Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
“Who are the flowers from?” Daniel demanded.
Addison jumped and whirled around. As always she hadn’t heard Daniel enter the apartment, let alone the kitchen. One minute she was alone rinsing vegetables, contemplating her screwed up relationship to an emotionally stunted possible stalker and the next moment he was standing there beside her.
“Well hello, good to see you too,” she said, sarcasm leaking into her voice. “How was work, honey? And how are you doing this evening?”
He reached out and took the vegetables from her hands, turned the water off and then pulled her into the circle of his arms. She shivered as she was reminded once again of his easy strength as the steel smoothness of his muscles brushed against the softness of her plush skin.
He held her easily, but she was under no illusion that she would escape from his hold if he wanted her there.
“Don’t be flip,” he said, brushing his hand across her lips in warning before placing his hand around the back of her neck. “Asked you a question. Who are the flowers from, Addison?”
For all of two seconds she thought about not answering, just to annoy him. The perverse side of her wanted to see what he would do, but the side of her that was too scared to push him won. “Claudia Cantore brought them,” she said.
He grunted.
Then, without another word he reached down, took her hand and began pulling her toward the door. Addison made a sound of protest that was, of course, ignored. Daniel rarely listened to a word she said. Which was one of the things she was finding so frustrating about their non-relationship.
“Please, Daniel, I was about to make my supper. I need to eat something!” she protested as he dragged her into the elevator. She felt the elevator ascend and assumed they must be going up to his place.
“We’ll eat at my place,” he growled.
“But I wanted to eat food…”
She trailed off when he grabbed her by the neck and shoved her into the side of the elevator.
She gasped, but his lips cut her off in a searing kiss that quickly told her exactly why they were going to his place.
Her arguments for wanting to eat supper were quickly scattering under the onslaught of his skilled lips and tongue as they devoured her.
His hips thrust into the cradle of her thighs and he squeezed her breast hard enough to draw a cry from her, which he swallowed in another devouring kiss.
When the elevator stopped, he grabbed Addison by the arm and in a swooping movement picked her up and tossed her easily over his shoulder. Addison shrieked in surprise.
A masculine chuckle followed them from the surveillance area, which made Daniel freeze in his tracks. Addison held her breath, feeling the deadly undercurrents.
“Daniel,” she whispered.
He turned and looked at whoever had dared to notice the boss and his woman. He stabbed a finger at the guy. “Fired,” he snarled, “pack your shit.”
He ignored the spluttered protest and turned with Addison to proceed toward his apartment.
Addison’s own libido had cooled significantly.
She couldn’t believe he would just fire someone so carelessly.
He opened the door to his apartment and strode in, dumping her on the bed after he kicked the door shut.
Addison shot up in protest. “How could you do that, Daniel! How could you just fire someone for laughing? I mean, you were carrying me around like some kind of caveman. I’m sure it was amusing to the casual observer.”
She heard his growl of frustration and the tread of his feet across the floor as he paced away from her. “My men know better than to have independent thought while on the job, unless its about the job.”
“What?” Addison said, stunned. “You can’t be serious? That’s absurdly autocratic! They can’t even laugh or joke? And I thought the Maestro could be a jerk, you’re the worst boss ever!”
Suddenly Daniel was on the bed with her, shoving her back into the enveloping bedding and covering her body with his, crushing her into the mattress. She gasped and brought her hands up against his hard chest. Her heart sped up as her fingers brushed against solid muscle.
“I don’t want to hear about your Maestro,” he growled from over top of her.
He wrapped his fingers around her throat and held her still while his lips explored her neck and shoulder.
Addison shivered as familiar warmth spread through her.
“My men have to be professional. Anything else could cost a life, including theirs. Mistakes aren’t an option in our line of work. ”
Addison moaned as his free hand yanked the neckline of her top and bra down and squeezed her breast roughly.
She arched into his hands, pressing herself up into the heat of his body, silently begging for more.
He alternated breasts, squeezing and pinching her nipples while she writhed underneath him.
