HurtMeHealMe Page 8

  Nah, the two of them couldn’t even get within spitting distance without rubbing each other the wrong way. And besides, Trixie wasn’t Xavier’s type. Nowhere near.

  Xavier never played at the club and kept his liaisons on the down low, but Paul had seen him leaving with a girl on the odd occasion. Xavier never approached women, not that Paul saw anyway. Women always propositioned him—the ones who weren’t afraid of him, at any rate. And there weren’t many who weren’t afraid of him. Hell, most males were frightened too. You could almost hear the sound of their nuts shriveling when Xavier approached. The man was one humongous, scary motherfucker. And then there was all that ink covering his neck and skull. Not to mention those glacial eyes.

  The kind of women who were attracted to the big man were hard-core. Rough around the edges. The ones who liked their sex with a good dose of pain. And a whole lot of screaming. God only knew what Xavier did to those women. Paul didn’t even want to imagine.

  Trixie was quite aggressive as far as subs went. She had a crazy-ass sense of humor. Some—well, maybe most—would call her a brat. But she really did have a good heart. Paul suspected a lot of her prickly behavior was bravado and that deep down she was a little bit vulnerable. If she would let someone get through her spiky outer layers though, they would probably find her to be as soft as a marshmallow. Although pigs would have to start doing aerial maneuvers before Trixie would let anyone get close enough to figure that out.

  Trixie turned away from the patrons she’d been talking to and headed toward the bar. Her eyes locked in on Xavier and they stared at each other, neither one blinking or breaking contact. It was as if they were playing chicken with their eyeballs. Paul tried to get a read on what the fuck was going on, but holy shit on a handrail, turns out Trixie could do enigmatic as competently as Xavier.

  “Hi there, big guy.”

  Paul tore his eyes away from the live-action conundrum playing out at the bar to focus on the petite brunette standing in front of him. He eyed the woman, from her hair to the tips of her pointy-toed boots. She was cute enough. Her hair was long and brown, although not as shiny as Caitlin’s. Her skin wasn’t as clear and smooth. She had a look about her—hardened and cynical, as if she’d been around the block and seen some real bad shit along the way. Nothing like that innocent, doe-eyed look of Caitlin’s. And this woman’s eyes were all wrong anyway. They were dark, but they were small and close set and didn’t have that exotic tilt at the corners…

  Oh fuck! What was he going to do, compare every woman from now on to Caitlin? If he was, he was so screwed, because in all honesty, who the hell was ever going to measure up? His head started to pound, promising him one mother of a headache.

  All he’d wanted to do was find some warm, willing woman to take his mind of Caitlin. And there had been quite a few he’d met during the night who were willing. There was that little redhead with all the piercings, and the gorgeous Latino girl with long, curly hair and the kind of ass every guy would give his left nut to sink his teeth into. And those two stacked blondes who looked as though they’d just stepped out of the Playboy Mansion. And now this not-quite-Caitlin brunette.

  He was in mucho trouble here. These women were hot, each in their own way, some in more ways than one, but none of them were turning him on. He had a serious jones for one particular brunette. One who had a habit of running away from him.

  For god’s sake, the woman standing right in front of him was currently telling him she was an anal specialist. Trained to be used that way, she said.

  Instead of immediately dragging the woman to a private room and going anal on her to see if she was all she was cracked up to be—ha—he felt totally unaffected. He wanted to ask her if they gave out certificates for that sort of thing. Every other type of specialist he’d heard of had a certificate. Was there an exam? Who hands out those sorts of credentials?

  He watched the woman with a strange sense of detachment while she droned on and on, wondering if, after she’d finished her own advertising spiel, she was going to offer him a free set of steak knives. Then he totally zoned out thinking about Caitlin’s ass. How it had swayed provocatively as she’d walked in front of him in that little black dress she’d worn to dinner. How delicious it looked above him, encased in a tight pair of pants while she’d stood on that ladder. How warm and luscious it felt pressed up against his cock, and just how very, very special it really was. If anyone deserved a certificate for their ass, it was Caitlin.

