I Brake For Bad Boys (30 page)

He was going to be hard to master.

She reached down and wrapped her hand around his hot shaft—and squeezed. Hard enough to make him drag in a startled breath.

“Whoa,” he said. “Go easy with that.”

“Slow down, Jonah. I'm running this one.”

His eyes widened at the cool command in her voice. He lifted his hands in mock surrender.

“Kick off those jeans,” she said. “You won't be needing them.”

He did as he was told, his eyes locked on hers.

“Let's go to the bedroom,” she said.

His head jerked in agreement. She suffered a stab of doubt at the foot of the stairs, reluctant to walk in front of him and wave her big naked bottom right in his face, in all its full-blown glory. But she couldn't think that way, even for a second, or she would lose the tenuous upper hand that she barely knew how to maintain.

She started up the stairs, back straight, hips swaying. He sighed with pleasure behind her, and then his big, warm hands were on her hips. His breath was hot against her skin. His mouth pressed against her backside. She spun around to tell him to stop, but before she could speak, he pressed his face against her mound, making her stumble back, almost falling onto the steps behind her.

“Give me a taste,” he said. “Just one little sip from the fountain of life, to get me up the stairs. Or I'll fall down and expire right here.”

She stared down into his pale eyes. The house was silent, and the staircase was dark, just the sigh of the wind and the lash of the rain against the windows. She clutched the banister and let her thighs unlock, widening her stance. A guttural exclamation of triumph vibrated against her sensitive flesh, and he parted the folds of her sex, pressing his face against her, his tongue thrusting.

He knew instinctively what she needed, the perfect, voluptuous blend of licking and suckling. His tongue fluttered and swirled against her clitoris, his teeth rasping, tugging, sucking her, bathing her in the hot cloud of his breath. He grasped her hips and devoured her as if he were starving. She was suspended in darkness and empty space, wind and rain swirling around her, and Jonah at the center, his mouth a hot vortex that claimed everything she had. She heard only the sounds of his mouth, saw only his broad shoulders, his dark head. She had no memory of sitting or falling, but she found herself sprawled on the stairs, legs draped over his shoulders, moving helplessly, eagerly against his face.

He knew her so well now, better than she had ever known herself. He could do what he pleased with her, and he damn well knew it.

No. The thought came from a cool, remote place inside her head that stood and watched her helpless pleasure, unmoved. If she let him unravel her, then the night would be his. The upper hand would be lost, and so would she. Undone, unglued. Conquered.

It went against every instinct, but she reached down and pushed his face away from her. He murmured in fierce protest.

“No,” she whispered. “This is my show. I have to tell you when.”

She couldn't see his expression in the dark, but she could picure the cool speculation on his face. He released her slowly, wiping his face on his arm, and let her struggle to her feet without offering to help.

They stared at each other in the gloom. He made an impatient, questioning gesture toward the head of the stairs.

She turned, trying to be dignified as she continued up the stairs.

Upper hand. Think upper hand, she repeated to herself as she led him into the bedroom. The upper hand really had less to do with physical strength than it did with confidence, inner power. Poise.

With Jonah, it was like walking a tightrope in a hurricane wind.

She flipped on the bedside lamp and made an imperious gesture toward the bed. “Lie down, Jonah,” she said.

“What game are you playing, Tess?” he asked.

“You'll see.” She flung open the closet and saw what she had hoped to see. Silk ties. Not a lot of them, but enough for her purposes. She pulled a handful off their rack.

His eyes narrowed in deep suspicion. “What's this?”

“Lie down, Jonah,” she said coolly. “You've been very bad, luring me up here. Lying to me, seducing me, breaking our bargain.”

“You drove me to it,” he protested.

“No excuses,” her voice snapped out. “You have to be punished.”

He looked like he was trying not to smile. “You really . . . ?”

“Oh, yes. Really. Lie down.
Now.
”

He sat down slowly on the bed, his eyes fixed on hers. “I really, really hope I won't regret this,” he said.

