Worth Any Cost by Brenna Aubrey

  "Adam--"

  He pulled back a few inches to look into my face. When he spoke, it was in his stern, take-command-of-the-room CEO tone as we stood nose to nose. "I have not had sex with you in almost two months. I'm not waiting any longer. This has been ridiculous."

  "The universe has conspired against us, it's true." I sighed. "But hey, we're here. We're almost married. We'll have one hell of a wedding night--tomorrow."

  "We sure will," he persisted as he unbuttoned the top button at the front of my dress.

  "Adam, I said tomorrow night."

  "I heard you. Tomorrow night. And...now."

  I opened my mouth to protest, and he plucked another button open. "I don't just want it. I need it. I need to have sex with you right now. It's a serious health concern."

  I started laughing. "You're not going to die from blue balls. You've survived it before."

  He didn't reply as he plucked the third button open and promptly shoved his entire hand inside my dress.

  "You're staring at me like I'm a steak, drooling like a starving wolf."

  "I am a starving wolf. Watch me howl, baby."

  Now both hands were inside my dress, and he was not letting up. "Adam, you're going to jinx the wedding if you don't leave. We aren't supposed to see each other on our wedding day. It's going to be twelve a.m. in a few minutes."

  "You've known me for a total of three years now," he said, his voice dark with determination and desire, with a husky edge on it that made every nerve inside my body sing with pleasure and anticipation. Clearly, he could tell that my heart wasn't in this protest. "As well as you know me, do you think there's a chance in hell I'm going to give up this plan?"

  "This nefarious plan."

  "Nefarious or not, you have to admit I'm tenacious."

  "Oh, yes. No one would criticize that description of you. But we should be saving all this for the wedding night. Abstinence, remember? Consummating the marriage on the wedding night and all that good, old-fashioned stuff?"

  "Oh, there'll be plenty left for our wedding night, believe me." He took me by the wrist and pressed my hand to his ready erection as if to prove his point. My hand molded around his shaft, stroking him through his pants. He hissed out a breath. "And for the entire honeymoon, for that matter. I won't have done my job right if you're still able to walk normally at the end of our honeymoon."

  I laughed. "You're setting the bar very high for yourself."

  He was kissing me again, his hands stroking across my breasts, and I was aflame, smoldering and combusting from the inside out.

  "Dammit, Adam. It's almost midnight..."

  "Emilia..."

  "I'm still not convinced."

  He stiffened and then stepped away to regard me calmly. "Okay," he replied in a flat voice. I raised my brows, shocked--and disappointed--that he'd given up so easily. Opening my mouth to reply, I was cut off when he interrupted me again. He turned and walked toward the bathroom. "I'll be right back."

  I shrugged, laughing. "When you gotta go, ya gotta go. Remember not to look at me on your way out."

  I walked over to the dresser, setting my phone down, checking the time--ten minutes until midnight. I yelled, "It's ten till. Don't take too long."

  "Yeah, yeah," he answered before shutting the door.

  I puzzled at that, moving to a drawer to grab a sleep shirt. My fancy lingerie was all ready to go for tomorrow night, but he wasn't going to see me in it until we were official. That was being saved for my wedding night surprise. No doubt that would be eclipsed by whatever stunt he had up his sleeve for the honeymoon.

  I turned toward the bed, facing away from the rest of the room and unbuttoned the rest of my dress, choosing to wait until he left to take it off. It would definitely be better not to wave my naked body at him like a red cape in front of a bull. In the state he was in, he'd charge, probably with steam coming out of his nostrils, too. I snickered at the thought of the horny bull charging. Beast mode fiance indeed. Poor guy was so randy he was probably going to get blisters on his hand from wanking tonight.

  I made a mental note to save that joke as a parting taunt on his way out the door. Suddenly, the toilet flushed, the faucet turned on then off, and the door opened. I kept my back to him as he re-entered the room.

  "It's five minutes to midnight," he muttered when he stopped.

  I remained facing away from him. "Yeah...so goodnight. Love you. Sleep well."

  "The rule is that we're not supposed to see each other, right?"

