However, for argument’s sake, Chloe decided to call his bluff. “How do I know you’re telling the truth? I-I mean, you could be using your powers right now and I wouldn’t know the difference.”
“Well, actually it’s quite simple, for charming is nothing but the power of persuasion or a form of temporary hypnosis. As I said earlier, I must be in close proximity to you for my powers to work, I must be looking—”
“Directly into my eyes,” Chloe finished for him. “Just like in the old Hollywood horror movies. And just like that day in the hotel lobby.”
Despite his affirmative nod, Chloe’s usual stubbornness won out. “Prove it,” she announced, crossing her arms across her chest and raising her chin in challenge.
Tristan leaned up against the wall and crossed his arms across his chest as well. For several moments green eyes locked with brown, with neither of them saying anything. Then a slow sensual smile touched his lips, throwing Chloe’s heart into a tailspin. Feeling slightly unnerved by her reaction, she drew the edges of her robe together in a matronly fashion.
“I accept your challenge, my dear,” Tristan replied softly before she had the common sense to withdraw it.
“W-what are you going to do?” Chloe asked nervously.
“I am going to prove to you that during the time I courted you I only persuaded you to go out with me, not become the lovesick teenager that you claimed to have become. This time you can gauge for yourself if I’m lying or not. Are you game?”
Chloe looked at him leaning up against the wall, looking debonair and handsome despite his disheveled appearance. God, she hated that she was so damn attracted to him. And even worse, she hated the feelings he aroused in her!
Somehow Tristan Smythe had scaled her impenetrable wall, built during years of being hurt and laughed at, had come inside and wouldn’t leave.
“Okay,” she replied reluctantly. “But you have to promise to behave yourself while I’m under your charms.”
“Cross my heart and hope to die.” Tristan lifted his hand and marked an “x” over his heart.
Chapter Eight
Chloe stretched her arms over her head and yawned. When her eyes came into focus, she blinked sleepily at her organza canopy hanging over her head. Startled, she moved to sit up but her movements were hampered by a pink bath towel wrapped around her body. She reached up tentatively and touched her wet hair, which hung heavily around her shoulders.
Seeing a movement out of the corner of her eye, she looked over her shoulder. Tristan was lying back against her bed pillows with nothing on but a matching pink towel and a light covering of chest hair.
Chloe cleared her throat. “We’re in my bedroom, aren’t we?” Tristan nodded his head. “And we took a shower together, didn’t we?”
“Yes, we did, but I behaved like a perfect gentleman. But I do feel I deserve some kind of reward for keeping my promise. At least a kiss or something?”
Chloe felt her cheeks grow hot at his insinuation. “Stop using your charms on me, Tristan,” she whispered, yet even to her own ears she didn’t sound too convincing.
He chuckled softly. “I’m not using my powers right now, love. Neither did I use them last night at Sir Raleigh’s. Or even the day before that,” he replied contritely.
Beginning to feel uncomfortable, she pulled the towel closer around her body. Yet it didn’t help for she still felt unbearably naked around him.
“Well, even if you didn’t, it still doesn’t prove that you haven’t shaped my feelings for you. If that’s all, Mr. Smythe, I need to get dressed and go into my office and work on some things. So I think you better be going now.” She moved to leave the bed but Tristan grabbed a hold of the end of her towel.
“But I’m not finished yet,” Tristan stated flatly, his hand bunching the towel slowly in his hands.
“W-what do you mean you’re not finished?” Chloe asked, her head whipping around to look at him. She gasped loudly when she felt the towel slowly being pulled from around her body.
“I’m not finished proving to you the limitations of my powers. Since I now have your unabated attention, I need you to be a good girl and find me a scarf.”
What kind of kinky game is he trying to play now?
“All in due time, my dear… But for right now I need a scarf so that I can blindfold you to make sure that you can no longer use any more excuses to deny what’s really in your heart. Now be a good girl and find me a scarf or two so we can get on with this.”
Although she wanted to get up from the bed and run, Chloe knew that her naturally curious nature wouldn’t let her. So she waited for Tristan to release the towel before she attempted to leave the bed. Once she was free to move, she tightened the material around her breasts before easing off the bed.
