Beyond Control (23 page)

Her heart hammered hard enough to make the room throb with it as she eased his hands apart and stepped between his arms. He stood there for a moment, unmoving, then slid his arms around her with a low sigh.

This was a different hug than the others she'd seen. His arms barely touched her, their strength held in reserve. He was giving her a way out, the chance to retreat, and that was what made her press forward.

His breath stirred her hair, and he rubbed the back of her shoulder gently. "You'll be all right. Someday."

"Someday," she echoed, surprised at her own tone. She almost sounded like she agreed with him.

Maybe she should have known better, but the last thing Lex expected was for Dallas to waltz right into her room without even fucking knocking.

Her heart shuddered and then started to pound as he stood in the open bathroom door, his gaze tracing every bit of naked skin visible above the water of her bath. Smiling slowly, he dropped one hand to his belt and quirked an eyebrow. "Got room for one more in that tub?"

The question might have ruined the fantasy of intrusion--if he'd meant it as a question at all. Dallas owned everything, and that ownership showed in every easy line of his body.

The steaming water sloshed as Lex lifted one leg to rest on the edge of the tub. "We might have to get close."

"That better be a promise." He'd already discarded his boots somewhere, and the rest of his clothing ended up in a messy pile twenty seconds later. He prowled over to sink his hand into her hair, tangling the damp strands around his fingers as he leaned down to kiss her once, hard. "Scoot forward," he said against her lips.

He slipped into the tub behind her, driving the water level up almost to the lip of the ancient porcelain tub, and Lex leaned back against his chest. "Did you want something, O'Kane?"

"Needed to tell you I won't be around tonight." He splayed his hand across her abdomen under the water, right over the ink spelling out his name. "Jas and I are meeting up with some guys from Three."

"Routine shit, or is something going down?"

"Just testing the waters. Trent had a few men who kept their heads low and seemed half reasonable. I think I can talk them into making themselves useful."

"Ah." Lex dipped one hand under the water to stroke his leg, then raked her nails over his skin. "I wouldn't have cried myself to sleep because you weren't here to hold my hand."

He chuckled against her ear. "No, you probably would've crawled into Noelle's bed to keep her warm. You still can, if you want, but only if you tell me everything you do to her afterwards."

"Dirty fucker," Lex breathed. "She's been expanding her sweet little horizons lately, you know. She'd probably be on me, not the other way around."

"Oh yeah?" Dallas gathered her hair in his free hand and twisted it aside, leaving the back of her neck vulnerable to the warmth of his breath. "No wonder Jas is so fucking smug. He doesn't have to imagine it, does he? He's been watching."

"Jealousy's an ugly thing." She kept her voice light in spite of the dangerous heat curling through her belly.

"Is it?" The hand in her hair jerked tight without warning, craning her head to the side. He licked her throat with a low laugh that prickled over her skin. "I don't believe you."

He probably shouldn't, either. "So tell me what
you
want to see."

"Hard to pick." He trailed his fingers up between her breasts to cup her throat, replacing the collar she'd set aside before climbing into the bath. "You're hot when you're topping Noelle, and I get hotter imagining how I'll tame you. But you know what's even better?"

When she shifted in his grip, his fingers slipped over her skin with a delicious, wet friction. "What's that?"

"Watching you come."

The moment when pleasure stripped away control. Watching a lover succumb to that rush turned her on too, fast and fierce. "I've come for you plenty, just in the last few days alone."

He bit her this time, closing his teeth on the spot where her shoulder met her throat. "No such thing as plenty. When it comes to you and orgasms, Lexie love, it's never enough."

"Uh-huh. So what are you gonna do about that?"

"What do you
want
me to do about it?" Low words, straddling the line between promise and threat. "Give me a fantasy. A nice, filthy one."

She rarely considered it. Other people's fantasies were enough, especially since Lex had been taught how to cater to them. She fulfilled them, and everyone had fun. Simple enough.

But this wasn't simple at all. Dallas was asking for a piece of her, a revelation that could tell him so, so much, and the end result was the same as if she carried a thousand fantasies locked away in her mind. She shied away. "I haven't really thought about it."

