In seconds I’m overwhelmed, drowning in sensation. Completely surrounded and taken over by him. And still he surges inside of me. Still he fucks me desperately, furiously, each stroke a branding that tells me exactly who my body belongs to.
I moan at the thought, tangle my legs around his hips in an effort to hold him the only way I can. He’s shaking now, too, his body pushed to the limits. I’ve never felt anything like this before, not even the first time we had sex. It’s intense, powerful, all-consuming.
I am completely in his thrall, lost in the fire of his possession. Taken. Overwhelmed. Dominated.
It’s the last thought that has my body flying over the edge, ecstasy ripping through me like a wildfire. Heat pours through me—through my sex, my stomach, my breasts. Down my legs, into my arms and fingers, up my throat. It’s radiant, incandescent, uncontrollable, so I don’t even try. Instead, I give myself over to it, throwing myself into the belly of the flames as I call his name over and over again.
“I’ve got you,” he grinds out again, his voice low and hoarse, his body jerking rhythmically against mine as he empties himself inside of me. His shudders set off yet another explosion and I’m coming again—coming still. I cry out his name, bury my face against the lean, hard muscles of his chest as my body spins further and further away from me, to a place where the pleasure goes on and on and on. A place where everything is a long way away except Ian and the ecstasy that burns, burns, burns inside of me.
When it’s over he collapses on top of me. I can hear his ragged breathing, feel the wild pounding of his heart against my own, and I want to touch him. To soothe him. But my hands are still bound and it takes several long seconds before he reaches up and releases the belt. And then I’m free and he’s rolling to the side, pulling me with him. I wrap my arms around him, rest my head on his chest and breathe, just breathe.
It takes a long time for me to come down, for the fuzziness in my head to clear and my body to finally stop shaking. Ian is there through it all, lifting a glass of water up to my lips for me to sip, stroking my back, cuddling me against him. I cling to him, twining my arms and legs and body around him like some impossible to get rid of vine. I’m not normally the clinging type, so this is strange to me. New.
I’m not quite sure how I feel about it.
I should get up, get dressed, leave. I don’t cuddle with the men I fuck and I sure as hell don’t spend the night with them. But I’m drained, emptied out, blown wide open by everything he did and everything he made me feel. Enthralled by him and everything he’s made me feel when I’ve spent years wondering if I could feel anything at all. Which is why, when he whispers, “Stay,” I do.
Chapter 15
I wake to a dazzling early morning sunrise, the sky outside my bedroom window streaked with a carnival of reds and oranges and purples. I’m disoriented for a second, wondering why I’m seeing the sky and the buildings silhouetted against it when I always close the blackout drapes before going to sleep. But then Veronica moves closer to me, snuggling her long, sexy body into mine, and it all comes back to me in a flood.
Every whimper she made.
Every orgasm I pulled out of her.
Every single depraved and debauched thing I did to her.
Every second from the night before etched indelibly into my brain. What the fuck? What the actual fuck?
She whimpers, scooting even closer to me. I pull her in, run a gentle hand over her side. And try to pretend the evidence of what I did isn’t written all over her skin.
I fail.
Fuck.
I push up on an elbow, lean in to get a closer look at the damage I did.
She’s got a silver dollar–sized bruise on her collarbone, just one of many hickeys I sucked into her skin at some point last night. There’s an even bigger one on her shoulder, another one on her jaw, a couple small ones on her neck…and those are just the ones on the parts of her body I can see. Who knows what’s buried under the covers?
Just the thought has my stomach churning and before I can think better of it, I’m tugging at the sheet she is currently burrowed under. She moans a little at the disturbance, but doesn’t protest as I drag the fabric down. Then again, how can she? She’s practically comatose, completely exhausted from everything I put her body through last night.
Not that I blame her. Every muscle I have aches like I’ve been through a war—I can only imagine what she feels like considering I kept her bound to my bed for hours. And that’s before I get my first look at her nude body in the harsh light of day. Once I do…
Jesus Christ, how the fuck is she supposed to film today? She looks like a fucking vampire went after her.
Or a fucking sadist.
I shut the thought down as soon as it forms, refuse to give in to the darkness that comes with it. But it’s still there—of course it is. It’s always there, lurking in the corners of my mind as I concentrate on cataloging the damage I caused her instead. There’s a lot to keep me busy.
Wide red marks on the outside of both wrists from the belt she twisted and pulled against.
Whisker burn on the delicate skin of her breasts, her stomach, her inner thighs.
Hickeys of various sizes and colors sprinkled liberally all over her body.
And worst of all—finger-shaped bruises on her hips and thighs and ankles from where I held her down while I fucked her.
Jesus. I close my eyes, run a hand through my hair. Try to convince myself it isn’t as bad as it looks. But then she moans again, mutters something in her sleep as she grabs at the sheet and rolls over onto her side.
And that’s when I see the redness on her ass—not bruises exactly, not yet, but definite hand shaped marks from where I spanked her last night. It’s going to sting when she sits down today. Maybe even tomorrow.
