Bound and Determined

by Anara Bella

  He gave her a wolfish grin. “I like the way you think.”

  Dragging her close, he took her mouth in a hot, possessive kiss that turned the heat simmering inside of her into a full-blown conflagration.

  She yanked her mouth away and deftly pulled his T-shirt over his head. With greedy fingers, she roamed across his wide chest, then bit one of his nipples and soothed it with a lick. His deep guttural groan was music to her ears and turned her on like nothing else.

  She raked her nails lightly over both of his nipples. “I take it you like my idea?”

  He yanked off her top and growled. “I fucking love your idea.”

  He unsnapped her bra, and feasted on her nipples, kissing and sucking until she thought she’d come just from his mouth on her breasts.

  Desperate to get at him, she worked his jeans open and reached inside.

  His breath hissed between his teeth the moment her fingers closed around his rigid cock. “I don’t think I can wait any longer. I have to get inside you now.”

  He shoved her miniskirt up around her waist and her panties hit the floor at lightning speed. She kicked them off and he pushed her up against the door. Lifting her left leg around his waist, he held it there with one hand clasped around her thigh.

  They both panted for breath. His fingers tangled in her curls until he found her clit, hot, hard and waiting in desperate anticipation of his touch. She gasped and her inner muscles clenched.

  He trembled. “You’re already wet for me.”

  “God, yes.”

  He teasingly slid a finger partway into her and stopped. “Do you want me to fuck you? Right here, right now?”

  She barked a laugh. “What do you think?”

  “I want to hear you say the words.”

  She bit his bottom lip, then soothed it with her tongue. Nipped his jaw, his ear. “I want you to fuck me. Right here, right now. Hard and deep.”

  His cock jumped. “It’s so fucking hot when you talk dirty.”

  He let go of her leg and, after fishing through his wallet, tossed it aside. The second the condom was on, he wrapped her legs around his waist and pinned her against the door, impaling her with his cock.

  He didn’t take things slow. With inexorable pressure, he pressed forward until he was inside her up to his balls.

  Letting his head drop back, he strove to catch his breath. “This isn’t going to last long.”

  “It doesn’t have to.”

  He chuckled. “You’re perfect, you know that?”

  He started to move, thrusting with powerful strokes, building speed, driving them on until they were both stretched tighter and tighter, right to the edge, to the very limit.

  God, each and every time was amazing with him. She was almost there, but what she sought shimmered just out of reach. “More. I need more.”

  He reached between them and pinched her clit and that was it. She shattered into a million pieces. Two more thrusts and he followed after her with a muffled shout.

  His forehead dropped to hers while they both gasped for breath.

  “You are fucking incredible, you know that?”

  She managed a small smile. “So you keep telling me.”

  He chuckled. “Good thing the music’s loud otherwise I think they would have heard us.”

  She nodded and tried not to think how embarrassing that would have been. Didn’t matter though, it would have been worth it.

  Once they’d caught their breath, they got dressed. Asia opened the door a crack, saw the coast was clear, turned off the light and they slid into the hallway as if nothing had happened.

  “I need to go to the ladies’ room.”

  “I’ll meet you over by the bar.”

  “Okay.”

  In the washroom, she straightened her hair and cleaned up as best she could, then went to meet Marcus over by the bar.

  And stopped dead in her tracks.

  Asia couldn’t believe it, but the same redhead as before was coming onto Marcus. Again. The bitch had a bloody lot of nerve. Asia’s anger rose in her throat, almost choking her. She wanted to cry and to scream and everything in between. The whole gamut of emotions crashed through her system, her stomach plummeted and she was at once both hot and cold.

  She watched as the bitch laid her hand on Marcus’s thigh, squeezed and then laughed at something he said. All the feelings swirling inside of her coalesced into one piercing emotion, one she’d managed to brush off earlier but somehow this time she wasn’t able to do it.

  Bright, vibrant jealousy flooded her, overwhelming and all encompassing to the point that it threatened to choke her.

