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Another kiss, this one a little bit longer and wetter than the one that came before.

  And it still isn’t close to what I’m after.

  “I need your mouth.” I say the words that have been bubbling inside me for what feels like hours, days, millennia.

  He mutters something that sounds an awful lot like, “Thank Christ.” And then he’s kissing me, his mouth open and wet and ravenous against my own.

  He feels so good, tastes so good—like the beer he had at dinner mixed with the sweet and wild desert wind that likes to whip through the city at the least provocation.

  “Sebastian.” His name is a prayer, a plea, a cry of desperation and desire as my hands slide up his heavily muscled back and tangle in the wild silk of his hair.

  “Aria,” he answers, and my name is sweet on his lips. On his tongue, as it sweeps along the seam of my lips, explores the corners of my mouth. “I love the way you taste.”

  I start to answer him, to tell him I feel exactly the same way, but then he’s sucking my lower lip between his teeth, biting down softly, and any thoughts I have scatter like poker chips after a winning hand.

  Heat slams through me and I gasp, hands curling into fists. Fingers tugging at his hair, pulling sharply. He groans low in his throat and then his free hand is on my hip, his fingers digging into my ass. Not hard enough to hurt, but definitely enough to remind me that he’s the one in control.

  The reminder only makes me hotter, and I can’t stop myself from moving restlessly against him. I want more than he’s giving me. Need more than I ever imagined I would.

  But Sebastian is having none of it. He nips sharply at my lip in reprimand, but it only pulls me under. Even the gentle strokes of his tongue that follow the bite—strokes meant to soothe away the small hurt—do nothing but drag me deeper.

  Deeper.

  Deeper.

  Deeper.

  Until nothing matters but Sebastian and this moment and the sweet lassitude seeping like syrup through my whole body until I nearly drown in it.

  And still it’s not enough for him. Still he pushes for more.

  He slides his hand up my throat to my chin, tilts my head up and back a little more. And then he takes me over, his tongue sweeping inside my mouth to slide against my own. To stroke over the roof of my mouth, down the side of my cheek. To tease and taunt and torment me until all I can think of is him.

  Until all I want is him.

  I tug at his hair again, even more sharply this time, and he responds by slamming his hips against my own which in turn slams my ass against the cold, hard glass of the picture window.

  Not that I’m complaining. This is what I’ve wanted all along. The time for playing, for the slow, sweet, luxurious build of desire, is long past. In its place, need is a desperate, destructive force between us, rising like a desert dust storm until it all but swallows us whole.

  Chapter Three

  Sebastian

  Jesus, she’s sweet. Like cinnamon and apples and warm, dark honey that melts on the tongue. Sweet and soft and gorgeous, so gorgeous, as she loses herself in the darkest, deepest kiss I have ever been a part of.

  The only problem is I’m losing myself just as readily.

  I started this because I want her and because I want to show her what it means to truly have control over every aspect of herself—her choices, her body, even her orgasm. And yet I’m the one being tested here, the one whose control is slipping a little more with every second I spend touching her.

  Deep inside me I can feel it welling up, the need to take her, to have her, and to hell with the consequences. I want to fuck her here, up against the window. Want to whirl her around and bend her over the back of one of my chairs and pound into her from behind. Want to drop her sweet, luscious ass on my desk, sink to my knees in front of her and feast.

  But losing control like that won’t help her, won’t give her anything but an explosive orgasm or two. And while I’m not one to knock a well-needed release, if I can just hang on, if I can just regain the control that’s been second nature to me for such a long time, there’s so much more out there for her. For us.

  Because I like the way she responds—with desperate little sounds in the back of her throat and a shimmy of those glorious hips of hers—I bite at her lower lip again. Sure enough, Aria whimpers, shifts against me even as she winds her fingers through the belt loops on my pants and tugs me closer.

  I don’t give her what she wants, though. Partly because she didn’t ask and partly because I want more. Maybe it’s selfish of me, but I’m dead set on hearing my Aria sing.

  With that thought uppermost in my mind, I pull her closer, thrust my tongue into the warm velvet of her mouth.

