All He Needs (All or Nothing) (15 page)

“But not
this
house,” he said darkly.

“Meaning?”

He looked at her steadily. “Meaning I’m not sure you should be here.” He uncurled his fingers from her ankle, placed her foot back on the bed with unnecessary care, and struggled with his chaotic feelings, wanting and not wanting her in his house, this room. In his life.

“Mind telling me why?” She was no psychologist, but this room was a time capsule.

His look was unreadable for a moment, then he shrugged.
He wasn’t going to say this room had always been his last barricade against the world, his sanctuary and refuge. Or that he didn’t deal well with emotion. Or with personal relationships.
“Let’s just say it feels different.”

She tuned in to the restraint in his quiet declaration,
the unexpected underlying tumult, the sudden desolation. “Maybe this isn’t a good time for you.”

He looked at her lying pale and nude and voluptuous on his bed, glanced down at his rock-hard dick, then back at her. “I wouldn’t say that.”

Her mouth firmed at the casual indifference in his tone. “Maybe it’s not a good time for me.”

“I’m not sure that matters.”

“Jesus, that master of the universe never goes away, does he?”

“What the hell do you expect?” he said, his voice no longer mellow or casual or weary in his mildly contemptuous way, but suddenly razor sharp. “You think I’m going to change? You think that hot sex with you is going to alter my life? Burn away thirty-two fucking years of encoded distrust and the poisonous shadow of my parents? I’ve got news for you, baby. It ain’t gonna happen. So just get the fuck out. This is my room.”

“Your last defense you mean.”

His eyes were searing blue. “Yeah, it is and you’re not supposed to be here.”

She swung up out of bed, stood well away from him, faint color rising on her cheeks. “I need my clothes.”

He stared at her, at her redhead’s pale translucent skin, at her pulse-quickening beauty, at her extravagant tits and her soft, curvaceous body that fit his like a glove. “Later,” he said.

She straightened her spine at his words, drew herself up to her full height, which still fell short of his by a foot, forced herself to meet his implacable gaze. “I’m not going
to let you walk all over me, Dominic. I’m not afraid of you. Jesus, will you stop? Don’t look at me like that. Like you’re doing a cost analysis and your dick has the final vote.”

“My dick always has the final vote with you, baby. And the first and tenth and hundredth.”

“It’s nice to know you care,” she said, her lips compressed, unfiltered animosity in her eyes. “This is a real Hallmark moment.”

“Don’t get all worked up,” he said, as if he weren’t standing there with a major hard-on behind his open zipper. “Maybe that’s how I show I care. Maybe that’s the only way. Maybe I don’t know any other way.”

“Jesus, you are so fucked.”

“Uh-uh—you are.” He moved in a blur, picked her up, tossed her back on the bed, kicked off his sandals, and, standing at the side of the bed, freed the metal button at the waistband of his jeans. Sliding his fingers into his open fly, he shoved his boxers down enough to draw out his heavy cock.

She glared at him. “You’re such a child.”

“I was never a child, Katherine,” he said with a small sigh. “Not within memory. Tell me you want this. That’s not too difficult, is it?” His mind fuck aside, there was no way he wasn’t going to screw her.

She tried not to look, but his massive erection was defying gravity, starkly upright, the swollen head reaching past his navel.

“He’s not insulted by bitchy women, baby.” The faintest of smiles flickered across Dominic’s face. “But we need you to get with the program. You know how it works: I give the orders. You follow them.”

“Go to hell,” Kate snapped.

Something tightened in his jaw; his smile disappeared. “I’m not playing this game anymore,” he said, cool and seamless, the billionaire CEO reinstated. “I’ve been kissing your ass since Singapore. I don’t kiss ass.” He gazed at her across endless years of hard living and taking what he wanted. “I’m done with this bullshit.”

“Excuse me? Is that what this is?”

“I don’t feel like excusing you right now.” His voice was grating, deadly, her second question dismissed. “Just do what you’re told.” He ran his closed fingers up the length of his pulsing dick, took a deep breath as the pleasure streaked up his spine. “Now tell me you want this deep inside you.”

