CHAPTER
EIGHT
SHAWN looked at Rhett, unnerved by his calm, by the way he was doing it again—staring steadily at her, making her the entire focus of his attention. She’d never really experienced that kind of intensity. She had been telling the truth in that most of the men she’d dated had likely been picturing supermodels when they’d been in bed with her. Obviously Sam had, given his wandering eye. She had never been in love with a man, had never emotionally connected on that level with someone. She’d had laughs and good times and respectable sex. But never all-consuming, earth-shattering pleasure.
Never had she looked up and felt like a man wanted to consume her, to eek every last drop of desire out of her body and swallow.
Until now.
Did she trust him?
She did, though there wasn’t necessarily any logic to it.
He was borderline rude, definitely bossy, and determined to get his own way.
But he was also honest, straightforward, fair. And most important, he never pushed her.
So yes, she did trust him. And even if it meant she was going to lose a little face by caving five days early, a mere forty-eight hours into their marriage, she knew beyond a doubt that his goal was to make it worth it for her.
“Okay,” she whispered, well aware that she was giving in to a course of action that would change the way they interacted over the next six months. But she wanted this. She wanted him. Inside her.
Then he smiled and it was so beautiful, she sucked in her breath, her heart beating almost as loudly as the vibrator that was still buzzing a few feet away from her right ear.
The least she could do was try not to laugh.
So when he bent over to kiss her again, his arm pressing into the pillows, she tried, she honestly tried not to think about the fact that her arms were contained beneath white linens, like a mummy. Or that if she wiggled her hands, they would pop out the bottom of the pillow like T-Rex arms. She twitched, a snort coming out as she tried to contain her nervous laughter.
Rhett paused. “Really?”
“I can’t help it!” She took a couple of deep breaths. “Okay, I’m good. Sorry. I’m fine now.”
But she really wasn’t, because when he stroked his thumb across her bottom lip, she squirmed from need. Not sexual need, but the hysterical urge to reach out and snap at him with her teeth. Suppressed laughter made her nostrils flare and she knew she was about to totally lose it.
She was in no shape for sex clearly.
Rhett sat back, giving her a dark look. When he retreated off the bed, she was disappointed and annoyed with herself. Why couldn’t she be normal and artfully pose and come on to him? Why did she have to act like a ginormous goofball and ruin her chances of actually having an orgasm?
Sighing, she rolled over and turned off her vibrator. No sense in wasting the batteries, and she didn’t think she could go back to it with the right attitude once he was gone. But Rhett didn’t leave her room like she thought he was going to. Instead, he yanked open her dresser drawer and started rooting around. Hello. Her panties and bras were in there.
“What are you doing?”
He turned back to her, a pair of her tights in his hand.
Wait a minute.
He wasn’t going to . . .
Oh, but he was. Rhett crawled on the bed and lifted her head so he could put the tights behind her and around her jaw. For a second, she felt a flash of anxiety, but before he gagged her, he kissed her softly. “Trust me.”
Unable to speak, her mouth thick with saliva, she nodded. She’d never been gagged before, but it had certainly robbed her of the obnoxious need to snort with laughter.
Rhett wasted no time in tying off the tights so that she couldn’t open her mouth. It was a strange sensation, not nearly as vulnerable as she would have thought. It was actually sort of . . . freeing. She didn’t have to say anything. She could focus on the pressure of the spandex pushing against her lips and breathing through her nose. It calmed her down, and when Rhett slid his hand up her thigh and under her T-shirt, his lips caressing her neck with soft, seductive kisses, she had no desire to laugh. Instead, she sighed, relaxing back against her mattress.
Rhett brushed over her thighs, her belly, the underside of her breast, his other hand pulling stray hairs gently free that had been caught under the tights. His callused thumb moved across her cheek, tracing her mouth under the tights, his eyes on her facial features, like he was studying each inch of her.
There was something almost worshipful about the way he touched her, like she was fragile. Or beautiful.
She suddenly remembered that legally he was her husband.
