Caught for Christmas (Stripped 3.50)

“Don’t,” I whisper.

He frames my core with his large hands, pushing my thighs apart. His eyes are almost black as they stare at my sex. “I have a feeling I’m never going to see you after today, whether I taste you or not. And I really fucking want to taste you.”

The words wash over me, and it feels like relief. I don’t really want him to stop, but I’m afraid. Afraid of what he means when he says we won’t see each other again. Because he

’ll turn me over to the cops? Because he’ll turn me over to Ivan?

Or because he’s thinking of letting me go? My heart pounds at the thought. And he knows I’ll run far away if he does.

“You’re too much of a Boy Scout,” I say, and even I can hear the challenge in my voice. I want him to prove me wrong, even though it seems almost impossible. How can he change who he is?

How could I have been wrong about him?

His expression is severe. “A fucking Boy Scout. I spent years in the fucking desert, where even looking at a woman wrong could mean her life was over. So I didn’t. I wasn’t a monk. I had hookups when I was on leave. What did it get me, Bianca? What’s the fucking point?”

It rips me apart to hear him questioning this. As much as I want him to touch me, to ignore my protests, I would hate it too. I love him being a Boy Scout. Love the honorable man that he is, his mouth inches from my bare pussy—but he won’t lean in. He just won’t, and it’s killing him.

My hands grab onto the chair, holding myself steady. “Taste me, West. Touch me.”

His eyes are hooded. I know he thinks this is about what he just said—and it is, but not how he thinks. I don’t pity him. The man is kind and handsome as hell. He could score with any girl he sees right now. But he wants me. He wants this. And it’s a kind of honor to be able to give it to him.

And no matter that he questions my motives, he doesn’t wait. He has what he needed: permission.

His head lowers, and he places a kiss on my mound—a chaste kiss only. I feel the heat of it sear me. He touches me everywhere, his hands on my thighs, his torso between my legs, his lips on my sex.

He flicks a glance at me, and I see in it all the banked desire. He’s been waiting longer than one night for this. Longer than the few months we’ve worked here together. It’s like he’s been waiting forever for this, and I feel that even stronger when he returns for an openmouthed kiss against my pussy.

He kisses me like he’s starved for me, tongue digging deep, licking every drop of arousal, teeth scraping gently over tender, swollen flesh.

The basement had been quiet before, but now it’s a riot of sounds. My whimpers and moans, incoherent, babbling. His soft words of praise, murmured against my skin, telling me how beautiful I am, how good I taste—how long he’s wanted me.

He pushes two fingers inside me, and they slide in easily. I’m so slick from what he’s doing, his tongue on my clit and the scruff of a late-night shadow against my mound.

His other hand tightens on my thigh as he fingers me, and I know he’s imagining his cock inside me, how I’d feel tightening around him. I’m imagining it too. I squeeze his fingers instead, and it’s a tease for us both.

“Fuck,” he mutters under his breath.

I moan and push my hips against his face, begging for more.

He gives it to me, sucking directly on my clit—and it feels like lightning sparking through my body, sparking at my core and radiating out. The orgasm takes me by surprise, my entire body shaking and jerking against the bonds. I’m held by the chair and the tape, but also his hands and his mouth. I shudder in the small space of freedom I have, rocking against the walls that hold me, pushing against them even as I never want to leave.

It’s only then, as the aftershocks of the orgasm shiver through me, that I feel the tape on my right-hand side loosen and come undone.

Chapter Eleven

There’s nothing more honest than the moment of climax, the pure pleasure of it, the surrender. And afterward there’s an intimacy that you can’t escape. That’s what makes the moment uncomfortable for people who don’t care about each other. It’s what makes the moment poignant now, when West pulls back, his expression still taut with arousal—and a supremely male satisfaction after making me come.

I have to force myself not to feel it too deeply, not to want him too much.

I have to force myself not to show that my hand is loose.

If I pulled away now, he would hear the tape. He would see my arm swing free. And he’d be close enough to restrain me physically. I need to wait until he’s distracted, and physically farther away, like when he spoke to Blue earlier. Then I can grab the gun on the desk and escape.

He’s about to stand. I see the muscles in his arm flex. I feel the rush of cool air as it sweeps between our bodies.

“Wait.” A few minutes ago I said this to make him stop. Now I don’t want him to stop. Stopping means I’ll have to fight my way free. It means our moments in the dark will end.

One eyebrow rises. His lids are still low, his full lips damp with my cream. “Baby?”