Make Me: Twelve Tales of Dark Desire

by Aleatha Romig

  “Stop it, you diva.”

  She hit out at him, turning and attacking with everything she was worth. He parried, pushing her back and pinning her down with embarrassing quickness.

  “You’re an angry little girl, aren’t you?” he asked, his hands flexing on her wrists.

  “I’m not a little girl, you jerk. I’m not a diva.”

  “No? You act like one.”

  She fought with renewed energy. He slid his hands from her wrists to cover her palms, still pinning her with his body.

  “Let go of my hands!” No one touched her hands. Ever. But he ignored her shrieked command, his fingers closing around hers. His chest was pressed to hers, a cage. An anchor. He waited for her to look at him, but she wouldn’t do it.

  “Go away!”

  “No.”

  She finally chanced a sideways glance at him, and what she saw really devastated her. He admired her. Still. “You don’t understand, Kyle. It was terrible.”

  “I liked it,” he said without pause.

  “Because you don’t understand.”

  “No, I don’t,” he agreed a moment later, with an ironic lilt to his voice. “How can you say it was terrible? The applause went on and on. They were shouting ‘Bravo!’”

  “Yeah, they’re idiots. They do that every time. Dress up and go listen to the pretty music from the fancy orchestra in their flashy tuxedos. They’re like you, they don’t know. The reviews will tell the story tomorrow. You fucking idiot.”

  His face changed then, and his fingers tightened around hers until she squirmed to pull them away. “Apologize.”

  “Let go of my hands.”

  “Apologize. I’m sorry I called you a fucking idiot, Kyle.”

  She shook her head.

  “Say it. I’m sorry I called you a fucking idiot. I’m sorry for trivializing your experience and ranting at you like a shrill bitch. Say it.”

  “Fuck you!”

  “Say it. I can hold you here all night. Do you need me to repeat it?”

  “I want to go to bed.”

  “As soon as you apologize.”

  She pouted. Damn, she had an itch on her arm. He wouldn’t let go of her hands no matter how hard she pulled, and she had to scratch it. She squirmed against him and…oh my God.

  He smiled down at her. Smug asshole. “Say it, Caressa.”

  He was hard, and he was pressing against her in a way that had her body rebelling against what her mind was telling her to do.

  “No. Go away,” she insisted, a little less forcefully this time.

  “I’m sorry…”

  “Jesus. Fine. I’m sorry I called you an idiot!”

  “And ranted at you like a shrill bitch.”

  Caressa heard a snort and a laugh and realized it had come from her. And then more laughter bubbling up before she could stop it. She wanted to be angry. She hated him. She despised him. No. She adored him.

  “Say it.” He was laughing against her lips, kissing her. “Say it, you crazy little wingnut.”

  “I’m sorry…I’m sorry I ranted at you like…like…a shrill…hahaha…bitch…” She could barely get the words out, she was laughing so hard. Tears were streaming from her eyes and then she wasn’t really sure where her laughter ended and her tears began. Kyle kissed her again and again, licking the moisture from her cheeks and nibbling at her lips. Their bodies bumped together in laughter and a deeper, more intent purpose. He was groping at her pants, pulling at the waistband.

  “Don’t rip them,” she said.

  “Take them off.”

  She scrambled up, still not sure if she wanted to hate him or worship him. The conflict of her feelings lodged somewhere in her middle, near her heart, but between her legs there was warmth and wetness. She undressed and he undressed too with a complete lack of self-consciousness. She stared because she still couldn’t quite get over the sight of him—the sculpted perfection of his torso, his muscular legs and his hard, upstanding cock.

  She made a sound and backed away as he advanced on her, condom already in his hand and quickly rolled onto his thick length. His eyes never left her. In fact, his eyes were so intent they frightened her. She started to fight him as he backed her to the wall, for no other reason than the shit storm he stirred in her. He ignored her half-hearted slaps and shoves and pressed against her, slipping his hands beneath her knees to draw her thighs up and around his hips. She braced herself and bumped her head back against the wall, holding on for dear life.

