Strung Out Read online

  She was bare except for the tiny scrap of lace nestled between her legs. She’d worn no bra or stockings. Erik climbed onto the bed and covered her mouth in a deep, probing kiss. His tongue slipped inside and tangled with hers until they were both fighting for breath.

  His hand cupped her breast, the pad of his thumb running lightly across her sensitive nipple. She gasped in pleasure and pushed against his palm. Pinching the elongated bud between thumb and forefinger, Erik twisted until she was whimpering against his lips.

  Erik took her other nipple into his mouth. Her hands fisted in his hair as he drew deeply from her breast. She thrashed beneath him, her hands moving restlessly in the rumpled sheets.

  He tasted the skin of her smooth belly just above her navel. She gasped, the sensation making her shrink reflexively away from him. Erik moved lower, hooking his thumbs into the black lace straps of her thong. He drew away only long enough to slide the scrap of fabric down the smooth length of her legs. He caught the scent of her wet pussy as he brought it to his lips before tossing the panties aside.

  Her eyes followed him, watching every move he made. When Erik lifted her knees and pushed them apart, her eyes went wide with anticipation. He smiled, though not to reassure, and felt her body tremble beneath his touch.

  “Like the most perfect pink flower,” he whispered.

  She shifted toward him and her pussy glistened in the dim light. Erik slid his palms up the smooth skin of her inner thighs until they rested at the apex of her legs. A delicate tremor shook her. His thumbs lovingly caressed her swollen labia, pulling them back to expose the tight opening of her vagina. Talia’s sweet cream coated the softness of her pussy. Unable to resist any longer, Erik tasted her with the tip of his tongue.

  She gasped, her hips bucking against the restraining force of his hands as Erik buried his tongue inside her cunt. She was sweet to the taste and warm. The tangy salt of her enticed him like an exotic flavor he couldn’t get enough of. Pressing the flat of his tongue against the hood of her clit, Erik suckled. She moaned and arched her back.

  “Oh God, Erik,” Talia whimpered urgently. “It’s so much. I can’t.”

  Erik gave her one long stroke from anus to clit before sucking the hood of her clit into his mouth and drawing deeply. She shuddered and came hard. The climax released a gush of cream, which Erik lapped greedily before shucking his clothes to the floor in a heap.

  “I need you, Talia.”

  “I’m yours.”

  Blue eyes met green as Erik positioned himself at the tight entrance to her cunt. His cock was hard, straining against his hand as he fought to go slowly. Her hot flesh gave beneath him. The welcoming heat was slick with her juices, the muscles still quivering from her recent climax. Her pussy stroked his hard length bit by bit until he was fully seated inside her body.

  Erik groaned, teeth grinding together to keep from pounding himself to a quick finish. He needed her, needed this too much. He had to savor the feeling, make it last as long as possible.

  “Fuck me, Erik. Please. Don’t leave me like this!”

  Her desperate words complemented the restless movements of her body. Thrusting hard into her heat, Erik did as she begged, fighting for control of his lust.

  “Harder. Faster.”

  She goaded, encouraged, begged him to pound her pussy. The wet noise of his cock slamming in and out of her cunt taunted his ears. Erik increased his pace, hips bucking back and forth as he penetrated her over and over again.

  Talia’s back arched, her body welcoming Erik to a sudden onslaught of pleasure as she climaxed in an explosion of powerful muscle contractions that stole the breath from his lungs.

  Sweat beaded on his forehead, running down his temples before dripping onto the pale perfection of her naked breasts. Still he fought for control, fought to slow his rapid race to orgasm. His balls drew up tightly, his sac bouncing against her ass with every thrust.

  “Come with me, Erik,” she begged.

  Her words undid him. Placing one knee on the bed beside her hip, Erik settled her legs in his hands and slammed into her pussy with a force that made Talia gasp for breath. He groaned. Liquid fire burned his cock as her pussy burst into another climax. The feel of her body in orgasm sent Erik over the edge. His balls pulsed, and his cock erupted in a stream of hot semen that sprayed deep into Talia’s sweet depths before Erik collapsed onto her bed, spent.

