All He Needs (All or Nothing) (7 page)

“I should say no,” she whispered, wishing that in the past month some other man could have made her feel this explosive lust and free her from her inconvenient, burning desire for the elusive Dominic Knight.

His anger instantly drained away, his gut-tightening jealousy faded. “No you shouldn’t,” he said gently, his fingertip
gossamer light on her nipple. “Because I want these to be mine.” Then he cupped her chin and raised her face so their eyes met, so he saw her smoldering desire and she his unflinching resolve. “Tell me they’re mine,” he said quietly. “And I’ll let you come.”

“Sorry, too late.” Her green gaze was playful, the flush of arousal pinking her skin. “I don’t think I actually
need
you.”

He laughed. “Goddamn, I’ve missed you, baby. But…” he softly said, bending his head, giving her a quick glance from under his lashes, “maybe I can change your mind.” His mouth closed gently over the tender tip of her nipple and he set about showing her who needed whom.

As the warmth of his mouth drew in her nipple, she felt her body open in welcome, as though he had only to make that first small overture, delicately touch her sensitive crest with the tip of his tongue, and every combustible sexual nerve she possessed instantly ignited. It was one of his many accomplishments—his incredible tactile finesse. And if she weren’t feeling the delicious heat sliding downward from his mouth to her quivering, throbbing sex, she might take issue and allow her jealousy full rein.

But he was nibbling now, his teeth leaving little jolts in their wake that tingled at first, then stung, then ravished her senses and stole her reason and reminded her of the nipple clips in Hong Kong so violently that she cried out in a frenzy of need.

He lifted his head, the air suddenly cool on her nipple. “Soon, baby. Try to relax.”

“I can’t!”

“Sure you can.” He touched her cheek. “Try.” Then he dipped his head and gently bit her other nipple.

It was no contest; it never was.

He could make her feel so fine it didn’t matter if she was needy or self-willed, free or not, when the pleasure was so flat-out wondrous.

He teased first one nipple then the other, carefully gauging her response as he deftly brought her to the explosive brink before releasing the pressure of his mouth and letting her hysteria slowly wane. Then beginning again, sucking gently at first then not gently at all, masterfully restoking her arousal.

Saturated with prodigal sensation, wallowing in bliss, dizzy with pleasure, Kate forgave Dominic all his transgressions. She forgave him for all her weeks of misery because only he had the gift to make her feel this good: glowing, insatiable, deep in love. She didn’t even care that he flinched at the word
love
. She was beyond reason and logic, her body tingling, pulsing, melting inside, slick, liquid, desperate. “Dominic, please,” she said on a suffocated breath, pushing his head away. “You win. I want you, I need you.
Now, this instant
.”

He took her face between his hands, his gaze close. “We need each other, baby. Give me a few seconds. Okay?”

She nodded, or tried, his fingers unyielding.

“I don’t want to miss this. So hang on. Please?”

She loved him contrite, although she loved him every possible way. “Maybe, probably, hurry…”

His fingers slid away from her face and he pulled off her shoes, slacks, and panties in one fell swoop. Coming to his feet, he picked her up as though she were weightless and
carried her to a chaise, where he deposited her with a super polite, “I’ll be right with you.”

He stripped off his clothes with astonishing speed. Then he took the condom he’d pulled from his pants pocket and put between his teeth, ripped the foil open, and rolled the condom down his erection.
He was like a fucking professional
, she thought. “You’re awfully good at that,” she said, grudging irritation in her voice.

He looked up at the umbrage in her tone. “At what?”

“Putting on that condom.”

“Is there some reason I shouldn’t be? Don’t answer that. I don’t have time to argue.” Suddenly he was towering over her. “Would you like to spread your legs or should I do it? You’re not the only one in a hurry.”

“Do I have a choice?”

He suddenly laughed. “You don’t really want a choice do you?”

“I suppose not, with that really fabulous dick about to make me happy.”

“Smart girl.” He put one knee on the chaise, she opened her thighs, and a moment later, he was positioning himself between her legs. “A word of warning. This first time isn’t going to break any records for endurance. As soon as you start coming, I’m right behind you.” He didn’t wait for an answer; she was panting and so slick with longing, he glided in with only the slightest resistance.

