He chuckled by her ear, nipping at it gently. "Who else would it be?"
Before she could answer, he'd released her nipple to slide his hand down between her legs and Carolyn pressed herself back against him with a gasp. Feeling the hardness pressing against her bottom, she instinctively reached back to find him. But Christian gave off touching her to catch her hand before she could.
"No touching or I'll tie you to the bed," he growled.
Carolyn gave a breathless laugh that ended on a gasp when his hand then slid between her legs again.
"But I want to touch you," she moaned, reaching behind her again. The moment she did, Christian stopped caressing her to catch her hand. He turned her onto her back, and then shifted over her, his mouth smothering her complaint as he forced her hand up above her head. When she felt something soft slide around her wrist and pull tight, Carolyn broke their kiss to glance up with surprise.
A silk scarf was affixed to the bedpost and now attached to her wrist.
Carolyn turned back to peer at him with amazement, but his attention was on her other hand as he raised it and wound another scarf around it as well. Lowering his head, he peered at her and asked, "All right?"
She stared at him blankly and then whispered uncertainly, "I don't know."
"Say the word and I'll stop," Christian promised and then shifted down her body, his lips trailing over her skin, skating to first one spot and then another, stopping to nibble here and suckle there as he went.
Carolyn bit her lip, her hands instinctively grabbing at the ties binding her as he made a meal of her, nibbling her collarbone, licking his way down between her br**sts and then laving the undersides of each before suckling at her ni**les. Carolyn gasped, torn between uncertainty and pleasure and Christian continued down, skipping over the leather dress gathered around her waist to find and follow her hip bone, making her writhe as something between tickling and pleasure trickled through her.
"Oh," she gasped as his lips trailed their way farther down. She raised her head and watched, wide-eyed, as he began to duck between her legs.
"Oh... er... Ohhhh!" Carolyn cried, tugging hard on her ties and arching on the bed as pleasure shot through her like a bullet, hitting seemingly every nerve in her body. Carolyn wasn't aware of trying to close her thighs, but felt Christian press and hold them back. She wasn't aware of much after that except for the building pressure.
It was a rough sea pounding against the shore of her brain in wave after crashing wave, stirring up mud so that she couldn't think of anything but what she was experiencing.
It left her panting and unable to catch her breath, and then he rose up, caught her h*ps in his hands to raise her off the bed and thrust himself into her. Carolyn tugged frantically at the ties, screaming as he pushed her over the edge to where the deep dark water closed over her head.
Carolyn opened her eyes to a cool room lit only by the light coming from the bathroom through the half-closed door. She knew where she was at once and lay still for a minute, enjoying the heat of Christian's chest at her back and his arm around her until the need to relieve herself forced her to slip out from under his arm and ease off the bed. She paused then and peered down at him, marveling at his beauty. Strong, handsome, his trouble-free face looking so damned heartbreakingly young in the dim light.
Biting her lip, Carolyn turned and tiptoed to the bathroom.
She slipped inside, closed the door, and then turned confronted by her own reflection in the bathroom mirror.
It brought her up short, her need to pee forgotten as she stared at herself. She still wore Gia's leather dress, though it was more of a wide leather belt around her waist at the moment, revealing br**sts that weren't as perky as they had been at Christian's age, and thighs she swore she could see cellulite on.
But the true horror was from the neck up. Her hair was a disheveled mess around a face that looked horrid in the stark light. Her mascara had left dark bruises below each eye, her foundation was caked in some places, and missing in others where it had been rubbed off, and her lipstick was half eaten off and half smudged onto the skin around her lips. She looked... like an old tramp, she judged harshly.
"What are you doing here?" Carolyn whispered to her reflection and watched as her eyes glazed with a fine sheen of tears until her vision blurred. Sucking in a shaky breath, she moved to the sink, turned on the taps, grabbed a washcloth, dampened it and began to scrub viciously at her face until her skin burned with the effort. Then she tossed the cloth aside and turned off the taps before risking another look at herself. She hadn't miraculously washed away the years. She just looked old and blotchy now to her jaundiced eye.
Carolyn turned away and began to tug at Gia's dress, pulling the cups back up into place and the skirt back down. Once she had it covering her as decently as it would, she paused to catch her breath and glanced warily to the door, listening for sounds from the other room.
When silence met her ear, she sucked in a breath and moved silently to open the door.
Christian still lay asleep where she'd left him, but Carolyn didn't count on that continuing for long. This was the first time she'd actually been awake before him. Each of the five times she'd woken up before this, she'd been stirred to consciousness by sweet words and gentle caresses as he took her again and again to such extremes of pleasure she fainted at the end. They hadn't spoken other than gasps and moans after the first time she'd woken when he'd tied her up, and they'd hardly talked then. She had no idea what he wanted from her, or what this was all about, and she was afraid to find out.
Carolyn slipped from the bathroom and crossed on tiptoes to the hall door. She listened briefly, but when she didn't hear anything, eased the door open, cast one last glance at Christian when he murmured sleepily on the bed, then slid out and hurried along the hall and down the stairs as if all the hounds of hell were on her heels. She didn't bother about shoes or anything else, but headed straight out the front door and burst into a run that didn't slow until she'd hit the turnaround and started down the road toward her own villa. She eased back to a jog then, but continued forward, slipping around the side to the terrace and the French doors to her room.
Her eyes landed on the bathroom door as she slipped inside her room, and Carolyn crossed to it at a quick clip.
She stepped inside, pushing the door closed behind her as she hurried forward. By the time she reached the toilet, she was clutching her stomach and simply dropped to her knees and began to vomit as Bethany called out and knocked at her bedroom door.
Christian rolled onto his side in bed and reached for Carolyn, then opened his eyes with a frown when he didn't immediately find her. He stared blankly at the empty space beside him, and then sat up, his eyes swinging around the room. Spotting the cracked-open bathroom door, he got up and moved to it, but when he pushed the door open, the room was empty. There was evidence she'd been there though, he noted, spotting the makeup-stained washcloth on the floor.
A bad feeling crawling up his back, he crossed the bedroom to hurry out into the hall. But he could see at a glance that the living room was empty, and the silence that settled around him the moment he stopped walking told him that no one else was stirring.
Cursing, he hurried back into his room to drag on his jeans and a fresh T-shirt, and then rushed back out to race down the stairs and out the front door. The moment his feet hit the hot stone walk Christian realized he'd forgotten shoes, but he didn't go back for them. He had to see Carolyn, talk to her. He should have made sure to talk to her before this, he berated himself. But every time he'd woken to find her warm soft body beside his in bed, his hunger for her had roared back to life and talking had been the last thing on his mind. It was definitely at the forefront of his thoughts now, however. And it was accompanied by a clutching panic.
"She hasn't run," Christian assured himself as he cut along the terrace and made his way quickly down the mountainside. "She just went home to change or something and didn't want to wake me."