She stepped back angrily.
He turned to walk away, then stopped. He caught her eyes over his shoulder. “Try to keep your eyes off my incredible ass as I walk away.” He turned from her, then looked back and caught her still watching him. “I knew you couldn’t help yourself. Fine, look all you want. And just so you know, unlike you, I don’t have a no-touching policy. Touch all you want.”
She said something rude under her breath.
He laughed as he reentered his fake house.
Swimming in the heated pool had been excruciatingly wonderful, but for the sake of his sanity, he was going to take a shower.
An ice-cold one.
Two, if that’s what it took.
Fully dressed again, Alethea paced the inside of Marc’s bunker home. It was almost midnight. I’m not sleeping here. I’m done. I have been more than understanding. But I refuse to stay here one more moment with that . . . that . . . streaker.
No matter how gorgeous he is.
This is kidnapping. Illegal detainment.
There has to be some way to contact the outside world from here.
None of the phones worked, and the computer wasn’t linked to anything. He’d taken his cell phone, along with hers, into the shower with him. She thought back to the scene at the pool and groaned. I should have smiled sweetly and taken his phone while he wasn’t looking. Why the hell did I strip and dive in with him?
The truth was painful to admit to herself.
Because a part of me wants to finish what we started on the way down in the elevator. I want to test out that bed beneath the river. She thought back to how he’d stood naked and exposed, not to mention fully aroused, while talking to her. I guess if you’re that well endowed, why not wave it around? Who does that? He’s ridiculous, and irritating, and . . . sexier than any man I’ve ever met. His easy confidence was a relief from men with fragile egos who were easily intimidated when they realized what she did for a living.
My mother always said that men don’t like smart women. I hate that so many have proven her right. If I bleached my hair blonde and limited my vocabulary to two-syllable words, I’d probably be married by now.
Not that I want to be married.
I don’t need a man.
I admit it would be nice to have someone to come home to, but not if it requires pretending to be someone I’m not.
What’s wrong with being a strong woman? With knowing what I want and not being afraid to go after it?
Like Marc.
What would he say if I told him I’ve changed my mind?
She flopped herself into one of the generously cushioned chairs. A few hours in captivity and I’ve lost my mind.
She shivered at the thought and rubbed her arms.
“Miss me?” he asked from right behind her. She nearly jumped out of her skin in surprise.
Her eyes grazed his bare chest and dropped lower of their own volition. He was wearing a low-slung pair of lounge pants. “You’re in pajamas?” she asked, her throat so dry her words came out in a croak.
“Yes, disappointed?” He wiggled his eyebrows at her and laughed when she quickly denied it. He threw a pair of flannel lounge pants and a T-shirt at her. “This is all I have, but you’re welcome to them if you’d like. The pants have a string tie.”
Alethea bunched the clothing in one of her hands and sat up straight. “What’s next, you offer to cook me a meal like we’re friends?”
He moved to stand beside her chair. “If you’re hungry, I have about five things I know how to make, but the food here is all canned or dried. Still, better than nothing.”
She stood angrily and glared up at him. “Are you deliberately not getting my point, or are you dense? I don’t want to be here with you and I’m not going to pretend I do. I don’t want to swim with you, I don’t want to eat with you, all I want is—”
He leaned down and covered her mouth with his. With a groan he pulled her closer and she forgot what she was saying. She opened her mouth to him, meeting his tongue eagerly with hers. They wrapped their arms around each other as their tongues danced and teased.
She slid her hands up his flat stomach and loved the feel of his muscled chest. His heart beat wildly beneath her touch. He rubbed himself against her stomach, his dick growing larger and harder as he did. She closed her eyes, but that only allowed her to vividly remember the intimate details of how he looked.
With two confident hands, he eased her dress up over her hips and held her against him as he slid her panties down, his mouth never leaving hers. He put a hand on her hips and lifted her until she straddled his waist and was kissing him from above, cupping his head between her hands.
The feel of him rubbing against her wet center as he carried her to his bedroom excited her further. He stopped near his bed and she clung to him with her legs and arms as he sheathed himself in a condom.
He tore his mouth free of hers and braced her shoulders against the wall. Raggedly he said in her ear, “I have to be inside you. Now.” And with one strong upward thrust he was, and she cried out from the pleasure of it. He stopped, letting her adjust to his size.
His mouth was hot on her neck while one of his hands held her waist and the other parted her rear cheeks and caressed her intimately. She moaned and moved her hips urgently against his, wanting, needing to feel him move within her.
She arched backward and he impatiently pulled her dress down on either side, exposing her breasts. He nipped at her, grazed her with his teeth, and took her into his mouth while his tongue circled her sensitive nipple. All the while, he held her exactly as he wanted her and pounded into her, deeper with each thrust, until she was opening her legs wider and calling out his name in pleasure.
He paused and said, “You are so tight. So goddamn tight.”
She writhed against him. Quivering with need. “Don’t stop,” she begged. “Don’t stop.”
“I’ve wanted to do this since the moment I first saw you,” he whispered in her ear, rolling her hips back and forth, easing himself in and out of her as he did so. “It’s even better than I imagined. You’re amazing.”
