When I Say Yes

by Lisa Renee Jones

  “I liked this sweater,” I whisper, even as he drags it down my shoulders, but he can’t be bothered with removing it. His hands are already shoving down my bra, his gaze devouring my breasts, fingers teasing my nipples.

  His hot, lusty stare meets mine as he says, “I’ll buy you ten just like it for the view.”

  There’s something more than heat in his eyes, something that tells a story. I recognize then what I saw in him when he fought in Nashville. He takes a beating during his fights, but in the end, he conquers, he wins. Tonight, he didn’t fight. He didn’t conquer. Now, he wants that high, craves it, and I’m where he’ll find that relief.

  He wants to conquer me.

  He wants, needs, and even demands my submission. Because submission is trust and tonight tried to tear away the new and fragile trust between us. A couple of revelations come to me then with surprise. Dash can ask for anything and I’d say yes, which makes him dangerous, so very dangerous. I should run, but even after all that happened in the just passed, roughly managed hours behind us, I have less desire to do so than ever.

  I love him. I lust for him. I desire him in every possible meaning of that word. I want Dash Black in a bad way. He tears his shirt over his head, tosses it aside, rippling muscles inviting my hands, but even as I reach for him, he catches my arms, presses them behind me, and captures my wrists with his hand. He pulls me firmly against his hard body and I gasp with the feel of him, so dominant, so strong, so intimately close.

  “I came here instead of fighting, but all the feelings that took me to the fight club are still right here in me. What are you doing to do about it?”

  “What do you want to do about it?”

  “Let me fuck you hard and dirty,” he says, “all night long. And then, I want to get up and do it again.”

  “Am I supposed to object?”

  “I sure as hell hope not, but maybe you should ask what hard and dirty means.”

  I’ve always known there was a darker, edgier part of Dash that he’s never unleashed on me, he’s never really shown me. It’s the part of him that lives in that fighting ring. It’s the part of him that is too tormented to ever be gentle. It’s the part of him that has been hidden that I want exposed, that I want to know. My fingers catch his belt loops. “Or maybe you should just show me.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Dash leans in and presses his cheek to my cheek, his lips to my ear, his breath a warm seductive tease on my neck, I feel in every part of me. “Be careful what you ask for, baby,” he says softly.

  My fingers curl on his chest. “I won’t regret anything with you, Dash.” I ease back to look at him. “One day you’ll know that.”

  “Or you’ll know,” he says, a hidden meaning behind those darkly cloaked words, but there’s no time for questions.

  His mouth crashes into mine, in a kiss that is all about possession, but there is also torment and pain. He is broken and he doesn’t seem to understand that I’m just as broken. Nor does he seem to understand that somehow, some way, when I’m with him, I’m whole again.

  Dash’s hands slide into my skirt that is unzipped at this point, and he presses it over my hips and down my legs. The moment it’s at my ankles and I am in nothing but a tiny piece of lace and thigh highs beneath boots—which truly is kind of a ridiculous combination—but Dash doesn’t seem to notice or care.

  He lifts me to the island, watching me with an intense look as he unzips my boots, his fingers a tease on my ultra-sensitized skin as he tosses one and then the other away. His need for control is displayed in every part of his life, in the quality of his books, in how he approaches everything, most definitely in how he cares for his body. He is sculpted, masculine perfection, a product of hard work. A work of art.

  His hands come down on my legs. “I want you, Allie,” he murmurs, his thumb stroking the inside of my leg, heat radiating from that spot all the way up to my sex. “Like I have never wanted anyone in my life.”

  There is a raw, tormented quality to his voice, almost as if he doesn’t want to feel what he feels right now for me. But I know this isn’t about me, it’s about him. It’s about how much he hates himself. How deep that hate runs. There are shadows in the depths of those blue eyes of his that tell his story, a story he allows only me to see.

  “Open for me,” he orders, a gentle nudge to my knees, but he doesn’t do more.

