by Adrian, Lara
“Dear girl,” she says, and that cultured voice of hers falters just a bit. “Dominic hates me because I loved him.”
I’m still processing the weight of that statement when Lita comes toward us, practically bouncing with excitement.
“Avery, oh my God! You’re not going to believe it.” She grabs my arm in both hands, her eyes wide and her grin beaming. “Derek Kingston just invited me to propose a sculpture design for Dektech’s lobby!”
It’s impossible not to share in her enthusiasm, no matter how distracted I am by my conversation with Kathryn. “Lita, congratulations. That’s great.”
“I know, right? And I’m talking about Derek-fucking-Kingston besides.” Belatedly, she glances away from me to look at Kathryn. “Gah, sorry. I’m totally interrupting.”
“Not at all,” Kathryn replies smoothly. She glances at me. “I’ll let you get back to your friends, Avery. But I meant it when I said I’d love to see some of your work. I’m always looking for new pieces to add to my collection.” She opens her small handbag and withdraws an ecru card with elegant script lettering. “If you’re interested in talking some more, get in touch.”
I take the card from her impeccably manicured fingers. Even though I’m tempted to tear up her contact information as soon as Kathryn dissolves into the crowd, I can’t bring myself to do it.
Slipping the card into the inside pocket of my purse, I look up at Lita and return her giddy smile. “We should go find Matt and celebrate your good news.”
She beams. “I approve of that plan. First round of champagne is on me!”
Chapter 16
The penthouse is empty when I return later that evening.
Nick texted me around three o’clock to let me know his business meetings had run long, and that he’d made commitments with Andrew Beckham to take a couple of prospects out to dinner. Rather than come home and eat alone, I joined Lita and Matt for celebratory burgers and beer following her successful exhibition.
The time out with friends was fun, but it didn’t make me forget about Rodney. It didn’t make me forget about Kathryn or the fact that answers about Nick’s past—and, hell, possibly even my best shot at making some money off my new art—is just a phone call away.
Kathryn’s card has been a temptation ever since I slipped it into my purse.
I should have torn it up. I probably still should. But I have to admit I was more than tempted by her offer. I am even now, as I sink into a tub full of sudsy, warm water in the penthouse’s master bathroom. Nick has come right out and demanded that I stay away from her. But why single her out? He’s had other discarded lovers—Margot Chan-Levine from his gallery, Dominion, to name just one. He hasn’t forbade me to talk to her.
Only Kathryn.
Kathryn, who had been as close as family to Nick at one time, according to Jared Rush.
Her remark about Nick—that he hates her because she loved him—has played through my mind repeatedly today.
I’m aware of his pattern of cutting people out of his life when they get too close. But with Kathryn I sense something different, something deeper.
I sense a secret that Nick will do anything to protect.
A secret that either begins or ends with Kathryn Tremont.
Maybe both.
Margot told me months ago to be careful or I’ll get hurt, that Nick is cold and unfeeling. Is Kathryn the reason? What the hell happened between them? What could she have done to earn the kind of scorn he obviously feels toward her?
My mind churns on all of the things I clearly don’t know about the man I’ve fallen in love with. All of the things he doesn’t know about me crowd into my thoughts, too, until my head feels on the verge of exploding.
On a moan, I shift in the bath and reach for the glass of Malbec that’s perched on the wide marble edge of the sunken tub next to a trio of stout pillar candles providing the only light in the room. Outside the window that frames the oversized tub, Manhattan glitters like diamonds scattered against the deep indigo backdrop of twilight.
Taking a drink of the smooth red wine, I tap the volume on the song pouring in through my earbuds until Adele’s contralto crooning is the only thing I hear. My eyes close and I let myself drift into the music, into the peace of the fragrant water lapping all around me.
Suspended in an artificial, yet welcome, state of calm, I don’t know how long I stay there. Long enough that one song on my playlist blends into another, then another. Long enough that my bones feel weightless and all of the tension has finally leached from my limbs.
