Fractured (Not Quite a Billionaire #2) (15 page)

Love is more than sex,
I told myself.
And men can’t necessarily do it every day, let alone twice a day. He’s thirty-seven. That probably makes a difference, too.

I normally saw Hemi a few times a week, plus, all right, maybe another time in his office. I’d read somewhere that the average couple had sex twice a week, and he was already doing twice that well. He’d made love to me three times in the last two days. What did I want?

He needed to know I loved him for more than this. I shut down my e-reader and set it on the bedside table, then got up and started to take off my robe. I would put on pajamas and climb in bed like a normal person, with no pressure. I’d let him know that I was fine with whatever happened or didn’t.

Even though I wasn’t.

That was why, though, I was half out of my robe when he walked in wearing a pair of loose black cotton pants and nothing else. I may have gotten a little distracted, too. I’d just unfastened my robe, but my hands stilled on the tie, because I was busy.

Have I mentioned yet that Hemi was good-looking? Well—no, that doesn’t even begin to describe it. His bronze skin appeared richer than ever in the dim light of the bedside lamp, and as for the intricate Maori tattoo that stretched from the sinewy, corded muscle of his forearm, up over the bulge of biceps and triceps, over one strong shoulder, and down to cover the broad, flat slab of pectoral—the design, tonight, seemed almost to pulse in its rich blue-black. Maybe it was the setting, or maybe it was the force of his personality, the way he took up every inch of space he inhabited, and most of the oxygen in a room. He was all shifting muscle and controlled power, and the expression on his face…

Good-looking? That wasn’t enough. Dark, dangerous, and right out there on the edge, though? That was more like it.

“Did you have a…nice shower?” I asked weakly. His close-cropped dark hair was still wet; I could see tiny beads of moisture at his razor-cut hairline.

He didn’t answer me. He was staring at my body, revealed by the silken folds of my open robe.

I’d never been voluptuous. Never even close. I was too small and much too finely boned for that. But now, I shivered under Hemi’s gaze, and I let the robe fall to the floor, stood there, and let him look.

“Get on the bed.” It wasn’t a request.

I thought about being sassy, but I didn’t do it. I turned around and climbed back onto the bed.

“Lie down,” he said.

My heart was hammering a mile a minute. I told myself,
This is the man you love. This is the man who danced with you by the ocean.
Except that he didn’t look like that man. He looked like the Maori chief he should have been, powerful, fierce, and all-conquering. He looked like a man who was going to win, because nothing else was an option. Too bad that was exactly the kind of man who excited me most.

So I lay down. I displayed myself for him, and he looked his fill, and if I did, too? Well, he was worth looking at.

He sat beside me, and then he turned the tables on me again. He drew a thumb along my jaw and said, his voice quiet, almost gentle, “I want to make you scream tonight.”

I swallowed, and I knew he saw it. He drew his hand down my neck, trailed his fingers all the way down my inner arm, and brushed them over my wrist, up my forearm. Back and forth, the rhythm hypnotic, mesmerizing. My skin was quivering under his touch, and just like that, my legs were parting. And then his hand went to my inner thigh and began that same leisurely, gentle brushing, until I was squirming, and he sat there and watched me do it.

“But I can’t,” he finally said. “We’re going to have to keep you quiet, eh. Do you want to be quiet for me?”

“Yes.” I could barely get the word out.

His eyes softened, and his hand whispered up my thigh. So close. Almost there…and stopped. “That’s so good, sweetheart. You’re going to have to trust me, too. Do you trust me?”

I nodded, hardly daring to breathe, and he said, “Good, because that’s all you’re going to be able to do. Nod, or shake your head. While I fuck you.”

He said it in the same low, controlled voice, and my whole body jerked at the word. He smiled faintly, stood up, and went to the dresser in the corner of the room, and I lay there, tried not to tremble, and failed.

He came back carrying a paper bag, still looking nothing but calm, but it was obvious that he was a whole lot more affected than he was pretending. I stretched a hand out to touch him through the black fabric, and he sucked in his breath and said, “Better enjoy that, because it’s all you’re going to be able to do.”

I did enjoy it. I loved it. I looked at him, smiled, and said, “Promise?”

“Always saucy.” He sat down beside me again. “This is going to be a bit different, so I’m telling you now. I’ll be checking in with you. If you want me to stop, if you want to tell me no, if you want me to let you go…you shake your head. If you want me to keep going, you nod.” This time, his hand traced down the front of my throat, then drifted over my collarbone and down into the sensitive spot between my breasts, and stroked me there. “Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I whispered. I was already aching for him, but then, I’d been aching for him for about three hours now.

He pulled two candles out of his bag, set them down on the bedside table, struck a match, and lit them, then turned off the bedside lamp. And just like that, the fire within me turned up about ten degrees. The flickering light, the delicate smell of honey and roses. All softness, and nothing like softness, because Hemi was pulling something else out of his bag.

A white silk scarf.

I sucked in a breath, but I didn’t let it out, because Hemi had put the scarf over my mouth and was wrapping it around my head. Twice, so the material was caught between my teeth, forcing my mouth open.

I knew my eyes were wide. I’d expected this, and yet, I hadn’t been able to actually imagine what it would feel like to be gagged. It felt…almost frightening. Way too dirty. Much too exciting.

“First chance,” Hemi said. His chest was rising and falling more rapidly, I could swear. “To nod if it’s OK, and shake your head if it’s not.”

He was looking at me so intently, watching for my answer.

I nodded.

“Do you trust me?” he asked.

Another nod.

“Good,” he said. “Because you’re about to find out just how helpless you can be.” He took one of my wrists in each hand, dragged them up above my head, and was wrapping another length of fabric around them, and I felt the jerk as he fastened me to the bar of the headboard.

