But he did nothing.
"What are you doing, d.a.m.n it?"
"Watching you go crazy." He reached down and stroked her c.l.i.t, then traced her gate with the tip of his finger and that tingly sensation started to burn, spreading everywhere he touched. "There"s this gel you can use on a woman"s c.l.i.toris. Doesn"t work on every woman, but if it"s going to work, you"ll feel it pretty fast. Are you feeling anything?"
The sob caught in her throat and she twisted her wrists again in the tape. "d.a.m.n it, Marc..."
"I"ll take that as a yes."
Yes??? Yeah. It was a yes. She ached, throbbed-could feel the blood pulsating...oh... Trembling as he stroked down and pushed one finger inside her, twisted his wrist.
She shrieked and clenched down around him, stunned by the intensity of the sensation.
A second time. A third time.
Each touch, each stroke was a cross between pleasure and the purest edge of pain.
And then he stopped, right when she was on the edge of climaxing.
She was trembling.
Marc stared at her as he grabbed the tube of lubricant from the couch. "That"s one unspeakably dirty thing," he said, his voice raw, staring at her raised a.s.s. "I"ve got you bound and restrained, so f.u.c.king turned on you"re almost ready to beg me, aren"t you?"
Her voice was a rough rasp as she demanded, "Is that what you want?"
"No. If it was, I"d tell you." He grabbed a small tube from the couch, took off the top and sprayed it on the narrow opening of her a.s.s, watched as she flinched a little. As the spray went to work, he reached for the lubricant and opened it, slicking it over his c.o.c.k, and squeezing more of it into his hand. "Now I"m going to f.u.c.k your a.s.s."
She tensed.
"Is that a problem?"
"Marc...I..."
She jerked against the restraints-arms bound at her back, her ankles drawn up, tied to her thighs. He smoothed his free hand down her hip and then nudged her legs farther apart before he pressed his slickened fingers against her, preparing her. In. Out. The tight ring of muscles at her entrance resisted for a moment, then yielded, letting him know the relaxing spray was working. As he pushed past that first initial resistance, he closed his eyes, bit back a groan at how silken she was around him. "Is it a problem?" he asked again.
But all she did was moan, even as she tried to twist away. He held her steady with his free hand at her hip.
In. Out. Preparing her. The low sound of her whimpering, the broken sound of her breathing, the trembling of her body, he noted every nuance of her reaction and once he had her ready, he moved between her bound thighs, using his hands to spread her open.
"You know how to make it stop, Chaili," he said gruffly. Tucking the head of his c.o.c.k against the puckered mouth to her back entrance, he pressed against her. Slowly. Just the head...bit by slow, torturous bit, and oh, h.e.l.l, it was amazing. "Now I"m doing another dirty, unspeakable thing...pushing into this hot, tight hole and you can"t touch yourself. Does it drive you crazy, baby?"
"Yes, d.a.m.n it!" She jerked again.
"Aw, now," he said gruffly, steadying her with a hand on the base of her spine. Stroking his fingers along her soft skin, he soothed her as he advanced another slow inch. "Be still now or you"ll make me get all rough here. It"s easier when you can touch yourself, isn"t it?"
She panted, tried to pull away. Catching her hips, he held her steady, the blood pounding in his ears, hunger biting into him, threatening to tear him into shreds.
He eased back, giving her a minute, but she cried out, clenched down around him in protest. "You want more, baby girl?"
"Yes, d.a.m.n it. Please, Marc?"
He pushed deeper, waited until he felt the resistance and then he stopped, pulling out, keeping at just at that depth, a slow, easy pace. "You didn"t answer me. It"s easier when you can touch yourself, bring yourself to o.r.g.a.s.m that way while this happens, right?"
"Yes. It"s easier..." A soft, pink flush spread all over her skin and she pushed back harder on him, taking him in deeper. It was pure bliss as she eased around him, moving with him. Splaying his fingers over the base of her spine, he started to ride her hard, feet spread out, head bowed, staring at her. Just her.
"I don"t want to give you easy." He surged deep, held there as she tensed. Bending down over her, he murmured in her ear, "I want to give you what you need...I want to make you feel like n.o.body else ever has, like n.o.body else can...and I want to make it to where you can never build another f.u.c.king wall, where you can never think of another man when we"re together."
