Blush (16 page)

There weren’t many things that would entice Maddy to go head-to-head with Alex Fraser, who, truth be told, looked a little bit frightening at the moment. But though she knew what her answer ultimately would be, she just wanted a little reassurance that she wasn’t crazy before agreeing to be bound and disciplined.

“Alex, I just want to talk to someone a little more . . . objective. If you can try to understand that, then . . . I promise I will at least try.” Thinking of the night before, when Alex had bound her hands behind her back, had used cinnamon and mint oils and vibrators, Maddy shuddered lightly with pleasure.

It wouldn’t be that hard for her to try; she knew that. She wanted to know that she wasn’t crazy.

“I know you’ll try, because you want this as much as I do.” Something in Alex’s eyes softened, just a tiny bit, though his lips were still pressed tightly together. “A few years ago I . . . I had a really bad experience with a therapist.”

Maddy waited for him to relax a bit now that he’d told her this. He didn’t. Instead, he changed the subject by placing the fork on the table and lifting her over his shoulder the same way he had the night before.

She yelped as her sleep shirt rode up and cool air hit her bottom.

“Time for you to get showered and dressed, babe.” He carried her bodily to the tiny bathroom and crowded in with her. He made himself busy, starting the water, adjusting the temperature, and stripping her out of her T-shirt. Her skin flushed as his eyes raked over her naked frame. Maddy could see the front of his pants beginning to tent with his erection, and she reached for him with eager fingers.

“Nope.” She frowned as he coaxed her beneath the stinging spray, then closed the plastic curtain with a snap. She pulled it back to share her scowl, which he regarded calmly.

“Get going, babe.” Reaching an arm beneath the water, he smacked her lightly on the butt, just hard enough to make her jump. “You’ve got twenty minutes to be at the front door, ready to go.”

“Where are we going?” A frisson of nerves shot through Maddy’s veins as she reached for her soap. The lavender and tea tree scent calmed her a bit, as always, but not nearly enough.

“You’ll see. Wear long sleeves.” She felt a whoosh of cold air as he opened the bathroom door, letting steam escape. She scraped the exfoliating bar over the fresh goose bumps as if trying to scrub them off while her teeth chattered. “Seventeen minutes, Maddy.”

Excitement surged, mixing with the nerves that had already collected in her belly.

She may not have thought that she was ready for something new, but around Alex there certainly wasn’t much time to think.

•   •   •

“A
lex, what are we doing? I really want to know.” The farther away from Maddy’s house that they drove, the more nervous she became. By the time Alex pulled off onto a small gravel road, her palms were sweating.

She rubbed them on the front of her jeans as he parked his Turbo beside a small car hauler. Declan was there, sitting astride something that looked like a smart car on which someone had removed the doors and injected the tires with steroids. He rode the contraption down off the car hauler, waving when he saw them.

“What the hell is that?” Maddy’s nerves ramped up to anxiety. It was obvious now what Alex had planned.

It had been hard enough for her to get back behind the wheel of a normal car after the accident. She still had an illogical fear of other motorized vehicles, which, according to her hammering pulse, included that death trap.

“That’s my quad.” Alex grinned, a boy showing off his shiny toy, until he turned and saw Maddy’s face, which she could feel was paper white, the blood having drained right out of it.

“Maddy, what’s wrong?” In a flash, he parked the car and was out and around to her door. Leaning in, he undid her seat belt and urged her to bend over, her head between her knees.

“I—I—” She couldn’t breathe. Damn it, she hated losing control to a panic attack. Focusing on the breathing techniques that Dr. Gill had taught her, she tried to calm herself down, the doctor’s words echoing in her head.

You can’t stop a panic attack once it’s started—you can only ride it out. Don’t fight it, and it will be over all the sooner.

Sure enough, as Maddy willed her body to relax, the suffocating waves began to splash smaller and smaller, until she could finally draw in one deep, shuddering breath, looking up at Alex as she did.

“What the fuck was that?” His face was bone white. He captured her face in his hands, combing his fingers through the strands of her ponytail that had come loose. “What scared you?”

