Just in Time (Escape to New Zealand Book 8)

by James, Rosalind

  “We’ve got a booking just now, though,” he said. “We’ll bring back a takeaway for the match,” he thought to add. “Be back about seven.”

  “We will?” Faith asked. “You didn’t say—”

  “Saying now, aren’t I. And we’re late.”

  She was still talking when he got her through the door into their bedroom. “You didn’t tell me we were going somewhere today. I’d have gotten this done sooner.”

  “Didn’t know myself. Call it spontaneous.”

  “I need to change, then,” she said, brushing at her jeans. “Outdoors or indoors? Dress up or down?”

  He pulled out the drawer of his bedside table, took out a few packets, and shoved them into his pocket. “The dress code for this,” he informed her, “is naked. Except that you can grab those undies with the bow on them. You’re going to need those.”

  He could see her shudder, because that was just how easy she was. Exactly as easy as him.

  “Are we going—” she began.

  “Yeh. We are. We’re going to a motel. Someplace where I can put you anywhere I want to, do anything I need to, and you can make as much noise as you have to, and nobody’s going to be knocking at the door. I told Kuia we needed some privacy, remember? Turns out I meant it. Because there’s so much more we need to do.”

  Red Ribbon

  He drove for less than ten minutes, but something had changed. His face was set, his expression intense, and he didn’t say a word, other than a curt “Wait,” before he left her in the car and went into a motel office.

  He came out of it again a few minutes later, and was pulling around into a parking spot near a corner unit. “Let’s go,” he said, pulling the key from the ignition and opening the door.

  “Will. Could you—”

  “Could I what?”

  “Could you talk to me? Please? I’m getting—” She stopped, then started again. “I’m getting really nervous.” She tried to laugh, but couldn’t. “You seem so…different. What are you planning to do here?”

  “Aw, baby.” He leaned across, cupped her cheek in his hand, and kissed her, long and deep, and she was melting against the seat, her hand going to the back of his strong neck, caressing him there.

  He pulled back at last and smiled at her. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m going to make love to you, that’s all. It may get a wee bit intense, because I’ve had some…fantasies, and I have to leave in a couple days, and—” He stroked his hand down her cheek, the gentlest of caresses. “It’s feeling pretty strong just now. And I don’t know what you’ve done before. I know what you put on that short list of yours, and I’ve wondered a bit about that. About how much came from you. I’m guessing, but I don’t know. So if I start anything that’s too much for you, tell me so, and I’ll stop. I can’t promise I won’t push, but we’re not going to do anything you don’t want. That I do promise.”

  She swallowed. “All right. But I don’t want to…tell you so.”

  “Mm.” He still had her face in his hand, and now he kissed her again, his mouth so sure against hers. “You like the command in me.”

  “Yes.” She turned her cheek into his hand. “Yes.”

  “Then I’d better see what I can do about that. Let’s get out of this car and get started, eh.”

  How could she still be nervous after he’d said all that? Anyway, this was Will, and she knew Will. So she grabbed her purse, got out of the car, and followed him into the room.

  “Think we’d better get into the shower first, don’t you?” he said, sounding exactly like Will again. “Wash all that cleaning stuff off us? Get clean, since we’re going to get so dirty later? Tell you what. You go on in there, and I’ll join you in a minute.”

  “Oh. All right.” It was exactly like her scene. Except it wasn’t. It was just a shower. She went into the bathroom and got undressed, trying to calm her racing heart. It’s just sex. Just good sex with Will, like you had yesterday. And last night.

  Fantasies, though. What fantasies?

  Five minutes later, she was in the shower, a huge stone-tiled thing with showerheads at either end. She turned both of them on, and was being pelted from both sides, shivering and gasping at the sensation, hundreds of individual streams of warm water hitting her sensitized flesh.

  The rattle of rings, the shower curtain flying back, and he was in there with her. “Our second shower together,” he told her over the sound of the spray. “But this time, we’re doing it slow. And we’re doing it right.”