“Pull,” he said, and when I didn’t do it fast enough, he yanked at the tie, making me feel the stretch.
“Pull.”

I pulled, and he watched me do it. I wanted to say something, and I couldn’t. I was naked, I was gagged, and I was tied to Hemi’s bed. And I was already halfway gone.

“Can’t get free, eh,” he said. I looked at him, knowing I was wide-eyed, and he said, “I’m afraid it’s going to get even harder now, sweetheart. Lift your hips for me.”

I swallowed, my mouth already dry, and did it, and he shoved a pillow under my hips, then added another one, so I was raised high. And then he went to the foot of the bed, took hold of one of my ankles, and dragged it slowly to one side.

I couldn’t see what he was doing, but I could feel it. The spider was tying me to his web. He’d fastened the other ankle now, and my legs were spread wide, my hips raised for him, and I was trying to pant, but not able to.

I expected him to come over me, to pleasure me with his hands and mouth until I wanted to beg him, needed to pull him to me, to hurry him up…and wouldn’t be able to do any of it.

It would be too much to take. I knew it. And I couldn’t wait.

He didn’t do it. Instead, he stood over me, drew his hand between my parted legs, and began to explore me, touching me with nothing but that hand.

I was so wet, I could tell. I was making some noises in the back of my throat, too, but I couldn’t get them out.

Hemi was talking, though. Low. Dark. Fierce. And his hand…his hand…

“Who’s saucy now?” he asked. “I’ve got you bound and gagged, and you’re going to see what happens to girls who tell me no. I’m going to make you scream, but you won’t be able to scream. You’re just going to have to lie there and take it.”

He was rubbing hard, taking me up fast, and I was stiffening, everything in me tightening, needing to get there. Needing to make noise, and not able to.

Almost there. Almost…

Just like that, he took his hand away, and I was breathing hard through the fabric, trying to shift, trying to moan, and not able to do any of it.

He stood up, drew the black trousers down his body, and tossed them aside. And then he was over me, on his elbows, so big and so strong, and I wanted to say
Yes.
I wanted to say
Please.
But I couldn’t.

He stroked a hand over my hair, brushed it back from my cheek, and asked, “Do you want this?”

I nodded frantically, and he…
smiled.
He rolled off me, was down at the foot of the bed, unfastening my ankle, and I wanted to say
No. Please, no. Please do it.
And then he unfastened the other one.

“Changed my mind,” he said. “This is just too good.” He got both hands around my hips, and he was flipping me. Turning me over, so the fabric crossed about my wrists in an X, pulling my arms even tighter, and then he had my ankle in his hand again, was fastening it tight, then doing the other one.

The pillows were under my stomach now, and I was shaking with need and nerves. Hemi was over me again, his hard body heavy against mine, his hand drawing my hair back from my face again.

“Time to nod, sweetheart,” he said in my ear. And the second I did it, he plunged home.

He’d been right to gag me, because there was no way I wouldn’t have called out.
Yes,
I was saying frantically inside.
Yes
. This was it. The angle of it, the wonderful friction…it had my eyes closing. I couldn’t move, couldn’t ask, couldn’t moan. And every single bit of my attention was centered on one thing. On Hemi inside me.

A hard thrust, a slow withdrawal. An achingly long pause, and then the thrust again, hard enough that my hips jerked. I could hear my blood roaring, Hemi’s labored breathing over me, and that was all. I could see his heavy arm propping him up, there beside my face, golden candlelight flickering over bronzed skin and swirling tattoo, and nothing more.

But I could feel. Oh, could I feel him, plunging and retreating. The tension was building, higher and higher, and I couldn’t
move.

When his stealthy fingers sneaked around and found me again, I moaned into the gag. He heard me, I could tell, because he began moving more slowly inside me even as the tempo of his fingers increased. Focusing on my pleasure, not his own. His lips brushed my ear as he murmured, “Feels good, eh?”

I nodded twice, jerkily, willing him to go on, and he said, “You’re so pretty, baby. So pretty. So I’m going to touch you some more.”

Please,
I wanted to say.
Please touch me.

Instead, he stopped, and I
did
want to scream, then. He was gone, and I moaned again, and knew he heard me, but he didn’t say anything, and I couldn’t even
see
him. What was he doing?

A long few seconds passed. I wanted to find him, to make him do it more, to do it hard, but I couldn’t. I was all frustration, nothing but aching, panting need.

Then he settled over me, his weight pressing me down, and his hand was on me again at last, but there was something strange about it. Something cold and impossibly stimulating, a wet, icy-hot sensation that was sending me straight to the sky, and somehow, I’d found a way to wriggle, to ask for it. And at that moment, the thumb of his other hand, slippery, wet, and cold, eased its way inside me at the back.

If I could have gasped, I would have. As it was, I tensed, pulled up tight, and then tighter still. Which was when he plunged into me again and…held still. He was inside me, stroking me with one hand, rubbing that cold into me while he shoved his thumb deep and hard into my backside, stimulating me so much. Too much.

It was all…it was all too much. I couldn’t take it. I was trying to get away, trying to call out, my entire body rigid as the tension inside me wound higher and higher, the orgasm coming closer, then closer still. I was biting down on fabric, my hands twisting around the cord tying me to the head of the bed, my legs held tight…

I screamed. I shook, and I convulsed, and he didn’t stop.

I wanted to tell him I couldn’t do it. I wanted to tell him to stop, and all I wanted was for him to keep going. And he did. Again and again, while I heard his ragged breath in my ears, and finally, jerked again at the feeling of his teeth closing over the back of my neck.

He
bit
me. He held me with his teeth, and all I could do was lie still and feel his hands and mouth and body taking over every bit of me, making me shake, making me his.

He burned me down.

Hemi

Sometimes, I honestly thought that being with Hope would kill me.