Hard Way (5 page)

Liam peeled away from her. She heard the shift and whisper of cloth, then the clicking shush of his zipper. Her fingertips spasmed on nothing across her back, realizing he’d never gotten fully undressed.

Something bounced on the bed at her side. She twisted her neck to see it—the black-handled silver safety scissors with the blunted tips. A cold and frightened feeling made her chest coil.

“You’ll need those,” he said with disdain dripping from every word. “Holler if you can’t get out. Maybe I’ll come back.”

He walked out of their bedroom and shut the door.

Chapter Five

Dash woke with a start where he slept on the couch.
Smack, boom, snap
—the memories of the night before slammed into his stomach. He curled toward the couch cushions and hugged one of the throw pillows against his face. The sunlight wasn’t strong coming in through the west-facing living room windows. He didn’t want to see it.

His mind was a boiling mass of rage, fear, regret. His body, however, was alive and kicking.

What they’d done…

What he’d done
to
her…

For a moment, there pressed into the upholstered darkness that smelled faintly of some floral freshener, he only remembered the crack of her elbow against his jaw. He slid it side to side. The morning aftermath of that solid hit was still a little tender.

Forget what his mind was thinking. Forget what his heart was fearing. He wanted Sunny again. That force. That rush of power and fight and a pure, undiluted meanness he hadn’t known was in him.

He ground his hips against the couch, but even a quick, forceful thrust didn’t do a thing to ease how hard he was. He groaned into the pillow. Flung it across the room. Dug his hands into his hair and pulled.

It wasn’t the sex. Hell, it wasn’t even that he’d damn near raped his own wife. He’d
listened
to her. There on the couch, head throbbing, body in a humming sort of shock, he’d listened to her wrestle with the zip ties. She’d cussed. She’d shrieked his name once, calling him a motherfucker. But she never backed down or asked for help or told him enough was enough. The rougher Sunny fought to get free, with all those delicious grunts, the more Dash had wrenched his palm against the base of his cock. Holding back the urge to storm back in there and start all over.

To tie her up. To fuck her without asking.

He sucked in a hissing breath. A shower would be nice, but the only full bathroom in their bungalow was en suite with the bedroom. He’d need to go in there. Scene of the crime. Maybe she’d be awake, glaring, hateful. Yeah, she’d given him permission more than once, but the heat of the moment was a helluva lot different than staring facts in the face come dawn.

His tongue was sticky and dry of anything to swallow. Instead he tried to lick his lips—and tasted her. No matter how awkward, no matter how sick, he wanted to see her wrists and her ankles.

Yes, scene of the crime. But also one of the fiercest, fastest turn-ons he’d ever experienced. She’d wear bands of red, abraded skin as undeniable evidence of what he’d done.

I want a divorce.

That memory, apparently, took longer to smack him upside his face. How long was she even giving him? How long did he have to fix what was broken—or wrap his mind around the impossible? Perhaps only a month. She usually stayed home a month between trips.

He sat up, then propelled off the couch. Four strides through the living room. Two past the kitchen and office and down the hallway. Two into their bedroom.

She was awake. Bare to the waist—or at least that’s what he could see. A sheet draped across her stomach, leaving her petite breasts and rich caramel skin exposed. Half-propped on a pillow, she simply stared at him with that “won’t ever touch what’s inside” placidity. Tiny smile and all.

As if she’d been expecting him. As if she had all the power.

“Someone woke up expecting too much,” she said in a snide tone. Her luscious, dark brown eyes flicked down to the obvious erection tucked awkwardly in his boxer briefs.

“And someone woke up ready to play the part of a goddamn tease.”

They stared at each other. Even from halfway across their small bedroom, he could see her pupils dilate. Fury, need, controllable lust. Dash couldn’t figure out what the hell was happening, but he was swirled by the same emotions.

So he let her win that round. He looked away first. What he found was no relief—the snipped zip ties on the floor, and the scissors with the blades open. She’d cut free and left it. More evidence.

His blood sped and sped. No stopping it. He should’ve felt shame or sick regret. Instead he turned his eyes back to his wife of eight years. They’d been so good once. So good. A flicker of old, safe tenderness made his heart falter.

She wanted to throw all that away.

Divorce. The end.

Fuck that.

“Those breasts you’re showing off?”

She glared out from under her brows. “What about them?”

“Mine.” Slowly, with that numb beauty of control and anticipation gathering in every cell, he stalked toward the bed. “That pretty little mouth. Those sexy legs. That hungry pussy. They’re mine.”

She sat away from the headboard, propped by her arms in a way that thrust out her breasts. Another taunt. Another deliberate tease. “You’re insane. You left me
tied
on a bed.”

“You got free.”

“Not the point, asshole.”

“Pretty little mouth. But bratty as hell.”

He pounced. She tried to scramble away, but her legs tangled in the bedding. He caught her by her hair and by her sharp hipbone. A twist, a turn, a flip—and he had her pinned beneath him, with her wrists crossed at the base of her spine. Now when he ground his hard-on into softness, he found less frustration. More quick-fire anticipation. Her ass was perfect, and their position made it an easy thing to snug his cock between her cheeks.

After three seconds of stillness—as if she, too, wanted to enjoy the moment—she found purchase with her toes in among the sheets and tried to scramble free. Dash only braced his legs wider and pressed his chest flat along her backbone.

“Sunny,” he said roughly. “Stop.”

“Isn’t that what I’m supposed to say to you? Get the hell off me.”

“Sunita.”

He smoothed the hair away from her face. A rippling shudder skated between her shoulders. She stilled and exhaled deeply, then tucked her chin toward her chest, burying her forehead against the mattress. “What?”

Barely a whisper.

She had to know what they needed to talk about. Not the divorce. That was a loose electrical wire, snapping and whipping around a rain puddle.
Don’t get too close.