  I hesitated. His voice sounded weird, like he was trying to suppress amusement. Like he was planning something. I shifted from one leg to the other. "Uh...yeah."

  He started walking again slowly, and I let out a breath of relief--until I realized that he wasn't moving toward the door.

  He stopped when he was right behind me. I could feel his breath on the back of my neck. Trembling, I tilted my head to the side, listening. He whispered, "I have five minutes."

  I swallowed. "But you can't do anything in five minutes. So scram."

  He wrapped his strong fingers tightly around my right wrist. When he spoke, his mouth was at my ear, breath creating tingles that cascaded like a waterfall down my spine. This power over me was real, and he knew exactly how to wield it. "I'll be the judge of how much I can get accomplished in five minutes." He looped something around the wrist he held. What the--

  "Adam, what the hell are you doing?"

  He didn't answer as he grabbed my other wrist, pulling both of my hands over my head.

  "Will you please stop fucking around?" I snapped in irritation. He was making it hard enough to say no already. Adam was a patient man, most of the time, having proved that in the past. Twenty-four hours more was nothing compared to the wait he'd already endured

  "Oh, there will be lots of fucking around in here shortly."

  "It's got to be midnight right now," I said, but let him continue his charade of tying me up. But when he cinched my wrists together, he pulled tight enough to pinch the skin, like he meant business. He was taking this joke a wee bit too far.

  "Adam--"

  "I told you I wasn't giving up." He leaned down and sucked my lobe into his hot mouth until I shuddered with delight. Then he pulled away again. "Have you ever known me to be a person to give up? Even when asked nicely? Especially when asked nicely." Suddenly, he hooked an arm around my waist, nudging me toward the closet door.

  "No." My heartbeat accelerated in anticipation.

  He pressed my back to the closet door and ran his eyes down the length of me. "Oh. You unbuttoned the rest of your dress. That was nice of you. I won't have to rip it now. It's a hot dress. Not as hot as what's inside it, of course."

  He looped the strap, which he'd apparently pulled off one of the cotton dressing robes that hung in the bathroom, up over the door of the closet, wedging it in the doorjamb. My hands were thus suspended above my head.

  "Okay, you've had your laugh. Ha ha. Now let's--" I moved against the door to try to yank my hands out from where they were tied. They didn't budge. Shit...how did he do that so easily? "I unbuttoned the dress because I was getting ready for bed--not to do you any favors."

  "A happy coincidence, then." He scooted the dress so that it was now wide open, and all I had on underneath was a lacy bra and the aforementioned easy-access panties. With one quick flick of his wrist, the bra snapped open from the front. He unhooked the removable straps, and it fell to the floor.

  "You need to go now." I tried hard to make my voice sound as stern as I could.

  He nodded, looking at his watch. "It's eleven fifty-eight. I have two minutes."

  I heaved an impatient sigh. "What are you doing?"

  He reached up and stroked my nipple again, smiling with satisfaction as it beaded instantly under his touch. "We are in the Caribbean, aren't we? I'm a pirate, and you are my captive wench." I couldn't help it. Despite my irritation at this moment, I found him too adorable with that gleam in his dark eyes. He was quite pl
eased with himself. And when he punctuated his declaration with a hearty "Arrrrrr!" I burst out laughing.

  "Okay, you've had your fun. Now get out of here. It's, like, thirty seconds to midnight."

  "Tsk, tsk." He shook his head. "I cannot do that, Miss Cinderella. Shiver me timbers." He walked over to the dressing table where the hotel had left me a first-class basket of supplies and started to rifle through it, grabbing things and putting them in his pocket while muttering about "plunder."

  "According to you and some supposed wedding rules committee, we aren't supposed to see each other on our wedding day before the ceremony."

  I leaned my head back against the closet door with a weary sigh. "Yes."

  "And our wedding day starts at midnight, correct?"

  I sighed again, heavily. "Now you're being a pest."

  "A pest, you say?" He moved to the lamp I'd switched on and flicked it off, throwing the room into darkness once again.

  "A pirate pest, yes."

  "I was going to tell you that I have devised an ingenious solution."

  I rolled my eyes. "Because--of course you have."

