Dominating Amy (5 page)

Vulnerable
.
She never thought of him as vulnerable. He was tall and broad, strong and masculine. He was a protector, never one who needed protection. Viewing him this way, though, seated on the edge of the bed, blue and white pajama pants barely covering the physical manifestation of his need—this way, she was inspired to protect him.

I’m his only natural predator.
He could defend himself from everything but her. She never realized how much power she held over him, not until that thought dropped down heavy on her mind.

“I’ve been hurting you.”

He slid his hands around the backs of her thighs. “I’m not broken. I promise it’s no hurt we can’t heal.”

He kissed her stomach, nipped at the fragile skin above her navel. Amy shivered and goose bumps spread out in waves from his kiss. Her breasts firmed, her toes curled. She wanted to work through their emotional baggage, but more, she wanted him to take her again, to slam into her body over and over, once more promising he wouldn’t leave. That he’d take her as she was.

“Mac,” she whispered, fingering the hair waving at the nape of his neck.

He tilted his head back, met her eyes with a question.    

“We have half an hour,” she said. “More.”

His fingers flexed, squeezing her thighs. She ran her fingernails around the curve of his ear and it was his turn to shudder. “Amy--”

“Please.”

“I don’t have toys.”

“I don’t need them.”

He closed his eyes. “I can’t hit you. I can’t hurt you.”

“This…it isn’t about kinky sex. I miss you. I want to be part of you.”

He smoothed his hands up to cup her bottom, kneading and tickling the crease between her cheeks.

“Please,” she repeated. “It’s been so long. I need you again. You don’t have to be gentle. Or perfect.
Just deep inside.”

His fingertips teased lower, one circling her entrance. Amy swallowed and dug her nails into his skin.
“Mac.”

His shoulders tensed beneath her hands. “I want to come inside you again, until you’re overflowing, and every inch of your skin smells like me. You think I don’t want to claim you, force every stranger on the street to acknowledge you belong to me, but you’re wrong. For months, all I’ve been able to think about is forcing you down on your hands and knees so I can mount you and stake my claim like an animal.”

Heat spiraled slow and heavy down her legs. Amy drew a deep, ragged breath and closed her eyes, imagining the weight and warmth of him covering her back. They’d made love that way before. Of course they had. He would pause, ease out,
whisper
for her to turn over. She always did so eagerly, relishing the freedom to rub back against him, loving the pinch as he clutched her hips to hold her in place. Before he could change his mind, she turned in his arms.

Mac stopped her, his hold tightening. “Where are you going?”

“I…to the floor?”
The closet stood open, their images reflected in the long mirror hung from the back of the door.

“Not there. You’re better than that.” Dark hair fell across Mac’s brow, hiding his eyes. His lips grazed the bend of her waist and he drew her backward, across his thighs and onto the bed. Instead of turning her onto her stomach, he rolled between her legs and leaned over her, his elbow on the mattress beside her shoulder. He closed his eyes, took a lock of her hair between his fingers. “I want to be the man you need.”

The pain she caused—a need to heal it burned in her chest. “You
are
.”

He shook his head and kissed her the upper curve of her breast.
“Maybe on some levels, but not all.
Not anymore.”

“Mac…” The muscles in his back bunched beneath her hands. Hot and wet, his tongue claimed the skin between her breasts.
Slid lower.
She shoved her heels into the mattress, lifted her hips off the bed and rubbed her sex along the hard slope of his abdomen.
“Mac.
I want you. I
need
you.”

“Good. That’s good,” he muttered. To himself, she realized when he lifted his
head,
eyes still closed, and pushed her knees high, folding her thighs back against her breasts. Without warning, he bit her stomach, a small, sharp pain that raised her nipples.

Breathing hard, she clutched at his hair.
“Mac?”

“
Shhh
.”
His tongue again, drawing circles between her shins. Lower. The wet tip swirled between her labia, probed the hood of her clit, swept long and hard down one side of her sex and up the other. She curled her toes against his shoulders and pitched her hips, straining to draw his tongue inside. Mac evaded her. He held her ankles and pushed them wide, ruining her leverage. And then he licked deeper, lower, the flat of his tongue soft and velvety between her cheeks.

“Oh, God,” she moaned. Splaying her fingers over the back of his head, she tried to force him back to her.

He shook his head, denying her efforts. “Let go. Hold your knees for me, baby.”