  Little Miss Anal waved her hand in front of Paul’s face.

  “Huh?” he muttered, coming back to earth.

  “I just asked if you wanted to play,” she said in a coquettish voice, looking up at him from under her lashes.

  Suddenly this shit really pissed him off. Now the chick was acting all demure and coy, when a moment ago she’d offered up her ass to him—a total stranger—to use for his pleasure. Jesus H. Christ.

  The pounding in his head became a blinding pain behind his eyes. Paul couldn’t take it anymore.

  “No, I don’t want to play.” I want something fucking real, he mentally added. And he knew exactly who he wanted to be real with.

  Paul turned on his heel and left the club before his head exploded.

  * * * * *

  Caitlin turned over in bed and punched her pillow a few times. Like that was going to make a difference. It was four in the morning and she still hadn’t fallen asleep. She’d been tossing and turning all night. She tried to not think about Paul; she tried really, really hard.

  It was absolutely impossible.

  Paul, her beautiful blond Adonis. Who she now knew was not just an utterly gorgeous specimen of man, but also intelligent, funny, mischievous, kind, inquisitive, sexy, dominant, kinky and hot. Oh, so hot. And he affected her in ways no other man ever had.

  When Paul focused on her in that intense way of his and told her the things he’d like to do to her, she’d felt nervous and shaky and almost crippled with lust. Caitlin wondered if Paul had spent the last couple of days directing that laser focus on some other woman. Her gut twisted painfully at the thought. She’d never felt that proprietary feeling before. Not that she had any kind of claim on him. She’d had one date with him and then hotfooted out of there.

  Geez, she missed him. Was it possible to miss a man after knowing him for such a short time? Stupid question. Of course it was. If it wasn’t, why the heck had she sat around all weekend crying in her soup and why was she lying awake all night thinking about him?

  Oh Lord, she had it bad for that gorgeous, rope-toting Texan.

  She loved the way he teased her with that glint in his eyes, smiling his crooked smile. Loved the way he laughed all the time, deep and rumbling, and the way his eyes crinkled at the corners while he did so. How he’d held her hand and tried to comfort her when she’d told him painful things about her childhood. How he could be stern and strong and demanding. How he told her exactly what he wanted to do to her. How he touched her and made her body hunger and burn for him. How he could melt her into a puddle just by the brush of his lips against her neck. Caitlin shivered in remembrance.

  She finally fell asleep wondering what it would feel like to have those warm, full lips brushing against her mouth, how it would feel to have his tongue sliding against her own…

  He trailed a length of red rope along her naked body. She shivered and arched upward, seeking more contact than the featherlight brush of the silky rope against bare skin.

  One corner of his mouth quirked up as he watched her response.

  He wound the rope around her, crisscrossing it, making diamond shapes of red against her pale skin. She shivered with every brush of his fingers against her sensitized flesh. She moaned, needing him to touch the places on her body that his fingers had purposely avoided. Her nipples were tight and painful—rigid, distended points begging for his attention. Her clit throbbed and deep within her belly, she ached and ached to be filled by him.

  His hands stilled and he looked at
her, slowly, savoring her body wrapped in his intricate bonds. He smiled, his eyes filled with pride and burning with desire. The heat in his gaze alone stole her breath.

  He leaned down and kissed her throat. Then he placed hot, open-mouthed kisses on every inch of skin peeking through the lattice he had woven.

  He was naked and kneeling over her, magnificent, strong and powerful. His erection full and firm. She whimpered, wanting to free her hands and hold her arms out to welcome him into her, to wrap them around his shoulders and hold on to him as he claimed her.

  He opened her legs wide and brought his knees between hers. He lowered his big body onto her until she felt him hot and hard, pressing against her, demanding entrance.

  He pushed forward and drove into her body with one formidable thrust, fully seating himself inside her. She screamed at the shock, the bite of pain and the intense pleasure. His name was torn from her throat on a ragged moan.

