Complete Me (12 page)

Of course he denies me. Instead, he moves his still-hovering hand slowly down the length of my body—my breasts, my belly, my very aching cunt, then all the way down my legs until even my toes are wiggling in a futile attempt to draw him closer. It doesn’t work. He never touches, just skims along over a pocket of air that is burning hotter and hotter, as if I am trapped beneath an electric blanket with no way to throw it off and cool down.

Not even the air-conditioning is blowing between my legs. The only sensation is the tiny brush of material over my sex brought on by the motion of the limo and by my own pulse, which is pounding so hard that it is making my clothing quiver with each beat of my heart.

His voice is little more than a murmur. “So tell me, Nikki, can you imagine the touch of my fingertip upon the inside of your thigh? The way your body would tighten in response to a touch that is neither a caress nor a tickle?”

“I—yes.”

My words are so low that I doubt he has heard me. It doesn’t matter, though. He continues on. “A sensual dance, like the brush of a feather over your panties. A hooked fingertip to tug them aside. And then what, Nikki? What kind of touch do you want then?”

I don’t answer, because he has moved—not between my legs to where my sex now throbs in response to both his sensual tone and the erotic nature of the words themselves, but higher, so that his hip is near my chest and his hands are cleverly twining my wrists with the nylon webbing of the farthest seat belt.

“Damien, what—”

But I don’t bother to finish the question, because he has finished and I know what he was doing. He was binding my hands as he has done my legs so that I am fully strapped down, bound to this long, leather bench in the back of a limo.

“Do you want it, Nikki? Do you want me to fuck you?”

“You know that I do.” I keep my voice calm even though I want to scream—
Yes, yes, goddammit, yes.

He cocks his head. “What was that?” he asks, and I almost cry with frustration.

“Yes,” I say. “Please, sir.”

His smile is slow and a little too self-satisfied. He moves toward me and I see that he has a small pair of bandage scissors in his hand. He slides a blade under the lace of my thong, snips twice, then rips the material free.

I arch and shudder, my body begging as much as my words. “Please, Damien. Please, please fuck me.”

“Believe me, Ms. Fairchild, there’s nothing I’m looking forward to more. But no. I don’t think so. Not yet.”

I actually whimper.

He bends forward to whisper in my ear. “What if I told you to touch yourself? Ah, but you can’t do that, either.”

I tug at the belt that is binding my hands, but I’m not going anywhere. I can shift right and left a little, but for the most part, where he bound me is where I’ll stay.

He reaches down and plucks up the hem of my shirt, managing the maneuver without actually touching my skin, despite the way my back arches up, as if my body is determined to try even though my mind knows it’s futile. After a moment, he has my shirt pulled up, exposing the lacy bra and the serpentine chain that stretches between my very erect nipples. He runs his finger over the chain, then gives it a gentle tug, causing me to arch up as hot threads of electricity sizzle through my body, racing from my breast to my throbbing cunt.

“Oh, baby,” he murmurs. “I love how hot you get, how your body responds. Do you know what it does to me, knowing that you’ve given yourself over so fully to me? No barriers, no inhibitions. Just mine. To touch, to tempt, to tease.”

“Anything you want, Mr. Stark.” My voice is raw with passion. “Anything you need.”

“I’m very glad to hear it,” he says, as he moves away from me to sit on the bench that runs the length of the limo, perpendicular to this long backseat across which I am strapped. “Right now, I just want to look at you. The flush on your skin. Your cunt, swollen and wet and begging for me. Your hard nipples and the rise and fall of your chest as you try to control your breathing. It makes me hard, Nikki, so goddamn hard to see you like this, laid out and wanting, and knowing that I am the one who brought you there.”

I can only moan. Words are impossible, the power of speech obliterated by the violence of the emotions raging through me.

He leans over and punches the intercom button, then asks the driver how close we are to the hotel. We’re just a few blocks away, and I don’t know whether to be relieved or frustrated when Damien tells the driver to circle the block until he says otherwise.

Then he clicks off, smiles at me, and pours himself a shot of whiskey over ice. His eyes never leave my face as he tilts the glass back and takes a long, deep swallow before moving back to my side, the glass still in his hand.

“Open,” he says.

