Emma
I hit the button and the passenger window glided down. Chill air fanned my cheek, but not surprisingly the pulsating tension remained well and truly in the car with us. I glanced at Avner. He gripped the steering wheel in both hands, staring ahead without so much as a peep at me. He held his body stiffly—as if braced for impact.
I’d waited in the car for at least fifteen minutes for him to join me—squirming every agonizing moment, and hadn’t even received a backseat quickie for my trouble.
He’d been lusty but affectionate in the bathroom. He’d come back distant.
I tugged my dress lower on my thigh, attempting to shield my naked behind from the leather. Arousal had every muscle restless. I’d never forget what I’d seen in that bathroom mirror—his hand smothering my face while he took me with his fingers. I tilted my face toward the open window instead of fanning myself like an overwhelmed teenager.
I hit the button again, trying to get the already fully open window down that extra three inches I needed for adequate oxygen.
Now we were on our way to his place, and I couldn’t imagine the ways in which those images would pale in comparison to what he’d do to me there.
I took a deep breath. Memories bombarded me. His possessive expression. His demanding touch. He didn’t want to fuck me—he wanted to have me.
Whatever the hell that might mean.
“Avner?”
“Yes.” His jaw clenched. He didn’t turn his head.
Man, was I going to get had.
“It’s just sex, right?” I shifted to face him.
“Yes, Emma, there is going to be sex.” Finally his dark, glistening gaze moved from the road to me, whipping the air out of my lungs. “I told you, I mean to have you.”
“Yeah, about the having...” I stroked the skirt of my dress. “That means fucking?”
He looked back at the road, and changed gears. “It includes a great deal of fucking.”
“Good.” I gripped the fabric in my hand. “Because I’m all in with the fucking, but I’m not looking for anything more serious than that right now.” Damn, was that my voice so high? I’d gone up an octave with every word.
The car slammed to a halt. The seatbelt tightened across me. My heart rioted.
He stared at me. “Why?”
I held on to the sides of the seat, then glanced at the road. The traffic light glowed red. I’d almost thought he’d stopped for me. “What do you mean, why?”
“Why not?” It was like he was no longer driving, every bead of his attention fixated on me.
Why?
“Why are you asking me this?”
“I assumed you would know.”
The light flashed green. My lips pursed to prompt him but he must have excellent peripheral vision because he refocused on the road. The car lurched forward, engine roaring. I clutched my seatbelt with one hand. Don’t think I’d ever been in a vehicle with this much power.
“So tell me, Emma, why you’ve decided what isn’t worth having before you know what’s being offered?”
My mouth opened. No one ever asked me these kinds of things. Had I hurt his feelings?
But my pulse raced faster, because the truth of it wasn’t something he’d earned the right to know.
“It’s not you, it’s me.” My chin dropped to my chest. Did I really just say that that? “I mean to say, I’m not girlfriend material...”
True, but not half as self-deprecating as it sounded. Even if I didn’t have my more private reasons, the truth was relationships never worked for me. I’d learned that what a guy said was okay when he wanted in your pants, wasn’t so once he considered you his.
I wiped my forehead with the back of my hand. I’d never pretended to be anyone other than who I was. Never apologized. Never played coy. Yet go from fucking to dating and suddenly, I-don’t-care-who-you’ve-been-withs became where-have-you-beens.
“Then it’s lucky I’m not hunting for a girlfriend.”
I shivered—hunting.
I waited for the relief to hit, to loosen my chest and let go of my heart. He wasn’t trying to date me. We were just going to screw like animals. No strings. No commitment. No one had to get hurt. The two of us might actually be able to pull off friends with benefits.
“Good,” I whispered.
We pulled into a driveway with wide gates that swung open at our entrance. Lights flicked on as we approached, illuminating the long drive and a modern monster of a concrete house. The ground outside the front door was bare dirt. A hill of rubble and construction materials lay to the side of the drive.
“Did you just finish building?” I leaned close to the windscreen.
“Yes, there’s only the landscaping to be done now.”
