TiedandTwisted (8 page)

Acutely aware of her state of undress, she fumbled through
deactivating the alarm system. Didn’t stop to think about the real
ramifications of letting him into her house and waking up beside him in the
morning. If they were plunging head first into something more permanent…well,
so be it.

She yanked the door open and stared at him through the
screen he’d installed that morning. “Have you been out there all night?”

Shaking his head, he straightened away from the wall. “I
went home and decided I needed to be here even if you didn’t need me here.”

He reached for the door but stopped short of opening it.
“Have you changed your mind?”

“No.” She stepped back.

David pulled the door open. Crossed the threshold. Caught
the material of the t-shirt she wore, bunching the cotton between her breasts
in his fist. “I’m not in the mood for games right now.”

Dredging up the honesty hidden behind the anxiety, she said,
“I want you to fuck me.”

Using his grip on her t-shirt, he drew her forward. Jovanna
curled her fingers around his biceps, surrendering control. David kicked the
door shut and turned them both. He pinned her to the door, fingers spread
between her breasts, and covered her mouth.

She’d never had sex with a man so interested in kissing, had
at some point decided the mouth-to-mouth attraction was something pursued
primarily by women. David didn’t deliver anything like the soft, lazy kisses
she’d shared with other women though. No such thing as watermelon-flavored
tongues stroking and teasing, sharing gum and asking unspoken questions.
He
had no questions to ask, only answers to give. Or take. Whatever. She opened
for him, accepting his intent. Penetration, possession, stealing her breath—everything
David wanted, he conveyed in the hard, deep taking.

His hands fell to her hips and jerked her forward against
the hard line of his cock. Something else he intended to give. Interested and
eager, she tore the hem of his shirt from his waistband and wedged her fingers
between them to unfasten his pants. He grasped the back of her thigh, opened
her legs and angled her against the door. Still hot and wet and strong against
her tongue.

Jovanna hooked her calf behind his back and fumbled in his
rear pocket for his wallet. As soon as she touched foil, she dropped the
leather to the floor and tore her mouth from his.

“Now,” she gasped, sucking gulps of air while she had the
chance.

“Not now.” He ducked his head and found a bare patch of skin
where his t-shirt slid off her shoulder. His teeth scored her flesh, a hard,
deep bite that burned pleasure straight to the bone beneath, and plunged his
fingers into her pussy from behind. Not long enough. Almost immediately, he
withdrew and stroked a wet line between her bare cheeks.

“Now,” he murmured, dark and intent at her ear, “I’m going
to turn you around and fuck your ass. I’m finished envying a dildo.”

As quick as his promise, David spun her and flattened her
breasts against the door. She reflexively rose on tiptoe, pushed back toward
him, unashamed of the weakness he’d so quickly homed in on. Turning her head,
she rested her cheek against the cool panel and closed her eyes tight.

“Hard,” she pleaded. “I like it hard.”

He nipped her ear and shoved the t-shirt hem up around her
waist. “You like it to hurt.”

“Yes,” she whispered, suddenly anxious. Many men would balk
at the idea, freak out and retreat with hot desire suddenly gone cold.

David spread her cheeks. The slide of lubricated latex
between the globes, along the crease, proved him once more unlike other men.
Jovanna pressed her fingertips against the door and drew a deep breath,
released it when he aligned himself at her pucker. She deliberately tightened
her inner muscles, purposefully resisted his push.

With a soft curse, he grasped her hips and bit her ear. “Do
you want me to force it?”

She nodded, her cheek sliding along the wood. “Please.”

His blunt fingernails dug into the tender flesh below her
pelvic bones. Jovanna spread her arms wide and grasped the raised surface of
the door frame. Bracing herself. Because he wouldn’t disappoint her.

And he didn’t. With no more warning than the flex of his
fingers at her hips, he drove into her. Jovanna shrieked through the sudden
burn, the lance of pain that stabbed from those tiny nerve endings all the way
to her fingers and toes. Her pussy creamed even more wet with the
lightning-fast metabolism of pain into pleasure. Hot, mind-melting pleasure.
David didn’t let it fade.

