Claim Me: A Novel

way from pain. “No.”
    “I’m very glad to hear it.” He crosses the room, then disappears from view. A moment later he returns carrying a thick candle, the flame flickering as he walks. “Candle wax can be very enticing,” he says in response to my questioning glance. “The sensation of the quickly changing temperature. The way it tightens when it hardens on the skin. Have you ever experienced that, Ms. Fairchild?”
    I shake my head. “No.” I’m not certain if I’m scared or excited.
    “Mmm,” he says, as if marking my words in his memory. “Well, today, I’m interested in only one thing from this candle.” He pauses by the bed and tilts the candle so that the wax drips onto the marble surface of the decorative side table. Then he sets the candle in the wax, letting it harden to form a stand. After that, he takes something else from the drawer. I realize only when the sconce lighting begins to dim that it’s a remote control.Soon we are in darkness, bathed only by the flickering orange of a single candle.
    “Oh …”
    “Disappointed?” he asks.
    “No,” I say. I feel my cheeks heat. “But I might have been a little intrigued.”
    “Were you? I’ll have to remember that. But where were we? Oh, yes. Sadism.” He eases onto the bed and kneels between my widespread legs. My breath comes in small gasps as he gently rests his hands on my thighs just above my knees, his thumbs on the soft inner skin. “Humiliation was next, I believe. Are you humiliated, Ms. Fairchild? You’re exposed to me, after all. Wide open like a blossoming flower and so very wet. You’re beautiful, Nikki,” he says, and I hear the raw passion in his voice. “But are you humiliated?”
    I’ve turned my head to the side, because the truth is that I do feel exposed. Exposed and open and decadent and wild. I don’t, however, feel humiliated. On the contrary, I feel aroused. And I think it’s that odd combination of emotions that heats my cheeks with a ridiculous blush. “No,” I whisper.
    “Look at me.”
    I turn my head until I can see his eyes, the amber one shining in the candlelight, and the near-black one as dark as eternity.
    “Not humiliated,” he says. “And not suffering, either, I assume?”
    “No.”
    “Good.” His lips curve into a smile as his hands stroke my inner thighs, the pad of one thumb brushing ever so softly over the worst of my scars. “You are exceptional, Ms. Fairchild,” he says. “I could look at you forever. Lose myself in you forever.”
    I draw in a trembling breath. The muscles of my sex clench with longing, and my breasts are so heavy they are almost painful.I want to move—want to satisfy this sexual itch—but I’m stuck fast and helpless.
    “I like that I can make you blush,” he says.
    I swallow. “Why?”
    “Because I know why you do.”
    “Really? Well, then please, Mr. Stark, share your insight.”
    “Because I have you spread open. Because you’re naked before me and helpless. Because I can do anything to you right now, anything at all. And because that excites you.”
    His hand cups my sex, and I release a moan so soft it is little more than a breath.
    “So tell me, Ms. Fairchild. If you’re not in pain or suffering or humiliated, how do you feel?”
    “Turned on,” I admit, and my cheeks heat even more.
    Even in the candlelight, I can see the way his face darkens with my words. I’m not the only one turned on right now.
    I start to speak, but he shakes his head. “Hush, now, and close your eyes. I’m going to kiss you.”
    I comply, my lips parted in expectation of his touch. But it’s not my lips upon which he presses his kiss. I feel the rough stubble of his beard on my thigh, then his tongue in the soft crease between my leg and vulva. My breath is coming in little gasps now, and whatever playfulness had been in the air mere moments ago has evaporated, replaced by want and need and quiet desperation.
    His mouth closes over me, his tongue laving me in a rhythm designed to drive me completely crazy.
    His thumbs tease me, never going so far as to enter, but combined with the erotic power of his tongue against my clit, it is a wonder that my body isn’t ripped apart by the force of the sensations rocketing through me.
    My back is arched, my hips grinding. Instinctively, I try toclose my legs, trying to forestall this tidal wave of pleasure that is so potent it borders on pain. But I can’t. I am bound open, and I have no choice but to yield to