Chapter 20
Kat
He saidnothing to me on the ride back to his penthouse. Nothing as we crossed the lobby and got into the elevator. But I knew Alex Blake very well, and I could read this silence. The clench of his jaw, the tense line of his shoulders told me everything I needed to know. He wanted me. And instead of tearing my clothes off in an art gallery, he was keeping himself under very tight rein.
The thought made my blood pulse hotter. Alex’s control was unbearably sexy. Even sexier was the fact that I knew I could make him break it.
Maybe I was the only one who could.
I wanted that. No matter who he’d been with since me, I wanted to be the only woman who could drive him to this kind of madness. Because when he’d kissed me, I knew that he was the only man who could make me as wild as I was right now.
He keyed the security code into his penthouse door, and I was already reaching behind my back to unzip my dress.
Three, two, one.
The second we were inside, Alex pushed me against the closed door. His touch was just rough enough that I hit the door with a thump, but not rough enough to hurt. I shrugged and my dress fell to the floor at my feet as his mouth came down on mine.
We didn’t restrain ourselves this time. I nipped his lip as his hands gripped my ass through my black silk panties. I pushed his suit jacket off his shoulders and to the floor, then yanked on his tie. He bent to the crook of my neck and sucked my skin with that glorious mouth of his, and I didn’t bother to swallow the moan that came from my throat.
His tie was gone, and then his shirt. His hands were on my naked breasts. I leaned down and bit his upper arm, just beneath his shoulder, because the sight of the ink on his skin was unbearable and delicious. I couldn’t wait anymore.
He sucked in a breath of pain as I bit him, and then he bent and threw me over his shoulder, hauling me to the bedroom. He tossed me roughly on the bed and unzipped his pants, stripping the rest of the way naked as I kicked off my shoes and pulled off my panties. He watched me greedily, and then his gaze paused on the tattoo on my hipbone.
He leaned over me, bracing himself on one muscled arm. With his other hand, he traced my ink. “I want to know who this is for,” he said, his voice low and demanding.
“It doesn’t matter,” I rasped.
“Tell me, Kat.”
“No.”
“You make me fucking insane.” He gripped my hips and yanked me, pulling me to the edge of the bed. I’m not a small woman, but Alex moved me like I weighed nothing. He spread my thighs—I parted for him like melted butter—and slid two fingertips over me, slick and hot. I gasped.
“God, you’ve been like this for me all night, haven’t you?” he said. “I could tell.”
“Not you,” I said, gritting my teeth and trying to form words as he stroked me. I felt like I had fire in my veins, but I couldn’t quite give him the satisfaction. “It was that stupid art show.”
He laughed softly, then slid both fingers inside me as I made a strangled sound of pleasure. “I confess I didn’t plan that,” he said. “But it worked out to my advantage.”
His fingers were wonderful, evil, diabolical, but they weren’t what I wanted. I knew exactly what I wanted, and so did he. “You’re going to make me wait, aren’t you?” I panted.
“Not long,” he said, and then he knelt beside the bed and put his mouth on me.
He had always been so good at this—good enough to make me fall in love with him, good enough to make me marry him, and good enough to make me hate him. When I had Alex’s hands, or his mouth, or his cock, the world fell away and nothing else had ever mattered. I’d been willing to give up everything in my life and all of my identity. It was maddening.
It was still maddening, but I was older now, more experienced, and I was more of a selfish bitch. I closed my eyes and arched my back and let him please me, because—I could admit it—he could do it like no other man ever had. I let everything disappear except Alex’s mouth on me, his hands on my skin. I let everything go.
The orgasm lifted my hips off the bed, made me cry out. Fuck, it was so good when Alex made me come. I wanted him to do it a hundred times over, and then a hundred more times again.
“So easy,” he said smugly as he lifted up from his knees.
Only with you.I didn’t come with any other man like I did with him. But I wasn’t going to say that aloud and feed his ego.
He sucked the tattoo on my hip, nipping it, reminding me that he disapproved of it. “Get this removed,” he growled.
“No,” I breathed.
“Fine. Then I’ll fuck you from behind.”
“No,” I said again.
“You always liked it.”
Dear God, I did. We’d get to that. “There’s something else I want to do.”
He ran the flat of his tongue over my nipple. “Whatever it is, it better involve my cock inside you, Kat. It’s been too fucking long.”
“It does,” I rasped as my body clenched, urgent for him. I gripped his shoulders and pushed him onto his back on the bed.
He went willingly. To be honest, there was no way I could have moved that big, muscled body unless he approved. He let me push him down, and then he watched with darkening eyes as I climbed on top, straddling him.
