by Lexi Blake
“I want you.” She wanted him so badly. She just didn’t trust that he could possibly want her.
“No, you don’t, but you will.” He stepped back and tucked his shirt in. “We’re going to do this my way. We tried yours and it didn’t work, so I’m taking control. I should have done it in the first place. If I thought you had some, I would tell you to change into fet wear, but you don’t happen to have a corset and some PVC hiding in that closet, do you?”
“I don’t know what PVC is,” she admitted, her heart aching a little. “I don’t think this is a good idea, Lee. I don’t think I can be what you need. I’m not experienced, and what experience I have wasn’t very good. Don’t get me wrong. I loved my husband, but the sex wasn’t spectacular. I think I’m just one of those women who can’t be sexy. I was trying to please you, but I couldn’t.”
Even in the dim light, she could see him staring, assessing. “And I think you’re one of those women who can’t stop thinking long enough to let her body take over. Look, Avery, the sex you’ve had happened with a kid. Was your husband older than you? More experienced?”
She shook her head. They had both been virgins.
“Then you have no idea what it can be like. I look at sex differently than most people. It’s an exchange, and it should be good for both parties. I don’t want you to spread your legs and let me have you because you want someone to hold you. If you want me to hold you, ask me. I want you to spread your legs because you can’t wait another single second for my cock. I want that pussy ripe and ready and weeping for a big dick to split it wide and have its way. I want your nipples to peak because I walk into a room and you remember every dirty thing I can do to them. I want you to want me. I can make you crave me. I don’t want some drive-by fucking that gets me off and I forget it five minutes later. I want to fuck all night long. I want to feel it all the next day because my cock got so used to being deep inside your body. If that’s what you want, then get dressed in the sexiest thing you own and agree that I’m the boss when it comes to sex.” He turned and walked out. “I’ll give you five minutes to decide. I’ll be waiting in your living room. If you really want me, you’ll dress exactly how I’ve told you to dress and you’ll present yourself to me for inspection. And Avery, no bra and no underwear. You won’t need them.”
The door closed behind him, and she had to remember how to breathe.
She wasn’t sexy. She wasn’t orgasmic.
But what if she could be? Lee hadn’t been right about everything, but he had a few points. He’d told her he wanted to be in control and then she’d tried to make all the decisions. He had more experience, but she’d decided she knew best. She hadn’t listened to him.
He wanted control. He wanted her to really want him. She didn’t understand, but if she ever wanted to understand, she had to try.
She’d taught herself how to walk again. That had been an enormous mountain to climb. Why was she so scared of this? She’d faced worse, but she was cowering in her boots over not wearing underwear and a bra? She’d lost so much. Was she willing to lose this, too?
What was she really risking? She might look dumb. She could end up with her heart broken, but at least she would have proven it still worked.
She’d come across the ocean to change her life—to have a life. What was life without a few risks?
She got her phone out and sent a quick text to Adam letting him know she was home and who she was with so if she was serially murdered, at least they would have a starting place for where to find her body.
But she was going to do this because she felt safe with Lee. And because she wanted to finally understand what it really meant to want someone.
* * * *
Liam forced himself to be patient. Why had he given her that fucking ultimatum? What had he been thinking?
He’d been thinking about how he wanted the relationship to go. He hadn’t been thinking about the fucking op. He’d been thinking about what he needed and the idea of her not wanting him the way he wanted her. His cock had been hard for days thinking about taking her, but he’d felt her arousal. It was a pathetic thing compared to his.
She just didn’t understand what they could do. She was like a virgin.
God, he didn’t do virgins.
But he wanted to do this one. The minute he’d figured out what the problem was, he’d gone into overdrive. If he’d thought he was hard before, realizing that Avery had never had an orgasm sent him into “I took two Viagra” territory.
He finally had something to fucking offer her. He wasn’t cut out for long term. He was a fucker of a boyfriend. Hell, he hadn’t been a boyfriend since he’d groped around with Katie Reilly during his A level years. After that, it had been the Army and the SAS and then working with intelligence. Women had been comfort, nothing more.
