He looked at her. Her eyes were half-closed, just a glimmer of gold and heat from beneath her long lashes. Her mouth was red, swollen-looking. Christ, she was beautiful.
He reached over and pressed one finger to those lush lips. And felt a shock of lust go through him when she sucked one fingertip into her mouth.
Like heat and sleek velvet inside her mouth. He groaned. Her pussy would feel nearly the same. But tighter. Just as wet.
He slipped a hand between her thighs, smiled when her eyes fluttered open, went wide as he ran his fingers over her damp cleft.
Oh yes, she was soaked, as he knew she would be. Ready for him.
“Hold still,” he told her, keeping his voice soft. But unable to resist doing this.
The driver was paying them no attention, listening to some staticky music on the radio. Dante looked back to Kara, watched her teeth come down on her bottom lip as he slid his fingers deeper and began to pump.
Her hips arched, but he shook his head. She settled back immediately.
Ah, she was perfect, this girl. Not the first time he’d thought that.
He listened to the harshness of her breath as he worked her with his hand. He grew harder with each moment. Ready to explode.
“Have to fuck you soon, my girl,” he told her, his voice a soft whisper in her ear.
She blinked up at him. But she was perhaps too far gone to respond. He didn’t mind. He loved it, actually.
The cab pulled up in front of his place and he slipped his hand from her body. She gave a soft, resigned sigh. He paid the driver, giving him far too large a tip. Didn’t matter. He just had to get Kara into the apartment.
Once they were upstairs he stripped her down quickly. He had to pause, to look at her, to take it all in: her flushed cheeks, her breasts, which looked full and heavy, the nipples swollen and a gorgeous dark red. Luscious. He couldn’t wait to see her wet all over. He started to take his clothes off, unbuttoning his shirt—and paused.
Even better to see her in his shirt, the water coming down over the white fabric. He groaned.
He kicked off his shoes, took everything off but his shirt. Even the hem of the fine cotton on his hard cock was excruciating, sending a small shock of pleasure through him. But it was even better as he pulled his shirt off and helped her into it.
She wasn’t under the water yet and his cock was pulsing in anticipation. Ready to come any moment.
He stepped into the shower, taking her with him. He hadn’t had her in there enough lately. And why had he not put her in one of his shirts yet? Seen the water plastering the cotton against her skin, as it was doing now.
He groaned.
“Jesus, Kara. You are so damn beautiful, so damn hot like this. I love to see your skin beneath the wet fabric. The silhouette of your body. There’s something so incredible about this for me. I can’t even tell you what it makes me want to do to you.”
She was quiet, pliant, as he ran his hands over her shoulders, her breasts, which were gorgeously outlined under the wet white cotton. It was nearly translucent now, it was so wet, which was exactly the way he liked it.
He ran his hands under the shirt, across her stomach. Shivered when she did. When he leaned in and sucked one stiff nipple into his mouth through the cotton, his cock felt like it was going to go off like a volcano. He had to pull away, to take a few deep breaths, command himself to calm.
“God, Dante. This is . . . I’ve never felt anything like it.”
“Glad it’s good for you, baby,” he muttered, taking her breasts in his hands once more, cupping them, thumbing the nipples. Listening to her panting breath. To his own.
He pressed up against her, the sensation of the wet cotton and the curve of her stomach nearly sending him over the edge every other moment. He had to stop, pull in a breath once more, grit his teeth to hang on to any sense of control.
Calm down. Need to calm down
.
He stepped back. Christ, she was gorgeous like this. But he had to slow the pace down or it was all going to be over too damn soon.
He grabbed the big sponge and his favorite bar of citrus-and-musk soap and lathered her up—just her thighs, her stomach under the hem of the shirt. He loved that it made her smell like him. He didn’t know why. But it didn’t matter. What mattered was the way her nipples went darker, harder, beneath the wet fabric. Her small sighs. The way she watched him with pure desire on her face as he washed himself, sliding the sponge over his hard cock.
He was rinsing himself off when she said, “Dante, please. Let me. Let me touch you.”
He smiled at her, nodded, and she took the shower wand from him, got down on her knees and aimed the water at his belly, then lower.
The hot water was like a thousand gentle needles on his needy flesh. He moaned.
She moved the sprayer between his thighs and he spread them wider. She shifted the wand, so that the water hit his balls.
“Ah, Jesus, that’s good,” he muttered, pleasure arcing into him in a hard current. He had to clench his jaw, to hold out against it.
She cupped his balls in her hand, massaging gently, and he thought he might die of pleasure. The things she was doing to him, the sight of her in his shirt, the wet cotton pulling against her skin. He braced his hands on her shoulders, her wet hair streaming down her back. He began to pump his hips a little; he couldn’t help it. She glanced up at him, her cheeks flushed, her gaze burning. And, holding his gaze with hers, she held his cock in her hand and brushed the tip across her lips.
“Ah, God, Kara . . .”
Pleasure was a keen rush into his system. And when she sucked the head of his cock into her plush, hot mouth, his knees felt as if they might buckle.
