Declaration to Submit (7 page)

“Nell—”

“The scene is over, right?” She pulled the hem of her skirt down to her knees. “Thank you. I need a moment.” She flipped her hair over her shoulder and stalked toward the bathroom.

If he hadn’t been completely infatuated with her before, he sure as shit was now.

* * * *

The mirror mocked Nell. She stared at her striped ass. Well, what had she expected? Romance? Love? The “punishment” had heightened her awareness of him, made her completely in tune with his rhythm. So much so that when he withdrew, she sensed it immediately.

She inhaled a shaky breath. This was supposed to be a sexual education, an adventure. It felt like more than that, and Nell was terrified. No one had ever stripped her mask away so quickly and so thoroughly. She’d been willing to do anything, be anyone, if it made him happy.

The minute he’d said he was Mark Conners, she should have run like fucking hell. Hadn’t she researched him? Hadn’t she run into a blank wall after he graduated from high school in Los Angeles? She shook her head. No photos of a man who clearly had some serious business chops, yet she hadn’t been able to locate what college, if any, he’d attended.

The only thing she knew for sure about him was that his parents no longer lived in the L.A. area, that he had “gone out East” according to his friends, and that he had an uncanny ability to remain out of the public eye.

He and his buddy, Fedders, who remained behind the scenes pulling the strings and making the money, hired others to charm the press. Yet Nell had discovered something about Mark when he was still M. Conners and when his high school teachers, friends, and associates called him Junior Conners. His father had been involved in several Internet start-ups in Southern California. And he had failed spectacularly, losing millions of investors’ money, and ended up as a lowly accountant for a cellular company.

Until his father’s fall, Junior Conners had been in football, student government, on the fast track for college. Then he’d disappeared, and from everything Nell could see, he’d cut off his family.

There was little resemblance in the confident man to the serious boy who had stared back from his high-school portrait. Nell hadn’t discovered very much before her company came under siege. Ernest had tasked her with finding out who the men were behind ConFed. He was gone before she could use anything she’d found out.

Now she was having a wild weekend of pain and pleasure with Mark Conners and beginning to wonder if she’d lost her mind. No one connected with the photograph of a boy who was now a man and the sketchy details on a written report. No sane person anyway.

Yet that picture had tugged at her sympathy. Her sources had said his senior picture was taken shortly after his father’s meteoric descent complete with a media frenzy and the family’s entire personal life splashed all over the news.

The haunted sadness in Junior Conners’s expression had touched Nell in places she’d ignored for years. Her own loneliness, brought on by her need to succeed, had been reflected in his face. Had she detected that same expression when she’d first seen him and read more there than she should have?

Probably.

It’s not like she hadn’t guessed who he was before he told her. Who else would have been able to convince her to stay? She’d been intrigued the minute she’d spotted him, and nothing had changed. The clause in her employee agreement just made it easier to give in.

Contract or no, he hadn’t promised her romance. He’d promised her sex, kinky sex. The kind she’d been too afraid to find for herself.

She squared her shoulders. It was time to grow the fuck up.

He knocked on the bathroom door. “Nell? Your suitcase is here. I’ll leave it outside the door.”

She opened the door, prepared to apologize for being an irrational fool, but his back was to her. “Sir, I-I’m sorry I walked away,” she said and then held her breath.

He stopped, but he didn’t turn around. “No, Nell. I’m sorry. You weren’t wrong. I should have been honest with you.”

“Yes, but—”

“We’re good, Nell. I promise.”

Words froze in her throat as he continued out of the bedroom. He hadn’t elaborated, but he’d admitted she was right. She had to conclude that he
wanted
distance between them. After all, just because he was kinky and dominant didn’t mean he wasn’t all man.

She sighed, not brave enough yet to march into the next room and confront him. Instead, she opened her suitcase and wondered what the hell she should wear. Finally, she pulled out a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. It was the weekend after all.

But first, a shower.

