Fueling His Hunger

by Sparrow Beckett

  “Feminists are allowed to like whatever they like,” he replied, glad he’d had this conversation with a number of his friends in the kink community. “The whole point is you get to choose.”

  “Okay,” she said, sounding relieved. “I thought maybe I was supposed to want to be the dominant one.” She sighed. “They don’t cover this stuff in sex ed.”

  “No.” He tried to reclaim his brain from his cock. “You’re not under any obligation to find domming hot because you’re a feminist.”

  She was smiling to herself, lost in thought. He gave her a few minutes to process that before his curiosity got the better of him.

  “So, do you daydream about kink a lot?”

  Her mouth twisted. “I didn’t used to, but a few months ago my friends talked about safewords and stuff because Priya was dating a guy who was a little freaky.” She groaned and ran a hand through her hair. “I’ve been thinking about it almost nonstop since then. I always had thoughts about it, but I tried to put it out of my mind. It seemed too twisted for someone like me.”

  Damn. This girl was making him crazy. He shifted in the driver’s seat, trying not to think past what she was saying. Just drive, asshat. Don’t think about how she sounds when she whimpers and begs.

  She was still talking, and he had to struggle to follow what she was saying.

  “People have their names splashed all over the tabloids for that sort of thing. Sex-tapes scandals or exes blabbing to shady reporters for attention.”

  Tabloids? What on earth was she talking about?

  “Why would a tabloid care about your sex life?”

  She laughed and shook her head. “I can’t believe I thought you wanted to kidnap me. You don’t even know who I am!” A graceful hand swept her pretty hair back from her face. “Ego, that’s what it is. I’ve always been treated like I was a big deal, and yet here you are completely oblivious to all that. It’s . . . kind of scary that you’re only judging me on my own merits. I have no idea what to do with that.”

  Her family was that famous? “There’s a lot about you to like, from what I’ve seen so far, no matter who your family is.”

  After opening the window a crack, she stuck her fingers out into the rushing air. “My parents are a big deal in their lines of work. Well, my father was before he died, anyway. I didn’t do anything to deserve celebrity status, but it just kinda comes with the territory. People are obsessed with the offspring of rich people. I don’t get it. The whole heiress thing . . .” At the edge of his vision he saw her shrug. “It means you never know who’s watching. And when your parents are powerful, you never know whether the people around you actually like you or they’re just using you. Sometimes I get tired of being judged on things that don’t matter, like how I look or what I’m wearing. Who I’m dating. There are other things that matter, you know? I’ve never done anything important in my life. I’ve never done anything to make myself happy either. Amused? Yes. But happy?”

  The end of her statement had become more of a rant, and the last word rang in his ears.

  Happy was such a nebulous feeling. It was fleeting and had so many shades and nuances it was hard to know he’d felt that way about a moment until it had passed. There was no time to think about whether he was happy when he was in the middle of feeling it.

  There were events in life that made people reassess things. For Luke it had been his mother leaving, their friend Konstantin dropping out of their group and going straight, and last year, Fox almost dying. Moments like that altered the way a person saw the world. From the sounds of it, Ophelia had never had the chance to be herself, and had also just lost the only family member she was close to. It had to be overwhelming. Freedom, or the illusion of it, at such a terrible cost.

  “So we’re going to Glacier because . . . ?” he asked.

  “It’s where my father always said he was inspired to start his hotel chain. Now that he’s gone . . .” She rolled the window back up and started to fiddle with the radio. “Never mind. It’s my problem. Not yours.”

  She shut down again.

  He just wanted to hide her behind his back and deal with her problems for her. If only she would tell him what they were.

  Chapter 7

  Thoughts of her father distracted her for a long while. Memories of him teaching her how to play chess, taking her to Disney, showing up at her school pageants. He’d been far more engaged than most of her friends’ parents had. Hell, Chloe’s dad had shipped her off to boarding school for years after he’d gotten remarried.

  After her parents had split, it’d been mostly her and her dad. Buddies. She’d even traveled with him, and her nanny, Louise, had only minded her during meetings.

  As she’d gotten older, Louise had retired, her relationship with her mom had become more and more distant, and then it’d really just been her and her father.

  Over the years, they’d had long discussions about the business, but it had always been theoretical. Sure, she’d gotten her degree in business, but it’d felt like a “just in case” degree. Her dad had been relatively young, and healthy, so she’d never thought about running the place herself. Not seriously. There was supposed to be time for all of that. Much later. When she felt more ready and her father wanted to retire.

  There’d been talk about her doing an internship, but she’d put it off. Now it was too late. For the moment, her father’s trusted advisors and managers were running the show, but eventually she’d have to start making decisions, and everyone knew she didn’t know what she was doing.

  “So, what do you do for a living?” she finally asked. Dwelling on her own problems wasn’t getting her anywhere today.

  “My cousins and I run a computer software and servicing company.”

  Computers? He didn’t seem like a tech geek.

  “Really?” she asked, skeptically.

  “Yeah.”