“Arms up, please.”

He presented his arms, and she tied them to the posts of the old-fashioned bed. She knelt with her backside to him, and tied his feet.

“I don't know quite how I feel about this,” he muttered.

“You will in a minute or two,” she informed him.

“You're so unpredictable,” he said. “Not like I expected.”

“Expected?” Her voice was falsely sweet as she swung her leg over him and straddled his belly. “So you planned this all along, hmm?”

He scowled. “I didn't plan. I hoped. Are you going to punish me for that, too?”

She dragged her fingernails over his chest. “I'll punish you for whatever I feel like punishing you for. We'll see what comes to me.”

He drew in a sharp breath, his eyes guarded. “You're in a dangerous mood,” he murmured.

She reached for a condom, tossing it onto the rumpled coverlet. Then she scooted down the length of his body and began to play.

She fondled his balls, and traced the veins that throbbed on the surface of his penis lightly with her fingertip. It lay against his belly, stiff and hard and twitching with every ragged breath he took. He hissed at her teasing, tickling touch.

“Tess,” he growled. “Are you going to—”

“Shhh,” she murmured. “Suffer in silence . . .” she leaned over, brushing his lips with her fingertip, “. . . or I'll gag you.”

His face tightened. “Hey. Wait a minute. You really are mad at me, aren't you? This is no game. I can feel it. You're messing with my mind.”

She didn't answer, just straddled his chest and shimmied down until her labia pressed against his stiff shaft, and began to slowly, deliberately slide her wet cleft up and down the length of him. She pleasured herself with the contact with his heat and power. Smiling at him, pitiless, as the realization of his plight grew in his eyes.

He struggled to nudge inside her, but she just rose up onto her knees, evading him easily. She reached down, holding his penis right where she wanted it. Rubbing against him. Hot, slick, slow torture.

He flung his head back, the tendons standing out on his neck. “Damn it. What did I do to piss you off this time? I thought we were a million miles past all that tedious crap this afternoon.”

She smiled at him through her eyelashes and scooted lower. Licked his belly. Breathed softly against the thick, gleaming head of his penis, and then dropped the very lightest of maddening butterfly kisses on the tip. “You didn't think it was so tedious last night,” she told him. “You liked it just fine, playing me like an instrument. Keeping all the control. Not risking anything.”

He flailed beneath her, almost bucking her off. “What the hell do you know what I risked?” he snarled.

“Less than me,” she said. “Way, way less than me.”

He jerked as far up as his bonds would allow. “That's not fair. It's not true, either. And you are seriously pissing me off.”

She gripped his penis, milking him as roughly as she dared. He arched beneath her again, lifting her right up off the bed. “That's the spirit,” she taunted him. “Go ahead, Jonah. Be pissed off. You did this to me deliberately last night. Try a taste of your own medicine. See how it feels to be spread out and naked and helpless while somebody has her way with you.”

She scrambled down over his tense, rigid body and bent low, flicking her tongue across the head of his penis and licking up the gleaming drop that had formed there. Just one teasing swipe of her tongue was all she offered him, then she drew back and gave him only the warmth of her breath, the slow drag of her hair as she brushed the heavy mass back and forth over his penis, his balls.

She straddled his chest again and gazed down with a secret little smile. She lifted up onto her knees, face flushed, showing him how wet, how soft and excited she was. Deliberately stoking the volcanic energy that was building up between them.

She undulated, parting the folds of her sex so that her clitoris poked out from the top of her cleft, flushed and crimson. She laid two fingers on either side of it and began to move them slowly up and down.

His eyes were locked onto her stroking hand. He panted, his face as flushed and damp as her own. “You're trying to drive me insane, aren't you?” he said. “You manipulative bitch.”

She ignored him, caught up in her own pleasure. She caressed the undersides of her breasts, trailed her fingertips around stiff, taut nipples. She pulsed her hips against her hand, dragging in harsh little gasps of air. “Watch me come, Jonah,” she whispered.

