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  “You thought with something else?” I asked playfully.

  “That’s the fucking amazing thing. I didn’t think at all. I just felt.” Then he kissed me again, and again, and again, his tongue parting my lips, his hand traveling up my leg to my waist. “You have no idea what that’s like for me—to just feel. It’s heaven.” He put his hand on my face and kissed his way across the opposite cheek to whisper in my ear. “You’re an angel.”

  I smiled at the sweet words, at the tingle between my legs, at the way I could feel his cock stirring beneath me. “An angel, huh?” My eyes closed as his mouth traveled down one side of my throat, his hand pressing the other side. His warm, wet tongue on my skin sent darts of lust straight to my core.

  “Yes,” he said, his voice low and rough. “But this little angel has to answer for her earlier disobedience.”

  My heart stopped for a second, then raced. “She does?”

  “She does.” He slipped an arm beneath my knees and stood, cradling me as we walked toward the door. “And she better not talk back this time.”

  I laughed, although a funny little tickle that felt a little like fear was fluttering in my belly. “Where are you taking me?”

  “Shhh. My turn to play.” He went up the steps, opened the sliding door, and set me on my feet inside the cabin. “No questions. Go up to the loft and wait for me. Don’t get undressed and don’t take off you shoes.” His light eyes appeared black and glossy in the dark.

  “OK,” I whispered, wondering what he was planning to do with me up there. “Should I be nervous?” It was a joke…sort of.

  “Should have thought of that before you tried to run us off the road tonight.” He leaned in, one hand on either side of the doorway. “And before you mentioned you like it a little rough.”

  My mouth fell open as he shut the sliding door and walked away. Oh my God, where the hell was he going? And what on earth was he planning? This was a guy who had some pretty violent images in his head from time to time…did they ever merge with his fantasies? I bit one knuckle, hesitating for just a second before hurrying over to the ladder.

  My heart thumped hard as I carefully climbed the ladder in my heels, wondering if it was wrong to be so turned on by the fact that I wasn’t one hundred percent sure being the object of someone’s fantasies was entirely safe. I trusted Sebastian…but still.

  What was he going to do to me?

  Twenty-Five

  Sebastian

  I hurried through the dark to my tool shed, where I knew I had some thick cotton rope left over from stringing the hammock. My heart was beating fast, both from nerves and excitement. I wanted to follow through with this, but I also hoped my brain wouldn’t trip itself up. Indulge Bondage Fantasy with Skylar Nixon wasn’t on the SUDS list, but it was definitely something I’d imagined and never thought I’d have the nerve to try. It was a risk, but I was getting better about those.

  After picking up the wine glasses off the patio, I went around to the front door, solely for the purpose of making Skylar wait and wonder a little longer. She was so fucking adorable, and the look on her face when I’d told her to go up and wait for me was priceless.

  I fucking loved that she liked to talk dirty, to fantasize out loud, to play a little. I’d never been with anyone like her before, and I’d never felt comfortable enough with anyone else to show that side of myself. Given my mental struggles, I was always so worried that they’d think I was sexually aberrant or perverse.

  Although I felt a little perverted right now, sneaking in my own front door with coiled rope in my hand, setting the glasses on the table and switching off all the lights. But mostly I was fucking ecstatic…up in my bedroom waiting for me was the most impossibly beautiful angel I’d ever seen, and she was going to let me tie her up and get her off.

  She just didn’t know it yet.

  I climbed the ladder slowly, drawing out the suspense. When I reached the top, I found her sitting primly on the edge of the bed with her hands in her lap, legs together and feet flat on the floor. She hadn’t turned on the light, and since the night was slightly overcast, the moon didn’t offer much in the way of illumination either. Still, her eyes went right to the rope in my hand, and I heard her breath catch.

  But she didn’t ask.

  God, she was so fucking perfect. My heart was hammering, and the crotch of my pants was hot and tight. I set the rope on the nightstand and slipped off my jacket, tossing it next to her on the bed.

