Claim Me: A Novel (7 page)

“Damien,” I murmur. It is the only word I can manage. We are standing in the barren foyer of this unfinished house. The room is huge and empty and even my breath seems to echo. Behind us, the front door still hangs wide open.

I’m not really caring about any of that. At this moment, in fact, the hard marble floor is looking pretty damned appealing.

I meet Damien’s eyes, and I see my own desire reflected back. This night has been foreplay, and it has been wonderful. But now it’s time for more. I want to be fucked.

I want Damien.

“Take off your clothes,” he orders as soon as the cord is fully free, though still hanging from my neck.

I nod and silently comply, stepping first out of the skirt and then tugging the top over my head. As I do, Damien goes to the door and slams it shut. When he returns, I’m fumbling at the knot around my neck.

“No,” he says. “Leave it.”

He bends to my feet and unfastens the tiny buckles around my ankles. I sigh with relief as I step out of each shoe in turn. The marble is cool beneath my feet, and considering how much desire has heated my body, I’m surprised that steam doesn’t rise up from the floor simply from the contact.

I am naked now, with only the cord around my neck, and he is still fully dressed, his clothes not even wrinkled. That simple reality only excites me more.

I am aware of everything around and within me. The heat from Damien, standing only inches from me. The quick beat of my pulse in my neck. The quickening of my sex, so desperate for his touch.

Our eyes meet, and I gasp. I expect the desire I see there, but I am done in by the rest of it. By the raw emotion. By the desperate longing that he isn’t even endeavoring to hide.

“Nikki,” he says, and with one quick motion he grabs hold of the cord and pulls me to him. I stumble, then find myself pressed against him, my hot flesh against the cool cotton of his shirt. I have no time to think about the feel of him, though, because his mouth closes over mine in a kiss that is more of an assault
than a seduction. He is claiming, demanding. I can taste nothing but Damien, feel nothing but Damien. At this moment, he is my entire world, and I know with unerring certainty that in that moment there is no world for him beyond the two of us, either.

“I want to go slow,” he says when he finally breaks the kiss. “I want to make you moan with anticipation and writhe with need of me. I want you so ready that you beg for me.”

I swallow. I want this, too.

“But, dammit, Nikki, I can’t wait.”

“Then don’t,” I say, and my voice is hoarse, the words barely able to scrape past the desire.

“God, what you do to me.” The words seem wrenched from him, and he closes his mouth over mine almost before he’s finished speaking. At the same time, he scoops me up, one arm around my back and the other under my knees. I curl close to him, relishing the feel of his arms around me, but wanting more. So much more.

He carries me up the stairs, then sets me on my feet in front of the now-closed doors that lead to the balcony. I have barely got my balance when his mouth catches mine again in a bruising kiss and we stumble together backward. The bed is right there, barring our path even while keeping us from falling to the ground in a claiming, grasping flurry of lips and hands.

The mattress brushes against the back of my thighs, but before I can even think to sit, Damien breaks our kiss. “No,” he says, and then turns me around. “Bend over,” he says. “Hands on the bed.”

I comply, the cord dangling from my neck like an ornamental leash. I wriggle my ass as coquettishly as I can manage in such a position. “For someone who says he can’t wait you’re taking an awfully long time.”

“Perhaps I’m waiting for an apology. It’s not kind to remind
a man that heaven is ending in mere hours,” he teases sternly. “A young woman with your meticulous upbringing should have more tact than to bring up such a sore subject several times over the course of one evening. Whatever happened to etiquette and decorum?”

“That’s a very good question, Mr. Stark. Perhaps I’m not as polite and refined as you think I am.”

“Perhaps not,” he says as his fingers trail over my back. “I don’t like being reminded that the end is near. It was quite unkind of you to mention it so boldly.”

“Quite unkind,” I agree. “Rude, even. Definitely thoughtless. And certainly not worthy of the Emily Post seal of approval.”

He doesn’t answer. I’m pretty sure his silence is masking a laugh.

I manage another flirty ass-wiggle. “Maybe you should punish me.”

I immediately know that I’ve said the wrong thing. He is still silent, but now the quiet feels dark and heavy instead of playful and light.

