Play Me Hot (5 page)

I grit my teeth, keep up the hard, steady strokes until my muscles cramp. Until sweat rolls down my body and my cock cries out for relief. Until Aria comes yet again, limp and wrung out beneath me, her body nothing but a vessel for everything I want to give her.

Only then, only when she’s safe and sated and nearly slack with exhaustion, do I let myself go. And when the release hits me, when it tears through me like a speedball, it’s so strong and violent and all-consuming that for a moment it’s like death itself.

I feel strange when it’s over. A little lost, a little exhilarated, a lot exhausted. My body feels like lead, like it would take more energy than I will ever have again for me to move.

Now that pleasure isn’t rocketing through my every cell and nerve ending for the first time in over an hour, my brain clicks back on. Or at least, the switch moves away from the holy-fuck-I-need-to-come setting it’s been resting on pretty much since Sebastian brought me up here.

Sebastian.

He’s still inside me, his chest still pressed to my back, his fingers still intertwined with mine. And he’s making no move to pull away. To walk away now that he’s gotten what he wants from me.

Tears—weak, useless, pathetic tears—fill up my eyes and I try to ignore them. I’d probably do a pretty good job of it, too, if they didn’t make everything blurry. Especially the lights of Vegas spread out below us as far as the eye can see.

If I’m being honest, I’ll admit that I like the blur. The way that everything is softer, shadowy, just a little bit out of focus. It makes all the truths I’m living with—including the one where I just let my boss fuck me in his office like some kind of inflatable blow-up doll—so much easier to look at.

The fact that it didn’t feel like that, that it felt like something more—something powerful—only proves how stupid I really am.

This was a lesson I thought I’d learned a long, long time ago.

Suddenly I can’t bear to be this connected to him, not anymore. I shift a little, press back against him. It takes a couple seconds, but he gets the hint.

“You doing okay?” he murmurs after he pulls out. His lips skim my shoulder, press soft kisses to my back.

“Yeah. My arms are sore.”

“Right. Sorry.” He untangles our fingers, then steps away, making sure to keep me close as he lowers my hands and gently unties them.

They hadn’t really been hurting before—or if they were, I’d been too caught up in my head to notice—but now that they’re down and the blood is rushing back into them, it feels like I’m being stabbed by a million pins and needles.

I don’t say anything about it, but somehow Sebastian knows—probably because he’s got a lot more experience with tying people up than I have with being tied up—and he takes hold of my right arm, rubbing it gently. When I have feeling back in that arm, he moves on to the second one, all while keeping his arms around me and his body pressed to mine.

I don’t know how I feel about this. About Sebastian, about what we did together, or about the way he’s treating me now. I guess I expected him to treat this like any other rich man fuck—wham, bam, get the hell out, ma’am—but instead he’s being kind, tender.

He’s taking care of me. And I’m letting him.

That, too, is a shock. I’m pretty much a do-it-myself kind of girl, or at least I’m trying to be, and the fact that I need this—his tenderness, his comfort, the soothing stroke of his hands down my back—disturbs me in a way the sex didn’t.

And the sex was plenty disturbing in a blow-my-mind, drag-me-out-of-my-comfort-zone kind of way.

“I need to get back to work.” My voice sounds rusty, like it hasn’t been used in a while. Or like I’ve spent the last hour screaming Sebastian’s name.

“I know.” He presses a long, lingering kiss to my bare shoulder. “But taking a few more minutes won’t hurt anything.”

“Except my tips.”

“Right. Your tips.” He steps back then, bends down and gathers up my clothes. As I take them from him, I refuse to meet his eyes. I also do my best to ignore the fact that I’m still wearing my high heels and stockings.

“Can I use your bathroom?”

“Yeah. Of course.” He rests his hand on my lower back, his thumb stroking softly against my skin as he guides me toward the closed door on the other side of the room.

“Thanks.” I reach for the doorknob, still doing my best not to look at him.

“Hey.” He puts two fingers under my chin, tilts my face up until I can’t help but look at him. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“I’m fine.”

“Yeah?” He looks concerned, like he really cares, and that only messes with my head more. I don’t know what he wants me to say here, don’t know what I’m supposed to feel. I’m almost totally naked, completely exposed, and all I want is a little cover. A chance to get my head back in the game.

“Yeah.” I push past him into the bathroom, close and lock the door behind me. Then sag against it for long seconds as I try to wrap my head around everything that just happened.

It’s not a big deal. I mean, yes, I just had soul-shattering sex. With my boss. And yes, he’s only the third guy I’ve slept with in my life. All of which means it could turn into a big deal. If I let it. Which I am
so
not going to do.

Dropping my clothes on the closed toilet lid, I cross to the sink. And come face-to-face with a mirror for the first time since this whole thing began.

Holy. Shit.

I look like I’ve just been fucked every way a woman can be fucked. My hair is a mess, my eyes are glassy, my cheeks are flushed and my lips—shit. My lips are swollen and dark pink while my red lipstick is still smeared across my chin and cheek, even down my throat.

