Chapter 26 #2
“That is an oddly specific fraction. You didn’t even want to use twelfths?”
“Sorry, didn’t realize how into math you were. That’s not on your Wikipedia page.” He nuzzles closer, hooking a thumb inside the waistband of her jeans. “Ramona Wilder. Pisces sun. Hottest girl on planet Earth. Huge math nerd.”
She’s laughing as he pulls her closer, but still the idea of Nick hating himself is too much to bear. She wants to be careful with him, this man who went through hell and emerged with a heart that was scarred but still beating.
“Do you think…” Ramona trails off, wondering why she’s so tongue-tied today. “Do you think you’d want to get married again?”
Nick considers this, untucking his hand from her jeans. “If it felt right, and it was what both people wanted…then yes.” His voice turns softer, fingertip drawing circles on her wrist. She nods, unsure why those words spark a stinging sensation at the back of her eyes. “What about you?”
“I—I don’t know. I guess I’ve never really thought about it.”
It’s a lie, and if he can tell, he doesn’t press. She wonders if she asked it to prove something to herself. If he wants to get married and she isn’t marriage material, they don’t have a future—simple as that. Self-sabotage.
“That’s okay,” he says. “You have time.”
He tips her head upward, kissing her, and even if all the fears don’t melt away, enough of them do that she can turn off that part of her brain.
Time. She wants to grab it by the fistful. She wants to give him this perfect holiday, something to remember her by when this inevitably falls apart. When he decides she isn’t worth the hassle, once he’s enjoyed her while he can.
“I can’t get enough of you,” he says as he turns her so her back is against him. His hand, warm from the fire, slips beneath her shirt, landing on her stomach and traveling up to her breasts. “I could have you every single night, every single morning, and I’d still go feral each time.”
“I would be genuinely impressed by your stamina.” She loves the way his laugh thumps against her shoulder blades. The way he hardens against her lower back.
“Is that a dig at my feeble old age?”
Now it’s her turn to laugh. “No,” she says. “I like you this way. You’re just…impossibly sexy to me. Everything you do. The way you touch me. The sounds you make.” She rocks backward against him, drawing out a groan as his mouth opens against the side of her neck.
It isn’t that this man has turned her soft, or dulled all her sharp edges. It’s that she’s discovered maybe those edges were too sharp to begin with. That there are some people worth not wearing armor around.
She tries her best to ignore the fear tapping away at the back of her brain: that she’s not long-term material, and this might be the only time she sees his family. No matter how many lovely things he says to her, he’s got to reach his limit eventually.
If this is unserious and temporary, she should enjoy every moment of it.
She turns to face him, loving the way his lashes are already at half-mast, like he’s drunk on merely touching her. “Can you open the side pocket of my duffel?”
He lifts an eyebrow but does what she’s asking, unzipping the pocket and pulling out a thin silk scarf. Now he looks even more confused.
“You probably should have brought something a little heavier for the weather.”
“I didn’t bring it for the weather.”
Realization dawns on his face with a slow upturn of his lips, just as she tries and fails to bite back her own smile. “You want me…to use this on you?”
“Only if you want to,” she says, giving him an out in case he isn’t into it.
She’s always been curious to try but never trusted that it wouldn’t make its way onto the internet. Ramona Wilder likes being tied up.
With Nick…she trusts.
He steps closer, kissing her hard. Grazing the scarf along her arm. “I never have, but—I think I’d like to. With you.”
He spreads a blanket in front of the fireplace, drags her down next to him.
In the auburn light, they unbutton and unbuckle and unzip.
As though he knows the places she’s most self-conscious about, he gives them extra attention, telling her without words, These are the parts of you I like the most. Mouth pressed to her stomach. Her thighs.
“Come here,” he says, and she holds out her arms so he can wrap the scarf around her wrists.
One loop, and then another. Her body rearranges itself—heart settling in her throat, pulse thrumming low in her belly.
The silk is whisper soft, a sharp contrast to the heady exhilaration in her veins.
She wouldn’t expect him to be anything but meticulous, and that’s exactly how he is as he ties the scarf in a loose knot.
Tests the strength of it with two fingers.
Then he dips his head to press a lingering kiss to her wrists. “How does that feel?”
“Perfect.”
With her hands tied, she lifts her arms over her head as his body covers her.
The instant warmth of him, his reassuring weight.
The way his mouth meets hers feels different now, too—fierce and urgent, with an undeniable hint of tenderness.
There’s that trust, she thinks, and wonders why it nearly makes her blink back tears.
But then he starts kissing down her neck, letting his stubble scrape her skin in that way he must know she’s addicted to, and she loses herself in the thrill of the restraint.
The rush of completely giving in to him—she likes it even more than she thought she would.
“I know you like being in control,” he says, rough as sandpaper. “But when you’re here with me…I think sometimes you like it when I’m in charge.”
“Yes.”
That girl from his office their first time is a stranger to her now. How ready she was, to be a body for him and nothing else.
“I think you like when I tell you how good you are.” He splays her legs open for him, and even with him in this position of power, he still has to swallow back a groan.
“How gorgeous.” A finger slipping inside her.
“How wet. You must have gotten drenched when I started tying you up, didn’t you, honey? ”
“Even before that,” she manages, and he moves his finger faster, drawing out a strangled plea.
She can’t rely on her hands to grip anything but a corner of the blanket, and that narrows her focus to only the places he’s touching her.
The heat of the fire on her skin. The force of his attention as he drives her to the brink before pulling back, fingers trembling like it’s taking all his control to tease her like this.
“How—how is it always so good with you?”
Nick gives her a soft, searching look. “Because,” he says, leaning down to lick the inside of her thigh. “I listen to you. I memorize what you like, so I can do it again, and again, and again.”
She’s light-headed and half-certain she’s levitating off the floor, but she thinks this might be the most erotic thing she’s ever heard. “Well, if that’s all—” she starts, dazed, but then his tongue is on her, inside her, and she loses the ability to speak.
Still, he stops moments before she can get any relief from that raw, hollow ache, leaving her breathless and bucking her hips.
He slides on a condom, waits between her thighs while he plays with her hair.
The fire turns him golden, unreasonably beautiful, a flicker of light catching a rare smirk.
He’s absolutely evil—and yet. She fucking loves it.
He shifts his hips forward just slightly, giving her only the tip of his cock. “Please,” she whimpers.
“Not yet, honey.” His hand curves around her breast. Pinches her nipple taut. “You’re so pretty when you beg.”
She’s already so close, so close. He gives her another inch, and she cries out in anticipation, swearing his name.
And then his control snaps. Finally he’s there, filling her, stretching her leg to spread her wider. His fingers on her clit as he rocks into her, his other hand anchored on her hip.
“So pretty when you’re being fucked,” he says. “So pretty when I make you come.”
His teeth sink into the soft skin of her neck, and then she’s unraveling, piece by shimmering piece.
Dragging him over the edge with her. He talks her through it, hot breath on her jaw and delicious words in her ear, clutching her like he never wants to let go—and if she had her way, he wouldn’t.
When he lowers her arms to kiss the bind on her wrists, she keeps her eyes open, desperate not to miss a single moment.
She can’t believe she used to turn her face away. That she didn’t want him to see her.
When maybe the truth is that he’s the only one who’s ever seen all of her.