The Proviso (26 page)

“Back up,” he muttered, and she did, then he knelt
on the bed, crawling on all fours toward her, dark, lithe, like a
panther. Her chest heaved from how much he intimidated her and how
that aroused her. He rose tall and proud on his knees between her
legs and she was so dizzy with desire and pleasure that she thought
she’d pass out.

“Lift your hips.”

She did and he pulled her panties—her last
guard—down her legs and tossed them over his shoulder.

“Open your legs.”

She did. He drew his finger down her belly to her
vulva.

“You shave,” he murmured as he ran his finger over
all the little creases before he slipped two fingers up inside her.
Giselle had never felt anything like that before. She arched her
back and moaned, her eyes closed.

“And you’re dripping. Open your eyes. Look at
me.”

Giselle opened her eyes and looked up at him,
watched him take his fingers out of her and lick them. Her breath
caught yet again and he gave her a wicked smile.

“You wanted Hank Rearden.”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“He’s a girl’s fantasy. Galt is a woman’s. Choose.
Now.”

“Kenard.”

Bryce started in surprise and stared at her for a
moment as if dumbstruck. Then he smiled, slow, soft, perhaps even
happy, just before that pretty smile turned predatory. He gripped
her ankles then released them to run his hands up her legs,
caressing gently. Finally, he hooked his hands behind her knees,
flexed them, then yanked her across the bed toward him, spreading
her legs wider, wider. He nestled the tip of his cock just inside
her, teasing her.

“This,” he whispered, his voice nearly gone. He
balanced himself over her, his hands on either side of her head.
“Is fucking.” And he drove his hard cock right into her, smothering
her surprised shriek of pain with his mouth.

And oh, it hurt. He was so big, so powerful. So
hard, so solid. He stretched her beyond what she thought
possible.

She liked it.

He didn’t move while he kissed her, pinning her hard
into the bed with his hips. He was inside her, filling her, until
the pain ebbed. Her arms wrapped around him and she felt every bump
and ridge of his naked back under her fingertips. Her body adapted
and her muscles began to work. She clenched around him when his
mouth left hers to suck and bite her nipples until she couldn’t do
anything but release a hard, shuddering sigh and lift her hips,
inviting him to take her.

“Fuck me,” she whispered finally when she needed to
feel him move inside her. She wrapped her legs around his thighs,
wondering if there would be anything in her life more wonderful
than being filled by this man.

“Say, ‘Please fuck me, Bryce,’” he commanded against
her breasts, his breath brushing across her wet skin.

“Oh,
please
fuck me, Bryce.”

And he did. Over and over again. Hard and fast, as
he’d promised. She lost count of how many times she died, how many
times she arched her back, meeting him thrust for thrust, clutching
at the platform behind her, her arms stretched overhead, crying out
with the intensity of the sensations gathering in her and
bursting.

Bryce pulled her up sharply, his hand wrapped around
the back of her neck, and kissed her cruelly. Giselle could taste
herself on his tongue and she wanted more of that. It was then she
realized that she couldn’t take his kisses away from him, because
she tried. She did what he had done to her in the parking lot and
succeeded for about half a second before she felt him smile against
her mouth.

And take it away from her again.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and sighed when
she felt his hands on her hips, rough, sliding down, down between
her legs, spreading her apart farther and farther. Again he gripped
her hips, pulled her up a bit, then brought her back down hard on
his cock, impaling her. She cried out yet again and collapsed
against his chest, holding on because she didn’t have the stamina
or strength for much more.

They were so close she didn’t know where she ended
and he began. All she knew was how incredible she felt pressed
against and connected to Bryce Kenard: two souls, one body.

“Ride me,” he said in her ear. “Use your knees.”

So she did, finding strength she didn’t know she
had. He wrapped his hands around her hips, helped her for several
strokes until she thought her legs would give out. Then he brought
her down hard, kept her there as he began to come, holding her
still, thrusting up into her once, twice, three times.

