Leave it to Fall, he thought bitterly. Why couldn’t Alice see how he was controlling her with his allure of power, money, and sex? He’d been learning a lot about Fall’s ruthlessness. His skill at manipulation. Everyone in the business community knew he was used to getting precisely what he wanted. Previously, Thad had respected that characteristic . . . until he’d understood Fall had set his sights on Alice Reed.
Fall’s hand moved faster between her thighs, and Alice tilted her head to the side. Thad could almost feel her peaking arousal. The night was pitch dark. Deep cloud cover remained after the storm, obliterating starlight. He could see the erotic tableau with surprising clarity in the lit large bay window. Alice’s eyes were shut, as if her entire consciousness had narrowed down to the sensation of Fall taking her by storm. Even at this distance, Thad sensed her focus was absolute. In mixed dread and fascination, he watched as her lush lips parted and her face went tight.
Distantly, he heard her high keen of pleasure.
The sound was like a sharp screw twisting straight through flesh and bone to his very core. Thad wasn’t sure how he survived that novel, distilled form of torture. But he stayed.
Until the bitter end.
*
HE was rocking her so hard, slaking his lust on her, pounding his essence into her deep. Alice wanted it. She loved it. At the same time, it was almost too much pleasure and emotion for her to withstand. It hurt in a way that was beyond pain, such a sweet, unbearable agony. She reached with one hand between her thighs, desperate to end it.
“Your job is to keep yourself steady,” she heard him rasp. Her eyelids sprung open. Both her palms pressed against the solid frame again. He removed his hand from her wrist and slid it down her belly between her thighs. His cock jumped inside her. She whimpered, arousal cutting at her, as he rubbed her lubricated clit.
“It’s mine to give you pleasure,” he added hotly near her ear as she crested.
“Oh God,” she moaned.
He thrust again. She turned her head to the side, the tense friction mounting with his hand and his pounding cock forcing a high cry from her throat. She climaxed, her raw emotional state and Dylan’s effect on her too powerful to suppress. She quaked as he continued to take her hard, hearing his tense erotic praise as if from a distance.
As she quieted, he slid his hands over her belly and ribs, firmly grasping her breasts in his hands. He slowed some in his possession of her. He molded her flesh to his palms. She sagged slightly against the wood frame, panting.
“I told you to watch in the window, Alice,” he said, his voice low, a rough threat that both aroused and soothed somehow. “I told you I wanted you to remember.”
She opened her eyes sluggishly, turning her head, seeking his image in the glass. His eyes were as black as the night outside the window. Still . . . she made out the glitter of lust in them, the spark of feral possession. His stance—one long leg planted on the floor, the other one bent, his foot on the bench next to her knees, only added to his aura of stark dominance.
“Tense your arms. Hold steady,” he said quietly, molding her breasts to his palms, his fingertips gliding over her rigid nipples, pinching them lightly, before he slid his hands to her hips. He waited until she’d firmed her sagging muscles, bracing herself for him. She couldn’t take her eyes off him as he began to fuck her again. He owned her in those moments, perhaps more than her past did. Her present.
Maybe even her future.
*
ALICE felt wrung out by the time Dylan turned out the chandelier in the room and closed the door behind them. His luxurious, mussed bed was a familiar delight, his weight next to her sublime. Sex with Dylan had that effect on her. Afterward, she was usually too sated and exhausted to think.
Or so she’d thought. The past few days had changed her expectations about herself, even about the most basic workings of her mind and body.
A thought kept squirming around in her brain, preventing her from succumbing to sleep.
“Dylan?” she mumbled, her lips brushing against his hard chest.
“Yeah, baby,” he replied drowsily, his fingers moving against her scalp. She loved the sound of his deep rough voice in the darkness.
“What about the gong?”
His fingers stilled. When he didn’t reply immediately, she elaborated. “There really was a gong, wasn’t there? Once? I’ve been meaning to ask you. Did Addie Durand play with it or something? You know . . . when she lived here?”