  He covered her mouth with his and kissed her. It was hard and demanding and possessive—a clashing of lips and tongues and teeth. He swallowed her moans and took her breath into him. He kissed her as if he wanted to possess her mouth, own her, suck out her very soul.

  Rearing up onto his knees, he lifted her hips off the bed. He wrenched her body onto his cock over and over as he pushed himself into her with slow, deep, powerful thrusts.

  She looked into his eyes and was shocked by the savage hunger she saw there.

  Every cell in her body was straining for release and when it happened she was going to shatter into a million pieces. She felt herself falling out of control, coming apart. She needed to hold on to something, hold on to him. Her arms were bound, useless. She begged for him to help her.

  “I’ve got you, my darlin’,” he whispered as one hand went under her shoulders and lifted her off the bed, pressing her body firmly into his. “I’ve got you, just let go. Let go, sweetheart.”

  His body surrounded her, he held her tight in his arms. She was safe; he wouldn’t let anything happen to her. She screamed his name as the orgasm erupted within her.

  Caitlin sat up in shock. She was in bed and her alarm was going off. Her whole body was shaking and she was burning up. A trickle of sweat ran down her chest and in between her breasts. Her internal muscles were clenching as if she were on the verge of having an orgasm.

  She reached out and turned off the alarm. Shifting restlessly, she grabbed the tangled sheets from her legs and threw them onto the floor. Cupping her mound in her palm, she pressed down forcefully and squeezed her thighs together, trying to relieve the terrible aching. If she could only bring herself some relief. But after all this time, Caitlin knew it would be futile to try. It would only make matters worse. She knew the only way she could come. She couldn’t do it herself and since he was against extreme pain and whips for whatever reason, her dream man wouldn’t be able to do it either.

  Caitlin pulled her legs up, rested her head on her knees and sighed heavily. She breathed deep, slow breaths and resigned herself to yet another day in an endlessly long line of days where she would have to suffer the agony of extreme sexual arousal to the point of pain without any hope of physical release.

  When it was time to go to work later that morning, Caitlin had to drag herself there. She was usually happy to get up early each day to open her store. She felt pride in having her own business—it was something she’d achieved all by herself—and normally she would jump out of bed raring to go. On any other Monday, she would have her notebook that she kept beside her bed filled with new design ideas, sketches, new sentiments to write in greeting cards, all the stuff she would have come up with over the weekend.

  This time she had no new ideas. She felt as if she had totally lost her creative mojo. Not being in the frame of mind to tackle paperwork and supplier invoices either, Caitlin started the mind-numbing task of dusting the shelves and tried to talk herself out of the funk she’d gotten into over the last few days since watching Paul disappear in her rear-view mirror.

  * * * * *

  As he strode down the sidewalk that evening, toward number 207—the cleaning supplies store that wasn’t really a cleaning supplies store—Paul told himself he was just going to talk to Caitlin and get some answers as to why she had run from him. Her excuses for running away had bugged him all weekend and it was only because he didn’t like unfinished business that he needed an explanation. Closure. That was all it was.

  The shaky feeling in his limbs and churning in his gut weren’t nerves. No. That would have to be that taco he picked up last night for dinner. It was probably going to give him gas. He should get in, get some answers from Caitlin and get out. He wouldn’t want to embarrass himself in front of her. Although he didn’t really give a good goddamn what she thought about him. He didn’t care. No. Not at all.

  Paul walked into Caitlin’s Card Shoppe. The bell chimed as he entered and he scanned the place, not seeing a soul anywhere.

  “Hello, I’ll be right out.”

  He heard the muffled voice coming from somewhere to the left. As he walked in farther to investigate, he almost tripped over a pair of shoes lying on the floor. They were bright green, had very high heels, little holes in the front where toes would peek out and thin ankle straps. They were sexy, and Paul imagined what they would look like on Caitlin’s lovely legs. He decided he really liked those shoes. Especially if she wore them with a pair of thigh-high stockings. And nothing else.

