Jess Michaels (10 page)

But then she shook away from him, backing up.

“I want you now,” she said, moving toward the bed. She motioned to where she had been lying and he saw for the first time the pile of toys she had brought with her.

His eyes widened when he recognized the velvety restraints and the glass dildo they had played with before. His body clenched at the memory. But in addition to those things were clamps of some kind, a blindfold, and a filmy liquid in a small
vial. The assortment of accoutrements was unexpected and, yes, highly arousing, but also confusing.

“Like this?” he asked, motioning to the group of items.

She nodded and swept up the little clips. Moving toward him, she whispered, “These are for my nipples. Put them on and they will ache with the need to be touched. Only you can set me free from that ache.”

His eyes widened. Her voice was so husky, so dark and sensual. She had never spoken to him like that before. She was no longer Cassandra, the girl he’d once known. Now she was Cassandra, the mistress moaning to her protector. She was a sex goddess made to seduce and pleasure.

But when he looked into her eyes, he still sensed a distance there. But he could get her back. He had forced that connection before, he was driven to do it again.

Reaching out, he glided the flimsy straps of her lingerie down her shoulders, baring her breasts in the shimmering candlelight. She was already on the edge, he could sense it in the way she shivered when the fine, silky fabric caressed her already hard nipples.

He couldn’t wait to see what she would do as he took the clamps from her trembling fingers. He looked at them carefully. Although they were made to pinch, they didn’t seem to be cruel. He opened one and fitted it around the hard, pink swell of one nipple. As he closed it, Cassandra let out a whimper of pleasure and her eyes fluttered shut.

“The other one,” she ordered without looking at him.

He followed her directive, sliding the second clip into place. As soon as he closed the mechanism, Cassandra let out a soft cry. Her hands clutched his shoulders and she shook, eyes squeezed shut and legs trembling.

His eyes widened. She was coming, orgasming just from the focused tug on her breasts. Of course she had always been exquisitely sensitive there. He’d never known a woman before or since who got so much pleasure from a lick or squeeze of her nipple.

He was rock hard by that point, his cock swelling against the front of his trousers and rubbing uncomfortably against the fastenings.

“What else?” she asked, her tone breathless as she came down from the orgasm. “What else do you want? To tie me up again? To make me helpless with an aphrodisiac?”

He stared at the vial. So that’s what it was. He had heard of such things in India that were used in some brothels to make the women wild and insatiable. But he didn’t want Cassandra that way. Not out of her mind with lust for any man.

Just for him. And from his touch, not because a drug was addling her mind and making her do what she might not consider under other circumstances.

He shook his head. “No drug.”

She tilted her head. “You want to use me, don’t you?” she cooed, but again there was no softness to her demeanor. “You want to vent your anger. So how will you do it, Nathan? How will you do it tonight?”

He flinched. She wasn’t speaking anything but the truth,
but to hear it couched in such plain terms made him feel even more like a cad than he already had before.

“No,” he muttered, backing a step away from her and holding up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Not like this. Not when I’m drunk and you’re so filled with rage that you’re practically quivering.”

She shook her head. “Why not? You’ve been filled with equal rage and fucked me. And it was good. So why can’t I have what I want?”

Her fingers snaked down and she cupped his cock through his trousers, squeezing with just the right amount of tension to make his knees buckle and a groan escape his lips.

“And you want me. So why care what the reasons are? Why think about anything else but having each other?”

Before he could answer, she dropped down to her knees before him and with deft, experienced fingers she opened his trousers and let them fall around his ankles.

His erection sprang free, thrusting up in silent demand for her body, even as he tried to resist her with his mind. But at that moment, still spinning with drink and surprise, he couldn’t resist the pull of pleasure. Especially when Cassandra stroked the hard, heavy length of him with her palm and then wrapped her ruby lips around his cock, sucking him deep into her throat with a muffled moan of pleasure.

“Christ,” he managed to grind out through clenched teeth. He clutched at her shoulders, catching some of her hair with his fingers and causing it to tumble down around her bare back in a fragrant cloud.

She didn’t hesitate, pounding her mouth around him, sucking him deeper on each thrust and working the base of his cock with her hand as she withdrew. She had done this before, just a few days earlier. But that night it had felt like a gift. Now it was something different.

But damn if it wasn’t good.

In quick order, Nathan’s vision began to blur, his hands and legs shook, his cock was on fire, the intensity of pleasure so great that it bordered on pain. He sensed the impending explosion, felt his seed moving from deep within him. He jerked to pull away, but she held tight, continuing to suck and work at him until he couldn’t hold back any longer and he came.

She took it all, every ounce, looking up at him as she did it with a challenging light to her eyes. She had done this, she had conquered him, it was clear that was how she felt.

Only, as his breathing returned to normal and his body stopped twitching and shaking from the power of his orgasm, he knew it wasn’t over. This was war, after all, and he wasn’t about to surrender with just one skirmish.

She pulled away, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand as she pulled the negligee straps up her arms to cover her breasts. He caught her hands before she could finish the action.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked, dragging her back against him so that the soft clips around her nipples rubbed across his jacket. Her hips bucked, but her gaze never left his.

