Play Me (8 page)

I freeze at Sebastian's words.

At his tone.

At the look in his eyes.

His
eyes
.

When I was fifteen, I bought a malachite rock for luck at a new age store and have kept it in my nightstand ever since. I've held that stone in my hand a million times, have worried it between my thumb and fingers so much that I've actually worn it smooth on one side. And yet never—in all those years, in all the times I held it and studied it and wished over it—have I seen eyes the same deep, mysterious color.

Until now. Sebastian's eyes are exactly the same shade as that stone—an odd, grayish green with rings of dark forest around the pupil and the outside rim of the iris. They're breathtaking, spellbinding. Exciting as all hell. And the look in them, right now, is twice as hard as any malachite ever could be.

It's a startling revelation, one that yanks me abruptly out of the strange fuzziness I'm feeling. My body shudders at the abrupt wrenching and it takes every ounce of strength I have not to reach for him. Not to give in to the craving building inside of me, a craving that's for something I can't quite name but that I know is about more than sex. More than getting off.

I don't know how I feel about that and the knowledge brings me all the way back from whatever the hell head trip I was starting to take. Because, honestly, I'm not sure how I feel about any of this.

I mean, after living pretty much my entire life in Vegas, I'm no stranger to kink. BDSM, breathplay, voyeurism, pay-to-play. I've heard of them all. But knowing what they are is a far cry from experiencing one of them for myself. And while I just enjoyed the hell out of what Sebastian did to me—I don't think I've ever come that fast in my life—that doesn't mean I'm ready to take this any further.

Except the way he's looking at me is turning me on. Making me wet all over again, even as my knees continue to tremble from the orgasm he just gave me.

I'm not sure how I feel about that, either. I'm not usually so easy—to get in bed, to fuck senseless or to make soft and trembly afterward.

Even worse, Sebastian knows exactly how shaky I still am. I can tell by the way he's holding himself, body taut, jaw clenched, hands curled into loose fists by his sides. And by the way he's still halfway across the room, watching me, instead of coming back over here and fucking me. Or whatever it is he plans on doing to me.

It's not that he doesn't want me. I'm not vain, but I'm not naïve, either, and I know when a guy wants to do a whole range of unmentionable things to me. No, Sebastian Caine definitely wants me. But he also thinks I'm weak. Fragile. The knowledge grates, has my knees locking and my spine stiffening when two minutes ago I would have sworn I'd never be tense again. But there's something about being pitied that sets me off like nothing else can.

Turning around and facing the window might be the smart thing to do, but it's also the cowardly thing. And I'm nobody's coward. Nobody's yes-girl. Not anymore.

Which is why I very deliberately tilt my chin up, narrow my eyes at him. And very,
very
deliberately turn around so that my back is now pressed to the window and I'm facing him head-on.

I'm not sure what I expect from him, how I think he's going to react to my blatant bit of defiance. I do know, though, that I'm not expecting the raised brow. The darkly wicked grin. The sensual tension that somehow becomes even more dense between us, until the very air I breathe is laden with it.

And then he's prowling toward me. I feel ridiculous even thinking the word—he's a man, not a jaguar—and yet there's no other descriptor I can use to explain what he looks like as he crosses the room. Sleek, powerful, his muscles moving with a stealthy coordination that manages somehow to be both beautiful and predatory.

I can feel my heart rate picking up again, my breathing becoming even more disjointed, and for a second—just a second—I want to say to hell with it and flee. To say to hell with being brave, to hell with my underwear which is even now crumpled into a ball on the floor, to hell with making a point to him and myself and instead just make a run for the office door.

I don't do it, though. I can't.

Because the truth is, it's too late. Too late for me to run, too late for me to hide. I may not know much about this lifestyle, about this kink, but I do know that. My whole body is already attuned to his—my blood pounds with my need for him. My skin burns for his touch. And my sex, my sex aches with emptiness, with the need to feel him inside of me.

No, running away isn't an option, for so many, many reasons.

