Stepping silently behind her, he slid his arms around her waist and pulled her in tight. She hummed in contentment and melted into him, her head tilting to one side. Christ, he wanted to lick her from one end to the other, but he didn’t want her mind foggy with arousal. Yet.
“How much did you have to drink tonight, beautiful?”
Her eyes remained closed as she answered. “I had a nice buzz going early in the night, but three glasses of wine is my limit. Any more than that and I wake up with a headache from hell. How ’bout you?”
“No more than I’ve been drinking since I was twelve.”
Her warm chuckle vibrated through his chest. “I forgot how forward-thinking you Europeans are when it comes to alcohol.”
“Don’t forget nudity, sex…all the fun things, really. Not like you American prudes.”
“Hey.” She turned her face so she could see him. “I’m not a prude.”
Xander bit his bottom lip to keep his amusement in check as much as possible. “I know,” he said, touching his forehead to hers. “Do you trust me, Sophie?”
Eyes of dark chocolate stared back at him. He thought she’d question him or take a long time to think about it. But a beat later she answered simply with, “Implicitly.”
“Good,” he said, his voice more gruff than normal. “No talking for now, and don’t move until I say otherwise.”
He stayed at her back and undressed her with slow movements, pausing to skim his hands over her skin every time he exposed something new, until all that was left was her lacy black thong. Placing his palm over the front of her neck and under her chin, he lifted, tilting her head back so he could whisper his plans for her.
“Tonight, Sophie James, I’m not holding back.” He traced the shell of her ear with the tip of his tongue and felt her body tremble in his arms. “No tempering what I want and how I want you. After tonight, you’ll never doubt that you’re mine.”
Chapter Thirteen
As Xander led Sophie by the hand through the apartment, she took the time to eat up his body with her eyes. She encouraged the man to be shirtless at all times in the house, because really, it was a crime to cover up that much perfection. He’d pandered to her wishes for a while, but it wasn’t long before he implemented the “topless for topless” rule. Spoil sport.
Damn, what was it about him in nothing but jeans that she couldn’t get enough of? When her gaze traveled the length of his goody trail below his navel, she hadn’t missed that the telltale elastic band was missing. The thought of Xan commando, his naked cock growing hard against the denim, kicked her arousal into overdrive.
As he guided her into the darkened bedroom, her breath caught in her throat at the scene. The bed was covered in a black silk sheet. Pillar candles in various sizes huddled in small groupings on the nightstands and dresser. The tiny flames danced on the wicks, casting soft flickering light while the subtle notes of vanilla filled the room.
“Do you like the candles?” he asked, stepping close behind her. “Seems I’ve acquired a bit of an addiction to vanilla scents. They remind me of you. How you smell, how you taste.” He trailed the backs of his fingers down the dip of her spine. She shivered and her nipples tightened into hard tips. Using his fingers along her jaw, he guided her face to meet his eyes. “Still trust me?”
“Yes.”
Satisfaction flashed in his eyes as he pulled one of her black sheer scarves from his pocket. Making sure to fold it several times first, he tied the scarf in a knot at the back of her head. She could make out shadows and movement, but nothing significant. Then he helped her lie on her back in the center of the bed. He crossed her wrists in front of her a second before she felt the silk of another scarf slide over her skin as he bound them together.
She’d known he enjoyed light bondage, he’d told her as much on many occasions, but since he’d never actually tied her up, she’d thought he wasn’t up for trying it with her. Then she realized that he had. She just didn’t catch on right away because he never used anything other than his own strength. He loved holding her wrists—above her head, behind her back, behind his back—or pressing a heavy hand to the center of her spine to pin her down as he fucked her from behind. As the weeks went on, seeing how hot those small concessions of control made him, her resistance had melted like chocolate left in the desert sun.
She never told him—hell, she’d had a hard enough time admitting it to herself—but a small part of her recognized the thrill of succumbing to that power, of letting go and allowing him to take the reins and bring them to their mutual pleasure. Now she found herself wanting to explore that side of him.
As he worked to secure them above her head, he asked, “Do you know what I love about you being bound and blindfolded, Sophie?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Without sight or the ability to touch me, you’re forced to focus on your own pleasure. Every touch, every kiss, every lick will feel ten times more powerful. And you’ll be helpless to do anything but beg me to let you come.”
She bit the bottom of her lip with a soft whimper at the images he painted with a gruff voice. When he was finished, she felt his presence straighten away from her.
“Ah, Sophie,” he breathed. “You’re a work of art. You belong in a museum where everyone can appreciate your beauty. But I’m too much of a selfish prick to share you.” She felt the bed dip a moment before his body stretched next to her. The coarse denim covering his legs so different from the heat of his naked chest pressed along her side. “I wish you could see yourself through my eyes right now. I’ve never seen anything lovelier.”
She licked her lips and whispered, “Please, Xander,” as she arched her back, hoping to entice him into doing something, anything, before she lost her mind.
