Kia narrowed her eyes back at him. Surely such a thing wasn’t even possible.

“If you lose, you get to trade places.” He was going to lose. She had known the pinnacles of pleasure with him already. She had never heard of anyone passing out because the orgasm had been so good, and she was hoping Chase was all bluff.

His grin was daring. “I’ve never been tied down in my life, Kia.”

“First time for everything,” she warned him, allowing a hint of smugness to show. “Come on, Chase, pleasure alone?” She stretched beneath him, lifted to him, and watched his eyes narrow. “You’re bluffing.”

He was silent. His expression went still, tense.

“Don’t do that, Kia.” There was a warning growl in his voice. “Don’t dare me.”

“You won’t hurt me.” She tugged at the bonds. “We both know you won’t, Chase.”

“There are some things women don’t want to know about themselves,” he told her then. “You’re strong, resilient. But do you really want to touch the places I could take you? The places I will take you if you continue to dare me.”

Her chin lifted. “And a dare’s all it takes? Are you certain you can do it without help?”

She was crazy. She had accused him of being insane, but as she watched the dark lust flash through his eyes again, she wondered if she wasn’t the one who had lost her mind.

“Oh how brave,” he whispered, part playful, part dark eroticism.

“Baby, anything you’ve known while taking both Khalid and me is nothing compared to what you’ll know now.”

“Holding back on me then?” She arched as his fingers grazed the silken crotch of her panties. “Shame on you, Chase.”

Her voice was rough, her confidence not really everything it should have been as she felt her excitement growing.

He clicked his tongue at her. “Shame on you, sweetheart, because you just bought yourself the edge.”

18

Kia had no idea what the edge was, but she had a feeling it was going to go way beyond mere pleasure. Touching Chase, being touched by him, was an adventure each time. The adventure she had craved all her life, the challenge and the daring wild ride into sensations she had only fantasized about.

She tugged at the bonds that held her wrists. She was helpless; she felt helpless, sensually and erotically helpless.

She should have been frightened, she was sure. She should have been hesitant about allowing him to control her sensuality in this way. But her sensuality reveled in it. She reveled in it.

“You can pull back at any time, sugar.” His smile was pure, erotic demand. “If you pull back, you lose your bet.”

The challenge was clear.

Kia let her own laughter whisper past her lips, though it was strained, filled with nervous anticipation.

“You can’t come before I do, Chase,” she informed him and watched his expression crease with a grimace of both pleasured anticipation and wariness. “If you get off, then you lose.”

She wasn’t about to give him any edge. If he wanted to make his own rules, then she could make hers as well.

“That wasn’t in the deal.” He chuckled, but there was an edge of rueful acceptance in his expression.

“It is now. I’m tied, literally. You’re not. You get off, and I win.”

Excitement pounded through her, rushed through her brain, her veins, each nerve ending. She could feel a wild eroticism growing inside her, matching the dark hunger that flickered in Chase’s expression now.

This was what she had always sensed inside him. Something wild and untamed, something to match and counter the fierce, reckless hunger she had always fought within herself.

There was no surrender. She could feel it burning between both of them. He was the more experienced. This sensual world was his erotic playground, and rather than stepping in slowly, she was jumping into it with both feet.

And loving it.

She was certain she would win. She could tell he was certain he would win. She might come so many times she was exhausted, but she had never passed out in her life. She wasn’t going to start now.

Chase restrained his next grin. Instead he cupped her pussy, stroked it, and felt the damp heat beneath the crotch of her panties.

She was already fiery wet, aroused and ready for him. And daring him with every look from those mysterious, brilliant eyes.

He knew exactly how to get what he wanted. He knew she wasn’t experienced enough, wasn’t jaded enough, to control the strength of the orgasm he would give her. When he finally gave it to her.

It took patience. It would take pushing her into an arousal that would leave her wet with sweat, begging, pleading. And he would hear her pleas far longer than he was certain she wanted to scream them out to him.

And there was nothing he loved better than pushing a woman to that point. Nothing more torturous, more pleasurable than taking a woman to that particular high and watching her fall over.

“Poor Kia,” he whispered as he ripped the shreds of her camisole from her body. “Don’t bother begging, baby. It won’t help.”

She smiled. A seductive, feminine smile that had his cock twitching.

“I’ll remember that line,” she responded, her voice husky, sensual. “I’ll repeat it to you when my turn comes.”

He tossed the fabric to the floor before gripping the band to her panties and tearing them from her hips. She jerked involuntarily, hips lifting, a little gasp leaving her throat, assuring him that she was already well on her way to the point he needed her to reach.

She was responsive, eager for the pleasure, and she trusted. That trust, the thought of it, the knowledge that in such a short time she had handed him that much of herself, caused his chest to clench with unexpected emotion.

Hell, he knew married couples who hadn’t reached this point yet.

Moving back, he enclosed her legs between his thighs, pressing them tight together and holding them in place as he bent to her.

His cock pressed into the soft flesh of her belly and her lips parted beneath his as she undulated beneath him. Her clit would be aching, he knew. The pressure of her thighs wouldn’t be enough to do more than tease and tempt at this point. She would be close, certain her orgasm was only a breath away. And it was much farther away than she could ever imagine.

He played with her lips. Kissed her slow and deep and tasted the passion already raging inside her. He nipped at her lower lip, felt her breath coming hard and deep, then sank into the kiss with all the need raging inside him.

He’d wanted her, just like this, for so many years. Helpless beneath him, arching to him, desperate for every touch, every stroke he could give her.

Chase could feel the pleasure pouring through him as well. Each gasp from her lips, each stroke of her tongue against his, each helpless little moan that came from her throat was like a physical caress against his flesh.

This was what it was all about. All the patience, each stroke, each plea from her lips, each sweet drop of syrup from her heated pussy was his pleasure.

When his kiss had pushed her to the lowest point of the journey he intended to take her on, he pulled back. He stroked the backs of his fingers down her cheek as her lashes lifted.

Her eyes were dilated, the color darker now. Her face was flushed, her lips swollen with passion.

“I’ve dreamed of doing this to you,” he admitted, his head lowering, his lips brushing against her jaw, his teeth raking it as a whimpering little sigh left her lips.

“You didn’t have to wait.” Her voice was thick, heavy with arousal now.

“I should never have waited.” He had never been certain that the gentle, quiet young woman he glimpsed on the outside could handle the darkness that filled Chase on the inside.

Had he been wrong? Was the woman who had begun to fill so many parts of his heart stronger than he ever believed possible?