As the hot water ran over her skin, she let herself think about what had already happened. In the past, she had been inhibited in bed, keeping control, never losing herself in the moment. She had longed for a man to sweep away her objections and smash through her walls. Orgasms were occasional and unsatisfying. Mark had given her more in those short minutes than she’d been able to get from any man before him. It wasn’t that he made her come; it was that he gave her the right amount of pain that kept her in the moment. The release she had experienced under his hands was much more intimate than she ever had before.

It had hurt, and not in a good way, that he would react in such a predictable, male fashion. She had sensed his fear, his need to pull away from her after a spectacular connection. Even lost in arousal, she knew he had felt the same link.

She dried off and traced the stripes that glowed on her skin. They fascinated her. She smiled as she remembered the first time she’d asked one of her boyfriends to mark her. He’d been shocked and appalled. That disaster hadn’t lasted much longer.

As she clicked on her hair dryer, she sighed. That summed it up. Disaster after disaster had occurred until Nell had given up on having a love life at all. She lived vicariously through her two friends, who seemed to date incessantly.

The warm air flowed through her hair, and she flipped the strands over her face to dry the underside. One hand on the dryer, the other crept over her nipples. God, she was horny. Maybe it was the marks, or maybe it was the way his hands had gripped her body, but Nell wanted to fuck.

As if her fantasy conjured him, Mark was there at the door. “Nell, are you hungry?”

That was a loaded question. Her earlier doubts seemed irrelevant. Perhaps he didn’t feel the same intimacy between them, something that went beyond sex. But that didn’t mean he didn’t want her. How could she let him know that she wanted the mindless escape he seemed to offer? She turned off the hair dryer and opened the door naked.

For a moment, they stared at each other as she sought the right words, the right action to spur him to touch her. Apparently, she didn’t need words. He backed her into the bathroom. She sighed when he finally reached out and put his hands on her hips.

“Nell—” His voice was hoarse, and she touched his mouth with her fingers. He cursed abruptly and spun her around, her back to him and facing the bathroom mirror. His hand swept her hair back, and the vision of Mark’s dark hands mesmerized her as he cupped her tits. He was fully clothed; Nell wanted him naked. She wanted his cock in her pussy. She wanted him to fuck her and fuck her hard.

It was such a foreign torrent of need that Nell thrust back against him, demanding his response. She twisted around to press her breasts against his chest and bite his lip. He gripped her hips and lifted her onto the counter. Bottles scattered and tumbled to the floor.

He forced his body between her legs and gripped her wrists. When he pinned her hands to the mirror, she instinctively arched, offering him her breasts, wanting his mouth on her everywhere.

She wrapped her legs around his waist, rubbing against his hard length with a greed she’d never felt before. His gaze was focused on her tits, and she moaned as her nipples tightened in anticipation.

“Nell,” he said, and his voice was blissfully low and husky.

“Yes, Sir,” she answered.

“Damn it, Nell. I need you to remember your safe word. I need you to—”

She slid her pussy over his cock in a seductive message she knew he would understand. “My safe word is salmon, Sir. Please. Will you fuck me now?”

He growled, a sexy sound that vibrated through her like thunder. “Hold still, Anelda.”

She froze and wondered if a human being could burst into flames from frustration. The feel of the tile against the marks on her bottom, the cold mirror against her wrists, and his hot breath on her skin contrasted to drive her insane. She trembled and bit her lip, trying to be still.

It took all her strength to stay frozen in place as he dipped his head and blew on her nipple. He released her wrists and said, “Keep your hands there.”

No no no, she thought. I want to touch you. I want to fuck you. Damn you!

He laughed softly as if he knew he tormented her. She wanted to curse him, to force his hand. But then, he cupped her tits, and his mouth devoured her right nipple. She cried out from the joy of it. Her hips frantically moved, desperate to rub against him. When his teeth scraped her aching ridges, she jerked helplessly.

Higher and faster, she reached for that pinnacle of pleasure, her breath coming rapidly, and her grip on reality slipping away. He pulled his mouth away and fingered her nipples between his thumbs and forefingers. “Stop.”

She sobbed with frustration. “Please, Sir. Please.”

His fingers tightened, and he thrust his hips, driving her closer to the edge. “I want to clamp your nipples and walk you around the room with a leash. I want to drive inside you so hard that your scream takes the paint off the walls.”

