Chapter Twenty-Three Sloane
I push open the door to Cole’s bedroom. The room is dim, lit only by the city lights streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows. He’s waiting for me, standing in the center of the room, his posture rigid with tension.
His eyes lock onto mine—dark, predatory, possessive. Without a word, he crosses the space between us in three long strides. Before I can even speak, his hand is at my throat, not squeezing but asserting control as he backs me against the door, slamming it shut with my body.
“I’ve been waiting,” he says, his voice tight with restraint.
I can’t breathe, not from his grip but from the intensity radiating from him in waves. This isn’t the Cole from the workroom. This is something else entirely—something primal and unleashed.
“I’m sorry I made you wait,” I manage, my voice barely a whisper.
His thumb traces my lower lip, rough. “Time is valuable to me, Sloane. When I want something, I don’t like waiting.” His eyes darken further. “And right now, what I want is you.”
He rips my blouse open, buttons scattering across the hardwood floor. I gasp at the sudden violence of it, electricity shooting through my veins. His mouth is on my neck, biting hard enough to mark me, his hands tearing at my clothes with a desperation that matches the desire building inside me.
“Making me wait has consequences,” he growls against my skin. “Tonight, I own every second of your time to make up for it.”
I surrender completely, letting him strip me bare in the entryway. His hand tangles in my hair, yanking my head back to expose my throat to him. The pain transforms into pleasure as his teeth graze my pulse point.
“Say it,” he demands.
“You own me,” I breathe, and something feral flashes in his eyes.
He lifts me, my legs wrapping instinctively around his waist as he carries me to the bed. The sheets feel cool against my back as he throws me down, but my skin is burning everywhere he’s touched me.
“Don’t move,” he commands, and I freeze, watching as he strips, revealing the hard planes of his body, the evidence of how much he wants me.
His eyes never leave mine. There’s something different about him tonight. Something dangerous that should terrify me but only makes me want him more. All I can think about is Cole.
His touch, his taste, the way he’s looking at me like he wants to devour me whole.
From a hidden panel in the wall, Cole removes what looks like a leather case. His movements are deliberate, almost ritualistic as he opens it on the nightstand. I catch glimpses of metal and leather before he turns to me, something glinting in his hand.
“Stand up,” he orders, voice leaving no room for argument.
I rise on shaky legs, my nakedness making me feel vulnerable. He circles me slowly, appraising, before stopping behind me.
Cold metal touches my spine, making me gasp. “Do you know what this is?” he asks, tracing the object down my vertebrae.
I shake my head, unable to form words as anticipation twists inside me.
“It’s a Wartenberg wheel,” he explains, voice clinical yet somehow deeply erotic.
“Used to test nerve responses.” He rolls it across my shoulder blade, the tiny spikes sending electric sensations through my body without breaking skin.
“Every nerve ending...” he continues, bringing it around to trail across my collarbone, “...awakened.”
My breathing becomes shallow as he traces it down between my breasts, the pinpricks of sensation making me arch toward him involuntarily.
“Pain and pleasure,” he murmurs, “separated by the thinnest of lines.”
The wheel travels lower, circling my navel, then along the sensitive skin of my hip. I’m trembling now, not from fear but from a desire so intense it’s overwhelming me.
“This tool,” he says, rolling the wheel in slow patterns across my abdomen, “allows me to map every sensitive spot on your body. To learn exactly where”—he drags it lightly across my inner thigh, making me gasp—“you respond most intensely.”
He continues his meticulous exploration, the pinwheel creating trails of sensation across my skin. When he brings it to the curve where my thigh meets my hip, I can’t suppress a moan.
“Interesting,” he murmurs, returning the wheel to the same spot, applying slightly more pressure. The sensation intensifies, making me jerk. “The body remembers. Every nerve ending I awaken becomes more responsive.”
He moves behind me again, running the wheel across my shoulders, down my spine, over the curve of my ass. Each path leaves a trail of tingling awareness in its wake, as if he’s drawing a map of my sensitivity.
“On the bed,” he commands. “On your back.”
I comply instantly, positioning myself as ordered. Cole returns to the leather case and produces what looks like leather cuffs attached to a long metal bar.
“Do you know what this is?” he asks, his voice a low rumble.
I shake my head, though I have some idea.
“A spreader bar,” he explains. “It keeps you open for me. Available.”
He fastens the leather cuffs around my ankles, the bar between them forcing my legs apart. I’ve never felt so exposed, so completely vulnerable.
“Perfect,” he murmurs, standing back to admire his work. His gaze is possessive as it rakes over my displayed form. “Now you can’t close your legs, no matter how intense the sensations get.”
The implication of his words causes my stomach to clench. He returns to his case of implements and comes back with the Wartenberg wheel. The metal catches the dim light as he approaches.
“Now,” he says, his voice thick with desire, “we continue our exploration.”
He starts at my ankle, just above where the cuff holds me open, and slowly, methodically works his way up my calf.
The pinpricks of the wheel are more intense now, as if my skin has become hypersensitive to his touch.
When he reaches my inner thigh, he slows even further, making smaller patterns, working inward with agonizing precision.
“Please,” I gasp, my body straining against the spreader bar, desperate for relief.
“Please what?” he asks, pausing the wheel’s movement.
“I need more,” I whisper, not even caring how desperate I sound.
“More of this?” He presses the wheel slightly harder into the tender skin of my inner thigh, making me cry out. “Or something else?”
