And despite my protests, I’m glad.
When we reach the door that I think is mine – it’s hard to tell, given that I’m more used to looking at the back of it – Tommy steps in with me, casting a look around. He examines the floor closely over near the bed – I notice that a rug which used to be there is now missing – and looks the rest of the room over by turns.
“What are you looking for?” I ask, standing near the bed, watching him.
“Anything,” Tommy says, with an enigmatic frown. He must sense that I’m staring at him, waiting for a more explanatory answer, because then he looks up and sees the expression on my face and continues. “Anything that might hurt you.”
“I’m not made of glass,” I say. “I’m going to be fine.”
“You don’t get it, do you?” Tommy says, rounding on me fiercely all of a sudden. His hands come up and take my arms, sending tingles through my veins even though we were closely touching just a few minutes ago. “It’s my responsibility to keep you safe. I failed in that. Now I have to make absolutely sure it doesn’t happen again.”
“You didn’t fail,” I say, softly, unsure what’s come over him now. “You saved me from him.”
Tommy’s mouth works for a moment, going from a thin, tense, straight line to a downwards curve, his lips twitching as if he wants to say something. But he only lets go of me and turns away, his intense, dark eyes flicking away from mine and down to the floor.
There’s a moment of silence, a long moment that stretches out ahead of us. I don’t exactly know what to say. I feel bewildered – like I’m part of a play for which I don’t know the lines. The way Tommy reacted – I just can’t understand it. It’s more than simply looking out for me, upholding a personal reputation. He’s acting as though I’m more to him than that as if he cares about me. As if he wants to protect me.
I don’t want him to go – I know that much. I clear my throat shyly, immediately regretting drawing his attention, and will myself to say what I want to say. “I don’t know what time it is, but it looks like it’s getting dark outside. Maybe we should have dinner.”
Tommy glances at his watch as if surprised, and rubs a hand over his mouth. For a long moment, I think he’ll say no, and my heart quails in my chest. “Alright,” he says. “I’ll call down and have them bring it up. I’m not leaving you on your own – not even for a minute.”
I’m glad. Hesitantly, I go to sit down on the very edge of the bed, facing toward the door. I watch as Tommy slips a phone out of his pocket and speaks into it tersely, telling someone to have our food made and brought up, and then he turns to me again. Every angle of his body is tense, rigid.
He was scared, I realize. Scared that something might happen to me. That’s why he’s so tense and overprotective now.
“You should sit down,” I say, tentatively. “Relax.”
It feels strange, me giving orders to this man, who is so much more used to giving them. But he looks like he needs it. Like he won’t be able to relax if no one tells him to.
After a moment, he moves, giving in to some inner battle between whether he should do what he’s told or be the firm leader everyone expects him to be. Then he sits, beside me – not in the chair, like I thought he might – but beside me on the bed, making the mattress dip slightly in his direction. Without warning, my heart flies up into my mouth and begins to pound, feeling him so close to me again.
It’s the same feeling that started when I was in his arms. It’s the same thing I felt last night when he left the room and I wanted to run after him and beg him to stay. It’s a heat, a desire, rising up between us. I wonder if he can feel it, or if it’s only me. I want to do something, to make something happen.
I glance shyly down and sideways, at his hand that rests on the bed between us. I want to shift towards him, to open things up between us, but I can hardly bear to look at him. All the uncertainty returns, the questions over whether he would even want me. I probably look like a kid to him, while he could have any woman he might want. Models, real beauties – people who make me look like a wallflower.
But still, I want him. I cast my eyes down again, wondering what to do. Should I try and kiss him? Look at him and let him see my face, and hope that he guesses what I want? Should I tell him in words?
With all the uncertainty I simply sit, my heart pounding, until I finally dare to turn my head just a little to the side, watching his hand again, gathering the courage to lift my gaze further.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Tommy
I’m not imagining it. Something has changed in the air. I thought I might have felt it earlier when I held her in my arms until we pulled away from one another. I felt it and then it was gone, and I thought that perhaps it was just wishful thinking – my imagination.
But I’m not imagining it now. There’s a heat rising between us, the magnetism of desire, and it isn’t only coming from me. Carina shifts her head just slightly, her eyes tilted down at my hand on the bed as if she wants to do something with it. Her body leans my way, her cheeks becoming flushed. We’re so close together that it would be so easy to reach out and touch me, but she doesn’t. She just looks, her eyelashes flickering over shy eyes.
But it’s real. The pull. The desire. The heat. I know it.
I lift the hand that she watches and bring it to cup her face, drawing her closer to me, even as I lean forward and down toward her. I lift her head to mine and claim her mouth, kissing her soft lips long and deep, and she doesn’t pull away. She doesn’t resist at all. In fact, she kisses me back.
A second hand joins my first, cupping her cheeks as I hold her in place and ravish her mouth, growing hungrier by the second. I flick my tongue across her lips and they open, letting me inside. I don’t have to be invited twice. Our tongues dance as she gives a small moan, almost just a puff of air, but it runs deep down into my gut and stirs me immediately.