Reluctant to break contact with him, she disentangled her fingers and clasped her knees. Thick fingers rewarded her instantly, slipping into her heat, stretching and curling to find the knot hidden inside. Amy sucked a hard breath, suddenly short on oxygen. The pads of his fingers found his target, dragging an animal groan from her throat.

“Oh, please,” she whispered, hugging her knees tight to her chest, rolling her hips toward him.

Mac flicked his tongue through her cream and hummed a masculine, approving sound. “Please what? Want that again?” he asked, thrusting shallowly, drawing back.

“Yes.” Her sheath clenched, muscles contracting of their own accord, trying and failing to drag his fingers deeper. She tightened her stomach until the muscles ached, trying to impale
herself
. Mac held back.

“Yes, what?”
Shallow, stretching, he worked a third finger just past her rim.

“You’re teasing me.” She craned her neck, trying to see him between her legs. He met her eyes, his lips sticky and wet from her arousal.
“Mac, please.”

“I’m not psychic, Amy. Please what?” He licked between his fingers, the softness of his tongue at odds with his rough, quick fingers.

She bit her lip, panting, trying to conceal her rapidly weakening grasp on self-control. She would have closed her eyes, if his weren’t so intently locked on hers, ordering them to remain open without a single word spoken.

“Please fuck me,” she whispered, praying she didn’t stumble over the three little syllables. Mac didn’t respond. His fingers flexed, stilled, and the pulse at the base of his throat jumped as he swallowed.

She tried again, barely breathing the word, “Sir?”

 “Not fucking,” Mac corrected, rising above her.
“Loving.
That’s the word you use, Amy. Say it. Ask me to make love to you.”

She froze, unable to ask. She couldn’t. She hadn’t earned his loving, couldn’t bring herself to ask for it. If she asked, he would give it unconditionally. Instead, she moaned and rocked her hips, squeezed his fingers with her body, and pleaded with small, wordless sounds.

Mac swore. “Do
not
close up on me.”

Her arms slid around her shins. Amy tried to roll aside. “I don’t deserve it.”

He fingers stilled, eased from her body, and suddenly he crouched above her, his mouth on hers, tender and full of love. He gave her one of the kisses she’d begged for when they were teenagers, when he was more urgent than attentive. Amy squeezed her eyes shut. Tears burned behind her eyelashes.

“Tell me why,” he whispered. “Tell me something real.”

She pushed against his shoulders, tried to escape his weight. “This isn’t fair to you. I’m so—God. I’m so sorry.”

Slowly, he shifted to stretch out beside her. The tears she’d tried to contain broke free. Amy rolled away. Mac grabbed her before she found her feet. Physically overpowering, he pinned her arms to her sides and threw a heavy thigh across her legs. One of his big hands cupped the back of her head and held her face to his chest.

“Don’t leave,” he muttered into her hair. “Christ. Whatever fucked-up ideas you’ve gotten in your head, don’t ever think I want you to leave.”

Amy cried herself limp while he held her. Dinner arrived before she stopped trembling. He reluctantly pushed off the bed, pausing to kiss her swollen, salt-red lips, and grabbed a towel to sling around his hips. Amy reached for a blanket. He didn’t have time to stop her because the doorbell rang a second time.

“Meet me in the kitchen,” he said on his way to the door.

He carried a bag of tacos into the kitchen to find her waiting, naked thighs tucked primly beneath the table, arms folded atop it, shielding her breasts from view without actively covering them. She’d splashed her face with water and rinsed away the tear tracks but she couldn’t wash away the glassy sheen of misery in her eyes.

Unsure what to do besides strive for some semblance of
normalcy,
he brought down a simple table setting and filled two glasses with premixed margarita.
“Still hungry?”

“Yes.” She sniffed hard and unpacked the bag, discarding wax paper wrappings and arranging taco shells and fillings on the table. She didn’t look at him.

Mac stood behind her, watching her pry the plastic cover from a dish of sour cream. She sat on edge, back straight as a post. He ran his hand between her shoulder blades, relishing the texture of her skin, the silkiness of the tiny, short little blond hairs he could feel but not see. Her heartbeat stepped up a beat, fluttering against the heel of his palm where it rested beneath her left shoulder.

“Are you going to sit with me?” She hunched forward to reach for a glass.

