Hardline (13 page)

  
I barely registered relief when he stopped. My view of the room from the cushion of the couch was blurred with tears. He nudged my knees apart, and I jolted when his palms grazed the sensitive skin that had taken the brunt of his punishment. His fingers slid down the crack of my ass down into my wet sex and plunged deeply. I whimpered, overwhelmed by everything. My body was a live wire, numb and overcharged all at once. Despite all the punishing, I was soaked for him.

  
He withdrew and pressed a wet fingertip just inside the tight ring of my ass. “I should fuck you here. You deserve it,” he murmured.
 

  
I shook my head. I’d made it through the pain, but I couldn’t take any more. I didn’t think I could anyway. I didn’t know if he’d let me come at all, but even that maddening fate seemed better than what he was threatening now.

  
“Please don’t.”

  
A second finger entered me, stretching me.
 

  
My breath caught, and my brain came back to life out of the fog. My head came up off the couch and I tensed everywhere. “No! I’m begging you, Blake. Please don’t. I can’t.”
 

  
He stilled behind me and withdrew without a word. The relief came down on me like a hammer.
 

  
“Maybe not tonight, but I’ll have your ass. You can count on it. Do you know why?” He lowered, his lips grazing my ear. “Because I own you,” he whispered.

  
My jaw clamped down, some small thread of fight lingering in me. The tightness in my throat signaled the torrent of emotions surging its way to my eyes. Anticipation, pain, love. However many minutes or hours had passed had brought on a violent string of emotions shooting through me like a lightning storm.

  
“I’m going to fuck you, and God help me, you will
not
come until you say the words.”

  
With a grip on my hip, he slid his cock against the pulsing entrance of my pussy and pushed in hard. An almost feral groan filled the air, and I realized it was my own. A desperate kind of pleasure filled me. It slid through my veins like the most addictive drug, taking me straight out of my mind where the only thing on earth that mattered was his body in mine. He kneed my legs farther apart so I felt every thrust deep in my core.
 

  
“Mine.” He pounded into me. “You will never forget it again, Erica.”

  
His possession consumed me, took me someplace else. I needed it, I needed him. This. And I
was
his.

  
Mine. You’re mine. I’m yours. Forever.
Mindless, I repeated the words like a mantra until they lost meaning.
You own me. You own me. You always have.

  
“That’s right. I own you, baby.”

  
My eyes shot open. I’d said the words aloud. All of them. In the blind rush of wanting him.
 

  
“And goddamnit, you own
me
.”
 

  
His confession interrupted my scattered thoughts. Then he shoved into me so hard I screamed. His fingers went back to my clit, building me up again. Every muscle tensed, but he held my arms firmly. He trapped me in the pleasure, restraining me so all I could feel were his rough movements, the impossible friction inside me. The need to come burned through me like fire in my veins.
 

  
“Blake... Oh my God, please let me come. I love you. I’m yours...please...please. I can’t stop.”

  
“You want to come?”

  
“Please!”

  
“Then come,” he said.

  
On command, the storm in my body exploded. I clenched down hard, pulling him into me. Every muscle tensed, a seemingly endless heightened state of satisfaction. I sobbed with the pleasure, my sounds muffled against the cushions beneath me. Everything released, leaving me weak and trembling. Leveraging himself with a hand on the couch, he took his pleasure, claiming my body with the same passion and vigor as he’d claimed my heart. All of me. I took it all, wanting his possession to reach the soul of me.
 

  
He buried inside me with a final thrust, tense and silent.
 

  
Sweat cooled my skin. He covered my back with his body, enveloping me with his heat. My whole body seemed to sigh, weak as it had ever been. He finally released a shuddery breath and wrapped his arm around my rib cage. An embrace. Warm, and I wanted to believe it was loving. I flexed my fingers against his stomach, wanting to hold him to me, keep him close. But I was still held captive, and he didn’t release me.
 

  
“I love you,” I said.
 

  
As the words left me, I prayed he’d say them back.
Forgive me. Bring us past all of this.
But that quickly, he slipped out of me. Then I couldn’t feel him at all. Freed, I turned around. He disappeared into the bathroom. The door shut, loud in the quiet of the room.
 

  
Empty and cold, I sat on the floor and wrapped my arms around myself. After a few minutes of listening to the shower I moved to the bed. My legs could barely make the journey. I collapsed onto the cool sheets and pulled the duvet over me, wishing the heavy blanket were Blake’s arms around me.
 

  
I let the tears fall. Wave after wave, until sleep turned everything to black.

“Erica...wake up.”
 

  
I jolted awake, eyes wide as the now bright room came into focus. My heart was beating too fast, as if some latent panic still lingered with me. Blake was standing beside me, sipping coffee. He was fully dressed in slacks and a freshly pressed shirt. I relaxed a little, grateful he was there at all.
 

  
“We’re meeting Alex for lunch. He texted me that he was running late, but you should get ready.”

  
I sat up slowly and pulled the covers up to hide my nakedness. I rubbed my eyes, waiting for the sleepiness to ebb. I glanced at the clock. I’d slept for nearly twelve hours, but my body felt drugged, exhausted to the bone. Slowly I began to remember the night. I hadn’t had a drop of alcohol, but somehow I felt hung over. As promised, Blake had given my ass the beating of a lifetime last night. I searched for anger, but my heart just ached with sadness and regret.
 

  
When I sought his gaze, he walked away and turned his attention to his phone. “You should get cleaned up.”
 

  
I rested back against the pillows. My hand went to the mess of my hair, and my thoughts went to how our night had ended. Alone. So far apart. Cringing, I found the strength to get on my feet. My movements were far from spry as I walked to the bathroom. My muscles were stiff, and a dull headache throbbed behind my eyes.
 

