Naked & Unleashed (2 page)

“I’ll rearrange my schedule. Same time?”

“Yeah. Let yourself in. I might still be asleep.”

She nodded and stepped out of the dressing room, into his sparsely furnished bedroom. She tried not to look at his rumpled bed but the hitch in his breath told her he’d begun stroking his cock in earnest and she couldn’t help one glance at his luxe white sheets. Clinging to strength and ignoring her pulsing clit, she hurried from the building and plunged into the heat of the New York summer day.

Mikal came minutes after she left. The physical release was unsatisfying without her. He cleaned himself quickly before relocating to his library, which had a window facing the street. Watching Callista hurry away from him had become a weekly habit. He was far too familiar with the view of her cropped brown hair curling against her nape and her shoulders sloping down into her long, narrow back. The rear view was lovely when seen from above while he fucked her from behind, but it stirred feelings of uneasy regret when seen from his penthouse window. More and more lately he found himself preoccupied with exploring new ways to keep her late or schedule more frequent appointments. He was jealous of the time she spent with her other clients, but something held him back from asking her outright to see him purely for pleasure instead of business with a side of pleasure.

“She was spooked,” his housekeeper said from the doorway. “What did you do to her?”

“Nothing.” He made a point of not scaring women.
That
was the something holding him back. As long as Callista didn’t belong to him, he could keep himself in check and enjoy her without the risk of scaring her away. Frightened women were the kind of trouble he’d long ago decided even the Steele bank accounts couldn’t afford, but more than that, he didn’t want to lose contact with this particular woman.

“That was not the look of a woman running from nothing.” The housekeeper clucked suspiciously but didn’t say anything else. Her footsteps receded.

Halfway down the block, Callista raised her hand to hail a cab. Mikal watched her until she ducked out of sight in the back of a yellow sedan. Unsettled by something he couldn’t quite name, he turned away from the window and sat at his desk. Virtual meetings occupied the remainder of his afternoon but he had difficulty concentrating. Callista had no reason to run from him…unless he was slipping.

He replayed the few words they’d exchanged after she finished shaving him and cursed himself. Some women were sensitive to suggestion. While some ignored subtle hints, others added layers of meaning where none existed. He didn’t figure Callista for the type of woman who’d manufacture intent but she was sharp enough to pick up on subtext. He wanted her helpless in his hands and powerless in his bed. That kind of desire spooked women who valued their safety.

“Hell.” Damning himself, he stood abruptly and left the meeting without a word of explanation.

In the shower, Mikal tried to scrub some sense into his flesh.
Urges
had no place in his life because he wouldn’t endanger himself by acting on them. The kind of women who enjoyed being hurt and terrified, who got off on the combination of fear and sex, were not the kind of women who could be trusted. As the Steele heir, he was too vulnerable to accusations of assault, public or otherwise. One woman with a plan to ruin him for her own gain, or one woman who thought she wanted something she didn’t truly understand, and not only would Mikal be ruined, but his whole family with him.

Abuser. Woman beater. Rapist.

He wasn’t any of those things, but if he allowed himself to indulge in the kind of relationship he wanted with a woman, he could be labeled all three. Grabbing an abrasive bath brush from a hook on the shower wall, he turned the stiff bristles on his groin and tried to scrub the perversion from his flesh. Callista wouldn’t have fled in fear if he hadn’t given her a reason to run. Even if he hadn’t voiced his desires, he’d felt them. Just the idea of scaring her brought him close to orgasm.

Grasping his cock in one hand, he angled the brush and scrubbed harder.

Chapter Two

Almost a week later, Callista disentangled herself from the flow of foot traffic and ducked into Ciao Bella, a popular Manhattan café. The icy blast of air dragged a sigh of relief from her lungs. Thank God for the Upper East Side. Manhattan’s finest wouldn’t tolerate a broken AC in the middle of August.

As she joined the line to place her order, the twenty-eight-year-old Vermont native plucked at her sweat-sticky clothes. Ciao Bella’s Manhattanite clientele showed no signs of being affected by the heat. Fashionably dressed and impeccably groomed, young women and men flashed their pricey white smiles alongside their Tiffany accessories.

Callista knew she wouldn’t spot any of her clients in the café. Her clients didn’t leave their penthouses for coffee or manicures. They had their lattes and their technicians delivered.

As one of those technicians, she had behind-the-scenes insight into the imperfections disguised by the glossy veneer. Her sense of discretion was worth her weight in princess-cut carats. She didn’t earn anything close to that kind of money, but her career choice did have its perks. Some of that imperfection suited her just fine.

She added a quad Americano to her order and contemplated her biggest perk. Hours after she’d fled Mikal’s apartment last week, she’d regretted the decision to turn him down. So maybe he didn’t give her everything she needed. No man would, not if she didn’t ask. And she was
not
going to ask. Not for that.

It was ridiculous that she even privately entertained her recent interest in violent sex. A healthy woman didn’t get off on threats to her life. A healthy woman enjoyed a man with an enormous cock and a skilled tongue just because he possessed them, not because she could easily imagine him turning those sensual tools into weapons.