Then he’d gotten his brother killed and nothing could comfort him. He’d finally settled down and found a little place for himself at Sanctum, but he wasn’t anyone’s boyfriend.
But he was good at getting a girl off. He was fine at knowing how and where to touch a woman so she was panting and begging for it. And he sure as bloody hell knew how to use his cock. He could teach her that her body was built for pleasure. He could give her that.
If she took him up on his offer.
Minutes ticked by, and he wondered how the fuck he was going to salvage this. And he hadn’t even planted the bugs he was supposed to plant. Ian was going to kick his ass.
Alex would have to try if she kicked him out. He couldn’t stand the thought of Alex’s hands on her. Alex would be gentle. Alex would treat her with courtesy. Alex wouldn’t have told her it was his way or the highway.
“Is this all right?”
He turned, surprised she’d been able to sneak up on him, but then his mind hadn’t been on the mission in days. His mind and his dick had been in perfect harmony, focused on her.
She stood in front of the tiny bathroom wearing a denim miniskirt and a tank top that should be illegal. Oh, it would look perfectly fine on someone else. On a woman with smaller breasts, it would look sporty. On Avery it looked lascivious, like she was just waiting for a man to rip it off her so he could suck those breasts in his mouth, getting her nipples hard, her pussy wet.
She fidgeted, trying to pull the skirt down. “I usually wear it with leggings. Well, I actually bought it yesterday. A friend told me it looked nice, but I think it’s too short.”
It was far too short, and it qualified as fet wear. He was going to have to buy Adam a beer. Smart bugger. “Let me see. Turn around.”
She bit into her bottom lip, but she turned slowly, allowing him to see the skirt from the backside.
“Stop,” he commanded. She likely would have just kept going until she’d made a complete circle, but he wanted to look at her ass. He groaned a little. Her backside was round with nice-sized hips that flared from her waist led to a truly spectacularly juicy ass.
All of his life he’d adored full-figured women. He’d denied himself for years, opting for skinny little young things because they didn’t make his mouth water like this one did. Those barely legal women had wanted one thing from him—a good time. They hadn’t moved him. They hadn’t made him want to sink inside and never leave.
“Bend over.” He wanted to see just how kind Adam had been. She hesitated. “This won’t work if you don’t obey me.”
Her eyes widened. “I don’t know that I like the word ‘obey.’”
How did he put this to her in a way she could understand? BDSM could seem weird and foreign, but it made sense to him. “Think about it as a rule. Look, do you have directions you have to follow in order to get the outcome you want? Like building a desk or something? Do you follow the directions? Do you obey the rules?”
“Yes.”
“Why do you think there aren’t rules to how sex will work? You didn’t want to talk to me about what you wanted. You pushed me into the room so I wouldn’t turn on the light because you knew damn well I
would push back on that, didn’t you?”
She stayed where she was. “Yes. I don’t want you to see me. I don’t look like one of those girls in a magazine.”
He groaned, the sound coming from deep in his chest. “Those girls in the magazines are airbrushed and way too thin. The camera adds pounds so those girls are so skinny I wouldn’t be able to fuck them for fear I would break them. I want a woman, Avery, not some tiny freaking thing whose waistline only proves she doesn’t eat. I want a woman who can take me. I want a woman I can hold on to. So bend over because I want to see your ass. I want to look at it because I’ve been dreaming about it for days. It’s hot and round and so fucking juicy I can’t stand it. Get me hot, Avery. Show me your ass.”
It took her a moment, but she bent over, her spine curving. The skirt twisted up until he could see plainly that she had complied with his edict about the underwear. Her round, curvy ass cheeks peeked out from the ridiculously high hem of her skirt. Sweet cheeks. So fucking pretty.
