His Passion (Billionaire Blind Date Book 3)
Page 3
Despite having come three times just at the restaurant, my knees went watery. I lifted my hands to put them on his hips, but he grabbed my wrists and pressed them against the door on either side of my head, pinning me there with his hands and his body.
Grant dipped his head and attacked my neck with biting kisses I couldn’t escape, just the right amount of pressure and pain that I knew he might leave a faint bruise here or there. I didn’t care.
Part of me wanted that, to bear some mark tomorrow of Grant touching me.
When he’d kissed the length of my neck on both sides, he found my mouth and plundered it as if kissing me for the first time and trying to learn the territory. His cock pressed hard against me through his trousers, and my body was awake again, ready for more.
“You want to know why I don’t want you to scream my name when you come?”
I nodded, wondering if he hadn’t claimed I’d do just that at one point. Hadn’t he said I would, or was I imagining it?
“You don’t know me, Sophie. Not at all. Screaming my name like that . . . what’s your aim? To butter me up? Ingratiate yourself to me?”
“No . . . what are you talking about? It just came out.”
“Just came out. Nothing just happens, Sophie.” Grant’s jaw muscles flexed and relaxed, flexed and relaxed. Uncertainty flashed across his features, followed by that hard look that disappointed me every time it appeared.
“Screaming the name of a man you barely know, that just makes you sound like a whore.”
I gasped. He might as well have thrown a bucket of ice-water on me.
“A gold. Digging. Whore.”
I tried to slap him, but my wrists were pinned in place. So I tried to kick, but he pressed forward with a leg between mine and made it too difficult. How could he think that? I hadn’t even believed the necklace was a real emerald. Surely he knew better?
“Get out of my apartment,” I spat.
“So, I nailed it, did I? Called you out, and you’re angry about it.” He seemed angrier than a moment ago.
“I couldn’t care less about your money. Take this dress, and shoes and purse, and the emerald I didn’t ask for, and return them. Cut your losses. Send me a bill for the dinners you bought me, and I’ll pay them off as quickly as I can.” I still struggled, but couldn’t even slide my wrists an inch in his grip.
“Those were gifts,” he said calmly.
“Gifts I didn’t ask for or expect that you’re using against me now. I thought you were an accountant! Son of a—”
Grant laughed, and his entire expression softened. It wasn’t a look I’d seen before on his face, though. Not quite uncertain, not quite vulnerable . . . but the closest he’d come.
“What the hell’s so funny?” I was practically growling.
“You’re defending yourself over gold-digger.” Grant looked at me with wonder. “I thought you’d be much angrier about whore.”
Seven
When I started to answer him, I deflated—a sensation that started in my stomach and spread until it touched every part of me.
I’m not either of those things I wanted to shout. But I couldn’t, not if I wanted to be honest with him. And myself. I wasn’t a gold-digger. I didn’t care how much money he had.
But the rest . . .
“Isn’t that what I am?” I wasn’t struggling anymore. The fight had gone out of me with the realization.
Grant’s hands loosened around my wrists and he pulled my arms down, but didn’t let go. His expression stayed fierce. “Is that how you see yourself?”
I had to close my eyes a minute and take a deep breath before fixing my gaze with his and answering. “Is that so shocking? You just said it, and you don’t lie. Why shouldn’t I believe it?”
Grant’s mouth twisted into fury and he shook his head, then took several deep breaths through flared nostrils before he answered. “I said it made you sound like a whore. Not that you were one.”
“What’s the difference? I let you do whatever you want, no matter how uncomfortable I am, for a date to a wedding. My cousin’s wedding—and I don’t even like her that much. If that doesn’t make me a whore . . .” I pulled my arms, trying to free them, and softly said, “Let go.”
“You’re not a whore,” he growled, his eyes dark with anger.
“You’re the one who said—”
“I explained that. You’re not a whore.”
“Fine. So . . . you said those things just to upset me, but didn’t really mean them. Fabulous. Let me go.”
“You don’t understand, Sophie.” The anger seemed to fade from Grant’s face, leaving frustration and uncertainty behind. “I meant to make sure you wouldn’t do it again, that’s all.”
“Shout your name? Not a problem.” I felt chilled and wanted a hot bath and maybe a stiff drink. I didn’t understand what was happening or why.
“Sophie!” He acted as if I weren’t paying attention or I was arguing with him.
“I heard you, Grant. I won’t—”
“It’s too intimate. You shouldn’t . . . let yourself get that intimate with me.” His voice softened as he spoke. “I won’t give that back, and you’ll only feel . . . hurt when it’s over.”
Grant said won’t, not can’t. From a man who chooses his words as carefully as a chef chooses a knife, that seemed important.
“You already plan for it to be over—this is a finite relationship. Why do you care how I’ll feel afterward?”
His nostrils flared. “I shouldn’t.”
But he did. I don’t know why, but it meant everything in that moment. That’s why, when he pushed my wrists above my head and pressed his body against mine, I didn’t sigh or struggle. I wanted to know what he’d say or do now, and whether he knew that he’d revealed as much as he had.