  “What do you mean, right?”

  She expected him to kiss her again, but he didn’t, just picked up a bottle of body wash and poured some into his hands. “Turn around,” he said. “Put your hands against the wall.”

  Oh, God. It was her story. And she did it. She turned and pressed her palms against the tile, and Will was behind her, brushing her hair around so the nape of her neck was bare, and then his teeth were biting hard into the side of her neck. She gasped and lifted her hands from the wall in surprise, and he let go of her, just like that, and she moaned a little at the loss of him.

  “Put them back,” he told her.

  She did it, even though they were trembling, because his teeth were there again, holding her, and his hands had come around to her breasts. Soap-slicked and strong, kneading and teasing, pinching and pulling at her nipples until she squirmed and moaned.

  “That’s right,” he said. “Oh, yeh. That’s it. Keep showing me that.” He was pressed up close behind her, and she could feel how much he wanted her. Even so, he kept on, biting her neck again until her forehead was against the tile as well, her hips pushing back into him. Until she was liquid with need for him, burning to feel his hands on her. Where she needed him. Where she was melting for him.

  “Touch me,” she begged, because she couldn’t stand it any more. “Please. Touch me.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so. I think I’ll make you work for it this time.”

  “Wh-what?”

  He had a wrist in each hand, was pulling them down, and when she jerked back in surprise, he told her, “Hold still.”

  She did, even as she felt him pull her hands behind her back. And then something was wrapping around them, again and again.

  “Ah,” he said, the satisfaction dark and deep in his voice. “Oh, yeh. Turn around.”

  He supported her while she did, because her legs were a bit shaky now, then reached over and turned off the faucet behind her. “It’s time to get on your knees, sweetheart, because this next bit’s yours.”

  She should be upset that her hands were tied behind her back. She knew she should. But he was breathing hard, too, standing there in front of her, big and naked and so strong, his broad back being pounded by the spray. He was looking at her, at the way her breasts were thrust out by her position, and he had his hands on them, was weighing them, playing with her nipples, then bending to take one into his mouth and sucking hard, and she was leaning back against the tile again with a gasp and letting him do it. Not that she had a choice, not with her hands pulled behind her back.

  He stood up again, but kept his thumbs on her sensitized nipples, pinched them again, made her twist and moan in response. “A bit surprised about the ribbon, eh,” he said.

  “Uh…yeah,” she managed to say. “I didn’t know—where it had gone.”

  “Went into my pocket, and I’ve been waiting all this time to use it again the way I wanted to. And this time, I’m not going to waste it. So…if you want to do this, get on your knees for me.”

  She did want to do it. So dangerously close to the edge, exactly as dangerously thrilling. She wanted to do it all. Everything he said. Everything.

  He had to hold her arms to help her, without her hands to support her on the slippery floor. The air was full of steam, the water pelted down against him and around her, and his hands were wrapping in her hair, pulling her into him, guiding her.

  He still hadn’t kissed her, she realized fuzzily. He’d just told her
what to do, and she’d obeyed. Just like she was obeying him now. Letting him move her head, direct her, pushing just to the edge. Just this side of too far, and she loved it.

  And then it all stopped. He shut off the water, sank down to his knees with her, and pulled her toward him, held her up, and kissed her, long and deep. His tongue where he had been, the taste of him still in her mouth.

  “I’m not going to untie you,” he told her when he pulled back at last, when her eyes had opened again to find him looking down at her, his expression so fierce, the warrior showing strong now. “Not unless you tell me to. But I’m going to tell you something. The whole day I had Gretchen like this? I wanted it to be you.”

  She shivered, and he saw it, had his hands around her upper arms, and was pulling her to her feet. “Come on. Let’s get you dry.”

  Once again, he was toweling her off with heated towels from the rack, and this time, all she could do was stand passively and let him do it. He grabbed a glass from the sink, poured it full of water, put an arm around her, and lifted it to her mouth.

  “Drink,” he said, and she did, gratefully, leaning into his warm side. “You all right?”

