Billionaire Bad Boys of Romance Boxed Set (10 Book Bundle) (12 page)

All of me gave him pleasure, I realized.

The thought shocked me, and it suddenly came to me through the haze of desire slowly building in me, that he wanted all of me. He didn't know me, but he wanted to know me. Every bit of me.

The realization frightened me, but it aroused me at the same time.

Then he set my other foot down, this time on his crotch, and I felt the bulge of his erection through his jeans.

"You don't know what you do to me," he said, looking up at my face. His voice dragged over my skin, as though all my nerves were raw and exposed. I swallowed and licked my lips and felt his cock jump in response to the action of my tongue.

His hands alighted on my waistband, and then he was unbuttoning my jeans, zipping them down, then reaching up and hooking his fingers into both my pants and panties. He slid the fabric over my hips, dragging his fingernails over my exposed ass as he took them off, and when he had to lift my foot from his cock he made a small sigh of sadness and loss.

My mouth went dry.

"Take off your bra," he said. "I want to study my canvas."

Shivers raced over my skin. Reaching behind me, I unhooked my bra and let it slide down my arms to fall to the floor. Malcolm stood and began to circle me.

I remained still, my head held high, wanting nothing more than to leap across the space between us, hook my legs around his waist, and ride him until I came over and over again. What was he doing to me?

Driving me just as crazy as he is,
I thought. Maybe he was a bit mad. But it was a good sort of mad. The madness of artistry, the madness of genius. He finally stopped in front of me and reached out, his hands cupping my small breasts, lifting them up and running his thumbs over my nipples. My core quivered and I moaned softly at his touch.

"Sensitive there, are you?" he said.

I nodded.

"Good." He slid his warm hands up my chest to my shoulders, and then let his fingers drift down, down, down the back of my arm to my hands. Gently, he tangled his fingers with mine and led me over to the cloth in the center of the floor.

"Kneel," he commanded me, and I did so. The warmth of his palms sliding over my body guided me into the position he wanted, and I reveled in his every touch as he pushed my face down to the floor, stretched my arms out in front of me, arched my back so my ass stuck in the air. He lifted my heavy mass of hair and slid it over one shoulder, then traced his hands over my spine.

"You have many tattoos," he said after a moment. "I love them. You are a work of art."

No man had told me I was art before. I closed my eyes, praying he would paint me and then fuck me. I couldn't take the teasing much longer.

My exposed pussy quivered in the air, though the warmth of the room kept the caresses of the drafts from being uncomfortable. I ached for him. I ached for anything. I wished, suddenly, that I wasn't the passive canvas, that I could touch him as much as he touched me.

He knelt down beside me. "Your back is beautiful," he said. "You are exquisitely structured." The scrape of the table legs on the floor echoed around the studio as he dragged his materials over to himself. I heard the unscrewing of a cap and the rustle of his movements as he dipped a brush into the paint. Then he touched brush to skin, and I sighed in pleasure.

Slowly, torturously, he dragged the tip of his brush over my back, winding down my spine in spirals, wandering where it would. I had no idea what he was doing. My forehead touched the floor and I could only see his knees from the cave of my body, but whatever he was doing felt amazing. Swift, then slow, strong, then soft, he painted my skin. Occasionally he would dip the brush into the paint again, and I quivered, wondering where he would paint me next. I was never disappointed. First he painted the back of my thigh, then the curve of my waist. Then, finally, his brush found my breast. It curled under and over, circling my nipple, until I nearly moaned in frustration.

"Would you like me to touch your nipple?" he said. He sounded amused. "Nod if yes."

I nodded.

I watched as he reached down to the hard little point of my breast. Then my breath caught as he pushed his pointer into his thumb, and then flicked me.

Pleasure laced with pain shot out across me, darting straight from my nipple to my heart, and I cried out.

"Too much?" he asked. "Nod if yes."

I remained perfectly still, and I heard his breathing pick up the pace.

