Hardline Page 2

  He bound one leg, and then the other, until I was spread eagle on the table.

  “That’s better.” He gave my calf a small squeeze.

  My skin heated all the way to my cheeks as the extent of my vulnerability sank in. I wanted to tell him this was too much. The words were on the edge of my lips, but I was already wet and needy for him, for whatever he was cooking up in that devious mind of his. Adding to my growing unease, Blake moved away until he was out of my range of vision.

  “Where are you going?” I tried to hide the anxiety in my voice.

  “Don’t worry. I’m not leaving. Not when you’re spread out for me like a fucking banquet.”

  I heard ice hitting the inside of a glass and then the quiet guzzle of it being filled. He returned and stood before me, bringing the glass to his lips, obscuring the ghost of a grin on his beautiful face. Something in his expression promised I was in for a slow torture. The need that pulsed through me doubled. I was entirely at his mercy now.

  Seconds that felt like minutes passed. My breasts heaved in time to my breathing, which ticked up as I waited. For what? I had no idea, but the possibilities thrilled me.

  He lifted the glass once more, drained its contents, and dropped the tumbler loudly onto the table between my legs. He dipped his hand into the glass, and the clink of the ice was followed by the silent shock of the cold on my skin. He traced a slow wet path down the inside of my leg, along the sensitive skin of my inner thigh. I shivered, tensing, as he traveled over my hips to my belly. The cube melted slowly at my navel while he reached for another.

  He rounded the table, coming to my side. With the next cube, he circled my nipples, lingering on each. On the brink of pain, I suppressed my protest. I couldn’t risk more punishment if it delayed him being inside me. He lowered his lips, replacing the numbing cool of the ice with the wet heat of his mouth. His teeth clipped the hardened points while a cool hand found its mark between my thighs.

  He hummed, sliding easily through my folds, teasing my clit. “You like when I tie you up, baby?”

  I licked my dry lips, nodding quickly. Did I? I wasn’t sure. All I really knew was that I didn’t want him to stop. I didn’t want to say anything to keep him from giving me the pleasure that only he could. He kept me right on the edge, a state so heightened and helpless that it bordered on unbearable. I tugged against the restraints, the rope biting into my skin.

  “Stop fighting, Erica.”

  He straightened, depriving me of his touch and his closeness.

  “I thought you were in a hurry,” I complained, trying to get a grip on the desire that burned through me a little more fiercely with each passing minute. Goddamn him and this rope.

  He grinned. “I was, but the thought of punishing you tempered that sense of urgency. Now I’m just enjoying myself.”

  I closed my eyes. My chest expanded with a deep breath, and I willed myself to relax. As I did, I felt a shock of cold between my legs.

  I cried out, from surprise and the sensation that I wasn’t convinced yet was discomfort. My clit was throbbing against the ice as he maneuvered over the nub, between my folds. I released a breath as he lowered it away from my most sensitive parts and dipped the tip gently into my pussy. When I thought he might relieve me, the hint of a touch gave way to the ice. How long could he do this to me and keep his own desires in check? How long could I do this? I was ready to burst and scream.

  “Blake, I can’t...I can’t do this anymore. You’re killing me.”

  “How does it feel to wait...to want?”

  I clamped my jaw tight, trying to distract myself from the terrible ache between my thighs. I squirmed despite myself, knowing it wouldn’t bring him any closer to fucking me.

  “I hate it.”

  “Should we end it?”

  “Yes,” I said, the desperation plain in my voice.

  He leaned closer, his lips grazing the sensitive skin of my neck. He traced the curve of my ear with his tongue, a slow torture all its own.

  “Beg.”

  Chills broke out over my skin. I arched my chest into the air, into nothing because he was barely touching me now.

  “Tell me how much you want it. I need the words.”

  “Blake...please, just fuck me.”

  “That sounds like an order. I want begging.”

  I groaned and he pulled away, no longer touching me anywhere in any way.

  “Blake!” I was furious and desperate.

  “Submit.”