  “Say you want me, Caressa.”

  She gazed at him with bared teeth. “You’re always telling me what to say.”

  “Then say what you feel. Say yes, or no—”

  “Oh…” She moaned. “I don’t want to talk.” She couldn’t summon words. She heard music, banging clashing chords, and felt his cock parting her, easing up into her. Why did he need her to talk? Couldn’t he hear it? She gave a sing-songy whine and shifted her hips to take him deeper. His knees, or her elbows perhaps, thumped against the wall in the silence of the hotel suite as he began to move in her, each thrust lifting her higher. She banged her head again but she didn’t care. His teeth closed on her neck and she wanted him to bite instead of nibble. “Kyle…”

  She arched her hips into his thrusts, wanting to urge him on, but not knowing how. She ground against him and his fingers tightened on her hip where he held her. His cock pinned her and possessed her, and then found a spot that had her falling faster, rising higher. Her moans intensified as she sought satisfaction.

  “Shhh…”

  She heard his shushing as if from a distance. She grasped his shoulders and dug her nails into his golden skin. “Help me. I can’t—Closer, please!”

  With a groan, he slid an arm under her and turned, carrying her to the bed and collapsing over her. The force and rhythm of his thrusts increased as he plundered her, his hips pounding against hers. His pubic bone contacted her clit, rubbing over it in an unbearable tease. She pulled her knees up to draw him closer, to urge him on, and then he delivered a stinging slap to the outside of her thigh. Another, and another again. The sound was loud and she jerked, at the same time the chaos inside her transformed into a single strain of completion.

  “God, Kyle!” The orgasm came on her like a gunshot, an explosion. Every nerve seized and her thighs clenched around him as he stiffened above her. He gripped her thighs where they still stung from his blows and pressed her down, down, down. She wanted him to hold her down forever, to fill her and not let her go. Her pussy clamped down on his hard thickness, a jolting release made even sweeter by the way he shook and shuddered above her.

  When he fell against her she lay still, not wanting to stir and cause him to move. A moment later she heard a chuckle and a soft gasp of breath against her cheek.

  “I suppose we could have been quieter.”

  Caressa didn’t answer. Quiet was the last thing on her mind. God, the way he fucked her, like an animal rutting, like a wild man. He had slapped her thigh, hard. She still felt the warmth of his handprint.

  And she had liked it. Very much.

  He finally drew back to lie beside her, turning questioning eyes on her. “So…you got your spanking. Did you enjoy it as much as you hoped?”

  She looked past him, over his shoulder. “What do you think?”

  He tweaked her chin and tsked at her. “Don’t be a smart ass. Tell me if you liked it or not.”

  She forced her gaze back to his, stared into those blue eyes that pinned her as effectively as his cock. “I still feel it.” She didn’t know what she meant by that…if she meant the burn on her thigh or his cock still firm and stirring in her. “You’ve got quite a libido working there.”

  “I do all right,” he sighed, pulling away from her. He kissed her, not gently, and rolled off the bed. He stood over her and she felt suddenly naked, vulnerable. She pulled the sheets over herself and looked past him again.

  “Can I sleep in here with you?” he asked.

  “No.
”

  He studied her a moment longer, then shrugged. “It’s late, and if I sleep in here I’ll probably just keep you up later than I should.”

  “You’ve already done that.”

  He stretched his gorgeous limbs, refusing to rise to the bait. She watched and pretended he didn’t make her heart beat faster and her mouth go dry. He started to dress and she turned on her side, remembering everything that his ruthless seduction had driven away for precious moments. The concert, the horrible flubs. The undeserved applause. The piece had slipped ahead just out of her fingers. She’d thought she had it once or twice, but overall the performance was average at best—

  Ohhh… He was leaning over her, licking up the side of her neck. She shivered and almost reached for him, reached to pull him back down beside her, with his spicy, manly smell and his voice like caramel.

