CHAPTER THIRTY
Owen
“Hey, sweetheart,” I murmured, smirking slightly.
Tabby was ogling me, her enchanting eyes as wide as plates and her mouth hanging open in comedic fashion. I couldn’t tell if she was breathing or if she’d suspended respirations altogether, but I figured I’d wait until her lips started turning blue to jar her out of her freeze. Then, she emitted a rather strangled gurgle and gasped, “I think I drank too much.”
“That bodes well for what I have planned,” I chortled.
She stepped out fully from behind her door, revealing a t-shirt too large for her frame with the hem of plaid-patterned shorts poking out beneath the bottom. Her arms, legs, and feet were bare, and after a month without seeing her face-to-face, I was eager to lick and kiss every inch of that naked skin. Her hair fell loosely over her shoulders, swinging around her face as she shook her head in disbelief. The glasses I’d found so adorable since our first meeting were in danger of falling off the end of her nose, but she didn’t bother to push them back up into place again. I was glad. I’d missed her quirks and perfect imperfections.
“I want to believe you’re really there,” she said. She was still talking into the phone like I was all the way in Louisiana and she was seeing a doppelganger. “But I’m pretty sure I’m having the white wine hallucinations.”
“Yeah? Enjoy it while you can,” I advised, stepping forward. I curled my arms around her waist, pulled her none too gently against me, and claimed her mouth.
She tasted like heaven. The wine was still fresh on her tongue, and sweet fruitiness burst across my taste buds as I wound my tongue around hers. Most amazing, perhaps, was to realize that though I was definitely aroused, the physicality of the kiss was hardly the best part. It was her in all her Tabby-ness—having her there against me, knowing I could hear one of her snarky remarks straight from her mouth instead of through a phone, being able to witness the variety of emotions she went through upon seeing me at her door unannounced.
“Okay, so you’re real,” she panted when I pulled back.
I kissed her forehead. “That’s what I want you to think.”
She was still too stunned to appreciate my humor properly. Clumsily, she grabbed my wrist and twisted at the waist toward her apartment. “Come in,” she invited in a distant, dumbfounded voice.
I obliged her at once, reaching behind me to snag the handle of my bag as I did. The second I entered her apartment, I felt like I’d leapt out of reality and into my imagination. It was exactly what I’d pictured, with some help from Skype. Photos of all subjects and styles — black and white, abstract, portrait, minimalistic — were mounted on every available inch of wall as far as the eye could see. Colors exploded the eye, from the rich purple couch to the tangerine lampshades to her turquoise and sea green bedspread. A light whiff of vanilla and something floral hung in the air, and though the space was small it felt far from suffocating. It felt like Tabby — warm, comforting, and eccentric.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, closing the door behind us. The street noise was hardly muffled by our enclosure.
“Good to see you too,” I teased.
She turned to face me again, her hands on her hips and her expression spacey. “Sorry,” she apologized quickly. “I’m really happy to see you, really, I just didn’t expect to see you. And…” she regained the spunky flash in her eyes, “you scared the hell out of me. I didn’t know if you were some criminal waiting to jump me when I opened the door or something.”
“The criminal thing depends on who you talk to, but I will admit to wanting to jump you.” I flashed her a bright, overexaggerated beam.
“Uh huh. So?” she pressed. “What are you doing here?”
“There’s a new chef on the radar. He’s based out of Chicago, and I’m interested in backing his flagship.” She narrowed her eyes, and I added, “Any good investor knows it’s always best to get in early when you’re presented with a gem.”
Tabby made a disbelieving noise in the back of her throat and lifted her hands from her hips to cross her arms over her chest. “You’re here to check out a new chef?” she reiterated. I couldn’t stop my grin of silent admittance. A smile fluttered over her lips. “Liar.”
“Oh, yeah?” I challenged. My grin grew as I stepped toward her.
“Yeah.” She turned her chin up at me with defiance.
I darted forward to grab her, but she hopped out of reach in the nick of time. Lowering my eyebrows to adopt a ferocious expression, I growled and crouched into a pouncing position. She giggled, a thrilling sound of excitement and nervousness, and visibly battled between putting more space between us or holding her ground. Her contemplation took too long. I leapt at her, wrangling her by the waist before she had a chance to escape. I heard the effects of the alcohol in her delighted, terrified squeal as I lifted her easily and threw her over my shoulder.
“You should know I brought my tally sheet with me,” I revealed sinisterly. I cracked my palm across her turned up ass, eliciting another squeal from her. “And it’s time to cash in.”
“No!” she wailed through deep, rolling waves of uncontrolled laughter.
She tried to kick herself free, legs flailing madly and knees clocking my ribs, but I wasn’t going to give. It had been a month—thirty damn days—since I’d had my hands on her, and I wasn’t going to let go because of a little wiggling. I crossed the miniature apartment in long strides. As I passed the couch, she tried to grab for the backrest, but I jerked her away and rolled headfirst onto the bed. She tumbled off my shoulder in a ball and scrambled to the opposite end of the mattress. We stared at each other, poised like sumo wrestlers about to do battle, her whole body quivering with giggles she couldn’t stop.
