by Sabrina York
She paled. “I’m wet.” As though that was excuse enough.
“On the bed,” he ordered. “On your hands and knees.”
She quickly complied. God, she wanted him. In. She peered at him through a curtain of unruly hair as he found a condom. He pulled off his briefs and his cock sprang free and—
Holy God.
Her mouth watered.
She’d wanted this. Needed it with a burning desperation for hours. She wiggled her ass. “Fuck me,” she muttered, though it came out as a command. His features tightened even more as he stepped toward her. She could tell he was conflicted.
On the one hand, she had just issued a command for which she deserved punishment. On the other, he really wanted to fuck her.
He compromised with a smack to one upturned cheek. She squealed.
“Quiet,” he snapped.
The bed dipped as he settled behind her, covering her. As though he couldn’t resist, he smacked her ass again. And again.
She buried her face against her arm and moaned with each stinging slap. Heat suffused her.”Please. Please,” she whimpered. “Please fuck me.”
Apparently, that was what he’d been waiting for. If he had, indeed, been waiting.
He shoved in with one feral thrust.
Delight screamed through her soul as he filled her, hard and hot. Stretched her. Filled her. Fulfilled her.
“God, yes.” An unrepentant wail.
He yanked out and plunged again. That orgasm, the one that had been hovering, tingling, teasing her since she’d first slipped that damn egg in, descended.
She saw stars. Dancing glittering brilliant stars.
“Yes. Yes. Yes,” he chanted in time with each lunge. Each one sent new skeins of pleasure, ribbons of bliss slamming through to her soul.
She pushed back against him, hungry, frantic for more.
His pace increased. Became manic. Short. Hard. Fast.
Her nerves screamed as he stroked her sensitive inner folds, nudging, tormenting, delighting that bundle of sensation at her core. Another crisis, a larger disaster, loomed.
She sucked in a breath. Bore down. His cock swelled, surged, jerked.
A new sensation distracted her. A nudge against another sensitive orifice, one turned up so prettily for his attention. Her mind seized at the invasion of his thumb. Every muscle in her body clenched. He snarled something incomprehensible and drove deeper. Into her cunt. Into her ass.
Heaven and hell coalesced into a blinding miasma of excruciating rapture. She might have lost consciousness for a second, so intense was this pleasure. Fortunately, her body did not need her mind. Her body did not need thought or logic or any rational conjecture.
It took flight. On its own.
But no. He was there. With her.
Soaring, flying, escaping.
Liberated.
Free.
Because nothing else mattered. Not her failing business or her family issues or the fact that she always felt so fucking alone in the universe.
Because he was there. With her. In her. Holding her.
Completing her.
It was too scary to talk, once she regained her sanity, so she curled up against him, where he’d collapsed, chest heaving, and nuzzled into him. He wrapped his arms around her and held her tight. Too tightly, almost, but she didn’t wiggle away as she might have once done.
She didn’t want to wiggle away. She wanted to stay. Right here. Forever, maybe.
Yeah. Fucking scary.
Because this was Holt Lamm.
The guy who had a different girlfriend every week. Sometimes more than one at a time.
At any moment, he could be done with her. And on to the next best thing.
She peeped up at his face. Stilled when she found him staring at her, his lips tight, nostrils flared.
He opened his mouth to say something and she steeled her spine. She always hated that moment. The moment after where someone felt like they had to say something and usually ruined everything.
But he didn’t say anything.
He yanked her closer and kissed her. A feral open-mouthed kiss that stated, without equivocation, he was far from done with her.
That was perfect.
Holt didn’t want to let her go. Not ever. But he had to. At some point.
No doubt Cam would come hunting for his popcorn soon.
He should get up. Go make it.
Instead, he gently eased a lock of hair from her cheek and tucked it behind her ear. God, she was beautiful. Always, really, but especially like this. With that light of absolute satisfaction in her eyes.
He pressed his lips to her forehead. Her fluttering lashes. The tip of her nose.
“I’m still coming to your room tonight,” he warned. Loved that she chuckled.
“You’d better.”
“Cam and Kristi are sleeping in the basement.”
She shot a look at him, her brow knit.
“And you’re upstairs.”
Her confusion deepened.
“That’s two floors between us. You can beg as loudly as you’d like.”
Oh yeah. That got her. Her pupils dialated. Lips parted. She shivered.
“I-I’m not wearing that egg again.” She said it like a question. A plea.
“Not today, at least.” He bit back a grin at her horrified expression. “Everyone will be here tomorrow,” he added, just for good measure. “Just think how much fun I can have tormenting you.”
“Beast.” She smacked him on the shoulder, but without any real heat. Damn he liked her like this, all compliant and soft and docile in his arms. He loved when she snapped at him too, and resisted and pushed back. He loved that she was her own woman. But he loved that he could bring her to heel.
That she allowed him to bring her to heel.
