Spoken For (10 page)

22

I SPEND THE afternoon curled up on the sofa in the library with my e-reader. Roman comes and goes, mostly with his phone pressed to his ear. At least one of those calls is from Bold, but he walks out for that conversation and says nothing when he returns.

I wonder if Bold and his expert team have found anything.

I wonder what on earth they’re expecting to find.

My gaze catches and lingers on Roman sitting behind the desk, head down in folders stacked in front of him. It’s the weekend, but I guess that means nothing for him. He’s absorbed in his work, the intensity of that moment carved into his face is a study of dark beauty.

Desire and awe, and something more, ripples through me and tugs.

He is still a stranger in so many ways, I remind myself.

But hell if I actually believe that.

When darkness slides into the library, Connor comes in to declare the sunset hour. He pours a whiskey for himself and a glass of wine for me. Roman declines, as usual, but doesn’t seem to mind our early start while he continues to work.

Two hours pass with Connor thrashing me at chess. I know all the rules and moves, but the strategy is beyond me. How does one plan three steps ahead when you don’t know what your opponent’s next move will be?

I turn the tables on him, however, when I discover a Backgammon board.

By the time Maggie calls us to supper, I’m two glasses of wine down and feeling incredibly mellow.

Roman holds me back as I’m about to follow Connor out.

His hand falls from my arm and the look he sets on me is thoroughly wicked. “Are you in the mood, Ms. Lynch?”

It’s that deep, rumbling voice.

His
do we have a problem, Ms. Lynch
voice.

A sudden thrill edges over my mellowness. The back of my knees soften and my eyes turn slumberous.

I wet my lips. “Before or after supper?”

“Before, after and during.” He reaches into the front pocket of his jeans and pulls out a strand of pearls. “Go upstairs and put these on.”

The G-String.

I glance around nervously and snatch the exotic panties from his hand before anyone comes looking for us.

He arches a brow. “I’m waiting, Ms. Lynch.”

Seriously?

My fingers itch to slap the sardonic amusement from his expression. But then he might think I’m not in the mood and, oh God, I am so very in the mood. Even if it means I have to squirm through supper.

I roll my eyes at him as I spin about to go, just to show him that I’m so blasé about this request. Ha!

My pulse races as I hurry upstairs to my bedroom. What am I freaking doing? This G-String is the devil. Does Roman not realise how easily it arouses me?

Of course he does.

The bastard.

When I pull the G-String on, I fan the front neatly over my lower lips instead of fitting the pearls inside my folds. Roman will never know.

A different kind of thrill spirals through me. I can’t wait to see the confusion on his face when I remain as composed as he always manages to during supper.

By the time I reach the bottom of the stairs, however, the tight crotch of my jeans has worked the pearls into my folds. The more I try to adjust them, the worse it gets.

I’m about to nip upstairs again when Roman appears from the passage that leads to the dining room.

“I was about to come and fetch you.” He crosses his arms and leans a hip against the wall as his gaze settles on my crotch. “Connor was wondering where you’d gotten to.”

My cheeks flush. “I’ll be there in a minute. I just need to…” I wave a hand in the direction of the stairs.

“Are you sure?” His gaze trawls up until he’s looking me in the eye. “I’d hate to have to explain what the delay is.”

“You wouldn’t,” I gasp.

He says nothing.

I nibble my lip as I consider my options and his intentions. He wouldn’t. This is a test. It’s just a game, and I can easily quit, but then the game is over and I’ll never know how it ended.

Or I could let myself go.

Let him push me to the limit of my comfort zone and beyond.

Desire winds inside my veins at the thought of what comes after, how this will play out, and it’s no longer a conscious choice. I’m walking toward him, propelled by my body’s demands.

The hard, round pearls slide along my clit, teasing me with each step.

It’s not too bad.

I’m intensely aware of the throb, the slow burn spreading through me, but it’s not so intense that I’m in danger of coming.

Roman’s gaze sinks into me and heats to molten silver.

