Playing with Temptation (9 page)

He shook his head slowly. “No, we’re not.” His voice was low and soft, like the finest of silk rubbing against her skin.

Anticipation simmered deep inside of her. Absently, she licked her bottom lip, and his jaw clenched as he watched the slow swipe of her tongue. Now that all aspects of business were taken care of, that professionalism and decorum he’d exuded all day long were gone, replaced by that tempting, irresistible man she’d met at the club last night, and all she could think about was his mouth on hers, his fingers stroking between her thighs to ease the building ache there….

He stepped closer, until the front of his hard body touched hers and gently pushed her backwards with nothing more than the pressure of his muscular thighs against hers. Her heart rate accelerated, and she took a step back, then tried to take another but came up against the wooden edge of her dining table. Trapped between two very unyielding objects, she felt a moment of panic. All that sheer strength overwhelmed her, and Raina’s first instinct was to push him back so every breath she inhaled didn’t make her dizzy with the scent of
him
.

Even before she could raise her free hand to his chest to keep him from crowding her further, he anticipated her move. “
Don’t
,” he said, soft yet commanding.

Her stomach flipped, and their gazes connected. Just one simple word that held a wealth of meaning, one of which she read in his dark, glittering eyes.
Trust me
, and Lord help her, she did. Probably more than was wise when she knew he was a man who liked to be in control—and that control had the ability to strip away all those protective barriers until she lay physically bare.

He took her wineglass from her fingers and set it on the table away from them, along with his bottled water. Encircling her waist with his big, strong hands, he effortlessly lifted her and scooted her bottom back so that she was sitting on the table. His palms gripped her knees and gently but firmly pushed them wide apart to make room for him to step in between her spread legs, which he did as he slowly pushed up the hem of her dress so it didn’t get caught between them.

Her thighs bracketed his hips, the scratch of denim against her tender skin so arousing she had to swallow back a moan. Only a few inches separated the crotch of her panties from the bulge she’d glimpsed beneath the zipper of his jeans. Resisting the urge to wrap her legs around his thighs to draw him closer so she could rub herself against the hard length of him took extreme effort.

He braced just the tips of his fingers on the table on each side of where she sat, making her aware of the fact that he was deliberately holding back from touching her—which only increased the desire and need building within her.

And he knew it, too.

“From the moment I saw you in the conference room this morning, there’s been one question I’ve wanted to ask you,” he said, his tone suddenly serious.

“Okay,” she whispered, both curious and a little nervous about said question.

“Why did you run out on me last night?”

There was no anger in his voice, just a quiet intensity that compelled her to be completely honest with him. “I never meant for anything that happened at the club to be more than a one-night stand with a stranger,” she replied truthfully.

Because she wasn’t prepared for him to delve deeper into her answer, which would mean explaining too much of her painful past, she turned it around on him. “Why did you come after me? Because I bruised your male ego?” It was the only explanation that made sense to her.

An amused smile touched the corners of his mouth. “Going after you had
nothing
to do with my ego, although I have to admit you are the first woman I’ve ever chased after.”

Why did that admission make her feel ridiculously pleased? “Should I be flattered?”

“Oh, yeah,” he said huskily, confidently. “
Very
flattered.”

He softly tapped his fingers against the table next to her hips, reminding Raina that he
still
wasn’t touching her. And she wanted him to. Badly. “If you don’t chase after women, then why me?”

“Because fucking you once wasn’t nearly enough, and I want a helluva lot more.”

Her breath caught at his frank, uncensored statement. The explicit words caused a rush of warmth to spiral low and moisture to dampen her panties. “Oh.”

He smirked at her startled response. “Do you remember me telling you last night that I wasn’t done with you yet?”

“Yes,” she whispered. How could she forget? That possessive, hungry vow had been one of the catalysts that had sent her running from the club, and him. Along with the way he’d instinctively known her secret desires, the ones that made her much too vulnerable to a man like him.

“I meant what I said, Raina. I’m not even close to being done with you.”

