by Maisey Yates
That he was only a man.
This is only one night, she reminded herself. A handful of hours, at most, even if Hunter hadn’t kissed her in that bar like a man who would rush through this, or anything else. Anyone could handle one night.
She knew that better than most.
“I suppose this will do,” she said then, her voice clipped. Strained with all her false courage. She tried to wrench back the control she’d claimed she wanted so badly, thinking that might at least contain some of the damage. “Let me tell you how this works. I think I’ll have you start on your knees again, facing the—”
“Zoe.”
She didn’t want to stop, but she did. She didn’t want to turn to face him, but she did that, too. She had to do it. She had to prove he wasn’t getting to her. She had to make sure he knew exactly how little this was affecting her—
But when she looked at him, it was like a blow. Hard and swift. Ruthless. She swayed on her feet again and for a terrifying moment thought she might actually topple over—but she caught herself.
Hunter looked like a stranger. Or more like himself, perhaps, than he’d been in all the time she’d known him, which made that terrifying longing creep through her again, then spread out, taking root deep inside. He was so powerful, so male. Strong and sure and focused on her with that brilliant, consuming heat. The city on the other side of that expanse of glass, the lights and bridges stretching out in all directions, swirled away and became part of that fire in his gaze, stamped hard on his face.
It occurred to her that she was as good as naked—worse than naked, really. She knew exactly what she looked like, standing there in nothing at all but two strips of provocative black lace. The strapless bra above and a pair of saucy boy shorts below that, despite their name, were entirely and decidedly feminine.
He’d been right when he’d accused her of using her body as a weapon. She’d honed hers to lethal perfection deliberately. She knew exactly how to package it, how to aim it, to get what she wanted.
If only he wasn’t looking at her as if he held all the ammunition.
“I want—” she began, but everything was too hot. Behind her eyes, in that uncontrollable shaking in her knees, in that fever that had taken over her belly, her sex, shooting sensation into her fingers until they clenched on the need to touch him.
Hunter prowled toward her, sleekly male and not entirely tame and possibly the most glorious creature she’d ever beheld. He never took his eyes from hers. He never broke.
And Zoe had never felt more like prey in all her life.
Or more beautiful.
“Hunter...” she whispered.
His mouth looked hard and demanding as it crooked to one side. And his name sounded in the too-hot air between them like an invocation to that terrible god of his that would, she knew, destroy whatever was left of her.
She knew she should care about that. That it should make her run the way she had in her office that day. But she didn’t move.
He closed the distance between them, then took her upper arms in his tough hands, hauling her to him. He wasn’t gentle, and despite herself, despite that desperate part of her that knew better than to let this happen, it thrilled her.
Her breasts pressed against the planes of his impressive chest. At last. Her belly was soft against the unmistakable jut of his arousal. Finally. And he was built so big, so strong, all those heavy muscles and smooth, hard planes, like a fantasy of a man made real. He surrounded her.
He’s seducing you, that treacherous voice whispered.
Zoe tipped her head back and reminded herself that she couldn’t let this happen. Not like this, not all on his terms. That the price she’d have to pay wasn’t worth whatever brief moments of fire and awe she might—
“I have an idea,” he said, in that guttural way of his that felt like another punch, directly into the center of her need. Shock waves vibrated out, teasing her aching nipples, making her breasts feel heavier. Making her skin prickle, too hot and too tight. “How about you stop playing these stupid games?”
“I’m not playing!” None of this felt even a little bit like playing.
“I appreciate the noble sacrifice of your lush little body to my savage needs,” he said, and though his voice was still low, she heard that dark amusement in it that, even now, sparked in her. “But I want you needy, too. I want it real.” His fingers flexed against her shoulders. It showered her in dancing flames and lightning bolts, and she trembled. He nodded. “I want this.”
“No, you don’t.” Her voice was bitter then. Hardly hers at all. Pouring straight out of her past, and she couldn’t seem to do a single thing to stop it.
He took one hand to her face, cradling her cheek in a manner she might have called tender, had that been possible. As it wasn’t, she concentrated instead on the heat of it. The singe, the burn. Hunter.
“I insist on it,” he said softly.
“Men prefer fantasy. No matter what. No matter what contortions of reality are required to make it work.” She felt outside herself, then. Harsh and out of control. “It’s the only thing you know how to do.”
“Zoe.”
She could have handled another command. But not her name, not like that, breathed out like a prayer. As if he’d heard that roughness behind her words, sensed the prick of tears behind her eyes. As if he knew the dark and terrible things in her she’d never share, not with anyone.
If anything should have made her bolt for the door, it was that. And yet she only stood, his hand cupping her cheek, his spectacular body pressed to hers, staring up at him as if this was something more than a means to an end.
“Let’s get naked,” he suggested, that gleam in his blue gaze turning molten, setting her ablaze, and she couldn’t bring herself to fight how deep it went, how dangerous it was, how she thought it might be breaking her apart in ways she didn’t know how to fix. “And see what happens.”