  Gathering her into his arms, Erik settled their sweat-slicked bodies comfortably on the bed and pulled the thin sheet up to avoid a chill. She was soft and warm beside him, a perfect fit in every way. What the hell was he supposed to do?

  Talia inhaled long and deep. “So, ‘pit bull’? What, exactly, did you mean by that?”

  Chapter Seven

  The muscle in his jaw tightened, a sure sign of him grinding his teeth together in agitation. Talia wondered how she could have such all-consuming feelings for someone and yet harbor such distrust at the same time. Love and trust were supposed to go hand in hand, weren’t they?

  Trust had to be earned.

  It was difficult to see the details of his expression in the dim light. It was plenty obvious that she’d blindsided him with her question. But she needed to know the truth about the ice princess, dammit.

  “She is the daughter of one of my business associates. We’re in the middle of negotiating a merger. From the beginning her father wanted our families joined by marriage. He thinks it’ll give him a stronger position on the board of directors once the documents are signed.”

  “So you proposed?”

  He growled. “I never asked her to marry me, Talia. She and her father want me to; hell, they expect it. But I was hoping it would never come to that.”

  “So you’re not engaged?”

  “No.”

  Talia squirmed around so that she could better see his face. “But mixing business and personal in your line of work would be okay?”

  “In this case it seemed like the best option.”

  “Even if you and the ice princess aren’t much of a match?”

  His soft hand cupped her cheek, thumb brushing against her lips. “I wasn’t looking for my match before now.”

  “So you were willing to throw away your freedom for a corporate merger.”

  It wasn’t a question. He’d obviously been doing just that. Talia couldn’t imagine shackling herself to someone she didn’t love in a lifelong commitment just to cement some kind of business deal. That kind of cold manipulation wasn’t compatible with the way she was wired.

  “I didn’t see it quite like that.”

  “You’re expected to propose to a woman you don’t love because her father’s company wants to marry yours.”

  “Nice analogy.”

  “Yeah, I thought so.”

  “Look, Talia, I never gave it much thought.”

  “That’s obvious.”

  “I didn’t expect…”

  “Expect what?”

  “Well”—he brushed a kiss across her lips—“I’d never thought of marriage as anything but a business deal. Then you came along, and my business deal didn’t seem like the best thing out there.”

  “You make me sound like the latest technogadget.”

  Erik’s rumbling chuckle filled the room. “You aren’t like anyone else I’ve ever met, Talia. Where did you come from?”

  She wondered what he’d say if he knew. What someone like Erik, who’d been handed the best of everything, would think of somebody like Talia, who’d had to fight for the scraps life left beneath the proverbial table?

  The bed bucked as he rolled to his side, gazing down into her face. Talia could barely make out the details she knew by heart in the dim light. How odd, to have known him such a short time and yet be able to recall each and every feature of his face and body.

  “Tell me about you, Talia. Enough about me. I want to know everything about you.”

  Talia wondered where to begin. If she should start with her teenaged birth mother’
s decision not to put her up for adoption until she was nearly five, or the years she’d spent in Boston’s foster-care system. She chose neither option, beginning instead where her real life started.

  “The fourth graders in my elementary school were allowed to join the school’s music program. We could choose either band or orchestra,” Talia began softly. “I can still remember everything about the day Miss Mathers spent the entire music class going over the different instruments we could pick from. She’d play the ones she could and show us what they sounded like.”

  “Which was your favorite?”

  “The violin; the sound was so intense I thought I’d cry.”

  “So you chose the violin.”

