Perfectly Exposed (Command Unit Book 1) (2 page)

Deciding he was taking ownership of her little self and her agreeing with him on that point might take some finesse. He was fresh out. Had left it all back at the dangerous club with the vicious sadists and every other sick bastard who got off on hurting defenseless kittens.

Chapter Two

Jack stopped the truck at a light. He hadn’t said a word. Just swung up into the cab and drove away from the club. At the light, his arm reached behind her seat and a blanket was dropped in her lap. He didn’t look at her.

Whatever.
Grateful for the ability to cover the ridiculous outfit, Hailey immediately shook it out and draped it over her body from chin to toes.

What an unbelievable mess this stupid night had become. Closing her eyes, Hailey attempted, to beam herself to another galaxy, another time stream perhaps? It wasn’t working.

They drove in silence for what seemed like hours but probably more like ten minutes. Opening her eyes as the truck stopped, all she could see was dark. No lights in the cab, all outside lights off too.

“Stay. Don’t move,” Jack instructed, his face a stern mask as he opened his door and dropped out. Hailey nodded. He gently closed the door. The locks snicked quietly and then… Nothing. Seriously, one minute there was six foot four inches of smoldering male outside the door. The next only darkness.

Hailey didn’t even dare turn her head to examine the inky night pressing in all around the F250 Super Cab. Sinking down even smaller into the leather seat, clutching the blanket up over her nose, she stared straight ahead, sitting perfectly still while her mind whirled with ongoing panic. How had this happened? Being supremely ignorant of what she was getting herself into tonight was not really an excuse. Not in the real world where consequences mattered and intentions didn’t.

There were like forty million reasons she was an idiot for being in this vehicle. Chief of those was how foolish it was to agree to Trina’s plan. Being friends since kindergarten should have been a lifelong lesson in all the reasons her best friend was not to be listened to. Still, it wasn’t actually Trina’s fault, if she was being honest.

Being honest sucked. While this whole evening had been Trina’s brainstorm, it was Hailey who walked her barely covered bottom into the scary club and sat it down to meet a man. A man Trina had met but, obviously, Hailey had not. And seriously, why had they thought it was good idea to meet in that club? Looking back, that had been incredibly dumb. So who was the real idiot? The one who comes up with the stupid plan or the best friend who actually did it?

The truck door opened and Hailey was too busy biting back the scream to continue assigning blame.

Jack. Thank God. And…freaking
yikes
. Long, muscled, darkly beautiful and currently intensely scary Jack glided up into the cab and immediately reached for the ignition as he pulled the seat belt across his body. Instantly the truck was in motion and headlights came on.

Hailey peered through the windshield. They were in a construction yard. Just like in every scary movie where things were about to go bad, they were surround by looming skeletons of buildings and monster equipment that made burying a body easy. But they were leaving, perhaps things were not going…uh…badder.

“Hailey,” Jack started quietly as the truck hit pavement and they turned onto a busy road. “What were you doing in that club? Tell me your sweet little butt was not there alone to meet a stranger?”

“What? Ah… I mean…” Hailey tried to come up with some reasonable set of words that didn’t make her look like an idiot. Nope, there weren’t any to be had. Her being in that place was stupid on the level of too stupid to live. Nothing for it but to agree. “I have no idea what I was thinking. Honestly. It was a dumb thing to do.” She dropped her face into her hands as humiliation rolled over her anew.

“Take me home and you’ll never see me again,” came out from behind her fingers. “I’m moving to Bangladesh in the morning.” The last trailed off in a whisper.

There was silence from the other side of the cab. Hailey dragged in a deep breath and straightened. The silence felt like he was waiting for the real reason and telling him the underlying reason for the stupid plan just was not happening. At least not all of it, but maybe she’d have to endure confessing to some of the ugly truth.