  Somehow the covetous redhead’s dogged determination touched a raw nerve she couldn’t suppress.

  Maybe it was her flagrant persistence. Maybe it was her nerve. Or maybe it was the way her posture and attitude screamed at Marcus to, “take me, I’m yours”. Whatever it was, she couldn’t dismiss it so easily this time.

  The bitch knew he was with someone, but that didn’t even slow her down. She wanted him, or she wanted whatever help he could give her career. It didn’t matter which. The end result was the same. How many other beautiful women were out there who wouldn’t hesitate to throw themselves at Marcus? Who didn’t care if he had a girlfriend, fiancée or wife?

  And what red-blooded, healthy male with an above-average sex drive like Marcus’s could resist that kind of constant temptation? Davis certainly hadn’t. Neither had her father or grandfather for that matter.

  She’d known her whole life that the women in her family had horrible taste in men. It was in their genes. Somehow, they always picked the losers.

  Just look at her. She’d taken a chance with Davis and look what had happened? There was no reason to believe Marcus would be any different. And there would always be women like the redhead around, out to steal another woman’s guy. Some even considered it a challenge. And with Marcus’s fame it would be even worse.

  The redhead only served to plainly illustrate what Asia had tried to push out of her head, to not think about, to forget—that Marcus had women throwing themselves at him all the time and there was no way to stop it or control it. No matter what she did, it would always be there. In her face, like a wart on a nose you couldn’t ignore. And she didn’t like it one bit. Worse, she didn’t think she could handle it.

  What worried her the most was that she barely knew Marcus. They were just getting to know each other. Admittedly, she liked him a lot. But they were a very new couple, if you could even classify them as that after one night of sex and half a date.

  But none of that seemed to matter. She was possessive about him and she wasn’t even in love with him. Lust maybe, but not love. And she already couldn’t deal with the thought of him cheating on her. How would she feel once she’d gotten used to him being a part of her life?

  That she already had such strong feelings for Marcus just proved what a huge mistake she’d made. She’d sorely underestimated his power over her. She already felt closer to Marcus than she ever had to Davis, and Davis’s treachery had all but destroyed her ability to trust. If Marcus ever cheated on her, she wasn’t sure she could survive it. In fact, she was pretty sure she couldn’t.

  There was only one thing she could do. Cut her losses. She couldn’t afford to allow herself to get any more involved with him. She had to break it off now, while she still could. Before her heart was involved and he shred it to pieces with some careless action like Davis had.

  She watched as Marcus removed the redhead’s hand from his leg, but it didn’t change anything. Sure, he was resisting her now, but how long would that last? How long before the right woman came around at just the right moment and he caved? She didn’t want to be there when it happened.

  She caught Thea’s eye and pointed toward her office. Thea nodded and Asia went there to wait for her, relieved that Marcus hadn’t seen her.

  In no time Thea rushed over. “What’s up?”

  “I need to get out of here witho
ut Marcus seeing me leave.”

  Thea unlocked her office door and swept Asia inside ahead of her. “What’s going on? I saw you two together not that long ago and you looked pretty cozy.”

  “Well, that was then. This is now and I just can’t face him right now.”

  “Did he hurt you? I’ll kill him if he hurt you.”

  Asia loved her dear friend, she really did. “He hasn’t hurt me, but he will if I keep on seeing him.”

  “Okay, now that’s just crazy talk.”

  Asia shook her head. “No, it’s not. Marcus is gorgeous, well-known and comfortably well-off. He’ll always have beautiful women throwing themselves at him. Eventually, he’ll give into the temptation. I don’t want to be there when it happens.”

  “You have to stop comparing every guy to your ex. Davis was a cheating, lying schmuck. Marcus is nothing like him.”

  “Yeah, and Davis was nowhere near as good-looking as Marcus, nor did he have as much going for him, and yet he still managed to find someone to cheat on me with.”