  He was wondering why the shoes were not on her person when he caught sight of her under a table in the corner. She was on her hands and knees, backing out—not too gracefully—slowly tugging a bucket of water with her.

  A view of her ass, clad in another pair of fitted pants. The beige fabric hugged the twin globes as if an artist had molded it to her.

  The sight of her on hands and knees with her ass in the air, wiggling as she reversed out from under the table, as well as his first glimpse at the soles of her delicate bare feet, shot a bolt of electricity to Paul’s groin that had him hard instantaneously. His balls tightened and throbbed as they drew up close to his shaft. Jesus, this woman had him going from naught to one hundred in three-point-five seconds.

  Paul had dreams of this woman on her knees with her behind offered up for him. Many dreams. Vivid ones. Some of them a little bit wet.

  He sucked in a breath as his belly tightened painfully. He held himself still, tamping down the impulse to cup her ass with his hands, to kneel down and cover her with his body, press himself against her lush, delectable curves…

  “Oooh,” Caitlin squealed, as she backed up into his legs.

  She scuttled forward a bit while attempting to brush the hair out of her face and turn around to see whom she had bumped into.

  Paul stifled a laugh, and before she had a chance to realize it was him, he grabbed her under her armpits and pulled her up until she was standing on her feet. She struggled for a moment, so he held her tighter and drew her against him.

  Caitlin shuddered and then went perfectly still. The only movement was the shaking of her body on the draw and exhale of her ragged breaths.

  Paul closed his eyes and gritted his teeth against the feelings overwhelming him. As he wrapped his arms around Caitlin’s waist, his body shook with want. She was in his arms again. She fit against him so perfectly. His fingers itched, wanting to touch her, to roam all over her body, exploring every inch. He craved a taste of her skin, her lips, her mouth. He needed to bury himself in her body. To know her—inside and out.

  So much for closure, he thought as he nestled his face in her hair and breathed in her scent. The coconut fragrance made his mouth water. He’d probably get a hard-on from the smell of coconuts for the rest of his life. Yeah, fuck closure, he had to have this woman or he was going to die. And he definitely wasn’t yet ready to depart the mortal coil.

  He would make Caitlin his, no matter how long it took, how far she ran or how difficult it was. There was no alternative as far as he was concerned and he would make
her see, make her realize she should be with him.

  A tiny little voice in his head warned him that he sounded a smidge stalkerish. It also reminded him of the “no means no” campaign and advised him to tread carefully. Just because Paul burned for the woman, didn’t guarantee she felt the same way about him.

  He told the little voice in no uncertain terms to shut the fuck up.

  Caitlin locked her knees so she wouldn’t collapse onto the floor. All Paul had to do was breathe on her and she went weak.

  “I need another one of them cards made up special.”

  His breath in her ear as he spoke made her shiver, the ticklish feeling causing her shoulder to hitch up involuntarily.

  “I need one that says, I’m intrigued by you, I can’t stop thinking about you, I need to know more about you. Don’t run away from me. Talk to me. Please.”

  Caitlin smiled. How could she say no to this man? All the analyzing she’d done over the past few days, all the logic in the world didn’t matter right now. The fact was, she wanted Paul more than she’d wanted anything in her whole life. She didn’t have the strength to run. When she wasn’t near him, her body cried out, demanded that she run to him instead of away. She wasn’t going to run anymore.

  She turned slowly to face him, her gaze traveling up his chest and neck and farther, until she met his eyes. The breath she was holding whooshed out of her when she met his piercing stare. She saw so many emotions swirling there in that endless sea of blue. She recognized hope, and there was something else that looked a lot like tenderness. He reached out and touched a lock of her hair, slowly brushing it back behind her ear. His touch was so gentle, as if she were something precious and fragile.

  He rubbed the back of his finger back and forth over the shell of her ear, and a slow, devastating smile broke out over his face. That smile made Caitlin’s insides twist with longing for this beautiful man. Longing for more than just sex. Longing to be near him, to hold him, to know him. And for him to know her in every way a man could know a woman.