It was his eyes upon her, dilated with anger and desire, as much as her own hand, that catapulted her into climax. It was long and violent, different than the others. A wrenching blast of red and pounding black. She jerked back, mouth open in a soundless scream.

She opened her eyes, gasping for air. The fury on his face made her go very still. She had teased him mercilessly, given him no outlet at all. His stiff, empurpled shaft jerked with unfulfilled excitement. Long, glistening strands of fluid from the tip gleamed against his belly.

It occurred to her that she had to untie him sometime.

She didn't dare do so if he had that look on his face. She fell forward, catching herself against his damp chest, and searched the rumpled bed for the condom. She ripped it open with trembling fingers and smoothed it over his rigid penis and poised herself over him.

“Beg me, Jonah,” she said. “I want to hear you plead.”

His breath hissed through his teeth, his neck and arms corded with strain. “Stop fucking around, Tess. Do it. Now. Or else.”

She guided the tip of his penis into her swollen wetness. Sinking lower with a gasp at the blunt size of him. She lifted up again, leaving just the tip of him kissing her opening. “Beg,” she insisted.

“What the fuck do you want from me?” he exploded.

“Everything,” she said rashly. “Everything you've got.”

His face changed, as if she had flipped a switch. “Done,” he said.

He wrenched at the ties, and yanked the knots loose with a few quick, violent jerks. He surged up off the bed, holding her against himself as he freed his ankles. He'd been able to free himself all along.

He had chosen not to. Now that restraint was swept away.

He flung her onto her back with a speed that left her breathless and disoriented. He shoved her thighs apart, and prodded roughly until he was lodged inside her, not bothering to remove the silk ties still clinging to his wrists. He shot them a quick, contemptuous glance.

“Girl knots,” he said succinctly.

“I'm going to learn to tie knots you can't pull out of,” she snapped.

He let out a harsh laugh. “You're not going to learn it from me.”

He thrust himself deeply inside her and held her immobile. His face was rigid, mouth sealed, as if he didn't trust himself to speak.

She gathered her tattered bravado. “Don't be so huffy. You had all that coming. But go ahead. Tie me up, if it makes you feel better.”

“I don't have to tie you,” he said. “I can just hold you down.”

Her nerve ebbed away. “Jonah, don't—”

“You said everything. You wanted it all. You didn't specify what that means, though, so I'll interpret it however I want. Anything, everything, anyhow, anywhere, as much as I want. I'm going to take you for everything you've got. Does that turn you on?”

She shoved against his chest, chilled. “Hey. I never said—”

“Or are you going to chicken out? Again?” he taunted. “You keep pushing me, Tess. If you push me right over the top, I have to assume that's right where you want me to be. Over the top. Out of control. Right? Go on, tell me that I'm right.”

She swallowed. “Within reason,” she whispered.

He laughed. “There is no reason out there in no-man's land. You push me farther away from reason with every breath you take.”

She glared at him. “Stop trying to scare me.”

“I'm not. I'm being absolutely straight with you. It's you who's fucking with my head. You betrayed my trust.”

“Oh, please. Don't be silly and melodramatic,” she snapped. “I didn't do anything to you that you didn't do to me last night.”

“Bullshit. I might have teased you, but I was never cold,” he said furiously. “Why were you cold to me, after what we shared this afternoon? What did I do to deserve that? Why, Tess?”

She winced away from the fury in his voice. A long moment ticked by. “I don't know,” she said in a tiny voice.

He was silent, waiting for more, but she could think of nothing more to say that might satisfy him. She finally dared to look up.

The anger on his face was mixed with pain and baffled hurt.

“So figure it out, Tess,” he said quietly.

He hid his face against her neck. When he lifted his head, it was a stark mask of pain. “If you don't want me, I won't force you,” he said. “But decide, real quick. Because I'm right on the edge.”