Serving Pleasure (18 page)

His shirt fell to the floor, his skin begging for her touch. “You won’t be giggling when I get you.”

She smiled, even with the predatory gleam in his eyes shining at her. “Is that right?” She turned and bolted up the stairs. “You’ll have to catch me first.”

He growled, but he didn’t immediately follow. She heard the rustle of fabric as he dropped his pants.

Fun sex games were exactly what the doctor had ordered.

A primal urge screamed at her to run. Run because she wanted him to chase her. Run because she knew it would make the capture more exciting. Run because she wanted to submit.

The heavy footfalls on the stairs made her adrenaline pulse, though she knew he intended for her to hear them.

She bypassed the open door of his studio. Too obvious. He had to work for it.

The room next to it contained only a treadmill and a gleaming set of weights, which meant there was nowhere to hide, but more importantly, no place to fuck. She jogged to the last door in the hallway and closed it behind her with a quiet snick.

Her breath sounded loud in the stillness of the home. Enough light shined in from the slits in the blinds that she was able to see this room was as sparsely furnished as the rest of the house. There was a queen-sized mattress and box spring on a frame, the sheets and comforter mussed.

Rana backed up to stand in front of the bed.

She knew the instant he stepped foot on the landing upstairs; he made no effort to be quiet. His measured footfalls came closer to her, pausing once as he threw open the door to his studio.

Finally, he paused in front of this room. “I know you’re in there.”

His soft voice and the sensual threat it contained made the agony of excitement swell. Her thighs felt too sensitive, rubbing together under the short skirt.

The doorknob turned. Tall and imposing, he stood in the shadows. His shoulders filled the frame.

He was completely naked.

“Oh no.” She blinked twice. “You found me.”

Micah maintained his grim expression, though she caught what she might call an actual twinkle in his eye. “Take off your clothes, Rana.”

She lifted her chin. “What if I don’t want to?”

He took a step closer. His cock grabbed her attention, and she had to fight not to lick her lips in anticipation. It was so damn thick and curved, the tip bouncing off his belly button when he moved. Yummy.

He slapped something in his hand against his palm. She almost died when she recognized the leather belt from his pants wrapped around his fist.

“You’re going to be punished for running,” he said, still in that soft, dark voice. “If you don’t want to make it worse, you’ll strip right now.”

Hmm. Rana briefly contemplated calling his bluff. But what if the punishment entailed him leaving her high and dry or prolonging her tension? Nah, she wanted to get off, and quick.

She crossed her arms in front of her and grasped the hem of her snug shirt, pulling it up and over her head. She dropped it to the floor, savoring his swallowed groan. It didn’t hurt her ego to see the hot need in his eyes as they flicked over her bare breasts.

“Leave the shoes,” he ordered, when she was about to kick them off. Oh good. He liked her heels as much as she did.

She unzipped her skirt and let it fall to her feet, stepping out of it.

His cock twitched, impossibly growing larger. He groaned and wrapped his palm around it.

The sheets on the bed were scratchy against her legs. He prowled closer. “Turn around.”

She obeyed, a shiver working through her at the command in his voice. His hot palm came to rest on her back, and she jumped. He slid it up her spine, under the fall of her hair, where he gripped her neck. Inexorably, he pushed her forward to bend over the bed, her forehead against the cool sheets.

“Put your hands behind your back.”

She twisted enough to speak. “Micah…”

“Don’t talk.”

She clammed up, so wet her thighs felt slick, and complied. The thick leather of his belt surrounded her wrists. He tightened it until she couldn’t move. She gave an experimental tug.

The sting of his fingers connecting with her ass had her jolting with pleasure. “Don’t mess with it,” he snapped.

“Again,” she said, fully aware she was inches away from begging. “Spank me again.”

He paused. “Are you sure?” His voice was hoarse.

She didn’t answer, only raised her ass, and she felt another swat against her other buttock. He rubbed the flesh, his touch soft. “I want to paint you like this.”

