Bound and Pleasured (The Masters) (2 page)

Jacob had told himself his need for Darla, this incessant burn that had been sated with no other woman, no sexual adventure, would prove a facade, a fantasy. It would end when he saw her again, but it had only begun. He felt her burning through his body, searing him inside out. He wanted to bury himself inside her, to punish her with each hard thrust of his cock for daring to offer herself to Marcus.

He flipped the last of two locks into place on the front entrance to the room, the scent of her filling the room, insinuating into his nostrils—sunflowers, those damn sweet sunflowers that had always driven him insane and had managed, in his too-frequent fantasies of her, to slide into his memory banks even in her absence. The aroma thickened his cock, like he wasn’t hard just being in the same damn building with her as it was, like he wasn’t already aching for her, cursing her for
making him
ache for her.

No other woman stole his control as she did, even with his knowing all too well that she couldn’t handle what he was, who he was. Yet, she thought she could handle Marcus, thought to delve into the dark side for his friend when she had only pushed
him
away.

Jacob reached for her before she could turn. He didn’t give her time to adjust to his presence, to talk. He didn’t want to talk; he was too damn mad to have civil conversation. She gasped in surprise as he turned her to him, and the sound rushed over him with the same fire as a shot of whiskey rasping along his throat.

“Jacob,” she whispered, trying for that conversation he didn’t want to have. She was close, so damn close he wanted to crush her to him, to feel her soft body melt into his, to punish her with his mouth, remind her who she really belonged to.

“You offered yourself to Marcus,” he hissed, anger sizzling the edge of the words, anger he wanted her to know,
to feel.
Her purse fell to the floor, and Jacob kicked it aside, maneuvered her until she was against the door. He pressed his hands to the wall above her, wanting to take her right now and fuck her like she wanted Marcus to fuck her, with nothing but blind lust. “You turned me away, but you have one meeting with Marcus, and you fucking ask him to become your Master?”

“No!” she insisted, her green eyes flashing at him. “No, I didn’t—and I…” Her hand reached for him.

He shackled her wrist. “You touch me when and how I say you do, if I decide you get to touch me at all.”

A stricken look flooded her face. She wasn’t like other women. He’d never denied her touching him until that night he’d tied her up, and that was meant for pleasure. He’d never wanted to do anything but pleasure her.

“I didn’t offer myself to Marcus,” she declared, but her voice was low, shaky, without the conviction of honesty.

“Don’t lie to me, Darla,” he growled through clenched teeth. “
You’d like to learn,
you said to him.
 
If that’s not an offer, I don’t know what is.”

Her throat bobbed. Delicate and ivory perfect. It called to his mouth, and it pissed him off because he still wanted her.

“Marcus made it crystal clear that you didn’t believe I could handle your world,” she said. “I wanted to be sure you knew I could. I didn’t know what else to do.”

He wasn’t sure what part of him clenched tighter with her admission—his gut or his heart. All too easily, she’d offered herself to Marcus. “So you thought offering to fuck Marcus was the answer?”

“You sent him to me.” Her tone took on accusation. “You sent him to me after years of no contact.”

“You knew how to reach me.”

“I didn’t think you wanted me to reach you,” she ground out. He’d always left her a cell number and an email address but with time came hesitation, fear of rejection. “And when Marcus showed up, I thought he was some sort of a test. I thought it was a message that the invitation was about sex and nothing more.”

Fury surfaced, raw and fresh. “Or maybe you just wanted it to be all about sex.”

“No!” She squeezed her eyes shut and then cast a pleading look at him. “I was confused, and after what happened between us, I felt I had something to prove. I thought I had to go beyond my comfort zone, which is you, Jacob.”

Comfort. He was comfort, and Marcus was excitement. “Funny,” Jacob said. “I was never confused where you were concerned, Darla. In fact, I was so damn certain I wanted you, I left the Society while we were together. I didn’t need anything but you. And I damn sure didn’t want you in the Society, nor will I ever share you with Marcus or anyone else for that matter. I reached out to you through Marcus to invite us back together. You were supposed to be his attorney. Not his fucking Sub.”

