Pleasure's Edge (19 page)

He grabbed her hand and helped her to her feet, and standing next to him she was made aware once more of his great height, the breadth of his muscular body. He smel ed of sex. She shivered.

“Are you cold? Do you have a robe?”

“In my bathroom.”

“Go and get it.”

She went to the bathroom, done in soft, soothing shades of gray and sage green, and pul ed her pink satin robe from the hook behind the door, pausing to take in her reflection in the large, pewter-framed mirror over the sink.

Her hair was everywhere, the bright auburn curls wild. Her face was pale but her cheeks were flushed a dark pink. Her eyes were enormous. She leaned into the smooth maple cabinet, moving closer to the mirror. Her lips looked as though she’d been kissed as roughly as she had. They were red, swol en. She looked different. She
felt
different. But she would dissect it al later.

Right now, Alec was waiting for her.

She slipped her robe on, tied it around her waist, and went to find him.

He was standing next to the peridot green sofa, his jeans slung low on his hips. He wore nothing else. There was something incredibly sexy about a man in a pair of jeans, shirtless, his feet bare. The tattoos and the evil goatee only made it better. The sophisticated bad boy. And his body was heavily muscled.

Gorgeous.

Perfect.

She shook her head at her girlish fantasies, those images that had developed in her mind, probably since childhood, about what a man was. What sexy was. Alec was her ultimate man, she realized: big and muscular, a little bad, but stil kind. Educated, wel -read, wel -traveled, wel -mannered. And, of course, kinky. And as comfortably removed from real intimacy as she was. Although that seemed to be changing for both of them . . .

She cleared her throat. “I’l make the tea,” she told him, turning toward the kitchen.

He fol owed, seated himself on a tal stool at the bar that separated the smal kitchen from the living area. He dwarfed it, as he did everything else. He seemed almost too primal, in her stark, modern kitchen, everything white tile and brushed steel, and sleek, polished wood. He seemed too much alive in a place that had seen so little use, that was so utterly
clean
. Alec was so . . . purely animal. It made her feel oddly self-conscious at the sterility of her kitchen. It made her think longingly of the earthy comfort of his house, his kitchen.

She was being ridiculous. Maybe stil flying on endorphins. Yes, that must be it. That must explain the looseness in her muscles, the temptation to just relax with him.

She fil ed the kettle and put it on the stove, pul ing tea and mugs from the maple cabinets to distract herself.

“This is a great apartment,” he said final y.

“Do you like it? It’s so different from your house.”

“Meaning my house is a little messy.”

“No, not at al . It’s comfortable. Welcoming.”

“But it’s not the designer showcase this place is. Did you do it yourself?”

“Yes. It was just an open, empty space when I bought it, so I got to design it al . The floors, the kitchen and bathroom. Actual y, I refinished the floors myself, painted. It took months to get it al put together. I loved every minute of it.”

“You refinished the floors?”

She laughed. “Don’t look so shocked. I’m not completely incapable.”

“I never thought you were. But that’s pretty rough work.”

“Man’s work?” she chal enged him, just to see the answering glow in his blue eyes.

He reached out and slid a hand over hers, up her arm, beneath the sleeve of her robe. “Maybe a little too rough for you.”

“You’re pretty rough on me,” she said, surprised at the low, husky tone in her voice.

He smiled that wicked grin of his. “But you like it.” The kettle whistled, and she was saved from blurting out exactly how much she liked it.
Needed
it, lately.

She pul ed her arm back and moved to the stove.

“You take sugar, don’t you?”

“I like everything sweet. That’s one of the reasons I like you.” She poured the boiling water into the mugs, and when she glanced up at him, found him watching her. “One of the reasons?” God, she was taunting him, flirting like a teenage girl.

“One of many.”

If she wasn’t careful, she was going to ask him what the other reasons were.

She concentrated on spooning sugar into one mug and handing it to him.

“Thanks.”