  Talia nodded. It hadn’t been that easy. She’d begged and pleaded with her foster parents to let her join the orchestra, but they refused to buy or rent an instrument. There were six kids in that house, three of them foster kids like Talia. The father was on disability, and the mother worked housekeeping in a big hotel. They only fostered children to get more cash from the state. They sure as hell weren’t going to offer any of that hard-earned cash to pay for instrument rental.

  “Were your parents proud of you?”

  A flippant answer stuck in her throat. How could she lie to this man? No matter that he’d withheld the truth from her. Part of her insisted it didn’t matter whether or not she lied. The relationship was doomed anyway. Erik still had a merger on the table, and he was still tied to Courteney Colton. Yet another part of Talia wanted to share this tiny part of herself with the one person who seemed to touch her on an intrinsic level.

  “Talia?”

  “I don’t remember my mom, and I never knew my dad.”

  Erik stilled in the darkness.

  “I lived with my mom until I was five and the state came and took me away. I never saw her again after that, and I don’t remember much from before. It doesn’t matter anyway.”

  His grip on her tightened, his body tightly strung beside her.

  “My foster family couldn’t have cared less if I played an instrument or not.”

  “How did you do it?”

  “Nobody missed me at home. There were too many kids for them to keep track of. So I started going to school early and sneaking into the orchestra room to watch them practice. Then I spent lunchtime in the music room while Miss Mathers was eating, teaching myself to play on the violin she had there.”

  “Talia.” His voice cracked over her name.

  He didn’t have to say the words for her to know the story horrified him. It was horrifying from an outsider’s perspective. Yet it wasn’t. She wanted him to understand how it was back then. How her life had been one boring day bleeding into another until the music had come and made things interesting.

  “Don’t, Erik,” she whispered. “Don’t pity me. I can’t take that.”

  He sighed, rolling to his back and taking her with him. His voice was rough when he finally spoke. “What happened?”

  “Miss Mathers caught me.”

  “Was she angry?”

  “At first she was, but I was so afraid she’d tell me I could never play again that the whole story spilled out. I think she understood then.”

  “Understood what?”

  “That the music was the only beautiful thing in my life.”

  “Is that what it is now?”

  Talia considered the question for several moments before answering. “It’s been the only constant. Music isn’t like people. No matter what, it makes sense. The melodies weave and build and change, but they never deliberately hurt you or leave you alone.”

  “And people do?”

  You will.

  The words were on her lips, but Talia kept them inside. She found the softness of his lips in the darkness and brushed them with her own. A rumble began in his chest, vibrating until it built into a growl of desire that thrilled Talia down to her traitorous toes.

  “I could spend a lifetime making love to you and never get enough.” Erik pulled back to see her expression.

  She didn’t respond, pulling his face back toward hers. Kissing was better than talking, better than the truth.

  * * *

  Hours passed and melted inky darkness into the pale light of dawn. Talia didn’t sleep. She was afraid to close her eyes, afraid to let go of the moment and the man who didn’t belong to her and never would.

  His body was long and lean and warm beside hers, his breathing steady and deep. Talia watched him—the elegant arch of his brows, the aristocratic line of his nose, his mouth losing the cynical half smile in the relaxation of sleep. She wondered idly if he ever completely dropped his guard when awake and suspected he did not. Erik Aasen couldn’t afford vulnerability. Not in the boardroom and not in his personal life. He was a man who would do the right thing for all the wrong reasons and the wrong thing for all the right ones. An enigma, a puzzle—Erik was a walking contradiction.

  He stirred, stretching his long legs and reaching out for Talia. She lifted her hand, their fingers lacing smoothly together as if they woke up in the same bed every morning.

  “Did you sleep?” he murmured.

  “No.”

  Talia watched the pale light reveal Erik’s strong features as he came awake.

  “Did I keep you up?”

  “No.”

  He rolled to his side, propping himself up on one elbow and lifting one dark brow in question. “Don’t you have anything else to say this morning?”

  “If your job is boring, why do you do it?”

