His to Take (Wicked Lovers 9)

with her—and a million other things he hadn’t yet dreamed up. If a way to give her pleasure existed, he wanted to be the man who gave it to her.

“You mean tonight, because we have hours to kill and TV is boring?”

“No, that’s not what I mean.” Joaquin gentled his expression. He’d felt a whole lot of determination to fuck her, but he understood why she needed to believe what they shared was far more. “You’ve got something I can’t resist. I don’t know what this is or where it’s going, but I know I couldn’t leave your side right now for anything. I wouldn’t want to.”

Tears welled in her eyes. Then she bestowed the most dazzling smile on him, so happy and radiant. “That’s how I feel, too. Bet you never thought you’d wind up in something more than a fling when you took me from Houston.”

He snorted. “Hell, I never thought I’d even have a fling from this situation. Sex was the last thing on my mind, until I saw you dance.”

She frowned up at him. “When did you see that?”

“The night I abducted you. You danced around your living room and—”

“Oh my gosh! Where were you, peeking in my window?”

“Inside the armoire, with my knees crouched up around my ears.”

“Holy crap, that’s a small space.”

“You’re telling me. It only got smaller as my cock got harder.”

Bailey didn’t hide her laugh. “Really?”

“You think that’s funny?” he challenged her.

“Maybe a little.” But her eyes danced as if picturing him cramped up in a small space and fighting a hard-on amused the hell out of her.

“You know, I can’t exactly prove my masculinity if you’re giggling at me. That kind of disrespect deserves a little punishment, I think.”

The smile slipped off her face. “Punishment?”

He nodded and sat on the edge of the bed, patting his thigh. “Put yourself over my lap, ass in the air, baby girl. I didn’t get to finish my spanking last time we tried this. And you didn’t give me an honest response.”

She bit her lip and squirmed, pressing her thighs together. Now that Joaquin knew what to look for, he realized that she hadn’t been frightened by him previously. She’d been shocked by her arousal. It had startled and possibly shamed her. This time would be different.

“Bailey . . .” He grabbed her chin gently. “Do it or say your safe word. It’s ‘red,’ remember?”

She nodded. Her breathing turned choppy. “Yeah.”

“You need to pick. If you’re having trouble sorting through your thoughts, talk to me so we can come to an answer together.”

Bailey licked her bottom lip, and Joaquin made a mental note to see what that mouth felt like wrapped around his cock soon. For now, he waited patiently, damn near holding his breath. This would be a good test to determine how much she really trusted him in bed.

Finally, she sat up, then crawled across the bed, approaching on his left. “Help me? I don’t want to do it wrong.”

“There’s no wrong, but I’ll always help you.”

He took her by the waist and helped her across his lap. Once she was facedown, her ass directly in his line of vision, Joaquin lost himself in her scent, the warmth of her body across his bare legs, the spill of her silky hair toward the floor, and her pert butt so taut and small right in front of him. His hand would cover more than one cheek at a time. That fascinated him, as did the pale pink of her skin, her slender thighs parting restlessly, her erratic breathing.

“Joaquin?”

Petting a hand over her butt, then down a thigh, he silently comforted her. “Tell me, are you green right now?”

“Like traffic light green? Yes.”

“Good. Let me have my way with you now. If it’s too much, you know how to stop me.” When she nodded, he tugged on her hair, gently lifting her head. “Did you mean to say something to me?”

“Yes.”

He knew he should let go of her hair, but he liked the feel of it too much. Instead, he released the tension just slightly, then smoothed his left hand down the curve on her ass. “God, this is turning me the fuck on. Do you like having your hair pulled?”

“I do,” she breathed out.

“Do you like being over my lap?”

“Yes.” Her voice became something closer to a whimper.

That turned him the fuck on, too. He swallowed. “Do you want me to spank you?”

She paused, and the silence ticked on. “Um . . .”

“It’s a yes-or-no question, Bailey. Just be honest.”

“It’s hard.”

Joaquin could feel how badly she didn’t want to answer him. “Because you’re worried that saying no will disappoint or upset me? It won’t. I came on too strong the first time. I didn’t have your consent. We didn’t have a safe word. I wasn’t in control. I want to do this again, but the right way.”

“I even liked it the first time,” she finally admitted. “I told you I didn’t because I was embarrassed. Who gets off on being smacked by the guy who kidnapped her? I didn’t understand why I was that girl.”

“There’s always been a crazy chemistry between us, baby girl. It’s feeling a lot like there always will be. We can’t do this right if we’re not honest. So you just have to tell me . . . green or red?”