And then even the idea of freedom is gone, because he's right here in front of me, his big body practically vibrating with anger. Or need. I don't know him well enough yet to tell the difference.

“So, that's how it's going to be, is it?” he asks softly.

“I'm not very good at taking orders,” I tell him, trying my best to ignore the fact that my mouth has suddenly gone desert dry.

“I don't remember issuing any orders.” He lifts a hand toward my face and instinctively I flinch away. He freezes mid-reach, his eyes going wary, watchful.

Damn it. Just that easily, I'm furious with myself. I left that all behind a long time ago and I won't go back there. Not now, not ever. No matter how much pleasure Sebastian can bring me. For the first time since this began I think seriously of walking out and never looking back.

“I don't respond well to punishment, either,” I tell him, forcing myself to sound cocky and unconcerned when all I really want to do is curl myself into a ball and lick wounds I didn't even know I still had.

Sebastian watches me for long seconds, his eyes practically hypnotic as they roam my face, my body. Looking for clues, I figure, to my odd behavior. But there are none on my body—I don't wear the marks of a man anymore, and I never will again. No, the clues he's looking for are buried so deep inside of me that no one will ever get the chance to see them again.

Still, I'm embarrassed at my loss of control, at the tell I just couldn't hide. I wait for the sympathy, or worse—so much worse—the excitement, but Sebastian gives me neither. Instead, all he does is watch me with a steadiness that belies my own abrupt shakiness.

“Then it's a good thing that I don't punish, isn't it?”

He reaches his hand out again, slower now, and this time I don't flinch away. Partly because I know now that he isn't going to hit me. And partly because I want to see what he
is
going to do.

He cups my cheek in his large, calloused hand, strokes his thumb along my jaw. Over my lips. For a second, just a second, I wonder how and why a high-powered businessman has hands like a blue collar workman, but then even that thought vanishes in the strange lassitude that starts creeping through me again.

I don't know what it is, don't understand why everything is going a little blurry at the edges, a little out of focus. Don't understand why, even as it is, I crave nothing so much as Sebastian's touch. His mouth. The feel of his body against my own.

And then he's pressing his thumb against my chin, pushing down until my lips part and my mouth opens for him. Only for him.

“Control isn't about punishment, Aria,” he tells me so softly that I'm not sure I'm not imagining the whole thing. “It's not about proving who has the bigger dick.”

His thumb presses into my mouth before I can answer, strokes gently against the tip of my tongue. I think about biting him, or at least yanking my head away.

I do neither.

“Especially in this case,” he continues. “Since I think it's fairly obvious that only one of us can enter that competition.”

He pushes deeper into my mouth, twists his hand around so that now he's stroking the roof of my mouth with the pad of his thumb. Slowly, gently, carefully.

It feels good, strangely, shockingly good, and I can't stop myself from responding. My eyes close, my head falls back against the window and then I'm sucking him deeper, pulling him all the way in even as my tongue circles his thumb, stroking along the top and bottom and sides of it in the same manner I would treat his cock if it was in my mouth.

He pulls out then, his thumb wet and hot as it rubs across my lips, smearing my lipstick to hell and back. Normally I'd freak out—red lipstick is a real bitch to get out of skin like mine and I do have to go back to work when this interlude is over—but right now I can't bring myself to care. Not when his thumb—his wet, lipstick-stained thumb, is trailing over my chin and down my neck to the hollow of my throat.

He keeps it there for a minute, fingers curled into a fist, thumb rubbing against my collarbone. And then he opens his hand, spreads it wide, until he's actually collaring my throat with it.

My eyes fly open then, a high, distressed sound escapes from my captured throat. Sebastian doesn't stop, doesn't pull back, doesn't so much as hesitate. Instead, he starts to stroke, to press, to massage my throat and nothing in my life has ever felt this good and this frightening all at the same time.

The fuzziness gets worse, the languor setting in completely so that I feel weak, disembodied. Like a rag doll just waiting to see what Sebastian is going to do next.

