by Christa Wick
His head jerked back, his gaze narrowing quickly. "We're alone, Mia."
We had been alone on the plane when he had admonished me, but I didn't remind him. I merely remained mute. I was on thin ice in so many ways. My body wanted to capitulate, to risk and endure the humiliation for the slim chance that he would continue touching me a few minutes more or call me love again with his voice so tender and accepting that I would believe him if he had been any other man.
"You'll call me Collin when we're alone."
I continued staring at him, mute, my eyes wildly blinking as I held back my tears.
He growled and the rest of the buttons came flying off, their thin strings snapping from his sharp tug. He pulled a breast through the gap, his mouth instantly fastening on the swollen tip as two fingers pushed into my cunt. His thumb landed atop my clit to slowly rub up and down as his fingers fucked in and out of my pussy.
I arched, like a bow with the arrow notched and a firm hand pulling back on the string before releasing. Collin didn't intend to lessen the tension that kept me with my back off the mattress, my mound and breasts pushing at him. Gently he chewed at the nipple as he spread his fingers wide inside me.
Trembling, I groaned and felt the slow, crawly drip of my arousal as it leaked from my cunt and trailed down my perineum. My sheath squeezed around his fingers, sucking at them with needy little slurps. Another rough groan slid to a whimpering keening cry before I collapsed back to the mattress.
Withdrawing all contact, Collin lifted his upper body just long enough to peel the jacket from his powerful torso and shred the panel of buttons that secured his dress shirt. Without removing the shirt, he moved down my body, roughly forcing my thighs apart to do the unthinkable.
Fingers parting my labia, he placed a kiss against the spine of my clit. His tongue pushed past his lips to slither down and curl beneath the hood, finding and swirling around the nodule tucked inside. The aching whine restarted in my throat and I heard him chuckle as his tongue moved lower still to circle the wet gate of my pussy.
His lips breaking contact, he pushed three deep into me. "Stop pretending, baby. Stop hiding."
There was no pretense left to me in that bed. Before, after -- certainly I would try to reclaim my dignity, to pretend that I had not surrendered yet again.
His free hand reached up to the bottom edge of the row of missing buttons. Sharp jerks and tugs eviscerated the thin flannel gown. Moving onto his knees, he brought both hands to my shoulders, gripped the remaining fabric and pulled it down to the bend in my arms.
"That little sham of a girl inside you, I'm going to destroy her tonight." One hand pushed between the small of my back and the mattress, gathering the back panel of the dress and looping it until he had the remnants of my nightgown binding my arms. "You won't listen to her ever again."
He cupped my mound, his palm bearing down as three fingers once again invaded me. "This is what you'll listen to. This soaking wet hole that wants to be filled and completely possessed."
I couldn't deny his claim. There wasn't an ounce of audacity or braggadocio in his words. He had me there already, all my inhibitions quieted beneath the soft moans that his faintest touch produced.
"Do you want to come, Mia?"
"Yes."
His thumb replaced his palm, its fat tip burrowing between my plump lips to stroke up and down my clit as he stared into my eyes, gauging my reaction, my malleability. "No more hiding?"
"No -- none." Possessed so masterfully by Stark, I had forgotten what I still hid from him. I forgot myself as well, the too ripe flesh that his body brushed against. I was that stranger in the mirror, the woman whose raw beauty had made me gasp right before Collin had propelled me into the elevator.
"I won't let you go back," he warned, sliding into place between my thighs. Each hand pinching a labia to the side, he inspected every inch of my pussy, from the way my clitoral hood jumped from the contractions squeezing inside me, to the quiver of my urethra and the heavy pulse of arousal that kept a fresh stream of cream oozing from my pussy.
"Not ever," he promised and put his mouth to me once more.
Pure heaven licked up and down my flesh, his thick tongue spearing inside me before pressing a firm line up to suckle that small pearl once more. I squirmed, moaned. My fingers tingled with the need to wrap around his head and hold him in place, but my arms remained bound by the gown.