“What you said a second ago,” he said, his voice dark and low. “About letting me do whatever I wanted for a date to a wedding. Is that the only reason you’re doing this?”
I could have steeled myself and said yes, tried to cut him the way he’d cut me. But I knew if I said yes he’d probably just laugh and tell me I was lying.
“Not entirely.”
Grant smiled, surely knowing I’d taken a page out of his don’t quite lie book.
“If I told you that I wasn’t going to take you to the wedding, and then I made you come the way you did in the parking lot . . . you’d still crawl on your hands and knees to me next time I snapped my fingers.”
It wasn’t a question, so it didn’t require an answer. We looked into each other’s eyes for a long moment. He hissed in a breath.
“You needed this, Sophie. You needed me to break you out of what you thought your life would be. You’d have settled for some Bill or Bob or Joe who fumbled his way through once-a-week sex, spent too much at the bar on Friday nights and made ‘my old lady’ jokes with his buddies.”
Grant licked his lips. I saved you from that, because after me, you’ll never settle for a weak, ineffective man whose name you would never scream in your own bedroom, let alone outside for all the world to hear.”
Tears prickled at the backs of my eyes. He was right that I’d never settle for something like that now, now that I’d felt such pleasure at Grant’s hands, felt so exposed and safe at the same time. But the problem was this was going to end, probably soon. And what were the odds of finding someone else like Grant?
“No,” he growled. “Don’t—don’t do that.” His face moved close to mine as he looked from eye to eye. “Don’t cry.”
“I can’t help it.
“You can.”
“I’m sorry if the idea that you’ve ruined me for all other men makes me—”
“Sophie, listen to me. You said you let me do whatever I want. That makes it seem as if you’re . . . like a parent in a store giving into a child and buying him whatever toy he wants when he acts up. Don’t you see? You’re not the indulgent parent or the misbehaving child. You don’t truly let anyone do anything.”
Grant pushed against my wrists, his voice tense and earnest. “No. You’re the treasure that men are desperate to claim. And unlike a toy in a store, you get to choose who takes you home.”
His mouth claimed mine in a bruising kiss.
Eight
When the kiss ended, I panted for air. Grant lowered my arms again and let go with a squeeze. He gripped the hem of my dress and stared into my eyes. I gave a subtle nod, so he peeled the dress up and off.
There was no point fighting this. He was right. If he said he wouldn’t take me to the wedding, I’d still do whatever he wanted. I didn’t care about the wedding half as much as I had the night I walked to that restaurant planning on a blind date with my aunt’s friend. I cared about the next few minutes, and how Grant would make me feel, how much pleasure he’d give me.
And how much I could give him.
I stood naked before him, in heels and the emerald pendant.
“Walk slowly to your bedroom so I can watch.” He’d mentioned that earlier, and Grant never seemed to forget anything.
I took my time, his eyes on my ass practically warming the skin. He followed, along with the whisper of cloth. “Lie face down.”
Of course, I did. The whisper of cloth had been him removing his tie, because he wrapped the expensive fabric that felt like silk or satin around my wrists and secured them to one of the rails of my headboard. I wondered how badly the knot would wrinkle his tie, until I heard the clink of his belt, the hiss of it sliding through the loops.
“I’m going to redden your ass now, for many things, Sophie. Thinking of yourself as a whore. Disobeying me. And also . . . because we both find it pleasurable. Isn’t that right?”
“Yes.”
“Arch your back a little. Lift your ass to show me how eager you are to be corrected.”
I did. God, why did I ache for that first strap to come down on me?
His hand touched me instead, not with a smack, but a caress of one cheek at a time. “So beautiful,” he whispered. “I’m going to extract a promise from you, too. I didn’t like being kept waiting today after I asked you to call. What do you have to say for yourself?”
“I-I’m sorry?”
And the belt came down. “You’re asking?”
“No, I-I’m sorry.”
The hand stroked the stinging spot of flesh he’d just hit with the belt. “Good girl. Tell me again why you made me wait. Why you decided not to do what I said.”
I hesitated long enough that his hand paused. “I didn’t like being told what to do.”
“I see.” The belt stung my other cheek. “If I didn’t want you, I wouldn’t tell you to do anything. Do you realize that?”
“Yes.” Both cheeks burned as the leather strapped across them.
“So, disobeying me means you don’t care that I want you. Is that right?” Grant shifted on the edge of the bed and stroked a hand up and down one leg.
“No, no it’s not that.”
Another blow, this time catching the tops of my thighs. “Do you understand why it appears that way to me?”
“Yes.”
“Good girl. So next time I ask you to do something . . . ?”
“I’ll do it, right away.”
“Excellent. My first demand—inform me next time you’re scheduled to go to Holliscorp. I want to know ahead of time. I’d like to be able to check in on how things are progressing. You’re going to do that, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
Three quick blows of the belt stung enough that I pulled away, lowering my bottom to escape them. That earned me a tsk tsk tsk. “No, Sophie. In the air, or I’ll have to give you more.”
I took a deep breath and pushed my bottom up high, and whimpered when one more blow came. But I didn’t withdraw, which made him chuckle and stroke my burning skin.
“Do you promise?”