  I jolted at the sharp edge of his voice.

  “You need to submit to me, Erica, if you want to come. No more playing games. No more testing me.”

  I swallowed hard, fighting the instinct to rile at his order. Submit. My throat tightened, as if the word had lodged itself there and wouldn’t pass until I accepted it. That word meant so much. Submitting was easier when I was coaxing him into taking what he needed from me. Now he was taking what he wanted. He wasn’t asking and we weren’t negotiating.

  I closed my eyes, straining to hear the voice in my head telling me to relax, to let go. “You’re not making it easy.” I wanted him to understand my resistance, maybe even let it slide. Even when he went all Dom on me, sometimes he’d give me room to push back.

  “I’ve been putting out fires all day. I want to come home to you, and I don’t want to have to break you every time. If I have to, I will, but I won’t always be asking nicely and making it easy for you. So you should get used to submitting. You’re naked, tied to the table, and one stroke away from coming. Do you want to come?”

  “Yes, badly.”

  “Then beg.”

  “Please...” The plea was weak as it left my lips.

  “I’m listening, Erica. Please what?”

  “Please, make me come. I want your hands on me. I’ll do anything...I swear.”

  “Will you be home, naked, when I ask you next time?”

  “Yes.”

  His fingertips grazed my throbbing clit. I sucked in a sharp breath and lifted my hips to meet his touch, but he evaded me as quickly as he’d arrived.

  “Promise?”

  “I promise. Jesus, I’ll do anything.”

  “And I won’t have to give you directions about how to submit again, will I?”

  “No,” I promised, shaking my head emphatically.

  The heat of his hand radiated where I badly needed him. I resisted the urge to coax my body centimeters closer. Fucking hell, this is torture.

  Every cell in my body strained toward his touch, and yet I had no control.

  This was the reality I fought to accept. Somehow I had to trust that he’d get us there. With that realization, something inside me released. I weakened against the table, no longer fighting the restraints. My muscles let go but my mind spun, no more in control than my body was over how badly I wanted him.

  Then he touched me. Covering my pussy with the palm of his hand, he gripped me firmly.

  “This is mine. You don’t come unless I want you to. Do you understand?”

  I gazed at him, bleary eyed with my own need. I was seconds from crying for how on edge I was, as if somehow his own frustrations from the day had passed right through me.

  “I’ll be whatever you need, Blake.”

  His eyes softened a fraction at my concession. Then he entered me with two fingers. My jaw fell, releasing a gasp of relief. He twisted inside me, exploring my wet depths. Trembling, I tightened around him, wishing I had more of him there but grateful I had anything at all. He pumped gently and thumbed my clit with quick circles.

  I released a small cry at the potency of that one motion, relieved and coiled up again all at once. My nerves came back to life, my flesh hot and ready for him all over again. God, the man had a gift for making me painfully aware of how much my body thrived with his touch. I caught myself when my hips lifted a fraction on their own accord.

  Beg. His demand echoed in my head, both sultry and unforgiving. My core pulsed. Blood thrummed through my veins,
humming in my ears. The beginnings of an unstoppable orgasm crept up on me, and I wasn’t about to let it go. Not for pride, not for anything.

  “Don’t stop. I’m begging you, please don’t stop.”

  “That’s what I want to hear, baby. You want all of me in there?”

  “God, yes.”

  “Want me to let you come first?”

  Colors swirled behind my eyes and every muscle tensed now with anticipation. My eyes flashed open when I realized he hadn’t yet given me explicit permission to come. I met his dark gaze, his eyelids hooded with the same brand of desire that was rushing through me at this very moment.

  “Please let me. Blake, please...”

  He lowered and caught my mouth in a rough kiss. Our lips rushed over each other, our tongues clashed and sucked. All the while his fingers continued their ministrations, gently fucking me, coaxing me to the edge. The searing pleasure of it overtook me, as if the only sense in the world came from the places where our bodies met, the pleasure he was gifting to me. And I was as grateful as I was desperate to have it. An all-consuming heat swept over me. I began to shake with the effort not to orgasm.