“Shhh, baby.” His fingers started drawing lazy designs on her stomach and around her breasts. “When I asked for your trust, it wasn’t only about the blindfold and being bound. I want you to trust me with your pleasure, as well. Trust that I know how to take you to the sweetest of edges over and over before making you come harder than you ever have in your life.”
Sophie believed he could—and would—do just as he said. What worried her was whether she could handle it or not. She no longer had the capability of taking matters into her own hands. She couldn’t reach down and flip the script by grabbing his dick. Or push him onto his back so she had control of things as she rode him hard from the top. Usually they had a lot of give and take with the power dynamics during sex. Now, she had none.
She shivered as his tongue laved a path from her belly button up the center of her body. He took his time torturing each breast with his mouth, licking and sucking everywhere but her nipples, until Sophie thought she’d go crazy with want.
“Your tits are perfect. Pale and tipped with pink rose buds.”
At last he latched on to one, dead center, and drew it deep into his mouth. He flicked the taut bud with his tongue and teased it with nips of his teeth, then repeated everything on the other. She moaned and arched as the different sensations he created zipped down the hot wires that connected her nipples to her clit. Wave after wave crashed against it until she felt the beat of her heart pulsing in the walls of her sex.
Xander pulled back and she sensed his penetrating stare on her heaving chest. Then, as he spoke, he pinched and pulled and rolled with the callused tips of his fingers. “Now the pink has turned red. Like berries and cream, they are, and so goddamn beautiful.”
His words affected her almost as much as his touch did. Sophie squeezed her thighs together, desperately seeking the friction she needed for even a small bit of relief. The pressure eased her somewhat, but he was quick to stay her with his hands. “I don’t think so, Soph. That’s against the rules and you well know it. Guess I’ll move on to the next stage of my plans, then.”
“Your plans are big enough to have stages?” she squeaked out.
Half of his body covered her as he leaned in to drop kisses along h
er neck and jaw. “Does that worry you? Or does it put all sorts of devilish ideas in your head and make your body ache for me even more?”
Her voice wasn’t so much sound as it was breath now. “Want you inside me so bad. Can’t ache for you any more than I already do.”
He chuckled and bit her earlobe. She sucked in a sharp inhale. “You’re so very wrong about that, beautiful, and I’m going to prove it to you. Spread your legs. Good girl.”
Xander kept his head by hers, but he gave his fingers free rein to go where they pleased. And at that moment, they pleased plenty with her little black thong. He caressed her through the lacy material and along the edges that lined her super-sensitive skin.
He moved so that he straddled her left leg and then lowered himself to the bed along her side, keeping that solid left thigh of his tight against her sex. His body was so large that even lying next to her as he was, he still fairly loomed over her. He grabbed her hands and held both wrists in his right hand high above her head. The light covering of chest hair rasped along her rib cage, a reminder of his manliness that elicited some ancient response to submit deep in her belly; something she’d never felt before with any other man. If he fully realized the affect he had on her, she was in big trouble.
Only 95 days left.
Suddenly that didn’t feel like nearly enough time.
…
Xan’s body had hers pinned, and still her back bowed and her hips ground against his stomach. Her moans were his drug, but no matter how many she gave him, it was never enough. They only made him more crazed and ravenous to hear more. And it was all he could do not to rush to all the things he knew would get him that score and ultimate high of driving her over the edge into orgasmic euphoria.
“Xander, please.”
“When I’m good and ready and not a moment before,” he growled.
“Now are you ready?”
Fuck it. “Yeah, now’s good.” He retrieved the condom, rolled it on, and thrust home to his balls. “Ah, shit you’re always so damn tight.”
Her hips rotated in small circles with him seated deep inside her. “Move. I need you to move.”
Then her inner muscles squeezed around him and his eyes damn near rolled into the back of his skull. He clenched his jaw and silently begged he could hold off for her pleasure’s sake and the sake of his dignity. “Wait a bloody minute or this will be over before we start.”
“Can’t handle one little pussy?”
He removed her blindfold, wanting her to see the playful warning in his narrowed eyes. “Careful, gorgeous. You’re dangerously close to bruising my enormous ego.” Xander withdrew almost completely, then drove into her with a brutal force. “I’m known for my stamina in and out of the cage. Outside factors never altered the equation enough to change my performance.” He repeated his withdraw-and-thrust combo, rocking her body several inches up the bed. “But you,” he continued. “Your pussy fucking wrecks me.”
The teasing glimmer in her eyes dimmed as subtle shock made them widen slightly and scrutinize his face to determine his motives for admitting something so vulnerable. “I do? I mean, it does?”
“Yeah, it does. Nothing has ever been so hot and tight around my cock. Your pussy’s like a greedy fist. Never felt anything like it. Never want to, either.” Staring into her eyes, he did his best to tell her how he felt about her with the majority of his blood working the dumb brain. “Yours is it for me, gorgeous. I don’t want any others, and I don’t want another man touching what’s mine.” Xander palmed her pussy around the root of his shaft. “Tell me this is mine.”
Her breath hitched in her throat and the black of her eyes became unfocused with the haze of lust. “It’s yours. Has been from the moment I saw you.”