  She’s so much softer than I imagined she would be when I jacked off in my bathroom yesterday, so much hotter than I dreamed her last night.

  “Please,” she murmurs against my lips. “I’m ready.”

  Her words rocket down my spine, shoot through my dick. And there’s a part of me that wants to yield to her softly spoken words. After all, I just taught her that control is about asking for what you want—demanding it—and she’s done that.

  She wants this. Wants me. I can feel it in her mouth. In her fingers tangling and tugging at my hair. In her nipples hard against my chest and her hips so restless against my own.

  And still it’s not enough. She’s given me so much—her body, her trust. Yet I want more. I want everything she has, everything she is. And I will have it. Eventually. For now, I’ll keep pushing for—and keep taking—eve​rything she wants to give me.

  And so I kiss her. Wickedly. Crazily. I kiss her and kiss her and kiss her, until I can’t tell where she begins and I end. Until her lips are swollen and so are mine. Until her mouth and this moment are the only things that matter.

  And then I kiss her some more.

  She moans deep in her throat, gasps, and I revel in the sound.

  Revel in each moan and cry that leaves her lips and enters mine.

  Revel in the way she opens to me, sharing her secrets and her pleasure.

  I’m learning her with each glide of my tongue and nip of my teeth, unlocking her mysteries with each stroke of my hand and press of my hips.

  I know now that a quick slide of my tongue across her lower lip elicits a warm sigh. A stroke of my hand against her breast evokes a deep-throated gasp. A pinch of her nipple gives me a whimper. And the thrust of my tongue deep inside her mouth makes her moan, low and sultry and dirty. So dirty.

  I like that sound most of all, and so I do it again, sliding my tongue against, over, around hers.

  And still it’s not enough. Aria’s pleasure is a song and I want to hear every note.

  I press gently on her throat, just to feel her sharp intake of breath and the low, shaky exhale that follows. Her head rocks against the glass then, her hands twisting in my hair just enough to cause sharp frissons of pain to wind themselves through my scalp. It feels good, really good, and as a reward I suck her tongue into my mouth, let her explore me the way I just explored her.

  She makes a new sound of pleasure, half-whimper, half-laugh, and I add it to the list I’m keeping. And then I give myself over—to her and to the power of this thing that arcs between us.

  Eventually it gets to be too much—too much and not enough and everything in between. I rip my mouth from hers, and she moans, whether in protest or relief, I’m too far gone to tell. Shifting slightly, I rest my forehead against the window, my cheek next to hers, as I drag in great gulps of air.

  She does the same and for long seconds the only sound in the room is our shaky inhalations. But then Aria turns her head and smiles at me, a sleepy, sexy thing that makes me forget why I needed oxygen in the first place.

  She lifts a hand to my chin, runs her fingers over the light stubble there as she blinks at me with those midnight eyes of hers, dark and deep and just a little out of focus.

  She’s back in subspace now, her mind and body totally attuned to mine. To wha
t I want. To what I need. As if my dick wasn’t hard enough at this point, that realization has my body pretty much screaming for relief. Instead, I force myself to stand there, motionless, while she learns me. It’s a little late considering the state she’s in, but it’s that state that makes it impossible for me to push her. That state which has me longing to give her anything, everything, I can.

  She’s slow and a little clumsy—more signs of how far under she is—but she still feels amazing as her fingers stroke my jaw, my ear, the back of my neck. Then they’re sliding down my chest to the waistband of my pants, slipping beneath my suit jacket and skimming my sides, until she’s tracing light patterns on my spine that have me growing impossibly harder.

  I reach behind me with my free hand and grab hers. I bring it to my lips, press long, lingering kisses to her palm before licking my way slowly up her lifeline. Her fingers curl into her palm and I nip lightly at their tips before sinking my teeth into her mound of Venus, the fleshy part of her hand at the base of her thumb.

  That cuts through her haziness and she squeaks—in protest or invitation, I’m not sure. So until I am sure, I settle her hand next to her hip, pressing her palm against the glass. And then I’m kissing her everywhere, trailing my lips across her cheek, over her jaw, down the long, slender column of her neck.