She climaxed almost instantly, he quickly followed, and after an oppressive thirty-six days of estrangement the brute force of their tempestuous orgasms, the sheer, blinding pleasure, left them momentarily stunned.

Was it possible to actually have an out-of-body experience? Empirical evidence was making Dominic a believer.

Was it possible to fall hopelessly, head over heels in love again, with a man who didn’t want to be loved, because of an outrageously grandiose orgasm? Kate wondered.

The mind-boggling affirmation was direct, razor sharp, and terrifying to them both.

He should withdraw, he thought with alarm—to Paris or beyond.

She should politely say “thank you” as if none of this were out of the ordinary, she nervously reflected, and take the first plane home.

But neither one moved. “I’m losing it,” he said half under his breath, his eyes slits as though to contain the raging turbulence within.

“We should—stop,” she said, gasping.

“Later.”

“When?” Someone had to be rational.

“Talk to me in a year.”

She went rigid in his arms despite the heady mix of wistful, fervent devotion. “Impossible!”

“Try me,” he growled.

“Damn it, Dominic, you can’t just—”

He covered her mouth with his, defiant of reason, heedless to all but his own selfish desire, his ravaging kiss ignoring her resistance, the brute force marking her with an inexplicable stamp of ownership—like Attila the Hun with a new concubine.

As rash as he, she shamelessly capitulated, gave herself up to his plundering mouth and tongue, wanting what he
wanted, wanting more. Wanting his love; wanting what she could never have.

As her resistance melted away, she responded with her familiar tempestuous passion, recklessly matched his fevered kisses with a wildness of her own, impulsively bit his lip. He sucked in a breath, then bit her back with the same seething fury. They were both out of control, their nerve endings on fire, their cravings so intense they could taste it, their need for each other irrepressible.

And where Dominic had been uncertain about his plans—actually, he’d had no plans—suddenly his roadmap to the future was clear. He lifted his head marginally and smiled at her, feeling as though truth and goodness and all the virtues of the world were within his grasp. “You make me insanely happy, baby, but bite me that hard again,” he said with a grin, licking the blood off his bottom lip, “and you’ll get the spanking of your life.”

“Then it might be worth it,” she whispered, stretching upward; his bite having been more restrained, only teeth marks reddened her lip.

Shoving her back down, he circled her wrists with his fingers. “You’ll have another chance later,” he said lightly, dropping a kiss on the bridge of her nose. “Right now, I have a semiserious proposition. So don’t say no right away.”

“I wouldn’t dream of saying no to you after that dynamite orgasm.” She smiled faintly. “Does this have anything to do with my next orgasm? Please say yes.”

He smiled back. “Yes. But give me a minute first. I hate these things.” Withdrawing from her body, he sat on the edge of the chaise, yanked off the condom, and tossed it in
the jungle of plants. “Don’t lecture me,” he warned her. “My staff doesn’t give a shit.”

“I wouldn’t think of it,” she murmured.

Her reply was so amenable, his gaze narrowed. “Is that sarcasm? Forget it,” he said quickly. “I don’t care, as long as you’re not getting up to leave.”

Her green-eyed gaze was balmy with contentment. “I don’t feel like leaving just yet.”

“Perfect. Because I have something that will make the sex even better.”

“You have my full attention, Mr. Knight,” she purred.

He laughed. “I thought I might.” But he drew in a quick breath and said warily, “Listen, don’t shoot me down until you hear me out, okay?”

She grinned. “It must be super kinky.”

He gave her a flinty look.

She mimed a locking motion across her mouth.

“Now, first, I’m perfectly willing to use condoms for as long as you want, but with the multiple orgasms you prefer, along with, shall we say, the marathon fucking sessions you like, condoms would be a real pain in the ass. So”—he took a quick breath—“if you’re interested I have an alternative. Since your period is just ending—”

Shock and surprise instantly gave way to indignation.

“Don’t give me that look. There’s no such thing as privacy anymore. I read the interview brief on you in Hong Kong and remembered because it mattered to me at the time. Am I right about your period?”

“Jeez. Is that kind of invasive detail actually legal?”

“I never asked. So am I right or not?”

She made a face, then nodded.

