Mack’s breath came in harshly. “They unzip, you know.”
“Maybe you should beg,” she retorted, her chin up loftily, her heart pounding. Her whole
body
pounding. With him. With that want for him. For so much more than her life held.
His eyes glittered, willing victim. It was a trap. He was luring her in. No way
Mack
would be willing to lose. He arched his head back, exposing that strong, tan throat. “Fuck me, Anne,” he pleaded in a whisper, as if his throat was all parched, as if he was desperate in her prison. “Come on. Fuck me.” His hips pressed up again.
She pulled her torn shirt off, because it was getting the hell in her way, and threw it onto the floor. A long breath moved through his body, his eyes brilliant blue. The light fell through her pale, transparent curtains, onto him. Breeze stirred over them, that cooling September wind off the sea.
“Do it.” His hips pressed more insistently. “Come on, Anne. Take at least one piece of my goddamn clothing off.”
She considered him for a long moment, enjoying the way she could torment him just by barely twisting her hips. Torment herself. Then, still astride him, she leaned over to her nightstand drawer and pulled out her tiny embroidery scissors. Mack’s eyes widened at the sight of them, and he held very still, as if he might be genuinely afraid her instincts for torture were going to come out. As if he felt genuinely caught at the mercy of a dangerous queen.
She smiled at him, in sweet, mean reassurance, writhed her pelvis down hard against his as she leaned in, and brought the tiny lethal scissors right up to his throat. His lips pressed tight together as he held his breath.
She opened the scissors with a little snip, holding his eyes. His flinched a little and then locked hard with hers. He pressed his fists on the mattress where she had left them, as if she’d locked them there, not grabbing her wrist or knocking those scissors away from his throat.
Very carefully, she cut through the hem of his T-shirt’s neckline. His breath left him in a little gasp. Then she set the scissors back on the nightstand, grabbed either side of that cut, and ripped the panels in half.
“Holy shit.” Mack’s breathing had gone ragged. “Oh, shit,
fuck
, that’s hot. Anne. Anne, honey. Come
on.
” His hips bucked again.
She drove her own pelvis back down onto him with all her force, trying to master his hips with hers. But of course, his just fought back, both of them driving against each other in this contest of grinding strength that made his cheeks flush and his chest lift and fall harder and harder.
She pushed the panels of his shirt fully aside and studied that chest as its muscles flexed with his breaths.
Damn, he had a nice body. Those broad shoulders, tanned from all those ocean swims, and that hard chest. Fifty-three years of confidence, experience, work. His body knew damn well who he was and what he could do about it.
She ran her hands over it, suddenly, utterly—
delighted.
Happy. Not afraid. Not fighting. This heat under her hands, this strength—
She didn’t even know she had the word
wow
in her vocabulary.
And yet it was—
Wow.
Incredible, spectacular, delicious. All that under his T-shirts when he walked beside her on the beach, all this time?
It was hers to
touch
now?
It was so
warm.
Like touching some sun-wolf or something. She bent down and pressed her lips there in that hollow of muscle where his shoulder turned into his chest.
Then she sat right back up and raked her nails, delicate and dangerous, over the spot.
Mine. See what happens when you try to attack
my
castle?
His eyes gleamed up at her as if he knew now exactly
the error of his ways. But, bizarrely, he didn’t seem afraid.
He seemed pretty damn full of himself, to be honest.
His hands went of their own accord to the button of his jeans.
She let them. She liked the way his knuckles bumped and ground against her sex while he fought with the button. She even twisted her hips to put that bump and grind into just the spots she wanted it.
“Come on,” he begged again for mercy. “Come on, Anne, let me get my—” He managed to slide the zip down, so that his penis sprang up against her, blocked only by soft cotton briefs.
She smiled, a smile that felt slow and mean and silky, and very deliberately, very gently, rubbed herself against that penis, dampening that cotton, making it cling to him. And to her. She wanted to thrust herself onto him just like that. Just grab him, cotton and all, and wedge him inside her.
But when she reached for him—well, it was so much simpler to thrust that underwear out of the way.
