose.
That was the utopia part. The damnation came every time he got anywhere near the juncture of her thighs—and passed over it with nothing but feathery touches to her pubic curls. By the time he did that for the tenth time, she nearly bucked against him in frustration, chewing her bottom lip to stay dutifully silent.
Ethan’s beard stubble grazed her nape as he settled his lips against her ear again. “Go to the bed now,” he directed. “Get in the middle, facing the headboard, and kneel for me there.”
At this point, she would’ve done it even if the bed was lined with hot coals.
After eagerly climbing onto the firm red leather, she took the pose he’d ordered. Through enough of her dabblings into the nature of submission, she remembered that subs often honored their Doms by turning their hands upward, resting atop their thighs, signifying their willing acquiescence to the dynamic. Doing it now made her feel strange yet peaceful…exactly where she was supposed to be, with the man she most wanted to be here with.
More of her doubts slipped away. She focused completely on listening to Ethan, who now shifted in the room behind her. He opened the cabinet against the wall and gave a number of approving hums. She heard items clinking together, the whoosh of leather through the air. She visibly shivered, and he audibly chuckled. Gorgeous, sadistic bastard. Did he think he could mess with her mind by making her listen to him play with the toys behind her back?
It was working.
Her heart thudded harder. Her womb clenched tighter. Her pussy dripped wetter. If she could draw any reassurance from the horny mess, she realized that at least he couldn’t see any of those things—or take advantage of them.
Or so she thought.
He moved up behind her again. Climbed right up on the bed, grazing the back of her head with the ridges of his abdomen, nudging her neck with the tight mound at the front of his leathers. She barely resisted the temptation to turn her head, press her lips against that prominent swell, and beg him to unzip so she could taste his flesh once more.
In hindsight, maybe that was exactly what she should have done.
Ethan reached around and took hold of both her forearms, totally ruining her pose. He pulled until she was in an upright kneel instead of the butt-on-ankles position in which she’d just been. More significantly, he didn’t stop lifting on her arms until she looked overhead, suddenly realizing his purpose. A two-in-one leather cuff dangl
ed from a chain suspended between the bed’s support beams. He didn’t hesitate about cinching her into it, the middle strap serving to tighten the clasps for both her wrists.
Her mind immediately went for some snarky Spanish slang, countering her massive uneasiness at being so suddenly exposed for him. With a deep inhalation, she quelled the outburst. Though she was still unnerved, she also found herself immersed in a strange peace. She made her living being worried about how things looked all the time, about how elements got placed, lighted, presented. She couldn’t remember the last time none of that was a concern. It freed her senses to actually experience details instead of analyzing them. The cool air against her nude skin, tickling the insides of her thighs as she widened her knees for better balance. The smell in the air, redolent with steel and smoke and sex. The rough soughs of Ethan’s leathers as he moved again, swirling his hands across all the planes of her body as he examined her from every angle with those dark, wild eyes.
“Goddamn,” he murmured, tracing the edges of her ribcage with the tips of his fingers. “You’re so beautiful like this. So perfect.” He bent and kissed the hollow between her breasts. “So mine.”
She hoped he heard the heartbeat that crashed beneath his lips…the Yes, Sir she yearned to exclaim until it filled every corner of this room. She willed the force of it into her gaze as he looked back to her face, his own features gripped with such intensity, he made her pussy wetter just by looking at him.
Of course, the man discerned that fact nearly before she did. With a rogue’s quirk to his lips and a demon’s glint in his eyes, he glided a hand to the tissues that were so available for his touch now. A slow hum prowled up his throat as he explored her soaked folds and then finally slipped a finger into the depths of her vagina.
“Ahhh,” she keened softly. It didn’t count as a word, did it? Dear God, how she wanted to say more. Beg him for more. Plead for more of the tantalizing strokes he gave to her intimate walls, drawing out more of her moisture and heat. She kept it all back by clenching her teeth, a visible battle that earned her his wicked half grin.