Up in Smoke (Crossing the Line, #2)(65)

She wanted to soothe him. To tuck herself into the space between his neck and shoulder and croon to him. But there was another, equally poignant side to her that wanted it rough. “Go ahead, Connor. Show me.” She worked her hips and his chest shuddered. “Make me sorry.”

Until she said the words, she didn’t know they were there, ready to spill out. It was as if some unknown part of her had communicated with Connor on a different level. As soon as the challenge left her mouth, the air around them changed. Thickened. Her heartbeat echoed in her ears as he withdrew from her and knelt beside her on the bed. She stopped breathing. What was he going to do?

Her question was answered when he clutched both of her ankles in one big hand and lifted the bottom half of her body off the bed, as if she weighed nothing. The position left only her head and shoulders resting on a pillow, hands still connected to the bed frame, the rest of her dangling from Connor’s grip.

His breath rasped in and out. “Make you sorry, Erin?”

“Yes.”

“No.” His calloused hand smoothed over her naked backside. “Use your safe word, goddammit. I’m drowning, sweetheart.”

She bit her lip hard and said nothing, suddenly craving what would come next. Anything. She wanted anything he could give her. All of it. When the first slap came, it wasn’t hard, but it knocked the breath out of her. Something akin to pleasure danced along her nerve endings, turning her nipples to tight peaks, but there was an underlying harshness to it. A harshness she was responding to. A burn. A flame-like edge. Yes, yes. More. “Please.”

He released a sound of frustration, but it was coupled with lust. “Please, what?”

“Another.” She could barely speak around the blanketing need. “Do it again.”

Connor’s growl ricocheted off the walls. His palm landed on her bare ass harder than before, sending reverberations of bliss through her middle, gathering at her core. Again and again, the firm smacks rained down, each one sensitizing her skin slightly more until she felt like a barrier had fallen. There was nothing to stop the vibrations from reaching her, the sharp licks of pain from biting her where she needed them. This was how her body was meant to be used. She’d been avoiding touch? No. She’d just never been touched by the only person who knew how.

One slap came incredibly close to the needy flesh between her thighs and she came off the bed with a cry. Oh God, if he didn’t do that again, she would die of neglect. Connor’s fingers dug into the cheek of her ass, distracting her from the sting. “Liked that, did you? Twisting and moaning like a greedy little girl. We know just what you need now, don’t we? Is this what it’ll take to make you stay put? Because I will hook you to this bed and land blows on your ass all f*cking day. Do you doubt me?”

“N-no.” Slap. “No.”

He dropped her lower body back onto the bed, letting her bounce once before he shoved her legs apart. “Can’t wait anymore. Want.” He inhaled on a curse when he gripped his erection and led himself between her legs. She expected him to slide home right away, but he fell forward instead to press their foreheads together, hand still wedged between their bodies. “Where do I come, Erin?”

“Between my legs,” she breathed. “Inside me.”

He rammed home with a hoarse shout against her neck. Sensation spearing through her belly, she automatically tried to circle his hips with her legs to account for the pressure, but he palmed her knees and kept them open. “Don’t try to limit me. I get all of you. I rule every goddamn inch of that *.” He rocked out slightly and thrust deep again, hissing between his teeth. “All tied up for me. Thighs spread. Tits begging for another suck. I’ve got you where I want you, so hang the f*ck on.”

Erin barely had the presence of mind to reach up and wrap her bound hands around the headboard before Connor started to pound. A scream was rent from her throat, long and loud. Oh, Jesus. He was huge and hot inside her, filling and stroking her slick walls with merciless drives of his hips. Beneath her, she could feel the bed inching along the wooden floor, hear the accompanying scrape. Nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide from the building pleasure. It gathered like a darkening storm as he rode her body, used it in a primal manner reserved only for starving, desperate men. She’d made him this way. Driven him to this state of blind abandon, where he snarled into her neck and f*cked her like he might die.

She would die, too. If he were snatched away now, she wouldn’t survive it. No me without him. No him without me. There was no separation between their bodies, just sweat-slicked, intertwined limbs writhing together on the bed. The storm began to break, trembling beginning in her thighs and traveling up to encompass her entire body. Her back bowed to accept the rush of pleasure, and Connor, sensing her oncoming release like only he could, shoved his forearm beneath her ass to angle her perfectly. His name fell from her mouth over and over, in time with the powerful rolls of his hips.

He gripped her jaw in his hand, forced her chin up. “You look at me when you come.” His pace increased until the sound of flesh slapping in the room was enough to speed her even closer. Connor leaned down and spoke very precisely at her lips. “You might escape everywhere else, but you can’t escape this. Me. I’m where you live.”

Erin launched into her climax, floating for an extended moment in the gripping euphoria of it before time sped up again and she was back to shaking and calling out for God. Connor. Both. He panted above her, his powerful body’s movements growing uneven. He closed his eyes and threw his head back, but she would have none of that. Equal measure. She would give him everything, every damn broken piece of herself she had to bargain with, but he would do the same.