  “You still taste like tears,” he whispered. His tongue slipped behind her ear, teasing and tempting. Then he kissed her gently on the forehead and was gone.

  About the Author

  Annabel Joseph writes emotionally intense stories about the romance of dominance and submission. You can learn more about her books, read reviews, and find contact information at annabeljoseph.com.

  Other erotic romance by Annabel Joseph

  Mercy

  Cait and the Devil

  Firebird

  Deep in the Woods

  Fortune

  Lily Mine

  Owning Wednesday

  Caressa’s Knees

  Odalisque

  Command Performance

  Burn For You

  Disciplining the Duchess

  Waking Kiss

  Fever Dream

  Cirque de Minuit

  Bound in Blue

  Erotica by Annabel Joseph

  Club Mephisto

  Molly’s Lips: Club Mephisto Retold

  ENSLAVED

  CLAIRE THOMPSON

  Caught red-handed with her fingers in the company cash, Rae Johansen must choose between near-certain jail time or a much shorter sentence locked away in a BDSM Dungeon. Acceptance means placing her free will, her body and possibly her soul in the hands of a dominant man who demands complete submission. Whips, chains, ropes, floggers and the sensual wrath of a spurned lover are just some of what await the hapless slave girl, should she accept the terms he offers.

  Choose right, Rae, and choose wisely. This may be the last choice you ever make.

  “Enslaved is sure to become another classic from Ms. Thompson… There is plenty of sex, BDSM scenes, growth, and love in this story that just makes it work.”

  —Just Erotic Romance Reviews

  Copyright

  Edited by

  Donna Fisk

  Jae Ashley

  Cover Art by Kelly Shorten

  Copyright © 2011 Claire Thompson

  All rights reserved

  Chapter One

  ‡

  “That fucking little cunt.”

  Sam Ryker narrowed his eyes as he stared at the numbers on the computer screen and back again at the statement the banker had just faxed to him. Cold fury snaked its way through him, nearly obscuring the heat of a deeper hurt beneath it.

  He closed his eyes, seizing the anger roiling within his brain in a mental fist and forcing it under control. Swiveling toward the window of the tiny office, he stared, unseeing, at the Manhattan skyline.

  Maybe he was jumping to conclusions without having all the facts. Could it be a simple matter of a mistake in the numbers? Or did she have an explanation for the ten percent difference in what she claimed the bank charged for his two million dollar line of credit, a line that had been fully extended for the past eight months since she’d arranged it for him?

  He’d brought Rae Johansen onboard to handle the financial side of his fledgling software company so he could focus on the product and the customers. He’d paid her when he couldn’t pay himself, using every bit of his savings, relying on her, trusting her. They’d worked well together. She’d freed him from the annoying day-to-day details so he could focus on the core business. She’d had his back, or so he’d thought.

  I would have found a way to help you, Rae. If you’d told me you needed it…

  But life rarely worked out that way, did it? He would have given her his heart too, but she wasn’t interested. The first time he’d laid eyes on her, he’d wanted her. Maybe that was his first mistake—letting his cock get in the way of his brain.

  Sam closed his eyes, letting the image of Rae lying naked on his sheets flow into his mind. Those cobalt blue eyes flecked with bronze, the dark hair in a tumble around her face, the curve of her breast, the rope on her slender wrists binding her to the headboard as he loomed over her, plunging his cock into the soft, tight heat of her wet cunt…

  He’d misjudged her desires, her readiness to submit. Or, more accurately, he’d judged her desire correctly—she wanted what he offered. She needed it. He could see it in the hunger in her eyes, the clench of her fingers and gasp of her breath—but she’d been scared. Scared not so much of him or what he offered, but of her own reaction to it. His mistake had been that he’d moved too fast. He’d wanted her too much and he’d paid the price.

  Sam Ryker wasn’t the type of man to go where he wasn’t welcome. When she’d pulled back, he’d let her go. At the time, he’d told himself it was probably for the best. Everyone knew you shouldn’t mix work with pleasure. Though it took a few weeks to work through the awkwardness on both sides, they’d managed to move on. They were both professional enough not to let their brief fling interfere with things.

