Hold Me Harder Read online

  Weary from her sleep-deprived night, Natalie stretched out across the length of the bale and watched the lazy golden motes that hung suspended in the wide rays of sunlight slanting inside. She dozed in the warm, horsey air, and the next thing she knew, Javier returned, tugging on a fresh shirt and wearing clean jeans. He ruffled his fingers through his wet hair and sprayed her with fine droplets.

  “Wake up, cariño.”

  “I’m awake,” she grumbled.

  He grasped her knees and ran his hands up her thighs, taking her dress with them. “There is what I was trying to see,” he said, eyeing the scrap-of-nothing underwear. “Very risqué.” He drew his thumb across the net fabric, then leaned down to place a kiss where his thumb had pressed. “Why are you napping? Didn’t you sleep well last night?”

  Natalie glared at him. “As a matter of fact, I didn’t.”

  He swung her legs off the bale and sat in the vacant space. “Come here, grumpy girl,” he said quietly, settling her against his chest. His fingers drew over her head in slow, relaxing spirals.

  She’d missed these small things, his gruff, affectionate touch, hearing his accent strengthen as passion overtook him. She tucked her nose against his chest and inhaled, in search of his irresistible musk, hidden under bright laundry soap.

  “I understand there was a small confrontation with your Ryan last night.”

  “Are you having me watched, Javier?”

  “Of course, cariño. You think I would not keep an eye on you while you’re here?” His fingers twirled and twirled, and a taut silence spun out between them. “Do you still love him?”

  Natalie fiddled with his buttons, turning one to slide through a hole and then pulling it back, over and over. “You know me, Javier. I don’t seem able to fall out of love. But if you’re asking if I want him back… Yesterday, I would have said no.”

  “And today?”

  “Today, it’s complicated.”

  “Why, Natalie? He is young, and he is a city slicker.” The phrase, spoken in his heavy accent, made her chuckle. “He can be for you what I cannot.”

  “What?” Natalie said, pushing upright. She straddled his thighs and gave him a close look. “Of course he can’t. He could never be you. Don’t be crazy.” She tapped him on the temple.

  He pulled her finger away, then bit down on it. “You know what I mean. He’s there, I’m here.”

  She opened her mouth to argue, but he gave his head a small shake. “I let you go because you wanted it, Natalie, even though I didn’t. Now I find you lost and unhappy. I’m concerned, cariño. I think, but for a forgivable mistake, your Ryan made you happy.”

  “Forgivable,” Natalie said with a snort. She combed her fingers through Javier’s hair, smoothing it down the way he liked it. “I’m not unhappy. I am unnerved by being here, I’ll grant you. And Ryan seems determined not to go away without a fuss.”

  Javier drew a finger along the heart-shaped neckline of her dress. “I told you he wants you.”

  “Why does it matter to you?”

  “Because, cariño, you need someone who appreciates both sides of you. I watched him. He likes your sexy business clothes, and the way you are with the phone in your hand, intense and focused on your work.”

  She gaped at him. “Javier, you’ve done nothing but mark your territory since I stepped foot onto this ranch. Now you’re trying to convince me to take Ryan back? Which is it?”

  His gaze touched every part of her face. “Can’t it be both?”

  He might as well have injected a hypodermic of hormones straight into her vein, so instantly did her body react. His hands moved to her breasts, cradled them, fondled nipples that stood out as if she’d been dipped in an icy mountain lake. Between her legs, she was flushed and ready as any mare in heat.

  “Not an idea you’d dismiss, then?” he whispered, kissing her lips, her chin, and the soft places under her jaw.

  Two days ago she would have, before the barriers she’d erected had all been breached. Now her heart insisted on honesty, even if her mouth wouldn’t cooperate.

  Javier’s hands slipped under her skirt, and he wound his fingers in the strings crossing her bottom. He pulled her snug against him. “I knew I’d like these. I can wind my fingers in them like reins.”

  Her breasts brushed his chest as she inhaled a stuttering breath, and when she still hadn’t answered, he took hold of her hair and pulled slowly down, raising her chin to make her look at him. What he saw made his skin flush a ruddy bronze and his pupils dilate, turning his eyes from green to glittering black.