The final lights flicked on, and my gaze was sucked up. The double-story house wasn’t as large as it could be in this part of town, or given his enormous wealth. Sweeping expanses of concrete and huge black windows gave the building a fortress appearance.
A panel opened, and we drove down into an underground garage.
My window shuddered closed and I pulled back my elbow, and glanced at him.
He turned off the engine, then his attention returned to me. “Emma, is there anything I should know before we go inside?”
Heat flushed in my neck. “I have regular health checks, always use protection and have an IUD.”
He laughed quietly, and the rumbling sound quivered through the space between us.
“I can make similar assurances, if that’s what you need to know.” He leaned closer. “But that is not what I meant at all.”
The heat crept higher. “It’s not?”
“No. Is there anything you need?” He undid my seatbelt, and pushed it aside. “Anything that’s not okay?”
My mouth opened silently. He waited for answers to questions I’d never been asked. Questions that filled my head with possibilities. Possibilities like his hand clamped over my mouth. Limits now temptations. The long list of responses I could’ve given evaporated. His gaze locked more intently on mine. My tongue curled. I had his full undivided attention, and I knew with everything in me that if I didn’t carve out a mark in the sand—there wouldn’t be any.
“No pain,” I whispered.
He touched my thigh, drawing my knees in his direction. “Emma, no pain.”
My belly fluttered.
He observed my response as though maybe I couldn’t hear him. For a moment I was lost in confusion over whether he was commanding me never to feel any or swearing never to be the cause.
My chest went tight, because no matter which way he meant it I believed him.
I believed that he could, and that he would, and my every sense locked in on his hand on me and braced for his next touch.
“You have three minutes.”
“For what?” I asked.
“To go inside and look around.” He withdrew his touch, leaned against his seat and closed his eyes. “Then I’m coming in after you.”
He uttered those last words so raw and so low, my heart almost stopped beating. I’d underestimated him. His jaw ticked. I’d underestimated what this wait had cost him. I’d thought I’d suffered mostly alone. He was simply better at hiding his needs.
I reached for the door handle, and slipped from the car. Then it occurred to me—I never asked him what he did hunt for?
* * *
The combined kitchen, dining and living area was like nothing I’d ever seen. My head dropped all the way back to stare at the looming roof. Windows extended from the floor two stories high. The two levels I’d expected were one—in this part of the house at least. A mezzanine level stretched the other side of the building. I turned around, and wandered to the dining table sitting in front of a folding wall of doors. The table was a solid shining mass of concrete. I pressed my palm to the cool surface.
Cold and hard and clinical.
Except the chairs were simple and wood, and together it was strangely warm.
I glanced around, and couldn’t figure out why looking at his home without him seemed so personal.
I went into the kitchen and opened the fridge.
I fell in love just a little bit.
He’d taken his vegetables out of the bags, and washed and stored them in containers. We’d have made fine roommates. I closed the refrigerator and opened the walk-in pantry of mammoth proportions. I examined the shelves. Everything labeled and dated, and lined up in proper places.
I laughed. So there were other weirdos like me. I turned around and opened a glass door into another area, and flicked the light. Pigeonholes of dark wood stored more wine than I’d ever seen anywhere other than in a liquor store.
He really does like wine...
I hit the switch and backed out of the room. A door clicked. I returned to the dining area. Avner walked in, already barefoot. He yanked at his shirt collar, wrenching open the top buttons.
My pulse whooshed in my ears.
I hadn’t made it close to the bedroom.
He tore off his shirt. My gaze raked over his chest. The sound of my own breathing exceeded the roar of my pulse.
His height balanced his lean bulk—tightly wrapped muscle around a towering frame. Natural and masculine. Dark hair coated his pecks and trailed down his belly.
He reached behind him and took something from his pocket.
I tracked his every movement. He placed a foil packet between his teeth, then his gaze fixed so firmly on mine my breath held tight.
He undid his jeans, and then they went on the floor just like his shirt. And maybe I gulped. Because his briefs could not hide what was underneath, and that bulge was all I had to prepare myself with before his underwear was gone and his mighty cock was free.
Shit.
My head went light.
His cock curved dark pink and powerful. Like him, like the rest of his bigness, I should’ve guessed this would be too.
