Chapter 8
8
ALLEGRA
I ’m in trouble.
That devious glint in his eyes is all I need to see to know it before his mouth brushes against mine and he steals the little yelp that slips from my lips as he tugs me even more firmly against him.
He devours me, his tongue sweeping along mine, lips moving like they’re trying to pull the breath straight from my lungs. Like he’s trying to memorize them in case he never gets this chance again.
Thorough.
Aggressive.
Possessive.
And so fucking intoxicating.
I could so easily get drunk off this man. Off the way he kisses me. The way he holds me. The way every stroke of his tongue feels like it has a direct line straight to my clit.
My body hums to life when he does this, and I wrap my arms around his neck, holding him to me. All the power and intensity that vibrates under his skin finally leaks out and soaks me in his passion, promising so much more.
Promising to drown me in it the same way his eyes do.
I failed so badly when it came to Coen Hawke.
The game I played with him was too dangerous. Too personal. Too intense. Too everything.
And I definitely lost.
Because actually liking Coen and wanting this was never part of any plan I had concocted in my head.
I pride myself on always being ready before I face down an opponent, but I was not prepared for this one.
He outplayed me.
Masterfully.
He turned the tables, became the invader instead of the defender.
Coen got that upper hand I cling to so tightly.
He groans as he explores my mouth, nips and sucks at my lower lip, and crushes his cock against my stomach, backing me up until something hard hits my ass.
Strong hands release my hair, and he slides them down to my thighs and lifts me easily. I catch a glimpse of the long, low bar he’s settled me on the edge of when I drag my mouth from his to get a much-needed gasp of air.
My shoulders press against the wall behind me, and Coen invades my space, issuing a low growl that vibrates through me as his hand roams up my inner thigh. “I got a little taste of you the other night, Allegra.”
I shiver at the memory of his fingers moving inside me and the way he licked them clean before sauntering away as if he didn’t just leave me with the biggest case of blue clit in history.
“But I have to tell you…” He kisses across my cheek, grazing his lips down the column of my neck to my collarbone and sinking his teeth in there. I jerk at the sharp bite of pain and shift against his hard cock aligned so perfectly against my core. “It wasn’t enough. Not even an appetizer, really. You see, I’m a hungry man, and when I get hungry, I devour delicious things until there’s nothing left of them.”
Fuck, why did that sound like a promise and a threat all rolled into one?
Probably because it is both.
Because this man is certainly capable of destroying me in very real and delicious ways.
He pulls back.
Those eyes that seem to alternate between flinty iciness and welcoming warmth now blaze with an inferno of need that threatens to consume me while he’s barely even touched my body.
He nudges my knees wider with his hands, his calloused palms grazing my bare inner thighs, and my body starts trembling.
Fear, anticipation?
Revenge can be sweet, but not when you’re on the receiving end of it. And Coen Hawke definitely has plans for me that involve vengeance. It flashes in his eyes. Vibrates in the way he trails those fingertips across my skin. Lives in everything he intends to do to me.
Those hands find the hem of my dress and slowly glide it up, lifting my ass slightly to force it up to my hips.
I bite my lip, trying to stop myself from whimpering, struggling to stop myself from begging for him to move faster, for him to touch me, for him to just fucking do something, instead, he watches me from under hooded lids, then slowly sinks to his knees in front of me.
He sucks in a sharp breath when he sees my bare pussy. “You do play a dangerous game, Allegra.”
I let out a heavy breath. “Why do you say that?”
Coen leans in, warm breath floating across my already damp skin, making me shiver. “Because you came to me fully exposed. Why?” He raises a brow, eyes flicking up to meet mine. “Did you hope you’d find me? Is that why you came to the hotel? To do this ?”
His question hangs in the still air.
If I don’t answer, I know he won’t keep going.
I hold my breath as his fingers skate up closer to my aching core. “No, I was just curious…”
A slow, lecherous grin curls his lips. “About what? The family business or me? Because I’ll tell you something, Allegra. If you think you’re getting any information that might help you take this casino for even a single fucking cent, you’re wrong.”