She sat next to him on the other stool, her palms cupped around the hot tea mug. It shouldn’t feel so natural to have a man in her kitchen. It shouldn’t feel so normal, with this man, to be doing anything other than having sex with him, being spanked by him.

“Alec ...”

“Are you going to ask me now? Whatever it was you wanted to know earlier?”

“I . . . this is something else. Maybe . . . ” She paused, looking at him. He was waiting for her. There was nothing mocking in his expression. “This is just so weird. That we can sit here so casual y, after the things we do together, and just . . . talk. Like regular people. I . . . ” She brushed her hair from her face. “I don’t think I’m explaining myself wel .”

“You mean that because we’re kinky together, we should simply be kinky, and nothing else?” He shrugged. “There’s a lot more to kinky folk than the kink, Dylan. That’s one part of who a person is.

Sometimes it’s a major part, but that doesn’t have to define anyone.”

“Okay. Okay. But . . . look, we’re both writers. Being a writer
does
define me, to a large degree. I assume it does you, too?”

“Yes, sure. But I’m stil not
only
a writer. I’m a lot of other things, too. Aren’t you?”

She paused, thinking. What else was there to her life? Her talks with Mischa, which were often about writing. The occasional cal s to her grandmother, the even less occasional cal s to speak with her mother and her aunt. She wrote, worked out, did book signings. But otherwise, her life was fairly routine, and didn’t include much personal contact of any kind. That was something she wasn’t used to. Her childhood had trained her to be alone.

She’d always thought of it as being self-reliant. Until recently.

“I suppose.”

“Maybe that’s something for you to look at.”

“What do you mean?”

He was quiet a moment, sipping his tea. “You took a long time to answer that question. I took it to mean you had to think about whether or not you’re more than a writer.”

“Maybe sometimes I’m not certain that I am. That’s what I’ve dedicated my life to.”

“Don’t you have other interests? People in your life?”

“Of course.”

It felt like a lie. The answer had simply been automatic. But how to explain to him that putting her apartment together had been the only non-writing project she’d taken on in years? Even her travel was always writing related, either going to writers’ conferences or to a city to do research for a book. And her only real friends were Mischa, and Jade and C.J., who she’d met through her writing.

And Mischa was right; she should make more of an effort to foster her friendships with them.

God, she real y knew nothing about having a personal life. A
real
life.

“Did I hit a sore spot?”

“What? No, I’m fine.” She was thinking too much again. She didn’t want to do that with Alec. Why was her mind al over the place tonight? It was going a thousand miles an hour. She needed to calm down.

She sipped her tea. It was too hot, scalding her tongue. “Oh!”

“Are you okay?”

“Burned my tongue.”

“Poor baby. Come here.”

Before she knew what was happening she was drawn into his arms and he was kissing her, his tongue sliding between her lips.

She melted immediately, just went soft and hot al over, her mind merciful y slowing down.

He pul ed back. “Is that better?”

“Much better.”

Which didn’t explain why her heart was beating like a jack-hammer in her chest.

This is just sex. Just sex.

Kinky sex. With the hottest man she had ever laid eyes on, never mind her hands. The best sex she’d ever had in her life, in fact. If that wasn’t enough to distract her from these little epiphanies she was having, nothing would be.

“I can be even nicer,” he said, his eyes glittering.

Desire there, in his bril iant blue gaze. Desire to match hers.

He set his mug down and got to his feet, and before she knew what was happening he’d picked her up, carried her around the bar and into the kitchen, and sat her down on the pale gray and white counter. It was cold and hard; she could feel it through the thin satin of her robe. And when he shifted her so that he could pul the fabric from beneath her, her naked sex resting on the cool granite, her body gave a hard squeeze al over.

“Alec, what are you doing?”

“Shh.”

She knew better than to argue. And she hardly had time to question him, he was moving so fast. He pushed her back with one hand between her breasts until she had to support herself, her elbows braced on the counter behind her. With the other hand he untied her robe, and it fel open, baring the front of her body. Her nipples went hard immediately in the chil y air. Or maybe it was just him, being naked before him. The thril of his command she could no longer deny.

