Love Op: A Spicy, Cat-And-Mouse, Thriller Rom Com (Love and Other Jobs Book 5)

18. Mattie

Pressure on the bruise sliced through the pain in my heart. I sucked in a harsh breath as Kael hovered his lips over mine, and the knowledge that my body was his, that I would breathe and feel and be at his command brought me a euphoric kind of peace. I needed this. I needed him. The terror had been so consuming, I had almost lost myself to it. I’d known he wouldn’t hurt me had he used the knife, but it wasn’t Kael I was afraid of.

It was him. The one I refused to acknowledge. The one who haunted my nightmares and controlled me like an insidious disease from the inside. I’d do anything to not feel that. And Kael was clearly willing to take my fear from me, turn it inside-out and lavish it on my body in the way I craved.

He shifted his hand on my neck, cupping the back of it and tugging me up to meet his lips. But where our kiss had been frantic and needy a moment ago, it had turned slow and seductive. It was like Kael wanted to savor my mouth one course at a time, piece by piece, until he had feasted on my lips and left nothing behind. He filled me with the scent of him, with mint and tingly eucalyptus, and then he filled my mouth, claiming me and plunging his tongue deep in a way that made my pussy ache for the same treatment.

I reached up to cup his face, my fingers scraping along his rough jaw. He trailed his hands up the undersides of my arms, causing me to shiver with pleasure, and then he lifted my hands to my head with my wrists crossed. “Up here,” he ordered softly. Then he palmed the back of my head, scattering the pins that held my hair to one side. He pressed his other hand to the small of my back, pulling me into his kiss and arching my back.

I kept my hands crossed on top of my head, and he slid his left hand around my bare torso, burning a path to my breasts until he folded his hand over one with a punishing squeeze. “Tell me you’re mine.”

“I’m yours,” I whispered, letting my head fall back and my eyes close as his lips sketched a line up my jaw and to the sensitive spot where my pulse thrummed. He kissed me softly, and then he stepped away, leaving me cold. I opened my eyes, arms still over my head, and watched with fascination as he picked up his black silk tie from the floor.

“You’re going to prove it. You want to feel? Then that’s what you’ll do. Close your eyes.”

I obeyed, and the tie slid across my vision, blocking out the rest of the light. Kael tied it tightly, cinching it around the back of my head and knotting it deftly. His hands tickled up and then down my arms, and he bent down to stroke a warm breath along the curve of my neck. “I like you on display like this, Mattie.” My breath hitched, and then I jumped as Kael’s hands skimmed down my waist and squeezed my hips. “How many times did you escape me, little rabbit?”

“Three,” I gusted out.

“And how many times are you going to come for me?”

My skin tingled as his hands swept over my bare waist before grasping the button on my white jeans. “Three.”

“Wrong.” He popped open the button, and with one hand teasing my nipple and the other unzipping my pants, he kissed the bruise on my neck. “I don’t get even, Bunny. I get revenge.”

Oh, fuck me dead.

Kael pinched my nipple with his left fingers while his right pulled up on the waistband of my black lace thong, stretching it taut and rubbing it against my clit with burning pressure. I groaned, leaning back and pushing my pelvis forward against the pull of the fabric. He lightly nipped the bruise on my throat, and the pain sent a jolt of pleasure between my legs. “You’re giving yourself the first one,” he whispered against my skin.

I released a sound of disbelief, but then he was guiding me down to the couch where he laid me out with my head on the cushy arm. “Kael—” I started.

“Hand down your pants,” he instructed. With the blindfold on, I couldn’t see him. I didn’t know if he was watching or what he was thinking. I only knew the throbbing need at the apex of my thighs. And then I felt his hand on mine, dragging my fingers over my nipples and then slowly down my abdomen. “Come on, baby,” he whispered roughly. “Show me.”

The fact that he hadn’t even asked me to undress all the way somehow made this hotter. Like he’d caught me masturbating by myself in my apartment and wanted to watch me finish. I slid my hand beneath my underwear, and at the first touch of my fingers to my hot center, I sucked in a shallow breath. “Oh, God.”