She bit the inside of her cheek, imagining how lewd and wrong that painting would look.

“Don’t move.” The wood floor creaked as he walked away. Out of the room? Where the hell was he going?

Maybe to grab a condom. Funny, but for all the sex they’d had, they hadn’t made their way to his bedroom yet. She pressed her fingers against the heated skin of her ass and shifted on her high heels, feeling vulnerable and open. The sun had set outside, filling the room with shadows.

He returned, his size making a quiet approach impossible. She tensed, eager and vibrating with anticipation.

A featherlight, prickly touch over her lower back had her squealing. “What the hell—”

He shushed her, stroking her hip. “I told you. I want to paint you like this.”

Something cool and bristly—oh God, he’d brought a
paintbrush
—dragged over her ass.

At least he wasn’t actually smearing paint on her. Not that she was opposed to that, but the bed would get filthy. She breathed out a wheezy laugh as her inner muscles clenched. “Micah Hale, you’re a dirty bastard.”

M
icah didn’t respond
, his attention occupied. The room had grown dark with the dusk, but he could see well enough to enjoy the sight of the flat, wide brush coasting over the curves of her bottom. Long ago, he’d attended a show where the artist had covered the models with paint, and they’d silently posed for hours. He wanted to do that to Rana one day. He’d use passionate reds, hot coral, deep purples. She’d only pose for him, though.

The way she looked, hands bound, bent over the bed, ready for the demands of his body… If he came on her ass, would she forgive him? She would. She’d smile that sweet smile, roll over, and wrap her long legs around him, guiding his fingers to her pussy to ensure he gave her what she needed.

So tempting.

He tapped her cheek with the brush, and she jumped. Her skin was lighter here, her resilient flesh reddened by his hand. He traced a thumb down the crease and separated the curves. The little rosette of her anus winked at him.

Obeying his instincts, he traced down the crease until his finger rimmed the pucker. Rana gasped. “Micah, no.”

He eased away immediately. She twisted around to look at him over her shoulder. “I mean, your finger’s fine, but nothing else. Unless you have lube.”

The caveman within him roared to life at the realization she wasn’t denying him. “Later. I don’t have any here.”

She chuckled. “Oh most definitely later.”

He groaned and dropped to his knees. “Widen your legs.”

She did, her heels slipping on the hardwood floor. He placed his hands on her thighs and shoved them even farther apart, until he had room to kneel between them.

Micah had had some vague fantasy of Rana tied up and at his mercy. One where she sucked on his cock until she was ready to blow. Then maybe he fucked her until they were both spent.

He was hard enough to drive nails, though, and if she put her mouth on him, he wouldn’t be able to retain a hint of rational thought. That didn’t mean he couldn’t play with her, though.

He leaned in closer to her sex and inhaled the scent of her arousal. She smelled delicious, and the sight of the plump lips, the hard bud of her clit peeking out in between, made his mouth water.

He didn’t bother with a slow lead-in. He swept the brush over her clit, her response instantaneous. She gave a low cry, her legs widening. “Oh God, Micah, please…please, more.”

He pressed the bristles harder against her, rotating the handle in a wide circle. The muscles of her thighs trembled. “Like that?”

“Yes.”

Micah drew the brush away and slapped it against her pussy, loving the wet smack, her sob of pleasure. “Do you want to come like this?”

“No.”

He dragged the bristles through her wetness, letting them abrade her aroused flesh. Back and forth. Again and again, until she was shaking. “No? You don’t like me painting you?”

“I want you inside me.”

He hadn’t thought it possible for his dick to harden more. He dropped the brush on the floor and drove two fingers into her wet pussy. “Is that good enough for you then?”

Her entire body trembled at the sudden invasion. “No, let me… Fuck me with your mouth at least.”

He couldn’t stifle his groan. He pulled out of her swollen sheath and widened his fingers into a vee, holding her open. “Why don’t you show me what you like? Ride my face.”

Micah stiffened his tongue and rested it against her pussy. She froze for an instant, and then seemed to understand exactly what he wanted her to do.

