He dragged his cock upward, pushing the tip across her nipples, the liquid semen already leaking and smearing across the tips, making them pucker even more. She cried out and undulated upward to him, her eyes shining on his face. You like that? That’s right you do … these are mine, too.…
He clamped his jaw as he taunted both breasts with his cock, and then … he pushed them together and slid between them, sliding all the way up to taunt her lips.
She opened her mouth wide and stretched her neck out as she tried to lick him. He swiveled back his hips, teasing her, and when she moaned, he pushed the first part of his cock into her mouth.
She sucked him so hard, he barked out in pleasure. Her mouth was claiming his cock, just like he was claiming her, and he could almost hear her in her mind, her telling him it belonged to her.… Of course it’s yours, princess. I’m all yours.
He plowed in deeper, the hot dampness of her mouth making his testicles draw tight with the need to explode, then he started to withdraw, his toes curling when her tongue circled the head and lightly suckled on him. He knew semen was dribbling from his excitement, and he felt her lap at it with a moan at the tip, then she swallowed.
He pulled out, and when she mewed in protest, he pushed back in, giving her a little more. There you go … oh, Christ …
She sucked him deeper, harder, and he let her, closing his eyes, telling her suddenly in a murmur how good it felt, how good her tongue felt.…
When he withdrew, his muscles were tense. He was high already, high on her. He shoved his hips back down between her parted legs. The blood thundered through his veins, his rapid pulse echoing in his ears, quieted only by her moans, and that ball-twisting yell she next made when he thrust into her pussy again.
He dropped over her, his hands sliding up her arms, caressing her, then down her rib cage, his heated whisper in her ear. “Now you will know what true pleasure is, Monica. Roland can’t give it to you. Nobody can but me. No one can replace what you really want. No other man will be me.”
She tossed her face, her face ravaged in ecstasy.
He edged back and braced up on his arms. “You can let go sometimes … only when you’re under me … completely protected by me. Possessed. Penetrated. By me. Being watched. By me. You know I’d do anything for you. Anything.”
She bit her lip and squeezed her eyes shut on the next thrust, her hips angling to receive him—every throbbing, pulsing inch of him. “That’s what scares me the most.…”
The confession undid him, and he growled, pumping faster, with more desperation, clenching her face between his hands, licking her lips hungrily. “Accept me, Monica. Take me. I want to be yours.” In that last final thrust, he barked out in pleasure, then he quickly pulled out, and started rubbing and spilling all over her pelvis and the outer lips of her pussy, the head of his cock stroking her pearly nub until she broke apart.
He watched her convulsions seize her, the sight filling him with thrilling possessiveness.
He greedily fitted his mouth to hers as her shudders subsided, then set loose her legs first, followed by her arms, and as soon as he freed her, Monica lunged at him. “Give me that,” she said breathlessly, going up to her knees on the bed, her breasts pressed against his diaphragm as she reached up to grab the binding.
“I don’t think so,” he said, laughing, as he raised it above her head.
“Don’t be such a spoilsport. Let me tie you up.” Their bodies rubbed as she again made a try for it, their chests slick and hot, and his cock, only partly softened, immediately shot up.
His voice roughened. “Why would you want to tie me up when I can pleasure you better with my hands free?” He cupped her breast in his hand and explored the rosy peaks with his fingers.
“Because…” Her voice was throaty and soft with arousal as she caressed his hard chest and kissed him, her mouth hot and wet as she thirstily suckled on his tongue. He seized one of her hands and curved it around the base of his cock, his heat burning in her palm, the air crackling around them. “Are you going to kiss me here again?” he asked gutturally.
She nodded, and the thought drove him crazy, made his scrotum tighten and his dick stiffen with need. Monica was on her knees, trembling with need. He’d never do this for another woman; he’d always done the tying. But the thought of her pleasuring him in any way she wanted to pleasure him made him want to groan and roll over like a dog and play dead. He gave her the fastening, then edged back on the headboard, his heart beating like a jackhammer in his chest.