He twisted his hand and cupped her, blocking her sex from his in the most pleasurable way possible. “Just a second. It’s been a while since I’ve had to use one of these things.” As he twisted away from under her body to rip open the packet, he offered a wry grin. “Had to watch a YouTube video to make sure there hadn’t been any advances on the best method since the last time.”
He’d laid his practical groundwork that carefully? Oh, of course he had. Mack never lost a battle just because he’d failed to get all the information he needed.
It was so
lovable
, the caution with which he put the condom on. Not unconfident, but paying attention to make sure he got it right. Not something he could do without thinking.
How long
had
it been since the last time he’d had to use a condom? She hadn’t seen him with another woman in a long, long time. Mostly he seemed to date her, their “dates” to charity dinners and other functions. Nor did he ever talk to her about anyone else, except when he asked for her help fending off a particularly insistent young woman after his money. And Mack talked to her about pretty much anything.
“Hurry up,” she said. “Or I’m going to have to do it for you. And I haven’t been checking YouTube.”
“‘Hurry up’,” Mack murmured, with that deep, savoring tone. “That’s
almost
like
fuck me.
Only with huge room for erotic improvement. Come on, Anne.” He rolled back under her, but when she would have settled cautiously back into the position for which she’d been so hot before the interruption, he grabbed her hips and held her off. That fierce, taunting grin.
Ha, I’ve got control again.
“Say it.”
“Mack.” She tried to twist her hips down against his grip. Big, dominant hands tightened. “You bastard.”
He smiled, with complete lack of apology. “I know.”
“There’s no need to be proud about it!” Again she tried to twist down toward his penis. Again, he just held her, taunting and victorious.
“I am, though,” he said. “People always call me that when I’m about to beat them.” He lowered her hips just enough that his erection grazed her sex. She drew a hiss of breath.
So did he.
But he didn’t break for all that. He controlled her hips and his, shifting them enough to moisten his length against her sex.
She bit her lip, as the need for more washed through her, as her head arched back.
“You could always say it,” Mack whispered his taunt. “Then I’d do it.”
“Mack,” she said between her teeth, straining between need and rebellion. “Fuck you!”
“Close enough. That was my second favorite.” And he pulled her hard and sure right onto him. Just—bam.
Anne drew a great, shivering gasp. For a second, she could only sit, impaled on him, astride. So ridiculous, so vulnerable, so exposed. So
invaded.
He stared back up at her, frozen, too. Their eyes held, and he licked his lips, his chest lifting in one huge, shuddering breath. “Anne.”
She closed her eyes.
He jostled her with his hips, sending sensation washing through her. She hadn’t let anyone inside her in so long, she’d forgotten there was even a way in. And here he was.
In
. Deep and hard and sure.
And her body kept clutching around him, tightening and flexing in this frantic motion, as if it was trying to close over the hole he made. Only he wasn’t about to remove himself and let it.
So her flexing, frantic muscles flexed around him.
And God, but he liked it.
He shuddered, arching his hips up into her. “Oh, shit, Anne, please do that again.”
So—yeah. She did. Again. And then again, as color suffused his face, as his fingers dug into her hips, as he lifted himself up against her, as he fought her for the rhythm.
Hey. This was
fun.
Giddily, erotically delightful.
She leaned down over him, pressing her forearms against his shoulders and chest as she rebelled against the rhythm his hands tried to impose, setting her own pace.
He groaned.
Yeah, this was really fun.
Malcolm Anthony Corey. In her power.
It might even be that the tiniest movement of her body could be felt all the way through his.
She went very still on him, so that his eyes popped back open, and his hands gripped her to try to get her moving again. Instead, she gave just a little squeeze of her inner muscles.
He flinched and groaned and shoved his hips up for more.
She grinned.
His eyes narrowed menacingly, which was hilarious, really, given how vulnerable he was to her. “Anne, you—”
“What?” she taunted merrily. Energy zinged through her. Sun-filled. Happy. Hungry.
He brought his hand between them. “I think I need to bring another weapon into play.”