I open my mouth, and he takes out a cube of ice, holding it between two fingers and his thumb. He brushes it gently over my lips, and I open wider, reaching out with my tongue to taste the smooth liquor. It’s gone too soon, though. Because he eases down until he is holding the ice cube over my belly, and three fat drops fall from the cube to land upon my overheated flesh. The sensation is electrifying, and I arch up, gasping. Wanting. The droplets swirl on my skin with the motion, leaving a cool trail down to my pubic bone. My skin quivers, my need like a palpable thing.

Damien meets my eyes, then slowly—too damn slowly—trails the cube between my thigh and the sensitive skin of my sex. My body bucks, and I’m not certain if I’m trying to escape because it is too much to bear or if I am desperate for more. All I know is that I cannot escape. I am bound, tied down, and right now, Damien can do with me whatever he wants.

“Oh, God. Damien, what are you doing?”

“Unless I’m doing it wrong, I’m getting you very, very worked up. And, my dear,” he adds, as he tosses the tiny shred of ice that remains back into the glass, “I think I’ve succeeded.”

He eases back over to his seat and presses the intercom button. “Once more around the block,” he says. “Then you can take us to the hotel.”

It is then that I am certain that, at least for now, he is not taking this any further.
Well, damn.

“Are you punishing me?” I ask. “Because right now, I’m really not above begging.”

He chuckles. “Punishing you? I was simply following your lead.”

“My lead?” I haven’t got a clue what he’s talking about.

His eyes twinkle with amusement. “You said you’d never gone down on me in a moving limo in Munich. I assumed you’d never been tied down half-naked in a limo. In Munich or elsewhere. Or was I mistaken?”

“Not mistaken,” I say. “And I’ve never been fucked in a limo in Munich, either,” I add, almost petulantly. “But you seem to have overlooked that.”

“Complaining, Ms. Fairchild?”

“Hell yes, Mr. Stark.”

“You know, I’m tempted to keep you like this forever.” His gaze trails slowly over every inch of me. The inspection is slow, lingering upon my breasts, then my bare abdomen, and then my sex. I shudder as the muscles of my vagina clench with need of him. “We could tour Europe by car, you splayed out in the back of a limo, open to my pleasure.”

“Or we could go back to the hotel this very second, and you could have your wicked way with me.” I glance up at him and smile. “Your call, Mr. Stark,” I say, shaking my bound hands. “But at the very least, you have to untie me.”

We move through the lobby of the hotel with blinders on, heading straight for the elevator, which seems to open magically upon our arrival, as if this hotel understands just how desperately we need to get upstairs.

We have the car to ourselves, and I lean against Damien, relishing in the way his arms go automatically around me. Right then, it feels as though nothing can go wrong in our world.

Then we’re on our floor and the doors open and we step out. Immediately, I feel my phone vibrate, and the corresponding
ping
signals an incoming text. I frown, mentally flipping a coin between Ollie and Jamie. I have no intention of texting with either of them, but my phone is set to repeat buzz incoming texts three times so that I don’t miss any, which means that at the very least I have to open the messaging app.

I do—and then freeze in the hallway when I see the text. It’s not from anyone I know, and the phone number is unfamiliar.

The message, however, is something I’ve seen before: Bitch. Slut. Whore.

I recall the anonymous letter that arrived for me care of Stark International and tremble as a finger of foreboding creeps up my spine. I had thought that letter had been prompted by the fact that I’d accepted money to pose nude. Now I wonder if it’s about something else.

“Nikki?” Damien has turned to face me, his forehead creased with worry. “What is it?”

I don’t want to show him the text—I don’t want the magical bubble of this evening to pop. But I know that it already has. More, I know that Damien needs to know.

Wordlessly, I hand the phone to Damien, my entire body tightening as I wait for the explosion I see building in his eyes.

“Is this the first time you’ve received a text like this?” His voice is steady and firm and cold as hell.

“Yes,” I say flatly. Once again I feel the weight of the real world pressing in around us. The thin glass of our protective bubble is starting to crack. I don’t know what will happen when the pressure is too much and those tiny fissures finally explode under the weight of the world. I fear, though, that I’m going to find out.

