Play Me Hard (3 page)

I say yes.

Relief sweeps through me when Aria tells me yes. More so, when I look into her eyes and realize she actually means it. I’m not sure yet why it matters so much with her, but it does. I can tell myself that tonight, it’s because I feel guilty for leaving her like this, for letting her work herself into this state. But the truth is, I want that yes to mean more than just tonight. So much more. And the fact that it matters this much when I just met her, at a time when my life is fucked up and turned around and in more turmoil than it has been in years, doesn’t make any sense.

Or maybe it does. Maybe I want control over her because I feel so out of control myself. And maybe I want to show Aria what true control over herself feels like, because I recognize the same need, the same desperation, in her.

But there’s time to think about that later. Time to think about all of this later. Right now, Aria—beautiful and pliant and needy, so needy—is standing in front of me. And she’s all I want to concentrate on.

“Come here,” I tell her. And she does, stepping forward the few steps it takes for her to be right in front of me.

Keeping my eyes steady on her dark ones, I bring my hands to her blouse and start unbuttoning the buttons. Slowly. Deliberately.

She doesn’t protest and she doesn’t look away, even when I slide the soft cotton down her arms and onto the floor. Instead, she helps me, turning her back so that I can unfasten her skirt. Her bra.

I slide them off, too, then catch my fingers in the sides of her panties and tug them down her legs as well. When they reach her ankles, she steps out of them. I toss them to the floor, but not before checking to see if they’re wet.

They are, and so is she.

The thought has my dick growing hard all over again, but I ignore my erection. Instead, I kneel next to her and slowly take one shoe off her foot and then the other, then remove her stockings. She’s beautiful, so beautiful that it makes me ache a little. Makes me
want
in a way I haven’t let myself want in so, so long.

“Sebastian.” Her voice is low, husky. “If you want—”

“Come on,” I interrupt as I push back to my feet. “Let’s get you in the tub, sweetheart.”

I hold out my hand and she takes it, looking confused as she lets me help her into the bath. With her in it, the water is nearly to the rim, so I shut off the tap. Then smile at the picture she makes, covered from neck to toe in bubbles. She’s got some on her cheeks, the top of her head, even her eyelashes, all of which should look absurd but somehow only makes her look sexier…and more adorable.

Maybe that’s why I’m having so much trouble with Aria. Because I don’t know where to put her, how to classify her. She’s sexy as hell—every movement she makes, every word she speaks, shoots straight to my dick. And her attitude is a total turn-on. How can it not be when she’s smart and sassy and doesn’t take shit from anyone? Even me. Especially me. Which only makes the sweetness, and the uncertainty, she shows me all the more special. She’s feeling her way with me and I get the feeling that that’s not a side of herself she shows very many people.

I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t like that. If I pretended I didn’t like knowing that she’s pliant with me in a way she isn’t for anybody else. I like that I knock her off-kilter in much the same way she does me.

There’s a washcloth on the towel rack next to the bathtub, and I grab it as I sink to my knees. Reaching into the hot water, I get it wet, then squirt body wash onto it. Like the bubble bath, it smells like her. Jasmine and moonlight and crisp, clear desert nights.

“Give me your arm,” I tell her, then wait patiently as Aria stares at me with wide eyes. Eventually, she does as I ask, sticking her bubble covered arm out of the water.

I run the washcloth down her arm, over her hand, between her fingers. I savor the softness of her skin, the rosy glow brought on by the heat. She giggles a little as the washcloth tickles the sensitive skin at the apex of her fingers, and I smile. Do it again. I love hearing her laugh.

When I’m finished with her left arm, I reach for her right one. Do the same thing to it. And then I’m washing her neck, her collarbone, her beautiful breasts.

I’m doing my best to keep her bath soothing, relaxing, but the moment the washcloth touches her breasts, her nipples harden. Unable to resist, I pause for a moment. Run a finger around and around her areola before flicking back and forth across her nipple with my thumb. She gasps, arches into my touch, and I clear the bubbles away so that I can press a few soft kisses to her breasts.

Then I pull back and murmur, “Sit forward.”

Eyes dazed and body clumsy, she does as I ask. I keep an arm wrapped around her front as I wash her shoulders, her back, her ass. Because I’m weak and can’t help myself, I run a finger between the soft globes of her ass, press gently against her. And revel in the hitch in her breathing, the soft moan she doesn’t try to smother.

For a moment, I think about what it will be like to fuck her there, to press my fingers deep inside her most secret place and open her up. To slide inside her again and again, until she’s calling my name with broken breaths. Until she’s coming on my dick, my fingers, my tongue, her body clenching rhythmically around me.

Coming and coming and coming.

For a second, the fantasy is so real that I’m shaking with the need to be inside of her. Sweating with it. If I shift her forward just a little, angle that gorgeous ass of hers just a little higher, I can slide a finger straight into her heat. The thought—and my desire to see it through—is nearly paralyzing in its intensity.

But that’s not what this is about, not what I want—need—to give Aria right now. So, after a second, I ease her back down against the rear wall of the tub. Instead of fucking her like I so desperately want to do, I soap up the washcloth again. Run it over her sides, across her stomach, down one leg and up the other. Then, when she’s moving restlessly and her breath is coming in broken pants, I drop the washcloth on the side of the tub and cup her sex in my hand.

“Sebastian,” she whimpers, arching her hips into my touch.

