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  Before he could lift it over her head, though, her hand settled lightly onto his. "Lucas, please, don't," she whispered, eyes downcast when she knew they needn't be. She was hardly the cause of the bruises she wore.

  Neither was he, and she knew that was what was making him crazy at the moment. He had marked her quite considerably that evening, but they were confined to her bottom and the backs of her thighs, and, later, when she was alone, she had reveled in the sight of them.

  But these—even though she knew she was not at fault and she fought against the feelings with everything she had—they still made her feel a bit ashamed.

  Lucas tipped her chin up, not allowing her to avoid his eyes. "You must let me, kitten," he ground out, the endearment softening the ferocity of his command. "I will bind you if I have to—you know I will—but I would prefer not to so that I don't take the chance of hurting you."

  "But they will just make you madder," she whispered, horrified to find that she was having to fight back tears.

  He actually flinched at her admission that there was more that he wouldn't want to see, but he wouldn't relent; she could see it in his eyes. "Remove your hand from mine, young lady," he ordered, although his voice was velvety and soothing—for the moment. But she knew the unyielding steel that was behind it that would come to the fore if she resisted his will.

  Slowly, reluctantly, she obeyed him, putting her arms over her head as he drew the t-shirt off her body and lay her back on the desk before him, revealing several purplish red bruises near her collar bone, as well as the unmistakable imprint of a hand that had cupped her breast from underneath and squeezed very hard, blue fingers clearly visible to either side of the nipple on her left breast, and, lastly, a large angry bruise over her right ribcage.

  His hand floated near that area but carefully didn't touch her. She watched him swallow hard, his eyes glued to the sight. "Is that where you hit the radiator after he flung you away?"

  "Yes—the hospital said bruised ribs."

  "I would imagine so." His reply was surprisingly neutral sounding, although his tone and his expression became murderous when he continued. "I should have finished him off right then and there for putting his filthy hands on you."

  Regardless of his temper, the fingers that tucked themselves beneath the elastic waistband of her sweats were so soft they were almost tickling her. Although her hands automatically reached down to prevent him from removing one of her last lines of defense against him, they hesitated and came to a stop well before touching him and instead ended up back on either side of her hips.

  In this vulnerable, submissive position, his "good girl" at her small surrender to him was even more potent to her, and she could feel herself literally leaking onto the panties he was just about to relieve her of.

  When they—and her sweats—were off her and thrown onto the pile, his eyes swept over her, relieved beyond measure to see that no further contusions had been revealed, but he wasn't about to assume anything. "I want you to turn onto your left side, honey, really quick. I just need to check your back. I'll help you as much as I can and I'll be quick about it."

  He was as good as his word, although it did hurt her a bit and she could see how upset he was that she was in any kind of pain at all, but he was glad he'd done it anyway as he helped her onto her back again, because although there was only one relatively faint bruise, in comparison, it was a full handprint of someone having slapped her ass cheek hard. And he knew exactly whose hand that was, too.

  His own hands formed into fists at his sides, but Allie diverted his attention by trying to get up.

  "You can't do anything to him, Lucas. You can't. You know who he is—he'll find something—anything. He'll make something up if he has to and use it to send you away for a long time; you know he will."

  "Kind of like you're trying to do?" he sniped, regretting the comment immediately.

  She tried more urgently to push her way past him, but it was like trying to move the Rock of Gibraltar. "Which is why we've already decided that this will never work."

  Before she knew it, she was lying back again, pressed gently but firmly down merely by his presence over her. He hadn't hurt her in the least, but she wasn't going anywhere, she knew, until he allowed it.

  "That was something you decided, not me. They're mere impediments, if that is how we choose to see them." With Allie refusing to meet his eyes, Lucas dropped what was an argument he knew was not right for this moment. "Regardless," he rasped. "I cannot help but want to claim the beauty and bounty that is laid out before me."

  Allie shook her head. "You can't, Lucas."

  Misreading the reason for her protest, he brushed the hair back from her face, gazing down at her with such longing and raw potency that Allie was nearly lost just from that. "I will be very careful of you, kitten," he promised solemnly, letting those big, but still somehow elegant and incredibly gentle hands of his roam everywhere over her, as if he was physically reestablishing his claim over her.

  "I know you will, Lucas," she answered quickly, not realizing what she was revealing to him so blithely.

  "You do?" He smiled down at her.

  Allie sighed, rolling her eyes a bit. "Yes, I do. I know that you would never treat me the way the chief of police did. You're better than that, at least with me."

  A bit of an unnecessary qualifier thrown in at the end, but he would take it. "I'm glad you realize that, because you're right."

  "You're a very gentlemanly…" she gasped as his hand brushed over an eager, swollen tip "…mobster. You mother…" another soft moan as he bent his head to the same distended berry, suckling strongly, flicking his tongue over her as she arched wantonly in his arms "…raised you right—in some ways," she finished, already breathless from his attentions.

  "Thank you, I think," he murmured against her breast, but she could feel him smiling as he said it, wandering lazily over to the orphaned breast, pausing for a few beats to stare down at the disgusting discoloration of her flesh.