Finally, he touched her. Splaying his hands on her knees, he gradually skimmed his palms up her thighs and beneath the hem of her dress, the cotton material pooling around his wrists the higher he went. She could feel her body and her resistance to him completely melting away.

His gaze, glittering with pure sin, hypnotized her. “There are so many more ways I want you. So many more things I’m dying to do to you and with you. Things that will make you scream and beg and come harder than you ever have before.”

With any other man, she would have rolled her eyes and pushed them away, turned off by such a cocky, arrogant claim. She wasn’t a screamer, and she never begged. But it was Logan’s easy
confidence
that set him apart and made her want everything he offered and more.

“Things like what?” she asked, needing to hear all the sexy details.

“So many wicked, erotic,
filthy
things,” he promised.

Oh, yes, please.

His hands reached the apex of her thighs, just inches away from her throbbing sex. But instead of his fingers pressing against the wet silk covering her, he moved his hands higher and grasped the waistband of her underwear and tugged them down with just enough force and finesse that they slipped off her bottom and he could drag them down her thighs. She gasped in surprise and pressed her hands to his shirt-covered chest as he removed the scrap of fabric and tucked it into the front pocket of his jeans.

Curling his fingers around the backs of her knees, he pulled her all the way forward on the table, until her thighs were straddling his hips and her bare pussy was pressed against the thick erection straining against the front of his pants. He shifted, just slightly, and the friction of denim against her sensitive clit nearly unraveled her from the inside out.

A knowing smile touched his lips as he removed her hands from his chest and flattened her palms on the table behind her so she was reclined at a slight angle, making her very aware of the fact that he was back in charge. Then, with agile fingers, he began unbuttoning the top of her dress, all the way down to her stomach, until both sides fell open and she could feel the cool air from the open slider caress that newly bared skin.

“I want to see you naked.” He continued listing those
things
he desired as he traced his fingers along the strap of her bra, up to her shoulders, then dragged that strip of satin, along with both sides of her top, all the way down her arms and just past her elbows. Oh-so-slowly, he pulled down the lace cups of her bra, and she couldn’t stop the moan that escaped her when her breasts spilled free, full and tight and aching for him to caress.

Lust etched his features as he took in the sight, and she could only imagine how wanton she looked, leaning back with her breasts thrust out, her nipples rock hard, her legs spread wide, and her pussy gleaming with slick arousal.

“
Fuck me
, you’re beautiful,” he murmured appreciatively, his searing gaze making her burn hotter. He cupped her breasts, firmly kneading the soft flesh before sweeping his thumbs across both taut crests, then pinching and rolling them between his fingers.

She felt as though her nipples had just received an electric jolt, and she inhaled a sharp intake of air, unable to remember a time when she’d ever been so on edge just from her breasts being stimulated. The harder he plucked, the harder her pussy clenched. It was as if the two were connected and each tug caused her sex to pulse and swell.

“Logan…” She was close to begging and didn’t care.

He leaned more fully into her and grazed his warm, damp lips against the shell of her ear. “I’m not done telling you all the bad, depraved things I plan to do to you, unless you want me to stop?”

He was deliberately toying with her. But she also recognized that he was giving her a choice…to either admit how much she wanted to hear all those juicy details and experience them, too, or put an end to all this insanity right then and there.

The latter wasn’t an option. Not with Logan…and she wasn’t about to analyze why she was so willing when it came to him. “Don’t stop,” she said before she came to her senses and changed her mind.

She felt him smile triumphantly against the side of her throat and couldn’t help but feel like she’d just given him way too much power over her mind and body. “I want to tie you up, hold you down, and taste you
everywhere
,” he breathed into her ear, as if he were sharing his deepest, most illicit fantasies of her. “I want to lick your neck and run my tongue along the gorgeous curves of your tits.”

His skillful fingers gave life to his narrative, brushing along her collarbone as soft as the lick he described, then gliding down to her breasts and swirling along those mounds like a velvet stroke of his tongue.

