Stark After Dark Read online

  “Yes,” I say. “Oh, yes.”

  He withdraws his fingers from my sex, and my muscles tighten in protest, my body wanting to draw him back in. He cups his hand there, the pressure making it hard for a cogent thought to form in my head.

  “And only when he is sure does he claim her fully, take her completely.” He draws his hand away, and I have to bite my lip to stifle a moan of protest.

  He reaches into the tub and scoops me up, one arm beneath my knees, the other around my back. I hook my arms around his neck and snuggle against him, wanting to be as close to this man as humanly possible.

  “He plies her with softness and seduction,” Damien says, and I murmur a protest against his throat. “What?” he asks.

  I tilt my head back and look at him through heavy lids. “I’m not complaining,” I say, “but I’m not so sure that men in history saw it entirely your way.”

  His lips twitch. “No?”

  “I think they just took what they wanted, and the woman be damned.” I lift an eyebrow, teasing, and he dips his head to kiss my forehead.

  “Perhaps,” he says. “Or perhaps I’m not finished telling you my story. It’s one thing for him to make her crave him. It’s another thing entirely for him to finally claim her. For her to truly understand that she is his.”

  “Oh,” I say, as a sensual tremor cuts through me.

  “The height of pleasure,” he says slowly, the words so heavy with meaning they make me weak. And, yes, they make me wetter. “The precipice of passion. He would take her there, again and again, until she was desperate with longing, all resistance lost, all hesitation erased. She would know only him. Want only him. And she would beg for the relief and explosion that only he could bring her.”

  We’re on the patio now, and he carries me to the shower, then puts me down. He turns on the tap, and pleasantly warm water begins to fall from the rain-style showerhead. I tilt my head up, enjoying the way it washes over me, then look down to watch as the last remnants of the bubbles that clung to me from the tub are washed away down the drain.

  Beside me, Damien is still in his swim trunks and open white shirt. He’s soaked, and the thin material now clings to him in the kind of magazine-cover-model way that makes me want to simply stare at him and bask in the knowledge that he is mine.

  “Here,” he says, turning me to face the wooden wall from which the showerhead protrudes. He takes my wrist and raises my arm above my head. It is only then that I notice that the hook that I saw holding shampoo is actually a slipknot. He takes the bottle of shampoo out, then slips the rough rope around my wrist before pulling it tight, effectively trapping me in place.

  “Damien,” I say, and I can hear both trepidation and excitement in my voice.

  He hears it, too, and I see the hint of a smile as he takes my other hand and repeats the process so that I am standing there naked and bound, facing the freestanding wooden wall.

  He steps back, watching me from just to my left, far enough back so that I have to turn my head to see him.

  “He claims her,” he says slowly. “Claims her and possesses her. Takes her and commands her. Teases and taunts until she understands that he is her life now, just as she is his.”

  I swallow, hearing both reality and history in his words. “And if she already knows it?”

  Our eyes lock and the air between us seems to shimmer. I can feel it touching me, the tickle of electric fingers dancing over my body. I am alive with this man. My husband.

  I am alive, and I am his.

  And we both already know it.

  For a moment, I think that he will say something else. His eyes narrow in what I can only assume is amusement. Then—without saying another word—he turns and walks away from me, carefully stepping on the stone path that leads the way across the infinity pool.

  I watch him go, determined not to call after him. I don’t know what game he is playing, but I am certain that there is a game. I’m also certain that while Damien might deny me simply for the pleasure of making me beg, he won’t deny me for long. Not today. Not when he wants me just as badly as I want him.

  Still, just in case, I give a firm tug to my bonds, managing only to tighten the slipknots. Well, damn.

  And then, as if to prove my hypothesis, Damien returns. He’s changed clothes, and now he’s wearing khaki shorts and nothing else. He seems to glow in the sunlight, and I think to myself that he is sun kissed. At the moment, all that thought does is make me jealous of the sun.