  “Did I tell you how much I like your shoes tonight?” I asked, removing my cuff links. After slipping them into my pocket, I cuffed my sleeves, fighting the urge to rip off that black dress, throw her legs in the air, and fuck her into oblivion with my hands wrapped around her ankles.

  She shook her head.

  “I love them.” Moving closer to her, I switched on the bedside lamp.

  “Thank you.” She looked up at me, her eyes wide and trusting and just a little bit worried.

  “Are you nervous, angel?”

  She glanced at the rope on the table, then back and me, licking her lips. “Maybe a little.”

  Was she playing or serious? She was an actress, after all. Maybe she knew how hot it was to play the innocent. Either way, her answer made my cock even harder. It was so goddamn sexy—being both her tormentor and her protector. I tipped her chin up. “You know I’d never hurt you.”

  “I know.” Her voice was small but sure.

  “Stand up.”

  She stood and gazed up at me through her lashes.

  “Turn around.”

  She presented me with her back, and I moved her hair aside and slowly unzipped her dress. Black lace appeared as the two sides separated, and my breath stopped.

  “What’s this?”

  “It’s a corset.”

  “With straps?”

  “Yes. It keeps everything smooth and in place under a fitted dress like this…plus I like nice underwear.” She shimmied the dress down her arms and legs and stepped out of it, laying it on the bed.

  My legs felt like they might give out—below the corset, which laced up the back, she wore a matching black thong. I let my eyes wander from her long blond hair to the cinching of the corset to the perfect ivory curves of her ass down her slender legs to those fuck-me-I’m-adorable heels. Jesus. I don’t care what anyone says, NO MAN is good enough to deserve this.

  But since I was here.

  I moved up behind her and kissed her back, rubbing my lips softly against her skin. Her perfume was slightly floral, slightly sweet, like orange blossoms, and I inhaled, taking her scent into my head and chest. “You smell good enough to eat,” I said, running my hands down her arms from shoulder to fingers. “But first…” Pausing to grab the coil of rope from the nightstand, I brought her hands behind her back and crossed her wrists. As I wound the rope around them, I spoke to her in a low, soft voice. “You’re so beautiful, angel. The most beautiful woman I’ve ever known. That kind of beauty has a strange power over men—it makes us feel strong and yet weak. Protective of it and yet defenseless against it.” Her breath was coming faster, her chest rising and falling. I completed the knot and turned her to face me. “Does that make sense?”

  She swallowed. “I don’t know.”

  I slipped my fingers into her hair and lowered my mouth to hers, parting her lips with my tongue. It made me hungry. I dropped to my knees in front of her, as all men should. “Open your legs.”

  She widened her stance and I kissed my way up each inner thigh, dragging my rough jaw along her smooth skin. “You have to remain standing. That’s my rule.” Then I put my lips on that black lace, fastening my mouth on her pussy, my hands running up the backs of her legs.

  She whimpered, her legs trembling. “Oh god, oh god. Your mouth…”

  I worked the little scrap of lace aside and fucked her with my tongue, my hands on her ass, holding her to me. She tasted like honey and oranges and I couldn’t get enough. Burying my face between her legs, I plunged my ton
gue inside her and then stroked it up her center, finally moving the lace aside with my hand so I could get at her clit.

  The second I licked it, her knees buckled a little. I circled her thighs with my arms to hold her up as she moaned and cursed me.

  “Enough, please,” she begged. “I can’t stand anymore.”

  “Come for me, and I’ll let you lie down,” I whispered.

  “I don’t know if I can, standing like this. My legs…” Her tone was pleading, desperate.

  “You want to come. I know you do. Come on, angel.” I circled her clit with my tongue, sucked it into my mouth. I did all the things I’d done the other night that had made her gasp and sigh and moan, slipping two fingers inside her and twisting them the way she liked. The knowledge of her body, of her mind, intoxicated me. I know what Skylar Nixon likes. I know what makes her come.

