Page 29 of Fractured (Not Quite a Billionaire)
I normally saw Hemi a few times a week, plus, all right, maybe another time in his office. I’d read somewhere that the average couple had sex twice a week, and he was already doing twice that well. He’d made love to me three times in the last two days. What did I want?
He needed to know I loved him for more than this. I shut down my e-reader and set it on the bedside table, then got up and started to take off my robe. I would put on pajamas and climb in bed like a normal person, with no pressure. I’d let him know that I was fine with whatever happened or didn’t.
Even though I wasn’t.
That was why, though, I was half out of my robe when he walked in wearing a pair of loose black cotton pants and nothing else. I may have gotten a little distracted, too. I’d just unfastened my robe, but my hands stilled on the tie, because I was busy.
Have I mentioned yet that Hemi was good-looking? Well—no, that doesn’t even begin to describe it. His bronze skin appeared richer than ever in the dim light of the bedside lamp, and as for the intricate Maori tattoo that stretched from the sinewy, corded muscle of his forearm, up over the bulge of biceps and triceps, over one strong shoulder, and down to cover the broad, flat slab of pectoral—the design, tonight, seemed almost to pulse in its rich blue-black. Maybe it was the setting, or maybe it was the force of his personality, the way he took up every inch of space he inhabited, and most of the oxygen in a room. He was all shifting muscle and controlled power, and the expression on his face…
Good-looking? That wasn’t enough. Dark, dangerous, and right out there on the edge, though? That was more like it.
“Did you have a…nice shower?” I asked weakly. His close-cropped dark hair was still wet; I could see tiny beads of moisture at his razor-cut hairline.
He didn’t answer me. He was staring at my body, revealed by the silken folds of my open robe.
I’d never been voluptuous. Never even close. I was too small and much too finely boned for that. But now, I shivered under Hemi’s gaze, and I let the robe fall to the floor, stood there, and let him look.
“Get on the bed.” It wasn’t a request.
I thought about being sassy, but I didn’t do it. I turned around and climbed back onto the bed.
“Lie down,” he said.
My heart was hammering a mile a minute. I told myself,This is the man you love. This is the man who danced with you by the ocean.Except that he didn’t look like that man. He looked like the Maori chief he should have been, powerful, fierce, and all-conquering. He looked like a man who was going to win, because nothing else was an option. Too bad that was exactly the kind of man who excited me most.
So I lay down. I displayed myself for him, and he looked his fill, and if I did, too? Well, he was worth looking at.
He sat beside me, and then he turned the tables on me again. He drew a thumb along my jaw and said, his voice quiet, almost gentle, “I want to make you scream tonight.”
I swallowed, and I knew he saw it. He drew his hand down my neck, trailed his fingers all the way down my inner arm, and brushed them over my wrist, up my forearm. Back and forth, the rhythm hypnotic, mesmerizing. My skin was quivering under his touch, and just like that, my legs were parting. And then his hand went to my inner thigh and began that same leisurely, gentle brushing, until I was squirming, and he sat there and watched me do it.
“But I can’t,” he finally said. “We’re going to have to keep you quiet, eh. Do you want to be quiet for me?”
“Yes.” I could barely get the word out.
His eyes softened, and his hand whispered up my thigh. So close. Almost there…and stopped. “That’s so good, sweetheart. You’re going to have to trust me, too. Do you trust me?”
I nodded, hardly daring to breathe, and he said, “Good, because that’s all you’re going to be able to do. Nod, or shake your head. While I fuck you.”
He said it in the same low, controlled voice, and my whole body jerked at the word. He smiled faintly, stood up, and went to the dresser in the corner of the room, and I lay there, tried not to tremble, and failed.
He came back carrying a paper bag, still looking nothing but calm, but it was obvious that he was a whole lot more affected than he was pretending. I stretched a hand out to touch him through the black fabric, and he sucked in his breath and said, “Better enjoy that, because it’s all you’re going to be able to do.”
I did enjoy it. I loved it. I looked at him, smiled, and said, “Promise?”
“Always saucy.” He sat down beside me again. “This is going to be a bit different, so I’m telling you now. I’ll be checking in with you. If you want me to stop, if you want to tell me no, if you want me to let you go…you shake your head. If you want me to keep going, you nod.” This time, his hand traced down the front of my throat, then drifted over my collarbone and down into the sensitive spot between my breasts, and stroked me there. “Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I whispered. I was already aching for him, but then, I’d been aching for him for about three hours now.
He pulled two candles out of his bag, set them down on the bedside table, struck a match, and lit them, then turned off the bedside lamp. And just like that, the fire within me turned up about ten degrees. The flickering light, the delicate smell of honey and roses. All softness, and nothing like softness, because Hemi was pulling something else out of his bag.
A white silk scarf.
I sucked in a breath, but I didn’t let it out, because Hemi had put the scarf over my mouth and was wrapping it around my head. Twice, so the material was caught between my teeth, forcing my mouth open.
I knew my eyes were wide. I’d expected this, and yet, I hadn’t been able to actually imagine what it would feel like to be gagged. It felt…almost frightening. Way too dirty. Much too exciting.
“First chance,” Hemi said. His chest was rising and falling more rapidly, I could swear. “To nod if it’s OK, and shake your head if it’s not.”
