Debauched (Undone Book 3) (4 page)

“No.” His hand slides around my neck and I have to repress the urge to jerk at the contact. He puts his hand on my hip, and steps forward, forcing me to move back. He does it again, and then again until I’m pressed against the wall.

I’m not going to lie. It’s thrilling. The kick of desire I feel is so strong it actually surprises me. It must be all the time I’ve spent thinking about him. Some sort of extended, silent foreplay.

He kicks my leg out, forcing my stance wider before he presses against me.

“What are you doing?” My voice is breathless.

He leans down and whispers in my ear, “Showing you.”

The frantic beat of my heart sounds in my ears and when I speak, I tremble. “Showing me what?”

“That what you’re feeling isn’t one-sided.” His fingers tangle in my hair, tugging until my head tilts and my jaw rises. I can feel his breath against my skin and I swallow the whimper.

I want him. More than I’ve wanted anyone ever. I’ve been infatuated over guys, angsty, giddy and longing, but this desire is new. Demanding. It terrifies me, because I know the truth. Which is bad enough, but he knows the truth too, which is worse.

I can’t deliver on all this heat and tension between us.

When it comes down to it I’ll freeze, which is what always happens. Chad knows I’m a fake. Pretending isn’t an option. I put a hand on his stomach, intent on pushing him away, but don’t. “That night was a mistake.”

“Maybe so.” He raises his head to look at me and when our gazes meet something electric crackles between us. “Tell me you haven’t thought of me.”

I want to deny, but I can’t. “I have.”

He grips my jaw, forcing me to maintain eye contact with him. “Have you slipped your fingers into your panties and come thinking about me?”

Say no.
“Yes.”

His fingers release my jaw and travel down the curve of my neck.

I’m hypnotized by him. Wanting to say no, to tell him to stop this madness, but the words never come.

He strokes over my collarbone. “There’s one small step from thinking to doing. To it being my fingers. My cock.”

I want so bad to believe in it, but I can’t. I lick my lips and shake my head. “You know I can’t.”

I can’t come with a guy. I’m defective that way. And no matter how much I want him it won’t work.

“I know that’s what you believe. But it’s not the truth.”

It’s Valentine’s Day all over again. Like we’ve picked up exactly where we left off. “And you think you’ll be the guy to change it?”

“Yeah, I do.” There’s no hesitation in his voice. Only utter surety.

Hope flutters in my chest and I hate it. There is no hope for me. “And why’s that?”

“Because you can’t hide from me.” He runs his thumb over my bottom lip and my belly dips and heats. “But even more important, I won’t let you.”

This, right here, right now is why I need to stay away from him. Appropriate responses slide through my head, but I don’t want to say any of them. All I want is to melt into him.

He makes me want to believe. And that’s dangerous because it’s not true.

He can’t fix me.

I shake my head.

“I’m going to kiss you now.”

“Okay.” The word is a harsh whisper.

His lips brush mine, soft. Sweet even.

My breath catches and holds.

Another brush of his mouth over mine. Back and forth. He doesn’t deliver the contact I desire. I stay motionless, barely breathing as he teases me, makes me want him even more desperately than I already do.

The tip of his tongue strokes across my lower lip and my nipples pull into hard, almost painful buds. I clutch at his shirt, fisting the material in my hands while I’m suspended in this time and space by the sensation of his mouth barely touching mine.

His teeth scrape over my flesh and I let out a gasp, bowing to force greater contact. In answer, he slides his hands down my arms and encircles my wrists, his fingers tightening around the fine bones, he raises them over my head.

Trapping me. Reminding me of his true nature and what that means for me. The protest flits through my mind but evaporates as his mouth flirts over mine.

He’s relentless. Brushing. Stroking. Nipping. Licking. Over and over, endlessly, until my whole body buzzes with him, all my senses consumed, my thoughts emptied.

He’s not even kissing me. Not really.

He’s playing with me. Like a cat toys with a mouse.

My nails dig into my palms as I clench my hands into frustrated fists, moaning helplessly when he captures my lower lip between his teeth and licks.

I arch, needing some sort of friction.

He inserts his thigh between my legs. My skirt is stretchy but it still doesn’t accommodate. He grips my wrists in one hand, while the other skims down my body, before bunching my skirt high enough for his thigh to slide against my swollen center.

I have no idea how he’s doing this but I don’t ever want it to end.

Never has anyone taken this kind of time with me.

He presses his thigh where I need him the most, at the same time brushes over my mouth.

I whimper.

Against my lips he whispers, “I can feel the heat of your pussy through my pants.”

His words only increase my arousal.

“Can feel your body straining against the desire to grind against me and relieve the ache.”

My hips jerk in response and I’m practically panting.

“But I’m not going to deliver.” The pressure between my thighs releases as he moves his leg. “I’m going to make you want it.”

I shudder.

He bites my lip. “Beg.”

I can’t repress the sound that emerges from my throat.

His lips cover mine, hot and commanding, taking absolute control as his tongue plunges into my mouth.

I’m so crazy I lose myself immediately.

And then he’s gone.

I chase him, but he releases my hands. For a second I’m free but then he grips me by the throat and holds me to the wall. Lust, so powerful my knees actually quake, storms away inside me. Instead of pushing him away, I clutch at his shirt and try and pull him closer.