  He spun, approaching until he stood right in front of me, bending to kiss me on the lips before slipping a sleep mask over my head. He pulled it down to cover my eyes so I couldn't see anything.

  "Is that comfortable?"

  "Adam, what--"

  "Can you see?"

  "No. But that only solves half the problem, because you can."

  "I have another one here." He tugged my mask up so I could see. He slipped an identical sleep mask over his head and pulled it over his eyes. Then he reached over and drew mine back down.

  "Great, now we're both blind. This is going to be a comedy of errors."

  "No way. It will help us appreciate our other senses...like our sense of touch." He reached up and trailed a light, tantalizing caress of two fingers from my collarbone, down across my breast with the slight edge of his nail. I jumped. "And smell." He buried his mouth and nose into my neck, opening his mouth to kiss it. I shivered, and he groaned in response.

  "Hearing." He tilted his mouth to my ear. "I'm going to fuck you, Emilia. And tonight, all night, it's all you're going to feel, and you'll be begging for more."

  His hot breath on my ear and the promise in his words made me waver against him.

  "And..." His hand closed around my panties, and he gave them a healthy yank right at the seam, shredding them in a classic Adam Drake move. I gasped as he pulled my panties away. Aside from the open dress hanging on my shoulders, I was naked.

  "Of course, there's taste..." I listened as he lowered to his knees. One hand separated my knees in order to open my legs. There, he pressed his face to the apex of my thighs. "Mmmm," he said. "Delicious. Best midnight snack ever."

  His tongue snaked out and slid along the seam of my sex, pressing against my clit. I jumped as if jolted by an electric shock.

  "Oh God." I gasped. This only seemed to encourage him, as he continued, pressing my legs farther apart.

  "You don't want me to untie you?"

  "I never said that."

  "So you do?"

  "I never said that, either."

  He laughed and leaned forward again, continuing to tantalize me with his tongue.

  "Tell me to untie you and let you go, and I will. But don't worry about us seeing each other before the wedding, because I sure as hell can't see a goddamn thing."

  "I'm, uh"--gasp--"quite sure, oh." God. "Um, that...that...ah. That's not what they meant."

  "Whoever they were hadn't been sexually deprived for over two months, I'm sure."

  "Jeez, Adam. This isn't fair."

  "You said you wanted to be ravished, didn't you? So are you going to stand there and whine about me using your own body against you, or are you going to relax and enjoy it?"

  I stayed silent, concentrating on the sensations of his fingers, which he had gently slipped into me when he'd pulled awayto talk. He hadn't replaced his mouth on the magic spot, though, and my entire body was throbbing and thrumming and demanding it.

  "Well?" he asked when I didn't answer him.

  "I'm thinking. I'm thinking!"

  "Okay. Well, while you're thinking about it, I'm gonna go back to what I was doing." Then he paused. "Oh, I almost forgot...I had these in my pocket."

  "What?"

  "Complimentary breath mints." Then there was loud crunching and chewing and the sudden, strong smell of mint. "A whole bunch of them." I stiffened, remembering hearing that Altoids mints were used to enhance the sensations of oral sex--as if I needed any enhancement at this point.

  When his tongue reconnected with my clit, I jumped like I'd been shocked by sensations of hot and cold at the same time. Frosty heat. I shivered and instinctively moved away. With his hands on my hips, he pinned me to the door, continuing the contact. Then deepening it.

  With my eyes blindfolded and my senses overwhelmed, like he'd predicted, I wasn't aware of anything but his mouth and his hands.

  Adam licked and sucked ferociously, almost as if he were demanding my climax. And my body was more than happy to comply. In minutes, I came violently against his mouth. My head thrown back against the door, I screamed his name, my body convulsing with pure pleasure coursing through my veins.

  He didn't stop.

  "Please, it's too much," I slurred, barely able to form the words, as if the orgasm had fried my brain. It certainly felt like it had.

  Slowly--too slowly--he stopped and pulled away, running his palms down my thighs repeatedly. I shuddered, overly sensitive to any touch. I almost lost my footing.

  I slumped against the door, completely absorbed in my afterglow. Even as every muscle in my body relaxed and basked, a thin thread of unfulfilled desire shot through everything.

