Chapter 18
O nce we’re finished with our dinner, Kaplan cleans the entire mess up, tossing the trash in a nearby bin and then turns expectantly to me.
We talked all through dinner as if it was all so normal and with him here tonight, a nagging guilt is starting to plague my mind.
I need to tell him. I just don’t know how.
It’s not the sort of thing you blurt out and I… I don’t know how he’ll respond.
I’m terrified to lose him again.
Even when he’s a grumpy, cold, surly bastard toward me and I openly hate him. It’s just that something about being with him feels… right .
“Okay, I’m ready,” he states, standing from the table and tossing the last napkin into the large trash bin. “Tell me what to do.”
I take him in from head to toe, chewing on my lip as I try to suppress my laugh.
“What?”
“I can’t put you near the fire when you’re wearing Armani.”
He glances down at his body and then back up to me. “It’s Ferragamo.” Now a smirk. “Are you trying to get me to take my shirt off?”
I start to squirm, unable to stop it as I say, “Yes. I’d rather not set you on fire, if that’s okay. The cuffs of your shirt stick out.”
“Fair enough.” With his eyes locked on mine, he slowly undoes one button at a time, starting at the top, and holy hell, what have I gotten myself into?
My heart beats off-rhythm as heated pumps of lust rush through my blood.
He gets to the bottom, removing his shirt and tossing it onto the stool, leaving him in a black tank top undershirt showing off his arm muscles and tattoos and…
I take an inadvertent step forward, my eyes glued to his chest. To his left nipple.
“Does it hurt?” I whisper, staring at the outline of the barbell through the thin cotton that clings to every ridge and groove of him.
“Sometimes.” His voice a deep, rich timbre that gives me chills.
I look up and meet his eyes. “Does it feel good?”
My chest quakes.
The green of his eyes is nearly fully eclipsed with black pupils as he licks his lips and nods. “Sometimes. Depending on…”
“On what someone does to it?” I finish for him.
“Yes. Go on. You can touch it. I know you’re curious. It won’t hurt me and if it does, well, that’s partially the point.”
Oh .
Tentatively I reach up, my fingers ghosting over the softness of his shirt.
His strong, masculine scent is everywhere, and I take a deep inhale, so turned on when he hasn’t even touched me or hinted at it.
My clit throbs and my empty core aches. The moment my fingers reach his nipple they trickle along the hard peak of it to the barbell. I swallow down a moan.
I want to lift up his shirt and explore his piercing with my tongue. Lick my way around discovering each of his tattoos. I want to drop to my knees and take him in my mouth, taste him on my tongue. I’m so keyed up I can hardly think, my breaths coming out choppy despite my attempt to even them.
He shifts into me, his bare arm touching mine as I continue to explore the piercing over his shirt.
A low, raspy sound emanates from the back of his throat as I pull slightly on it, and I shudder against him.
My hand drops and I take a step back. If I don’t stop touching him like that, I’m going to climb him like a tree right here.
I clear my throat, turning around and heading for the forge. “I like it. Do you have any other piercings?” I ask airily, trying for unaffected and likely failing, only to realize my mistake a second later because there is only one other place he could be pierced that I haven’t seen on him.
Only it’s too late to take it back because at his silence, I turn my head over my shoulder. His heated stare makes my pussy pulse with desire, my inner thighs coated in my leaking wetness.
“Yes.”
Automatically my gaze drops to his groin. “There?”
Another, “Yes."
And oh my God. Ohmymotherfuckinggod!
“You like pain.” It’s more of a statement than a question after what he said before.
He watches me with an intensity that sets my skin ablaze as he says, “It’s more about pleasure than that.”
“Okay.” Because I have no clue what else to say. I’m so turned on I’m about to pass out. Again. Turning back to the fire, I point toward a leather apron he can put on and go about getting myself ready, but I’m frazzled, my thoughts frayed and dirty. So dirty .
Donning my gloves, I pick up the partially finished necklace, ready to start heating some of the metal when I feel him press in behind me, standing over me, his face over my shoulder as if he’s watching what I’m doing, but his breath is fanning against my cheek.
Swallowing thickly, I pick up a pair of pliers. “You don’t want to bend the metal unless it’s hot or you can dent it or even snap it.”
I put the necklace on a metal tray and bring it to the edge of the forge.
“I don’t want to melt it either, just warm it, so I have to be careful.”
