In Your Corner (18 page)

YOU’VE NEVER BEEN SPANKED?

Lucky for me, Makayla has no qualms about searching Max’s phone for Jake’s new address, and I have no trouble finding his new apartment in the SOMA district. After following a couple through the security doors, I take the elevator up to the penthouse—a big change from when we were first going out and Jake shared a house with five other guys, assorted pizza boxes, and a cockroach named Fred.

My heart pounds faster and faster, and by the time the elevator doors slide open, my pulse is racing so wildly I can barely breathe. What the hell am I doing? It’s midnight. He doesn’t know I’m here. I could easily turn around and be home in less than an hour, saving myself further heartache. But by the time my mind has decided to leave, my feet are already moving, and suddenly I’m in a long, spacious, red-carpeted hallway, and the elevator door is closing behind me.

The walk to the sole door at the end of the corridor takes forever. I count the trendy spotlights in the ceiling, and admire the abstract red and blue prints on the stark white walls. My steps follow the rhythm of my pounding heart. Tap. Bang. Tap. Bang. By the time I reach Jake’s door, I’m out of breath, shivering like the potted palm in the corner. Mustering what little courage I have left, I knock softly on the door.

Silence.

Maybe I should go.

But before I can turn away, the door swings open.

Chest heaving, fight shorts clinging to his narrow hips, bare torso glistening with sweat, Jake studies me, his face an expressionless mask.

Go
big
or
go
home.

“I’m sorry,” I blurt out. “I just keep messing everything up.”

Without a word, he lifts me in his arms, spins me around into his apartment, and kicks the door shut.

Afraid to look at his face, I lean my forehead against his chest and squeeze my eyes closed. “I called Drake to ask some questions about broken bones. He showed up with his medical books and dinner. We’re good friends, Jake, but I’ve never felt anything more than that for him. I told him I wanted to be with you and he left. Nothing happened.”

He cups my face between his hands, and I look into eyes, as deep and blue as the ocean, as warm as the summer sand.

“You came to me. Nothing else matters.” He kisses me slowly, sweetly, maneuvering me until I hit the door. Then he deepens the kiss. Greedy, hard, and hungry, his tongue works past my lips to rasp over the inside of my mouth, each stroke sending tiny shock waves down to my core.

“Jake…I need to explain…”

“Shhhh, baby. You. Here. Tells me everything I need to know.” He trails butterfly kisses along my jaw and then up to the sensitive spot behind my ear. I tilt my head to give him better access and he growls his approval.

“I want you so much, it scares me,” I whisper. “I thought for a second at my office you didn’t want me, so I tried to push you away.”

“I want you too, baby. I fucking ache with wanting you. Been working out all evening trying to make that feeling go away, but all I keep thinking about is how soft and sexy you looked in my arms last night, and how lucky I am to have found a smart, sweet, attorney with a big heart, a whole lot of determination, and a bent for kinky sex.”

A warm, melty feeling pools in my belly. He’s been thinking about me. “I like this look.” I glide my hands over his chest, still damp from his workout, then follow the trail of soft curls to the waistband of his shorts. “You’re all pumped and sweaty, and you look like you want to pound on someone. But you have to rein it in sometimes. Talk instead of fight. Tonight…the way you reacted…it almost scared me away.”

A pained expression crosses his face. “That bastard sets me off like no one else. He knows we’re together. I’ve made sure of it. And yet he pulls a stunt like he did today. I just want to beat the crap out of him.”

“He’s my friend, Jake. I can’t stop seeing my friends because you don’t like them.” I run my finger along the inside edge of his fight shorts and tug him gently toward me. “But I should have thought about how it might look to you. Next time I plan on meeting up with him, I’ll invite you along.”

A low growl erupts from his throat. “Friendship is the last thing on his mind. Trust me on this one. I know.”

“So you’re still going to pound on him?”

Jake chuckles and covers my hand with his own, sliding my palm over the steel of his erection straining against his fight shorts. “I want to pound in someone—my girl. I wanna love her and make her feel so good. But first, I’m gonna spank her ass for making me think I lost her.”

“Oh God.” My heart skips a beat, then slams against my ribs.

Jake’s voice drops to a rough, husky growl. “Then I’ll keep you on edge until you’re dripping with arousal and begging me to let you come.”