"Bullshit." There was the threat, in the hard-edged word and the slight tightening of his hand around her throat. "Everyone has fantasies. You can tell me to go fuck myself, but don't lie."

"I haven't
thought
about it." She swallowed hard beneath his hand. "Mine aren't important, that's what I learned. It's crap, but even the stupid lessons die hard sometimes."

Silence. His chest rose and fell against her back in three ragged breaths before he growled something she couldn't understand and curled both arms around her. "Christ, Lex. That lesson needs to die
now
."

"It isn't--" Her throat ached, not from his fingers but from the gentle touch, a tenderness at odds with his rough words. "I would have lied to you. That much is true."

"I know, but don't think admitting it's gonna get you off the hook." He drew her more snugly against his chest. "You're stuck here until you cough up a lurid fantasy. And no cheating by telling me something you think I want to hear, or I'll just make you start over."

"You know one," she whispered. "Don't tell me you forgot already."

"Still cheating. You've got to say it out loud. Admit it. Own it. That's part of the journey." His voice dropped to a rasping whisper as he pressed his lips to her ear again. "Want me to go first?"

She held her breath and nodded.

"Fight night," he said. "That's where it starts. I haven't hit the cage in years, but I do in my fantasy. I kick the shit out of some asshole, and there you are. Sometimes you blow me right there, on your knees in the cage, and sometimes you taunt me. You dare me to take you, and I do. Just shove up your skirt and fuck you up against the bars with half the sector watching."

He never fucked his women in public. He might mess around with the fight groupies or the women in the gang--even Lex herself--but when it came to the ones he'd collared, everything went down behind closed doors.

She could imagine it, though, hot and frantic and so, so sweet. His hands under her ass and steel biting into her back with every hard, mind-blowing thrust.

"Yeah, you're seeing it now." Laughter and smug arrogance lurked beneath his words. He stroked his fingers up her side and stopped just shy of her breast. "Though I'm only getting started. A good fantasy is in the details. Like how you're not wearing panties, and your pussy's so fucking wet when I slide into you. How I pin your hands to the bars of the cage and make you admit that watching me fight got you that damn hot, and you want the whole sector to know it."

Her blood thrummed in her veins, both racing like mad and lingering with the heaviness of arousal. "I like it."

"Good to know," he drawled, his cock heavy and erect against the small of her back. "So now it's your turn. And take a page out of my book, love. That fantasy was all about me. I wanna hear one that's all about
you
."

The real challenge, since too many of her half-formed fantasies revolved around him. "A party," she murmured finally. "We're celebrating something, and everyone's horny. Starving. But you won't let them touch each other until they touch me."

"Yeah?" Rough fingertips grazed her inner thigh. "A good start, but pretty light on the details."

"I'm not finished." She closed her eyes and focused on the lapping water. "They're supposed to tie me up, but no one can find anything, so they hold me down instead. Wrists and ankles, even my knees while they're pulling my legs apart." The image throbbed through her, driving her legs open under Dallas's fingers. "That's when they start. Their hands first, then their mouths."

He slid his fingers over her pussy, parting her outer lips as his middle finger teased her entrance. "Do you struggle?"

"At first. Until they get their tongues in on the action." Lex arched her hips. "My neck, my nipples. My clit. Everywhere you tell them to lick me."

"That's what I'm doing?" Pleasure sparked as he worked his finger in and out in a slow rhythm. "Telling them what to do?"

"Everyone belongs to you. The woman pulling my hair and sucking my nipples. The men fighting over who gets to fuck me with his fingers and tongue." Her voice slipped into a husky whisper. "Especially me. That's what they're doing, Dallas. Getting me ready."

His breathing hitched. "Ready for what?"

"For you to fuck me so hard I can't stand up afterwards."

Groaning, he touched her clit. Lightly at first, just enough to make her squirm, but when she tried to push closer, he moved his hand with her hips. "How well did they prepare you? What if I want to fuck more than your pussy? Did someone get your ass all slick and ready, maybe decorate you with one of those jeweled plugs you love so much?"