He smiled. “Since when did you get shy?”

“That’s kinda personal.”

“Unlike fucking. So can I get back to my plan?”

She wrinkled her nose in a little bunny twitch.

“I’ll take that as a yes. One more thing and don’t be squeamish. It’s just a simple question. Is this the fifth day of your period?”

Her brows flew up. “How the hell did you know that?”

“I told you, I read the brief. I have a good memory; once I see something, it’s here.” He tapped his head. “Anyway, the timing couldn’t be better for a contraceptive shot. The shot would be effective immediately.”

She glowered. “How would you know that?”

“General information. Don’t get pissed. I read about it.”

“Why?” Her glare was undiminished, her jealously unreasonable but stubbornly persistent.

“Because it happened to be on
The Times
Health page I was reading,” he said, keeping his voice super calm. “And birth control impacts me. Okay?”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that.”

“Come on, babe, I’d like to say I was a virgin when I met you, but I can’t. I told you I haven’t been with a woman since Hong Kong. And that’s major for me.”

“I suppose,” she grumbled.

“You better suppose,” he grumbled back. “It’s in the category of moving mountains with my history.” He briefly shut his eyes as though reconfiguring his past against the
present, then looked at her and smiled. “This is a whole new wonderland, babe.”

“Thank you,” she said softly.

“No problem,” he said as softly. “It was worth it.” He leaned forward and bushed a kiss across her mouth. “So what do you say?”

“Okay.”

He sat back. “Just like that—okay?”

“Yup.”

“That blindsided me,” he said with a grin. “No argument?”

“Actually I’m a little allergic to latex and a lot allergic to the lubed ones, and honestly, I like to feel you.”

Taking issue with any condom use on her part, he wanted to grill and cross-examine her on the history of her latex allergies. But understanding that argument was counterproductive, he stifled his resentments and reached for his sports jacket instead. “Let me call my doctor,” he said, pulling his cell phone from his coat pocket.

“You can get a doctor this time of night?”

“I can get a doctor anytime. He works for me.”

She scowled. “I hope you’re not going to tell me he gives these shots to all the women you entertain here.”

“I don’t bring women here. It’s my home.”

She gave him a dirty look. “You brought them to the Garden House.”

“I don’t consider that my home,” he very carefully replied, his voice gentle, his expression completely blank. “If my mother hadn’t been at the house when we got there, we would have stayed on the Peak. And before you jump to
conclusions, I don’t bring women to my home on the Peak either. You were the first.”

“Maybe this doctor gives these shots for you somewhere else,” she said, ignoring his momentous admission because she was jealous of every woman he’d ever looked at and her jealousy was an irresistible force.

“I’ve never asked him to do this for me before. Please, Katherine. I don’t want to talk about the past. It’s over. And if you’ll agree to an exclusivity pact, there’s no one but you.”

“What if I don’t agree?”

He exhaled softly. “What do you want me to say?”

“How about the truth?”

“Then I’ll be fucking someone else. Satisfied?”

It was amazing how much it hurt to hear him say that. To think of him with another woman. To consider life without him now that he’d returned to her.

“Hey,” he whispered, taking her hand in his, gently squeezing it. “I don’t want anyone but you. But it’s not as though I’m eighty, okay? So let’s get together on this. I want only you. No one else. It’s been a hellish month, let’s not fight about how much I want you. There’s no measure large enough or high enough or deep enough. I’m on the verge of begging you, baby, and that’s fucking scary.” His smile was inexpressibly tender. “So give me a break. Say yes before I embarrass myself completely. We’ll hammer out the details later about where and when, how often”—he grinned—“and what you want for toys.”

She smiled. “I think I missed the begging part. You sound pretty assured.”

“I am about the toys.”

“You always were arrogant.”

“And you always resist me.”

She gave him a look from under her lashes.

He grinned. “Well, sometimes you do.”

She sighed softly, not sure whether she was giving in to him or whether life without him was insupportable. “So—do I need an attorney?”

In a flash, he lifted her onto his lap, wrapped his arms around her, and dazzled her with a smile. “I’m so freaking happy,” he whispered, kissing her gently. “And if you want an attorney, we’ll get you one. I don’t really care, so long as I know you’re mine.”