She’s so beautiful like this, beautiful and desperate and so, so hot. There’s a part of me that wants to draw this out, to watch her moan and tremble and beg for release. I want to hear her call my name again in that trembling voice, to know that I’m the one she’s thinking about when she comes.

But that smacks of possessive
ness, of ownership, and that’s not what this is about. Not this moment, not this time.

And so I shove my own tangled instincts and desire down deep inside of myself, at the same time using both hands to spread her knees apart and watching with satisfaction as they fall against the sides of the tub. And then I run my fingers along her slit, once, twice, before slipping three of them inside of her at once.

Aria gasps, whimpers. Suddenly, I’m afraid it’s too much and I start to pull out, but she keens wildly, presses her hips up and into my touch. In response, I thrust deeply even as I circle her clit with my thumb.

“It’s okay,” I tell her, leaning forward to press soft kisses on her jaw, her neck, her breasts. “I’ve got you, Aria. Let go. Come for me.”

Just that easily, she shatters, her body clenching onto my fingers in a rhythm that nearly makes me come in my pants like some kid with his first girl.

I hold on, though—barely, desperatel
y—and work her through it, using my fingers and my hand to draw her orgasm out as long as I possibly can.

When it’s over, when she’s lying in the bath, eyes closed and body limp and I’m one small step from insanity, I grab a small pitcher from the side of the tub and start rinsing her. I concentrate on her, ignoring my own needs, my own body. It’s the only way to get through the raging hunger.

As I wash her, Aria doesn’t move except when I move her, doesn’t make a sound other than the small splashes of her arms and her legs as I lift and then lower them.

When she’s clean from the soap, I drain the water, then fill the tub back up halfway so that I can wash her hair. The first reaction I get from her is after I’ve poured warm water over her head, and am rubbing shampoo into her hair. She moans, presses her head harder against my fingers. I get the message, and rub a little more firmly, giving her the scalp massage she so obviously wants.

Rinsing out the shampoo, I do the same with the conditioner, massaging her scalp and pouring water over her hair until it runs clean.

When I’m done and Aria is little more than a pile of melted goo—exactly as I’d hoped and planned—I let the bathwater out and lift her into my arms. I’m holding her against my chest and the contact is soaking my shirt, but I don’t give a damn. Not when it feels this nice to just have her in my arms.

“Can you stand?” I ask after a moment.

“Of course.”

She sounds sated and sleepy and so, so sexy that I have to grit my teeth against the wave of need that swamps me. For a moment, I imagine carrying her through to the bed and just burying my face in her pussy. Eating her out until she screams my name and comes so hard that the endorphins alone will cure her of subdrop once and for all.

But it doesn’t work that way—her fall will just be more brutal later if I try to take her up again so soon—so in the end, I settle for reluctantly sliding her to the ground before grabbing the towel from the rack and running it loosely over her body.

I spend the whole time trying not to notice her flushed skin and peaked nipples, her glazed eyes and slick, hot sex. I’m not nearly as successful as I want to be.

Once she’s dry, I start on her hair, rubbing it gently as her body practically melts into mine. It’s a little shocking how good she feels, how content I feel just because she’s pressed up against me. Leaning on me. Letting me take care of her.

“Do you want me to blow it dry?” I ask, once most of the wetness is gone from the soft, short strands.

Her face is against my shoulder, her arms wrapped around my neck, when she shakes her head no.

“All right, then.” I lead her into her bedroom. “Where are your pajamas?”

She stares at me blankly for long seconds, eyes half-closed and body completely pliant against my own. It’s like she’s actually gone boneless. And that’s before she starts to lick at the small drops of sweat rolling down my neck.

Shit! This woman is going to be the death of me. Self-restraint, heart attack, stroke, blue balls. I don’t know which is going to end me, but at this point it’s a safe bet that one of them will. How the fuck can she already be halfway back into subspace when all I wanted was to cuddle her, to ease the pain of the drop?

“Aria?” I call her name, speaking a little more firmly this time. “I don’t want to riffle through all your drawers. Which one do you keep your pajamas in?”

After a moment, her gaze clears a little and she gestures toward the tall chest in the corner. “Second drawer.” Her voice breaks a little.

“Good. Thanks.” I settle her on the bed—she’s so out of it I’m afraid she’ll fall without my support—and cross quickly to the chest. Then nearly have that stroke when I see the piles of lacy nightgowns in nearly every shade of the rainbow tangled together inside. Reds and pinks and purples. Blacks and turquoises and whites.

So, my Aria is definitely not a pajama kind of girl. It surprises me, is another contradiction that piques my interest and has me dying to know more about her—even as jealousy surges through me at the knowledge. It’s stupid and juvenile and demeaning to both of us, but I can’t help imagining how they got here. Who gave them to her. And all the things she’s done for other men while wearing them.

Furious with myself for being such a useless idiot, I pick out one of the ones lying on top—a violet silk number that’s more flirty than overtly sexy. It’ll cover all the vital places anyway, which is about all I can hope for at this point. Because I am not going to end up in bed with Aria tonight, no matter how tempting she is. That’s not what she needs right now, despite what she might be thinking otherwise.

When I turn around, she’s curled up naked on the bed, head on her arm as she watches me with sleepy, satisfied eyes. It’s a good look on her, and for a moment I just stand there, watching her. Mouth dry, eyes wide. Frozen with want. Frozen with need.