It was like having a chained lion lazily walking at your side. The sensation was strangely empowering. She felt strong and yet, also, protected and a little scared.
A little flame flickered in her chest as she stole a glance at his profile. He was boredly walking forward, not even looking at her, but his lips were curled in amusement, like she was his very own private clown.
She was glad he was enjoying himself at her expense, because later, she would enjoy herself at his.
She was one-hundred thousand dollars of her inheritance shorter, and she loved Court too much not to give it her best shot.
This asshole was it.
two
Damien leaned back in the passenger seat of an impressively luxurious navy blue and tan Jaguar, unused to being driven by a woman. Oh, well, whatever. It’s not like he would see her again after tonight.
She was a bristly little thing, annoyed because others had been rubbing his chest. She was so tiny, it was like watching a Chihuahua come bark at three German Shepherds. Not very smart of the Chihuahua, of course. Why in the world Damien had found it cute was beyond him.
“I’m sorry I’m so quiet,” she said, stealing a glance at him as she drove. “I’m trying to decide where to begin. Wait—where’s your bondage? Did you take it off?”
He lifted his free hands and wiggled his fingers, delighting in the panic in her voice. Well, hell, what did she think he was going to do? Feel her up?
Her eyebrows furrowed as her gaze darted to him, to the road, then back to him. “I don’t trust you, put it back on.”
Unperturbed, he rammed the leather string into his slacks then leaned back, crossing his hands behind his head. “So tell me. How am I supposed to rock your world? Pay your dinner tonight? Wine and dine you?”
Her knuckles were white as she gripped the steering wheel. “No, thank you, I can pay for my own food.”
He cocked a brow and gave her tiny form a once over, noticing the car was almost driving itself. She was almost inexistent, she was so slim and petite. “Looks like you’ve been scrimping,” he said pointedly.
She shook her head. “Look, this is not going as I planned. Let’s start again.”
“All right. Why don’t we begin with you telling me your name, Minnie.”
“It’s Sydney, genius. Sydney Morgan. Does that ring a bell or do you only remember the women you’ve slept with?”
Her name jolted through him. He cocked a brow and surveyed her profile, taking in a delicate nose, an intelligent forehead, and a nicely rounded chin, and whoa, there, she had a nice mouth. “No shit. Sydney?”
She nodded, lips pursed in distaste, then she steered left at the spotlight. “Hello, Damien. It’s been…what? Ten years?”
“What the hell happened to the red in your hair?”
“I colored it. Being it was so popular with the guys and all.”
He scowled at the verbal slap.
Sydney Morgan was a little devil of a girl he’d always baited because, hell, he didn’t know why, maybe because she always bit. She got riled easy and quite passionately. He was almost a decade older, and at twenty five, in every one of the Knight’s big gatherings, Sydney would unfailingly be there with her best friend, Regina.
Bentley and Damien had both played varsity football, and both remained close friends. In every “Knight” family event, Damien would be hunting for the fiery redhead in the room. He’d had his fun baiting her—since fucking her, when she was fifteen and him twenty five, was really not an option.
Hell, it still wasn’t.
She still looked like a little girl.
And if his memory served him right, which it always did in regards to this particular girl, the last time he’d seen her, he’d been enough of an asshole to send her running away. What the hell did she want him now?
“Look, Damien, I don’t want a date. I don’t even like you! You aren’t exactly known for your kindness and funny personality. My memories of you aren’t exactly fond. But I do want something else from you.”
His scowl deepened as a turmoil of emotions he didn’t understand started whirling around in his chest. “I’m not fucking you, Sydney.”
“Excuse me?” She swiveled around, her eyes wide.
“Watch the red light!”
She screeched to a stop, then turned to him again, slack-jawed. “I didn’t say I wanted to be…uh, do you have to be so…oh, you’re exasperating!”
“Sydney, you sound like you grew into a lady with a good head on her shoulders that could perhaps formulate a sentence when under different circumstances. Now tell me why it’s not pointing you in the other direction opposite of me.”
She sighed, then sped again. “You like women. You like them a lot.”
“And you consider yourself a woman? How old are you? Ten?”
She scowled. “Almost ten years younger than your thirty five, yes. Look, you like sex.”
“I am sex, lady.”
“Good. You’re just what I need.”
“What the hell for?” he demanded.
“You’re incredibly experienced and I need to share in that experience. I need a…let’s call it a class. A sex-ed class. I would love you to explain to me how to seduce a man.”
She slid into the parking lot, parked, and turned off the car. Then she looked at him. Her eyes were blue and innocent, and the instant they locked with his, recognition lit up in his system. Something harsh and wild went through him like an avalanche. Holy God, it was her. Up close, the brown hair could not even detract from all those soft, lovely features that made her the damnedest prettiest thing Damien had ever seen this close.
And there it was, simmering inside those electric blue eyes, all that fiery passion in her body, bringing out all that fiery passion in his body, which suddenly pulsed and throbbed.
He didn’t know what to think about that. Except…
Shit?
“My apartment is upstairs,” she said, speaking slowly, like to a child. “But you’d have to remain tied. I don’t want you to do anything except verbally explain to me ways of seducing the man I love. That’s all I want from you. You don’t even have to spend a dime. All right?”