He shoved her hips forward off his cock, yanked her back
into another hard thrust. Her nipples jabbed painfully against the unyielding
surface of the door. Jovanna arched her back, writhing for the bite of
sensation.

Behind her, he breathed a soft curse and pistoned forward.
Again. “Let me hear how much it hurts,” he muttered.

She couldn’t have silenced herself if she tried. A high
whimper caught in her throat, preceding a yelp of surprise to answer his abrupt
withdraw and re-entry. David barred his forearm across her stomach and locked
her against his abs, digging deep with each short, stabbing thrust. His fingers
speared between her legs, into her pussy and out again, up to cruelly pinch her
clit. A jolt of shock spiked up her spine. He repeated the rough treatment,
twisting her distended flesh with ruthless determination. Whatever he wanted
out of her, she wanted to give it. Strained to give it.

“
God
,” she moaned, one knee jammed against the door.
“Oh God.”

“You’re going to come,” he whispered. Command instead of
observation.

He spread her labia, thumbed back the hood of her clit and
scraped her exposed nerves with his fingernail. She broke, just for him. Just
for the irrefutable power he held over her in that moment. David groaned behind
her. Supporting her weight with his forearm beneath her breasts, he thrust over
and over again into the fist of muscle clamping down hard on his cock.

She should have cared about his satisfaction but she
couldn’t summon the energy to focus beyond the crest of pleasure crashing over
her. Despite her thin grasp on reality, David came. She felt him jerk and his
hold on her ribs tightened to something near pain. He cursed into her hair and
clutched her inner thigh through the flash of his own climax.

As David stilled inside her, the most debilitating blades of
sensation softened and dulled. She dropped her forehead against the door and
exhaled a shuddering breath. “I don’t know how you do this to me.”

His hold relaxed. He trailed his fingertips over her thigh
and snaked his hand beneath her t-shirt to possessively claim her breast. “I
want you enough to pay attention.”

“I want you too.”

“Yeah.” He slowly withdrew, leaving her empty and shaking.
“Yeah. I know you do. But I want you for more than fucking. What are we going
to do about that?”

“Talk about it tomorrow?” She finally released her grip on
the door frame.

David squeezed her breast before backing away. His footfalls
receded down the hall. A moment later, the whir of the bathroom fan told her
where he’d gone.

She groaned against the door, afraid she wouldn’t want him any
less come the light of day.

Chapter Six

Friday, 3:30 p.m.

She’d managed to dodge the morning-after discussion about
their relationship when an equipment malfunction called David away before dawn
Sunday morning. She’d also managed to avoid him the rest of the week between
their respective commitments. Friday sneaked up on her and with it, her
agreement to meet him again at Bondage. By mid-afternoon, she still hadn’t
decided whether she could consent to a public scene with him. An appointment
with her accountant and an early evening class provided a handy excuse to
continue not deciding.

“I am so glad you’re here,” her assistant manager, Tina,
blurted when Jovanna stepped through the door and into a crowd of chatty
knitters. “I’ve misplaced my keys and all the materials for the spinning class
are in the stock room. Can I borrow yours?”

Frowning, she handed her keys to the other woman. “Let me
know if you don’t find them. We’ll have to make arrangements for opening
tomorrow.”

Maybe she could beg off meeting David with the excuse of
having to open.

“I’m sure they’re somewhere,” Tina replied. “I’ll look again
after I get your class set up.”

Tina headed to the back of the store and Jovanna smiled at a
customer who caught her eye from the counter. Fifteen minutes and one circular
needle demonstration later, she found herself face-to-face with a young,
familiar-looking blonde.

“Can I help you?” She couldn’t place the sense of
recognition.

The young woman smiled sheepishly. “I’m Melanie. David’s
sister. I wanted to introduce myself and say hi.”

Hello awkward. Jovanna blinked past her surprise and finally
realized the resemblance. Melanie had David’s eyes and a narrow, feminine
version of his nose and chin.

Melanie bit her lip. “Um.”

“Sorry.” Jovanna shook herself out of awkward. “Melanie. The
other end of the Billy Idol ringtone.”

David’s sister rolled her eyes. “My brother is so old. That
ringtone’s embarrassing. I’m very well-behaved.”