“You,” I manage. “I need you.”
He shakes his head slowly. “Not yet. I’m not finished learning your body.”
He continues his torturous exploration, bringing the wheel to places that make me writhe—the crease where thigh meets body, the sensitive skin below my navel, circling but never quite touching where I need it most. By the time he reaches my breasts, I’m panting, my body slick with sweat, trembling with need.
“The most fascinating aspect of this tool,” he says, rolling it around my nipple without quite touching it, “is how it heightens sensitivity. Every place I’ve touched”—he finally grazes the wheel across my nipple, making me arch and cry out—“becomes more responsive to other stimulation.”
To demonstrate, he sets the wheel aside and lowers his mouth to the path he just traced. The sensation is overwhelming—his tongue following the same path as the wheel, but now every nerve ending is awake and screaming for more.
“See?” he murmurs against my skin. “Your body remembers.”
He returns to the leather case and brings back what looks like a thin metal rod with a rounded tip.
“And now for something different,” he says, plugging it into a socket beside the bed. “The violet wand.” He flicks a switch, and the metal tip glows with a purple light. “Electricity,” he explains. “Controlled. Precise.”
The air around us seems to crackle with tension as he approaches. He doesn’t touch me with it immediately, instead hovering it near my already sensitized skin. I can feel the static electricity making the fine hairs on my body stand on end.
“This works especially well,” he says, his voice thick with desire, “on skin that’s already been awakened by the wheel.”
He demonstrates by bringing the wand near my inner thigh, where the wheel had traced its path minutes before. The static discharge makes my muscles contract involuntarily, sending a jolt of sensation through me that’s neither pain nor pleasure but somehow both at once.
“Please,” I gasp, not even sure what I’m begging for anymore.
“Not yet,” he says, his voice strained with his own restraint. “I want you desperate for me.”
He continues his methodical exploration, using the wand to follow the paths the wheel created. The electrical current dances across my skin, making my muscles twitch and spasm, drawing sounds from me I didn’t know I could make.
When he finally brings the wand near where I need him most, I’m nearly sobbing with need. The proximity of the current makes me buck against the spreader bar.
“Cole, please,” I beg. “I can’t take any more.”
His eyes are nearly black with desire as he sets the wand aside. “Do you understand now?” he asks, his voice rough. “What happens when you make me wait?”
“Yes,” I gasp.
“And will you ever do it again?” he demands, positioning himself between my forcibly spread legs.
“No,” I promise, though part of me thinks I might, just to experience this again.
A knowing smile crosses his face, as if he can read my thoughts. “Liar,” he says, but there’s something like approval in his voice.
Without warning, he thrusts into my pussy in one powerful stroke.
I cry out, my body arching against the restraints, the sudden fullness from his cock both shocking and exactly what I’ve been craving.
He doesn’t give me time to adjust, setting a punishing rhythm that has the headboard slamming against the wall.
“Every nerve ending I awakened,” he growls, his hand finding my breast, pinching the nipple he’d sensitized with the wheel, “remembers my touch.”
The dual sensation is overwhelming—the fullness of him inside me combined with the heightened sensitivity of my skin. I’m nothing but sensation, consumed entirely by what he’s making me feel.
“Look at me as I fuck you,” he commands, and I force my eyes open to meet his intense gaze. “Who owns you?”
“You do,” I gasp as he drives deeper. “Only you.”
His rhythm falters for just a moment, something flashing in his eyes that looks almost like vulnerability before it’s gone again, replaced by raw possession. His hand slides between us, finding the bundle of nerves he’d so carefully avoided with his tools.
“Come for me,” he commands, his voice strained with the effort of holding back his own release. “Now, Sloane.”
My body obeys instantly, convulsing around him as waves of pleasure crash through me. I scream his name, pulling against the spreader bar as my vision whites out from the intensity.
He doesn’t slow, prolonging my orgasm until I’m sobbing from overstimulation. Only then does he allow his own release, his rhythm faltering as he groans my name, his body shuddering against mine.
For a moment, the only sound is our ragged breathing. Then Cole reaches down, carefully removing the spreader bar from my ankles. There’s an unexpected tenderness in the way he massages feeling back into my legs, checking for any marks from his tools.
“Are you okay?” he asks, his voice gentler than it’s been all night.
I nod, unable to form coherent words yet. My body feels completely spent, every nerve ending still tingling from his attention.
Cole pulls me against him, tucking my head under his chin. His heartbeat thunders against my ear, gradually slowing to a steadier rhythm. His fingers trace patterns on my back, soothing now rather than arousing.
“You were perfect,” he murmurs against my hair.
I manage to find my voice at last. “I didn’t know it could be like that.”
He shifts to look down at me, something almost vulnerable flashing in his eyes before his usual mask returns. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me yet, Sloane.”
The words hold a promise and a warning, but all I can think about is the “yet.” The implication that there will be more of this, more of us.
I should be frightened by how completely I surrendered to him, by how much I want to do it again.
Instead, I feel oddly safe in the arms of the most dangerous man I’ve ever known.
“Good,” I whisper, meeting his gaze steadily. “I want to learn everything.”
A slow smile spreads across his face, darkly satisfied. He pulls me closer, his lips brushing my ear. “Next time,” he murmurs, “don’t keep me waiting.”
I don’t know what I’ve gotten myself into with Cole Asher, and in this moment, I don’t care. All I know is that I’m completely, irrevocably his. And I’ve never wanted anything more.