Damien shifted, incredibly restless in his seat. He’d been curious to see Sydney Morgan, and now he’d seen her, he wanted out of her car and out of her life.
“Fine,” he grumbled, not really having much choice. Hell, it could be worse. Much worse. She could’ve asked this from an even bigger asshole than Damien. “Fine. I’ll teach you whatever you want to know. But I won’t be tied.”
She bit her lip and narrowed her eyes, as if considering. “If I don’t tie you, do you promise you won’t try to have sex with me, Damien?”
He studied her with narrowed eyes, confused. Once again, she was an anomaly.
Everyone wanted sex with him. Was something wrong with him now? Did he suddenly grow a horn or shit? She’d been wild about him growing up and everyone had known. Damien had never lived it down with his friends. Ooh, what’s with the redhead panting all over you?
“Do you promise, Damien?” she prodded, her eyes wide and imploring. “You had your chance. And you said no.”
His chest cramped again when he remembered.
She’d been just a…baby. She still was.
She was trouble with a pallet, dammit, whoever gave her one to buy a man for a night was an idiot. Any other man would not hesitate to take her to bed. There was something about her, the innocence she emanated, the way those blue eyes gutted you. It was really hard to say “no” to this girl.
But even if she weren’t demanding his promise, Damien wouldn’t do her on the simple principal that she was a good girl and he was the bad guy still trying to get over the way he’d broken his heart ten years ago.
It hadn’t exactly been fun for him.
Definitely not fun, being put in the awful role of saying “no” to her.
“I promise you,” he agreed, then cocked a sarcastic eyebrow. “But tell m
e why you’re so intent against it now?” When you begged me for it before…
“I’d rather curl up with a bulldozer, that’s the attraction you hold to me, just to be clear.”
He glowered. “Your little bones are not exactly cuddling material either.”
“Look, I’m still a virgin,” she said, opening her door. “And I want to give my v-card to Court.”
His glower intensified. She wanted some guy named Court to take her virginity?
That was mighty damn fine with Damien.
He had a whole harem of women waiting for his attentions. He wasn’t fighting anyone over Sydney Morgan. Especially some guy named Court.
three
Damien Knight was entering her feminine lair, and Sydney started to perspire.
He looked a little moody and quite sexy, the bastard. It wasn’t helping things at all.
He flexed his muscles as he followed her into her apartment, and she didn’t like that her steps became so wobbly as she led him to the spacious living room. As he casually surveyed the nice cream L-shaped couch and matching chairs from her small, but high-end apartment, she took the opportunity to survey him.
Her eyes raked along his enormous form and deliciously built physique, and she became acutely aware of her breasts and how they pressed into her bra. They grew inordinately heavy as he stretched those muscles up over his head, his abdomen flat, his biceps long and taut. He pulled each arm to his side, long like a swimmer’s, but hard as a bodybuilder’s. Her nipples pushed up against her bra, like when she watched a romantic scene on TV with Court.
He plopped down on an oversize chair, her favorite chair, actually, and stretched like a cat, lazy, big, making her apartment feel infinitely smaller. “Well? Do you have anything to drink?”
“I have water. I don’t drink and neither does Court.”
He waved a hand. “Court, Court, sounds like a girl.”
“Please don’t insult him.”
“If a woman comes to a man begging him to seduce another asshole, the other asshole doesn’t deserve to be seduced.”
“Court is just socially awkward, all right? He doesn’t catch on subtle hints like other men do.” She strode to the kitchen and poured water from a pitcher, wondering why her heart was pounding so hard.
When she came back, he gripped the glass in his big hand, and she watched as he took a long draw.
“All right, Sydney. So how much do you know?” he said, setting the glass down on the nearby table, his dark black eyes looking at her.
She sat on the carpet a few feet away from his chair, heart still kicking into her ribcage. “I guess I know the basics.”
“Tell me what the basics are to you.” He leaned forward, leaving only about a feet between them. “Have you been kissed?”
His scent whirled around her, the same dark forest scent she’d picked up on in the car. She rubbed her nose, uncomfortable. “Several times in the mouth. But Court only kisses my cheek.”
“Has a man put his tongue in your mouth?”
“A little.”
“It’s either a yes, or a no, there’s nothing little about a man’s tongue in your mouth.”
“One man has tried to put it in but I kept my lips shut.”
“Have you been fondled?”
“How so?”
“Has a man held your breasts in his hands? Caressed your nipples?”
Her stomach tightened, and she shook her head.
“Has a man cupped your pussy with his hands? Or caressed your sex with his fingers?”
Her sex clenched tighter. “No,” she said, just a breath. She cleared her throat and repeated, “No.”
“So you don’t know anything,” he stated.
Her pride instantly smarted. “I read and I watch TV. I know everything, Damien. I just haven’t experienced it.”
“You watch porn?”
“I…” A heat crawled up her cheeks, and she shook her head.
“So you don’t know anything,” he repeated, more forcibly this time.
She covered her face with a groan. “Yes. I mean, no. I don’t know. All right, do you want the whole truth?”
