Feeling guilty and confused over my brother, and Kace, for that matter, I turn in his arms with whiskey loosening my tongue. “I do like the money, but I’m not here for the money. I don’t know how to be here, and not seem like I like it too much. I don’t know how to do this, Kace.” I try to drink again and he catches the bottle.
“I asked Blake to give us an hour, but we have to meet with him,” he says. “I can’t let you pass out until after.” He sets the bottle on the ground by the window. “Stop letting Gio get into your head.”
I turn to the window, watching the incredible winter wonderland play out over the water, a slow-moving boat churning through the icy water. Kace’s hands find my shoulders and with his touch, I turn back around. “It’s beautiful here, Kace, above the world, above the water. And my clothes are beautiful and the apartment is beautiful and,” my hand settles on his chest, over his heart, “you are beautiful.”
His arm wraps my waist and he fits my body to his, our legs intimately aligned, our hips melded together. “You are beautiful, Aria. Inside and out, you’re too damn good for me. I want you to enjoy this life with me.” He strokes my hair from my face and tilts my gaze to his. “I need you with me.”
“Look at what me and my family have done to your life.”
“Saved it, baby. I told you, you’re saving it, and saving me.”
My arms wrap around him. “Maybe we’re saving each other.”
“Then we better stick together, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” I whisper, the heat of his body warming me all over now. “We’d better stick together. I’m not myself right now. You know that, right? I’m not this out-of-control person. I don’t shove my brother or yell at him. I don’t drink whiskey from a bottle and—”
“Of course you do,” he teases, mischief in his eyes. “Four-thousand-dollar whiskey in your own home.” His voice firms, his mischief darkening. “You need to get out of Gio’s head and back in your own. You need an outlet that isn’t whiskey.”
“Play for me. I need to hear you play like you needed a violin in your hand in San Francisco and last night.”
“You need more than me playing a violin.”
“I need you to play.”
“You need to forget that world for just a little while. You need to let it go.” He drags my blouse over my head and tosses it. “Who’s in control right now?”
My heart starts to flutter. “What are you doing, Kace?”
He backs me up again, pressing me to that steel beam, his powerful legs caging mine. “What I consider my duty as the man you share your life with. Giving you a way out of your own head and your brother’s, all at once.” He kneels and unzips my boots, his hands intimately caressing my legs, and already my thighs are slick, my heart racing.
“Isn’t Blake coming over?”
My boots are gone and he’s standing again, His eyes are pure heat, possessiveness burning in their depths. “We have time for us.”
“What if he has something important to tell us?”
“Then we’d already know,” he assures me, unhooking my front clasp bra, only to slide it over my shoulders, the material catching between my back and the steel. His gaze lowers, doing a hot sweep over my bare breasts, my nipples puckering, before his eyes snag mine again, a deep possessive burn in the depths of his stare. “I’m going to spank you, Aria.”
A rush of conflicting emotions overtakes me. I don’t know how it’s possible that I both crave and resist the submissiveness of this moment, but I do. Kace turns me to face the window, pressing my hands to the railing, his breath a warm tease on my neck, as he says, “You can always say no.”
Heat spirals through me, his hand on my hip a brand that I feel in every part of me. His thick erection presses against my backside. “Kace—”
“But it’s also okay to want this, Aria. It’s okay to need the escape. It’s us, just you and me, baby.”
I swallow hard, my lashes lower, my lips dry. Me and him. It’s just me and him and God, I do need the escape and I know, I just know, that he needs the trust. Still, I can’t believe I’m going to do this. I can’t believe how much I want to do this. “Yes.”
He doesn’t speak but I can feel his approval wash over me. He kisses my neck, the earthy scent of him seducing me and promising to test my limits. He unzips my skirt, and a second later, he’s sliding it down my hips, and with only a tiny pair of panties and thigh-high tights on, he’s easily exposing my naked backside. Nerves and anticipation overwhelm me and I’m all but shaking, but I don’t feel fear. His fingers caress down the silk strip between my cheeks and I yelp as he yanks it away with a biting tug. But already, he’s made me forget that bite.
His hands are on my backside and he leans in, his lips close, so very close to my ear, his warm breath fanning my skin, and promising forbidden fantasies I didn’t even know to call my own until now.
“What are you thinking, Aria?” he asks, the same way he’d asked me one time before when I was in the wrong place when I needed an escape.
“About us, Kace. About what you’re going to do to me.”
He turns me to face him, his expression pure possession, his eyes meeting mine. And I could swim forever in the sea of his blue eyes, as every wave breaking around me only sends me crashing right back to him. “What am I going to do to you?” he asks as if he needs to know I can say it as if he needs to know I want this.
I wet my parched lips and say, “Spank me.”
“And do you want me to spank you?” The question is a mixed challenge and a raw seduction.
Suddenly, I’m drowning in my own confusing desire, and my lashes lower, heat rushing to my cheeks when his hand cups my face and he tilts his gaze back to his. “Do you,” he says, enunciating the words, “want me to spank you?”
“I want to get out of my head. I want to escape. I want you.”
His eyes darkens. “That’s not an answer.”
The waves are breaking again and when I might drown, I don’t. I really do crash right back into him. “Yes.”
“Yes? Yes what, Aria?”
“I want you to spank me.”
His eye light with approval and that approval splays over me like blessed sunshine in the chilly snowfall. I don’t know why his approval arouses or pleases me, I don’t know what that says about me, or him for that matter, but there is no denying the burn in my belly. There is no denying his control, and my submission sends a thrill through me like no other. His hands fit my waist, possessiveness in his touch, a branding that feels right when with anyone else it would be wrong. His cheek presses to my cheek, the roughness of his newly formed stubble an erotic pinch on my sensitive skin. “Who’s in control?”
“I am,” I say, and I mean it. This is about choice. I know that when I say yes or no to with Kace, he will listen. “And right now, for just a little bit, I don’t want it,” I add, and for once in my life, I mean it. “Take it,” I add softly. “It’s yours.”