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  “Just any guy will do, if his cock is hard enough?”

  She managed to keep her voice from breaking, but she suspected only a lifetime of discipline made it possible. “I’m sure you can get me off easy enough. You’ve had the practice. I’m just another Friday night paper doll fuck to you, same as you are to me. Change the hair, clothes, shoes. Same person, forgettable after it’s over.”

  “I see.” With a warning glance to reinforce his earlier threat, he spread open her torn blouse. It was a back fastening bra, but he simply took hold of the piece connecting the cups in the front and tore it, holding the tension on the two separated cups so she was arched off the table. His cock, still pressed against her through his clothing, slid an inch along her panties at the change in position. When he looked at her exposed breasts, to her shame, the nipples were elongated and erect, as if begging for attention. As he lifted her, her wrists slid along the table, but did not leave it, as if they were chained to the table in reality. Her hips wanted to move, to writhe against him to relieve the painful build up of pleasure vibrating along the nerves between her pussy and abdomen.

  She tried to keep an indifferent look on her face, though she was perilously close to losing control completely. What she wanted to do was scream, fight him with everything she had just to get away from him and what he was doing to her. He seemed determined to take her choice away from her. Her body and mind were getting lost beneath that intent gaze and sexy firm mouth, both of which gave her imagination a thousand ideas, just watching them as he studied her.

  “I knew this would be difficult.” His gaze never left the quivering slopes of her breasts, the upward tilt of her rib cage. “And I prepared for it. You say you’ll fuck me because I’ve turned you on, but it could be me or any other guy to scratch your itch. Is that right?”

  “Are you having a hearing problem?” she retorted. “That about sums it up.”

  “Then I guess I’ll have to back you down and prove you wrong.” He bent close to her. “You want me with a hunger so bad you’ll tear my flesh off my bones to crawl inside me. I know it, have known it for months, and so have you.”

  “You—”

  “Do you want me to hurt you, Savannah? Is that preferable to me being gentle, tender with you? Cherishing you? You won’t make me rush this. And one other thing.” She felt like a desperately cornered mouse staring into a hawk’s eyes. “I won’t let you out-negotiate me. There is no draw. Tonight you’ll surrender to me completely and give me everything I ask for. And I’ll make you glad you did.”

  “You wish,” she said, more faintly than she’d intended. A light smile touched his mouth, but something else was in his eyes, more frightening than hard purpose. He cupped her face in both hands. “You can fight me, scratch at me with your nails or that biting sarcasm of yours, but I won’t hurt you, Savannah. Except in ways that will bring you pleasure. And I’m not ever going to let anything else hurt you again. You’ve already had your quota of pain for one lifetime.”

  “No.”

  “Yes. And it’s time for you to realize that.” His hand reached under her, one hand coming around her back to hold her up as he smoothly unbuttoned the top button of the skirt, lowered the zipper, his fingers sliding down the satin-covered crease of her buttocks as if they had every right to be there.

  She did want to have sex with him, so why not just help him along, get it over with? Why stay rigid under his touch now?

  Because he wanted more than that, and he wasn’t asking. He was taking, stripping off more than her clothes, and it frightened her in a way the physical discrepancies in their strengths did not. She understood everything about how this moment had come about, had enough of a history with him to know tonight wasn’t about rape. He wouldn’t force her if her body said no, but he had to realize, when his hand slid lower, smoothed over her pussy and found the crotch of her panties wet to the touch through the satin, that her body was screaming for him.

  To hell with it. As he pulled her slightly forward to get the skirt down past her hips, her feet touched the floor. She reared up, stomped on his instep with the spike, managing to land a blow in between the side opening of the expensive shoe and the thin black dress sock, a poor protection.

