Wicked Lovers 01 Wicked Ties (17 page)

A mischievous smile lifted his lips as an idea occurred to him. Simple, direct, effective. Eager to put it in motion, he jogged back to his locked enclave and retrieved two pairs of heavy velvet ropes.

Let the games begin…

Morgan woke slowly, drifting on the haze of an erotic dream where she lay on the grass naked to the moonlight, arms tossed above her head in abandon as tender pulls at her nipples created a pool of sweet pleasure between her legs. She writhed. Silvery moonbeams worshipped her, caressing the underside of her arms, her belly, the tops of her thighs with a feathery touch. She moaned.

Leaves fell from the trees above in a light summery breeze, drifting down to glide over bare breasts, sensitive nipples. Again and again the leaves dropped from their trees and found their way to her body, the gentle abrasion of their texture on her skin slowly awakening her sensual need.

One leaf had a sharp edge as it drifted across her body. A slight sting in the hard peak of her breast surprised her. She tried to dodge the leaf, but it was gone, replaced by a glide of heat, then a sudden well of desire between her legs. Another sharp leaf pinched at the other nipple. Another swelling of desire bloomed inside her. She arched to the gentle pain and was again rewarded with a fresh flood of heat and moisture.

The ache between her thighs became a throb, a drumbeat inside her body calling for release. Morgan moaned, shifted.

Beneath her, the grass seemed oddly smooth. She tried to sit up but was unable to move. Another leaf drifted over her left breast, smooth, silky, gently rousing. It was quickly followed by a sharp leaf that curled around her nipple and bit.

Pain faded an instant later, replaced by a merciless need in the tight tips of her breasts. She arched, seeking more, as another leaf drifted down her abdomen and brushed over the top of her mound.

Sensations mounted, one on top of the other, until her body demanded more. She struggled to move, to touch herself—only to find she couldn’t. Another leaf clamped down on one nipple, this time harder than before. She cried out. Perspiration dampened the skin between her breasts and thick, liquid want converged into a unending ache between her legs.

Morgan opened her eyes and threw off the last vestiges of sleep.

And quickly discovered that her breasts weren’t being tormented by leaves, but by the smooth slide of Jack’s tongue, followed by the erotic nibble of his teeth.

Before she even knew what she was doing, Morgan arched up, her body silently offering her sensitive nipples to a hot-eyed Jack, overruling anything her mind might have said.

“That’s it. Good girl,” he murmured hotly across her breasts.

Candlelight glowed softly as she looked down her body and realized that he’d unlaced the camisole and pulled it wide, completely exposing her twin mounds and their hard peaks.

As if in slow motion, Morgan watched him lower his mouth to her again, his wide, bare shoulders bulged, a pulseraising shadow in the moonlit room, as he eclipsed everything in the room but him. She pulled at her arms and legs, desperate to embrace him. Instead, she found them bound firmly to the four posters of Jack’s bed.

God, she was totally at his mercy. That realization jolted her with a rush of dark pleasure—and that scared the hell out of her.

A warning boomed in her belly like thunder. The hard clamp of desire plaguing her drowned it. The man made her want, so badly that dragging in a steady breath was difficult, so much that finishing a coherent thought was impossible.

What was it about Jack Cole and the way he touched her?

He ignored her writhing and peppered the full sides of her breast with soft kisses, laved the nerve-heavy tips with a bold swipe of his tongue. The hard heat of his chest brushed over her belly, and her body fevered for more of the silky burn of his skin, his mouth. Her nipples tightened more, until they became pointed red nubs that begged him to continue with anything, everything, he wanted.

In response, Jack pinched her nipples, twisting slightly. A sharp mix of pain and pleasure had her crying out his name.

“I’m here, cher, to fulfill every forbidden fantasy swimming in your mind.”

Desire jolted her body, making her buck under his tongue as he resumed the sensual torture on her nipples. She drew in another shuddering breath as his tongue curled around the throbbing tip. She whimpered. The man was twisting her inside out, turning her into a wanton stranger. Into a woman nearly willing to say yes to anything.

Jack didn’t simply want to give her pleasure; he wanted to control her, addict her, turn her into the depraved wanton Andrew had been so contemptuous of. She’d never been any man’s doormat. She wasn’t starting now.