His thumb grazes along my slit, spreading the embarrassing arousal up and over my clit with one slick swipe.
Fuck.
I wrap my hands around the end of the bar, searching for any sort of purchase as my hips buck at the contact. “Maybe I was just curious about you.”
He pauses with his thumb pressed against that tiny throbbing bud at the apex of my thighs.
I lock my gaze with his, prepared to throw down the gauntlet. “Maybe I was curious if you could actually deliver on what you promised in that restaurant booth.”
His pupils dilate, the lust in them only deepening. “You wanted me to slide under that table and bury my face between these luscious thighs, didn’t you?”
I bite my bottom lip and nod, and he issues a low rumbling approval.
“You wanted me to bend you over that table and fuck you in front of all those people? You would’ve let me…”
I don’t bother denying it.
There’s just something about Coen Hawke. Something dangerous. Something wild. Something restless and unsteady. Like he can’t be put into a cage, and anyone who tries is only going to end up getting torn apart by his resistance.
“Probably, but then they never would’ve invited me back to play, would they?”
He chuckles low and resumes slowly brushing his thumb up and down my slit in a way that has my hips bowing up. His left forearm comes up across my pelvis, holding me down. “I don’t know what to think about that, Allegra.” He tilts his head sideways, examining me. His eyes intent on where his finger plays so relentlessly with me. “And I don’t know what I should do with you. Punish you for what you did to me?”
I shake my head. “No.”
The grin he gives me doesn’t offer me any hope. “Or reward you?”
“For what?”
He slides his thumb inside me, and I gasp at the sensation. “For actually finding a way to distract me and being the first one ever to do it.”
Shiiiiiiiiit.
Again, that sounds more like something that would warrant a threat, not a promise of the type of pleasure his touch does.
He withdraws his thumb, and I whimper only to have him drop his head between my spread thighs and lick me from the base of my cunt all the way up over my clit in one long, slow glide that has me bucking against his hold.
Fuck.
My grip on the counter borders on painful, and I drop my head back against the wall behind me.
Bottles and glasses on the bar rattle.
Coen doesn’t seem to care.
He groans his approval. “Fuck, do you taste good…”
I bet he does, too…
My mouth suddenly waters, wondering what his cock would taste like. About the flavor of his cum coating my tongue and sliding down my throat…
He laps at me again, probing as deep inside me as he can, fucking me with it the way I wish he would with his cock.
“Sweet.” Lick. “Delicious.” Lick. “Mysterious.” Lick. “Dangerous.” Another slow glide that makes me want to beg. “Fucking exquisite.” His eyes flick up to meet mine. “So many reasons this shouldn’t be happening…”
I gasp and nod.
“But you still want it, don’t you, Allegra? You came all the way to New Orleans to find me for this. ”
He glides his tongue across my cunt, sipping and drinking down my arousal, laving and sucking at my flesh, but not giving me what I really need.
Him.
I need him.
I need him inside me.
I need him filling me.
I need him pummeling me.
I need it hard and rough.
I need him to unleash all that pent-up aggression toward me and direct it into utterly destroying me for any other man.
But I grit my teeth, refusing to beg this man, even as my entire body pulses and coils and wants to buck against what he’s doing.
The man is committing slow, sensual torture.
I knew I was in trouble the moment I made the decision to come here to seek out Coen Hawke, but I just had no fucking idea it would be this much.
* * *
COEN
There are so many things I could do to Allegra…
So many ways I could make her pay for her little game and the way she played me so perfectly.
I could master my revenge the same way she did her manipulation.
But with my face buried between her legs and the sweet taste of her cunt coating my tongue, all I can think about is how incredible it would sound to hear her come. How staggering it would feel to have this pussy tightening around my cock as I pound into her. How those nails of hers biting into my neck and my back as I ride her would only make me drive into her harder.
And that’s exactly what she wants.
