Who's on Top? (15 page)

She did not want to work for Arianna at the price of her integrity. And she did not want to see Dominic after tonight—for fear her heart would begin to crave him as much as her body. She needed a controlling alpha male in her life as much as she'd needed those hot-pink sandals.

But tonight—tonight she planned a memorable evening. She'd let him play her like a violin and then take back her power when she left the bedroom in the morning.

D
OMINIC HUMMED AS HE GOT
ready for his first official date with Jane. Knowing that she wasn't planning to trash his character and aid Arianna in firing him made her even more attractive in his eyes. Go figure.

And he'd found her damned attractive before…irritating as that had been.

She was dedicated and thorough—she'd done her homework. She was smart—she'd seen through Arianna. She was sexy beyond belief. She was beautiful. And that hot-pink thong and the repartee were just the cherry on top.

Damn, I think I'm half in love with her. Maybe even two-thirds.

“Hey, Rusty,” he said to his cat as he finished shaving. “The hot babe who shared our bed last night? How'd you like to see a lot more of her?”

Rusty meowed.

“I'll bet she'd give you tuna if you were nice to her.”

The cat rubbed his head against Dom's legs and purred. He wasn't particularly nice to anyone but
Dom. In fact, he'd been known to hiss at women visitors and bat at their ankles.

He hadn't hissed at all at Jane. Just gave her the unblinking hairy eyeball. That was a true thumbs-up from Rusty, despite the fact that he didn't have any thumbs.

“You even shared my shoulder with her, didn't you, little dude?” The cat rolled to his side on the fuzzy blue bathroom rug, digging fast at it with his back claws. Dom always thought of
The Flintstones
when he did that, since the legs of the cartoon characters started rotating before they moved.

Just like Fred and Wilma, Rusty didn't move an inch, but his back legs whirred like an eggbeater. Finally Dom clued in to the non-verbal feline communication. “So you dig her, huh, little guy?”

Rusty went still and pricked up his ears.

“First one in a long time. I almost got sued when you bit Brianna in the calf.”

The cat grinned at him for a moment, before the grin morphed into a large yawn.

“Yeah, you rabid little turd. No biting Jane. You leave that up to me.”

 

H
E PICKED HER UP AT HER
apartment. The smell of burned nylon no longer permeated the air, which was a blessing. Jane herself smelled like jasmine and vanilla and oranges when she opened the door. He wanted to bury his face in her hair and lick her from ears to heels. However, that could wait until later.

“Hi,” she said.

“Oh, yeah.” He couldn't help his response. She'd piled her hair on top of her head, leaving dark tendrils curling in front of her ears. Tonight she had pale, sheer, shiny lips, and her smile rose over a lemon-yellow cashmere sweater. The infernal, torturous arrow rode in her cleavage again, amply displayed by the V-neck. She wore faded jeans and electric-blue toenail polish on her bare feet. Pantsuit Jane was nowhere in sight.

Impossible, but she looked even sexier than she had last night. Softer. More lush.

“Come in,” she told him.

He followed her like a dog.

“Would you like a beer before we go?”

At his nod, she pulled two from her refrigerator and popped their caps off. She handed him one and raised hers in a toast.
Clink.

“To you,” he said. “You never fail to surprise me.”

She colored faintly and drank straight from the bottle like a good Northern girl. He did, too.

She gestured toward the living room and he took a good look around this time, since he'd really only seen her hallway and laundry closet this morning. She had sturdy, comfortable furniture: an overstuffed cream couch upholstered in cotton duck; a faded blue chair that had seen a lot of years and held a lot of behinds by the looks of it; a lovely old mahogany coffee table, scarred from use. Magazines, books and newspapers everywhere—in towering but tamed stacks, neatly categorized.

Jane had a small television, circa nineteen-eighty-something. A stereo system of about the same age. CDs overflowed the mantel, displaying her eclectic musical tastes—everything from The Doors to Benny Goodman, from Mozart to George Clinton. At the moment Ella Fitzgerald sang moodily, throatily about love.

