“Good,” he said, leaning in, kissing her, nipping her lower lip. “Restraint isn’t what I want.”
He wrapped his arm around her, drawing her up against him, her bare breasts pressing against his hard chest, the hair there abrading her nipples in the most fantastic, delicious way.
And then he was kissing her again, slow and deep as his hand trailed down beneath the waistband of her pants, cupping her ass, squeezing her tight. He pushed her pants down over her hips, taking her panties with them, leaving her completely naked in front of him.
He stood up, taking his time looking at her as he put his hands on his belt buckle.
Nerves, excitement, spread through her. She didn’t know where to look. At the harsh, hungry look on his face, at the beautiful lines of muscle on his perfectly sculpted torso. At the clear and aggressive arousal visible through his jeans.
So she looked at all of him. Every last bit. And she didn’t have time to feel embarrassed that she was sitting there naked as the day she was born, totally exposed to him for the first time.
She was too fascinated by him in this moment. Too fascinated to do anything but stare at him.
This was Chase McCormack. The man that women lost their minds—and their dignity—over on a regular basis. This was Chase McCormack, the sex god who could—and often did—have any woman he pleased.
She had known Chase McCormack, loyal friend and confidant, for a very long time. But she realized that up until now, she had never met this Chase McCormack. It was a strange, dizzying realization. Exhilarating.
And she was suddenly seized by the feeling that right now, he was hers. All hers. Because who else knew both sides of him? Did anyone?
She was about to.
“Get your pants off, McCormack,” she said, impatience overriding common sense.
“You don’t get to make demands here, Anna,” he said.
“I just did.”
“You want to try giving orders? You have to show me you can follow them.” His eyes darkened, and her heart hammered harder, faster. “Spread your legs,” he said, his words hard and uncompromising.
She swallowed. There was that embarrassment that she had just been so proud she had bypassed. But this was suddenly way outside her realm of experience. It was one thing to sit there in front of him naked. It was quite another to deliberately expose herself the way he was asking her to. She didn’t move. She sat there, frozen.
“Spread your legs for me,” he repeated, his voice heavy with that soft, commanding tone. “Or I put my clothes on and leave.”
“You wouldn’t,” she said.
“You don’t know what I’m capable of.”
That was true. In this scenario, she really didn’t know him. He was a stranger, except he wasn’t.
Actually, if he had been a stranger, all of this would’ve been a lot easier. She could have spread her legs and she wouldn’t have worried about how she looked. Wouldn’t have worried about the consequences. If a stranger saw her do something like that, was somehow unsatisfied and then walked away, well, what did it matter? But this was Chase. And it mattered. It mattered so very much.
His hands paused on his belt buckle. “I’m warning you, Anna. You better do as you’re told.”
For some reason, that did not make her want to punch him. For some reason, she found herself sitting back on the couch, obeying his command, opening herself to him, as adrenaline skittered through her system.
“Good girl,” he said, continuing his movements, pushing his jeans and underwear down his legs and exposing his entire body to her for the first time. And then, it didn’t matter so much that she was sitting there with her thighs open for him. Because now she had all of him to look at.
The light in his eyes was intense, hungry, and he kept them trained on her as he reached down and squeezed himself hard. His jaw was tense, the only real sign of just how frayed his control was.
“Beautiful,” he said, stroking himself slowly, leisurely, as he continued to gaze at her.
“Are you just going to look? Or are you going to touch?” She wasn’t entirely comfortable with this. With him just staring. With this aching silence between them, and this deep, overwhelming connection that she felt.
There were no barriers left. There was no way to hide. She was vulnerable, in every way. And normally she hated it. She kind of hated it now. But that vulnerability was wrapped in arousal, in a sharp, desperate need unlike anything she had ever known. And so it was impossible to try to put distance between them, impossible to try to run away.
“I’m going to do a lot more than look,” he said, dropping down to his knees, “and I’m going to do a hell of a lot more than touch.” He reached out, sliding his hands around to her ass, drawing her forward, bringing her up toward his mouth.
“Chase,” she said, the short, shocked protest about the only thing she managed before the slick heat of his tongue assaulted that sensitive bundle of nerves at the apex of her thighs. “You don’t have to...”
He lifted his head, his dark eyes meeting her. “Oh, I know I don’t have to. But you got to taste me, and I think turnabout is fair play.”
“But that wasn’t...”
“What?”
“It’s just that men...”
“Expect a lot more than they give. At least some of them. Anyway, as much as I liked what you did for me—and don’t get me wrong, I liked it a lot—you have no idea how much pleasure this gives me.”
“How?”
He leaned in, resting his cheek on her thigh. “The smell of you.” He leaned closer, drawing his tongue through her slick folds. “The taste of you,” he said. “You.”
And then she couldn’t talk anymore. He buried his face between her legs, his tongue and fingers working black magic on her body, pushing her harder, higher, faster than she had imagined possible. Yeah, making out with Chase had been enough to nearly give her an orgasm. This was pushing her somewhere else entirely.
In her world, orgasm had always been a solo project. Surrendering the power to someone else, having her own pleasure not only in someone else’s hands but in his complete and utter control, was something she had never even thought possible for her. But Chase was proving her wrong.
He slipped a finger deep inside of her as he continued to torture her with his wicked mouth, then a second, working them in and out of her slick channel while he teased her with the tip of his tongue.
A ball of tension grew in her stomach, expanded until she couldn’t breathe. “It’s too much,” she gasped.
“Obviously it’s not enough yet,” he said, pushing her harder, higher.
And when the wave broke over her, she thought she was done for. Thought it was going to drag her straight out to sea and leave her to die. She couldn’t catch her breath as pleasure assaulted her, going on and on, pounding through her like a merciless tide, battering her against the rocks, leaving her bruised, breathless.
And when it was over, Chase was looming over her, a condom in his hand.
She felt like a creature without its shell. Sensitive, completely unprotected. She wanted to hide from him, hide from this. But she couldn’t. How could she? The simple truth was, they still weren’t done. They had gone only part of the way. And if they didn’t finish this, she would always wonder. He would, too.
She imagined that—whether or not he admitted it—was why he had come here tonight in the first place.
They had opened the lid on Pandora’s box. And they