"Ready, yes." Her ears were buzzing now, dampening the sound of her own voice. "But nothing inside me you didn't tell them to put there."

One hand stayed between her thighs. The other slid up her body, wet fingers clamping over a nipple to tug and twist, sparking her banked arousal into flame. "It's your fantasy, honey. What do I do? Do I tell them to fill you with toys and suck your clit until you're sobbing? Or do I not even let them use their fingers? Do I tell them I want your pussy nice and tight when I ram my dick into it?"

There was only one thing she could see when she closed her eyes--Dallas, blazing with jealous, possessive lust. "Fingers," she managed faintly. "But barely. You don't like it. You don't want anything in me but
you
."

"Do they hold you down for me?" He accompanied the words with the firm touch she'd been dying for, fingers moving in rough, quick circles over her clit as the water splashed around them. "Do they hold you open? Or am I so possessive I won't let them do anything but watch?"

Fuck.
Fuck.
"You let them, but only because you know it'll make me come again and again."

"Is that what'd do it?" Hot breath against her ear. Strong fingers between her legs. He stroked and teased and kept whispering filthy words, each one a promise. "Ace and Mad pinning your hands. Jasper and Noelle holding your knees apart while I fuck you. Everyone watching you take my cock, every fucking inch of it, and listening to you beg for me to fuck you harder."

Every word was another caress, a promise. Her nipples ached, and sweat sheened her skin under the water and steam. "I need you to want me so much you can't stand it. Can't even stop."

He whispered three words that sent her crashing toward the edge. "I already do."

As much as she did.
Too much.
Lex turned in his arms and fit her hips to his--easy as breathing, like there'd never been a time when her body hadn't known exactly how to take his. "Now?"

Water cascaded over the edge of the tub as he laughed and thrust up into her. "We're gonna trash your bathroom."

The hard, sudden stretch stole her breath
and
her witty rejoinder, so she yanked his hair and bucked her hips. His laugh was lower, with an edge this time, one that sharpened as he dug his fingertips into her waist and ground against her.

Lex shuddered. "Tell me another one. One more fantasy."

"Just one?" Something dark stirred behind his eyes. "Mine starts where yours did. Except there's a blindfold. And chains."

"You want to lock me up?"

"Mmm." He pressed his thumb to her clit again. "I will chain you up, love. Soon. Only question is where and how."

She couldn't hold back her pleasure--or her plea. "Yes." The first tiny waves trembled through her, and she welcomed them. Rode them higher. "Any way you want, baby."

"Fuck." His head fell back as he arched, sloshing more water around them.

The brink. He was right there with her, maybe always had been, and it was enough to shake loose what was left of her control. Enough to tumble her into the sort of ecstasy that left her clinging to the only solid thing in the storm surrounding her.

Dallas.

As if she'd said his name out loud, he answered with a groan of release.

The water settled along with Lex's frantic breaths, and she lifted her face from the crook of Dallas's neck. "Jesus."

Grinning, Dallas pushed damp hair back from her cheek. "Yeah, that got a little out of hand. I can't seem to keep my cock out of you."

"I've noticed," she teased. "I was talking about all the damn water on my floor."

"It does seem like there's a whole lot less of it in the tub."

As if she really gave a shit about the water with him inside her and hot aftershocks still pulsing through her. "You wrecked me and my bathroom. And I feel pretty good about it."

He leaned up to claim a lazy kiss before biting her lip. "Hope you still feel good when I give you homework to do while I'm out conquering."

"Will I get detention if I slack off?"

"Sector Four-style detention. You'll be bending over the teacher's desk for sure."

She smiled slowly. "I'll be sure not to do my assignments, then."

"Bad girl." Dallas caught her chin and gave her a faux-stern glare. "A good girl would spend the night thinking of more fantasies. And if getting bent over a desk counted, it could top what needs to be a very long list."

"How long of a list are we talking about here?"

"Fewer than ten would be disappointing."

"And what do you plan to do with all these fantasies?"