Living in Shadow(71)

The hen party clapped but Vin didn’t look at them. He lifted his gaze from the table and looked at her instead.

Electricity whispered over her skin as she met his dark, stormy blue eyes, and she had to take a deep breath, trying to slow her racing heartbeat.

God, this was insane. Where had all this sudden sexual tension come from?

Telling herself to move, she approached the table, her coat still pulled tight around her. He straightened, holding his cue by his side, looking her up and down.

“I’m still wearing the costume,” she murmured, wanting to push him in some way. Get him back for the way he made her feel so off-balance. “Wanna see it?”

His gaze didn’t move from hers. “Show me.”

Kara caught her breath. She hadn’t expected him to want to. She’d thought to flash him and catch him off guard. Shock him and maybe embarrass him a little. Part of her had even been looking forward to it. But now, perversely, she wanted to refuse. Deny him just to taunt him.

She lifted a brow. “My, Vincent. So demanding. Say please and I might.”

“No please.” His voice held a note of command she’d never thought she’d ever want to obey. “Show me. Now.”

But she did want to obey. Because another, secret part of her wanted him to see her.

So she let the two halves of her coat open, giving him a glimpse of the slave collar and chain, the metal bikini top and exposed length of her torso and thighs.

Vin didn’t move but the way his gaze swept from her head to her feet made her whole body prickle with heat. She felt like she’d been licked with fire, scorched. A voice inside her head screeched at her to cover herself, that she’d made herself vulnerable, but she resisted the urge. She wanted a reaction from him first. Some evidence that she hadn’t shown herself to him for nothing.

Because somehow it felt important.

Slowly Vin lifted his gaze from her body to meet her eyes. The look on his face was hungry, skin drawn tight over the classical bone structure beneath it. His eyes glittered. The intensity of him held her motionless, made it difficult to breathe.

He liked what he saw, that much was obvious. And the fact that he did made her ache. Made her want.

“Stop, Kara,” he said after what felt like an age, that edge of command still in his husky voice. “Stop sending me texts. Stop sending me pictures. And stop pushing me. Because you may not like the consequences.”

Slowly she leaned her hip against the side of the pool table and folded the coat around herself again. Breath, long denied, filled her lungs. “Why? You don’t like?”

“I don’t like you messing with me, no.”

“Sure you do. In fact, I think you love it.” She eased away from the table and came closer to him. He watched her approach, unmoving. “I think you want me to mess with you more.”

She didn’t know quite why she felt the urge to keep pushing at him. Or what reaction she wanted from him.

Sure you don’t.

Kara inhaled. Yeah, she knew. And perhaps it was time to stop denying her own feelings. Her own needs. Perhaps it was time to admit to herself what she wanted and why she could not leave him alone.

She hadn’t wanted any of those guys at the Con. The guy she really wanted was Vin.

For a long moment neither of them said anything, the space between them full of tension and unspoken desires.

Then he said, “What do you want, Kara?”

“You said you were going to offer me an alternative to all the guys I’ve been sending you.” She turned, leaned back against the pool table, her hands gripping the sides. “So here I am. What’s your alternative?” Somehow telling him exactly what she wanted felt too hard. Made her too vulnerable. She’d been rejected too many times before to leave herself open to the possibility of it happening again.

His gaze had dropped to where the coat had opened a little, giving him a glimpse of her bare leg. Good. Let him look. Let him see what he could have if he wanted. He just had to say it. Just had to tell her.

“An alternative?” he murmured. “You really want to know?”

“Yeah.” Her voice wasn’t as steady as she would have liked it to be.

Vin didn’t move, but his gaze lifted from the gap in her coat back to her face again. “Me.”





Wine her, dine her…then untie her.

Sweet Obsession

© 2014 Kelly Jamieson

Windy City Kink, Book 1

Sasha Bendel is a bundle of nerves as she knocks on the door of a Gold Coast penthouse. Her landscape design business took a hard hit when one of her biggest clients defaulted on his payment, and she desperately needs this rooftop garden design project to get back in the black.

But when her potential client answers the door, she’s stunned. It’s her old high school boyfriend, the one her wealthy parents ran out of her life when they were discovered engaging in some youthful exploration of bondage and discipline.