Knight's Game (18 page)

‘I know who you are.’ He shut his eyes, blew out a breath. ‘You want an apology? I apologize.’

‘How about a real apology? You know, one that isn’t completely devoid of feeling.’

He stared at her sullenly. ‘You don’t want much, do you?’

‘Jesus fucking CHRIST!’ she cried in full revolt. ‘I’m not doing this with a man who doesn’t give a shit who’s in his bed. Get OFF me!’

He raised his brows. ‘Calm the hell down. Take a deep breath. You want a better apology? Is that what you want? I’ve been apologizing left and right lately so one more can’t matter,’ he said. ‘Not that it seems to have done much good.’ His gaze dropped, then lifted again. ‘When I’m getting this kind of resistance.’

She could feel him studying her and wondered in the ripening silence if she would ever reconcile her mindless longing with rational judgement when it came to Dominic, if she would ever say no and mean it, if she would ever look at his dark, brooding beauty and not want him. ‘Give me a
minute,’ she said.
To see the error of my ways, to regain my sanity.
‘In the meantime, I’ll take that apology.’

When he didn’t answer, she surveyed the beautiful face with the critical gaze, the rigid line of his jaw. ‘Who’s resisting now?’

‘I apologize, Katherine.’ His voice was drained of emotion.

‘You’re not good at this are you?’

He sighed. ‘You’re a fucking witch.’ He wasn’t even sure why he was engaging in this skirmish other than the fact that Katherine had upended his perfectly comfortable, thoroughly selfish life – the one where he didn’t deal with his feelings.

She smiled sweetly. ‘Thank you. You’re equally appealing.’

‘So can we close down this lesson on manners?’ he asked very quietly, using every ounce of self-control he possessed after seeing that smug smile.

‘Certainly.’ Another sugar-sweet smile.

Fuck it.
He thrust in fast and hard as if he were furious or crazed or under so much accumulated pressure he was blind to the critical nuances of the most minimum courtesy, as if issues of forgiveness and apology had never been mentioned. As if violence alone wiped away smug smiles, rebalanced the power equation, burned away his perpetual hard-on.

Kate’s shriek rang out in a piercing wail.

It hit him like a stun gun.

He jerked back and hung suspended above her, every muscle tense. ‘Oh, fuck.’ He shook his head, blinked as though returning to the world.

Kate had tears in her eyes.

‘Oh, Christ,’ he said. ‘I’ll stop. I can stop.’

‘It’s all right.’ It was amazing how she was willing to relinquish her self-respect to please him, how the chemistry, the physical attraction, his body had become her happiness and her curse. Her world, judgement suspended. ‘You surprised me, that’s all.’

But she winced as he accidentally shifted positions and he looked at her, his gaze brooding. ‘I’m such an asshole.’ He blew the hair out of his eyes. ‘I have no fucking control with you.’ But his erection swelled and expanded independent of his remorse and he shot a flickering glance downwards. ‘Seriously, you should kick the shit out of him.’

‘I don’t know,’ she said, her heart pounding, unarmed in a battle she couldn’t win. ‘He
has
been really good to me.’

Dominic looked up, stared at her as though he were trying to decipher the chaos of the universe, as if only she could stabilize the dangerous drift into the abyss. ‘And?’ A whisper of a question, soft as silk, warm, tender, the blue of his eyes without the habitual arrogance.

‘And I need you inside me if I’m saying that properly?’

His smile was swift. ‘Very properly. Thank you.’

‘And I’m fine, really.’ She shifted slightly to try and accommodate his size, wanting to please him for any number of reasons: for the unforgettable pleasure he offered in and out of bed, for the reward of his smile, for his moments of tenderness, for the really incredible fucks –
let’s not forget those
.

‘You sure?’ Other than his surging dick, he was motionless.

Gazing up, she saw the raw worry in his eyes. ‘Maybe slow it down a little.’

He nodded. ‘I can do that.’ He grinned. ‘I’m not fucking fourteen. I can do it. But let me deal with this zipper first so it doesn’t rip your skin.’ Alternating impressive one-armed push-ups as he lay between her legs, he peeled himself out of his jeans and boxers, kicked them away, then took her hand, closed her fingers into a fist and placed it against his chest. ‘Punch me here if I’m hurting you. I’ll stop. OK?’

‘Yup.’

‘Good to go?’

Without waiting for an answer, he entered her with excruciating slowness and an economy of movement thanks to muscles honed to impeccable standards of strength. And when after languorous, endless moments of sumptuous friction and snug, velvety yielding he reached the ultimate, maximum depth, she was panting and quivering.

