Winner Takes All (A Full Length Erotic Romance Novel) Read online

  Damien stalked to his desk and yanked open a drawer. A few moments later, he was standing in front of her again, the collar she had given him in his hands. He buckled it around her neck, thrust his fingers through the O ring and used it to drag her across the carpeted floor to the sofa. The leather pulled at her neck, rubbing her flesh even as the carpet abraded her knees and legs. He flung her, face down, into the couch.

  “Don’t move.” His breath came quickly, roaring past his mouth.

  The sound of his leather belt unbuckling, Damien yanking it from his belt loops. Sasha gasped quietly at the harsh sounds. Maybe she had gone too far. She’d never done this before, never brought him to such a place of need and anger. He seemed flushed with frustration now, a difference from the anger that had claimed him just a few minutes before. Now, he was completely focused on her, his eyes, his passion, his frustration. And she had wanted it. She had created this. But was she ready for the consequences?

  Damien held the belt double in his hands, sank into the sofa and dragged her into his lap in one motion, her ass in the air and her face pressed into the arm of the sofa.

  “When I tell you to do something, you do it.”

  Before she could respond, the belt swatted across her thighs, gentle in spite of the heat in his voice. “Understand?”

  “Yes!” She gasped the word as the leather belt slashed her thighs again, harder this time, leaving a strip of heat in its wake. She gasped again at the jolt of arousal that slammed into her body from the pain. The leather fell again, this time on her ass. Once, twice, three times and she moaned at each lash of the belt, moaning in pleasure and amazement as her body went hot, the blood and juices inside her body flushing her with heat and sexual desire, filling her even more than she already had been.

  “Will you do what I tell you next time?”

  “Yes,” she cried. “Yes!”

  With each fall of the belt, her desire rose higher and higher, pain flushing her skin. She felt the redness and heat gather from his attentions, his strokes falling harder and harder until she was crying out with each lash. Arousal and pain and tears of desire wetting her face. Her pussy was dripping wet, the core of her aching for Damien’s touch, throbbing for his attention.

  She squirmed on his lap for relief, hunting for firm pressure against her clit, her hips jerking helplessly as he lashed her ass. Incredible, she felt an orgasm rising swiftly in her, a burning annihilation, heat whipping through her body as the leather came down on her skin. Sasha trembled from the pain, from the desire. The orgasm jerked her abruptly on Damien’s lap

  “Yes!” she cried out, shaking and whimpering from the explosion of pleasure.

  Damien said nothing. He only lashed her again with the belt, an unyielding metronome, lashing fire and desire into her flesh. Another orgasm wriggled to life under her flesh. Sasha was overwhelmed with the smell of her own pussy filling the room; she was so wet, dripping, drenched. Frantic for his touch, she felt that the entire household smelled her wet and open pussy; that the whole staff, everyone left behind in the house, knew that she was in heat for Damien. Then he dropped the belt, his breath whistling between his teeth. His fingers dove into her from behind, abruptly filling her pussy. They both groaned.

  “You love this!” He thrust his fingers deeper inside her.

  “Yes....” She moaned on his lap, her fingers buried in the sofa, shaking from the pleasure he pushed into her. Fingers stroking her deeply, stroking her well, whimpers and groans falling from her mouth as his fingers plumbed the very depths of her. She quivered. He abruptly withdrew his fingers and she moaned from the loss. He lifted her off his lap, dragged her mouth up to his. Their tongues twisted together, their mouths gasping.

  Sasha slid her hands in his hair, clinging to him as they kissed, rubbing her naked body against his clothed one, her nipples sensitive still as they dragged across his chest, against the cotton of his suit. Damien pulled her even closer, dragged her until she was straddling his lap. Sasha groaned as her wide up pussy slid across his cock. Her hot and throbbing flesh, made sensitive from the belt, burned even more. Damien groaned into her mouth.

  “Turn around.”