Fuck, this woman killed him. But if this was what death felt like, he’d gladly die a thousand times over.
Xander ground his pelvis against hers in small circles as he assaulted her mouth, tongues tangling like they competed for an enthusiasm award until he had to break away and drag in deep lungfuls of air. Slowly, he began thrusting in a steady rhythm. He wanted to work her into a bloody frenzy; to make her as crazy and needy as she did him.
His ears ate up the musical sound of her moans, and his grunts became the bass line with every thrust of his hips. He lost time as they melded with each other in body and mind, moving as one. Their eyes never left each other, and he swore he could see her soul swimming in those fathomless pools.
Her back arched beautifully with her arms still bound, an offering no sane man could refuse. He hooked her right leg onto his left shoulder to plunge in deeper, then dipped his head and feasted on her breasts. He’d never made love to a woman before, and he knew that even if he had, it never would have felt like this. Only with Sophie.
“God, Xander, please,” she panted. “I need to touch you. I need to be close to you.”
Yes, he needed that, too. So much. He pulled on the end of the special knot in the scarf and easily released her hands. Sophie’s arms instantly wrapped around his neck as she crushed her mouth to his. As their tongues melded and twined, Xander snaked his hands between her back and the bed and lifted her with him when he sat back on his heels. Her legs hugged his waist, ankles hooked at his lower back. Still connected, he molded his hands to her pliable ass cheeks and let her have control of how their bodies touched above that.
Using his arms to lift and lower her on his cock, he reveled in all the ways she moved against him, the feel of her stiff nipples dragging over his chest. Her hands roamed, sometimes scraping her nails over his back, other times pulling his hair, making his cock twitch deep inside her.
“Oh God, Xander…”
She squeezed her eyes shut and whimpered in the back of her throat, signaling the beginning of her release. “Open your eyes. I want to see you when you come for me.”
Sophie obeyed, her dark lashes lifting to show him her world and everything in it. “Good girl,” he whispered, sneaking a hand between them to work her slippery clit with his thumb. The second he touched it, she gasped and her hips jerked hard from the sensitivity, but he wouldn’t let her avoid it. Her breaths were now hitches of moaning pants as she chased her release. She no longer needed his guidance as she used the leverage of his body to bounce faster on his cock.
“Now let go for me, Sophie, and when you do, keep your eyes on me. On the one who owns your pleasure, your orgasms, your tight fucking pussy.” Xander kept working her sensitive bud with one hand and fisted the back of her hair with the other as he growled his words next to her ear. “The only man who will ever possess you again. You’re mine.”
He pulled back in time to watch her peak and tumble over the edge as she cried out, her walls milking him in orgasmic waves. He couldn’t have held out any longer if his life depended on it, and he happily followed her into the bliss, spilling himself inside her.
After taking care of the condom, Xander tucked Sophie in, joining her under the covers and pulling her into his arms.
Sleep came for her almost immediately, but he tried to hold out as long as possible. He was afraid that when he woke up, none of today would have happened, that it was all a really amazing dream. But after the adrenaline coaster of his fight, his win, and then making love to Sophie, his body gave him no other choice than to shut down and hope that tomorrow brought more of the same.
Chapter Fourteen
86 days left
Xander still had plenty of adrenaline coursing through him as he yanked a clean shirt over his head and grabbed his things from his gym locker. He’d taken the quickest shower of his life in anticipation of heading over to the Sweet Spot to see Sophie. Not that wanting to see her wasn’t a daily thing, but today he had good news he couldn’t wait to share with her.
On his way past the front desk, he nodded at Dorsette, who was going to close up for him so he could take off early.
“Some guy’s in your office, boss.”
“I’m not staying to talk to prospective clien
ts right now,” he said, breezing past.
He’d almost made it to the front door when Dorsette added, “It’s an old guy in a suit.” Xander stopped in his tracks. “Said he needs to talk to you about something important.”
Caldwell. Had to be. Things had been going too smoothly for Xan and Sophie. Something was bound to happen to try and fuck with things, and apparently that something was going to be her uncle.
Xan thanked Dorsette for relaying the message and backtracked to his office. Sure as shit, Richard Caldwell stood in the middle of the small room in his expensive suit with a briefcase at his feet.
“Richard,” he said in greeting as he closed the door behind him. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”
“I was hoping we could have a frank discussion.”
Taking a seat behind his desk, he said, “Those are the only kind I have, but you’ll need to make it quick. I was just on my way to see my wife.”
Richard visibly tensed. Xander wondered if it was the mention of Sophie or the reminder that his niece was Xander’s wife. Honestly, he didn’t give a fuck either way.
After perching on one of the guest chairs, Richard opened his briefcase and took out a large manila envelope and handed it over. “What’s this?” Xander pulled out the stack of papers, and his blood instantly boiled. “Divorce papers,” he said.
“I had them drawn up for you,” Richard confirmed. “I’m not an idiot, Mr. James. I know that you and my niece got married to thwart my development deal.”
Xander narrowed a steely gaze on the man. “Is that so.”