“Yes.” She moaned. “I feel it.”
“You want it?”
She nodded frantically.
“I’m warning you right now, it’s going to be a rough ride. If you’re not ready for it yet, I’ll put you on your knees for a while to take my edge off.”
Julie’s heart pounded so loud, it felt like it might exit her chest. His words were pushing her past her breaking point. Words that should offend her, alarm her. Instead, she only wanted more. She wanted Reed’s brand of rough. Wanted to be the object of his lust, his reason for losing control.
When she slipped a hand underneath the waistband of her panties, his breathing grew even more labored. She found the bundle of nerves, aching for his touch, and circled her middle finger around it once. “I don’t want your edge off. I don’t want to be treated like a lady.” She tipped her head to the side, whimpering as his lips licked and sucked at her neck. “I want you to deliver on all the promises you’ve made. I want everything you’ve got.”
At once, he surged out of the chair with a growl, carrying her with him. He pushed her down over a smooth cedar bureau, bent over with her hips in the air, and yanked the panties down her legs. Julie looked at her reflection in the attached mirror, amazed at the woman staring back at her. She looked drugged, desperate, out of control. Such a departure from her usual unruffled composure. Behind her, Reed’s features were drawn together tightly as he ripped open a condom wrapper and rolled it down his thick length with jerky movements.
With one powerful drive, Reed finally entered her. The pressure was so great, so delicious, that Julie bit her lip and screamed, hands scrambling for purchase on the wood bureau top. Through partially blind eyes, she looked up at Reed’s reflection to find an expression of undiluted pleasure on his face. But it quickly transformed into a need for more, as he wrapped her hair around his fist and jerked it back.
“You will never dance like that again. You will never hike your skirt up again. Never.” He pulled out slightly, then thrust back into her hard. “Not unless it’s for me. Is that understood?”
Julie cried out. “Yes.”
“Not good enough.” He hooked his arm under her left knee and yanked it waist-level, grunting in satisfaction as his hips pumped, driving deeper with each upward push. The position made her arch her back in a way that put him right where she needed him, every thrust finding its mark. “Say, ‘Yes, Reed, I understand. I’ll be a good girl from now on.’”
When she didn’t answer fast enough, he bit her shoulder in warning. “I’ll be a good girl,” she half sobbed, half whispered.
He dropped his head forward on a groan and increased his pace, pinning Julie’s hips to the hard surface, forcing her to receive his rigid arousal over and over, until her legs began to quake, her skin started to prickle with the oncoming orgasm.
“You’re starting to tighten up on me, baby. Do you want my fingers to massage you between your legs?”
“God, yes. Please.”
“No.”
Their gazes connected in the mirror. Hers frantic, questioning. His, unreadable. “That first night, I told you, no touching yourself. Not even with your right hand. You broke the rule during your little dance. You can’t have my fingers.”
“Reed.”
His dark laughter grazed her neck. “I’ll make an exception. If you accept a different punishment later, I’ll rub your hot little clit right now.”
“Fine…just…oh, please.”
“Is that a yes?”
“Yes!”
The arm beneath her knee tightened and yanked her leg even higher, propping it on the bureau. Leaving her provocatively exposed in a way that stole oxygen from her lungs. His thrusts became longer, more measured as he reached around to slide two fingers on either side of her clitoris. He pinched it lightly between his knuckles and squeezed, before giving her what she needed. The pads of his middle and ring finger petted her delicately at first, then faster and with more pressure. Julie could only shut her eyes and accept the tumult of sensations as they began lashing mercilessly at her body. His erection moved, thick and unyielding, inside of her, Reed pounding out his own need while lengthening her powerful climax. Shattering every notion she’d ever had about intimacy.
She felt him pulse hot inside of her, stretching her, ready to give in. He gripped her chin and lifted her head so it faced the mirror. “Watch me. Watch me finish, baby. You need to see what you did.” When she nodded, his movements grew jerky, yet somehow even more determined. Ever so slightly, he tightened his grip on her jaw until her mouth opened from the pressure. He pushed his fingers inside. “Suck.”
Julie didn’t question, she simply closed her lips around his fingers, drew on them as hard as she could. And watched Reed come apart behind her.
Chapter Twelve
Reed cinched the white towel around his waist and stared blindly at his reflection in the fogged-up bathroom mirror. For the first time since he could remember, he wondered what someone else thought when they looked at him. Ugly, painful-looking scars, one at his hip, another slashing down from his collarbone. An unruly mess of tattoos running together, none of them with any particular meaning except to cover him up. To keep people away.
Why hadn’t it worked with Julie?
Not wanting to look at himself any longer, he turned and leaned back on the marble sink, crossing his arms over his chest. And tried not to blink. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her in the mirror. Hair a gorgeous mess, lips swollen and damp, breasts bouncing up and down from the force of his thrusts.
“Hell.” Reed dragged his hands down his face, feeling himself harden beneath the towel. Thank Christ she’d gone back to her room to shower, or they’d be at it again. Not that it had been easy letting her walk out of the room, looking more than a little shell-shocked by their heated encounter, followed by his sudden silence. His less-than-warm treatment of her after the hottest damn sex of his life. He’d wanted to say something to make her smile, but the words never came.
Truthfully, he still couldn’t come up with words to describe what the hell had taken place between them. Consensual sex between two adults didn’t cover it. He’d demanded promises from her; he’d held nothing of himself back. Two things he’d never done, not with any woman. When he’d tried to chalk it up to the heat of the moment, he immediately discarded the notion. An hour later, the thought of another man looking at her, watching her dance, made him grind his knuckles into the counter. He couldn’t even contemplate it without adrenaline blasting through his veins, demanding more assurances from her.
Where the hell did he get off asking for reassurance? Promises? He had no use for them. Certainly couldn’t make any of his own. He’d break them…wouldn’t he? Broken promises were his legacy. They ran in his family. Julie probably came from a long line of honorable men who kept their word. Men whose word meant something in the first place.
She’d marry a man like that someday.
Long minutes passed before Reed could think clearly again, the idea of Julie marrying another man having wrapped around his throat to choke him. He sucked in a deep breath and left the bathroom to go dress. What were his options? Option one: cut things off with Julie now, try to keep his distance from her the rest of the week, and never see her again? Reed almost laughed. He’d nearly gone to her seconds after she left his room this afternoon. Four more days? Not a hope in hell of his lasting that long. They hadn’t even spoken about the fact that they lived in the same city. If he didn’t get rid of this infatuation now, knowing she was so close would drive him slowly insane.
That left him with option two: stop thinking so damn much, make the most of the time she allowed him, and fuck her so well, so thoroughly, she would never forget him for the rest of her perfect, privileged life.
Option two it is.
Reed yanked a black T-shirt over his head and strode to the door. He paused with his hand on the knob. Perhaps this decision wasn’t exactly wise. The pull he felt toward Julie woul
dn’t lessen the more time he spent with her. It might even strengthen. Reed rested his forehead against the door. He thought of her alone in her room, wondering if she’d done something wrong. Wondering if she’d ever feel him inside her again. It made him crazy. He didn’t know where this urge to soothe, to reassure, came from. It felt primitive. As if it had always been there, sitting unused in some hidden part of him, gaining strength. Now the urge blasted him like volcanic ash. She would be his Julie. At least for the next four days.