In silence he loaded my car, and before I was in the front seat, he took my hand and brought it to his lips.
“There are things I want to tell you,” he said. “Some I will, someday. Some I may never be able to. I’m not asking for you to wait forever; I’m just asking for you to trust me right now. I haven’t been with another woman since I first saw you, and I won’t be until we’re over.”
My stomach twisted. He sounded so sincere.
“What if we’re already over?” I asked.
“We’re not. We’re just getting started.” He said it with so much confidence, I almost believed him.
He opened my car door, and I sat inside.
“I’m coming over as soon as I’m done here,” he told me. “We’re going to talk about what happens when you doubt me.”
He shut the door and walked away, leaving me annoyed, confused, and ultimately curious.
Nineteen
He worked quickly, I would give him that. By the time I got back to my apartment, there was a package on my doorstep. A green box tied with an elaborate copper bow. On the top was a small typed note that just said, Anna, I’m sorry. See you soon.
“You’re damn right, you’re sorry,” I muttered, unlocking the dead bolt and pushing inside. I flipped on the lights and took the box to the kitchen, searching for the scissors to cut the ribbon. They weren’t in the usual junk drawer where I kept pens and notepads; Alec had probably gone looking for them and put them back in the wrong place. I found them where I kept the knives and I cut off the ribbon. If he thought a gift could fix what had happened, he had another think coming. But as I opened the box, I wavered a little.
Chocolate, really good chocolate—handmade truffles on some ridiculous white satin pillow. It was a cheap shot to say the least.
I popped one into my mouth—I deserved it after the day I’d had—and groaned out loud. Delicious. But that didn’t address the issues at hand. Alec had railroaded me back at Stein’s house. I’d walked in expecting a good-bye, and left with the opposite. I probably should have felt weak about my lack of resolve, but instead I felt relieved. Maybe Amy was right; I had been being stupid. Alec didn’t want to let me go, and that had to count for something.
Still, I was just prolonging my heartbreak. Each day that we got closer would make it harder to back away.
I told myself this as I lit a few candles, brushed my teeth, reapplied my lipstick, and put on a black satin thong.
The knock came at the door an hour later. It was almost seven, so I thought he might want to talk over dinner, but that didn’t appear to be the case. There was a predatory look about him, a sharp hunger in his eyes and a coiled tension in his muscles that had me taking a step back.
“Stand by the bed,” he ordered, stalking toward me.
“You can’t just . . .”
“Now.” He removed his jacket, folded it in half, and laid it over the back of the love seat.
Irritation stoked through me, but the rumble in his voice excited me.
“Fine.” I walked to the bed. He sat on the end, facing me, and leaned back on straight arms. The position made his shirt pull across his body, giving a mouthwatering view of his pecs.
“Take off your clothes,” he said.
I had changed into leggings and a peasant top, but hesitated before doing what he asked. I’d imagined doing this, but not at his command. Still, his tone had me pulling at the strings that closed the collar of my shirt.
“Slowly,” he said.
I told myself it was part of the show, but I turned away because of the sudden dose of nerves that had boiled over in my belly. With my back to him, I twisted my hair over one shoulder and pushed the soft cotton down my arm, letting the wide neck give a broader view of my upper back. I became aware of every sensation: the brush of the material, the tickle of my hair against my neck and chest, his stare, moving over me like a physical touch.
I glanced over my shoulder and found him unmoved, except for the obvious erection straining against his pants.
“Keep going,” he said.
The nerves in my belly turned to water. Anything that had happened earlier was forgotten. All that existed now was the rising need between us.
I slid my thumbs into the waistband of my pants, already feeling the breath rasp my throat. He was just feet away, but he could have been stroking my back with his fingertips, lowering his mouth to my neck. I closed my eyes, knowing he could see the rise and fall of my shoulders. There was a creak in the bed as he sat up.
I bent at the waist and leaned forward, slowly sliding the skintight fabric down my smooth legs. He made a small noise of appreciation at the view of my behind, but made no move to rise or come closer.
I stepped out of the pants, one leg at a time. I turned now and faced him, suddenly brave and reckless. He gripped the comforter, and his jaw twitched as I reached for the hem of my shirt and pulled it over my head. I never once broke his gaze.
I stood before him in only my bra and underwear, a matching satin set by La Perla that I’d blown half a check on a few months back. I’d never actually worn it until tonight.
“Your bra first,” he said, strained.
I reached behind and unfastened it, then slid the straps down my shoulders. My breasts fell free, heavy, peaked, and ready for his hard caress. I shuddered as the cool air made contact with my flushed skin.
Heart hammering, I awaited my next command. He stared at me for several long beats, gaze rising, lowering. Hand moving over his pants to adjust his cock.
“Finish it,” he said.
Adrenaline raced through my veins. With trembling hands I lowered the sides of the thong, one at a time, over my hips, down my thighs, over my calves. I stepped free, completely naked.
“Fucking gorgeous,” he said, rubbing a hand absently over his chest. And right then, in that moment, I felt more beautiful than ever before.
“Come here,” he finally said and, as if I were walking through a dream, I complied. I reached for him, but he grasped my wrists and directed me to the bed.
