Breathe for Me (28 page)

Chelsea couldn’t stop the tremors shaking her body in regular bursts. She’d never been tied up before. Never thought she’d be into it. But she’d never felt as sexy when he took her arm and stretched it up, tying the material around her wrist and then securing the other end to his headboard. He did the same to her other arm. Then he did one leg—spreading her so she was like a star in the centre of his bed.

She’d creamed up in excitement already. The trust she had in him. She’d dared him and he rose to her challenge.

She loved that.

She circled her hips even as he tied the last of the restraints carefully around her ankle.

“Tug for me,” he instructed.

She strained to pull her legs together. No way could she achieve it. Oh man, he really had her tied tight. Open.

“Hurt?”

She shook her head. It was tight but not painful. And so thrilling.

“If you don’t like it, say the word, anytime.” He looked at her. “That word would be no.”

“Xander.” She said her yes-word instead. Because she wanted this so damn much. She couldn’t wait for him to touch her. She was on the edge of an orgasm already—just from the anticipation. From the dominance he had over her. But it was at her instigation. She knew, ultimately, she had the control in this.

He ran a hand down her body, eyes following how her black suit clung to her. “I’ll get you another of these, he promised. “In fact. I’m getting in a bulk order.”

He turned and walked out of the room. She swallowed, wondering what he’d gone for.

A minute later he reappeared—large shears in his hand. The steel blades glittered. She shivered, doubly excited by the frisson of danger. She knew he’d never really hurt her—she knew he planned to cut her free later.

His eyes were cool, his gaze firm. His brows flickered at the ripple of desire that trammelled through her body. “This turning you on, pussycat?”

She licked her lips.

“You gonna purr for me?”

She tilted her chin at him—about the only movement she could make. “Make me.”

His grin flashed but his jaw hardened. “I do like to make my prisoners scream.”

Her nipples were so hard it was a wonder they hadn’t poked through the material already. He pinched the tip of one with his thumb and forefinger. The tiny pain made her jump. Heat and tension made her sex clench.

Then he let her nipple slip from his fingers so it was only the fabric he still held. He pulled it further from her body and snipping that pinch of black away. He released it and the fabric snapped to cling back to her skin. He tweaked where it lay, so her nipple then poked through the circular hole he’d just cut.

He looked at it for a moment, satisfaction in his gaze. “Nice,” he nodded.

Chelsea melted in the heat. How had she thought she could compete with him in any kind of game?

He bent, holding the shears against her tight breast. Pressing the cold, closed blades against her soft flesh, pushing her nipple higher. He opened his mouth and sucked the very tip into his mouth, his tongue pushing the sensitive bud to the roof of his mouth.

She cried out—couldn’t help it. It was too sensitive.

He released her and grinned. Leaned to the other side to pinch her other breast. To cut away the fabric covering that nipple. Then kissed and squeezed the nub he’d exposed.

Chelsea writhed as much as she could, desperate for him to touch her everywhere—oh who was she kidding? She just wanted him to eat her.

And he knew it. He laughed.

“What treasures have we got underneath here?” He patted her pussy with downward strokes just like she was a little cat who didn’t like her hair being rubbed the wrong way. She shimmied under his touch—wanting him to go lower, to bare her. To make her come. She wanted to come so badly.

Very carefully he snipped the slit wider—taking inches of material away. She could feel the air against her skin. Then she could feel his breath.

The scissors clattered to the floor and her eyes all but rolled back into her head as she went delirious. The guy could do wicked things with his tongue.

“Please, please, please.”

Finally he found the scissors again, running them the length of her legs to cut the fabric—she gasped as cooler air hit her skin. She needed it.

Needed him more.

“Xander.”

He thrust home, arched up on his hands to driving deeper, deeper still. She cried out, calling to him, revelling in his possession. The most
unrestrained
she’d ever been with him. And he called right back—his eyes, his movements as wild, as passionate. As complete.

There was nothing between them. She arched her neck, smiling though her eyes were closed. The catsuit lay in ribbons around them. Their skin stuck in the sweaty heat they’d built.

She felt replete. So consumed. So content.

“Thank you,” she said.

“For what?” he murmured.

“Letting go with me.”

He didn’t answer. But he lifted away from her to kneel on the bed beside her and looking down the length of her body.

“You going to untie me?” She had a mind to tell him not to, to tell him to keep her there for the afternoon and do it all again.

“No.” His answer was uncompromising and exactly what she’d wanted. “You went away without telling me where. Left me not knowing when or if you were ever coming back. I’m not letting you go again.”

“Ever?” she teased, her toes curling in anticipation. “I’m tied to your bed for good?” She laughed. “Next time I’m tying
you
up. You’ve no idea how liberating it is.”

He stared at her for a long moment. To her surprise the amusement in his eyes faded.

“Xander?” She lifted her head as she saw him freeze back into ‘bland’.

“It’s okay.” Xander coughed, and turned his back to her. “I guess I’ll set you free.”

He picked up the shears and sliced through the ties, unbinding one of her ankles, then the other. He avoided her gaze as he moved round the bed to release her wrists as well.

Xander felt like a cement truck had just dumped its load of cold wet concrete into his veins. Now it was solidifying—stopping his heart from pumping. From feeling. He didn’t like this game anymore. Because it wasn’t a game.

He wasn’t going to let her go?
 

Those words echoed. He heard another voice snarling them.

Xander froze. He didn’t want to threaten her that way. He knew what it was like to be so afraid. Terrified of what might happen when his dad caught up with him and his mom.

Only now he feared he understood his father’s madness. He had it in him. He didn’t want to let her go. He’d do anything to stop her leaving him again.

