Tied to the Tycoon Read online

  “Yes,” he said, his hand grazing her breast, “you’ll get a safeword. Something you’ll remember, but something that won’t come up otherwise. It’s not something you want to get confused about. Pick one.”

  Ava tried hard to think of the least sexy thing she could. Must keep the boundaries. Must keep the strings. Maybe that would calm her down, make her feel in control of herself. She could almost hear her mind lurching into gear, like an old manual transmission that hadn’t been lubed up in… Oh, God, don’t think about lube.

  “Garlic press?” she said, breathlessly.

  He burst out laughing, his grey eyes sparkling.

  “Yeah, that’ll work.”

  His voice was soft, but he was done waiting. He let her go only to lift her arms and push her tank top up over her breasts and off her body. He threw it somewhere without even looking, his eyes focused only on her, standing half naked in front of him. He let his gaze rake her up and down like he wanted her to know he saw her. Her breath caught in her throat, and then he caught her by the waist again and pulled her close.

  “But if you ever want to use that safeword,” he said, pinching one nipple, “I won’t have done my job.”

  Ava closed her eyes and tried to breathe. He was toying with her nipple and her breast, his iron grip holding her motionless.

  “Your job?” she finally managed.

  “I told you: I’m going show you what you are. I’m going to show you that you’re mine.”

  Ava’s eyes flew open, and her heart thudded hard in her chest. She was so far gone that she couldn’t tell what was lust, what was panic, and what was…something else. When she spoke, her voice sounded small.

  “You said no strings,” she said.

  “And I meant it, Frida. You are mine for one week. After that, you can do what you want.”

  He was so close, his eyes gentle, and his hands rough. Ava kept opening and closing her hands, balling them into little fists in an effort not to use them. She wanted to touch him so badly, but didn’t trust herself at all. If she didn’t have ground rules, she’d fall completely.

  “What does that mean, I’m yours?” she said.

  “It means what I said it means. You are mine, in any way or any place I want, at any time I want. You obey my orders. You accept my discipline. You come for me,” he said, squeezing her breast hard, “Over, and over, and over again.”

  Oh.

  “No strings,” she said again. “Just sex.”

  “No strings.”

  She bit her lip and nodded.

  He didn’t hesitate. He knelt down and stripped her pants off. Now she was completely naked. He lifted her feet out of the useless pants and slowly worked his way up. His hands inched up the backs of her legs and his mouth kissed a trail up the front. She shuddered as he got closer, closer, kissing his way up her tender thighs. His hands gripped her buttocks, and then he nuzzled his face between her legs. It was so strangely intimate, so…

  She nearly collapsed. He caught her.

  In one swift motion he stood, cupping her ass in his hands and lifting her up so fast she had no time to react. She spread her legs and wrapped them around his waist, as they had almost nowhere else to go. His cock, straining against his pants, pressed against her naked flesh, and she felt herself seep through the thin cotton of his pajama bottoms. She didn’t have time to be embarrassed while he carried her off into the dark.

  Ava gripped his neck, as though they were on some wild veldt somewhere and not a luxury apartment in the West Village, and just held on. He busted through some door she couldn’t see, navigating his way in the dark, and then she was on her back, her legs still wrapped around him, his weight pressing her into a soft mattress. A bed. He ground his erection against her, and she caught her breath, grasping at his back.

  “I remember,” he said, and for the first time, his voice sounded choked. “I remember what you asked me for. I’ve always remembered.”

  Ava couldn’t say anything. She was torn between wanting to scream yes, wanting to tell him to shut up and get inside her, and wanting to run away from the things he’d just brought up.

  “You wanted to be tied up,” he said roughly, unwrapping her arms from around his neck.

  Ava felt her chest constrict. She did. She’d said that. She’d meant that. She still did. But it was too…

  “Not yet,” she whispered. “Please just get inside me.”