“No,” she panted. “Stop. I didn’t agree to this. I don’t want this.”

He raked a pair of fingers through the exposed slit of her sex. Morgan knew she was more than damp. She was embarrassingly wet, swollen. Aching. His touch only ramped up the pleasure, made thick moisture gush from her weeping opening again.

He sent her a low, sexy chuckle. His well-muscled torso rippled with every move and made the wicked part of her ache to put her hands all over his body and feel his vitality.

“Your mouth is saying the words, but your body is making a liar out of you.” His whisper taunted, challenged. “Are you sure you don’t want this?”

“Are you deaf? I said I didn’t agree to this.” She accused, “You still think I’m submissive.”

“No, I don’t.”

Morgan arched a fiery brow, fighting all the sparks of pleasure leaping through her body, burning away her common sense. “Good. Finally getting smart?”

“Cher, I don’t think you’re submissive; I know it.”

She gaped at him, then shut her mouth. Bastard! Fine. He was entitled to his opinion. She had her own, thank you very much.

He clamped his fingers around her nipples again and squeezed.

“Stop it. I didn’t give you permission to touch me.”

In an instant, his smile disappeared.

“I won’t ask for permission, so stop playing this game. The brave woman who took a chance with me after being shot at, the woman gutsy enough to alter her appearance to disappear in a strange town with the help of a man she’d known for all of a few minutes—hell, the woman who talks about sex on TV… you are that woman, not the one who keeps running from herself.”

His words smacked her between the eyes. She bucked again, struggling to break free. He’d called her a coward for trying to be sane! Unreal. “I’m not running from myself. I’m getting away from you! I wanted protection, not a mauling.”

Sending her a sharp smile, Jack eased a hand down her rib cage, over her hip, a soft contrast to the unyielding bindings at her wrists and ankles. Damn him for being so warm and looking so scrumptious shirtless, so totally male and confusing the hell out of her. He could make her needy and angry at once. And angry because she felt needy. Damn! He was using his experience to crowd her, cloud her judgment, overpower her good sense.

And she had to stop her body from falling for it…

“That was me against the door this morning,” she ground out. “I’m not running and I’m not playing a game. You’re just expecting something that’s not me.”

“Yeah, that was you this morning, but it wasn’t all of you. You’re capable of deeper submission. You let me touch a part of what’s inside you. But you held back. Yeah, I saw that; don’t look surprised. The deep part, the dark one that wants to be dominated and fucked, that’s the part you hid from me. That you deny exists. You have the guts to defy this sick asshole trying to stalk you, but not enough to take the pleasure I’m offering.”

Morgan ignored the heat wave that flowed in with his words—and the sight of his thick erection pushing insistently at his jeans. She focused on her anger instead. “Maybe being around too many female doormats had made you assume all of us live to roll over and spread our legs for you on command.”

“You want to submit because you’re strong, because when you’re fucking, you don’t want responsibility. You want a man who can understand you and give you what you need—all without a word.”

“Is that the kinky version of Dr. Phil?”

“Watch that mouth, cher. I own a ball gag. I know how to use it,” he growled.

At his gravelly threat, Morgan’s mouth snapped shut. Fury and desire both spiked inside her, threatening to boil up and up until it all exploded.

“I listened to you. I know you’ve been looking for a man strong enough to force your surrender in the bedroom. You’ve never explored your dark side, cher. I know you’ll respond perfectly to what I want. I sense it in you, see it in you.”

Male confidence and the physical power to back it up—all with that smooth control that wreaked havoc on her senses. Heaven help her. Jack looked so convinced of every word he said. Morgan trembled. For most of her life, she’d had…urges, curiosities. Fantasies. Didn’t everyone? That didn’t mean she wanted those fantasies to become reality.

She shook her head. “If you’d stop pushing your twisted needs on me, you’d figure out I’m just a normal girl.”

His shoulders tensed, arms bunched. He looked ready to grind his teeth.

Then his expression smoothed, until no trace of anger, or any emotion, remained. He merely leaned over and worked at the knots at her left wrist, then her right. He repeated the process with her ankles, careful not to touch her anywhere. That quickly, she was unbound and free, no longer at his mercy.