I breathe out a soft “oh,” and he gives me a wicked grin.

“It’s gonna be a long night.”

He gives me no time to mull over the sweet sentiment or ponder whether his words mean he forgives me, because I am suddenly whisked away from the door and bent over his dining table, my cheek and breasts pressed tight against the cool, polished wood surface.

“What happened to loving me and making me feel good?” I strain to check out Jake’s new place from my bent-over-the-table vantage point.

“You’re too fucking sexy. I’ll spank you first, then I’ll make it better.” He grunts his annoyance when I push myself up to my elbows and then slaps my ass. The sharp sting makes me gasp, and I am suddenly very grateful I am still wearing my clothes.

“Don’t move. Gotta get a box of condoms.” He crosses the room in front of me and heads toward the raised platform where his massive low-rise bed is situated. Big and comfy-looking. Much comfier than a table.

“A box? Not just one or even five?”

He looks back over his shoulder and his eyebrow lifts. “You walk around in your tight little suit, we need five. You make me think it’s over and then you appear at my door in the middle of the night with your eyes all big and soft, your heart open, and your hair looking like you just got out of bed, we need a box.”

“I see we’re not wasting any time with foreplay.” I rest my chin in my hands and mentally drool as he bends over the night table, giving me an unobstructed view of his ass outlined to perfection by the thin fabric of his fight shorts. “Your girl shows up at your door, you bend her over the table, take her hard and fast, maybe order a pizza, grab a beer, and watch some TV. I’ll bet it’s every man’s dream.”

The warning look he gives me, cold and calculating, sends a shiver down my spine. I always seem to take it that one step too far.

“Jeans, panties, and shirt off.”

I suck in a sharp breath and heat flushes my cheeks. What is it about his voice that makes everything inside me melt? Or maybe it isn’t just his voice, but his tone. Confident. Commanding. Unyielding.

When he disappears down the hallway beside the bed, I shrug off my clothes and quickly check out the vast open-plan space, at least five times as big as my old apartment, and dominated by floor-to-ceiling windows covering two walls. Cross-training and weight equipment take up a corner of the room along with a spread of mats and a giant punching bag. A sitting area in front of a sleek sandstone fireplace looks both masculine and comfortable with a big, gray, overstuffed couch and matching chair, curved glass tables, and blue accent pillows. His pristine kitchen, all black granite and stainless steel appliances, looks like it has never been used. And of course, beneath me, a delightfully cold, polished, hardwood table. Very Jake.

“You have a great place here,” I say when he reappears with the box of condoms in one hand.

“Back in position.”

A thrill of excitement floods my veins as I bend over the table. This is clearly Jake’s show.

Minutes pass and then his warm hand caresses my ass, smoothing over my cheeks. “Fuck,” he murmurs. “You’ve got the sweetest ass. I could look at it all day.”

“I love it when you whisper sweet nothings in my ear.”

“Only thing I’m putting in your ear, baby, is my tongue, and that’s after I’ve licked every part of your body, including your pussy.”

My gasp goes unheard as his feet thud across the marble floor to a credenza beneath the flat-screen TV. My heart pounds against the table, and I push myself partway up.

“I’ve…never allowed anyone to spank me before, Jake.” My voice drops to a low whisper. “I don’t know if I’ll like it.”

He holds up a coil of soft rope and a pair of nylon cuffs. “You’ve never been spanked? With that smart mouth?”

Affronted, I frown. “This mouth is usually busy doing things that warrant the opposite of a spanking, and I’ve never had any complaints.”

Jake freezes midstep. “Baby. Do NOT, and I repeat do NOT put images into my head of you and other men. There is no past. There is only
now
and
soon
, and you’re going to get spanked in both of them. And knowing what I know about you and seein’ the way you’re nibbling on your lip and watching your cheeks burn, I know it’s gonna make you fucking hot.”

He squats in front of the table and tilts my head up with a gentle finger under my chin. I push myself up on my elbows to meet his gaze.

“You okay if I restrain your arms? It will give you something to brace against and knowing you can’t interfere…it heightens the sensation.”

I look from Jake to the cuffs and back to Jake. “In the past, which I know exists only in the hypothetical universe, and aside from the tie episode at my house, which was escapable, I only ever allowed restraints I could release myself.”