  And I did make her come, her pussy clenching around my fingers, her voice crying out in waves that matched the rhythmic spasms. When her legs finally gave way, I flipped her onto her stomach so her upper body lay across the bed, bound wrists at the small of her back. Her slender arms were pale against the black satin corset. God, her ass is all mine. And fuck, those legs. Those shoes. “Don’t move,” I told her, yanking her wet underwear off. Then I stood and unbuckled my belt, undid my pants.

  “Yes,” she panted. “I want it.”

  “Yes, what? What exactly do you want, angel?” Oh Jesus, I would probably go to hell for tying Skylar Nixon up and making her beg me to fuck her. But right now, my soul’s eternal damnation seemed like a fair price for this night with her.

  “I want you, Sebastian,” she said breathlessly. “I want you to fuck me. Hard.”

  “Hard?” I took my dick in my hand, stroking it as I took in the image of her bent over my bed, hands tied, legs straight, feet apart. I teased her pussy with the tip, smearing wetness from front to back, sliding it in the crack of her ass.

  “Yes.” Her eyes were closed, her mouth open.

  “Apologize.”

  “Huh?” Her eyes popped open.

  “Apologize,” I growled, pushing inside her. “For being so beautiful. For making me want you so badly. For breaking me down. For making me so fucking hard for you all the time.” Words slipped unbidden from my mouth as I grabbed her hips and thrust slowly in and out. “From the moment I saw you, I knew you could undo me. I knew I should stay away from you, but I couldn’t. I can’t. The only thing I can do is make you mine.”

  “I’m not sorry,” she rasped, her bound hands clenching into fists just like her pussy was tightening around my cock. “I’ll never apologize. Never.”

  “So you want this?” I pulled her back onto me, slowly but not gently. I watched myself disappear inside her body, mesmerized.

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I want this. I want to break you. I want to be yours. I want you inside me.” Her voice hushed to a whisper. “I want everything.”

  “Fuck. Fuck.” It was too much—all off it. The rope around her hands and her pale skin and curvy body, her words and the memory of her, the possibility of us. I held her hips and fucked her fast and hard and deep, and nothing—nothing—in my entire life had ever felt as good. Strength and power and indestructible certainty that I could do anything flooded my veins, and as I reached the breaking point, my entire body seizing up and then exploding deep within her, all I could think was taking her inside me, caging her within my bones, enclosing her within my ragged, imperfect puzzle of a heart.

  Mine.

  Later, after I’d unwrapped her wrists and kissed the tender red marks on her alabaster skin, we undressed each other and slid between the cool white sheets in my bed, arms wrapped around each other tight. She fell asleep first, and I lay there stroking her hair, ignoring the ghosts that tried to fill my head with punishing dread, filling it instead with the scent of her skin, the softness of her breath, the weight of her head on my chest. Then I closed my eyes and held her as I drifted off to sleep.

  In the morning, I woke first, facing away from her, one of her arms slung over my torso. I picked up her hand and kissed it before sliding out of bed and pulling on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt from my dresser. Soft, golden morning sun was just starting to come in through the skylight, and I smiled at the way it fell across her features. I could get used to seeing the first light of day on her face.

  It reminded me of a poem I liked by Robert Frost about the ephemeral beauty of the beginnings of things.

  Was this our beginning? Would we always remember the first night we spent together? The first morning here at the cabin?

  Don’t be fucking melodramatic, snapped the voice. You have no idea what she’s feeling. You think the things she said to you when you had her tied up and defenseless were real? It was a fucking game.

  Fuck. It had been kind of a game, but I hadn’t sensed any guile or pretense in her. It felt like she was speaking the truth. I wanted it to be the truth.

  Could this work between us? I wasn’t ever positive about anything, but something tempted me to think maybe, just maybe, Skylar Nixon could be the one woman who was strong enough, sweet enough, forgiving enough to be mine. The thought was both terrifying and beautiful.