I turn myself toward her fully, shifting closer until I can press her against me, kissing her even deeper. Now that we’ve begun, there’s a hunger inside me that is insatiable, wanting to taste her more, deeper, now. Even as we kiss it’s not enough. I break the kiss only for one moment, to take in her flushed skin and her lidded eyes, lazy with desire, and then I drop my mouth to her neck, her chin, her shoulder, devouring her. I hear her panting for breath, taste her racing heartbeat under her skin. She wants this. I want this. Why wait?
I guide her back, pulling her up over the bed to lay down against the pillows even as my mouth continues to move over her, from her lips to her cheekbones, her neck, her shoulder. She moans and shudders under me, and I feel her skin heating, knowing how eager she is for this. I crawl over her, my body on top of hers, lifting myself on hands and knees before I press myself down over her-
“Wait,” Carina says breathlessly, making me freeze in place. “J-just wait.”
I groan internally. We were getting so close. It was going to happen. And now what? I look into her eyes and see something I hadn’t expected, fear. Does she still think I will hurt her? Or that I would let her be hurt by anyone?
“I should tell you,” she says. “I’m a virgin.”
Now I freeze solid – truly, freeze. Of all the things I might have expected her to say… a beautiful young woman like her? With that body? Surely, it can’t be true? But I look down at her frightened expression, the innocent and youthful way her wide eyes stare up at me, and I know that she’s telling the truth.
I’m about to open my mouth to say something else, already moving off her, when I hear a knock at the door.
“Boss? I’ve got your dinner.”
Enzo. Just great. Perfect timing, as always.
With a groan, I get up from the bed, heading over to the door to open it and take the food.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Carina
Just like that, everything I foolishly allowed myself to daydream about shatters into pieces.
I sit up awkwardly as Tommy goes to the door, not wanting to s
tay in that vulnerable position. I scramble down from the bed, trying to rearrange my clothes, to make sure it doesn’t look as though we were doing what we were just doing.
How could I have been so stupid? It was a miracle that he even kissed me – I should have been satisfied with that. But no, I had to open my big mouth. I had to remind him how much younger than him I am, how much less experienced. I’ve put him off me, now. All the hope I had before is gone.
I hear muttered words at the door, and then Tommy brings in the cart full of food just like always. I take a seat in my armchair, clearing my throat awkwardly. I can still feel his lips on mine, taste his tongue. God, why did I have to ruin everything?
“Why did you move?” Tommy asks, bringing the cart to a stop next to the table.
I stare up at him in surprise. “I can’t eat in bed,” I say.
He smirks. “Well, first of all, you can,” he says. “But who said we’re eating?”
I gawk at him, probably looking like a total idiot. “The food came.”
“Yes. But we were in the middle of something,” Tommy says, looking pointedly over at the bed.
“I thought…” My cheeks flame before I can finish the sentence. I don’t want to say it out loud. It’s too embarrassing.
“What?” Tommy says. He moves to stand in front of me, cocking his head. Somehow, in spite of what we were doing, he barely looks ruffled, still sharp as ever in his suit. “You thought that I’m not interested in you anymore, because you’re a virgin?”
“Yes,” I say, my voice barely more than a whisper. Does he really need me to say it? Does he not think I’ve been humiliated enough already?
“Well, you’re wrong,” Tommy says. I look up at him sharply. Is he playing with me? Being cruel on purpose? “It doesn’t make me think less of you.”
“You froze up,” I say, accusingly. The embarrassment is fading now, perhaps because he’s given me something to feel a bit angry about.
“I was taken aback,” Tommy says. He reaches out a hand and I take it automatically in spite of myself, allowing him to draw me back to my feet. “A woman like you? I didn’t think it was possible that you could still be pure. You must have been fighting the boys off with a stick.”
“No,” I say, my face burning again. My eyes drop to the floor. Now I’m almost sure he’s teasing me. “I’ve never had that kind of attention.”
He laughs again, but it’s not cruel. More… disbelieving. “Come on. There must have been some.” He tilts his head. “Maybe you’re one of those people who can’t tell when someone is attracted to you.”
“I don’t think so,” I say doubtfully.
Tommy’s hand raises my chin until I look up at him. “Well. Can you tell that I’m attracted to you?”
I shiver under his gaze. “I don’t know,” I say again. With him looking at me like that, I’m not sure if I know my own name.
“I am,” he whispers, his breath hot on my neck as he swoops his head to kiss me there. A shiver goes through me, from my head to my toes. A shiver of want, and need, and some kind of magic. “I want you so badly.”
It’s all I can do to gasp quietly, a sound of pure desire, something I didn’t even know I could make.
“But tonight, I restrain myself,” he says. “This isn’t right.”
And just like that, my heart is plummeting down to my feet again.
“Just because I haven’t…” I start, wanting to protest that it’s fine, that it means nothing if I’m inexperienced. But he holds up a hand, silencing me.
“It’s not right for you to have your first time like this,” he goes on. “It should be special, not rushed. I should give you the whole world on a plate before I dare to deserve to take that from you. As much as I want you now, I would be doing you a disservice. It should be an event. Something planned for, to make sure you have everything you need. Everything you want.”
