Page 10 of Fractured (Not Quite a Billionaire)
“Do you want it?”
“Hemi. Please. What do you want me to do?”
“If you want it,” he said, “you’re going to have to work for it.”
“I—can’t. I’m…tied.”
“You are. So what are you going to do?”
The leather was cold under my knees, my shins. My hands were pulled so tightly behind me, and he wasn’t helping me.
I was so frustrated. So close, and I couldn’t get there. My face was against his neck, and I was breathing in his warm scent as I lifted myself onto my knees and tried to wriggle onto him, and he sat still. I needed him inside me, but no matter how hard I struggled, how many times I shifted and fell against him and pushed, I couldn’t make it happen. My breath came loud in the quiet room, but it was from effort now.
Finally, I gave up. I sank down over him, pressed my body into his, and said, “Please, Hemi. Help me.”
I could feel his sigh all the way through my body. And then he had his hands around my waist, was picking me up, setting me over him, finding the angle, and then, so slowly, so deliciously…he impaled me deep. And I cried out loud to get it.
He read my movements, my sobbing breaths. He listened, and he responded. He held me tight, used me hard, lifted me high and bit gently at my breasts, then sucked until I moaned. He gave me no choice, but I didn’t want any, not now. I was making too much noise, and then I was making more.
He gave me exactly what I needed, and when his hand began to rub…I had my face buried in his neck, and I was whimpering. Trembling. Burning. I was shattering, he was swearing, and we were there.
It seemed like ages before Hemi untied me. I was barely aware of it until he was rubbing his hands over my back, my bottom, down my arms.
“Bloody hell.” His voice was rough as I curled into him and wrapped my arms around his neck. “What you do to me. I pushed you too hard, and I know it. Tell me you’re all right.”
I had to laugh against his warm skin, which smelled, as always, faintly of spice, like the very best cinnamon stick ever. “Uh, Hemi. I think you’ve got it backwards. I don’t think that was me.”
He sighed. “You’re right. It was me. You said you needed me to convince you, and I just…I can’t stand the thought of you with somebody else.”
“Mm.” I nuzzled his neck some more, loving the way it felt to have him hold me so securely. “That should bother me. I should definitely be ashamed by how much you excited me just now, too, but I’m not. And do you know what I found out?”
He was stroking over my bottom again now. It wasn’t exactly sore, but it tingled so deliciously, and I wriggled into him, wanting more.
“What?” he asked.
I kissed the side of his neck, then moved up to his jaw, rubbing my cheek over the faint roughness that was a half-day’s growth of beard. “That you love me,” I said. “Because you stopped when I asked you to. Because you helped me when I needed you to. Because you always make sure I’m satisfied. And because…” I leaned back, took his face in my hands, smiled at him, and brushed a soft kiss over his mouth. “Because you always take care of me.”
Within boundaries,I told myself.Physically.
Yeah, right.
Hemi
Did I discuss everything I could have with Hope? Not even close. I hadn’t wanted to have this talk in the first place, though. It was too much emotion and far too much sharing to be anything like comfortable. I didn’t share, and I didn’t emote.
And after that? The storm that had raged outside the windows had been nothing to the one inside me, the one that had pushed me right up to the boundaries of my self-control. When she’d said her word, when I’d realized I’d gone too far…it hadn’t been good. And then what had I done? I’d pushed her more.
I’d been feeling too fierce for tenderness. All I wanted to do was hold her tight and close, and she wouldn’t let me. I knew she wanted to be her own person. Fine. But couldn’t she do that from a spot right next to me?
Apparently not, and however frustrating that was, being without her was worse. Which meant that tonight, I’d better be showing her everything she meant to me in the way I found so hard to say in words. I’d give her the sweet loving I hadn’t been able to manage earlier. She’d love that, too, because she loved me.
I told myself that, anyway.
She came out of the bathroom fully dressed again, her pale hair tamed, went to the floor-to-ceiling windows that led onto the balcony, and said, “It’s not as bad outside now.”
I took a glance of my own and said in resignation, “Reckon that means I’m taking you for a walk on the beach.”
“I can go by myself,” she said. “You can stay here. I don’t mind.”