  He is asking me to give myself to him, taking but not demanding, and right now, in his current state of emotional upheaval, this means everything. The look on his face is all heat and lust, the warmth of his touch on my body promising me that this night has only begun, and a deep ache radiates in my sex. I do as he bids, as he’s requested, and I open my legs. Satisfaction slides over his handsome face and his gaze sweeps over my breasts, and my breasts are heavy, my sex tight, wet, aching for him.

  Dash catches my fingers and steps between my legs, leaning into me as he presses my hands behind me on the counter. “Hold them there,” he says, his mouth right above mine. “Understand?”

  Like I have a choice, I think, considering the angle of my body, but what I say is, “And if I don’t?”

  “My tongue will stop whatever it’s doing at the time,” he promises, that dark quality I’ve glimpsed in him oh so present right now, right here.

  “That’s cruel,” I accuse.

  His eyes narrow, his jaw clenches. “Now you’re starting to understand me.”

  There’s so much self-hate in that statement, that I whisper, “Dash, damn it, stop.”

  “You’re cursing at me, Allie,” he says as one of his hands covers my breast, his fingers teasing my nipple, sending a rush of heat through my body.

  “Yes,” I manage in a raspy voice. “Yes, I am. And you know why.”

  His teeth nip my lip, and I yelp with the sting, but already he’s licking the offended skin, soothing it. A kiss follows, a deep slide of his tongue that burns through me for reasons that reach beyond the heat of this moment. He is here with me, but he is never all here. Not even now.

  It doesn’t matter though, I’m moaning again, my body heavy, drugged with sensations. “Don’t move, cupcake,” he murmurs, kissing my chin and then my neck, before his mouth is on my nipples, sucking, licking, teasing.

  I want to touch him. I can’t touch him. Not at the angle I’m leaning and with the pressure of both our bodies forcing my hands to stay the bridge between us and the counter. Dash moves lower, sliding between my legs where he licks my clit. I suck in a breath, my entire body lit up with that one little intimate contact that doesn’t last. He moves to my knee, kissing a path up my leg, and when I think I can’t take it another moment, he rewards me with another lick of my clit. Then his mouth is gone again, leaving me panting as he finds the other knee. I’m losing my mind as he repeats the same process, kissing a path up my leg, and he offers me another lick. Sensations rock me, but I steel myself for the tease to follow yet again, but it doesn’t come. Dash suckles me and my head falls backward, my lashes fluttering with the pleasure, but some part of me screams that this isn’t what I expected. This isn’t him fucking me hard and dirty all night long. This is not the way he lives in the moment, this is not how he uses me to stay here, not underground fighting.

  This is not how he fights one obsession with another. This is not how he uses physicality to fight off his demons. This is him pushing that all aside, pretending it doesn’t exist.

  My body objects—oh how it objects—but I sit up and Dash lifts his head and looks at me. “Allie?”

  My answer is to wrap my arms around his neck, my naked breasts between us, heat and desire tamed only by the questions in his eyes and the challenge in my own. “What happened to fucking me hard and dirty and getting that fight out of your system?”

  “I assure you, cupcake, me between your legs is better than any fight.”

  “Bullshit. You went there. You sent me away. You need more than this.”

  His hands slide around me, between my shoulde
r blades, his voice roughened as he says, “No. No, I don’t need more than this. Not now. Not ever.”

  “Bullshit,” I say again. “Fuck me the way you need to fuck me to never do what you did tonight to me—no, to us—again.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Allie.”

  I catch his hair and not gently. “Bullshit times three and I don’t know if I’ve ever said that word in my life. I don’t even like it. Don’t make me say it again.” I nip his lip and not gently. “Use me.”

  “Allie,” he whispers, his fingers flexing on my back. “Baby, I am.”

  “If that were the case, your hand would be on my throat and I’d be shoved against the island with a palm on my ass.”

  “You brought me down.” His voice quakes, barely noticeable, but it quakes.

  “Liar,” I hiss. “All you do is hide from me, Dash. You can’t do that anymore. We can’t do that. I can’t do that. I won’t do us that way. If you can’t be you with me, if you can’t use me for an escape, we can’t be together. I want everything. Do you understand? All or nothing, Dash. All or nothing.”