"Please," I moaned, unsure of what exactly it was I pleaded for or against.
Collin seemed not to hear, his attention devoted to producing a volley of jerks and whips throughout my body as his fingers stroked inside me and he nibbled forcefully at my clit and labia, his lips a protective barrier shielding me from his teeth as he gnawed and nipped me toward the edge of climax.
I was right there, every muscle straining to clear that last hurdle and come crying his name, crying Collin and begging him to enter me with more than his hands.
From the floor, a ring tone began to play on Collin's phone, the fanfare and building layers of the Ride of the Valkryies signaling that the caller was not only Stark's second in command, Trent Kane, but that the call was coming from Kane's second line -- the one reserved for operation command.
With a growl, Collin rolled to the edge of the mattress and fished the phone from his jacket pocket. Punching the accept icon, he barked at Kane. "Report."
Whatever Kane first said, I saw the tension ease from Collin's shoulders. His hand moved across the bed to reclaim my pussy as he listened. His fingertip ran a circle around the rim of my cunt then raced up to run another slick circle around the hood of my clit.
"Tell me about him."
I tensed at that, suddenly nervous that him might be Glenn, although it seemed ridiculous to have Kane track Ames' background and overblown for Kane to use the operation command line to make his report. Collin must have sensed the change in me because he gave a hard little flick to the underside of my clit and cut his gaze in my direction. Suspicion clouded his eyes as he continued listening to Kane and I realized, ridiculous or not, the topic of their call was Glenn.
"How long?"
Stark never stopped stroking me as he talked to Kane, but the rubbing turned rough and I could see all the small changes in his expression, the minute narrowing of his gaze, the barely perceptible flattening of his mouth.
Then his hand stopped.
He ended the call without saying good-bye to Kane then reached for his jacket. When he didn't slide the phone into the pocket, but started to push an arm into one sleeve, I knew I had been busted. He wasn't leaving because of some emergency -- he was leaving because I had held back information about Glenn Ames.
Only one sleeve on, he stopped and looked at me. "What's your excuse this time?"
He wanted to know why I had lied. It was pointless to say I had lied because he didn't trust me. He would never trust me again after this last omission. I knew that -- I knew it when I failed to disclose that afternoon. Trust was never part of the day's equation. Humiliation was the sum total by why I had kept my mouth shut. Glenn had humiliated me when we broke up and any number of times while we were together. Stark had demonstrated a far greater capacity for control and degradation than Ames could ever dream of possessing.
"Mia..."
"Because it's humiliating," I whispered. "You were going to fire me anyway. You weren't ever actually attracted to me -- that was all part of your game. Why should I tell you about an ex-lover who didn't think I was good enough for him, either?"
I sucked a big breath in, the words tumbling out even though I tried to stop them. "Why should I tell you how I had to crawl across the street from a job I wanted to Stark International, applying for any position just to keep an apartment and groceries because the man who was supposed to stand by my side, couldn't even drive me to interview for my last opportunity in my field?"
There! If Stark needed any more of an explanation, I would have to go get an L tattooed on my forehead so that it would be beyond cl
ear to him that he had suspected a total loser of corporate espionage.
Stark remained motionless and mute for longer than I could bear, my sense of stupidity mushrooming with each second I continued to clasp to my breast one small grain of hope that Collin would confess an actual attraction to me and forgive the omission, perhaps even realize his own role in my failure to disclose.
Finally admitting that moment would never come, I struggled to sit up and clutched the ruined edges of my night gown together in a failed effort to shield my disheveled and naked body.
"I'll leave," I choked out, abandoning my grip on the material and my piecemeal dignity. "I just need to grab my clothes."
I wouldn't leave with anything he had given me. My foot touched the floor, my brain doing a scattered inventory of what I needed to gather before I could leave. I hesitated before my other foot could slide into place -- all of my documentation was in Stark's keeping.