"Good," he said. He ran the brush over the now throbbing nub, soothing it. I was so wet between my legs it was a miracle I wasn't just dripping down my thighs. He flicked me again, then soothed me, flicked and soothed, flicked and soothed, over and over, until I was crying out and twitching with each burst of pleasurable pain.

At last he stopped, then ran his fingertips over my back and side. He traced the swell of my ass and reached around, brushing his fingers against my quivering cunt, feeling the soaking wetness there.

"Ah, Sadie," he breathed. "You truly are alive." He shifted, moving around to my back. God, why wouldn't he let me touch him? I needed to touch him. I wanted his cock in my hands, in my mouth. I'd never wanted anyone like I'd wanted Malcolm Ward, and the wanting was all the more potent because he didn't seem to want me to have him.

"Hmm," he said suddenly. "I need a new brush. But I have forgotten a place where I could store my used brushes. I truly am an amateur."

His voice had a wicked undertone, and my pulse quickened. Was he going to do what I thought he was going to do?

Hot breath gusted between the cheeks of my ass, caressing the tight puckered entrance there. Then he slid his tongue over my asshole, soft, sensuous, layering it with moisture, so that when he finally pressed the rounded tip of the brush handle past the tight ring of muscle, it went easily, and I moaned and quaked around it.

"Do you like it?" he asked me. "Nod if yes."

I nodded.

"Good."

I heard him select another brush, and then he began to swirl it over the mounds of my ass, dragging paint here and there, tickling and teasing me until he rinsed it out and then inserted it alongside the first one. Then another, and another. Slowly he stretched me out, and I quivered with desire to be used so. My pussy was melting. I needed him inside me, but I knew he wouldn't give me what I wanted yet.

He selected another brush. "I like this part of you," he said.

There was a pause and I almost opened my mouth to ask him what he meant, but then he swiped the bristles of the brush over my burning slit and I squeaked as they flicked against my clitoris.

"This part is very alive," he said. "It almost has a mind of its own." He flicked my clitoris with the brush again and I groaned at the intensity of the sensation. The pleasure coiled and curled in my belly, and I felt myself beginning the long, slow climb up to the top of the mountain, and when I finally let go I would plunge into pleasure. My mouth watered, my body strained, even as I struggled to stay still. The brushes in my ass filled me up. and I ached to feel the same in my tight core.

"I'd like to watch you come," Malcolm said. "Would you like that? Nod if yes."

I didn't want to nod. "Yes!" I cried.

He reached around and flicked my nipple again, and I bucked and shrieked. So much more intense, so much more satisfying, now that he was touching me where I most needed him. He began to flutter the bristles of the brush over my slit, gathering the slick juices there, as though he were loading the brush with paint, and when he dragged it over my clit as if he were layering paint onto a canvas I couldn't help but cry out and writhe under his tender attention.

With every cry, he sent a lance of pain over my nipple, and with every jolt of that incredible sensation I bucked and wailed as he flicked my clit faster and faster, until I couldn't tell the pain from the pleasure and it was one and the same. "Malcolm!" I cried out as I coiled tight and then burst apart, shattering into a million pieces. Each piece fell to the floor, and I collapsed against the cloth when it was over, my quivering pussy still aching and wet, begging for his cock to enter me.

Slowly he slid the brushes from my ass, and I felt the emptiness that followed their loss keenly. Panting, I felt sweat rolling down my brow and sheening my back, and when he ran his hand over the skin there, I shuddered with pleasure.

"Good, good," he murmured. His own voice was throaty with desire. Would he finally give me what I wanted?

His hands guided me until I was curled up into a fetal position on the floor, and then he turned me over and spread me out. Sweat cooled in the air, and I tried not to stare shamelessly at the bulge in his jeans. His full lips were parted, and again he dipped a brush into paint. Putting it to my skin, he swirled up around the outside of my breast, shimmying and spiraling up and up, over the inside of my upper arm. "I wonder if I could make a tattoo you would love," he said, almost to himself.

