by Casey Hagen
“So driven. I wonder what makes you so…intense about it,” she said as she sailed past him and into the elevator car, with more confidence than she had entering the building.
“Knowing what it’s like to go hungry.”
The words hovered there between them. Words he’d never intended to voice. The statement revealed more than he wanted her or anyone to know about him, but it was too late to take them back or laugh them off as a joke.
He met her gaze, defiance welling up inside of him, daring her to pity him.
But one look at her, and all he found was curiosity in her eyes and in the tilt of her regal head while she held the rail as the car glided to the top floor. Those golden waves shone against her black wool coat. He itched to release them from their confines and memorize the way they fell about her heart-shaped face and cascaded over her bare shoulders.
She’d cast a spell over him. Surely, she had, and if she changed her mind he’d likely drop to his knees, tossing his pride aside, and beg her to reconsider.
She trembled, and blinked rapidly. “I’m ashamed to say that I can’t possibly understand what that’s like.”
“That’s a good thing. It’s means you’ve been kept safe and secure,” he said quietly.
She frowned. “I’ve been pampered with excess.”
“You sound like you resent it,” he said.
“I do.”
“You prefer being poor?”
She lifted her chin in a show of defiance. “I prefer being free.”
The doors opened and the silence fell over them, rich with implications from her declaration.
He took her hand and, with a firm tug, pulled her to him.
Her head fell back, exposing her slim, pale neck. Her pink lips parted. She darted out her pink tongue, wetting her lower lip, and his body responded.
“Then, by all means, let’s set you free,” he murmured a fraction of an inch from her willing lips. He didn’t kiss her. Not yet. Not in an elevator. He wanted her to remember the first time he took her lips with his. The first of what he intended to be many times.
He led her to his door, where he punched in another series of numbers and pushed it open. With a click of a remote on his entry table, the lights came to life. He dimmed them just a bit before dropping the remote back to the table. “Can I get you something to drink?” He slid the tips of his fingers under the collar of her jacket and skimmed it off her shoulders, hanging it on the rack in the corner.
“I would love one. Please,” she said with a smile, following him into the living room.
He tossed his jacket over the back of his leather sofa, unbuttoned his cuffs, and rolled his sleeves up his forearms. “Is wine satisfactory?”
“Wine would be wonderful. Thank you.”
He smiled at the way they had retreated into politeness as soon as they entered his place. They had all the privacy in the world now and it had created a bit of distance between them, as if they’d retreated to their own corners to reassess their strategy of the evening.
He pulled Chardonnay from his wine fridge, since that’s what he saw her drinking at the bar. She had drifted to the corner of the living room, and stood before the wall of floor-to-ceiling windows there.
Did she realize what she had just done? The vantage point provided an uninhibited view of the street and other condos. It also exposed her to curious onlookers from the street and those condos. With how high up they were, the street wasn’t so much of an issue, but at least ten condos he knew of had the capability of seeing everything happening in his window at any given time. It wasn’t unusual for him to get a wave or nod from the neighbors across the street as he stood there at the end of the long day, watching the city with a drink in his hand.
He had witnessed other activities across the street as well. It looked like tonight it was Beatrice’s and his turn to be the stars of the show.
The idea of that tensed his muscles as blood rushed straight to his cock.
Needing to touch her, to breathe her in, he made quick work of the cork, poured two generous glasses, and joined her where she overlooked the Upper East Side below them. The sky full of stars was spread out like a blanket far and wide above.
He stood behind her and reached around to pass her the glass. “For you,” he murmured, lowering his lips to the curve where her neck met her shoulders.
She shivered beneath his lips and sighed, tipping her head to the left just a fraction, giving him further access. Beatrice didn’t realize that she wasn’t quite as uptight as she claimed to be, and he intended to see just how far he could push her.
If he could really get her to let out her inner Natasha.
The faint scent of coffee and vanilla radiated from her soft, warm skin, coaxing him to taste her further. Following the top of her shoulder, he stopped at the edge of her dress and swirled his tongue over her flesh to taste her.
The flavor of her skin, her scent, the way she moaned at the feel of his tongue, had him hardening painfully in his pants. Desperate to explore her, he whispered in her ear, “Tell me what you want, Beatrice.”
She swayed with his words and flattened her palm on the glass to steady herself. “Don’t you want to wait?” she asked with a hint of surprise. “We have an hour and a half before the new year begins. I was hoping…” Her words trailed off, and she covered her eyes with her free hand.
“You were hoping what?” he said against the shell of her ear, watching the fine hairs along her hairline dance under his breath.
“Well, I was hoping it would happen while we started the new year,” she said, her voice breaking with the admission.
He met her reflection in the window, and clasped her chin, holding her in his sights. “Even if we started this very second, you’ll be lucky if I’m done with you by dawn.”
Her knees wobbled. “That’s a long time. That’s ambitious, isn’t it?” Her eyes popped open, wide as saucers, making him bite back a laugh.
Dragging his fingers over her chin and down her throat, he asked, “How long do you think it should take?”
