Claim Me: A Novel (6 page)

His palm against the window clenches, and I can see his muscles tighten. “I owned a small, gourmet wine and cheese company once,” he says. “Or rather Stark International did.”

My mind spins at the shift in conversation. I don’t know why he’s telling me this, but I trust he has a point. I ease behind him and press against his back. I put my arms around his waist and brush my lips against the nape of his neck.

“Tell me about it,” I say.

“It was an old company, family run, good reputation. I loved their products and thought it could be a profitable partnership. And it was—for about a year.”

“What happened?”

“The press learned that Stark International was behind this mom-and-pop business and started lambasting them. Didn’t matter that we weren’t mass-producing the food. We hadn’t
changed the system. We had simply provided enough capital to let the company grow within its own parameters. But they were called out as Big Business disguised as the Little Guy, a trick designed to fool consumers. All the negative attention stopped growth cold. Suddenly a company that was solidly in the black was in the red.”

“What did you do?” I hold my breath, because I am certain I know where he’s going, and I don’t like it.

“I pulled out. Very publicly and very loudly. Even so, it took a while for the business to get back on its feet. Being associated with Stark International almost destroyed the company whose cheese and wine I loved so much.”

“I’m neither cheese nor wine,” I say softly. “And I’m not spiraling down. I could never spiral down with you beside me. You hold me up, Damien. We both know it.”

He is silent for so long that I think my words haven’t touched him. And then, with an abruptness that takes my breath away, he spins us around, so that my back is against the cool glass. He steps away long enough to turn to face me, and then suddenly his mouth is on mine, and he is kissing me. His mouth is hard and demanding against mine, and I am held fast between the glass and Damien, an infinity of night stretched out before me, and the power of his kiss the only thing that is keeping me anchored.

When he breaks the kiss, I see an unfamiliar ferocity in his eyes. “I will do it,” he says. “If that’s what it takes to protect you, I will leave you. Even if it kills me.”

“You won’t,” I counter, my breath coming hard and fast as my chest tightens painfully in protest and fear. “You won’t because it would kill me, too.”

“Oh, Nikki.”

He lowers his head to close his mouth over mine once again, more gentle this time, but just as possessive. I arch back, losing myself in his touch. I am like a switch, and all it takes is the
slightest contact from Damien to send a wild current through me. To light me up and make me shine.

“Do you have any idea what I want to do to you right now?”

“Tell me,” I beg.

“I want to strip you bare and press you up against the glass. I want to trail my fingers over you lightly, just enough to make you awaken to my touch. I want to watch the lights of the Pier flash behind you, and I want to watch my own reflection in your eyes as you come.”

My mouth is dry, so the little “oh” that I say doesn’t actually come out as sound.

“But I can’t,” he says. “I believe I told you that I wasn’t going to touch you.”

“I won’t hold you to it,” I say.

“But that would be breaking the rules.”

I have to force myself not to whimper. “You’re playing games with me, Mr. Stark.”

“Yes,” he says plainly. “I am.”

“I suppose that’s fair,
sir
,” I say. “I’m yours, after all. At least for the night. But tomorrow, I’ll be a rich woman and the game’s going to have a new set of rules.”

For a moment, he is perfectly still. Then he nods slowly. “You raise a good point, Ms. Fairchild,” he says. “I need to make sure I get my money’s worth.”

“Your money’s worth?”

“Did you read the article in
Forbes
I sent you?” he asks. “The reporter did a good job of describing my philosophy in business.”

“I read it.” In fact, I’d read it several times, savoring every tidbit I learned about Damien the Businessman.

“Yes,
sir
,” he corrects.

“Yes, sir,” I repeat. “I read the article.”

“Then you know that I attribute much of my success to my
ability to extract as much value as possible from every monetary transaction.”

I lick my lips. “And I’m a monetary transaction?”

“You are indeed.”

“I see. And how do you intend to extract value?”

“I already told you,” he says. “If you’re not going to pay attention …”

“You said you were going to make me come.”

His mouth curves into a lazy smile and the corners of his eyes crinkle. “So I did. Good girl. You get an A in class, after all.” Then, with a devious gleam in his eye, Damien takes hold of the cord at the small of my back and begins a slow tugging motion.

Oh. My. God
.