You can’t leave me. You’ll never get away from me.

The words his father hadn’t just shouted at his mother. He’d whispered them to her through a locked and barricaded door, bloodcurdlingly soft as Xander had curled in a ball beside his mom. They’d been so scared they didn’t even breathe, hoping they hadn’t been detected.

Xander never wanted to see Chelsea afraid of him. But he understood his father now. Xander too was possessive to the point of madness. He couldn’t go down this track. He gritted his teeth. He was a stronger man than his father. He wasn’t doing that to Chelsea.

He rummaged in a drawer and tossed a tee-shirt at her. “I need you to go now. I’ve got somewhere else I need to be tonight.”

He saw confusion bloom in her eyes, shock rob her cheeks of that pretty post-orgasm flush. He glanced away. He didn’t want to see it. It was the best thing for her. For them both.

“Pardon?” She sounded stunned.

“I need you to go.” He looked at her again. “I’ve got other plans.”

She blinked but didn’t move.

“I need to spell it out?” Bitter anger surged in him. Mostly with himself. But he had to get away from this nightmare. The horror in his own head. “I don’t want to see you again.”

She got off the bed and stalked towards him. “Xander, we just had the best sex ever. You couldn’t get enough of it. You were—” she broke off.

He knew why she had. He’d been out of control. He had. So caught up in his lust for her, his need to make her his. To own. To control. To keep.

And that was the problem.

“We’re done.” He walked out of his bedroom. “You can keep the tee-shirt.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Patronizing bastard. Furious wasn’t the word for how Chelsea felt. There were no words to describe her rage. Her hurt.

She’d finally done it—instigated, acted out a fantasy only to have it fail. Except it hadn’t. He’d been so into it, she’d have said he
loved
it. But then he’d done the whole Jekyll and Hyde thing—turning into a totally different person. A side of him she’d never seen—a side she didn’t believe in.

It pissed her off. Royally.

She felt like chopping his precious frickin’ tee-shirt into dime-sized pieces and stuffing them into his mail box. Except she wasn’t going to go psycho-ex-lover on him. He wasn’t worth it.

And she was worth more.

Twenty-four hours later she was still raging. And she’d accepted she wasn’t going to walk away from this. She wasn’t going to bury this for too long and have it fester.

Not this time
.
 

She’d learned from that mistake. She was going to deal with it. Clear the air. Express her emotions. Because wasn’t that part of this whole thing? Learning to communicate was part of forgiveness. Was part of being able to move on.

Well she’d just aced the art of communicating her sexual needs, now it was time for the emotional. She had to be honest. Even though she knew she wasn’t going to like what he was going to say, she damn well wanted to hear it. And she wanted to tell him more than a few things too.

Because Xander Lawson was every bit as much of a coward as she’d been. Every bit as constrained in his ability to communicate. Well that was changing. This minute.

She knocked on his door. Kept knocking. She knew he was in there. She’d gotten Brad to text her the moment Xander walked through the door. He wasn’t at the pool—she’d just checked that. So she was sure he was here in his apartment.

His door jerked open. He looked at her, his body language freezing. Slowly he lifted a single eyebrow as if he couldn’t for the life of him understand why she was bothering him.

“You owe me answers.” She barged past him, not caring if he had company. “And don’t you dare say it’s because I don’t do it for you anymore. I can get you hard in seconds.
 
I’m willing to bet you’re hard for me now.”

“Chelsea.” He closed the door and turned to lean against it.

She pivoted and got right in his face. Still furious. “You wanted me to tell you what happened with Tom. You wanted me to trust you enough to open up to that. And I did. But it’s a two way street. If you have a problem, it’s not fair to hold back from me. Because I’m feeling like I’m failing again.” She rubbed away the annoying tear that had escaped. Damn it, she hadn’t wanted to get emotional, but here she was welling up already.
 
“Don’t do this to me. I played, Xander—I finally played up. For the first time I felt good about doing something sexy and silly and naughty again. I finally felt like owning my body and what I wanted from you. I felt released from that guilt. And I
loved
it. So if that isn’t what has you going so cold, then you need to tell me. Because this isn’t fair.” She’d been through too much.

“Chelsea.” Her name was wrenched from him. “It wasn’t you. It’s not you. You’re…” He didn’t finish. Instead he put his hands on her shoulders—but didn’t draw her close. Rather he literally held her at arm’s length. “I’m sorry.” He searched her face, his own expression somber. “It wasn’t that. I loved that. Not just the Catwoman moment and that wildness. But that you came back to me, that you were there for me. I loved that too much. And
that
was the problem. It wasn’t you. It’s me.”

Chelsea gritted her teeth through a momentary hit of rage, before she could speak again. “That’s the worst line ever. I need more than that.” She fisted her hands and crossed them in front of her breasts and then jerked her arms wide—knocking his hands from her shoulders in a sudden, slicing move.

She stepped forward before he had the chance to blink—slamming her body against his.

“I need you to be honest,” she snarled at him. “You wanted me to open up, you damn well do the same. You’re as chicken as I am, Xander Lawson. Only you hide behind your charm and your easy arrogant playfulness. You think you can stop from getting involved by keeping things light and fun and all just a game. Well we moved past light and fun days ago. Be brave. You like a woman who’s your match? I’m more than a match for you. You need to step up to my level and you need to do that now.”

For a moment he stared at her, but then he closed his eyes. A second later he pushed past her. It wasn’t hard, he had the greater strength after all. She turned and watched him walk. She’d never seen him hunch before but right now he sat with his shoulders raised, his elbows propped on his knees as he pressed his forehead into his fists.