  He rumbled low deep in his chest. “Not yet,” he said, and pinned her wrists up above her head with one large hand. He ran the other down the length of her body again, stopping only to lift her left leg up and out, spreading her as wide as she could go. She heard the rustle of fabric, the little sounds that let her know what was about to happen, and felt her back begin to arch in anticipation. Jackson Reed.

  He pressed his mouth to hers and sank into her.

  “Ava,” he said, his breath on her cheek, and he began a steady rhythm, controlled at first, but growing wilder with each beat. He filled her, more even than she’d remembered, pushing deeper with every stroke, saying her name over and over until it sounded like a chant, or a prayer. She couldn’t escape, wouldn’t have wanted to if she could. She wanted to be taken, completely, by Jackson Reed.

  Soon she was bucking wildly against him, wanting to feel fuller, if that were possible, wanting to drown totally in him. He plunged into her with abandon, driving out all her worries, pushing aside her anxieties, and leaving room only for the swirling force that gathered in her core. He tilted her up and pistoned against her g-spot until she closed in around him like a sleeping flower and then exploded, unfolding outwards again and again, until she had nothing left.

  chapter 6

  It took a second for Ava to realize where she was. It obviously wasn’t her apartment. The sheets were too nice, for one, and the light was all wrong, in that there was so much of it. No one she knew had windows this big.

  Holy crap, that all really happened.

  She buried her face in a sinfully soft pillow. She couldn’t turn over and look. She knew what she’d find: Jackson Reed.

  This was basically her best dream and her worst nightmare all rolled into one. That actually, really, for serious happened.Stella’s engagement party. The stupid bet! The best sex of my life.

  Just the thought of facing Jackson this morning, of facing everything they’d done and the way it had made her feel, put an iron knot of anxiety in her stomach. He had already been deeper inside her, both physically and metaphorically, than any man since…since him. This was terrible. Ava was in no way prepared for this kind of…

  Well, saying she wasn’t prepared for this kind of vulnerability sort of made her seem like not the most well adjusted person. But this was a legitimate shock. She had completely misjudged her ability to just keep it sexual, to just explore that one side of herself. She needed time to think, to collect herself, to decide what she really wanted and how she should proceed so she wouldn’t get her heart broken by Jackson freaking Reed—again.

  She needed to get the hell out of there.

  Slowly, Ava worked her arm out from under her pillow and used it to push herself up on the bed. She could feel the weight of Jackson right behind her; she’d have to be stealthy if she were going to get out of this without waking him up and making a scene. She would come back. She would call him. She just needed to think.

  But she couldn’t bring herself to look at him. He’d be sleeping, looking beautiful and good, and totally unaware that she was leaving, and she couldn’t face that, either.

  You are thirty-two years old, Ava Barnett. You are supposed to be a grown up. Grown ups do not sneak out of beds.

  She really did feel like a dumbass college student again, but it was her only option. The only one she could bear, anyway. Using every abdominal muscle she’d ever earned at the gym, she lifted her legs and swung them over the edge of the bed. She couldn’t see her clothes, which, she remembered now, weren’t even proper clothes, but freaking pajamas. And they
were out in the other room. Perfect. She’d just get up without moving the bed, and…

  Ava’s dismount was perfect, but a tug on her left arm pulled her back to the bed with a definite bounce.

  What the hell? And then: crap, did I wake him up?

  Cringing, Ava turned to look.

  And she saw Jackson Reed, one sleepy eyebrow raised, holding the end of a black leather lead that was fastened to a black leather cuff on her left wrist.

  “Going somewhere?” he said, and yawned. Then he pulled on the lead, dragging her back down until she was flat on her back, her nakedness very much on display for him.

  “What the fuck?” she said, and tried to sit up. Jackson put two strong arms on either side of her and kissed her back down.

  When he finally let her go, she was breathless. “Not fair,” she said.

  He was admiring the view of her naked breasts, but apparently his mind was still working. “Neither is running away,” he said.

  Ava didn’t have an immediate comeback. She was not prepared for him to make sense, not when he’d apparently tethered her to his bed. She looked at the cuff on her wrist and couldn’t believe it.