Maddy shook her head irritably, dislodging his hands from her skin. She wasn’t telling him about her past, her problems, no matter how safe, how warm he could make her feel.

His face closed off as she shrugged away his touch. Maddy was furious with herself.

Screw this
. Scrambling out of the car, she gestured to the death trap with a jerky nod.

“So what do we do with this?” Turning away from Alex, she marched across the gravel to the small vehicle, her sneakers crunching over the rocks. Declan’s face flickered with surprise as she clambered up on the back of the thing, and then he smoothed the expression away.

“Miss Stone.” He nodded, then looked behind her, to where Maddy could sense Alex’s all-consuming presence.

“Maddy, get down.” Alex the Dominant was out in full force, but she simply narrowed her eyes. She wasn’t going to let herself ruin this. “You’re terrified. We’re not going quadding.”

“Yes, we are.” Maddy had sunk her teeth into it now, and she wasn’t going to let go. Maybe some flood therapy was exactly what she needed.

Bending, she picked up one of the two helmets that were stowed away at her feet. She placed one on her head and buckled the strap under her chin, then extended a hand holding the second helmet to Alex.

“Please.” She was so scared, she could feel the pervasive chill in the marrow of her bones. At the same time, she
needed
this.

Alex scowled, then exchanged a grim look with Declan, who shrugged noncommittally at his boss. Though they hadn’t spoken, Maddy got the impression that the two men had just had an entire conversation.

His tightly clenched lips did nothing to distract from his gorgeousness as Alex took the helmet from Maddy, placed it on his own head, and climbed aboard the quad. “We’re going to discuss this later.”

She ignored his ominous words, focusing on the wind blowing through the tips of his raven hair, which was sticking out of his helmet. She grabbed his waist in a death grip as he turned a key in the ignition.

The thing rolled to life, and terror brought nausea to coat her throat. The quad began to move, slowly, no more than about two miles an hour, but she still let loose with a small scream.

With great control, Alex stopped the quad. Turning halfway, he met her eyes, his expression serious. “I will always keep you safe, Maddy.” She could barely hear him through the thick material of the helmet. “Just remember that you can trust me.”

“You’ll keep me safe as long as I sign the contract?” She was surprised that she had the presence of mind to joke.

He reached back with a gloved hand and squeezed her knee. The touch spread heat, not the incendiary kind that could set her on fire, but more the steady glow of a hearth fire.

“This has nothing to do with the contract.”

Maddy’s mouth fell open slightly as his words sank in. It was while she was stupefied that he again started up the quad, moving forward off the gravel and onto the desert sand, the pace glacial—which she knew was for her benefit.

Maddy squeezed his hips with her thighs, wrapped her arms around him like a boa constrictor, and chanted his words over and over in her head.

Trust him. Trust him. Trust him.

The vehicle rocked a bit on the sand, and Maddy could feel the suspension of the ATV bouncing her in her seat. She swallowed back the fear that kept trying to rise and continued clutching Alex tightly, her muscles stiff with tension.

Trust him.

Minutes passed by as she chanted. Gradually, she became aware of the fact that Alex had picked up speed, probably not nearly fast enough for his liking, but enough to make her gasp. Still . . .

They’d been riding for . . . well, it had to be a good fifteen or twenty minutes now. He was still alive. She was alive.

Cautiously, she removed her face from where she’d buried it in the back of his leather jacket. The chilly wind stole her breath as she peered out from the safety of her little cocoon.

Though nerves again rioted through her as she did, due to the need to try to orient herself on the ever-moving landscape, Maddy felt her breath catching for an entirely different reason.

The vista was breathtaking.

All around them, as far as the eye could see, was sand. Brown sand, golden sand, shimmering sand, great waves of it stretching so far that it would have been easy to believe that that was all there was in the world. Above the earth-toned rainbow was a brilliant blue sky broken only occasionally by a cream or dove gray cloud.

The view, combined with a hit of adrenaline from the motion of the quad, was like a drug. A cautious smile broke out over her lips.

Maddy felt some of Alex’s tension ease when she stopped clutching him like a lifeline, though she still couldn’t swallow the shrieks that escaped her lips every time they flew over a dune.