She dragged in a shuddering breath. “Green. I want this. I want it a lot.”

And Joaquin couldn’t even begin to describe how thrilled he was that she enjoyed one of his kinks of choice. “You got it. I want this a lot, too.”

Then he didn’t bother saying anything more, just raised his arm and brought it down again, using the pull of gravity more than any real force. As he stared at her ass, a faint handprint appeared—then disappeared almost as quickly. He did the same thing to the other cheek with the same result. Hmm, he didn’t want to truly hurt her, but this mild paddling wasn’t floating his boat.

“Did that sting?”

“A little.” But her tone said she’d really felt very little—and probably wanted more.

“Did you like it better this time or last? Remember, be honest.”

“The last time.”

“Me, too. I’ll try again.”

Quickly, he raised his arm again. This time, he lowered it with a whoosh he could almost hear. The sizzle of his hand striking her skin burned a hundred times hotter. The gasp of her little bite of pain got him a hundred times harder. The print of his hand on her pretty, pale ass looked a hundred times more vivid.

“That’s what I’m talking about.” Satisfaction poured through him. She looked fucking fine with his mark on her. “Bailey?”

“Yes.” Her high-pitched reply told him he’d given her what she wanted, too. “Please more.”

“My pleasure.”

Joaquin let the blows fall, one after the other, in a savage but steady rhythm all over her upturned backside until it turned bright pink, then rosy, then vivid red. He stopped for a moment, tearing himself from the hazy fog of his desire. Every time he spanked her, his head swelled with the most amazing feeling, as if he was all-powerful and linked into this one woman. This time, he swore he could read her mind.

Just to be sure, he hesitated and listened to her choppy breathing, watched the flush of arousal crawl up her back. He tugged on her hair and turned her head to the side, leaning over until he looked into her eyes. Dazed, glassy, utterly aroused. With a smile, he dipped his fingers between her slender thighs and into the well of her pussy. Soaking wet. Perfect.

He tried to calm his own labored breathing, sucking in huge drafts of air and caressing her backside.

Bailey arched to his hand. “That . . . When you rub my skin like that, it’s as if you’re pressing the heat deeper into my flesh. It’s sinking into my blood.”

“You’re aroused.”

“Completely.”

“Your pussy ache?”

“Totally.”

Th

e way she admitted it only notched up his arousal. “You want me to fuck you?”

“Right now.”

If she hadn’t sounded desperate and gasping for air, he might have told her that she didn’t have the control here. But her voice indicated she dangled at the end of her fraying rope. Damn it to hell, he was at the end of his, too.

Joaquin lifted her up from his lap and guided her to face him before he eased one of her thighs over his lap. As she straddled him, he probed until he found her wet opening, then gripped her hips. He surged up on one violent thrust, shoving his way to the end of her passage.

Bailey gasped and blinked at him with a helpless stare. Her fingers curled into his shoulders, nails digging. “Joaquin . . .”

“More? Softer? What is it, baby girl?”

“More. Not softer. I felt you everywhere inside me. The tingles prickled up my thighs. The ache behind my clit is killing me.”

“You want to come again?”

She nodded feverishly. “Please.”

“We’re going to do it together, so you’ll need to wait for me.”

She winced, as if she knew the waiting would be its own form of torture, but she swallowed her protest back. “All right.”

“Good. I want to hear you, Bailey. If it feels good, sigh, scream, call my name. My goal is for you to run out of breath.”

She opened her mouth to say something, but he cut her off with another plowing thrust. All she managed after that was a high-pitched cry that almost didn’t sound human. Her walls tightened on him. With a lazy thumb, he slid a few circles over her clit, gratified when she repeated the sound, only this time it sounded like even more of a wail.

Her sound raged through his blood like a fever. Urgency jacked his system. His fingers bit tighter into her hips as he crashed up into her again. This time, she met him, slamming down for another slow, deep stroke. As he withdrew, the sensations were so acute. Peeling off his skin would affect him less. She danced like lightning through his body as they fell into a rhythm. He spiked up, she gyrated down. Together, they made a kind of bliss that sent his eyes rolling into the back of his head and a long, loud groan falling from his lips.

Tighter and tighter, her pussy clamped down on him, signaling her rise to orgasm. Even if he hadn’t felt that, Joaquin would have known by the flush of her skin, the bite of her fingers in his scalp, the helpless begging in her blue eyes.

“I’m so close,” she mewled.