Above the row of CDs hung a modern painting of a woman with dark hair a lot like Jane's. Laughter filled her expression, her head thrown back, as she played a huge lime-green baby-grand piano. The dusky blue figures of two men and a woman lounged next to the piano, their mouths open in song. Yellow lamplight bathed the whole scene, and the woman playing the piano wore an orange dress with the sixties lines of young Jacqueline Kennedy.

“My mother,” Jane said.

“Does she still play?”

“No. We lost her twelve years ago. Breast cancer. They found it too late.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Thanks. It's been a long time.”

“How old were you when she died?”

“Nineteen. Sophomore year in college.”

“You were so young to lose your mother.”

Jane's eyes darkened. She shrugged. “You know, I don't think it matters how old you are. You can be seventy-four and it'll still just about kill you to lose your mom.”

His hand tightened around his beer bottle, but he said nothing.

“You lost yours earlier than I ever lost mine, Dom. In all the ways that count.”

He said nothing, just walked to her built-in bookshelves and studied various titles, as well as the photographs in front of them. Her taste in books was as eclectic as her taste in music.

“Do you ever see her?” Jane's voice was tentative.

Dom's shoulders tightened and knotted just thinking about it. “My grandmother sees her more than I do.”

Jane sat down on the squishy cream sofa and gestured that he should join her. “What's your grandmother like?”

He smiled. “Tolerant. Serene. Sees the best in everybody—even her crazy daughter. Has the same hairstyle since 1959, a fondness for blue gingham and still not a clue that those five-leafed plants in my mother's terrarium weren't going to bloom into tulips one day.” He shook his head.

“She'll take homemade muffins to her daughter, and when they end up being thrown at her, one by one, her only comment is that they don't make nearly the mess that the little banana custards do.”

Dom took a long pull from his beer and started to laugh. “She still says her pretty little girl is just headstrong and willful. She took up with the wrong people, you know?”

Jane looked appalled.

“It's okay. Really. I didn't pull the wings off butterflies or shoot dogs with my BB gun. I damn sure didn't get into drugs or alcohol—I'd learned that les
son. I just avoided going home. I practically lived at a friend's house, and his mom treated me like a second son. I lost myself in heavy metal and played bass—horrendously—in Andy's garage.” He smiled at the memory. “If you want to hear the worst rendition of ‘Wild Thing' ever recorded, I still have our demo tape. The one that was going to get us a recording contract.”

He looked around at Jane's living room again and decided it was neat, practical and interesting, just like her. He wanted to see her bedroom—and not for salacious purposes. He wanted to see where Jane slept, the place where she ditched her gray and beige suits and put on hot-pink thongs and blue toenail polish instead.

“What's with the blue toenail polish?”

She grinned. “It's me, isn't it?”

“Er, no.”

“Influence of my friend and business partner, Shannon. She's very L.A.”

“Ah.”

“I borrowed the polish because it just so happens to match…something else I have on.”

“Is that so?” Dom drawled.

“Yep.” She set her beer bottle on the coffee table. “We've just been waiting for my toes to dry.”

“So the beer and hospitality were for cosmetic reasons? I'm hurt.”

“Yeah, yeah. Where are we eating? I'm starved.” She retrieved a pair of shoes and slid them on.

Dom finished his own beer. “We've got reservations at Vito's on the Square.”

 

F
OR THE FIRST TIME
, J
ANE
marveled, she and Dom were having a normal conversation that didn't involve one of them trying to mock, best or outwit the other. She let wine and laughter slide down her throat while relaxation drifted lazily over her. They shared the best sautéed calamari to be found in Connecticut. They shared a green salad, too. And for dessert, cappuccinos with mouthwatering tiramisu.

When they returned to her apartment, she no longer cared about pride or who made the first move or who was on top. Neither one of them wore the pants, figuratively speaking. They shared the pants—and they took them off together.

Jane put on some slow, mellow jazz, and Dominic snagged a bottle of lotion from the bathroom counter. He coaxed her down to the rug and rolled her so she lay on her stomach with her head on a cushion.

She seemed uncomfortable and tried to tug his discarded shirt over her rear end. He pulled it off and she murmured a protest, covering it with her hand.

“Jane, silly, I can't give you a full-body rub that way.”

She murmured something and blushed. The words he caught were
big
and
butt.

