by Rynne Raines
“You’re not convincing me.”
“Well,” she cocked her head, “I don’t know what more I can do to convince you. Guess you’ll just have to take my word for it.”
“Come with me.”
“What? Where?”
“To the shower.” He pulled her up from bed then dragged her toward the door.
“Wait a sec.” She dug her heels into the carpet and he let out a growl. “You smell clean to me.”
“I don’t plan on showering.”
“Then what?”
“I plan on watching you shower.”
Chapter Six
Dark streaks of crimson marked her cheeks while her doe eyes locked on his. In them, Cade noted the shock, but, more significantly, the annoyance. She didn’t appreciate how he was inserting himself into her daily life. He assumed having coffee with her, talking with her was far too intimate for casual lovers meant to share a tryst for the span of five days.
That’s exactly how he wanted it. Intimate. If he had to tie her down at the end of five days and keep her locked up until she saw reason, he’d do it. But for now, he would use every skill he possessed to break down her walls, get inside and show her just how good they’d be together.
“Lose the robe, angel.”
“I—no.” Her head shook furiously and he stifled his amusement. “No, this is ridiculous. You are not watching me shower.”
“No?” He arched a brow. “Listen, I was lenient with you at dinner yesterday, but don’t think for a second I won’t bend you over the ledge of this tub for your defiance, Bianca.”
She clutched the vee of silk at her breasts and tried to feign disinterest, but he knew her better.
“Now see, that is the exact opposite of what I’m asking of you.” He took an assertive step toward her, watched the hue in her cheeks deepen, then wound her long hair around his palm until his fist clenched at the base of her neck. The tension caused her neck to arch, and forced the pale blue flash of her eyes to his. “Apparently,” he murmured, “being restrained and having your ass branded with my mark is what you really want.”
Her eyes closed on the tail end of a quiet moan. “There’s nothing special about my showering ritual, I assure you it’s—”
“Ah,” he pressed two fingers against her lips, “I’m the one who’ll decide that… Submit to me, completely. It’s what we agreed to.” As his mouth brushed over her temple, she shuddered and it rocked him to the core.
Not a second longer and her hands drifted to the belt around her waist, her slender fingers slowly working the knot. The cascade of aqua blue poured off her shoulders and whispered to him as it skimmed her legs, then pooled in a crumpled heap around her ankles. It was pointless trying to stop the low growl of approval in the back of his throat and he silently cursed himself for it. The last thing any defiant submissive needed was praise.
Even if that submissive had the most magnificent body he’d ever set eyes on.
Christ, it was a good thing her eyes were closed so she couldn’t see his expression. Couldn’t have her getting the upper hand on him this early in the day.
However, while they were shut, he allowed himself to soak in the sight. Her legs were long, slender stilts—pale in complexion yet divine in shape. He remembered how strong they were, how much power they possessed fused around his waist when she wanted his cock deeper, harder. Shapely hips flared, enticed, seduced while her breasts rose and fell with short breaths. Although the air was warm, her nipples stood erect, tight and beautiful. He immediately wanted to suck one between his teeth and hear her cry out.
“Open your eyes.”
She softly sighed but obeyed. He noticed her tense when he leaned past her to crank on the faucets and grinned. Perhaps she’d thought he would make good on his threat and bend her over that ledge. As much as he wanted to, he had other things in mind.
“Water’s warm.” He shifted his eyes and stole a glance at the long, delicate line of her back.
“You’re really just going to watch?” Goosebumps covered her arms. He wanted to run his hands over her, but restrained himself.
“For now.” Back to the wall, he propped one foot against it, folded his arms loosely over his chest and waited.
Porcelain squeaked as Bianca carefully set one foot in after the other, then stepped under the spray. Her silhouette was a shadow against the half-closed curtain. As if time slowed, he could see each individual bead of water on her skin as it trickled along her shoulders, down her belly to the fine dusting of hair at her pelvis. His cock throbbed and he almost protested when she turned away from him into the water, but instead he bit it off and savored the view of her perfect round ass.