  He crosses purposefully to me, and even on this beachfront patio and dressed so casually, there is no question but that he is a man to be obeyed. More than that, I know that I will willingly do so.

  He’s carrying one of the champagne flutes, and now he comes to stand just to the side of the wooden wall so that I can look at him more easily.

  “You’re beautiful,” he says, with such reverence in his voice that it makes me go weak.

  “Is this how you like me?” I ask, lifting my chin. “Naked and bound and wet for you?”

  One eyebrow arches slightly as he takes a step toward me. “Are you?”

  Yes, yes, oh, dear god, yes. I don’t say that, though. Instead I just smile. “Come and find out.”

  “Tempting,” he says, moving even closer, and with each step my anticipation rises and my body fires just a little bit more.

  “Please,” I say, when he is close enough to touch me, but maddeningly doesn’t do so.

  “Please what?”

  “Touch me,” I say. “Fuck me.”

  “Feeling desperate, Mrs. Stark? Dear god, I like the sound of that.”

  “Desperate?” I quip.

  “Mrs. Stark,” he says firmly, and takes a sip of the champagne. “I’m not sure there are any two words in the world that give me greater pleasure.” He lifts the glass to me. “A sip for the bride?”

  I nod and ease forward. He puts the glass to my lips and tilts it for me to drink. I swallow some, but most of it dribbles down my chin and onto my breasts.

  I shiver slightly from the unexpected splash of cool liquid, then shiver even more when Damien moves closer, pressing one hand to my lower back to hold me in place as he licks the champagne from my cleavage.

  I do not recognize the sound I make. It is wild. Feral. It is a demand, a plea, and if I were not bound to this wall I would fall to my knees and beg him to take me hard, to take me fast.

  With his free hand, he cups my breast as his tongue laves my areola before his mouth closes over my nipple. He suckles me, sending electricity shooting down to my clit, making my already throbbing sex go almost painful with need.

  I struggle to move my hands because I want to touch him. To stroke his back and bury my fingers in his hair, but I am bound, and I can only feel and want and need.

  Damien.

  I don’t realize that I’ve said his name aloud until he looks up at me, his lips still pressed against my breast, his face full of wide-open desire.

  “Pleasure,” he says, then bites down on my nipple. “And pain.”

  I cry out as his teeth dig into my sensitive flesh, but at the same time, my breast tingles with arousal, and my body hums as if every erogenous zone is interconnected. A web of sensuality crisscrossing my body, from my clit to my breasts, to my mouth, to my fingers. Over and through me as pleasure and pain combine to bring me closer and closer to something that has the power to both destroy me and make me whole.

  “Tell me what you want.” He straightens, his body pressed hard against mine so that I can feel his erection through his shorts. “Tell me what you need.”

  “You,” I say. “Hard. Please.”

  Our eyes meet, and he cups his hand behind my neck then tugs me forward into a kiss so violent that our teeth clash and I swear I taste blood.

  “You are my wife, Nikki. My heart, my life.”

  “Say it again,” I beg.

  “Wife,” he says, understanding perfectly what I need to hear. He moves behind me, his palms stroking my sh
oulders, my back, my ass. “Mine,” he adds as he presses against me from behind and slides his hand around to stroke my sex. I am drenched, desperately turned on, and a wild tremor shakes my body.

  We’re one, he and I. And right now I need him inside me, as if in proof of that simple truism. “Please, Damien. I need you.”

  “Not yet,” he says, and I hear the rustle of cloth as he takes off his shorts. He moves back in front of me now, and as he goes to unbind one of my hands, I take the opportunity to drink in the perfection that is Damien Stark. He’s impressive dressed; naked and erect, he’s perfection. And I am selfishly, greedily, gloriously happy that he is mine.

  “You’re smiling,” he says.

  “I have reason to.”

  “We both do.”

  One of my hands is still bound, but he turns me so that my back is to the wall. He kisses me gently, his tongue exploring my mouth even as his hands graze my body, as if he is just discovering me for the first time.