  Allie could see the muscle working in his jaw, but when his head descended, it was only to apply the slightest touches of his lips to the affected area, as if he would kiss them away, and that pure, exquisite gentleness—which had been such a surprise to discover in a man like him—was almost her undoing as she felt him, finally, claim her nipple.

  Chapter 2

  During the long, sultry moments when his mouth expertly erased the touch and feel of the other man's hand there, Allie gave herself over to the feelings he conjured so easily within her, unable to resist wave after wave of both imminent desire and the potent memories of the previous time she had yielded herself to him, body and soul—with positively devastating results.

  But when he began to move his mouth down her body, stopping here and there to acknowledge and soothe a contusion—although avoiding her injured ribs entirely—she tried to regain her equilibrium, which had always been dangerously absent any time he was around.

  "Lucas, no, you can't! Someone might come in!" she panted, reaching down to try to stop him, but he was already out of her reach by the time she was able to fight through the web of sensuality he was weaving deftly around them.

  He stood to his full height then, catching her eyes as well as her hands as he removed his legs from where they had been around hers—trapping her there beneath him—to instead introduce his knee to the slight gap between hers, applying a firm steady pressure until her body acquiesced, regardless of what her mind wanted and allowed him that intimate entry.

  "Tell me, little one," he whispered huskily, easily adding his other leg and forcing hers to spread wide around them as he leaned over her again, bringing her arms up to hold both of them above her head in one of his hands. "Am I going to let that—or anything or anyone else, for that matter, including you—stop me from taking what's mine?"

  His mouth teased hers a bit, being very careful of the cut and swelling, really just murmuring against them when she'd shaken her head in response to his ques
tion, those beautiful hazel eyes never leaving his.

  "That's right, young lady. You keep thinking that you're rid of me, to go on with your regular, boring life. But deep down, you'll always know who owns you, who can look at you and make you cream in your panties. And it's not some white knight, some sanctimonious Captain America good guy, either, is it?"

  Allie opened her mouth but paused, biting her lip.

  But Lucas wasn't about to have that. He reached down between them, grabbing those soft folds just shy of roughly, loving the involuntary gasp that spilled from her lips and the way she automatically tried to avoid his touch, but he had made sure there was nowhere for her to go but closer to him—nothing for her to do but submit to him, as she knew, deep down, that she should.

  "No, no, it's not—ah—Lucas—mmm," she admitted, much too late to save herself, just as a long, thick middle finger made a bold foray between lips that were already swollen, and already very wet, finding itself coated in her sweet nectar long before he came to the source of it.

  "Now, young lady, you had better not try to tell me that you don't want this, because that would be lying, wouldn't it?" he growled in her ear as he nipped the lobe, then that very sensitive spot just down her neck that he knew drove her wild. When she didn't respond immediately, he lifted that dark head of his to stare down at her, prompting her by ramming three fingers into her with a controlled violence and asking again, almost sweetly, at the same time, "Wouldn't it?"

  She couldn't say yes fast enough—once she could speak again, once the damningly loud moan had died on her lips. "Yes!"

  He stopped abruptly, mid-thrust, to almost glare down at her, and she knew immediately why he was doing so. "Don't make me drag it out of you, babygirl," he warned in that heavy tone. "It should be automatic."

  Her entire body flushed hot and red. Why calling him that here, in her office, was that much harder, she didn't know—or rather, didn't want to think about. But it was, and she knew he wouldn't let her get away without saying it.

  "Yes…Sir."

  "Next time you forget, I'm just going to spank you."

  He didn't have to say the rest of it—she knew what he meant. Anytime, anywhere. It was something she wasn't anxious to test him about, because there was absolutely no doubt in her mind that he would do it.

  Those talented fingers wandered around that very delicate territory, wreaking havoc wherever they touched, leaving her wrung out and breathless without ever having touched her clit—pinching and tugging her lips, forcing her to ride them as he fucked her hard, even tapping her tight rosette a time or two threateningly, and she couldn't help squealing at that, even though she knew that he was just doing that to get a rise out of her.

  Probably.

  He didn't give her any relief from all of that build up until he had sunk himself—balls deep—into her with one powerful stroke, long before she was—mentally, anyway—ready for him to do that, which was exactly why he'd done it. Her body had been readying itself for his possession since last night—hell, since the second she'd closed the door to his place after that fevered night together, if she was being truthful with herself.

  But her mind had been fighting against him since she'd rolled over in his bed that morning and—minus the tequila induced haze—realized what she'd done. She was still fighting him, resisting him, wanting to match her considerable will against his—and he knew it.

  As wild and hot as he was making her, he knew that her mind was railing against what he was doing. But he didn't think she'd even realized that he'd unzipped his pants until she was already arching into—not away from—him as he seated himself deep within her, her groan of indescribable pleasure proving him undeniably right and nearly eclipsing his own loud moan as her flesh surrounded him, clinging to him, welcoming him with its own exclamation of sweet, wet acceptance as he fought to keep himself under tight control. And it was an embarrassingly hard scrabble fight to do so.