She shrugged. “Ten minutes, maybe twenty,” she said candidly.
The muscles in his cheek jumped as he clenched his teeth. She was serious.
Completely. Fucking. Serious.
He took longer rubbing one off in the shower. Not that he did so often, but sometimes a man needed a little something before he fell asleep, and didn’t have time for the complications or morning-afters that came with the female of the species.
“Fucking assholes. It’s never taken longer than that for you?” He hated asking. He hated knowing that other men had touched her, kissed her, had been inside her, joined in the most intimate of ways, hearing her come for them.
She blinked rapidly and frowned. “No. Why would it?”
He nipped her skin, taking pleasure in the way she jumped when he did. “Any man who took as little as twenty minutes with you didn’t know what the fuck he was doing. No wonder you’re so desperate to explore fantasies.”
“God, this is mortifying,” she said.
He laughed against her shoulder. “Why?” he asked as he ran the tip of his finger over her arm, taking immense pleasure in the way gooseflesh rose on her skin.
“Because it’s personal. And graphic. And I don’t know you,” she said, shooting an exasperated look over her shoulder.
“One,” he said as he popped the clip holding her sultry waves, pulled it from her thick hair, and set it on the table behind him, “you trusted me enough to hand me the napkin, trusted that I won’t make fun of you for revealing your desires to me.” The waves sprang free and started down her back.
“Two,” he said, holding her hair aside, finding her zipper and clasping it between his thumb and finger, “intimacy is graphic, but you’re sharing yourself with someone who wants you as much as you want him. Remember that.”
“Three,” he continued as he dragged the zipper down her spine to where it stopped scandalously low, revealing the t
wo dimples just above her fine ass. She gasped at his movements, but stayed still as he slid the shoulders of the dress over her arms and let it pool on the floor at their feet. Her hair swept down the curve of her spine and headed right for the gentle curve of her high, tight cheeks. “This is the best way to get to know each other.”
“Micah, the window!” she said, trying to cross her arm over her chest and the other to cover her bikinis.
“Don’t,” he said with a sharp bite. The word came out harder than he intended, but he didn’t apologize.
“Wh—what?” she stammered.
“Put your arms down,” he demanded.
“But I—”
Her took her wrists and brought them around her back, linking them with his long fingers. “I said… Put. Your. Arms. Down.”
“People can see,” she whispered in horror.
“Isn’t that what you wanted?” Her reflection slayed him. Those high breasts thrust out with their tight pink nipples just begging to be touched. With her arms behind her back, her shoulders were back as if she were a proud woman inviting onlookers to have their fill of the sight of her.
“I never said—”
He raised a brow and met her reflection. “The napkin?”
The confusion in her eyes cleared away. “Wait, you don’t mean…”
“Yes.” He pointed to the condo across the way and one floor down. “You see that window right there? See the people moving about inside?”
She nodded, but said nothing.
“You see the exposed brick? Last week he fucked her against that wall, and I watched the entire thing,” he said into her ear as he pointed to the window.
She choked on her breath, his words, his actions, no doubt shocking her to her pretty toes.
“Does the word ‘fuck’ shock you? It shouldn’t. I know for a fact you can spell it.”
She gulped. “I’ve never said it or had anyone say it to me.”
He tsked in her ear. “A pretty little world you live in. I’m not surprised. But you’ll say it tonight, won’t you, Beatrice?”
“You’ll make me say it?” she said.
“If you want your desires fulfilled, you’ll have them, but not before you say it out loud.” He watched her reflection in the window and decided a bit of motivation was in order. He coiled his hand around her throat and smiled. Her heart raced under his palm with excitement or fear. Maybe both.
“But—”
Letting his hand fall away, he smoothed it over her collarbone, then followed the valley between her breasts. The inside of his wrist grazed her pebbled nipple, making her suck in a sharp breath.
“No more buts. Tell me what you want me to do to you,” he said.
“I—um…”
“Say it,” he demanded, sliding his hand between her legs and caressing her through the scrap of silk there.
“I want you to…I—I can’t.”
He snaked a finger beyond the fabric and stroked her wet folds. “Beatrice can’t. But Natasha? She’s fearless. Say it, Natasha.”
Chapter 4
What had Beatrice done?
In her desperation to break free from her pastel life she had met up with a dark and, from what she sensed, likely dangerous, man, and let him take her home.
No, that wasn’t right. He didn’t take her. She gladly followed. A lamb to the slaughter. She had told herself she could play in the sultry sandbox that others enjoyed, but now she wondered if she had it in her to follow through.
Or to walk away if she didn’t.
By handing him that napkin, she had set in motion an elicit sequence of events that began changing who she was at her very foundation, and now there was no going back. As she stood there, struck mute by the erotic baritone of his commanding voice in her ear, she knew even if she pulled her dress back on and walked out in that very moment, he had marked her as surely as she had marked that napkin.
Made her his.
It was supposed to be one night. One adventure. One taste of the forbidden.
