Blush (11 page)

What was
wrong
with her?

“I think it does, Maddy.” Like a predator sensing weakness, Alex stepped closer to her, until there was only a sliver of space between them. She swallowed hard, trying to keep her thoughts clear when all she could see, all she could smell, was him.

“I think you like the idea of being punished, very much. I think it excites you, just the same way that the thought of punishing you excites me. Why are you denying it, when it would bring so much delight to both of us?”

Maddy looked up at him, feeling her eyes go wide. His stare fastened on her lips, and he leaned down. She knew he was going to kiss her—she hoped he would—but when he touched her, she couldn’t
think.

“No.” Maddy backed away from him rapidly, needing some air. She knew she’d never make it past the security system of his front door, so she backpedaled to the kitchen. It was a big mistake, because when she saw the enormous island in the middle of the room, all she could think of was the sensual feast of the night before, of Alex feeding her with such care. He followed, and she wondered if his words were a prelude, if he was actually going to do it.

“You can’t. You won’t.” Maddy backed up until the small of her back hit the edge of the island. Her fingers scrabbled for purchase on the slick tile. “I’m a grown woman. You can’t spank me!”

“I could.” This time he gave her some space, staying just out of her reach. She found that she was a bit disappointed.

“But you won’t.” Maddy tried to make her words assertive. She fell flat.

To her surprise, he nodded in agreement. “But I won’t.” He echoed her words. “I won’t, because you haven’t signed my agreement yet. But I have hope.”

Then, as if they had been discussing nothing more than the weather, he moved to a sleek-looking phone that was mounted on the wall. “I’m going to place my order for breakfast. What would you like?”

She blinked, thrown completely off balance, even more so than before.

“Alex, I’m not eating breakfast. I need to go.” Now she was getting irritated. Being persistent was one thing, but . . .

He raised an eyebrow at her, then spoke into the receiver. He seemed to be calling either a housekeeper or one of the restaurants downstairs, someone who knew who he was, because he didn’t identify himself, just asked for two of the usual.

“No matter how sexy you look in those damned pajama pants, you can’t just completely ignore what I want, Alex!” Maddy bit her tongue when she realized what she’d said.

He grinned at her, at ease in his skin. “You think I’m sexy, huh?”

She stared down at the fingers that she’d twisted together, her face turning red. “Obviously.” Clearly she would never have let him do . . . well . . . everything, if she didn’t think so. “And don’t ignore what I said.”

“I’m not ignoring you, Maddy. I will never ignore you.” Placing the phone back in its mount, he looked at her, and she felt suddenly certain that she was the only thing on his mind right at that moment.

It was humbling.

It was terrifying.

“Then why do you keep doing what you want, no matter what I say?” Alex moved closer, and she thought, again, that he was about to kiss her. Instead he clasped her by her hips, lifting her until she was perched on the counter. He stood in front of her, and their eyes were nearly level as they looked at each other.

“Because I’m doing what you actually want, not what you think you want.”

A strangled sound escaped Maddy’s lips when his words sank in. What an arrogant ass. She opened her mouth to tell him so, but he ran a finger over her lips to quiet her and continued to speak.

“You’re warring with yourself. That’s not uncommon in submissives who aren’t familiar with this kind of relationship.”

Maddy’s mouth fell open a little bit farther, and she glared at him. Submissive? Like hell she was submissive.

“Somehow, somewhere along the way, this kind of relationship came to be seen as taboo by the rest of the world. Twisted. Wrong.”

She narrowed her eyes further and crossed her arms over her chest. He was describing her life, at least the way her life was before he came into it.

“But some of us just need a bit more than the vanilla world can offer. Nothing wrong with that, so I’m not surprised that you’re confused about that.” With one finger placed under her chin, he tilted her head up so that he could look her in the eyes. “But there’s something more here, something you haven’t told me. If you sign the agreement, you
will
tell me. You’ll have to, or I can’t help.”

Maddy sputtered, furious, confused, and needy all wrapped into one giant bundle. How had he pegged her so well and yet gotten her so wrong?

