You Are Mine (38 page)

She tried to shift and rub against his knee, desperate for some friction, but all he said was, “If you move again, I'll stop.”

So she stilled, her fists clenched in the soft velvet of the quilt, her lip sore from where she hadn't been able to stop herself from biting it.

She would endure. She had to.

As the seventh blow fell, she pressed her face into the quilt. Her butt felt like it was on fire, her skin tight and sore and sensitive. It also felt as if the slightest touch would send her over the edge into orgasm. The heat of his bare thighs against hers was almost an agony.

Zac's hand touched her, caressing her sore behind, and a pathetic, needy little sound escaped her.

“I know,” he said. “But now you have punishment number six.”

A full-body shiver shook her. She turned her head on the quilt, the material damp beneath her. Shit, were those tears? Had he made her cry? Perhaps they were because it felt like there was a vast lump of emotion sitting in her chest and throat. As if the pleasure/pain had coalesced inside her and was trying to find a way out somehow.

“I'm going to fuck you, Eva.” Zac ran a hand along her spine to the back of her neck, curling his fingers around it in a possessive hold. “But you're not allowed to come on my cock. You have to wait until I've finished before you can come.”

She swallowed, squeezing her eyes shut. Impossible. That was going to be impossible. “I … can't…” she whispered. “I'm too close…”

“That's too bad. You left me with only my hand for pleasure when I could have been balls deep inside that sweet little pussy of yours. So now it's your turn to feel the loss.”

He shifted, easing her off him and onto her hands and knees, facing away from him. She heard foil being unwrapped, a second's pause, and then his arm coming around her waist, holding her in an iron grip.

Heat against her spine, against the backs of her thighs, against the tender flesh of her butt. The shift and flex of a big, hard, muscular body.

She gripped the quilt tightly, trying to breathe, trying to think of anything other than what he was about to do and about how she was going to fall at this final hurdle. Because all he'd have to do is slide into her and she'd come …

Eva bit down hard on her already bitten lower lip, the pain holding the climax at bay as he thrust into her in one deep, hard motion. Without waiting to give her time to adjust, he withdrew and thrust again. Deeper. Harder.

He slid a hand around to her stomach and down, his fingers finding her swollen, aching clit, and brushed over it, around it.

Unfair. So unfair.

The climax ripped her in two and she had to bury her face against the softness of the quilt, sobbing and shaking as it crashed through her. She'd failed. She'd fucking failed.

Now she'd never get to touch him.

She cried, but Zac didn't stop. He reached for her hair, wound it around his wrist and jerked her head back while continuing to thrust deep and hard, his other hand on her clit driving her back up toward another climax.

Against that assault, her grip on reality began to loosen. Her grip on herself.

What did it matter now, anyway? Fighting wasn't going to help, if it ever had, and besides, she didn't have the energy for it anymore. He hadn't wanted her to hold out anyway. He'd wanted her surrender.

So she gave it.

This time, when the orgasm came for her, when Zac pulled hard on her hair, tugging her head back, she didn't resist or struggle. Only opened herself up to the intensity of the pleasure, let it sweep her away.

Let it become her whole world.

Walking willingly into the flames and letting herself burn.

 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

He felt like he was drowning. In slick heat and sweet, feminine musk. In the broken little sounds she made as he slammed himself into her. In the tight clasp of her pussy around his cock.

Everything he'd ever wanted.

Zac tightened his arm around her waist as she convulsed around him, her desperate cry echoing around the room. Yes, he'd been a deliberate bastard, ensuring there was no way she'd be able to obey his order, but she'd told him not to hold back and so he hadn't.

He knew she wouldn't be able to withstand too much more. But then there had been many impossible tasks that she'd doled out to him and this was all about returning the favor.

Impossible tasks such as not touching her. Not wanting her. Not caring for her.

Not falling for her.

No, not that. Never that.

He growled low in his throat, pulling her hips hard against his, burying himself so deeply inside of her she'd never be able to forget the feel of him, the heat of him. Then he tugged against the hair around his wrist, tightening the tension so her long, pale throat was exposed. He stroked faster in and out of her, building the pleasure for himself this time. Watching her back bow and her neck arch, listening to her soft cries.

He could feel the climax start coiling at the base of his spine, ready to explode. Christ, it would kill him. He'd held back too long.

As it built, Zac let go of her hair, leaning over her. Putting his hands down on either side of her head, covering her. He wanted suddenly to be all around her, keeping her safe with his body.

Never let her go.

He thrust one more time, feeling it start to explode inside him, and he turned his face against the side of her neck and bit her, the salt of her skin a delicious counterpoint to the pleasure crashing through him.

It felt like the end of the world, the end of his entire existence. And what's more, he was glad about it. He had Eva beneath him, naked and panting and hot. That's all he needed.

There was a peace to that thought. A peace it felt like he'd been searching his whole life to find and for a second he let himself just exist in the moment.

Of course it couldn't last. Because this had only ever been about sating a desire.

Sating it then moving on, the last of his seven punishments. Giving her the absence she'd so often given him.

He opened his eyes on pale hair and white skin. She was still on her hands and knees, her head hanging down, her body trembling under his. His arm was around her waist, her butt pressed to his groin, fitting him perfectly.

Everything about her fitted him perfectly.

Too perfectly. He didn't want to leave.

Her shoulders shook, her breathing hitched.

She was crying.

Zac eased out of her, stroking down the curve of her spine, then turning her over onto her back on the bed. She flung an arm over her face, her cheeks pink and shiny with tears.

Quickly, he got off the bed and dealt with the condom in the ensuite bathroom, then came back, wrapped her up in the blue velvet quilt, pulled her into his arms, and carried her over to the black leather couch and sat down on it.