She had no idea. No clue how much power she had over him. He hadn’t even realized until the moment he’d seen her in Ash’s arms. It had hit him like a ton of bricks. This was what he’d wanted. She was the one he’d been searching for.
He’d always been attracted to her, drawn to her on a visceral level. But he’d always sensed a wall in her. A bone deep repudiation of him and everything he stood for. He should have known she’d built that wall with bricks of fear. Fear of opening up to the simmering desire within.
She didn’t like feeling vulnerable. He knew she’d been hurt, and hurt bad, in the past. But that was her fault. For picking the wrong guys. He would never hurt her. This, he vowed.
He would never hurt her. Never make her regret opening up to him, allowing him in.
“I should probably go make popcorn.”
She snorted a laugh. “Why?”
He cracked a grin. Yeah. Cracked it. It was an effort. Nothing about this sense of obligation, this burning intent was amusing. “It was my excuse for leaving the basement.”
“Okay.” She blew out a breath and pulled away, casting about for her clothes. He couldn’t stop his hand from reaching out, stop his fingers from trickling down her bare back. Her skin was smooth. Warm.
She looked at him over her shoulder. Smiled.
His heart thudded so hard he felt it in his bones.
Love wasn’t a word he ever said. It wasn’t an emotion he contemplated. But now, at this moment, it flooded through him, swamping his soul.
Funny how it ached like that.
Funny how it made him—the heartless Dominant who went through women like condoms in a whorehouse—feel vulnerable. Like a helpless boy.
She could crush him like a bug.
The thought scared him to death.
Chapter Eleven
An unaccountable lightness filled Bella’s heart as she and Holt puttered in the kitchen making popcorn. It was silly to feel this way, she told herself. But she couldn’t make it go away.
And she didn’t want to.
Every once in a while their gazes would tangle and they’d smile and then, maybe, he’d kiss her.
Or she’d kiss him.
&nbs
p; It took a while to make the popcorn, because they kept forgetting what they were doing. Needless to say, the race was over by the time it was ready. So, when Cam and Kristi clomped up the stairs—without Ash, who had, for some reason, left without collecting on the bet he’d won—they all sat around the table and ate it from the bowl.
Of course Kristi suggested a game of Hearts. Bella didn’t roll her eyes, but just barely. She hated Hearts. She always had. There was something just wrong about trying to not get any points. It went against the grain.
So, of course, Bella lost. Dismally.
But it passed the time. Until tonight.
She kept thinking about it, flicking looks at Holt—who seemed unaccountably engrossed in the game. What adventures would the evening hold? Would it be hard, hot sex—a frantic conflagration like this afternoon? Or something slower? Softer? Gentler?
He glanced at her and she read his expression. No. Definitely not gentle. She bit back a smile, and then gave up and let the grin blossom on her face.
Gentle was overrated.
They would be two floors away from her sister and Cam. Maybe he would smack her bottom again. She’d really liked that. Hell, she’d liked all of it. She couldn’t believe he’d stuck his finger in her pucker. That had blown her mind.
Anal sex was not on her bucket list, but apparently a little ass play might be in order.
She thought she knew herself, but in the course of a couple days, Holt had shown her truths she’d never even suspected.
Then again, everything he did surprised her.
Which also surprised her.
Because she thought she’d known him, inside out and backwards as well.
She’d been wrong.
There was more to Holt Lamm than she ever suspected. Somehow, through these few brief encounters, she’d caught a glimpse of the real man. The man lurking beneath his brash, blasé exterior.
She cloaked her own vulnerability beneath a brittle mask. She’d never imagined he had done the same.
As they played, they chatted and while Bella had never had a lot of patience for small talk, she enjoyed this. She enjoyed getting to know him better.
Oh, Kristi and Cam said a bunch of stuff, but all that went in one ear and out the other. She focused on Holt.
Yeah, he said when Cam asked. His business was doing well. There was a surge in construction and everyone needed architects. She’d known he was an architect, somewhere in the back of her brain, but she hadn’t actually thought about it. When she asked what architects actually did, he told her, in detail, rambling on about design and blueprints and load-bearing walls. She soaked it all in like a sponge.
Cam tried to start talking about writing computer code, but Bella interrupted and asked more questions of Holt. Like, how did they earthquake-proof a structure? Why were houses always framed with wood? And what the heck was with the current trend of designing buildings to look like they were leaning sideways?
Her interrogation went on through dinner, though it drifted from his work to his hobbies—fishing and hiking, both of which she enjoyed—and his favorite place for brunch—a little lodge perched on the brink of the raging Snoqualmie Falls.
And he had a cat.
Who knew?
Who the fuck would ever have guessed that?
Then he turned the tables. Asked about her life, her work. And she clammed up.
She must have been pretty obvious about it because when her jaw clamped shut, Kristi’s eyes narrowed on her.
“Yeah,” she said. “How are things going with your shop Bella?”
The question was tentative and, Bella suspected, sincere. That didn’t make it any less painful.