He pul ed her legs up until they rested on his broad shoulders, leaving her sex open to him, exposed, and moved between her thighs. He reached down and stroked her wet cleft.

“Ah, you’re ready for me. I love that you’re always ready for whatever I ask of you.”

She licked her lips. She was shaking with need. She didn’t know what to say.

He smiled that wicked grin again. He real y had the most beautiful mouth she’d ever seen on a man.

He leaned in, laid a soft, tantalizing kiss on her lips. Then he bit her, just a smal press of his teeth biting into the flesh of her lower lip. She moaned.

“You like my mouth on you?” he whispered against her lips.

“Yes ...”

“Then you’l like it even better here.”

He bent down, his dark head moving between her thighs. His shoulders were wide, the muscles of his back rippling. She caught a glimpse of the Tibetan script running down one shoulder and she wanted to touch it, to feel the ink beneath his skin. But the first whisper of his warm breath feathering over her mound distracted her. She spread her thighs wider, al conscious thought gone, nothing in her head but sheer, overpowering
want
.

“Yes, that’s it,” he murmured. “Open for me. Beautiful.” His tongue flicked at her swol en and needy clitoris, and her back arched, her breath coming out of her, leaving her gasping. It was so, so good. Another flick and she drew a breath in, sharply.

Pleasure like smoke coiling through her. It was even better when he used his hands to part the lips of her sex, holding on a little too firmly, hurting just enough. Then real y pinching at the tender flesh there as he began to lick.

Long, lovely strokes of his tongue: over her slit, slipping into the entrance to her sex, then up to lap at her clitoris. And al the while the punishing pinch of his fingers on her pussy lips.

“God, Alec . . . ”

He moved faster, his tongue hot and wet, licking and licking.

Then sucking on her hard clit. Pleasure built, spiraled. Too fast.

Too sharply. And as he plunged his fingers into her sex, stil sucking, sucking, she came.

Her climax was a keen, pulsing ache, shimmering through her.

The pulse beat harder, and another climax was right behind it, rol ing together, blending. Her hips arched into his mouth, his hand, as he worked her with fingers and tongue and lips. Dizzying.

Devastating.

She was panting when he pul ed away.

“Was that good, Dylan?”

His face was damp with her juices, his lips plush and red. His dark goatee seemed more wicked to her than ever.

“Yes . . . so good.”

“Then it’s time to be bad.”

He reached behind her and pul ed a metal spatula from the white ceramic jar of cooking utensils she kept there. The handle was long and narrow, the spatula a flat expanse of shining chrome.

“Alec, you can’t mean to use that on me.”

“Oh, but I do.”

His eyes held a dark, satisfied gleam, making her tremble. But it was far more desire than fear shivering through her veins, over her skin.

He set the instrument down, then he had both hands around her waist. He turned her and stood her on the floor, so that she was facing the cabinets. Then he bent her over the granite counter, warmed now from where her body had rested.

“Lean down,” he told her. “I want your hands on the counter. And spread your lovely thighs. Good girl.”

Some smal part of her couldn’t quite believe she was doing it.

But she fol owed his instructions exactly. Another part of her was shivering at his words.

Good girl.

Lovely.

He pushed her robe up around her waist and came up behind her. He pressed against her, until she could feel the solid ridge of his erection against her hip.

“I’m so hard for you, Dylan. I want to fuck you so badly, it hurts.

But first, I need to warm you up.”

He smoothed a hand over her bare buttocks, his touch making her shudder. Then his hand slid down, into her wet slit.

“Ah, I love to feel your come on my hands, baby. So damn sweet in my mouth, I want to taste you again. I want to do everything to you.”

“Yes, Alec. Do it, whatever it is.”

His voice was a low, husky murmur. “Christ, what you do to me.

That you are so in control in every way. Except like this, with me.