  She turned, her back to him, still straddling him in the couch, her feet sinking into the sofa, bracketing his thighs. Damien touched her breasts, squeezed them from behind, pinching her nipples. Sasha moaned and bit her lip, twisting in his lap, her mind in tatters from want. Damien touched her clit, fingers pressing and circling and pinching it. She gasped, making needful noises.

  “Please!” she cried. “Please!”

  Her reason was completely gone. Sitting on his lap with her burning ass was delicious torture. Between that and his fingers on her clit, she was completely out of her mind with desire. His fingers disappeared. He lifted her, positioned his cock at her drenched slit.

  “Ah!”

  His cock shoved deeply inside her. Sasha moaned. Damien pulled out. Then grabbed her hips, shoved up into her again. “You’re so fucking wet!” he cried into her shoulder.

  His cock thrust into her, deep and hard, sliding against her swollen g-spot, filling her so completely. She felt him firm and hot at her back, the shirt and jacket of his suit sliding against her skin as she jolted up and down on his lap. Sweat drenched her skin. Her breath scraped raw through her lungs. Sasha moaned and gasped as he fucked her hard, his breath hot at the back of her neck, her body soaked in sweat and juices, her ass and thighs burning from the belt.

  “Oh, God!”

  Her thigh muscles twitched from the beginnings of another orgasm. Her hair flew around her face, sticking to her hot and sweat soaked skin. Sasha’s fingers clenched hard in Damien’s thighs as the pleasure rocketed through her. He gripped her hips hard. His cock bucked inside her, his hips slamming up into her as he made a rumbling sound of masculine satisfaction against her shoulder.

  He moaned her name as he came. “You’re incredible….” Damien gripped her waist and pulled her to rest hard against him, his breath huffing through her hair. “How did you know this was just what I needed?” His heart thumped against her back through his clothes.

  Sasha smiled. Melted even more into him as he fell back into the sofa, loose-limbed. “Because it’s what I needed,” she said.

  Slowly, as they sat pressed together, her pulse calmed, the riot in her blood settled. Damien laughed softly and pressed his mouth against her throat. He was still inside her, his replete cock resting amid the slickness of their combined juices. It was a delicate weight she happily carried. And theirs was a joining Sasha was in no hurry to undo.

  But all too soon, they had to unwind from each other. Damien lifted her off his lap, gasping softly as their bodies disconnected. Sasha squirmed in his tender grip, bonelessly content as he gently lay her back in the sofa then stood up. Damien was completely unselfconscious with his damp cock hanging out of his pants. After briefly touching her cheek, he disappeared into the small bathroom attached to the study them came back with a wet, warm cloth. His fly was zipped, suit already straightened. Tenderly, he wiped between her legs, soothed the welts on her backside and thighs. Then he kissed each butt cheek.

  “You,” he murmured, leaning down to kiss her mouth. “Are perfection. I can’t believe I was lucky enough to find you.”

  Sasha slid her arms around his neck, kissing him deeply, a part of her wondering if all this tenderness of his would disappear when he finally knew her secret. She kissed him harder.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Damien pulled away first. “Is anything wrong?” he asked. “Was I too rough?”

  “No. You were perfect. You always know just how to touch me.” She threaded her fingers through his hair as he looked into her, his bright blue eyes, an ocean she could easily drown in.

  “Then what’s wrong?” A frown marred his perfect features. His eyes darkened with concern.

  “Nothing is wrong.” But even as she said the words, she found herself pulling even more away from him. But Damien wouldn’t
let her escape.

  “Don’t keep the truth from me, Sasha. If something is wrong, give me the chance to make it right.”

  He gathered her in his arms, simultaneously firm and tender. He pulled her into his lap. Sasha felt her worries melting away under the warmth of his gaze on her, his arms sweetly enfolding her nakedness. She snuggled into his arms and sighed, giving in to the temptation to simply lie against him and listen to the strong thunder of his heartbeat.