It was a very, very strange thought.
The pillow had fallen off her chest and he hovered over her, his bare chest tantalizingly close. He was muscular, like any man on a pit crew should be, free of tattoos and covered in a light dusting of caramel chest hair. Shawn wanted to touch him, both to explore that hard plane, and to keep a slight barrier between them. To hold on to control.
But he clearly sensed that because when her hands came up, he shook his head, cupping them to push them back down. “No. Lie still.”
The question was, did she do as he told her, or did she do what she wanted? Given that she would still be chortling like a donkey if he hadn’t taken charge of the situation, she realized that while it went totally against her every instinct as a competitor and an independent businesswoman, there might be some value in doing as he said. At least this once, to see if it brought her a different experience, if it allowed her to experience pleasure from a new perspective.
So she left her hands at her sides where he had placed them and waited further instruction. The very idea of that actually brought a rush of warm desire to her inner thighs, the heat pooling deep in her womb. His hard masculinity trapped her beneath him, and though she couldn’t feel it, she knew his erection was mere inches from her. Part of her expected him to shove her shirt up and push into her hard, claiming her before she changed her mind.
But that wasn’t what he did. Instead he ran his hand up her thighs, slowly and steadily, slipped under her shirt to brush over her breast, then descended again. He caressed her inner thigh, but never moved over the front of her panties, and after three passes up and down the length of her body, Shawn no longer felt the urge to laugh. His feathery touch was pulling goose bumps from her skin, and she quieted down, her body relaxing as he coaxed a simple awareness of her body from her. She wanted him to touch her more intimately, to push her panties back and bury his finger deep inside her wet body. That was what she expected, an aggressive dominant approach of going straight for the gold. He would use his finger, then his cock to get her off, and it would be over and done in a hot burst of ten minutes of passion.
That wasn’t what he was doing, clearly.
He was taking his time.
And it was driving her nuts.
She couldn’t even complain because her mouth was covered.
“Your skin is very soft,” he told her, eyes trained on her.
It didn’t require an answer, though under usual circumstances, Shawn would have said something in response. She would have most likely made a crack about having a boyish figure or how winter brought on alligator-skin syndrome, both of which would have however unintentionally and however minutely altered the mood, never allowing either of them to fully surrender to pleasure.
It was an interesting realization. As she was forced to lie still, which was not her most coveted or easy position, there was no running commentary of words from her mouth to distract her. There was nothing but her skin and an awareness of her rising desire that she had never experienced before. She could feel the prickle of each goose bump rising on her flesh, hear the soft rush of her breathing out of her nostrils, smell his masculine scent as he lay over her, his knee wedged between her thighs. Rhett played a little with her nipple, just teasing his thumb and forefinger over its hardness, his lips brushing across the delicate flesh under her ear.
When he pinched her nipple, unexpectedly, Shawn was stunned at the sharp kick of desire that she felt acutely in her stillness, her body quiet, able to process in its entirety the sensation of pleasure through the sting. She had never kept her hands at her sides, had never understood that if she did, she would feel the distinct ache in her womb, feel the slow trickle of hot desire easing out of her to soak the front of her panties. Her breathing grew more anxious, and she reveled in the new experience at the same time she started to panic. Involuntarily, her hand came up to push against his chest, to pull off her tights.
Rhett pushed it back down. “Shh. Not yet. Just give me a few more minutes. But if you really want me to stop, I will. I won’t hold your hands down.”
Did she want him to stop? Given that his thumb was now stroking against the skin at the apex of her thighs, so tantalizingly close to her clitoris, she decided she could keep it together for at least a few minutes. If he didn’t tie off her hands, she could also escape. She did trust him.
As long as he didn’t demand she crawl across the floor, she was okay with what they were doing. In fact, she was more than okay with it, and that’s where the fear sprang from. She wasn’t sure she’d ever been quite this aroused from so little actual contact.
“Are you okay with this? I need your permission. Nod your head.”
So she nodded her head.
“Good girl.”
