She definitely wasn’t going to let his stubborn nature cause him to sleep with one of his little playmates. He was about to figure out that his time of playing with every sub who walked in the door was over.

“Well, if it’s going to be so one-sided, Master, I think your poor sub should at least be able to plead her case.” The head of his cock was already weeping, a drop of pearly goodness sitting on the tip. She couldn’t help herself. She swiped at it, gathering the pre-come on her tongue. So long. It had been so long.

Ian hissed, his body tensing. “I won’t listen, Charlie.”

But he already was. He was simply too stubborn to admit it. He’d gone from calling her Charlotte in that icy tone of his to rumbling Charlie from deep in his chest, a low, sexy growl. Charlie was his nickname for her. He was the only person in the whole world who called her that.

“Probably not,” she admitted, but her eyes were on his cock. He was bigger than any man she’d ever seen before, and he knew how to use it. “Do you know how much I’ve missed this, Master?”

Now his eyes opened and she could see a hint of the rage she’d expected. “I’m surprised you remember. I’m sure you’ve gone through a dozen Masters since me.”

She shook her head quickly, attempting not to show him just how much the possessive tone he was using pleased her. She needed to make it very clear. “No, Ian. There’s been absolutely no one, though you likely can’t say the same.”

She knew the truth. She’d kept track of him. He took many women, but he hadn’t been serious about any of them.

“I’ve had a hundred women since you, love. I barely remember you at all.”

Such a liar. He was like a freaking lion with a thorn in his paw. He always had been. She’d gotten close enough to take it out once. She just had to do it again. And sex was the only way to Ian Taggart’s cold heart. “Then I’ll have to remind you, Master.”

She gripped his cock by the stalk. He was so big and thick that she could barely get the whole of her palm around him. Her fingers couldn’t quite close. She ran her hand from just below the plum-shaped bulb at the top to right above his dense balls. She would suck them one by one into her mouth when she had time. He would let her play for hours with his cock, licking and sucking and worshiping him. Cock worship, cock love, she’d done it all and wanted it again. His cock had been the first and only to bring her pleasure, to show her lovemaking could be something special.

She pumped his cock in her hand again and again before hovering over the head, giving him a hint of the heat in her mouth.

“I love you, Ian.” She whispered the words over his flesh as though she could make them a part of his body. “I missed you every second of every day we were apart and every night I dreamed of you.”

He pulled away, his face perfectly blank. “I won’t listen to that shit, Charlie. I might be willing to ignore your ramblings about the past, but I won’t listen to that.”

Her heart ached a little, but she backed off. He wasn’t ready. She had to give him a little space. He was letting her in physically. The emotional part could take a while. She leaned over and lightly sucked at the head of his cock, satisfied when he relaxed again. There had to be some trust left between them. “Fine. Then let’s talk about something more pleasant. I like your city. It’s hot, but I like Dallas a lot.”

“Good for you because it never really gets cold. Not like in Russia.” He groaned. “Lick the underside.”

So bossy. She let her tongue find the underside of his cock and laved the deep V there with affection. The skin of his dick was soft like silk. “I bought a condo in Victory Park. I can see the whole city.”

His hands wound into her hair. “Those condos are fucking expensive, Charlie. What have you been up to, you little criminal?”

He might say he’d forgotten, but he still knew her pretty well. She let her tongue run down the long length of his cock, ignoring the pull to her hair. “I’ve made a little money in the information business.”

He tugged on her hair again, a sharp little pull. She nearly closed her eyes at the way it lit up her scalp. “You’re a broker?”

She shrugged a little. “It’s a living. I try not to get involved in anything too nasty. You shouldn’t judge me, Ian. My business found Michael Evans for Alex. I’m the one with a line on Eli Nelson. You haven’t been able to find him.”

He shook his head and let her go. “I don’t want to hear about him, Charlie. He was your boss. I can’t believe anything you say about him. For all I know he’s sent you here. Cup my balls.”

He was going to make her insane. “Don’t be so stubborn, Master. I’m trying to give you what you need.”

“Don’t you give me orders, sub. What I need is to feel your hands on my balls.”

