Dani Collins – The Secret in Room 823 (страница 2)

He was eating her up with his eyes, despite his belligerent stillness, which was the kind of reassurance she needed right now. Nevertheless, she could tell he was as wound up as she was and she had to curb the impulse to insist he tell her why.

‘No,’ she replied instead, unable to help that she sounded like an Earl’s daughter with all the privilege that entailed. Running her hands through her brunette waves, she fluffed it from being flattened by the wig. ‘We’ll play what we always play.’

‘The shrew who needs taming?’ he said with a tight smile, coming towards her so the sting of fight or flight released in her arteries. They were nearly eye to eye when she wore heels like this, but he was so layered with muscle and radiated such mental power, he was always intimidating.

He stood close enough for the heat of his chest to warm the cooled skin of her naked breasts. She felt branded, aching with need to be crushed hard to his chest, but he only tangled a hand in her hair and pulled her head back so her lips were offered to him and her throat exposed. ‘The bitch who thinks she’s in charge and isn’t?’

Her answer was a scratch of her nails down the sides of his rib cage.

He quickly caught her wrists and pinned them behind her back. ‘You are in a mood.’

She pushed her tender mons against rough denim, delighting in the small catch of his breath before he controlled her with a hand on her hip, his other hand tightening with deliciously tested discipline over her crushed hands behind her back.

‘I wasn’t sure if you’d be up for what I brought, but I can see you are.’

Kiss me, she thought. Throw me on the bed and have me hard and fast. Sometimes she thought that might be enough for her, but she needed the other, too.

As if he could hear her thoughts, his pupils flared and his breath released in a humid warmth against her lips. His hands tightened again on her, making her nipples prickle in reaction and wetness release between her thighs.

But a shadow passed behind his eyes, a kind of helpless inevitableness that made her think, He needs this too.

‘But since you’ve annoyed me,’ he said with an edge of sandpapery roughness on his tone, ‘You’re going to stand in the naughty corner a few minutes while I get ready.’

She told him what she thought of that idea in two stark words.

‘Now, now,’ he taunted, forcibly walking her towards the corner with a grip of threatening pain on her arms. ‘You know I like the look of a red arse and talk like that will get you one. Is that what you’re after today?’

No. They’d dabbled in paddles and crops and she didn’t like it. He’d never spanked her again after the first try, but he wasn’t afraid to bring up the prospect when he was in a terse mood. She knew him well enough not to push when he did. Hayes never threatened. He promised.

They knew each other’s limits so well it was frightening, considering they only came together once a month. But he always seemed to bring her right to the edge of her endurance, instilling a frisson of fear right before he drew her back. That skill of his had built trust between them, brick upon brick, so even though waves of apprehension went over her as he planted her hands against the wall and nudged her feet open so she was spread like a criminal awaiting frisking, she let him do it to her.

He rewarded her with a little fondle of her ass, taking a proprietary feel of each cheek in turn, his palm so hot and possessive she couldn’t help pushing into his caress.

He trailed his touch lower, searching out the dampness painting a line down her inner thigh. His fingertips strolled, teasing lightly so she clenched with need, her sex calling for his attentive fingers to rise into her hot waiting depths, but he didn’t appease her and she ached deep between her legs, hurting with being ignored.

‘I hate you,’ she told him in a whisper.

‘I hate you too, love.’ And there was that softer tone, the tender one that made her shut her eyes tight and fight the need to turn into his arms and beg him to be everything to her, not just an escape. Not just the wall she had to batter herself against so she knew it was strong enough to protect her.

He walked away and she hung her head. A distant voice inside her wondered what the hell she was doing. They were nearing a year of these monthly assignations and she didn’t even know how it had started or continued or would finish.

Well, she rather knew how it would finish. This week had been a fresh assault from her family, from Great Granny on down to her young cousin, all asking when she would marry. I’m twenty-three, she wanted to scream. Ask in another ten years.

But eligible men would be paraded before her and she would choose one, sooner rather than later if her parents had anything to do with it.

And this would be over.

A pang of deep anguish opened in her centre, making her fight a wrenching sob of loss.

***

As Hayes drew the nylon rope across the room, his hand trembled and he missed the hook twice, gaze too fixed on Lady Hamilton-Smythe’s ass to look away and see what he was doing. Male hunger—desperation really—had his attention returning again and again to the shadow where he knew she was wet and sweet and hot. For him.

His head swam with the knowledge, weakening his knees and making him want to worship at her feet. On that level, he was a slave to her and the only solace to his pride was the fact she wasn’t aware of how much power she held over him. His days and weeks revolved around the moment when he would book into this room and wait for her.

The way her head hung and her spine bowed between her shoulder blades bothered him, though. She was a complete bitch most of the time, so high on her horse he felt absolutely no compunction in bringing her down a few notches with these little games she enjoyed so much. Really enjoyed. She screamed into a pillow or the palm of his hand every single time.

That’s all she was here for, he reminded himself. Mind-blowing orgasms.

Not that he’d started out wanting anything more than a bit of experimentation himself. Hell, at twenty-five he was a man with acres of wild oats. He’d been intrigued enough to go along with her outrageous suggestion for the thrill alone. How many other men could say they’d had such an offer, from a Lady no less?

Not that he could tell a soul. The sorts of play they engaged in were the kind you only revealed in a memoir to be published a hundred years after both parties’ deaths.

A frustrating extra thing had crept into their scenes, though. Curiosity had become concern. Amusement was now affection, even though, he reminded himself again and again, she was a total bitch.

He really shouldn’t have any craving to see more of her, but once a month was not enough. Not anymore.

That was the real source of his irritation today. That’s what had had him pacing in front of the hotel room door, tempted to watch down the hallway to ensure she was coming. He hated this four week waiting period, hated that he was her dirty little secret, hated that she had summed him up as not good enough for her without knowing everything about who he was.

Most of all, he hated that she was seeing other men. Did she imagine he didn’t read the papers? He wrote for them, for Christ’s sake.

But that was his burden to carry and apparently she had her own, one so heavy on her slender shoulders they looked ready to buckle under the weight.

Poor little rich girl, he thought, wishing he could dismiss her so easily, but from the first call in her posh accent, when he’d half-expected he was about to be blackmailed, he’d been unable to be anything but intrigued and enthralled.

And insanely aroused.

He forced himself to finish clipping the hooks properly, thinking a wry, safety first. Then he said in a voice that came from entirely too deep a place in his chest, ‘Come here, Gwen.’

She pushed herself off the wall and turned, looked at him through the nylon lines of a spider web that he’d strung across the room. Her gaze followed the supports to the bolts in the walls and didn’t miss the shavings on the floor below each end. Yes, he’d vandalised the hotel room, drilling into the studs with weight bearing screws and bolts. He’d actually made a special trip into this room mid-month to plan and measure everything out. It had been tricky, given the layout of the room and the proximity of the bed, but once he’d seen the contraption at the BDSM shop, he’d been determined to try it.

She eyed it with apprehension and excitement quivering her lashes. Her thighs twitched together, like she was capturing a release of her honeyed wetness, reacting in that deliciously uncontrolled way that threatened to kill him every time they came together.

He fought a grin of pleasure that she was as titillated as he was.

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