Their bodies were naked and moist from lovemaking, and he watched, enraptured, as her breasts jiggled as she maneuvered to fasten him. His mouth watered with wanting to feed from her nipples, her pussy, and although he forced himself to relax against the headboard, his erection was not relaxed at all. Neither was Monica’s sex, looking as wet as he’d ever seen it. Nor her nipples, looking darker, duskier, after their lovemaking.
“When did you get this?” she asked in a cottony whisper, stroking her fingers over his tattoo.
“One drunken night … when the girl I loved refused to kiss me.”
She looped his tied wrists up on the hook, and suddenly stopped to stare, her eyes wide and a stormy blue, her cheeks flaming bright red. “Don’t say that word,” she murmured, then her fingers trailed downward. His stomach contracted when she led them along each ab square, her tongue following, licking him. Tasting him. Sending his senses wildly spinning.
His voice thickened as his toes curled from the pleasure the swipes of her tongue were giving him. “I’ll say it until you’re used to hearing it.”
She paused, and he watched her struggle to gather herself. Then she slid her hands over his chest muscles and traced his nipples with both her fingers, lightly stroking the two small brown points, dark and aroused, his chest rising a little faster as she pinched them.
“God, I love your touch. I love the way you smile at me, in a way nobody gets to see but me.”
She shuddered as she bent to press her lips to his belly button, and his cock accidentally grazed across her smooth flat belly. He jerked and groaned at the tantalizing sensation. He was pulsing with need, the blood rushing in his groin, and a shudder wracked through his body at the accidental grazes against her hot skin. His nipples tingled under her soft kisses, the circular movements of her fingers.
His voice went deeper still, barely audible through his need. “I love that you’re strong and independent, but that you still give yourself to me like you trust me to take care of you. I love…” He groaned from the gut-wrenching pleasure of her pinches. “Your mouth … your hands.… you drive me so crazy. I love your eyes. Look at me.”
She lifted her glazed eyes to his, and he murmured in encouragement, his balls drawn up with need. “Try it. Tell me what you love. You love Davenport’s, Monica.”
She bit her lower lip and nodded, her eyes heavy and dilated.
His voice rasped in his throat. “What else do you love, princess?”
When she stared into his eyes, breathing from her mouth, with those white teeth gnawing the lips he hungered for, he found himself straining forward to capture them, which surprised her.
Her sound of delight stumbled into his mouth and Daniel swallowed it just like he wanted to swallow her, growling when he noticed she’d gone still on the bed, tilting her mouth upward in offering, not moving a single muscle except her lips on his as though she were the one tied, the one who couldn’t move or breathe. “Do you love the mouth you’re kissing?” he thickly whispered, licking the seam of her lips. “Tell me you love my mouth. My touch.” Me.
She pulled back only to breathe, then she grabbed his jaw and crushed his mouth again, silencing him.
He groaned, tangling his tongue fiercely with hers. Holy God, his chest felt about as wound up as his cock, the emotions bursting through him. She dragged her lips down the tendons of his throat and went to his neglected nipple. Pleasure shot to his toes when she ministered to it, making him grumble, ?
??That feels good, baby.”
“Okay.” She moved down his stomach, his abs contracting harshly under her lips after each damp kiss. She added her hands and stroked over his rib cage, seeming to savor his strength and the taut skin, the hard muscles.
“That…”—he swallowed, bumping his head back as he fought a groan, his arms rested and motionless above him—“feels good, too.”
She went lower, and drew back to stare at his cock with eyes that felt like caresses. A milky drop had gathered at the tip, and her mouth opened to take it. She lapped it with her tongue. “Ahh, Christ.” His hip shot upward and swiveled.
She angled back to meet his gaze. “That feels … good?”
“Incredible.”
Lips curving with a sensual knowledge he found hot as hell, she bent her head, and when she kissed him fully on the tip, she pulled the next drop of semen into her mouth with that feisty tongue. He fisted his hands up above him, suddenly suffering in his restraints, unused to not being able to touch her, wanting to feel her hair, her skin, her breasts … throbbing to do all of those things and more, throbbing and pulsing as she played with him with her hot little mouth. “God, that feels so fucking good.”