“That’s beautiful, love.” Fuck, his cock was dying, and he couldn’t just do her yet. He needed to push her boundaries. He needed to make her howl, and he couldn’t do that by just shoving his cock in.
He let his fingertips find her thighs. The minute he touched her, she gasped and stood straight up.
“Did I hurt you?” He knew the answer to the question. He’d startled her because she wasn’t expecting it, but she needed to learn here and now that he would touch her any way he wanted to.
“No.” She was shivering, but it wasn’t cold in the room. The room was nice and toasty warm.
“Then bend back over. I’m only going to touch you, Avery.” He couldn’t expect her to act like a trained submissive. He had to be patient and teach her what he wanted. Later, if she reacted like this, he would place her over his knee and she would feel the flat of his hand on her ass. Fuck, his cock loved that image.
“This is weird, you know,” she said, but she was complying.
“Weird is in the eye of the beholder.” He let his hand skim along her thighs. Soft, sweet skin. “I think it’s weird how vanilla people just jump into a bed and fuck and don’t ever relish the moment, don’t talk to each other about what works and what doesn’t. So many people just expect sex to happen, but really great sex takes work, like everything in life. You have to talk to your partner. If you were working on a project with a partner, you would talk to him, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes.” Her voice came out on a little gasp. “But you make it sound like this is work. I’m having a hard time thinking about sex as a project to manage.”
He barely touched the cheeks of her ass, just a little tickle on her flesh, and her muscles clenched. “Only because you don’t take it seriously.”
“I take it very seriously,” she shot back.
“No, you take the choice of your partner seriously, but not the sex itself. The sex itself you view as something you have to give up to get to what you really want, and that’s companionship and affection. You can’t buy those with sex, Avery. Those will come or not, and it doesn’t mean a damn thing to any man. Not really. He’ll take sex from you even if he doesn’t particularly like you. He’ll take it because you offer it up so easily. Again—not the relationship, but the sex. You’re offering me easy sex. Sex where I don’t have to work, but I want to work because I do like you and I do feel affection for you. Do you understand?”
“You think I should ask for more.”
“No, I think you should demand more.”
“That doesn’t sound very submissive, Lee.”
He sighed as he touched her cheeks one last time and backed away. “You can stand up now.” He sank back on her sofa. It would do for what he wanted. For what she needed. “Come sit in my lap.”
She moved a little awkwardly, trying to pull the skirt down. “I can’t get it down far enough. If I sit in your lap, it’s going to ride up.”
“Sit in my lap, Avery.” He let his voice go hard and was happy to see her respond. She did what he wanted, though she took her sweet time doing it, trying valiantly to keep as much denim between them as possible. She settled in, holding herself up.
And that wouldn’t do. One little pull of his hand and the skirt was bunched around her waist.
Avery shrieked a little, but he kept her where he wanted her. “Lee, you don’t understand. I’m…I’m going to ruin your pants. God, I need to go clean up.”
“Oh, is my baby’s little pussy finally getting wet?” He put his hand on her knee.
She tried to cross her legs. “Yes, and it’s a lot. It feels very messy.”
He could smell her now. Bending over and presenting her ass had done something for her. So had dirty talk. Yeah, he could talk dirty. “Messy is good. I want that pussy dirty and ripe when I start to eat it.”
Her skin turned the prettiest shade of pink. “How can you just talk like that?”
“Like what?” He cupped her knees. “Stop shutting me out. Start talking to me.”
She relaxed a little, her knees falling apart and giving him access. “It’s the dirty talk. No one’s ever talked to me that way.”
“And you don’t like it?” His hand crept up, and he wondered if she would lie to him. She obviously liked it. He could feel the heat of her pussy. Her pretty eyes dilated when he started spouting a little sweet filth.
“I like it. I wouldn’t have said I would. I don’t like to hear a lot of cursing, but when you say it, it sounds different.”
“Because we’re in a safe place. Baby, there’s a huge difference between some construction worker yelling out about how nice your tits look and me telling you how I want to get my mouth on those same gorgeous tits and never leave them. There’s no disrespect in me telling you just how much I want to fuck your little pussy.”