He took a playful bite of the body part in question and she squealed and wriggled. He wouldn't let her go. “Stop,” he said. “You have a wonderful, gener
ous, delicious bottom. And if you insult it again, I'll have to smack it!”

Jane muttered something about political correctness and patronizing males, and he kissed her on the ear and told her pleasantly to shut up.

He smoothed the cream over her back, massaging it in wide, soothing circles, while she forgot to be outraged and sighed in pleasure. He rubbed at what seemed like multitudes of knots and tense areas, kneaded each one until it submitted and relaxed under his hands and she could have passed for a woman-shaped Jell-O mold.

He smiled and took full advantage of her lethargy, sliding his slick hands down to the small of her back, then the cleft of her buttocks and farther still. He spread them a little and worked his thumbs inward to her mons, circling and rubbing until she arched her back and moved against him shamelessly.

The sight of her that way was so hot, so erotic, that he hardened instantly. He replaced his thumbs with the fingers of his right hand and played her as she rocked and moaned.

“I want you,” he whispered. “I want you
now.
”

“Yes,” she gasped.

He didn't need a written invitation. He quickly made use of a condom, then grabbed her hips from behind and drove into her with almost desperate urgency. She was tight, wet and matched him stroke for stroke. Neither of them could get enough, it seemed. He rode wave after wave of taunting plea
sure, tension spiraling and building, coiling just out of reach.

Incredible,
he thought. And then,
I'm not sure I'll live through this one….

Beneath him Jane let out a low, sobbing moan and exhaled. “Oh,
yes
…” She arched her back in an almost violent spasm, then reached through her own legs to caress the root of him as she continued to orgasm.

Dominic jolted at the extra contact and spun instantly into his own climax, spilling heart and soul—and probably mind, as well—into the woman beneath him. With a weak, helpless curse he collapsed over her, careful not to crush her beneath him.

When they'd caught their breath, Dom nudged her onto her back and kissed her lips, then each breast, then her belly. She smiled and stroked his hair back from his forehead.

“You do things to me…” Her voice trailed off.

“And you do things to
me,
” he replied, kissing her again. “I think you're going to kill me. But I'll die a happy guy.”

M
UCH LATER, AS THEY STILL
stretched naked in front of the fire, Dom rolled to look again at the painting of her mother. “Tell me about her. Tell me about the rest of your family. It's your turn to open up.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Everything. And I promise not to file a report about it.”

“Low blow. That's my job.” But she said it with a smile, and he took it with a smile. He stroked her cheek.

“My dad and my brother live together near Glastonbury, on about four acres. My dad's depressed and my brother can't keep a job. I try to whip them into shape when I go for Sunday dinners over there. Dad should be on antidepressants and Gilbey…” She blew out a frustrated breath. “Gilbey builds strange things out in the barn. I don't know what they are, but they're really cool. Beautiful. He says they're sculptures. Anyway, every couple of months one of my loser cousins shacks up with them, too, and mooches until I come kick him out. I'm not too popular with the cousins, but they're a bunch of pot
heads and I don't care. Dad and Gilbey have enough problems without taking care of them. And I can't deal with Fred's drinking problem, Bill's fourth bankruptcy and Chuck's child-support dodging on top of everything.”

“These are three brothers? What's wrong with them?”

“Nothing. They just need to grow up. But they all hang out and underachieve together, so it seems normal to them.”

“And your brother's the same way?”

Jane hesitated. “Nooo. Gilbey works hard. Just not at any paid job. He always gets himself fired from those, no matter what I line up for him. I guess next I'm going to have to send out slides of his sculptures and talk to gallery directors in New York.”

“Jane, why is it your problem?”

She was silent. “Because. Because it always has been. Since Ma died. She was the one who held us all together. She told us what to do and how to do it—in the nicest possible way, you understand. Loving. But she was the general.”

Dom traced her collarbone and bent forward to kiss her. “And you stepped right into her boots.”

“Yes. I suppose I did. And when I didn't know how to manage a situation, I found a psychology book and learned how. I studied the grieving process and survivor's guilt. I studied motivation and positive affirmation and personality types. I kept searching for the answers to the human condition. Search
ing for control…trying to make our lives right again.”

