Chapter 18
18
SAMANTHA
I barely understand the rules of this game we’re playing. But my husband has come to me because he needs me. Because he’s hurting, and I’m the only one who can ease his pain.
When he stormed into the clearing, I saw the lithe tiger beneath his skin, the rage slipping its leash. And I watched him wrestle it back under control. I witnessed his transformation from animal to human—to the raw, dangerous man who stands over me now.
His reminding me about my safeword means he won’t hold back. He trusts me to protect myself, even though I’m the one tied up, even though I’ve submitted to his power.
So I’m not surprised when he straddles me, dropping to his knees to cage my body beneath his. I somehow expect him to spit on his palm before he strokes his cock, pulling long and hard. I’m ready when a pearl of precum beads on his tip, silken liquid that he spreads with his thumb. And I’m braced when his thighs tighten around my ribs. I expect him to paint my face with hot, sticky ropes.
But that wouldn’t be punishment enough for the rule I broke. I defied him intentionally. He won’t rest until I’m truly sorry.
When his hands close over my breasts, I squawk in surprise. The pressure sends an electric wire straight to my clit, and I buck beneath him, rocking my hips to ground my need.
He’s straddling my ribs, though, too high on my body to give the release I long for. Instead, he starts pinching and pulling my nipples, rolling them between finger and thumb. He takes his time, alternating left and right.
The sizzling path inside me grows sharper, brighter. Incandescent blue darkens to purple. To crimson. To scarlet.
“Breathe,” he says. “Don’t forget to breathe.”
I didn’t know my lungs were burning. I didn’t know my head felt light. But breathing presses my aching breasts closer to his hands, and I moan with the temptation to whisper, Red.
I can’t take this anymore. I can’t do this. I can’t be the woman he needs me to be. My lips purse to form the letter R.
But just before I surrender, just before I breathe the word I know will set me free, he shifts his weight. He strokes his cock, which is longer, thicker, for having been pressed against my ribs.
This time, when he squeezes my breasts, his fingers are so tight I feel ten matching bruises bloom beneath my skin. He presses my flesh together, building a path, a channel.
And then he plows. His cock is hard and hot and heavy, riding the fold he’s made.
It’s filthy being penned like this. I’m helpless. He’s using me. I’m utterly under his control—exactly the way I asked for. Exactly the way he said I would be, when we were locked inside the safe room.
He pumps faster. He holds me closer. His fingers turn to steel.
“Oh, sweet Chr — ” he starts to say, but the last word melts into a groan. He comes hard, lashing thick hot ropes onto my chest, my chin, my open, greedy lips.
He plants one hand by my head, deep in the sweet green vines beneath me. He uses the other to milk himself dry, grunting with each vicious pull.
I strain beneath him because I want to be the one giving him that pleasure. “Please,” I beg. “Untie me. Let me touch you. Please.”
But he doesn’t reach for his belt. Instead, he drags his thumb through the slick on my chest. He paints my nipples, left, then right, before he finds my desperate mouth.
I suck on his thumb, softly at first, but then with the greed of a starving woman. When it’s clean, I say, “Some punishment that was.”
“That wasn’t yer punishment, lass.” His accent has gone thick. “That was just a warmin’ up. A way fer me t’ keep my mind on what I truly owe ya. This is how yer punished.”
His hands are rough as he strips off my pants. At his barked command, I raise my hips, giving him better access. He takes my panties, too, wasting only a minute to breathe deeply over the soaked strip of cloth.
“Knees bent,” he orders. “Legs spread. Close ’em, and we’re done for th’ day.”
I plant my heels in the bed of springy honeysuckle. But even with the threat of Braiden cutting short this game, I can’t make my knees splay wide.
I’ll be too open. Too vulnerable. I want to follow the rules, I truly do, but the danger screaming inside my skull makes my breath come short with the very opposite of pleasure.
“Eyes on me,” Braiden says.
I didn’t know they were closed. I force myself to look at him, at his steady blue eyes, at his sensitive lips. I watch the bob of his throat as he swallows and I’m rewarded with a tiny nod of approval.
“Yer with me, lass,” he says. “Here. Now. So show me yer gorgeous cunt.”
I hate the word, hate how it’s used against women. And Braiden knows that—I can tell by the way his eyes narrow.
This is a test.
It’s not supposed to be easy. It’s punishment.
I’m not with any of the boys I dated in my past. There’s no room for Don Antonio inside my head. I’m with Braiden Kelly, the man who—however improbably—I’ve married.
I spread my knees.
“ Mo chailín maith ,” Braiden breathes, rocking back on his heels.