Jovanna chuckled. “I’m sure you are.”

“Right?” Melanie quirked a grin. “Maybe you could tell him
to relax and put away his shotgun. Over dinner with us tonight.”

“Oh. Tonight. I, uh—”

“Have plans with him. Yeah, he mentioned. But he’s being
selfish with you so I figured I’d invite myself to the dinner portion. Do you
mind?”

Gah. Her Friday night appointment-slash-date already had her
on edge. Sharing a table with his sister beforehand—

“It’s cool if you don’t want to,” Melanie said, interrupting
Jovanna’s panic. “I just thought I’d ask.”

“I do want to,” Jovanna surprised herself by saying. “I
just—”

Melanie squealed and hopped in place, her blonde bob
bouncing at her jaw. “Yay! Do you have anything against seafood?”

“I…no. Fish never did me wrong,” she said, helpless in the
face of Melanie’s exuberance.

As David’s sister entered Jovanna’s cell number into her
address book, Jovanna privately wondered whether the sinking feeling in her
stomach was more a result of worrying about family dinner pitfalls or a result
of the growing inevitability of something “more” with David. With anybody, really.
A signal from Tina reminded her she didn’t have time to cringe over what was
shaping up to be an actual relationship.

“See you at eight!” Melanie called out as Jovanna stepped
away to welcome her class.

At fifteen after seven, Jovanna saw her last customer out
the door and locked up. Tina’s keys were still missing despite a thorough
search. The other woman left with the intention of searching at home after
realizing she didn’t remember having them in her hand the entire day. Jovanna
snapped the blinds closed with a sigh and went to work tidying the disarray
left by a busy Friday crowd. One more excuse to delay meeting Melanie and David
at the popular restaurant Melanie had chosen via text message.

As she got down on her knees to straighten the yarn bins
closest to the floor, the chime of the bell over the door dropped her heart
into her stomach. She’d locked that door.

“If you move I’ll put a bullet in the back of your head,”
the intruder warned.

She knew him. Jovanna swallowed against a surge of bile and
spread her fingers on the floor. Terror jacked her heart rate to a roar in her
ears but she knew his voice. Nasal and too high to be attractive on a man, that
voice had hurled obscenities at her across a courtroom. She should have
finished making David’s list.

Heavy footsteps approached her from behind. Acutely aware of
her vulnerability, she made a mental sweep of the store. Her cell phone was in
her bag behind the counter. The landline phone was behind the counter too,
along with the panic switch for her alarm system.

Jim Katt, the man who’d run her off the road and into a
telephone post, totaling her car and hospitalizing her with a broken clavicle,
stopped behind her. “Hold up your head.”

Her breath wheezed from her chest. “What do you want?”

He drove the toe of his boot into her hamstring. “Bitch,
when I tell you what to do, you do it. Hold up your fucking head.”

She bit off a cry of pain and caught herself before her face
smashed into the yarn bin in front of her. Before she could raise her head, Katt
grabbed the back of her hair and jerked her up onto her knees. He dropped a
scratchy rope over her head and yanked hard, tipping her over onto her side.
The rope tightened painfully. Gasping for breath, she clawed at the thick braid
of…yarn. God. The skeins he’d stolen.

Muttering beneath his breath, Katt dragged her across the
store, using the yarn rope as a leash. She flailed blindly, grasping for
anything. Her nails tore on the leg of a fixture as Katt hauled her away.

“First it was about money,” Katt said. “But I figured I was
never going to get my money back from you so I’d have to take something else.”

“Don’t…owe…” Jovanna tried to jam her fingers beneath the
rope in an effort to create some space she could breathe through. Her throat
burned over the words she managed before she gave up on speaking.

“Shut up.” He dragged her past the spindle display, the
unbleached yarns, the small selection of how-to books. The wall of needles
loomed in front of her face. Desperate, she grabbed at the lowest display. Three
packages of needles came off in her hand and fell to the floor when her
reflexes failed to latch on.

Vision blurring, she scrabbled in the display one more time
before Katt pulled her out of reach. The cardboard edges of a piece of
packaging pinched her palm but she had it.