She braced her legs and ground down on his face, her hips jerking, soft cries of ecstasy breaking from her mouth. Micah had to clench his hands to let her continue to take what she needed without interfering.

“Oh, I’m so close…” she moaned.

Understanding the desperation in her tone and the cues of her body, he groped for the brush on the floor. He flipped it over, pressed the tip of the wood handle against her clit, and twisted, agitating the nubbin. She stiffened above him, the flutters in her pussy intensifying until she was milking his tongue. He gentled his touch as the spasms faded and she lay still, half on the bed.

He couldn’t wait any longer. Rana didn’t move when he stood and grasped her hips, though she roused when he slammed his cock inside her.

He froze, realizing his mistake immediately. He’d never had sex without a condom in his entire life. God, it felt so good. Her wet heat and soft tissues surrounded his dick in a tight clasp. “Rana…I forgot the condom.”

Her head lifted.

Micah swallowed, his brief selfish hope that she would say it was okay, that he could stroke in her, shaming him. “Sorry. I…sorry.” He pulled out, the hot drag of her pussy making him want to weep.

“It’s just that—”

“Don’t explain.” She shouldn’t ever have to compromise, not with him, not on this.

He wanted that wet heat, though, without anything in the way. He pressed his cock against her, rubbing it in between the wet warmth of her folds. “Like this. Let me fuck you like this. I’ll make it good for you.” She was bound, but she was never helpless. If she shook her head, he’d stop. Even if he was perilously close to begging.

“Yes.” She shoved back, and he gritted his teeth, fucking her farther up the bed. He grabbed her hips, trying to hold her steady, but his sweat-slick hands skimmed over her flesh.

Her rising moans drove him to shaft her harder, making sure he tapped her clit with every stroke. He looked down, watching the red, angry flesh of his dick as it tunneled between the folds of her cunt, her hips churning back against him as if she couldn’t bear for them to part, her hands clenched, the elegant, long line of her spine and back. Her hair fell over her face, and he leaned forward to gather it, grunting as she screamed at the increased pressure.

He wouldn’t last much longer. Micah fisted her hair, and she gave a broken sigh. She liked the sting of his fingers grasping her hair as much as he liked her ripping the elastic out of his. His hips hammered against her with fast, hard jabs. “Who’s fucking you?” he demanded, barely recognizing the rough snarl as his own voice.

“You are, oh God, yes.”

“Say my name.”

For a second, he wondered if she would refuse, and he tensed in anticipation of securing her compliance. “Micah. Please. Harder, faster.”

He obeyed and gritted his teeth to keep from coming. He used his grip on her hair to arch her neck, and leaned over her until his lips were by her ear. “Who do you belong to?”

Nothing.

He bit her neck, and then sucked at the bruise. “Tell me,” he demanded, even as he cursed himself. This was terrible. A terrible, horrible question to be demanding from her.

She was silent but for her uneven breaths. Her lips worked, but no sound came out.

He growled, his frustration making his hips pick up a brutal speed. Her feet left the floor as he grabbed her by the hips and fucked the folds of her pussy.

She screamed, a high sound, as she came. At the last possible second, he pulled away and grasped his cock, his come spilling on her upturned ass.

His legs nearly gave out on the aftermath, and he braced himself by resting his hands on either side of her body, which was draped lax over his bed, bound and destroyed, his release standing out on her soft brown flesh.

Mine.

W
ho the hell
was calling her?

Rana rolled over and groped for the offensively ringing phone. “’Lo?”

There was silence on the other end, and then a tentative female voice. “Hello?”

She yawned. “Yes?”

“Pardon me. I’m looking for Micah… Do I have the right number?”

Rana’s eyes popped open. Oh God. She wasn’t in her room, she was in Micah’s. And she’d just answered his telephone.

Her eyes narrowed. For some woman with a crisp British accent, who happened to be calling at the ungodly hour of… Rana checked the clock. Four a.m.