  He swore, flipped her and plastered his hand against the center of her back, used his weight to bear her back down onto the table. Holding her there that way while she thrashed uselessly, he bent, pulled off first one shoe and then the other, tossed them across the room. He stripped her skirt off, sliding it down over her kicking feet. Then, with a violence that dropped her stomach to her knees, he tore the remains of her blouse from her, leaving her in stockings and panties only. He stripped the bra down her arms, but instead of taking it off, he used the garment to tie her wrists behind her back.

  “Kensington, what are you doing?”

  “Something I’ve been planning to do for a while. A great while, so that I planned it out to the last minute piece. I’ve heard you admire my attention to detail.” He paused, holding the pressure on her body to keep her still. “Actually, that’s my interpretation. The rumor was that you called me first cousin to the Grinch, who didn’t overlook even a last crumb for the Who Mouses. Which shocked me only because I didn’t think you’d ever been allowed to read Dr. Seuss.

  “I intend to impress you with my level of detail tonight. Often, and well.”

  He yanked her to her feet, turned her to face him. “But first, I’m going to explain some things to you. Just consider this one of those corporate trust retreats where you stand on a stage and fall back into your co-workers’ arms.”

  “I always hated those things.”

  “I’ll bet.” He produced that sexy, easy smile again, which kept tempering these moments between absurdity, terror and wonder. “We hate them because of the hypocrisy, because we know there’s no peppy corporate organizer in the real world, inspiring fuzzy feelings in people so they’d want to catch strangers in their arms. But didn’t you despise it even more because you wanted it to be true, a group of people willing to take care of you, to catch you when you fall?”

  She wished he had left her shoes alone. Standing before him in her bare feet was discomfiting, and not just because it increased the difference in their heights. It increased her awareness of his gaze traveling over her bare breasts, thrust out because of the restraint of her arms behind her back. He traced a finger along the sensitive crease of her thighs, along the lace of her white panties. She was trembling, which she also hated, so she focused on being still, standing like a statue before him, determined not to give him anything other than the responses of her body, which she could not control under his touch, and the disdain of her expression, which she could.

  “That’s good.” He reached her face at last. “You’re the strongest woman I know. But you’re going to learn you don’t have to be tough with me.

  “Here are the rules. You can give up at any time, admit I was right, that I do affect you. That you’re absolutely crazy about me.” That smile grew broader, even more arrogant and infuriating. “And then, if you want, we can call it an evening. You can walk away and I’ll let you. For tonight.” That smile shifted, became more of a threat with the devastating promise implied in it. “But both of us will know I won. So, just say the word. And you’re free to go.”

  She smiled back, a quick, feral gesture, and rammed her knee into his groin.

  It was a suicidal move, all in all. She was by herself, with her hands tied, with a man who physically outmatched her several times over. Her hands were tied, her clothes scattered in tatters on the floor.

  But she didn’t intend to run. She merely took one step back, threw out her chin and waited.

  He’d made it a competition, and she didn’t quit or surrender. She intended to walk away with every hair in place, figuratively if not literally. She’d call tonight an amusing diversion of sex games to his face, her sophisticated indifference intact.

  It didn’t matter that the pit of her stomac
h was quivering with nerves or that she was way beyond the deep end of the pool. She was in the middle of the ocean with no land in sight. A long time ago, she’d learned to mask fear, turn the energy that fueled it into her weapon. With this level of trepidation, she should be able to come up with a nuclear missile.

  He’d bent over at the waist, no choice there for any man. When he straightened, he did it slow. Pure fury was in his gaze, and something else, that indefinable look again, the one that frightened her far worse than the threat of physical retribution.

  “That’s not going to be enough to drive me away, Savannah,” he said softly.

  He unbuckled his belt, his gaze remaining on hers. Savannah flicked her gaze over the action, came back to his face. “Well, it’s about time you got to the fucking part, isn’t it?” She tried to say it casually. “Most men aren’t into this much foreplay and conversation.”