He didn’t like the distance in her voice, and withdrew to wrap his hands around the upper slat that crossed the back of her chair. He couldn’t hurt wood by squeezing it too hard in frustration. Striving for an even tone, he said, “You’re not comfortable.”

She set the glass back down and ducked her head. Mac closed his eyes and tried to untangle the knots of fear twisting his stomach.

If they made it through the night, they could face the rest of their lives with emotions made calmer by a little sleep. And a lot of sex, although he wasn’t sure, now, that he should have allowed their physical intimacy to proceed before getting their other issues under control.

If they didn’t make it through the night, if he tripped up and scared her, or said the wrong thing, he feared he would wake up to find her gone. He couldn’t burden her with his worries, though. She needed him to help her with her own, not add to them. He drew a deep breath, and tried to blow his anxiety out with it.

After Amy swallowed a few sips from her drink, he said, “I want you to tell me about
Olivieri
.”

“Who?”

“The man at Elizabeth’s party.
Tony
Olivieri
.”

Her fingers clenched around the stem of her glass. “I didn’t know his last name.”

“Tell me about him,” he repeated.

Amy moistened her lips and didn’t meet his eyes. “What do you want to know?”

“Did he approach you or did you approach him?”

“I…a group of guests was admiring a print on Elizabeth’s wall. A woman bound with rope. He identified it as Japanese
knotwork
and said he’d recently begun studying the binding patterns. Someone suggested he provide a demonstration.” She ducked her head, staring at the taco abandoned on her plate. “It had nothing to do with him, Mac. I swear. I don’t even remember what he looks like. But nobody volunteered and he caught my eye and said I looked intrigued. He asked whether I needed to get permission from anybody in order to be his volunteer.”

“Did you even consider calling me to ask?”

She nodded. Her hands vanished beneath the table and her shoulders hunched as she started to curl in on herself. “I thought you’d be angry.”

 “You’re hiding. Look at me.” He reached across the table and cupped her chin, forcing her head up. Misery darkened her eyes and stabbed at his gut, warned him to retreat and let it go. But he couldn’t do that. He needed to know what had happened, and she needed to know he wasn’t afraid to learn.  “Did you think I would have said no?”

“I thought…I don’t know. It’s so stupid.
I’m
so stupid. I thought if I asked, you’d tell me I needed to make my own decisions. And then I thought you’d tell me not to come home. But everyone was watching me and I was so…so turned on.” Her cheeks flushed. She closed her eyes, an
attempt,
he was sure, to avoid facing him. “I’m sorry. I don’t want anybody except you. I wanted to pretend
he—
Tony—was you. That you were putting me on display, telling me I was being a good girl, inviting people to test the tension of your knots…”

She trailed off, her eyes still closed. Mac touched the corner of her mouth with his thumb and marveled at the quickness of her breath. Remembering aroused her all over again. He had no doubt he could slip his hand between her legs and find her wet. Getting Amy turned on wasn’t a problem—not even for him. Getting her off, on the other hand…fuck.

He wasn’t unaffected by her telling. Jealousy heated his blood but desire overshadowed it.
Amy,
bound and spread and presented to a crowd of people who couldn’t touch her unless he gave permission, who could only study her and envy him…the idea appealed to him on a very base level. He wanted to publicly stake his claim. Wanted her to be wholly his again, the way she’d once been.

“Amy, look at me,” he murmured.

She swallowed but obediently lifted her lashes to meet his eyes.

“I’m not sharing you with anybody.
Ever.
You and I do not have an open relationship. You are
my
wife and you belong in
my
bed. If there’s something you want but aren’t finding, you tell me. You don’t find it elsewhere.”

Her breath shuddered out, a ragged exhale. “What if it’s not what you want?”

“Then we’ll figure out our options and decide from there.”
His lips quirked, a wry smile.
“I’m not entirely turned off by all of this, you know.”

“You’re not? But you’re so…” Her hand fluttered in the air, the sentence unfinished.

“You’re not the only one of us who can change.” He squeezed her chin gently and released her. “You should finish eating.”

She nodded and they shared the remainder of the meal in silence. Amy eventually broke the quiet.

“You look tired,” she said.

“So do you.” Amy’s shoulders drooped in exhaustion instead of shame. Purple circles showed beneath her eyes, punctuating the pink blotches of color left by the salt of her tears. Mac pushed away from the table.