His hand wrapped around my hair, the iron grip immobilizing my retreat. His other hand pressed flat against my chest, just below my collarbone. Pulling and pushing at the same time, he roughly forced me onto my back on the mattress. He shredded the remaining fabric of the flannel nightgown, leaving my body entirely exposed to his view for the second it took him to spread my thighs and settle his torso over mine. He jerked his arm from the jacket then barked a command at me.
"Close your eyes."
Trembling, I obeyed. When I heard the slide of his zipper, the tremble magnified to a quake.
"Collin..."
"Quiet," he rasped. "Unless you're going to say no, don't say a fucking word."
I sucked a wet cry in and held it. He pushed into me all at once, his thick cock stretching me to the point of straining despite the warm, lubricating layer of my juices. Shame rolled through me. I didn't understand why my body still wanted this man.
With Glenn, I had stayed bone dry during the sex that followed our fights. Those experiences had been a penance -- the fat girl's apology for questioning the love or motives of her handsome fiancé.
In that bed in the suite, Collin's muscular legs filling the gap between my soft, plump thighs, I was a river. My cunt the delta, mouth open to pour my wetness into the sea of linen beneath us. I contracted around his cock, not in an attempt to expel him, but to squeeze every ounce of pleasure I could get from him before he sent me away.
The wet cry I had inhaled released as a humid moan and my hips began to slowly rotate in a grind against the hard plane of his lower stomach. I didn't dare open my eyes, didn't want to see his expression and realize his arousal and attraction related solely to his domination of me, with no regard to the flesh and bones on which he exorcised his anger.
His mouth touched my throat and I braced for the hard nip or bite he would deploy to ensure my submission. The lips glided smooth as butter over my skin to fasten at the hollow of my throat and gently suck. His hands, which had fisted the sheets around us, gripped my shoulders, roughly massaging as he held me down and threw all the power of his body into the thrusts with which he took me.
I whimpered, mewled, knowing he didn't care if I came but coming nonetheless, my body breaking down into jerks and quivers until I heard his harsh exhalation and he stopped.
Rolling from the bed, Collin rose, his back to me as he dipped and retrieved his jacket. Walking from the room, he called over his shoulder as he zipped and buttoned his pants, his gaze never meeting mine.
"You don't leave until I'm done with you."
I nodded at the closed door then stared up at the ceiling.
Welcome to Dubai.
********************
Stark didn't touch or talk to me the next day. Kane arrived and explained the rules of what amounted to my house arrest. I was not to attend any more of the seminars. I would take no meetings, have no visitors. I was free to roam the suite between eight in the morning until six in the evening, then I was to stay in my bedroom. This would be my schedule for each remaining day of the conference.
When I offered to leave and pay my way back to the States if only they would return my documents, Kane blushed before offering an apologetic no. I was, he amended, free to turn in my resignation and leave immediately, with my accommodations paid for by Stark International. If I did not wish to resign, I had to follow his instruction to the letter.
"So," Kane stood, his arms folded across his chest. "Do you want your passport?"
I didn't answer -- no need for me to wear my shame on my sleeve. After a few seconds passed, he accepted my silence, pivoted on one heel and marched like the ex-soldier he was to the door.
Hearing the metallic click as the lock on the suite's entrance engaged, I looked at the clock and started to cry.
I cried a little less on my second day confined to the suite, less still with each day that passed. By the morning of our scheduled flight home, I had completely run out of tears. The only faces I saw during that period belonged to the maids who came to clean the suites, the staff who delivered my meals, and the security team that allowed them into the room.
Dry, empty and exhausted, I waited with my luggage in the suite. Kane came half an hour before it was time to leave the hotel. Two hours later, he still remained with me in the room, his attention discreetly focused on his iPad as he awaited orders from Stark.
Another hour later, I finally found my voice. "What the hell is going on?"
He didn't answer, the only acknowledgement of my question contained in the flick of his gaze once in my direction, hostility oozing from the corner of his eye. I didn't ask my question again. Not because he intimidated me. Hell, I wasn't even angry from the look he gave me. He was second in operations command at the company and he was babysitting the overweight, future-former secretary of his boss.