“What agreement?” These were the only words that she could spit out. She shoved everything else away, to examine later.

Once she was alone.

“We’ll talk about that after breakfast.” He was as smooth and unruffled as ever. He was so . . . sure of himself.

She had no doubt that when he took charge, she wouldn’t have to think about a thing, because he would be entirely in control. He would take care of her.

“How was last night for you?”

Oh, he just wouldn’t give up. Maddy shifted uncomfortably at Alex’s words. Last night was . . . well, it was a lot of things, things that she wasn’t certain of.

Things that made her nervous.

Plus really, really amazing.

“Alex, I do need to go.” She slid down from her perch on the counter, nervousness slicing through her veins like a thousand tiny knives. She’d never been so torn. Half of her, the part that she knew as well as she knew her own features, was shrieking at her to leave, to get as far away from this unfamiliar situation as she could possibly get.

The other half, which was nearly as loud, wanted her to sign whatever agreement he had, right then and there. Maddy couldn’t deny that she wanted what he offered, craved the release that he’d already nudged her into grabbing hold of.

Alex studied her, his expression intent. He wasn’t as inscrutable as she thought a man of his temperament would have been; rather, his emotions were displayed on his face, easy to read unless he was trying to hide them.

What she saw now was that he was as conflicted as she was herself. He wanted her to stay, but she didn’t think he wanted to push her farther than she could go.

Maddy sighed inwardly. Even if he were to push, she wouldn’t snap. She’d been through so much already.

Then she watched as a look of understanding passed over Alex’s face. In the blink of an eye, he transformed from the compassionate man who was trying to understand her internal struggle to someone . . . strong. Someone in control.

“Maddy, I want you to eat some breakfast. You need to take care of yourself.” His tone indicated to her that this wasn’t a request. After a long moment in which she bristled at the demand, she relaxed in one big shudder, as if the tension that had been holding her taut for the last long months had suddenly snapped.

Yes. Yes, she liked this. Someone taking control of her scattered, wayward self, because heaven knew that she hadn’t been doing such a good job of it herself.

“I—” She wanted to submit. She did, but it wasn’t as easy as all that.

“All right, then,” Alex muttered as if to himself, studying her as if he were committing something to memory. Then he crushed her against his chest and captured her lips with his.

Maddy was caught entirely off guard, and her worries were incinerated as he splayed one hand flat against her back, the other on her ass, pressing her into him until she felt like they might melt together. Her hands were trapped between their bodies, flat against the rock-solid expanse of his bare chest.

Bending his neck, he slanted his lips over hers, coaxing her lips into parting for the bold sweep of his tongue.

She couldn’t remember what she’d been nervous about or why she was upset. She couldn’t think at all. She was consumed by heat, dominated by Alex, until all she could do was feel the pleasure he was introducing to her.

“That’s better.” His words were rough and vibrated along the line of her jaw when every last bit of defiance evaporated beneath his onslaught.

His hands moved to capture her waist, urging her closer. She could feel him grow hard beneath the press of their flesh, and the knowledge that she was arousing him was both surreal and exciting.

Tentatively, Maddy slid her hands from his chest and up, to stroke over his shoulders. The physical act took her straight back to the night before, when in the matter of a moment he had made her forget that she’d never much cared for sex.

“Good girl.” His hands squeezed once, tightly, at her hips, then slid over her belly and between her legs. “Let it go. You don’t have to hold on to control when I’m here. I’ve got you.”

Maddy’s knees buckled when he undid the button of her shorts and then the zipper with deft fingers. She was bare beneath, not having had a spare pair of clean panties with her when she’d left for the casino the night before.

“I won’t let you fall.” He slid a finger through her folds. Maddy was startled to find that she was already damp. Her hips moved involuntarily, pressing into his touch.

He made her forget.

“Alex.” Her fingers scrabbled at the impossibly hard muscles of his shoulders. “Now. Please.” If he didn’t take her now, if he didn’t fill that aching hole inside of her with his heat, then the panic would come back.