  “You make me feel safe,” she murmured.

  He rested a hand on her head, tucked her face into the curve of his neck. “You’re a confusing woman,” he said with a mock sigh. “So stubborn.”

  “Never that.” Sasha smiled and forced herself to pull gently away from him.

  He let her go and she got to her feet, picked up her dress. She stepped into it and shook out her hair, shoving the thick locks away from her face and settling them in some semblance of order around her shoulders. Sasha looked at Damien with an eyebrow raised, turned her back to him with the unzipped dress revealing the smooth expanse of her back, the dip down to her bottom. Her lover stood up, walked slowly to her.

  “Now you need me, huh?” His hand rested on the tab of the zipper. His warmth soaked into her through the thin material.

  “Need is relative,” she said, reaching back to pull up the zipper herself. But he batted her hand away, smiling, and tugged on the zipper’s tab, closing the fabric of the dress with an exaggerated slowness.

  A knock sounded at the door of the study. The door handle clicked as whoever it was opened the door and let themselves in. A shocked face in the door staring at Damien and Sasha.

  Vincent Frazier.

  She flushed, aware of how it looked with her lover’s hand on her zipper, the tousled mess of her hair. From the doorway, Vincent stared at her with his eyes gray eyes wide in shock. Then triumph.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Sasha stood frozen in front of Damien as Vincent Frazier stared at her and her lover. The jockey’s gray eyes moved insolently down her body as she remained with her back to Damien, his hand on the tab of her dress zipper. Although she was horrified by what the vindictive jockey was seeing, she forced herself to deliberately turn away from him in the doorway of Damien’s study.

  “Excuse me,” Vincent said. His apology sounded as false as his alleged reputation with women. A moment later he stepped back outside and closed the door of the study behind him.

  Only then did Sasha allow her true feelings to show.

  “Shit!”

  She jerked away from Damien, wanting to bury her face in her hands. Or his chest. First her brother, now this. When would all these threats to her career and her happiness finally disappear?

  “He’s going to tell everyone what he just saw,” she whispered, mindful of the possibility that Vincent was still standing outside with his ear pressed to the door.

  “Relax,” Damien said. He clasped her shoulders with his warm hands. “He can’t do anything to us that we won’t allow.”

  “But he can!” She shivered in her lover’s embrace, imagining the other jockey running off to tattle to anyone in the stables who would listen. “He can ruin everything.”

  Damien made a dismissive noise. “Hardly. The best way to douse this fire is for us to be public with our relationship. He can’t reveal what’s already out in the open.” He drew her back against his chest, effortlessly supporting her weight with his strength.

  Unfortunately, Sasha agreed with Damien. They had to come out as more than friends, as an actual couple, to negate any damage that Vincent could potentially do.

  “You’re right,” she murmured, her heart still thumping hard in her chest.

  “It’s already the end of the work day so we should do it tomorrow. The sooner, the better.” He kissed the top of her head. “Don’t worry, Sasha. Everything will be all right.”

  “Okay.” Her voice sounded small, even to her own ears. She cleared her throat, not wanting to think about any of this anymore. Vincent was a problem that didn’t deserve any of her attention. Damien was right. There was nothing to be done until tomorrow. She sighed and drew back from his embrace. Then she took his hand and led him back to the couch they had so recently left.

  “Since we can’t do anything about Vincent right now, tell me about that phone call I interrupted earlier.”

  Damien shook his head, gathered her into his arms on the couch, her back pressed against his chest, their legs stretched out and sweetly tangled together. “That’s just jumping from one bad topic to another.” His full mouth twisted into a grimace.

  “There’s a guy, Anthony Barnes, who’s had it in for me and my family for years.”

  “Anthony Barnes.” Sasha furrowed her brow. “That name sounds familiar.” She thought about where she might have heard it before, and then remembered. “He’s the trainer for McGreevy’s, isn’t he?”