  She chuckled. “I call bullshit. What do you do for real?”

  He arched a brow. “What do you think I do?”

  Studying him in profile, she speculated. “Model?”

  “Thank you for that, but no. And why would I need a cover story for being a model?”

  “Porn star? Stripper? Escort?”

  His chuckle filled the car. “Do you wish I was?”

  “No, that would be too intimidating for me. Can you imagine?” She wrinkled her nose at the idea of trying to impress a guy who would probably be unimpressible. “With a voice like yours you could be a phone-sex worker.”

  “I’m not involved in the sex trade, no matter what you’re currently fantasizing about.”

  She thought of giving him a playful swat, but he was driving and the memory of his reaction when she’d poked him in the chest gave her pause. For a moment he’d looked bigger and meaner, and she’d almost run screaming, or spontaneously orgasmed.

  “Are you a mobster or a mercenary or something?”

  Luke went still rather than laugh it off like she’d expected him to. “We run a software company.”

  Shit. He was some sort of criminal.

  What kind, though? She had friends who did illegal things all the time, like smoke pot or bribe professors, but what were her limits? Different ideas ran through her head. If she got too close to the truth, would he kill her?

  Here she was, driving almost to the Canadian border with some guy she just met. Money wasn’t a problem for him if he paid for last night’s hotel room, and all of their camping equipment, without blinking. He also hadn’t had to book time off work. She’d assumed he was some sort of entrepreneur, but seriously? She’d been lost in her own little world for weeks, but she should have had more of a sense of self-preservation than this.

  Maybe stealing her car hadn’t been a prank. Maybe that was his job.

  Hmm. A car thief? That was . . . kind of hot. Obviously he didn’t want to talk about it, bu
t was she really going to let some criminal she barely knew get kinky with her? Did he have a gun? Did he kill people?

  No. Not murder. He didn’t seem the type.

  Oh god, was she going to turn into one of those women who only dated guys in jail?

  She let her gaze linger on his wickedly handsome face, then moved downward to the way his T-shirt clung to the muscles of his chest. On his tattooed arms, small red lines streaked across his skin and she remembered having scratched him there in the fitting room. Luke was the kind of man who could hold her down and make her like it.

  Hell yeah, she was going to let him get kinky with her. Who the hell cared what he did for money? She wasn’t sure why she trusted him so completely, but she did. Anyway, once this trip was over she doubted she’d see him again. It was kind of . . . freeing. A kinky one-night-stand, only for more than one night. With him she could do anything she wanted—be a different person. She’d already told him more about her secret sexual thoughts than she’d told anyone.

  Talk turned back to safer, lighter topics for a long while, but Luke’s mood seemed to change after the last gas-station stop. They sat in the parking lot, and she wondered what he was waiting for.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked. “You seem tense.”

  “No, not tense. I was just looking at the map on my phone. Either we can stay at a hotel in Butte or we can camp. If we’re camping, we need to turn off here before we get too much closer to town.”

  He’d change his mind about camping now? After everything he’d bought?

  “Well, what are the pros and cons?” she asked.

  “A hotel has a restaurant for dinner. Shower. Sink. Toilet. Other people nearby.”

  “Yes, believe it or not, I know a lot about hotels,” she joked. She’d practically lived in them when she was a kid. “Tell me why I want to go camping.”

  His dark eyes froze her where she sat. “Camping means being alone with me. Trusting me. No one around to hear you scream.”

  “Are you trying to scare me?”

  “Princess, you don’t even know my last name. Do you really think you should be going somewhere secluded with me?”

  “If I wasn’t safe with you, you wouldn’t ask me that.”

  “Unless I was extremely clever.”

  She snorted. “You’re too hot to be that clever.”

  “That’s possibly the worst compliment I’ve ever been given,” he scolded. “I think you need a spanking.”

  “You think so?” She nibbled on the end of her thumb, and he watched the movement of her mouth the same hungry way he had when she’d eaten the candy bar. It was exciting to know that a sexy, slightly scary guy found her hot. So many men she knew played it cool with girls, but not Luke. At least, not with her. He had a quiet, intense interest that made her feel both powerful and vulnerable. It made her want to buy a lollipop and eat it suggestively in front of him, just to see how long it would take until he snapped.

  When she was sure he was watching, she sucked on the tip of her thumb for a moment, pretending she wasn’t paying attention to him. He turned away from her and stared hard out the window. Curious, she glanced casually at his lap, and the big bulge in his jeans made the last of her misgivings about being alone with him magically disappear. If she was going to have a fling with a stranger, one with a big dick was a bonus.

  “Camping, I guess.” She shrugged but stared down at her hands, wondering if that was enough of a hint to show her interest.

  “Brave girl,” he said. “Or are you secretly hoping I’ll make you scream?”

  Her cheeks heated. He must have noticed because he chuckled darkly.

  The SUV started to move. He pulled back onto the highway, then veered off onto a side road soon afterward.

  “If we’re going to mess around, you’ll need to remember your safeword.”