It’s as if he’s creating electricity out of friction, and I close my eyes as my breath comes shallower and faster. “Damien,” I whisper.

“Do you like that?”

“Yes—oh, God, yes.”

“Good,” he says. And then releases the cord.

The friction stops and my eyes fly open.

He’s looking down at me, his smile a little too smug. “Frustrated, Ms. Fairchild?”

“No,” I lie, but even I can hear the petulant whine in my voice.

He laughs, then kisses my nose. “Patience, sweetheart. Right now, I have a treat for you.” He presses a button on the table and a light above the panel door shifts from red to green.

I glance at Damien curiously. “The panels lock to allow guests their privacy. When the food arrives, the server presses a button on the outside and the button turns red.”

“And green unlocks it,” I say. It’s an interesting system—and also makes me realize that we would have had complete privacy
if Damien had actually stripped me bare and fucked me against the window, just as he’d described.

I imagine the feel of the cool glass against my back. Of Damien’s hands on my breasts. Of his mouth on my neck. And of his cock filling me as he thrusts deeper and deeper inside me until I explode in a cacophony of colors that rival the shining lights of the Pier in the distance.

“Nikki—”

My head jerks up and I realize that the waiter is setting a fondue pot on the table and Damien is gesturing for me to sit down. Although the waiter seems oblivious, I am quite certain that Damien knows exactly where my thoughts had wandered.

Naughty
, he mouths.

I flash him my most innocent smile, then bat my eyes for effect.

There is a pattern in the middle of the tabletop that turns out not to be a pattern at all. It’s a heating element, and onto it the waiter puts a heavy stone pot—
le caquelon
—filled with partially melted chocolate. Another waiter has a basket of all sorts of dippables, ranging from juicy strawberries to tiny squares of cheesecake. I grin at Damien like a kid in heaven. “Chocolate fondue?”

“I had considered cheese,” he says, after the waiters have slipped out and shut the panel door again. “But this way will ensure that I’m not punished by the withholding of sex.”

I must look confused, because he continues. “Alaine imports the chocolate from the Swiss subsidiary I mentioned earlier.”

“Really?” I peer into the pot. “I already know you’re delicious. I suppose your chocolate will be, too.”

As if to prove the point, I reach for a strawberry, but he gently smacks my hand. “No, no,” he says.

I stare at him. “Um, hello?
Chocolate
.”

He laughs. “Close your eyes.”

I narrow them but don’t close them.

“Disobedience, Ms. Fairchild? You do live dangerously …”

I smirk, but I also close my eyes. After a moment, I feel something soft brush my cheek, then cover my eyes. A napkin or a handkerchief? I’m not sure, but whatever it is, Damien is using it as a blindfold.

“What—” But my question is stalled by his finger on my lips.

“I made you a promise, Ms. Fairchild.”

I nod, my nipples tightening and my sex clenching as I recall Damien’s words. “You’re going to make me come.”

“That, too,” he says, and I can hear the laughter in his voice. “I also said I was going to feed you. Conveniently, I think the two may go together very well.”

For a moment, I feel nothing. Then the cord that is still between my legs tightens as Damien tugs gently at it from behind. I gasp, and when I do, something cold brushes my lips. “Open for me,” Damien says, and I do. He brushes the mystery item over my lips again. It’s soft and rough at the same time, and though I try to catch a scent, the heady smell of chocolate in the room is overpowering.

“Now bite,” he says, and when I do, I moan with pleasure as the sweet strawberry bursts in my mouth. Juice dribbles down my chin, and then there is Damien, the tip of his tongue stroking up, dipping into the corner of my mouth, tasting the juice that escaped and teasing me mercilessly in the process.

“I thought you weren’t going to touch me,” I say, turning my head to try to find his mouth. I want his kiss. I want his touch.

“Holding me to my promise, after all?” he asks as he once again tugs at the cord. I whimper, my hips shifting on the seat. I can feel how wet I am, how slippery the cord is. It’s so close to my clit, but not quite there, and I’m craving that sweet, specific attention.

“No,” I breathe. I want to beg him to touch me, promise be damned.

He chuckles. “Ah, but I’m a man of integrity. But let’s agree that I’ll keep to the spirit of my promise and not the letter. Do you want me to gently press my fingertip against your clit? To feel that hard nub beneath my finger? To tease it, stroke it, to play with it until you come?”

