Smoking Holt (13 page)

And he had a cat.

Who knew?

Who the fuck would ever have guessed that?

Then he turned the tables. Asked about her life, her work. And she clammed up.

She must have been pretty obvious about it because when her jaw clamped shut, Kristi’s
eyes narrowed on her.

“Yeah,” she said. “How are things going with your shop
Bella?”

The question was tentative and, Bella suspected, sincere. That didn’t make it any less painful.

Bella poked a Brussels sprout with her fork. It deserved it. She despised Brussels sprouts.

“Great,” she gusted. “Fabulous.”

“That’s good to hear,” Cam said. Of course he would take her at face value. Cam took everything at face value. “I read an article yesterday that retail sales were taking a nose dive locally.”

She glared at him. “All right. Fine. It’s going terribly.” She had no idea why she said it. She certainly didn’t want any of them to know. “I’m about a two months away from filing bankruptcy.”

“Oh Bella!” She hated pity from Kristi. Or maybe not.

“Yeah.
It sucks.” She forced a smile, but it was bitter at best. “Most likely, I’ll be looking for a job soon. I could probably make a Latte.” Maybe. If she tried really hard to silence the screaming in her soul.

The expression on her sister’s face firmed. It became
almost…warlike. Very unlike Kristi. “No. We’ll figure this out. We’ll figure out a way to bring in more customers. What kind of marketing plan do you have?”

Bella blinked. “Marketing plan?” She’d opened the shop because it was risqué and
rebellious…and shit.

Kristi blew out a breath. Which might
have held a tinge of frustration. “Okay. Tara’s coming tomorrow. We’ll buttonhole her and gets some ideas for you. She helped Lucy and me when we opened Beanie’s. She’s brilliant.”

“Her
bakery is doing great,” Cam added, nodding like a bobble head doll. “And bakeries have one of the highest rates of failure of all businesses.”

“You need a hook.” Kristi
tapped her lips. “You need something that’s going to grab people’s attention.”

“Sex doesn’t grab their attention?”

But Kristi was ignoring her. She was off. That was the thing about Kristi. When she took on a challenge, she took it on wholeheartedly. “Contests are great for bringing back repeat customers. And a loyalty program. Do you have one of those?”

“A punch card for dildos?”

“And media coverage. I bet if we came up with some clever campaign, something different, unique, off the wall, that would garner some coverage…” She babbled on but Bella had ceased to listen. She was too
verklempt
. Too close to bursting into tears.

She and Kristi had been at odds for years. Constant rivals. Almost enemies.
But here she was, taking up the banner, for Bella—after every nasty thing Bella had ever said or done. It was kind of humbling.

As uncomfortable as this feeling was, she liked it.

She dashed away a tear and glanced at Holt. He was watching her with a steady gaze. His lips quirked. And warmth suffused her.

It had been a long, long time since she’d felt this embraced. This defended. This safe.

As though, after an eternity in an inhospitable land, she had finally returned home.

“You know,” Holt said as he handed Bella a skillet to dry. They’d lost the coin toss and been saddled with cleaning up after dinner. Though he didn’t feel as if he’d lost anything at all. Cam and Kristi had gone out on the deck and he had Bella all to himself. “I could probably send some customers your way.”

Hell. Could he. He had lots of connections in the
BDSM community. One of his friends ran a club and had been toying with the idea of offering select items for sale. He might be open to the idea of letting Bella handle that for him.

She didn’t respond. Didn’t look at him, but he saw her smile.

He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, though he was sudsy. “We’ll get you back on track, Bell,” he said.

She whipped around. “What did you call me?”

“Bell?”

Her brow arched with exquisite scorn. At least, he thought it was scorn, but then she said, in a soft, musing tone, “A nickname? Already,
Lamm? Moving pretty fast, aren’t we?”

He chuckled, relieved that she was in a playful mood. It boded well for tonight. “Hardly a nickname. More of a truncation of your name.”

Now both brows shot up. “A
truncation of my name
? Seriously?”

“I could call you ‘
Buh.
’”

“I wouldn’t recommend it.”
She paused and flicked him a wicked grin. “
Lambchop
.”

“Really?
Lambchop? Is that the best you can do?”

“Beats douche
nozzle.”

He chuckled. It did.
“If I was going to give you a nickname, it would probably be something like Hot Cross Buns.”

She made a face.

“Hot, because you’re hot. Cross, well, because it’s your name. Also, you’re always cross—”

She smacked him with the towel.
“I am not!”

“
And buns, because I’m aching to paddle them.”

Yeah. That shut her up. She nibbled her lush lower lip. “You are?”

“Mmm hmm. Too bad you didn’t have a paddle in your sex suitcase.”

“It isn’t a sex suitcase.” She dropped to a whisper, halfway through the adamant declaration, because the slider opened and Cam and Kristi came into the room talking softly to each other. Apparently the sun had finally set.

The sun set late during the summer in the Pacific Northwest. It was nearly nine pm. It was all Holt could do not to snap, “Go to bed,” to his friends. Instead he dipped his head and murmured, “I saw some other interesting items I could use.”

The flogger was still under the sofa cushions in the basement—probably lost to him tonight because he didn’t want to take the chance of having Kristi and Cam see him retrieve it. But he’d seen a pair of rhinestone studded flip flops in her suitcase. Those would do in a pinch.

He was nothing if not
flexible.