Kael’s mouth descended on my breast, fogging a warm breath over my nipple before flicking out his tongue to tease the bud. “Move, Mattie. Make yourself come, or I’m adding one to your tally.”

“Fucking hell,” I gritted out. With darkness enshrouding my vision and Kael everywhere else—his scent, his warmth, his touch on my sensitive flesh, the taste of his minty kiss in my mouth—I moved my fingers against my clit. I found a familiar rhythm, swirling, pressing, and teasing up and down, and then around. I dipped my fingers lower, coating my first two fingers in my own moisture and then using it to lubricate my movements. I climbed so fast, a trill of apprehension fluttered my heart. When Kael let out a sound of satisfaction and nipped the outside of my breast, I jolted right to the top of the orgasm. “Fuck, Kael,” I gasped.

“Come on baby. This is just the appetizer.”

“Oh my God,” I groaned, my fingers teasing and pulling me closer to a breaking point.

Kael continued, his voice low and encouraging. “I’m starving for you, Mattie.”

“Fuck,” I gusted, my legs tensing.

“You close?”

I nodded frantically.

“Then come for me.” I did, breaking around my fingers and tensing as a delicious metronome of pleasure pulsed from my drenched pussy up to my fingers, where I held them against the tremors. Kael kissed my temple. “You think you can hold onto that feeling?”

Breathing hard, I tried to settle my spinning, euphoric thoughts. “H-hold on?”

“I want you to remember it,” he murmured, kissing my cheekbone, my cheek, and then hovering over my lips. “Because when I make you come so hard, you see stars, I want you to remember that giving into me is so much better than relying on yourself.”

“Fu—” I started, but Kael cut me off, kissing me slowly, languorously, savoring the taste like that really had been the appetizer and he was just getting started on a ten-course meal. Without taking off my blindfold, Kael slipped his hands under my body and lifted me in a bridal carry style.

“I feel like I know the answer,” he murmured, nuzzling me in a way that was so sweet, I almost melted on the spot. “But I’m going to ask anyway to tick the boxes. Are you tested? On the pill?”

“Yes and no,” I replied, leaning against him as he carried me wherever he planned on going. “I haven’t had any access to medical care on the run. But I haven’t been sexually active, either. Not since the last time I was tested.”

Kael stopped in his tracks. “What?”

I shrugged. “It didn’t come up… much.” I couldn’t trust anyone.

“It didn’t come up,” he repeated. “Matilda Thorne, the way you talked, you made me think… fuck. You are experienced at this, right? You know this is a scene, and you know what boundaries are?”

I bristled. “Yes.”

Kael started walking again. “Why don’t I believe you?”

“I am,” I insisted. “I like sex. And I’ve had plenty of it. I had girlfriends before… everything. And a few men after.”

He juggled me in his arms, adjusting his hold, and then a door opened. I knew immediately, even though I couldn’t see it, we were in his room. Eucalyptus and the warm, comforting scent of Kael swirled around me. “Mattie, I’m about to lay into you—I’m not holding back, because you asked me not to. So, if you aren’t sure…” he trailed off.

“Don’t,” I replied vehemently. “Don’t hold back.” Kael dropped me on his bed, and I bounced with a soft, “oof,” before I felt his warmth and the hard contours of his body around mine.

“Last chance to change your mind,” he replied, his voice deep and reverberating from his chest to mine. “You have a safe word, but I know you. You’re stubborn, and I don’t want you to feel trapped by anything.”

“I want to,” I whispered. Being blindfolded was maddening. His lips were at my throat, and then my shoulder, and his hands caressed and squeezed just before his teeth nipped my nipple when I least expected it.

“Alright,” he said, dropping a kiss just above my nipple. “You asked.”

I shuddered, my thighs squeezing together as desire flared to life again. I’d had a pretty good orgasm on the couch—just knowing that he’d been watching me had been enough to get me there fast and let me down with supple ecstasy. But I knew Kael hadn’t been bluffing when he said the best was yet to come.

Literally.