“Look, it was a stupid thing to do. I…um…thought I’d pretend I’m a submissive…er, maybe more like…well,
see
if I’m a submissive. I’m not really a submissive if I’ve never, er, so it’s pretend, right? Wait, never mind. That doesn’t matter. My friend Trina knows the guy I met. It seemed like a good idea before I actually went in the club. Then it was getting scary. I honestly had no idea that you went there or would…um…rescue me.” Hailey paused but still no response from the man driving. “I’m so sorry to be a bother tonight, but thank you. Seriously. Getting me out was a really nice thing to do. Thank you again.”

Jack turned the truck into a parking lot and Hailey glanced around. It wasn’t her apartment lot. It was a well-lit, beautifully landscaped condo on the water lot. Jack guided the big truck into a parking spot. The headlights illuminating the sign directly in front of them stated this was 402’s reserved parking space.

He put it in park, engaged the brake and shut it down. Jack turned slightly in his seat and regarded her. Both powerful wrists resting on top of the steering wheel, he looked at her over his bulging shoulder. Hailey couldn’t bring herself to do more than glance at him. The silence didn’t feel dangerous, but nor did it feel comfortable, and it took real effort not to shrink into her door in an attempt to put space between them.

“You think you’re pretending to be submissive?” he finally questioned softly.

Hailey head jerked up to stare at him, astonished. That was what he was going to focus on?

“Okay, baby, here’s where we’re at.” His voice was calm but firm. “I can’t take you home. This is my other place, and as you can see, the walk from here to the condo is well lit and camera intensive. The reason I have another place is so I can be watched. What that means to you, from here to the point the condo door closes on your butt, you are my submissive. Got it?”

“I…but…” Hailey stammered.

He cut her off by leaning a little more toward her. “No, baby. You don’t get an opinion. Walking into that club put you in my care. You may think you’re pretending, but, sweetheart… You. Are. Not. This is how it’s going to be until we get upstairs. Wait for me to come around and get you. Do not open that door. On the way up, do what comes naturally when I touch you. Cuz, baby, you are not pretending. When we get inside we’ll talk about that.”

With that he was gone, out the door and around the front of the truck. Her door opened and his big hand slid under her blanket, firmly pressing across her abdomen as it moved to unlatch her seat belt. “Good girl,” he murmured when she didn’t move until his hand closed around her forearm and gently pulled her out of the vehicle while dropping the blanket on the floor of the cab. The door was swung shut and he pulled her into his side as they turned toward the building.

His arm curved around her back, his hand cupping her bottom. The position forced her to put her arm around his back, fingers naturally hooked into a belt loop. A “couple hold” but more since his hand moved on her butt, cupping, petting, never remaining still. It stroked around to low on her hip, then back to her ass cheek the entire trek to the building. Pulling the big glass doors open, he walked them across the lobby with its desk and security guard. Jack nodded at the man and they were in the elevator, his hand never stopped moving on her.

As the elevator doors closed he bent to murmur a warning into the top of her head. “Still on camera.”

His other hand casually rested on his hip. The arm around her went up her side and around her ribs to close over her breast. In the mirrored wall she could see his eyes raised, watching the elevator numbers, seemingly not paying one bit of attention to her as long, hard fingers pulled down her blouse and bra the tiny bit needed to close around her naked nipple.

Hailey gasped, her body turned mostly into him, her hips pressed into his hip because apparently that was what happened when hard fingers tugged and rolled her nipple. Her head dropped to look at her chest but he was already smoothing the cloth back over her and giving her breast a gentle, approving squeeze as the elevator doors opened.

Then they were in a sort of hall off which four doors opened. His arm around her, hand still cupping her breast, they moved to one of the doors and he had it open, pulling her in the condo.

The next instant Hailey found herself facing the shut door, her hands pressed up, palms flat beside her head and a ton of hard male at her back. His lips at her ear, he directed in a low rumble that skittered down her bones, “This is where you stay while we get a few things straight, little one. You will listen and nod when asked if you understand. When I’m done, we’ll see what you have to say. Advice: Pay attention. Now nod if you understand.”

His hands glided down the undersides of her arms as he growled instructions in her ear. Hailey gulped at the sudden change in circumstances, her forehead against the door she nodded. Hard fingers grazed her armpits and came to rest at the sides of her breasts but didn’t do anything further as his deep voice continued.

