Beyond Ecstasy (Beyond #8) (19 page)

But Ace? He never shut
up
.

Even that might have been tolerable if they shared an interest—any interest. Finn and Bren loved to talk cars, Cruz and Zan liked to talk weapons. But Ace only seemed to have three settings: art, booze, and kinky fucking. And Hawk had still been trying to convince himself
so damn hard
that that last one wasn't a shared interest at all.

Jeni's cabinet was a goddamn treasure chest of delicious perversion. Leather cuffs that would fit around her wrists and ankles, connected to delicate lengths of chain. Equally delicate looking strands of pearls that his imagination could already conjure uses for. Vials and bottles stacked in neat little rows, some recognizably products of Tatiana's robust business in massage oil and lube, some tiny and elegant,
screaming
money.

And hanging on a row of hooks in the back…

Ace would probably call it a modest collection. But Ace was the one who'd dragged him into the leatherworker's shop in the marketplace on every fucking trip. Ace was the one who waxed fucking poetical about choosing the right tool for the job.

Ace was the one who'd had a shit fit the day Hawk had wanted to get the fuck out before temptation overrode his good sense, so he'd gone ahead and asked how many fucking floggers one man could possibly need.

The tirade had lasted the entire way home. About the types of leather and the weight and the width and why it mattered. About the
art
of knowing when someone needed something sharp and stinging, and when they needed deep and solid. And there might have been a few jabs about how a man would have to be a boring-ass lay if he thought a partner always wanted one or the other.

Hawk had tried to let it roll off, but some part of him had hoarded every precious scrap of knowledge. Deep down, in the same place where he'd locked away his lust for Jeni and all the urges he'd never considered indulging. So he knew he wasn't ready for the whip, and that the flogger made from thin strips of oiled leather would sting more than he wanted when she was still tender from the other night.

He picked the other one—soft, supple leather in strips almost as wide as his thumb. As he gripped the handle, his heart thudded faster, which should have been fucking impossible. His heart had stuttered when Jeni slid to her knees, and shattered the first time she swallowed his cock, so desperate to please that she'd let him fuck her. Use her.
Violate
her.

Except it hadn't felt like a violation. It had felt joyous, and he was a walking dead man who'd somehow ended up in heaven.

He turned back toward the bed. Jeni and Gia were curled together, their limbs entwined. Gia had shed her dress and shoes, leaving her clad only in sleek black lace lingerie that sure as fuck hadn't come from one of the factories in Eight. It was probably irreplaceable.

And Jeni was goddamn close to ripping it.

Gia slipped a hand into Jeni's hair, and Hawk tightened his fist until he could feel every subtle ridge of the flogger's handle. He waited for that dark pit of jealousy to open up and swallow him whole, and he braced himself to fight back, to deny it, to rise above it.

What rose instead was even less civilized. Certainty, raw and undeniable. Jealousy fed on insecurity, thrived on doubt, and Hawk had none tonight.

Jeni was utterly and completely his.

As he crossed the room, she proved it by breaking away from Gia's kiss. She stared up at him, like a compass swinging back to north. He brushed his fingers over her flushed cheek and couldn't stop the smile that curved his lips. She was disheveled and so aroused she had to be aching for release, but no frustration showed in her expression. Just bright, shining trust.

Even heaven couldn't be this sweet.

“Keep going,” he murmured. “You have about sixty seconds before I get my pants off and my fingers inside you. Think you can make Gia come first?”

She muffled a laugh against Gia's shoulder. “Hell, no.”

Gia's laugh was deeper. Warmer. She watched Hawk over the top of Jeni's head as he tossed the flogger on the bed and reached for his pants. “I wouldn't be so sure. The two of you are hot enough to get
anyone
off.”

The two of you
. That's what they would be, if they managed to survive this war. If Jeni kept his collar—or even exchanged it for his ink wrapped around her throat. They'd be an entity, their names flowing together into one word. Dallas-and-Lex. Jas-and-Noelle.

Hawk-and-Jeni.

He popped open the button on his pants. “Sixty...fifty-nine…”

Jeni smiled softly as her hand vanished beneath black lace. Gia's head fell back against the pillows, her lips parting on a soft moan. “Does he think he has sixty seconds?”