“You have no idea what you’re doing to me,” he growls softly.

“You have no idea what these pearls are doing to me,” I hiss, my jaw clenched to contain the delicious waves.

“That’s the problem.” He places a guiding hand on the base of my spine and falls into step beside me. “I do know. Your body’s already screaming for me. Every bite, every movement, every breath and look and thought you take will be consumed with me fucking you.”

My clit swells with this darkly spoken words and quivers around the pearls. Warmth pools between my legs and I have to stop for a moment, clenching my legs together, dragging in a shaky breath.

“Don’t even think about,” Roman warns, his voice deeply sensual and firm. Steel and silk. “Your next orgasm belongs to me. I say when. I decide how.”

I send him a glare. What does he think? That I’ll hump his thigh without permission and come here in the middle of the passage?

He raises that brow. “Or not.”

My glare narrows on him. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Behave, Ms. Lynch.”

He’s not kidding.

The warning in his tone stabs me with a hot shudder that melts my bones.

The threat of what he’ll do, or what he won’t do, intoxicates me in a way I don’t fully understand. But if something’s wrong with me, I don’t care. It feels so right.

His hand on my back nudges me forward again.

When he speaks again, there’s no steel in his voice, only silk. “Trust me, Keegan, I’m giving you exactly what you want.”

What I crave.

I know that.

And I do trust him.

Connor looks up as we enter, his grin fading as his eyes land on me. “Are you not feeling well, Keegan? You look a wee bit flushed.”

Roman chuckles.

My warm cheeks flare into a scolding heat.

“It’s just a little hot in here,” I say weakly.

Connor pushes to his feet. “I’ll turn the heating down.”

I should probably stop him, but I need the few moments to compose myself so I don’t.

“What?” I say to Roman’s amusement as I slide into my chair. “It is stuffy in here.”

He seats himself across the table from me and leans in.

“I like you flushed,” he drawls, his eyes piercing me with all kinds of promises. “I like you stuffed down there.”

A shiver skitters over my skin.

“Roman, don’t, you’re making it worse,” I blow out on a shallow breath and give him a pleading look. “And don’t look at me like that.”

Now that I’m seated, at least the G-String isn’t sliding and teasing. But I’m still aroused, swollen, and the cool pearls press into my folds and against my nub, keeping me in a state of high awareness. 

He puts his elbows on the table and leans closer, his grin hard and wicked. “Don’t you want to know what I’m going to do to you?”

“No,” I groan.

“Liar,” he says softly. “I’m going to lick and suck your nipples, Keegan, until they’re fully erect.”

Oh, God.

He’s not looking there. His gaze is still on me, but my nipples perk as if caressed by his touch.

“And when they’re hard and throbbing for me, pulsing to the tips,” he continues in that voice that heats through me, “I’m going to clamp your nipples. Twin threads of pain will shoot straight from those erect little nipples to jerk that orgasm from your pussy.”

My body jerks, tenses. My nipples pebble and my clit pulses thick and hot and wet.

“Would you like that, Keegan?”

Why does he even ask?

“There we go,” Connor announces as he returns. “It should start feeling…”

He falters, looking from me to Roman.

Roman’s fingers curl around the neck of a wine bottle within reach as he leans back in his chair.

“I was just asking Keegan if she’d like a glass of wine with supper.” A grin plays on his jaw, his eyes glinting silver and boring into me. “Would you like that, Keegan?”

“Yes,” I whisper hoarsely. “Thank you.”

“Only my pleasure.” He snags a couple of glasses and pours, his demeanour completely innocent and relaxed. “Connor?”

“Aye, fill me up,” Connor says as he takes his seat. “It should start feeling a bit cooler soon, Keegan. I’ve turned the heat right down.”

Except, it’s not the central heating that’s got me so hot and bothered.

The evening proceeds, naturally, exactly as Roman predicted. My entire body is one big pulse, going through the motions of eating while I starve for the man sitting across from me.

