Jack kissed her once more, trailing his finger through her cleavage, then tracing her nipple. Sensation tingled its way through her breast. Morgan arched into his touch. It felt good, Jack’s fingers on her flesh. She wanted…more.

Easing down her body, Jack captured the tip of her other breast in his mouth and gave it a loving lick as his palm smoothed its way across her abdomen. He stopped short of her sex, seemingly contented by fondling the curve of her waist and the slope of her hips.

He couldn’t possibly be contented. Who would be? And the silence—it was really getting to her. She felt closed off from him, without any idea of what he wanted, what he was thinking, feeling afraid to communicate her needs to him in the midst of the hush.

Frustrated, Morgan reached down between them to grab his cock. Mostly hard, always thick, it filled her hand and then some. She gave a hard little tug on it, rubbing her thumb across the dry, sensitive head.

He closed his eyes and pressed into her fist. But said nothing else. Did nothing else.

So she pumped him, stroking her hand up and down the thick erection in her hand. He grew, hardened. Another pass of her thumb over the head of his penis proved he was still dry. Usually the slit in the head wept with need almost from the instant she touched him.

Biting the inside of her lip, Morgan came up with a plan to…engage him in the process.

She rolled him to his back. Leaving a trail of demanding kisses across Jack’s skin, Morgan made her way from his nipples, sucking and nipping them again, down his abdomen, which tensed beneath her lips, all the way to his cock. She lifted the appendage with her hand, swiping her tongue across the purple tip, tracing the thick veins decorating the shaft with her fingers, then sliding her palm down to cup his balls.

Jack tensed, moaned almost silently, and closed his eyes.

What the heck was he thinking? What did he want? Given their lack of interaction, Morgan wondered if Jack would care if she left the bed and meandered into the kitchen.

“Does that feel good?” she whispered against his stiff sex.

“Hmmm.” He nodded.

Then he answered again by stealing her nipple into his mouth and giving it a gentle tug with his lips. Pleasant…but not earth shattering. Not what Jack usually did for her.

When Morgan would have cupped her hand behind his head to force more pressure to the embrace, Jack rolled her to her back and slid his fingers through her sex. She was damp, not dripping.

With gentle fingers, he administered a careful brush across her clit, then slipped slowly into her folds.

That was nice. No denying his touch made her melt. It just wasn’t…mind-stealingly, toe-tinglingly wonderful, like usual. What was going on here?

His fingers played inside her, thumb manipulating that button of sensation at the top of her sex. Arousal climbed another sweet notch at the thought of Jack’s hands on her pussy. He liked that word. And when he said it to her in bed, a part of her mind revolted against the crudity but…she always melted.

“Am I wet?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“What part of me?” she asked coyly, wishing he would talk in that low rumble of a voice that held all the sexuality of a wild midnight coupling enshrouded in lust.

“Shhh.”

Then he closed his eyes, shutting her out again. At least she felt that way, despite the fact that his fingers teased her inner walls with a slide of his fingertips and the caress of his thumb.

Under his stimulation, she grew wetter. Her body tingled in some great places. Usually, her very skin screamed for Jack—all of him to come to her, invade her, drive her up the mountain of need and pleasure until she fell off the cliff. Now, she wanted something—anything, damn it—more intense. Something that provided a deeper connection to him.

“Talk to me.” She pouted.

“You look gorgeous, and you feel wonderful,” he murmured.

“What do you want?”

“To please you.” He rubbed her clit with his thumb again. “Does that feel good?”

Morgan didn’t answer, didn’t know what to say. It felt fine, just not as fine as Jack usually made her feel. In fact, it felt alarmingly like the times she’d had sex with Sean and Brent and Andrew. Good…just not great.

He opened his eyes and sliced a stare of hot challenge at her. “Or did you need something else?”

The jerk was challenging her, as if he knew this wasn’t rocking her world like he usually did. And she couldn’t say that it wasn’t because he wasn’t trying. He’d stimulated her nipples and continued to plunge his fingers inside her sex, trail the pad of his thumb across her clit. Desire was building…but something was missing.

“You inside me,” she whispered. “That’s what I need.”

“Always my favorite place to be.”

With a smile, Jack sheathed himself with a condom from the nightstand, then rolled on top of her, a steamy kiss on his lips as he covered her mouth. A new swell of desire rolled in her belly as Jack probed at her entrance.

In one smooth stroke, Jack eased in, gliding all the way to the end of her channel, filling her completely. Morgan sucked in a breath as the length and girth of his erection caressed sensitive nerve endings inside her.

Slowly, he withdrew, easing out all the way to the tip, then stroked inside again in one smooth glide. Yes, that was nice. Heavenly. Desire inched up a notch.

Did he enjoy this? Was he feeling pleasure? Morgan wished he’d say something, moan—anything to let her know.

Silence.

In, out, in, out with soft, even slides of his cock. The ache built slowly, spiraling up. She clamped down on him as pressure built and need mounted. Morgan strained to meet Jack thrust for thrust.

Yummy…except, damn, she wished he’d say something. Usually she felt him swell inside her, saw him grapple to keep his control as his body tensed and sweat rolled down his temple. Today, just smooth strokes building to a soft peak.

Why wouldn’t Jack say something? She’d had more interaction with the vibrator she’d reluctantly bought.

She shoved the thought out of her mind and clutched the hard bunch of muscles along his spine, pressing needy fingers into his damp back until she gripped his ass and pulled him in deeper, trying to make his flesh crash into hers with urgency and force.

Almost…almost there. But not quite. She let out a frustrated moan, which he swallowed with his kiss.

“Jack,” she panted. “Jack.”

“You need to come?”

“Please,” she moaned, nails digging into the cheeks of his ass.