  I wanted to feel Adam's weight on top of me, his body moving against mine, our sweat mingling. I wanted to feel him inside of me, filling me up, hear his groans of pleasure as he used my body for his own enjoyment. I wanted that even more than another orgasm.

  I was greedy like that.

  And apparently, Adam read my mind. Before another moment had passed, he opened the door, freeing the belt from the doorjamb and releasing me. My arms came down, and I stretched my shoulders, though my wrists were still tied together in front of me. Warmth flooded my arms as circulation returned.

  Gently, Adam took me by the shoulder and guided me to the bed--or, at least, the direction where he suspected the bed was. His steps were halting, like he was trying to find his way in the dark.

  And without too much difficulty, he found it, nudging me to lie down. "So if I said no right now..." I teased.

  "Of course I'd leave," he replied. "But I wouldn't be happy about it."

  "It's not my job to make you happy...yet."

  "A happy groom makes a happy wedding." He adjusted a pillow to slip under my head as he grabbed the rope around my wrists and pulled it above my head to fasten it against the headboard.

  "Afraid I'm going to run away?"

  "Nope, but a good pirate always hedges his bets. I'm going to have my way with you."

  "And what if I said I needed my beauty sleep?"

  He ran a hand over my breasts as if to reassure himself that they were still there. "You can sleep in. We're not getting married till six."

  "You've got an answer for everything." I listened while he took off his clothes--quickly--letting them drop to the ground wherever. "I don't think, in all the time that I've known you, I've ever known you take off your clothes so fast."

  "I'm highly motivated," he replied. "I have a gorgeous, naked woman tied up in my bed. What better incentive is that?"

  I laughed until he sank down on the bed beside me before gently rolling onto me. Then my laughter was swallowed in a gasp of renewed desire.

  When he spoke again, his mouth was a fraction of an inch from mine, every inch of his naked flesh branding and fusing against mine. "Do you know what bed this is?"

  I smiled, kno
wing full well what bed this was, but I played along. "What bed is this?"

  "This is the bed where I first made you mine." His mouth sealed over my lips, and my entire body--until that moment content to bask and glow and wallow--ignited once again. Smoldering arousal burst into flame, Adam the consummate fire starter.

  "Is that what you were doing?" I answered when my mouth was free again. "I thought you were proving a point. Yet again."

  "I was doing that, too." He shifted against me. "But most importantly, I was making you mine. Forever."

  "Funny, isn't that what you are going to do tomorrow--I mean, later today?"

  He kissed along my jaw. "That's the official version. But think it's fitting that our last night as unmarried people we spend fucking like bunnies in the same bed where I first had you."

  "Fucking like bunnies, huh?"

  "Don't plan on sleeping much tonight." He pushed my legs open.

  The next sound was the crinkle of a foil packet--that packet which we had so felt the lack of this afternoon in the cabana--and I sucked in a breath as he entered me with a satisfied sigh. My heart raced in my throat as I felt the familiar stretch of my muscles around his welcome invasion of my body. He placed a long, gentle kiss against my throat.

  "Fucking finally. The Eagle has landed."

  "Is that what we are calling it now? The Eagle?"

  "I promise you that after tonight you will be calling it Robocock--and enthusiastically so."

  "I hope you're prepared to put your money where your mouth is."

  He shifted, slipping deeper inside of me. "I'm putting my mouth everywhere tonight. Just you wait."

  And then he started to move. And my world shifted with him. For it being the first time in months, it wasn't frenzied and hurried, as I'd suspected it might be. Though I knew Adam was anxious to resume our sex life and enjoy himself again, he didn't floor it all the way to the finish, though I would have completely understood if he had.

  Instead, he moved carefully, slowly, as if knowing anything faster would make it too short this first time. He was savoring the journey rather than pushing straight to the end.

  When he stopped, dipping his head to suck on my nipple, I arched to meet him, wrapping my legs tightly around his hips. "God, you feel so good," I muttered.

  He pulled himself free of my hold, his breath ragged. And suddenly his rhythm was wobbly, as if he'd expended the last ounce of his control.

  That was when he pushed hard, driving himself directly to the end.