Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I turned and dragged him forward. His nostrils flared, but he followed. When he figured out where I was going, his shoulders relaxed a fraction, but not his face.
No, that intensity was ever-present when I touched him.
I wondered if my own was the same.
We went down a hallway that was nearly camouflaged from the blinding white of the walls. There was a tiny nook of space with a door that led to the framing room. I reached behind me for the sliding door, opening it and pulling him inside.
Just a few minutes.
It was all I could spare, and all I could really survive.
He slid it closed, and the lock of the door seemed so loud. Would everyone know I was back here?
I released his tie, backing up until I bumped into the framing table. Canvas and matte board scattered under my palms.
Blake strode across the small space in three strides. He tore at his tie and three buttons opened. Tanned flesh and sepia slashes swirled over his chest. He lifted me up and planted me on the table.
I couldn’t stop myself.
I needed to touch. I leaned into him, and his warm, spicy orange scent hit me just before my tongue swiped over his skin. He gripped my hair, directing my aim upward.
But I wasn’t through with him. Not here, not in my space.
I wanted to touch him. Especially his skin.
Craved to.
I pushed open his shirt and snapped out of his hold. I looked up at him as I curled the tip of my tongue over his nipple.
His fingers dug into my neck, but he let me coast around the firm muscles and the dip of stretched landscape to the center of his chest. Smooth. Flawless save for tiny little scars here and there. I traced my nail over the cartography and the tiny numbers of longitude and latitude that were almost burned into his flesh.
At least the tattoo made it look that way. So delicate and so rich in artistry. And always covered. I wanted to rip open his shirt and see it all.
I tugged out his shirttails and pushed the fabric off his shoulder.
God, so much more to see.
I frowned. I knew those maps. It was the coast of Marblehead, Salem, and Manchester Bay. A detailed seafaring compass was open, and more numbers were scattered into the design.
My home.
Why was he marked with places near me?
“I’m not who you think I am.”
His words dented the haze of lust. Who had he been before Blake Carson, the creator of a glass empire?
He dragged my attention—and my mouth—back to his neck and up to his mouth. The kiss was drugging and mind-erasing. He shifted and a whisper of silk made me open my eyes.
And his lips were gone.
“Blake?”
He shrugged his shirt back on and then wrapped his burgundy-colored tie around my wrists. “You haven’t really grasped the idea of a quickie, have you, Ms. Copeland?”
My mouth went dry as he brought the ends between my hands and tucked them into the curve of my fingers. I could get free if I wanted.
Okay, it might take a little wiggling, but I could get free.
He lifted my joined hands and hooked them around his neck. “Hold on, Ms. Copeland.”
I squeaked when he picked me up, pushing up my skirt before he set me back on the table. It was an old drafting table, sturdy as hell.
I was pretty sure I was just about to find out how sturdy.
“Stockings?”
I swallowed hard as he ran his hands up my inner thighs. Worse. Pantyhose.
Seriously, the most unsexy garments made in the history of man. I squirmed, but he simply drew me closer to the edge of the table. He hovered his lips over mine as he found the seam between my legs and dug his fingers in.
I gasped at the rending of silk and the sudden cool air across the apex of my legs.
“They were in my way.”
“Can’t have that, can we?” I muttered.
He nudged my panties aside. “No.” Then he covered my mouth, and slowly, he slid two fingers inside of me. I groaned around the invasion of his tongue and fingers at the same time.
I wanted to clamp my legs shut, but his hips were in the way.
Too much.
Not enough.
I curled my arms around his neck. Hindered by my bindings, I couldn’t pull myself up higher or push forward for something deeper.
I was completely at his mercy.
Just as he preferred.
I tore my mouth away, my cheek pressing against his bearded one. “Quickie, you say?”
“I changed my mind.” His strokes were slow and methodical, and his mouth went from drugging to melting as he sipped from my collarbone and pushed the strap of my dress out of the way. “What else do we have under here?”
“Not fair.”
He’d stopped me from exploring, dammit.
He lifted his head until my arms were stretched, and his fingers slipped from my body. He flicked his belt tail free, and the clink of the needle hitting his buckle as he opened his pants sounded so damn loud.
“I don’t play fair, Ms. Copeland.” His riveting eyes pinned me in place. “I don’t play .”
He ducked lower, dragging his teeth over the brocade top of my dress. The sound of his teeth tugging at the lace and the tiny bits of embroidery over my nipples stalled any breath I had left in my lungs.
“Blake.” I tried to hold on to his neck and the longer silky strands of his hair, but he had a plan.