Mikal gave her plenty, and she’d have to be content with that. Oh the hardship of no-strings sex with a goth-god nympho like him. Just the thought of him made her wet…and despite her miniature freak-out at the end of their last session, she’d thought about him extensively since the previous Friday. Mikal Steele wasn’t the sort of man a woman like her had happy-ever-after rights to, but who was she to walk away from wild, incredible sex?

Her daddy didn’t raise a stupid girl. She knew a good thing when she had it between her legs. Determined to move past last week’s moment of self-indulgent weakness, she collected her drinks and left the pampered perfection of Ciao Bella’s customers behind.

Fifteen minutes later, she quietly let herself into Mikal’s penthouse. She dropped her bag and shoes in the foyer and, coffee in hand, padded barefoot up the winding staircase to his loft bedroom. Sun poured through the uncovered window that made up his west-facing wall. The cityscape behind the glass had nothing on the man in the California king bed.

Mikal sprawled on his stomach, naked and powerful even in his sleep. The long muscles of his legs were clearly defined. A dark swath of hair fell across his face and halfway down his back, obscuring his face from view. Too bad, but she’d be able to drink her fill of his sharp features and icy eyes soon enough. Sucking frosty coffee through a straw, she instead contemplated the firm flesh of his ass and the shadow of his balls. If she were a gay man, she’d be hard pressed to decide whether she wanted to fuck him or be fucked by him.

Fortunately, she didn’t have to choose. Her straight-woman self was perfectly content to receive.

“Patience,” she whispered. Mikal probably wouldn’t turn her down if she climbed into his bed and onto his cock, but quick and dirty ended too soon. Embracing the anticipation, Callista placed his Americano on the glass-topped stand beside the bed and retreated to gather her equipment. The scent of coffee would rouse him by the time she returned and she would hopefully have a new grip on her senses. She wouldn’t get any piece of that if she sliced open his jugular due to sex-unsettled nerves.

Backtracking through his apartment, she peripherally admired Mikal’s taste in décor. He trended toward a minimalist look with clean lines, wide-open spaces and a crisp black-and-white color scheme. Her favorite thing about Mikal was his blunt, direct approach. Even his environment was without subterfuge. A speck of dust couldn’t hide beneath the high set of his chairs. With the secrets she kept lately, she should have been uncomfortable surrounded by such transparency.

She stopped and stood still in the center of the enormous living room, moving nothing but her eyes. Nowhere to hide. She could flatten herself to the floor and squirm beneath the sofa but he’d find her there. She could crouch low and turn herself into a ball of limbs behind one of the high-backed chairs but he’d find her there too. The narrow gallery beyond the living room didn’t offer sanctuary either. The unframed prints mounted on the walls wouldn’t hide her. Wouldn’t save her.

Nowhere to hide. He’d catch her if she ran.

Wetting her lips, she glanced up the stairs to the silent floor above. What would she have to do to make him chase her? And would he do it right when he caught her?

Without warning, her earlier flashes of lust morphed into something far more intense. Fear clawed at her chest and blood pulsed in her ears. Callista felt a thick slide of aroused wetness between her thighs, ruining her panties and robbing her of any sense of dignity. In her mind, Mikal’s long white-walled gallery became a narrow alley riddled with debris. The telltale creak of a door let her know he was coming. Adrenaline transformed the light tread of his step into a pounding run.

His breath was hot on the back of her neck. He snarled her name in her ear as he caught her and slammed her against the wall. His cock bulged against her ass, rubbing into the crease as he ground his groin against her. Callista whimpered but couldn’t make her lungs work well enough to scream.

Mikal jammed his knee between her legs and forced them wide. He held a knife at the back of her neck with one hand and wrenched her pants down with the other, baring her flesh to the cold of the night.

“If you scream, I’ll cut you,” he warned, digging the knife against her skin to prove he meant it.

“I won’t,” she gasped. “I swear. Don’t hurt me.”

But he was going to hurt her. He jammed his free hand between her legs from behind and tore at her panties. The elastic sawed against her skin before it ripped. Mikal shoved the scraps aside and tunneled his fingers through her wetness. He pinched her clit so hard she yelped, then pinched her again as punishment.

Tears stung her eyes. Callista pressed the side of her face against the brick and bit her lip, trying to muffle another cry as he shoved his fingers into her pussy. He didn’t go in gently to ease the way. Instead he speared her without any care for the pain.

He—

Slapped her face. “
Callista
.”

The dark alley vanished, leaving her surrounded by the blindingly white walls of the gallery. She shivered, out of place in her skin and disconnected from her surroundings. When the hell had she started hallucinating?

Mikal’s long fingers curled around her throat. The pulse at the base of his thumb lined up with her artery and the rapid beat of her blood. Her cheek stung from the smack of his palm…and all she could do was stare.

Even though she’d seen his naked torso once a week for the last year, she never failed to experience a brief moment of mouthwatering surprise. He didn’t possess a single curl of hair from his Adam’s apple to his groin. The smooth plane of pectoral and abdominal muscle made her fingers curl. Even coming out of her bizarre mental lapse, she wanted to press her nails into his flesh and lick his pale nipples.