A sob ripped from her. Propping his elbow next to her head, he waited as she shuddered, as she trembled and shook. "I won"t give you easy," he promised again. "But I"ll d.a.m.n well give you everything I can."
He stood back up and started to do just that.
Deep, steady strokes.
She cried out with each one. Soft, broken little sobs.
"Come for me, baby girl," he rasped. "Come for me."
"I can"t," she whimpered. "Not like this...not without..."
He slid a hand down, slid it around to press it against her belly. "Doesn"t this feel good?" he asked, rolling his hips against her a.s.s. "It feels d.a.m.n f.u.c.king good to me. Your a.s.s is hot, snug silk around my d.i.c.k and you"re so f.u.c.king pretty like this, bound for me, here just for me...doesn"t it feel good, Chaili..." He bent down and pressed his lips to her shoulder. "Having to have me do hot, dirty, unspeakable things to you..."
She trembled and under his hand he felt the silken muscles of her belly clench. "You, bound, waiting and open... Your a.s.s all but grabbing at me each time I sink my d.i.c.k inside you... Doesn"t it feel good?" He eased his hand down lower. Lower. Felt the muscles of her belly tense.
But before he reached her c.l.i.t, her entire body quaked and she tightened around him, tighter...tighter... "Aw, f.u.c.k." He gritted his teeth as she clenched down around him and came with a broken, ragged cry.
And as she finally fell, he let go as well, hunkering over her and surging deep, echoing the hard, driving hunger that rode him every d.a.m.n time he saw her.
He"d wipe those shadows from her eyes...somehow, d.a.m.n it.
And she wouldn"t keep thinking about anything, or anybody else, when she was with him.
Chapter Thirteen.
She could hear the music drifting from his studio.
Bent over her laptop, Chaili let herself close her eyes for just a minute, let herself get lost in the music. If she wasn"t careful, she was going to get lost in him.
"It"s already happening, you twit," she muttered. Already happened... As the music for "True Believer" started to play, she groaned. No. It wasn"t already happening. It had already happened. She"d been lost in Marc since they were teens, and before that? The infatuation had been well under way.
Pretending otherwise was just a waste of time.
She could remember sitting in the house with Shera, bent over homework, listening to him and a couple of the guys from his first band piecing together music. She"d been spending the night when he had first started composing "True Believer"-the strains of that song still made her shiver. It had been his breakout hit, the one that took him from being a fairly popular guy in the Chicago music scene to an international star.
She loved the song, but sometimes she also hated it. It marked the point when she started to lose him. Not that he"d ever really been hers, but at least she"d gotten to see him from time to time. She"d been able to console herself with that.
And it was before she"d made the biggest mistake of her life...
Asking him out that last time.
Having him smile at her. Pat on her shoulder like she was a cute little puppy who"d amused him. Nah. I"m beat... I just wanna crash for a while. Then, the next day, she"d seen clips of him out at a party. When he"d been supposedly too tired to catch a movie. Yet he"d gone to a party with one of the shiny little perfect girls he always seemed to date.
A week later, she"d met Tim.
Six months after that, they were married.
Six months after that...
She rubbed a finger over the top edge of the tattoo, able to find it without even looking down.
How much different would her life have been if she hadn"t married Tim? Jumping into that relationship certainly hadn"t been the wisest decision she"d ever made. If she hadn"t bothered with dating him? It wasn"t like she hadn"t already known what she liked, right? She"d maybe taken it a little darker, pushed her boundaries a little further. And yeah, she"d figured out just how far her limits were, but she"d learned a little more about pain, learned too much about rejection.
Life would have been just fine without all of that.
It might have made her stronger, but...
Marc"s voice filled the house.
Deep. Strong. That raw, whiskey-soaked velvet. Wrapping around her, intoxicating her.
And she found herself being pulled back to the past night.
I want to make it to where you can never build another f.u.c.king wall, where you can never think of another man when we"re together...
Why was she even wasting her time thinking about somebody who had hurt her so miserably bad?
Somebody who had thrown her out of his life when she"d needed help the most?
"Because I"m an idiot," she said sourly. "And I need to stop it."
Shoving it out of her head, she focused on the screen and even managed to tune Marc"s voice out until it was just background noise. Mostly. Background noise that managed to send shivers up and down her spine.