  
I lingered in the shower, escaping under the hot spray as if somehow the water could wash away the lingering hurt that filled me. Thoughts of James and the mistake I’d made that both of us were paying for shuttered through my tired brain. Blake was fiercely jealous, but I could see the pain I’d caused him last night.
 

  
He’d walked away from me, leaving me alone with the intensity of what we’d done without so much as a word. We’d had intense nights before. He’d pushed me to the edge, and we’d crashed over together. For better or worse, we’d ended those nights together. Not last night, and when he left me alone, we’d crossed a line. He’d breached some new invisible boundary I’d never known was there. Perhaps I’d crossed a line too, with what I’d done to set him off. But the empty feeling he’d left me with wasn’t like anything I’d ever felt with him before. That emptiness cast a shadow on all the pain and punishment he’d doled out, making it all that much darker.
 

  
The heat of the shower was making me weak and tired all over again. I turned it off and stepped out to towel myself dry, acutely aware that Blake was on the other side of that door with my heart in his hands. We had to talk about what went down at some point, but it wasn’t going to be an easy conversation. My head wasn’t in the right place to pitch Alex right now either, but somehow that didn’t matter as much as it should have.
 

  
Blake worked at his laptop while I dressed for the meeting. We didn’t speak. As if compelled by some magnetic force, my gaze kept drifting his way. If he sensed it, he didn’t show it, his focus seemingly undeterred.
 

  
If he had wanted to talk, what would I have said anyway? Instead, I fell into step behind him as we entered the restaurant downstairs and took our table. I tried to mask a wince as I lowered into my seat. I couldn’t ignore the discomfort of my rather bruised ass, but I didn’t want to give Blake the satisfaction of knowing it bothered me.
 

  
When Alex arrived, he greeted me. I smiled weakly and kept up with niceties. Something about leaving the party early because I didn’t feel well. True enough, I hadn’t. He wanted to know more details, work out the logistics with Clozpin. I nodded, but the fire that might have taken over and pulled me through the conversation wasn’t there. I simply stared at my lunch, not hungry in the least. My thoughts circled around what had gone down between Blake and me. What else mattered when things weren’t right between us?

  
An awkward silence fell, but the part of me that might have cared simply didn’t. Blake’s hand went to my knee under the table and squeezed me gently. I glanced up. My heart pulsed against my chest at the contact, as if it had only started beating again in that moment. He frowned slightly, questioning me, but when I went to speak, tears filled my eyes.
 

  
“Alex, we’ll be right back,” he said quickly.
 

  
In a blur, we left the table and found some privacy at the other side of the restaurant. The darkness wrapped around us. His body came close, seeming to force the air from my lungs. I waited for him to touch me. I needed him to touch me or I was going to break.
 

  
Gently, he brought his hands up and framed my face. I sighed, my earlier fatigue taking hold again. He tilted my head up, bringing us eye to eye. Those eyes that undid me, that stormed with darkness and passion—everything I had come to love about the man—stared down at me.
 

  
I love you.
I wanted to tell him. I wanted to let the words spill out again and again until he said it back.
 

  
“Blake...”
 

  
“Are you okay?”

  
He thumbed my cheek. More contact, every touch overwhelmed me. My eyes brimmed with tears that began to fall now. My hands went to his chest, wanting to feel his heat, his strength.
 

  
“I can’t do this, Blake. Not right now. I’m sorry... I just can’t.”

  
He hushed me and brushed away the tears. “I can take care of it, okay?”

  
“No, I can’t mess this up. I need to be there.”

  
“You aren’t messing anything up. It’s fine. I’ll talk to Alex. Go up and rest.” He gripped my shoulders and skimmed down my arms, resting there only a moment before he left. Before I could call him back, he was out of sight, and I was alone again.
 

  
I walked quickly to the elevators, my head down to hide the mess of my face. I brushed away my tears but they kept coming. What the hell was wrong with me?
 

   
Back upstairs, I scanned the empty room. Empty, like my hollow, painful heart. I wanted Blake here. I hated that he wasn’t, but I was in no condition to face Alex and talk business right now. Ironic, since that was the entire purpose for the trip.
 

  
Without undressing, I fell back into the unmade bed. I’d woken without his touch and here I was, barely surviving without it. I began to drift off, ready for home, praying that somehow I could wake up and start all over.

  
* * *

  
I took a seat at the head of the conference table and waited for the rest of the team to settle around me. After sleeping away most of the afternoon in the hotel room and on the red-eye home, I should have been rested. Some of the heavy emotional fog had lifted. Enough that when Blake eventually briefed me on his meeting with Alex, my brain reluctantly shifted back into business mode. The terms they’d agreed to were good, better than I would have pushed for or even asked for. I wanted to be surprised, but with Blake behind the wheel, I shouldn’t have expected anything less. All I needed to do was seize the opportunity while it was there and act now so we could stay ahead.

  
“How was San Francisco?”

  
Alli’s voice interrupted my wandering thoughts. She’d settled into the seat beside me. I met her brown eyes, wishing that somehow I could explain all of this to her. My sweet, loving friend. I didn’t know where to begin. How would I broach the topic of being punished by my future husband because I’d been caught in a lip lock with one of my employees when Blake and I had been broken up? God, my current dilemma sounded all kinds of fucked up.
 

  
“Good,” I lied.
 

  
My whole body ached, from the sex, sure, but hours had gone by without any real emotion between Blake and me. On the trip home, everything had been matter-of-fact between us. But I could sense his hesitation, the strain that came through with the short delivery of every word, the careful avoidance of my stares as I silently begged him for more. A look, a touch, anything to let me know we were okay.