Or, if not the best, then something I had never experienced before. Something darker and richer than I’d had before, and I knew that only someone like Kael, with his hard edges and steel eyes full of experience and hurt, could deliver it.

Kael twined his fingers in my hair, gathering a fistful before slowly but inexorably pulling my head all the way back until the column of my throat lay exposed and my breathing picked up. I could tell he was experienced by the hair pulling alone. He’d gathered enough hair that when he pulled, it displaced the tug and caused the faintest, tantalizing tingle to spread across my scalp.

He licked a line from the base of my throat to my pulse point. “You taste so fucking good, Mattie. I want to eat out your cunt until you scream for mercy. Do you want that?” I nodded, and he pulled my hair harder. “Yes or no.”

“Yes,” I gasped.

“Do you know the one word I’ve never heard you say to me?” he mused, tightening his hold at the roots and causing beads of tears to form at the outer corners of my eyes.

“No,” I replied, strained.

Kael loosened his grip, and his breath caressed my throat as he sighed the word. “Please.”

I shifted under him, the mere mention of the word causing my pride to wretch and heave like it would be sick all over my ego. “I’m s-sure I have.”

“No,” he murmured confidently, kissing his way down to the base of my throat and then in a straight line toward my breasts. “You haven’t. But you will.”

Oh hell,I thought with an internal groan. “Eh…” I hedged.

Kael’s teeth grazed my right nipple just before he pinched it between them. I shrieked, arching off the bed. His tongue flicked, teasing the sensitive peak. What had been pain a split second before sparked into desire so potent, it rushed through my bloodstream. “Kael,” I huffed.

He released me, and the warmth of his body left mine. “Don’t take off the blindfold, but I want you naked by the time I get back.”

“Which is whe—wait, where are you going?” I sat up, my skin pebbling with cold from his absence.

“Trust me, Mattie.” His voice was further away, then, and I pulled a skeptical face.

Trust. Obviously, that was important here, so I slid my tight, white jeans down my legs, and then I removed my soaked underwear, throwing them both somewhere onto Kael’s bedroom floor. Just in time, apparently, because the bed dipped and then he was back, running a strong, calloused hand along the curve of my waist and to my bare legs.

“You are stunning,” he said with a husky edge to his voice. He sounded as needy as I felt. Then his hand returned to my arm, and lifting himself over me, he smoothed both palms along my arms until he straightened them perpendicular to my body, off to either side. His hands covered mine, forcing my fingers to bunch the sheets. “Hold on tight, Mattie.”

I let out a sound that was halfway between nervous and excited, and then a button clicked. The buzz of a vibrator filled the quiet bedroom, and just as I realized he’d gone to my room to get my powerhouse of a vibrator, he pressed it against my slit. I gasped, fists bunching the sheets and body contracting. “Thanks for letting me borrow this,” Kael stated, and I heard the smile in his voice.

“How did you know I h-ah!” I yelped as he turned it up and pressed it right against my clit.

“How did I know you had it?”

Kael moved the vibrator up and down, massaging my clit and vaginal opening, which he had somehow guessed was exactly what I wanted. No, I thought with a mental forehead smack. He’s not guessing. He watched you do it to yourself on the couch.

“You’re you, Mattie. You’re the most independent,” he pinched one of my nipples, hard enough to draw another surprised breath from my lips, “stubborn, self-sufficient woman I know.” He clicked the button, turning the wand up to nearly unbearable strength. I writhed under him, but he only loosened his hold on my nipple to roll the pad of his thumb over it. “Of course you had a vibrator.”

“Fuck,” I cried. My hips rose and fell in tandem with the toy, and I knew at this setting and with direct stimulation, I was headed right for another orgasm.

But Kael pulled it away, suddenly, and laying the toy on my pelvis, he positioned it so it thrummed just shy of anywhere I really wanted it to be. “Spread your legs, Mattie. I want to see how wet you are for me.” Desperate for release already, I gritted out a sound of frustration before widening my knees a fraction. Kael delivered a slap to my inner thigh that woke up my nerves. “I said spread your pussy. Or didn’t you hear me?”