  She nodded. She could have talked, but something about having her wrists tied had changed something in her, too. She felt how much she was under his control, and she loved it.

  He seemed to know it, because he smiled. “Yeh. Feels good, doesn’t it?” He bent and kissed her again, his mouth so gentle this time, his hand cupping her cheek. “Feels just that good to me, too, baby,” he whispered. “Just that good. Want to see what else we can do?”

  “Yes.” She managed to get that much out. “Please.”

  He kept his arm around her, led her out into the bedroom. Another king-sized bed with white linens. When they got there, he put a hand on her shoulder, turned her again, and untied the wet ribbon from around her wrists.

  “Oh,” she said.

  “Don’t worry.” He lifted her face for another kiss, one big thumb stroking her cheek. “You’re going to keep it on. But you can’t be on your back with your hands behind you, can you? And I need you on your back. So get on the bed.” He pushed her hair behind her ear with a gentle hand. “Corner to corner. Go on and do it, now.”

  She looked up at him, and then, slowly, she got onto the bed.

  When she was on her back, positioned the way he wanted, he asked, “Remember when I tied your hands in that shop, and you asked me how it looked on you?”

  She drank in the sight of him standing over her holding that red ribbon. Every fantasy she’d had for the past six months, and here he was, looking more than ready to fulfill them all.

  “Yes,” she said, and had to swallow against the desire that flooded her, just to say it. “I remember.”

  “I couldn’t tell you then, so I’ll tell you now. It looked so good. It made me so hot, and it still does. Put your arms above your head now, because I want to see it again.”

  She lifted her arms slowly overhead until they reached beyond the corner of the bed. “Like this?”

  “Yeh. Brilliant.” He was breathing heavily himself, and the desire was thrumming so hard in her, she was shaking with it. She’d have done anything to have him touch her.

  But he didn’t. Not in the way she needed. Instead, he was behind her, out of sight, tying her wrists together.

  “Tug,” he said, and she did, but she was held fast. She couldn’t see him back there, and somehow, that made it even hotter. The hint of danger, the dark pleasure of control.

  He leaned over from behind, tilted her face up to his, and kissed her, his tongue invading so deeply, his hand holding her head in place. “Oh, yeh,” he breathed into her mouth. “Looks exactly as good as I thought. But if you want to be let loose—you tell me. Or you can do it yourself.” He folded her fingers around the edge of the ribbon. “Got a bow here. You want to untie it, you pull. Or you tell me. All right?”

  He’d come around to sit on the bed beside her, and she managed, somehow, to glare at him. “You do realize you’re ruining it, right?”

  A low laugh, and he was bending down to kiss her again. “I need you to know we’re playing, and we’ll stop anytime you say. But you want to play harder?”

  Something in his face had changed again, and she was responding to it like she was wired that way, because she was. Exactly that way. “Yes,” she managed to say. “Yes.”

  And even though she knew he’d meant it, that he’d stop, that it was play...what he said next was still the hottest thing she’d ever heard.

  “Then I’ll tell you this,” he said. “You’re not going anywhere today. I’m going to keep you tied to my bed for exactly as long as I want you there. I’m going to kiss you, and touch you, and tease you until you can’t stand it anymore. I’m going to make you come harder than you ever have in your life. So hard it almost hurts. And then I’m going to turn you over and…” He paused, stroked his hand over her cheek, then ran a thumb over her mouth, tracing the outline of her lips, and they were opening for him, just like that, so eager for his thumb. Closing around that thumb, sucking it, and she couldn’t help it. She needed him so much.

  He smiled, and it wasn’t the Will-smile. It was something so much darker. “On second thought…I’m not going to tell you anything else. So much better if you don’t know what’s coming.”

  It was as if he could see through to the secret heart of her, to her most forbidden desires, and he was giving them all to her without her even having to ask. She didn’t want him to talk anymore, though. She wanted him to do it.

  He was over her at last, and she couldn’t spread her legs for him fast enough.