“Should I?” he finally says, his voice low and controlled. “Do you think I didn’t see the way you dug your nails into your thighs in the car on the way to the restaurant? We were only talking about the paparazzi then. It was worse when they accosted us. You kept control, Nikki, but you had to fight for it.”

I close my eyes, not wanting to remember.

“Nikki, look at me.” His voice is a tight command, and though my instinct is to tease him, I know better.

I don’t alter my body’s position, but turn my head to the right. He steps sideways into my line of sight, and I force myself to meet his eyes. There’s fire there, but there’s worry, too. I should have expected it. It is one thing when he initiates, surprising me with a sting to my bottom to complement the ache between my thighs.

But when I ask for the pain, he hesitates. It is his way of protecting me, but right then, it isn’t protection I want. It’s the sensual thrill of his palm against my ass.

“Nikki,” he says. That’s it. Just my name. But I hear the question in his voice.

I start to answer, but the words don’t come as easily as I had hoped. Because the truth is that I know now that I haven’t left the cutting as far behind as I had thought. True, I’ve done nothing but dig my own nails into my flesh tonight. But it’s barely been a week since I tossed a knife across my kitchen, angry and scared by how much I wanted to press the blade against my skin and erase my fears and doubts in the consuming rapture of the pain. I’d won that battle, but I hadn’t won the war, and my now-short hair is a scar upon my soul as much as the raised ridges on my thighs are scars upon my flesh.

Is that why I want this?
Do I crave the sting of his palm because I need the pain? Does the pleasure I feel when I give myself over so completely to Damien flow from the same place that has fomented my compulsion to cut?

The thought twists inside me, dark and unpleasant, and I force it away. It’s not true. And even if it is, I am safe with Damien no matter what the source of my desire. He’s proven that much to me so many times.

Suddenly I’m no longer bent over the bed. He has me by the arms and he’s pulling me up to stand in front of him. “Dammit, Nikki,” he says. “Talk to me.”

I press my palms against his cheeks and take his mouth with mine, letting the kiss deepen as he pulls me tight against him. I feel his body relax, and the fear that must have been growing in him as my silence lingered now seems to seep out from his pores.

“I need you,” I tell him when I break the kiss. “
You
. I don’t need that.” His eyes are intent, and they seem to see so far inside me that I know I can’t keep even the slightest of secrets. I take a
deep breath and lay out my heart for him. “I don’t need it,” I say, “but I want it.”

I see the slightest twitch of the muscle in his jaw, as if he’s fighting for control.

“Do you?” he says.

I nod, then swallow. My cheeks are warm, which irritates me. I’ve been more intimate with Damien than with any person in my life, and yet I’m blushing? It’s a ridiculous girly-girl reaction, probably instilled by my mother, and that in and of itself pisses me off—and
that
gives me strength.

“I want it,” I repeat. “And not because I need the pain. But because I need you.”

I need him even more than I can say. I want his hands on me. I want to be the object of his pleasure, and I want to lose myself in the knowledge that there is nothing Damien wants more than to please me, and nothing I want more than to surrender to him.

He swallows, looking humbled by my words. “I need you, too, Nikki. God, how I need you.”

I breathe in deep, cherishing those words more than he can possibly know. “Then touch me.”

He does—
oh, how he does
—and though I expect the caresses, the passion, the immediate sensual assault, I am jarred off-center by the fervency I see in his eyes, and by the firm line of his mouth. There is nothing else in the world to him except me, and I can see it with every glimpse of him. I taste it in his hard, lingering kiss.

“Bed,” he says, once he breaks the kiss. “Bend over. Legs apart.”

I raise my brows in question. “Bossy much?”

He slaps me lightly on the bottom, and I gasp, both surprised and excited. “What do you say?”

“Yes, sir,” I say obediently, forcing myself not to smile. I turn back to the bed and bend over, my hands firmly on the mattress,
my excitement so raw I’m certain that it clings to me like perfume. I no longer question my motives; I am not in an analytical mind-set. All I want is Damien setting my body on fire. Damien thrusting himself deep inside of me.