I almost smiled at that, but the words brought a tiny bit of anxiety to the fore. I had designed all my tattoos myself. It would have to be a stunning design for me to really want to put it to my skin.

Then he trailed the paint over the tattoo on the inside of my arm, a leaping koi fish done in the Japanese style. I felt the bristles move over the numb spot there, and I gritted my teeth.

Malcolm paused.

I couldn't help myself. I looked up, and I saw that the solid color of the paint had obscured my tattoo, revealing what lay beneath.

A long, angry scar.

"Stop!"

The word burst out of my mouth, and Malcolm froze, startled. He glanced down at my face, and whatever he saw there told him I was serious. He withdrew the brush and backed away.

I sat up.

"Sadie?" he said. "Are you—?"

"I'm going," I said. "I just remembered. I have to go somewhere. I'm sorry. I have to go." My hand was already on the paint, wiping it away, until my leaping fish emerged again and I smeared the paint on the drop cloth beneath me.

"Sadie..."

I was on my feet. I didn't care if my clothes were ruined. I hurried over to them and pulled them on, my bra, my shirt, my cardigan. My jacket, my jeans. My boots. Each layer soothed me, hid me, and when I was done, I grabbed my purse, my breathing so fast I thought I might faint. "Sorry," I said. "I have to go." And without looking back, I jogged across the floor and took the steps down the stairs two-at-a-time. I sounded like a herd of buffalo, but I didn't stop until I was outside, breathing in the icy air.

I paused on the sidewalk and looked up. I couldn't see Malcolm looking down at me, but I knew he was. What I had just done was exactly what he had done to me after our first session. Run away. I was a coward.

I started for the subway station, but my breath wouldn't slow down. I was hyperventilating. I knew I should stop, bend over, but the only way to stop was to breathe less or use up that extra oxygen. My feet picked up the pace, until I was barely skimming the ground with my toes, dodging and weaving through other people. Yells followed me whenever I bumped into someone, but I couldn't stop.

Great. Now I really
am
the one running away.
But I couldn't make myself slow down. I couldn't make myself turn around. I just kept on running.

Time passed. I don't know how long. I just wanted to
escape,
but I couldn't run away from the things inside. I thought I'd run the whole way home even though it wouldn't have done any good, and I would have done it if a sleek black car hadn't pulled up next to me and kept pace. I glanced over, and saw Malcolm through the open window in the back seat. I slowed down.

"What do you want?" I said.

"Sadie, please, get in the car."

"No thanks. I'm out for a jog."

"I crossed a line. I didn't know it was there."

I looked away. "It's fine. You didn't know. And now you said sorry. So it's all hunk dory now. Is that why you just ran me down in your car?"

"I hardly think I ran you down. And yes, that's partly why."

I slowed to a stop, waiting for him to finish the thought, but he didn't. Fine. I'd bite. "And why else did you want to talk to me so badly you couldn't call me on the phone?"

"You wouldn't have answered, and I want to take you to Dubrovnik," he told me.

I'd never even heard of Dubrovnik. I stared at him.

He smiled. "Let's get out of Manhattan. Let's go. I'm sick of this place. I want to take you out. I heard its warm in Dubrovnik this year."

"I don't even know where Dubrovnik is."

"I want to take you there. You are an artist. You will love it."

I'd told Felicia I'd see her tomorrow.

But this was Malcolm Ward, offering to take me somewhere else. If I went home, I knew I'd spend the rest of the day drinking wine and washing away the paint, running my thumbs over my tattoos, shivering and shuddering and afraid to go to sleep.

If I went with Malcolm, I'd end up on another planet. At least, that's what I was assuming Dubrovnik was. It was warm? I'd kill for the warm. I was cold, inside and out.

"Fine," I said, got in the car, and away we drove.