  With my free hand, I clutch the back of his head, keeping him close to me, not wanting this kiss to end, but also not wanting it sweet. I want it hard. I want to be fucked.

  I want to be claimed like a bride of the honeymoons of old.

  “Claim me,” I say. “Please, Damien, take me now. I need you to. I need to surrender.”

  It is as if my words are an invocation; he deepens the kiss, taking as much as I can give, demanding everything I have.

  Roughly, he presses me back so that I am against the wall, then takes my leg and lifts it so that my thigh rests on his hip and I am open to him. He fingers me, and I arch back from the glorious sensation of being explored. “I love how wet you are,” he murmurs, and before I can respond, he closes his hands around my waist and lifts me up and thrusts his cock deep inside me. I cry out, taking all of him and wanting more.

  He slams us backward, pressing me hard against the wall as he pounds deeper and deeper into me. I clutch his shoulders and cling tight, my body open to him, my need for him just as savage as his for me.

  This isn’t about romance and wine and roses and moonlight. This is wild. This is primitive.

  This is wonderful.

  He is claiming me. Marking me.

  He is giving me what I need—everything I need—and I willingly surrender to both him and to the waves of pleasure that rise up, higher and higher as we continue to move together, the storm building inside both of us.

  “Say it,” I demand as my body reaches the crest. “Oh, god, please, I need to hear you say it.”

  Our bodies slam together again in one final, brilliant thrust even as the word I crave crashes over me, pushing me over the precipice and sending me hurtling toward the stars in an explosion of light and color.

  “Wife,” he cries even as his own release takes him. “You are my wife, my life, my love.”

  And Damien…Damien is my husband.

  Chapter 3

  The sea is calm and I am floating, my head tilted back and my eyes open to the sky. Clouds move lazily above me, drifting upon the air as I drift upon the sea. I cannot see Damien, but I can feel him, and I know that he is near and that I am not alone.

  It is him as much as the water that buoys me, and I breathe deep, then close my eyes, warm and safe and alive.

  I do not know how long I drift, I only know that when I open my eyes, it is dark and the stars wink down at me, not soft and gentle, but with a devious malice, as if they hold a secret that I am not allowed to share.

  I tremble, suddenly aware that I can no longer see or feel him, and a bubble of panic rises in me. I tense, my breathing becomes shallow. I struggle to stay afloat, but it is no use. As if the water has claws, it pulls me under, and I start to sink, coughing and sputtering as my head dips below the surface and I struggle to rise.

  I am wild with panic, flailing and fighting, and it is only when my bare feet touch sand that I realize that the water is shallow. Relief washes over me like the tide; I am not drowning. I am only floundering, and once I find Damien, I know that I will be steady again.

  I regain my balance and press my palms to the ocean’s surface, feeling it pulse beneath my skin with the motion of the waves and the pull of the tide. A current tugs at my ankles, silently urging me to let go. To melt into the water and submit to the power of the ocean.

  Damien, I think, certain that I have found him. He is the ocean. He is power and motion and grace and beauty, and the reason I cannot find him is because he is already there. Surrounding me, stroking me, urging me to come to him.

  I relax and give in to his sensual lure, letting the water tug me down, down, down, until my entire body is below the crystalline surface. I open my eyes and realize that I can see all the way to eternity. The world here beneath the waves is vibrant and alive, an explosion of colors despite the darkness of night above. I watch in awe as an orange and red coral reef rises above me. Fish dart to and fro, as if late for important engagements.

  I have forgotten to breathe, and I panic, then realize that breath is not required at all. This is where I belong. Here, in the nether land. Here, where Damien surrounds me.

  Except…

  Except it is not Damien I feel around me. Not his comfort, nor his warmth. On the contrary, I feel cold. Lost.

  Most of all, I feel afraid.

  A little frantic, I search the ocean. I want to cry out, but the water presses against me, and I cannot. My heart pounds a fearful rhythm in my chest, and the vibrations radiate out, causing the sea to churn.