I understood. Fuck, I even empathized with the guy. I kind of hated me at that moment, too. I certainly wished I could vanish into thin air and no longer be his problem -- or Stark's.
At nine-thirty in the evening, more than six hours after our plane should have departed, Kane took a phone call, gave a few affirmatory grunts then gathered up his things.
"Should I get my bags?" I asked, the question coming out as a squeak after the hours of absolute silence.
"No, you should unpack."
I nodded, not understanding, only knowing that if Stark was staying in Dubai, I didn't want to leave. Before Kane could reach the door, I risked one last question.
"Should I stay in my room?"
"Yes," Kane answered, quickly killing the embarrassing note of hopefulness my voice held.
**********
Something had to break, and it had to break soon. I was in my room, in the dark, the clock crowding in on one in the morning. I had taken a long, hot bath after Kane's departure to ease some of the tension from my body. Once dry, I had climbed into bed naked. I had run through the sedate night clothes I had packed and the idea of putting on one of the revealing items that had arrived a week ago in the black box hurt too much.
Stark had no intention of ever seeing me in them and I would be the only person who knew I had gone to bed bare-assed.
My prediction remained right on target until the second the clock's display winked to tell me I had passed yet another hour alone in Dubai. That's when I heard the outer door to the suite softly open and shut. Hearing the sound, I expected the steady, inexorable fall of Stark's shoes across the marble-tiled floor, muffled for seven steps as he crossed an area rug, then a few more audible steps until he reached the door to his room.
I focused so earnestly on hearing that exact progression of sounds, I failed to recognize that his steps led to my door, not his. The handle turned and I jerked, pulling the covers tight up under my chin.
Without a light to guide him, he stopped next to the bed and quietly stepped from his shoes and clothing. Tension coiling tighter by the second, I waited for Stark to pull back the covers.
He didn't. At least not immediately.
"You always make some little sound whe
n you sleep, Mia." His fingertips brushed over the top of the covers to find their edge. "Usually, just deep, steady breathing I could set my watch by. Sometimes little moans that make me want to wake you..."
My heart stopped. Was Stark saying he had come into my room these last few nights and sat next to my sleeping body? Or was the room bugged?
I swallowed, not wanting to think about the latter possibility. If the room was bugged, he would have heard my crying, the big, fat sobs that had wracked my frame that first night and again the following morning. If he heard that and stayed out, he was a bastard. I didn't know what the alternative made him. Anyone else, and I would have been creeped out to think he had entered my room and watched me sleep.
I took another hard swallow and added a shake of my head. I would not allow hope or the stupid idea that Collin Stark wanted me to take root inside my thoughts and feelings again.
Another shake and I wanted to vomit. If I didn't want to nurture that hope, why had I stayed the week? For my job?
No, I'd rather lose my apartment and start over from scratch if it was just my job -- if my job was any part of my consideration. It hadn't been that first time he fucked me, it wasn't the first night in the hotel, either. Both times had been ... possession? Like he was a demon or incubus, sucking my willpower away the second I knew he intended to touch me, to use me.
Stark peeled the cover back. "I told you to stop hiding if you wanted my trust."
"I don't want your trust," I answered as his weight pushed down on his side of the mattress. Accepting his trust would mean offering my own. I didn't have any to give. The realization slammed into me. All I wanted was Stark's domination. Not his affection, not his love -- just his mastery of my body.
The light came on, just that first tap of illumination against the base but enough that he could look at my face and see I was telling the truth. His brow lifted and, for a second, his jaw relaxed.
I felt a small snort building in the back of my mouth. Had I just surprised the CEO of Stark International? I think I had.
Putting his game face back on, Stark pushed the covers down my body. He took his time studying my naked form in the faint light offered by the bedside lamp. The tip of his middle finger touched lightly in the center of my mound and he pushed a soft line down the hidden split of my labia, following the seam to where the hair ended and trailing back up to his starting point before speaking.
