Then his hand went to the first hook of the corset.
Freeze fantasy.
Automatically, Cass caught his wrist with her free hand, an unspoken direction. That needs to stay on.
The god toyed with it, his fingers shifting beneath her grip. She suspected he could make short, deft work of the undergarment. It was an effort to hold on to her resolve, because she wanted those long fingers, wanted to explore the shape of his knuckles, the lines between them, the broad shape of the palm. One more moment, and she knew she'd give in.
Then he gave her an inclination of his head, a twist of the sensuous lips. Not capitulation. He was just letting her have her way. For now. It stoked the need in her, and pulling her hand away from his flesh didn't ease it.
Now one large hand slid back down to her waist. The other closed around her wrist and withdrew the hand she had in her panties. The motion dragged her fingers over her clit, and that, combined with his intent, was like electrical current. Bringing her damp fingers to his mouth, he took them between his lips, sucked them in deep.
A man who took the reins from a woman in a sexual situation so effectively that it left no doubt who was in charge. That was what she'd wanted, right?
"Ah . . ." Her body undulated on the seat, a sinuous emulation of what it wanted, before she could stop it. Those full lips were firm and soft at once, his mouth hot, teeth nipping, laving at fingers covered with her scent. As he drew them out, he lowered her wet hand, as if he was going to place it on his chest.
Too much temptation, the idea of trailing damp fingers over his muscled flesh, marking him. She closed her fingers into a ball, drew it back to herself.
Again he allowed it, watching her closely all the while. The music had changed once again. Back to Foreigner's "Hot Blooded." It sparked a fire in her, such that she raised a leg, intending to place the sole on his tempting chest and shove him back, force him just to watch her. Instead, in a smooth motion, he closed his hand on her ankle, pushed it up to his shoulder, and then dropped to one knee.
As he hooked her leg in a firm grip she couldn't shake, panic came and went, gone fast, because he put his mouth on her, over the silky fabric of the panties.
"Oh . . ." The music boiled through her, warring with any protests, egging him on. The bass line was her heartbeat, pounding hard against her chest, the guitar riffs her gasping breath, too much, overwhelming.
If he'd stumbled around like most guys did down there, she might have freaked out and shaken him, but she was too aroused, and his mouth knew what to do even better than her way-too-familiar fingers. A scrape of the clit with his teeth, long, dragging licks of his tongue up the filmy fabric, the friction of it galvanizing her hips to his mouth, wanting to feel the press of his nose, the rasp of his cheeks on her thighs. Tomorrow, she wanted to see the marks, wanted it to chafe when she walked. Evidence that she'd had this over-the-top moment with a stranger.
She twisted, he held her still. She bucked, he moved with her. His mouth was relentless, taking her over from the second it was on her. Foreigner was as merciless as he was, moving from "Hot Blooded" to "Urgent." No fucking kidding. She wanted that climax so badly, but she wanted more, too, an uneasy, yearning feeling she couldn't stifle. Her vision was graying. Oh, damn it all, she couldn't breathe.
He knew that, too. Already rising, moving up her body, hands reaching for the corset.
"No. Don't take it off," she gasped. "Don't."
He muttered an oath she could hear even over the music, with his mouth so close to her ear, but he slid his hands under her arms and lifted her so she was leaning into his body, her cheek on the slick chest muscle. His fingers went to the adjustable laces at the back. Yeah, right. Most guys took five minutes fooling with a bra strap. She was an idiot. She'd probably asphyxiate before . . .
The garment loosened, more than she wanted to admit was needed, but she could breathe. Of course, she was inhaling him at the same time as the oxygen. Sun-warmed flesh, dense muscle. Feeling the touch of his hands on her and oh holy hell, what was he doing now?
Sweeping aside her hair, he laid his lips on the bump of vertebrae, just at her nape, still holding her close against his upper body.
The climax swept over her so fast, there was no anticipating it. It ricocheted up from where the ribbed seat pressed against her pussy--still spasming from the memory of his mouth--to her neck, where his lips rested now. He kept a tight grip on her hair, holding her head still beneath that erotic kiss. As she rocked herself against the seat helplessly, he grasped one of her buttocks, squeezing hard to add male demand to her jerking rhythm, working her against the friction of the seat until she was making frenzied cries, pushing against the solid wall of him. God, she wanted him between her legs, instead of a beast of metal. Hammering into her, holding her down . . .
The thought brought her down quickly, quicker than she wanted. She was shaken. Shaking, still catching her breath. As he'd pulled her up, it had yanked her ear phones free, so now the music was her own rasping breaths, the birds, the rush of water, the wind. The drumming of his heart, his own ragged sounds.