Which made it a perfectly decent time to call in the UK. Rana tamped down her unhealthy surge of jealousy. “Um, I’m sorry.” She sat up straight. She was alone in his bed, the blinds closed so tightly it was dark. His side was rumpled but empty. “He’s not here right now. I can go try to find him though…”

“No. No, that’s okay.” The woman cleared her throat. “This is his mother. May I ask who this is?”

Rana winced and dropped back to the pillow. Oh God, his mother. Mortification made her mute.

She had no idea what kind of parents Micah had, but she could well imagine what her mother would say if a strange man answered her phone in the middle of the night.

Did you kill my daughter?

Or, alternatively, and far more likely:
Give Rana the phone. Rana, really. No boy is going to respect you if you bring them home with you.

Rana made a face.
What are you worried about? It’s not like he’s ever going to take you to Sunday brunch with his mom.

Still, it was his mother.

“Hello?”

“Um. Sorry. I’m…um. I’m his…his model.”

“His model.”

Well, fuck, she
was
his model, but she barely believed that stammered explanation.

Rana got up and swung her legs over the edge of the bed, tugging on the sheet. It was all kinds of icky to be on the phone with Micah’s mother when she was nude. “Let me see if I can get him. I mean. I’m sure he’s in the house.” She winced. Wouldn’t his model know where her employer was?

“If you two are in his house, he’s probably in his studio,” his mother said, and this time Rana didn’t imagine the thread of laughter in the other woman’s words. “Don’t bother disturbing him. What is your name, dear?”

She swallowed. “Rana.”

“Rana. Leave him be. I’m sorry to have woken you. I know Micah’s always awake at this time, which is why I called. Tell him to call me back as soon as he can. I haven’t heard from him in a while.”

Micah was always awake at four a.m.? Rana murmured her goodbye and hung up. She sat there for a minute before taking a deep breath and coming to her feet, tucking the sheet around her like a toga.

Rana used Micah’s phone as a flashlight to guide her way out of the room, but she didn’t need it in the hallway. The door to the studio was cracked, letting out a sliver of light.

She pushed it open slowly, trying not to startle him. He sat in front of a canvas with his back to her. He’d put on a pair of jeans, but he was naked from the waist up.

She stopped a couple steps in. He hadn’t turned on the brightest of the lights, but there was enough for her to clearly see his back.

She’d felt the scars on him a couple of times but had moved her hand away quickly, mindful of the condition he had placed on their getting together. The last thing she ever wanted to do was trigger some sort of awful flashback when he was with her. Not when he was giving her so many delightful memories to tuck away.

She felt so guilty, but she couldn’t stop looking. She couldn’t count them. Over half a dozen? They were spread all over his lower back and right flank, shiny, two- to three-inch silver scars.

Artist Knifed in Limehouse Studio. Jealous Lover Leaves Rival for Dead.

She clenched her sheet tighter in her fist. Though she’d always preferred working in the front of the house, she’d spent enough time in a kitchen that she could estimate which sized knife could make cuts like this. Her throat went dry at the thought of someone plunging a blade into his back and side, again and again.

“You’re awake.”

She jerked at his low voice. He didn’t turn around but continued to sketch on the canvas.

“Yeah. You working on my painting?”

“Not really. Messing around. I’m sorry if I woke you,” he said absently.

She drifted closer, trying to look somewhere else, but she couldn’t. His back was gorgeous, long and brown and strong, the scars doing nothing to detract from that. They only…made her hurt. To think of the pain he must have been in. How close he had come to dying.

But for those scars, you would have never met him.
She shivered. Such a selfish thought, but she’d always been a selfish person. “You didn’t wake me. Sorry I fell asleep.” She’d been so tired after they’d had sex. She had a vague recollection of him readjusting her on the bed and tucking the blanket around her. They hadn’t talked about a ban on sleepovers, but she assumed that went with the whole casual-affair thing.
Don’t get attached because he didn’t kick you out of his bed as soon as you both orgasmed.

