Hold 'Em: Vegas Top Guns, Book 3 (30 page)

So good.

She trailed the sharp tip of the cane over his skin. Slowly. Gently. After cuddling the touch up to his back, his spine, she let a single touch drop along the crack of his ass. The backs of his thighs twitched under his restraint.

“You’re such a good boy,” she breathed. Her hand followed in the wake of the leather-wrapped handle. “The things you let me do, Michael… They please me so much.”

He turned his head to watch her. His eyes had gone glassy and such a deep blue that they appeared almost as dark as her own. “Not let.”

Her hand stilled. The cane was a pale punctuation across the small of his back. “Pet? Explain?”

“I don’t
let
you. I want it too. Crave it.” He said it so quietly, with his voice a rumble of acceptance, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

Maybe, deep down, it was. For them.

She certainly felt normal when she was with him like this. Poured-on energy flowed down to her cunt. She was so wet that her tiny red panties clung like a second skin. Her mind was finally of one path. Michael. Making him jump and groan and taking the responses he gave her.

“Thank you for that, pet.” She brushed a reverent kiss over his back, along the vulnerable, exposed line of his spine. “You give me everything I need.”

His eyes closed slowly. A peaceful smile curved his mouth.

She edged his feet farther away from the bed, closer together, briefly touching along his shins. He eased his torso down to the flat of the bed. He was so tall that he didn’t kneel so much as drape from mattress to floor, but that was good. She wanted his thick muscles.

Drawing out each caress, she dragged the bamboo against his skin. Saying she started softly with a cane sounded absurd, but she did. Short, soft bounces barely kissed his lower ass. She flicked her wrist with the steady moves she’d practiced.

Smooth. Even.

Each gathering stroke was a continuation of her heavy breathing. Her chest clenched at the sight of neat red streaks lining up under her ministrations, right across his skin.

Through it all, Michael gathered his usual mix of calm and excitement. His groans spun out like pretty, pretty music as his thighs jerked and played beneath her harsh treatment. His neck bent as he melted into her attention.

Leah hit harder. She flicked her hand so that the cane landed in rhythmic whacks. The fierce instrument swished through the air. The sound of rattan hitting his skin was surprisingly quiet—quieter than that distinctive whistle.

The effect, however, was devastating. He twitched, flinched, hissed. Although her Michael never truly pulled away, she could see how his body seemed to hunch in defense. That he fought his natural reactions, no matter how hard she hit, created the most powerful arousal of her life.

His groans dragged louder. Harsher. And more thoroughly aroused. It was as if he felt no pain at all. Only pleasure.

Red stripes laid out exactly where she’d meant to place them—parallel across his ass and down across his thighs. She even tapped a few lighter strokes along his flanks, ribs and soles of his feet. His hands remained splayed on the pure white bedspread. She became nothing more than his responses. Everything ratcheted together like feedback.

So she wasn’t sure what went wrong.

A false twist of her wrist maybe.

The blow she’d meant to land flat on the back of his right thigh hit at a sharp angle. The tip gouged his skin and bounced to slash at the back of his calf.

Michael hissed in a breath. “Red light,” he grunted. “Fuck.”

The cane dropped from her numb fingers.
Shit.
Her blood simply stopped pumping.

But
she
moved. Leah was by his side in an instant. Nonsense comfort words spilled from her mouth as she touched him. She eased him fully onto the bed, then crawled beside him and petted the damp hair back from his forehead. “God, Michael. Are you okay?”

“Will be. Give me a second.”

“Here, let me see.” She bent low, inspecting every inch she’d stroked and lashed. And yeah, she left the worst for last, because sometimes she was such a goddamned coward.

Across his ass and the tops of his thighs, his skin was flushed and streaked with perfect crimson lines. At first his muscles and tendons twitched beneath her gentle caresses, then eased along with his harsh breathing.

She twisted to see the side of his leg. A bright red bump had popped up on his calf. The really scary part was the gouged weal on his thigh, with a slender line of blood in the center. She’d broken the skin.

“Jesus. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—”

He shook his head against the mattress. “It’s okay. You stopped. It’s how these things work.”

She hadn’t wanted to be the one to mess it up. To break the trust he’d handed her. But she’d known all along that was how it would be.

“Stay right there.” Slipping off the bed, she caught her balance on the nightstand. Her knees almost gave out with the sudden rush of blood to her head.

At the other end of the room, she dug through the combat medic kit she’d converted into an aftercare kit when their sessions kept intensifying. She smeared numbing antiseptic cream on two sterile cotton squares and took a deep breath, fighting for calm. She’d thought for just a moment that she had everything under control, that she could at least give him this much when he’d been so absolutely perfect.

Nope.

Michael hadn’t moved an inch. His breathing continued to even out. He was always so calm in the way she couldn’t find, because even as fear turned her guts into a roiling mess, one truth remained.

She was still turned on, even at the sight of his wound.
So very wrong.
Her body rode high on the adrenaline of watching his body absorb everything she’d given him.

To tend his angry skin, she pushed that reaction down. She pressed the cotton square against the welt. He hissed again. Every muscle in his lower body jumped. She held it against his thigh until he eased when the numbing cream had time to work. Then she taped the second one with surgical tape that glowed white against his tan skin.

Guiding him up on the bed with her, she leaned against the pile of pillows and gathered him close. Her hands kept stroking. Heat burned up from his skin, nestling in her fingers.

“I’m so sorry,” she said again. “I didn’t mean to.”

“I know.” He pressed his face into her stomach. His shoulders loosened on a long, slow breath. “It was…good. Until then. So good, ma’am.”

She pushed the hair back from his forehead. “I’m glad, pet.”

“We’ll try again some other time.”