  “Seriously, Jackson, what is this?”

  She held up her left wrist as much as she could while still pinned under his weight. He was making it hard for her to focus, or stay mad, or think about anything other than his body on top of hers. And by the look on his face, he knew it, too.

  He pushed a knee between her legs and nudged them wide, settling in between them like he belonged there. It felt like he did belong there. The thought sent Ava into a panic. That felt an awful lot like strings.

  “What’s wrong?” he said, his eyes going soft as he studied her changing face. He could read her, as always.

  “What’s wrong is I’ve woken up tied to your bed, not knowing what the hell I’m doing, or what’s going on, or what any of this means, or if I’m ready for it, or even if—oh God, did we even use protection?”

  “I get tested every six months.”

  And she was on the pill. Still, though. She ignored him. “And all I want is to go think somewhere, and—”

  He kissed her again. It wasn’t fair. It didn’t answer any of her questions or address her concerns, but replaced her thoughts with a nameless warmth.

  “Stop doing that,” she said when he let her up for air. “I need to think.”

  “You’ve been thinking for ten years,” he said. “How’s that worked out for you?”

  She didn’t have an answer for that, either. At least, not a good one. His grey eyes wouldn’t let her look away, and wouldn’t let her hide.

  “You can’t keep me prisoner,” she finally said, and wriggled beneath him, trying to rise. “I’m not—“

  This time, he left no room for doubt. He grabbed her wrists and wrapped the long leather lead around them both, holding them above her head again. He wrapped one arm around the underside of her thigh and brought it close to her chest so she could feel her spread folds wet against him, and he kissed her again, that same melting kiss. He moved his mouth down her throat while she mumbled his name, kissing his way across her chest until he took her nipple in his mouth. He sucked on it until she groaned, then abruptly pulled away.

  “Then say it,” he growled into her ear. “Use your safeword. Call the whole thing off, right now, and you’ll never have to see me again.”

  Never see him again? She hadn’t thought of that, hadn’t wanted that. That wasn’t what she’d meant. It would be the safest thing to do, though. It would. That was obvious.

  She couldn’t do it.

  “That’s not fair,” she began.

  “No, it’s not,” he said, and shifted his weight, rubbing himself against her again. She could feel herself soaking him. “It’s not fair that you walked out on me, either, and never gave me a chance to try to fix it. It’s not fair that you made a goddamn promise, and you’re trying to walk away from it again. A lot of things in life aren’t fair.”

  Ava felt like she wanted to cry. She also felt like she wanted to fuck, like she wanted to let Jackson Reed take her each and every way he wanted her, like she could just live in this bed with him forever, and that completely and utterly terrified her. What would she be like at the end of a week of this? She wanted this, wanted to get to be a sub, couldn’t imagine it with anyone but Jackson. But what if the cost was too high?

  Not that she could ever say that. She hoped he couldn’t see that far into her.

  But he pressed the point, like he sensed weakness. “You have a good reason you shouldn’t honor the deal?”

  Ava’s mind was running at a million miles a minute, coming up with reasons that didn’t involve revealing how she really felt. She was actually pretty good at that.

  “Jackson, it’s not… A week? I have a job, you know, and family obligations, and…I’m supposed to have dinner with my mom and my sister, and—“

  “You can be excused for that.”

  Now it was her turn to raise an eyebrow. “‘Excused?’”

  He smiled down at her, slid his hand down her raised thigh, and looked into her eyes. Nowhere to hide, Ava. She felt a chill as he shifted to give himself access to her. With one finger he began to trace the contours of her folds. In spite of herself, her hips moved. He smiled wider.

  “What part of ‘mine’ didn’t you understand, Frida?”

  That nickname again. Every time he said it, she went back to that night. Back to what he knew about her, to the person she used to be, to the person she had once thought she would become. It made her feel known and loved and also exposed and sad all at once.