  “The cynical wisecracker. That’s the face I saw through first, did you know that?” He slid the strap free, dangled it loosely in his hand, his other hand over the fastening of his trousers. Her action apparently hadn’t dampened his enthusiasm. She could see his erection pressing against the placket of his zipper, and she had to force herself not to wet her lips. She couldn’t fight the dampening of her pussy, which responded to the sight, oblivious to her admonitions.

  “But I didn’t get the whole picture until a few weeks ago. Do you know what happened then?”

  “Why should I care?”

  He shook his head at her. “It was two in the morning. I was coming home from a client’s fundraiser, and I stopped at a traffic light. A diner on the corner was still open, and I looked over, thinking about getting a cup of coffee.

  “I saw a girl sitting on a barstool at the counter. Wearing jeans and a sweatshirt that were too big for her. Sipping a fountain coke, laughing at something the late-shift waitress was saying to her.”

  Savannah’s throat constricted, but it didn’t matter. She wasn’t going to say anything. She wasn’t going down this path with him. This was just sex. Rough, kinky sex, the kind she’d heard about. She could take it, as long as she stayed away from danger signs. Like the one that was going up right now, with every word he spoke.

  “Something about her caught my eye, and then it hit me. The light changed and I didn’t even notice. I was looking at Savannah Tennyson, the indomitable femme fatale of Tennyson Industries, as some of my staff call you. Fondly, I might add. When the waitress left you, you went back to playing with your straw in the Coke. You looked out the window, but you didn’t see me. There was something in your face. A softness, a wistfulness, and I realized just how lonely you really are. An incredibly independent, dynamic woman sitting alone at two in the morning in a diner, so she doesn’t have to be home during the loneliest time of night.”

  “Stop it, Matt.” Her fingers clenched against the soft fabric of the undergarment binding her wrists. “This isn’t funny. You want to fuck, we’ll fuck. Don’t pretend you give two damns about me, just to get into my pants.” She shifted her expression to pointedly look at her mostly naked body. “You’re already there, and I’ve told you I’m agreeable. So quit the dramatics, before you piss me off and I get out of the mood.”

  “You talk like you have a choice.” She yelped as he grasped her arm. In one effortless motion he had taken a seat in a chair and pulled her down on his lap. Face down, her hips crooked over his thigh, her ass in the air, her head hanging down so she saw the bottom of the chair, the backs of his legs.

  “Kensington, you son of a—”

  Crack!

  Total shock was her first thought, followed by the pain as he slapped her buttocks, hard. He hadn’t held back, or if he had, she sure as hell didn’t want to know what he had in reserve.

  “I told you, I won’t tolerate that type of language from you. You’re not that kind of person. You won’t pretend to be something you’re not around me.”

  “No, I’m the kind of person who’s going to personally shoot your fucking balls off if you don’t—”

  Whack!

  She was right, he did have some in reserve.

  “I’ll use the belt if you keep it up, Savannah. You want to go for round three?”

  “You like abusing women, Matthew?” She made her voice go cold, though she was perilously close to tears. Not from the pain. That would have been bad enough. This was something else, something the pain was breaking loose in her chest, something terrible dislodging its claws from its secure place in her vitals where. As long as its claws didn’t move, she could bear its weight. If it started moving around, stirred by whatever it was he was doing to her, she’d start screaming and wouldn’t be able to stop. What was wrong with her?

  “No. No, I don’t.” His touch turned even more dangerous, for instead of punishing, it became a caress. Stroking her abused buttocks, he traced his fingers down the crease through the panties so the fabric rippled over her tender skin. His other hand remained flat on her back, keeping her in place. “There are things I could do to bring you more pleasure than you’ve ever known, if you’d just let me. I’d make love to you for hours, let you sleep in my arms without worry. Put fresh flowers in your room every morning before you wake so they’re the first thing you see. Take care of you.”

  “I don’t need anyone to take care of me.”

  “I know. Which makes it all the more important that someone does.”

  “Stop fu…messing with my head!”