I let him put me where he wanted me, which was on all fours, facing the headboard. He hadn’t taken off his clothes, didn’t seem to want to yet.
“Clasp your hands and rest your cheek on them.”
I did as he said, attempting to lie on my stomach, but he held my hips in place so that my knees were bent and my buttocks lifted. In this position, my damp folds were exposed, swollen and ready for his touch. Displaying myself in this manner made me a little self-conscious, but he seemed to like what he saw. I wanted to please him; I wanted to drive him crazy.
He laid his hand on my lower back, sending shivers straight to my loins. Up and down his fingertips stroked, lowering over the back of my thigh and then skimming back to where they started. He kneeled beside me, placing his other hand on my shoulders.
“When you came to the house tonight, you thought I’d been with another woman.”
My heart ached, one hard pang.
I didn’t move.
He continued to trail his fingers over my skin.
“You didn’t answer my texts today for the same reason.”
I still didn’t respond, but my muscles were beginning to quiver in anticipation.
His fingers slid between the globes of my ass, gently prodding, then skimming lower, over my center. My back arched involuntarily, giving him more access. One finger circled my clit, never actually touching it.
We’re going to talk about what happens when you doubt me.
I should have known he didn’t intend to talk. He intended to punish, with a sweet torture that would drive me insane.
His fingers rose to my back, then lowered down around to the bend of one knee. My muscles flexed everywhere he touched.
“Why would you think that, when you know what you do to me?” He asked calmly. It was rhetorical, so I didn’t answer. “Did you think I would touch her like this?”
I bit my lip, fighting not to break so easily.
<
br /> “Did you think I would put my fingers inside of her?”
His index fingers traced my slit, and then pushed, painstakingly slowly, inside. My muscles contracted involuntarily, and I tried to push up on my forearms, but he held me down.
“Did you imagine me fucking her, Anna?” He added a finger, and began to slide in and out. In and out. “It’s okay. Answer me, baby.”
Eyes pinched closed, I nodded, cheek still pressed against my knuckles.
He removed his hand, making me gasp. My inner walls squeezed together, missing him. Needing him.
His hand slapped down on one buttock, not hard enough to hurt me, but enough to sting. My eyes shot open. The breath huffed from my lungs. Then, as if it had never happened, he returned to his gentle caress. Up and down. Up and down. Soothing the heated skin.
“You think I could be inside another woman when I had this waiting for me in my own bed?”
He spanked me again, cupped hand breezing off my flesh in an upward motion. The vibration of my body struck my center, making my pussy clench. He had caught me by surprise, but as he returned to his soft touches, I stayed taut and ready.
“Do you still believe I could?”
I wanted to tell him no so that he might finally take off his pants and finish me. I needed him to fill me, to rub that place inside of me that would break the tension and erase the images of him in another woman’s bed.
But I nodded yes.
He sighed. “I thought so.”
Easy strokes, grazing my now soaked folds. I wanted to weep, I was so tied up in knots.
“I don’t like it when you doubt me, Anna.”
Another slap, this one a bit harder but still not painful. He blew across the skin to cool it, holding my shoulders down. He had to feel me trembling now; the whole mattress was practically quaking.
He spanked me again and again, each time stroking upward. I’d never been touched like this; it had never sounded like something I would have liked. But as he continued, a fever took control of my body, and the pleasure turned to something else, something more carnal.
“This body is mine,” he said, drawing a feral groan from my lips as his hand moved inward, and he began to pat his flat palm against my very slick center. The wet rhythmic sound should have embarrassed me, but it just made me that much hotter.
He alternated pressured spanks against my bottom, with lighter pats between my legs. He spread my knees wide, and then rubbed my labia, and tapped my clit with his middle finger. Just when I became used to the assault he would switch course.
I could hardly hold myself up. I squirmed, muscles trembling.
“Do you still doubt me?”
I cried out as his fingers thrust into my vagina. Deeply they reached, until his knuckles were flush against my outer lips.
“Damn you,” I muttered. I was on the verge of spinning out of control.
He finger-fucked me hard, and then suddenly emptied me. Before I could object, he’d reached beneath my hips and dragged me to him, then bent down and began to tongue me. His palm rubbed against my clit, a strong, relentless friction. My hips rotated, giving him more room to turn his head. As he scraped his teeth lightly over one lip, then the other, I lost what little control I had left.
I came hard, gasping for breath. My legs shot straight back, pushing him away. My hands fisted the sheets as I buried my face in the pillow. My muscles spasmed in waves—unending, unyielding waves.
He flipped me onto my back, discarding his clothes like they were on fire.
“I crave the taste of you,” he said, burying his face in my pussy again. He licked frantically, spearing me with his tongue, spreading the surface wide and then swirling around my clit. I arched back, fisting his hair to pull him away.
“Too much,” I managed. “Too much.”
“Not enough,” he said, rearing back and then driving his cock into me in one claiming stroke.
