Stronghold (Stronghold 1) (39 page)

"No, not really."  She wound
her hands in front of her, feeling both excited and uncomfortable.  New
relationships were always a little awkward.  Especially when the other
person was staring at you like you were a particularly delectable treat.
 And of course everything was made a million times more awkward by her
acknowledgment to herself that she hoped sticking around meant getting naked
and doing lots of naughty things. 

She hated the whole insecurity thing over
whether or not it was too soon to do
that
 and would he respect her
in the morning, blah, blah blah... but Leigh had been right about it sounding
like Adam wanted to be her boyfriend.  Even if he'd never said the word.
 And she really didn't want to make more assumptions, but he'd flat out
told her that they were going to be seeing each other exclusively and that was
good enough for her.

It had been months, maybe years, since she'd
been with a guy that she wanted this badly on such a visceral, sexual
level. 

"Good," Adam practically purred,
stepping towards her.  Looming over her in that uber sexy way that he had.
 Angel's head tipped back and she could feel her pulse fluttering in her
throat as he leaned over and kissed her.

Not gently, but not roughly, he touched her
with nothing but his mouth, a firm press of his lips against hers.  They
parted and she followed, her fingers locking together as his tongue delved in.
 While she wanted to put her hands up on his chest, she followed his lead
and kept them to herself, making their only connection the kiss.

Then he pulled away, his blue eyes sparkling,
looking almost mischievous.  "So, want to go play some Halo?  I
want to see how I do against you."

Oh the jerk.  The rotten, panty-wetting,
pulse-pounding, pussy-teasing jerk.  She'd thought he was going to suggest
going to the bedroom.  Oh he was so going to pay.

"Bring it on."

Jerkface jerkface jerkface.

Mr. Grouchy had turned into Mr.
Tease and her panties would have probably caught on fire by now if they weren't
completely soaked through.  It was the worst game of competitive Halo that
she'd played in years, even though she still beat him.  

He'd decided that the perfect
place for her to sit was on the floor between his legs.  Which wasn't so
bad in and of itself; Angel actually preferred to sit on the floor when she was
playing video games.  More comfortable seating tended to make one want to
sink into it and relax.  On the floor she was forced to sit up straight
which kept her pretty alert.  

However, it was an entirely
different experience being on the floor between Adam's legs when there was no
one else in the room and she could feel him all around her.  Every time
she breathed in she could smell the subtle, spicy scent he was wearing.
 The heat from his body surrounded her; he was leaning forward so that she
could feel his breath across the top of her head and it made her skin tingle
with goose bumps.

Still, she probably could have
gotten past all that and kicked his ass no problem if it wasn't for all his
damn little light touches.

Every time it looked like she was
about to get the drop on him, he'd brush his fingers across the back of her
neck, or on her collarbone, or down the V of her sweater, over the soft fabric
covering her breast... and Angel's concentration would be shot for just that
critical split second it took for him to get back under cover or duck out of
her line of fire.  

So she was not only becoming
sexually frustrated with all the teasing, but she was becoming frustrated with
the game as well. 

"Dammit all to hell!"
she blurted out as he dodged again.

"We're going to need to work
on your language," Adam murmured, his voice a deep rumble just above her
head.  It took all of her willpower not to look up.  His voice was
kind of mesmerizing when he spoke low like that.  

"There's nothing wrong with
my language."

"Normally no, but when
you're playing video games..."

"Are you threatening to
spank me if I don't clean up my language?" she asked, only half teasing.
 At this point her nipples had been rubbing against the fabric of her bra
for about half an hour, her panties were almost uncomfortably wet, and if she
hadn't had the game controller in her hands she probably would have already
tried to jump him. 

Okay, maybe that was a lie,
because Adam was a little too intimidating to jump, but she would have been
working harder to try and get him to jump her.  

Maybe.  She had to admit
that she kind of liked being surrounded by his body while he teased her
mercilessly.  Good grief she needed to get herself together.  In some
ways she felt kind of pathetic, but on the other hand, her desire to just let
him do what he wanted made her
feel
 incredibly submissive.

And that just got her hotter.

The game paused and her fingers
tightened around the controller.  Now she didn't dare look up at him.
 Heat rose up in her cheeks.  Angel considered herself a pretty hard
person to embarrass, but right now that's exactly what she felt.  She bit
her lip to keep her from blurting out anything else stupid.