“I don’t know why.”
He didn’t pretend to misunderstand her. He knew damn well what she was talking about. “We have to work on your self-esteem, baby. I want to fuck you because you make my cock hard. I want to fuck you because I’m pretty sure you’re going to be the sweetest fuck I’ve ever had. You’re going to be like sugar on my cock. I’ll be addicted to that little bit of sunshine after a while and no other pussy will do. But this is where I play the Dom card, Avery. I’m trying to go slow with that, but if you start in on yourself again, I will spank you. I hear one more word out of your mouth about how this body isn’t sexy and you’ll place yourself over my lap and take twenty. Do you understand?”
She shoved her head into his shoulder with a little cry. Her body shook.
He’d scared the hell out of her. His heart threatened to crack. He’d fucked up again. He’d misjudged her. He’d been so certain of her natural submissiveness, but what if she couldn’t handle it? He should have played this vanilla. He’d taken the chance because he wanted her so fucking badly. Liam, not Lee. Not some fucking construct he’d come up with for his undercover work, but Liam, the screwed-up man he was needed her on a level he’d never known existed.
And now she would kick him out for being a brutal bastard.
Her face came up and instead of tears, he saw laughter and a pretty pink flush. She was laughing, her lips curling up in the sweetest smile. “Lee, you’re making me crazy. I think I’m a freak because that getting wet thing happened again when you started talking about spanking me.”
Her laugh filled the air for the first time all night, and it looked like she was having some fun. Fun with herself. Fun with him.
“Spanking can be very erotic,” he said, tightening his hands on her, pulling her back in. “It can also hurt like hell.”
Her voice was deeper, more intimate than before. Her eyes came up, questioning him. “How would you know?”
It was time for some real honesty. He felt himself smile as he stared down at her. It felt so fucking right to have her in his lap. Like she belonged there. “I told you, baby. I’m trained. You don’t get trained at Club Sanctum without trying everything out. How can I know ho
w to spank a partner if I haven’t been spanked myself?”
She cuddled up against him. “I wish I’d been there to see that. I‘m trying to imagine you lying over someone’s lap. I’m glad you tried it. It doesn’t seem fair that you would just get to make all the rules and hand out all the discipline if you didn’t know what it felt like.”
She’d relaxed a little, but her legs had come together again and he wasn’t having that. “Keep your legs spread, Avery. I want access to your pussy. While we’re playing together, your pussy belongs to me.”
Her face tightened, but she spread her legs. “Why do you call it play?”
“It’s what we call intimate scenes. I’m not a Dom twenty-four seven. Some Doms are, but I want a partner, not a slave. I want to be in charge of sex, and I want any woman I’m deeply involved with to come to me when there’s trouble. Do you understand?”
That was important. It was part of his cover. He needed to become her lover so when the shit hit the fan, and it would, she would turn to him and let him take care of her. He needed her to not hesitate. He needed her to turn to him, to trust him.
She didn’t even know his name. She had never heard his real voice.
A bright smile crossed her face. “I do understand, but you should know I lead a very boring life. I don’t know how much you’re going to have to save me. Nothing ever happens to me.” She frowned. “Except for car accidents. I probably shouldn’t drive.” She gasped a little, one hand covering her mouth. “I can’t believe I just joked about that.”
He wasn’t supposed to know what a breakthrough that was, but he felt it. She’d likely never joked about it before, but she had with him. She’d felt safe enough to joke with him about the worst thing that had ever happened to her. A deep affection curled in his gut. She was so sweet, and she trusted him. She shouldn’t. He was a bastard who was lying to her every moment they were together, but she trusted him and that meant something to Liam.
“How about I promise to drive?” His hand was on her upper thigh, just inches from that pussy. He could feel her heat. It nearly singed his fingers. “I think you’ll find I’m quite good at being in the driver’s seat.”