‘Better?’ he whispered.

Kate nodded. Luckily she didn’t have breath to speak or she might have told him she loved him because she was drugged with bliss, glowing with love and on fire. Everything below her skin was heated, stirring a tempest in her blood – the feel of him inside her, filling her completely, melting her heart, making her tremble. She looked up to see his eyes fixed on her, clear blue, a worry line between his brows. ‘You know what to do if I’m hurting you. Right?’

‘Yes.’ A barely audible whisper.

‘I don’t want to hurt you. I’m sorry as hell I did.’

How could he talk so calmly, like he was ordering a coffee. ‘I know,’ she said half under her breath so he had to lean in to hear her.

‘I want you’ – his nostrils flared – ‘way too fucking much. Shut me down if—’

She slid her finger over his mouth.

He grinned. ‘Done talking?’

She nodded, ran her hands down his arms, sighed softly as he withdrew with a fluid indolence.

Then he paused at the extremity of his back stroke and murmured, light and teasing, ‘What if I make you wait?’

‘Don’t you dare.’ She grabbed his hips hard.

He didn’t move; she was slippery wet now, drenched, desperate. ‘Just for the record,’ he said gruffly, ‘you only fuck me, right?’

Frantic to feel him, she breathlessly agreed. ‘Yes, yes, yes.’

‘Yes what?’

‘Only you, Dominic! For God’s sake, Dominic, I don’t want anyone else!’

His monstrous jealousy assuaged by her fierce reply, he smiled. ‘That’s what I want to hear, baby.’ Pushing back in, unhurried, his mouth on hers, breathing her in, his dick swelling larger and harder as he penetrated more deeply, he came to rest at last where everything becomes meaningless except for the unimaginable pleasure.

Then with masterful patience, he waited motionless
inside her as her body pulsed and throbbed around him, as her senses leveraged themselves up to a seething frenzy with the speed and violence he’d come to recognize. His Katherine was never cool and dispassionate, always wildly unbridled. And when he began slowly moving in and out, smoothly, carefully, watching her keenly for any sign of discomfort, manoeuvring his dick with practised versatility into all the right places just hard enough to make her sigh or groan, concentrating on her G-spot nerves, meeting her undulating hips with practised skill, he felt a deep-seated pleasure. As if she belonged here in his private hermitage.

Kate felt as though she were flushed with wonder, filled with joy, every heartbeat vibrating with love, her senses racing towards delirium thanks to Dominic’s sweet, unselfish indulgence. It was his genius and talent to be generous like now … like that – oh God. She sank her nails into his arms as that first unquestionable ripple slid up her throbbing sex; she sucked in her breath, shut her eyes and went still.

Recognizing the cues, understanding Katherine’s preference for a full-stop climax, he thrust in slowly to the mouth of her womb, heard her gasp, forced himself a fraction deeper, then dropped his head, let his mouth open over hers and tasted her sweet, keening cry.

Their orgasms rolled through their senses in spectacular, searing waves, Dominic’s powerful body covering her, gorging her, pumping into her, pinning her to the bed while
astonishing, adrenalin high, nuclear level climaxes pushed sensation into the stratosphere.

A flame-hot, Dominic-fuelled orgasm that left her throat raw and her nerves quivering.

An unimaginable Katherine-induced blast of madness and triumph that left him with a smile on his face.

Dominic did apologize afterwards, not grudgingly, but with fond kisses, his body resting lightly on hers, his erection still gently throbbing inside her. ‘I’m going to control my dick and my temper from now on. I promise.’

Her arms twined around his neck, she smiled up at him. ‘Just so you know, I get all sexed up when you’re demanding and moody.’

He had a pretty good idea already that she did, considering their time in Hong Kong, but he only said, ultra polite, ‘Thanks for the data point. I’ll keep it in mind. Now, what do you want to do?’

‘Really? My choice?’

He hesitated only a second before he said, ‘Your choice, babe. I owe you.’

She pointed at the bookshelf. ‘Show me some of the books you liked to read when you were young.’

Having anticipated a sexual request, he did a double take.

She gave him a wide-eyed look of innocence. ‘I’d like to know. Start with your favourite.’

‘
Grant’s Memoirs
.’ He slid off the bed and moved towards the shelf. ‘It’s a fucking good read.’ And coming back to the
bed, he described his favourite scenes, the reasons why, how he’d first discovered the books when he was eleven.

