Release Me (Stark Trilogy 1)

“Oh, really?” I snap another picture of him. “If I’m going to be punished anyway, it might as well be worth it.”

His expression is all heat and promise. “I assure you I’ll be very thorough.”

“Of course, I don’t think you’re being very equitable. I mean, fair is fair. You’re going to have a portrait of me. I think I should have some photos of you.”

“Nice try,” he says. “But the punishment stands.”

I ease in close to him and slide my arm around his neck. Only the bulk of the camera is keeping us apart, and I’m suddenly enveloped in the heat of him. I lift myself up on my tiptoes so that I can whisper in his ear. “What would you say if I told you I was looking forward to it?”

He stands completely still, but as I ease back, I see a single muscle in his cheek twitch. It’s not much, but it’s enough. I’ve surprised Damien Stark. More than that, I’ve turned him on.

With a light laugh, I skip back, overflowing with feminine self-satisfaction.

We’ve reached the wharf, but we don’t go out onto it. Instead, we turn around and head back down the beach toward Bath Street and the hotel. As we walk, I take a few snaps of the Channel Islands, then manage to get an excellent shot of two seagulls flying so close together they look like one creature. We’ve almost returned back the length of the beach when Damien settles on a bench. I think I see a sand dollar and squat in the sand in front of him.

“I’m looking forward to tonight, Ms. Fairchild,” he says, his voice ripe with quiet urgency. He’s looking right at me, and I see the heat in his eyes that has become familiar to me. “It’s hard to be so close to something so precious and know you don’t yet possess it.”

“Possess?” I repeat.

His grin is slow and confident. “Possess. Have. Hold. Enjoy. Control. Dominate. Pick your verb, Ms. Fairchild. I intend to explore so very many of them.”

I lick my lips. “Now you’re breaking the rules.”

“Oh, I don’t think so.” He lifts his hands. “No touching. No demands. You’re not mine yet.” He glances at his watch. “Not for a few more hours,” he adds, and I have to stand up. My legs are too weak, my body too tingly, to let me remain squatting in the sand.

“Totally free for now,” I agree, but I’m thinking about those hours. About what will happen when they pass.

“So I have no authority now,” he says, his eyes roaming over my body. “I can’t tell you to touch yourself. I can’t insist that you lie naked in the surf and slide your fingers over your cunt. I can’t take you back to the pool and ease you in, then suck on your nipples while the water washes the sand from your body. I can’t slide my fingers inside you and feel how slick you are, how much you want me.”

His eyes are locked on mine, and my breathing has become shallow. My skin glistens with sweat, and not from the heat of the sun. I’m standing at least three feet from him, but it’s as if he’s right there. As if we’re connected. As if his hands are moving over my body in time with his words. And, dammit, I do want to touch myself. It takes all my willpower to keep my hands at my sides. Even then, my thumb is brushing the outside of my thigh, the motion slow and sensual. It’s all I have, and I’m clinging to it even as I cling to his words.

“I can’t take you into the hot tub and turn you around so that I can fuck you from behind while the water jet strokes your clit. I can’t clutch your breasts and fuck you harder while you come for me, exploding all around me. And I can’t make love to you on a balcony under the stars.”

Make love …

My heart flutters.

“I can’t, Nikki,” he continues, “because you’re not mine yet. But I can soon,” he says. “Soon I can do whatever I want with you. I hope you’re ready.”

I swallow. I hope I am, too. Dear God, I hope I am.

When we exit the plane in Santa Monica, there are two cars waiting. Damien’s sleek red expensive car with the unpronounceable name and a Lincoln Town Car. A short man in a cap stands by the Town Car. He inclines his head when I glance at him.

Damien presses his palm to the small of my back and steers me toward the man. “This is Edward, one of my drivers. He’ll be taking you home.”

“You’re going back to your office?”

“I’m so sorry to cut our afternoon short, but it can’t be avoided.”

“No, no. Obviously you have work to do. It’s just that my car is in the parking garage. Why don’t I ride back with you?”

He presses a kiss to my forehead as Edward opens the Town Car door for me. “I would love the company, but your car is at your apartment.”

It takes me a second to process. “What? How did it get there?”

“I arranged it.”

“You arranged it,” I repeat. I’m not angry so much as baffled. No, actually, I’m angry. I feel the tension boiling up inside me. “You just did that without asking?”

He looks perplexed. “I thought you’d appreciate it.”

“That’s micromanaging my life and putting your sticky fingers all over my property.” I can hear my voice rising and force myself to tamp it down.

“I think you’re overreacting.”

Am I? I think about my mother and how much her fingers in every aspect of my life irritated me. Am I projecting my issues with my mother onto Damien? Or has he actually crossed some line? I’m not sure, and it bugs me that Elizabeth Fairchild is still haunting me from fifteen hundred miles away.

I run my fingers through my hair. “Sorry,” I finally say. I slide into the back of the Town Car and look back out at him. “You’re probably right. Just ask first next time, okay?”

“I was trying to help,” he says, another nonanswer, but he’s closing the door and that’s that.

Well, damn.

Edward climbs into the driver’s seat and takes off toward my apartment. But the truth is, I’m not ready to go home yet. “You can just drop me on the Promenade,” I say, referring to the shopping street in Santa Monica. “I’ll either catch a taxi home or have my roommate pick me up.”

“I’m sorry, Ms. Fairchild,” he says, guiding the car onto the entrance ramp to the 10. “My instructions are to take you straight home.”

Oh, for Pete’s sake!

“Instructions?” I echo. “Don’t I get a say?”