It beat faster at the sound of his voice so near. So fast that she felt each pump in her temple, her sex, her feet. “No,” she said thickly, hating that she had trouble speaking that little lie.
His chuckle seduced her, his chest vibrating against the tip of her breasts. The proximity of his mouth to her ear still wreaked havoc on her libido as his body moved against hers. “You look good enough to eat, Whitney,” he rasped, “and I want to be the one to feast on you tonight.”
She stiffened as her pussy creamed at his indescribably sexy words, his intoxicating masculine scent surrounding her, his presence an assault on her senses that she had never expected to experience again. “The only thing you’re getting tonight is what your money buys you. A kiss,” she said tightly.
“Mmm. Then I can’t wait.”
Her skin pebbled as his fingers stroked up her spine, to the fall of hair at her nape. His breath was warm on her ear, burning her, consuming her.
His tongue slipped out to caress her earlobe. Bolts of pleasure rushed through her, and Whitney’s eyes stung from the force. She began to tremble, hating him because she could still, still, after all these years, want him like this. Her nipples ached in her dress, and the urge to be with him was so acute, she could envision pulling out his manhood, yanking up her dress, and having hot hate sex with him right now on the dance floor.
He drew back to meet her gaze as though he could read, sense, her every unspoken desire, and his eyes were livid with carnal thirst. It had always been combustible between them, always.
He glanced around them, then started pulling her across the room, toward the emergency exit, into the stairwell, and before she knew it he’d pressed her against the wall, and he was sliding his hands into her hair.
“Andrew . . .”
His eyes were unexpectedly wild, his face so impossibly beautiful her eyes blurred at the sight of it. “I know you’re angry. I know you hate me right now. We both know that’s going to pass. But this . . .” He tangled his hands deeper into the free mass of her hair and fisted them, his gaze clawing her like talons as he bent his forehead to hers. They were both breathing fast. “This, Whitney . . . this will never pass between us. Never.”
He dragged his nose down the length of hers, his breath scorching a path down to her lips . . .
“Don’t, Andrew, don’t.” She turned her head away from his kiss and pushed at his chest, hating that he’d taken a slice of her with him to the Middle East, and she hadn’t been the same ever since.
She felt only half alive, half a person, without him. Even now, when she was desperately trying to go on as if she’d never heard his name, much less had belonged to him; no man could ever surpass the immeasurable standard of his kisses, his touch.
No man could ignite the flames inside of her like the mere thought of him did.
“Whitney.” The way he looked at her lips made her tremble. A slumbering intensity crept into his eyes. And though they blazed with emotion for her, he said, softly, firmly, unapologetically, “There’s a little string”—he pointed at his chest and then at hers—“from here to here. I don’t need to tie you. We’re bound to each other, wherever we are, whether we like it or not. You’re bound to me.”
She thought of the marks hiding under her cuff bracelets. Every word was true, and it felt like a slap. Because she had been tied by that bind for years, refusing to remove her last link with this man, the man she had loved to obsession, to the point of thinking she’d go mad without him, and suddenly she loathed him for it. “Fuck you, Andrew.”
She shoved past him.
“No.” He spun her around, then ushered her out the door and toward the elevators, anger roiling off him in waves. “I just bought you, Whitney. I flew across a goddamned ocean to come back to you. I rearranged my entire business to make it happen. To make us happen. If I’m fucking anyone, tonight, Whitney, it’ll be you.”
*****
Fuck you, Andrew . . .
Andrew poured himself a whiskey in the limo, his eyes on Whitney’s delicate profile as she stared angrily out the window from the bench across his.
His cock stirred, demanding that he have her, that he remind her who she belonged to. He’d taken too long to come back to her.
Now she’d fight him all the way until he possessed her completely.
She’d torture and torment him and make him pay for leaving her, no matter what excuse he came up with.
But she’d gotten into the car with him. A Donahue to the bone, her parents had been the local church’s most generous donors. They’d been moral and principled, and Whitney would keep her word if it killed her.
She’d give Andrew his kiss. And damn if Andrew wasn’t going to get more of her.
He shifted in his seat, his groin aching, his balls drawn up so damned tight he felt choked by his desire. The piercing in his cock strained, he was so hard, and it caused pain from the need to rub it against her. He remembered all the times they’d ridden in the back of his cars, when Whitney draped herself wantonly against him, tonguing him, offering up her mouth entirely, rubbing his nipples with her fingertips, making little sexy sounds deep in her throat. He remembered how his tongue had made love to hers, tangled lazily, heatedly.
His cock throbbed painfully in his slacks. He’d never been so desperate to join himself with her.
But Whitney was angry . . .
He wanted her to submit, fully, completely, give him everything she’d given him before and more. Now nothing stood in the way. Nothing stood in the way between them anymore.
Except Whitney’s pride.
He would have to soothe it. To calm it. Calm her.
He just hoped to God he could calm himself and the desire roiling inside him first. He distracted himself with the view of her black cocktail dress, but it only magnified the urge to take it off and look at her naked body again. Kiss her, feel her, bury a thousand days of wanting inside her tight, sweet sex until they drowned each other with passion.
“If you think kidnapping me will get you anywhere, you’re wrong,” she said in a low, brittle tone.
He made his tone match hers. “You can’t kidnap something that already belongs to you.”
Her face whipped around to his, and she lifted her brows. “If you mean you own a kiss, you’re right, but that’s about the only thing you have a right to,” she said.