Jesus, I was hard.
I snarled and lunged. Tabby rocketed backward, but I caught her by the ankle before she could scrabble off the bed completely. In one swift yank, I pulled her to me and crawled on top of her.
“Foolish girl,” I murmured, lowering myself to trap her underneath my body. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“Okay, okay!” she conceded. Her eyes were wet with giddy tears, and her sensual lower lip was trembling with adrenaline.
I took that lip between my teeth and suckled on it gently. She calmed beneath my oral caresses, and when I ventured deeper into her mouth, she responded eagerly. I slid my hand up her side to the bulge of her breast beneath the cotton shirt while our tongues danced, relishing the blessing it was to feel her again. Her arms curled around my shoulders, and her nails sketched trails in the back of my neck, releasing a sliver of the passion building between us.
“Owen,” she breathed, withdrawing from me to look up into my face.
I licked her jawline. “You rang?”
“I want you to show me.”
For a second, I didn’t move. The request was so vague it could’ve been in reference to any number of things, but I had a sneaking suspicion she was talking about something incredibly specific — something I both hoped and feared she meant. I raised my head to peer down at her and study her face. She was unblinking, unflinching. Stoic, even. There were no jokes now.
“Show you what?” I asked, a jittery sensation brewing in my gut.
“What you like. Your interest.”
There it was. We’d toed the edge of the conversation since we’d met, but we’d never looked it right in the face. In the course of my seeing Tabby, I’d indulged myself and my particular fancies in a myriad of small ways, but I had, for all intents and purposes, thrown the vast majority of my darker desires into a metaphorical closet and hidden the key until the right moment arose to bring them back out into the light.
Apparently, Tabby had found the key and was waiting for me to open that closet.
“I know you’re curious about it,” I said carefully, “but you don’t know what you’re asking.”
“No, I don’t,” she agreed. She scooted up on the bed until she was able to prop herself up on her elbows. I sat back on my heels with a sigh. “But I know why I’m asking, and that’s all that matters. At least, that’s all that matters to me.”
I leveled my gaze with hers. “Okay. Why are you asking?”
Her eyes softened, and a tiny smile played on her lips. “Because I want to know you, and that means knowing all of you.”
She was hitting me right where it hurt — the emotional leverage. It was actually quite an interesting juxtaposition. Had she just been one of the Club girls, I would’ve let her in on the big, bad secret the instant I got her in my bedroom, and I wouldn’t have any qualms about it because there were absolutely no feelings involved. Yet, when I cared for a woman and she cared for me, I was reluctant. I might have even been scared. Unfortunately, my fascination on the psychology of my issues was hardly something I wanted to indulge at the moment.
I was, however, considering obliging her request more than I ever would have in the past.
“Do me a favor,” I said. “Say the word ‘red.’”
She tilted her head in confusion but obeyed. “Red.”
“Good. Not difficult, right? So easy it’s almost stupid?” She nodded. I shuffled toward her and placed my hand over her mouth. “Now, say it again, and make sure it’s clear.”
“Red,” she repeated, muffled but noticeably louder.
“A little harder than before, but still a breeze, yes?” I asked. I kept my hand over her mouth as I spoke, so she merely nodded in response rather than answering against my palm. “Okay, hold your breath.”
Tabby gave me a quizzical look.
“I mean it. Hold your breath, and don’t let it out unless you absolutely have to,” I ordered.
She inhaled deeply, her shoulders rising with the swelling of her lungs, then stilled with her cheeks puffed out.
“Don’t let it out,” I said again. Then, I jammed my index and middle fingers through her lips and teeth until I reached the opening of her throat. She gagged immediately from the aggressive insertion, but I didn’t withdraw. “Say it.”
Her face was turning as pink as carnation petals, and she made an utterly incomprehensible sound that wasn’t reminiscent in the slightest of “red.” I raised my eyebrows, jostled my fingers slightly, and told her with my eyes to try again. She did, but the word still couldn’t be made out. All I heard was a humming groan of sorts.
I pulled my fingers out of her mouth and told her to breathe again. She exhaled in a gush, and more color flooded her cheeks with the relief of new oxygen. I waited until she’d collected herself before explaining.
“That last part was the best example I could give you of what engaging in my ‘interest’ is like,” I told her soberly. “It requires the utmost faith, along with absolute and unwavering honesty, because you will lose yourself. Literally, Tabby. You won’t know your own name. All the basic functions you take for granted on a daily basis, like breathing and speaking, will be taken away from you and put in my hands, and if your intent is to know all of me, I’m not going to hold back. There will be no mercy.”
She was silent, and I was unable to read her expression. I stared deep into her eyes, desperate to impart to her just how important this was for her to understand if we were to proceed. She looked right back at me without a glimmer of uncertainty.
“If you still want to know me,” I continued very clearly, “ask me again.”
Tabby’s lashes folded over her cheekbones. She sat up straighter and laid her hands in her lap. When she opened her eyelids again, she said with equal clarity, “I want you to show me.”