‘Meaning?’
He looked at her steadily. ‘Meaning I’m not sure you should be here.’ He uncurled his fingers from her ankle, placed her foot back on the bed with unnecessary care, struggled with his chaotic feelings, wanting and not wanting her in his house, this room. In his life.
‘Mind telling me why?’ She was no psychologist, but this room was a time capsule.
His look was unreadable for a moment, then he shrugged. He wasn’t going to say this room had always been his last barricade against the world, his sanctuary and refuge. Or that he didn’t deal well with emotion. Or with personal relationships. ‘Let’s just say it feels strange having you in this room.’
She tuned into the restraint in his quiet declaration, the unexpected underlying tumult, the sudden desolation. ‘Maybe this isn’t a good time for you.’
He looked at her lying pale and nude and voluptuous on his bed, glanced down at his rock-hard dick, then back at her. ‘I wouldn’t say that.’
Her mouth firmed at the casual indifference in his tone. ‘Maybe it’s not a good time for me.’
‘I’m not sure that matters.’
‘Jesus, that master of the universe never goes away, does he?’
‘What the hell do you expect?’ he said, his voice no longer mellow or casual or weary in his mildly contemptuous way, but suddenly razor-sharp. ‘You think I’m going to change? You think that hot sex with you is going to alter my life? Burn away thirty-two fucking years of encoded distrust and the poisonous shadow of my parents? I got news for you, baby. It ain’t gonna happen. So just get the fuck out. This is my room.’
‘Your last defence, you mean.’
His eyes were searing blue. ‘Yeah, it is and you’re not supposed to be here.’
She swung up out of bed, stood well away from him, faint colour rising on her cheeks. ‘I need my clothes.’
He stared at her, at her redhead’s pale, translucent skin, at her pulse-quickening beauty, at her extravagant tits and her soft, curvaceous body that fit his like a glove. ‘Later,’ he said.
She straightened her spine at his words, drew herself up to her full height that still fell short of his by a foot, forced herself to meet his implacable gaze. ‘I’m not going to let you walk all over me, Dominic. I’m not afraid of you. Jesus, will you stop? Don’t look at me like that. Like you’re doing a cost analysis and your dick has the final vote.’
‘My dick always has the final vote with you, baby. And the first and tenth and hundredth. And right now he wants to bang the hell out of you.’
‘It’s nice to know you care,’ she said, her lips compressed, unfiltered animosity in her eyes. ‘This is a real Hallmark moment.’
‘Don’t get all worked up,’ he said, as if he weren’t standing there with a major hard-on behind his open zipper. ‘Maybe that’s how I care. Maybe that’s the only way I care. Maybe I don’t know any other way.’
‘Jesus, you are so fucked.’
‘Uh-uh – you are.’ He moved in a blur, picked her up, tossed her back on the bed, kicked off his sandals and, standing at the side of the bed, freed the metal button at the waistband of his jeans. Sliding his fingers into his open fly, he shoved his boxers down enough to draw out his heavy cock.
She glared at him. ‘You’re such a child.’
‘I was never a child, Katherine,’ he said with a small sigh. ‘Not within memory. Tell me you want this. That’s not too difficult, is it?’ His mind-fuck aside, there was no way he wasn’t going to screw her. Of that he was certain.
She tried not to look, but his massive erection was defying gravity, starkly upright, the swollen head reaching past his navel.
‘He’s not insulted by bitchy women, baby.’ The faintest of smiles flickered across Dominic’s face. ‘But we need you to get with the programme. You know how it works: I give the orders; you follow them.’
‘Go to hell,’ Kate snapped.
Something tightened in his jaw, his smile disappeared. ‘I’m not playing this game anymore,’ he said, cool and seamless, the billionaire CEO reinstated. ‘I’ve been kissing your ass since Singapore. I don’t kiss ass.’ He gazed at her across endless years of hard living and taking what he wanted. ‘I’m done with this bullshit.’
‘Excuse me? Is that what this is?’
‘I don’t feel like excusing you right now.’ His voice was grating, deadly, her second question dismissed. ‘Just do what you’re told.’ He ran his closed fingers up the length of his pulsing dick, took a deep breath as the pleasure streaked up his spine. ‘Now tell me you want this deep inside you.’