  It had never been like this with anyone else. He had no idea what it was about her, but she got to him the way no other woman ever had, and he'd certainly had his fill, since long before he should have. He hadn't had to resort to reciting the titles of Star Trek: The Original Series episodes in his head while he was fucking a woman since he was a teenager, and yet he'd ended up having to do it every single time he'd taken her—and what's more, he sometimes got nearly all the way to This Side of Paradise before he was able to get himself back in hand.

  And this time was no different. He was just as volatile, just as raw, with her as he had been that night. Lucas had wondered if her having left him that morning—about which he wasn't happy—and refusing to engage with him once she had—about which he was even less happy—might have cooled his ardor, but he was downright ashamed to say it hadn't, not in the least. He ought to spank her for that, but he couldn't think about that now or he'd lose the fight completely.

  "Look at me," he growled, rearing up, leaving her hands unfettered in any way, and gratified, deep down, when she simply left them there, even though he hadn't told her to. He grabbed her hips and, even as thoroughly mindless as he was, he was conscious of her injuries, pulling her carefully down against him, so that he could claim even more of her, splitting her even further open, legs splayed around him as she received his punishing thrusts.

  "Lu—Lu—casssss!" she groaned, hands grasping at nothing as her head tossed wildly back and forth, breasts bouncing, body taut and expectant but not quite fulfilled yet.

  He looked down between them at the way she opened for each of his strokes, and it was time for more episodes as he dipped his thumb into the wetness that surrounded him and delivered it to where he knew she wanted it to be, using his outer fingers to spread her lips even more fully, giving her clit nowhere to run to get away from the big pad of his slickened thumb as it settled down on top of that tiny hardness.

  Each hefty snap of his hips rocked that straining, aching nub, dragging it back and forth beneath the perfect pressure his thumb maintained, and he could hear the difference in her breathing immediately, allowing himself a small, self-satisfied smile at the sound of it.

  "You know what you have to do, kitten, don't you?" he rumbled.

  Her eyes widened as his potent question roared through her, as if his goal was a surprise to her, somehow, but she couldn't really marshal any kind of coherent answer, even the simple one she knew he wanted to hear. "Please—no—mmm—I—uh—unnnnhhhhhh—no—"

  Resistance. Even to this, which he knew she desperately wanted. But it wasn't unexpected by any means. She liked to say no to him.

  And he adored making it yes.

  "Answer me, young lady."

  Allie squealed when he swatted her behind sharply, but that wasn't quite enough.

  Somehow, he slowed everything down, making her keen in dire need. "Do you need a spanking?"

  Her response was immediate. "No—no—please! Yes, I know," she answered finally, her tone rife with submission and resignation.

  "You know you've earned one—or maybe even two—already, though, don't you, my girl?"

  That got an incredibly mournful whimper and a frantic, much sincerer chant of "no" from her that abruptly bumped him to the next level. He was proud of the way he had spanked her. His punishments were not to be taken lightly—he made sure of that, so she had good reason to whimper. And she'd have even more reason once her ribs had healed. He'd see to that, too, he vowed.

  But he didn't speed back up as Allie had thought he would once she'd answered him. Instead, he kept things at a teasingly slow, steady, unrelenting pace until he knew she was seconds from losing it.

  "That's it, baby," he encouraged. "Obey me. Do as you're told. Be a good girl and give me what I want, or I will take it from you the hard way."

  "No! No—no—oh, God—pleeeeeaaaaassssseee!"

  Lucas watched her draw in a breath and knew that she was going to move into a scream, managing to clamp his hand over her mouth at just the right time, driving himself into he
r as he did so—jerkily at first because she had clamped down on him so hard he could barely move—still grazing her with that thumb at the same time, allowing her no respite whatsoever as he rode her hard, not allowing her to move away from him no matter how frantically she tried to, continuing to bring her to unimaginable heights, even as his own body was receding from hers.

  She was not done until he decided she was done. Watching her surrender herself to him in that wholly intimate way was more intoxicating than any drug he'd ever tried. And he would know—he'd sampled them all.

  When he could see that her body—not her mind—had had enough, he withdrew from her, keeping the hand that had been touching her intimately draped deliberately over her mons and the tops of her thighs as he reached down to retrieve her clothing, remembering that she had a tendency to get cold in the aftermath and wishing desperately that they were in his home, in his bed, where he could keep her naked and simply draw the covers up over them.

  Instead, he dressed her like a child while she allowed him to do so without so much as a word. His eyes sought hers continually, questioning this unusual docility, but, although she seemed to be fine physically, her eyes were still fully dilated and she seemed a bit muzzy, not that he was objecting. In fact, he considered it a great compliment to have reduced a woman of her intellect and independence to such a state.

  When he was finished, she found herself fully clothed and on his lap, again, being held tightly against him, her head on his chest as she descended very slowly indeed from the heaven he'd brought her to.

  Her first coherent thought in a while was an errant one—that he seemed quite at home in her chair, although it was really too small for him. Allie pushed against his chest and he left off rubbing her back and stroking her hair, letting her sit up but not get down.

  As he cupped her cheek, he could feel her blush, making her meet his eyes as he asked, "All right?" Considering the differences in their sizes, he didn't think he'd ever not wonder that after he'd had her.