Leather & Lark (The Ruinous Love Trilogy, #2) (83)

“Then lift that dress up and fucking prove it.” Lachlan leans closer. His fingers trace my thighs, spreading them wider without lifting the fabric that pools between them. His breath floods my face as his lips stop a thread’s width from mine. “Show me how soaked those goddamned panties are from coming on that stage in front of all those people. Show me how desperate you are to be fucked.”

My chest grazes his as I take a shallow breath. With my eyes fused to Lachlan’s, I lift the dress to my waist and lean back until my shoulders rest on the mirror where I feel the ridges of the leather harness against my spine.

Lachlan’s hands are gentle on my skin even though every other muscle seems coiled to strike. Tension radiates from his body. He takes one step away and holds my eyes for a moment that feels eternal before he finally drops his gaze to the apex of my thighs.

With one long, slow stroke of his thumb, he runs his touch across the damp fabric and the vibrating toy beneath it.

“Tell me,” I whisper as his thumb passes in another stroke.

His eyes are dark. Deadly. Merciless. “Tell you what? That you’re my fucking whore?”

“Yes.”

The vibration increases and I gasp as he presses the toy to my clit. “I didn’t lock the door, Lark. Someone could walk in here at any moment. Does that scare you?”

I shake my head and bite my lip and moan.

“Good, because any one of those assholes that watched you on that stage could walk in here and I don’t give a fuck. I won’t stop until you scream my fucking name so they know exactly whose whore you are.”

In a flash of motion, something metallic slides across my hip and my panties go slack. Lachlan tugs them away and with another slice of his knife they’re off completely. The toy is gone, and my feet hit the floor. He grips my waist and spins me to face the mirror. The blade he used falls into the sink as Lachlan wraps the panties around my throat but doesn’t tighten them, his eyes fused to my reflection.

With the vibrating toy clutched in his grip, Lachlan drags a knuckle down my cheek as the other hand holds the fabric around my neck. “Red means …?”

“Stop.”

“Orange means?”

“Slow down.”

“Green means?”

“Fuck me and fill me with your cum.”

Lachlan chuckles against my ear before he gives it a nip, letting his teeth rake across the flesh. “Only if you beg,” he whispers.

Please barely leaves my lips and he tightens the panties with a twist of his fist, then presses the toy to my clit with his other hand. The vibration skates across my nerves in slow circles and I roll my hips, seeking friction. The veins in my neck strain against the pressure of the fabric. My makeup is smeared in streaks beneath my eyes. But when I let out a low and husky moan and see Lachlan’s jaw clench with restrained desperation, I feel powerful. Beautiful. Like I can be the woman I want to be.

“More,” I whimper. “Please, more.”

Lachlan’s smile borders on menacing. He takes a long moment to answer me, pressing kisses and nips along my jaw. “Try again, duchess. And make it pretty.”

An ache to be filled clenches deep in my core as Lachlan kicks my feet out a little wider and rolls the toy across my sensitive nerves in long strokes. He doesn’t turn it up or make any moves to give me what I crave. But denial is its own reward.

“Lachlan, please, I need more. I need you,” I whisper. The panties tighten around my throat, just enough that I can breathe in a thin stream, but not without my skin flushing crimson. “I need to be filled with you.”

Lachlan leans close to my ear. He holds my eyes with an unwavering stare as every exhalation tickles my skin. “The first time I fuck my wife is not going to be in the bathroom of some bar. So if you want to be filled, you’d better use your imagination and come with what I give you.”

I whimper at the sudden need to leave with him, to go anywhere but here.

I’m disheveled. Desperate. Imperfect. But Lachlan looks at me in the mirror as though he sees through every tarnished layer, every broken mask. It’s the thought of going home with this man who always searches for the real woman beneath it all that propels me into action.

I press Lachlan’s hand over my clit. I grind my hips. I beg for him to tighten his grip over my throat. And then I come in blinding stars as Lachlan’s name tumbles from my lips, over and over, a chant that doesn’t stop until he’s wrung every moment of pleasure from my body. It washes through me but leaves a hum of need behind. It’s not enough. It won’t be until I feel his skin against mine and the weight of his body and the planes of muscle beneath my palms.

My head drops to my chest and Lachlan lets the fabric fall from my throat. The vibration of the toy lowers and then he turns it off. He wraps his arm across my waist and holds me close. I relish his heat, the languorous kisses he layers across my neck, the pressure of his muscle and bone against my trembling flesh.

The door creaks behind us and my eyes snap open to Xander’s wide-eyed reflection in the mirror.

“Get the fuck out,” Lachlan snarls as his arm tightens around me and he shelters my body with his. Xander disappears with a shocked apology, but Lachlan’s eyes stay fused to the door in a vicious glare. “I feckin’ hate that guy.”

“You don’t even know him.” Though I bite down on the edge of my grin, it erupts when Lachlan turns his fury to me. “Are you jealous?”