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I wrecked her last night. I fucking wrecked her and I don’t even know how it happened. How I let things—how I let myself—get so out of control that I could do this to her.
The churning in my stomach turns to all-out nausea and for a second I think I’m actually going to be sick. I roll away from her abruptly and out the other side of the bed. Then I just sit there for long moments—elbows on my knees, head in my hands, sucking in deep, harsh breaths through my mouth—as I try to get a grip on my roiling, fucked up emotions.
It’s not easy, not when the woman I all but assaulted last night is only a couple feet away from me. And not when she looks like she’s been ravaged by an animal.
What did I do? The question circles my mind again and again and again. What the fuck did I do?
I don’t have sex like this. I just don’t. Sure, things get intense sometimes—it’s the nature of the act. The nature of desire. But tying up my partner? Spanking her ass until she bruises? Putting a hand around her throat and squeezing? Holding her down while I fuck her? That’s never been me.
I’ve never let it be me.
I knew when I was with her two nights ago that sex with her was going to be unlike any other I’d let myself experience. She needs someone with a firm hand, after all. Someone who can get inside her head for no other reason than to get her out of it so she can enjoy her body’s response. But that’s not what happened here last night.
Sure, it’s how things started out with that goddamn game—me giving her what I thought she needed and taking a little of what I needed in return—but it’s not how things ended up. Because somewhere in the middle of the game, I got caught up, too. I forgot strategy, forgot the endgame, forgot everything but making her come.
Making her bend.
And because I did, I took things from her I had no business taking. Did things to her I had no business doing.
I lost control. And that is something I never, never do.
I’ve spent my life studying deviants. Men—and women—with poor impulse control, sociopathic tendencies, and the desire to hurt, to control, to destroy other people. I’ve seen their dark
ness up close and personal, seen it in the subjects I study and the brother I don’t talk to anymore. I’ve even seen it in myself, but I’ve always turned my back on it. Always kept it locked down, hidden away, ignored. Until last night.
Until Veronica.
Fuck. FUCK. FUCK.
It’s too much. It’s all just too fucking much.
I push out of bed, ignoring the protest from my sore and tired muscles as I pad across the suite as quietly as I can manage. For the first time since I gave it up cold turkey six years ago, I want a fucking cigarette. Just one, to steady my nerves and give me something to do as I try to figure out this clusterfuck. But since that’s not an option, I grab a bottle of water out of the fridge instead and try to ignore just how badly my hands are shaking as I twist off the cap.
What the fuck have I done?
I guzzle the water down in a couple of quick swallows before tossing the bottle in the nearby trash can and reaching for a second one. I drink that one down, too.
And more important, who the fuck am I becoming? Have I always been like this and just not realized it or is this something new? Something Veronica brings out in me?
I want an easy answer, am fucking desperate for one that will let me off the hook. That will make what happened here last night even a little more acceptable. But there is none. How can there be when I spent last night destroying a woman and enjoying every fucking second of it?
Across the room, Veronica stirs. She sits up on her elbows a little and squints at me from eyes ringed in exhausted black circles. She looks like she’s been beaten—or worse, used. She still looks beautiful, of course she does, but it’s a broken kind of beauty.
Haunted.
Fragile.
Shattered.
And still I want her. Still I want to bury myself so deeply inside of her that she’ll never get me out.
I try to think of something to say, some way to apologize, but in typical Veronica fashion, she’s barreling ahead before I can even get my tongue untied.
“What are you doing over there?” she rasps, and I wince at the sound of her voice. At how hoarse, how wrecked it is. It’s one more reminder of everything I did wrong last night.
Holding up the empty bottle in answer to her question, I ask, “Do you want anything?”
“You.” She smiles at me with her kiss-swollen lips, pats the spot next to her. “Come back to bed.”
I’m so messed up that this time I can’t tell if she’s being genuine or if this is just another act. Just one more example of Veronica Romero giving her audience what they want. Because I can’t, I know I should stay on this side of the room, no matter that my cock is twitching with interest.
But even knowing all of that, I’m moving as soon as she lifts a hand and beckons me over. Just another puppet dancing at the end of Veronica Romero’s strings. But it’s not like I could choose not to sit with her. Choose not to talk to her. The only thing worse than losing control like I did is making her think that it was somehow her fault. Which it wasn’t. Everything that happened in this room last night is on me.
Feeling like a total asshole—and worse, a psychopath—I grab a couple bottles of juice out of the fridge and carry them over to the bed.
I ignore the space she’s made for me next to her, choosing instead to sit as far away from her as I can as I try to formulate some kind of apology. Some kind of explanation for what I did. As I do, I hold the bottles of orange and cranberry juice out to her and wait patiently as she studies them—studies me—before reaching for the bottle of cranberry.
I twist off the lid before I hand it to her. She smirks a little, murmurs, “Thank you.”
But once the juice is in her possession, she only takes a sip before putting it on the nightstand next to the bed. When she turns back to me, she’s got a wicked look in her eyes.
“You okay?”
I reach out and trace one of the raw marks around her wrist. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”
“Don’t worry about me.” It’s as close to a purr as her messed-up voice can get. “I’m always okay.”
