“A statement. It feels different. I’m glad you made me leave.”
I cup her head and kiss her, savoring the sweetness of those words on my tongue, before I say, “Me too. But I’m glad we went, Faith. You needed to know. I just don’t want us in a place like that.”
“I felt that. I needed to feel that.” She pushes away from me just enough to slip that mask on her face.
My hands settle at her waist, my lips near her ear. “You know I like control.”
My fingers tease her nipple and she arches into the touch, and gives a choked laugh. “You love control.”
“Can I have it now, Faith?”
“I love that you ask,” she whispers.
“I don’t have control that you don’t give me. You know that. I know that. And I wouldn’t want the lie that is any other form of control. Do you know what I want right now?” I don’t give her time to reply. “I want you to feel me so completely that you know, absolutely know, that if there is one person on this earth you can be free with, it’s me.”
“I do.”
“No. But we’re a work in progress, sweetheart. You will. I promise, I will make you not just feel those things. You’ll know them.”
My hands fall away from her and I take a step backward. She reaches for me and I am just a finger out of reach. Her hands fall to her sides, and for nearly a full minute, I just stand there, letting her feel the absence of my touch, letting her wonder what will come next. What will I do to her. I step closer to her again, letting her feel my nearness, and she does. She inhales my scent, on her instincts that tell her I’m in front of her. I lower myself to my knees, but still I don’t touch her. I hold my hands at her ankles, but still I don’t touch her. I move my hands upward. But still I don’t touch her.
“Nick,” she breathes out and when she reaches for me, my lips curve, and I allow her fingers to tunnel into my hair.
It’s what I wanted. I wanted her to reach for me, to need me. And now that she has, then, and only then, do my hands come down on her hips, my lips to her belly. I cup her backside, and lower my mouth until I’m a breath above her sex. Her fingers tighten in my hair, and I give her a tiny lick. She rewards me with a sexy, sweet moan. I suckle her nub, then swirl my tongue around it, and already she is trembling and can feel how on edge she is, how easily she will shatter for me, but it’s not enough. I want more. So much more. An explosion. A connection. More than an orgasm.
And suddenly I know I need to test the waters. I need to know that we are not only moving forward, but that we haven’t gone backward.
I stand up, and she breathes out, “Nick,” and my name is a plea.
I answer by cupping her face and kissing her, letting her taste her on my lips. “I’m going to spank you, Faith,” I say, needing to know she won’t hesitate. “I am not going to give you any other warning unless you tell me otherwise. Answer now. Trust me or not. Yes or no?”
“Yes.”
I sit down and take her with me, pulling her across my lap so that the cushion cradles her body, my hand on her backside. I start rubbing her cheeks, warming her backside, when I feel the punch of ignorance overwhelm me. Of course, she said yes. I spanked her the first night. She knows how to shut down. She knows how to escape, and hell. I’m letting her escape me. I’m hurting the level of trust between us, not creating trust.
I inhale and lean over her, kissing her back, her shoulder, one of my hands sliding under her to her sex, fingers stroking the silky wet heat. I slip fingers inside her, my thumb still working her clit and she was already so damn close that she stiffens and trembles into that orgasm I denied her. I don’t let her ride it all the way out, though. I want her to finish with me inside her. I shift our entire bodies, pulling her backside to my front, and I press inside her, my hand covering her breasts.
Her hand is immediately on my hand, and I thrust into her, pleasure radiating through. “God. You feel good,” I murmur next to her ear. “So damn good.”
She arches into me. “Nick, you…I…”
I pull out of her and turn her to face me, pulling away her blindfold. Pressing inside her again, and cupping her backside to pull her down onto my cock, before I repeat her words, “You and I is exactly right,” and then kiss her, a deep, drugging kiss, even as I do a slow thrust followed by another and when I pull back to look at her, to breathe with her, there is a shift between us, an expanding need.
Our mouths come back together, our bodies grinding, pumping, thrusting. It’s dirty, it’s sexy, it’s fiercely addictive, and yet it is sultry, intimate. She tugs my hair free, her fingers tangling in it, tugging at it. Her teeth scraping my shoulder, mine scraping her nipple. The rise of our orgasms are slow, it seems until they’re not. Until they’re upon us and I am cupping her breast, pinching her nipple, thrusting my cock and she is panting out my name in such a fierce demanding way that I am helpless to stop the explosion. I shudder and she trembles, and we cling to each other until we collapse against each other.
Seconds, maybe minutes pass and we lay there like that until she says, “Why didn’t you spank me?”
I pull back to look at her, stroking hair from her face. “I wanted to, but for the wrong reasons.”
“I don’t understand.”
“A spanking is a power play. We both enjoy the give and take that it represents. But it is about power, my power and control, and that has no place between us with a fight in the air and that damn club playing with our heads.”
Her hand settles on my face. “The club isn’t between us. It’s gone. It’s done. And Nick Rogers. If I wasn’t in love with you before this moment, I would be now.”
She presses her lips to mine, and I slant my mouth over hers. In the depths of that kiss is what I have craved, what I have needed: A new level of trust, a willingness to risk it all with me. But hours later as I lay in bed, holding Faith close, I am not reveling in the mountain we’ve climbed today. I’m too busy looking for a way to battle the sea of sharks that are my lies.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Faith
A new day dawns for me with the emotional high of conquering “the club incident” as I call it in my mind, and with Nick and I a little stronger and a lot closer.
And with my car still at Nick’s office, I hitch a ride with him, with a Starbucks drive-thru detour a few blocks from our destination. “That Chinese food we left on your conference table is going to reek this morning,” I say, as we wait at the window for our drinks.
“Rita is going to give me absolute hell about it, too.”
“What are you going to say to explain it?”
“Absolutely nothing.”