This was another one of my favorite positions. Who was I kidding? With Alex, they were all my favorite position.
I moved over him, letting my slick wetness slide along his cock. His hands rose to come to my hips, but I gripped his wrists and pinned them to the pillow on either side of his head, leaning forward. My grip wasn’t as strong as it would normally be, because of my splinted fingers, but it was strong enough. I moved my hips again, sliding. Torturing him.
“Lose control,” I said.
He laughed, the sound distinctly pained. “And do what? Come on my stomach? I don’t think that’s what you want.”
“It isn’t.” I moved again, still torturing him. He wasn’t going to come on his stomach. He had more control than that, and so did I. I knew exactly what Alex sounded like when he was about to come. If he made that sound, I would stop.
His body was stiff beneath me, the muscles of his jaw strained. “Kat, just fuck me,” he growled. “You know you’re dying for it.”
I was, but I didn’t let go of his wrists. “Lose control,” I said again.
He sucked in a breath as I slid over the sensitive head of his cock. “You always have to win, don’t you?”
“Lose control.”
We’d never played exactly this game before, but this was Alex and me. In various ways, this was the game we played all the time.
I slid over the head of his cock again, and then he snapped. He jerked his wrists easily from my grip and flipped his hands so he was holding my wrists instead. His hands were big, his grip harsh.
It was my turn to suck in a breath. There was a throb of pain, reminding me that there were still bruises on my arm. But the pain was pleasant, sending a pulse of hot pleasure between my legs. Even though I’d just come, I was throbbing again, ready to go off with the slightest touch.
Alex didn’t miss my reaction. There was no chance he would. His grip on my wrists intensified, and then—slowly, experimentally—he squeezed.
The throb of pain made me cry out this time, made me throw my head back with my eyes closed. What a fool I was, taunting him to lose control. I would have begged him in that moment. I would have done anything.
Still gripping my wrists, Alex sat up. He leaned in and ran his teeth along my uninjured ear, nipping the earlobe with just enough pressure to make a sharp sting. I cried out again, squirming in his lap.
I was pinned, gasping, desperate. He nipped my earlobe again, his hands harsh on my wrists, and I nearly sobbed. “Do I need to worry?” he asked me.
It took a second for my lust-fogged brain to understand what he was asking. We didn’t have a condom. We hadn’t used a condom since the first few times, years ago.
“N-no,” I stammered.
“Good.” He let go of my wrists and gripped my hips, his fingers digging into my flesh. Then he lifted my hips, moved beneath me, and pushed into me.
I cried out, and I felt a rush of breath leave him, as if it was as pleasurable for him as it was for me. I gripped his hips with my thighs and he flexed up, pushing deeper as I took him in. I gripped his shoulders. His hands moved up to my head, angling me down so he could kiss me deeply as we started to move.
My body sparked. I had Alex beneath me, inside me, gripping me, dominating me. Giving an edge of pain to my pleasure. He broke the kiss, lowered his head, and sucked my nipple as his hands moved down to my ass, digging in just hard enough. His teeth scraped my breast and I moved, riding him, my hair draping over us. He gave a low grunt and I realized my fingernails were digging into the skin of his shoulders, making deep white marks. I didn’t loosen my grip.
I was close, so close. Alex moved a hand between us and I rubbed on him as I rode him, right there, and then my orgasm was blooming through me, shaking me. He sucked in a breath and lifted his hips as I squeezed him, and then his head fell back and his eyes closed as he came, too.
This. This was why we had driven each other crazy. Loved each other so much. Hated each other so much. Why we’d walked away from each other limping and bleeding, like injured animals.
We collapsed on the bed, both of us slick with sweat. My body was humming. I wanted to kiss him and I wanted to cry, and in that moment I didn’t feel capable of either one.
Alex turned and propped up on an elbow, looking down at me. His hair was gloriously disheveled and his eyes were dark. “Did I hurt you?”
“No,” I said. I could still feel the ghost of his hands on my wrists. It felt good.
He looked at me for a long moment, and I couldn’t read his eyes. He was turning something over in his mind. Deciding something. Deciding whether or not to say it.
I waited, wondering what it would be. I hoped he wasn’t going to say this had been a mistake, that I should probably get out of his bed and go to the spare bedroom, where I was supposed to be staying.
Instead he said, “I’m not finished, Kat. With this. With you. Not by a long shot.”
It wasn’t exactly a declaration, but it was close enough. It was what I wanted.
I smiled up at him. “Neither am I,” I said. “Let’s go shower.”