Dom Wars: Round Two Read online

  Chapter Eleven

  I spanked him again when I saw he was getting close. “Slower baby.” I stroked my hands along the rigid muscles of his back and sides then glided them over his perfect hips. “I want this to be the best orgasm. I want you to never forget it.” The point mantra I’d been emboldened with was gone. All that was left was Lucian, face down on the bed, his beautiful body stretched out and vulnerable, making those delicious sounds that had my core boiling and my clit throbbing. How did it get to this? I’d set out to humiliate him, teach him a lesson, and now I was desperate to bring him the most pleasure possible. And God the sight of half the slender cock in his ass was unbelievably arousing.

  I moved into position, carefully laying on him, rubbing the tips of my breasts against his silky muscles. I licked at his shoulder and bit and sucked the firm chord along the blade. He was heaven on my lips and tongue. It didn’t matter how or why I became the woman I did in bed with him, it was enough for me that I became her. Was able to. The freedom was delicious. To be as sexual as I wanted, with no care for whys. No care for ifs. Whats. Whos. Lucian gave me that. Lucian owned that part of me. Controlled it. Brought it out. She existed because of him. For him.

  I placed my weight on him, not moving all the way in yet. I worked my hand under him and held on to his delicious thick cock. He groaned and bowed up off the bed, giving me better access to stroke him.

  I sank the dildo in slowly and his muscles rippled with labored moans and grunts. I moved inside him and he matched my rhythm, sliding his cock in and out of my firm grip, working the dildo at the same time. In seconds Lucian was beside himself, his beautiful face pressed into the bed, brows drawn hard in a furious pleasure. God. Yes. Yes. I had to have this with him, had to see him this way. His mouth formed a hard line, jaw clamped tight, deep growls rumbling through his body, through mine.

  I kissed the side of his face. “Do it baby, help me fuck you. You feel so good under me, so good.”

  His mouth opened with a gasp. “Fuck me Tara.” His body arched up and I cried out, feeling his pleasure peaking. I moved the small cock in him faster, meeting his thrusts until he roared and thrashed with his orgasm. Holy angels, I was suddenly riding a comet through the universe.

  Pride slowly filled me at the sounds he made in the aftermath. Rapturous awe. “Oh wow. You liked it?” I kissed at his ear.

  “Can you untie me?” His voice was a hoarse whisper.

  Something in his tone alarmed me, worried me. Did he hate it? Guilt and shame slithered through me as I set him free. He slowly turned over and I sat on the bed next to him, resisting the urge to bite my nails.

  He pulled me on top of him and took my face in his hands. He stared at me and I waited for the verdict. No words. Only a gentle pulling of my lips to his as he kissed me with a tenderness that tugged at my heart. “What did you do to me, love?” He nipped gently at my lips, the reverent touch sending butterflies in my stomach. “What have you done?”

  The raw emotion in his words startled me. What did he mean exactly? Was it bad? It sounded like it might be. But then the way he kissed me said it wasn’t.

  “I need to hold you, love.” He pulled me close in his arms and buried his face in my neck. “I just need to hold you.”

  ****

  I untangled myself from Lucian’s embrace when he’d begun to snore softly. I crept out of bed then paused to turn and stare at him. He was really beautiful. Could have any woman he wanted. I tried not to think about how he likely had many. Waiting. But he seemed so sincere. Especially in sleep. Memories of what I’d done to him only hours before filled my cheeks with shame and desire. “What did you do to me…what have you done?”

  What did he mean?

  I made my way to the bathroom and slipped on the her bathrobe then headed to the living room. I checked to make sure he was still sleeping before picking up the phone and dialing Gramma’s room at the nursing home. We were officially done with our final night and challenge and she was a late nighter. It’d be one a.m. She was probably up watching a late night talk show.

  “Who is this?”

  “Gramma?” I whispered. “It’s me, Tara.”