  “Up, pequeña.” His tone dared her to defy him.

  Defiance was the last thing on her mind. She scrambled off his lap, and he backed her against the wall outside the Paint’s stall. The raw pine pricked her skin and the scent of straw enveloped her as Javier’s boots crushed stalks on the floor.

  With urgent hands, and without a word, he bound her wrists using one of the reins dangling from the tack hook and then spun her around and raised her tied wrists over the hook. “Feet back, pequeña,” he ordered, his voice raspy, his actions brisk. Natalie watched over her shoulder as he drew off his shirt, her body equally restless, her soul aching for him to take her, break her. He pulled her hips back farther, flattening her spine. Gathering her skirt across her waist, he bared her from ass to knees.

  “Madre de dios,” he whispered, his palm drifting over her bottom and down to the top of her thigh. His thumb dragged enticingly over her center.

  Natalie’s eyes closed as she imagined how she must look to him, the curves of her bottom crisscrossed by the thin strings of the panties, and below, framed by black lace, her body flaunting itself, parting, taunting him with what lay deeper.

  Javier sucked a breath through his teeth as his fingertips slid through her lush flesh, teasing her, making promises as he pressed deep between her legs. His other hand ran the length of her arm and closed over the leather binding her wrist, his muscled forearm stretching alongside her more delicate one. He scraped her cheek with his chin. “Did you mind me, pequeña?” His voice rumbled through her, a fine vibration from the top of her scalp to the base of her spine. “Even when you shaved your conejo, you didn’t give in to temptation?”

  “No, Javier.” Her words were no more a sound than the shuffling of horses in their stalls.

  He paused, the stillness of his fingers tormenting her. “Why not, mi pequeña?”

  “Because you told me not to.” She inhaled sharply as his fingers glided past her clit.

  “Good girl. Did you give your Ryan the same respect, I wonder?” Javier mused as he rose from her back.

  Natalie stilled. She didn’t want to discuss Ryan anymore, but Javier was apparently determined to have his say. “He didn’t ask for that sort of respect.”

  Javier’s belt buckle clinked behind her, ratcheting her nerves until the prickling over her exposed flesh felt like bubbles in a champagne glass, all chasing in one direction.

  Fingers strong enough to control a stallion clamped on to her hips. “I didn’t ask for it, either,” he said. “I took it.” He thrust inside her, hit bottom in one stroke, the buttons of his jeans spurring into the backs of her thighs.

  Pain, bright and transitory, was chased away almost immediately by intense pleasure as he drove deep inside her. He knew her physical limits—they’d learned them together—even if it seemed he was intent on skating the edge this morning. He followed with another deep thrust that rocked her forward, made her gasp. “I should never have let you go,” he said, his voice tight. “I should have spirited you off to Spain and kept you for myself.”

  Natalie turned her cheek to the wall and let Javier propel her toward the opaque margins where her awareness dissolved, where her body became white space marked only with bright splashes, the colors of pleasure and pain. It had been so long since she’d been there.

  She wanted it like a drug.

  But just as she began to climb, Javier ceased all movement, held ut
terly still deep within her, dragging her back from the soft emptiness. “No you don’t, Natalie.”

  “Fuck,” she groaned, earning herself a stinging smack on her ass.

  “Don’t be a puta,” he said. “You know I expect better.”

  The imprint of his hand throbbed, warm and tingling, the sensation scattering to all her sensitive places. This was his way, the sublime winding and unwinding of pleasure, controlling both her ascent into subspace and her sexual response, until he gave her permission to have either, or both. She was never to fly there on her own, but she was woefully out of practice.

  And too close to tolerate his restriction gracefully.

  She stared at a knot in the pine, forced herself to wait him out, through the trembling of her knees and her mind yelling fuck me!