And those are the last words he says for a very long time. Because once I let him see me, he leans forward to kiss the soft skin of my inner thigh. He takes his time, nuzzling, exploring, moving higher bit by bit.
I’m shaking by the time he gets to my pussy. My entire body trembles, like I’m melting from the inside out. My fingers open and close on empty air.
I need to touch him. Need to hold him. Need to press his face closer to get the pressure I know will spin me free.
The lips of his mouth work the lips between my thighs. His tongue finds my clit, and I bite back a squeal. He sucks hard on that ready button, and I feel the pull all the way to my fingernails. Again, and the top of my head starts to float. One last time, and I explode beneath him.
I hear myself shouting, calling Braiden’s name. I shift my hips to keep the perfect seal with his mouth. I grip his belt between my leashed wrists. I come and I come and I come, until my throat is parched and my legs—still splayed, still following the rules—have lost all their strength.
But Braiden doesn’t let up, even then. His face stays buried in the mess between my legs. His lips go hard again; they’re pushing me toward a new cliff. The tip of his tongue finds my clit, lighting a fuse that spools inside me.
I feel it sizzle from my core, up my spine, to my brain. This time the explosion is even deeper, further inside my body. I’ve lost Braiden’s name, but I chant, “Oh God, oh God, oh God.” I arch off the honeysuckle, pushing to keep the connection.
Still, I remember not to bring my knees together. And Braiden refuses to set me free. He doesn’t back off. He doesn’t give my tender, sensitive parts even a moment to recover.
My third orgasm leaves me incapable of drawing a breath deeper than a gasp. I let my knees fall in, because I’ve had enough. I can’t handle more stimulation.
But this is punishment. This is how I pay for breaking Braiden’s rules, for thinking I could skate around the law, for using my phone. I’m not in charge. I don’t get to decide when I’ve had enough.
The fourth time I come, I plead: “No. Stop. Please. No more. Not again.”
But I don’t say red . I don’t give up. I don’t give in.
My fifth orgasm leaves me blind.
I thrash. I beg. I plead. But Braiden doesn’t relent. And I can’t bring myself to say the word, to admit I can’t handle the fierce power between my thighs.
The sixth time I come, I’m an animal. There’s nothing human left inside me. I’m reduced to the hammer pulse between my legs and my endless howl, spinning out across time and space. My bladder lets loose. I can’t think, can’t breathe, can’t control a muscle in my body.
I’m liquid. I’m air. I’m lost. I’m nothing.
Nothing but a single word. A single syllable. I shape it with my lips, because I don’t remember how to vibrate air through my throat. “ Red. ”
He rises up between my legs. He reaches above my head for something I don’t remember. His arms close around me and his legs close around me and I slip away to nowhere as he whispers things in Irish I’ll never understand.
I don’t know how long I’m out.
I smell the bruised plants first, the heavy blanket of honey beneath us. I feel his fingers, measuring my back in long, firm strokes. I hear his heartbeat, strong and steady beneath my ear. My arms are free, my wrists released.
“Braiden,” I croak.
His arms tighten around me. His lips brush my hairline, the knot of scars I hate. “ That ,” he says. “Was punishment.”
Centuries later, he helps me into my clothes. I watch as he dresses himself without a hint of modesty, without an ounce of shame. The fire he carried when he stormed into the greenhouse is banked now. His emotions are lashed tight. He’s under control.
Nevertheless, I can still see the restlessness deep inside him. There’s anger there too—not for me, not with me, but for something that might be larger than both of us together.
I want to touch the scar on his arm. I want to know the story behind it. I want to know who hurt him, and what he lost today, before he came searching for me.
But I don’t want to damage him more than he’s already been harmed.
So I look at the fish pond instead. I can just make out my phone, glinting on the bottom. “You know, that wasn’t actually my phone,” I say. “It belongs to the freeport.”
His lips twist. “I’ll send a message to Prince. Tell him to get you a new one. He can add it to my bill.”
But then his face sobers. “Come on,” he says. “My security team is waiting. It’s time to get you scanned for the safe room.”
“Is there a new threat?”
“No one will get to you, here at Thornfield.”
We both know that’s not an answer. But it’s all he’s willing to give. And as I realize just how shaky my legs are, I know I don’t have any fight left in me to push for a true response. A deep ache lurks in every muscle of my body, payment for absolute overuse.
Braiden doesn’t wait for me to agree. Instead, he drapes his coat over my shoulders. He doesn’t look back as we leave the Irish garden, doesn’t take in the ruined honeysuckle, the scuffed moss, the empty iron bench. I lean on him all the way back to the house.