He didn’t wait for an answer; he simply picked her up. He settled her legs around his waist and took her mouth with his, one hand at the back of her head, the other hard on her bottom.
He was demanding. Untamed.
And that shock of electricity and a kind of primitive recognition she didn’t want to acknowledge resonated inside her, catapulting her out of her head and the past at last—and directly into the fire.
His fire.
And Zoe let herself burn.
* * *
Yes, Hunter thought, and took her.
Her mouth, hot and sweet, clever and sharp and his, like the finest wine he’d ever tasted. His hands in her hair, tumbling the black silken mess of it down from the elegant twist that hid it away. That wild spice of her desire against his tongue, her tight curves wrapped around his body, incandescent and addictive—
Yes.
He felt as if he’d wanted her forever. As if he’d never wanted anything but this and never would. Zoe, her wicked mouth meeting his, daring him, challenging him even now.
And he couldn’t get enough. He couldn’t taste her enough, he couldn’t get close enough. Finally, he wasn’t frozen. He wasn’t numb. He felt everything and he wanted more. He wanted.
Again and again, until they were both sated.
Yes.
She laughed then, a husky, inflamed sound, and he realized he’d spoken out loud.
But it penetrated that tight fist of need that held him in a vise. Hunter set her down on her feet, then smiled, and he could feel the edge in it. He saw her dark gray eyes widen slightly, heard her breath come harder.
Perhaps a better man wouldn’t revel in that. But he did.
He moved toward her, backing her up, herding her toward the absurd monstrosity of a bed that dominated the room. Zoe swallowed convulsively, audibly, but she went. Slowly. Never taking her eyes from his.
He liked that, too.
Hunter pulled his shirt off with one hand, impatient with the split second he lost sight of her beneath the fabric. He reached down and unbuttoned hi
s trousers, then forgot about them, because they’d reached the first step that led to his bed.
“Don’t trip,” he said, and his voice sounded like a stranger’s in the thick silence. Rough and hot.
“Don’t let me fall,” she retorted, a flash of her usual fire moving over those flushed cheeks of hers, and Hunter grinned.
She was his. All of her. At last.
No masks. Only Zoe.
He didn’t think he’d ever let her go.
“I’ll pick you right back up again,” he told her, and it should have alarmed him, how deeply he meant that. How far it went. But her eyes were like the sea after a long winter’s rain, and he wanted her. “I promise.”
He reached over and wrapped his hands around her hips, easily picking her up and setting her against the edge of the high mattress. He didn’t join her on the dais. He leaned forward instead, kneeling down and pulling her long, smooth legs over his shoulders as he wedged himself between them.
“Remind me,” he said then. “How did you want me to kneel? Like this?”
She muttered something that sounded like a prayer, or maybe it was his name.
“I’m not going to stop,” he warned her, and felt her shudder against him. “I’m going to drown in you, and then I’m going to do it again. And again. Until I’ve had my fill.”
She said something else, fervent and low and unintelligible. She was like a sensual banquet before him, her black hair a tangle around her head, her creamy skin flushed with desire, two scraps of erotic black lace framing that perfect body of hers, and all of it his.
“And I’m warning you, Zoe. That might take a while. I’m a greedy bastard.”
She made a sound that was more like a sob. Hunter laughed.
He smoothed his hands up her silken thighs, drinking in each shiver, each tensing motion she made against him, around him. The black lace she wore was killing him, so sexy against her trim curves, her sweet skin. He could smell lavender again, and it made him even harder than he already was, bordering on desperate. She moved against him, against the bed, still making those noises that weren’t quite words. Needy and mindless, and he was just getting started.
He wanted her screaming his name. He wanted her so badly it felt like a body blow. He didn’t give a shit why she’d sought him out, only that she had.
“You’re mine,” he told her, fierce and sure.
He leaned forward and simply pressed his mouth against the center of her heat, black lace and woman, all Zoe and all his.
And then he feasted.
Chapter Seven
It was like dying.
Dying and then coming back to life, dressed all in fire, and Zoe couldn’t catch her breath. There was only Hunter and that mouth of his, wild and demanding against the heart of her need. She found herself lolling back like a drunk, her arms over her face, panting desperately against the salt of her own skin.
He simply...took her. He kissed her, hard and intense through the lace of her boy shorts. He used his teeth, his tough jaw, that perfect mouth of his. She rocked against him, away from him, not sure what she wanted or what to do with the sensations that swept through her, each more overpowering than the last—
“Stop fighting me,” he ordered her at one point, and her blood was rocketing so hard through her body, singing or screaming in her veins and she couldn’t tell which, that she wasn’t sure she heard him right.
“I don’t know how,” she gritted out. But she relaxed against him anyway.
Then he pressed his mouth against her again, harder, a gift and a discipline, and she splintered into a thousand pieces.
She was sobbing something incoherent, and he still didn’t stop. She lost his mouth, but felt his hands at her hips again, and then a rush of cool air against all that heat, and it took her long moments to realize he’d stripped her panties from her without her noticing.
