“Behave. None of this fidgeting around. This isn’t even a hard spanking.” Her indignant groan made him laugh. “Would you like me to hit you harder?” Her groan turned to a whine, and he pinched her inner thigh when she tried to grind against his leg. “Not yet. Soon.” He landed a few more blows, but his mind was headed elsewhere, watching her squirming ass over his lap. He reached between her legs and slipped his fingers down to her opening. She was hot and dripping wet.
“Please!” she gasped.
He dropped the paddle and pushed her onto her back on the floor. He took his pants down to his knees and fell on her. Her squeak of alarm reminded him he needed a condom. He crawled to the nightstand and ripped open the drawer, then returned to her.
“Arms over your head.” His voice came out sounding more like a growl than human speech. He pulled her panties off, then slapped her thighs open. She spread them wide, watching with big eyes as he rolled the condom on. He put his arms around her and gathered her hot, paddled ass in his hands. She arched her pelvis against him, and he slid inside her all the way to the hilt. His blood hissed in his ears from the intense sensation of being enveloped by her.
“My God, girl. The way you feel…”
He fucked her, cradling her close. Since he made her keep her arms over her head, her back was arched and her breasts were thrust forward. He took full advantage, licking and biting her exposed nipples. She squirmed under him, and her hips snapped against his. They were both uncontrolled, caught up in a frenzy of sexual pleasure. Some part of him was afraid of hurting her, but another part of him was powerless to stop driving in her with all his strength. When he felt her walls contract, felt her quake against him, he kissed her hard and caught her gasps in his mouth. Those gasps were already ingrained in his psyche, deeply familiar to him. Like an animal, he reacted in kind. He clutched her and rocked against her, let his own orgasm shake him free of the world. Gasp, sigh, shudder, melt into oblivion. He already knew her inside and out.
Chapter Nine
She slept in his bed, and he watched her. Their scene had been so long and involved that he hadn’t felt comfortable letting her go home. Nor was he ready to crawl into bed beside her and sleep himself. Not yet.
He ran his eyes over every part of her for the hundredth time. She was naked—he’d insisted on that—and curled up in his bed like a kitten. A stray kitten that was grateful for a home.
He frowned. It was dangerous ground, this. To think about how lovely and natural she looked there in his bed, to think about the possibilities. A full-time arrangement would be complicated if not impossible. He couldn’t be around her without wanting to control, to own. To grope and fuck. It wouldn’t only drain him; it would drain her too. It would be too much on top of everything else. He didn’t want her moving in. It would be bad for them both.
But he ought to take her in, his conscience chided. She was going to be waitressing after performances, for fuck’s sake, to pay for her new place. After rehearsals and class and makeup and stage calls and curtain calls, she’d be trudging off to work. After dancing his Firebird, she would be fetching beers for frat boys and horny businessmen. It would be easy to put her up, a small, quiet girl like her.
No.
No, it wasn’t fair to lead her on that way, to offer what could only be temporary help. Soon he’d be going back to Chicago. He already had work lined up, commitments.
He ran a finger up her calf. They fascinated him, her calves. So feminine and yet so strong even in repose, the shapely, lithe muscle tapering to the impossibly tiny ankle. Like those racehorses whose ankles looked ready at any moment to snap. He shook his head. No thoughts of snapping. If that clod Blake ever dropped her or caused her injury, Jackson would kill him himself. No, she was stronger than she looked, he knew.
She didn’t need him. He intended to keep it that way. For her, not just for him.
He crawled into bed with a sigh, pulled the covers over both of them. She was on the side he’d pointed to when he’d ordered her to stay the night. He’d intended to stay on his side but found her sleepy, sated body impossible to resist. He curled around her, fascinated as always by how petite she was. His hairy thighs dwarfed her smooth ones, and when she turned and nestled into his chest, her head fit perfectly under his chin. He ran his hand down her arm and rested it on her hip. Her skin looked like delicate porcelain under his tan, hirsute fingers. He smiled at how deeply she slept. She shifted closer to him but didn’t wake. Sex seemed to unwind her. Hell, it tranquilized her.
And he had capitalized on the opportunity, pressed her to conversation as they lay on the floor afterward. She had been so relaxed and open to him. He’d asked her to tell him about her dancing, about what drove her. They talked about ballet companies—the New York City Ballet, the Joffrey, the Ballets Russes—and about Alvin Ailey and the way modern dance moved and thrilled her. But when he suggested she move to a modern dance company, she shook her head, the calm relaxation chased away and replaced with doubt about her capabilities.
Damn, the girl was capable as hell. He wished she were less hard on herself. He knew she would be happier if she were. He wished he could figure out the terror behind her eyes that she might disappoint, that she might fall short. That even her typical perfect would never be good enough.
Prosper looked up at the tattooed and pierced bartender as he loaded her tray with drinks. “Don’t drop it, love,” he said with a wink.
She didn’t smile. It would be a miracle if she could thread her way across the club without dropping drinks again. She’d done it yesterday when an overexuberant patron had thrust his hand up her skirt and nearly insinuated his fingers into her panties. She’d dropped the beers on the head of an older man and his wife, who had drunkenly insisted she be fired. The manager had comped their tab for the night and taken it out of her tips, so she’d basically worked for free.
She picked back and forth, avoiding anyone who looked the least bit dicey, and finally arrived at the table to drop off the drinks without incident. Picked up a few more orders, made her way back to the bar. The music pounded in her ears, and every pore of her being felt saturated with smoke. She picked up another tray and wondered to herself how the bartender ate and drank with all the piercings around his mouth. She made her way through the pulsing crowd again. It was nearly one, and the place was still filling up. When would the bar start to thin out so she could walk through without brushing against body after body? She was still too aroused from her time with Jackson the other night.
Still aroused? She was constantly aroused. She didn’t know how she made it through class anymore, constantly watching for Jackson to pass by in the hall outside the window. Then there was that moment when she arrived at rehearsal, when she had to settle herself so she didn’t go in and fall at his feet. The looks he gave her made her wish they were still rehearsing alone instead of with the whole cast.
Crap. She was headed for a new table and realized too late the faces she knew. Blake, Kristen, Elsa, Ed. There was no time to turn, to make her way back through the crowded press of people that had already closed behind her. And the table was in her section, so she had to go wait on them. She stalked up to the group of dancers with a frown. Kristen smirked and narrowed her eyes. Elsa ignored her, and Ed seemed to not even realize who she was.
“Prosper! What are you doing here?” yelled Blake.
“I told you yesterday I was working here.”