He braced himself against the granite walls of the shower, tried to breathe. But it became harder and harder as she swirled her tongue over the tip, dipping it into the small hole, then plunging down to swallow him, taking him deeper, deeper.
“Kara, I’m going to come if you keep this up. I’m going to come right now, baby . . .”
But he’d lost all control of the situation. She sucked harder, drawing him into her throat, then slipping to the very tip, then down again. Her hand held on to his cock at the base, never letting go. And she still held the sprayer on his tight balls.
He was going out of his mind. Pumping into her mouth. Too roughly, probably, but she was taking it.
Perfect ...
Pleasure rose, sharp and nearly painful. She worked him as mercilessly as he’d ever worked her. And in moments he was on that edge, his hold tenuous. On everything: Control. His orgasm.
Her
.
As he came he called her name, over and over. His hips surged into her mouth. She sucked him so hard it hurt. It felt amazing. He’d never come so damn hard in his life.
After, he was shaking all over. Kara got to her feet and actually helped him to sit on the bench built into the shower. He was panting, trying hard to catch his breath.
And it was Kara soothing him, sitting next to him on the bench while the water fell all around them. While it ran down the cotton shirt plastered to her body, over his naked skin, in soft, warm rivulets.
She was stroking him with her hands, just his shoulders, his cheek. Her touch was . . . tender.
It took him a moment to recognize it. It was so unfamiliar, a woman touching him this way. He didn’t usually allow it. It was too intimate, when it was outside the bounds of the roles of dominant and submissive. The bounds of power play. The power play in which
he
was the dominant one. Not that she was being dominant. But he’d let down his guard, somehow. Because of Kara. She had taken him there. And it was more than the searing pleasure he felt at her touch, simply looking at her. It was . . . just
her
.
This had never happened to him before. That a woman had reduced him to . . . this. A man who had no control over his own desire. His own pleasure.
Emotion.
He was in a small panic. But even that was like some vague shadow at the edge of his consciousness, behind the pure pleasure he still felt shimmering through his system.
He could not believe it. He was too spent to really think about it. And it felt so fucking good he couldn’t find it within himself to truly care after those first surprising moments.
Nothing had ever felt better than Kara. Nothing. She was all he could think about. All he wanted. And it was too good for him to consider that this sort of thought had never crossed his mind before in his life.
Kara.
For the first time, he didn’t want anything—or anyone—else.
eleven
Kara woke up in the dark, her heart pounding. It took her a moment to get her bearings. To remember where she was. And as soon as she did, the reason for her hammering heart came back to her in a flood, filling her with panic.
She loved him.
Impossible. But true.
God damn it.
She sat up, shoved her hands into her hair.
This could not be happening. Not to her. And certainly not with him.
Dante was that unobtainable guy. She should know better. She
did
know better. She’d simply been too far gone last night to have done anything about it.
This was nothing more than fun and games to him. A serious sort of game, but a game nevertheless. He’d been clear with her from the start. And she’d thought she’d been clear herself. No more relationships. No more opening her heart. No more risks with her emotions. And now, her emotions had blown up, reached deeper into her heart than ever before.
How had she thought she could do this—go to this kind of sexual extreme—without her heart getting involved?
She was a fool.
She loved him.
He would know something was going on with her. He was too perceptive. That was part of what made him so good at being a dominant. But it brought her no comfort now.
She dropped her hands into her lap and stared through the tall windows at the night sky. Light was coming up from the streets, a faint glow of amber and silver, lighting up the clouds covering the moon. It felt lonely to her, even thinking of walking down that nighttime street, in the dark and the Seattle damp. Unbearably lonely. Still, she had a terrible urge to leave. Simply to get up, get dressed and slip out. Before Dante woke and realized there was something horribly wrong with her.
That was how it felt. As if she were . . . sick.
She moaned and wrapped her arms around her body.
“Kara?”
Damn it.
His voice was thick with sleep. She didn’t want to look at him. She knew it would all be over then. She would feel it too much. She’d either tell him, which would be a complete disaster. Or she’d have to leave.
Have
to. Leave and maybe never come back.
A sharp pain in her chest at the thought.
“Kara,” he said again. “What’s up? Can’t sleep?”
“No,” she said simply. She didn’t know what else to say. Didn’t trust her voice to remain steady.
“Come here,” he said, sitting up and reaching for her.
She shrugged him off.
“Kara?” She could hear the confusion in his voice. “What’s going on?”
She shook her head. She was blowing it. Had already blown it with Dante by falling in love with him.
She was angry with herself. With him, for reasons she couldn’t even comprehend. It was all a dark jumble inside her.
“Come on. Tell me,” he insisted.
“So you can do your job?” she asked, bitterness lacing her voice. She couldn’t help it. She wouldn’t turn around and look at him.
“What? No. I . . . Tell me what’s happening here.”
“I don’t know. That’s just it. Shit. Or maybe I do. Maybe I’m too aware that all of this is about you doing your dom role and me being the pliant little subbie girl.”