She should tell him to fuck off. Better yet, she should get up and leave this infuriating man with his invisible world he was battling; she should turn her back on this impossible relationship that wasn’t a relationship at all, unless nonstop fucking qualified. Perhaps she might even have followed through if his eyes hadn’t been fixed knowingly on hers, if he hadn’t run his finger all the way up his monstrous dick so slowly she could see the fresh blood pouring into the network of distended veins feeding his arousal.
A sudden spike of shimmering desire raced through her body, recklessly vaulted over judicious thought, left her quivering. Instant recall of the consequences of Dominic’s brusque orders flooded her senses: the wild hysteria, the seething need, the soul-stirring ecstasy; how he could make the pleasure last.
‘You’re pissing me off, Katherine. Talk to me or fuck it – I’ll turn on some porn and take care of myself.’ He circled his erection with his fingers, slid his hand down to the base of the thick shaft, tipped his towering dick in her direction and arched his brows.
‘Will you be starring in the porn?’ Bile spilling from her tongue.
He gave a small shrug. ‘Not necessarily. Would it interest you if I were?’
She blushed furiously and for what seemed an ice age, she was under the gaze of a silent observer who had the power to overlook the ordinary constraints of life. Who had the power to make her ache for him.
‘The porn can wait,’ he said quietly, as if he could read her mind. ‘But I need you to answer me. Politely. You must, Katherine.’
She flinched at the steel edge in his voice, called herself every kind of fool for trembling at his free-of-apology demand. Had she learned nothing in the past month about personal freedom and choices? ‘OK then, yes,’ she said, as though she had no will of her own, as though she were on some carnal autopilot.
‘OK?’ he said silkily, because he’d been walking a bloody tightrope since Raffles trying to please a woman for the first time in his life and he needed some serious payback. ‘That doesn’t sound very enthusiastic. You can do better than that.’
‘I want …’ Her voice was shaky under his burning stare. ‘I want you … that.’ She pointed at his engorged dick, which he was holding lightly in the curve of his fingers. ‘When I shouldn’t. When I should walk away and leave you and your dick behind.’
‘But you’re not going to, are you?’ His voice was smooth and dangerous.
She looked up, her eyes large, a current of distrust shimmering through her senses. ‘I should,’ she whispered.
‘I wouldn’t let you anyway.’ A languid rise of his hand, a flick of his index finger. ‘Show me, Katherine. I want to see if you’re wet.’ He frowned when she didn’t move. ‘This isn’t about what you want, Katherine. It’s about what I want. You know the rules.’
She suddenly felt cold under that still blue gaze; her hands started trembling.
‘Jesus.’ His voice was soft. ‘Are you scared?’ He looked at her, his face rigid, his jaw tense. ‘This is too fucked up.’ He nodded, his gaze infinitely weary. ‘There’s the door. Get out. I’m sure someone has carried in your luggage by now.’
A heartbeat later, she shoved herself up on her elbows, met his gaze straight on. ‘I’m not scared of you.’ There was that faint air of defiance, as if she were daring him to throw her out. ‘Just stop being a prick. Enter the human race.’
He
smiled faintly. ‘Easy to say.’
‘Well, dial it down a notch. Can you do that? I’m not going to piss all over your boyhood mementoes. I’m only here for a few days.’
‘You never know,’ he said, because deference was unnatural to him, especially with sex. ‘It might be more than a few days.’
‘Oh, I know all right,’ she said, unblinking, deference equally meaningless to her. ‘Now, can we get this show on the road?’ She pointed at his dick.
‘Not a problem.’ His smile was brilliant. ‘Any more directions? I wouldn’t want to make any blunders,’ he murmured, his voice softly insolent.
‘One last direction,’ she said unwisely. ‘Make me feel—’
Hot with temper, he was on top of her before she’d finished speaking, slamming into her because she could piss him off damn near better than anyone.
Stunned, she sucked in a breath. ‘What the hell are you doing?’
His erection barely past the entrance to her body, her taut, unyielding flesh strangling the head of his dick, he gazed down at her, his lips curled in an icy smile. ‘I’m trying to fuck you, baby. I’m not getting much help. Should I order in some lube?’
