Come and Get Me Read online

“No, Eleesha. I had everything. And I threw it away.”

  He was going after her emotions. It wasn’t enough to assail her body’s defenses. He was trying to break down the carefully built walls around her heart. Why? Why did he have to be so cruel?

  “Ross, fuck me, please.”

  He held her on the brink of orgasm. A razor’s edge from which he would allow her no release. He let her breathing calm, just a little.

  “First the bondage,” he said.

  She shuddered in utter physical defeat. The man truly was asserting himself. If he wished to break her heart then she had no hope.

  “I want you to lie on the bed,” he told her, caressing her back in slow, tender circles. “I want you to lie down…for me.”

  His hand felt so good. Her body shivered with need. When he stopped the caress, she gave in to a small sob.

  “The bed,” he reminded.

  Yes…the bed. She was to lie on…for him, she thought dreamily.

  Ross helped her from his lap onto the bed. Never was she so grateful to crawl upon a mattress in her life. And never was she so uncertain as to what was going to happen to her body in a lover’s charge. In every important way, Ross had been her first. The young man who’d made love to her before him, in the back of a post-prom limo had been a well-meaning fool who had no clue as to what to do with the female body. Ross had been the one to open her and brand her.

  And leave her.

  If he tore the scabs off of all those old wounds, if he went that deep again, she did not know if she would survive. And yet there was no resisting this man. She desired too much, yearned too much, for his nakedness, his raw power, his energy and personality.

  She needed Ross inside her. Physically. Spiritually.

  Eleesha felt like a stranger in her own bed. It was his space now. An area that he had designated for his use of her. She was going into bondage, he’d said. That word had several meanings. How many would he invoke before he was through with her this time?

  Eleesha put her hands over her head, palms up, anticipating. Ross was at the foot of the bed, tying the scarves together in various lengths. She watched his fingers work. It had been nylon rope on the bed back in college. The sorority sisters had secured the ends ahead of time at the four corners. Finely braided, scarlet red rope. That should have been Eleesha’s first clue that her being chosen to be with Ross had not been an accident.

  The room was decked out for the love slave fantasy. The one she’d imprudently shared one night when she was drunk. She was sober now, and so was Ross.

  “Tell me,” Ross said as he worked. “What happens in your dreams?”

  “You possess me,” she whispered, knowing how much she risked. “You make me come for you…over and over. You have me any way you want, on the beach…on the floor…on the conference table at work, even.”

  “I’ve had that fantasy, too,” he confided. “It’s one we’ll live out.”

  Had she heard him right? Did he intend to carry this further?

  “You said we were getting this out of our systems…”

  Ross leaned over, taking both of her slender wrists in one hand. He was so strong.

  “It may take some time,” he said, securing her wrists together.

  He attached the other end to the head of the bed. Deprived of her hands, her breasts utterly exposed, she awaited his next move.

  Ross’ kiss was worth the wait. He was here, he was telling her. He was in this wholeheartedly, and he was not a twenty-two-year-old kid anymore—a cocky quarterback with stars in his eyes.

  But who was he? This new man was still a stranger to her.

  He took her face in his hands. “Eleesha, you are so fucking beautiful. Those other girls in the sorority, they were just jealous. You know that, right?”

  Her eyes watered. She’d never told anyone what had happened to her the next day, after Ross left. Not even Martha.

  “I went to the pledge meeting,” her voice cracked, “after you left. They looked at me and laughed. Said I was a frigid little bitch—that everyone knew that I hadn’t pleased you. That you’d had to go fuck Mary Lou Kennedy so you could get a decent lay out of the deal. I didn’t say a word. I didn’t want them to…to think worse of you.”

  The pain in his eyes was genuine. “Sweetheart, I had no idea. You did that for me?”

  She laughed through her tears. “Then I told them to fuck off. No sorority for Eleesha Greene. My best friend was the library after that.”

  “They didn’t deserve you,” he declared. “And I don’t either.”

