His hands move down to my knees, and he makes a slow sweeping motion, willing them to part. And dammit, they do. I do. I open this door. I unlatch Pandora’s Box. He gave me the power to reject him, offered it to me from the tips of those massive, callused fingers, and I didn’t do it. I gave it back to him. I relinquished my willpower, my body, my soul to him, even without his asking.
I’m a bad wife. And an even worse publicist. But with my sex opening to him like delicate cherry blossom petals at full bloom, I am neither.
I am his.
At first, his hands just hover over my thighs, trailing a slow, languid path from my kneecaps to the fabric that covers my swollen clit. Over, between, even under, he teases me with his phantom touch, haunting me with his heat. I need him to touch me, but I can’t bring myself to beg. And even if I did, I know he won’t anyway. He’s enjoying this too much, dark mirth flickering in his heavy-lidded gaze. He’s showing me that he could drive me crazy without even touching me. That even if I never give myself to him again—and I won’t—he can still affect me. He can still fuck me whenever he wants.
“Lift your nightgown,” he commands, his voice gruff.
I tell myself that I won’t but my hands are already sliding down my hips and bunching the soft fabric. I fist the satin until the hem disappears inside my palms and cool air meets the heat of my sex.
Ransom looks down at it—at me—and sucks in a strangled breath. I watch him as he bites his lip so hard that it turns white under the pressure of his teeth. His fingers skim the air over my mound, trembling, pleading. Maybe he’s not as strong as he thinks he is.
“I won’t touch you,” he rasps, persuading me and himself. Yet, his hands come dangerously close to making contact. So close that I can feel him brush my short, soft hair at the very center, causing me to gasp.
“I won’t touch you.” He says it like he’s a dying man and this is his final plea. He repeats it again and again, making it his personal mantra. And while he denounces his carnal needs, he begins to shift. Down. His body is moving down between my thighs until his face is aligned with my pussy.
I’m afraid to move, afraid to speak. Just the barest flinch, and my clit will be against his mouth, my lips on his, falling into an unintended kiss. So I watch him watch me, not breathing, waiting for him to decide if he’s going to be a liar tonight.
He inhales. Deeply. He sparks me up, takes a hard drag, sucks me inside his body. The perfume of my slickness coats his nose and throat before he consumes the tiny molecules of my arousal. We moan together, pulling on a double-ended joint of lust and loneliness, letting it take us higher than high. We see the ceiling, know we should stop, but we’re going too fast. And there’s no guarantee we’ll be able to break through and survive the impact.
He scents my sex a half dozen more times, his reaction to my fragrance growing more vehement with every lungful. I’m so wet, so potent, that I can smell myself too, which only makes me ache more. That coupled with his hot breaths on my even hotter clit and the illicit sounds he makes in the back of his throat, and I know it won’t be much longer. I just need a little more . . . just a little more.
His moans morph into whispered words, and I still my own whimpers and the beating of my heart to try to make sense of it. Even through the pounding of blood in my ears, I hear him loud and clear.
She’s an angel without wings
Sent down to earth to destroy me
Fucking me so religiously
Take me to hell, you lovely, damaged thing
I thought I may have imagined it before.
That night we spent together in his suite, me flat on my stomach, him inside me, his belly pressed to my ass and his lips on my ear.
Ransom sang to me . . . is singing to me. Fucking me crazy with the magic of his tongue without physically touching me at all. I won’t make it . . . I won’t last like this. And if I give in to the stinging current this time, if I let him own yet another of my orgasms, will I ever be able to find my way back to the surface? To my marriage? To Tucker?
I know I look as ridiculous as I feel as I push his face back with trembling hands and scramble from the chair, careful not to touch him any more than I have to.
“Heidi . . . I’m sorry,” he stammers from the floor, but I just shake my head, unable to hear it. Because I’m not sorry. Not in the least. But I know I should be.
“It’s ok. I . . . I just need to go.” I pull my robe around me tighter, the move only adding more friction against my already tingling body. “I have to go,” I repeat. But it takes nearly twenty seconds before I regain the function to even move.
I run away from the scene of the crime and nearly barrel through the door of the Reflection room. I catch Tucker stirring on the bed out of the corner of my eye, but I can’t stop to acknowledge him. That would only make this worse.
I slam the bathroom door behind me and lock it before falling into it in exasperation. The very second my fingertips meet my slick, swollen clit, the silken flesh quivers. I dip inside to wet my fingers, I stroke the hardened knot that pulses with its own heartbeat, and I fuck myself so violently and desperately that I don’t even hear someone approaching the door until a knock nearly makes me yelp.
“Babe? Are you ok?” His voice is groggy, concerned, but not skeptical.
“Yeah,” I manage to whine. I bury two fingers deep inside me as far as they will go. I thrust so hard and fast that it almost hurts. I bite my own lip until I taste blood, ensuring that it does.
“Something wrong?”
“Not feeling well. Be there in a sec.”
I feel it coiling inside me like a deadly snake, its venom trickling down my hand and sliding down my thighs. So wet I add another finger. So wet I feel like I could drown myself.
“Ok. Well, hurry back to bed so I can take care of you.”
There it is, pulsing wildly as it swells so much that it pushes my fingers from my body. I fight for control, needing that pressure, needing to burst that bubble with the blunt tips of my nails. It’s so full and slick that I can’t keep a steady rhythm. Yet, I can’t . . . I can’t . . . stop.
“Ok . . . ok. I’m coming.”
And I do.
Chapter Twenty-two
My husband holds my hand, our fingers coupled together, and brings my knuckles to brush over his lips. We walk down a long hallway housing a half dozen different rooms that service different purposes. I knew Justice’s place was big; I just didn’t realize how big it was. This much real estate in New York would literally cost an arm and a leg. And probably a kidney too.
“Here we have the studio where we instruct couples yoga every morning, as well as a course on tantric sex three times a week,” Justice states very matter-of-factly, waving toward the space that looks like . . . well . . . a fitness studio, with its hardwood floors and 360 mirrored walls. A class is in session right now, and both men and women are propped into a bridge pose, their pelvises jutting toward the ceiling.
We follow him down the hall for a few yards until we come across another door. “Here’s the theater room. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you what’s projected on the screen. The seats are cleaned and sanitized after every viewing.”
Tucker and I take in the plush, oversize loungers that are made for two. The room is draped in darkness, setting the tone for naughty fun in a forbidden place. Makes sense. How many people have messed around in a movie theater with a boyfriend or girlfriend? How many guys have let their hands snake up a girl’s skirt to stroke her clit while she held a giant popcorn bucket in her lap as cover?