“I don't know why I'm crying,” she said thickly. “It didn't hurt or anything.”

“Pain and intense pleasure can release certain emotions,” he answered, smoothing her hair over the quilt. “It can be an emotional release as well as a physical one.”

There was a box of tissues on the table near the couch and he leaned forward, taking out a few and handing them to her.

She glared at him as she took the tissues. “You're not crying.”

“I'm not the sub.” Yet his heart was beating fast and for some reason he was finding it difficult to look at her. Her tears … they made his chest feel like someone had wrapped barbed wire around it.

Well, it wouldn't matter soon enough. He was going to make sure she was okay then he was going to leave. That had always been his intention.

You don't want to.

No. He wouldn't grant her that power. The power to make him stay.

“So it's a sub thing then?” She blew her nose almost defiantly.

“It's a sub thing,” he agreed.

She lowered the tissue. “I don't want to be just another sub to you, Zac.”

“You're not.” He'd never lied to her before. He wasn't about to start now. “You're actually the first woman I've ever bought into this bedroom.”

She blinked, tears caught on her lashes glittering in the light. “But you've got those … hooks in the bedpost. Surely…”

“No.” It was hard to meet her bright silver gaze, though he didn't really understand why. “I've never used them. When I want a woman I go to Limbo, the club I used to belong to.”

“Used to?” She'd settled against him the way she had that night he'd held her in his arms and fed her treats. Her pale hair was silky and soft, spread over his bare skin, the warm weight of her in the quilt making him not want to let her go.

You really don't want to.

He ignored the voice in his head because he would let her go eventually. Inflict his last punishment. Just … not quite yet.

“I stopped going a year or so ago.”

Her head turned against his chest, looking up at him. “Why?”

“I didn't want any of the women there.” This time he didn't flinch from her gaze. Because this was all part of it, the anger inside of him wanting her to know what she'd done to him. “They didn't do anything for me.”

Puzzlement flickered over her tear-stained face. “So … where did you go instead? I mean, if you didn't bring women back here, did you go … I don't know, somewhere else?”

“I didn't go anywhere.”

“Why…” She trailed off all of a sudden, her eyes widening. “Please don't tell me you haven't been with anyone in over a year.”

He didn't reply, only lifted a strand of her hair, winding it casually around his finger.

“Zac,” she said, stricken. “That … that can't possibly be because of me.”

“Why can't it?”

“Because … Because I…” She stopped, and he saw anger glittering in her eyes. “No,” she said flatly. “No, I won't take that blame. That's all on you. That's your choice—”

He stopped her words dead, reaching down to grip her jaw tightly. Because there was anger inside of him too, and it felt like it had been there for centuries. Lifetimes. Because the harder he forced it down, the more it escaped his grasp. Because she called it from him so easily. She was the firestone that made the dragon breathe flame.

And you know why.

He forced that thought away, locked it away in the box where he kept all such thoughts. Where they could never escape.

“You made me want you, Eva. You made me burn like a fucking virgin. You made—”

Unexpectedly, Eva jerked herself from his grip and pushed herself up. Already, like a reflex he was reaching for her, keeping her with him, but she didn't actually get off his lap.

Instead she twisted around so she was straddling him, facing him, her palms hard against the bare skin of his chest, her face inches from his.

“No more fucking Dom shit,” she said fiercely. “I want to know why the hell you're so angry. And it's not with me.”

Shock broke over him in a wave. Of course he was angry, it didn't take a genius to work that one out. But it was directed at her. Wasn't it? After all, she was the one who denied him. Who kept him waiting for so long, burning for so long.

She's not the first woman to hurt you.

The shock turned to ice, sliding down his spine, more memories threatening to escape. Memories he'd deliberately cut from his life. In anger. In grief. Memories of another woman he hadn't been able to save.

He took Eva's wrists in an iron grip, pulled them away from his chest. “I didn't give you permission to touch me.”

That fierce anger flicked over her face as she pulled her wrists free. “I don't care. I didn't do what you told me anyway, remember? I came when you didn't want me to. Because you're a prick and you made sure I couldn't stop it.”

“It's not a punishment if I can't make it difficult for you.”

“Why are you punishing me at all?” Her sharp, gray eyes searched his face. “Or maybe it's not me you're punishing.”

He could feel it, the defenses he'd placed around all those memories, starting to kick in. Warning him to attack, fight off the threat.

Keep her safe. Protect her.

He put his hands on Eva's warm, silky skin, preparing to push her off. The last punishment. It was time.

But before he could, she leaned forward, taking his face between her small hands, holding him fast. Her breasts grazed his chest, sending fire through him, and he could feel himself getting hard again. Will burned in her gaze, as hard and as strong as his.

“I gave you myself, Zac Rutherford. I took your punishments. I fucking surrendered.” Her gaze was molten, like quicksilver. “Don't you think I've earned the right to ask you a few questions, goddammit?”

Inside his chest, something twisted. A hollow, yearning kind of ache. Like there was a part of him that was tired of being nothing but a façade, who wanted to be seen. The part of him that seemed entirely composed of guilt and grief and anger. The part that wanted more than sex, more than domination. That wanted a connection.

He went still. Unable to push her off him, unable to let her go.

A crease appeared between her fair brows and gently her thumbs began to trace the line of his jaw in the kind of caress he used to dream about at night. A nonsexual touch. One that was about comfort, about care. One that told him he was precious. That he mattered.

He hadn't mattered to anyone in a long time, if he ever had.

“Don't,” he said thickly. By which he meant “don't ever stop.”

She seemed to understand because she didn't stop, her thumbs caressing his face, tracing his jaw, his cheekbones, his mouth.

“No one's ever pushed you, have they?” she said quietly. “I bet no one was ever brave enough.”

Bloody hell, she was going to undo him.