“Leave the mess for tomorrow.” He hiked up the towel he still wore around his hips, and held out his hand. “Let’s go to bed. It’s been a long day.”

 “Together?” She bit her bottom lip.

“You’re my wife, and that’s
our
bed. I’m not sleeping on the couch anymore.”

“I didn’t want you to leave it at all.”

“I know.” Separate rooms had been his idea. He’d needed space to figure out how he felt about her not-quite betrayal, and he’d thought privacy would make her happy, since his presence didn’t seem to.

He should have been comforted by the knowledge she’d thought wrong about their relationship, the same as he had. Instead, her insecurity unsettled him deeply. If the rings on her finger weren’t enough of a public declaration of his desire for and devotion to her, what would he have to do?

Amy slept fitfully. Her restlessness kept him awake. By morning, he had a plan.

****

She woke up to scratchy, swollen eyes, an empty bed, and a note from Mac.

I need to take care of a few things. I’ll be back. Remember, no clothes.

Amy crumpled the sheet of stationery and threw it in the bathroom trash.  She’d been wrestling with her screwed up emotions, had barely slept all night for trying to figure out how to verbalize what she wanted. And what had he been doing? Making a mental list of morning errands to run?
Fine
.
If he didn’t have to keep his word, she didn’t have to keep hers. Frustrated and hurt, she defiantly dressed in jogging pants and a t-shirt.
So much for working out their marital problems.
He had “things” to do.

She distracted herself by cleaning up the mess left from dinner, and any other mess she could find. The living room looked much more presentable once she stripped his linens from the couch and stuffed them in the laundry. She brought out the vacuum and started in the living room, moving from one end of their apartment to the other. She had to get down on her knees and duck her head under the dust ruffle in order to vacuum beneath the bed, but she didn’t mind. The electronic whir of the upright gave her much-needed mental white noise.

Hands on her hips, jerking her sweats down over her bottom and pulling her bodily from beneath the bed, startled her into a scream. She kicked out of instinct, to no avail. Mac’s expression was thunderous as he hauled her to her feet and pushed her onto the mattress, wrestling her pants free of her feet and tossing them aside. He knelt astride her hips, pulled the vacuum hose from her hand, and whipped her shirt over her head.

“We had an agreement,” he said, breathing hard above her. His hands came down on either side of her shoulders and his gaze fastened on hers. “Why did you break it?”

Her temper spiked. “You said you’d take the day off with me.”

“I left you a note explaining. Why are you wearing clothes?”

Denim rubbed her abdomen roughly where he straddled her hips. Amy swallowed, unsure how to answer him. Her body wanted to arch and distract him from the anger in his eyes, to turn the hot emotion into a different heat.
Her up-ended headspace…hell.
She didn’t know what her head wanted.

“You can’t expect—“

“When you’re in our home, you won’t hide yourself from me. You agreed to that.” Mac’s jaw clenched.      “I’m trying. If you’re not going to try, too--”

“I’m not perfect,” she snapped. She turned her head away so she wouldn’t have to look into his eyes. “You can’t expect that from me.”

“I can expect you to follow a simple directive. Or have I misunderstood what you want from me?” Mac turned her face back to him. He didn’t squeeze, but the heat of his palm against her pulse promised he would force her to meet his eyes if she didn’t comply of her own volition. Heat coiled deep inside, responding to his power.

“So punish me if I’m being
bad
,” she challenged.

His features hardened and he lowered his hand. “Amy.”

“Mac.”
      She searched his eyes intently, picking out layers of emotion when she could read them. Frustration, helplessness, desire, love, fear--all made a puzzling combination. Regret surfaced as well. If she hadn’t been paying attention, she would have missed all those layers, for as soon as she identified them they vanished behind a neutral mask.

“Get up and come with me.” He backed off the bed and left her there, clearly expecting her to follow.

She didn’t have to do it. She could change her mind.  Retain the upper hand in their relationship, stay with the safety of knowing their marriage would be over soon. One or the other of them would eventually file for divorce. Their separation would hurt, but it would be comfortable, and she wouldn’t be vulnerable to anybody but herself.

A rustle of paper reached her ears, coming from the vicinity of the living room. Would divorce paperwork sound like that? Her throat convulsed on a silent sob and she covered her ears to block the sound. She sat abruptly and forced herself off the bed to go to him.