  Damien looked down at her in surprise. “How do you know him?”

  “Before I made up my mind to work here, I was considering signing on over at McGreevy’s instead. They offered a great package and they have some beautiful thoroughbreds. But I felt more at home here. Linc and High Impact sealed the deal for me.”

  Damien made a soft noise of approval. “Remind me to give Linc a raise for that.”

  She smiled faintly. “But we weren’t talking about me or even Linc.”

  Sasha turned in Damien’s arms so she could see his face while still remaining in his comfortable and warm embrace. The blue of his eyes was shadowed, the touch of darkness so uncharacteristic for him.

  “We were talking about that piece of shit, Anthony Barnes,” he said with a snarl. I’m glad he didn’t manage to steal you away, too.” She watched him for a moment, not saying a word, merely allowing him to gather his thoughts about what was bothering him so much. He sighed and told her the story.

  “I never told you this, but I never wanted to be in this business.”

  Damien’s voice deepened as he told her of his dreams of being a zoologist. Of wanting to get his Masters degree in Wildlife Biology and working with animals in their natural environments all over the world. Despite this desire, however, he bowed to his father’s wishes and went to school for business. Even then, he hadn’t committed to helping his father run Taylor Stables.

  “Then my father died.” She heard him swallow heavily behind her. His hands tightened briefly around hers and he drew a deep, troubled breath.

  His father had been tending to one of the horses, working late as usual in the stables when a fire broke out. Despite the fire alarms, for a long time that night, no one knew about the fire. It was late, it was dark, it was after hours and everyone had gone home. By the time the firefighters came, it was already too late. His father was dead, along with two of their best horses.

  “Although we couldn’t prove it, everyone knew it was Anthony Barnes who started the fire.”

  Sasha gasped. “Oh my God!”

  “He was in the hayloft, smoking. He fell asleep up there, woke to the fire and left my father to burn.” Damien’s jaw clenched and his eyes darkened with the unpleasant memories. “I was in Botswana when it all happened but came back on the next flight. After my own investigation, I fired Barnes for his negligence and let him go without a letter of reference. Somehow he wormed his way into McGreevy’s place and has been a pain in my ass ever since.”

  He tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling. “All these years, he’s been turning McGreevy against me, trying to outbid me for horses. Stealing my best jockeys and staff. Recently, one of our trainers was mugged not too far from here. His leg was badly broken. I heard rumors that it was Barnes who did it, but he always manages to slither out of trouble. It’s amazing to me how angry he is that he lost a job and a few layers of skin when, because of him, I was the one who lost everything.”

  Damien sounded so devastated, the normally strong man she knew trembling in anger and remembered sadness. Sasha changed her position on the s
ofa, knelt into the plush cushions and pressed his head against her breasts.

  “I’m tired of him and his bullshit,” Damien said, his words vibrated against her skin. “He’s coming after me again, and I’m going to put a stop to it. But this time I won’t be so nice.”

  His words were ice. Hard and jagged. Ruthless.

  Chapter Twenty

  “The new foal born last night is beautiful,” Sasha said to Linc with a grin as she waited for him to finish making his photocopies. To her there were few things sweeter than newborn horses. Plus the new baby was a nice distraction from the imminent revelation about her and Damien’s relationship.

  “The little ones are mighty nice,” Linc said with a nod. He lifted the lid of printer and took out a piece of paper, grabbed the copies and slid them into a folder he had under his arm.

  After spending all morning in the sun with Linc and a few of the horses doing exercises, she had gone in to check on the most recent addition to Taylor Stables. The new filly, hopefully named Queen of the Roses, was a light bay color and gorgeous. Normally, Sasha wouldn’t pay much attention to the breeding portion of the Taylor Stables business but she loved the little horses so much and thought their struggling legs and softness were the epitome of innocence. They reminded her of what she had lost very early in her life and could never get back.