  If he still dreamed of her at night, his cock fisted in his hand, images of her naked and at his mercy streaming through his mind, it was forgotten by morning. The complex and absorbing programming code and the daily challenge of growing his business were more than enough distraction. A relationship would have only complicated matters. It was better this way.

  Liar.

  He returned his attention to the computer monitor, still struggling to come to terms with the evidence that stared him in the face. Yeah, he got it that she hadn’t wanted to explore the Pandora’s box of her own submissive sexuality when that particular lid was lifted, but he never dreamed she would take advantage of the trust he’d placed in her professionally.

  If Rae were anyone else, he wouldn’t have hesitated to call the police and have her arrested on the spot. But she wasn’t anyone else. Even though it had been just the one time, Rae had left a part of herself like a shard of glass lodged painfully in his heart, despite the scar tissue of time that covered it. What he still wouldn’t give to have her in his bed again, or on her knees at his feet, looking up at him with those luminous dark blue eyes…

  “She needs to be taught a lesson,” he said softly, as a delicious and dangerous idea edged its way into his head. “She needs to be punished.”

  Sam glanced at his watch. It was only seven-thirty in the morning. Too bad. What he had to say couldn’t wait. He hit the speed dial on his BlackBerry and lifted it to his ear.

  “Hey, Sam.” Her voice, low and husky, stroked his senses as it always did, like fingers playing over his skin. Her tone was relaxed and easy. She had no idea she’d been busted.

  “There’s something I need to discuss with you.”

  “Sure. What’s up?”

  “No. In person. When can you get here?”

  “Hey, I’ve barely had my coffee. Can it wait until later in the day? Want to send me an email with the details? What do you need? If it’s about the quarterly tax payment, I’ve already got—”

  “No,” Sam interrupted. “It can’t wait. I want you here. Now.”

  “What’s the topic?” she pressed. “That way I can prepare—”

  “We’ll discuss it when you get here.”

  There was a pause and Sam could almost feel her frown through the phone. She didn’t like it when he pulled rank. Or maybe she understood from his tone all was not well in paradi
se. Tough shit. He waited.

  Finally she said, “Okay, Sam. I can be there in an hour. That work for you?”

  “Like a charm.”

  *

  Rae opened her compact and checked her face in the tiny mirror as the subway hurtled beneath the city toward Sam’s building. Who did Sam think he was, ordering her to drop everything and head across town like his personal lackey? It was bad enough she had to work from home—his broom closet of an office might be at a prestigious Manhattan address, but it barely had room for his desk and three computers, much less another person. He paid her a decent salary, but still hadn’t come through with his promise to give her a stake in the company, even though they nearly had the Ichi deal in their pockets. Well, in his pocket.

  Here he was, poised to earn tens of millions on the software deal with a prime Japanese company and he still put her off with vague promises. “I should never have slept with him,” she chided herself for the hundredth time. “It made him take me less seriously as a business partner.”

  What a perv he’d turned out to be, into all that whips and chains crap! The bondage thing had been kind of exciting, if she were honest, but she wasn’t that kind of woman. No man told her what to do, not in the bedroom or out of it. No, it was better she’d nipped their personal relationship in the bud before things got out of hand.

  Especially with what she’d been doing with the books.

  She hated herself for it, but she hadn’t seen any other way out. Not without admitting she’d fucked up big time. She only needed a little more to finally extricate herself from that hideous, money-draining, loser real estate deal she’d let herself be talked into. She should have known it was too good to be true. She’d committed the cardinal sin in business—she’d let her greed get the better of her.

  So far her arrangement had gone without a hitch and she was nearly home free. As soon as she could get the debt paid and the back taxes she owed taken care of, she’d never do anything like this again. She’d stay on the straight and narrow, and give her all to Ryker Solutions. She’d make it up to Sam by working her ass off. Maybe then he’d finally make her partner like he promised.