“Are you coming to me, or must I get you?”
I stumbled back.
He stepped forward, tore open the condom and sheathed himself while walking—while staring at me. My mouth went wet. I swallowed spit. I’d never seen any man so intent.
I backed away, not running, but then neither was he—yet.
He made a sound in the back of his throat, and his gaze turned downright predatory. The more I struggled, the hungrier he’d get. The more I resisted, the more determined he’d be.
I edged behind the table, then stopped.
He could come get me. I’d let him. I wouldn’t run. He dropped the wrapper on the ground, and came for me.
I grabbed the edge of the table, and made myself be still.
His hand tangled in my hair. He stood behind me. His legs prickled the smooth backs of my thighs—his cock—naked and unforgiving, drove against my back.
“You’ve been a very dirty girl,” he growled against my ear.
A tremor ran through me. I knew we were playing, but oh, how I had been.
He tugged up my dress. “You sat on my lap without panties, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” I whispered, but wanted to scream, What’re you going to do about it?
He grabbed a handful of my ass, his fingers so close to my cunt he must’ve known how wet I was. “You wanted to make me crazy, didn’t you?”
“Yeah,” I groaned. No point trying to deny it. Wasn’t this the game?
His grip tightened in my hair and he drew me back hard. “Now you’re going to pay, dirty girl.”
I held my breath to stop from yelling, Okay!
His arm snaked around my middle, and then he palmed my mound. His middle finger dipped between my folds.
My abdominals tightened.
He touched softly on my clitoris.
I groaned.
“It’s only fair I make you crazy.” He rubbed me until I panted and writhed. Tension coiled tight. Pleasure hummed into my womb.
He stopped and grabbed my hip instead.
I moaned, pushing back. He squeezed my hair and rubbed up against me. He rubbed his whole self against me like an animal. His heat smothered me from behind.
I tried to buck, to get my ass to his cock, but he held me still.
His teeth closed on my earlobe, his breath hot against my ear. My skin trembled. He nipped my lobe. For a moment I froze, but as he promised, there was no pain, just a tiny irresistible sting.
He dragged his stubble along the back of my neck as though he tried to mark me. The feeling was like static, sending hairs bolting upright along my body. I couldn’t remain still. I pushed at the hand on my hip, urging him between my legs again—urging him to do something, anything.
He leaned back, then his cock brushed against my ass. I sucked in air and drove backward. His rich, rumbling laugh crept under my skin, and he slid that cock over my sex. He skimmed over my entrance and knocked against my clit.
I tilted my hips, straining for control—anything I could control.
He guided me forward over the table. Thank god. The side of my face met the cool stone surface. He let go of my hair.
I stepped wider, spreading my quivering thighs.
His heavy hand came swiftly between my shoulders. He grabbed the top of my zipper with his other. I reared up instinctively. He held me down. Usually this job was mine. Undressing and taunting. A power that put me on my throne with men at my feet. Today he took that pleasure, pressing between my shoulder blades, and exposing me as he wanted me exposed.
And I let him.
I shivered under the whine of the zipper. I let him undress me. I let him strip me. I let him tug the straps from my shoulders and pull fabric to my hips.
He paused to press his thumb to the small of my back. The concrete ground hard and brutal to my chest. He squeezed my sides as though my flesh was his to be molded. And that same flesh burned despite the chill beneath me. My dress pooled at my feet.
He unhooked my bra and pried it off without letting me up.
Then I was bare—bent over his table.
His hand stayed on my back, but he leaned away, and I felt his gaze raining down on me. He knocked my feet wider. “How bad have you been, Emma?”
My head swirled.
Truthfully, pretty fucking awful. Playfully, I still wouldn’t pretend otherwise.
He rubbed my vagina briskly, smearing me in my own moisture. “I asked you a question.”
“Really bad,” I yelped.
He ran his hand between my cheeks, dragging the moisture over my ass. The muscles along my back braced.
He stroked me there. “I don’t think I heard you.”
“I’ve been really bad.” The words sprang free and echoed around the dining room.