  He chuckled, and she despised her cowardice, but her nerve endings were still screaming from his last smack, and she wasn’t eager for a repeat performance. She pitied the backsides of his progeny, if he ever had any.

  He continued that gentle, maddening stroking, at odds with his inexorable hold on her. “Would you like to see a recent modification we made to this room?”

  “Would it matter if I didn’t?”

  His arms shifted, turned her so he held her cradled in one arm. She felt small there, tucked in against him, unsettled because it was not an unpleasant place to be at all. His thumb slid under the lace edge at her hip as his hand moved up her thigh, and her breath caught in her throat at the potency of that touch. How could something so light cause such heat to spread through her blood, like an oil fire?

  He removed his touch for a moment, reached under the table.

  “Sit still.”

  She twisted her head, startled as he slipped a Mardi Gras mask over her forehead. She had a momentary impression of its face, painted with exotic slashes of color and trimmed with feathers, before he had it seated over her eyes. Lifting her hair, he secured the band under it, so the elastic tie followed the back line of her ears across the nape of her neck. Tassels sewn along the cheek edge of the mask fell to her jawline, caressing her face.

  “What’s that for?”

  “Sshhh. Spirit of the holiday. Watch this.” He reached for the table control panel this time.

  She heard a whirring of gears, and the sound reminded her this room had five video conferencing monitors mounted in the ceiling that could be lowered to the eye level of the meeting attendees. As she lifted her gaze to follow the noise, she saw those were gone. What was coming down from the ceiling was a contraption of soft black straps and nylon mesh, connected to something that looked like an upholstered bench without legs, only far more narrow than a bench.

  “Notice that it’s connected with wires to the ball bearings that slide along the circular track, the same system as we used for the video conferencing units,” Matt confirmed. “It gives more options for movement. And access.”

  He was lifting her, and with her arms bound behind her back she couldn’t stop him. He made her feel weightless, as if it were nothing for him to carry her. He put her on her feet beside the table. Then his hands were on her face, making an adjustment to the mask. Suddenly she was blind, darkness covering the eye holes.

  “Matt, what are you—?”

  “I think it’s best for this to be a surprise,” he said gently.


  “No. I don’t like this.”

  “You’re just afraid. You don’t have to be afraid.”

  “I’m not,” she snapped. She felt desperate, like a cat squalling and clawing inside a burlap bag, knowing that she was about to be thrown into the river with nothing but a brick for company. The fear wasn’t rational. She could tell him to stop, he’d told her she could quit at any time. But she couldn’t quit. Not in this type of game. Not with him. She swallowed, biting down on her tongue ferociously to calm herself.

  “Matthew, save your sex games for whatever bimbo you’re screwing right now and just get this over with. I can be a lot more fun with my hands free. I’ve…got plenty of lovers who will vouch that I’m worth the time in the sack.”

  She heard him sigh, and then his hand was against her back, pressing her down to the table, making her lie there on her stomach. His thighs brushed the back of hers, and she choked on feminine fear. My God, he’s going to… No, not like this.

  One of the nylon straps was under her upper arm, telling her the contraption was just to her left. There was a sliding sound, a click of metal, and for a moment she thought he was adjusting the device. Then she realized he had picked up something to her right. Something he had laid on the table earlier, before he pulled her over his lap. She swore.

  “Goddamn it, Matt—”

  “Two things,” he said in a hard voice. “The cursing, and referring to lovers you’ve never had, and never will have.”

  Snap!

  The belt was like a lick of flame, striking her across both buttocks. She cried out, startled, her mind not able to keep up.

  “Matt, don’t. I’m sorry.”

  “No, you’re not. You’d gouge my eyes out if you could right now.”

  Snap.

  Her body quivered with the pain, but she clenched her teeth, even as she felt the first tear spill out.

  “Why are you doing this?” She lost her resolve, her voice breaking. “Why can’t you just…not do this? Why does it have to be like this?”