"Is that what you
want?" he asked.  She couldn't read his tone at all.  Was he
amused?  Interested?  Condemning?  She could feel her shoulders
hunching in, as if to get away from the male body that surrounded her even
though it wasn't touching her.

"No."

Angel squeaked as she was
suddenly lifted by her waist and turned over, her controller still clutched
uselessly in her hands.  

"I said no!"

"And you were lying."
 

SMACK!

"OW!"  He'd gotten
her on her sit spot, right where she would be most sensitive and the sharp slap
of his hand would hurt the most.

Although, considering the jeans
she was wearing, it's not like she'd left him much of a choice.  Damn
Leigh and her insistence that Angel wear the bling-y jeans!  They hadn't
thought about
this
 aspect of it!

"It's rather
interesting," Adam said, almost conversationally as he rubbed his hand
over the spot he'd just smacked.  Angel tried not to moan.  Or think
about how close his hand was to her pussy.  Didn't matter that she was
still wearing jeans, she could still feel the heat of his palm.  She
pushed her face into the couch cushion and hugged the controller to her chest.
 "You're not a brat exactly, which is good because I don't
particularly enjoy bratty behavior, but you're not exactly well-behaved
either."

"By whose standards?"
 Angel asked, taking a peek back at him through the curtain of her hair.
 But he wasn't looking at her, he was looking at her ass.  And she
became so interested in looking at him looking at her ass that she completely
missed the raise of his hand. 

SMACK!

"OUCH!"  He'd
gotten her sit-spot on the other side.

Well at least each one was
smarting equally now.  She always did hate asymmetry.

"That's what I mean,"
he said, chuckling, as he rubbed the new spot.  "You didn't say that
because you wanted me to spank you again, and you could have said something a
lot more insulting or sarcastic, but you weren't exactly polite either."

Angel rolled her eyes.
 "By whose standards,
Sir?
"

SMACK! SMACK!  She squealed
as he smacked each side.

"Now that
was
 bratty,"
he said, sounding disapproving.  Her insides seemed to shrivel.  

******

"Sorry, Sir."  Her
voice was low but contrite.

While Adam didn't normally like
being called Sir outside of a scene, and they hadn't exactly established this
as such, he found that he really didn't mind it from Angel at all.  He
hadn't meant to start a scene with her, but it seemed that she'd started one
with him.  Yet he couldn't even call it topping from the bottom.
 He'd heard the wistfulness in her voice when she'd asked if he was going
to spank her, almost like a shy little request that she wasn't sure she wanted
him to hear, and he hadn't been able to resist.

Not that he'd been able to resist
much with Angel at the moment anyway.  Sure, he'd been trying to distract
her while they played, but he could have found any number of ways to do that.
 Instead he'd tormented them both by teasing her.  

It had also been a self-test on
his control.  How much could he touch her, tease her, before he couldn't
resist moving beyond that?

The view down her sweater had
been very nice, although he had to admit he liked this view too.  Her
rounded ass was lifted by his thigh, her upper body laid out on his couch with
her arms tucked underneath her chest.  From the way her head was tilted he
was pretty sure that she was watching him, but he didn't meet her eyes.
 Everything about her body language said that she was feeling shy and
vulnerable and he didn't want her to retreat. 

No, he wanted to coax his lovely,
little submissive out to play.  

While she was a lot more
confident at Stronghold, he'd noticed that even there she wouldn't do anything
until he made the first move.  Here, in her regular clothes, alone with
him and on his ground, she was obviously feeling even shyer. 

Shy wasn't normally a word he
would have associated with Angel, but that was the vibe he was getting from
her.  And it made sense, he thought, trailing his fingers across the lower
curve of her bottom, enjoying the way she made little squirming movements as he
did so.  In some ways, her going to Chained before Stronghold could also
be interpreted as being shy in a way.  Shy about showing her true self,
about exposing herself.

And the fact that she was doing
so for him... well it just about took his breath away.  He would treasure
her submission all the more, not just because she was a strong woman and he
loved it when a strong woman submitted, but because she was so sweetly, timidly
hesitant about it.  This wasn't just about proving that he was dominant to
her, but about proving to her that he could be trusted with this revelation of
herself, that he would protect and cherish her for it. 