He works his fingers under my skirt and into my panties.

Shock rolls through me and I freeze. But he doesn’t seem thwarted by my sudden tensing. He slides over my skin, before circling my clit, featherlight.

Nothing more than a tease. And I want more. My god do I want.

He meets my gaze, which I’m sure looks like a deer in headlights. “I want you to remember this, how you feel right now, and know I haven’t even started.”

He releases his hold on my neck, and I sag against the wall. His fingers leave my clit and hook into the cotton of my underwear. Before I can process what’s happening they are sliding down my legs. I can’t think of anything but the fact that I’m limp against the wall, trembling with desire.

“Step out.” His voice holds that edge I’ve heard in both Layla’s and Jillian’s fiancés.

I should say no, but I’ve somehow already stepped out. He rubs his thumb over the fabric and he slips them into his pocket.

All I can do is stand there, open mouthed, stunned, and more turned on than I’ve ever been in my life.

He smooths my skirt down my legs before straightening. “Ruby.”

I blink. “Yes?”

“Lose the guy.”

“Okay.”

“Good girl.”

I might hyperventilate.

He steps forward, cups my jaw and raises my chin. “And later, when you’re in bed, remember who you’re coming for.”

And with that, he walks away, leaving me confused, terrified and needy.

Chad

Walking away wasn’t easy. But it needed to be done.

I slip out of the party and into the tail end of the Chicago winter, letting the cold night air work its magic.

Michael’s parents live in the wealthy part of Evanston pressed up against the lakefront. The street is stately, filled with old neoclassic architecture and mature trees.

I walk down the block until I hit the lake, stopping to watch the waves crash onto the shore. Without a jacket the wind should be enough to cool me down, but with the imprint of Ruby’s panties in my pocket, I’m struggling.

I reach for them, my thumb circling the damp center. She’d been so fucking wet when I touched her it had worked on every last ounce of my self-control. I could have dragged her into a bedroom and taken her right then and there, but that would have defeated my end game. While I’d flipped her switch, turned her on, and made damn sure she was desperate for me to touch her, she would have frozen as soon as I turned more serious.

Even that brief moment I’d played with her pussy every muscle in her body had tensed, and, despite her arousal, if I’d continued she would have started thinking.

I breathed in the lake air, listening to the waves in an effort to think about anything other than slamming my cock inside her.

Because I wasn’t sure this was the smartest thing I’d ever done.

Pursuing Ruby will take work. Effort. Patience. And for what? We are not really compatible. We live different lives and have different goals.

But, Christ, I want to see her come. Want to be the one to make it happen for her.

Of course, the one thing we do have in common she won’t even acknowledge.

I may not have been interested in her, but I’d kept an eye on her since I’d met her. After a blind date with Layla, Ruby’s best friend, we’d parted ways only for me to run into her and Michael when I was out with a girl I’d been dating about six months ago. The girl didn’t last, but to my surprise, my friendship with Layla and Michael had.

Ruby has intrigued me from the start—the lone innocent in her group of kinky friends. The exact opposite of my regular group, which is probably why I’d started hanging out with Michael, Leo and Brandon more and more. I still see my friends, guys I’d grown up with, but they no longer quite felt like my people.

As soon as I’d met Ruby I recognized the signs in her. Not that the other guys in the group, all dominants themselves, hadn’t noticed too. We’d talked about it a few times, or mainly Layla had, with Michael telling her to leave it alone, but it had been a topic of discussion.

It’s pretty clear if you know what to look for.

Despite her obvious tells, Ruby is hardcore insistent she wants nothing to do with being dominated, claiming to anyone who will listen she doesn’t understand why anyone would want such a thing. But she can’t quite hide her fascination, even though she believes every word she says with her whole heart.

I don’t doubt Ruby believes it. I also don’t doubt she doesn’t understand why a woman would want to be dominated.

The problem is Ruby doesn’t understand how submissive she really is. And the scene in the hallway only confirmed that. She’s completely unaware she’d just submitted to my will. Sure, I hadn’t pushed her, or made demands, because that would be unethical and wrong, but once I’d touched her she’d surrendered to what I wanted without protest.

I could see the struggle in her eyes. The inability to lie to me when I asked her a direct question. Her easy agreement when I told her to ditch the guy. The shudder of desire when I’d called her a good girl.

I had zero doubts by the time that guy, her
date
, dropped her off he’d be gone. That even if sanity prevailed, and she processed she’d agreed to my demand without protest, she wouldn’t be able to let him touch her. I was equally sure Ruby would come tonight and think about what happened between us in the hallway when she climaxed. And that when she was close and not filtering her emotions, she’d think of how I’d held her by the throat and squeezed while I rubbed her clit.

The tricky part came with what to do about it. Because these weren’t things Ruby was remotely ready to hear. She has a laundry list of issues, and asking her to accept her submissive nature now was the equivalent of telling her she needed to go run a marathon tomorrow morning with no preparation.

But I can help her.

There’s something between us. Something hot and tangible, and after eight weeks of going out on dates with girls I couldn’t even remember and forgot the second they were out of sight, it’s not going away.