Chapter Twenty-Five

Carrie

Reid’s kiss devours me. He devours me. The taste of him. The heavy perfection of his weight on top of me. His hands traveling over my body, cupping my breasts. His lips at my ear as he whispers, “We’ll eventually make it to the bed,” and those words punch me in the chest.

His bed.

Me in it.

It shouldn’t feel like a big deal. We’re fucking. He’s trying to fuck me out of his system, and who knows how many women have been here, in his bed, fucked and forgotten. That idea bothers me when getting fucked on his desk didn’t. I don’t want a relationship, I don’t expect a relationship. I don’t—

His mouth closes down on mine again, driving away all thoughts, his fingers tugging at my nipples, and not gently. I moan into his mouth and arch into the touch, wanting more, but he denies me. He tears his mouth from mine and for a moment, he just lingers there, lips just above mine, and he breathes with me. “We’ll make it to the bedroom,” he repeats, “but not until we get past that punishment I promised you.”

I don’t even have time to digest that incredulous statement before he’s moved, lifting off of me, and when I would rise to follow, he flips me onto my stomach. Suddenly I’m across his lap and his hand is on my backside. I raise up on my elbows and look over at him. “What are you doing?” I ask, my heart racing.

He squeezes one of my cheeks. “Punishing you for making me obsess over your beautiful ass since the day I met you.”

“That’s not my fault. An ass for an ass and—”

He smacks my backside, not hard, but it stings and I yelp. “Reid!”

“And for tonight,” he repeats. “I’m punishing you for tonight.”

“I called you.”

His hand comes down on my lower back. “Flatten out. Lay down.”

“I’m not laying down.”

“I’m going to spank you,” he says. “Lay down.”

“Reid,” I bite out, “damn it.”

“You can say no,” he says. “You can always say no. Do so now and I’ll let you turn over.”

Do I want to say no? My answer comes shockingly fast. “I’m not saying no. Lord help me, I’m not saying no, but I’m just—I’ve never—”

He drags my legs out from under me and settles me flat on my hips, one hand settling on my lower back. “Relax,” he orders softly, his hand caresses my lower back, his palm traveling up my spine while the fingers of the other travel to my backside, sliding along my sex, and sink inside me. I pant with the intimate invasion that is there and gone. Then he’s patting my sex, over and over, and my God, it’s good. It’s sexy and erotic and it’s far more right than I’d ever imagined. I’m aroused. So very aroused. So very on the edge. Some part of me knows the spanking is coming, but I can’t think about that when I’m so close to coming. Only I don’t come. It comes. He stops patting my sex and I have one second of awareness before he spanks me, one fast palm that stings and then his fingers are back inside me, stroking me, teasing me. I’m panting when he spanks me again and then again. And then nothing. His hand just rests where it’s settled over my sex.

I suck in air, expecting another palm, wanting it, and wanting more, so much more. “Reid,” I breathe out in desperation and that must be what he was waiting for because it’s then that he acts.

He drags me off of his lap and then on top of him, straddling him, and before the impact of just being spanked by this man can fully hit me, he’s kissing me. A deep, passionate, drive-me-wild kiss and I have never needed a kiss like I need this one. I sink into it, into him, molding myself against him. I still need more, so much more. “Hold onto my neck,” he says. “Our only condom is in my nightstand. I’m going to stand up.”

His bedroom. I don’t seem to want to go there. I press my hands on his shoulders, leaning back to prevent him from getting up. “I’d tell you I’m on the pill and that I’m free of all things that might kill you or make your manly parts fall off, but then you’d have to actually trust me.” The statement is out before I realize that I’m now staring into those piercing blue eyes of his, and the dim lighting of the room does nothing to diminish their impact.

“You want me to trust you?”

“Yes,” I say, “but it’s not about this moment. It’s about all of them.”

His expression is that stone I know this man to be, the stone that is unbreakable, and I don’t know why I would think that would change for me. Abruptly, he rolls me to my back, his big body on top of mine and then he just stares down at me again, tension banding around him and us until he kisses me, hard and fast, and then orders, “Don’t move or I swear I’ll spank you again.”

He stands with that threat and I don’t disobey simply because I’m trying to catch my breath. But I can’t catch my breath. He’s undressing and is one hell of a specimen of a man, all sinewy muscle and perfection, and in about sixty seconds, he’s naked and returning to me. He comes down on top of me, the thick ridge of his erection jutting between my legs.

“Trust is a dangerous thing,” he says, his cock sliding along the slick line of my sex before he presses inside me, driving deep, burying himself to the hilt, as he adds, “You understand that, right?”

“And yet you’re not wearing a condom.”

“I keep breaking rules with you.” He rolls to his side and drags me with him, pulling my leg to his hip.

“I’m pretty sure getting spanked was my unknown, never-considered rule before now, as was not fucking assholes.”

He strokes hair from my face and tilts my face to his. “Did you like the spanking, Carrie?”

It’s in that moment that I realize after all of my fears of this man owning me, I laid across his lap and let him spank me, and have zero regrets. “Yes,” I say. “But that’s not the point.”

He shifts inside me and then pumps his hips. I pant and arch my back. “Then what is the point?”

“You,” I whisper because it’s my only coherent thought. “You push me, and I don’t know if I love it or hate it. Both. I think both.”

He drags my lips to his. “The feeling is mutual.” And with those words that I don’t even understand, his mouth closes down on mine again. His tongue presses past my lips and it’s a slow caress, a savoring, a shift in the mood. The anger is gone. The push and pull between us is all pull now. I don’t even know the moment we start moving, our bodies swaying, molded close, hands all over each other. I am lost in this man, in the contrast of the man who spanked me to the man that cradles me to him even as he thrusts inside me. I can feel him everywhere, goosebumps on my skin, my body hyper-sensitive to his every touch.

We build into a sudden urgent need, our bodies moving faster, his hand on my backside lifting me into the pumps of his hips and I both want what comes next and resist it at the same time. I don’t want this to end, but he cups my breasts and squeezes and I’m over the edge. My body stiffens and then I begin to quake. He moans, a deep guttural moan, and rolls me almost to my back with a hard thrust of his cock, and he too shudders and shakes.

I don’t know how long we are lost in that place of utter release and complete escape. I come back to the present, with me on my back, and him completely on top of me. And now comes that moment after, the one we’ve shared once before. The one that ended with him telling me to put on my clothes and leave. It’s what I expected of him then. It’s what I should expect now. Reid is Reid. No matter how good we just felt, I cannot let myself get emotional. He will hurt me. It may already be too late and I don’t know how I let this happen.

Feeling as if I’m suffocating in my own stupidity, I press on his chest. “I need up.”