  I reach to steady myself, but there is nothing to hold. I grapple, searching for purchase and finding none. I try to cry out, to beg for Damien to hold me, but no sound comes out.

  And then I see him, and my heart twists.

  He is standing near me, his torso rising above the water while his feet are planted in the sand. I watch from my odd perspective beneath the water as the waves buffet him. He reaches out a hand. At first I think it is to steady himself, and then I realize that he is reaching for me. I slog forward, my own hand extended. I can almost touch him. Just a little bit closer…

  My fingers brush his, and I almost weep with relief—and then he is pulled away, the current taking him, and I cry out in horror as I try to swim toward him, only to find the way blocked. The reef, the wildlife, the tide. Everything in this new universe is conspiring to keep us apart, and when they finally move away and my vision clears, he is gone. There is nothing but ocean as far as the eye can see.

  No! No, I can’t have lost him!

  I open my mouth to scream, then choke as the ocean moves in to drown me. I struggle, rising, and suck in air, my ribs aching from the pounding strain of my lungs. I am still coughing out water when I see him floating facedown in front of me.

  I do not hear the scream that is ripped from my throat, but I know that I am slogging through the water, trying desperately to reach his side. I do not know how, but my arms end up around him, and then we are on the beach and I am over him, my mouth on his as I give him air—sweet, sweet air—and beg him to please, please, please come back to me.

  But he doesn’t. He just lays there, cold and wet, staring up at me with eyes that should twinkle like the stars but now are as flat as stone.

  “No!” The word is ripped out of me, and I pounce on him again, unwilling to give up. Not able to even conceive that he could be gone.

  I press my lips against his again, determined to give him life. To give him mine, if it comes to that. To do anything and everything to bring him back to me, because there is no way—no way in hell—that I can go on without him.

  But there is nothing.

  Despite my fighting, my pleading, my crying—there is simply nothing.

  But I do not stop. I press on. I push. I plead. I threaten. And, goddammit, I will him to come back, and I do not stop. I cannot stop, because if I stop, then there is nothing left of the world, and I will float off into space, a shell of myself. Lost. And truly and completely alone.

  “Don’t you dare,” I say
, the words ripped from my throat as I thrust the heels of my hands down over his heart. “Don’t you dare leave me.”

  A tear trickles down my nose, but I do not stop to wipe it away. It falls, landing on Damien’s lips. I blink, and another tear follows the first.

  His lashes flutter. Color returns to his cheeks.

  And then his lips move in a word so broken and soft that I almost do not recognize it—“Nikki.”

  He is alive. He is back.

  He is mine.

  Chapter 4

  I sit bolt upright, my skin covered in a thin sheen of sweat, my breath coming hard and fast. We are on the oversized patio chaise lounge, and Damien’s arm is around me. He pulls me back down to him, his voice so soft and gentle that I understand only the sentiment and not the words. It’s okay. I’m here. You’re safe.

  I close my eyes, letting his strength fill me. And when I have taken all I need, I turn to him. “I’m okay now,” I say. “You can let go.”

  He brushes my lips with a kiss. “Never.”

  I burrow closer, then smile against his shoulder. That one simple word is as comforting as a down blanket in winter, and I am content, the rough edges of the dream finally smoothed away by this man who loves me.

  “Do you want to tell me about it?”

  “No,” I say, then find the words coming anyway. How he was pulled away from me. How everything in the sea seemed to conspire to keep us apart. How I found him dead in water that had been comforting only moments before, but then turned suddenly menacing.

  “I couldn’t bring you back,” I say, feeling the tears well again.

  “But you did,” he says. He pulls me close and captures my mouth with his. The kiss starts out sweet, then turns hot and hard, demanding and possessive. “You did,” he repeats once he has released me. “And you will never have cause to bring me back again, because I will never leave you. I was foolish enough to do that before, and it just about killed us both.”

  I nod, then take another deep breath, steadying myself. Because I know the truth in what he is saying. Damien wouldn’t leave me any more than I would leave him. And yet fear still clutches me, its sharp talons digging in and taking hold.