She wants me to unravel.
If I give her that, she wins again.
That isn’t happening…
Getting the upper hand with a woman like Allegra doesn’t happen often, if at all. Most men will never experience it. Yet, I somehow managed it that night in Macau. I had enough strength to walk away from her.
I don’t have that now, but it doesn’t mean I’ll make this easy on the woman who has haunted my dreams for weeks now.
When her face appears in them, it’s to taunt me with those soft brushes of her hand against my cock, to work me up into a frenzy when she has no intention of doing anything about it.
It’s better than the alternative nightmare that still follows me, but it’s a harsh reminder that she can’t be trusted.
No matter how sincere she might have sounded when she claimed this wasn’t part of her game.
I can’t give her what she wants now.
To do it would concede far too much to someone who has already taken more than she should have.
I force myself to slow, to dip my tongue into her and lick every square inch of her tight, peachy skin.
Her cunt.
Her glistening thighs.
Kissing my way down to her knee and then back up the other side, only to repeat the move on the other leg.
Until she’s shaking so badly that the entire bar rattles, reminding me of what’s right next to us.
Grinning, I reach out and grab the bottle of bourbon.
Her eyes flutter open to watch as I pop the top off the decanter and take a swig.
“I can see why you like bourbon, Allegra. So sweet…”
I pour it across her slick core.
She yelps slightly at the contact, but before she can say anything else, I bury my face there, licking and sucking and consuming every sweet drop of the drink—and her.
A lethally addictive combination.
“Oh, fuck!”
She gasps, one hand shifting from the edge of the bar into my hair and tugging at the strands as she angles my head and grinds her hips against my face.
I groan my approval—at both the combined flavor of the booze and Allegra and the aggressive desperation it’s elicited in her.
My cock, painfully hard and incessantly aching, presses against the zipper of my pants. “Fucking hell, Allegra. I could so easily get addicted to you.”
She tosses her head from side to side, eyes clenched closed, body taut and quaking under my ministrations. “Coen, I need…”
“You need to come?”
With a groan, she nods, her hips moving against my face as much as I’ll allow with my forearm braced against her, holding her down and at my mercy.
“What if I don’t want to let you come?”
Her eyes flash open to meet mine, panic seeping into the gray, making them almost black. “You wouldn’t. Not again.”
I offer her a slow grin, dragging my hand up her inner thigh as I rise to my feet, slipping two fingers easily into her drenched core as hers fall away from my hair. She groans at the intrusion, clenching around them, and my cock twitches, begging to be there to feel those walls constricting around it. I curl my fingers inside, finding that perfect soft spot, and she bucks against my hand, trying to grind her clit against my palm the way I toyed with her in Macau.
But I shift my grip, preventing her from doing just that.
“Would I, Allegra?”
She nods, breathless and panting. “Yes.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because,” she gasps, “because I fucked with you.”
“And how many times did you fuck with me, Allegra?”
She whimpers, clenching around my fingers as I probe and drag them across that hyper-sensitive spot over and over again, refusing to touch her clit and give her what she really needs. “T-t-twice. I did it twice.”
I lean in, ghosting my lips across hers, capturing another little mewl as I allow my thumb to just barely graze her most sensitive spot. “So, it would only be fair for me to stop right now. Wouldn’t it? For me to leave you here, shaking and wet and needy like I did the other night?”
Her thick, dark lashes rise slowly until her half-hooded gaze meets mine. “It would.” She slides her hand into my hair again and tugs. “But you won’t do that.”
So sure of herself.
I raise a brow. “Why not?”
She pushes herself up away from the wall until her mouth hits mine in a bruising kiss that has me almost coming on the spot. Her other hand leaves the edge of the counter, and she grasps my cock pinned between us. “Because you want this as much as I do. And if we don’t fuck today, then every time we sit at the table with each other, it’s going to be like this. Neither of us able to concentrate. Both of us playing a different game instead of concentrating on the one on the felt.”
Fuck, she’s right.