His hand cups my rear, moving in slow, sensual circles. I feel a momentary wash of cool air on my skin as he breaks contact, and then I cry out in both pleasure and pain as his palm smacks hard against my ass, then presses against the point of impact, the sweet pressure soothing the sting.

Slowly, he slides his hand down between my legs. “Oh, baby,” he says as his fingers slide over me. I’m desperately wet, and I tremble from his touch, so close that I have to fight the temptation to take one hand off the bed and touch myself where Damien is so carefully avoiding.

Then again …

I keep my weight on my left hand, and dip my right hand between my legs. A shiver runs through me as I brush my fingertip over my clit. I’m swollen and sensitive and so very, very close.

“Oh, you have been naughty,” Damien says, as his fingers brush against mine.

I swallow, anticipating another spank, but it doesn’t come. Instead he bends me over more, so that I have no choice but to move my hand back onto the bed if I don’t want to fall over on my face.

Damien takes his hand away and I whimper at the break in contact. He’s not touching me at all, and that’s the most keen punishment he can deliver. I wonder for a moment if that’s what he has planned. To leave me like this, bent over, naked, my ass in the air, waiting and wanting. He might, I know, and I can’t help but smile at the thought. It would piss me off and drive me crazy, but I know that when the punishment is over and he finally does fuck me, it will be all the sweeter for it.

That, however, isn’t what he has planned. I hear the tug of his
zipper, followed by the brush of denim against skin as he quickly strips off his jeans. I bite my lip, then exhale in sweet triumph as his cock presses against my rear, my body opening to him in sweet anticipation.
Please, Damien. Take me. Please take me now
. I want to cry the words, but I stay silent. I don’t, however, stay still. I can’t help it. My body is demanding and antsy, and my hips gyrate against his cock, and his low moan of pleasure only makes me more frenzied.

His hands close on my hips and hold me still, and I can’t help my whimper of protest. He laughs, and I want to cry out in frustration because he is very thoroughly, very meanly teasing me.

Then I feel the tip of his cock on the slick folds of my vulva and I want to cry with relief. He teases me at first, barely entering, and I bite my lower lip so hard I fear I will taste blood. The anticipation is brutal, but sweet. He is so hard, so ready, and he is tormenting both of us as he controls his thrusts, using my hips to steady himself.

I have none of his control. Every inch of me is desperate and demanding, and my muscles tighten greedily around him with every tantalizing thrust.
Deeper. Harder. Oh, dear God, please
.

“As you wish,” he says, and I don’t even have time to be surprised that I’ve spoken the words aloud, because he’s inside me now, his cock filling me, his body pressed over me as I keep both hands on the bed to steady myself. One of his hands snakes around my waist, and I am grateful for the support. My rear is arched up, I am on my toes, it is as if my body is doing everything it can to draw him in deeper and deeper. I want to take all of him. To consume and be consumed.

And when he pulls gently out and then thrusts back into me with a single, powerful movement, I am certain that the world will explode around me.

“You’re close,” he whispers, and I can tell from the tightness in his voice that he is close, too.

“Yes,” I say, but my voice is so raw I doubt the word is coherent.

“Touch yourself,” he says.

The excitement that’s been building in me seems to shiver through my body like a jolt of electricity. “What?” I ask, then moan as he continues to slowly torture me, as if he knows exactly how much pressure will take me to the edge—and just how much more is needed to take me over.

“You heard me.”

I lick my lips and swallow. My fingers twitch with the desire to obey. To feel where our bodies are joined, and to stroke the hard length of him even as I tease my oh-so-sensitive clit.

“I—I thought that was naughty,” I say, feeling strangely shy.

His response alone almost sends me rocketing into space: “Maybe I like you naughty.”

I gasp, then swallow. Then I lift my right hand from the bed. It throws off my balance, but he keeps me steady with the arm around my waist. I slip my hand down, barely brushing over my slick clit. My body clenches, my muscles tightening greedily to draw him further inside me. I feel glorious, full, and so desperately close that I know only the slightest touch will be the end of me.

I want it, and yet I also want to feel him. The way our bodies are joined as he slides deep inside me. I ease my hand back along my own slick folds. I feel him there, like velvet steel, and I hear his guttural moan as I gently stroke him.