‘Get. Off. Me,’ she said, tight and angry. ‘Right now.’
‘No way.’ His reasons for refusing were enigmatic and territorial. The territorial part he understood; that was the part where he fucked her.
‘How about some minimum recognition of who you’re screwing then?’ She spoke with cold intensity because he hadn’t moved and it didn’t look like he would, the head of his erection pulsing against her tense flesh.
‘I know who you are.’ He shut his eyes, blew out a breath. ‘You want an apology? I apologize.’
‘How about a real apology? You know, one that isn’t completely devoid of feeling.’
He stared at her sullenly. ‘You don’t want much, do you?’
‘Jesus fucking CHRIST!’ she cried in full revolt. ‘I’m not doing this with a man who doesn’t give a shit who’s in his bed. Get OFF me!’
He raised his brows. ‘Calm the hell down. Take a deep breath. You want a better apology? Is that what you want? I’ve been apologizing left and right lately so one more can’t matter,’ he said. ‘Not that it seems to have done much good.’ His gaze dropped, then lifted again. ‘When I’m getting this kind of resistance.’
She could feel him studying her and wondered in the ripening silence if she would ever reconcile her mindless longing with rational judgement when it came to Dominic, if she would ever say no and mean it, if she would ever look at his dark, brooding beauty and not want him. ‘Give me a minute,’ she said. To see the error of my ways, to regain my sanity. ‘In the meantime, I’ll take that apology.’
When he didn’t answer, she surveyed the beautiful face with the critical gaze, the rigid line of his jaw. ‘Who’s resisting now?’
‘I apologize, Katherine.’ His voice was drained of emotion.
‘You’re not good at this are you?’
He sighed. ‘You’re a fucking witch.’ He wasn’t even sure why he was engaging in this skirmish other than the fact that Katherine had upended his perfectly comfortable, thoroughly selfish life – the one where he didn’t deal with his feelings.
She smiled sweetly. ‘Thank you. You’re equally appealing.’
‘So can we close down this lesson on manners?’ he asked very quietly, using every ounce of self-control he possessed after seeing that smug smile.
‘Certainly.’ Another sugar-sweet smile.
Fuck it. He thrust in fast and hard as if he were furious or crazed or under so much accumulated pressure he was blind to the critical nuances of the most minimum courtesy, as if issues of forgiveness and apology had never been mentioned. As if violence alone wiped away smug smiles, rebalanced the power equation, burned away his perpetual hard-on.
Kate’s shriek rang out in a piercing wail.
It hit him like a stun gun.
He jerked back and hung suspended above her, every muscle tense. ‘Oh, fuck.’ He shook his head, blinked as though returning to the world.
Kate had tears in her eyes.
‘Oh, Christ,’ he said. ‘I’ll stop. I can stop.’
‘It’s all right.’ It was amazing how she was willing to relinquish her self-respect to please him, how the chemistry, the physical attraction, his body had become her happiness and her curse. Her world, judgement suspended. ‘You surprised me, that’s all.’
But she winced as he accidentally shifted positions and he looked at her, his gaze brooding. ‘I’m such an asshole.’ He blew the hair out of his eyes. ‘I have no fucking control with you.’ But his erection swelled and expanded independent of his remorse and he shot a flickering glance downwards. ‘Seriously, you should kick the shit out of him.’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, her heart pounding, unarmed in a battle she couldn’t win. ‘He has been really good to me.’
Dominic looked up, stared at her as though he were trying to decipher the chaos of the universe, as if only she could stabilize the dangerous drift into the abyss. ‘And?’ A whisper of a question, soft as silk, warm, tender, the blue of his eyes without the habitual arrogance.
‘And I need you inside me if I’m saying that properly?’
His smile was swift. ‘Very properly. Thank you.’
‘And I’m fine, really.’ She shifted slightly to try and accommodate his size, wanting to please him for any number of reasons: for the unforgettable pleasure he offered in and out of bed, for the reward of his smile, for his moments of tenderness, for the really incredible fucks – let’s not forget those.
‘You sure?’ Other than his surging dick, he was motionless.
Gazing up, she saw the raw worry in his eyes. ‘Maybe slow it down a little.’