Listening to her talk, Dominic understood her underlying issues with men. There was not a single male figure in her life who didn't need help. And Jane had learned to step in and provide that help whether it was wanted or not. She was the mother hen in a brood of big turkeys.

No wonder she kept her distance and assumed control with men. No mystery there. He was no longer surprised that she'd been so aggressive at their first meeting. She was used to managing and directing testosterone, familiar with hostility and well acquainted with men who needed fixing.

Dominic decided to seduce her all over again, throwing in a special challenge just for her. A peek into Jane's bedroom had revealed a lovely old brass bed covered with a hand-stitched quilt. While the quilt was probably a family heirloom, he was less interested in it than he was in the headboard of Jane's bed. Yup, perfect for what he had in mind.

He took her by the hand and pulled her up from the living room floor.

“Where are we going?” she murmured.

“Somewhere I doubt you've ever been before. Close your eyes.” She did as he asked. He snagged a dish towel from her kitchen and went to her.

“Trust me, okay?” He folded it, placed it across her eyes and wound it around her head, tying a knot to hold it firmly in place. Jane's breathing became a
little more shallow, a little bit faster. Her hair glowed copper in the firelight, which bathed her skin in soft gold. She looked gorgeous and uncertain.

Again he took her by the hand and this time led her into her bedroom, where he lifted her and set her in the center of the mattress. Then he helped himself to the curtain tiebacks at both windows and sat beside her. He took one delicate wrist, murmuring again, “Trust me.” He tugged it up to the headboard and fastened her to it, turned on by her quick intake of breath and her obvious reluctance.

“It's okay,” he said. “I promise not to hurt you or to do anything that you don't like. We can stop at any time, Jane. Okay?”

She nodded and didn't resist when he walked to the other side of the bed and took her other wrist, binding it, too, to the headboard.

She lay there, his beautiful captive, and he smiled—not at her helplessness but at her trust. It heated him, undid him, made him want to bring her all the pleasure he could. But he wasn't finished yet.

Dominic walked to the foot of the bed, took Jane by the heels and gently spread her legs as wide as was comfortable for her. Her breathing quickened significantly and her whole body went tense. “Shhhh. It's okay.”

He bound one ankle to the footboard and then the other so that she was spread-eagle. Then he returned to the living room for the lotion they'd left there.

“Dominic?” she called, her voice nervous. “Dom?”

“It's okay, honey. I'm just bringing in the camera.”

Jane gasped, tried to tug her knees together and shrieked, “Noooo!” She'd never in her life been this vulnerable to anyone. How could she have given him this power over her?

She couldn't see a thing, couldn't move, couldn't avoid his gaze at her most intimate areas. She felt bare, exposed and completely helpless.

His footsteps came closer and his deep voice washed over her. “I'm kidding, Jane,” he said. “Do you really think I would do that?”

His voice calmed her, even though she thrilled to it, as always. She stilled and shook her head.

“All right, then. Remember, all you have to do is ask me to stop and I will. But we're going to pretend that's not the case, okay? This,” he chuckled, “is a little bit different from the kind of role-playing you're used to at the office.”

She wet her lips, then swallowed. She nodded.

The timbre of Dominic's voice changed with his next words. “For right now, you are mine. And I'm going to do things to you you've never even dreamed of. I'm going to make you scream.”

Just his words had her panting. But instead of a more intimate body part, he took her foot in his hands and began to rub lotion into it, working the muscles near the arch and the ball. His hands felt like heaven, warm and assertive and powerful. Soothing and titillating at the same time. She sighed.

And then he started to make love to her with his voice. “I've got a spectacular view from down here, darling Jane. I can see the taut muscles of your calves and those very cute knees….”

She automatically stiffened, knowing where his eyes would travel next, and embarrassed.

“I can see the tiny spasms of pleasure shooting upward and the way your thighs tremble. And I think it's adorable how you're trying to press them together, straining against the ties at your ankles. But you can't, can you, sweetheart? Because I've got you naked and spread-eagle, and in just a little while, I'm gonna to eat you up until you're bucking and writhing and you
beg
me to stop.”

He leaned forward then, still massaging her foot, and blew a delicate airstream up and between her legs. “But even then I won't. I'm gonna keep eating you, keep sucking you until you go
wild
. Until you don't remember your name anymore. Until you get it confused with mine. I'm going to ruin you for any other guy, baby. No other man can make you come like I can make you come.”

