HIGHER (The Indigo Lounge Series) (5 page)

Keeping her eyes
on him, she slid her fingers faster on either side of her clit. The movement
was so intensely pleasurable, she groaned. His raw moan echoed around the room
but he didn't move from where he'd frozen in the middle of her bedroom. She
cupped one breast with her free hand, squeezing and fondling as desire tore
through her.

She bit her lip
as another moan vibrated through the devastatingly gorgeous man who stood
frozen with lust in her bedroom. Wetting her forefinger, she twirled it over
her hot and tight nipple. Her breath shuddered out of her, her need growing to
astronomical proportions. Feeling her orgasm build she slid one finger inside
her wet and yearning sex. The slick passage immediately closed hungrily over
her finger. Pleasure raced up her spine, curving it so her back arched off the
bed. But it wasn't enough. She squeezed in another finger and smothered a
scream as the climax surged closer.

“Bethany...Jesus,
Bethany. Look at you, so wet. So fucking tight.” His hand closed over the tent
in his trousers and his breath hissed out. “God!”

She squeezed her
nipple between her thumb and forefinger. Oh God. Oh...God! Her hips surged off
the bed, her fingers plunging faster in and out. She threw her legs open wider
and fucked her fingers in desperate lunges.

“Fuck...Peaches.”

Her fingers
stilled for a second. “Don't call me that,” she rasped as pain and pleasure
congealed into a tight knot beneath her breastbone.

His fists
clenched at his sides, and his nostrils flared. Mouth open, he gulped in
desperate breaths. “Do it, baby. Please, don't stop.”

She didn’t really
need that imploration. She
couldn't
stop. Wouldn't have been able to if her life depended on it. She threw her head
back but kept her eyes on him. “You're not supposed to be enjoying this.” With
a shaky hand, she grabbed the rabbit, knowing she was close, so very close.

“I'm in fucking
agony. Know that as a certainty, Bethany. But I see how much you need this. And
I want you to come before I pass out. Come, Peaches. Come without me inside
you. It'll kill me but I'll stay right here.”

That was the
problem. She hated that he wasn't inside her right that moment. But he was
right, she needed this more than she needed her next breath. And there was a
different, almost sadistic pleasure coursing through her at the knowledge that
he was so very much at her mercy.

She held the
rabbit against her clit and screamed as pleasure shot through her.

Zach squeezed himself
and gave a pained groan. Stumbling forward, he dropped to his knees. Gripping
the edge of the bed he watched her, his intense grey eyes fixed on her as if
she was the one real thing in his universe. He swallowed hard as she rolled her
hips, another low moan reverberated through the room.

Through the waves
of ecstasy washing through her, she heard him mutter
Fuck, Fuck, Fuck
under his breath. She cried out as bliss crashed
over her. She threw her legs wider and buried her two fingers into her soaked
heat.

A harder, darker
anguished, “Fuck!” roared through the room. The sound of Zach losing it on the
floor in her bedroom sent her over the edge. She screamed her climax, gripped
her sheet with her free hand, seeking an anchor other than the one she craved.
Liquid heat spurted out of her, drenching her sex and soaking the bed. Sweat
coated her skin as savage pleasure roared through her.

Minutes later,
she collapsed back on the pillows, spent. When she managed to pry her leaden
eyelids back open, she couldn’t see him. But she knew he was there. She could
hear his harsh breathing.

“Jesus, Bethany,”
he muttered under his breath, but she caught it all the same. She was too
attuned to him not to. “What the fuck are you doing to me?”

Chapter Seven

Minutes passed in
silence. She wanted to get up, go jump in the shower. But several things
stopped her. First, she wasn’t sure whether she was capable of walking after
that intense orgasm. And second, and most terrifying, she wasn’t sure she could
walk past Zach without jumping on him, begging him to fuck her pain and
confusion away. Because the ache hadn’t abated. Not one little bit. Her insides
still remained shredded, and her sex just as empty without him. And her body
was acting independently of her heart and head.

Slowly, heart
thumping enough to drown her hearing, she rose onto her elbows and glanced down
at the floor.

Zach lay on his
back, his chest rising and falling in rapid breathing, his eyes squeezed shut.

Finally, he
rolled upright. His face was taut with held in emotion, his nostrils flared
wide as he breathed. The anguish and fierce arousal stamped so severely on his
face made her breath catch. His eyes snapped open. Dark, turbulent eyes zeroed
in on her, fixing her with that unwavering focus that had never ceased to
unnerve her since their first meeting.

“You will come
back to me, Bethany.”

She shook her
head fiercely, holding on to her pain and reminding herself why she couldn’t
give in to his iron will. He didn’t love her. He loved someone else. A
dead
someone else.

“
Yes, you will. I won’t stop trying until you do,” he continued
harshly. “And then do you know what’s going to happen?”

The aggression in
his voice sent a tremor of apprehension up her spine. “What are you going to
do, Zach?” She dared him.