“Shh, don't tell him all my secrets,” Jeni whispered. “Not yet.”

And there, at last, was the jealousy. Not a raging fire inside him, but a single blade honed so sharp it cut deep and left him quietly bleeding.

Gia could get all over Jeni, inside her. She could lick and stroke and fuck her past the brink, and Hawk could watch, smug in the knowledge that Jeni had placed her body firmly in his keeping. Everyone who touched Jeni did so at his command, because that was the arrangement they'd made when she'd allowed him to wrap that leather around her throat.

Maybe they'd rushed it. War made people rush to snatch at whatever they could get, just in case it all slipped away. Jeni had given him everything she could. Recklessly, even.

But she couldn't give him this. You couldn't rush the kind of easy affection she and Gia shared, the quiet understanding where Gia only had to lift her hips and Jeni was there, sliding her underwear off her hips and down her legs.

It wasn't choreographed. It wasn't a
performance
. Oh, they'd get off on knowing how hot they were making him, how tempting it was to wrap his hand around his cock and fuck his fist to the tempo of Jeni's fingers. But he'd cataloged Jeni's performances, all of her masks and how different she was when she wasn't wearing one. This was real, precious—an understanding of each other's bodies that had grown over months and years instead of days and weeks.

Hawk might not have years. Fuck, he might not even have months. He could spend every waking moment inside Jeni and it still might not be enough to get them to where he needed to be, to the unassailable confidence that he knew her better than anyone else. That it wasn't just her body he'd laid claim to, but her mind and heart.

He'd fooled himself into believing he knew her just because he'd watched her. Because he'd been a silent, longing observer. And he'd had to believe it, because the alternative was facing the truth.

They were running out of time. And he'd wasted
so fucking much
of it.

Jeni licked the curves of Gia's breasts above the delicate black lace that hugged them, then glanced up at Hawk. She held his gaze with one full of heat and desire—invitation. Challenge.

He'd wasted so much time. But wasting more wouldn't change that.

He slid onto the massive bed, hiding a smile at how easily the pieces fell into place. Gia might be humoring him with the illusion of control, but it wasn't stopping her from nudging them along. She'd reclined against the pillows at the head of the bed, with plenty of room for Jeni between her legs—and plenty of room for Hawk behind Jeni.

Hawk wondered how many men had gone to bed with Gia and walked away convinced they'd somehow gained the upper hand, oblivious to her quiet authority because those men equated dominance with bluster and show.

Ego was the enemy of control. And control was what he wanted more than anything.

He settled behind Jeni, savoring the view. Jeni, naked, her ass still sporting bruises from his hand, her skin flushed, her hair wild and her thighs wet.

Thwarted arousal. He trailed his finger up the back of one leg and thrilled at her shiver. “You've been so patient, Jeni.”

She laughed and rubbed her cheek against the inside of Gia's thigh. “That's an overly generous assessment.”

“I don't think so.” The flogger lay next to his leg, tempting as hell, but he kept stroking her, both hands sliding over her hips, up her back, down to massage her ass. Slow, gentle, precise—because she melted for him. No, not melted. Softened. Like clay under the heat of his hands, so easy to mold. He coaxed her ass higher, her knees wider. Nodded to Gia, who gathered Jeni's hair up into a shining rope she wrapped around one hand.

He didn't even have to give the command. Just a few fingers against the back of her neck, a slight pressure, and maybe she knew him a little after all, because she immediately lowered her open mouth to Gia's pussy.

Gia's throaty moan filled the room. Under Jeni's devastating tongue, she'd be writhing her way to orgasm in no time at all.

He planned to get Jeni there first.

But he was the one who groaned when he slid his hand between her legs. Slickness and heat greeted him, so much of both that he immediately pumped three fingers into her.

She tensed and shuddered. Her body tightened, gripping his fingers, as if silently begging him not to pull them free and leave her burning.

Giving her what she wanted meant his fingers were there to feel the helpless flutter of her inner muscles as he lifted his other hand to her clit. This time, she moaned huskily, and her fingers bit in to the soft skin of Gia's thighs.

