No Romance Required (14 page)

Her hesitant voice fired his blood like a blowtorch to gasoline. “Tonight’s not the
night for that. Let me love you.”

“No. You don’t understand. I
need
it. I need to feel that much, and you’re the only one who can take me there. Please,”
she whispered, her eyes filling again.

Cory nodded, needing a second before he could speak. Her willingness to be vulnerable
humbled him. Every time she trusted him with more of her, he craved the rest. He couldn’t
ever get enough, and that scared him senseless.

He might not have gone through what she had with her mother, but he’d lost his own
father too young not to bear some scars. Even though his stepfather’s presence had
helped heal his family, there would always be an ache inside him for his birth father.
A small, very real one.

For so long, he’d used work to plug all the holes that he didn’t know if he could
do anything else. That was who he was. Except it wasn’t, when he was with her. She
made him want more. So much more. He was good at taking care of people, at least materially.
Perhaps he could figure out the rest if he tried.

If he fought hard enough.

He swept her up in his arms. “I need a table.”

…

Vicky frowned. That was not what she’d expected him to say. “What?” she asked as he
carted her into the dining room—the dining room?—and flipped the light switch.

“Hard of hearing all of a sudden?” A smile played around his cocky mouth as he set
her down.

She propped her hands on her hips. “Isn’t a bed good enough for you?”

“A bed is fine. I’ll just have more control in here.”

The word
control
singed all her nerve endings. “Oh, really. Want a safe word in case it gets too intense
for you, CEO?”

Slowly, he licked the inside of his lower lip. “You know about safe words?”

“Sure.” She shrugged, hoping she wouldn’t flush and ruin her casual routine. She’d
heard of them before Cory had revealed some of his bedroom proclivities, but she’d
done more research the last couple of weeks. If she was anything, she was a good student.

“For me, submissive only applies in the bedroom, and only when the mood’s right. I
have no need for a submissive beyond those walls.” His lips twisted. “And if I did,
you wouldn’t be my first choice.”

Though she suspected he was just teasing her, his words hit her where she was most
susceptible. Suddenly she was more interested in her candy-pink-tipped toes than in
meeting his gaze. “Do I need a safe word tonight?” she asked quietly.

“Do I?”

She grinned. Just a few minutes ago, she’d been in tears. Already the gloom was lifting.
“Yes. Absolutely. I don’t want to hurt you.”

He didn’t grin back. His sober expression caused a tingle in her belly that matched
the pulse between her thighs. “My word will be orgasm. Yours?”

His delivery was so smooth she barely noted his choice. Then she rolled her eyes.
“Nice pick. I’ll choose…” She settled on a word that would never be a joke to her.
“Love.” She expected him to argue with her word, but he didn’t.

He came up to her and cupped her face in his hands. “I know you’ve had a difficult
day. Doing this tonight might not be the wisest move. It could bring up things you’d
rather leave buried.”

She wanted to ask him what he meant, but she merely met his stare. “I can handle it.
I want this, Cory. Every bit of it.” She covered his hands with hers on her cheeks.
“Every bit of you.”

His Adam’s apple jerked, a sure sign she’d overwhelmed him. “If you change your mind,
tell me right away. I’ll stop. No matter what we’re doing or how far we’ve gone. I’ll
stop, I promise.”

“I won’t ask you to stop.”

He looked away, jaw tight. “I have a few things I need before we get started.” He
walked to the sideboard and grabbed three of her chunky white votive candles. He moved
to the adjacent kitchen and started playing with the CD player beneath the counter.
“Don’t you have anything besides hip-hop?”

“I just got a CD of Latin music for my workouts—” She didn’t bother finishing, because
he’d already found the right CD and turned it up. The sounds of a Spanish guitar coupled
with an insidious drumbeat filled the room, and she swallowed thickly. That sounded
sexy all right.

He returned to the room and set the candles on the table, lining them up like little
soldiers beside the bowl of ice he’d brought back with him, as well. Then he unknotted
one of her dining chair cushions and set it at the head of the table before sliding
a glance toward her. “Lighter?”

