Over the Line (9 page)

But that didn’t stop me from exploiting her love of oral.

So as she draws me lower and wraps miles of long, toned legs around my head, I grab on to the globes of that firm ass and dive in.

Lee

When his mouth seals over me, there’s a second where I’m sure I’m going to die. This is the pure bliss I remember, where nothing—not even oxygen—is as important as what he’s making me feel.

I hold my breath as he flicks and sucks, but when his teeth graze over my clit, I let it go in a rush as I cry out. It’s a long mewl forced out of the animal inside me that no one else has ever tapped into.

He spreads my legs wider and eats deeper, groaning his satisfaction. His tongue slicks through my folds and his fingers dig painfully into my ass cheeks as he plunges it inside me. Every muscle coils tight and the buzz under my skin builds until I’m vibrating like a tuning fork to his frequency. He sucks and nips and I can hardly get a breath. He seems to take my struggle to keep silent as a challenge, making him more aggressive in his ministrations.

With a final graze of his teeth, I come in a shower of sparks. My body convulses as I gasp his name.

I’m barely coherent as he makes his way up my body, dropping kisses along the way. He kisses my mouth and I taste my arousal on his lips.
His
arousal is fully evident in the long, thick rod that scorches into my damp thigh through his underwear.

“No one tastes like you, my Cheetah,” he breathes against my neck. “Sweet and so fucking hot.”

When I saw him in my closet, I truly meant to kill him. I hate him. But I can’t deny the desperate ache in my belly. I want him. After months of feeling numb, I need to feel the intense sensations only he has ever made me feel, so I push his underwear lower and free his erection, then grasp his sides hard and spread myself wide for him.

I’m so lost in the feel of him on top of me once again that it’s only when he grimaces and lifts my hand that I remember his wounds.

I tip my head back and moan as he lifts my arm overhead, skimming his tongue along the tender flesh inside my elbow. He brings the other up to meet it and holds them there by the wrists as he shifts to align all our vital parts below. “Are you still on the pill?”

“Uh-huh,” I pant as his thick tip presses against my dripping sex. “Have you been screwing anyone else?”

His pressure stops before he penetrates me, and the guilt that clouds his eyes as he gazes into mine tells me the truth. He has.

He doesn’t try to excuse it or insult me with platitudes, but he waits for me to decide what happens next.

“Were you safe?” I ask.

“No.”

I roll him off and move to sit, but he holds me tight against his side. He tries to hide the pain the effort causes him, but I see it in his eyes and the clench of his jaw. “There was only one, if that makes any difference. And it was for those bread crumbs. It was so I could get here. To you.”

Exclusivity isn’t in his repertoire. I didn’t expect him to change. Which is why I can’t explain the pinch in my chest. “I left. You could screw anyone you wanted.”

Though, for a while, he didn’t.

We had an incredible year together, but we both had our motives. I knew he’d keep coming back until he got what he wanted—information on my father’s business dealings. I was careful never to give him any, stringing him along long enough to accumulate what I needed to take his family down. I just assumed he was also with anyone else he thought might be useful.

But about six months into our tryst, I began to realize his outward demeanor around other women had changed. He’d turned off the lady-killer charm. And we were together nearly every night.

So I asked him.

I was astride him on the sofa at his apartment. “Have you been tested?” I asked, rolling the condom on.

He arched an eyebrow at me as a smug grin tugged at his mouth. “You thinking about riding bareback, Cheetah?”

“Maybe.”

His smile turned appreciative. “Then I’ll get tested.”

I shifted in his lap, lifting my hips and guiding him inside. “How many other women are you sleeping with?” I asked, sinking slowly down his length.

His lips parted as his head lolled back and his eyes slipped shut for a moment as he savored the sensation. “You are all I can handle.”

By that time, I was close to having his password. A few weeks later I was into his phone. It took another month, a few minutes at a time after I’d worn him out in bed and he slept, to get into his password manager. From there, I had to sort out which pass codes were for what. I had the encryption code for the gambling program before I even knew what it was. With all those codes, I could have broken into bank accounts, credit lines, anything I wanted. I could have robbed him blind if that was my intention. But I wanted my revenge to feel more insidious. Once I was into the program, I studied it for another month before I was confident I knew the least detectible change to wreak the most havoc. Changing the payout ratios so that their system automatically overpaid winners and under collected from losers was just a matter of switching out a single function. Took me all of fifteen minutes. But I knew it would financially cripple the Savoca machine . . . a lesson that Oliver himself taught me was the surest way to ruin someone.

I double-crossed him. In response, he tried to have me and my siblings killed.

I glance in disgust at the sex-ravaged sheets as I realize we’re still playing the game. Nothing has changed. It’s been six months since I broke into Oliver’s program. Even though he’s in prison with Papa, Victor has to know their gambling payouts are compromised by now. If Oliver was telling the truth and his father really wanted him dead because of it, Oliver would be dead.