Gia dragged Jeni's head up, her breathing rough. “Let me see it, Jeni. Show me how you come for him.”

Jeni's back arched as another shudder took her. “
Fuck
, Gia—” Her voice broke on another moan. “You have no idea—”

He knew this about her, at least. That she liked firm, quick pressure. That when he thrust his fingers into her, slow and deep would get her going, but nothing would send her screaming over the edge like fast and rough.

As much as he craved control over her, she craved his loss of control over himself. So he gave her a taste of it, fucking her hard with his fingers as he worked her clit. “Show her, Jeni. Do it. Let go.”

Jeni's legs shook, then gave way. Their hands were the only things holding her up, and that seemed to make her shake harder as she hovered in that fevered, blissful moment before orgasm. Then she was
there
, her pussy clenching around his hand as she cried his name.

Hawk eased back, not ready to overload her senses. Instead, he petted her hips and her back, leaned over her to kiss her temple while his cock ground against her ass. “Is that better?”

She answered with a soft noise of frustration. “Don't
stop
.”

“Begging for mercy already?” He nipped at her ear and slid his fingers over Gia's, where they lay curled in Jeni's hair. “Focus, sweetheart. Focus on pleasing her for as long as you can, no matter what I do to you. Do you understand?”

He could almost feel the denial trembling through her. But when she spoke, it was with a seductive whisper. “Yes, sir.”

“Good girl.” He gripped her hip and straightened again. Gia had Jeni by the hair, so he stroked to the base of her neck and let her feel the bite of his fingers as he guided her head back down.

Gia sucked in a harsh breath as Jeni's tongue glided over her spread-open pussy, but her dark gaze seized Hawk's. Watching him, assessing even as Jeni moaned and licked deeper.

Holding it together, coolly collected, while Hawk was scrabbling for the self-control not to drive into Jeni and send them both spinning into oblivion.

That sharp stab of jealousy eased. Every day with Jeni, every
moment
, shredded his defenses and threatened his discipline. The more he got to know her, the harder it was to resist falling into her, because every bit he uncovered only made him want her more.

Gia had the knowledge, the long-standing affection, and maybe she knew Jeni's body in ways it would take Hawk years to learn. But if she could hold herself above the pleasure of having Jeni on her knees, working to get her off with such sweet obedience…

Fucking hell. Gia didn't deserve her.

The corner of the other woman's mouth quirked up as if she'd heard the thought, as if she could read every damn emotion churning through him.

He didn't care. He slid his hand possessively down Jeni's spine and reached for the flogger. The handle fit perfectly in his palm, smooth and cool. He let himself get a feel for the weight of it. The balance.

Bringing it down against her skin would spark a reaction, fast and easy. But tonight wasn't about that. It was about feeling out Jeni's boundaries, knowing Gia was there, ready to stop him if inexperience pushed him too far.

He knew how she reacted to fast and easy. So he trailed the falls across her hips and gave her something far more devastating—anticipation. It made her twist beneath the flogger, chasing the tease as surely as she would have chased the pain.

As hungrily.

“Shh.” He gripped her hip with his other hand, stilling her movements. Then he dragged the soft leather across her skin again, letting it tickle her sides and map the graceful arch of her spine. “Stay focused.”

She dropped her hands to the bed and clenched them in the luxurious sheets. The muscles in her arms tensed. Her body trembled.

Waiting was its own sort of agony, a gentle burn he could nurture until it consumed her. First a tiny flick of his wrist, just enough for the leather to kiss her skin. She started, just a little, the barest hint of movement. But the sound she made—relief and need and a longing so fierce he felt it stab through him.

He wasn't the only one feeling it. Gia's head tilted back and her back arched, her lips parting. She murmured something, obscene words of encouragement that melted past him. Nothing seemed as vital as watching Jeni's reactions as he went back to teasing her, not even Gia's sharp gasp or the shaking moan that heralded her first orgasm.

So Hawk focused on Jeni. On the way the leather fell against her skin—no easy rhythm she could anticipate, no pattern she could learn. Sometimes he teased until she stopped straining into it, then landed a gentle blow. Sometimes he gave her several in a row. But always light, never enough to bring more than the softest color to her skin.