  “Okay.” God, just wondering what he might do made her need to get off again even though he’d just given her an orgasm a few hours before. If she had a coat or something to drape over her lap she might give in to the temptation of fixing the problem herself, crazy as it was. It wouldn’t take long.

  They drove for a while, made a few turns. Stopped. Turned around and went down another road. He stopped again, this time in a pretty clearing edged with trees.

  “It’s beautiful here!”

  “It is,” he agreed. “I’m not sure if we’re staying here though. I have to see whether we’re as close to the water as I think we are.”

  He got out of the SUV, and she unbuckled and followed him into the trees. Although he checked his phone, he kept walking in more or less the same direction. A couple of minutes into the woods, they came to an opening that turned out to be a small river. It meandered through the forest, slow and lazy, gleaming in the late sunlight like a blue ribbon that had spilled from its spool. There was scrubby grass from where they stood, right to the riverbank.

  “Sand at the bottom of the river here. Nice,” Luke commented. “There may be good fishing down by the weeds there, too.”

  “Fishing?”

  “Yup.”

  “But I thought . . .” She couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence. Fishing was not what she had in mind.

  He caught her chin between his thumb and forefinger. “I need to set up the tent and we need to eat something before I defile you. If I can be patient after being teased all day, you can be patient too.”

  “Defile me?” She laughed nervously, trying to ease some of the tension. “Does that involve locking me in your tower and ripping my bodice open or something?”

  His gaze dropped to the front of her shirt. “I could probably rip through that if you’d like. I might need to use the utility knife I bought.”

  Was he teasing? He had to be teasing.

  Shit.

  His smile was evil.

  And here she was in the woods alone with him, where no one could hear her scream. “Um,” she fumbled through some responses in her head, then swallowed hard. “I don’t think I’m ready for that.”

  “So we’ll put knife play on your hard-limit list.” He winked, and the danger was gone.

  But the danger had been fun . . .

  “For today,” she shot back, then wondered where that had come from.

  His gaze moved over her, neutral, dangerous, assessing. A man who’d maybe played with knives before and had liked it.

  She shivered.

  “Fair enough.” His voice was orgasmic. It made her want him to whisper sexy threats in her ear.

  They walked back to the SUV and unloaded, then carried the tent and supplies to the edge of the tree line. He had her read the directions for the tent while he ignored her and set it up, like he’d done it a million times before and just needed to keep her busy. The air mattress and sleeping bags were next, then they moved their clothes in but left the snacks in the SUV to keep away animals.

  Next, he took her down to the river to fish. She sat on a boulder and watched him with interest as he cast the line and waited. This suddenly felt so surreal. Just last night she’d been getting hammered at a party and now she was in the middle of nowhere about to eat fresh-caught fish for dinner with a man who had dastardly plans for her.

  As strange as things had turned out, she was glad of it. Something about this whole thing felt . . . right. Getting away from the monotony, from people pestering, and from her own sad memories. Doing something spontaneous was exactly what she’d needed.

  Luke caught a fish far faster than she would have thought possible, then they walked back to the campsite. There, he started a fire, cleaned the fish, then wrapped it in the aluminum foil they’d picked up, and set it on the outer edge of the heat.

  “Who are you? Bear Grylls?” she asked above the crackling fire. They were sitting on top of one of the sleeping bags they’d dragged out next to the fire. “Were
you an Eagle Scout or something?”

  With a modest shrug, he answered, “I’m just good at outdoorsy stuff.” He smiled, and she noticed again how his canine teeth were pointy enough to make a girl nervous. “My cousins and sister and I did a lot of camping with our dads.”

  Her father had been from large family and had grown up poor, so he’d always said he would never sleep on the ground again by choice. They’d traveled and stayed in dozens of hotels but had never been camping. She’d never understood what the fuss was all about until now. There was something soothing about it. Even the less pleasant parts, like bugs and lack of plumbing, made her feel more grounded. She felt a little tougher, a little wilder.

  They ate the fish with their fingers right off of the makeshift foil plate. It was the best she’d ever eaten. When they were done, they cleaned up, stashing anything that smelled like food in the SUV.

  “So what next?” Luke asked as the sun dipped toward the horizon. “A swim, or are we waiting until morning?”

  She shrugged. “Up to you. The only problem is I forgot to buy a suit.”

  “Darn.” The man didn’t look the least bit dismayed on her behalf. “I suppose you can wear your bra and panties. Or you can just go naked. No one will see us.”

  “You’ll see me.”

  “I’ll also see you later when I tie you up and fuck you.”

  She just stared at him, her heart drumming fast.

  “But all of it is your choice,” he continued. “I’m willing to go as far as you’re interested in going. I’ll also stop anytime you want me to.”

  “I . . . don’t . . .” she mumbled, stopped.

  He arched a brow. “You don’t want to do what? Do any of it? It’s fine if you don’t.”

  Crap. He was going to think she was backing out.

  “No, it’s not that,” she mumbled. “I don’t . . . want to choose what we do.”