by Anna Durand
Evan withdrew his fingers. He whisked his hands under my dress to grip my hips. "Fuck me, Keely. Now."
I rose up on my knees and sank my body onto his cock, moaning at the sensation of his length consuming me, the heat of his skin, and the incredible firmness of his shaft. He groaned and tugged my hips forward, deepening the connection of his body to mine. Oh, it felt wonderful. I moved up and down, rolling my hips into every downward thrust, loving the friction of his slacks against my thighs, but I needed more. I needed his skin on mine.
With shaky fingers, I undid his tie and got to work on freeing the buttons of his shirt.
He grunted every time I plunged onto his length. His hands pressed down and forward, intensifying the contact and driving him deeper inside my body.
I fumbled with his shirt buttons, buzzed by my orgasm and sensing another one mounting, that band tautening again little by little. My breaths came in sharp gasps. I needed his skin, but the damn buttons seemed to be secured with superglue. A frantic moan voiced my frustration, and his grunting breaths cranked up my own need. I gave up on the buttons. With both hands, I grasped his shirt and tore it open.
Buttons spewed everywhere. One clinked on the glass tabletop. Another landed on my breast only to tumble off when my tits bounced upward and back down in time with the quickening pace of our movements. I splayed my palms on his chest, reveling in the sensation of his skin on mine.
He bucked his hips up and yanked mine down, over and over, harder every time.
I crushed my chest to his, my arms latched around his neck. My harsh breaths gusted over his ear, each punctuated with a soft grunt when he slammed his cock up into the downward push of my hips.
His lips mashed to my ear, he wrapped his arms around me and growled, "Come for me, Keely. Come for me now."
As if by his command, my release thundered through me. I clutched him with my arms, my legs, my sex, with every inch of me that could cling to him. Sounds spilled from my lips, words without meaning, noises of sheer pleasure, his name again and again.
With two more thrusts, violent and all-consuming, he came apart inside me. His strangled cry filled my ear, and my name tumbled from his lips.
For a moment, we stayed there not moving, just holding each other in the aftermath until we each caught our breath. I combed my fingers through his hair. He ran his palms up and down my back. When we'd touched down on planet Earth again, I pulled back so I could see his face.
"Oh Evan, that was amazing." I traced my fingertips down his cheek to his mouth. " I love everything you do to me."
"You have a fetish for tearing my shirt off."
I splayed my hands over his bare chest. "Sorry, can't help it."
"Not complaining. I've developed a fetish for carting you off to the nearest bed."
"Don't stop doing that. I love it when you carry me away like a medieval warlord."
He clasped his hands at the small of my back. "What should we do now? Eat?"
I glanced over my shoulder at the food. It had probably gone cold. "Well, I hate to waste your delicious meal…"
"Hell with the meal. I'll cook another one for you. Better yet, I'll buy you a fishery or an entire ocean so we can have fish anytime you want."
"Thank you, but that's not necessary." I peeked at the house behind me. "Does this place have a bed?"
"Aye, it's fully furnished." He slid a hand around my side and up to palm my breast. "The bed is large and soft, perfect for pinning you to the mattress while I'm slamming my cock into your sweet body."
"Take me to your bed and make love to me all night."
He stared at me.
"What is it?" I asked.
"You called sex 'making love.' It's the first time you've said that."
He had said it before, more than once. A little while ago, when he'd referred to sex with me as making love, I'd told him not to call it that. Yet here I was asking him to take me to his large, soft bed and make love to me. Something had shifted between us or maybe inside me. Evan liked the parts of me other men had tolerated. He liked everything about me, he'd said.
No, he'd said he loved everything about me.
A shiver sidled down my spine, not a chill of anxiety, but a shiver of anticipation. Those words, the ones he'd spoken with such conviction, implied so much more. For the first time in more years than I cared to count, I wasn't afraid of what that meant. I wasn't afraid at all.
"Maybe it is the first time I've said it," I told him. "But it's not the first time you've made love to me. Not even the first time I've felt that's what you were doing and let myself enjoy it. I'm not afraid anymore, Evan, and that's because of you."
He grasped my waist and hoisted me off his lap, onto my feet.
I wobbled a little on my high heels. My legs hadn't fully recovered from our rockin' sex in the patio chair.
Evan swept me up in his arms. "I'm taking you to bed, Miss O'Shea, and I plan on commanding you to come for me over and over and over."
I twined my arms around his neck. "Let's go."
"Feel free to tell me to behave. You know how I feel about that."
"Can't do that tonight, Mr. MacTaggart. The teacher is taking the night off."
Chapter Twenty-Four
Evan
Something tickled my nose, making it itch, something that felt like a feather. I opened my eyes. While I lay flat on my back, Keely straddled my thighs with her lovely erse between my knees. She wore my shirt, the one she'd torn all the buttons off of last night, with the sleeves rolled up enough that they didn't hang past her fingertips. The shirt looked much better on her, especially with the way it revealed a strip of her body from her slender throat all the way down to the curly hairs between her thighs. With her legs spread to sit astride me, I got a glimpse of her luscious pink flesh.