  Finally he drew back, slow and controlled. “I know, cariño. You’ve been a long time without any direction.” His voice was deceptively calm, soothing even. With a swift surge, he drove her onto her toes, only this time he didn’t relent. The slap of their skin and their jagged, breathy moans were not quiet. On the other side of the wall, the horse grew restive, whinnying and thumping the stall under Natalie’s cheek, wound up by the flood of pheromones and the ferrous smell of sex and the need in her cries. Javier wound a fistful of her hair, pulled back on her head, and arched her back, changing the angle and driving somehow deeper. His pace slowed, but the power in each thrust rose. “It has been more than a year since I’ve been with a woman, Natalie. You owe me for every day of it.”

  Her lungs burned and seized, and her heart stopped beating for what felt like too long, and then raced too fast, until she thought it would burst. Vertigo swamped her and she wanted to beg, but dared not. She clenched her fists, her nails digging into her palms.

  “Who will be first, pequeña, me or you?” Javier asked, his voice ragged. He reached around her hip and thrust his fingers under the flimsy netting of the underwear he’d gifted her, across her clit, taking full possession of her, buffeting her from behind, gliding hot and smooth both in front and inside, wringing her tighter, pushing animal sounds up her throat.

  Her legs threatened to collapse under his weight as he bent forward to reach again for her wrist, his sweat-glazed skin sliding feverish and slick on hers. “I can’t,” she breathed. “I can’t.”

  “You can,” he said, and with a feral growl, he poured himself into her, his cock pulsing, contracting, his fingers stroking, urgent and demanding. “Cariño,” he moaned.

  Her ears rang and then muted as he broke her in a tumbling, mindless tide. She was vaguely aware of her cries, and of the fading echoes of his name when she could hear again.

  Javier’s breathing rasped against her ear, competing with her own, and he held her upright with his hand cupped between her legs, absorbing the pulsing remnants of her climax. She rested her head on his bicep and bathed in the musky heat emanating off him, too drained to speak. She would have bruises to show for that barrage, and the thought pleased her.

  A scrape and a footstep sounded from behind them. Javier froze a second and then took his weight off her back. “Hola, what can I do for you?” he said, twitching Natalie’s skirt around them to give her a modicum of cover.

  “What can you do for me?” said a harsh but familiar voice.

  Natalie went rigid and glanced under her arm. Ryan. Standing there in his familiar black urban work boots and dark jeans with neatly turned cuffs, the sleeves of his oxford shirt rolled haphazardly. He stared at her bound wrists, then caught her spying and frowned at her with rank discontent. And naked craving.

  Natalie’s inner muscles clenched.

  “I felt that,” Javier whispered, nipping her ear. She rocked against him in silent rebuke, and he canted his hips back, letting himself slip from inside her. Her dress ruffled all the way down and Javier righted his jeans.

  “You summoned me,” Ryan said through gritted teeth. “At this specific time.”

  “Sorry, cabrón. Natalie arrived early and distracted me. Now is not a good time anymore.” He unwound Natalie’s wrists with careful fingers.

  “The fuck it isn’t,” Ryan replied, scowling down at her hands as she shook the blood back into them. He pinned her with a bristling gaze. “I think now is the perfect time.”

  “And I think you have some things to learn,” Javier said, redirecting Ryan’s scrutiny. “Manners, for one. Self-control, for another.”

  Ryan’s cheeks flushed deep red. Impatiently, he raked back the dark strands of hair that had fallen alongside his face, but he held his tongue.

  Javier nodded in approval. “As you know from my message, I have a proposal for you.” He glanced at Natalie.

  Her mouth flattened. They hadn’t spoken about anything so specific as a proposal.

  “But now I don’t have time to discuss it, hijo. I have work to do.”

  “So you called me down here to make sure I know you’ve got your claim staked. I figured it out yesterday, cabrón.”

  Javier’s expression flattened. He swept his shirt off the floor and snapped bits of straw off it, then tipped his head toward Natalie. “If you would be so kind as to walk her back up to the lodge?” With every expectation of compliance, he strode into his office and shut the door with a quiet click.

  Natalie muttered about dominant pricks as Ryan stepped close, crowding her.

  “What is this all about?”

  “You think I know?” Natalie snapped.

  “I think you know more than I do.”