And when Bryce came—oh, that was spectacular, his
hoarse, tortured roar, the arch of his body away from her, the
tension in his face and his arms, his pleasurably painful grip on
her hips. She felt him so deep within her she wanted to weep with
joy, even while she watched him take his pleasure from her—the
sight left her breathless: He was
majestic
.

Her thighs trembling, with no more strength left,
she wrapped herself around him, out of breath and very sore, very
tired, his body still buried inside hers.

Then he ripped the Velcro of her holster, slipped it
out from between them, and set it carefully on the floor. He rolled
her down into the duvet and covered them both up to sleep.

* * * * *

“Sebastian told me you were a consummate gentleman,”
Giselle whispered much later after they had dozed entwined, she
curled on top of him. The music had stopped long ago, leaving the
house silent. Her lips brushed his scarred left ear, kissing,
speaking, her left hand stroking his smooth right cheek and her
fingers running through his thick, silky black hair.

“Not in bed,” he murmured, his arm around her and
his hand caressing her arm, holding her tight to his chest. “I have
no interest in being a gentleman in bed. This is what I like, what
I want. It’s what I want with you.”

“I thought it was wonderful. Thank you.”

“What you wanted? Expected?”

“Oh,” she sighed, “much, much better.”

He said nothing for a moment, his chest rising and
falling slow and easy under her body. He startled her when he
finally spoke. Soft. Reverent. “Thank you, Giselle. I knew it’d be
good with you, but if I’d known it was going to be
that
good, I’d’ve been more insistent.”

Giselle chuckled. “I let you in my bed because you
had the balls to try.”

He looked up at her sharply then, his eyebrow
raised. “You didn’t
let
me do anything. If it hadn’t been
your bed tonight, it’d have been mine. You’re in bed with me
because I’m more powerful than you are and I’m not going to let you
forget it.”

“That was an arrogant thing to say!” she gasped,
rising a bit on her elbow and not really knowing if she was more
offended or aroused.

“It ain’t bragging if you can do it,” he said, smug
amusement dripping from every word. “If I’d pressed the point, I
could’ve fucked you on that bench and then I could’ve taken you
home and fucked you again.” She sucked in a sharp breath because
she knew that was true. But still! “I’m the alpha, Giselle. Your
bed
is
my bed. Any bed you and I are in together is my bed.
You know it. I know it. Deal with it.”

“Bullshit,” she snapped. “I’m the alpha in this
house and wherever I go. I don’t even have to think about it. Men
stay out of my way and the
CEO
of a
Fortune 100
company
is afraid of me.”

“Ooh, I think I hit a nerve,” he mused, looking up
at her and caressing her jaw with a finger. She shivered. “You were
looking for someone who could take you. Congratulations. You found
him.”

Giselle huffed and sat up. She rolled to bounce out
of bed, but as fast as she was, he was faster. Mid-roll, he grabbed
her around the waist and roughly planted her on all fours. She
gasped when he plunged himself inside her, digging his fingers into
her hips and yanking her back onto him. Half appalled, completely
aroused, she closed her eyes and moaned, arching her back in utter
ecstasy.

“You were saying?” he murmured in her ear. She
sighed when she felt his lips pressing softly against her shoulder
once, twice, three times, making her cant her head to give him
better access. His calloused fingers caressed her damp hair away
from the skin of her neck—

—and his teeth sank into her nape. Giselle’s eyes
popped open. She drew in a long, tortured breath and released it on
a shattered whisper.
“Bryce!”
She felt him smile against her
skin before he released her and rose up straight behind her. He
withdrew a bit before he thrust again. And again. Hard.

Oh, she liked this. It was nasty, savage. A battle.
Suddenly, he sucked in a rough breath. “A tattoo,” he breathed
reverently as he traced the skin over her sacrum with a finger and
she sighed. She groaned and dropped her head when he buried himself
in her yet again, caressing the two Chinese characters with his
fingers while taking lazy strokes in and out of her. “What does it
mean?”

Eyes closed, she could feel him stretching her even
more than before. She could feel her juices flow free with the
sensation of the tender flesh of the inside of her thighs sliding
along the outside of his muscled legs. She wanted—no, she
needed—him to move, to take her again.