He pressed his fingertip to my ass. “You want to plead for mercy?” He pushed again, his fingertip right there, about to take it.
I squirmed under his touch, but couldn’t move, he had me pinned.
My heart pounded against my ribs compressed on the table. My entire pelvic region ached and strained. I heard his words again. “Anything that’s not okay? I hadn’t excluded anything like this. I couldn’t pretend possibilities never crossed my mind.
“Want me to go easy on you, naughty girl?”
The weight of his finger on my ass sent a thrill of pleasure to my core.
“No,” I said, and closed my eyes—ready.
He laughed—laughed again, the bastard—but did not take my ass the way he’d threatened to. “Not today, baby.”
He rubbed the area.
I groaned, and rocked into his hand.
He took me by the thigh and flipped me over. My arms flew out to catch myself. My knees lifted, and he shifted in, hauling my hips to the very edge of the table.
He rubbed my pussy again with an open palm. “Whose is this?”
My midsection contracted. “Mine.”
“Oh, Emma, you’re making me prove it.” He turned his hand over, almost innocently, so that the back of his knuckles rested lightly on top of my folds. His gaze ravaged me, spread out on his table, legs wide, pussy open at the edge.
My chest filled tight, and his attention flew to the rise of my tits, and fixed on my puckered nipples. Lust shook his expression, so adverse to the patient weight of his hand between my legs. He drew my leg up almost absentmindedly, so that my calf rested on his shoulder, and he wrapped his arm around my thigh.
Then his gaze shifted to mine, and his knuckles knocked lower. With his palm peacefully up, he shoved two fingers inside me. The feeling—full and raw—sent my hips flying off the table. His grip tightened on my thigh, clamping me in place. His eyes shone, calculating, but too late—he reached right up high with those two fingers and did something so incredible it was cruel.
My vision brightened, my limbs went weightless, then he stroked, and it was like plunging back down into myself and finding my body suddenly too tight.
He pushed, his hand slick and slippery, growing more demanding.
I released a howling moan. The pleasure rose, pure and harsh.
“Whose is this?” I thought I heard him say. But what was hearing, besides the roar of my blood? Everything else just compounded into white noise.
His touch moved inside my cunt, faster. The pressure-filled bliss burrowed to my core. “Whose is this?”
“Mine,” I cried, the answer the only thing I had left.
Two more jerking movements and the pleasure peaked, my body seized and his hand wrenched free. I screamed. He grabbed both my legs, and held them apart so I couldn’t squeeze—couldn’t clamp them together and make it happen.
I screamed again, my thighs straining. Too late, the peak vanished. I twisted uselessly in his inflexible hold. I gasped, and shuddered. His fingers dug against my thighs, slipping where the soaked two fingers he’d fucked me with lost traction on my skin.
My neck craned up off the table. “Fuck you!”
His brow quirked, his eyes filled with base wickedness. “Fuck me?”
Oh, shit.
“Fuck me, baby?” He used his grip on my thighs to yank my ass over the edge. Then his cock drove into me. I arched, air flooding my lungs. He filled me to bursting—swamped me with a sense of completeness I’d never experienced.
“Fuck me like this?” He thrust, meanly, driving my hips up.
I couldn’t answer. My eyes rolled back. Heat plunged through me, burning up my system and flooding me with need.
He grabbed my pussy, his thumb clamped over my clit, almost touching where his cock battered into me. “Whose is this?”
The first flood of orgasm wound through me.
“Yours,” I screamed.
He made a rumbling sound, then let go and held me under the knees, taking my pussy—his pussy, as he’d made me call it—with pounding strokes. I came—toes, fingers and entire body curling.
Bliss broke though me, and he kept it going with his thrusts.
My teeth snapped and clamped. My breaths shuddered. Then everything drained out of me in a wash. My every cell softened, and I drifted back, loose and pliant, and yet felt him more—felt every fraction of his hardness as it slid free of me.
Had he come too?
My head spun. He leaned over and scooped me up against his chest like a baby. Fucking hell, I felt like one. I held on to him. His skin was as slick as mine. He carried me to a door and down a hall to a bedroom, then set me on the bed.