Bending his knees, he widened the part of her legs and pushed himself on his elbows, changing the angle of his thrust. The fat head of his cock rubbed against that sensitive spot on her inner walls.

Need spiked, closing into a ball of sensation centered behind her clit. Sweet with a sharp edge or two, it should have been enough to send her over. But still she couldn’t come.

Jack reached for her nipples and fondled them with gentle fingers, adding to the downpour of sensations scattering over her. As his stiff sex continued to rub and press on that sensitive spot, her grip on him tightened. Pressure built inside her, her heartbeat began to echo in her head. Now, now, now, it demanded.

And still she couldn’t come.

Then Jack said the magic words. “Come now, sweetheart.”

She released, the ball of tension lifting, shimmering, then dissipating. It wasn’t a burst or a rush of explosion. It was a soft cresting, a smooth dissolving of the buildup. Above her, he tensed and moaned gently in her ear.

As a climax, it felt…anticlimatic. Better than she’d achieved with any previous lover, yes. But not the amazing, bonegrinding, mind-blowing starbursts of sensation Jack had never previously failed to give her.

Damn it, she felt like crying. Like stomping her hands and fists all over the rumpled bed until all the tension inside of her erupted and she spewed the lava of her lust and frustration. Until her mind and body felt weary and sated and beyond happy.

What the hell was wrong with her?

Jack withdrew from her, disposed of the condom, then lay down beside her again, taking her hand in his.

“You enjoy your traditional sex, cher?”

Too quick for her liking, Morgan remembered Jack telling her that she wasn’t wired for traditional. He’d only gone along with this now to prove his point. And she’d known that from the beginning, refusing to accept that maybe…just maybe, he’d been right.

“Did you?” he prodded.

Morgan sighed. It was time to make a decision: Either keep running, keep denying how much she craved and responded to Jack’s domination or accept that, at least when she was with him, she needed more than traditional.

She drew in a ragged breath and brushed away the scald of her hot tears. His dark gaze was at once approachable, understanding—and blistering with explicit desire.

Everything inside Morgan leapt in response. Suddenly, she knew she had no choice. “Please take me to your playroom and fuck me as you see fit.” She swallowed. “Sir.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Jack stilled, everything inside him froze. Shock, relief, jubilation, and something like warm, sweet honey spreading through his chest all tumbled over one another in a rush of emotion he wasn’t accustomed to. Despite all that, he paused.

Morgan’s eyes misted with tears. Her chin trembled. Sighing, Jack restrained himself from snatching her into his arms and darting down the hall to lock her behind his playroom door. But not without great effort. He wasn’t naïve enough to believe that one mediocre vanilla fuck had convinced Morgan she was a born submissive. She had layers and layers of guilt about something he didn’t understand. And she wouldn’t reach her full potential or full happiness until she got through it.

Since he planned to make her his—and would happily kill Brandon or any other son of a bitch who thought she belonged to them—Jack figured he’d better get to the bottom of Morgan’s issues now. He hoped, right now, so she could begin to acknowledge him as her master, her lover, the man she could depend on to care for her in all ways.

Jack leaned in and kissed her forehead. “Why?”

She didn’t answer for a long time. Instead, she sat up, drew her legs up to her naked chest, and set her head on her knees. He didn’t prod, didn’t touch, just waited.

Finally, she lifted her misty gaze to him again, proving she’d been shedding silent tears. “You said I wasn’t wired for vanilla sex. I–I didn’t want to believe it, but I think that just proved your point.”

Damn. She’d just made two admissions he had to deal with—and he had to tread carefully. Easy first, with a slide into the more difficult.

“How did I prove my point?”

Those arched ginger brows of hers snapped together to form a scowl, which questioned his sanity. “Did our sex just blow your socks off?”

He smiled, doing his best to keep the mood light while he could. “I’m not wearing any.”

Morgan wasn’t amused. “So you think this is funny now?”

“No, cher,” he soothed. “It did not blow my socks off, but I didn’t expect it to. I accepted long ago that I don’t like vanilla anything, even ice cream. Tell me what it was like for you.”

A subtle command. Morgan hesitated, grappled. Then she capitulated.

“What we did…it was nice. Pleasant, like a picnic. I liked just being close to you more than I liked the actual sex.” Tears pooled in her eyes, and her blue eyes reflected turmoil. “I didn’t expect that. I kept wishing for…more. For a word or command— some indication of what you wanted, how you felt. Something that connected us. Something more intense.”

The relief and jubilation rushed back over Jack. When he’d agreed to sex without domination, he’d hoped this would be Morgan’s response…but he hadn’t known for sure. She was turning out to be everything he’d believed, wanted to find for years. Still, he had to tread carefully.

“Your past vanilla experiences, were they satisfying?”

She cast him a vaguely guilty expression. “No. I…no.”

Ah. There was a wealth of meaning there. He could have chastised her for imagining that she could enjoy simple sex, but she had to experience the difference for herself. One of the qualities he adored about her was that she had a strong mind and will, and she wanted to use them. Even if it made waiting for her to catch on to this discovery frustrating.

“Why did you think it would be different with me?”

Morgan lifted one shoulder in a halfhearted shrug. “You affect me more than anyone else. I just thought…it was you. That it would be different with you. Before, I rarely reached orgasm. If I hadn’t been with you, you know, in the other way, I would have been elated by what just happened. But since I know how explosive we can be when…”

“I dominate you?” he prompted.

“Yes.” She flushed.” I realized that it was about you, at least in part. Just being near you turns me on. It’s also about the way you are with me: demanding, so knowledgeable about my mind and body. You manage to wrap my mind up around a million fantasies until I’m so hot…”