There was time.
Bianca cupped her hands under the hot needles, let water pool then splashed it over her face. However, the warmth didn’t help for a distraction. Although her eyes were closed tight, she felt him. His gaze burned her skin, probing the most intimate regions of her body with quiet domination. And she realized exactly what he was doing.
Without words, without physical contact, he was commanding her body. She blindly fumbled for the shampoo, dumped, lathered, rinsed. Only he possessed the power to make her pussy clench and her nipples ache, all without laying a hand on her. She repeated the ritual with conditioner, turning her backside to him. If he was making her suffer, so would he.
And she knew how her body affected him, remembered how he’d worshipped every inch of her with his mouth, his hands, his cock. He could play the indifferent Dom all he wanted, but his fingers had been shaky when they’d clenched in her hair. Whatever his reason, leaving last night didn’t change his attraction for her, or hers for him. The grounds for them parting ways had never been for lack of attraction.
“Turn around.”
She’d almost managed to convince herself that this was simply part of her daily routine, that there was not, in fact, a deadly handsome man an arm’s length away who was determined to only watch her bathe. “I’m almost done.”
Could he possibly torment her any more than he already had? Didn’t he know how much she wanted him to hoist her up against the cool tile, drive his cock inside of her and take her to the place only he could?
“Turn. Around.” he repeated in that low voice that her body obeyed, regardless of what her brain decided.
The tub squeaked as she pivoted on her toes to see him towering before her with a look in his eyes she was well acquainted with. Hunger. Even under scalding needles of water, she shivered.
“Not satisfied with watching any longer?” As a childish attempt at payback, she ran her tongue over the droplets coating her lips.
“As a matter of fact,” he reached for his belt, unfastened it, “I’m not.”
“W—what do you think you’re going to do with that?” Her heart raced at the jingle, at the long fluid stroke he used to draw it from the loops of his jeans.
“Pleasure you,” he answered and jerked off his shirt. He clenched the belt between his teeth before pushing one of the shirt’s long sleeves under the spray, until the navy cotton saturated and appeared black. Partly from anticipation, partly from the sight of rigid, tanned muscle tensed throughout Cade’s torso, Bianca’s tummy fluttered.
A squeak passed her lips when he wound the soaked cotton around her wrists and tied it, quicker than she could protest. “Wait—”
“Hush.” He linked her bound limbs to his belt, tossed one end over the shower bar and fastened it so her arms were fully extended above her head. Then he tugged at the belt. Apparently satisfied it was secure he stepped back. His head-to-toe survey of her made her nipples ache, and she squeezed her thighs together.
“Feet shoulder-width apart,” he demanded. “And I’ll tell you when you’re done showering.”
He was in full Dom mode, Bianca realized, his voice was calm and assertive, and this aroused him just as much as it did her. It wasn’t merely the savage bulge at the crotch of his jeans that gave him away. It was his eyes—intense
, focused, hungry.
“I thought you were just going to watch.”
“I changed my mind.”
He turned away from her and the cabinets clattered. Poking her head around the shower curtain as far as her restraints would allow, she scrunched up her face as he threw open the mirror on the vanity. Here she was naked and vulnerable and instead of man-handling her, he had his nose in her medicine cabinet? Irritated, she mentally slapped her hands on her hips and asked, “Are you looking for something specific?”
“Not exactly. I hadn’t planned on this, but I’m not a man who can’t improvise.” He rummaged. “Ah, this’ll work…for starters.”
With her arms extended far above her head, Bianca’s breasts heaved as a thrill ripped through her. Cradled in his large palm was her silk beauty sleep mask. Her irritation instantly melted into a hot pool of arousal. Part of her hoped Cade couldn’t see how excited this made her, but she was sure he could. It’s why he did it. He knew everything that turned her on. He was the definition of what turned her on. It wasn’t the long, toned body, the dark careless hair drifting over his forehead or even those intense emerald eyes that had the inner walls of her pussy clenching in violent spasms. Not saying those things didn’t help. But it was more how he dominated her with quiet coercion.