  “Tara, what are you doing up this late? You should be in bed resting for your first week at that new job. When are you coming to get me out of here? I’ve been doing my damn exercises faithfully and that orderly helping me smells, I can’t hardly stand it. The food is atrocious and it smells like they clean the toilets with horse piss. Are you eating right?” The damage from the stroke left her words barely decipherable. Better than before, but still not good.

  Tears filled my eyes and I nodded. “I am. Nothing like your cooking though.”

  “The job is going well then? Are you still coming to get me after the first paycheck? I never heard of a company waiting six weeks to pay a person? How are you supposed to live that way?”

  “They all do that now, Gramma, to make sure new workers don’t skip out the instant they’re trained. You sound good Gramma, I’m so happy. Your speech has really improved.”

  “Thank you,” she said, proudly. “I talk every chance I get, that’s what the doctor said to do, so that’s what I do. To myself half the time, but I’m used to that anyway. Are you making any friends?”

  I smiled. “I did make one. He’s been…very helpful.”

  “He? You need to watch out for men, they want to help a woman for one reason and one reason only. You remember what happened with that last do-gooder you dated.”

  “Don’t…don’t remind me.”

  “Well you need reminding. They just want one thing, to get in your pants. And you need to be smarter than that Tara Lynn, you hear me?”

  “I hear you Gramma. I am. Nobody is… nobody is getting in any pants here.” I clenched my eyes tight then opened them with a smile. I heard a noise and turned, finding Lucian leaning in the doorway, naked. “I’ll call tomorrow about the appointment then. Yes. Okay, goodnight.”

  I hung up and turned. “Hey.”

  ****

  I suddenly felt naked, which was an odd thing for me. But the way Tara looked at me made me feel uncovered. Unacceptable. “Who’d you call at this hour?”

  “Um… my um… cousin. She’s looking after my grandmother.”

  Why did that sound like a lie? “Oh. How is she?” I walked over and watched her slowly tense the closer I came. I stopped just before her and despite my instincts to not touch, I slid my finger along her cheek. “You okay?”

  “Yes. Fine. Gramma’s fine too. Getting around more, talking more.”

  I nodded watching her. “Good.”

  She moved to put the phone back on the base then straightened and clasped her hands together. “Well. I’m hungry, you?” She headed around me to the kitchen and with every step she took away from me, a suffocating pressure filled my chest. I followed, watching her, a lot like one would a tragic accident happening before their eyes.

  She hurried and took out fixings for something. “How about I cook for you. Since you’ve been the one doing most of that lately.”

  I sat at the island. “It was my job. Remember?”

  “Oh yeah. Right,” she said lightly. “I knew that.” The pain in her eyes and tone confused me. Why should that bother her? Who’d she really call? She was being more weird than usual. I didn’t know how or why I might ask that question without looking either jealous or suspicious. But I couldn’t just let her do this. “Why… do you always do this?”

  “Do what?” She hurried about the kitchen.

  “Pretend like…” My throat suddenly shut the fuck down on me. Wow. That was fucking new and way out of left field. I lowered my head and shook it. “Nothing.” Was she going to shut me out physically too?

  I walked around and stood behind her where she cut an onion. I placed my palms on her shoulders and slid them over her arms. The need to smell her brought my mouth to her ear where I breathed in slowly with closed eyes. She raised her shoulder a little and I slid my mouth to her fac
e and pressed a soft non-threatening kiss to her cheek.

  “The challenges are over, Lucian.” Her reminder was timid, maybe testing.

  “I know that, love.” I continued kissing softly and she continued slowly retreating.

  “There’s no points for this.”

  I paused at her tone and pulled back. “Points?” Pain choked the volume out of the word as I stared at the back of her head. “Is that all you…fucking think about?” Anger slowly replaced the useless pain in my chest.

  She turned only her head. “Please don’t start that again. Don’t start pretending like this is more than a game, more than a job.”

  I raised my hands. “Of course. Because you’re all about the game, aren’t you love?”

  She gave a humorless laugh. “So are you, Lucian. Let’s not forget why you’re here. You surely didn’t come here to meet me, did you?” She chopped furiously. “No, of course not. But you did and that’s that. You and I are like business partners.”