“Then you weren’t really restrained,” he murmurs. “You won’t be able to let go if you’re in control. Trust me, baby. You don’t like anything we’re doing, you say the word and I’ll stop.”

“I trust you.”

Jake wraps the padded Velcro straps around my wrists and then threads the rope through the attached rings to the legs of the table, spreading my arms wide.

“These cuffs are handy,” I mumble through my trepidation. “I guess you never know when you might need padded Velcro cuffs with rings attached. Maybe when you need to hang from your arms or if you have a lot of shopping to carry home. I should get a pair.”

Jake chuckles and looks away. “If you don’t stop talking and making me laugh, I’m gonna gag you too, or maybe I’ll fill that lush mouth with my cock and give it something else to do.” He makes me pull against the restraints until he is certain they won’t hurt me and I am certain I won’t be able to get free. My first taste of real restraint is a heady experience. By the time Jake walks behind me, I am struggling through both intense fear and intense arousal.

“I can’t do this,” I rasp. “Let me up.”

Jake smoothes his hand down my back and then over my ass. “Give it a minute, baby. Let your mind and body adjust.”

He kicks my legs apart and strokes a rough finger through my folds, then trails my wetness along my inner thigh. “I’m thinking you’re already there.”

Oh yes. Hot, wet, and desperate to be touched. Arching my back, I look over my shoulder, just as Jake leans over me, pressing his bare, slick chest against my back, covering me with his body. His erection presses against the cleft of my ass and I moan.

Jake brushes a kiss over my cheek, trailing his lips down my neck to the sensitive spot between my neck and my shoulder. “Need to mark you.” The deep rumble of his voice vibrates through my body. “Let everyone know you’re mine.”

“Okay.”

He bites gently at first and then sucks hard until my eyes slit closed at the pleasure pain and my breath comes in short, hard pants. He licks over the wound and then kisses the bruised skin.

“Mine.”

“Yours,” I agree. “In the most primal sense of the word.”

He licks again over the wound. “Wish I could make it permanent.”

“Like a tattoo on my forehead that says ‘Renegade’s girl. Don’t fucking touch or I’ll break your arms’?”

Chuckling, he brushes my hair to the side and then nuzzles my neck. “That would be a good start.”

A shiver of pleasure runs down my spine as his five o’clock shadow rasps over my sensitive skin. I gasp and arch under him, pushing back against his hardened length. His obvious arousal sends a wave of need through my body, and I whimper and wiggle my ass, hoping he might forget the spanking and skip to the good stuff.

“Naughty girl,” he warns. “Punishment first, then pleasure.” He pulls away, leaving me cold and bereft, then his hand smacks my ass with a loud, terrifying crack.

My breath leaves me in a rush, as does my brain’s ability to register the sensation. Stunned, I don’t move until suddenly fire streaks across my left cheek. I suck in air and release it with a gasp as he murmurs in a calm, perversely soothing voice.

“Next time you feel scared or overwhelmed, you talk to me. I’ll listen. I’ll be there for you. You don’t guess what I’m thinking and you don’t push me away.”

Smack
. He hits my other cheek, harder this time and pain radiates down my thighs. Then he alternates side to side, never striking the same place twice. The sound of his sharp, hard slaps on my skin fills the room, a curiously erotic sound that makes my sex tingle despite the burn.

Instinctively, I tug against the restraints and instantly understand the appeal. Without them, I might have turned around and given back what he gave me: a few slaps on the chest, maybe a punch to the jaw. With them, I am totally at his mercy, but I’m not afraid. Deep inside, I know Jake would never hurt me. Relieved of the burden of having to decide how much of myself to give, I let go and the burn turns into gut-churning arousal.

Jake rubs his hand lightly over my heated skin. “Beautiful.” His fingers slip between my thighs and glide along my dripping folds.

“You like being spanked.” He gives a satisfied grunt and then eases two fingers inside me. “So hot, baby. So wet.”

With a whimper, I rock up on my toes, riding his fingers as hard as I dare. “Can’t take any more.”

He presses his hand against my lower back, pinning my hips to the table. “I decide how much you can take, and I know you can take a lot more.”