So he leaned down and kissed her,
just under the curve of her bottom where he'd spanked her a moment before, and
then pulled her up onto his lap, leaning back against the couch, adjusting her
so that his raging erection was caught between their bodies - which would be
the most comfortable position for both of them.

She burrowed into his shoulder,
her arms still curled protectively around her chest, although she finally
dropped the controller she'd been holding.  The way she snuggled into his
arms suggested more than just a desire to cuddle, she was trying to hide her
face against him.  He resisted the urge to chuckle and just enjoyed the
fact that she obviously wanted to be held by him even though she felt
vulnerable and embarrassed.  That was always a good sign.  

"Good girl," he
murmured into her hair, taking a deep breath.  She smelled like berries,
and she relaxed against him.  

Fingers touched his chest,
stopped as if testing, and then slowly crept across towards his shoulder when
he didn't say anything.  The light touch, the hesitancy, was making his cock
throb.  

"Are we going to finish the
game?" she asked in a little voice. 

Funny to think that at one point
in the past few weeks, he might have wondered if she was trying to play him.
 If she was just pretending to have that little tremor in her voice and
body.  Now the thought didn't even cross his mind except as a relief that
he'd moved past that kind of suspicion about her.

"Would you like to?" he
asked, shifting her so that she was leaning back and he could look at her.
 Her face was flushed and her pupils were definitely dilated, although she
was having trouble looking him in the eye.  Adorable.  "Or would
you like to play?"

Their eyes connected as heat
flared between them and then her gaze skittered away again as her cheeks
blushed even brighter.  Adam chuckled. 

"Your safeword is
Uncle," he reminded her, leaning down to capture her lips before she could
respond.

******

Hot and heavy,
 was
the first thought that went through her mind as Adam shifted, his weight
pressing her down onto the couch.  She opened her mouth beneath his,
fingers clutching at his shirt as he kissed her.  Deeply.
 Thoroughly.  Until she thought she might actually melt into the
cushions.  

He'd maneuvered himself so that
he was fully on top of her, one of his thighs between hers, and all that
wonderful weight practically crushing her.  Not that she wanted him to
move.  Who needed air anyway?  She'd rather have all that hot male
muscle pressed against her entire body.

It felt like her body was on
fire.  Sure, it had been great finally getting a kiss from him last night,
but that had been quick and fleeting... not like this where she could actually
feel his need pressing into her, his mouth demanding reciprocation.  This
was the kind of kissing that only came with real desire, that said she was far
more than just a body to scene with.  Angel could kiss like this for
hours.

Well, if she hadn't been so
ridiculously primed and horny, then she could kiss like this for hours and be
satisfied.  

As it was she felt like she might
actually burst out of her skin, she was so needy, itching, burning up like a
moth inside a bonfire...

When Adam pulled his mouth away
she suddenly realized that she was grinding against his thigh.  She'd been
completely unaware of it because she'd been so into the kissing.
 Immediately she went still, immediate embarrassment making itself known
as her cheeks burst into flame - and not the good kind.  

She tried to duck her head down
away from his gaze but he just chuckled and then pulled her sweater up.  

Oh... so that's why they'd
stopped kissing.

But he only pulled the sweater
over her head, not over her arms, and she found herself pinned to the couch by
her own clothing, unable to duck her body away so that he couldn't see her
face.  The expression on his as he looked down at her was pure masculine
smugness, and even though she loved that he was looking at her like that she
still couldn't control the impulse to hide.  

But he wouldn't let her.

As if the flames in her panties
needed any more fanning.  Puh-leaze.

How pathetic was it to be turned
on by impromptu sweater bondage?  It didn't even
sound
sexy.
 But being held immobile by the hot, dominating man that had one hand on
her sweater above her head, pinning her arms in place, and was running the
other hand down her bra strap?  Yeah... that had her panting. 

"So... how far do you want
us to play tonight?"  Adam asked - as if she was supposed to be
capable of coherent thought and speech when his fingers were playing along the
edge of her bra.  Her nipples were so hard she was surprised they weren't
drilling right through the undergarment.  "Angel?  How far do
you want to go?"