Long enough that I begin to imagine Nick is in the room with me. I can smell the light trace of his cologne and the warm, spicy scent that belongs solely to him. I feel a charge in the air behind me, a heat that awakens me on a cellular, instinctual level.
It is him.
Not my imagination.
I exhale slowly, a shiver of arousal traveling through me. My senses recognize Nick’s presence with me even before his fingers gently brush the sides of my face from behind. He removes my earbuds and crouches down at the side of the tub, his voice a low rumble against my temple.
“Don’t move.” His lips brush my skin in a tender command. “I want you right where you are.”
Fabric rasps, a swift, satiny whisper. A moment later, something sleek and silky covers my eyes. His tie. His body heat still lingers on it, along with his intoxicating scent. I breathe it in as he fastens the tie around my head, securing it with a knot beneath the messy bun of my upswept hair.
I feel the shift in the air as he stands up, then I hear him undress. His shirt is unbuttoned, then tugged from the waistband of his bespoke suit pants. I hear it drop to the tiles, and I frown at my inability to open my eyes and watch the magnificence of Nick’s body being unveiled. My mind paints the picture from memory.
Behind my closed lids, I see his broad shoulders and strong arms. I see his smooth skin, his muscled chest and abdomen, all of the ridges and planes that I’ve explored with my mouth and hands. Places I’m hungry to explore again now. The anticipation alone is enough to ignite the bloom of wet heat that’s kindling in the center of my being.
His belt jangles as he unbuckles it, then unzips his slacks. I lick my lips, knowing that any second now, he’ll be completely naked. He’s already fully aroused. I don’t need to see his jutting cock to know he’s as hungry for me as I am for him. I can hear it in the jagged tempo of his breathing. I can feel it in the electricity that crackles through my veins as he approaches me in the tub.
His fingers alight under my chin. Without a word, he draws me around until I am facing him, until I have risen up on my knees in the water.
The hand cupping my chin falls away, only to reach down and guide my fingers to him. His big cock fills my palms, thick and heavy and gloriously erect. “I’ve wanted your hands on me all day,” he utters gruffly. “Stroke me now.”
I hardly need the instruction, but it sets my fingers in motion instantly. I caress every rigid inch from the root to the tip, reveling in the strength of him, so much power wrapped in the velvet of his skin. Veins rope the length of his shaft, and I trace each one with my fingertip, eager to do the same with my tongue. A bead of slick, hot wetness leaks out as I stroke my palm over the head of his erection, and I moan with the need to taste him.
Holding him in both hands, I lean forward to find him with my lips.
“Not yet.” He’s got the tails of the tie in his hand now. He winds them tighter around his fist, physically holding me back from doing what I want. “Not until I say you can.”
I don’t move, struck by the sharp denial. In spite of the blindfold, I didn’t realize we were playing a game. Then again, his curt order sounds anything but playful. Is he still pissed from what happened between us this morning? Or is this just what he craves from me tonight?
I can’t see his face to know for sure. The only thing I am certain of right now is that he is in control here.
He is in command of my body and
my pleasure.
And he is waiting to hear me tell him that I understand. That I agree.
That I submit.
“Yes, sir.”
My reward is the low, wordless sound of approval that rumbles in the back of his throat. Then the tension on my blindfold increases, slowly tipping my head back on my shoulders. Nick’s mouth descends on mine, his tongue licking at the seam of my lips before pushing inside. I moan at the sensual invasion, feeling the erotic heat of it in my core.
“Touch me,” he growls against my parted lips. “Pump my cock. Use your hands to show me how much you want me.”
I stroke him as he continues to kiss me. His tongue thrusts into my mouth in time with the pumping of his hips as I slide my hands all over him, caressing him, milking him.
Worshiping him.
I want to make him come like this, with only my hands. I want to breach the chasm that opened up between us this morning and let him know that no matter what, in spite of everything that might yet destroy us, this is real.
We are real.
I need him to know that.