Chloe walked over to her bedroom dresser and yanked open the top drawer. She rifled through the contents and pulled out a couple of headscarves. She turned around and looked at Tristan who remained in the same spot she’d left him, his tall muscular frame almost taking up half of the four-poster bed.
Oh God, it should be a sin for a man to be as handsome and sexy as her husband was, Chloe thought, biting her lip.
Although she wanted him to prove himself, Chloe had half a mind to throw the scarves back in the drawer and jump in bed with him and forget the whole thing, but her pride wouldn’t let her.
Raising her chin high, she walked over to the side of the bed and climbed up onto the satin coverlet next to him. She gasped when he grabbed a hold of her wrists and pulled them toward him. But before she could protest, he quickly wrapped the material around them until they were securely bound and lying in her lap.
He then draped the other scarf over her eyes and secured that as well, plunging Chloe’s world into temporary darkness. Despite the fact that she was at his complete mercy, her clit jumped in excitement and anticipation.
“Can you see anything?” he asked close to her ear. She heard him grunt when she shook her head. “Good, now we can continue.”
Although Chloe wasn’t too surprised when her towel was pulled away from her body, she wasn’t prepared for her nerves to go haywire. “I-I thought you said you were going to behave yourself,” she gulped nervously. She jumped when he rested his lips in the valley between her shoulder blades.
“I said that I would not attempt any funny business while using my powers, but right now I’m not using them,” he purred as his hands gently caressed her bent knees then snaked up her legs and settled on the tops of her thighs.
Chloe pressed her lips tightly together in an effort to squelch the groan that bubbled up in her throat.
Baby girl, you are in deep trouble!
All he had to do was touch her and her nipples were already hard little nubs and her pussy was becoming moist.
Taking advantage of her preoccupation, Tristan pushed her gently backward until she fell on the bedspread beneath them. Chloe could no longer contain the groan that now escaped her suddenly dry lips as he raised her arms over her head and settled himself between her legs. The light dusting of hair on his muscular thighs sent shivers up her spine.
“You know it really should be a sin how sexy you are,” he breathed into the side of her neck, tickling the delicate flesh.
Funny that he would think the same thing of her that she had of him. “Y-you think I’m sexy?” Chloe asked, slightly tongue-tied for the sudden press of his body against hers was sending her senses into overdrive.
“Mm…hm…I think you’re sexy here.” Tristan kissed her collarbone for emphasis. “And I really think you’re rather sexy here as well,” he murmured, nibbling the side of her jaw.
She felt an unexplainable heat building deep inside her as he slowly traced her jawline with his tongue. Despite the slow burn of her inner passion, she shuddered uncontrollably when he shifted his position slightly. The head of his cock pressed into her belly as he now focused his attention on her bottom lip.
Wishing he would stop teasing her with his tongue, Chloe parted her lips in invitation and waited. But instead of devouring her mouth with his own, Tristan withdrew from her, causing her to groan in disappointment.
However, her discontent was short-lived for he captured her nipple in his mouth. And began to suckle on it like a newborn babe. Instinctively, she arched her back off the bed as an intense heat shot through her, sparking a passion in her that only he seemed able to ignite.
“You are absolutely delicious!” Tristan growled, swiping his tongue between her breasts. “You are the most delectable and most tantalizing woman I have ever had the pleasure of knowing.”
How can he be so calm in a moment like this?
Chloe thought through the haze that now clouded her muddled brain. With his flowery compliments, his lascivious tongue and her libido going into overdrive, she’d be lucky if she would be able to form a two-word sentence.
As she struggled to catch her breath along with trying to find her composure, Tristan took her other nipple in his mouth.
Chloe felt like she was going to explode as his tongue swirled around the mocha-colored nub. “And so responsive too,” he murmured against her heated flesh. His cool breath sent chills rushing up her spine.
Tristan shifted position again, this time moving lower. Chloe moaned, not only because he’d left her overly responsive nipples exposed to the cool air of the room but because he was dragging his tongue down her body as he went.