  Eleesha shook her head. “Ross, I don’t know what to think.”

  His hand went to her full breast, cupping it. A perfect fit. “Don’t think, Eleesha, just feel.”

  “Oh, Ross,” she arched her back. “Oh, god.”

  He massaged her breast, nuzzling her neck. She moaned in pleasure. If only she could die at this moment. But there was so much more.

  His hand strayed down her hip, slightly calloused from his workouts. He kneaded her flesh along the way, releasing years of pent-up tension.

  She waited for the word and when she heard it, she complied at once.

  “Open, Eleesha.”

  “Yes, Ross.” She parted her thighs.

  Eleesha lifted her hips, trying to make contact with his lightly grazing fingers. He teased her clit, and traced lines around her outer lips until she was putty in his hands.

  “Wider,” he commanded in a sheer display of power.

  Eleesha spread herself, begging for penetration. “Ross…please…”

  “There will be no going back,” he warned her. “Not this time.”

  “I don’t care,” she murmured, although she really did. The aftermath was going to be messy, complicated, but there was no seeing beyond her agonizing, desperate need to get off.

  “I need to come, Ross…oh, god, don’t make me wait.”

  Ross’ tongue singed the tip of her nipple. “Are you sure?”

  She clenched her bound hands. “I surrender, Ross. Is that what you want to hear? You’ve won. My body will never hold out against you. You have power over me…forever.”

  “You’ll hate me for that,” he predicted, “as soon as this is over.”

  She groaned in painful release as he gave her what she wanted. The fullness of his masculinity, his shaft sliding deep within her, filling her aching pussy, causing her vaginal muscles to clench greedily, encouraging her to push ever further, lifting her to greater heights. Until both ignited into a firestorm of mutual lust.

  “I’ve hated you all along,” she confessed. Though she didn’t know how much longer she could keep it up.

  “And I’ve loved you.”

  Eleesha exploded as soon as he said the words. He’d been in love with her? Since when? He seemed as shocked as she, but at the moment, there was nothing to consider but the orgasm overtaking her.

  It was a molten storm, lightning tearing her flesh, thunder shuddering deep in her soul. Ross’ teeth were clenched, his eyes closed. He looked so gorgeous this way, claiming his place within her captured body. She gave everything to her bondage climax, riding wave after wave. She took his semen deep…the pent-up flood of his manhood.

  “Eleesha…” He turned her name into a song, the low, satisfied growl of the male in full glory.

  Her heart lit at his happiness as she pressed head-to-toe against him. “Ross…” she urged him on, reveling in every detail of the sex. Nipple to nipple, hip to hip, bellies undulating, their bodies so different and yet craving one another so much. The beating of their hearts conjoined in shared bliss, shared ecstasy.

  He thrust his cock in and out until he’d drained himself fully, until there was nothing left to be spent. At long last he collapsed upon her—upon the satisfied body and reawakened soul of Eleesha Greene.

  Ross was the first to attempt speech. “I haven’t had anything like that since…since ever,” he declared.

  She couldn’t offer anything by way of affirmatio
n—not that she didn’t feel it, it was just that she was scared now. Terrified of what he might do—of what she might do—to destroy it all.

  “Thank you, Eleesha.” He brushed the hair from her face.

  He was being so mature about it, so cool and at peace, as if everything could just be. For some reason his complacency pissed her off.

  “The silk is digging into my wrists,” she said. “If you don’t mind.”

  Her tone was slightly brittle. Not rude, but hardly warm. She was walking that very fine line—too tired to hate him, too afraid to love. All in all she wanted to be alone. With her cat and a bag of potato chips.

  He untied the scarves. “I should be going.”

  “You probably have a lot to do,” she agreed.

  “Always something,” he smiled thinly, putting on his underwear.

  “Yes.”

  Ross pulled his white T-shirt over his head, giving her one final look at his torso in motion. She fought to keep her mouth from watering. If only the man knew how much she wanted seconds.

  “See you at the office, then?”