She seemed lost in what she was doing now, her eyes only for his cock, her tongue totally monogamous to it as she seemed to be determined to drink every single drop of pre-come that came forward. He was leaking like crazy, drunk and fevered, as he wondered if she was going to leave anything for tomorrow.
Again and again he felt his wetness emerge from the sheer agony of his need, and watched her tongue twirl around it and pick it up. Her eyes drifted shut, and she moaned softly. Fierce tremors of need were running down his body. He wanted to be in her pussy and her mouth, both at the same time, his hands all over her. All. Over. Her.
She rubbed his hard thighs and then cupped his scrotum. He had big, dense testicles to match the size of his shaft—and he saw the way her nipples puckered even more as she fondled that part of him, those swollen, dusky little points looking about as juicy as peaches right now. His tongue felt restless in his mouth.
Her fingers curled into fists, one over the other, so that together they almost covered the base of his shaft, and as she slid them upward to meet her mouth, Daniel started pumping, losing it.
Her mouth was lava around the tip, her fingers and hands clenching him, and when she moaned as though his pleasure were her own, he just lost it. He jetted into her mouth with a harsh bark of pleasure, his arms straining above him, and when she drew back to watch him lose it, working him with her fists until he’d spurted every last drop, her eyes were dark and glazed with arousal.
“Danny,” she murmured, the name imploring him as she quickly unhooked his wrists and pushed one of his hands between her legs. She was on her knees at his side, almost thrusting her hips into his shoulder, clutching his jaw, burying her face in his hair. “Please, please,” she groaned, pushing her hips to his hand, rubbing herself against him.
God, how could I have lived all my life without you, Monica?
“Shh, I’ve got you,” he murmured, drawing her to him by spreading his free hand on her butt and anchoring her to his body, his other hand teasing his fingers into her pussy. As he watched, his chest trembled at the sight of the magnificent woman against him rocking her pelvis in trusting surrender, coming apart as soon as he fed her his two longest fingers.
She exploded with a soft cry, a cry he claimed with his mouth, and when she went lax, he gently gathered her to him, whispering to her, telling her he’d wanted to hold her for years, that she fit just right in the crook of his neck, that as she burrowed in his arms he could feel the peace in her body, the peace in his.
After days of torment, he felt the tendrils of sleep tugging him as he brushed her hair back and kissed her forehead.
She was groggy, lying limp and tired against him. He kissed her on the lips, and she shuddered. Her hand clenched on the back of his neck, locking herself to him.
He’d held her before, like this. They hadn’t been sweaty and sated. They hadn’t been slick with their juices and tired from their lovemaking. But it was just as easy, just as right, as ever.
* * *
She dreamed of them again.
Always that same dream, always of that day.
“Promise me you will never, ever, give any man your heart, Monica, like I did. You keep it to yourself. Give your virginity away—that doesn’t matter—but you never, ever, give anyone the power to hurt you. You have to promise me no matter what happens to me.”
She looked wild, her mother. Her hair undone as it had been for the past months, her eyes bloodshot. “But Father loves you,” Monica said, trying to soothe her.
“He never did, never!” She was packing up his things, having Monica help her. “Come, help me pack this. We’re not leaving, but he sure as hell won’t be staying here with us anymore. We’re getting this house, we’re getting Davenport’s, we’re getting the last penny—see how much his little woman likes him then—otherwise I’m not even signing the divorce!”
Monica folded her father’s sweater to perfection. It smelled of cologne, and it made her chest constrict, and all she could do was fold up that sweater. Her family was falling apart and she was folding the sweater, making sure all the buttons were buttoned to the top.
“You should always be with someone who loves you more than you do him. Always.” Her mother kissed her forehead. “You’re a smart girl, you’re smarter than both of us. You won’t ever fall for a man after knowing this is in store for you. You will choose a partner with your head, not your heart, Monica.”