Rhett kissed her on the lips, the nylon tights between them. It was an odd sensation, one that made her yearn to feel his taste, his tongue inside her. She moaned a little, the sound muffled, her nostrils flaring. Then his thumb slipped under the satin of her panties and slid up and down in her slickness and she arched her head back, closing her hands into tight fists so she didn’t move them, reach for him. It felt so odd, to be a non-participant, but more involved and attuned than she had ever been. She wasn’t sure how that was possible, but as Rhett massaged up and down her swollen lips with his thumbs, his tongue teasing into her ear, she marveled at that reality. She was agonizingly turned on, and she could already feel an orgasm building, and from what? A few finger strokes? She usually required the launch-to-orbit setting on her vibrator or a man who knew how to use his tongue for extended periods of time.
She didn’t come from a single finger, nowhere near her clitoris.
Without realizing she was doing it, she started to squirm, wiggling her hips.
“No moving,” he told her, pinching her swollen labia, his stroking ceasing. “Or you won’t get my tongue.”
Oh, God. Shawn’s chest heaved, her breathing anxious and frantic sounding to her own ears as she desperately tried to quiet her body, the thought of his tongue motivating her to follow his directives. If his finger could do this, what could his tongue, his lips, his teeth do down there? The thought prompted a rush of liquid desire, soaking over his thumb, trapped by the barrier of her panties. She knew if she looked down, she would see the satin stained with her arousal, and he knew it, too. He was looking at it. He had bent over to study her, pausing to wait for her compliance.
It almost killed her, but she relaxed, letting her legs drop apart, keeping her head back on the bed.
Her reward was him removing his hand entirely. Aghast, she tried to cry out in protest, but the words were lost behind the tights.
But he shook his head in disapproval. “Trust me. Or I’ll leave you here like this, wet and aching.”
Shawn wasn’t sure she could do this. She didn’t know how.
But neither did she want to be left alone feeling like she was on the cusp of something, like she was about to be treated to intense satisfaction, only to have it denied to her because she couldn’t relinquish control.
It was an ironic paradox and she fought with her emotions, while Rhett startled her by pulling up her T-shirt and gently lifting each of her inert arms through the holes, then lifting it up and over her head, leaving her gloriously free and bare to his gaze.
“See?” he told her. “That’s what I was going to do. I wasn’t trying to torture you.”
Oops. Hey, how was she supposed to know? Shawn felt the cool air of her bedroom on her naked skin, her nipples pert, her breasts rising and falling rapidly with the urgency of her breathing. There was nothing between her and Rhett’s gaze, his touch, but the wet scrap of her thong that he had bought and she had worn to torment him. Funny how the tables had been turned.
He peeled the tights back long enough to surprise her with a hot kiss and a plunge of his tongue, before he was gone again, his mouth descending on her breast. She gasped, her eyes fluttering shut, her heels digging in to the bed, her hips squirming again before she realized she wasn’t allowed to do that. Knowing he would stop if she did, she immediately stilled her actions, sliding her hands under her ass so she wouldn’t be tempted to reach out and claw at his briefs to free his penis.
This time her reward was him reaching down and with both hands, snapping the strap on the side of the thong so that the satin front panel fell away, exposing her entirely to him. That was definitely worth sitting on her hands. The move was so hot she felt her mouth fill with saliva, excitement rushing through her like a shot of whiskey on a cold night.
It was just the beginning. When he bent down, he traced the inside of each of her thighs with his tongue, a teasing caress so close to the core of her desire.
“This is how this works,” he murmured against her skin. “You only come once I give you permission. If you’re getting too close, you can move your hand to tap my head to let me know you don’t have control over yourself and need a pause. But I will give permission, and you will come when I think you’re ready, so don’t worry about that . . . I don’t get off on leaving you unsatisfied. I want the opposite.”
Shawn wanted to protest that his rules weren’t particularly fair, but she didn’t want him to withdraw his touch, nor did she want to waste time worrying about particulars when he was essentially promising to bring her to orgasm.