  “Oh God,” I whimpered, losing my hold on reality, on anything. “Please, please, please.”

  “Come, Erica. Right now,” he rasped into my mouth, his intimate touch deepening.

  I gasped for air, arching off the table. Bound by the rope, I could hasten nothing, control nothing. The words, the order, had stripped me down. I was owned. His. At his mercy and command, I crashed over the edge with a wail. I clenched my fists, tight and tautly held as the climax ripped through me.

  The world went silent in that perfect moment. I was still trembling when he left me. His fingers went to work loosening the rope around my ankles. Somewhere in the delirious aftermath of the orgasm, I registered relief at this new freedom. Seconds later he was fully naked, covering my body with his. He hooked my legs around his waist and with the thick head of cock against my entrance, he pressed into me a bare inch.

  “I’m so fucking hard it hurts. I’m going to fuck you deep, so deep that next time you won’t forget who owns you, baby. I’ll have you coming again and again, until you trust me to give us what we both want.”

  My voice was lost in my delirium. I was reeling, barely prepared for what he’d give me next. The muscles of his torso were hard and taut as he wrapped an arm around my waist. His green eyes were dark and dilated, and they locked with mine. I saw him then—the man, but also the animal that lived below the surface.

  He needed this. He needed me this way.

  “Blake.” I licked my lips, now dry from my ragged breathing. “Kiss me...please.”

  The tension in his gaze, the dominant determination, gave way to something else.

  And I felt it when our lips met, with more care now than before, but no less passionate. Love. I recognized it. With all his kinks and maddening control issues, I loved this man. As much as he needed this, I needed to be this for him.

  “I love you.” The words rushed out when I broke our kiss.

  Those intense eyes burned into me once more. The need that vibrated through his body seemed to still for a moment. Then he lowered again. His lips brushed over mine gently.

  “I can’t breathe without you, baby. You undo me and then put me back together whole again. You take it all, and you still love me for it.”

  The questioning in his eyes and the doubt in those last few words broke my heart a little.

  “Blake...I’m yours. I want this. I want every part of you.” My throat tightened, for reasons altogether different now. Desire and a soul-wrenching love worked its way through me, radiating between us.

  Our lips met again and he pushed into me, dipping his tongue into my mouth as he did. My sex gripped around him, stretching around his thick cock. Then he was deep inside me. We were so close, our souls joining as our bodies did. He withdrew and thrust again, hitting me deeper. I gasped. His body was hard above me, rippling with strain as he held back. I felt it too, that need to burst, to be engulfed in this wild desire.

  Heat blazed in his eyes as he cupped a hand at my nape, leveraging his weight on his elbow. I locked my ankles around his waist as his bicep flexed into the flesh of my waist. Then he drove hard, just the way I wanted him to. The friction of his entry hurled me to the sharp edge of an orgasm. My jaw dropped with a soundless cry that found its voice as he pounded into me.

  Hard. Fast. Merciless and rough. One of the many ways I loved having him.

  The relentless pace had me coming again quickly. My pussy tightened around him, as I clung to his hips with my thighs. One climax crashed right into the next until he began to come with me. He ground his hips into me, pinning us to the table in a rabid race for relief, for release...my name on his lips.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I straddled Blake’s hips, massaging my thumbs over the protruding muscles of his shoulders. His muscles barely gave, and I wondered if I was having any effect on him at all. Then he breathed out a soft moan. I smiled and lowered so my front covered his back. I kissed his skin, breathing in the fragrance of the lotion mingled with his scent. By some magic of nature, my own muscles let go. His musk, the sweat from our lovemaking, nearly overwhelmed me. I could lie like this and smell the man all damn day.

  “You smell amazing.” I pressed my lips against him, kissing him, inhaling him.

  He released a soft chuckle.