“But I want it now,” I tell him, wide-eyed and trembling. If he won’t put his hands on me again – won’t kiss me again – right now, I don’t know if I can take it.
“Don’t worry, Carina,” he says, his voice gliding luxuriously over my name again, like it’s a delicious treat. “Tonight, I can still give you something. A little taste.”
My heart thuds in my chest, faster and faster. What does he mean by that? A taste? Does he expect me to…?
He guides me back over to the bed and lays me down, just as I was before. I watch him with an insatiable wonder about what comes next, what he expects of me. But before I can ask his mouth is covering mine, devouring me hungrily once more, and my worries begin to fade away. I want this so much. Surely, he won’t stop just at kissing. Surely, he must know how torturous that is.
His hands drift down over me, over my shoulders and arms, then to clasp my waist. My eyes fly open at the touch, but I see his still closed, his brow smooth and his expression completely different from how he normally looks. Peaceful, almost, despite the need that runs like a current through both of us. I let my eyes slide closed, giving in to that feeling, letting my body turn to jelly under him.
When his hands travel down over my hips, then slide around to the front of my jeans, I can’t help but gasp in surprise. But, didn’t he say…? With his lips eating any words I might have been able to say, I can only give in to trusting him, letting him do what he will. He said he will give me a taste. I have to wait and find out what that means.
He lifts my hips without breaking contact, and slowly slides my jeans down my legs, letting cool air touch my skin. Excitement flutters in my veins, warring with nerves and trepidation. Will he think my body is ugly? That I’m too big? But even those thoughts drift away as I feel his fingers return, hooking into the waistband of my panties.
And, oh God, he’s taking them off.
The kiss finally breaks as Tommy looks down, down at me, as he pulls the panties away and down my legs, leaving me exposed. I blush and squirm. No one has ever seen me this naked, especially not up close like this, where he can actually look. My embarrassment intensifies as Tommy slides lower on the bed, leaning his face down toward me, as if he’s going in for a closer look – what is he doing? Examining me to see if I’m suitable?
But something else happens, something so quick I don’t know how to interpret it except as a burst of stars inside my head, and then I realize, he’s touching me, and not just with his fingers, but… with his tongue.
The surface of his tongue is rough and wet and warm against my skin, my most sensitive skin, and I can’t decide whether I’m blushing and wriggling because I’m so embarrassed or because it feels so good. I clench my hand in the sheets next to me, the other covering my mouth, fighting the twin urges to push him away and to hold him closer.
His tongue laps persistently up and down, at first slow, then gradually faster. I hear myself moaning as if from far away – I had no idea I would make such sound – as the sensation intensifies. I’m hyperaware of every touch, stars filling my veins and bursting from every place his tongue touches, driving me wild. I never want it to stop. I want his tongue to touch all of me, every part of me, every moment, always giving me this same feeling.
He shifts and the licking stops for just a moment, making me want to scream in protest. But before I can even open my mouth, he returns, his tongue lapping high up and his finger touching somewhere else.
His finger…
Tommy seems to be experimenting, at least as far as I can tell, or maybe showing me all the many possibilities that exist. His fingers and tongue perform different motions, making me groan, gasp, and buck my hips up uncontrollably, and when his tongue lashes deep inside me and his finger strokes that bundle of nerves that makes me lose control, I find myself gripping handfuls of the sheets on either side of me and clutching hard. I don’t even recognize the noises I’m making as they come out of me, and I feel a great pressure building up inside, a sweet and heavy pressure that I want to build and build and build. And it does under his tongue and his hands, the plea
sure rising, filling up all parts of me, until it feels like I will explode.
And just as I realize that I’m losing control, my eyes fly open in panic, and I look down and see him there between my legs, his eyes locked onto my face, and I can’t hold on. I let go and feel myself unravel, spinning out into pleasure only, joy, a tingling running through all of my limbs, rolling out in waves until I can only hold onto the bed against the twitches and jerks that roll through my body.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Tommy
I pull myself up beside Carina on the bed, laying my head on the pillows next to her, taking in her dazed expression. “Good?” I ask, with a grin because I already know the answer.
“Good,” Carina agrees breathlessly. I can see the beauty of the afterglow hanging over her, the slight flush in her cheeks, the faraway look in her eyes. I draw her close to me, against my chest, tucking her close to my heart.
I reach for my phone and look at the screen as I hold her with the other arm, typing one-handed. I send a message to Enzo, telling him that I won’t be available tomorrow for any business matters. Then I amend it for the rest of the week. Emergencies only. This week will only be about Carina, and especially tomorrow. It must be the most special I can make it, the best day of her life until now.
I put the phone to one side and allow my thoughts to drift. I know the men won’t like this. They’ve already been getting restless. Carina shivers slightly and I reach down to draw up a blanket, pulling it over her bare legs until she’s covered up, and she relaxes again. I need to do something, soon, to secure their loyalty again. It’s tedious, but this is the game we play. Every now and then, I have to remind them why they follow me – and what will happen if they choose to betray me.
Tension has been brewing in the city between us and our closest rivals, dealing with that should take care of two birds with one stone. But I’m sure it can wait until the week is done. It has to. I have other plans in mind.
Falling For His Captive Page 4
