“You can try,” she says, the rebellious reply defying the inexperience and innocence I sense in her, an innocence that I now realize I never truly sensed in Meg.
That she has this courage speaks of strength, of being a survivor, and it heats my blood and makes me want her all the more. It drives me to show her just how wrong she is, how easily I can own her. I tell myself it’s a lesson she needs to learn for her own good—but who am I fooling?
I want to fuck her. Right here and now, I want to own her. I need the rush of it, the control, the high I’ve denied myself during the entire Meg façade of reforming my ways.
Covering her hands with mine, I slide them upward, pressing them together over her head. Again, I lean in close to her, my lips grazing her neck, her ear. “I’ll do more than try,” I promise. “As long as we’re in this room, I’m in control. I’m your Master.” I tighten my grip on her hands. “I’m going to let go of you, but you will not move.”
“If I do?” she asks, and I know she’s pushing me, driving me to take her someplace that can be dangerous in other places, at other times, with someone else.
“There’s a price.”
“I don’t understand. What price?”
My hands travel down her arms, and curve around her body to cup her breasts again, my fingers tugging roughly on her nipples and then twisting. A sound of one part pain, one part pleasure, escapes her lips. “Now do you understand?”
“Yes,” she pants.
But she doesn’t, and I suddenly realize how very dangerous that is. My sister damn sure didn’t understand, or she never would have gone to work for a museum and put herself back on Sheridan’s map. Gia needs to learn about keeping her guard up, and she needs to learn now.
Tangling my fingers in her hair, rough by intention, I pull her head back, dragging her mouth to mine. “I keep telling you that you don’t understand, but you will.” I kiss her, hard, deep, fast, before punishing her with a nip of my teeth on her lip that makes her yelp. “That’s for trusting me when you shouldn’t,” I add vehemently. “If I were someone else—”
“But you aren’t.”
I grit my teeth, conflicted by how much I want her trust, how much I want to deserve it, and how much I fear that I’m setting her up to give it when she should not. “Don’t move your hands,” I order gruffly, deciding that actions speak louder than words. “Understood?”
“Yes,” she whispers.
Releasing her, I undress, my cock thick, hard, and throbbing with my need to be inside her, but she isn’t one of the many fuck buddies that came before Meg, and my initial need to bury myself inside her is shifting rapidly to anger. I know I won’t hurt her, but she doesn’t. She can’t. I’m a stranger, and she needs to learn the price of trusting anyone, especially when Sheridan is involved. I grab the one condom I have on me out of my wallet, roll it over my shaft, and then put my pants back on, the zipper down.
Returning to Gia, I squat at her feet, my fingers wrapping around her slender ankles, lingering there. And lingering some more. Waiting, waiting, and as I expect, she looks over her shoulder. “Face forward,” I command and she tenses, but obeys. Intentionally, I stay just as I am, letting seconds tick by, ensuring that she feels my eyes once again raking over her naked body. Lingering, letting her feel vulnerable when she is safe, fighting a need to give her one last memory in her life that is without fear. We don’t have that luxury. She doesn’t have that luxury.
When I am certain she has waited long enough to feel every touch magnified, I allow my thumbs to lazily stroke her ankles. She stiffens but almost instantly softens, my cue to inch my way upward, caressing her calves. Moving onward I find the back of her knees, where my thumbs linger again, and finally I use my knee to urge her legs to part. “Open,” I order. She starts to turn and I warn, “Don’t.”
She sucks in a heavy breath and sets her legs in a V. I cup her thighs just above her knees, still using my thumb as a seductive tool. Finally, I explore the lines between her inner thighs, using a teasing touch that doesn’t stop until I almost reach the sweet spots in the V of her body. But I don’t go there.
I want to. Hell yeah, I want to go there, but it’s not time. Instead, I trail both index fingers over the curve of her gorgeous, heart-shaped ass. And the instant I travel upward, traveling the crevice of her cheeks, she gasps, shifting slightly, her hands starting to drop. I’m on my feet before she’s fully moved, leaning into her, covering her hands with mine.