  Eleesha had gathered the sheets around her. She was propped up on the pillows. If anyone walked in now, they might never know anything had happened between them.

  “I’ll be in later,” she confirmed.

  “We’ll start scheduling time to look at your departmental operations.”

  “Good.”

  He opened the door and left. Chester ran in, telling a long and complicated story about the evil man who’d locked him out of the bedroom for a million years preventing him from gallantly defending her, which he most certainly would have done, and by the way, was she aware that the cat food dish was down below halfway?

  “Come here, you goofball,” she sighed. The cat hopped onto the bed, presenting himself for some long overdue petting. “Well, that was it,” she told him. “The latest hit and run by Mr. Maclean. Hopefully he has me out of his system now.”

  He was certainly out of her system. She’d let him know that, too, if he ever tried any more funny business. Like that conference room thing. The idea of making love to her on the table. Taking her, right there at work, just because he wanted to and had to have her. Pulling out his hard cock, his insatiable member, demanding that she yield to it again. Giving her no choice but to be rocked to thunderous orgasm. Maybe even more than one.

  Eleesha sighed. Wet again. Shooing Chester to the floor, she got her vibrator from the nightstand for some alone time. It wasn’t about Ross, she told herself—she was just generically horny. Closing her eyes, she set about fantasizing. Generically. Anonymously. Men with no faces. Men who did not look like, smell like, sound like or fuck like him.

  A minute later she was screaming his name, the vibrator whirring away at her pussy, massaging her swollen clit.

  I’m doomed, she thought. Totally doomed.

  Chapter Four

  Ross poured over the figures for the hundredth time, looking for the solution. It was like one of those damned Rubik’s Cubes. How to refit the pieces of the company in an integrated, streamlined fashion. Computer networking was the key, but that could result in position redundancy.

  Layoffs.

  So why not look at expanding the customer base? Eleesha’s advertising department was already lean and mean. Could it be unleashed even more effectively on the growing market for high-tech security solutions? Global Tech was one of the best in the business at doing background investigations for employers and they were excellent at outsourcing private protection work, too.

  He shifted in his seat. Another erection. From thinking about Eleesha and her department. What the hell was wrong with him? Hadn’t he just made love to the woman an hour ago? He was halfway tempted to close the door and masturbate. Or maybe take up one of the many hints he was getting from the female staff at their availability.

  Kelly, one of the barely legal secretaries from accounting, had made it abundantly clear that bending over the copy machine bare-assed for a former NFL quarterback was one of her top three fantasies in life. Admittedly, the shapely blonde’s ass was something he wouldn’t mind seeing bent over a copy machine, especially if her sex lips were half as moist and pink as her facial lips.

  “I want you,” said Kelly, with the bluntness and total disregard for commitment typical of this new generation. “I think you’re a total hottie, just like me.”

  Ross swallowed hard. A man would have to be comatose not to be affected by a pair of fully loaded, in-your-face breasts, and a set of three-inch dragon lady nails trailing over his crotch.

  “How do you type with those?” was the only response he’d been able to come up with at the time.

  One thing was clear, he thought as he rubbed his bleary eyes. This idea of getting Eleesha out of his system was every bit the nonsense she’d said it was. You didn’t get over a temptation by giving in left and right. That’s called feeding the addiction, not breaking it. What he had to do was…well, to put it as politely as possible, take care of business elsewhere. Maybe not with the likes of Kelly or sweet little Martha, but there had to be someone out there.

  Of course he’d been saying that for years. At one point he’d thought Chelsea was it. She was a sensitive, chain-smoking artist who hated football, but he’d felt so committed, so in love. And then one day she’d come to him, out of the blue, it seemed, and asked “where his head was at”.

  He’d claimed ignorance, which had made her angrier.

  “You’re here,” she’d said. “But you’re not here.”

  Everything had fallen apart. Overnight he’d realized that he hated expressionist art, couldn’t stand her friends and was bored to tears with their lovemaking. They’d divorced quickly and quietly. No harm done, or at least as little as possible in such situations.

