Jake leaned back to look at his handiwork, satisfied that it would do the job. He picked up the dishes from the nightstand, piling the remains of their dinner on the bus tray before carrying the whole mess outside. The champagne would keep—they’d barely gotten though their first glasses of that, and he didn’t even want to think about how much room-service champagne cost. He hadn’t been lying to Anna about not caring about the money, but certain things could bug him. Paying a hundred dollars for a bottle of middling booze was one of them. Still, this time anyway, it was worth it. They’d both dozed off just enough in the tub to wake up hungry for each other, and then an hour or so later, room service seemed like a really good idea. Now it was past eleven o’clock, and between the champagne and the food and the day’s ride and—he liked to think—the sex, Anna was out for the count. She’d been asleep about thirty minutes before he’d put the next stage of his night into motion, desperately glad that she’d agreed with his plan not to go out. He wanted to show Anna off, no question. But not tonight. Not when she was here, relaxed, and all his.
A quick, sharp jab of urgency prodded him and he frowned, striding back to the bed. As much as he enjoyed watching Anna sleep, he didn’t want her actually tied down during her call. She’d be distracted then, but now … he found himself already hard again. He was going to sleep for a week when all of this was over, but tonight his body was keeping right up with his fantasies. And this one had never looked so good.
He brushed a soft kiss over her lips a few minutes later. “Wake up, sleepyhead.”
Anna came to immediately. “What time is it?” she asked, springing up—and instantly drawing tight the soft terry-cloth belt Jake had freed from one of the luxurious robes in the closet. “What in the—Jake!”
He watched her reaction carefully. He wasn’t into kink, really. He didn’t know the lifestyle, didn’t have time to maintain the women who did. But as Anna moved her legs and realized her opposite ankle was also cuffed—by his belt wrapped in a soft towel, the hold not even strong enough to withstand a good solid kick—her eyes dilated and her mouth dropped open in an expression of both shock … and pure, unrefined lust.
Followed immediately by practical Anna bluster.
“Jake!” She leaned over to check the clock. “My call! I’ve got to get ready! I’ve got to get my stuff!”
“Your call isn’t for another forty-five minutes,” Jake said. “I think we can do some damage between now and then, don’t you? Now. There’s still a little work for us to do. I’m not finished yet.” He held up another terry-cloth belt, and Anna’s eyes widened.
“What …” She swallowed. “What is it you expect to do with that?”
“I expect you to let me tie down your other wrist,” Jake said. “And then you can tell me whether or not you’ll be a good girl and keep your other leg where I tell you to, or if I’ll need to tie that one down, too.”
“You can’t do this, Jake,” Anna said, but he was already looping the soft cloth over her wrist and tying it tight. “I don’t do this, it isn’t my thing.”
“It isn’t mine, either,” Jake said. “But you said yourself you wanted to try new things this weekend. So maybe it can become our thing.” He tightened the belt and pulled it up, stretching her arm wide. “How’s that?”
“Jake—”
“Shh.” He looped the belt around the pole and tied it off in a loose bow, leaving the trailing ends in easy reach. “You can untie yourself if you work at it, Anna. You’re not losing control here, you’re just giving it up for a little while.” He leaned back over her, lifting up the sheets and sliding in next to her. She tried to shift, but was caught by her restraints, and her body reacted with a deep shiver, her fingers gripping the cloth of the belt.
“That’s my girl.” Jake stretched his body over hers, bracing himself on his hands as his unsheathed cock nudged her. She was hot and already wet, and he felt his own surge of desire tweak him hard. “I think you like this, Anna,” he murmured, leaning down to nuzzle her neck. “I think you like this a lot.”
“I like you,” she whispered. She arched her body below him and pressed up, still finding a range of movement despite the restraints, but she could only go so far.
“Then let me do this to you, okay? You just feel, for once. No doing, no thinking.”
Jake let his weight ease down on Anna until she was forced back down to the bed, and he could tell by her altered breathing that she was fighting her own reactions. Reactions to what, though? To him? To this? To the idea of giving up control? Probably a little bit of all three, but when he pulled back to look at her face, at her hazed, heavy-lidded eyes and her soft, open mouth and flushed cheeks, he knew he was on the right track. “That’s good, sweetheart,” he murmured, kissing the soft curl of her ear, the sensitive skin at the top of her neck, the smooth angle of her shoulder down to the ridge of her collarbone. Forty-five minutes wasn’t going to be nearly enough to enjoy this fully, but he knew her tension was already ratcheted high because of the time limit.
Her next words confirmed it. “What’s the goal here, Jake?” Anna asked, her words rushed, almost hissed, as he closed his mouth over her right breast and took her nipple into his teeth, pulling gently. It hardened to a point, and he covered her left breast with his hand, kneading it, finding its peaked nipple and rolling it in his fingers. Anna groaned and tried to repeat the question, and he raised himself up on one elbow, his opposite hand giving her generous breast one last squeeze before trailing down the sexy curve of her waist, over her stomach, and farther down, where she was already so slick and ready for him that his eyes almost crossed.