“Now you pay the price,” I promise, and with the tie to the curtain still in the bathroom, I improvise, reaching down to pull my belt free from its loops. Still anchoring her body with mine, one hand holding her hands in place, I quickly wrap it around her wrists.
“What are you doing?” she demands, sounding panicked, uncertain, exactly what I’d expected, planning to make this lesson short and exact, moving on to the adrenaline rush, the pleasure.
“Consequences,” I reply, tightening the belt and buckling it. “Making sure you remember that every decision you make has them.” Still shackling her wrists, my free hand flattens on her bare belly, my fingers splaying wide, my lips brushing her ear as I add, “And now I can do whatever I want to you, and you can’t stop me. Are you scared?”
“Do you want me to be?”
“Answer the question. Are you scared?”
She inhales and lets it out. “Nervous.”
Nervous isn’t scared. That isn’t good enough. For just a few minutes, I need her to feel panic, to see what poison trust can deliver. I cup her backside with both hands, tightening my thighs around her thighs. “I’m going to spank you.”
“What? No. No, I—”
“Then I’ll fuck you.”
“No, Chad.”
“Yes, Gia. I’m going to step back and fully undress. If you move, I’ll spank you the second you do.”
“I’m going to move,” she assures me.
“Then I’m going to spank you. It’s your choice. I told you not to trust me.”
“So you’re going to prove I shouldn’t. Is that it?”
I ignore the question. “Have you ever been spanked?”
“No, I haven’t, and I don’t want to change that.”
“You might be surprised by how damn sexy and thrilling it is.”
“Say that when someone spanks you.”
Once again, I find myself smiling, which is pretty fucking amazing. I squeeze her cheeks. “I’m going to undress now, Gia. Remember my warning.”
I step away and shove my pants down, and the instant I do, she turns. I’m back on her before she escapes, turning her back to the wall, locking my legs around hers. “Chad—” she hisses, but I cut her off.
“Don’t object, or fight it,” I say, cupping her backside and massaging it, warming her skin for what’s to come. “It’ll only make it worse.”
“Chad,” she pleads.
“What are you thinking right now?”
“That you’re an asshole.”
“What else?”
“That you’re naked, and I don’t know why I’m aroused and still want you, when you’re such an asshole.”
My lips quirk. “What else?”
“I can’t think. I can’t think!”
“That’s what this is all about. It’s the escape. There’s nothing else but you and me and here and now. And you know what I’m thinking? About fucking you. About being inside you and feeling how hot and wet and tight you are. Nothing else. But first I’m going to spank you.”
“I . . . but is it going to hurt?”
“A tiny sting.” I lean in and nuzzle her neck. “This is just about you and me and pleasure. I’m not going to hurt you. Okay?”
“Yes,” she whispers. “Yes, okay.”
I move to her side, viewing her profile, my cock resting at her hip and belly, one leg in front of her, the other in the back. Her bound wrists rest in front of her chest and I don’t move them, to give her the leverage of the wall when I spank her. One of m
y hands flattens on her belly, the other goes to her head, forcing her to look at me. “Now is the time you need to trust me.”
“Ironic, now that I really don’t have a choice, do I?”
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I repeat, sealing the promise with a brush of lips against lips, my tongue caressing past her teeth, licking into her mouth in a gentle seduction meant to echo my words, meant to calm her nerves and excite her arousal, to erase her fear. “You even taste stubborn,” I murmur, sliding my fingers between her legs, lightly teasing her clit. “Don’t trust. That’s the rule you need to learn. No more. No one. Ever. The one time I did, I ended up tied to a chair.”
“I can’t live that way.”
“You don’t have a choice.” I squeeze her backside, then command, “Don’t trust anyone.” Not giving her time to argue, I slide my fingers between her legs, into the slick heat of her body. She gasps and then moans. “You’re wet,” I observe, desire thickening my blood right along with my cock. “You’re about to be wetter.”
“What does that mean?”
