Hardpressed (17 page)

“Another nightmare?” he whispered.

I shook my head.
No. My life is the nightmare now.
I held my lip between my teeth to keep it from quivering. He didn’t know. He couldn’t know.

He released it with his thumb and lowered his mouth to mine again. He was flush against my side, still fully dressed from his travels. Thoughts raced through my mind as I tried to separate dreams from reality. The relief that he was with me again was quickly overwhelmed by what that meant. I clung to him, gripping his shoulders as if he might leave again. I had to keep him close.

“Missed you, so much.” He kissed my neck, my jaw, then my lips again, as if he couldn’t get enough of me but couldn’t decide where to start. “Can’t stay away from you like that anymore.”

The love in his voice, cracked with emotion, shredded me. If only he didn’t love me, everything would be easier. I could mend my own heart and put myself back together the way I always had before. But the thought of leaving, that he might feel a fraction of what I would at the separation, was unbearable.

He slid a hand under my tank top, palming my breast, plumping it in his hand and thumbing my nipple. He pinched my nipple and I gasped, arching off the bed.

“Make love to me, Blake. Please, I can’t wait anymore.”

I let my hands roam, remembering every plane of his body, the hard batch of muscles leading below the band of his jeans. I crashed my lips into his and wrapped my body around him in every way possible. The intensity of what I felt for him shot through every limb as I scrambled to remove the layers of clothing that separated us. Nothing would make sense now. I just had to love him tonight, to give us that much.

He stripped down, and seconds later he lowered onto me, covering my body with the heat of his own. The sensation of his skin on mine overpowered me. I’d never wanted him more, loved him more. I slid my hands over his chest and down his body until I reached his erection, the satin skin burning in my grasp. I couldn’t wait a minute longer to have him. I guided him into me and he pushed deep with one thrust.

A hoarse cry left my lips with the rush of him filling me. Nothing had ever felt so right. We stayed that way for a long time, holding each other tight, as if one of us might disappear at any moment.

“Now I’m home. Right here.”

He rocked into me, impossibly deep, and I arched into the movement, loving every slow thrust of our bodies connecting. I wrapped my arms and legs around him until we were touching everywhere, fully entangled.

He held my cheek in his palm, trapping me in his gaze. I couldn’t. I closed my eyes and turned away. I was afraid of what he’d see if he looked too hard. He forced me back to him and kissed me, thrusting deeper as he did. I gasped and shuddered, reveling in the familiar waves of heat saturating every cell of my being. Every limb hummed.

I tried not to think about the other side, the long fall from the earth-shattering bliss he gave me to the darkness of a life without Blake. I tried not to think about it, but the cold, hard reality of it crept in. Time ticked by, my body refusing the climb, evading its addictive pull. If only I could suspend this moment—our bodies impossibly close, slick with the heat of our passion, a never-ending state of being. I could live with that, never reaching the top, if it meant we never had to come down.

I turned away, staring into the near blackness of the room, my thoughts too far from us. He turned my face back to him, his own expression strained, his skin tight and flushed.

“Goddamnit, what’s going on?”

I stumbled, trying to find the words. “I’m sorry. Don’t stop, please.”

“What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing. I don’t want to think about anything but you.”

He stilled. Then without warning, he pulled out of me and left the bed. He rustled through his travel bag by the door. How he could see anything in the darkness of the room, I wasn’t sure.

“What are you doing?”

“Putting you in a better frame of mind.”

The bed dipped under his weight again.

“I did some thinking while I was away, baby, and I think you need this as much as I do. We’ll start slow though.”

My breath caught as he stretched my arms above me, encasing my wrists with two soft leather cuffs, looping the connecting strap around a rail on the headboard.

“There. That’s better. You okay?”

“What are you going to do?” It was a quiet plea. A part of me was afraid of what he might do, but I needed something and soon.

He grabbed my hips and tugged me lower until my arms were fully extended above me. My breath hitched, my muscles tensing with the position. He planted a wet kiss between my breasts, and I sighed. Moving to one and then the other, he teased the tips with warm strokes of his tongue. My nipples were hypersensitive, almost painfully hard, jutting out shamelessly for his slow torture. He bit down gently and my body jerked from the pleasure that shot through me.