  “With benefits.”

  She turned finally with an incredulous gasp. “That’s not my fault. I didn’t decide that job detail.”

  “And why are you doing this again? Tara? To help your Gramma?”

  She appeared confused at the challenge in my tone. “Yes.”

  “Really. And what part of what you did last night is actually required for that?”

  Guilt flashed across her face. “I was playing a role.” She turned back to her onion.

  “Ah yes. For points. Right. So… you didn’t enjoy… any of it?”

  She was back to furious chopping. “I never said I didn’t enjoy it. I may as well if I have to do it.”

  “So that’s it? You do all that and it’s just… fun? Pleasure?”

  She spun to me with her knife poised. “And what about you? Which sub have you married? Which sub did you keep for your very own to love and cherish? Hm? Oh? None? Ah, right, because you’re a Dom, that’s what you do, you get subs and you use them for fuck toys.”

  “I’ve never done that.”

  “You’ve never fucked your subs?”

  “I never used them.”

  “Oh? Where are they?” She looked around. “Why don’t you have any? If you indeed don’t have any.”

  “I…”

  She raised her brows anticipating an answer to refute. “You?”

  “I gave up the lifestyle.”

  “Really. That’s about what I’d say if I wanted another sub in my belt notch.” She winked and patted my shoulder. “Thanks but no thanks. This game we’re playing is enough game for me. I’d prefer it stay there.”

  “So is that what you think? I’m being nice because I want you for my trophy?”

  She gasped and nodded. “Right, that is the weird part. I’m certainly not trophy worthy so you puzzle me. Maybe it’s the challenge, the chase. Having to have it all? Is that what it is?”

  “Could it be because I actually like you?”

  “Oh God, don’t start with that. What, because you helped me over an emotional hurdle, that makes you suddenly qualified to start liking women you fuck?”

  “I guess not.”

  My numb answer seemed to really piss her off. “You don’t even know me!” she yelled.

  “No,” I yelled back, “you don’t know you!”

  “What?” She put down the knife. “What does that even mean? I know me! I know me very damn well. I’ve been to therapy thank you. I’ve faced my demons! Maybe you have some you’re not dealing with? Denial?”

  I raked a hand through my hair with a dry chuckle. “Denial. Okay. Yeah, I’m in denial. You’re in denial, love. We share some of the best sex ever and you pretend it’s nothing more.”

  “Best sex?”

  “You deny that?” I challenged, ready to go off on her if she did.

  “No, I don’t deny you’re an amazing lover, I mean you should be. That is, after all, your forte Mr. Lucian Dom Bane.”

  “Okay, fine, I’m a Dom, but that doesn’t mean I’m not also a man, a human. I can have sex with meaning.”

  “Can you?”

  The way she seriously seemed to wonder that stabbed me with fury. “Maybe not. Maybe I fucking imagined all of it. Maybe I’m the stupidest fucking man alive to actually think it meant more to you than just points, just sex!”

  “Oh no, don’t you dare. Don’t you dare take the self-righteous road. Remember why you’re here, what brought you here.” She stabbed the counter top with a pointer finger.

  “Self-righteous? You’re the one hiding behind the façade of helping your Gramma while you have the best time fucking a practical stranger and loving the fuck out of it. Tell me you don’t and add liar to your list of psychological hang-ups.”

  She gasped, with slitted eyes. “Helping my Gramma is not a façade! How dare you say that?”

  “How dare you accuse me of being heartless and incapable of love?”

  “Love?” Her brows furrowed. “The top Dom is defining love? How would you begin to know love?”

  I slammed my palm on my chest. “I know what I fucking feel? What do you know? You don’t even know yourself.”

  She slapped the counter. “I do know myself. I know I’m a survivor! I know I’m not going to get taken by another pretend do-gooder. I know I’ve spent seven years in therapy knowing that I know myself. Accepting myself. I even know I can’t survive that again. I’m not the kind of woman any man wants forever with, that’s what I know, and a few nights’ wild sex won’t change that. So don’t you dare tell me I don’t know myself. I fucking know!”