His teeth bared
in a parody of a smile. “I’m going to punish you for what you’re doing to us.
I’m going to fuck you raw for days. Until your vocal cords stop working from
screaming for mercy. And you know what? I won’t stop. Because every day you
keep us apart, every minute you maintain this distance, I get that little bit
crazier, that little bit out of my fucking head with craving you. And you will
pay, Bethany. Dearly. Take a few minutes. Think about that and assess how much
you want this thing to drag on. I’m not going anywhere. Now where’s your
bathroom?”

“My bathroom?”

He looked down at
his crotch and back at her, one wry eyebrow lifted. “I blew my load watching
you finger fuck that tight, sweet cunt. I’m a fucking mess right now.’

There was no hint
of embarrassment in his voice. Not a single shred of it. He rose off the floor
with a litheness that was beautiful to watch. He took a step toward the bed and
raked her naked body with hot, lethal eyes. They burned even hotter when they
rested between her legs. She knew the evidence of her climax was pretty hard to
miss. Hell, she was drenched with it.

“The cunt that
belongs to
me
. That’s something else
you’ll have to pay for, by the way. Bathroom?”

With a shaky
hand, she pointed to the closed door to the left of her bedroom. He stepped
back from the foot of her bed, his eyes still lingering on her sex. When they
finally rose to hers, the condemnation and hunger in the grey depths stopped
her breath.

He whirled away,
one hand spearing through his hair as he strode to the bathroom and shut the
door behind him.

Bethany collapsed
back onto the bed, her breath rushing in and out of her in huge, desperate
gulps.

She’d wanted to
make him suffer. And she had. But by taunting him with what he wanted most
she’d jerked the tail of the tiger. Zachary Savage knew he was in the wrong. He
knew he had hurt her - continued to hurt her with his silence. A small part of
her even admitted to admiring him for owning the fact that he had wronged her.
But she had also used the most dangerous weapon of punishment she could think
of to show him how badly she was torn apart with the huge issue they grappled
with.

How could she
crave him like this when he could possibly have committed the most heinous
crime?

She clasped her
hands over her face and shuddered as she recalled him writhing on her floor.
Hell, she’d reduced a proud and dominantly sexual man to coming in his pants
like a hormonal teenager.

A horrific little
giggle escaped her throat. She clamped her mouth shut when she heard the door
opening. He walked in as she was pulling the sheet over her body.

“The shower’s all
yours,” he said. “When you slide that soap all over your hot little body,
remember who it belongs to. And who will be claiming it again, very soon.”

He walked over
and stood staring down at her. His eyes were inscrutable, as if he’d washed
away every single expression when he used the bathroom.

Slowly, he leaned
down and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead.

“Happy birthday,
baby,” he murmured.

Then he walked
out.

***

She slept heavy and dreamless
through the night, not waking until her alarm blared at eight. Slamming her
hand over it, she rolled over in bed and was immediately drenched in vivid
memory.

God. What had she done? Heat
raced up her neck into her face as she recalled her brazen, incredibly
dangerous behavior. A part of her remained stunned Zach hadn’t annihilated her.
He’d been well beyond the boundaries of his endurance.

And for a man who craved sex as
much as Zach did to not take what was so temptingly and brazenly laid out in
front of him…she shuddered as she recalled him losing it on her floor.

She’d tried to use sex to reach
him once. Back in Marrakech she’d thought the better of it. But last night,
she’d been too far gone to think things through properly.

Did she regret it now?

She shut her eyes and admitted
that guilt wasn’t paramount. But what she’d done had created an even more
gnawing hunger in both of them that had become a ticking time bomb.

You will pay…I will punish you…

As much as she tried to be
affronted by that threat, she couldn’t deny that underneath it all, the thought
of being punished severely by Zach made her insides turn over with scorching
anticipation. No matter how many sexual toys she went through, Zach Savage’s
brand of sex would always trump whatever she could come up with in the
self-pleasure department.

Her phone rang, jerking her out
of her heated daydreams.

“Hey B,” Keely greeted her with a
tone much more subdued than her usual hyperactive briskness.

“Hey,” she replied, refusing to
acknowledge that part of her had hoped for someone else, someone with a much
deeper voice at the end of the line.

“I fucked up your birthday last
night. I’m sorry.”

Bethany sighed. “It wasn’t all
fucked up,” she replied. Her face flamed again as she remembered how the night
had ended. She’d experienced a seriously intense orgasm and she’d watched one
of the most dynamic, sexiest men on the planet lose it on her bedroom floor.
“At least now I know what a
Fuck Me Blue
tastes like.”

Keely laughed. “Yeah, we must go
on a cocktail crawl one of these days. Minus one crazy stalker boyfriend, of
course.”

A spurt of anger flared up. “He’s
not a crazy stalker, Keely. He’s just…”

“Wants you really, really badly?”
Contrite Keely was fast receding and Snarky Keely was reasserting herself.

Bethany’s hand gripped her phone
harder. “I don’t know what he is. Besides, you told him where to find me,
remember?”

“Sure, rub it in. But seriously,
what are you going to do, B? I get the feeling he’s not going away.”

I don’t want him to
. She closed her eyes and swallowed at the
fierce power behind the thought. “He wants me to give him an hour. To talk.”

“Maybe you should consider that.”