It occurred to her that even if the world was still spinning, even if she wasn’t sure she knew her name or if she’d ever breath normally again, she should do something. Because somewhere beneath all of that shuddering, confounding pleasure that still stormed in her would be a price to pay. She knew that.
Too well.
Zoe struggled to move, to sit up, but found her limbs were far too heavy. As if they were his to command, not hers. She could only lie there, flushed and open and utterly destroyed, and watch him as he drew her legs back up over his shoulders, his blue gaze brilliant like diamonds, hot and hard on hers, and that look of sheer, male delight and satisfaction that made her chest hurt and her core ignite.
“I want...” It was too hard to speak, and that dangerous lassitude that had made her legs and arms feel so leaded was everywhere now, as if a great hand pressed her down into the bed from above, forcing her to lie there before him with such wanton abandon. “Let me...”
“I don’t want to let you do anything,” he told her. “I want to drown in you. I told you.”
Then he slid his hands beneath her, propping her up before him like an offering, and she understood with a distant part of her brain—the only part that was still functioning—that the strange keening sound she heard was coming from her. But it didn’t make sense, and he was looking at her, up over the length of her torso, his breath an intimate caress against the part of her that was the slickest and most sensitive, and she couldn’t seem to stop shaking.
And there was too much calm certainty in that blue gaze of his, too much triumph in the crook of his mouth, and everything seemed to contract around them, inside her, until she thought they’d both gone electric.
Only then did he bend his head and lick into her.
And everything dimmed. Then exploded.
It was like being struck by lightning. Hit by it, torn wide open, then set afire again and again.
He teased her and taunted her. He used her own fire against her, growling into the molten core of her as he tasted her, so she could feel that wolf in him, feel it echo in every part of her. He pushed her and he adored her, worshipped her and taunted her, holding her right where he wanted her so there was no possibility of escape, as if he was prepared to force pleasure upon her if necessary.
And Zoe simply...surrendered to the storm.
To him. To Hunter.
As if she trusted him.
And when she flew apart this time, she could hear the dark sound of his laughter, the erotic triumph and the sensual delight, as if she was bathing in it.
Drowning, and she didn’t care.
She was still fighting for breath when he moved, that terrible, wonderful mouth of his making its way over her hip, her belly. Lazy and knowing, building the fire in her all over again even as she still shook with the leftover flames of the previous blaze. He licked his way across her navel, climbing his way up her body as if he was committing every inch and every curve of her to memory, shifting her as he climbed, rolling them both toward the center of that massive bed.
He lifted her again, stripping her bra away and then worshipping her breasts, taking one hard nipple between his teeth, then sucking it hard into his mouth, shocking her with the intense shot of need that stormed through her all over again.
Impossible, she thought, and realized she’d moaned it aloud only when she felt laughter rumble through his big body.
“Not only possible,” he said, insufferable and delicious at once, “but necessary.”
“I’m very bored,” she replied when she could form words, arching into him. “Will this take long?”
She didn’t know why she felt compelled to tease him until she felt his teeth against her flesh, the little nip a punishment and a reward at once, and she smiled.
“You were right,” he told her, his mouth against the tender side of her breast, his tough hands spread out over her back, keeping her arched up before him, his to feast on as he wished. “I use my body as a weapon. And you like it.”
She felt his smile against her skin, then he turned his attention to her other breast, going back and forth
between them with exquisite patience until she was writhing beneath him, as desperate and wild as if he’d only just begun. As if he hadn’t thrown her over that cliff twice already.
“I need to taste you everywhere,” he told her, that smile in his voice, in the press of his mouth to her flesh. “I can’t get enough.”
She felt the dangerous scrape of his teeth against her neck, the magic of his tongue. She explored his chest with shaking hands, the glorious strength in his cut shoulders, each taut ridge of his wonder of an abdomen she’d first seen rise before her from the water in that hot tub, sleek and warm. He smelled of something spicy and tasted of salt and man, and she couldn’t get enough of him. When he crawled all the way up and settled himself between her legs, so hard and so big and so impossibly perfect, she almost toppled over that edge again, simply from the slick sweetness of the way they fit.
As if you were made for this, a little voice sang in her head. For him.
He propped himself above her, moving his hands to either side of her head and holding them there, and there was no sign of a smile on his beautiful face now, no trace of that laughter. There was only the stamp of need, a ferocity she felt deep within her. There was only that searing blue gaze, serious and intent.
Zoe’s heart stuttered, then began to beat low and hard and long. She was cradling his tough, hard body with hers, and it turned her to liquid, molten and scalding.
“You want to be in control, don’t you?” he asked, and everything about him was too dangerous, so dangerous it very nearly hurt. She could feel the press of him, pinning her to the bed, the hard thrust of him still in his trousers, but flush against her heat. Her need.
She’d had no idea it was possible to need anything this much. She wouldn’t have thought she was capable of it. And yet it scalded her. It poured through her. It made her feel like someone else. Someone as strong as he was, and as dangerous.