I dip my fingers lower, deeper, distracting her and intentionally shocking her. I slap her backside, not hard, not even close to what I would do in an erotic game, but it’s a message. It’s about possibilities, about open doors she can never shut again, and I don’t stop at one. I repeat the action. Another smack, and another, until I reach five. When I’m done, she is panting, and my fingers take over, stroking her, teasing her until she shatters for me, her body quaking with the impact.
I bring her down, waiting until she slumps slightly, moving between her and the wall, fitting my cock between her thighs, and laying her on top of me. She buries her face in my shoulder and I press my hands to the side of her face, tilting her face forward. Her cheeks are flushed, but it’s her glassy eyes that do me in, that make my intentions waver. “Tell me I didn’t hurt you.”
“No. No, it wasn’t pain. It was . . . I was helpless . . . vulnerable and . . .” Her voice trails off, the red in her cheeks darkening.
“And what?” I press.
“Exposed, and yet aroused. I was turned on, and I don’t even understand why.”
“Because it’s sexy, baby. You have no idea how much I want to be inside you right now, but you need to understand the message I was sending you. I wouldn’t do anything but please you, but someone else might not be so nice. You can’t take risks, no matter what the circumstances are. Don’t trust.”
“Does that still include you?”
“Yes. I’m toxic, Gia. I will bleed poison into your life. I’m going to get you to safety, but then I’m gone.”
“That’s why you hid from your sister.”
“Yes.”
She studies me a long few moments, searching my face, and there is a shift between us, a spike of passion, a darkening of the mood in the most erotic of ways. “Untie me,” she says. “I need to touch you. I need to touch you, Chad.”
A rush of wild emotions beats on me from all directions. I feel responsible for her. I feel the impact of the decision I made years ago, and how it’s bled into her life. My fingers flex on her face. “Tell me you understand first,” I demand.
“More than you can imagine,” she whispers, and I don’t know what it means. I want to know what I sense she’s hiding. “Untie me,” she repeats. “Please. And yes, please means please do all those things you said to me before. Please make me scream your name. Please make me never forget who you are.”
Her words crash over me, stirring more of those dark emotions I’d awoken with, and that I live with every day of my life. I kiss her, and it’s deep, passionate, tense with all the emotions I’ve suppressed since waking up from that nightmare raging to the surface. The only means to my relief is this woman.
I tear my mouth away from hers, and for a moment, we just stare at each other. I don’t know what it is that’s between us but it’s far more real than anything I’ve felt outside of pain in a very long time. I unbuckle the belt, quickly loosening it and tossing it away. The instant it’s gone, we are kissing again, her fingers delicate, soft and warm on my skin, and yet somehow as demanding as I feel.
My fingers close around her neck, under her hair, and I pull her mouth to mine harder, kissing her, consuming her, and finally I am touching her freely, exploring her body, her breasts, her nipples. I turn our bodies so her back is now against the wall, lifting her leg, sliding my cock along her core and pressing into her. Driving deep. Hard. Burying myself in the farthest part of her. Our eyes lock and hold, and the shift between us, that connection I’ve felt ever since she walked into the interrogation room, blossoms and grows. There is heat in my blood, heat in my chest that I do not want to feel. But it’s here, alive, real, and it stretches between us, a tight band of desire that snaps.
Suddenly, we are kissing again, and I grab her backside and pick her up. Her legs curl around my waist and I carry her to the mattress, laying her down, going down on top of her. And then I am driving into her, pumping and thrusting, my hand still under her, arching her into me. Fucking. We are fucking, and it’s that wild, primal, animalistic rush that I need, that she needs. And she’s making these soft, sexy sounds that drive me insane but they travel through me, too, whispering in a way no other woman’s soft sounds ever have. I’m fucking her, trying to get to that dark, oblivious place where the woman doesn’t matter, only the sex does. But I can’t. I pull back slightly, burying my face in her neck, forcing my body to slow down, to calm. Inhaling deeply, I slow down to allow her to get to the same place I am.