He continued to roam with one hand while the other slipped between my thighs to the apex of my desire. He teased my clit, tracing my opening, and then back again, my core quickening with the motion.

When I thought I couldn’t take much more, he withdrew and flipped me to my belly, my arms tautly outstretched. The cord of the cuffs twisted around the rail, increasing their tension on my wrists.

He licked up my spine, causing me to quiver. His thighs straddled mine as his hands glided smoothly over my skin, down my back, squeezing my hips and the top of my ass.

“Mmm, I missed this. Thought about making your ass pink every night I was gone.”

I bit my lip. I knew what was coming and went wet with anticipation, the ache between my legs throbbing now.

“You weren’t too well behaved while I was gone, were you?”

I shook my head as much as I could.

His palm made hard contact with my ass. I jolted at the shock of pain. Then an unexpected wave of pleasure warmed me.

“Someone else had his hands on you. We’re not going to let that happen again, are we?”

I winced at the memory of James.

“Erica, answer me.” His voice was hard and clipped, his hand falling hard on the same spot.

“No, I promise,” I moaned, acutely aware of the wetness pooling between my thighs.

He continued to punish the same spot until my head buzzed with a heady mix of adrenaline and inexplicable desire. These weren’t gentle playful slaps. They were hard and loud, echoing through the room, each one landing with a sting that had me tensing anxiously in anticipation of the next. They fell so solidly across my skin that I swore I was being punished.

I wanted to be, so I let myself believe it. I convinced myself that Blake was punishing me and I was letting him. For making him so jealous, for letting James get too close. And for what I was about to do to him, to us, I deserved it.

“I want to hear you.” His hand made contact once more, smarting the skin that was nearly numb from the endorphins now. “I want to hear those helpless little moans you give me. To know what I’m doing to you is making you crazy inside that tight little body of yours.”

I didn’t make a sound, my cries burning in my throat.

“Erica,” he snapped. The edge in his voice sobered me. “More,” I cried. “I want more. Harder.” Inexplicably, I did.

He exhaled harshly. “Are you sure?”

I lifted my hips into his grasp and gripped the rail tightly. “Blake, please,” I moaned, overcome with a craving for the pain that I so deserved.

He left the bed, and I heard movement next to me before the sound of clothing dropping back down to the floor. He was over me again, straddling me.

The broad curve of a leather belt followed his touch, cool against my burning skin. My palms went damp with fear and lust, slipping on the rail. A slow tremble worked its way through my body. My chest heaved, and I fought for breath as I waited.

“Tell me if it’s too much,” he murmured. “Use your—just tell me to stop, okay?”

I arched off the bed, my body asking for more before my mind could make sense of it. Whatever pain came at the other end of this I’d earned or was about to.

“Just do it.”

I heard the sharp crack of the leather on my skin before the pain caught up to my mind. My jaw dropped in a breathless cry when the pain pulsed through me.
Fucking fuck, that hurts.

He paused, waiting for me to speak. When I didn’t, he released another lash. I bit the pillow beneath me and suppressed a scream. Undeniably, it hurt. My entire body tensed against each blow.
Why are you doing this?
Tears stung my eyes, my throat thick with pent up emotion.
You deserve it. You did this. Take it. Take it all.

“You okay, baby?”

“Do it, just fucking do it,” I croaked, my voice jagged with the need to cry.

He hesitated a moment, then slapped the belt with measured precision. Again and again, he spread the sharp licks over my ass and my thighs. Somehow, the pain cut right through the shadow of misery that had fallen over me. I sobbed into the pillow. The tears spilled over, saturating the fabric, cleansing me, breaking me down.

I relished the punishment, welcomed the physical manifestation of everything brewing inside me. Everything was releasing. My body went lax, even as he continued, as if I’d been broken down completely, stripped down to the most bare, raw state I could imagine. I couldn’t possibly understand why, but something felt terribly right about all of it.