  “And there’s the big difference between them. Davis was the one who did the pursuing. I knew he was a serial flirt and suspected he was a skirt-chaser. I wish you’d listened when I’d tried to warn you, but you didn’t and got hurt in the process. And that hurts me more than I can say. But the point now is that Marcus is nothing like that. I’d tell you if he was.”

  “And yet he still has that redhead groping him out there.”

  “Yes, he does, and he hasn’t done one thing to encourage it. She’s a persistent beotch trying all the usual tricks in the book and he’s not even remotely interested. I’m telling you, he’s not cut from the same cloth as Davis. Not even close.”

  Asia shook her head back and forth. “Doesn’t matter. I have to break things off with him right away. The trouble is he casts this spell over me so that all I want to do is jump his bones. I can’t even think straight when he’s around. I need to break it off with him over the phone or something. If I go out there now, he’ll look at me with those sexy blue eyes of his and I’ll end up going home with him and having sex all night long again.”

  Thea chuckled. “And that would be a bad thing, why? I should be so lucky.”

  Asia swallowed hard, fighting back the tears that rose up in her throat. “I can’t do it. I just can’t.”

  Thea instantly sobered and relented. “Okay. I’ll let you out the back way. You won’t even see him.”

  Asia nodded, so grateful for her friend’s help it almost loosened the floodgates. “You got some paper? I’ll write him a note.”

  “Don’t bother. I’ll tell him you went home ’cause you weren’t feeling well and that you’ll call him tomorrow.”

  Asia gave her a brief hard hug. “You really are the best.”

  “I know, I know. I can’t help it.”

  Thea checked outside her office door, and when the coast was clear she ushered her out the back door.

  Asia fled into the night, back to the safety of her lonely apartment.

  Chapter Twelve

  “I’m not leaving until you talk to me.” Marcus’s voice echoed off the brick walls lining the well-lit alley at the side of Astrid’s Antiques.

  He banged on the door again for emphasis and to vent some of his frustration. The whole situation was ridiculous. He still couldn’t believe Asia had snuck out of the bar without a word to him and sent her best friend to give him the bad news. He felt as if he were back in grade school again. But they weren’t kids. They were adults and she could damn well tell him to his face what the problem was.

  He knew she wasn’t sick. In fact, he’d bet hard cash on the fact that she was jealous because of the pushy redhead it had taken him forever to ditch.

  He banged on the door again. “Come on, Asia. Open up.”

  A second-floor window above and to the left of the door opened and Asia’s face appeared over the sill. “Go away. You’re bothering the neighbors.”

  “It’s not that late and none of your neighbors appear to be home anyway. If you want me to leave, then have the decency to come down here and tell me what’s wrong.”

  He heard her sigh even from that distance. “Fine. I’ll be right down.”

  About time too.

  A minute later, he heard the locks pulled back and the door opened wide. With shock, he saw that Asia looked terrible. Her eyes were red as if she’d been crying and he’d never seen her look so pale. All he wanted to do was gather her into his arms and soothe the hurt from her sweet face.

  He started to step inside but she held up a hand. “If you want to talk now, then we’ll do it right here.”

  Taken aback, he moved out of her personal space. The last thing he wanted to do was spook her. “What happened? Talk to me. I can’t fix this if I don’t know what the problem is.”

  Her wan smile didn’t reassure him any. “That’s just it. There is no fixing this. We’re over.”

  He’d been expecting it, but the shock of her words still hit him like a lead pipe. He was not ready to let her go. He wasn’t sure he ever would be. “How can we be over? We’ve barely begun.”

  “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Try me.”

  “Have you ever been jealous?”

  “Not really.”

  “Cheated on?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Then you wouldn’t understand what it’s like to come home early and find your fiancé, someone you loved and trusted, fucking the brains out of another woman. In your bed. The same bed you’d shared together.

  “That kind of betrayal never really leaves you. It haunts you, eats away at your self-confidence, your ability to trust. Or love. Your very soul.”