“It’s nighttime,” he said, as if that explained everything.

She came to stand behind him and placed his phone on the table next to him. “Your mom called.”

“You talked to my mum?” That brought his head up. He looked over his shoulder, eyebrow cocked.

She grimaced. “Yes. So sorry. I was asleep, and the ringer sounds like mine, and I guess I answered it accidentally.”

He picked up the phone, his lips compressed. “Don’t apologize. She likes to call me at unpredictable times.”

“She said you’re always awake at this time.” She paused. “Are you?”

He only grunted, which she guessed meant yes in Brooding Manspeak. “She must have gotten off her shift.”

“Oh. What does she do?”

“Nurse,” he said shortly. “Do you mind, I have to call her.”

“Nope.” She shook her head and tightened her hand on the sheet. “Go right ahead.” To give him privacy, she turned and walked over to the window. Of course, there was nothing to look at but her own bedroom, so she feigned interest in the peeling paint around the windowsill.

“Mum,” came his low voice. “You called?”

A burst of chatter came from the other end, audible even to Rana. She peeked over her shoulder to find him massaging his forehead. “Mum, she’s…no, she’s…Mum. Stop. No. She’s…my model, okay?”

She returned to examining the paint, tucking away the twinge of annoyance that description caused. Stupid to feel annoyed. She hadn’t
wanted
his mother to think they were sleeping together. Yes, she was his model. Okay. Fine.

“Is there something you needed?” A pause. “I’m good. As you can tell. Everything’s good. Look, why don’t I call you later. Ah…yes. I’ll tell her. Thanks.”

He ended the call and placed it on the table. “Mum says you have a lovely voice.”

“That’s nice of her.” Rana walked back to him, hitching the sheet higher around her. Deliberately, she brushed her arm against his, raising goose bumps all over her.

Would there be a time when this man’s body failed to arouse hers?

She felt a creeping fear she knew the answer to that.
You can’t make me fall in love with you.

He hadn’t. He wouldn’t.

“Is this an only-child thing? Parents calling in the middle of the night?”

“This is a parents-of-an-only-child-who-was-almost-killed-once thing,” he said, and the bitterness of his honest response caught her off-guard. A muscle in his jaw ticked. “Sorry. When I said I had to call her back, I wasn’t kidding. If she doesn’t hear from me, she gets anxious.”

Unsure of what to say, she leaned against his side. His muscles relaxed for an instant. Then he straightened, his body snapping to attention. She watched his eyes dart furiously from side to side, as if he was looking for something.

His shirt. Which he’d left on the floor of the bedroom.

Her heart almost exploding, Rana loosened her hold on the sheet and let it slip from around her body. “Since we’re both awake, maybe we should work?” Without waiting for a response, she dropped the fabric over his shoulder and strode naked to the couch. She sat down and curled her legs up under her. It seemed to be the position he liked best.

He stared at her for a long minute. He was facing her now, but she could see the reflection of his back in the mirror. The sheet hid his scars.

He wasn’t stupid. She knew that he knew what she’d done.

If she’d expected him to take the easy way out she had offered, she would have been surprised. He stood and stripped off the material covering him. Holding it in his hands, he walked over to her and dropped it in her lap. “I don’t need this. You’ve already seen it all.”

R
ana worried
her lip between her teeth. She didn’t move to conceal her nudity. Her nipples were perky, erect in the cool air of the room. “Don’t be mad,” she said quietly, instantly making him feel like a monster.

Scratch that. Like
more
of a monster. “I’m not.”

Bone-deep tired, and not the kind that resulted in restful sleep, he dropped down on the couch next to her. The scars on his side were facing her. She could touch them, if she so desired.

“I’m not mad at you,” he repeated, partially to reassure her, but mostly to remind himself. Rana wasn’t the problem. She could never be the problem.

He was the problem, forever and ever, amen.

She took the sheet and smoothed it over her until it covered her thighs, her breasts. “Okay.”

