Bound to Please(31)

“This.” He pressed her back against a wall and kissed her. It took all of two seconds before she started kissing him back, wrapping his neck in her cool hand and holding him steady. Her little tongue tasted him, gently at first and then more eagerly. Yes… here she was, here was that girl who’d given herself to him last week.

He pressed his hips against her, showing her exactly how much she turned him on. His cock was hard and heavy, and for a moment he considered just booking a room, ordering room service, and spending the night fucking her senseless.

Instead he continued to kiss her, running his hands through her hair, trickily loosening the strands of her ponytail so he could bury his fists in the silky black waves.

When he pulled away he was happy to see a small smile on her face. It was her first one of the night; score one for team St. Crow.

She put a hand to her head. “What did you do to my hair?”

“I like it down.”

“It’s a mess.”

“It’s perfect.” He heard the sounds of footsteps so he stepped back. Blushing, Ruby looked to the side, her silhouette casual, as the strangers passed them.

When the intruders had gone, he brought the back of her wrist to his lips and kissed it. Her skin tasted sweet and decadent, like chocolate. “You know you can trust me to never push you too far in public. I need you to trust me, Ruby.”

She looked at him for what seemed like forever before she shook her head in apparent wonderment. “Yes. Somehow I do know that I can trust you. I must be crazy.”

“No. You just like what I do to you, don’t you?”

“You mean make me question my sanity? Actually, no. Not so much,” she said, and then she laughed, a nervous little chuckle that made his cock twitch.

“You’re not questioning your sanity. You’re questioning your intense need to give yourself over to me.”

“You forget that I was with a bondage expert for nearly a year. I’m not some novice groupie.”

He leaned closer. “Tell me. How do we compare? Me and him? Now that you’ve had a glimpse of true surrender, what do you think?”

He saw the struggle in her eyes and wondered if she would answer him. But then she shrugged. “I like it. With you, you cocky bastard. It scares me how much I like it.”

“Aw, sweetheart.” He brought her into his arms. “No need to be scared. You trust me, remember?”

She laughed against his chest. “I barely know you.”

But when she said the words, he realized he wanted that all to change; he wanted to get to know her. But fuck. He didn’t want to hurt her, not Ruby. The very nature of his life meant he’d spent a total of twenty nights at home in the past two years, which was, frankly, just fine with him. It was a very handy excuse when it came to relationships. Sorry, babe. See you next time around. But now he had a hard time picturing himself saying those words to Ruby.

And these feelings? Lust could run deep, but he knew it didn’t last. What lasted was the music, and when you sacrificed one for the other, it never turned out well. That was a lesson he’d learned early on. His dad only needed a few beers to start reminiscing about the “good old days” before he’d settled down. Or rather, been forced to settle down. A wife, a kid. A “real” job.

“Come on,” he said, taking Ruby’s hand. “I’m starving. Let’s eat.”

“What’s this?” Inside the dining room of the Ritz, they’d been led to a table with the best view of the Pacific Ocean, and after Mark had pulled out her chair, she’d sat down to discover a small box at her place setting.

A small box that happened to be a very unique shade of robin’s-egg blue. Her pulse jumped with a feminine excitement she couldn’t tamp down. “Is this for me?”

He looked almost sheepish as he dropped his napkin onto his lap. “I don’t see any other girls around.”

She was quite sure her smile must have been downright goofy, but she couldn’t hide it. “This is a Tiffany’s box,” she said, stating the obvious but unable to say anything else.

“Yeah, I hear girls like this kinda thing.”

“Yeah. They do,” she said, her smile stretching even wider.

“Go on, open it,” he said, as if he’d given her something as trivial as a newspaper.

Her fingers hovered over the shiny ribbon as she glanced up. “Are you sure?”

“Just open it.”

Slowly, drawing out the moment, she undid the little bow and pulled the ribbon aside. Then she delicately separated the lid from the box and pulled out yet another velvet case. Her heart beating wildly in her chest, she opened the small box.