Don’t freak. It’s just Cory. Your longtime frie—frenemy.
“Second drawer.”

After withdrawing the slim blue wand and setting it aside, he glanced around. He hadn’t
turned on the room light, just the chandelier. It was a small one meant for mood lighting,
so it left the corners of the room in shadow. As apparently he wanted. “Oil?”

She said the first thing that entered her addled brain. “Vegetable or peanut?”

“Massage oil, Victoria.” He shook his head, smiling briefly. “Do you have any?”

“Yes. In my room.“ She started to move toward the door, but he held up a hand.

“I’ll get it. Where?”

“Dresser. The tall red bottle. It’s made from Japanese cherries.”

Another fleeting smile. “Perfect. I’ll be right back.”

While she waited, she dug her cell out of her purse and checked her messages. She
had two: one from Jill, letting her know that Mrs. Dealey hated their ideas for her
new sunroom and demanded she come over ASAP to discuss changes, and one from Cory’s
mother. Of the two, the first made her stomach hurt less.

When Cory returned, she was clutching one of the chairs. She tried unknotting her
fingers from the frame but couldn’t quite manage it.

“Are you all right?”

She didn’t answer. Between the situation with her mother, her fake relationship, and
whatever delightful perversions Cory had in mind, she needed to engage in some primal
scream therapy.

“Don’t worry. I intend to make you scream.”

Had she spoken aloud? Apparently so.

He cast a look down her body. “Take off your clothes.”

“Just like that?” She hated that her voice wobbled a bit, but who could blame her
when his hot gaze was scorching her from the inside out?

“Just like that.” His amusement came through loud and clear.

“You first,” she tossed back.

“Definitely not my first choice for a submissive.” He reached for his bow tie and
untied it with a decisiveness that made her melt. She’d been so distracted since he’d
arrived that she’d barely noticed how he killed his tuxedo. God, he was delicious.
And tonight he was hers.

Maybe permanently, if she played her cards right. He was so stubborn he’d only see
the possibilities of them as a couple if he reached the conclusion they could be one
for real on his own. After this evening, he’d discover one more layer to their compatibility.

She would, too.

He moved on to his shirt and undid the buttons, watching her all the while. “What
are you waiting for?”

She crossed her arms over the back of the chair and eyed him as if he were a fine
cut of meat. “I’m enjoying the show.”

“It’ll be my turn soon.” He slid off his tuxedo jacket and shirt in one smooth move,
then bent to rid himself of his shoes and socks. As he pulled his belt off, he caressed
the leather in a blatantly sexual way and she wet her lips, wondering if spanking
was part of his repertoire, too.

“Have you ever struck a woman?” His brow winged up and she flushed. Feigning nonchalance,
she directed her focus to his ripped torso with its happy trail of dark hair and almost
forgot what she’d intended to ask. “In bed, I mean. You know, with your hand or a
belt or a paddle.”

He dropped the belt on the pile. It coiled like a snake, poised to strike her eager
behind if she sassed its owner. “I’m not against it, but I prefer other forms of pleasurable
pain.”

Pleasurable pain
. In his cultured voice, those words made her practically drip with longing.

He unzipped his pants and stepped out of them, quickly following suit with his black
boxer briefs. Once he’d folded them, he added them to the pile and turned back to
her. Not smiling. Not speaking. Just allowing her to look her fill as if he wasn’t
the least bit concerned she was examining the contours and angles—and oh my, one incredibly
impressible angle in particular—of his body like the shoe collection at Nordstrom.

Except in this case, she’d taken all her favorite pairs home and could wear them over
and over until she couldn’t even walk straight. Or walk at all.

“Your turn,” he murmured.

Chapter Twelve

Here goes everything.

Vicky showed him her back and shot him a look over her shoulder. “You’ll have to unlace
my dress for me, sir.”

His eyes went molten silver as he stepped forward. “With pleasure.”