She didn’t believe him. He rolled his lips in, trying to figure out how to reassure her when he could barely articulate anything anymore. “I don’t like anyone seeing my back, but especially not you.”

“Did you think I would find it unattractive?”

She’d asked him that before, and his answer hadn’t changed. No. Not the way she meant, at least. He shook his head.

He didn’t want to talk about this. But then he thought of the way she so sweetly trusted him with her body. The way she made goofy jokes to make him laugh. The way she’d just pretended to want to be naked so he wouldn’t feel ill at ease.

The way he had inadvertently hurt her earlier in the evening because he couldn’t do something as normal as take a girl he liked out to dinner. “You know what happened, right?”

“Someone stabbed you.” She paused. “A lot.”

The words crawled up his throat. Everyone who had been close to him had known what happened. The news articles had rehashed the story a million times. His therapist had encouraged him to talk about it, claiming he would feel empowered if he could choose the language to describe it himself. He’d scoffed.

But right now, right this minute, with Rana curled up next to him in his sad house, he wanted to tell her. A first. “I had a model. A sweet girl, Paige. I liked her a lot.” He gave her a sideways glance. “We never… It wasn’t like that. She was a student at uni. The modeling was purely a job.”

She nodded, her expression open. “Her boyfriend was the dickhead who did this.”

Of course she had managed to piece that much together, even if she hadn’t read the articles.

“Yes.” He thought back to the week or so before the attack. The things he could have said or done to avoid it. “I noticed a bruise or two on her wrists. One on her thighs. We had become friends, but I didn’t think to ask her if she had a problem at home.” His chest expanded and contracted. “I used to rent this space in a warehouse for my studio. I’d left the door open downstairs. I was looking through some sketches. Paige was wearing her robe, taking a break, playing with her phone. She saw him first, screamed.

“I was even bigger then. But I didn’t have a chance to so much as turn around before he stabbed me the first time.” He was aware of Rana sitting next to him, watching him with her deep brown eyes. But in his head, he was back in that cavernous warehouse, falling face forward, his nose smashing against the concrete hard enough to break it. After the first couple of wounds, his body had checked out, all of him going numb, even when the bastard had kicked him over to lie on his back. He’d played dead, but still his attacker had sliced his face.

He’d opened his eyes long enough to see the smaller man hoist Paige over his shoulder. As much as he’d wanted to, he couldn’t move a single muscle, though he was certain she was dead or dying too. He’d discovered later her boyfriend had knocked her unconscious when she’d heroically tried to stop him from hurting Micah.

He came back to the present to find Rana’s hand resting on his shoulder. Grounding him. “I don’t remember much else of that day. Except I knew the wounds in my side and back were going to kill me, but I was insanely upset over this.” He fingered the scar bisecting his lip and gave her a wry smile. “I was a vain man, you see. Quite proud of the way I looked. I could feel the blood running down my face.”

“Your model…”

“Barely a scratch. She managed to escape and get help. Smart girl.” Paige’s eyes had been haunted when she’d stood in his hospital room and emotionlessly told him of how she’d manipulated her boyfriend so she could get someplace safe. The man had killed himself before the authorities could find him.

“Thank God for that. I don’t know how you survived.”

“Neither do the doctors. I should have died from the blood loss, if nothing else.” He shrugged, still boggled himself. “They called me a miracle. If you didn’t know, that guarantees more articles will be written about you.”

She ignored the quip. Her fingers skated over his arm. “Would it be bad if I touched you?”

Touched his injuries, she meant. She’d brushed them before, brief glances while they were having sex. He hadn’t been triggered, though he’d worried over that possibility. After a brief moment, he nodded, but caught her hand before she actually could.

“I don’t have to,” Rana said. It was amazing, how she knew exactly when he needed her to be aggressive and when he needed her to be gentle.

“No. Just…let me control it.” He dragged her hand down, until her fingers rested against a scar. Holding his breath, he let go. He was braced for flashes of pain and fear, but there were none. Only the touch of her calloused fingers stroking over him.