  I darted my tongue out to taste him, like the smell of him wasn’t enough. As if getting screwed to oblivion on a dining room table, bound like the bad little submissive I was, wasn’t enough. Blake Landon was my drug, my obsession—a habit I had no intentions of ever quitting.

  I worshipped him with my lips and my teeth. I massaged him, my fingers trailing over him with the same kind of obsession.

  In a flash, he bucked me off and I was on my back, his gorgeous naked body between my legs.

  “Are you trying to get fucked again? Because if you are, you’re doing a damn good job of it.”

  I giggled. He smiled broadly, capturing my wrists on either side of my head. He rubbed the tender spots where the rope had bitten into me.

  Recognizing a whisper of familiar worry in his features, I slipped out of his grasp. I cupped his cheeks, holding his focus on me. “I’m fine. Don’t start with the guilt, okay?”

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  “Trust me, I didn’t feel a thing. In the heat of the moment, all I can feel are your hands on me, you inside me. It’s all consuming. Something that might hurt normally just adds an edge to whatever pleasure you’re giving me. And you know damn well I like it, so don’t start acting like I’m some wounded kitten.”

  “But it hurts you now. What if you bruise?”

  “Who cares? I won’t fight so hard next time. You wanted to teach me a lesson, didn’t you?” I shifted my hips beneath him, teasing him as his erection throbbed hot against my belly. I twisted my lips into a crooked grin. I wanted playful Blake, and I wasn’t about to let him fall back into shaming his needs—needs that were quickly becoming mine too.

  After what I’d been through with the man who’d raped me four years ago, I never thought I’d be able to give someone the kind of control I’d given Blake. But he’d shown me how to enjoy letting go. He’d opened my eyes to the craving, to something deeper and infinitely more intense than anything I’d ever experienced.

  I fought for control only to have him strip me of it in that masterful way that he always did. He broke me down until I was mindless with desire, and I didn’t want it any other way now. I couldn’t imagine it.

  I ran two fingers over the frown that curved his brow. “What’s eating you, anyway? You seemed upset earlier.”

  He rolled off of me and onto his back, his gaze fixed on the ceiling. Before I could press him, a door slammed and I heard muffled voices. I hopped up quickly, shut the bedroom door, and locked it. I joined Blake back on the bed, snuggling into the nook of his arm. I tossed my leg
lazily over his strong thigh.

  A loud thud from the hallway in the apartment echoed through the room. The sound was followed by a woman’s giggle and then a moan. I smirked. Alli and Heath were at it again, but who was I to talk?

  Thank God they hadn’t walked in on Blake’s little stunt in the dining room. I couldn’t imagine explaining any of that to Alli. She was still mercifully in the dark about all of Blake’s kinks and quirks in the bedroom, and at least for now, I’d rather it stay that way.

  “We should take a trip,” Blake said suddenly.

  I sighed. “I’m sure they’ll get a place soon.”

  “Not soon enough. Plus, we haven’t been away together since...well, since Vegas. We could use a long weekend. I want to spend some time with you. Just us. No distractions.”

  An unexpected series of events, many of them orchestrated by Blake, had brought us here. Vegas had been a turning point among them, and the memory of our first time together still warmed me from head to toe. There had been only lust between us then, but lust had turned to obsession and somewhere in that wild blur, I had fallen in love with him.

  “I’m not sure I should take time away from work right now.” The past few hours had pushed Risa and Max and their whole scheming madness out of my mind, but slowly reality crept back in.

  “I think you’ve earned it. Let me take you away for a few days. There will always be something we need to do and someone who needs us. But there’s nothing that can’t wait an extra day or two.”

  I raised my eyebrows, the compulsive worker in me not entirely believing him. “You sure?”

  “Positive. In fact, I’ve just decided I’m not giving you a choice. We’ll leave after work tomorrow.”

  I grinned, a little thrill working its way through me. “What should I pack?”

  “I’ll put a bag together for you.”

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I’m not sure you’ll be wearing clothes much anyway, so it doesn’t really matter, does it? Bikini, some thongs. That should do fine.”