“Good. So good, baby girl. Yes . . .” Joaquin could barely wrap his head around a coherent sentence right now. The pleasure steamrolled all thought. He couldn’t breathe fast enough, couldn’t get deep enough. He couldn’t be with her enough to stop wanting her—ever. The thought seared across his brain and jolted down to his cock. “Now!”

Joaquin seized her lips, certain if he couldn’t take her in every way possible at once that he’d lose his damn mind. He plunged his tongue in, danced around hers, and captured her screams as she let go.

Her hard, staccato pulses all around him launched him like a rocket. He surged inside her again, releasing a torrent of need and flooding her again, this time right against the opening of her womb. No doubt, they were playing a dangerous game—and he just didn’t care. If he could be with her always, so much the better.

Their rhythm slowed, along with their heartbeats and breathing. She collapsed on him, clung, head on his shoulder, embracing him like he was the lone pillar holding up her life. Joaquin didn’t want it any other way. He was in no hurry to withdraw, shower, and leave as he usually did with a lover. No, something primal inside him wanted to stay as long as he could and plant his seed deeper still until she was ready to take him again.

Something inside urged him to tell her that he loved her.

What would she say to that? Did he really know what love was? Maybe. Kind of. Who the fuck knew? All he could say was that Bailey hit him on the most profound level, and he couldn’t imagine her not being in his life.

So how the hell was he going to manage when LOSS and McKeevy came calling? He refused to think about losing her. He hadn’t been there to protect his father or Nate, but by God, he’d stay with Bailey every step of the way to keep her safe.

Gripping Bailey tighter, Joaquin kissed his way up her neck, down her jaw, back to her lips. “I can’t do without you.”

She froze, looking at him as if she understood the gravity of this moment, as if it bound her to him as much as he felt bound to her. “You don’t have to, I swear.”

* * *

THEY didn’t sleep much that night. Joaquin woke her up twice more to make love to her, each time slower and more tender than the last. At the end, he curled his fist in her hair and looked straight into her eyes as he glided his way deep inside her, sure and straight and inexorable. He took; she yielded. But he gave back, too, in devotion and pleasure.

Now the sun peeked out behind the hotel’s blackout drapes, waking Bailey from her hard sleep. As she rolled over and peeked one eye open, Joaquin sat on his side of the bed, a map spread across the sheets, phone in his hand. He peered from one to the other and frowned.

“Morning, sunshine.” He looked clean and put together, like he’d already showered and dressed to take on the day.

“Why aren’t you sleeping?” she groaned.

“Too restless. I’m thinking about where Viktor might have taken you to hide what I sure hope is his research. I’m looking all around this map, but there are so many damn lakes.”

Grabbing the sheet, she sat up with a grimace. Sitting next to a hot guy with the sweat of their sex still coating her skin and just knowing she had morning breath was something she wanted to correct ASAP.

“Be right back.” She hopped up, grabbed the backpack, and headed for the bathroom.

After quickly using the toilet, she hopped in the shower. Ducking her head under the hot spray of water and letting it sluice through her hair and down her body felt like a necessary comfort. She moaned.

Suddenly, the shower curtain whisked across the rod, and a cold blast of air pelted her skin. She opened her eyes. Joaquin watched her with a burning stare that questioned how quickly he could have her in bed with his cock deep inside her again.

She flushed and tried to cover herself with the curtain. “What are you doing?”

“Besides enjoying the view?” he quipped, tugging the curtain out of her hand. “You moaned, and I wondered if you were having fun without me.”

She tsked at him. “The water just felt good on my skin, you perv.”

“Uh-huh,” he drawled, staring up and down her wet, naked figure.

“It did! And now you’re shamelessly peeking at me like you’re the big wolf and I’m your prey.”

“I like that analogy. Let’s roll with it.” He reached out for her.

Bailey lurched back, wagging her finger at him. “No more until I’m clean and you’ve fed me. Otherwise, I’ll have to call the U.N. or something and complain that you don’t follow Geneva Convention rules.”

He gave a hearty laugh that bounced off the bathroom’s little walls. “Geneva Convention? You’re not a prisoner of war, baby girl.”

“I’m sure the same rules apply to kidnappers turned sex gods.”

“Sex god? I like that even better.” His grin widened. “It’s your lucky day. I already have some coffee in the little pot near the TV. It’s shit, but it’s coffee.”

“That’s enticing,” she said, tongue-in-cheek.

“Yep. And I’m sure you’ll really love the cardboard muffins I found in the breakfast area downstairs when I grabbed the map.”

“Not so much. Who eats that crap every day? You have something against protein?”