"Little idiot," he murmured, his jaw along her temple. She heard a faint Midwest trace under the blatant edge of desire. "You could have passed out."
"Well, who knew you'd be good at this?"
She said it without thinking and cursed herself. Guys got off on that kind of flattery, took it as invitation for more. She didn't want to stroke his ego, not when he'd ripped her open like that. Forced her to loosen her self-imposed restraints and turn control over to him.
Wrapping his hand in her hair, he canted her head back. Before she could think of something more quelling to say, he shocked her again by slamming his mouth down on hers, taking it over, and everything attached to it. Drinking deep, he made it everything a kiss should be. Fire, mind-altering, wet, demanding, scraping things raw that would scream in the open elements when he took his mouth away, so that she'd beg for it to return.
Raising his head when she was nowhere near sated, he held his grip so she couldn't try to follow his mouth. "I was just getting started, sweetheart."
Since he was still giving her that penetrating look, it suggested he was used to assessing things closely, determining what made them tick. But he disrupted her anxiety over that when he released her hair to run his hand beneath it, caress her nape in a way that said every time he touched her there, he'd remember what had shattered her. "Now, let me give you a real climax." As his gaze heated, she began to moisten again, anticipating. "If you thought what I did before was good, there've been too many losers in your life who didn't appreciate how they could make you sing."
A backhanded compliment for sure, she told herself, trying to keep the sensual intent of the words from muddling her mind more than he already had. Implying she was sexually deprived if she let something like a couple minutes of lip play get her off. Bastard.
"What's your name?"
She shook her head and he tipped up her chin, a trace of impatience in his eyes. "I want to know."
"A name comes with expectations."
"Identity," he agreed. "Repeat dates."
She couldn't afford a man like this in her life, for certain. He'd almost made her smile. "I'm taken."
He blinked once. "No, you're not."
Someone more inexperienced would have retorted, "How do you know?" But when words were used as weapons, she could hold the upper hand. She merely met him eye to eye and stayed silent, trying not to think about the fact she was wearing only soaked panties and a way-too-loose corset. While he was wearing a pair of shorts that should be illegal.
"If you were taken," he said, a sexy, rough edge to his voice, his hand tightening on her sensitive neck, "I'd see him, smell him. There'd be a hint of his aftershave on your breasts, where he started the day by suckling your nipples, or razor burn where his jaw scraped your tender flesh. Your lips would be swollen from his kisses." When she tried to turn her head, he dragged his jaw along the side of her
neck, then placed his mouth there, spoke against her tingling skin. "Or I'd have smelled him on your cunt. Because if he doesn't mark you as his every morning before you walk out the door, he's insane."
Hadn't she compared this man's initial approach to that of an animal? After a statement like that, he was pure animal for sure, stating possession in terms understood by beasts of the forest. As well as alpha males with a primal code like this, an undercurrent that she knew women sensed but most could never truly understand. Even as they were hopelessly drawn to it.
Still, women had their own code to survive such a devastating assault. Drawing her head back, she managed a cool smile reflected by no other part of her quivering body, but it was a starting point. "I said I'm taken. I didn't mean by a man. I'm taken by the demands of my life, and you're not part of it. Nor am I inviting you. Only into this moment."
"So that's what this is about." He dipped his finger into the crevice between her breasts, tugged at the corset.
"What?"
"You wear it beneath your clothes. It's not fashion. Control is very important to you."
"It's important to everyone."
"A woman in a corset has to be constantly aware of the state of her body," he observed. "Never getting too flustered, stressed. It's an armor of sorts, but a paradoxical one. Because while the parts so tightly laced inside it lose some sensitivity to a man's touch, the parts above and below become far more sensitive because of the constriction. The trail of a finger along the buttock, just below the corset hem. Or the lightest kiss on the pillow of a breast. Or even the nape . . ." His hand passed there again. When he put his lips back on her shoulder, she had to ball her hands into fists to keep from sliding her hands down the curve of his bare back, feeling the ridges of spine, how low those shorts came on his hips. Whether she could slip her hands beneath the band to explore the design of his lower back, the rise of his tight ass.
"Let me go down on you again, sweetheart. Let go of your precious control. Give me the bliss of eating your sweet pussy and hearing you scream for me."
She closed her eyes. I really, really want to, which is why I can't. "I need some water first. Do you have any?"
A pause. Raising his head, he studied her. "I do. I left my bike just over there. But playing the coward doesn't seem to be your style. If you're going to leave, you're the type who'd just knock a man fl at on his ass and walk right over him, not look for a running head start."
"And you're the type who wouldn't get out of the way."