  “At least we didn’t have any kids,” she’d said, with her typical bravado, frequently bordering on cynicism. That was another thing he hadn’t liked. And her hair—it was either spiked out or short and hopelessly tousled. And couldn’t she ever wear something besides sneakers?

  She had been pretty much in the same boat. All that opposites attract stuff had worn down to the nub, leaving both with a marriage full of painful abrasions.

  One of the things that Chelsea had complained about—she couldn’t stand that name, by the way, insisting everyone else call her China—was that Ross had held back something from day one. She didn’t know what it was, but it was there.

  He wondered now if it had been Eleesha all along.

  Ross was still pondering things when he heard a timid knock on the door.

  “Come in.”

  It was Martha. “I hate to bother you…”

  “Not at all.” Actually he was anxious to talk to her, and for more than one reason. “Have a seat.”

  “Thank you.” Martha sat on the sofa, smoothing her skirt.

  “What can I do for you?”

  Martha tucked her lemon yellow hair behind her ear. She looked like a schoolgirl at the principal’s office. “Am I in trouble with Miss Greene?” she wanted to know.

  “What on earth for?” he exclaimed.

  Her face colored crimson. She couldn’t even make eye contact. “For…for leaving her apartment when I did.”

  “Oh, that. Well, if you are, I will see to it that she doesn’t give you a hard time. You were looking out for her interests, and for that you have my gratitude.”

  “Thank you,” she said shyly, then cleared her throat. “May I say something else, Mister… Ross.”

  “Of course.”

  “I’ve known Miss Greene a year and a half, and before you got here I had never seen her so angry, or sulky or irritated or mixed up. You know what that means, right?”

  He smiled wryly. “That the two of us are oil and water and I’m ruining her life by being here?”

  She shook her head, looking suddenly wiser than her years. “It means she’s in love with you.”

  His heart skipped a beat. “You sure you’re no
t stretching things a little?” he asked, trying to keep his emotions under wraps.

  Martha interlaced her fingers, staring at her lap. “How could she not be in love? You’re like the most fall-in-loveable guy on the planet.”

  “Thanks, Martha, but I’m not so sure.”

  “You should go after her.”

  “I’m too old to chase. Bad knees.”

  “You’re not even forty,” she laughed.

  “That’s ancient,” he said. “Besides, I don’t see your point. If Eleesha loves me, why does she keep shutting down on me?”

  “No offense, Ross, but you burned her pretty bad. You were like the prototype player in her mind—player being a man who uses women for sex and then runs out on them. She won’t trust easily.”

  “It’s a lot to think about,” he sighed.

  “Do you love her?”

  The simple question floored him. “It’s not black and white, Martha. There’s a lot of history. When you get to be our age…” he trailed off. “Listen to me. I sound like a fool.”

  Martha rose to her feet. “Just a really cute guy with a lot to sort out. By the way, thanks for the autograph. My brother is in heaven.”

  “I can give you a football for him, if you like.”

  Her eyes lit up. “Do that and he might actually regard me as a human being, at least for a day or so.”

  “Consider it done.”

  “Thank you…and about Miss Greene. Thank you for letting me talk.”

  “Not at all. Like I said, she gives you any trouble, you send her to me.”

  She leaned over the desk to give him a peck on the cheek. “With all due respect, Ross, I think you’re going to have your hands full with Miss Greene a lot more than I will.”

  Martha was right, of course.

  This was more than proven an hour later when he received a second visitor—Eleesha herself.

  “I’ve been thinking about something you said,” she declared, without preamble. “And I want to get to the bottom of it.”

  “Yes?” For his part, he was trying to keep her clothes on mentally. Despite his best efforts, however, he was seeing through her sensible blue dress to the vital, sexy body underneath. She’d been everything she was in college and more. More statuesque, more…classical. The added years meant nothing. It only made him want her more as he saw in her beauty nature’s plan for a woman to ripen.