She should tell him to fuck off. Better yet, she should get up and leave this infuriating man with his invisible world he was battling; she should turn her back on this impossible relationship that wasn’t a relationship at all, unless nonstop fucking qualified. Perhaps she might even have followed through if his eyes hadn’t been fixed knowingly on hers, if he hadn’t run his finger all the way up his monstrous dick so slowly she could see the fresh blood pouring into the network of distended veins feeding his arousal.

A sudden spike of shimmering desire raced through her body, recklessly vaulted over judicious thought, left her quivering. Instant recall of the consequences of Dominic’s brusque orders flooded her senses: the wild hysteria, the seething need, the soul-stirring ecstasy; how he could make the pleasure last.

“You’re pissing me off Katherine. Talk to me or fuck it; I’ll turn on some porn and take care of myself.” He circled
his erection with his fingers, slid his hand down to the base of the thick shaft, tipped his towering dick in her direction, and arched his brows.

“Will you be starring in the porn?” Bile spilling from her tongue.

He gave a small shrug. “Not necessarily. Would it interest you if I were?”

She blushed furiously, and for what seemed an ice age she was under the gaze of a silent observer who had the power to overlook the ordinary constraints of life. Who had the power to make her ache for him.

“The porn can wait,” he said quietly, as if he could read her mind. “But I need you to answer me. Politely. You must, Katherine.”

She flinched at the steel edge in his voice, called herself every kind of fool for trembling at his free-of-apology demand. Had she learned nothing in the month past about personal freedom and choices? “Okay, then, yes,” she said, as though she had no will of her own, as though she were on some carnal autopilot.

“Okay?” he said silkily, because he’d been walking a bloody tightrope since Raffles trying to please a woman for the first time in his life and he needed some serious payback. “That doesn’t sound very enthusiastic. You can do better than that.”

“I want…” Her voice was shaky under his burning stare. “I want you—that.” She pointed at his engorged dick, which he was holding lightly in the curve of his fingers. “When I shouldn’t. When I should walk away and leave you and your dick behind.”

“But you’re not going to, are you?” His voice was smooth and dangerous.

She looked up, her eyes large, a current of distrust shimmering through her senses. “I should,” she whispered.

“I wouldn’t let you anyway.” A languid rise of his hand, a flick of his index finger. “Show me, Katherine. I want to see if you’re wet.” He frowned when she didn’t move. “This isn’t about what you want, Katherine. It’s about what I want. You know the rules.”

She suddenly felt cold under that still blue gaze; her hands started trembling.

“Jesus.” His voice was soft. “You’re scared?” He looked at her, his face rigid, his jaw tense. “This is too fucked up.” He nodded, his gaze infinitely weary. “There’s the door. Get out. I’m sure someone has carried in your luggage by now.”

A heartbeat later, she shoved herself up on her elbows, met his gaze straight on. “I’m not scared of you.” There was that faint air of defiance, as if she were daring him to throw her out. “Just stop being a prick. Enter the human race.”

He smiled faintly. “Easy to say.”

“Well, dial it down a notch. Can you do that? I’m not going to piss all over your boyhood mementos. I’m here for only a few days.”

“You never know,” he said, because deference was unnatural to him, especially with sex. “It might be more than a few days.”

“Oh, I know all right,” she said, unblinking, deference equally meaningless to her. “Now, can we get this show on the road?” She pointed at his dick.

“Not a problem.” His smile was brilliant. “Any more
directions? I wouldn’t want to make any blunders,” he murmured, his voice softly insolent.

“One last direction,” she unwisely said. “Make me feel—”

Hot with temper, he was on top of her before she’d finished speaking, slamming into her because she could piss him off damn near better than anyone.

Stunned, she sucked in a breath. “What the
hell
are you doing?”

His erection barely past the entrance to her body, her taut, unyielding flesh strangling the head of his dick, he gazed down at her, his lips curled in an icy smile. “I’m trying to fuck you, baby. I’m not getting much help. Should I order in some lube?”

“Get. Off. Me,” she said, tight and angry.
“Right now.”

“No way.” His reasons for refusing were enigmatic and territorial. The territorial part he understood; that was the part where he fucked her.

“How about some minimum recognition of who you’re screwing then?” She spoke with cold intensity, because he hadn’t moved and it didn’t look like he would, the head of his erection pulsing against her tense flesh.

“I know who you are.” He shut his eyes, blew out a breath. “You want an apology? I apologize.”