“Home,” she all but snarled. “I’ve done what I came here to do.”

“No.” Without finesse, he thrust her backward, letting her fall across the settee, her legs splayed perfectly for his plans. “Now it’s my turn.”

C
assandra’s eyes widened as she stared up at Nathan from her splayed position on the settee.

“Nath—”

She didn’t get a chance to finish saying his name. Her voice instead transformed into a loud, needy moan when he brought his mouth down between her legs. He spread her wide, the translucent silk of her negligee straining against her pussy as he licked across her wet slit and pressed the fabric against her swollen clit.

“Turnabout is fair play,” he panted against her skin and her hips bucked up as his breath heated her sensitive flesh.

She tried not to be moved by Nathan’s touch, but it was impossible when he was pushing the wet fabric that separated
them away and driving his tongue into her slick entrance. He groaned against her flesh like he couldn’t get enough of her taste, her scent.

She had come here to prove something to herself, to prove something to him, to make him come and regain control, to forget that his father had, once again, tried to keep her from this pleasure.

But now the tables were turned. Her anger, her indignation, and her drive to prove something were all fading away, replaced instead with the most intense pleasure she had ever felt. Nathan was using his whole mouth to pleasure her, sucking her swollen flesh between his lips, lapping at every inch of her sex, and even scraping his teeth over her clit until tears streamed down her face and she bit her lip almost bloody to keep from begging for more.

His fingers joined in on the torment now. With his index and middle fingers he stroked deep inside of her clenching, trembling body, curling the digits upward until he hit upon the hidden bundle of nerves deep within her. When he began to suck her clit in time with the motion of his fingers, she lost all control.

Pleasure and release hit her like a punch, stealing her breath, robbing her of coherent words and thoughts. All she could do was scream, her throat throbbing, her lungs constricting while wave after wave of impossible pleasure shook her.

He was relentless, dragging her through the pleasure, forcing her to feel more and more and more of it until she was
lying weak against the settee cushions. Until her legs ached from trembling. Until her sheath was soaked and tender from coming.

Finally, he lifted his head and removed his fingers from her body gently. Fire burned in his bright eyes and when Cassandra was able to find the strength to sit up, she saw that his cock was hard as steel and ready again.

The outrageous desire that he had only just slaked returned with a terrifying speed and power. She had brought the aphrodisiac along with her tonight in case he wanted to use it, but Nathan didn’t need a drug to make her insatiable.

He did that all on his own.

She grasped his cheeks and kissed him, driving her tongue into his mouth, tasting her own body on him. God, it drove her wild.
He
drove her wild. Even if she hated herself for it, he was the best sex she’d ever had. The only man who could make her ache until she sobbed, lose control and beg for more.

But tonight she had to finish this without begging. When he rose up, bracing his arms on either side of her head as he met the strokes of her tongue with hard, harsh thrusts of his own, she fought to keep her mind in the present.

“Sit,” she ordered between kisses, pushing him away to sit on the settee cushions.

He followed the order, though he could have easily kept her on her back and taken her without any trouble.

“Still at war?” he asked, watching her through unreadable eyes as she crawled to her knees and then straddled his lap.

“Oh, Nathan,” she practically purred as she fitted herself over the hot thrust of his cock. “You and I will always be at war. Why not just surrender?”

In response, he lifted his hips and entered her in one smooth stroke. Cassandra couldn’t help her cry of pleasure as he filled her, stretched her, and made her aching body throb even more acutely.

She clutched at his shoulders, digging her nails in as they grappled for control. She thrust down on him hard, rubbing her hips against him so that her clit stroked against his pelvis. But he wasn’t ready to give over ground. Each time she pushed down over him, he lifted his hips, hitting that sweet spot inside of her that made her head roll back and her lips utter incoherent moans of pleasure.

Their bodies writhed together, finally finding a rhythm where neither one gave ground, where each tormented the other. They were equals in the pleasure—until Nathan reached up and unclipped the clamps around her nipples. Cassandra yelped in surprise as blood rushed back to the sensitive peaks. And they
were
exquisitely sensitive now, so that even the brush of the air against them made her tremble.

So when Nathan sucked one hard peak into his mouth, swirling his tongue around the aching nipple, she was lost. The orgasm hit her so hard that she almost lost consciousness. He cupped her backside as her hips careened out of control. When all she could do was buck helplessly, he worked his cock into her from below as he sucked, and pleasured, and teased both nipples until they were on fire.

And then he took advantage of her weakened state by flipping her over on her back across the bed. She arched beneath him as he whispered, “War, my sweet.”

He cupped her knee, crooking it high over his shoulder, and thrust into her. He was hard, he was fast, and he was magnificent. Her clenching body squeezed on as her orgasm dragged out further and further.

But finally he took mercy on her. Or perhaps he simply lost control himself. His smooth strokes grew as erratic as her own wild hips, and his focused torment of her raw body ended. The veins in his neck began to strain, his eyes squeezed shut, and with a curse, he came, the hot splash of his seed heating her body as he filled her.