He pushed off the wall and scrubbed his jaw. “Go home, Darla. You don’t belong here. Or go to Marcus, if that’s what you want. Maybe it’s just me you don’t belong with. Clearly, I should have stayed out of your life.”

She grabbed his shirt, ignored his order not to touch him. Her hands scorched his body, and he didn’t push her away. He wanted her to touch him, and this was going to be the last time she ever did. He was done.

“I don’t want Marcus,” she hissed desperately, drawing closer to him, her legs entwining with his, her breasts pressed to his chest. “Damn it. Stop saying that, or you’re going to piss me off. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want you, and you know it.”

Good, he thought, then they could be pissed off together, but then her bottom lip trembled, giving away the vulnerability beneath her tough exterior—that vulnerability he found so damn alluring glistening in her eyes. But actions spoke volumes, and hers were downright explosive. Anger flashed in him anew. “You show it so well.”

She shoved away from him, anger furrowing her brow. “Damn you, Jacob. You didn’t tell me about the Society so I never had the chance to respect how paramount it was that you left it for me. And it was—I know it was. If only I had known.
But I didn’t.
You pretended to be something you weren’t for a year. I had a right to be scared. I had a right to wonder what else you were hiding from me.”

Those words hit home. She was right. He should have told her; he should have showed her sooner. “Deep down I always knew that the minute I did, you’d be scared away, and I’d lose you.” He snatched her purse from the floor, offering it to her. And she shouldn’t have been scared with him. Not if she’d loved him, not if she’d trusted him.

“You
don’t
scare me.” Her eyes flashed angrily again, and she tossed the purse to the ground. “I said I’m not leaving.”

He stared at her, this woman, the only woman who could test his control. “Go now before I decide to remind you why you were scared that night three years ago.”

“I wasn’t scared until the morning after,” she said. “And I’ve had three years to figure out why. I’m not leaving until you figure it out, too.”

Drawing in a breath, Jacob was ever aware of the demand inside him, demand that reached beyond the raging, uncomfortable hard-on pressing against his zipper. He’d remembered with crystal clarity the coldness in her face, in her voice, when she’d told him she needed “space.”

She wanted to stay this time. Fine. She’d stay, and he’d give her a gift. No. He’d give them both a gift. He’d be damn sure to remind them both just how afraid she’d beenof him three years ago.

Jacob grabbed her with none-too-gentle hands and turned her to face the wall, tugged her jacket down her arms and entwined her hands in it, restraining her with a knot of the material. He closed in on her, framing her body with his, so close that the softness of her melted into the hardness of him.

His lips pressed to her ear, that sunflower scent rasping along his nerve endings, pulsing in his blood. “You want to be a part of this world, my world?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Then I’ll show you what you
think
you want to see,” he said. “But there are rules. I command. You obey. There is no exception except goodbye. The instant you say stop, I stop, and you go.” He nipped the delicate skin of her lobe with his teeth. “Unless you want to run now while you still can?”

The scent of her arousal spiraled together with the flowers, teasing him, damn near making his mouth water. But then, arousing her during play hadn’t been their problem. Apparently, looking at him in the face the next morning had been.

“I’m not running away.” She was breathless. He liked her breathless.

“No?” he asked. “I’ll guess we’ll see about that now, won’t we?” He paused and slid his hand to her stomach, splayed his fingers on her flat stomach.
“After.”

“I was scared,” she whispered, “because I—”

He didn’t let her finish, didn’t want to hear her reasons for pushing him away. He slid his hand to her face and forced her mouth to his, punished her for making him consider such a thing, slanting his mouth over hers in a kiss he knew bordered on savage. But then, wasn’t that what she thought he was? A savage beast that stole her vanilla sex and innocence away.

He suckled her tongue, deepened the kiss, punished her with his passion. She was right; he’d waited a year too long to drag her to his dark side, trying to earn her trust first, certain he had. But she’d never trusted him. She moaned, and he slid his hand up her blouse, busting the buttons and sending them flying. He didn’t care about the damn shirt. He
was
a savage. She thought it of him, so it would be.