“The moment that club door closed on your luscious ass, you became mine. That is the result of the choice you made to go there tonight. Nod if you understand.”

Hailey drew in a sharp breath. He remained a wall of unmoving male behind her, his hands holding her lightly, but other than that, the pose he’d put her in was a voluntary action on her part. It was the most exciting sexual experience of her life and nothing had happened. She knew the words coming at her were important. He had given her direction on how to respond but also, he was waiting for her to answer.

Nodding agreement to his statement would change everything. The huge, demanding man behind her was dangerous. Five years she had lusted after a mysterious, gentle, insanely good-looking Jack A. Stone,
from afar
!

The whole
afar
thing meant she’d never met this guy. The one whose intensity blistered the air around her when he was displeased. The man whose hands never left her body except when driving a vehicle. The one who fondled her private flesh casually, even as he kept her covered in the very public places they had been tonight. Yes, even in the elevator, his hand had covered her breast while he played with her.

All of this flashed in the foggy miasma that was her brain, sparkles of thought that disappeared in willo’-the-wisp fashion. So this was what it felt like to jump off a cliff. Yep, that was the only real thought she could hang on to.

Hailey nodded.

“Good girl,” rasped in her ear. Both large hands moved in to cup her breasts. Hooking forefingers in the top of her elastic neckline and flimsy bra, he pulled just enough to expose her nipples, but his hands didn’t remain there. They smoothed down the front of her vest to her waist as Jack continued speaking.

“That leads us directly to the fact that I am not pleased with how my girl got my attention tonight, but we are going to set that aside.”

His hands glided down the front of her short skirt to land on bare thighs. His tall frame bending into her back, his lips still at her ear, each word sent an electric pulse directly to the peaks of her exposed breasts and then shot it down between her legs. His hands slid to the insides of her thighs and gently pulled them wider. The unbelievable burn radiating from her core intensified with each adjustment he required of her body.

Her forehead resting on the door, Hailey swallowed and nodded. He hadn’t asked a question but she felt compelled to indicate agreement. His hands slowly skimmed up her spread thighs and she squeeze her eyes shut.

“Open your eyes, baby. Watch,” he directed firmly. One of his hands remained splayed on her hip where the he held the bunched material of her skirt. The other traced the low edge of her thong before dipping two fingers under to glide over her clit and rest on damp, swollen flesh.

“Drenched,” he whispered as they both looked down her body between tightly beaded nipples to his thick wrist disappearing between her legs. “My girl is wet, isn’t she?”

Hailey nodded.

“She’s being good,” he continued as his fingers began to play, drawing little circles that didn’t quite give her the touch she wanted. Just like leaving her breasts exposed without touching her nipples sensitized them, his whisper-light caress over damp folds made her crave what he withheld. Want built swiftly into need as he lightly stroked sensitive lips where nerves had hungered for his touch for so long.

Hailey moaned softly. Watching the thick tendons of his wrist shift, her breasts shuddering as she breathed, and hearing the erotic praise he was petting her brain with involved every sense in the seductive moment. She could even smell her own arousal. He played her body and mind with equal intensity, creating a burn like nothing she’d ever imagined. It was so explicitly intimate, exposed and yet covered.

Her hands tried to grip the door to remain there. She had to keep them there but, oh, how she wanted to reach down and press his hand into her body.

His lips touched her neck where it met her shoulder. “Take what you need, little one. Move on my fingers.”

Permission to move raced though her in compelling waves. Permission followed by direction was even better. Knowing she needed it, understanding his control in giving her what she needed, worked her on a whole new level. He knew her. Jack knew her dark secrets. It felt so good. No, not good, it felt phenomenal. Suddenly she was free. Free of the responsibility to monitor what she was doing, checking if it was right, good enough, or any other thing good girls were supposed to keep track of. Doing as she was told meant she could sink into the sensations, let them be the only thing she had to concentrate on.