He’s playing me. This was just a means to an end. Victor sent Oliver to clean up his mess and that’s what he’s doing. He thinks he can fuck me into fixing what I broke. Maybe he hoped I’d fall asleep afterward and he could finish us, report back to Victor that there are no loose ends, then make a run for it.

Whatever his strategy, it didn’t work, and I won’t be making the same mistake twice.

I sit and swipe my clothes from the floor, tug them on, then grab the scarf and tie his hands. I expect him to try to stop me. Instead, he only watches as I tie his ankles back to the baseboard.

Oliver

When she reaches for the scarves to tie me, I don’t resist. The only chance I have to stay alive is if I can cover our losses and Victor never finds out about them. I need her to fix the program and stop the bleeding. At this point, the only way that will happen is if I can gain her trust.

“This is new, Cheetah. You were never a bondage girl in Chicago.”

She cuts me a look as she starts on my ankles and I remember that’s not quite true. There was once, about two months after we fucked for the first time in the library.

I’d already had her on her hands and knees on the living room carpet while
X-Men
played in the background, and again against the black granite wall of my shower, and once more spread wide on my king-sized bed. Two or three times in one evening wasn’t unusual. I enjoyed women. What was unusual was that I wanted her
again
. I watched as she slept, her full lips parted and her sandy waves strewn over my pillow in the moonlight, and wondered what it was about her that had me so totally captivated. So addicted. To stop myself from waking her, I wrapped myself in my robe and went to my office to get some things done that I’d neglected during the evening for . . . other business.

I’d just gotten to work when her smoky timbre came from the doorway. “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”

I looked up and found she’d slipped on my discarded dress shirt. It was open except for one fastened button just above her naval.

“I’ve been playing all evening,” I said with a flick of my wrist in her direction. “There are some things I need to take care of before morning.”

She sauntered toward me. “You think I’m going to believe screwing me isn’t work to you?”

That elicited a smile I couldn’t suppress. Unlike most of my conquests, this one knew how the game was played. “The part of my job I enjoy,” I said smoothing my hand up her leg to cup a perfect, round ass cheek.

“So,” she said moving behind me and gliding her hands over my pecs, “what’s so important that you’d leave the enjoyable part of your job lying alone and naked in your bed?”

If I’d thought there was anything on my laptop screen she’d be able to decipher or use, I would have closed the lid, but I liked the game we were playing. It was exhilarating and a little dangerous. And if she thought she was getting something, she might be more willing to give in return. I pulled the laptop closer to give her a better look. “Making some tweaks to the program our bookies use to log clients’ bets.”

She leaned down so those firm C-cups pressed against my shoulder blade and her arms circled in front of me. “So you can take the chumps for even more?” she said, studying the program over my shoulder.

“Precisely.” Her warm breath on my cheek sent a shiver through me. I reached for her hand on my stomach and brought it lower, to my swelling cock. “But the key is to do it without them knowing.”

“Nice.” She grasped the tie of my robe and slowly pulled the knot loose. The robe fell open as she came around in front of me, revealing my now substantial erection. “Let’s see how
you
like having things done to you without your knowing.” She gave the end of the tie a quick yank, freeing it from my robe. “Close your eyes.”

I flinched and grasped her wrist when she drew the sash closer to my face.

“You like to be in control,” she purred, a slightly sinister smile curling those full, blow-me lips and all kinds of wicked ideas dancing in her hazel eyes. “I get that. But sometimes being totally
out
of control can be incredibly intense.”

I looked at her a second longer and she raised an eyebrow. That look twisted my balls into a knot. I had to know what she had in mind. I lowered my hand and she tied the sash around my eyes. The next thing I heard was the swish of fabric on skin, and I knew she’s slipped my shirt off that incredible body.

“This is so you can’t cheat,” she said, moving around behind my chair. She brought one arm around behind me, and then the other, and tied them loosely together with my shirt.

I had never been so vulnerable in my life. And I’d never been so aroused. If I’d been tied tight enough that I couldn’t get loose, I would have been more concerned, but I knew one good yank would get my hands free.

I sat, working to control my ragged breathing, waiting for what she had in store for me.

Without a word of warning, her mouth was on my aching cock, warm and wet. The intensity of not seeing it coming was enough to make me arch off the chair. But then she was gone.

“Christ,” I groaned.

I listened for her, but couldn’t tell what she was doing, or even exactly where she was . . . until her tongue flicked my nipple and made me hiss a breath. Her nails raked under my balls before I’d had a chance to recover and I cried out.

I felt a rush in my groin and pre-cum leak from my tip. A second later her tongue swirled over it, slick and so hot. But on that soft tongue’s heels came something ice cold, gliding up the inside of my right thigh. I realized it was my water glass when I heard the clink of ice. A tickle of panic buzzed under my skin at the realization there was something else I’d left on the desk she might think was useful: my lit smoke, smoldering in the ashtray.