I pulled in a breath as the tingle where his palm had connected with my skin spread like menthol over the area. I felt alive. My heart beat furiously in my chest and my skin sang like it had been asleep for years and just now realized it could feel.

Kael pushed my legs so far apart, my tendons pulled, and then his tongue licked a line around the outside of my pussy. I cried out again, this time because I needed him there. I needed pressure, a stroke, a touch, something. Because the vibrator was driving me wild with the promise of something to come, and Kael was taking his time, kissing, nipping, licking everywhere but where I wanted him to.

“Kael,” I groaned.

“If you’re starting to beg,” he replied with a savage gruffness in his voice. “Then we’re right where we need to be.” His tongue dipped into my pussy before swirling around my clit without really touching where I needed him to.

“Kael,” I repeated, this time slapping the mattress with my hand.

“Move that hand again,” he warned, stopping entirely. “And you’ll feel the sting, Mattie.”

“Fuck,” I hissed.

“You’re saying all the wrong words, gorgeous,” he teased. “Come on, then. Let’s hear it.”

My stubbornness nearly won out. I knew what he wanted me to say, but honestly, how fucking dare he? When he knew I needed this, when he wanted it, and I wanted it, and instead, he was just playing with me. But then Kael sank his tongue inside of me so impossibly deep, my hips thrust up to meet him and I felt like I might close in on myself like a dying star if I didn’t get the relief I craved. “Please,” I huffed.

Kael chuckled against my sensitive skin, and it vibrated through me just before his teeth closed gently around my clit. I screamed, arching, but he held my legs down as his tongue lavished several strokes over the bud before he sucked. My fists tightened their hold on the sheets, and my legs trembled as the intensity of pleasure rocketed through me with terrifying force. “Oh my God,” I panted.

Kael released me, only to dip and lick his way around my pussy like he was making good on what he’d said earlier, and I was the entree he’d been starving for. Just when I thought I had reached my peak, when I thought I would break and shatter into an orgasm unlike anything I’d experienced before, he eased away. “No,” I breathed out. “Kael, please.”

“I’m going to come just hearing you beg, Bunny. It’s so fucking hot.” I garbled out an unintelligible noise because he sucked my clit back into his mouth and was moving his tongue up and down over the tip of it in a way that made my shrouded vision go white. Like a rubber band snapping in half, my body pulled inward, and an orgasm so intense that it took over my limbs and mind, and probably my actual soul, rocked through me.

I broke in Kael’s mouth, shattering into waves of ecstasy that tore through me and made me think that maybe I’d been doing my own orgasms wrong this whole time. Because nothing had felt like this. Nothing had pulled pulsing waves of pleasure so intense from me that I slowly melted into a mess of sweat and exhaustion. “Oh my God,” I panted again. “Oh my God, Kael.”

“Take off the tie,” he ordered.

I reached up with shaking hands to remove the blindfold. When I did, I found two wolf-like, blue eyes watching me with the sharp gaze of a hungry predator. Kael had brought himself between my legs and held his muscled body over mine. “How many was that? Tell me out loud how many times you’ve come.”

“Two,” I whispered, a little in awe.

“Not a bad start,” he said, quirking his mouth off to one side.

It was only then I realized the vibrator was still going, and he had it in his hand. My eyes went huge. “Wait, Kael, I ca—”

Kael brought it right down onto my sensitive clit. I gasped, eyes closing, and head thrown back. I tried to reach down to stop him, but Kael sat back on his heels, still between my legs, and delivered another slap to my inner thigh that distracted me from the intensity of the vibrator on my sore clit. “Don’t tell me what you can or can’t do, Mattie. Your body is mine. The sooner you accept it, the better.”

I gripped the sheets with my hands off to the side again, gritting my teeth. “It’s too much, Kael. I can’t.”

“You have a safe word. Are you using it?”

I bit my tongue. He had the vibrator just off to the side of my clit, and the more he kept it there, the more the sharp intensity of it had eased, and the more I was craving it staying there. “No,” I bit out finally.

“Good girl. Then come for me again.”