Raina shivered and closed her eyes, completely seduced by his brazen words and his clever touch and so very anxious to hear and feel what came next…especially when his hands came to rest on her splayed thighs, then started inching upward.

He gently bit the lobe of her ear as he dragged his thumbs along the slick folds of her sex, gradually delving deeper, his own breathing harsh. “When I’m done sucking on your tight nipples, I want to kneel between your legs and French kiss your cunt,
right here
, until you come hard against my mouth.” Those wicked thumbs pushed into her channel, just far enough to tease and make her wild.

She was vaguely aware of one of his hands pulling away from her thighs, his arm reaching up and behind her. She felt a tug on her ponytail, and it took her a moment to realize he’d wrapped that rope of hair tight around his fist and she couldn’t move.

Her lashes fluttered open just in time to see the carnal heat blazing in his eyes now that she was under his command. Her heart pumped hard in her chest. Raina had already witnessed this dominant side to Logan at the club, but she had a feeling she was going to experience it on a whole new level now that they were alone.

With an unrelenting tug on her ponytail, he pulled her head back farther, exposing the length of her neck. He licked across the rapid pulse at the base, then gently sucked a patch of skin the same time he pushed two long, thick fingers deep inside of her. The dual sensation was so primal, so animalistic, she could no longer think, just
feel
.

But Logan wasn’t done tormenting her, and he continued filling her imagination with more of his own dark, forbidden desires. “I want to fuck your soft, wet mouth and come against the back of your throat while you suck me off.” His lips slid back up to her ear while his fingers pumped slowly in and out of her. “I want to slide my cock into your tight body and ride you until you’re raw and you can’t walk the next day without thinking about me being inside of you.”

She whimpered, the arms bracing her now shaking with the effort to hold her up. If she dared to move, she’d collapse backward, and she wasn’t about to lose this battle of wills between them. The ache between her legs was now a needy, demanding pang, and her hips began to push against his hand and penetrating fingers, seeking a desperate relief. “Logan…”

Ignoring her plea, he brushed his thumb over her clit in a slow, rhythmic circle, keeping her orgasm just out of her reach. He loosened his grip on her ponytail, and she lowered her chin and met his hot, unrelenting stare. “I want you, Raina, in every conceivable way I can have you,” he said, his voice sandpaper rough. “But I need you to know right up front that I like to fuck hard. I like it aggressive and rough with a bit of kink and nothing held back. I think, deep down inside, you like it the same way, don’t you?”

How did he manage to make her feel as though he could see straight into her soul? Yes, she liked it the same way, but she’d always harbored a deep fear about revealing those darker cravings to any man. The stigma of owning a sex toy shop was hard enough to deal with emotionally, with the words
slut
and
whore
being bandied about by the one man she’d allowed herself to fall for, that she’d been extremely cautious about allowing those more forbidden thoughts and needs to become a reality.

But there was no judgment in Logan’s eyes, just an undeniable hunger for her as well as a perceptiveness that chipped away at her reserve, leaving her at a fork in the road that would either end with a reply of
no
or give him the permission he was waiting for to continue by answering
yes
, she did like sex with a bit of an edge.

And she wanted it with him. “Yes,” she whispered, and the one word seemed to set something free inside of her.

His masculine features softened, as if he knew how hard that was for her to admit. But he also looked immensely satisfied with her honest response, too. He curled the fingers still filling her and rubbed the tips against a sensitive spot inside of her that made her gasp and squirm—her G-spot—which she’d only been able to find with a curved vibrator. No man had ever touched that patch of nerve-laden tissue, and Logan was using the knowledge to his advantage, relentless in his pursuit to make her beg and scream.

And oh, God, she was so damn close to doing both.

“You also like to be in control,” he said, talking to her as though he weren’t slowly driving her mad with the need to climax, as if he weren’t building this huge tsunami of sensation with his stroking fingers and the skillful drag of his thumb across her pulsing clit. “And that’s where the challenge comes in because I have this need to dominate, to be the
top
, to make you open up to me and submit and
feel
.”