Despite her pride, Chloe ached to touch him as well. In earnest, she pulled at the bindings wrapped around her wrists. Yet she instantly ceased her struggles with the unyielding material when she felt him nestle his head between her thighs, his soft hair tickling the sensitive flesh.
“Such a pretty pink pussy…” he whispered, sliding his hands under her buttocks and pulling her toward him. “Such a wonderful contrast to all this brown loveliness. Do you mind if I have a taste?”
“P-p-please,” Chloe whispered, throwing the last vestiges of her pride out the window. Needing no further encouragement, he dove in wholeheartedly, greedily swiping her slit with the broad side of his tongue as if he were trying to taste all of her at once.
His tongue was insistent as it pushed aside her pussy lips, baring her completely to his exploration. Nothing went untouched as he played with the little nubbin at the top of her pussy, flicking it back and forth until it distended past her now-swollen pussy lips. Therefore, when his long tongue finally plunged deep inside her hot channel, Chloe was unable to contain the loud cry that exploded from her lips or her bucking hips as he speared her over and over again.
In and out his tongue thrust until her juices ran unchecked. Chloe’s blood was boiling at such fever pitch that beads of sweat broke out on her forehead and she writhed uncontrollably in his strong hands.
Then suddenly, like a cold bucket of water thrown on her, he tore his mouth away. Chloe gasped in protest as his heavier weight lifted off her, leaving cold impersonal air in his place. From somewhere above her he spoke.
“Do you want me, Chloe?” he asked, his voice sounding harsh to her ears.
She couldn’t help the frown that creased her brow. Was he daft? He’d just finished eating her pussy! He shouldn’t have any doubts about how much she desired him, for her juices were now coating the inside of her thighs.
Just as she was about to reply sarcastically, she stopped because she suddenly realized that he’d been driving her crazy with desire on purpose.
Chloe lay there and ruminated on the feelings and emotions coursing through her system. She couldn’t deny that her body came alive whenever he touched her and when they were apart, even only by a few short feet, she already felt alone and bereft.
He’d proven his point.
Chloe reached down and removed the scarf covering her eyes.
“I put the scarf over your eyes for a reason, woman! Sometimes you exasperate me,” he admonished as if chastising a child. When he reached out to take the scarf from her, she quickly bunched the material in her hands.
“I don’t need it anymore…” Chloe replied when his eyes swung to hers.
“Are you sure?” he asked, his brows knitting together in confusion. “How will you know if I’m really telling you the truth?”
“I won’t…but I’m willing to follow what I feel deep in my heart. And my heart is telling me that without you I’m miserable.”
For several long moments, his green eyes searched her face then he rested his forehead on top of hers and he sighed heavily.
“Chloe…Chloe,” he whispered as he cupped her face in his large hands. “I’m so sorry if I hurt you. All I wanted to do was make you mine and love you for eternity.”
For a brief second the room was completely quiet except for the soft ticking of the clock on the nightstand. Then Tristan reached down and took a hold of her hands. His fingers moved over the ties of her bindings and in quick order she was free. Well, not “quite” free for he tugged her hands over her head like before.
“You know there is no turning back once you have accepted me as your mate. For I am bound to complete the process. So are you sure it’s me that you want?” he asked, his expression having grown somber.
Chloe scanned his handsome features and despite the circumstances of their courtship she knew there was no turning back for her. There had never been any turning back for either of them since the day they’d both laid eyes on each other.
“Come here,” she purred.
Although she was pinned to the bed, Chloe still felt in control of the situation. When he bent his head, she opened her mouth slightly and ran her tongue over his bottom lip, mimicking his earlier seduction. She slowly retraced it before pressing her lips firmly against his. It wasn’t too long before their kisses became urgent, soul-searching.
“Bloody hell, woman, I have no idea what you do to me but you should have it patented,” he panted as if out of breath. “I can’t wait to have my cock buried deep inside your pussy again and you creaming all over me.”
“Then what are you waiting for?” Chloe taunted. She was so feverish with lust herself that it felt like her head was spinning out of control. If he didn’t stick his cock in something soon, she was going to scream at the top of her lungs.