He thrust into her. Withdrew and thrust again. Each time bringing her closer and yet not completely to an orgasm. She clenched around him, dripping with excitement and almost mindless in need.
“You—” he started to say.
She covered his mouth with her hand and cried, “Just shut up and fuck me.”
She felt him smile beneath her hand and he pushed her more firmly against the wall. All pretense of taking it slowly fell away and he was slamming into her with an abandon that she welcomed and matched, thrust for thrust.
She came first, crying out with a loss of control she’d never allowed herself before. She was sobbing with an almost overload of sensation, and her cries only excited him more. He pounded into her, faster and faster, harder and harder, unyielding in his demand for her submission. This was a primal taking, a claiming. Beyond either of their control.
Then the unbelievable happened: she felt herself soaring again. Heat flooded her stomach and she dug her nails into his back as she clenched for a second orgasm, feeling him bury his face in her neck and shudder as he joined her.
They stood there, with him still inside her and her legs around his waist, as they both caught their breath and slowly came back to their senses. He groaned and chuckled as he kissed her collarbone. “I hate it when I break a promise. I just couldn’t figure out how to do it without my hands.”
She met his eyes. “Is everything a joke to you? Put me down.”
“Let your guard down, Alethea. It’s okay to laugh. You don’t have to protect yourself from me.”
She couldn’t take any more. She shifted until she broke their connection, then continued to squirm until he released her enough so that her feet were firmly back on the floor. “Don’t. Don’t pretend this is anything but what it is. This isn’t a date. You’re being paid to keep me out of the way and that—” she waved her hand in t
he air beside her—“that was just the result of two people being thrown together in a stressful situation.”
He studied her face, then broke out in his cocky smile. “Your job must be more exciting than mine, because this is not the norm for me.”
She shoved him back a step. “You’re not funny.”
He closed the distance between them and was suddenly serious. “Well, now you’ve hurt my feelings. Looks like I’ll have to do my best to impress you with my other qualities.”
The evidence of the quality he was referring to nudged her sex, hard and ready, as he swept down and plundered her mouth with another deep kiss. A part of her clung to the knowledge that none of this was real, but the rest of her felt it was too good to pass up. These memories would have to sustain her, because she would never put herself in this situation again.
He stopped, raised his head with a funny expression on his face, and asked, “What are you thinking about?”
She tried to pull his mouth back down to hers and said, “It doesn’t matter.”
“Tell me,” he demanded.
“No.”
Alethea wasn’t sure what reaction she expected to her refusal, but she didn’t expect him to pick her up, swing her over his shoulder, and carry her to his bedroom. He tossed her down on his bed.
Oh, no, he didn’t.
Oh, yes, he did.
This isn’t one of my fantasies. This is real.
Still naked, she was on her knees and scrambling past him, but he caught her, flipped her onto her back and, before she knew what he was doing, he’d secured both of her hands above her head with handcuffs.
Lying beside her, he said, “I know what you’re thinking—what man has handcuffs under his bed, right? They were a gag gift from a buddy of mine. I figured I should keep them here in case I had to ride out the apocalypse. In case things got boring.” He smiled down at her as if he couldn’t see the fury in her eyes. “Not that you’re boring. Trust me, you’re the opposite of boring, but you need to learn to trust people.”
Pulling against the cuffs angrily, Alethea snarled, “And you think this will do that? All it’s going to do is be my defense for why I strangled you the second I was set free. ‘Your honor, look at the bruises on my wrists. He had it coming.’”
Marc ran a hand up one of her arms to just below where the metal met her wrist. “You won’t have a single mark on you if you don’t fight it.”
She tried unsuccessfully to whip her arm away from his touch but was impeded by the restraint. “You might as well tell me not to breathe. I’m going to free myself and when I do, you will regret this.”
“I see the problem.”
“Thank God. You’re coming to your senses. Get the keys now and maybe, just maybe, I’ll forget this ever happened.”
Propped up on one elbow, Marc looked down at her as if she were a puzzle he was solving. “You can’t turn it off, can you? Everything is a fight to you.”
“Do these handcuffs come with earplugs? Because there are laws against torturing people with your psychobabble.”
Instead of rising to her taunt, he laughed. “I’m beginning to get you. Really get you. You’re scared right now, aren’t you? That’s why you’re on the attack.”
I’m not afraid of anything, but I’ll go along with this if it has the potential to provide a window of opportunity. “You don’t think that locking someone in a bunker, then tying her to a bed, is cause for concern?”
“I would never hurt you, Alethea. Do you believe that?”
She looked away. “Then let me go.”
He turned her face back to his and those beautiful blue eyes seemed to see her soul. “Just this once, let yourself be in a situation where you’re not in control.”
She shook her head.
He leaned down and whispered in her ear. “What’s the worst thing that could happen? You find you enjoy it?”
She glared at him.
When she didn’t say anything, he said, “If you really want me to take off the cuffs, I will. All you have to do is say it.” He ran a lazy finger over her collarbone and down the side of one breast. “Or you can trust me to take care of you. That’s what the cuffs are about. Trust. Yes, they leave you vulnerable, but everything that matters in life leaves you vulnerable. And sometimes you win by not fighting.”