There's a part of my brain—a tiny part at this point, but still—that continues to warn me that this is a bad idea. That I should get the hell out of Dodge as fast as humanly possible. But it's buried beneath the pleasure, beneath the need he evokes in me with just a look, just a touch. Buried beneath the curiosity and this strange, sweet lassitude that I don't have a clue how to fight.

I'm not sure what I expect to happen next. Maybe for Sebastian to unbutton my blouse. Maybe for him to demand that
I
drop to my knees in front of
him
this time—the chance I've been waiting for. Or maybe I expect him to shove down his zipper, shove up my skirt and shove into me as I've been wanting him to since he first told me to put my hands on the window.

He does none of those things, though. Instead, he brings his other hand to my cheek and just stands there for long seconds, cupping my face, holding my throat, watching me.

Watching and waiting, waiting and watching.

I don't understand why he's postponing what I'm pretty sure is the inevitable, but I have enough self-control left not to ask. Still, every second I stand there, wondering, anticipating, I sink further and further into the lassitude. It's warm and sweet, like honey, and I love the way it runs through my veins. Slowing me down. Taking me over.

My limbs are heavy, my heartbeat slow and rhythmic now instead of fast and thready. And my eyes—it's so hard to keep them open. So hard to stay alert when all I want to do is sink into Sebastian and let him do whatever he wants to me.

I struggle against the sweetness of it for a few moments longer, but eventually I lose the fight. My eyes flutter closed again, and as they do, my knees go weak. Suddenly, the only thing keeping me upright is Sebastian's touch. His palm against my face, his hand on my neck, his hips jerking forward to pin mine against the window and keep me from falling—or choking from the pressure of his hold on my throat.

Though his hips are doing most of the work of holding me in place, his hand is tight enough now to cause me pain. Not a lot, not even a significant amount, really. But enough—a pinch here, a tug there—to make me aware of just how much control he has over my body at this moment.

Instead of freaking me out, the knowledge only makes me wetter.

“Sebastian.” I whisper his name for what feels like the hundredth time.

“Yes, Aria?”

I can feel his warm breath against my cheek and though my eyes are closed, I know that he is close. So close. I turn my head, try to press my lips to where I know his are, but all I find is air. He's gone as quickly as he was there.

“I need—” My voice breaks.

“What do you need, love?” His voice is lower now, deeper even than it usually is. His breath is against my other cheek, the edge of my jaw.

I turn my head again, more quickly this time, and once again try to capture his lips with my own. But he's gone again, and this time he moves back so that his pelvis is no longer pressed to mine. So that the only point of contact for our bodies is his hand at my throat.

He tightens it a little bit and as I move my head back so that I'm facing directly forward again, I feel a little more pressure there than I did before. Not enough to come close to cutting off my air, but definitely enough to let me know he's not playing around. At least, not like I first thought he was.

It occurs to me suddenly that if someone walked in right now, they wouldn't know if he was trying to kill me or fuck me.

Considering my background​—where I came from and what I've done to survive—the thought shouldn't be as arousing as it is. Maybe it's because I know the difference. I know just how careful Sebastian really is being with me.

“What do you need, Aria?” Sebastian repeats, his finger stroking the sensitive skin right beneath my ear. “I won't ask again.”

“I need—” Again my nerve fails me. Again my voice breaks.

“There's no shame in asking for what you need,” he tells me, and this time I can feel his breath on my lips. His mouth is right there, mere centimeters from my own. If I lean forward just a moment, just a breath, we'll be kissing. I want that desperately, want to feel his lips and tongue and teeth against my own so badly that it's all I can think about. But if I go for it, if I try a third time to kiss him…

Three strikes and you're out.

The old baseball adage springs to mind and suddenly I know what Sebastian meant when he said he wouldn't ask again.

It's a terrifying thought.

Any other time I'd feel ridiculous and melodramatic for thinking that even for a second, but right here, right now, the idea of Sebastian walking away and leaving me like this—wet and drowning and desperate for whatever he's willing to give me—is anything but humorous.