When my sobs slowed, he stopped and tossed the belt off the bed. He kissed my back gently, his fingers feather-light against my skin, soothing the pain. The warmth of his body covered the back of mine. His erection lay heavily on my bottom, the weight of it almost too much on the pained flesh there. The pleasure and the pain. He was a master at delivering so well on both. Now I needed pleasure. I was ready for it.

“You took that really well. I know it wasn’t easy. I’m proud of you.”

My heart ached at the comfort that washed over me at the sound of his voice. Soft with affection, his tone was a welcome shift from the commanding character who’d just thoroughly punished me. “I’m going to fuck you now, and you’re going to come when I tell you. If you don’t, I’m going to punish you again. Do you understand?”

I whimpered an affirmative. Though softly rendered, his threat was heard.

He kissed between my shoulder blades, his teeth grazing my skin. I shivered, my nipples tightening at the sensation. He turned me back over again and nudged my legs apart so he could nestle between them.

Lowering down over me, his hand went to my hip, the other brushing the tear-soaked hair from my eyes. He wiped away the tears, and the lust that hooded his eyes changed. The corners of his eyes wrinkled with concern.

“I’m so sorry,” I choked, so overwrought with emotion I thought my chest might burst from it all. He’d never know how sorry I was.

The tight lines around his eyes released and he caught my mouth in a slow, deep kiss. He pressed the flared crown of his erection into me, barely penetrating.

“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want you to be sorry, Erica. I can’t tell you what it does to me to see you like this, giving yourself over to me.”

“Please,” I moaned, arching into the contact, desperate for him.

My breath caught as he rooted himself fully and abruptly. The sensation was searing and overpowering, a potent rush of pleasure over my pain.

“Oh, fuck,” I cried.

“Erica,” he murmured. “I need this. I need you.”

Something snapped, between his words, the restraint, and his thick penetration. A consuming hunger overwhelmed me, and I clenched around him helplessly. He withdrew to the tip and shafted me fully again. I wrapped my fingers around the rail he’d tethered me to and a hoarse cry escaped my lips.

“That’s it, baby. Let it all go.”

The low rasp of his voice coaxed me to the edge. Except the cliff had turned into an avalanche and I couldn’t escape now. A few more thrusts and I was gone, helpless to fight the feeling. The orgasm was coming for me, like it or not. I was lost in the world he’d created for me, as drunk on the pleasure as I was starving for more.

He buried himself deeper, his hips slamming into mine with forceful drives. He pumped into me, his cock growing impossibly larger as he did. He nipped at my earlobe, sucking it, then grazing it again with this teeth.

“
Mine. You’re mine. Just like this. Your body, your heart. Every part of you.”
Whispering in my ear, he never let me forget it, not for a second.

“I’m yours.” The tears came again as my body gave up the last of its resistance.

“Come now, baby. Give me everything.”

The leather of the cuffs bit into the skin at my wrists as I struggled against them. Stretched tight and spread wide, I was completely at his mercy. Every muscle strained and I came apart. My thighs hugged his hips as my sex spasmed in climax. I fell hard, shaking uncontrollably, tensing as the orgasm ripped through me, his name on my lips. For a split second, a heaviness lifted and nothing else mattered.

“Erica,” he groaned.

His body jerked against me. His hands gripped my hips fiercely as he found his own release.

He tensed, then sagged against me. His body was slick against mine as he exhaled roughly.

He untied my hands and massaged the reddened skin of my wrists. Then he captured my mouth in slow, breathless kisses, brushing away the last of my tears. We were both spent, stripped down by the experience. With my last shred of energy, I wrapped my arms around him, hooking my leg over his hip. I needed the reassurance of our closeness. I couldn’t let him go yet.

We lay that way, wordlessly, for a long time. The intensity of what we’d done settled over me, and my mind spun over what it all meant. In the face of what tomorrow would bring, maybe it didn’t mean anything at all.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered finally.

“I love you,” I breathed, before falling into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Come up for breakfast when you wake up.

Love,

Blake