She gasped as his thumb touched her already super-sensitized clitoris. Her movements slowed, as the sensation from it washed through her, more powerful even than the sensation of him inside her, or maybe working in tandem with it. Maybe it was all too powerful. Too much.
“Mack,” she whispered, as her eyelids closed out the world, everything but those feelings.
“Don’t worry, Anne, I’m going to,” he promised to everything she couldn’t say.
“Going to do what?” she managed to challenge. Because she still just had to challenge.
“Every single thing I can think of. Or that you can. Just give me your next fifty years.”
She drew great breaths, not sure what to say, not even able to open her eyes. She’d been going to give him her next fifty years anyway. Just—without the sex. Without
this
much warmth and love and vulnerability.
He rolled them over, his body coming up to dominate hers, to take all the power again. “Oh, and—say it,” he breathed to her. “Then I’ll do anything you want.”
Her eyes flared open.
His were always so damn blue. But this time, under the dark gray eyebrows, in that tan, time-marked face, they were blazing.
“You bastard,” she told him weakly.
He kissed her, his tongue slipping deep into her mouth, stealing that word right back out of it. “Come on, Anne.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled herself in close to his ear. “Fuck me,” she whispered. “You happy?”
He grinned in utter triumph. “It lacked conviction. We might have to practice it some more. That’s okay, honey. I’ve got some ideas about how.”
And he let them both go. All words gone, driven out by the rhythm. His face dark, everything drawn into the pleasure, in her, his thumb against her, until she clawed his back in her fight not to come again. It scared her, it was like a tsunami wave, she clawed to get away. But she lost, it overtook her, she drowned in it, as he drove into her one last time and held on, swirling away in it, too.
Chapter 10
Mack was about as full of himself as a man could be. He felt like marking some victory brand on his skin with the tip of his sizzling finger.
Score five million for me.
Score everything.
Shit, hell. Anne Winters! He’d gotten Anne!
He filled up her great whirlpool bath and put her in it while he took a fast shower, far too invigorated to laze around.
“I’m sore,” Anne told him, when he asked her when she wanted to get out. “Go away.” But she was smiling a little when she said it, not quite looking at him, but not looking away. A little…shy? Happy? Ruefully self-conscious? He might have to learn a whole new range of expressions for her.
This one reminded him of nothing so much as a kitten his girls had had, the first time it had managed to sneak through the door outside, stopping still, its eyes going big, its paws cautious, easy for Jaime to scoop back up and bring back inside.
A cautious kitten? Anne Winters?
And yet it was so oddly appropriate.
The world looks bigger outside that castle, doesn’t it, kitten? I bet you’ll take to it really fast, though.
Shit, he hoped so.
“Come on, Anne, you can’t tell me that was worse than one of your boxing sessions.”
“It’s not the same muscles,” she said very loftily and coolly, and he just leaned over the rim of the big bath and kissed her.
She caught her breath at the contact of his lips, and a flush climbed her cheeks.
He grinned.
Yep. See? That’s what you just did. You let me in. Now I get to kiss you as much as I want to.
Unless…well, unless she did say
no thanks
. Unless they went back to just the beach walks.
He sat on the edge of the bath now, and took her hand, joy fading a little before seriousness. Would she do that?
That’d be crappy. He hadn’t quite realized how crappy it would feel ahead of time, to have gotten in, and then get kicked back out. He had a
hell
of a lot more fantasies to get through, but it wasn’t just that.
There was a trust thing going on. Damn it, he liked fighting, but he wanted to be able to curl up on the couch and cuddle. He wanted to hold hands. Yeah. He wanted someone to just slip her hand into his as natural as breathing, as if that was the best place in the world for her hand to be. He wanted her to come to Paris with him and turn that damn, sterile luxury apartment he and his dad had bought into something welcoming, a second home.
She’d probably fix his apartment up for him anyway, if he asked her, and buy another one for herself while she was at it. The woman had a home-buying addiction. But…he wanted her to be
inside
the cozy home she made, part of it. With him. A cozy home with nobody but himself and his dad rattling around inside it wasn’t cozy at all. It had no future, a home like that. It became a place where a man didn’t savor the prime of his life, he just dwindled into lonely old age.