“Not yet.” A dismayed cry slipped from between Maddy’s lips, but it was swallowed in another scorching kiss. At the same time, Alex shoved her shorts down her hips. They fell to the floor as he tugged her shirt and her bra up over her head and off.

“Step out.” He kicked her shorts away, then backed her up until the edge of the solid wooden table hit her just below the curve of her buttocks. She startled a little as the cool, glossy wood pressed against her feverish skin.

“Lie back.” Maddy hesitated for a moment, self-conscious—he’d managed to get her entirely naked, while he was still fully clothed. She felt . . . vulnerable.

“Maddy.” The look on his face told her that he expected her to do it. Again, she felt the slight anger at being told what to do, and again it was quickly followed by relief.

Is this what it would be like all the time?
she wondered as, hesitantly, she settled herself back on the smooth expanse of the kitchen table. The corners of Alex’s lips turned up with pleasure as she obeyed his command, and she found herself inexorably happy to have pleased him.

What was
wrong
with her? She tried to push herself back up onto her elbows.

She had issues, yes, and she had grief. But she’d gotten through it all, more or less, hadn’t she? She was strong. And strong women didn’t enjoy being bossed around.

“Alex, this isn’t—” His pants were undone and he was spreading her thighs farther apart. He settled himself between her legs, then pulled a condom from the pocket of his pants, which were hanging loosely around his hips.

“Maddy, let yourself enjoy it.” His voice was firm. With one hand, he stroked over the crease that divided her leg from her belly; with the other, he lifted the foil packet to his teeth and pulled until the wrapping ripped.

Oh God. It was going to happen again. Heat washed over her in a tremendous wave at the thought of being filled in the way that only he had ever filled her.

“Maddy, it’s okay to let me be in control.” Taking the base of his newly sheathed cock in his fingers, he settled the head of his erection against her entrance. Her hips rose, urging him to slide inside.

“Alex, oh yes.”

His hands instead slid to her breasts, caressing her nipples, pulling at them, arousing and holding Maddy in place at the same time.

“I want to be in control. I need it. And if that lets you lose control for a while, with me, in a safe place, then there’s nothing at all wrong with what we’re doing.”

Maddy frowned, trying to wrap her head around his words through the thick fog of lust that crowded her mind, when he pressed forward, easing into her bit by delicious bit.

“Ahh,” she cried out, biting her lip. There was that same delicious stretching sensation, waking all the nerves in its path. There was also some discomfort, because he hadn’t been gentle last night, not that she’d been complaining at the time.

“Shh.” Alex stilled, letting her adjust. When she could feel the muscles that were clenching him so tightly relax, just the tiniest bit, he slid the rest of the way home, sheathing himself inside of her.

“It’s not enough.” Maddy reached up for him blindly, clinging to the final threads of control that she couldn’t seem to let go of. “Alex, please, give me more.”

He understood what she was asking. His expression became darker, more intense, and his fingers stopped their lazy caress to pinch, hard.

“Alex!” Maddy’s voice was nearly a scream. In only a few minutes he’d brought a primal desire out of her very core. She was frantic, desperate for this strange ache to be assuaged.

“Hold on.”

Her fingers searched for the edges of the island and clung tightly as he drew nearly all the way out of her heat. When he slammed back in, sheathing himself entirely in her tight passage, she shuddered.

It hurt, because he was too big and she was sore. But then he started to thrust in and out, hard and fast, and the pain was replaced with need so acute that it was almost an ache.

“Alex.” For a woman who had never before enjoyed sex, this was insane. There hadn’t been any foreplay, he was just a bit rough, and yet she felt like an animal. She wanted to lose herself in him.

Maddy watched through half-shuttered lids as he seated himself inside her again and again. She loved that it was her, her body, that was bringing him such pleasure. Yes, bringing him pleasure—and her, too. She could feel everything inside of her coiling tighter and tighter still.

Alex slid one hand from Maddy’s hip and between her slick folds, right above the place where his cock was claiming her. He pinched her clit between his thumb and forefinger and rubbed back and forth.

She tried to close her legs against the onslaught of pleasure. It was too much. As she pressed her legs against his hips, he moved faster, and she settled for closing her eyes.