After supper, Connor assumes we’re all joining him in the library for the usual nightcap.

I hate to disappoint him, but I’m a throbbing mess. I just can’t. I give my excuses, pleading a headache.

His brow furrows with worry. “I hope you’re not coming down with something.”

“Just one too many glasses of wine,” I assure him.

“I’ll be there in a minute,” Roman tells him and walks me across the hallway to the bottom of the stairs.

There he pauses and bows his head, his breath tickling my ear as he orders, “I want you stripped naked, everything except for the pearls. When I come up, I want to find you sitting on the bed, cross-legged, your thighs wide open.”

I inhale deeply. “How long will you be?”

He presses a chaste kiss to my temple. “Oh, and Keegan, don’t touch yourself.”

He turns from me, walking away, leaving me in a state of hot shivers.

And the damn man didn’t answer my question.

23

I’M ON THE bed, stark naked.

My legs are bent, crossed at the knees, my pussy stretched wide open. The air and pearls caress my seam, stroke my clit, tease my sensitive nipples. Every erogenous point on me is primed, waiting…

It’s been at least ten minutes, maybe longer.

My stomach is knotted with frustrated desire. My fingers twist into the bed covers, itching to pleasure myself, to grind those pearls into my swollen nub and find release. I’m already so wet, Roman would probably never know.

Yeah, right, keep telling yourself that…

But that’s not the reason I bite down on my back teeth and restrain myself.

There’s nothing I can do to myself that Roman won’t do a thousand times better.

“Where are you?” I groan aloud.

My eyes are fixed on the door, but it doesn’t open.

It’s never going to open.

I know this turns Roman on, him knowing that I’m up here panting for him. And I think it’s more than that. I think Roman thrives on the absolute control, knowing that while he’s doing his own thing, I’m waiting here for his next command.

The minutes drag and my thoughts fall away into the
throb, throb, throb.

I’m suspended in this state of arousal for minutes, hours, I have no idea how long it is before the door finally pushes open.

Roman comes in, presses the door closed behind him and leans back against it. Hunger carves into the crevices of his darkly beautiful face as he watches me in silence, taking his time to study every inch of me with those stone-baked eyes.

My body reacts wherever his gaze touches. My nipples harden. My lower stomach melts. Warm juices leak from my pussy.

His gaze retraces all the way up again until he’s looking into my eyes. “Come here, Keegan,” he says hoarsely.

I uncross my legs and slide off the bed.

The pearls knead my swollen clit into a mass of nerves as I stand and I can’t do it.

Shivers tremble deep inside me.

One step and I’ll explode.

“Roman, I can’t…” My mouth quivers with the force of my desire, with the restraint I’ve held in too long.

He sees.

“It’s okay, baby.”

Long strides bring him to me.

His eyes never leave mine.

He fits his hands on my hips and brushes kisses over my upturned mouth while he murmurs, “You’re so beautiful like this, teetering on the edge for me.”

He hooks the silk cord of my G-String and drags it over my hips, down my thighs.

The constant pressure releases from my clit, and I’m still pulsing, but the small relief gains me a measure of control.

Roman’s lips drift off mine as he goes down to help me step out of the G-String. He pauses, his gaze level with my pussy.

My stomach pulls into a tight knot. “Roman…”

“Just a little longer, baby.” He comes up and stands back, his gaze burning into me. “On the bed, with your knees folded under you.”

I step back against the bed and sit, then bring my knees up under me, my butt resting on my heels.

“I want to show you what you do to me,” he says as he rips his tee off over his head.

Fresh waves of desire wash over me as I watch. His chest ripples, muscles bunch in his arms. His body is lean, golden, sculptured like a damned Greek god.

He works his buckle loose and when he pulls down his jeans and underwear, his cock rears free. Long, hard, thick, angry.

“Touch me.” He steps right up against the bed, his cock reaching for me. “Stroke me, Keegan. Look.”