He took his time, caressing her with the sides of his fingers. The laces were more
for show than anything else since the zipper’s thin panel of fabric hid her skin,
but she’d found the concept sexy. When he finished, he walked around to face her.

Clearly he didn’t want to miss a minute of her peep show. Since she’d just played
voyeur herself, she couldn’t say she blamed him.

She cupped her loosened dress to her chest before letting it slide down her body and
pool at her feet. He didn’t make a sound at the sight of her in just her minuscule
see-through bra and skyscraper heels, but his fingers flexed as she reached for the
front clasp of her bra. One flick and that, too was on the floor. She’d bent to take
off her shoes when his sharp command brought her up short.

“Leave them on.”

“Whatever spins your windmill.” Scooping up her clothes, she dropped them on top of
his. Perspiration already sheened her skin, just from their mutual striptease.

At his silence, she glanced at him, expecting to see the familiar light in his eyes.
But he wasn’t playing anymore. He hissed out a breath and grasped her breast, nearly
making her lose her footing. His thumb flicked her beaded nipple while his eyes roamed
her face. “You’re fucking beautiful.”

He scooped her up and laid her out on the table, shoving aside the candles and bowl
of ice and tucking her head on the pillow with infinite care.

She looked around. “I can’t believe I’m on my dining room table. I eat here.”

His mouth quirked. “Believe me, so will I.”

To distract herself from blushing—and hopefully distract him from noticing—she squinted
up at the light. He grabbed her patterned scarf off one of the chairs, tossing it
over the chandelier so that the light bled through the vibrant reds and blues.

“Better?”

“Much.”

He loosened her hair from its pins and ran his fingers through the long strands. “Hair
ties on the dresser, too?”

Already he sounded breathless, and as excited as the thick cock she’d felt pressed
against her bottom indicated.

She craned her neck to get a better look, but he tipped her chin up and gazed into
her eyes from above. “Don’t look at me unless I tell you to. Okay?”

That question tacked on the end smoothed out all her arguments. “Okay. Yes, they’re
on the dresser.”

He disappeared again, returning with two bands in his hands. He swiftly tied her hair
off in twin ponytails, giving each a testing tug that might’ve made her whimper had
her teeth not been sawing into her lip.

“Normally a blindfold makes the sensations sharper, but I know how visual you are.”
He undid another of the chair cushions and slipped it under her ass, lifting her almost
embarrassingly high off the table. “You’ll come as much from what you see as what
you feel.”

“You told me not to look at you.” She cheated and sneaked a glance at him.

His eyes darkened as he feasted his gaze upon her, spread out for his taking. “You’ll
be looking at
you
.”

He picked up one of the candles and the lighter and she relaxed. Somehow she’d never
thought Cory would be the type to spend much time setting a mood. She smiled as the
flame caught and he cupped it in his palm before lighting the other two. It was nice
to see she could be wrong.

She eased up on her elbows as he set the lit candles between her legs, one after the
other. They were small, but the heat coming off them still warmed the insides of her
thighs. And other parts of her. She angled a little closer. The heat felt so good—

“You’re not to move.” His hand on her belly was a secondary warning. “No matter what.
Look at me now, Victoria.” She did, and nearly shuddered from the power in one simple
shared glance. “You have your safe word, and you’re free to use it when you need to.
But until that moment, you’re not to so much as twitch without my okay. Your safety
is most important. Understand me?”

Her mind whirled. Safety? He hadn’t gathered any ropes or ties. What was he planning
on doing?

Mutely, she nodded.

“Say it, Vic.” He reached for the oil and with the scent of cherries came understanding.
Oh
. Wax play. After her offhand joke the night he’d made his fake girlfriend proposition,
she’d done her research. Suddenly the intoxicating heat licking up the sensitive insides
of her legs didn’t seem quite so playful. “I don’t want to take any chances with you.”

She stared at the jumping flames. “I won’t move.”

And then his broad hands, coated in her fragrant oil, were on her body and she couldn’t
think, much less worry.

