“I don’t remember agreeing.”
“No?”
“No.”
“What are you thinking about now?”
I am not the me of the past right now. I have no shame, no inhibitions, but I do have wants. I do have needs. “About all the places you aren’t kissing me.”
“What else?”
“I’m naked and you’re not.”
“And who has control, Aria?”
“You do.”
His hand is on my face, forcing my gaze to his, fingers closing around my hair. “No. You are in control.”
“I’m naked, you’re not,” I repeat. “You are in control.”
“No, baby. I’m not. You let me undress you. Did you not?”
“Yes.”
“Did you want me to undress you?”
“Yes.”
“I won’t do anything you don’t want me to do. No one gets to say what happens to you, but you, Aria. Ever. Me included. I need you to remember that. That’s how you win. That’s how you get our life back.”
“If only it were that easy.”
“It is that easy. I want to spank you. Can I?”
I blanch. “You—you want—” My mouth goes dry. “—to spank me?”
“Yes. I want to spank you. And if you say yes, when you are waiting for my palm on your pretty little ass, I promise you that you won’t be thinking about violins and danger. You’ll be wet and hot and ready, filled with anticipation. And then the pleasure comes wicked hot and fast. It’s pleasure, baby. Only pleasure.”
My fingers twist in his shirt. “I don’t know.”
“I know.” His grip in my hair tightens ever so slightly. “What are you thinking about?”
“What you just said.”
“Which is what?”
My thighs are slick, my nipples so swollen they ache. “You spanking me.”
“What do you want, Aria?” Kace presses.
My backside tingles with the idea of his hand. “I seem to want you, in all kinds of ways I didn’t think possible.”
I’m over his shoulder before I know what’s happened, and he’s walking, while his palm rests possessively on my backside. Blood rushes to my head and my cheek beneath that hand of his. Is he actually going to spank me?
My answer comes when we enter his bedroom, and he lays me down on his bed, removes his T-shirt, and then and comes down on top of me. “One day,” he says, “I will spank you.”
“If I let you.”
His really sexy mouth quirks. “Yes. If you let me.” His voice lowers, roughens up. “Just not now.”
I’m not sure if it’s relief or disappointment I feel, but my reaction is forgotten quickly as he adds, “Now,” his lips brush mine, “I’m going to make love to you, Aria.”
The words pulse in the air.
Make. Love.
Not fuck.
Not have sex.
Make love.
I don’t want to read into his meaning, and yet, there is no denying the many levels or the response he’s stirred in me. Nor is there any denying the yearning inside me that I can’t quite name. His lips find my neck and my fingers slide into the soft, dark strands of his hair, a shiver running down my spine. My feelings for this man are dangerously close to love, and I know it. I’m falling in love with Kace. Perhaps I have been since the day our eyes met in that restaurant. His lips caress over my jawline, my lips, down my neck and he inches lower, spreading my thighs, cupping my breasts. He lowers his head, his hair brushing my collar bone, his lips, tongue, and teeth teasing one nipple and then the next. And when he suckles, I moan and arch into those sweet pulls.
He’s back then, kissing me, claiming my mouth only to deny me another taste, as he moves lower again. His hands are on my hips, his lips pressed to my belly, tongue doing a little tease that I feel in every part of me.
“Don’t go away,” Kace murmurs, but he does. He pushes off the bed, and I have to catch my breath from the loss of his body on my body. I sit up and he’s already slid out of his pants and underwear, his cock thickly veined and jutted forward, a condom package in his hand.
My mouth goes dry at the sight of him, tall, broad, tattooed, muscled, powerful. This man is as much a work of art as his music. He tears open the package and I scoot toward him, taking it from his hand. “I’ll do it,” I say.
He stares down at me, his eyes heavy-lidded, a pulse of desire in the air between us. My hand wraps the hard length of his cock, and I watch pleasure slide across his handsome face. Leaning in, I lick the tip of him and then swirl all around. He groans and pulls back. “As much as I want your mouth all over me baby, not that. Not tonight.” He snatches the condom from my hand and rolls it over himself.
The minute it’s in place, he’s taking me down on the bed again, the sweet weight of his body back on top of mine. He perches on an elbow, one hand on my face. My hand finds his jaw, the rasp of his whiskers beneath my fingers.