“My girl likes it like this,” he breathed in her ear, biting her shoulder through the fabric of her shirt. He reached down, yanked up her skirt and slid a thick finger into the folds of her warm, wet pussy.
“God, yes!” Addison cried out.
Daniel pulled his finger out of her and licked it before pulling right off of her and yanking her off the bed with him. Addison gave a yell of shock and protest at the sudden movement.
Dizzy from his intense touches, she would have collapsed if he hadn’t been holding her so tightly.
He stripped her quickly and easily of all of her clothes.
She was too far gone in her own world of lust to protest the loss of her clothes.
She shivered slightly when her bare feet touched the concrete floor, but he was quick to move her onto the carpeted area at the foot of the bed.
The rug was new. As was the noticeable warmer temperature he kept his apartment at.
Her protest came when he reached for her wrists and pulled them together and then up high over her head until she was almost up on her toes.
He reached over her for something, his hard chest brushing against her back.
He looped something around her wrists and then tightened it before dropping his hands.
He let her struggle for a moment, testing the strength of her bonds.
“Daniel!” she gasped. “What are you doing?”
He had pushed her limits so far as dominating her in the bedroom, but he hadn’t tried tying her up before that first time with the belt of her bathrobe.
Though she knew he would want to eventually, she didn’t think it would happen this quickly and somehow she thought maybe it would be a conversation between the two of them.
She should have known better. Daniel rarely did anything that required actual conversation.
“Trust me,” he said.
“Absolutely not!” she responded immediately.
He chuckled, the sound was eerily unused. “Tough,” he said. “Because you’re going to fucking love it, whether you want to or not.”
“Daniel…” Addison breathed pleadingly, not sure what she was asking for.
He ignored her anyway, yanking his T-shirt over his head and letting it drop on the floor behind him.
She heard the whisper as it fell and shivered at the sound.
Daniel picked something up from beside the bed, hefting it in his hand.
He ran his fingers down her side drawing another shiver and a tickle from her. Gooseflesh followed his fingertips.
“I don’t even have to blindfold you for my kinky shit,” he said softly, bending to lick her ear.
“A blind joke from you,” she gasped breathlessly, “I’m impressed.”
He lifted the thing in his other hand and ran it down the bare flesh of her upper arm, then the side of her breast and her ribcage. She held her breath as she felt the leather of a handle whisper across her flesh. He swung it forward and allowed the brush of supple leather tails across her stomach.
“Oh god Daniel, I don't think…”
He brought his other hand up and covered her mouth firmly, forcing her head to tilt back into his shoulder. He spoke into her ear. “You don't have to think, baby. Just stick out that ass for me.”
She let out a moan of need combined with distress when he released her to step back.
She clutched the bed post tightly with her fingers and wondered if she was insane to let this man do this to her.
Then she realized she wasn’t exactly letting him do anything, Daniel was playing by his own rules and taking her along for the ride, whether she wanted to go or not.
“Stick that ass out now Addison, or I’ll hit you ten times harder and ten times longer than you’re going to want,” he snapped, bringing her attention sharply back.
“I’m not sure I want to get hit at all!” she snapped back, but braced herself against the bed post as best she could and stuck her ass out.
She had about two seconds to wonder if it would feel like the other times he spanked her ass, before the leather tails hit her sending flares of heat vibrating through her flesh. She gasped and jumped. Nope, nothing like the other spankings! This was far more intense.
“Stick that ass out now, Addison!” Daniel snarled at her. “Not going to say it again!”
He looped his arm impatiently under her hips and yanked her backwards, forcing her hips into the cradle of his thighs.
Her freshly marked butt met the place where jeans sat low on his hips and where his rock hard belly met his denim-clad erection.
He paused for just a second, as though unable to tear himself away from the obsessive need to drive himself into her dripping heat so close to his dick.
He stepped back from her. She could hear the whisper as he lifted the flogger and then brought it down against her ass. She braced herself against the bedpost and thrust herself back, taking the brunt of it and accepting the licking pain.