She tried not to appear openly adoring, and asked questions with a nominal neutrality. She might have even succeeded in concealing her doting affection because, after a time, he turned his head on his pillow, his gaze open and warm, and said, ‘Tell me about your favourite book.’

He ignored the fact that he’d never asked a woman that question, never even considered a conversation about books relevant to male–female discourse.

When Kate said, ‘Tolkien’s
Lord of the Rings
,’ he smiled and said, ‘Of course.’

And when she’d finished explaining her love of the story, she sat up and said softly, ‘Are you OK with me here?’

There was a long pause while he stared at her, then he let out a small breath. ‘I want you with me. I’ll deal with it.’

‘Is there anything I can do to help?’

His lips formed a little smile. ‘Baby, that’s too big a job even for your self-confidence. I don’t know how many therapists have tried and failed.’ His eyes glittered suddenly with suppressed rage and he dragged in a long, slow breath.

Crackling static shot through the room, as if forked lightning had hit. All the air seemed to disappear. Kate’s voice was faint. ‘How many?’

He took another deep breath, raised his eyes to the ceiling. ‘I lost count.’ He paused, then looked at her and smiled. ‘You’re being incredibly well-behaved. Don’t worry. I’m perfectly sane.’

‘You’re saner than anyone I know, Dominic,’ she said quietly. ‘Really.’

He looked at her from under the dark fan of his lashes, swallowed. ‘You sure you want to hear this?’

‘I like when you talk to me. I like to hear you talk.’
I like everything about you.

He nodded in resignation or weariness.

She didn’t dare breathe, fearful he’d change his mind and shrug himself back into his inaccessible habitat.

‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you,’ he said with a scowl.

She wanted to say,
There’s nothing you can tell me that will change the way I feel about you.
But she only shook her head. ‘I won’t.’

‘When I was a child,’ he began softly, a small frown settling between his brows, ‘my mother was under the impression I wanted to kill her. That didn’t mean I was going to do it, although there were definitely times,’ he said, his voice trailing off. He took a breath. ‘Anyway, she took pleasure in emotionally harassing me for some goddamn reason. And I fought back. So starting at age six, she sent me to one psychiatrist after another. When they each, in turn, realized she was most of the problem, she’d cancel my appointments and find another shrink. And so on and so on. I can’t tell you how many kind, or incompetent, or downright dangerous therapists I saw, how many thousands of pills I didn’t swallow. You get good at it. I could hold a pill in my mouth for however long it took before I was able to spit it out. Even
if I had to open my mouth for them. Even if I had to drink a fucking glass of water in front of them.’

‘Jeez. Is that even legal? Giving drugs to a six-year-old? Especially like that?’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘It is until you get old enough to find a way out. What I learned early on, though, was how to shut down in under three seconds. How to survive in a hostile world. Both have come in handy in my business.’ He smiled grimly. ‘Lemonade out of lemons, right? And Melanie was always there when I got home. She knew how to make me feel better, calm me down. Keep me from actually killing my mother.’

Kate’s heart was thumping in her chest. She was speechless.

He gave her a sideways look. ‘Hey, it’s not so bad. I didn’t kill her, OK? And it was a long time ago. I rarely see either of my parents; the war’s pretty much over. Very little radioactive fallout.’ But the faint bitterness in his voice was apparent.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered.

‘Don’t be. It was a long time ago.’ Something tightened in his jaw, then he raised one of his heart-stopping smiles and held out his hand. ‘Come on, baby, you’re here so I don’t think about any of that shit. Tell me one of your stories about growing up with Gramps and Nana. Tell me something good.’

Her hand in his, she began talking, chattering, rambling on, making jokes, telling him about Nana’s still with the
detail of a scientist because he seemed interested. Then about Gramps’s gun collection that had him asking questions. After that, stories about her dog and cat, about summer camps. Wanting to make him happy, wanting him to forget the frightened six-year-old at the psychiatrist, wanting him to smile and lose that strained look he’d had talking about his childhood.

Before long, the furrow between his brows disappeared and he seemed relaxed, almost content. He half lifted his head off the pillow, then sat up in the graceful flow of muscle that never ceased to electrify her senses, took her by the shoulders, dropped back down and pulled her into the warmth of his body. ‘You’re helping me more than you know, Katherine.’ There was no sharpness to his voice now, no edge, just a quiet softness. ‘You’ll have to send me a bill for therapy services,’ he murmured, closing his eyes.