“Nod your head.”
So she did, and the minute she did, she knew it was a delicious decision. His tongue shifted to her pussy, his fingers gently tugging her lips apart so he could lick her deeply and thoroughly.
Shawn almost came, but she remembered the rules and managed to tap him on the shoulder, frantic and disappointed all at once. She didn’t want to fail. She didn’t want to have to move. She wanted to play by his rules and win the game.
Rhett stopped, his eyebrows raised as he stared at her over her pubis. “So soon? Really? Damn, Shawn.”
Her cheeks flushed with the heat of her embarrassment. She didn’t like to disappoint. So she slowed her breathing, pulling her knees in closer so that the arousal wasn’t quite so intense, and relaxed her head back. When she had control, she returned her hand to behind her backside so he would know she could again accept his plunging tongue without careening into an unallowable orgasm.
It was then, as he first began to use two thumbs to massage her lips up and down that she wondered what the punishment would be if she did accidentally orgasm. And then she wondered at her sheer excitement at the thought of him taking his palm to her bottom and spanking her in retribution. Oh, God. Shawn fought to stay in control, fought to keep her body relaxed. Even if the punishment was sweet, she couldn’t unless it was purely an accident. She had to obey.
She had to obey.
It was the dirtiest, sexiest, hottest thought she’d ever had.
One that almost made her come.
But she wrangled herself back from the edge by biting her bottom lip behind the tights so hard that she felt the wet trickle of blood. The sting distracted her enough to prevent her from rushing over the edge too soon.
It was a wise choice, because in the next second, Rhett gripped her thighs and split her legs apart, his tongue flickering over her clitoris for the first time.
“Mmm,” he said. “So pretty. So swollen. You’re doing so well, Shawn. I’m very, very pleased.”
That shouldn’t sound nearly as exciting as it did.
But when he licked her clitoris again, before dipping his tongue inside her, she didn’t care about whether it made sense or not. She was too busy yanking her hand out to smack wildly at him so he would stop.
It was too late. His tongue was lazily lapping at her, and by the time he started to lift his head, she was screaming behind the nylon, and gripping his head with both hands so he wouldn’t stop. She came hard and fast, cramming his tongue into her with a ferocity that startled her. It was a tight, unsatisfying orgasm, a wild desperate constriction of her tight inner muscles, a single ice cube on a blistering summer day. It momentarily cooled her, but then simply left her wanting much, much more.
Plus, she had broken his rules and she knew it.
Instantly, as her body shuddered to its final completion, her pussy still aching and wet, she let go of his head and fell back, afraid. Not afraid of him hurting her, but that the punishment might be that he would deny her his erection plunging into her. Because she knew that she really, really needed that. That she would actually possibly beg if it was required.
This night could not end until he had filled her to capacity.
• • •
RHETT wasn’t surprised that Shawn had come. Exactly what he had wanted had happened—she had let go entirely. She had let go through allowing him to control the situation, and it was the hottest thing he’d ever seen. He had a steel grip on his own desire, but his cock was throbbing and the taste of her was on his tongue. He wanted her, but her wanting him was even better.
But if he wanted to continue the way they’d begun, which he definitely did, he couldn’t just sink inside her and stroke them both to satisfaction. He had to follow through.
Knowing she needed some fresh air, he pulled the tights down around her neck. She gulped in air and before he could say anything, she was speaking an achingly sweet apology, her eyes wide in the dimly light room.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to . . . it’s just I haven’t had sex in a while, and it just came over me and by the time I realized it, it was too late and I already was, and then I didn’t want to ruin it, so I grabbed—”
Rhett covered her mouth again. “Shh. I know.” He brushed her damp hair back off her forehead. She was flushed, eyes darkened still with her desire. “But you do need to be punished. Do you agree with me? Do you need to be punished?”