“Uh-huh.”
I close my eyes for a moment, only to blow out a silent breath and force myself to concentrate. Never been my strong suit, to say the least. This man and his proximity are making my nerves go haywire.
A finger at the base of my neck startles me, jostling the metal tray and I quickly pull it back from the forge before I accidentally dump it over in there. “What are you doing?”
“You have a bead of sweat rolling down the back of your neck.”
“Oh-ahhh!” rushes past my lungs as his finger is replaced with his warm, wet tongue that glides up my sensitive skin.
“Now I’m tasting you.” His mouth continues to explore the back of my neck, kisses and licks and breath making me shudder and moan. His hand slips beneath my apron, finding the bare skin of my belly, tickling along it before shifting his wicked fingers up to the hem of my crop top.
“Kaplan—”
“You got to touch me. It’s only fair I get to do the same.
” His mouth continues its sensual assault on my neck, all the while his fingers walk up under my shirt, cupping my breast over my bra.
We groan in unison and before I know what’s happening, his other hand is there too, both of my heavy breasts being lifted, squeezed, my nipples rolled.
“Oh God,” I moan.
“I fucking love these,” he rasps in my ear. “I’ve wanted to fuck them since the first second I saw them bounce in your wedding dress.”
Jesus. I’m losing my mind. My head falls back to the top of his chest, my eyes closing as he worships my breasts, tugging down the cups of my bra and finally finding my bare nipples.
It’s exquisite. I can’t even explain what he’s doing to me.
All I know is no one has ever played with me the way Kaplan Fritz is playing with me now.
His body is lined up with mine, his large, hard cock pressed into the crest right above my ass. I can’t feel his piercing, but knowing it’s there has me moaning again, rocking back into him. He thrusts forward and my eyes roll back in my head as he simultaneously pinches my nipples.
“I wasn’t trying to distract you yesterday when I told you I’m attracted to you.
I’m insanely, painfully attracted to you.
” Another thrust. “You’re all I’ve been thinking about.
Fantasizing about. Jerking off to. The way I want you breeds madness in my mind.
It’s not who I am, Bianca. None of this is. ”
He tugs painfully on them, causing another “oh God” to hit the air. “Someone could see us.”
One hand slides back down my belly, dipping into the hem of my jeans, undoing the button and zipper on its way. “No one else is here. It’s just us.”
“Kaplan.”
“Has anyone ever touched you just to give you pleasure?”
I shake my head, hating that response, but it’s true. Any time I’ve ever fooled around with a guy, it’s always been about sex. About what they could get out of it. They were college boys and then Tod. I’m not sure I’m ready to handle a man like Kaplan Fritz, but I sure as hell wouldn’t mind trying.
His teeth graze my earlobe. “That changes now. I’m going to make you come, but that’s it. Nothing else will happen between us and this goes no further than right here. It’s just us scratching an itch.”
I nod because I know what he’s saying. We work together and whether he knows it or not, he’s complicated for me. So complicated. Too complicated. I don’t even know how I feel about him. I have a lot of things to sort out in my head, but with his hands all over me, I can’t stop or think rationally.
With that nod, his fingers dive between my legs and he lets out a groan when he finds me bare and soaked. “Naughty fucking girl, no panties?”
Honestly, I was too distracted this morning and forgot. I couldn’t sit still. I had to move, and I couldn’t slow down. Sort of like now as I rock forward into his hand, chasing friction he has yet to give. Two fingers find their way inside me, and I cry out, clenching around him.
It’s been so long since a man has touched me this way. Which is as sad as it sounds considering two weeks ago, I was about to be married.
My hand flies back, finding his hard length trapped behind his pants and I start to rub him. He may say that it’s all about my pleasure, but I want to feel him come apart beneath my touch. I want to know just what my touch can do to him.
“Bianca,” he cautions, but I shake my head as sounds and moans tumble one after the other from my lips. His teeth sink into my neck, a warning.
“Please,” I beg. “I want to.” I grip him tighter, jacking him off as best I can.
“Your touch does things to me,” he grunts, biting harder into me as if to punish me for that.
And while that should make me feel good, that I affect him the way I seemingly do, it doesn’t.
He doesn’t want me to touch him because he doesn’t want to feel anything.
He doesn’t want my touch to mean anything to him.
So cold. So detached. So untouchable.