Page 58 of Serving the CEO

His eyes met mine again, and I tore my attention away, and stared as he wrapped something cold and blue around one wrist, then the other. “Ice packs. We’ll do them for fifteen minutes for the next hour…it helps minimize the bruising.”

I blushed when I saw the chaffed, purply black skin. I hadn’t even thought about what it would mean if he did something that bruised me in a place that’d be visible.

“On your stomach,” he instructed. “If your wrists are bruised from the soft restraints, your ass is going to be too.”

I did as he said, cheeks heating up as he lifted up the blanket and put something cold on my ass. I breathed out a shaky sigh as relief spread through me.

“Did you enjoy yourself, Jessica?” He started massaging my leg, the touch light, almost impersonal. But my body already knew the feel of his, and just the brush of his fingers on my skin made things inside me quake.

Closing my eyes, I fought to control my breathing. I wasn’t prepared for this…not for any of it, not for the intensity of the sex, not for how he’d all but taken me over…and not for his slow, tender care now as he soothed my bruises and stroked his hands over tight muscles.

“Jessica.”

I turned my head and met his eyes.

“Did you enjoy it?”

I felt stripped bare. “I…” I had to clear my throat before I could speak, and then, because I had to be honest, I said, “I don’t know.”

His mouth curved, which was not the reaction I’d expected. “Alright. Let’s try this…was there anything you didn’t enjoy?”

“This,” I said sourly, uncomfortable with how vulnerable he made me feel, with how gentle he was being. And how much I wanted to lean against him. This wasn’t real. None of it was. And I hated it becausethisDerrick, with his slow, warm smile and the look that might be tenderness in his eyes…this Derrick, I could find myself falling for him. So very easily.

“This…?” He shifted his hands to my other calf, still watching me as he dug his fingers in and worked out the tension. “Taking care of my submissive is part of my responsibility as your Dom, Jessica. Taking care ofyouis just as much my responsibility – and pleasure – as fucking you.”

His hand slid higher up my leg. As he reached the apex between my thighs, his touch was no longer caring but sinfully seductive. I found myself arching my back and raising my hips.

“Just as much as this is my pleasure,” he said in a thick voice. “Spread your thighs, baby.”

I clenched my hands in the blanket. “I…I’m sore,” I whispered weakly.

“I know. I’m not going to fuck you. Just pleasure you. Spread your thighs.”

Helpless to resist, I did, and he cupped me in his hand just as his mouth brushed over mine in a deep, sensual kiss.

I whimpered as he pushed one finger into my pussy, my tissues still wet from him but swollen.

“You’re still so tight,” he whispered as he broke away, biting my lower lip. His thumb circled my clit slowly.

Shuddering, I clenched around him and pressed my face against the bed.

“That’s it, baby…go over for me.”

He kissed a path down my neck, and gently bit my shoulder. “Go over…”

I climaxed, and it was hot and intense but… lazier …sweeter.

As I whimpered and clung to him, he murmured to me, soft things too low for me to hear as I struggled to breathe. But his voice was an anchor through it.

Later, as my mind began to clear, the knowledge started to terrify me. Laying in his arms in the bed, my body heavy with exhaustion but my mind unwilling to still, I listened to him breathe as he slept, and I knew I was standing on the edge of a precipice and it was a dangerous place to be.

I couldn’t risk falling for him.

TWENTY-TWO

DERRICK

“Hello, darling.”

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