It’s such a blatant lie that I almost call her on it—just because I’m fucked up over what happened last night doesn’t mean I don’t remember the state she was in when she got here. But before I can, she reaches for me, stretching across the bed to wrap one fine china hand around my upper thigh while the other rubs my lower back. “Besides, you’re the one who looks like you saw a ghost.”
I try not to wince at her choice of words and how unwittingly close to the truth they are. “Do you want to sleep some more? You must be exhausted.”
“Exhausted isn’t quite how I’d phrase it.” Her grin is wicked as she walks her fingers further up my thigh. “In fact, I should go soon. I’m throwing a party tonight.”
“A party?”
“For my mother’s birthday. Want to come?”
I should say no, should use tonight to put some distance between us. But I’ll never get a better chance to talk to Melanie Romero, and after what I saw at her house two days ago, I really want to speak with her.
Guilt slinks through me, but I push it back down. Talking to her mother won’t be going behind Veronica’s back, I assure myself. If I do it right, it might even be a way to keep from pushing Veronica any harder than I already have. And while I know I need to tell her about the book, now doesn’t exactly seem like a good time. Not when she’s still in my bed and not when she’s covered in bruises that I put on her.
“Sure, I’ll come.” I capture her hand before it gets any higher, sandwiching it between both of mine. “Thanks for inviting me.”
“Don’t thank me yet. I’m pretty sure you’ll hate every minute of it,” she says with an eye roll. “God knows I will.”
“Why do it then?”
She snorts. “You obviously don’t know my mother. If I didn’t throw her a fiftieth birthday party, I would never hear the end of it.”
There’s a lot that intrigues me about that statement, but as I flip through my mental Rolodex of facts, one thing stands out more than any other. “Wait. Your mom’s only fifty?”
“It’s her seventh fiftieth birthday party.”
“Ahhhh, that makes so much more sense.” I grin. “Hollywood, man.”
“You have no idea.”
“You’re right. I don’t.” It’s too good an opening to pass up, no matter that my conscience is screaming at me. “So why don’t you tell me?”
Her look turns questioning. “What do you mean?”
“It couldn’t have been all glitz and glamour growing up in that huge house, the daughter of two Hollywood legends, no matter how the magazines portrayed it.”
She cocks a brow. “Someone’s done his homework.”
“It’s my job.”
“Oh, right. Your job.” She pulls her hand from my grip, tries to smooth back her gorgeous riot of hair. “Is that what last night was? You just doing your job?”
She keeps it light, but I make a living reading between the lines and I can hear the vulnerability she’s working so damn hard to hide. And this time I’m pretty sure it’s not an act.
Fuck. I can’t believe how badly I’ve screwed this whole thing up. “I’d say that most of last night was as far from me doing my job as it could get.”
Her eyes meet mine. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.” She looks like she wants to say something else, but in the end, she doesn’t. She just shakes her head and continues, “So the party starts at eight. It’s black tie, of course. My mother wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“I didn’t bring a tux.”
“A suit will do.” She looks me over with a sensual grin. “Especially on you. Oh, it’s at my house. You still have the address, right?”
“Your house? The one we were at two days ago or…?”
“Yes. My house.” There’s a world of emphasis in that statement but before I can follow up on it—we both know she doesn’t live in that ma
usoleum—she’s kissing me, her mouth warm and soft and tasting of cranberries.
I sink into the kiss—into her—before I can stop myself. She tastes so good, feels so good, and my hands lift to tangle in her hair even as my dick hardens and my breathing grows ragged. I should stop this, I will stop this, I tell myself. Just a few more seconds. Just—
She moves like lightning, closing the distance between us and swinging her leg over mine so that she’s straddling me. Then her hands are cupping my face, her breasts squeezed against my chest, her pussy pressed right up against my dick. It would be so easy to slip inside her right now, so easy to forget everything I did to her last night and to just take what she’s offering. To just take her, and to hell with everything that came before…or will come after.
But then my hands go to her hips and she winces. It’s a slight movement, barely noticeable, but it reminds me of the bruises I put on her. The bruises she’s going to be wearing for days because of me.
My dick grows harder at the knowledge that I’ve branded her, even temporarily. But the rest of me recoils at the thought. The last thing I should be—the last thing I want to be—is turned on by the marks 0n her skin. Not when it’s evidence that I hurt her. And that I liked it.
The thought rips through me and I lift her off my lap, almost throw her onto the bed beside me. Then I’m up and all but running for the refrigerator. “I know you said you have to be going,” I babble as I yank the fridge door open. “But can I feed you first? I’ve got a couple apples in here and a poppy seed muffin. Or I can run down to Starbucks while you’re in the shower. Get you a cup of coffee?”
I turn back to her, muffin in hand, just in time to see something flash in her eyes. But it’s gone before I have so much as a chance to guess what it is and then she’s walking—no, prowling—across the suite to me. She’s completely nude and completely devastating, the early morning light glinting off her skin like she’s some kind of artistic masterpiece. Like she isn’t even real.