“Nothing with the cigarette,” I preempted.

“You’re no fun,” she whispered, her hot breath feathering over my neck.

My muscles rippled as more pre-cum oozed from my cock, and it took every shred of will not to grab her and sheathe my pulsing cock in her wet heat.

She sucked my earlobe into her mouth, and just as I groaned out my pleasure, she bit down hard. Then she was gone again.

I heard her moving, but I couldn’t tell exactly where she was. I steeled myself and thought I was ready for anything.

I was wrong.

An ice cube touched my nipple, followed immediately by her wet tongue. But at the same instant as the heat on my nipple came excruciating cold on my balls.

“Jesus fuck!” I gasped.

“You kiss your mother with that mouth?” she asked, removing the ice from between my legs.

I didn’t miss the derision in the word “mother,” but before I could make too much of it I was screaming in the most intensely exquisite agony I’d ever experienced. Fire and fucking ice is what it felt like as her mouth closed over my dick and her tongue swirled an ice cube around the head. I ripped my hands loose from her bindings and fisted them into her hair. She sucked me deep into the icy heat of her mouth and that was my undoing. With a final primal yell, I unloaded down her throat as I shuddered out my release.

I tugged off the blindfold as she backed off my dick.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” I panted.

She wiped the back of her hand slowly across her mouth and planted that fine naked ass on the desk next to my laptop. She placed her feet on the arms of my desk chair on either side of me and let her legs fall open. “I don’t think your gambling friends are going to feel quite that good about being taken.”

I was off that chair like a shot. A minute later, she was flat on her back on my desk with her legs wrapped around my head and her hands fisted into my hair, mewling her pleasure like a wild beast. She opened wide and gave me all of herself, and she was the sweetest thing I’d ever tasted. She came over and over and over, each time as loud and big as the first, and just knowing I could do that to her brought me right to the edge of coming along with her.

That’s when I knew she’d ruined me for all other women.

Her eyes flick to mine as she secures my feet to the baseboard with the blue scarf. She’s never had much of a poker face, and she’s wearing her anger like a mask. “You might know how to light my fuse, Oliver, but that doesn’t change that you want me dead.”

“Au contraire.”

Her eyes narrow as her venom rises. “Then who was it?”

I open my mouth, but snap it closed again when I realize I was about to play the only card guaranteed to keep me alive in a crunch. It’s never smart to ride emotions. Things that are said on impulse or in the heat of a moment can never be taken back. She will know soon enough, but it has to be at the right moment, when I can use the information to my advantage.

“It wasn’t us,” I repeat, my voice low and even, betraying none of the rising desperation I’m feeling inside.

It takes an immense force of will to keep my dick from responding to her perusal when she looks me over. Jesus, I want to fuck her. I stretch my hand toward her and stroke her thigh.

“Don’t touch me!” she snarls, jerking away from my hand and glaring down at me.

I grimace as my rib grinds. “A little late for that, Cheetah.”

Her smile is spiteful as she tightens the ties around my wrist. “If you can’t keep your hands to yourself, I’m happy to help.”

As she’s tying my other wrist, there’s the sound of tires crunching over gravel outside. Panic flashes in Lee’s eyes as she bounds off the bed and peers out the window.

“Damn.” She dashes past me toward her dresser. “Keep your mouth shut.” A second later, she’s back with a pair of stockings. “Open up,” she says, wadding one into a ball.

I don’t.

Her expression turns scathing. “Open your goddamn mouth!” she hisses.

I quirk the crooked smile I know she can’t resist. “You told me to keep it shut. Thought you were testing m—”

Downstairs, the front door opens and closes. She cuts off my last word by shoving the stocking in my mouth.

I tongue it out. “You don’t need to gag me, Cheetah,” I say, keeping my voice barely above a whisper. “I’m tied to your bed. Why would I yell? I rather like it here.”

She pushes it back in and ties the other around my head to hold it in place. My skin blazes everywhere her eyes touch when her gaze flickers down my body before she throws the sheet over me. With a parting glare, she turns for the door and vanishes, shutting it behind her.

I lay my head back and close my eyes. I can still smell her sweat on my skin, taste her arousal on my tongue. It’s almost as if nothing has changed.

Except everything has changed. The restraints I’m currently slave to leave little doubt of that.

Everything in me is at complete odds. The logical piece of me refuses to defer to my heart. Lee has taken root somewhere deep inside me, become part of me, and yet, she betrayed the trust I’d made the mistake of placing in her. She did what she did to cut my family’s financial legs out from under us and bring us to our knees—something she learned from me.

But she had her reasons.

My father killed her mother in cold blood. He deserves to pay for that. And there’s some poetic justice in Lee’s approach. The tactic that I could never get my father to embrace is the thing that, if left unchecked, will eventually bring him down.

The problem is, when someone takes a pound of flesh from my father, he always goes looking for one to replace it. And the one he’s going to come after this time is mine.