Roughly, he shoved her bra down and pinched her nipple—rough with it, as well. She cried out and bit his lip. He laughed, a bitter, hard sound even to his own ears, before pulling the clasp from her hair and letting the soft waves tumble over her shoulders. He leaned in and nipped her lip, murmuring before his hand left her face, “You’ll pay for that.”

His slapped her backside, and she yelped. He smiled and intentionally, falsely, made her think he planned to continue the torture on her backside. He yanked her zipper loose, tugging her skirt, panties along with it, until they pooled at her feet.

He braced her from falling into the wall. Tonight, there would be no pain that wasn’t his erotic choice. The only pain, this night, would be the kind that was pleasure, the kind she could credit to no one or nothing but him. The kind he planned to burn into her memory forevermore, so she’d stay in her sweet little conservative world where she belonged and where he did not.

“Step out of them,” he ordered near her ear and then kicked the material aside as she did. She was soft and tiny in his arms, curvy in all the right places, compliant in all the right ways. Jacob slid down her body, his hands caressing her waist, her hips, until he knelt at her feet, and his teeth scraped her cheek then laved it with his tongue.

He turned her to face him, licked her clit, and slid his finger into the wet honey of her arousal. Her knees trembled, and he steadied her, denying her more—denying her satisfaction.

“Jacob,” she gasped, as he slid up her body, kissing away her protest, letting her taste herself on his tongue and then setting her away from him.

He held her stare and popped her front-clasp bra free, shoved it and her blouse aside. Letting his hungry gaze lower and rake over her naked upper body, her plump red nipples that he knew she liked to have teased, licked, nipped. And tonight, they were going to get teased all right, in a way she wouldn’t soon forget. He leaned in and kissed her, savoring her response, playing with her nipples as he drank her in.

“Are you ready to go home yet?” he asked against her mouth.

“Are you coming with me?” She panted out the challenge.

He liked her like this, all fiery with demand of her own, in need of being put in her place…but then Marcus would have, too. The thought angered him, and he set her away from him, raking his gaze over her lush, hot little body. “Walk to the pedestal,” he said, “and let me look at you.”

Her chin lifted defiantly. “You undress first.”

“I command. You obey.”

“I thought Masters took care of the Subs needs,” she said.

His eyes narrowed on hers, hard like his cock, like his heart would be when this night was over. Never again would any woman hold him captive. “One night does not a Master make,” he said. “And this night is not pleasure—it’s pain.”

A stunned look fluttered across her face. He arched a brow. “Ready to go home now?”

That stubborn chin of hers lifted again, and she marched toward the pedestal, her heart-shaped butt framed by the lace of her thigh-highs and swaying seductively as she moved. Damn that jacket around her hands, blocking his full view.

She stomped up the stairs and whirled around at the top of the pedestal, high heels digging into the carpeted floor beneath her, legs spread wide, breasts high and lush. He imagined the view was as delicious from behind, and the pedestal, set away from the wall like a stage, would allow him the enjoyment of confirmation. She was one hell of sight, bold and daring. He might even say
fearless
.

“I realized something tonight when I did exactly what you said and offered myself to Marcus,” she declared, as if to prove his assessment. “I knew I didn’t have all of you when we were together. I knew you were holding something back, so I did the same. I kept up a wall and protected myself from getting hurt. But that last night when we were together, I couldn’t do it anymore. You had all of me, and I was scared to my bones. Not of the sex but of getting hurt. Marcus can’t hurt me, but you can. That’s why I pushed you away, and that’s why Marcus seemed the easiest way to delve into your world. Because I love you. I really do still love you, Jacob.”

He stared at her, his chest and gut tight all over again. Jacob realized something then, how wrongly he’d approached everything with Darla, how selfishly he’d guarded her, sheltered her. No more. It was time to show her his world, really show it to her, let her experience it, let her make her own choices. Jacob started to undress, ready to get to the naked truth of the matter.