Bella poked a Brussels sprout with her fork. It deserved it. She despised Brussels sprouts.
“Great,” she gusted. “Fabulous.”
“That’s good to hear,” Cam said. Of course he would take her at face value. Cam took everything at face value. “I read an article yesterday that retail sales were taking a nose dive locally.”
She glared at him. “All right. Fine. It’s going terribly.” She had no idea why she said it. She certainly didn’t want any of them to know. “I’m about a two months away from filing bankruptcy.”
“Oh Bella!” She hated pity from Kristi. Or maybe not.
“Yeah. It sucks.” She forced a smile, but it was bitter at best. “Most likely, I’ll be looking for a job soon. I could probably make a Latte.” Maybe. If she tried really hard to silence the screaming in her soul.
The expression on her sister’s face firmed. It became almost…warlike. Very unlike Kristi. “No. We’ll figure this out. We’ll figure out a way to bring in more customers. What kind of marketing plan do you have?”
Bella blinked. “Marketing plan?” She’d opened the shop because it was risqué and rebellious…and shit.
Kristi blew out a breath. Which might have held a tinge of frustration. “Okay. Tara’s coming tomorrow. We’ll buttonhole her and gets some ideas for you. She helped Lucy and me when we opened Beanie’s. She’s brilliant.”
“Her bakery is doing great,” Cam added, nodding like a bobble head doll. “And bakeries have one of the highest rates of failure of all businesses.”
“You need a hook.” Kristi tapped her lips. “You need something that’s going to grab people’s attention.”
“Sex doesn’t grab their attention?”
But Kristi was ignoring her. She was off. That was the thing about Kristi. When she took on a challenge, she took it on wholeheartedly. “Contests are great for bringing back repeat customers. And a loyalty program. Do you have one of those?”
“A punch card for dildos?”
“And media coverage. I bet if we came up with some clever campaign, something different, unique, off the wall, that would garner some coverage…” She babbled on but Bella had ceased to listen. She was too verklempt. Too close to bursting into tears.
She and Kristi had been at odds for years. Constant rivals. Almost enemies. But here she was, taking up the banner, for Bella—after every nasty thing Bella had ever said or done. It was kind of humbling.
As uncomfortable as this feeling was, she liked it.
She dashed away a tear and glanced at Holt. He was watching her with a steady gaze. His lips quirked. And warmth suffused her.
It had been a long, long time since she’d felt this embraced. This defended. This safe.
As though, after an eternity in an inhospitable land, she had finally returned home.
“You know,” Holt said as he handed Bella a skillet to dry. They’d lost the coin toss and been saddled with cleaning up after dinner. Though he didn’t feel as if he’d lost anything at all. Cam and Kristi had gone out on the deck and he had Bella all to himself. “I could probably send some customers your way.”
Hell. Could he. He had lots of connections in the BDSM community. One of his friends ran a club and had been toying with the idea of offering select items for sale. He might be open to the idea of letting Bella handle that for him.
She didn’t respond. Didn’t look at him, but he saw her smile.
He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, though he was sudsy. “We’ll get you back on track, Bell,” he said.
She whipped around. “What did you call me?”
“Bell?”
Her brow arched with exquisite scorn. At least, he thought it was scorn, but then she said, in a soft, musing tone, “A nickname? Already, Lamm? Moving pretty fast, aren’t we?”
He chuckled, relieved that she was in a playful mood. It boded well for tonight. “Hardly a nickname. More of a truncation of your name.”
Now both brows shot up. “A truncation of my name? Seriously?”
“I could call you ‘Buh.’”
“I wouldn’t recommend it.” She paused and flicked him a wicked grin. “Lambchop.”
“Really? Lambchop? Is that the best you can do?”
“Beats douche nozzle.”
He chuckled. It did. “If I
was going to give you a nickname, it would probably be something like Hot Cross Buns.”
She made a face.
“Hot, because you’re hot. Cross, well, because it’s your name. Also, you’re always cross—”
She smacked him with the towel. “I am not!”
“And buns, because I’m aching to paddle them.”
Yeah. That shut her up. She nibbled her lush lower lip. “You are?”
“Mmm hmm. Too bad you didn’t have a paddle in your sex suitcase.”
“It isn’t a sex suitcase.” She dropped to a whisper, halfway through the adamant declaration, because the slider opened and Cam and Kristi came into the room talking softly to each other. Apparently the sun had finally set.
The sun set late during the summer in the Pacific Northwest. It was nearly nine pm. It was all Holt could do not to snap, “Go to bed,” to his friends. Instead he dipped his head and murmured, “I saw some other interesting items I could use.”
The flogger was still under the sofa cushions in the basement—probably lost to him tonight because he didn’t want to take the chance of having Kristi and Cam see him retrieve it. But he’d seen a pair of rhinestone studded flip flops in her suitcase. Those would do in a pinch.