  I stared at her dumbstruck, finally seeing it. The assault she’d survived was merely a tip of the iceberg on a mountain of other betrayals.

  She hurried around me and I caught her arm and jerked her to my body. She was tense, brittle, barely keeping it together. The wrong push would shatter her, and yet, if I didn’t try I’d never forgive myself. Before she could protest, I kissed her, holding her face firmly between my hands and just devouring her, giving her all my need and hunger. “Tell me you don’t feel it. When we kiss, fucking tell me you don’t feel it.” The words rasped hot and furious.

  At hearing a sob of surrender, I pushed her robe off her shoulders and pulled her against me, my hands matching the fervor of my lips and tongue now. She latched her arms around my neck, her own hunger erupting, declaring what I already knew, what she needed to know. She climbed my waist, her moans filled with desperate whimpers and a terrifying need to be loved. I found a wall and put her shoulders against it and slid my cock in her.

  The cry she gave brought a crazed hunger roaring through me, intense need to devastate her doubt and show her the truth. I gripped her waist and watched my cock move in and out with relentless determination to possess and prove as I raked my gaze over her breasts, ending where her lips parted with climactic cries, her brows crimped in shocked pleasure. I didn’t want it to end. I didn’t want it to ever fucking end but my orgasm was suddenly the key that would set us free and I raced toward it like a mad man.

  A tingle of fire skittered along my spine and into my balls until it locked my body and consumed me. I growled through the vicious release just as she cried out my name. God, fuck. I pulled her against my chest and held her tight, turning and putting my back against the wall. I stayed with her that way while we both struggled to catch our wind.

  She whimpered in my ear. “That’s cheating.”

  I pressed my face against hers. “What do you mean, love?” Something told me I didn’t want to know.

  “I mean that’s like… slipping me a drug to sway my answer.”

  I rubbed my cheek against hers, closing my eyes. A small trickle of hope emerged at something in her voice. Defeat maybe.

  “It doesn’t count.” She returned my hug and I sucked up how good it felt.

  “Why?”

  “Because…” she mumbled, sounding exhausted. “I won’t be fooled again. Can’t be taken.”

  She snuggled her face in my neck
until my muscles screamed with a fucking barbaric need to protect her. “Okay, love. I won’t let that happen. I won’t let you be taken.”

  I stroked her back and walked with her to the bed and laid her down. I covered her and stroked her forehead, vowing. She’d never be fooled. Never be taken.

  Until I proved she was safe. Safe with me.

  Chapter Twelve

  An annoying sense of déjà vu struck me as Lucian showered and I made one last check around our quarters to be sure I hadn’t left anything behind. All my belongings were neatly packed, except what I needed to finish getting ready for the elimination dinner.

  The shower went silent and I fought the temptation to go and watch Lucian get ready. This could very well be my last opportunity to see him. The thought was like getting kicked in the stomach. What would life be like not watching him sleep, or pretending not to enjoy his casual beauty as he moved around the kitchen in nothing but his BVDs? And I’d probably never sleep again without the solid warmth of his body wrapped around me.

  Only when the bathroom door swung open and I got a face full of steam did I realize I’d given in. Lucian stepped out of the shower and toweled water from his face before he glanced up and paused.

  My mouth went dry under the impact of those blue eyes, and my gaze swept over his smooth skin, tracing the path of each water droplet. His ever-present hard-on twitched, saying he knew exactly what I was thinking.

  He took a deep breath. “Tara, love, just for the record, I’m sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have given up so easily on that challenge.” His tone held genuine apology, taking some of the heat from my frustration.

  I shook my head a little. “No, I’m sorry. I can’t say I would have reacted any differently if you had been in the tank.”

  He ran the towel down his arms, like he was trying to take my focus off his words. “The thing is, I’m not really afraid of water, Tara. Not in the way you think, anyway. But I’m fucking terrified of someone else drowning. The very thought sends me off the deep end.”

  I waited for details, but he didn’t seem to want to give any more.