“There’s no goal, Anna,” Jake said, running his fingers over her tightly clenched, highly sensitized skin. He dipped one finger into all of that wet heat and she shuddered beneath him. He grinned, feeling a wave of fierce need, pride, and desire crash over him. “Well, maybe there’s one goal.” He moved down her sumptuous body and Anna gasped as he moved both hands beneath her ass, tilting her up to him.
“I don’t think … I don’t want—”
“No?” Jake spread her thighs even wider. “I think you’re a liar, Anna Richardson.” He drew his tongue over the inside of her thigh, swirling closer but never close enough, and he felt the quiver of reaction that he was sure she was trying to resist. “You want me to stop?” When Anna didn’t answer right away he looked up. She had thrown her head back against the pillows, her hands tangled in his makeshift restraints, her mouth open and her eyes squeezed shut. She was either enjoying the hell out of this or scared out of her mind, and he wasn’t entirely sure which. “Anna?”
“I don’t … I don’t want you to stop. I … I’ll … ahhhh.” Her words ended on a tangled sigh as Jake returned to what he was doing, pleasure rocketing through him. Clearly, Anna was landing on the side of enjoying the hell out of it. That suited him just fine.
Anna twisted her head back, wondering if it was possible to spontaneously die before reaching orgasm. She didn’t have time … couldn’t possibly … she was too stressed—
And then Jake’s tongue found the most intimate, sensitive part of her, and a second later, he blew on it. The sudden whisper of air almost pulled her off the bed, and his deep, masculine chuckle wound her even tighter. “God, I will never get tired of doing this to you,” he said. “But you’ve just given me an idea.”
He rolled his fingers over her, drawing her tight as a bowstring, and just like that he was gone—not far, just enough to shift his focus off of where she really, desperately needed him to be. Before she could protest, though, he was back—no longer with his mouth or his fingers, but with his shaft, pressing over her with a texture just different enough that she knew he’d managed to get a condom on. She’d never believed anyone could put on a condom so fast, but Jake was apparently a man of rich and varied skills.
Fleetingly, she wondered exactly how she would ever look at another man—
“Oh, no you don’t.” With no more than that as a warning, Jake pushed himself inside her in one searing thrust, and Anna’s hips tilted in sudden, explosive reaction, her thighs widening to take more of him in. She felt her right leg restraint give way, but the mere feel of the cuff around her ankle was enough—more than enough—and she opened her eyes to stare at Jake. His look was one of fierce intensity. He slowly brought his hand to his mouth and licked his fingers, then returned them to where her body was tilted up and into him. The pressure of his wet fingers against her clit while he pulsed inside her made her want to move, to break away, to do something—but she couldn’t. The belts at her wrists held fast, and Jake’s laugh was low and seductive.
“You think too much, Anna,” he said, and his words were full of silky promise. “I can tell every time you do it. You think too much and when you think too much, you’re not doing what you promised me you would. Which was to relax and feel.”
“I—I’m relaxed,” Anna said, as meaningfully as she could with his fingers moving, moving on her. “Stop touching me,” she gasped. “I can’t focus on you—”
“Focus on what feels good,” Jake commanded, and Anna felt a shudder rip through her again, but this time not spreading from his hands or her core, but from the general region of her heart. Which was ridiculous. He was in the middle of sex, not a declaration of—
“Ah, ah, ah,” Jake said. His fingers moved faster, and Anna shuddered, her brain going blank for a second, only to be replaced with the sudden, winding, inexorable climb to her own climax. Jake seemed to know it, too, because his own rhythm increased, his shaft thick and tight within her, sliding in and out, adding to the pressure of his fingers as they focused now unwaveringly on the most sensitive bundle of nerves in her body. Anna arched and moaned and babbled something, a lot of things, things that didn’t even make sense to her own ears, but apparently they were the right things, because Jake didn’t stop, didn’t falter, and if anything his own breath grew tight and intense and his curses more colorful until finally Anna was teetering on the edge for a single, glorious moment, and then she crashed over in a climax hard enough to pull the ropes up and nearly out of their moorings as she lurched forward.
At that moment, Jake uttered a sharp, guttural cry and joined her in a climax that matched hers beat for beat, pulse for pulse, until they both sagged back onto the bed and just gasped for a few moments, Jake’s body heavy and perfect on hers, covering her as she absorbed his weight and felt soft and cherished beneath him.
Well, soft and cherished and still tied up.
“Jake …,” Anna said, twisting over to look at the long-suffering belt he’d used to tie her to something. She gave a tug and it held, but by this point her fingers were rapidly losing sensation. How had she not noticed that before? “Jake, I can’t feel my fingers.”
“Oh, Christ, sorry. Hold on.” Jake rolled off the bed and ducked into the bathroom, returning less than ten seconds later to unleash her right hand from the bed. Her left proved harder, as he had tied that knot with the actual intention of holding her in place, and by the time he got her free she had a scarlet ring of inflamed skin circling her wrist. She flapped her hand around, restoring the circulation, as he looked at her in dismay.
“Anna, you should have told me that was hurting you,” he said, his face a little white around his mouth. “I had no idea.”
She grinned at him. “Neither did I until it was already happening—and it was only at the end, Jake, I promise. I would have screamed bloody murder if I’d needed you to stop.”
His smile told her she’d done plenty of screaming as it was. Then he glanced over at the clock. “Twenty of,” he said. “I guess we better get you back to the real world.”