  I’m breathing hard. My heart is racing. And yet, he doesn’t move. He just holds me there, breathes with me, seconds, heavy seconds, ticking by, until suddenly his hand is in my hair, and he’s dragging my head back with an erotic tug, his mouth over my mouth. “You want everything?”

  “Yes,” I rasp out. “If you dare, but I don’t think you do.”

  “You want my hand on your ass?”

  No man has ever had his hand on my backside but Dash. No man has ever been rough and erotic and full of demand but still so damn careful, so tender. Except for Dash. I’m a mix of emotions that rush through me in a rainbow of colors. I don’t understand why I need what I need with Dash, how he brings that person to the surface, but it’s me, it’s the me I never knew and need to know. And it’s him. It’s all that I can be with him. “Yes,” I dare. “Yes. I do.”

  He kisses me, a wild, hungry kiss, and in the midst of the passion, he scoops me up, cupping my backside and carrying me toward the only other room in the apartment. The bedroom.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Dash carries me to the bedroom and lowers me to my feet at the end of the mattress. I reach for him, and I can feel his need to feel my hands on his body, but instead of caving to that burn, he catches my wrists again. “Not until I say you can touch me.”

  Defiance rips through my body and my chin tilts. “And if I touch you anyway?”

  “Then you won’t feel my hand on your ass, baby. Or anywhere else.” He drags me closer, aligning our bodies. “You know what I want. Tell me. What do I want, Allie?”

  “Control,” I say without hesitation, but there’s a hint of vulnerability in my voice that I cannot tame. Just as I know I will never tame Dash. And the thing is—I don’t want to. In fact, I want the opposite. I want him unleashed. I want him wild and free.

  “Are you going to give it to me?” he presses. “Can you trust me that much, Allie?”

  Trust.

  That’s the monster that torments each of us in our own minds and yet, we want it from each other, we demand it be given blindly, irrationally perhaps, but it doesn’t seem to matter. So much about how Dash and I approach each other is irrational and yet somehow, we make sense. And so I say, “I already do.”

  He turns me to face the bed, one hand cupping the side of my neck under my hair, the other on my waist, his hard body at my back. Dash leans in close and says, “I can be demanding, Allie.”

  My mind flashes to the night of our fight back in Nashville, when my hands had been pressed to the front door of our apartment, his hand on my throat, him behind me, thrusting into me. “I know,” I whisper, my skin flushing with the memory and because it’s the truth, now I dare add, “I like it.”

  “Do you?” he challenges.

  “Beyond reason,” I whisper.

  His fingers flex on my neck, seconds ticking by before he replies with, “I used to think I wanted to scare you off, Allie.”

  “And now?”

  “Now, I pray I can’t.” His teeth scrape my shoulder, rasping roughly.

  I suck in a breath at the rough, erotic nip that borders on a bite. He cups my jaw and drags my head back to his shoulder, just enough to angle my mouth to his and lower his to mine. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t try,” he adds. “Nice guys are gentle, Allie. You need to know that I’m not a nice guy.”

  “If I’d wanted nice, I would have walked away before we ever started calling me cupcake which was almost the moment I met you, Dash.”

  It’s a joke about the nickname I’ve earned with him, but he doesn’t laugh or smile. He brushes his lips over my lips. “You taste like you don’t know what you’re asking for.”

  “And you taste like you talk too much, Dash Black.”

  He lingers there a moment, his breath rushing over my lips with a promise of a kiss that doesn’t come. Instead, he says, “No more talking. Knees on the mattress, baby.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  This isn’t just a moment of vulnerability with Dash. On some level, it’s the moment.

  There’s a past in this room though, one that Dash doesn’t understand. A past that has my mind singing with insecurity while my heart tells me to lean into an opportunity to move to a new level of intimacy with Dash, to overcome the barriers between us. And there are barriers, all of which we pretended didn’t exist when I moved in with him.

  But we both knew they did.