“How about a real apology? You know, one that isn’t completely devoid of feeling.”

He stared at her sullenly. “You don’t want much, do you?”

“Jesus fucking CHRIST!” she cried in full revolt. “I’m not doing this with a man who doesn’t give a shit who’s in his bed. Get OFF me!”

He raised his brows. “Calm the hell down. Take a deep breath. You want a better apology? Is that what you want? I’ve been apologizing left and right lately, so one more can’t matter,” he said. “Not that it seems to have done much good.” His gaze dropped, then lifted again. “When I’m getting this kind of resistance.”

She could feel him studying her and wondered in the ripening silence if she’d ever reconcile her mindless longing with rational judgment when it came to Dominic, if she ever could say no and mean it, if she ever could look at his dark, brooding beauty and not want him. “Give me a minute,” she said.
To see the error of my ways, to regain my sanity.
“In the meantime I’ll take that apology.”

When he didn’t answer, she surveyed the beautiful face with the critical gaze, the rigid line of his jaw. “Who’s resisting now?”

“I apologize, Katherine.” His voice was drained of emotion.

“You’re not good at this are you?”

He sighed. “You’re a fucking witch.” He wasn’t even sure why he was engaging in this skirmish other than the fact that Katherine had upended his perfectly comfortable, thoroughly selfish life—the one where he didn’t deal with his feelings.

She smiled sweetly. “Thank you. You’re equally appealing.”

“So can we close down this lesson on manners?” he asked very quietly, using every ounce of self-control he possessed after seeing that smug smile.

“Certainly.” Another sugar-sweet smile.

Fuck it.
He thrust in fast and hard, as if he were furious
or crazed or under so much accumulated pressure he was blind to the critical nuances of the most minimum courtesy, as if issues of forgiveness and apology had never been mentioned. As if violence alone wiped away smug smiles, rebalanced the power equation, burned away his perpetual hard-on.

Kate’s shriek rang out in a piercing wail.

It hit him like a stun gun.

He jerked back and hung suspended above her, every muscle tense. “Oh fuck.” He shook his head, blinked as though returning to the world.

Kate had tears in her eyes.

“Oh Christ,” he said. “I’ll stop. I can stop.”

“It’s all right.” It was amazing how she was willing to relinquish her self-respect to please him, how the chemistry, the physical attraction, his body, had become her happiness and curse. Judgment suspended, her world. “You surprised me, that’s all.”

But she winced as he accidentally shifted positions and he looked at her, his gaze brooding. “I’m such an asshole.” He blew the hair out of his eyes. “I have no fucking control with you.” But his erection swelled and expanded independent of his remorse and he shot a flickering glance downward. “Seriously, you should kick the shit out of him.”

“I don’t know,” she said, her heart pounding, unarmed in a battle she couldn’t win. “He
has
been really good to me.”

Dominic looked up, stared at her as though he were trying to decipher the chaos of the universe, as if only she could stabilize the dangerous drift into the abyss. “And?” A
whisper of a question, soft as silk, warm, tender, the blue of his eyes without the habitual arrogance.

“And I need you inside me, if I’m saying that properly?”

His smile was swift. “Very properly. Thank you.”

“And I’m fine, really.” She shifted slightly to try to accommodate his size, wanting to please him for any number of reasons: for the unforgettable pleasure he offered in and out of bed, for the reward of his smile, for his moments of tenderness, for the really incredible fucks—let’s not forget those.

“You sure?” Other than his surging dick, he was motionless.

Gazing up she saw the raw worry in his eyes. “Maybe slow it down a little.”

He nodded. “I can do that.” He grinned. “I’m not fucking fourteen. I can do it. But let me deal with this zipper first so it doesn’t rip your skin.” Alternating impressive one-armed push-ups as he lay between her legs, he peeled himself out of his jeans and boxers, kicked them away, then took her hand, closed her fingers into a fist, and placed it against his chest. “Punch me here if I’m hurting you. I’ll stop. Okay?”

“Yup.”

“Good to go?”

Without waiting for an answer, he entered her with excruciating slowness and an economy of movement thanks to muscles honed to impeccable standards of strength. And when, after languorous, endless moments of sumptuous friction and snug, velvety yielding, he reached the ultimate, maximum depth, she was panting and quivering.