Excitement wraps my own desire, tingling my blood as I run a finger lightly along the underside of his length. I’m such a virgin in so many ways. It seems crazy now, that I’ve never touched a cock before. Not intentionally. Not like this.

His skin in velvet, veined, and as impossible as it seems, his cock grows longer, thickens. Drops of seamen swell from the tip.

“Fuck.”

The agony in his voice freezes me.

My eyes shoot up.

His eyes are glazed sliver, his jaw strained. “Do you see now? I’ve been with you all along, baby, out of my fucking mind with want.”

“I didn’t know…” The power I have over him, have had all this time, hits me like a surge of electricity. “You always seem to be so in control.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m not feeling it.”

A smile curls my lips as I fold my hand around his velvet hardness.

That’s as far as I get before he grabs my wrist and snaps my hand off him.

“That’s more control than any man is a capable of.” His grin is brittle enough to crack his jaw as he turns and strides away.

My smile turns into a purr as my gaze lingers on his rock-hard butt. God, is any part of this man not ripped?

Then I realise where he’s going. To the chest of drawers and that shopping bag of exotic pleasures. My clit tenses in anticipation.

He comes back with a length of silk flowing in between his fingers. “Blinding one sense heightens all the others. Don’t be afraid.”

“I’m not,” I say breathlessly.

He stops in front of me. “Do you remember what I said I was going to do to you? To those perk little nipples?”

I swallow hard. “Yes.”

He looks at me, searching, then sees what he needs to and wraps the silk around my head, covering my eyes.

It’s not tight, but he winds the silk again and again until I can’t see a thing. I feel him tying the ends at the back of my head, and then his touch is gone.

I’m alone.

Naked.

On my knees.

I sense his return. I hear him move right in front of me. I feel his warm breath on my skin.

“Open for me, baby.” He grips my knees, pushing them as far apart as my hips allow. “Put your hands behind you and lean back.”

I tilt backward on my knees as I do so, opening more fully for him.

“Perfect,” he murmurs, and he’s gone from me again.

I’m tense inside and out, feeling him near, anticipating his touch and not knowing where or when it will come. I’m completely exposed to his every want and will.

I gasp when a finger presses inside my wetness. My pussy grabs, but the finger slides out and my inner walls clamp in frustration.

I wait.

Warm breath fans my nipple, tickling, teasing.

I whimper and finally he shows me some mercy. His tongue swirls my nipple, flicks, and then he takes my nipple and the surrounding flesh into his mouth, sucking hard, his teeth scraping skin, the tip of his tongue licking roughly and carelessly.

He doesn’t move to the other breast until that nipple is erect and tingling, and then he does it all over again.

I’m moaning, molten with need, begging him for more when he pulls away on the order, “Don’t move.”

“Fuck me, please,” I moan. I want to rip the blindfold off so I can look at him. So I can throw myself on him, impale myself on his cock and finish this.

“I will,” he promises.

But doesn’t.

My stomach hollows out as I wait in darkness.

My breaths hiccup, then hold as I feel his palm mould my breast. He takes my throbbing nipple between his forefinger and thumb and pulls gently.

A moment later, I feel something cool, rubbery, brush over my nipple, then clamp.

I cry out as the pain pierces me.

This is nothing like when he squeezed my nipple.

The pain is sharp, pinching my nipple flat, burning into my core, and he’s busy with my other nipple, pulling gently.
Clamp.

His touch leaves me.

All I have is the fierce pain gathering in my nipples, swelling over my breasts, spreading through my flesh and deep into my bones.

I trust him.

Wait for the pain to diffuse.

Wait for the twin threads of desire.

But my world has reduced to the ache in my nipples and I’m about to give up, enough, I can’t do this, when both clamps release at the same time and my nipples burst free into throbbing pebbles.

Behind me, the mattress shifts with his weight.

His knees nudge my butt cheeks and then his hands are on my hips, lifting me slightly, sliding me up the slope of his thighs.