Jane felt a series of hot flashes break across her body; her nipples hardened and she felt droplets of perspiration break out between her legs. Nobody had ever talked dirty to her this way.

Dominic made circles at her arch. “I'm going to rub your breasts like this,” he murmured. “Each one. And then I'm going to take your nipples into my mouth and suck hard, just like this.” He bent his
head, and his mouth closed around each one of her toes, tongue laving the clefts between them.

Ugh,
she thought.
What if they're not clean?
“Dominic,” she protested. “You can't do that—”

“I can do anything I want to,” he purred. “Remember?” He laughed softly. “You're so cute when you tense up like that. Did you know that every part of you tenses? Even that sweet part of you—it frowns at me. Makes me wanna just nibble on it, just like this.”

The breath hitched in her throat as she felt his breath
right there
. And then his tongue touched her—just a tickle, really—and she cried out, almost melting on the spot.

He chuckled, brushed the back of his hand across her belly and went back to the end of the bed, taking her other foot into his hands. Her thighs were trembling with need, and she ached for him to touch her erogenous zones, but he continued to calmly massage her foot and talk dirty.

“Your lips down there—pouting at me so pretty—they're ever so kissable, honey. Just peeking out, winking at me from their little hiding place. So hot. So pink. So good.”

She was going to spontaneously combust if he didn't stop. Or didn't start. Or, or, or something.

“And the way your thighs blossom into those gorgeous little cheeks of yours, mmm. So round and soft and sexy—the way they curve around and tease me. I just wanna take a big bite right now.”

The toes of her other foot were in his mouth, and
he sucked them as if he couldn't get enough. Jane felt the pull of his mouth in other parts of her, felt his lips everywhere, and she moaned.

He worked lotion into her calves next, hands moving slickly on her skin, gripping and manipulating her muscles. Slowly he came to the backs of her knees, then kneecaps and finally to her thighs, his thumbs circling and dipping higher, then lower in a maddening tease.

She stirred restlessly and he chuckled again. “What do you want, Jane? Hmm? Tell me what you want, baby.”

She kept silent, though, ashamed to say it out loud. She wasn't the kind of woman who gave directions. Wait a minute. Yes, she was. Just not—not in bed, where it was easier if people just read minds. In her fantasies, the guy always knew exactly what to do before she even knew it herself.

But Dom wasn't letting her slide. “Tell me, Jane. If you don't, I'll just have to stop. Do you want me to stop?”

No!
She shook her head.

“Then what do you want?”

“I want you to…” This was embarrassing.

“What?”

“I want you to…squeeze both of my breasts together and…put them in your mouth.”

“Your wish is my command.”

Oooh, did she like the sound of that!

Dom straddled her, cupped her breasts and suck
led them, driving all coherent thought out of her head. She hummed with pleasure. When he finally raised his head, she was near delirious. “Now what?”

“I want you to…” She didn't know if she could say it aloud. “I want—”

He stared at her from under half-closed lids, breathing hard himself. “Come on, Jane. Say it.”

She bit her lip.

“Say it!”

“I want you to go down on me.”

He broke into an exultant, wicked grin and slowly backed down, between her legs. Then he bent his head to her.

She screamed—unable to help herself—as he took all of her into his mouth. White-hot pleasure rocked her body and pounded in waves to her core, bringing her release, but a relentless one, shaking her like a rag doll as still he wouldn't remove his mouth, even though she twisted and bucked and cried out again and again. Finally his tongue gentled her, brought her back down to earth with slow, calming strokes. She lay absolutely spent and understood for the first time why the French refer to orgasm as “the little death.”

Though Jane couldn't believe that she'd let Dominic tie her up, she wasn't sure now that she wanted to be untied….

 

D
OMINIC LAY BESIDE HER
later, listening to her even breathing. He smiled in the knowledge that he had
bridged her defenses, challenged her clinician's superiority and engineered her release of control. Jane was no longer analyzing or managing his behavior—she was reveling in her own. He loved this side of her.

The question was: could she put aside her background and her training enough to enjoy a normal relationship?