  When I reach my fingers—fi​ngers I’ve used as both a collar and a mind game tonight—I release the hold I’ve had on her for so many long minutes. Aria makes a sound of protest at the loss and it’s a beautiful sound, maybe the most beautiful one I’ve heard from her so far.

  I spend a long time on the hollow of her throat, on the delicate hills and valleys of her collarbone. Kissing, licking, tasting her. Breathing her in. Claiming this part of her.

  Trying my damnedest not to claim every part of her as instincts I didn’t know I had are screaming for me to do.

  Instead, I nose at the indention at the base of her throat, lick a long, deep stripe against her skin there. She tastes as sweet as she smells and I want to spend hours, days, learning every inch—every millimeter—of her skin.

  But she’s shaking, strangled cries coming from deep in her throat, and I know I’ve pushed her as far as I can right now. Pushed myself nearly as far. Weeks from now, hell, maybe only days, I’m sure I’ll look back at this moment and think how far we still had to go. But for now it’s enough. More than enough.

  “I’m going to undress you,” I tell her, my fingers going to the buttons of her crisp, white shirt. “I want to see you.”

  “Yes.” It’s half-order, half-plea, and my hands start to tremble as I work the first button through its hold.

  My hands never tremble. The fact that they’re doing so now—I’m not sure what to think, how to feel.

  Because I can’t do anything about them, I ignore them, choosing instead to get to work on the rest of the buttons. And while there’s a part of me that wants nothing more than to rip the blouse straight down the middle and to hell with the consequences, I find the control not to. More for Aria’s sake than my own.

  In seconds, her shirt is on the floor beside us and I’m reaching behind her, unfastening the lacy white bra that is about as useless and flimsy as an undergarment can get and still be called a bra. Not that I’m complaining. I can see her areolas through the thin lace—dark pink and aroused and so, so gorgeous. The sight shoots straight to my dick, ratchets up my own want another level or ten.

  Then the bra is gone, too, and she’s standing there in front of me, bare from the waist up.

  Bare and vulnerable and beautiful. So beautiful.

  I lean forward, press a soft kiss to first one breast and then the other. She shudders at my touch, at the brush of my lips against her sensitive skin.

  “Sebastian.” I’m not sure if it’s a warning or a plea, but this time I’m too busy licking across her nipple, sucking it deep into my mouth, to answer.

  Aria lets out a high-pitched, strangled sound that slams through me like a freight train. Her hands come up, clutch at my shoulders. Patiently, I remove them, press them palm first against the glass beside her hips.

  “Keep them there,” I order and though her hips buck against mine, she does what I tell her. At least for now.

  And then I’m nipping at the round, soft undersides of her breasts, kissing and sucking and licking every inch of her that I can. She’s so soft, so sweet, so goddamn beautiful, that I can’t resist.

  More than once I suck hard enough to bruise—I want her to remember this moment when she looks at herself in the mirror in the morning. I want her to remember me as she takes her shower, brushes her teeth, makes her morning coffee.

  Just the thought has me biting a little more sharply than I intended. She cries out, and I murmur an apology into her skin as I soothe the small hurt with my tongue.

  But Aria is shaking her head back and forth against the glass. “Do it—” Her voice breaks and she sucks ragged gulps of air into her lungs. “Do it again.”

  Fuck.

  Those three words are all the encouragement I need. I nip at her again. And again. And again. Each time I stroke my tongue against the small wound to stop the sting, but the tenderness doesn’t discount the fact that I’m marking her. Leaving a trail on her breasts, on her body, that even a blind man could see.

  The trail stops at the waistband of her skirt and suddenly even that small scrap of material is too much of a barrier. I want to see all of her—her stomach, her ass, her gorgeous sex, wet with desire. With need. For me and what we’re doing together.

  I shove her skirt down, help her lift her legs through it, one at a time. And then it’s off and she’s standing there in front of me, wearing nothing but a pair of black peep-toe stilettos, fishnet stockings, and the line of bruises that I gave her.