Keely held the feather near my nose again. "Time to rise and shine, Mr. MacTaggart."
I glanced at the clock on the bedside table and blinked several times, struggling to accept what the digital display told me. "It's eight fifteen."
"Bet you've never slept this late, have you?" She tickled my nose with the feather. "I haven't slept this late in years and years and years."
The way she was speaking, with a light and playful tone, made her seem younger. In the time I'd known her, I'd never seen Keely like this.
"I'll make you breakfast," I said and tried to sit up.
She flattened one hand on my chest and shoved me back down. "Uh-uh-uh. Stay put or I'll have to make you do it."
One side of my mouth curled upward. I couldn't help it. The playful lass holding me down with her sumptuous body was a new side of Keely, and I loved it. Then again, I loved everything about this woman.
Her challenge that she would make me stay put if I tried to move again made me want her to do that.
I pushed up on my elbows. "Let me up or I'll have to fuck you senseless."
"Is that supposed to be a threat? Sounded more like an offer."
"Well, it's true I will fuck you senseless either way."
I stretched out a hand to touch her.
Keely seized my wrist. "I said no getting up. Behave, Mr. MacTaggart."
She held my wrist while she dropped the feather on the bed and leaned over to grab something off the floor. She straightened and held up a pale-pink scarf made from semi-transparent material. While keeping my wrist in her grip, she dragged the scarf over my belly.
I hissed in a breath. "Where did you get a feather and a scarf?"
"Brought them in my overnight bag. Just in case." A naughty smile curved her mouth, and she dragged the scarf over my skin again. "Will Evan behave? Or does Keely need to make him do it?"
Talking about us in the third person should've seemed silly, but when she spoke those words in her schoolteacher voice, darkened with a hint of sensuality…I wanted to flip us both over and drive into her so hard she'd gasp.
"Cannae behave," I said. "Not when I can s
mell how excited you are."
"I am turned on," she said, rotating her wrist to coil the scarf around it. "But I want something else first."
She moved my wrist to the headboard, between two of the slats, and tied one end of the scarf around it. I twisted my head around to watch her movements. She threaded the scarf behind the slats and back out on the other side of my head. I didn't need to wait long to find out what she was planning. Keely grasped my other wrist, forcing me to lie back, and moved my hand between the slats where she secured the scarf around that wrist too.
"There," she said breezily. "You're all set."
"For what?" I hoped to heaven she was about to fuck me because my cock was as hard as an iron rod.
Her smile was enigmatic.
I gave my bindings a little tug, not really trying to escape. "Thought you didn't like this sort of thing."
"Oh, I don't mind at all when you're the one who's bound." She sat back, her bottom cradled between my knees. "I've got you tied up and turned on, so you won't be able to resist answering my questions."
"Questions? Havenae ye noticed the flaming-hard cock waving at ye?"
"Yes, I noticed." The saucy lass closed her fist around my erection. "This is for later, after you've been a good boy and told me everything I want to know."
"Are ye planning to torture me?"
"Only in the best way." She bent to lave the head of my erection with her tongue. "Ready to talk yet?"
"I was talking last night. You ordered me to stop."
"Tell me later, that's what I said. It's later." She straightened again, sliding her hands along my thighs. "Besides, I wanted to hear the rest of the story and you said 'not yet.' I said 'tell me later' only after you had me on your lap, right before you started petting me."
"Donnae care who ended the conversation first." I tried to reach for her, but the scarf restrained my hands, so I tried to raise my knees and move her body closer to where I wanted her. I couldn't get enough leverage with her sitting on me. "Need sex, Keely, not talking."
"No, Evan. There will be talking." She grabbed the blasted feather and skimmed it down my chest until it grazed my groin. "Tell me the rest of the story. You turned down a shitload of money and then…"
Christ, the woman was determined to have her way. If she'd wanted to shag me while I was tied to the headboard, I would've loved it. Tying me up to make me confess everything was not what I wanted.
I grumbled out a sigh, resigned to giving in to her. "A few weeks after I turned down the four hundred thousand pounds, I got a text message. It said, 'Saying no was your first mistake. Don't make another.' I thought it was a prank or had been meant for someone else, and I deleted the message. An hour later, another one arrived. It said they had a job for me."
"Who's 'they'?"
"No idea. Still don't know." I wanted to focus on the ceiling while I told her all of this, but I forced myself to look her in the eye. "Since I thought it was a mistake, I replied and told them they had the wrong person. The response came seconds later. 'We have the right person, Evan. Instructions will follow.' A few seconds after that, I received a text file followed by another message that told me I had twenty-four hours to complete my task."
"What did you do?"
I shrugged, and the knotted scarf tightened around my wrists. "I ignored it."
She nibbled on her lower lip.
That should've made me harder, but instead, my erection flagged. Bad memories had sapped my lust.
"Something happened, didn't it?" she asked.
"Aye." A coldness trickled through me at the thought of explaining the rest. I'd known one day I would need to tell her everything. The words wouldn't come out of my mouth, though. They were caught in my throat, caught under the lump that had solidified there. Why was it so hard to tell the truth? She was the only woman who had ever wanted me, understood me, and made me feel like a human being instead of a Martian. If she left me…Maybe part of the truth would do for today. "I did what the thugs wanted. I wrote a program that would disable one particular security system in one particular building in downtown London."