And my body…My God. My body is covered in bruises and love bites and pink whisker burn from Sebastian’s stubble. My breasts, my stomach, my neck, the inside of my arms. The inside of my
thighs
. Everywhere.

Horrified—
fascinated—I reach out a hand. A finger. And play connect the dots with the darkest of the bruises. There’s one on the edge of my jaw, four on my neck. Two on my left breast, three on my right—incl
uding one directly over my nipple. I probe at it a little, wincing at the pain—and doing my best to ignore the fact that that one simple touch has my nipple standing erect and sparks of heat shooting through my body.

Is it just that my nipple is sensitive from all the attention Sebastian paid it? I wonder as I gently circle it. Or is it the pain that’s turning me on even though I’m exhausted? Has Sebastian Caine somehow managed to link pain and pleasure in my mind? In my body?

That thought disturbs me more than anything else has so far. More, even, than the bruises scattered like confetti over my stomach and thighs and—I do a quick turn, look over my shoulder—my back. And, if I’m being honest, those bother me quite a bit on their own.

Not because of what they are, but because of what they stand for. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, maybe I’m looking for shadows where there aren’t any, but standing here—looking at the marks on my body, so many of them in visible places—I can’t help thinking that Sebastian was marking me, branding me. Like property. Or the family pet.

For a moment, just a moment, an image of Carlo floats through my head. Suave, sophisticated, jealous. So jealous. He used to mark me like this, to remind me—and everyone else—exactly who it was I belonged to.

Like I could forget.

Whore.

Slut.

Tramp.

The words slam into me like punches, leaving bruises that aren’t so easily seen. Waking up old injuries I thought were healed, old scars I was certain had faded away into nothingness.

Suddenly, I can’t stand to look in the mirror anymore, can’t stand to see my naked body—or the marks Sebastian left on it. I dive for my clothes, yank them on as fast as I possibly can. And then I turn on the water and scrub, scrub, scrub at my face. At the red lipstick smears that speak more loudly than any words.

I’m just finishing up when there’s a knock on the door. My stomach cramps and for a moment, just a moment, the old fear is back. I can feel myself shrinking down, pulling into myself, trying to make myself as small as possible again.

The knowledge infuriates me. Has me straightening my shoulders and clearing my throat. Has me looking myself in the eye in the mirror and calling out with a lot more confidence than I’m feeling. “I’m almost done. I’ll be out in a minute.”

“I had a few things sent up from the mezzanine level. I thought they might help make you more comfortable.”

Comfortable? I don’t think anything could make me comfortable right now. Not when my past and present are suddenly converging after I’ve worked so hard to keep them separate.

Still, I open the door anyway, give Sebastian a smile I am far from feeling. He’s back in his suit and I have a moment’s regret that never again will I see that gorgeous tattoo of his—or the strong, well-muscled chest it’s inked on. “Thanks, but I think I’ve got everything I need.” I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, but if I’ve learned nothing else from my time at my mother’s knee—and my time right here in this casino—it’s that rich men are always on the take. They’re always looking for something. The next million. The next opportunity. The next beautiful, young face.

Then again, it’s not like I’ve got anything left to give him anyway. He did just take me standing up against a window in his office. And since my body is pretty much all I have worth taking, I’m fairly sure he’s done here.

He presses the small black bag into my hand. “Take it anyway. Maybe there’s something in there you could use.”

It’s no use arguing. Not now. Not with him. And so I simply nod and murmur, “Thank you,” before I start to close the door again.

His stops the door in mid-swing. “Aria.”

“Yes.” I force myself to look him in the eye this time. Rich man rules and all that.

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Of course.” I give him a grin I’m far from feeling. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“It was pretty intense.”

He lifts his hand to my face, cups my cheek like he did earlier. Only there’s no sexual intent here, nothing predatory about his touch this time. In fact, if I had to pick one word to describe it, I would say it was comforting. That he felt…safe.

Safe.

It’s such a powerful word—and a powerful feeling. One I’ve been searching for for a long time, and haven’t experienced in far too long. The fact that I feel it here, now, with him…it shakes me. Confuses me. And for a moment, just a moment, I want to melt into his touch. Want to let him hold me and take care of me the way he obviously needs to.

Except…I don’t do that anymore. I’m not that girl anymore.

“I’m good,” I tell him. “Honest. Just let me finish freshening up and I’ll get out of your hair.”

“You can stay as long as you like.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not sure David would agree. I’m an hour late getting back to work and it’s a busy night. He’s probably ready to fire me all over again, even after your phone call.”

“You don’t have to worry about that.” The fact that he sounds sincere instead of arrogant makes me a little crazy. How can this sweet, concerned man be the same one who just tied me up and fucked me senseless against the window? Who left more than a dozen bruises on me? Who told me everything in life is about control?

It doesn’t make any sense.

But life is full of mysteries and this is one I’m just going to have to be okay with not understanding. Because the only other option—sti
cking around for a while to try and figure him out—isn’t an option at all. Not for me.

“I was just teasing,” I tell him, with a sassy grin and a pat to his cheek. “I’ll be out in a minute.”