“What if he just weaves words
around me without really telling me what I need to know?”

“You need to ask yourself what’s
important to you. Being with him regardless of whether you know about his past
or not. Do you think he’ll tell you eventually, when he’s ready?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” Bethany
frowned as her memory tweaked. “Last night, he said something about if he had a
choice he would tell me.”

“When last night?” Keely asked
sharply.

“I…he followed me home,” she
said, then rushed on before Keely could speak, “he wanted to make sure I got
home safely. He knew we’d been drinking.”

“Right. Okay. So you think he’s
not divulging his past because something…or someone’s holding him back?”

“I didn’t ask.”

Keely snorted. “Aunt Keely thinks
you need to have that talk, baby girl. You’re running around in circles chasing
your pretty little tail. You’re both beginning to drive me crazy. Sort yourself
out, then call me. I have some juicy details of my hook up from last night.”

Bethany laughed. “You hooked up
with someone last night?”

“Of course. After you deserted
me, I needed to drown my sorrows. The right guy came along and I went with the
flow.” A noise echoed down the line, followed by a loud crash. Keely laughed
under her breath. “Gotta go. My date is trying to escape his leash.”

“Jesus, Keely!”

“Shut up. Don’t judge until you
try. Oh hey, there’s an idea. You can tie Savage to a sturdy post and threaten
not to release him until he tells you all his secrets. I can come up with a
few—”

“No, thanks,” she interjected
quickly.

Keely sighed. “You’re no fun.”

Bethany stretched and eyed the
clock. She needed to get up. Her parents would be arriving within the hour.
“Heads up before you go, I’m going back to work tomorrow, so no more texts to
Sheena.”

If not for the sake of earning a
pay check, she needed the distraction of work to keep her from losing her mind.
Or worse, considering what Zach had suggested last night, that they put the
landmine subject of how his wife’s death to one side and carry on regardless.

“You sure?” Concern lined Keely’s
voice, reminding her what a mess she’d been for the last week.

And what a mess she still felt
inside.

She sucked in a breath. “I can’t
quit my job, Keel. And I can’t keep hiding in my bedroom hoping everything will
right itself.”

“Okay. Dinner and drinks on
Wednesday?”

“Sure. I’ll call.”

She rang off and pushed back the
sheets. Getting out of bed, she froze for a minute as the memory of Zach in her
bedroom hit her full force.

In the light of day, she was even
more staggered by his self-control. Had their positions been reversed, she
doubted she could’ve stopped herself from leaping on him.

Their sexual chemistry hadn’t
diminished one iota - hell it was fiery as ever. And yet he’d respected her
wish and kept his distance.

No matter how much she wanted to
hate him from keeping her out of the important parts of his life, Zach had a
core of integrity that kept her from completely hating him.

If there was really was a reason
why he couldn’t tell her what had happened between him and Farrah, was she
right in pushing him to tell her?

Confusion propelled her into the
shower and still stalked through her as she pulled on a pair of light blue
capri pants and a white top. She shoved her feet into high heeled wedges just
as her doorbell rang.

She let her parents in and
accepted a bouquet of flowers from her dad.

Professor Todd Green looked
nothing like your typical professor. He favored descriptive T-shirts and
loafers rather than tweed coats and bowties. Tall, with a full head of greying
dark brown hair, he looked like an overgrown teenager.

“Happy birthday, sweetheart.” He
kissed Bethany’s cheeks, then frowned down at her. “You’ve lost weight. Are you
eating properly?” he asked.

“I’m fine, Dad.” She bent her
head so he wouldn’t see the shadows lurking and hurried to escape into the
kitchen. He followed and watched her arrange the flowers in a vase.

“Are you sure?”

“Leave her alone, Todd,” her
mother waved him away. “How was Paris?”

“Umm, it was great. Lots of fun
and…great food.” She sent a desperate prayer that the heat building at the back
of her neck didn’t flare into her face.

Veering away from her parents’
prying eyes, she returned to the living room and took her time positioning the
flowers on her coffee table.

By the time her parents drifted
back in, the smile she’d spent a few minutes practicing in front of the mirror
was in place.

“So, Mom, I thought we’d hit a
few art galleries around here? There’s a new one I think you’d like. Then we’ll
go to lunch?” she said airily. Her mother was addicted to art galleries,
especially ones featuring local artists.

“Sounds great. I’ve been meaning
to find something for the guest bedroom. But it’s your birthday, sweetheart.
Are you sure that’s what you want to do?”

Her father rolled his eyes over
his wife’s head and made cutthroat signs at Bethany.

“It’s fine, Mom. I’m happy to.”

Felicity Green pursed her lips.
“See, Todd. Not everyone thinks shopping for art is akin to a catching the
plague.”

Her father flinched. “I’m sure
some in-depth research would prove otherwise, dear.”

This time Bethany’s smile felt
less tight as she grabbed her purse and followed her parents out the door. It
felt good to be semi-normal again, to bask in her parents’ easy banter and
affection for each other. She didn’t miss her father’s concerned glances as
they entered the elevator but she carried on smiling, determined to put a brave
face on her chaotic emotions.