  Quietly I climbed down the ladder, used the bathroom, put the coffee on, and took my notebook out onto the porch. I felt rested, but throughout the night I’d woken up repeatedly with words scattered in my head, and I wanted to see if I could make some sense of them on paper. Sometimes letting the voice have his way in writing demystified it—lessened its foreignness inside my mind. These were my thoughts, my words, my feelings, and I owned them. I wasn’t their victim. Pulling the pencil from the spiral where I’d tucked it, I looked out into the woods for a few minutes, letting the raw words weave themselves into poetry.

  Skylar

  You fall softly

  like snow

  mine

  I am beneath you (I fall hard, like stone)

  so I will catch you

  on my tongue

  You melt there like sadness

  mine

  I tied your hands (mine)

  a vain, exquisite endeavor

  to break you

  mine

  Shards of bone and soul

  mine

  littered the bedroom floor this morning

  I stepped carefully around them

  for fear of injury

  mine

  but you are brave, I think

  You will gather them close

  and try to smooth their jagged edges

  mine

  with the fearless, infinite grace

  of your foolish heart

  mine

  Twenty-Six

  Skylar

  Guess he wasn’t kidding about the sunrise.

  I had the day off, so arising at dawn hadn’t exactly been my plan, but when I woke up and found myself alone in Sebastian’s bed, I missed him right away. Holy hell, last night had been amazing. From the blowjob in the car—I don’t even know what came over me, I’d never done that before—to the sex in his bedroom to the things he’d said…my mind was spinning. Jesus, had he really tied me up? Sebastian Pryce, who was so nervous about hurting people he kept his sharp knives hidden above the fridge, actually tied my hands behind my back so he could make me feel helpless against him?

  I brought the sheet up to my mouth and giggled silently. God. He was such a study in contradictions. But I loved that he felt comfortable enough with me to do it. I loved the things he said while he did it. I could still hear his low, intense voice in my mind.

  Apologize… For breaking me down… The only thing I can do is make you mine.

  And I’d loved every second of it. I’d meant what I said—I’d never apologize for wanting him—but I didn’t see it as breaking him. And as for being his… my stomach tightened at the thought. What did he mean by that? Like his his? The forever kind of his? Or was it just great sex? Maybe he was the kind of guy who said things in the dark he wouldn’t repeat
in the light. I wanted to talk about it, but it would probably be like pulling teeth. Tugging the sheet from what were probably perfect hospital corners, I wrapped it around myself and managed to get down the ladder without slipping.

  The smell of freshly made coffee filled my head as soon as I started to descend. I didn’t see him in the kitchen or living room, and then I noticed the front door was open. Through the screen door I heard the morning song of the birds, and I remembered he liked to watch the sunrise from the front porch. I set the sheet aside and scooted into the bathroom, where I found a new toothbrush and washcloth laid out for me. God. He’s the sweetest asshole ever. This could be really good between us…will he try? After using the bathroom, brushing my teeth and scrubbing off what was left of last night’s makeup, I poured two cups of coffee from the full pot, and waddled to the door, holding the sheet tight under my armpits.

  “Hey,” I said through the screen. He’d been sitting there writing, and jumped at the sound of my voice. “Sorry, didn’t mean to disturb you.”

  “No, it’s all right.” He quickly closed the notebook, stuck the pencil inside the spiral, and set it on the porch floor before standing. “I didn’t expect you up so early. Here, I’ll get the door.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Wow, it’s so beautiful out there.”

  He opened the door and took the cups from me. “I like your outfit.”

  “You’re not mad I pulled the sheet off the bed?” I stepped past him onto the porch and took one cup from his hand.

  “Uh, no.” He let the screen door slap shut and brought his coffee to his lips. “I’m particular, but I’m not totally insane.” He paused. “Usually.”

  Smiling, I swished over to the other rocker, sat down, and looked around. “So this is sunrise.”

  Sebastian laughed. “This is sunrise. Ever seen one before?”