I need him to feel my love, even at the risk that he’ll hate me for it one day.
He grinds out a fevered growl, breaking our kiss as my hands and fingers work his shaft. My strokes are fervent, determined, pleading.
“Yes,” he snarls. “Fuck, baby. Yeah. Just like that.”
His fist is still gripped around the ends of the tie, keeping my head tilted up to him. I feel his shaft grow harder in my grasp, the friction of my hands made slick and silky by the fluid dripping from the broad crown of his cock.
A groan rips out of him, raw and primal. I answer it with a soft whimper I cannot bite back. As good as he feels in my hands, I need more. I want to taste him. I want him inside me.
“Please.” My voice is a threadbare whisper, but I don’t care how needy I sound. I don’t care about the game of control we’re playing, or the fact that he might deny me just for breaking the rules. I lick my lips, which are still wet and swollen from his kiss. “Nick, please. Let me have you.”
He doesn’t answer, but his hold on my blindfold loosens just enough for me to tip my head back down. It’s all the permission I need. My mouth seeks him out in urgent hunger. I close my lips around the head of his cock and suck him deep.
He draws in a sharp breath. “Christ.”
He wrenches tightly in my grasp, his thighs bunching. His palm moves restlessly on the back of my head, holding me to him as I begin to fuck him with my mouth. I tongue his length, reveling in the sheer masculine power that pulses through him. The head of his cock is slick with his juices and I lavish attention there now, too, greedily lapping up every drop that spills out of him as his climax builds toward the breaking point.
He’s close. I can feel the tremor of mounting pressure that shudders through his body as he pistons and thrusts in time with my relentless caress and the questing, demanding urgency of my mouth.
He grunts, bringing both hands to the back of my head. My hair falls free from its loose bun, dropping around my shoulders as I rise up farther out of the water to take him deeper, faster, harder into my mouth.
I feel the clench of his muscles the instant before the first hot burst of semen explodes onto my tongue. He convulses, gritting my name out like a curse as he comes. I swallow another jetting stream, then draw him out of my mouth to nestle my face against his pulsing shaft.
A hard tremor tears through him with his continued release, wetting my cheek with the musky hotness of his seed.
“I love the taste of you,” I confess. “I love the feel of you on my tongue, inside me . . . all over me.”
Cradling his cock in my palms, I guide him to the tops of my breasts, milking him until he is finally spent. His body jerks, spurting the last scorching streams onto my skin.
I reach up to touch his chest, but he moves away on a harsh curse. Have I displeased him? I need to know. I lift my hands to remove my blindfold, but Nick’s hands come down firmly atop mine.
“Just because I let you have your way, don’t think I’m finished with you yet.”
The erotic promise chases fire through my veins and straight to my sex. The water sloshes as Nick steps into the tub with me. Sinking down at the opposite end, he drags me toward him through the fragrant suds. Water laps around my stomach as he places my legs on either side of him.
“I’m the one in control tonight, Ms. Ross, remember?”
“Yes.” The word slips off my tongue like the surrender it is. “You are in control. I have none when it comes to you.”
“Good answer,” he murmurs darkly. “Let’s see if you mean it.”
His strong fingers caress my cheek before trailing down to the tops of my breasts. I catch my lip but I can’t hold back my moan as he begins to massage the earthy slickness of his ejaculate into my skin. When he traces his thumb over my parted lips, I greedily lick at him, savoring his flavor.
He groans as if he disapproves of my defiance, but I can hear the heat in that wordless sound. Without warning, he reaches down into the water and between my spread thighs. His finger invades me, pushing deep into the tightness of my channel. I’m wet and ready, but the sudden pressure of one finger, then another, wrings a gasp from my throat.
His thumb circles my clit, making me writhe and dance on his hand. I can’t help the wanton movements of my body. I can’t curb the jagged little cries that spill out of my mouth as he drives me wild with his touch. I am lost to it, blissfully at his mercy—my favorite state of being.