His words washed over her, filling her with a warmth she couldn’t deny.
All I have to do is tell him to remove the cuffs and this is over.
No man controls me, not even for the sake of sexual experimentation.
I don’t do restraints.
So why am I not demanding my freedom?
He didn’t gloat as she would have expected a man to. Instead, he quietly waited for her decision.
An unexpected tear came to her eye and in a thick voice she said, “If you hurt me, I’ll kill you. Literally. Slowly. In the most painful way I can think of.”
Real shock showed on his face and he touched her cheek with a gentle hand. “Hey, it’s okay to be scared. Trusting anyone is always scary.”
He leaned down, took one of her breasts between his teeth, and pulled ever so gently on her nipple, sending a rush of heat straight through her. There was no denying how his touch affected her. She gasped with pleasure when he ran a hand down her stomach and cupped her sex possessively.
Tempting her.
Teasing her.
Waiting for her to say the words she didn’t want to say: “I hate you right now.”
He raised his head. “I can’t tell if that means, ‘Yes, keep going,’ or ‘No, get the hell off me, you pervert.’”
She rubbed her pelvis against him and moaned. To hell with being in control. Just this once, she wanted to be taken.
Her eyes flew open and met his.
I do trust him.
He trailed his kisses down her side, over her quivering stomach, and continued moving until his face was above her lower, throbbing lips. He put her legs over his shoulders and arched her upward so her sex was spread open and ready for his mouth. His breath was hot on her, but still he waited. “Tell me what you want, Alethea.”
She arched further on the bed, bringing his mouth in light contact with her mound. “You know what I want.”
He rubbed his chin lightly on the outside of her. “That’s the fun of being on this side of the handcuffs—I don’t have to give it to you until you give me what I want. Tell me how you like it, Alethea.”
Her legs clenched around his neck and she hated the truth, but she admitted it to him anyway. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t really enjoy it. Not like other women do.”
He met her eyes and a line creased his forehead. “Not this time. Tell me, do like this?” He delved his tongue deeply inside her, and the heat of it seared through her. With one hand, he parted her so he had unobstructed access to her most sensitive spot. He blew lightly on it, then flicked his tongue back and forth across her excited nub.
She tried to relax, but she couldn’t. Her mind raced to justify why. I don’t have a problem with trust. Would you leave a five-dollar bill on a public counter and expect it to be there later when you return? That’s not paranoia, that’s being realistic.
“Or do you like this better?” He took her nub between his teeth and gently tugged, sending wild sensations through her. She gripped the chains of her handcuffs and arched with pleasure, but couldn’t turn off her inner voice long enough to fully enjoy it. Maybe I should fake an orgasm so he’ll move on to something else.
“Or maybe you prefer this?” He plunged two fingers inside her and worked them rhythmically while suckling on her and using the stubble on his chin to roughly caress the surrounding area.
Oh, that’s nice.
That’s really nice.
She closed her eyes and pushed herself against his mouth. He rewarded the move by alternating his lapping with his fingers and chin. Each time he withdrew to switch, she felt the separation profoundly. Each time his mouth returned, the fire beneath his t
ouch grew more intense, until it was almost painful and she cried out.
“That’s it,” he said against her inner thigh, as his fingers pumped in and out of her dripping sex, and the heat of his breath caressed her exposed clit. “Come for me, Alethea.”
She was powerless to resist his command. Her body was already tightening around his fingers. She thrashed back and forth, clinging to the cuffs as the most intense orgasm she’d ever experienced rocked her body.
He kissed her thigh and said, “I’d say you enjoy that just fine.”
He lowered her onto the bed and rolled away for a moment. When he rolled back, he was sheathed in a condom. He settled himself above her, keeping his weight off her. He slid a leg between hers. She opened them wide and cried out with need when he slipped only his tip inside her. She wanted him deep within her. Wanted to be filled with him.
He licked the curve of her neck hungrily and thrust into her roughly. He pulled out, teased her with his tip, and thrust roughly inside her again. This time when he withdrew she was grasping for him with her legs. His strong fingers bit into the soft flesh of her ass as he lifted her off the bed and changed his position, then pounded into her. Pleasure and pain mixed and heightened each other.
As their rhythm increased, she felt herself near orgasm again and gave herself over to it. She trusted Marc to take her where she wanted to go and bring her back to earth safely.
They came in unison and collapsed together back onto the soft bed. She felt him release her hands from the handcuffs and marveled that she didn’t feel relieved at the freedom from them. He took her mouth hungrily in his and she opened herself to him. In that moment there was no fear. No walls. They were one.
When the kiss ended, she opened her mouth to say something, but he gently laid a finger over it to silence her and said, “Just enjoy this for a moment longer.”
She spoke despite his finger. “How do you know I wasn’t going to say something nice?”
He dropped his hand, smiled across at her lazily, and reached down to pull a blanket over both of them. Then he lay back and tucked her against his side. “Okay, I’m ready. Say it.”