Nathan could hardly breathe as he reveled in the pleasure of just being inside her body. The closeness of having her wrapped around him as he found pleasure. He had promised himself he wouldn’t do that ever again, but now that he had, he remembered how damned addictive it could be.

Shifting to his side, he wrapped his arms around her and held her to his chest with a contented sigh. But to his surprise, Cassandra didn’t relax against him with the same sated pleasure. Her spine remained stiff as she turned her face away from his.

Leaning away, he looked down into her eyes and frowned. The distance he had sensed in her earlier remained. If anything, in the afterglow she seemed more far away, angrier. Even though she had experienced pleasure. Even though their war was over.

Wasn’t it?

Right now it didn’t seem to be.

“Are you finished with me for the night, then?” she asked, her cold voice shattering the warmth he had felt until that moment.

He frowned, hating how she refused to meet his gaze. Hating how she could convince herself that what had just happened meant nothing. Hating that he feared perhaps making love
didn’t
actually signify to her in any way.

“No,” he said, low and dangerous. “Cassandra you cannot pretend this away.”

“There is nothing to pretend,” she said, pulling back from him. He still had his arms around her and held her easily. “I came here. We fucked, just as I agreed to do. Why make it anything more than what it is?”

Nathan flinched at the dismissiveness to her tone. She was all the distant mistress now. Not a woman who craved a man, but one who came to him for what he could give. Or what he could save her from.

She tugged at his arms, but he refused to let her up. The moment she broke the contact of their bodies she could fully convince herself that she had only come to him out of some fulfillment of their bargain—not because she wanted him, not because she needed this. And he wanted to make her remember that she did need him, for as long as he could.

Her eyes widened as she struggled.

“Let me go,” she said, and now there was a hint of alarm in her tone.

He shook his head. “You can’t escape me so easily, Cassandra. You can’t put distance between what you wanted and what you did. Not without facing a fight from me.”

She struggled harder. “Please!”

“You came here because you craved me with the same power I crave you. Don’t pretend otherwise.”

“Nathan!”

Her tone was so sharp and her struggles had become so wild that Nathan released her in surprise. Cassandra bolted away, grabbing her clothing as she moved. She held them up to cover her as she faced him.

Nathan stared, all thoughts of forcing Cassandra to see the hypocrisy of her denials long gone. She was shaking like a leaf, obviously filled with real fear. Her eyes were wide and wild as she dressed, but she never took their pain-filled stare away from him. Like an animal watching a hunter in the forest, aware that he might strike at any moment.

“What is wrong with you?” he asked, getting to his feet without bothering to cover himself. “Is this display some kind of game?”

She shook her head, but her trembling continued. “No games, Nathan. Please…please just let me go. Let me go.”

With that, she spun away and all but ran from the room, leaving behind her hairpins, her toys, and the scent of her skin as she fled. Nathan stared at her retreating form and continued to stare at the open door in shock long after she had gone.

Tonight had been a war, a sensual battle of wits that he had
enjoyed at every moment. Until the last. Because when he felt the wall between them, the chasm of distance that Cassandra still held, he had to admit that he didn’t like it.

But there was more than that to make him wonder, worry. He had never seen Cassandra so…
afraid
as when he used his strength to control her. Even though he would never hurt her. Or force her to do anything against her will. But it was as if in that charged, emotional moment, she had forgotten that.

Forgotten his character. Or never really known it at all.

And it left him wondering what secrets she kept inside. What had happened that would make her bolt like a frightened rabbit, especially after she had come to him like a sexual warrior? He didn’t know. But he was sure as hell going to find out, even if it meant doing the one thing he would surely regret because it would only cause him trouble. So much more trouble than he already faced as this twisted bargain between he and Cassandra stretched on and on and on.

Cassandra sat in her darkened carriage, trembling in the cold as she made her way home. She had left her wrap at Nathan’s home. That and about half her other things. Because she had run away. What satisfaction that must give him, to see her bolt. How he must be laughing to know how much he could control her.

Except, when she finally broke free of his grip, he had looked anything but amused or satisfied. He had seemed confused. Even…
worried
.

She shook her head, trying to clear her mind of the memo
ries that had been stirred there when he held her in place. Ugly images flooded her mind.

Pain. Fear. Humiliation.

“No!”

She said the word out loud and the sound brought her back to the present. She wasn’t in that terrifying place. She was in her very nice carriage, going to her very nice home. A safe haven.

From the ashes of that fear and pain and humiliation, she had built a life of her own making. She had become powerful in her own way. She had chosen her path. Until Nathan returned and stole that power and control away. Even tonight, when she had come at him with every intention of making him come and then leaving him alone to stew on how easily she could manage it, in the end she had been the one to surrender.

She straightened her spine as the carriage rolled to a stop at her pretty townhome. Nathan could too easily make her forget their shared past and her vows to never again let a man control her heart. She couldn’t allow it, not ever again.

Not ever again. She had to end this before he wrapped her into his world and she lost everything she’d worked so hard and suffered so greatly to obtain.