  My body ignores my mind and my history that I’ve all but buried because of Dash. My body screams with the need to simply touch him. And Dash’s touch is always just what I need, never too far, and somehow farther than I ever expected I wanted or needed. I inhale deeply, and just do it. My knees hit the mattress, but I don’t go down doggy style, despite the fact that I think this is what Dash wants from me. I’m just not that bold. Instead, I walk a few inches forward and ease back on my haunches, my hands on my knees. There’s silence behind me, complete silence, and goosebumps lift on my skin, anticipation driving me wild.

  The past was never about anticipation.

  The past was about other things. Bad things that I pretended were good.

  This is not the same.

  I’ve seen Dash wild, fucking me hard and fast, and to the extreme. That was good. It gave me the chance to get lost, not to think too much. It forced me to see who he was and what he needed, and somehow, it was never too far.

  That isn’t now, this isn’t what I expected. This is a slow burn. It’s a game. We’re playing a game, a slow, excruciating game. Because it’s not about anger and hurt and everything his father said to him now. He’s past that, at least for now. This is about the aftermath, about how it affected us. And this allows me to think almost too much.

  This is a test. Dash wants to know how much his father’s words affected me and us. And I need to know what he will do when he has my willing control. Will he go too far? Can this man ever go too far with me?

  The idea of too far starts to punch at me with memories that I shove aside.

  When I believe I can take the silence no more, finally, there’s the sound of clothing rustling, of Dash undressing, and I’m aware that I’m not supposed to turn, but I want to turn. I want so many things right now. All of them behind me and somehow in front of me. Oh, the irony of what was and is and could be. Seconds tick by, and I find myself hyper-focused on just that—what could be. What will be, now, with me naked on this bed? I don’t have to wait long for that answer.

  The mattress shifts and Dash is beside me, his hand on my back, between my shoulder blades, but he touches me nowhere else.

  I don’t know why I’m shy right now, why I resist looking to my left where I will find him, but I do. That’s a lie, I think. I know why. I’m afraid of what he might see in me. That is until his fingers tease my nipple, and my sex clenches with the intensity of my body’s reaction. I catch his hand and look at him, aware of his naked body, o
f his thick, heavily veined erection between us, but it’s his eyes that capture me. “Dash,” I whisper, not even sure why.

  “I told you, baby. You touch when I tell you to touch.”

  “Now,” I say softly, emotions welling inside me, the intensity of what I feel for Dash hard to even explain. “I want to touch you now.”

  “And I want you to, cupcake. Just not yet. Lean forward and press your hands to the mattress.”

  I draw in a breath as I realize he does indeed want me on my hands and knees. I can’t do it. Not right now. I’m so afraid of what that will make him feel, but I just act. I rotate into him, press my body to his. “I need to tell you something.”

  Dash folds me close and cups my head. “You already told me.”

  “No,” I say, panting out a breath. “No, don’t say I don’t trust you. That’s not what this is.”

  “I wasn’t going to say that at all. I don’t need you to go too far, too fast, baby. That’s not what I need at all. And I don’t need that fight club. I just need you.”

  My heart squeezes. “You do?”

  “I do,” he says again, “and I know what you need, what we need.”

  He moves to the headboard and pulls me to his lap, me straddling him, the thickness of his erection pressed to my backside, while his hand is on my face. “This,” he says, and then he’s kissing me, and I can taste tenderness on his lips and so much more. There is honesty and passion. There is love and need and hunger.

  My hands are on his shoulders, my naked breasts between us, his hands cupping them, thumbs stroking my nipples. I lean into his palms and press my mouth to his mouth. He cups my head and then he’s kissing me again, and this kiss is different. This kiss is demanding, greedy, and intense. That wildness I’d expected from him is back again and it seduces me, claims me.

  I’m kissing him with all that I am, touching him with hungry hands, muscles flexing beneath my fingers. And he is touching me, his hands all over me. It’s just not enough. Nothing is ever enough with Dash. There’s nothing but him and me, and me and him, right now.