And just getting near the flames that erupted when they touched had scarred her. For years to come, in the lonely hours of the night, after the completion of dinner parties, dates, or even if she were married, once the kids had been put to bed, she would return to this moment in her mind.
The exact moment where Micah called her out on her cowardice and made her feel.
His fingers raked over her core, dancing over her folds, and dipped inside. The sound of him penetrating her wetness and pulling back out urged her to gush all over him.
“Oh yeah, your mind may be hesitating, but your body wants to come for me.” He released her wrists and buried his hand in her hair, giving it a firm yank.
Her body’s reaction took her by surprise and stole the air from her lungs. She stared, couldn’t break her gaze away from the image of them in the window, his body so much larger than hers, playing her like the finest cello in the grandest symphony of all time. He held her head back against his shoulder, his other hand holding her hostage with its ministrations on her aching, swollen flesh.
Tension built inside her. She whimpered as her body betrayed her mind and soaked her bikinis all the way through, making her squirm. Desperate for relief, what kind she didn’t know, she thrust her hips against his hand.
The throbbing pressure within her increased. “Yes,” she moaned.
“No,” he ground out, snatching his hand away. “You’ll say it or you’ll leave. I won’t give you what you’re looking for without the words.”
The shock of his abandonment, the burning ache he left inside her, brought tears to her eyes. She blinked rapidly, trying to clear her vision. His angular face stared back at her in their reflection. Those sensuous lips suddenly hard and thin. She’d almost think him cruel, except his body curved into hers. Heat radiated from him and seeped into her as he kept his arm around her, despite ending his intimate attention.
He tipped his head, the slightest shift, toward the exposed section of her neck, breathing her in.
To anyone who might see them, they’d assume he had all the power.
But she knew otherwise. She knew by the pleading in his narrowed eyes that, had she been any other woman, he would have tired of this cat and mouse game—but something about her kept him ensnared and invested in the chase.
Knowing she had that bit of power over him in this moment gave her the courage to finally voice the words she had only dared write.
“I want to be fucked like a vixen,” she stumbled over the words at first, but cleared her throat and pressed on, encouraged by the way his eyes drifted shut, his lips parted, and he softened his grip.
“I want to be watched,” she added.
He growled low in his throat, his lips going to her neck, his teeth nipping her just below her ear.
Her blood raced at the sharp sting of pain. “I want passion so fierce I scream with the pleasure of it.”
“And you’ll have it,” he grated out. He brought her hand up the glass to join the other. “Don’t move your hands.”
“I’m so exposed,” she said, the words more of a breath than declaration.
“And the sexiest woman I’ve ever seen,” he rasped against her ear.
He pressed up against her, from knees to shoulders, and walked her right up to the glass, holding her there against it. She squeaked at the feel of the cold glass against her nipples, and then groaned as it soothed the ache.
“You like that,” he murmured.
“Yes.”
His hands curled into the side of her panties, and with a hard tug he tore the seam. With a yank to the other side the fabric ripped free of her hip, leaving her standing in nothing but her golden high heels.
Her fevered skin prickled as the sensations assaulted her. The fear, the excitement, the cold of the glass, and Micah, hard against her back, his thick arousal pressing into her while his hands explored.
She closed her eyes and let her head fall back, increasing the pressure on her t
ender breasts, and focused on the feel of his large, strong hands kneading her flesh. His hands smoothed over her thighs, and before she knew what was happening he had dropped to his knees on the floor behind her.
“Wh—”
“Spread your legs,” he demanded with a hot hand around her ankle, the other petting the inside of her thigh.
She glanced over her shoulder and found him staring at her ass like a man lost in the desert, desperate for water and seeing it just an arm’s length away. She’d never seen the kind of hunger he showed for her. Taking a deep breath, she kept her gaze on him as she lifted her right foot and moved it a couple feet from the other, exposing every last detail of the heart of her.
His dark eyes filled with keen interest, his pupils swallowing his dark brown irises. His nostrils flared as he grabbed her hips and pulled her back. “Keep your breasts on the glass, arch your back, and give me your ass.”
“I’m not sure—”
He cut her a look. “You don’t have to be, just do it,” he commanded.
Her heart galloped against her rib cage as she stepped back, giving herself room to follow his directions. Just as she pressed her breasts against the glass, the couple in the condo across the way appeared in the window.
Beatrice’s instinct was to refuse. To put her clothes back and not humiliate herself, but somewhere between the ride in the elevator and the point where Micah cupped her, sending pure exhilaration spiking through her veins, Natasha started to whisper to her. Telling her to let go. To let it happen.
To let Micah give her her fantasy life in the new year.
Beatrice surrendered to her desires. With her forehead pressed to the glass, she stared at the couple watching them. They were far enough away that direct eye contact was impossible, and they wouldn’t necessarily recognize her if they saw her in person, but they could see her body, they could make out movements, and what he did to her.
A frisson of pure thrill slid through her.
And then Micah.
With no warning he buried his face between her legs, his tongue stroking the folds he had teased earlier. His fingertips dug into her thighs as he devoured her.