Monica thought of Daniel Lexington, and his twinkling green eyes and that wickedly sexy smile, and the way he’d looked months ago in the Pacific Ocean when he’d traipsed off the Lexington’s yacht and into the deep blue water. He’d come up behind her like a shark, and she made a squeal, thinking she was drowning because his hands had been on her waist. Instead he propped her up on the stairs and then followed her up, slicking his head back.
She thought later that day of the way he’d called her princess, of all the ways he smiled and paid even more attention to her than he had to his own sister. Her mother suddenly seemed to read her mind. “That boy’s not for you. These rich men, they’re born pampered. They think they deserve it all: the wife, the mistress, the groupies. Don’t ever love any of them. Not any man, much less one like him!”
Monica nodded, shocked at the change in her mother.
“Baby, I know you wanted to go to college, but maybe you’ll stay here with me?” Her mother’s chin trembled, and she started crying. “Oh, Monica, Monica, sometimes I don’t even want to live.…”
That night, her father had appeared at the house to see his suitcases by the entry. He tossed them open in a rage and shoved everything back into his closet, slamming the door behind him.
But no door could contain their screams.
“You’re not making me leave, this is my house, you fucking whore! You vindictive whore … what have you been telling my daughter about me? She won’t even look at me, won’t even let me touch her anymore! Am I the only one who erred here? I know you slept with him to spite me, I know it!”
“Yes, yes, I did. You have no say in the matter anymore! You son of a bitch, you’re not getting the house, you’re not getting Monica, you’re not getting shit, you womanizing asshole … I’m not signing the divorce so you can marry that snot-faced whore!”
Monica sat in her room for a long time, staring at the wall, until she grabbed a headset, turned on the music as loud as she could, and pretended that Pink could take it all away.
Sometime during the night, Monica pulled off her headphones to find the house silent. She turned off the music and went out to the hall; everything was dark save for the light still on in her parents’ bedroom. She was going to go downstairs for dinner, having not eaten anything the entire day, but saw a strange wetness from under the door of the master bedroom.
“M
om?” She couldn’t even say her dad’s name. He’d started it all. He’d been with another woman, broke her mother’s heart—she could barely touch him without wanting to vomit. And she’d opened that door …
She awakened in bed with a soft cry, dazed and frantic at the sound—the same soft cry she always made, when she had this very dream. She shuddered on the bed as she scanned her surroundings, immediately recognizing that for the first time in too many years, she was not in her bed.
Panic began to well until she saw Daniel was sprawled beside her, face down, his blond head angled toward her, an arm over her stomach, and before she thought better of it, she grabbed his arm and put its heavy deadweight more firmly around her, and slipped into his arms until her heart calmed down.
But sleep eluded her.
She stared at his face in the dark, the shadows still allowing her to see the rises of his cheekbones, his perfect nose, his full mouth, his every male feature. She cared so much about this man, he could hurt her without even trying to. She was genuinely so connected to him, that to sever it as horrifically as her parents had might feel like a death to her, too.
Growing up, she had absorbed every detail about this man. By the time she’d moved in with his family, she knew that Daniel was grumpy in the morning until coffee. She knew when he was tired, and how women looked at him so much that he’d grown used to it and never looked back. She knew he thought it annoying when he ventured out and occasionally found a fan who screamed “I love you! Marry me, Daniel!”
She knew his favorite drinks and foods, knew his greatest friends, his different smiles. He’d been her hero and confidant and when the press had gone on and on about the “Ice Maiden and the Prince” being an item, she’d in part yearned that someday it could be true.
But she’d been wounded and alone, and she’d needed him so powerfully it had frightened her. She’d needed a nest, and he’d given it to her, allowing her to slowly build her walls and to grow numb. She’d become stronger, slowly but surely, and even at nineteen, she’d known she had to depend on nobody if she wanted to survive. And Monica had not aimed to survive. She had wanted to thrive, and nobody would stop her.