“Relax,” he murmured and brushed his mouth over her flexed fingers. “Do you remember the night I blindfolded you?”
“Yes.” Could she possibly forget? He had sexually tormented her with what she was certain was every toy ever created, until she had begged him to fuck her. “But we don’t have four hours before I need to be at work.”
“Then I’d better get started.”
Bianca caught the wicked flash in his eyes just before everything went black. His strong hands curved at the flare of her hips, and steadied her while she adjusted to the darkness and could keep her balance.
There was a time when she would have let him lead her blindly down the middle of the strip on a Saturday afternoon without hesitation, confident he would never mislead or steer her in the wrong direction. Although she’d known him only six nights and a day at that point, she had trusted him that much. Until that Sunday afternoon when she had discovered he wasn’t a one-woman man….
“Oh, God,” she moaned as Cade snatched one straining nipple between his teeth and severed her thought process. As his incisors pricked the rigid peak, her knees gave.
“Easy,” he whispered, just loud enough that the rich texture of his voice vibrated in her eardrums. “Keep your legs apart.”
“I’m trying,” she panted and blindly shook her head. “You’re not making it very easy.”
“That’s the idea.” He slid one hand up her ribcage and palmed her neglected breast while the other found its way between her legs. Two of his fingers parted her slick folds before he gently pinched her clit between his knuckles. Bianca dug her nails into the soft leather of Cade’s belt as her cleft flooded. Already, between the water pounding down her back, his lips and teeth plucking ruthlessly at her nipple and his talented fingers prodding her sensitive flesh, she was on the verge of a climax.
“You will not come, Bianca.”
Damn him.
Even after four years, he read the signs of her body.
“Then untie me,” she grumbled, twisting her hips away from his ministrations.
“Not going to happen.” He swung her back and when he pinched her clit a bit harder, she rose on her toes with a heady moan. “And I’m serious. Climax before I give you permission and I’ll punish you.”
He probed her pussy with his middle finger like an exclamation mark. She groaned, not only from the tip of his finger pressing up on her G-spot, but from the idea of Cade’s punishment. He’d always been a firm Master, but never cruel. In the end, his discipline always resulted in her fierce orgasm.
“Understand me?”
She couldn’t breathe, speak, think. Bianca bit hard on the inside of her cheek as he worked his finger in and out. The sharp sting of her molars against the soft flesh inside her mouth wasn’t enough to distract her.
When she didn’t respond, he pressed her clit down so it strained between the pad of his thumb and the finger inserted in her. “Answer.”
“Y—yes,” she finally managed in a strangled moan, then regretted agreeing the minute he inserted a second digit, spread his fingers apart and gently stretched her. Hot water spilled down her ass, poured over her sensitive entrance, and a thrill rocketed to the tips of her toes.
She’d entered into a losing battle.
“That’s my girl,” he murmured, then nipped at the delicate layer of skin above Bianca’s rapid pulse and quietly yanked on the button of his jeans. All the while he continued to work his fingers inside of her, snaking the tip of his tongue against her earlobe. He shucked out of his jeans then silently swore as his cock sprang up and grazed the soft skin of her tummy. At the innocent contact, his shaft pulsed and his thighs vibrated.
Christ, get it together, Sinclair.
If he gave in now it would end in short-term satisfaction. Incredible satisfaction, but still short-term. So he withdrew his fingers, fought the sound of her aroused whimper, stepped into the bathtub and prayed to God his willpower would hold long enough for him to finish what he’d started.
He grasped the detachable showerhead, cranked up the intensity setting, and hooked an arm around Bianca’s waist so he could spread her slick outer lips with his index and middle finger. When the liquid needles pelted her clit, she rocked her hips, but they had nowhere to go except against his crotch.
“Oh, God, you’re not playing fair.” She wriggled.