She’s so fucking right.
It’s only been a few weeks since I first saw her, and ever since, I haven’t been able to get this woman out of my head.
This kind of obsession kills my ability to think straight. Crushes that part of me that has been trained to remain impassive. It was all gone the moment I met her.
I crash my mouth to hers again, and she releases my hair to fumble with my pants, finally freeing my aching cock. It springs out, and she tears her mouth from mine to look down at it, her gaze widening.
“Jesus…”
Chuckling, I press my thumb into her clit, and she groans, her eyes closing, forehead dropping against mine. “He has nothing to do with what’s happening right now, Allegra. Now, tell me you want my cock…”
She whimpers, reluctant to do just that.
Already, I’ve put her in the submissive position, somewhere she is not used to being. Making her say it is asking too much. But I need it all the same.
“Tell. Me.”
I push harder.
She drags her head back, locking her gaze with mine. “I want all of you, Coen Hawke.”
Fucking Christ…
She grasps my cock and strokes it in one long motion, her thumb brushing over the pre-cum leaking from the head, making my finger move across her clit in response.
A little strangled sound slips from her lips as she guides my cock straight to her core. The blistering heat and wetness engulf the tip, making me grit my teeth, my body tensing against the desire to drive straight into her.
“You think I’m going to fuck you without a condom?”
Her gaze holds mine. “I don’t play those games. I’m on birth control, and I’ve been tested.”
“Me, too.”
Thank fuck.
Because I want to feel all of her…
The rippling of her cunt as she comes with nothing between us.
No barriers, no games, just this.
And that’s all the convincing I need to shove into her in one long, hard thrust.
It rocks her back onto the bar, and one of the tumblers falls off the edge and shatters on the floor. Glass shards scatter across the marble, pieces sliding under the furniture, but I don’t care.
I know exactly how much those cost us to put in this penthouse, but it’s a small price to pay for the feeling of her hot, wet core clenching around me.
“Fuck…”
It comes out more growl than word, and I bury my face against her neck, dragging my hips back to plunge into her again.
One of her hands finds my nape, the other tightening around the counter to try to keep herself steady as I pound into her.
Each thrust drives her back until she’s pressed to the wall.
I grasp her thighs and spread them wider, dragging her forward to the edge so I can grind into her, against her clit, giving her the friction she needs while I get deeper and deeper inside her, bottoming out with each thrust.
Her nails bite into my neck.
Glass rattles as another crystal tumbler inches toward the edge with each slam of my hips. Her hand snaps out and pushes it back, and I chuckle against her damp skin, kissing my way back to that spot on her collarbone I sank my teeth into earlier.
I lave my tongue across the indentations, and her pussy clenches in response, rippling, her hips driving to meet mine.
Allegra enjoys a little pain with her pleasure.
That will certainly keep things interesting.
Her entire body is primed.
Tensing more and more.
Her grip becoming more demanding.
She’s preparing for what’s coming.
Bracing herself for the onslaught.
I pull my head back and take her mouth again, needing that taste, wanting to devour all of her, and she lets me. And with each drive of my hips, it feels like winning a little battle in this war she started that night in Atlantic City, but also, somehow, losing a little bit of myself to a woman I know I shouldn’t.
“Coen—”
My name comes out like a prayer offered to a god she doesn’t fully trust to answer it.
And if I had more strength, I might stop this now and walk away.
But I have lost that ability when it comes to her.
I shift her position again, dragging one leg up over my shoulder so I can plunge down into her at a different angle.
She gasps, her eyes rolling back as her head drops. “Fuck. Yes, right there.”
A few more hard strokes are all it takes before she explodes, her nails scoring my skin, her cry echoing off the expensive marble and glass in the penthouse.
Her pussy squeezes my cock like a vise and draws out my own release. My balls tighten up, and I grit my teeth, trying to hold off, but I can’t. I come in hot spurts inside her, burying myself to the hilt, wishing desperately that I’d had the strength to walk away from her, like I should have.