After the
y’d loaded dishes in the dishwasher, and all the pots and pans were piled in the rack, they hung out together in the great room, listening to music and talking. Cam and Kristi sat together on the loveseat while Bella and Holt sat side by side on the sofa. She loved the weight of his arm over her shoulders.

It was relaxing. It was congenial. It was nice.

She felt cosseted and warm and drowsy.

But when Kristi yawned, everything in her perked up.

That might have had something to do with Holt’s sudden tension. “It’s getting late,” he murmured.

“Is it?”

Damn Cam.

“It is.” Kristi yawned again, but Bella could tell it was a fake yawn. She patted Cam’s thigh. “We should probably go to bed.”

“But it’s not so late…” Cam trailed off when he caught Kristi’s heavy-lidded expression. He jumped up from the sofa. “Yeah. Man. Am I beat.” He stretched hugely.

Again, totally fake.
Neither of them could act worth a shit.

Bella could
n’t have cared less.

“Well, sleep tight,” Kristi said as she took Cam’s hand and led him to the basement door.

“You too,” Holt responded.

Bella didn’t understand the t
hread of amusement in his voice. She glanced up at him. “What?” she asked.

His lips quirked. “She said ‘sleep tight.’”

“So?”

“So…I was just thinking about those restraints in your suitcase.”

Bella froze. Her pulse surged. Her womb clenched.

All of a sudden, the casual, laidback energy between them turned into an electric hum.

“You, um, you weren’t thinking of tying me up, were you?”

He threaded his fingers through her hair. “Of course I was. I haven’t stopped thinking about it since I laid eyes on those straps. But…” He kissed her. Hard on the mouth. “I’ll only do it if you beg me to.”

She snorted. Which was awkward. He was still kissing her, after all. “If I beg you to?”

“Mmm hmm.”

“What makes you think I’m going to beg you to?” Though the prospect didn’t horrify her the way it had when they’d first discussed it. That, in itself, should have horrified her.

“
You’ll beg because you want it.”

“I do?”

“Yes, Bella. Deep down, you want it. You crave that sense of helplessness.”

She frowned at him. “I do?”

“Yep. Let me tell you what it would be like.” He tucked her back into his arms, against his chest and stroked her back as he spoke. “First, your punishment.”

“My punishment?”

“Did you forget I owed you one?”

“For what?”

“The egg.”

She grunted. Yeah. She’d dropped the egg. Though she’d had good reason.
Although she’d come to realize good reason hardly counted in his games.

“
I’m going to have you bend over—completely naked and hold onto your ankles while I work you over. Then, once your ass is nice and red, you’ll stand. I’ll command you to lace your fingers behind your neck and hold still while I continue…”

“Continue?”

“Mmm hmm. There are other things that need paddling.” His palm drifted to her heated crotch. He rubbed her clit through the seam of her jeans. She set her teeth together to hold back a groan.
Damn. Damn, damn.

“When I feel you’ve been punished sufficiently,
I’m going to tie you to the bed—”

“You are?”

“Once you beg me, of course. Once you beg me, I’ll tie you to the bed and tease you.”

“T-tease me?”

“Yes. And you’ll be completely helpless. At my mercy.”

She shivered. Why this talk was turning her on, she had no idea.

“I’ll start with your nipples, which will be sore, tender—”

“They will be?”

“Mmm hmm.” His light touch skated over her nape, down her arm, around to scrape over a swollen crest. His other hand was still nested in the crux of her thighs. He gave her a dual pinch. She shuddered. “I’ll be paddling them too. Like I did this morning.”

She swallowed. “Uh huh.”

“And then I’ll make my way down your body. Tickling you a little. You are ticklish, aren’t you my Bell?”

Her pulse lurched. In her clit.

“Then, I’ll torment you.” Hell. He was tormenting her now. “I’ll eat your pussy. Slowly. Diligently. Until I drive you crazy. Until you’re thrashing and moaning and pleading for mercy. But I won’t let you come.”

“You-you won’t?”

“No. You’ll be tugging against the restraints. Wild. Crazed. Mad with lust and I’ll keep teasing you. I might slip a finger inside, but it will be just now and again, and leave you aching for more.”

Shit. She was aching for more now. And he hadn’t even started.

Or maybe he had.

“And then, if you’re very good, if you’re obedient and do everything I ask,
with no hesitation, I might fuck you.” He ended on a whisper, as though he was as wrapped in the fantasy as she. But…

“
Holt?”

“Hmm?”

“
What if…”

“Yes?”

“What if I ask you to untie me?”

“I will.” He
cupped her cheeks and tipped her head and stared into her eyes.  “Immediately.”

“Do you promise?”

“Yes.” A sigh. On a breath. As he kissed her gently, softly, reverently. “I promise.”

It was a rarity, a man who kept his promises.

But Bella didn’t ask to be released from her bonds until they were both covered in sweat and exhausted and utterly sated.

He’d been right.

She had loved being tied, helpless, in those devious restraints as he worked her over, finding new places to touch, tease
, torment. Places she’d never thought of as erotic before. Now every part of her body was an erogenous zone, from the backs of her knees to the small of her back to the little knob on the side of her foot.

He’d kissed, licked, explored her—everywhere.

And then, when she could take it no more, when her wails were rising to air-horn proportions, he rearranged her restraints—just a hook here, a clasp there, splaying her open—and he fucked her.

There was something about it—the restriction of her bonds, the dominion he exerted over her as he slid in and out at his own pace, taking her slowly, deliberately, with excruciating precision—that released a wild woman within her. She had no control over anything, but absolute control over everything.