I cup her breasts, licking her nipples, sucking and teasing. I kiss her neck, her ear, her shoulder. Her fingers tangle roughly in my hair and a soft, desperate plea of “Chad,” follows. It’s then that I kiss her again, then that I drive back into her, and there’s a new edge burning between us. We are grinding and touching and practically trying to get under each other’s skins.
Too soon, it seems, she digs her fingernails into my back and tenses. A second later, she spasms around me, milking my cock, and I drive into her one last time and explode, shaking with the intensity of my release. Time floats away, and I am spiraling into that sweet oblivion that is the moments after great sex.
Slowly, I come back to the room, to Gia, to the natural scent of her that is pure, sexy woman. The feel of her beneath me makes me not want to get up, and that’s when I know this was more than a fuck session. And that’s not only new to me, it’s trouble. Forcing myself to pull out of her, I stand up, not looking at her as I turn away, snatching up my jeans and walking to the bathroom. I rid myself of the condom in the toilet and lean on the wall, trying to figure out what the hell is wrong with me.
I just met this woman. I can’t have an attachment to her. I won’t. I don’t. I push off the wall and put on my pants, walking into the bedroom.
Gia’s standing by the wall we fucked against; her back to me, her naked, gorgeous backside in full view as she tugs the dress over her head. But it’s not her gorgeous body that does me in. It’s the tension radiating off her, slamming into me. It twists me in knots, punches me in the chest. Fuck!
I go to her, grasping her elbow and turning her to face me. “Are you okay?”
She laughs nervously, her cheeks flushing pink. “You stripped away every reserve I own and then told me that I can never be that vulnerable ever again in my life. Of course I’m okay.”
Sarcasm. Nerves. I’m coming to know this pattern. “This, us, fucking like we did, it was an escape for both of us.”
“Right. I get it. And the lesson of it all was that the next time I get naked with a man, he could tie me up and hurt me. Have a gun handy.”
The idea of her having sex with another man sits uncomfortably in my chest, and I don’t like it. She isn’t mine and she never will be. “Sex is a necessity of life,” I say. “It’s going to happen. Be cautious. Be aware. And don’t turn it into a relationship. When someone works themselves beneath your defenses, you’re in trouble.”
??
?Is that what happened to you?”
My walls slide into place and I release her. “If you have pants that fit and tennis shoes, change. We’re going to be walking a few miles.” I turn away from her, grabbing my shirt and tugging it over my head.
“Chad,” she whispers.
“I’ve made a lot of mistakes, Gia, all with consequences others have paid for.” Turning to face her, I add, “And you aren’t going to be one of them. Go change.” When she doesn’t move, I want to go to her. I know I have to make sure that’s not an option. “I am that guy you accused me of being. I will do just about anything for a rush, and cash. You stay around too long, I might sell you. If the price is right.”
She pales, her shoulders slumping as if I’ve punched her, before she rushes to the bathroom and shuts the door. And it takes everything in me not to punch the wall.
SEVEN
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, I eye the clock on the nightstand that reads 11 a.m. and curse myself for being a good hour behind my planned departure time. Eager to get packed up and out of this rat trap, I secure my gun in my ankle holster and try Jared again. I’m listening to it ring, ready to throw the phone against the wall, when I hear the bathroom door. Glancing up, I find Gia standing at the end of the bed, her long brown hair brushed sleekly again, her lips glossed, and if I’m not mistaken she has on some makeup. She’s wearing black jeans and a red Mickey Mouse T-shirt with red Keds, or whatever the hell they’re called, to match. I’m struck by two things. She looks completely different and still adorably, impossibly sexy. What the hell is the deal with the shirt?
“Fuck me,” I grumble, removing the phone from my ear and discarding it. “Did the kid just want you to silently scream for everyone to look at you? Is there any other option in the Walmart bag?”
She folds her arms in front of her, and I don’t miss how carefully she avoids eye contact as she says, “There seems to be a fictional-character theme that includes neon green and hot pink.”