“You bastard,” I say, and he only laughs.
“Princess, you don’t even know the half of it.”
He returns his mouth to my breast, his lips skimming my cleavage as he moves to find my other nipple. “Why don’t you finish those buttons?” he murmurs, his lips never leaving my skin.
“What?” His words haven’t quite registered with me, at least not until he takes my hand and places it on the fourth button, then lets his own fingers trail up to tease the nipple that he’d abandoned, cool and tight and still wet from his tongue.
Oh, god.
His teeth nip me, and I arch in pleasure, understanding that this is not just a sensual tease but a silent demand.
And so help me, I comply, moving my fingers down the dress with slow, steady movements. I keep my back to the patio door, because what he is doing to my breasts is making me crazy, and I’m afraid that if I don’t have that support my legs will simply give out.
When I’m almost done with the buttons, he pulls back, remov ing his mouth from my breast and forcing me to bite back a whimper of protest.
“Don’t fight it, princess,” he says. “I see it on your face, in the flush of your skin. Even in your eyes, that you’re trying to keep so cool and hard. Don’t you know that I see what you want? That I feel what you need?”
My traitorous body aches with the desire for him to touch me, and I can only stand there frozen, unable and unwilling to give in to his games.
“Go ahead,” he says, as if reading my thoughts. “Touch yourself. Show me how you like it. Show me exactly how to put my hands on you.”
I shake my head. “Jackson. No.”
“My rules, princess, remember?” He reaches for the dress and eases me out of it. He tosses it backward so that it lands on the couch. And there I stand, clad only in the sexy underwear and fuck-me red heels.
“Christ, you’re gorgeous,” he says, and there’s such honest arousal in his voice that I’m overcome with a sense of déjà vu. I’ve stood like this before. Dressed like this—or, rather, undressed like this. Hot and wet and wanting, and Jackson’s eyes on me, so full of desire that I could drown in them.
But that night I’d wanted everything he had to give—and I hadn’t been afraid. Not then. The fear had come later.
Tonight—god help me—I want it, too. And that scares me to death.
“Go ahead, princess,” he says, lifting my hand and placing my palm against my stomach. “I want to watch you melt.”
I meet his eyes, expecting to see heat. But all I see is the mask of a man holding tight to his emotions.
Fuck that—if he’s going to force me to play, then I’m going to play to win.
“Is this what you want?” I ask, sliding my hand up to my breast and finding the nipple that he just abandoned. I close my hand over my breast, squeezing and teasing, then so slowly it is almost painful I trace my fingertip over my tight areola. “Or maybe this?” I ask as I roll my nipple between my thumb and forefinger. I suck in air, more turned on by my performance than I’d intended to be, but I see the flicker of heat in his eyes.
Touchdown.
“Do you like to watch, Jackson?” I slide my other hand down my belly, all the way to the elastic band of the tiny thong panties and the little triangle of lace that barely covers my sex. Then lower and lower still. “Or do you want more? Is that it, Jackson? Do you want to touch me? Do you want to fuck me?”
I see the way the muscle in his jaw clenches. I watch his throat move as he swallows. And I wallow in the pleasure of my victory.
“Do you know how wet I am? How good I feel?” My words are not a lie. Despite the situation—hell, maybe because of it—my body is traitorously aroused, and as I stroke my clit, I can’t deny the simple reality that I am all the more turned on because I know that he is watching me.
I tell myself that’s okay. The only goal here is to keep the upper hand. If I can manage an orgasm in the process, well, I’ll just call that a perk.
I keep my eyes on him, watching his face and relishing the tightness in his jaw that signals he is fighting for control. Good, I think as I shamelessly stroke my sex. I want him on edge. I want him off kilter.
I close my eyes, telling myself to go with it. To push the envelope. To push him.
But then his hand closes around my wrist. And when I open my eyes, he is right there—right in front of me.
“No,” he says, and there is steel in his voice. “That orgasm belongs to me, baby.”
And just like that, he’s turned the tables on me again.
Fine. I’ll turn them back. “Does it?” I say, then reach over and cup his cock. “Then this belongs to me.”
He laughs as he takes a step back, breaking contact. “You think you’re the one in control? Think again, princess.”
I meet his eyes and see that he has known all along what I have just fully figured out. That I do not have the upper hand. That I never did. And that so long as we are playing this game, Jackson is setting the rules.
“No touching,” he says. “Not unless it’s me touching you. But don’t worry,” he adds as he strokes a finger up my bare belly and over the curve of my breast. “I intend to do a lot of touching.”
His hands are like a live wire sending sparks of electricity to crackle over my tender skin, and despite myself I let my head tilt back and close my eyes to this onslaught of pleasure.
“So damn beautiful,” he murmurs as his hands touch and stroke and tease and caress. “I wonder,” he says, as he cups my sex. “Do you still taste as good as you look?” He drops to his knees, his hands on my hips, then very gently kisses the juncture of my thigh. I whimper, expecting his mouth on my sex, but he teases me by sliding a fingertip under the thong to find me hot and wet and so very ready. “Oh, yes,” he says. “I think you like this.”
He torments me with his finger, sliding it over my sensitive flesh, then thrusting inside me while my body clenches tight around him, wanting so much more than that simple, complicated, wonderful touch.
When he withdraws, he stands, then traces the finger he’d penetrated me with over my lips. “Suck,” he demands, and I do eagerly, tasting my own arousal and watching the reflection of his in his eyes.
After a moment, he withdraws his finger, then takes my hand. He leads me toward the couch, only to pause by the coffee table. I’m confused at first, and then I realize that he has seen the photographs that litter the tabletop.
I wince, because those are a secret that I am not ready to share.
He releases my hand, then goes to the table. He looks down at the spray of photos that I’d left lying there, then reaches down to pick up several. “Who took this?” he asks, holding up a photograph of the Union Bank building in Las Vegas.
I consider lying, but the photo is important to me, and I do not want to deny it.
“I did.” I meet his eyes, mine defiant.
“When?”
I don’t bother to answer; the picture says it all.
“You were at the grand opening?”