And when the explosion comes, I hope I can resist the urge to pick up one of the shards and grind it into my own smooth flesh.

A shudder runs through me. “Just delete it,” I say harshly. “Just make it fucking go away.”

“No. We’re going to trace it.”

“Later,” I say. “Please, Damien. Leave it for later. I don’t want to think about it now.”

He studies me for a moment, then he turns off my phone and slides it into his pocket.

I cross my arms over my chest.

“Trust me, sweetheart, you won’t need it tonight.”

I can’t help my responsive grin, especially when he pulls out his own phone and turns it off as well. “Now it’s just you and me.”

“Just how I like it,” I say, taking Damien’s hand and letting him pull me back into the protective circle of his arms. He slides his card key into the lock and I watch as the light flicks from red to green. My body is tight with anticipation. I am expecting lust and passion and Damien’s hands upon me, his cock inside me.

I am expecting to slide back into that magical fantasy where there really is nothing but the two of us.

But when he opens the door, I realize that the real world can follow us anywhere.

Because right there—sitting on the couch where Damien has fucked me so many times—is a woman I never thought that I would see again.

A woman who used to be in Damien’s bed.

Chapter Eight

Carmela D’Amato is tall and blonde and so stunningly beautiful that it is almost painful. I’ve hated her from the first moment I saw her six years ago when she took Damien away from me.

Granted, at the time I had no claim to Damien, but I’d wanted to lash out at her nonetheless. I’d been competing in Dallas at the Miss Tri-County Texas pageant, and tennis star Damien was the celebrity judge. I’d never met him before, but he’d come over to where I was staked out by the buffet table, wondering if I could get away with eating cheesecake without my mother finding out. At the time, I’d thought it was my imagination, but even then the connection between us had been electric. He’d taken my breath away. Hell, he still takes my breath away.

Just standing there talking to him had sparked decadent fantasies. If he’d suggested it, I would have taken his hand and run away and never once looked back. But he didn’t suggest it. And it wasn’t me he left with, but Carmela.

I’d never expected to see her again.

Then again, at the time I’d never expected to see Damien again, either. Apparently we’ve now come full circle.

Instinctively, I take a step closer to Damien. He reaches down, his fingers automatically twining through mine.

Carmela’s eyes flicker down to our joined hands, and I have to bite back a triumphant smile.
Ha. Take that, bitch.
The thought is petty. But it’s heartfelt.

“What are you doing here?” Damien’s voice is cold, his body tense. I can feel the irritation rolling off him in waves.

“Damie, darling, don’t be angry.” She stretches, cat-like, as she reaches for a glass of wine on the table beside her. She takes a sip, looking perfectly at home.

I want to go slap her face.

“How the
hell
did you get in here?” Damien demands.

Her eyes widen, then she glances at me. “After all the times I’ve shared this room with you, I’m like family. I just asked one of the room service boys to let me in.”

“It didn’t occur to you that you were costing the boy his job?”

She laughs. “Why would it? I thought we could celebrate your victory together. And when have you ever kicked me out of your room, Damie? When have you not been happy to see me?”

“Now,” he says.

I’m watching her face as he speaks, and am startled to see that there is no reaction. She doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t blink. She is neither angry nor hurt.

In other words, Carmela came here knowing exactly how this would play out. What a goddamned bitch.

“Get up,” I say. “Get up and get the hell out of here.”
That
gets a reaction out of her. A tight, condescending smile that only pisses me off even more.

Beside me, Damien squeezes my hand, but he says nothing. Somehow he knows that this is my fight now.

“You’re Nichole, aren’t you?” she says, though there is no doubt in my mind that she knows exactly who I am. “You’re the little girl who caught his eye in Texas at that ridiculous pageant.”

“I caught more than his eye, Carlotta,” I say, deliberately getting her name wrong.

Her eyes narrow. “Are you sure? Reality so rarely lives up to expectations. I hope you’re prepared for the day he realizes that you are not the woman he wanted, after all.”

I flash my best pageant smile and conjure a honey-sweet Texas twang. “Sugar, I think you have us confused. I’m the one he’s taking to bed. It’s you he doesn’t want.” I imagine a stadium of people leaping to their feet and applauding. “Now get the hell out of here.”