I gripped his shoulders and hung on while he thrust fast and deep. My body shook with the impact, nipples aching as my breasts jostled. He lifted my knees, pulled them together against his chest to find a different angle. The pressure squeezed the bundle of nerves between my legs, dragging me up the ridge of a tidal wave, bucking, reaching desperately for something to cling to before he sent me careening over the edge into oblivion, crying his name.
He held still, lodged deep while I clenched around him, while I went blind and began to seize in pleasure. It went on, hot tendrils pulsing through my cunt, forcing me to swallow him deeper into my tender flesh. Then he pulled out, leaving just the head of his monstrous erection inside.
“My body belongs to you,” I heard him say through the ringing in my ears. “I am yours just as much as you are mine.”
There was no reprieve. As soon as I could open my eyes, my gaze became trapped in his—in the deep blue of his irises and his pupils, dilated and filled with emotion. Perspiration had dewed on his brow. He slipped out and back in, enticing me with his tip, bringing a new layer of sensitivity to that small, hungry mouth.
His muscles clenched, but before I could prepare myself, he drove in hard, all the way to the base. Slowly, he withdrew. A shallow stroke, a deep stroke. He varied, just as he had with the spanking. And as I felt myself rising again, he pulled out completely, and lowered down my body, kissing my breasts, my belly button. Forcing my thighs apart and then sucking my clit into his mouth while his fingers pushed me up and over the edge.
It was too much. Too good. I was lost on some plane beyond reality, where there was nothing but sensation. Thoughts ceased to exist. There was just him around me, against me, inside of me. The ridges of his abdominals, the hard tips of his shoulders, the slippery sweat on his back. His toes sliding up my instep, his knees spreading mine farther apart.
He rose, kissed me as his cock slid inside me again. His hand cupped my breast, massaged it with just enough pressure to urge little gasps from my throat. He took my earlobe between his teeth.
“What are you doing to me?” I panted.
He seated himself deep. “Showing you.”
Showing me what? What I’d be missing if I walked away? The very thought of it seemed impossible now.
It began again. He withdrew an inch, pushed back in. He stayed close that way, keeping the tempo slow and intimate.
“Do you doubt me?” he whispered between strokes.
“Alec.”
He lifted my legs, tossed one over his shoulder. He pushed in all the way, turned his hips and held, searing me with a pleasured pain that compressed my organs.
“Feel how deep I am.” He slid out, buried himself again.
My head thrashed against the pillow. “Yes.”
“Feel how much I need you.”
“Yes.”
“All for you, Anna.”
“Yes.” Tears streamed down my face.
“This is real, baby.”
I was rising again, impossible as it seemed. It was starting in the center of my core, sending bolts down every nerve ending. My feet flexed. My fingers numbly reached for him.
“Alec,” I panted.
He released my legs, leaned over me, and held me tightly as he hammered home.
“I’m yours, Anna.”
He was close; his thrusts became jerky and uneven, his arms began to tremble. With my last bit of focus, I wrapped my arms around his neck and whispered, “Stay inside me.”
And then I broke. My fear, my trepidation—it shattered as I fell to pieces in his arms.
“Mine,” I murmured. “Mine. Mine. Mine.”
One last thrust and he was lost.
Twenty
The bass from the clubs up the street created a rhythm for the faraway sirens and the clatter of pans from the Chinese restaurant downstairs. It was the music of Ybor City, a song all its own, made richer by the steady beat of Alec’s heart beneath my ear.
Candlelight flickered from the nightstand and the windowsills, leaving the rest of the apartment bathed in shadows. A peace h
ad settled over us, warm as any blanket. Our bare legs were twisted together. I wrapped my arms tighter around his chest, wishing there was a way to stay in this moment forever.
“Come with me tomorrow,” he said quietly, combing his fingers through my hair.
I lifted my head and wove my fingers over his chest, resting my chin on my knuckles.
“Where are you going?”
“New York.”
I laughed. “I’ve never been to New York.”
He sat up a little, folding a pillow under his head. “So come with me. After I’m done working, we’ll take a look around.” He smirked. “Or we’ll stay in. Either way.”
I searched his face for the truth. “We’d just hop on a plane and spend the weekend in New York.”
His lips rose on one side. “Is that hard to believe?”
No one had ever asked me to do anything like that before. It sounded amazing—fun, exciting. Serious. We had only been dating a little while, and just hours before I’d been prepared to call it quits.
But we were serious. Our bodies knew it, and so did my heart, even if his didn’t.
“Wow,” I said, trying to keep things light. “First chocolates and now a trip to New York? You’re definitely racking up the points.”
“What do you mean?” His grin faded, and his eyes became serious.
I sat back on my heels. “What’s next? Mind-blowing sex? Oh wait, you did that, too . . .”
“What about the chocolate?”
“Oh.” I smiled. “Exquisite. Marvelous. Orgasmic.”
He sat all the way up. “I didn’t bring you any chocolate.”
I gave him a puzzled look. “Of course you did. You sent it. The box was right outside when I got home.”
I began to feel a little lightheaded watching Alec’s expression turn grim. If he hadn’t delivered chocolates to my doorstep, then someone else had. Amy wouldn’t have sent an apology, and my father would have called to make sure I was home to get the delivery.
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