Behind the blindfold covering my eyes, my vision spins as an intense orgasm begins to swell. I am transported, surrendered. Utterly at his mercy.
“You like that,” he rasps thickly. “You like my fingers taking you to the edge.”
“Yes.” I squirm in his grasp, trying to work him deeper, harder. “God, Nick . . . don’t you know? I’m at the edge every time you touch me.”
“Good.” His free hand catches my nape and he pulls me to him for a long, slow kiss. “Tonight I’m taking you all the way over the edge.”
I don’t know what he means until I feel his touch readjust between my legs, his fingers moving from the slick folds of my sex to the cleft of my ass. He kisses me again, and as I melt under the passion of his mouth and tongue on mine, his finger pushes into the tight entrance of my anus.
I gasp at the sensation of being stretched open for him. His thumb teases my clit as he seats me even deeper, making me pant and shiver with the ferocity of the pleasure he’s giving me. He fucks my ass with his finger, each thrusting penetration rocking me, every brush of my swollen clit driving me higher, leaving me shaking with the need for release.
It’s too much for me to bear. My eyes water with the intensity of sensation and I come violently, shuddering and quaking, crying his name.
As soon as I do, Nick hauls me against him. He pulls off my blindfold and stares into my tear-filled gaze. “No barriers between us, Avery. That’s what you promised me. That’s what I demanded of you from the beginning.”
I nod, unable to form words when every fiber of my being is still vibrating with pleasure and the need for more. When it comes to Nick, I need everything. I want it all.
His big cock is gloriously erect, jutting up between us in the water. I’ve been on the pill since I had my first period at fifteen. And after four months together, I know we’re both clean and healthy.
I reach up to stroke his handsome face. “No barriers tonight, Nick.”
As I say it, I lower my hand and take his shaft into my grasp. He glances at me in question but doesn’t stop me when I guide him between my legs and settle the head of his penis at my body’s entrance. I press down on him, taking him inside me inch by inch.
As incredible as our sex has been from the start, nothing has prepared me for the sensation of having Nick enter me like this, skin on skin, flesh to flesh.
“Jesus,” he hisses, letting out a deep, jagged sigh as I seat myself onto him all t
he way to the root. “You’re scorching hot inside. So fucking tight. So wet.”
Despite all of the times I’ve had him inside me, this is the most intimate of all. His gaze locked on mine, nothing to separate us. No barriers in this moment. No bounds to our passion.
“Avery . . .” He tilts his head back as if the pleasure is too much. “Ah, Christ.”
His hands clamp down on my hips as I begin to move slowly atop him, my small muscles gripping the naked hardness of his cock. He is large and thick, almost more than I can bear at this angle, but I revel in how completely he fills me. I want even more.
His gaze comes back to me now, stormy with desire. “Take me deeper, baby,” he coaxes, his voice like gravel and dark as sin. “Take it all. Your pussy makes me so fucking hard.”
His pelvis bucks beneath me as I ride him, an involuntary thrust that betrays the threadbare state of his control. I love that I can do this to him. It’s only fair, considering how easily he can strip away mine.
Holding on to his shoulders, I rock up and down on his erection. Each slick friction of our bodies makes the coil of need in me twist tighter. Nick’s hands move up my sides, skimming over my ribs and onto my bare breasts. I moan as he kneads the sensitive mounds. When he rolls my nipples between his fingers, then bends to take one of them roughly into his mouth, I cry out, feeling the erotic suction all the way to my core.
Quivering, undulating on his hips, I increase my tempo in time with my need. I want to prolong the feeling, stave off the climax that’s rolling up on me too quickly as the head of his cock touches somewhere deeper than he’s ever been before. My inner walls stretch to accommodate even more of him as his shaft grows thicker, harder with each driving clash of our bodies.
“Oh, God, Nick!”
He lifts his head from my breasts, his face taut and intense. “I know, baby. Let it go. I want to feel you break apart on me, all around me. I want to feel you come now.”