Okay, she kind of got it. She was still on the far side of scared, but the fear was tinted with exhilaration.

They rode for another twenty minutes. She relaxed a little bit more every step of the way. If she had been driving the quad herself, she suspected that all of her fear would have come back in a great rush. But trusting her safety to Alex . . . Somehow, since she inexplicably trusted him, it eased the burden.

Maddy’s cheeks were flushed with windburn when Alex finally maneuvered the quad back to the gravel pad where the truck hauler waited. She was astonished by the trickle of disappointment that the ride was over.

Squinting, she saw that Declan was in the Turbo, the seat tilted back. He appeared to be napping.

Alex pulled off his helmet, his gloves, his leather jacket, stowing them away again at her feet. He slid off the quad gracefully, then reached back up for her.

His sure fingers unfastened the clip that held her helmet on, and then he removed the helmet itself.

He gave her one of those looks again, the one that told her he could see things in her that she didn’t even know about herself.

“How was that for you?” It seemed strange to hear his voice after nothing but the roar of the wind for nearly an hour.

Maddy allowed Alex to wrap her in his arms and pull her down from the quad. She dusted her hands off on the thighs of her jeans, buying a moment, before looking up into his eyes.

“Good,” she whispered, licking her tongue over her lips. “It was good.”

They stood still, looking into each other’s eyes for what had to be a full minute. As if they were of one mind, they lunged at each other, lips mashing together, hands groping, hips grinding.

Without pulling his lips away from hers, Alex cupped his hands under her ass, lifted her so that her legs wrapped around his waist. Her center pressed against the length of his erection, driving her wild as he carried her up the ramp and into the back of the car carrier.

“Alex!” Maddy tried to keep her voice to a whisper as Alex pressed her back against the metal wall inside the truck. Holding her in place with his hips, he lifted his T-shirt over his head with one quick movement, leaving the rippled muscles of his rock-solid chest open for Maddy’s fingers to eagerly explore.

“Hold still, damn it.” Maddy couldn’t quite hold back a giggle when her finger traced the mouthwatering planes of his hip bones, and he froze. “I can’t focus when you touch me like that.”

“Now you know how I feel around you all the time!” Maddy could hear the breathlessness in her voice. “And why do you need to focus?”

“Because of these.” Loosening his hold, Alex let her slip down the length of his body. Lifting her shirt so that her bra was exposed, he turned her quickly, catching her wrists in his hands.

The coolness of the metal wall on her breasts, on her cheek made her shiver as something hard was placed around each of her wrists.

“You had handcuffs in your pocket?” She swallowed a squeal as Alex spun her back to face him.

“Only around you.” Sliding his hands up her torso, he strummed his thumbs over her nipples, then slid his hands inside her bra and tugged the fabric down until her breasts popped free. The underwire pushed them up like an offering, and Alex bent his head to suck one into his mouth, reaching into his jeans pocket at the same time.

“Hold this for me, babe.” From his pocket, he pulled a small bag and a condom. He slipped the foil wrapper of the condom between her teeth, and she had to clench to keep from dropping it, effectively gagging her.

“This is going to hurt for a minute.” Pulling on her nipple with his lips until her knees buckled with the sensation, he then clasped it in the fingers of one hand and removed something from the little velvet bag with the other.

“What is that?” Spitting the condom out of her mouth, she tried to shy away, but pressed as she was against the metal, she couldn’t go anywhere.

Alex held the item up for Maddy to see. It looked like a small, slender pair of silver tweezers, decorated with a dangling sapphire-blue charm.

“Hold your breath.” Catching the distended flesh of her nipple in his thumb and forefinger, Alex slid the clamp onto the heated flesh.

“Fuck!” Maddy forgot about Declan, outside in the car, as a sharp bolt of pain streaked through her. “Who the hell carries nipple clamps in their jeans?” She tried to slide away, to duck under his arms, but found herself trapped.

Arching her back, she whimpered against the discomfort, pulling at her cuffs.

“Maddy?” She heard Alex’s voice as if from far away. Her mind was consumed with the sensation of the clamp on her nipple. “What are you feeling now?”