  “Oh, no,” he said. “You’re not getting away that easy.”

  She gasped as he put a hand behind each thigh, shoved them all the way up so her knees framed her head, and held her there. So open. So vulnerable.

  “Will!” She made a halfhearted attempt to squirm away, but she couldn’t escape that hard grip.

  “So good,” he said. “So good, and all mine. And I’m going to be using every bit of it.”

  He stopped talking then, because his mouth was at her breast, biting, sucking hard, and she was shaking again. He lingered there, making her moan, making her strain against her bonds, until, finally, when she couldn’t stand it another second, his tongue was drawing a line all the way down. To her navel, and he was staying there, too, licking in and out, teasing and playing, his hands hard on the backs of her thighs, refusing to let her squirm.

  And then, finally, he was moving again. Down, and down, across the sensitive flesh of her lower belly, and all she wanted was for him to keep going. She was aching for him, needing him not to stop, and she was telling him so, and he wasn’t listening. Her hands were stretched tight above her head, her legs pinioned by his powerful hands, and he wasn’t listening at all. The more she begged, the more he slowed down.

  When his tongue flicked over the sensitized nub at last, she actually screamed a little. And then he did it all. On and on, tongue and lips and even, so lightly, so agonizingly, teeth. He made her pant, and then he made her moan, and finally, he made her cry out, and she couldn’t stop.

  And he refused to take her all the way there. Every time she got close, he shifted just a little, got himself barely, so frustratingly off target, while she tried to squirm and he wouldn’t let her. Over and over again, while she begged him, pleaded with him.

  “Let me…” She hardly knew what she was saying. “Will. Please. Oh, please. Let me.”

  “Almost. Almost.” He let go of her legs, and she lowered them to the bed and shook, and then he had his hands under her, was turning her over, the ribbon crisscrossing over her wrists, and she was desperately gripping for the corner of the mattress.

  “Up on your knees,” he told her, and she scrambled to obey, her body nothing but a quivering mass of nerves, every bit of her screaming for release, for the satisfaction he was denying her.

  He had her hips in his hands, was sl
iding inside her, and she backed into him and cried out as he filled her.

  “Ah,” he sighed behind her. “Ah.” Her forehead was pressed into her hands, and she was gasping. And finally, his hand was there, and he was thrusting, rubbing, and she was almost…almost…

  When he left her, she let out a cry of dismay.

  “Will,” she moaned, lifting her forehead from her hands, trying to turn to face him despite her bound hands, but his hand was there on her upper back, holding her down. “Please. Don’t stop. Please.”

  He didn’t answer. Too many long seconds passed before he was inside her again, and his hand was back again, too, rubbing hard. The relief flooded her, the heady sensation filled her. Until he took his hand away, and she felt something else, and she was jumping.

  His thumb, she realized with shock. Wet and warm. Circling, and diving, and thrusting where nobody had ever been before. Awakening every stimulated nerve ending, and her mouth was open, sucking on her own hand, biting down to try to bear it.

  Pleasure. Dark and deep. So much. Too much.

  It was so dirty. So good. He was filling her everywhere, overwhelming her, taking her over. Too intense, too much to take, and she was trying to get away, and backing into him at the same time. She needed it, no matter how much it was, how hard it was. She needed it now.

  The orgasm came on her slowly. Faint ripples in the distance that intensified, gathered, built into a monstrous wave, loomed overhead and hovered for long, breathless moments, while she stiffened and trembled and shook.

  “Please,” she could hear herself moaning, as if her voice were coming from far away. “Please. Please.” And then the wave broke over her, so strong, so intense, and she was wailing. “Pleeeease…”

  This time, he didn’t stop. All the tension he’d built so agonizingly, torturously slowly was released in massive spasms that seized her, took her, shook her hard. She was still crying out, still rocking back and forth, the ribbon tightening around her wrists as he thrust into her again and again, taking her body over for what felt like minutes. Taking her higher, and higher still, all the way to the top and over the edge.