Well, she’d wanted him thinking about sex. He got very bossy and unrelenting when his dick was hard. At least he wasn’t using that cold tone on her anymore. She reached down and rolled his balls in her palm.

This was where she’d needed to be every day for the last five years. She sank into the submissive role Ian had taught her to cherish. Everything had been a fight before that day in a Paris club when she’d found her lover, her Master, her husband.

They just had to get over that one little horrific betrayal and everything would be fine.

“Just suck me, Charlie. Just fucking suck me.” He wouldn’t ask her for what he needed. She knew that. It wasn’t in his nature. His needs and wants came out as demands, but long ago she’d figured out what he was really asking her for. He wanted to forget everything just for a few minutes. He found his peace in dominance and she sank into her submission.

Halves of a whole. Soul mates. Somewhere along the way, Ian had become the angel on her shoulder. Oh, he was a cranky angel, but it was his voice she heard when she was tempted to follow in her father’s footsteps and burn the world down around her.

She’d only known violence and anger before Ian Taggart.

And she owed him more than her life. She settled in and prayed he could forgive her.

Chapter Two

Ian gritted his teeth and promised himself he wouldn’t ever forgive his bitch goddess wife, but fuck, she knew how to suck his cock. He couldn’t remember how many blow jobs he’d received over the course of his lifetime, but he knew how many he’d had from his Charlie.

Charlotte. Her fucking name was Charlotte Denisovitch, and she was an information broker and she was back here to use him the same way she’d done it before. It didn’t matter that she’d given him fourteen blow jobs, each one a searing memory in his head because she’d done it with such sweet submission. She’d been hesitant at first, but then her enthusiasm had overwhelmed him. There had been joy in the act, not a simple exchange of pleasure.

She ran her tongue down his cock, lighting up every inch of his flesh. He watched her red and gold hair as it covered his thighs, and he wanted to shove his slacks away so he could feel how soft it was. He was utterly fascinated with it. It gleamed in the low light. He’d thought she was gorgeous before, but there was an odd confidence to the woman in front of him that was even sexier.

Most of the subs he’d fucked in the last couple of years would have cried if he’d used that tone of voice on them, but, no, Charlie just growled right back. There had been no scurrying away in the hopes of finding some kinder Master. Charlie knew what she wanted and she didn’t back down.

It was what had attracted him to her in the first place. She was a mix of vulnerability and predator, and he just couldn’t fucking resist her.

He let his head fall back.

“Do you want to make it last, Master?” Charlie asked between long swipes along his cock.

She was the only one who had to ask. He had control of himself. It was his stock-in-trade. He would come when he wanted to come. He always did. Except when Charlie went wild on him, and then he was in her world and she could take him places he’d never been.

He was going to have to show her that he wasn’t the same idiot she’d duped before. He slid his hands into that heavenly strawberry blonde hair and fisted all that silk. “You stop talking.”

Every word that came out of that lying mouth of hers brought him closer to the edge. He was not going to end up in bed with her. He wasn’t. He was going to control this encounter, this little bit of revenge, before he dumped her back in the yard and got on with his life.

His heart felt like it was squeezing inside his chest. She was alive. Charlie was alive. She was here and warm and soft and willing.

He shut that shit down fast. There would be absolutely no heart issues or weird, twisty gut flip-flops. She’d lied to him. She’d used him. She’d damn near gotten Liam killed. She’d cost all of them years of their lives.

He hated her. He fucking hated her with every bit of passion he’d once put into loving her.

“Take me. Take me deep.” If he allowed her to control the scene, she would play with him for hours. He knew damn well what she was doing. She was attempting to reforge a bond with him, the one they had found in Europe, the one that had been made strong with hours and hours of sex, with days spent lazing in bed and learning every inch of the other’s body.

He wasn’t wasting that kind of time again.

She swallowed him down. Again, she wasn’t a petite and delicate flower. No. When Charlotte decided to take a man deep, she forced him down. His eyes nearly rolled into the back of his head. The pleasure was so forceful. Charlotte closed her mouth around him and worked him down with a pointed deliberation. All the while, that hand of hers was cupping his balls softly, playing with him.