“I’m not playing at all, angel.”
He wouldn’t deny his tactics were underhanded. Over the span of his thirty-two years, Cade had realized there were times when you had to cheat in order to win. This time around, he didn’t plan on walking away empty-handed. That meant turning up the heat.
With the showerhead firmly in place against her quivering flesh, he smoothed his free hand over her ass, dipped his fingers between her cheeks and relished her sharp intake of breath. He remembered exactly what pushed her over the edge and planned to take her there before his self-discipline ran out. The tip of his finger rimmed her anus in small, wicked circles. “How long has it been since someone took you here?”
“Cade,” she chided, then weakly leaned her head against his shoulder while her thighs clamped the showerhead. The intimacy of the question aroused her more than anything he could do to her, he knew, and probed further.
“How long?”
“A long time.”
He flexed his jaw.
In his opinion, however long was not nearly long enough. He didn’t even want to think about someone else taking her in such an intimate fashion.
“Did he touch you like this before he took you?” He rested his mouth against her damp temple and pressed only the tip of his finger into her tight asshole. “Did he start slowly, inch by inch, stretching you first with one finger before adding a second?” Along with his description he joined a second finger, worked them past his knuckles, full hilt. She trembled against his chest and tried to squirm away from the water pulsing over her clit.
“You’re going to make me come…stop,” she begged.
“Did he stroke inside you with them gently or did he thrust them like this?” Her back arched as her head slammed into his collarbone and she sobbed out her arousal. His cock jerked at the sound, his knees liquefied. If he didn’t bring her to climax soon and get himself out of this shower, all hell would break loose.
With a labored breath, he swiveled his head, brushed back her wet hair with his chin. Then he began revolving the showerhead against her swollen cleft in rhythm with his fingers.
Christ, she has the sweetest ass.
“Are you thinking of him now, imagining him withdrawing his fingers and replacing them with his cock?”
“Yes…oh, God, I can’t stop it.” Her climax exploded in a su
ccession of violent convulsions but he held her steady as her muscles tightened on his fingers, making them impossible to move. Then the memory slashed at him. If he were inside her, she’d be milking his cock right now, draining him for every last drop. He shoved the reminiscence back inside the vault and remembered long-term success. Instead of arching back and driving his cock home, he pressed open-mouthed kisses along her sweat-damp temple, down her delicate jaw, and lightly grated the soft skin with his teeth. Then he reached for the belt with one hand, gave the buckle a yank. She teetered, but he caught an arm around her waist and pulled her back against him before she fell forward.
Mission accomplished.
Chapter Seven
Among the usual chaos of Bianca’s desk were stacks of Eden’s event paperwork, four dirty coffee mugs, and a small smirking monkey with over-sized cymbals clasped in both palms. The fluorescent lights overhead glared down on the stationery landfill with blatant disapproval. She ignored it, just as she ignored John and Vanessa’s rising voices outside in the hall.
You two’ll be the death of me.
Slumped over her desk, she did a quick scan of the room and her lips twitched into a scowl. How in the hell did her purse always manage to sprout legs at the most inconvenient of times?
The afternoon had run anything but smoothly. Her first lecture on ‘Respecting Your Partner’s Boundaries’ turned into a shouting match between Paris Ledwin and Marcus Hallwinky as the couple argued over what Marcus could or could not put in Paris’s ass. She should have known then to call it a day, go home and lose herself in a pint of cookie dough explosion.
With a curse, Bianca rolled back her chair, dropped to her hands and knees and crawled under the desk to search for the runaway handbag.
It wasn’t her style to be on edge like this. She was a down-to-earth, easygoing spirit. The last time she remembered aching for a man this badly was during freshman year. Back then, nothing got her hotter than watching computer nerd Baxter Beedlebum’s long, slender fingers fly over his keyboard. Even then, like with Cade, the universe had plotted against her, interrupting every opportune chance to put those fingers and surprisingly firm body to better use.