He was silent. Waiting.
“I can’t even orgasm by myself, I don’t know what is wrong with me. I’ve only orgasmed like twice this year.”
Thank God he didn’t laugh. Instead he leaned back, crossed his powerful arms, and studied her. “Do you have fantasies?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“I want to know the extent of your imagination. What are your fantasies?”
She unclipped her hair, and let it tumble down, sighing as she rubbed the place where the clip had started to bother her. “I fantasize of being…being taken by a man from behind, without being asked permission only being…”
“Penetrated.”
The heat escalated in her body, spreading in her chest. She nodded.
“Is that your only fantasy? Of being penetrated from behind, without permission?”
“I fantasize of being bound.”
From his pocket, he pulled out the bind he’d just worn, his sleek black eyebrows rising high. He wasn’t smiling now. “Do you want to know what it feels like?”
Her pulse flew out of orbit. “B-but how can that help me with Court?”
“You need to know what you want before you can give anyone else what they want.”
Bound. Being bound. By Damien. “Uh, this is getting a bit too exciting for me.”
He threw his head back and laughed. The sound was deliciously surreal. Dangerous. “You paid a hundred thousand dollars to have me sit here answering your questions? Or do you want something a little more educative?” he asked.
A stretched silence ensued. His eyes held hers for a long moment, and it…felt strange. Damien’s stillness. His direct gaze.
Court had trouble making eye contact. He had trouble staying still, and frequently shied away from proximity, even with Sydney. In all truth, Court would have enormous trouble wrapping his head around the fact that Sydney wanted to be tied. The possibility of fulfilling her fantasies with a man like Court were…nil.
Still. She’d rather have Court than her fantasies.
She was about to pass when Damien rose to his feet, then he bent over and slid his fingers into the mass of her hair. Her sex clenched. She was on the floor, and the zipper of his pants stood right before her. Her throat closed as she gazed at the bulge there, then up, at the piercing on his nipples. Suddenly she vibrated on the inside as though currents had been stirred by a hurricane. “So you want to be bound, Sydney,” he repeated, thickly.
For a second, she felt fear. Maybe she was wrong. Damien…no matter how fiercely she’d hated him these past ten years, she had loved him too much. She wanted to be bound, but did not think she could be naked in front of him. “I’d like to know how it feels,” she quietly admitted, “but it won’t work if I’m not naked, and I don’t want to get naked in front of you.”
“Why?” he whispered. “Do you fear you’ll beg me to break my promise and have sex with you?”
“No! I don’t feel like that for you anymore,” she assured, scowling at the seriousness of his tone. “I don’t want to get you aroused,” she lied.
He pulled her up by the arms. “I’m unarousable. I like my women with curves. Come on let’s get that off and let’s get you bound.”
Her forehead furrowed, and her heart gripped once again at his rejection. Of course. He hadn’t wanted her ten years ago. Why would he want her now?
“You’re right.” She laughed. “You’ve had a harem. Right? Is that true?”
“I like to be pleasured by several women at a time, yes.”
She bit her lower lip thoughtfully and before she thought better of it, she unzipped her skirt and then shoved it down her hips, kicking it aside.
Damien Knight was the city’s scoundrel. He’d been in jail for DUI, he’d been disowned, judged, criticized, and the badder they made him to be, the
more women surrounded him. Models and actresses could resist him even less than they could a rock-star. He was bad, he was sex, and he was incredibly, disgustingly rich. He was a connoisseur of women and for sure Sydney and her small body, small breasts, small hips, everything almost childlike, wouldn’t do shit for a man like him.
She grabbed the bottom of her sweater in her fist, hesitating the slightest second, then she forced herself to pull it over her head, pretending he really was unarousable. “I’ll just pretend you’re gay, all right?” she told him.
“I’ll just pretend you didn’t say that.”
She smiled and reached behind to unhook her bra, suddenly getting excited. She’d never had a sexual experience before. Thanks to…well, to Damien. His rejection ten years ago had hurt her as deep as it could go. Hey, he owed her this. If Court never became the sort of man to fool around in the bedroom in those ways, at least her curiosity would be appeased.
And maybe, she’d learn a little more about herself. Her body. A man’s body.
She yanked off her bra, feeling a little quiver inside, and turned to find Damien standing in the middle of her apartment, his face shuttered, his eyes taking in her naked body, covered by nothing except a small pair of lacy white panties.
“I have a mind of feeding you before I tie you,” he said with a scowl.
She groaned. “I know I’m bony, I do eat, I just have a fast metabolism.”
He stalked to the kitchen. “You eat. What do you eat? Cake? That’s all that’s here. And berries.”
“Antioxidants. Chocolate has some, too.”
He shook his head, then pulled out a plate, searched her drawers for utensils, and came back out. “Come on. Sit.”
Her little quiver was becoming a knot, because “dinner” had been the last thing on her mind tonight. “I’d rather we get back to my fantasy.”
“Pretend I’m Court feeding you, let’s add it up to your sexual experience. Food is a pleasure.”
She groaned in protest, but marched into her bedroom, grabbed a t-shirt, and came back out, heading for the small round dining table to plop down next to him.