She knew what he was asking. If she said yes, he would continue the way he had started. If she said no, he wouldn’t. Even if she said no, he would still make love to her, but in a more traditional sense. He wasn’t a masochist, nor did he want to leave her unsatisfied. But he would prefer it if she said yes. He would prefer it deep down into the very depths of his soul, and as the seconds ticked by, the agony of the wait gripped him in the balls and his throbbing cock, still trapped behind the cotton of his briefs. He hadn’t realized how much he had wanted this, wanted Shawn, until it all rested on what happened next.
Wanting to hear her speak her desire, Rhett fully undid the gag hanging around her neck, tugging it until it fell to the mattress beside her ear.
“Do you? Answer me.”
If she said yes, then he was certain Shawn was absolutely the perfect woman for him.
“Yes,” she whispered, her chest heaving, the sweet scent of her desire rising between them. She swallowed hard. “Yes, I need to be punished.”
Rhett felt a massive swell of satisfaction and desire, intermingling with each other. Fuck, yeah. She was on board, and he was going to make her damn glad she was.
Then she added, with a boldness he wouldn’t have expected of her at this point, “I promise I won’t come again.”
That was possibly the best news he’d ever gotten. He kissed her, a deep, worshipful kiss, his palm cupping her cheek, the feel of her mouth opening for him, tugging at him in a deep, intrinsic way.
“That’s perfect,” he told her. “Exactly what I wanted to hear.” He skimmed a hand down low, over the strip of dusky blond hair covering her soft folds. She sighed.
“You’re so beautiful, Shawn.”
She was. He liked her like this, flushed and dewy, color rising above her breasts, her lips parted on a sigh. He also liked her laughing, that saucy spark in her eye, that devilish glint. And he was going to like her on her knees.
So he pulled his hand away. “On your knees, facing the wall. Hold on to the headboard.”
Her eyes widened as the reality of his words sank in and she felt the loss of his touch. He thought she had the courage to go through with it, but he wasn’t sure. He was asking her to take a total leap of faith, to trust him. A man she admittedly didn’t know that well.
But he was her husband.
Though he wasn’t going to use that title now. He knew how far to push, and bringing that up would cause her to bristle. She was still an independent and feisty woman who ran a business. She would have a point where she would balk, and likely that would be it.
While she pressed her lips together and slowly rolled over onto her stomach, her gaze darting back at him over her shoulder, Rhett came up on his knees, debating whether stripping his briefs off would reassure her or scare her. He didn’t want her to think in any way that he would actually hurt her. So he left them in place for now and leaned over her shoulder and murmured, “I really won’t hurt you, Shawn. I’ll never hurt you. And you can always say stop at any time.”
Just to show her he was serious, that he would always be respectful, he skimmed her hair off her shoulders onto her back and trailed his fingers down the bumps of her spine, skimming her hips, and the perfect curve of her ass. Then he gave her a light smack. She jumped a little, but before he could get a second swat in, she was dragging herself up into the position he had demanded—on her knees, hands gripping the headboard.
Thick saliva filled his mouth and for a second, his vision actually went black as the enormity of her submission hit him. Then he smacked her perfect, tight ass, harder this time.
A tiny gasp flew out of her mouth, and her knuckles whitened as she gripped the bed more thoroughly. With his left hand on the small of her back, Rhett moved one knee in front of her, the other behind, so he could get the perfect motion. With each smack, he took it a little harder, the slap of his palm on her skin a loud crack of satisfaction in the quiet night. With each spank she let out a little cry and jerked forward from the momentum of his swing. But she always tilted her ass back up for him ever so slightly, whether she was even aware she was doing it or not. She took it, and came back for more, until her backside was a stinging red, and he couldn’t go much harder without leaving her with more than a lingering soreness.
Caressing the apple-smooth ass cheeks, he leaned forward and whispered gruffly, “Is that enough punishment, or do you deserve more?”
Shawn rested her head on her arm against the wall and gazed back at him with eyes limpid with desire, her breathing hitched, words a strangled whisper. “That’s for you to decide, not me.”
And with that, he knew that she was absolute perfection, and everything he could have ever asked for in a woman.