He stroked his talented hands over her stomach, hips, and thighs, working in the oil
with an almost brusque touch. She’d always enjoyed deep-tissue massage but this one
hit pressure points she’d never realized she had, invigorating her nerve endings until
even the flicker of the flame closest to the apex of her thighs tore a whimper from
her throat.

Without pausing, he slicked his hands and palmed her breasts, drawing them upward
and manipulating the stiff tips while she tossed her head back and forth. The music
was still playing, but she could barely hear it over her tormented sighs. He scraped
her nipples hard, as hard as her clit was throbbing, then twisted them, causing them
to stand up from her glistening breasts in tight red nubs. She’d never seen them that
hue before, as if all the blood in her body had rushed to those two points.

His touch gentled as he ran his hand up her throat, the tips of his fingers pushing
her chin back until her head and the pillow nearly dangled off the table. The blood
not trapped in her nipples rushed to her brain and she shut her eyes to try to stem
the overflowing sensations.

It was useless. He commanded her wholly. Unforgettably.

“So lovely.” His breath whispered over the shell of her ear and she startled. He slapped
a hand on her stomach to hold her still. “Goddamn it, I told you not to move.”

“Sorry. I just…sorry.” She bit her lip and reached up to grasp his shoulder, digging
into his muscles. What she wouldn’t give to see him slicked down with oil as she was
right now. “I didn’t expect you to be so close.”

Instead of reprimanding her again, he gave her a quick, hot kiss. “I’m about to get
a lot closer.”

He didn’t give her time to puzzle that out before he was prying her thighs apart,
opening her more to the teasing heat from the flames for a heart-stopping instant.
Then his mouth was there, building a whole other kind of fire as his tongue slipped
over her where she was already slippery with need.

With her hips lifted and her sex exposed to him, she’d become his very own
un
virginal sacrifice. Completely at his mercy. And it aroused her beyond belief.

She wasn’t some neophyte. She’d had guys do this to her before, without the oil and
candles. It just had never been Cory’s lips sealing over her center or Cory’s tongue
prodding her eager clit. Definitely hadn’t been his tongue coasting through her folds
and spearing her in one certain thrust. Driving in again and again, provoking her
hips to rise to meet him despite the hand he flattened on her belly. It held her still,
giving her a point to concentrate on in the maelstrom of passion he created with strong,
unrepentant sucks on her flesh.

Yoga had trained her to focus, to delay gratification, to hold a pose until the discomfort
disappeared. But it hadn’t trained her not to moan and jerk at the insistent pressure
of two fingers gliding deep, so deep that the renewed blood flow in her nipples tingled.
The colors above her blurred into a wild swirl and she breathed in and out in steady
pants. He nipped her thigh in warning, clearly feeling her building, and she fisted
her hands at her sides.

“I want to touch you.” She didn’t sound like herself. Her voice was thready, weak.
As if all the energy inside her gathered in the area he worked so skillfully with
tongue and fingers. And lips. Damn, his lips. “Please, Cory.”

Rather than answer—his mouth was a little busy—he turned the hand on her belly palm
up, and hell if the sight of his broad palm extended to hers didn’t make her eyes
go damp.

She gripped his hand, squeezing tightly at his increased suction. He whispered things
against her she could barely hear but somehow understood. Words like
beautiful
and
perfect
and the one that confused her and thrilled her most.

Mine
.

He said that one over and over until it became the soundtrack to the torrent of pleasure
crashing through her body, tipping her over into a climax so strong that she didn’t
know if he groaned at the gush of wetness against his tongue or her vicious hold.
Maybe both.

Afterward she drifted, barely aware of him moving back. She sighed at the loss of
contact but she didn’t open her eyes, content to just float. A sound like ice clinking
a glass made her eyelids flicker just as his warm palm covered her face.

“Wait, Vic.”

She was so far gone that she obeyed without thought. Her own scent on his skin filtered
into her consciousness and made her smile.