An odd emotion slammed her, like she was…empty. Bereft. Morgan curled her knees up to her chest and watched Jack yank on his shirt. He didn’t look at her—or avoid her, either. It was as if she was irrelevant. She felt suddenly alone, even though he was in the room, gathering up the velvet ropes.

“Jack…” she blurted, without having any idea what she was going to say. Morgan only knew his indifference hurt.

“Yes?”

That expression. He could have been talking to anyone—a complete stranger, about nothing more vital than the weather.

The irony of his accusation fired her temper. “Talk about playing games! You don’t get your way, so I get the cold shoulder?”

He ambled back to the bed and eased down on it, a good two feet away. No part of him touched her, and she ached for his hands on her.

What the hell was the matter with her?

“If you’re not willing to be who and what I know you are, I can only give you what you asked for: platonic and professional.”

Morgan knew she ought to be rejoicing. She’s wasn’t submissive at heart. A few scattered fantasies didn’t make her any dom’s dreamboat. She wasn’t really wired like that.

So why did part of her yearn to call her words back, return to the moment she’d awakened and discovered his beautifully bare chest crowding her as he bent over to lap at her nipple with his blazing tongue?

Yeah, and what would you do if you could, just spread your legs like a mindless twit? Morgan honestly didn’t know the answer. She just knew she couldn’t let the conversation end with this chill between them.

“You’re angry.”

“Resigned,” he corrected. “You’re going to hide from yourself, and that’s that. I’ll leave you to go back to sleep.”

Standing, he sent her a regretful glance, then turned his wide back on her.

Morgan stared at the solid breadth of his shoulders stretching his sleek golden skin. Power, control, intelligence, patience. Everything she’d ever wanted in a man. And she was letting him walk away.

Did that make her a coward? Or had she just let Jack crawl into her head and confuse the hell out of her?

She bit her lip to keep her response inside, but the words scorched through her mind and were quickly out of her mouth. “Fine. I’ve had…thoughts about submitting. Nothing serious.”

Jack paused and turned to look at her again, expression carefully blank.

“Go on.”

Conscious of her near nudity, Morgan kept her arms tightly curled around her knees, covering her bare breasts. “I’d be lying if I said it had never crossed my mind. I just know me. And that’s not me.”

“Why do you think that?”

She frowned. “Why shouldn’t I?”

“You’ve never been submissive to any of your previous lovers. How could you know something is not for you without trying it at least once? If you’re having fantasies, the reality may be even more appealing.”

Thoughts chased one another in Morgan’s head. He couldn’t be right. She only had to smell cooked cabbage to know she didn’t like it, right?

Weak analogy. The fact was, she avoided submitting in part because of the shame Andrew had forced on her, because of the horror she knew her mother would express if Morgan gave in to such wicked urges.

The other reason…the idea tempted her more than anything had in her life. She feared addiction.

Jack leaned closer, making it hard for her to process her thoughts logically. He smelled amazing. Man and spice, cypress and leather and warm skin all rolled into one incredibly attractive package with abs so tight she could probably bounce a quarter off them. The man was temptation on two legs.

What if she tried submitting? To him. Just once.

If she liked it, Andrew would be right. She

wasn’t…abnormal, was she?

“I can almost hear the thoughts spinning in that pretty head of yours, cher. You’re thinking too hard. It’s simple.”

“No, it’s not! It’s my body, my…” Morgan shook her head, trying to put it into words.

“Your life? The way you see yourself? I know. But would you rather tell yourself you were adventurous enough to try something once or have to admit that you were so scared you ran away before even dipping your toe in the water?”

Why the hell was he pushing so hard?

“Stop! This is about you. You just want to get laid.”

He slanted her a self-deprecating smile—one that made her toes curl. “I want you, mais yeah. I’ve made no secret about that. But I also don’t want to see you miserable when the truth could free you.”

“I’m not miserable. I love my life!”

“I’m sure you love every part of your life…except sex. If you have the courage to find the truth, spend one night with me,” he challenged. “Just one, but my way. Tomorrow if you didn’t like it, no harm done. I’ll never touch you again.”