Chapter 11
CHAPTER 11
LUCIAN
I ’d pissed off enough women to recognize the difference between casual clicks of heels along a tile floor and the strikes of a stiletto stomping toward a target. I huffed a commiserating laugh for the poor man at the other end of those steps and turned back to my computer.
Only to jerk out of my seat when my door flew open, hit the wall—staying open just enough for Aspen to storm in—and slammed back shut.
She stood there like a bull ready to charge with bright red pumps that looked like they’d been dyed in her previous enemies’ blood. They were sexy as hell and only the beginning of the feast she created for my eyes. My gaze drew up her fitted slacks, over the hourglass curve of her hips and the dip of her waist, lingering between the deep v of her matching red blouse, hinting at her supple breasts, leading up to her clenched jaw, curled lips, and flared nose.
“Aspen,” I greeted, offering a calm to her obvious anger.
“You motherfucker,” she growled, continuing her march across the office to stand toe to toe with me.
“I’m not sure what I’ve done, but maybe next time you could approach it with more professionalism. I could have been in the middle of a meeting.”
“What meeting? You don’t even work here. I think you’re just using this office to drive me insane.”
As if I had a death wish, my lips quirked. “Is that what I’m doing, princess?”
“You know exactly what you’re doing to me,” she accused, jabbing her finger into my chest.
I stared down, attempting to read her face and decipher the situation. I made her mad on occasion, but nothing quite like this. “I’m afraid I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Yes, you do.” She stomped her foot. “You did something to me last night, and I want to know what it is. What did you do to me?”
Again, my smirk appeared, tempting death. “I did a lot of things. Would you like to walk through them together, step by step? Maybe reenact the night so we don’t miss a detail.”
“You think this is funny?” she cried, slapping her hands against my chest. “Because.” Slap. “It’s.” Slap . “Not.” Slap. “Fucking.” Slap. “Funny.” Slap, slap. “You broke me.”
Before she landed another blow, I snatched both her wrists and whipped her around, folding her in half over my desk and resting my weight atop her. She fought me, but I easily held her in place, growing harder and harder with every wriggling brush of her ass. “I must say, princess, I’ve never had anyone be quite so angry over an orgasm before.”
“Well, I don’t have orgasms.”
Her confession hit me harder than all her strikes combined.
We both froze.
The words wound between and around us, soaking into our skin.
The truth only made me harder, pulling at an archaic strand of my DNA that made me want to beat my chest with masculine pride. The sensation seeped into crevices long since forgotten and not ones I needed filled.
“Just…let go of me,” she mumbled against the desk. “This was a mistake. All of it was a mistake.”
Embarrassment and defeat poured off her, leaving me to assume she’d had no intentions of revealing that last tidbit.
With a deep breath, I pushed aside my pre-historic arousal and focused on the woman struggling beneath me. Guilt cut across everything with sharp precision.
I should have gone after her last night.
I should have left work and found her address when she hadn’t shown up at the office this morning.
I knew better.
Shifting her wrists to one hand, I used the other to brush her hair back behind her ear, exposing rosy cheeks. I held her in place and rose enough to rub up and down her back with firm, soothing strokes. “This was not a mistake, because you chose it. You made this decision for you.” I made sure to emphasize the amount of control she took in the situation, knowing in my gut that her lack of control over her own body brought about this moment. “And you are not broken.”
Soft puffs of air condensated along my desk.
“You could never be broken, Aspen,” I repeated, offering the aftercare I should have ensured last night.
She blinked rapidly, and her nose grew red.
More of that gooey warmth slipped deep into the old ruins around my chest. I wanted to shove them out, but couldn’t because it meant diverting my attention. I waited for her first tear, leaning close to catch the taste of the raw emotion against my tongue when it fell.
But in true, stubborn Aspen style, she held it back. She sniffed and swallowed before fighting with a renewed energy to break free.
Again, a similar decision like last night faced me. Did I release her and let her runaway, or did I make sure she heard my words and knew she was safe? Did I choose easy, or did I push for hard?
Last night I chose easy and regretted every second between now and then.
And when she dipped and shoved at the perfect angle, freeing my cock from where I attempted to respectfully tuck it away before pinning her, hard was the only way my body could go.
I groaned.
The releasing pressure around the head surged with the warmth of being nestled against the crease of her thighs.