  His fingers made it impossible for her to articulate any of that. Not that she would have, anyway. None of that was the no-strings-sex they’d agreed on.

  “Isn’t this what you want, Ava?” he whispered, tugging on the lead that held her wrists. The leather cut into her skin with a soft bite, and just the knowledge that she was bound sent a delicious current down the length of her body. She couldn’t deny it: she had always wanted this. Always wanted a chance…

  “Yes,” she said. She almost wanted to sob, but instead arched up to his hand.

  “Do you trust me for this?” he asked, and looked deep into her eyes.

  He knew. That was the thing—he always knew. Somehow knew that this was hard for her, knew that she had things to overcome, even if he didn’t know why or what, and knew just as certainly that she needed to do this. Just as she knew now.

  “Yes,” she breathed. He was the only one she could trust. She could do this, and it would be like getting a do-over of the past, and then she could finally put it behind her. She could move on, confident in what she wanted.

  “Yes,” she said again, louder. “Yes.”

  He grinned down at her, his smile flashing in the morning light.

  “You need to make any phone calls?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “You know, that job you have.”

  Oh God. Alain. She’d just have to tell him she was going after that big account he wanted. Not what she’d want to tell Jackson, though. “I have vacation time coming up,” she lied.

  “Good.”

  It was just dawning on her what that meant. “Twenty-four hours a day?” she said in a small voice. “You mean…”

  “Twenty-four hours a day.” He was smiling more now. “All access, all the time.”

  She swallowed.

  “But what about your business?”

  “My company will be just fine,” he finally said. “We’ve got a big launch coming up, and I’ll announce an IPO in the new year, but I’ve done what I can. I’ve hired people for the rest.”

  “You can just…do that?”

  “I already have. I was wondering what I was gonna do this week. Now I’m gonna spend it with you.”

  That’s right, she reminded herself, no strings. Their connection made it safe to do this, that was all. It didn’t mean anything else. There were no excuses. Fate had
essentially swooped in out of nowhere and dropped her perfect fantasy—Jackson Reed as a Dom who wanted her—right on top of her from a great height.

  So why was there this nervous tension coiled tight in her middle? Because she’d gotten so used to hiding herself away that being with someone who could really see her was terrifying?

  Well, that’s a stupid reason.

  Everything was so jumbled inside her that it was impossible to make sense of it all. She wanted to get to her studio, the tiny little half bedroom in her apartment where she still painted, furtively, in secret. That was usually when she figured things out and found a way to see the world clearly. But she couldn’t just say, Jackson, you mind if I go off to a secret place I don’t tell anyone about, and no, you can’t come.

  “Hey,” she heard him say, and looked up again to find him staring into her face. “Where’d you go?”

  Ava blinked, and a tear fell down the side of her face. That just made her mad. Crying? Seriously? How the hell was she supposed to explain actual tears without sounding like a crazy person?

  But she didn’t have to. Jackson touched the side of her face and carefully wiped away the tear. Then he said, “You’re mine. It’s just a week, no strings. Let go.”

  She took a big gulp of air and nodded.

  He kissed her.

  “Now open up,” he said, and spread her legs even wider. “You owe me an apology for trying to sneak out.”

  That made her instantly wet. Wetter. He apparently felt it.

  “I’m sorry,” she said softly, suppressing a smile.

  “Oh no, Ava,” he said, and thrust into her in one bold, surprising stroke. She whimpered and arched her back into him, craving more, though she felt shockingly full. “That’s not good enough. You’re gonna scream it.”

  chapter 7

  It felt wrong. Necessary, but wrong.

  Jackson hadn’t felt this jumpy since high school, hadn’t been this nervous ever. He had lied to Ava Barnett. It was for her own good—and his, too—but he’d still lied. And immediately he’d realized all the work he was going to have to do to cover his sorry ass, and that he was going to have to do it in private, which meant some alone time, as much as he wanted to spend every possible moment with a naked Ava. The first thing he’d done after fucking Ava properly was order her into the shower.