“What does it mean, Giselle?” he demanded, pulling
away from her, then plunging into her again, twice, three
times.

One bite.

She was his.

“Warrior Queen,” she whispered.

He fucked her again. She felt every brutal stroke,
coming before Bryce drove himself in her for the last time. “Ah,
Giselle!
”

Out of breath, her limbs trembling from holding up
so much weight in such an unfamiliar position, she dropped to her
stomach and he shamelessly fell on top of her. It was a welcome
weight, one she’d longed for her entire adult life, one she’d
almost given up on getting. She felt him entwine his fingers with
hers and kiss her shoulder, nip her earlobe, lick that spot on her
neck where he’d bitten her.

Since they had already slept, they talked. She was
finally sated enough to have an actual conversation and too tired
and weak to do anything but. His mouth wandered over her skin and
her soul reveled in that.

“You’re nasty,” she whispered.

“Yes, I am,” he agreed with alacrity. “And you knew
that the first time I kissed you.”

“And ruthless.”

“That’s what they tell me.”

“And vicious.”

“Check.”

“And I’m in love with you.”

“Were you in love with me before or after I told you
I wanted to fuck you?” he whispered in her ear as he nuzzled
her.

“I fell in love with you when you took my kiss away
from me. Did you think I’d give you my virginity just to check and
make sure?”

“Are you sorry?”

She opened her eyes and turned her head to look
across the dark of her room, thinking. “Um, I don’t know yet. I
guess I’m supposed to be, huh?”

“That’s usually the way it works, yes.”

“Are you?”

“No,” he muttered swiftly, decisively between
kisses, licks, nips. “This is who I am, what I’ve wanted my whole
life and fought against. Even if I had acknowledged this part of
me, it would’ve horrified me. When I was twenty-four, I would’ve
taken one look at you and been forced to accept who I was, what I
wanted— And I was already fighting it with everything I had. You
would’ve chewed me up and spit me out, which would’ve validated who
I was
trying
to be.”

“Oh, that’s probably true.”

“It’s not like you can hide that everything you do,
everything you say, everything you think makes you conspicuous in a
roomful of Mormon women, but at the same time, you’re just a nice
Mormon girl and I like that.”

“Let me tell you something,” Giselle sighed, her
eyes closing because what he was doing to her was so . . .
comforting. His weight on hers, pressing her into the mattress,
their legs entwined, his cock lying languid in the valley between
her buttocks. She didn’t have the strength for another round and
she hurt. On the other hand, she might not have a choice—and that
thrilled her. “It’s not easy being me, walking this fine line
between the letter of the law and the spirit of cultural
expectations.”

“I empathize.”

“No, you don’t. You can’t. You’re a man and it’s
different for women. A woman doesn’t have the luxury of being able
to be a hard ass when she needs to be, so if she’s inclined that
way, she stifles it or channels it in a different direction. You
can be a hard ass when you need to be and then you’re praised for
being that and a kind and loving father and husband.”

Bryce huffed and murmured, “About that loving father
and husband routine—it’s expected to extend all the way into the
bedroom. There is no such thing as being a hard ass in bed. It’s
supposed to be a giving, a nurturing process, unselfish, soft,
sweet. Sharing. Making love.
Always.
This,” he told her,
sweeping her arms lightly with his palms. She sucked in a breath,
closing her eyes when he continued to do so as he spoke. “What I’ve
done to you tonight, fucking, taking, greed, lust—that’s the
opposite of what we’re taught about how it should be between a man
and a woman. It’s prideful and selfish.”

“Mmmm,” she whispered. “I need to turn over. I want
to look at your face.”

He lifted himself away from her and she turned,
welcoming him back to her with a smile and outstretched arms. She
wrapped her legs around his thighs and felt the smoothness of his
chest on one side where the hair had burnt off and the other where
she could feel the ridges and bumps of his scars.

“For like-minded people, in the taking,” Giselle
breathed, “the giving is inherent. Yin and yang. There can’t be one
without the other. I give you pleasure when I take what I want from
you. In the selfish pursuit of my own pleasure, you benefit.
Enlightened self-interest. Works with money. Works with sex.”