“Ah, there it is. I haven’t seen that smile since the orgasm I gave you in the yoga
studio. I’m greedy for them.” He pressed kisses to the corners of her mouth. “I want
to watch you smile every time you come. If you don’t, I’ll just keep trying.”

Eyes still closed, she tried to follow his lips as he drew away. He chuckled while
he moved the candles between her legs, his wrists brushing her with casual touches
that drove her insane. Her heart pounded, the roar growing louder as she quaked with
anticipation. She couldn’t decipher all the sounds and it was getting harder to keep
her eyes shut—

Then she felt the first heated drop on her skin.

She fell back against the pillow and moaned. The sting swiftly transformed into a
spreading warmth. At the end of the table, her heels clattered against the wood. She
wanted to plant her feet and raise her hips, anything to get him to soothe the flash
that arrowed straight between her legs.

“Do. Not. Move, Victoria.” His tone brooked no arguments.

Not that she had any to give. She was too loose and soft, too pliable and ready for
whatever he had in mind. Pressing her lips together, she gripped the table and waited.

More drops trailed down her torso. She gasped freely, incapable of halting the sound.
Lightning-quick, the burn worked its way inside her, lighting her up like a Roman
candle. The singe straddled the line of pain as the wax accumulated, the heat growing
until it changed into a sensation so pleasurable she nearly blacked out.

His hand was on her again, caressing the hot wax, his breath seeping out while he
molded it. A subtle pressure on her belly made her go still. He tugged on her silver
navel piercing, bringing her environment sharply into focus though she didn’t open
her eyes.

She didn’t need to. Everything was so vivid. The pulsing music, the faint scent of
the candles mixing with cherries and smoke, the delirious comfort of his touch.

She was his, had always been his, and now they both knew it.

His palms on her torso brought her back, warming her impossibly, trapping the fireball
inside her as she fought not to writhe. The area at the apex of her thighs smoldered,
and her body clenched futilely to be filled.

“Look now, Victoria.”

Fuzzily, she opened her eyes to the near-darkness and gasped at the candle sitting
in a pool of its own wax on her stomach, the dancing flame transfixing her before
she shifted her stunned gaze to Cory’s face. His eyes looked almost blue in the flickering
light, the color more intense than she’d ever seen it.

“You…you shut out the light.”

“We don’t need it anymore.” Watching her, he drew his fingertips up the flame and
she shredded the table with her nails to keep from moving. The sight was so erotic,
so beyond anything she’d ever experienced before, that she couldn’t suck enough air
into her lungs. “You’re the light now.”

His eyes riveted to hers, he lifted the candle and she moaned as the cooling paraffin
left her skin. The remaining wax tightened and the feeling traveled through her body,
inciting a powerful spasm in her core. Holding the candle close to her breasts, building
her fearful anticipation, he tipped it slowly, letting the drops encircle first one
nipple then the other.

Each strike made her gasp. And beg. Her vision blurred, her hands so tight on the
table that they cramped. Another spasm seized her, more earth-shattering than the
first. Ripping her open with its intensity. Then when she was sure, absolutely positive
she couldn’t take another second, he set the candle back in the holder between her
thighs and grabbed an ice cube, holding it against her bared nipple, surrounded in
hot wax. His other hand cupped her, fingers spearing deep.

And she screamed.

Her climax sliced through her like a whip. She came harder than she ever had in her
life, her orgasm even more devastating because that taunting flame between her legs
never let her forget the consequences of giving in to her body’s demands.

If she so much as twitched, she’d get burned. In her necessary stillness she found
the purest pleasure she’d ever known.

Panting, he dropped his forehead to hers. “Thank you,” he said, voice ragged.

Vicky cradled his head as her eyes flew open and locked on his. There weren’t words
to describe what they’d shared or how open she felt to him. She couldn’t hold anything
back in this moment. Not her love or her fear.

Lost to it, to him, she simply hung on.

Eventually he eased back and stroked the melting ice over her trembling belly, making
her shudder. “Shh, Vic. Shh. This will feel good, too. Trust me.”