  She’s the sexiest damn thing I’ve ever seen.

  Her eyes are still closed, her head turned so that her hot cheek is resting against the cool glass. Her hands are pressed flat against the window but her back is arched, her breasts on erotic display.

  I drop to my knees in front of her, press hot, open-mouthed kisses down her stomach and over her abdomen until I come to her sex. I want to bury my face there again, to breathe the spicy-sweet scent of her into my lungs, into my soul. To lick her to orgasm a second time. A third time.

  It’s too tempting a thought to resist, and I lean forward, lick a stripe up the center of her sex.

  Her eyes open for a moment, just a moment, and I can see her sinking even further into the abyss. It’s a gorgeous sight, one I don’t even try to resist. Instead I turn my head, bite sharply at the inside of her thigh.

  This time she doesn’t cry out. She doesn’t jolt, doesn’t jump, doesn’t do anything but spread her legs a little more.

  I take instant advantage of the access, thrusting my tongue deep inside her once again. And then I’m circling, stroking, sliding in and out of her sex as I relish each strangled cry, each shiver she can’t control.

  It doesn’t take long before she’s balanced on the edge again. I know it won’t take much, a flick of my tongue, a press of my thumb, a slow, hot breath against her clit, to send her over.

  And so I pull away, sit back on my heels. And wait several, long excruciating seconds for her to come down from the edge.

  “Sebastian?” she asks after a minute or so, her voice husky, broken and so, so hot.

  “I’m here, baby.” I stroke over her hip, down her thigh, then slip a hand between her and the window so that I can cup her ass. She relaxes at my touch, melting into it even as fine tremors continue to shake her body.

  Her response shakes me, ratchets up my already unbearable need right to the breaking point. My own hands are trembling, my heart pumping like a piston and for too long, all I can think about is lifting her up, wrapping her legs around my waist and slamming into her. Slamming home.

  But there’s more I want to do to her, more I need to do before I’ll let either of us come.

  It’s that thou
ght that grounds me, that helps me regain the control I’m so desperately close to losing.

  And then I’m sliding my hand down the curve of her ass, slipping my thumb between her cheeks to rest against her anus. She gasps a little, but doesn’t pull away, and so I begin to stroke her gently, firmly. My other hand is on her breast now, squeezing her nipple between my thumb and forefinger.

  I lean forward, bury my face in her sex and just breathe her in for long moments. But she’s restless, tense, her whole body stretched taut on the razor’s edge between desperation and satisfaction. I know I should send her over, should put her out of her misery, but I’m not ready for it to end yet. Not when she looks so good, feels so good. And not when I want to see how much higher I can take her.

  I lick my way along her labia, relishing the way she presses her hips forward in a silent plea for more. In answer, I thrust my tongue and my thumb inside her at the same time.

  She gasps, starts to fall forward, but I hold her in place with the hand I have resting on her breastbone. Hold her still so that I can touch and kiss and take every part of her. So that I can drive her right back to the edge without ever hurtling her over.

  Again and again and again, I tease her with the promise of release. Of ecstasy. Again and again and again I stop right before she climaxes.

  “Sebastian. Sebastian. Sebastian.”

  My name is on her lips, my scent on her body and I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want Aria right now. Leaning forward once again, I press wet, open-mouthed kisses to her stomach, her mons, her clit.

  She screams this time, sobs, as her body bucks wildly against me, trying to throw me off. And through it all, her hands stay planted firmly against the glass, as she was instructed. But no matter how well she submits, no matter how well she stays with me, at this moment I’d be a fool to think the rest of her body was screaming anything but no, no, no. Her breathing is agitated, her hips jerking against me, and her whole body is heaving and shaking like she’s just come off a day-long crying jag.

  I’ve pushed her too far.

  Anger surges through me at the realization. This is my fault. Aria is in this state because I took her here. She’s so responsive, so susceptible to what I want to do to her that she slid further down the rabbit hole than I had ever intended her to. I slipped up on my own control, didn’t monitor her closely enough. I pushed her too far, too fast.