  Both brows lifted in surprise. Talia watched the expressions flit over his features as he tried to decide what to say in response to such an odd question.

  “It’s my job, Talia. It’s what I do.”

  She considered his answer. There was some truth to it, of course. A job was just that. It was a place you went and a thing you did in order to finance the things in life that meant something.

  Weak rays of sunlight peeked around the edges of Talia’s blinds, illuminating Erik’s troubled expression. Though they lay only inches away from each other, the distance seemed a vast chasm given their circumstances.

  “It might be what you do, Erik, but if you marry Courteney, you’re letting it become who you are.”

  Anger gathered like storm clouds on his face. His green eyes snapped with electricity. “I have a responsibility to see this merger through to the end.”

  “To whom?” Talia challenged. “Your shareholders? Your employees? Or how about to Courteney? Would she really want this relationship if she knew how you felt about it? How is this fair to her, let alone yourself?”

  Erik remembered Courteney’s ruthless determination to become an Aasen. She hardly deserved Talia’s consideration. “It’s not for you to say. This is my life, my decision, and my choice.”

  His voice was loud in the small studio apartment. Talia rose abruptly before the paper-thin walls had absorbed the sound. Grabbing a quilt from the foot of the bed, she pulled it around her naked body.

  It was cool in front of the windows. A shiver danced down her spine, and she drew the worn quilt closer. The ancient bedsprings groaned behind her. She braced for the sound of Erik’s bare feet on the floor. No doubt he’d pull on his clothes and leave. After all, he was right. It was his choice to make.

  Talia was nothing but a one-night stand who had overstayed her welcome in his life.

  “I don’t want to fight.”

  The murmured words drifted over her right shoulder. An odd sense of relief settled in when she realized he had no intention of leaving. She should’ve wanted him to go. But a part of her was determined to make him see the wrongness in pursuing the ridiculous merger marriage. And so far that meant showing him what would be missing in a life spent with the wrong woman.

  She turned, drinking in his intoxicating scent. “Aren’t you cold?”

  “Some parts of me more than others.”

  Her eyes drifted down his lean, athletic body before coming to rest on
his firm cock. “You don’t look cold.”

  He pushed his hands beneath the quilt, exposing the front side of her body to the frigid air inside the apartment. “You do.” Cool hands reached up and palmed her breasts. “But I think I know the perfect way to warm you up.”

  The line would’ve been a cliché coming from anybody else. But when Erik lowered his mouth and curled his warm tongue around her stiff nipple, Talia couldn’t remember why clichés were lame to begin with. Instead she was lost in the sensation of his damp tongue rasping across the surface of her sensitive nipple. First one and then the other, until her whole body was flushed with heat and a melting sensation grew between her legs.

  His mouth left her breasts and traveled lower, skimming across her belly, leaving a fiery trail of kisses to her navel as he knelt on the floor before her. Her knees turned wobbly, and one hand shot out, gripping the windowsill to keep from falling. Her fingers brushed against the icy windowpane, her other hand knotted in the quilt still draped around her back.

  Erik’s palm pressed against the sensitive skin behind her knee, lifting her right foot and resting it against his thigh. Still kneeling before her, the position gave him full access to her body. Her breath came fast as she looked down at the sight of him kissing her inner thigh. She couldn’t rip her gaze away, the anticipation building until she thought she might come just from the rising tension sparking in the air between them.

  “Erik.” Her throat was raw and thick with need.

  He looked up, holding her with his gaze while he used his hands to spread her outer labia and gave her clit a swipe with the flat of his tongue.

  Her knees would have given way but for her hand on the sill. She lost her hold on the quilt, and it fell to the floor. Cold air chilled her skin, but the heat in her pussy trumped the cool sensation until nothing existed but the man lapping insistently at her clit.

  Two long fingers probed her damp entrance, pushing gently inside as her muscles clenched against his onslaught. He spread her wider until her swollen clit was burning with pressure that twisted to a point just below pain.