  She probably did, but not enough to provide an answer that would satisfy him. She turned away and barged into Javier’s office to make use of the bathroom. Minutes later, she emerged without a word to either man, but when she tried to brush past Ryan, he grabbed hold of her hand and led her away. They wove between the corrals and headed up the hill to the lodge in silence, but just as she was about to dash up the front stairs he said, “Sit down, Nat. You’re going to talk to me. Five minutes.” He waved to the Adirondack chairs arrayed along the wide porch, and Natalie flushed. This was the spot he’d watched her from yesterday.

  There was no avoiding him. Not now, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to. Javier’s question—why can’t it be both?—had taken root with alarming ease, and the covetous look on Ryan’s face in the barn had made something needy writhe inside her.

  She settled onto one of the chairs where the sun could beat down on her legs, but Ryan pulled up a curved footrest and sat with his shadow cast over her. He clasped his hands between his knees, as if to keep himself from touching her, perhaps declaring a small truce.

  He leaned forward and his hair fell once again to brush his cheek. Natalie had to stifle the urge to smooth it back for him.

  “I want to fucking throttle you, Nat,” he stated.

  Okay, not a truce, then. She watched him in steady silence.

  “No, I want to tie you up and make you—” A growl of frustration rattled in his throat. “I knew, dammit, but you made me second-guess myself. Why?”

  She raised her knees under her skirt and traced a finger randomly through the cornflowers printed on the fabric. “Because I walked away from being someone’s sub, Ryan. It was my past, and that’s where I wanted it to live.”

  He braceleted her wrist with a loose grasp. When she looked up, he caught her gaze and held it. “Do you remember that party for Aquator last winter? At that penthouse on the eastside?”

  She didn’t even have to think. The night remained a vivid picture. Isaac, Ryan’s company’s major shareholder, had arrived with his date looking like they’d just stepped out of a magazine shoot. He wore a black suit and crisp starched shirt, his cuff links flashing gold and lapis, everything about him perfectly groomed. But it had been the woman who arrested Natalie’s attention. Tall, willowy, her hair jet black and adamantly straight, the ends and fringe both cut in hard, straight lines. The corner of a tattoo had peeked from the neckline of her black velvet dress, and her three-quarters sleeves had revealed a velvet
bracelet.

  And attached to the bracelet, a silver chain.

  Isaac and the woman never stood more than a few inches apart, their arms always touching. Not because they were overly affectionate, but because he held the chain tight in his fist.

  “You were watching her all night,” Ryan said, his thumb tracking back and forth over the underside of Natalie’s wrist. “I thought the grief on your face was because you felt bad for her. But now I know. It wasn’t for her. It was for you.”

  She stared hard at him, straining her eyes wide against the sting of tears.

  Ryan brought her hand to his mouth, held her immobile with nothing but his steady regard. “Do you long for something around your wrist, Natalie, with a silver chain a man can hold you by?”

  All manner of chemicals dumped into her bloodstream, leaving her feverish and prickly, needing to flee and desperate to stay.

  He tugged her arm, pulling her forward as he leaned closer, too. He nipped at her bottom lip, then cupped his hand behind her head and kissed her with a gentleness that felt dangerous. “Ask me to your room, Nat.”

  She pulled her head back, feeling sick inside. “I just fucked another man, Ryan.”

  He wound his fingers in her hair. “I know, babe. I’d like to make you forget.”

  She swayed in his grasp. Boundaries, she reminded herself. She had to establish her boundaries. She hadn’t gotten the chance with Javier, and she couldn’t make the same mistake again. “I don’t know what I want, Ryan. Javier is one thing. We were together too long to expect him to change how he treats me, but you and I… I don’t know if I—”

  When she didn’t go on, he sat back, his expression a puzzle of hurt and hope. “I won’t ask you, Natalie. Submission is a gift, something offered, a gift I have to earn. But I want you to know, while I’m not as experienced as your guy, I’m not exactly green, either. I can be everything he is to you if you want it. Did you know he had a note delivered to my room, asking me to meet the two of you to discuss what he’s calling a mentorship? Him mentoring me, I presume.” His brows told her what he thought of Javier’s tactics.