He crouched in front of me at the table and widened my thighs. “You wouldn’t want them to hear you, now, would you?” He held a finger—one that just had been inside me—in front of his lips.
“Oh, God,” I whispered.
With nothing but his shoulders to hang onto, I ended up flat on my back when he tipped my knees up to get closer. When I tried to struggle up again, he pressed a hand over my bunched-up dress.
And then he was there, between my thighs. He pushed my panties aside and lapped at me—gently, at first. Such a slow and thorough taste that I squirmed from the pleasure and the onslaught of Blake learning every part of me.
This wasn’t what we were about. It was the quick and dirty with clothes still on. It wasn’t the fringes of romance where a man wanted to please his woman.
I rose to his mouth. I didn’t want to. I wanted to push him away, but I opened for him instead. I rested my heel on his shoulder as he took more.
Demanded all.
I lifted my tied hands to my mouth and bit into the tie. Anything to muffle the cries that wanted to erupt from me.
I thrashed on the table, and he held me down. With just that one hand, he held me still and used his other hand ruthlessly. His thumb worked in symphony with his mouth along my clit until my thighs quaked, and the skylight above me became nothing more than a blur of blue and white.
When I didn’t think I could take any more, he finally stood. He pulled me to the edge of the table, and I heard the snap of latex.
Oh, thank God .
I curled my legs around his hips, digging my heels into the loosened pants, into his hips and the delicious curve of his ass.
“Yes.” The word was a litany in my head and out of my mouth. He swiped the head of his cock along my swollen pussy.
I was so beyond ready for him I couldn’t breathe around the pleasure.
I looked down at him, and tried to struggle up so I could get myself wrapped around every bit of him. He wasn’t having any of that.
Instead, he stretched out over me and lifted my tied hands over my head. “Grace.” His eyes were wild, his lips wet from me, and his control was as shattered as mine.
He closed his eyes as he sank into me.
Holy shit.
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t get my arms around his neck and touch him.
I arched up under him as he decimated any need to move. His hips drove into me until the table shook against the wall.
Helplessly, I groaned. “More.”
His eyes snapped open. A single drop of sweat slipped down the curve of his cheekbone to his beard and I reached up for it. I licked there and over to his mouth. My scent was all over him.
I wanted it. I wanted to taste my pleasure on his tongue and lips.
I lifted enough to get our lips to align, and he moaned deep into my mouth. I inhaled his breath and sucked on his tongue. His fingers tightened on my wrists. I arched, dragging my teeth down his chin to his neck.
“Fuck.” He tried to move away from me, but I wanted a piece of the wildness he’d harnessed. I was tired of being the one who reacted to him .
I wrapped my legs around his waist and matched him thrust for thrust, stride for stride. “Fuck me harder,” I growled into his neck.
He cursed and curled his arm around my waist before he dragged me up.
Just what I wanted.
More tightly, I curled around him and the friction made my brain fuzz. I wanted him insane like me. I wanted it more than I wanted the orgasm that was reaching for me with greedy claws.
This angle let him drive deeper and we both muttered filthy words against each other’s lips. It was freeing. To allow myself to tell him what I needed.
Even when I couldn’t quite understand it, he did.
He tucked an arm under my knee and lunged deeper. The whole damn table was banging against the cement. Quiet had gone out the window, but I didn’t care. There was enough banging in the gallery that maybe no one would notice.
Maybe.
Please, God .
I wrenched upward at the searing ache in my wrists. Finally, the tie came free, sliding to the floor. I scraped my nails through his hair and brought his forehead down to meet mine.
“More,” I choked out.
“This cunt is mine. I will fuck you until you can’t move, until we can’t hate each other anymore.”
I held on tighter and shuddered at his harsh words. Was there a way to fuck the hate out?
If there was, this man would do it.
I quaked around his punishing thrusts. The burn of our bodies rubbing, his sheer size, and the overwhelming exhaustion broke me.
He held me tight as I cried out. As my body was no longer my own.
As it indeed became his, and the room faded to a whitewash, then of rushing color behind my eyelids.
Mind-bending pleasure flipped me inside out until everything was too much.
“Grace.”
My name melted into the frenzy, and I sobbed against his neck. His hips jerked against my thighs, and I held on. He tried to struggle away, but I wouldn’t allow it.
If I had to show him my madness, he had to give me his.
I wrapped my arms around his neck, my hands cupping the back of his head as his dark eyes went opaque and he emptied himself in me.
And where he would’ve normally withdrawn, this time, he didn’t. Because I didn’t allow it.
I held on to him.
I kissed him.
I let myself love him.