  Marcus had never experienced it, but he could well imagine the horror of it. He was a writer, after all. He had a pretty good imagination, and had even written about a similar scenario for one of his books. But how to make her see that one man’s actions didn’t speak for all men? “Your ex was an ass. Not all men are like him.”

  “Logically, I know you’re right, but emotionally I can’t take the chance. Or at least I’m not ready to yet.”

  Fresh anger hit him. “So you’re going to toss what we have on the scrap heap and call it a day. And I have no say in the matter whatsoever.”

  She shook her head. “None whatsoever. I’m sorry.”

  “Well, I’m not ready to accept that. We have something special between us. We owe it to ourselves to explore it and see where it goes.”

  But Asia was already shaking her head. “I just can’t do it. I’m sorry, Marcus. I should have kept my distance from you like I’d originally intended.”

  He jumped on that. “But you couldn’t, could you? You feel the pull just as much as I do.”

  “It doesn’t matter. It’ll fade. It always does.”

  He didn’t even know what to say to that ridiculous comment. How did one deal with someone who was being completely unreasonable?

  She didn’t wait for his brain to kick in with an effective response.

  “Have a good life, Marcus.”

  At last, he found his voice. “This isn’t over.”

  Her only answer was to close the door in his face with a finality that ripped his guts out.

  “I think you’re making a huge mistake.” Thea took a sip of her wine.

  Asia snapped. She’d had it with being told she’d done the wrong thing by breaking things off with Marcus. “Would everybody just stop telling me that?”

  She glared at both Thea and Lexi, who just shrugged and said, “We would if you’d listen and go talk to him.”

  “It’s not going to happen, so give it up already.”

  “Sorry, no can do. You’re throwing away a terrific guy because of something another jerk did to you. It makes no sense.”

  “It makes sense to me.”

  Thea grunted. “Maybe so, but none of us are impressed.”

  “You don’t have to be. I know I did the right thing.�
�� If only Asia didn’t sound so uncertain even to her own ears, maybe the others would leave her alone.

  “Sure you do. That’s why you look like death warmed over. Because you’re so happy with your decision.”

  The sarcasm dripping off of Thea’s tone grated on raw nerves. Asia just wanted to be left alone to get over what she now realized was a broken heart. She’d gone and fallen for Marcus and it had happened so fast she hadn’t even realized it until after she’d cut him out of her life.

  Now she really wasn’t sure she’d done the right thing. Of course, she wasn’t sure it was the wrong thing either. So she was kind of stuck in limbo. It was just as well to leave things as they were, because if she cared this much about him after such a short amount of time, how much worse would it be if he broke her heart down the road?

  No, she’d done the right thing by breaking things off. She had.

  Hadn’t she?

  Annoyed by her constant wavering, she tried to divert the conversation by going on the attack. “I don’t see either of you two taking a chance on love.”

  Thea and Lexi both looked a little uncomfortable under Asia’s close scrutiny.

  Then Thea took back control and jumped in. “Don’t change the subject. This isn’t about us, it’s about you.”

  “Well, I’m tired of talking about me and my problems. I’d rather talk about yours.”

  A commotion at the door announced a group of people coming into the bar and the conversation lagged.

  Thea smiled. “There he is.”

  “There who is?” Asia whipped around, afraid she was about to find out the real reason she’d been lured to the bar. “It had better not be Marcus.”

  Thea smiled in smug satisfaction. “It isn’t.”

  And sure enough, it wasn’t. It was, however, the last person she wanted to see. Ever again. “You knew Davis was going to be here tonight, didn’t you?”

  “Sure did. He reserved the pool table and a table beside it. It’s his birthday.”

  With shock, Asia realized she’d forgotten about it. Last year on this day she’d moped around the apartment, alternating between crying and fuming at Davis’s perfidy. This year it hadn’t even crossed her mind to care. That was a major improvement.