“I—”

“Shhh. You don’t speak, Nikki. Not until I say that you can. Do you understand?”

I nod.

“Good. Let’s continue to discuss the parameters of my promise. Perhaps you want me to slide my hands between your legs. To spread you wide. To lay you back on this bench and kiss my way up your legs. To breathe in the scent of your sex, and dip my tongue in your sweet folds, more delicious than any chocolate could ever be?”

Yes
, I want to say.
Oh, yes, please
.

“Maybe you just want me to fuck you.”

I whimper, but Damien ignores the sound.

“To all of those possibilities, Ms. Fairchild, I am saying no. I promised I wouldn’t touch you, and I won’t. I won’t touch your sex, at any rate. As for the rest of you—well, perhaps we shall make one or two small exceptions. Nod if you understand.”

I nod.

“Good girl. Now try this.”

I open my mouth, and discover a truly decadent treat. Creamy cheesecake that Damien has dipped in chocolate. I moan and swallow it, then lick every bit of chocolate from my lips.

“Naughty girl,” Damien chides. “Not even leaving a taste for me.” As he speaks, he plays with the cord again. Behind the blindfold, I close my eyes and let the sweet sensations roll through me.

All too soon Damien stops. It’s time for another treat. This time, a piece of dipped pound cake. Then a dipped marshmallow. And then—oh, God—it’s Damien’s finger in my mouth. I lick the chocolate off, then greedily pull him in. I run my tongue over his skin and suck and draw his finger in and out until I hear his soft moan and know that, yes, I’ve gotten to him.

I wait for the next treat, but instead, Damien tugs at my sleeve. “Pull your arm in,” he says, and I do. He repeats on the other side, until both my arms are out of the sleeves and he is able to pull my shirt all the way up to my shoulders. “That looked like such a good idea, I may have to try it myself.”

I have no idea what he means—at least not until I feel something warm and wet and sticky on my breast. And then Damien’s finger is back at my mouth, and I am once again sucking the chocolate from his skin. But this time, he is doing the same, because as I suck, so does he. His mouth is over my chocolate-coated breast. He licks, he sucks, and with each erotic motion my nipple tightens and my areola puckers. My sex clenches, too, hot and demanding, and wildly stimulated by the cord that Damien plays with, the tempo of the gentle tugs matching the rhythm of his mouth on my breast.

Again and again, the cord slips and slides, sweet friction that comes close to sending me spiraling off.

Again and again, his mouth teases and taunts. Sucking and pulling and biting, not too hard, but enough that I feel it. Enough that the sharp, sweet sensation shoots all the way through me, straight to the cord that is so sweetly tormenting me.

Over and over, more and more, building and building until finally the tremors in my body build to a crescendo that breaks like a wave over me.

I ride it, letting my hips shift as I glide over the cord, concentrating on the feel of Damien’s mouth tight on my breast. It is explosive and raw and I gasp as it builds, and then sag with spent
pleasure when the orgasm inevitably fades, and I am left grinning in the heady glow.

Slowly, Damien tongues the last bit of chocolate off my bare skin. Then he gently helps me put my arms back through my sleeves. “So tell me, Nikki,” Damien says, his voice soft and seductive. “Did you enjoy your dessert?”

“God, yes.”

“Do you want more?” he asks, as he tugs off my blindfold.

I blink and breathe in the sight of him, my beautiful Damien with just the slightest smudge of chocolate in the corner of his mouth. I lean in and kiss it away, using the tip of my tongue to taste those last sweet drops.

“No more than that,” I breathe. “Now the only thing I want is you.”

There is no traffic on our return to Malibu, and Damien takes advantage of the empty highway, driving like a demon up PCH and then along the curving roads of the Malibu canyons.

He manages to make the jaunt in less than twenty minutes, which is probably both a record and proof that the folks at Bugatti haven’t misrepresented the car’s zippiness.

Despite the shortness of our trip—and even despite the thrill-ride quality of the drive itself—it is the longest twenty minutes of my life.

Now we’re in the house, and Damien is slowly—achingly slowly—drawing the cord out from under my outfit. The waistband of the skirt is snug, and that provides some resistance, so that as the cord slides between my ass cheeks and over my sex, I have to bite my lip so as to not cry out against the growing power of the sensations building within me.