“I want to touch you,” she said and opened her eyes to meet his stare.

“Why?” He seemed genuinely puzzled.

“I want to feel…close to you, Sir.” It wasn’t easy to put it into words. She loved his dominance, the way he controlled everything, but she wanted to feel his skin, his heartbeat, his sweat. It was as if touching him would release the passion she’d so lacked with all the others.

“Where do you want to touch me, Anelda?” The way he said her name was starting to trigger an automatic flush of need through her bloodstream.

“I want to touch your face,” she said and dropped her gaze. She should have said his dick or his arms or something sexy. But she wanted to feel the way his cheeks angled away from his skull, the way his lips tightened, the way his neck corded when he fucked her. She wanted to feel the grimace of pleasure when he came inside her.

“I’m going to put on a condom, Anelda. And then I’m going to make you come. You are going to come many times, and I’m going to fuck you hard.”

“Yes, yes, Sir, please,” she said fiercely.

As he stripped off his clothes, her pulse leaped, and she indulged herself by studying every inch of him. He held her gaze as he put on the condom, and she let her focus drop to his cock. He was big, though not as big as the dildo he’d already used to fuck her. As much as she wanted him to pound her flesh, she needed rough tenderness from him too. And that was the thought that spurred her to reach out her hand, not to stroke his dick, but to trail her fingers over the shell of his ear. It didn’t make sense. She knew the danger of getting closer to him, but she’d never been one to back down from trouble. And he was definitely trouble.

She moved over the perfect stretch of his neck and back up to the granite tightness of his jaw. She reveled in the way his muscles rippled beneath her touch as he clenched his teeth.

His skin was rough and rasped against the sensitive pads of her fingertips as she explored his features. His eyes had changed from the smoky brown color to the dangerous black she’d come to understand. He was on edge, and he wasn’t going to fuck her gently. She wanted him to take her as rough as his passion demanded, reveling in the way he desired her.

“I didn’t plan this, Anelda.” He gripped her hair with one hand and wrapped his other arm around her waist. He yanked her toward the edge of the counter. “I want you to scream.”

“Yes, Sir,” she said breathlessly, and then, he was there. He hammered inside her, stretching her. He jerked her head closer and devoured her mouth. His tongue demanded everything, every breath. His cock filled her, and he slowly drove deeper inside her.

He owned her, possessed her in a way she’d never thought possible between two human beings. The stinging pain of his grip on her hair only added to the intensity of her arousal. She twisted and thrust toward him, dragging her feet up his back until she could take every inch of him.

When he tore his mouth from hers, she inhaled deeply, trying to catch her breath, but he robbed her of sanity as he focused on her greedy nipples. He sucked hard until shards of pain and pleasure ripped through her. His dick drove against her clit, and she convulsed before she realized she was so close.

Her wail echoed in the bathroom, and he growled his triumph. “More. Louder. Give it to me.”

He fucked her harder, demanding more, driving her against the mirror. She dug her fingers into his shoulders and arched desperately. Her orgasm shimmered so near. She reached for it, needed it.

“Come for me, Anelda. Come for me now,” he demanded in a hard voice.

His order sent her reeling over the edge, and she screamed as ecstasy steamrollered her, setting fire to every inch of her skin. His grip tightened, and she reveled in the restraint as she twisted and jerked in the throes of her release.

“You, Sir. Please. I want to feel you come.” She gasped out her request.

Suddenly, he lifted her off the counter and carried her into the bedroom. When he dropped her onto the bed, he drove his cock deep inside her, and she cried out in need.

“You want me to come,” he snarled, his movements rough and hard.

“Yes.”

He pulled out of her pussy and ripped off the condom. She thought for a moment that he had thrown caution to the winds and would fill her pussy with his cum. She should have been appalled. Instead, she wanted it.

But what he did was even better.

He straddled her, his body keeping hers immobile. His knees pinned her upper arms, keeping her hands away from him. His cock was near her face, tantalizingly close to her mouth. She tried to capture his length, to swallow him down her throat.