“Yes, I do. I promise.”
“Very good. You’re going to obey?”
“Yes.”
“I believe you. No more talking.” I turned my head at the whisper of fabric to see Grant remove his clothes. I’d never seen him naked. I’d caught glimpses of his torso in the restaurant bathroom that first time and felt his hard, muscular body against me, so I knew he was well-built. The sight of him shirtless still took my breath away.
Grant’s chest was perfect—muscular and toned without being bulky—and dusted with dark hair without being coarse or overpowering. It sat above a defined six-pack with grooves I imagined licking and tracing as I kissed my way down his body. A line of dark hair from his navel disappeared into slacks that barely contained his excitement. I wanted to touch that bulge, trace it with my fingertip or my tongue.
His slacks dropped to the floor to reveal black boxer-briefs, and I wished he’d untie me and let me take them off. He didn’t, but I gasped and licked my lips when he removed them. He’d been inside me, I’d used my mouth on him, but the sight of his fully naked body all at once was almost overwhelming. He was every woman’s dream.
And he was there with me.
“Now, Sophie, a little bit more, just for fun.”
The bed dipped as he kneeled behind me and rained the belt down. The blows weren’t brutal, but they stung more with each one. I didn’t pull away, but I whimpered with each blow and, by the end, tears threatened again. For reasons I didn’t really understand, I was wet and aching for more.
When he stopped, the lack of touch, the need I felt, prompted me to ask for it. “Please, Grant. Fuck me.”
I heard his gasp, the way his exhale came out like a hiss. “Roll over.”
As soon as I was on my back, Grant hooked my knees under his arms and plunged into me. Face to face, he took me hard and fast, and when I moved my legs to tighten around him, he shifted his arms out and let me hold onto him with ankles crossed behind his back.
The emerald had slid to the side—Grant moved it back between my breasts, and arched his body to suck one nipple into his mouth and then the other. I cried out as his thrusts sped up.
“Such a good girl,” he breathed, and a drop of sweat from his neck dripped onto mine. “So good.”
His large palms stroked my upper arms, almost tickling, and his mouth clamped over mine, our tongues twining together. I felt his groan before I heard it as he pumped into me without rhythm, and the unexpected movements threw my clit into overdrive.
I shouted into the kiss as I came, bucking my hips up and pulling with my legs. Grant lifted up to look at me, his mouth an O right before he growled in pleasure. His body shuddered, and he thrust hard, holding there, spilling himself into me as we both moaned and trembled in pleasure.
We ended up with his face pressed against my neck as he panted and kissed the skin lightly. I let my ankles unlock and my legs fall before thigh cramps threatened.
“Good girl,” he whispered again at my ear, and then he reached above my head and pulled the tie loose.
When he slid off me but made no move to get out of the bed, I lowered my arms and rolled onto my side to face him. He smiled softly at me and lifted the emerald, rubbing his thumb against it. He was going to jump out of the bed any moment, I knew, so I couldn’t let the opportunity pass. It felt so awkward to ask this—after everything we’d done, I felt I shouldn’t have to. But for some reason, it seemed important.
“May I touch you?”
Nine
I didn’t lift a hand when I asked the question. I waited through the awkward silence without moving, and started to fear that I’d said the wrong thing, that Grant was about to say no and leave.
There seemed to be a struggle behind his eyes, as if he weren’t sure what he might do, either.
And then he softly said yes.
Even with permission, it was difficult to move that first time
. I felt like it was a sacred moment somehow and that if it made the wrong move, I’d destroy it. I lifted my hand and pressed it against his chest, between his pecs, where he so often liked to touch me. Over his heart.
When he didn’t flinch or move away, I let my hand explore the tight muscles from his shoulders to his stomach, and then I felt those flat abs that had made me lick my lips. Grooves on each side of his lower stomach fell into a V that led right to his cock, which was long and thick, and still half-hard from before. I let myself touch everything, my fingers tracing the hollows and grooves, my hand wrapping around him with a light squeeze that made him suck in a breath.
“You’re . . . stunning,” I breathed. I moved my hand back up his body until it cupped his neck. I stroked the edge of his jaw with my thumb, the short growth there whispering under my touch.
Grant said nothing. He merely regarded me through half-closed eyes.
I’m not sure where I got the courage, but the soft way he looked at me and the relaxed state of his body seemed to make it okay. I leaned over, hand still against his neck, and I kissed him. Just a soft kiss, more tender than any we’d shared that night, and I didn’t move away when I was done. I leaned back enough to see his reaction.
He gazed at me the same as before, except his brows had moved up, as if he’d had a tiny surprise.
You’re the treasure men are desperate to claim. His words echoed in my mind and made me bold.
I scooted close, our bodies touching, and lay my head against his chest. I could hear his heartbeat and his breathing, and I felt it the moment he relaxed into it. His arm moved, and his hand touched my back.
And in a few moments, both of us naked on top of the covers with all the lights on, Grant fell asleep.
I didn’t dare lift my head to look at him or move to pull the sheets up. I was too afraid of waking him and having to watch him jump up and dress, say that he’d fucked me and he was done, and he’d call me next time he wanted something.