I don’t feel his cock behind me, I must be only half-way up his thighs.

“Raise your arms,” he commands softly near my ear. “Grab around my neck.”

I reach high and behind me, fumbling until I feel his hair brushing my hands and then I thread my fingers through his hair and lock them at the base of his skull. In this position, I’m arched backward, partially raised off my knees and spread wide open as I straddle his muscular thighs.

My breasts push out, full and heavy, as if the intensity of that clamped pain is a weight I’m still carrying inside. Desire pulses in my breasts and to the tips of my throbbing nipples, along my seam and into my swollen nub.

His palms graze the satin soft skin at the top of my inner thighs and then grip firmly, holding me open, lifting me up further and closer until my shoulder blades press into his chest.

The head of his cock is right beneath me, grazing my entrance, but when I try to push down, his grip on my thighs won’t allow me to move an inch.

“Roman, God,” I groan. “Please…”

“Okay, baby,” he murmurs. “Take your orgasm. Ride me.”

He lowers me and his cock glides inside me, stretching me, filling me, drowning me with sensations that tingle and burn and threaten to crash.

“Take everything you want,” he says, talking in that gravel baritone, silk-edged steel. “Ride me as hard as you want.”

His fully seated deep inside me.

I’m impaled.

Pulsing around his velvet hardness.

He doesn’t move and I realise what he means. He wants me to ride him. He wants me to literally take this orgasm.

His hands leave my thighs to cup my breasts, his thumbs flicking gently, but my nipples are so sensitive, so achy, each light flick sends a shudder through me.

It’s crazy. My body has been begging for this for hours, but now that it’s here, within my control, I want to drag it out a little longer, as long as I can last.

Using my knees and my clasp around his neck, I slide myself slowly up his cock and down again. My moans tremble with the shivers convulsing through me.

His breaths are ragged. When his jaw slides against my cheek, I feel the sweat beading there. My pussy is torturing his cock.

How much longer can he last?

Can I rip through that iron control?

I bite down on my lips, determined to hold on another moment as I slide up and down. His cock is such a tight fit at this angle, bulging inside my canal.

Another wave builds and a spasm grips through me as I push down onto him. My body’s demands take over. I’m moaning, whimpering as I ride him ruthlessly, hard and fast as I climb the waves rippling through me.

He pinches each nipple hard, tighter, squeezing the clamping pain deep into me, tugs my breasts up by the nipples, twists… A scream tears from my throat as twin threads of pain and pleasure shoot into my cresting orgasm and I explode, rocking my pulsing climax into his cock.

“Don’t,” he growls when I sag against him and start to slide my hands from the back of his head. “I’m not done yet.”

He’s still throbbing inside me, rigid and thick. Fully erect and straining for release.

The bastard. How the hell does he do it?

He keeps one palm cupped to my breast, massaging firmly and using that hand to hold me close against him. His other hand comes between my legs and he slides a finger along the seam, the pad of his thumb whirling the nub of my clit. The aftershocks of my climax build instantly into another peak.

He flattens his hand over my clit, rubbing me back into him as he starts thrusting. The hand on my breast and the hand over my clit keeps me from bouncing off him as his cock slams into me again and again.

He pounds my next orgasm from me and when he comes inside me, my entire world goes black for a long, clenching moment.

I’m absolutely shattered by the time Roman and I fall onto the bed beside each other.

He rolls up onto an elbow, bringing one leg over mine as he claims my mouth with an exploring kiss. He cups my breast gently as he pulls out of the kiss.

“The clamping was too much,” he murmurs, his gaze caressing my nipple. “We won’t do that again.”

Disappointment stings me. “Maybe, a little, but God, afterwards, it felt so intense. So amazing.”

My breasts are still heavy, thoroughly aware and approving of how they’ve been abused.

“Don’t worry, baby.” A grin softens his jaw as he looks into my eyes. “I’ll still pinch and tug and twist your naughty nipples into a throbbing ache. We just won’t use the rubber clamps.”