But she was going to make him say it. Fine. It needed to be said.

So much between them needed to be said. That it started with this…this…
thing
between them wasn’t logical. Yet it was genuine and vital. He craved that right now. Nothing had been real between them in a long time.

He kissed the hollow behind her ear. She flinched, which hurt more than when she’d elbowed his jaw. His Sunny could take the violence he’d unleashed, but the tenderness of a kiss made her flinch? That anger was back, fueled by hurt. Possessiveness was as strong as poison.

“I want this again,” he said.

“
This
is a vague term.”

“Fine, counselor.” He pressed his hot shaft between her cheeks. He ground against her, long and slow, until he wrung a soft moan from her elegant throat. “I want you again. I want to tie you up. I want to… Fuck, I want to force you.”

“That’s rape, Liam.”

Cold, blunt, terrifying words. But she was breathless. Her lips parted, and her chest moved up and down in a quick cadence beneath his.

“It isn’t if you give me permission first. Now. Here. Not in the moment, but when we can look each other in the eyes and know it’s something we both want.”

To prove the point, he levered off her lithe body and flopped down on the pillows, head propped in his palm. And he waited.

Sunny turned—first her face, then her torso, then her pelvis. They lay on the bed face-to-face. Not touching. He hadn’t looked into her eyes with so much intensity and need in longer than he could recall.

He missed her.

That he could think such a thought in the middle of their disturbed-as-hell conversation made his stomach clench—even while his prick wanted to get on with the show.

“You don’t have any idea what I want,” she said with a hitch in her voice. A small, unguarded tell.

“Then tell me.”

“Too long a conversation.”

He trailed a finger across the red welt circling one fine-boned wrist. “Tell me what you want sexually.”

She shook her head on a laugh. Not what he’d expected at all. “You know, if you’d obfuscated at all. Skated around it. Said some bullshit about making love… No way. I’d have walked to the shower with a wave of my middle finger.”

“Just the one?”

She blinked. The color was high on her cheeks—apricot instead of pink. The sweetest face. Angelic, even. Dainty and perfectly symmetrical. “No, you’re right. Both barrels.”

“But…?”

“But you manned up.” A shift at the foot of the bed touched her toes against his shin. Intentional? He wanted to think so. A few more moments of contact, when they were still sane. “So let’s do this.”

He lifted his brows. “
This
again? Cuz, Sunny, you have to say it too.”

“I want you to force me.”

Dash closed his eyes on a breathy, “Jesus.”

The touch of her cool, smooth fingers on his chest made him flinch too.
Damn.
This was so wrong. Where were Liam and Sunita Christiansen? Who were these perverted beasts who could talk about cruel fantasies but who jerked away from softness?

That thought strayed too close to the live wire dancing in the rain.
Get back.

“Then we need boundaries,” he said roughly. His throat was so tense that he sounded animalistic. “A way to know and to stay safe. If you want me to lose my career and wind up in prison, this is the perfect scenario.”

She withdrew her tentative hand. “I don’t want either of those things. I just want a divorce.”

Every muscle in Dash’s body seized. “And a forced fuck.”

“
Several
forced fucks. I have a month before I go back.”

There it was. A month. Christ.

He sat up and twisted at the waist to glare at her. She was still bare to below her navel. He wanted to slap her face. Slap her tits. Jam his forearm across her throat and listen to her gasp while he plowed deep.

“Then maybe I shouldn’t give a shit about boundaries and safety. You’re in the same time zone, so I might as well take everything I want.”

“You want it. I want it.” Another hitch in her voice, and for the first time since they’d started talking, she ducked her eyes—a quick retreat. If he didn’t know better, he’d have guessed…embarrassment? “So,” she said harshly, “what’s the big deal how we end this?”

“End it?”

She was easy to overpower. Yes, she’d been trained in more martial arts than most people could name, but she was barely over five foot and weighed less than his flight rigging. Delicate. Tough. Smart. Someone who needed to be taken down a notch or three. With her red-ringed wrists caught in one hand, he stretched her arms up toward the headboard. He used his other hand to shove down his boxers and the sheet. She was naked.

Filling her was so good.

Wet.

Hot.

Paired gasps. Then paired curses.

“Safe word. Boundaries. Permission.” He growled each word with every grind of his hips. “Now.”

She found his earlobe and bit down. Her noises were fierce and inarticulate, but they went straight to the darkest pit in his brain. Dash’s prick surged, fuller and harder. He let her know how much that violence affected him by ramming deep—the entire force of his body.

She choked out a gasping cry. “Fuck safe words. No boundaries. Full permission. Anywhere. Anytime. You have a filthier mind than I imagined.”

“And you want to see that shit?”

“I want to feel it when you take me. For real.”

“Motherfucker.” He was about to lose it. But he needed this last bit of assurance. Christ…that he could do whatever he wanted? “
Safe word, Sunny
.”

With a shiver, she inhaled and stopped fighting him. Looked him dead in the eyes, piercing him with the intense, soul-deep stare he hadn’t seen in years.

Her tiny smile was back. Taunting. Game on. “We won’t need one. You still love me. You’ll do filthy, dirty, even cruel things to me physically, but you won’t really hurt me. Not any more than you already have.”

He grabbed her chin so brutally that she instantly tried to wrench free. “Then your safe word, you little brat, is ‘eight years’. Eight years is a commitment to throw away.”

“Fine. Whatever. Now get the fuck off me. I have to go to work.”

“No.”

He clamped his hand across her cheeks and jaw as he turned brutal. Unrelenting. She clawed and fought. Her body was a sweaty, writhing feast of feminine curves beneath his, but he didn’t care. Sunny wasn’t his wife right then. She was a hole for him to fuck.