The rational part of her was horrified by her inability to remember traveling from the living room to the gallery. The completely fucked-up part of her wanted to beg him to hit her again.

She mentally fled both issues and turned away from his speculative gaze. Mikal released her throat. His palm trailed across her shoulder.

“You need to lay off the espresso lunch,” he said after a moment, his tone perfectly neutral, as if talking to a woman who suffered from a case of the jitters instead of a nearly complete breakdown. “Shall we cancel today’s session and give you time to detox?”

Giving herself a mental shake, she forced a laugh. “No. No, I’m fine. Sorry about that. I thought I saw a spider.”

The lie was flimsy but she offered it anyway. Maybe someday, all the denying she did would banish her twisted yearnings. For now, shifting her focus to something benign would have to suffice. “I’ll go get my bag.”

You have a predator’s instincts.

He’d never forgotten those words, a diagnosis handed down by a psych student he’d once handled at Bondage, the BDSM club where he sporadically worked when he needed a taste of the lifestyle he wouldn’t allow himself to lead.

It’s actually pretty scary.

Well, that was the point.

As Callista edged away from him, his predator instincts heightened. In that moment he possessed her through her own terror. He wasn’t sure what had scared her, but he wanted to tighten the psychological restraints. To cut her deeper by bringing her fear to life.

Wrestling free from the craving of his flesh, Mikal focused on banishing the impulse from his mind. The stark white paint on his walls and his uncovered windows were supposed to maximize the light and keep him out of the criminal recesses of his brain. Today, they didn’t provide enough light. Darkness blanketed him as if it was a demon covering its lover and he reached for her.

“You’re not fine,” he said, touching her shoulder again. His words and tone masked the delight brought on by her fear. He’d practiced that neutrality, honed his ability to mask what should send any sane-minded woman running. Callista…she wasn’t so sane-minded after all. He recognized that now, in the wake of their last encounter. Fear and arousal—everybody experienced those emotions. Most people didn’t experience them at the same time, one feeding the other.

Callista’s shoulders drew up toward her ears. She half turned toward him and touched the tip of her tongue to her upper lip. Mikal cocked his head, fascinated by the tell. He’d seen her do that before but hadn’t realized it was a product of fear.

“I am fine,” she answered. “I’m ready to work. Do you want to go upstairs or should I set up down here?”

“I want to know what you were running from.” A thin gold chain gleamed at her nape. Mikal hooked his forefinger behind the clasp and tugged, drawing the chain taut around her throat. She swallowed hard and her breath hitched. He smiled. “And I want to fuck you today. Take off your pants.”

She blinked. “Now? Right here?”

“I’m hard now. Don’t tell me you’re not ready. You’re so close to coming, your face is on fire.”

Callista pressed her palm to her cheek. The next flush of red was a layer of embarrassment on top of arousal. She turned her face away. “I can’t do this today. I have other clients.”

Cocking an eyebrow, Mikal moved to face her full on. He lifted her chin with his index finger and guided her eyes to meet his. “I’ll pay for their shares of your time.”

“I’m not a prostitute.” She squared her jaw and straightened her shoulders in a show of defiance.

Any other time, he would have smiled. He enjoyed working the defiance out of a woman who hadn’t yet come to terms with her submissive leanings. Most women he knew these days didn’t fit that bill. Most women he encountered were too well-trained, too aware of exactly what they wanted out of scenes and relationships. Callista, however…striking Callista with her angular features and long, boyish body, feared what she wanted. Didn’t know how to ask for it. He’d enjoyed casual sex with her in the past, but the things she’d revealed today made him want more. He wanted her fear. The quick pace of her pulse and the outline of her nipples through her shirt told him she wanted her fear too.

“It wouldn’t take anything for me to make you spread your legs.” To prove it, he grasped her biceps and lifted her up and back against the wall. Crowding close, he wedged his leg between her thighs and pressed his erection against her hip.

She exhaled a soft, quick puff of breath and dug her fingernails into his forearms. Her pulse fluttered rapidly at the base of her throat and her voice trembled when she said, “Mikal, stop.”

“I don’t think you actually want me to stop.” He lowered his head and kissed the vulnerable spot below her ear. She whimpered and clamped her thighs around his leg, squirming in a way he wasn’t sure she was even aware of. Her breath quickened as he freed one hand and found her nipple with a light, punishing pinch. “Tell me the truth, lover. Does no mean yes?”

She turned her face away from him. Mikal drew back far enough to watch her expression while he shifted his hold from her arm to her hip. When he maneuvered her legs around his waist and closed in hard against her pussy, her throat worked but she didn’t speak. Bright spots of color stained her cheeks and her parted lips looked swollen even though he hadn’t kissed her. Overcome by a need to be inside her even in a small way, he bent to claim her mouth. He took his time, grinding against her pussy and stroking his piercing along the roof of her mouth. Her low moan told him what he needed to know about definitions.

He slowly released her lips but didn’t go far. “I think when you say ‘no’, you’re really saying ‘no, but do it anyway’. Do you want to be overpowered? Do you want me to prove you’re weak and I’m strong?”