I flopped on the sheets, stretched out and pressed an arm over my eyes. My chest wouldn’t stop shaking. He crawled over me.
His erection dug hard and hot on my thigh. Fuck. Nope, he wasn’t done. There was no way I could take more. He came over me and as mean as he’d been a moment ago, now his touch went soft. His fingers skimmed my sides. He kissed my ribs, stroked his tongue against my nipples.
I shivered deliciously.
He moved his hands over me as though I was breakable. As though my dips and hollows were awe-inspiring.
I let my thighs fall wide and grabbed his ass, pulling his hips to mine.
But then he stopped.
He hovered above me. Everything became acute. He touched my mouth and gazed at me with such tenderness that my heart seemed to stop. His eyes were soft, heavy lidded, but no less penetrating as his gaze stole inside me. He held himself so close. My jellied limbs couldn’t be more aware of any fraction of body where the two of us touched.
He breathed, and his stomach pressed against my belly. He scanned my face, then leaned in. His lips brushed mine. Hesitant. So contrary to how he’d been before, when he’d used me and owned me and taken me, that reality settled heavy and crushing—I’d been hungry, so he’d fed me.
I’d been desperate, so he’d satisfied.
He drove me out of my mind so I’d crash back here.
Every moment before this one was a ruse.
We kissed, and tremors of emotion overcame me. I had nothing left that he hadn’t broken. No shell he hadn’t pried free. The touch of his tongue and the feel of my own, sliding between our fused mouths, fueled a sweet, beautiful need I’d never before indulged. He kissed me with gentle sweeps. The warmth was slow and spreading, and so unlike the furnace I’d met with before.
He settled on me. Another kind of desire swept me. I needed the tender touch of his hand on my waist, and the pressure of his chest hitching against mine. His cock grazed my vagina. I tilted my hips toward it. He entered me and my gasp made a shattering sound. He filled me, stretched open my flesh, but he took me in places he hadn’t reached before.
He gazed at me, and his expression relinquished everything. I don’t know why he chose me for this, why he gave me so much, but I received him.
I let him all the way in.
There was no way to keep him out. I felt him—each exquisite pull in my pussy, but more the drag of his body against mine. Such slow gyrations, they shook me with the force of new things I wanted.
He slid his arm under my neck until my head was in the crook of his arm. I couldn’t hold my body separate from my mind. My nails tore at his shoulders. His knee slipped beside mine as he seemed to try to fold himself into me.
He pushed up and up and up into me. I turned my face against his cheek, mouth open and gasping against his hot skin. The salt of his sweat stung my lips.
His hand moved between us and he touched my clit.
I clung to him. “I can’t.”
“You can.”
My system felt shredded, yet still, something came together where he touched. The pleasure built sweet and stinging. That didn’t mean I could come again, even if I would enjoy it. I’d had too much.
“I can’t.” I arched into him.
He held me closer, pushing his cock deep, his hand sandwiched between us so tightly I don’t know how he moved his fingers—but he did. “You can.”
Then his elbow squeezed at the back of my neck, and he drew me into a kiss. His tongue stroked lazy and wet in my mouth. His cock rolled deep. Something still unbroken shattered in my chest. I seemed to buzz, and sweet ripples burst through me.
My knees clenched at his hips.
“Good girl,” he breathed against my lips, and squeezed me hard. “My good girl.”
My pussy pulsed around his cock. He controlled his movements—so damn slow—extending each movement.
“Emma,” he groaned, and I tasted his plea.
He rocked like he’d make it last forever, as though he couldn’t bear to stop. Like he’d been waiting his whole life for this. He came, and the pressure and heat he filled me with, the shudder of his body and the vulnerable gush of his breath let me know it was something I’d never have missed, and would never forget.
* * *
He slept with a hand clutched around the modest handful of my left breast. His chest rose and fell in a steady lulling rhythm against my back. My breath couldn’t slow to match his. My throat felt clogged. Hurt expanded its dreadful presence in my chest.
“I don’t use friends.”
Yet something fundamental in me had been rendered weary. Not used the way he’d threatened, but wounded.
Raw and frazzled.
