The Espionage Effect(31)

His warm breath fogged over my cheek. His mouth barely touched mine at the corner. Then with a languid pace, he brushed his lips across once, then back again. “Only if you want to.”

Want. Body bowstring tight with anticipation, I arched upward.

Eyes closed, blinded to the room, bound by him, from myself, I kissed him softly at first. But then I opened my lips, beckoning him inside, wanting…needing…his help to set me free.





Alec kissed me, but his touch was so much more than mere lips molding, tongues sliding.

Like a slow-building tempest, pressure increased, not only at the point of contact, but farther away, deeper down. It tugged at first on the fringes of my awareness, prickling my skin, drawing me in until the force of him enveloped me, spun me, controlled my quickening heartbeat, commanded my shortening breath.

All of a sudden, my center of gravity shifted, no longer bound by the spinning earth but aligned to him as his strong arms pulled me from the bed and up into a straddled position against his heated body. The light hairs on his legs brushed against my inner thighs as he broke the all-consuming kiss.

Einstein’s general relativity flared to astonishing life as time itself seemed to warp. The mere seconds since he’d blindfolded and bound me transformed into a hazy incalculable perfect span of minutes, an enticing taste of the erotic hours yet to come.

My connected hands held above us, I lowered them, about to part my arms around his head to hold him while balancing myself. Yet his hands on under my triceps halted my action. “No,” he whispered. “Let me see you.”

Even though I’d been denied the ability to see him.

His callused palms continued down. The slight touch of the pads of his fingertips traced forward over my ribs, swept under the curves of my breasts. Gentle pressure lifted their swollen weight as he caressed the skin underneath as if smoothing on a trace amount of precious oil. Then the sweeping sensations drew shorter together, drifting higher.

My breaths shallowed as my focus, every ounce of awareness, sharpened into a pinprick of sensation. As my nipples drew taut in anticipation, his low growl vibrated inches from my lips.

Then warmth fogged over the column of my neck, danced over my chest, trailed lower.

A soft moan escaped my throat the second his mouth made contact. A kiss over my nipple, so soft and unassuming. Until it intensified: a wet pinching suction, the hard rasp of teeth. A tantalizing ache coiled tight there, then snapped a twinge of pleasure down through my center.

My lips parted on a gasp as my needy whimper resonated into the darkness.

I squirmed and pushed up from my kneeling position, craving more.

An instant later, his mouth pulled away. Cool air rushed across my wet nipple, rippling a shudder through my body.

With his steadying hand on one of my shoulders, his weight shifted, once, twice, accompanied by muted thuds behind me. Then both of his hands drifted down my sides to cover my hips. His lips barely touched mine, warm, teasing. Then he gripped my hips and lifted. My mouth collided with his, and our lips opened for one another into an urgent, deep kiss.

But the kiss ended as quickly as it began. He continued lifting my hips with a sudden hard rotation, my legs dragging over his thighs. Thrown off-balance as the world spun around, my arms fell forward until my elbows and the outsides of my bound hands braced onto the cool sheets. As my arms slid forward with the inertia, a pillow broke the rest of my fall, its downy support cradling my chin.

An instant later, his bare heat brushed over the backs of my legs. His hands returned to my hips, gripping, then lifting, propping my knees directly beneath my hips. His thighs moved between mine, then pressed outward, sliding my knees apart.

He leaned forward, and the warmth of his chest covered my back. Another weight shift was followed by a second pillow worked beneath my hips until it nearly supported my weight.

A spark of humor twitched the corners of my lips. “Satisfied?”

“Not even close.” His deep tone reverberated against my skin as more of his weight leaned onto me until I yielded from the pressure and sank onto the pillows he’d so carefully arranged beneath me.

With his knees solidly planted between my legs, his hips curved behind mine until his entire body molded around me. The softest touch pressed against my shoulder blade: a gentle kiss. Then the scruff along his jaw scraped across my back until another kiss brushed over my upper spine. Another followed a few inches lower.

“For you,” he repeated, his gruff voice rasping into the silence.

Another kiss landed, even with my waist.

I swallowed hard, then inhaled a deep breath as a low ache shimmered through me.

His lips lingered there, hovering over my lower back, a languid touch back and forth, as if that spot required more attention. “You need to feel, not think. That’s why the blindfold.”

Pace slowing, he dragged his mouth another inch lower, then paused. With a gentle suck, he drew my skin up between his lips. “You need to let go, not control. That’s why the bindings.”

Let go… So completely foreign, and yet something I desperately needed.

On a slow exhale, I did as he asked, giving myself over to him. Trusting him, to a degree. Trusting myself, more than ever.

The warmth of his hands gripped my hips again, reminding me of their presence, drawing me the rest of the way out of my head and into my body. His flattened palms dragged inward, skating over the globes of my ass, down the backs of my thighs.