She had a lot of work to get done and only so much time to do it. Twenty minutes back into work, she had to hit the Internet. She was thinking that what she wanted to do with Marc"s website was just start from scratch and she had an idea for what she wanted, but she had yet to find exactly what she was looking for.
A hunt on the website she usually used was a waste of time. Yet again.
Closing her eyes, she rubbed her hands over her face, let herself pull up the idea she had in mind. Something different. The idiot who had screwed up her site design hadn"t exactly had the wrong sort of idea, just bad execution, tacking it onto a design that wasn"t right for it.
She could incorporate that sort of feel into the new design and already had an idea, but what kind of...
It hit her.
She went to her email and sketched out what she wanted to do, sent it to Marc. She didn"t know who was handling this end now since he"d hired her himself, but she figured he"d handle forwarding it on. He"d have to run it by the rest of the guys in the group, or whoever was going to be the go-between, but at least she had started.
Now to get to work building it.
She could always buy the basic design, but if she wanted his site to be completely unique-and she did-she"d be better off doing it on her own.
Whether or not he was going to like the ideas she"d proposed, she didn"t know, but that wouldn"t change what she had to get done first. All the coding was going to be a pain in the a.s.s and- His reply was already in her inbox.
Come to the studio.
Arching a brow, she emailed him back. Why?
Barely a minute pa.s.sed before she had his answer. I want to see you. In parentheses, it read, And after that, I want to strip you naked and f.u.c.k you.
Okay...that made something warm and delicious settle in her belly. But still. She needed to get a little bit of work done on this. And she knew she wouldn"t get anything done if she didn"t do it before she went in there to see Marc. I"m working right now. I need to spend some time on this website design and I have to take care of a few others things too.
Marc scowled at the message that came up on his iPhone.
He started to tap back a response and then stopped. "Screw this."
Standing, he headed out of the studio, prowling through the house until he found her.
He wasn"t surprised when to see her tucked away in the library. The room faced out over the water, but she had the blinds down and the curtains drawn. Her long, lean legs were tucked up with the laptop on her knees. She was sitting in one of the armchairs, keeping the mouse on the nearby table, and the look on her face told him she wasn"t even aware of him. Brows down low over her eyes, a frown twisting her lips.
Leaning against the door, he crossed his arms over his chest and watched her.
Her hair, that dark brown hair with its threads of gold and red, kept falling into her eyes. That was when she noticed him, after she shoved her hair back and it fell right into her eyes two seconds later. She went to reach into her bag and she glanced up, a scarf in one hand.
Their gazes locked and Marc found himself thinking about how he"d woken up. Alone. She"d left a note on the bedside table. Went running. Back in a while.
So he"d gone into his studio, hoping she"d find him when she got back. Chaili had done long-distance running for years and it wasn"t unusual for her to spend hours on a run, but he hadn"t thought she"d go running and then hide herself away and work.
As she wrapped the scarf around her head, using it to tie her hair back, he shoved off the wall. "How come you"re hiding away in here?" he asked.
"I"m not hiding away." She flipped the top of the computer around, showing him the screen. She tapped on it. "I"m working."
Marc stared at something that looked like a foreign language. One involving a lot of weird symbols and abbreviations. There were words in English and he was pretty certain it was supposed to make sense...but it didn"t. He c.o.c.ked his head to the left, then to the right, but that didn"t help any. "If the job is trying to make sense out of that, you"ve got a lot of work left to do," he said. "It"s Sunday... You do still take time off, right?"
With a slight grin, she flipped the screen back around. "That"s code. For the website I"m building for you. You remember, the job you hired me to do? And I take time off when projects allow. Since I"m tight on time here, I"m going to have to take time off when I can manage it. I need to put in a few hours today, plus I still have to finish that rush job. I already committed to it."
He dropped onto the ottoman in front of her and reached out, laid a hand on one ankle.
She shivered, lashes drooping low over her eyes.
"You"ve already been working for a while, it looks like. How long ago did you get back from your run? You"ve already showered and everything."
"Ummm." Her gaze darted down. "Yeah...been back for a while. You were still sleeping so I showered in a different bathroom. Didn"t want to wake you. Been working about an hour or so. I need to do a few more hours here or I"m not going to keep to the schedule I"ve set for myself."
"How much can you get done?" He tightened his grip on her ankle. "I mean, we need to talk to the guys, right? Do the photos and s.h.i.t."