Because if he woke right then and asked me again to move in with him, I’d flush my apartment keys down the toilet and give myself over to him without an ounce of goddamned self-preservation.
His body blazed heat against me.
Preservation I needed. Preservation I’d cultivated and paid for with my own broken heart and battered body. Preservation I promised myself I’d never let another person take from me.
And he took it.
Just like that, without permission. Deliberately. And that hurt more than if he’d struck me. There was little about cruelty that I didn’t expect.
Yet, everything about what he’d done was unexpected and I had no idea what to do with any of it. I unhooked his fingers from my breast one at a time, then slid his hand from me. His breathing paused. I stilled and waited.
His chin rubbed the top of my head like a big nuzzling cat. My heart pounded. He sighed—actually sighed. The sweetness of the sound pierced me. I scooted away, then propped a pillow against his chest where I’d been, and pulled the blanket over him.
In the night, everything about him was bigger and darker and more beautiful. His lips seemed fuller, his jaw less angled. I brushed the hair on his temple, free from its usual neatness, mussed up and curled. I wondered how it’d look wet.
I blinked and backed off the bed, then tiptoed to the door. I made it to the kitchen where we’d abandoned it lights still on, then scooped up my clothes and made for my shoes and handbag left next to the garage entrance. I shimmied into my dress, then shoved the bra into my bag and crept in the direction I’d seen the front door.
I fished for my keys. Crap. My car was still at Angelina’s. I licked my lips, and pulled my cell phone out instead. I’d just have to call a cab. Too bad it’d cost a small fortune to get home from here. Like Haithem, Avner chose to live on the city outskirts. He’d built his house in an exclusive pocket of environmentally protected countryside, close enough to a major highway, which made city commute somewhat feasible—if you were driving yourself that is. His acreage backed directly onto national park lands, giving him both enhanced scenery and privacy.
I reached the front door. Moonlight filtered in through the side panels, but the front of the door seemed like a slab of darkness, no handle distinguishable.
My pulse sped up. I ran my fingers over the side. How the hell are you supposed to get out?
A hand came to press on the door over my shoulder.
I jumped and spun around.
Avner towered over me, holding the door shut as though it was at risk of magically opening.
“That is not how this will be.” His words were a steely rush. “You came to my bed. I warned you there’d be no turning back.”
My breath lodged in my throat. His words came back to me.
“If you stay another moment, there’s no going back.”
But, I hadn’t gone back—I’d more than followed through on the sex. Yet, my heart thunked harder, because I couldn’t make myself mistake his meaning any longer.
“You said you weren’t after a girlfriend.” My voice was weak and croaky, unconvincing even to me.
“Girlfriend and boyfriend are schoolyard expressions.” He caged me against the door with his other hand. “There’s nothing childish about what I want from you.”
He was so close. His scent slightly muskier than before, filled me with the memory of my mouth open on his skin and other dirtier things—yes, there was nothing juvenile about what we’d done.
Nothing we did was remotely like what I’d experienced the few times I’d called someone boyfriend.
His meaning, real and too-serious-too-soon to contemplate, was terrifying.
“I told you I’m not an easy man.” His face lowered, his eyes only catching enough light to give them a proprietary glimmer. “I have demands.”
I swallowed. Demands? Like when he’d demanded I come again when I’d been convinced I couldn’t?
My skin caught fire.
“There’s no sneaking from my bed.” His body went slinky as he rubbed up against me, slamming me bodily into the realization he was still naked. “No forgetting to kiss me goodbye.”
His breath washed against my mouth. My lips parted, my chin pushed forward, closer to his.
“I’m going to drive you crazy. Make you never want to leave.”
He delivered that warning and before my heart could finishing plunging, his mouth was on mine, but it was my tongue aggressively seeking his.
He picked me up. My legs clamped around his waist. He turned us around and began walking without breaking our kiss.
I tore my lips free. “But I don’t do sleepovers.”
“Then I’ll have to ensure there’s no risk of you falling asleep.” His hand moved from my waist to my ass as he held me up. The grin that cracked across my face took me by surprise.
Exactly as he’d taken me—by surprise.