He nodded. ‘I can do that.’ He grinned. ‘I’m not fucking fourteen. I can do it. But let me deal with this zipper first so it doesn’t rip your skin.’ Alternating impressive one-armed push-ups as he lay between her legs, he peeled himself out of his jeans and boxers, kicked them away, then took her hand, closed her fingers into a fist and placed it against his chest. ‘Punch me here if I’m hurting you. I’ll stop. OK?’
‘Yup.’
‘Good to go?’
Without waiting for an answer, he entered her with excruciating slowness and an economy of movement thanks to muscles honed to impeccable standards of strength. And when after languorous, endless moments of sumptuous friction and snug, velvety yielding he reached the ultimate, maximum depth, she was panting and quivering.
‘Better?’ he whispered.
Kate nodded. Luckily she didn’t have breath to speak or she might have told him she loved him because she was drugged with bliss, glowing with love and on fire. Everything below her skin was heated, stirring a tempest in her blood – the feel of him inside her, filling her completely, melting her heart, making her tremble. She looked up to see his eyes fixed on her, clear blue, a worry line between his brows. ‘You know what to do if I’m hurting you. Right?’
‘Yes.’ A barely audible whisper.
‘I don’t want to hurt you. I’m sorry as hell I did.’
How could he talk so calmly, like he was ordering a coffee. ‘I know,’ she said half under her breath so he had to lean in to hear her.
‘I want you’ – his nostrils flared – ‘way too fucking much. Shut me down if—’
She slid her finger over his mouth.
He grinned. ‘Done talking?’
She nodded, ran her hands down his arms, sighed softly as he withdrew with a fluid indolence.
Then he paused at the extremity of his back stroke and murmured, light and teasing, ‘What if I make you wait?’
‘Don’t you dare.’ She grabbed his hips hard.
He didn’t move; she was slippery wet now, drenched, desperate. ‘Just for the record,’ he said gruffly, ‘you only fuck me, right?’
Frantic to feel him, she breathlessly agreed. ‘Yes, yes, yes.’
&
nbsp; ‘Yes what?’
‘Only you, Dominic! For God’s sake, Dominic, I don’t want anyone else!’
His monstrous jealousy assuaged by her fierce reply, he smiled. ‘That’s what I want to hear, baby.’ Pushing back in, unhurried, his mouth on hers, breathing her in, his dick swelling larger and harder as he penetrated more deeply, he came to rest at last where everything becomes meaningless except for the unimaginable pleasure.
Then with masterful patience, he waited motionless inside her as her body pulsed and throbbed around him, as her senses leveraged themselves up to a seething frenzy with the speed and violence he’d come to recognize. His Katherine was never cool and dispassionate, always wildly unbridled. And when he began slowly moving in and out, smoothly, carefully, watching her keenly for any sign of discomfort, manoeuvring his dick with practised versatility into all the right places just hard enough to make her sigh or groan, concentrating on her G-spot nerves, meeting her undulating hips with practised skill, he felt a deep-seated pleasure. As if she belonged here in his private hermitage.
Kate felt as though she were flushed with wonder, filled with joy, every heartbeat vibrating with love, her senses racing towards delirium thanks to Dominic’s sweet, unselfish indulgence. It was his genius and talent to be generous like now … like that – oh God. She sank her nails into his arms as that first unquestionable ripple slid up her throbbing sex; she sucked in her breath, shut her eyes and went still.
Recognizing the cues, understanding Katherine’s preference for a full-stop climax, he thrust in slowly to the mouth of her womb, heard her gasp, forced himself a fraction deeper, then dropped his head, let his mouth open over hers and tasted her sweet, keening cry.
Their orgasms rolled through their senses in spectacular, searing waves, Dominic’s powerful body covering her, gorging her, pumping into her, pinning her to the bed while astonishing, adrenalin high, nuclear level climaxes pushed sensation into the stratosphere.
A flame-hot, Dominic-fuelled orgasm that left her throat raw and her nerves quivering.
An unimaginable Katherine-induced blast of madness and triumph that left him with a smile on his face.
Dominic did apologize afterwards, not grudgingly, but with fond kisses, his body resting lightly on hers, his erection still gently throbbing inside her. ‘I’m going to control my dick and my temper from now on. I promise.’