Again, she stiffened.
I held my breath, attempting to find my own control to keep from humping her like a fucking rutting animal.
“Aspen.” I choked her name, trying to find the words to soothe her through the haze of arousal.
And again, she shocked me with what came next.
“Yo—you’re hard?” As if testing the theory, she pressed back, ripping another groan from my chest.
“Mmhmm,” I grunted.
“So, you…” she started and paused, leaving me clinging to my sanity by my fingernails.
“I what?” I attempted a soft tone that still came out as a guttural growl.
“You like this?”
“You’re going to have to be more specific, princess.”
“Th—the fight.”
Fuck me.
Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me.
The curiosity in her question was my undoing.
I rested my head against her back and released a pleasurable yet painful moan. My thighs clenched, fighting the need to thrust against her to show her how much I fucking loved it all.
I needed space.
But I needed her to stay too.
“How about I let you up and we talk a bit?”
Her chest rose and fell under my palm while I counted backward from ten.
“Okay,” she finally agreed by the time I reached one.
Unsure of how much to trust her, I lifted slowly, helping her stand, and not releasing my clasp around her wrists until the last second. She turned, pressing her back against the desk, and eyed me cautiously. I almost laughed, expecting to hear the old western music they played during a duel in the movies my dad loved to watch.
When she leaned back instead of bolting, I released some of the tension clinging to my muscles since she stormed in.
“Okay,” she said again.
Deciding to give her the upper hand, I sat back in my chair, but placed it between her and the exit.
“So…you like…” Her delicate neck worked over a swallow. “You like it when a woman fights you?”
I licked my lips, choosing my words carefully. “When it’s consensual, yes.”
“You didn’t have my consent,” she argued.
“One, you were hitting me, and I defended myself. Two, I wouldn’t have forced myself on you in any way that hurt you, and three, if you truly demanded I let you go, I would have in an instant.”
She looked away and heat spread across her cheeks, but she quickly went back to holding my gaze. “I’m sorry about hitting you. That was uncalled for and unacceptable.”
“Thank you.” I would never hit a woman in anger and appreciated her understanding that it went both ways.
She adjusted, sitting atop the desk, tapping her thumbs on either side of her legs. “What other things do you like?”
This time I restrained my smirk, knowing I’d kill myself if I ruined the opportunity to soak up Aspen, trying to appear powerful and regal while innocence oozed from every pore.
I considered my response. Part of me wanted to lay it all out there and watch her reaction as I shocked her with my more extreme preferences. The other part of me wasn’t ready to give up the carefully balanced truce we found ourselves in. After yesterday, the other part of me wanted more.
More than the bantering foreplay we used at the office.
More than sharp barbs and sexy glares.
“A lot of things. Things that most people consider taboo or things that they don’t consider at all.”
“Like spanking? That’s…taboo?”
“It’s definitely not something you’d see in the latest romance movie or sitcom.”
“Because it’s not something an adult should even think about. Like their some child who needs to be punished because something is wrong with them.”
Wrong with me .
I heard the words she didn’t say, and my gut twisted.
“There is nothing wrong with any desire as long as it’s legal, consensual, and safe. There is nothing wrong with wanting something others don’t agree with. There is no need for their opinion in the first place. It’s not about them. It’s about you.”
“Yeah. Me,” she scoffed.
I remembered discovering my sexual preferences and trying to understand them. I’d felt isolated and alone. I saw the same isolation in the way her shoulders dropped. I saw the same doubt in the way she curled her lips around her teeth, biting back the self-reprimands.
“You’re not the only one to be curious about alternative forms of pleasure,” I assured.
“I’m not,” she blurted. Then amended, “I—I…I don’t know.”
“I’ll tell you what…” I started, an idea forming. “How about I take you somewhere and show you the things I like rather than explain them?”
Aspen’s unguarded reactions, from her timid thank yous to her angry confusion, and all the innocent questions in between, showed me I’d awoken something in her she hadn’t been aware existed. The thrill of revealing the world of pleasure waiting for her to explore was more than I could resist.
“What? Like your pleasure room ?” She scoffed, using quotations.
“No. More like a club for people who have preferences like ours.”
She reeled back. “I’m not like you.”
This time, I let my smirk come out and play with the full intention of challenging her. “We may be more alike than you think, princess.”