No way could she contain a shudder. His easy acceptance of another try was too overwhelming. Her fingers trembled as she rubbed the back of his neck.

She was tearing in two. The part of her that cringed at doling out unintentional pain crashed against the part of her that reveled in the idea of being allowed to try again. Another try at taking him higher. She wanted to see how far she could push before he crumbled to beautiful, satisfied pieces—pieces she’d be trusted to put back together again.

“We’ll see,” she said quietly.

He slid a hand around her hip, delving beneath the band of her panties. His fingertips grazed the top of her ass as he brushed a kiss along the bottom arch of her ribs.

They stayed curled together for a long time. How long, she had no idea, since the curtains were drawn—like they’d gone to ground together. Hiding from the world.

They couldn’t stay wrapped around each other for long before Leah’s blood started churning again. Michael dropped soft kisses along her skin, tracing his tongue around her navel. She tilted his face with a hand under his sharp jaw.

The kiss she pressed over his lips was all silent apologies. She hoped like hell he could hear them since she couldn’t push words out through her clenched throat. Maybe he did because he kissed her more deeply. His tongue dipped between her teeth.

He eased up her body. Bare masculine skin slipped along hers in a tantalizing promise. The sweat had cooled between them, but that didn’t mean Leah was any less excited. Any less wet. His cock dug into her hip as he trailed slow touches over her stomach, her thighs and the lace front of her panties, pushing against her soaking pussy.

She indulged in exploring his sleek, strong back before drifting down to the still-hot skin stretched over his ass. He shuddered and pressed into her touch.

No orders this time. No permission. Just a slow swan dive into the depths they’d always been able to reach. He drew her panties down before dropping them over the side of the bed. His fingers teased her lips and circled her clit. Leah spread her knees because of that tingling pleasure, to better enjoy those sharp waves of enjoyment.

Mike nestled between her legs, making room for himself. Her inner thighs brushed over the smooth skin at his waist. The thick heft of his cock slid through her wetness. She gasped when his ring thumped gently over her clit.

Making herself reach for the condom was harder than she’d expected. Excitement, nerves and a strange, sensual lassitude made her hands tremble as she smoothed it over his length.

Christ, the way he looked at her. Watched her. His eyes glittered despite that unbelievably deep blue. A soft smile curved his wide mouth.

She wrapped her arms around his upper ribs and pulled him down, enjoying the way he pressed her flat into the bed. She was solidified and grounded by his weight. When Mike fitted his prick against her, she tucked her forehead to the thick bow of his shoulder. She let her eyes drift shut as he thrust, so slowly, as if his tenderness would sew her together again. Even in this, she was taking—using him to make her whole, when she ought to be tending to him.

She opened her mouth over his chest. Hot licks of his salty skin. No teeth. Not this time. She didn’t trust herself. Her fingers spread wide over his back, which shifted with every dragging push. Still she wanted to mark him, to drag her nails over his skin, to know she claimed every inch of this incredible man.

She denied the urge and banded her legs around him. Intentionally, she hitched her ankles high enough that they locked over the small of his back—not his ass or his thighs.

The sweetness building between them made her eyes prickle. Leah closed her eyes so tightly that the skin above her cheeks pinched. She kept her face hidden against his flesh.

Michael never increased his speed. He drug out slow, dripping pleasure. Time spilled wide as they pushed into each other. She could almost believe they had the whole world at their disposal. Almost.

Her orgasm crept up like a lazy river of sensation. Her nipples prickled from the rub of his chest hair. Her cunt clenched down on his cock. She stretched up, up so that her mouth hovered over his ear.

“Now, pet,” she said, unable to keep the orders at bay. The need to command had sunk claws into a deep part of her—the same part that was ready to break apart under his slow patient body. “I’m coming now. Go with me.”

Mike’s back jerked under her grip. His hips pulsed, driving that beautiful cock into her, grinding, sending a burst of white-hot pleasure out from her center. A low, quiet groan spilled over both of them as they came. Together. Like she’d asked for.

Like she both needed and dreaded.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Mike lounged on the couch in his younger brother’s living room in Tampa. His six-year-old niece, Olivia, sat on the floor eating Pringles and watching
Max and Ruby
. She had a sport bottle of juice with a Hello Kitty topper while he nursed a lukewarm Coke.

A week had passed since his birthday celebration with Leah. Nothing had clicked after that. He didn’t get it. Sex with an edge of D/s was risky, let alone the full-blown kink they’d indulged in.

Her sudden withdrawal left him confused. Safe words were there for a reason. She’d stopped, he’d been fine with no serious damage done, and they’d enjoyed a fucking fantastic vanilla time of things afterward. It’d been reassuring, actually, to know they were capable of something so good. How they
could
be. The trust and the compromise. Even the improvisation and sweetness.

It hadn’t been that way for Leah. Complete shutdown.

Needing a break from that tension, he’d asked Fang for a few days to visit his brother’s family. Tom and his wife, Shelly, had insisted—in part, he knew, because Olivia’s spring break would devastate their schedules. Tom was in marketing, and Shelly sold real estate. That meant Mike had a nice niche as “uncle who occasionally stays for a week to help out”.

That he stuffed Olivia with chocolate and took her to a go-kart track was her parents’ cross to bear. Uncle privileges trumped all.

He would’ve been enjoying himself and the time off, had Leah called. Or texted. Email would’ve worked. Or smoke signals. Pretty much anything.

His phone was in his pocket, as always. Sometimes he willed it to ring. Long minutes passed when he didn’t think about her, content to cloak himself in the simplicity of a six-year-old’s world. Then something would click. A word that had made Leah laugh. A song that dragged him right back to her arms. He’d been sleeping piss poorly. No matter that he was technically on vacation, he hadn’t been so fatigued since his last tour.