"Did they break into the building?"
"I don't know. If they stole something, the theft didn't make the news. If they'd killed someone, that would've been reported. Whatever they did, I should never have given in to their blackmail."
She studied me for a moment, though her expression gave away no hints to how she might react to what I'd done. Bile burned in my throat. My mouth went dry.
"Why did you give in?" she asked.
"I had no choice. They have…ways to force me to do what they want."
"What ways?"
I glowered at the ceiling for a minute or more. Hard to gauge the time when I was struggling with the opposing needs to tell her everything and to protect her from my mistakes.
"Did you try to figure out what they'd done?" she asked.
"I assume they disabled the security system in that building. The information they provided told me all about the system, but I had no idea which building it was in." I snarled a Gaelic curse under my breath. "Later, I realized the code they had me work on was familiar. It had been written by someone at my company, and I had approved it. I went through the records of where we had installed security systems and eventually figured out what building it was. Only one client had ordered the precise configuration the software was designed for. That's all I know."
"There's more, isn't there? Tell me. Please."
Her polite command didn't make me smile this time. I groaned and shut my eyes, knowing what I had to tell her next. "For the past year, these anonymous criminals have made me do three more jobs for them. All of it involved disabling security systems I had designed, and always I had no idea what they were after. I didn't hear from them for eight months after the fourth job." I forced myself to look at her. "Until the day you came back into my life."
She puckered her lips in the manner I'd come to know as Keely thinking. "Was that the top-secret project you had to work on? The one Tamsen knew nothing about?"
"It was."
"Why do you keep doing what these creeps say? Hire a private investigator, hunt them down, turn them over to the authorities."
"I can't. I've aided criminals, and that's a crime in itself."
"But you are the victim."
I shifted uncomfortably, though it wasn't the scarf binding my wrists that bothered me.
Keely slid off my legs to sit on the edge of the bed. Though she still faced me, her legs hung off the bed like she wanted the option to run away. I couldn't blame her for that. A quick getaway might be the safest option for her. I'd brought her into my tangled life knowing it might lead to this moment, this choice, all because I needed to possess her. Things had gone too far, and I'd fallen in love with her.
"Couldn't you find out who's behind it all?" she asked. "Hack their phone when they text you or something?"
"I've told you I am not a hacker," I said too harshly. Taking a deep breath, I tempered my voice. "I design security and surveillance devices for—"
"For personal and business use. I know, I'm sorry. Guess I don't understand what hackers do."
"It's nothing I can do, that's for certain. The only reason I could write code to disable that security system is because I designed the system in the first place and what they wanted me to do was fairly simple. I'd done similar work at university when security companies hired me."
"Right. I guess that's why they picked you." She spread her hands on her thighs. "There has to be something we can do."
"We? This is my problem." I shut my eyes. "I should never have pushed you into a relationship with me. The only excuse I can offer is that I believed they'd given up. Honestly, I'm sure I would have pursued you even if I'd known they would call on me again. I wanted you, I needed to possess you, and so I did whatever it took to get you—like the selfish ersehole I am."
Chapter Twenty-Five
&nb
sp; Keely
"You haven't possessed me." I swung my leg over him to straddle his thighs again. "You showed me what it's like to be with someone who appreciates me the way I am. My second ex-husband, Bryce, convinced me I was lacking in every way, as a wife and as a lover and as a human being. He did it slowly, a little dig here and there, nothing overt that I could've reacted to the way I should have. On the day he announced he wanted a divorce, he told me I'm too assertive, that I emasculated him in bed and out and I would never find a man who would put up with me."
Evan's mouth flattened into a line. The glint in his eyes was cold and sharp. "He's the one nobody should put up with."
"The point is, you taught me a real man doesn't resent a woman because she has a mind of her own." I picked at the sheets, staring down at them, searching for answers in the faint pattern of lines in the fabric. "Bryce would never tell me what he wanted, but he resented it if I took charge, whether that was during sex or at the grocery store. When we got married, he had a dream to start his own business making custom motorcycles. He got a loan from the bank, using our house as collateral. My contribution was to handle the business side of things—I had an MBA after all—so Bryce could do the fun part. I built his business for him. Every client he had came to us because of the advertising I crafted or the word of mouth I built up for him. When the chamber of commerce honored him with an award for being a great entrepreneur, he took all the credit. Didn't mention me once in his whole ten-minute acceptance speech."
"He definitely needs a good skelping."
"What does that mean?"
"Means he needs to be smacked around."
I rested my hands on his thighs and leaned into them, leaned into his body. "I love that you want to beat up my ex-husband, but he's not worth it."
He grimaced. "Beating someone isn't an admirable act."
"Sometimes it's warranted. Not in Bryce's case, though. I'm done with him."
"Believe me," he said with a fierceness that roughened his voice, "if anyone tries to hurt you, I will beat them bloody."
A tingle swept down my spine. He would do it. I had no doubts about that. No man had ever cared that much about me.