"Not if the fight is worth winning."
I can't say no to you. She'd had her twenty minutes, and that was all she could afford. "I'm out of time. I've got to go." Moving away from his intoxicating proximity, she grabbed up her jeans, pulled them on while he leaned on her bike seat, watched her silently. She tied on the chaps, fingers trying not to fumble beneath his gaze as she performed the intimate task. When she found her T-shirt, she looked down, realizing she needed to tighten the corset laces. Her breasts were in danger of coming out entirely. It was possible she'd even given him a glimpse of her nipples once or twice in her haste. Well, she'd call it just compensation for taking off on him.
"Allow me." He'd shifted when she'd been pointedly ignoring him, hoping he'd just vanish, and so now he was right behind her. "Stand still."
As she stiffened, uncertain whether to move away or not, his hand snaked around her waist and up, lifting the corset so the underwire was more fitted beneath her breasts. While he almost impersonally ran his hand over the cups, her nipples hardened from the passing heat of his touch. The liquid pooling between her thighs increased. He adjusted the laces, tightening, tightening again, until a breath escaped from her, a hint of a moan to it.
"You like that, don't you? You like it when a man binds you." His voice had lowered, animal urgency to it, his hands starting to slide downward, taking her resolve there as well.
She jerked away, knowing if he pulled her back so she could feel the hard line of his cock, she'd be lost. She'd let him plow her like a field. Yanking on the T-shirt, she turned, found her boots, and yanked them on as well. A quick grab at the handlebars and she had the twist for her hair she'd left there, whipping it up into a tight bun on her neck.
"Transformation. All armor in place now."
She ignored him, pleased when she managed a flippant tone. "The room's yours. If you want to continue." Though she really didn't want the provocative image of him stripping off his shorts to lie naked in the grass as God made him, his hand pumping what appeared to be an impressively proportioned cock. All muscles straining as he thought of her, as come spewed from him, wetting his thighs, his smooth ball sac, that hard belly where she could lick it off . . . Sweet Mother Mary.
"Don't cheapen it." He stepped forward, but surprised her when he didn't reach out to touch her. Even so, she felt the need to pick up the helmet, hold it as a casual barrier between them, trying to give him a diffident look.
Finally, when she thought she couldn't stand his silent scrutiny another moment, he leaned in. His body pushed against the helmet, brought the pressure of it against the churning in her belly. Despite herself, her lips parted, her eyes seeking his. "My mistake was in giving you a choice," he said. "Next time I get you alone, I won't do that. I'll restrain you the way you wanted to be, and then I'll make you come so hard you'll think you've died. You won't run away from me again. And I'll have the truth about why you feel you need to run now."
Unclogging vocal cords glued together by aching lust was not easy, but she managed it. "To the next time then," she said. A taunt, because of course they'd never see one another again. Moving around him, she strode to the bike.
She wished she could let him know how much she wanted to stay. She was sorry that she'd turned it into this. But he'd managed to kick in the door to her darkest needs in less than twenty minutes, and she couldn't afford to get lost there. It was for the best.
No, the best thing was to let him sate them both, spend another volatile hour together, and then go their separate ways as two strangers who'd enjoyed the novelty of an unexpected sexual encounter. Leaving a challenge in the air like this wasn't good. But he was right. She was being a coward, because if she stayed, she might just want to take him home. And she wouldn't embarrass herself, wouldn't reveal she was so desperate for this type of intimacy she would cling to a stranger. That was almost as pathetic as losing her perspective, making this about more than sex, and ruining it for both of them.
Because she wanted to apologize to him for that, she thought instead about clipping him, enough to make him stumble backward. She didn't, but he did something worse to her. As she passed him at a slow idle, her booted feet balancing her, his hand closed on her arm, so she released the handlebar. He didn't do anything to bring her to a halt, just followed the line of her arm down to her elbow, the tender skin of her forearm, and closed briefly on her fingertips before he let her hand pull free.
She could escape him, but not the irony of it. In his grasp, under the tantalizing hint of his control, she'd felt freer than she had in a very long time.
No, she definitely couldn't afford a man like him in her life.
Joey W. Hill is the author of the Knights of the Boardroom series, including Honor Bound and Controlled Response; the Vampire Queen series, including Taken by the Vampire; and the stand-alone novel Unrestrained. Having received multiple Top Reviewer Picks from RT Book Reviews, Night Owl Romance, ParaNormal Romance Reviews, TwoLips and others, she has also been awarded the RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Award in Erotica.
Joey W. Hill, Naughty Bits Part IV: The Highest Bid
(Series: Naughty Bits # 4)
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