Chapter 12
twelve
OWEN
By the time I was two coats in downstairs, the night had dipped to darkness.
I’d started while Claire had changed and showered the sand off of her, before appearing like a red-headed goddess.
I’d stolen a million glances at her as we painted, her doing all the skirting boards and door frames while I focused on the areas she couldn’t reach.
The afternoon had passed by in shared steak pies I’d baked and brought, terrible eighties pop on the local radio, and fits of conversation.
Claire had a speckling of white paint-freckles coating her cheeks. I’d itched all day to run my fingers over them.
‘You’ve missed a bit,’ Claire said, pointing her brush at a perfectly finished corner.
‘You’ve missed several bits.’ I pointed at her face.
She swiped at her cheek and smudged a few of the fresher freckles. ‘Better?’
‘Worse.’
‘You can’t talk. You look like you’ve gone grey after spending the afternoon with me.
’ She climbed the step ladder as if we hadn’t agreed that I was in charge of heights, and she was tasked with no more falling over.
Her jumper had slid off one shoulder, giving me an eyeful of a ball bra strap and the smallest glimpse of black lace.
The paint-covered leggings clung as she stretched up to fix the spot that I thought looked fine.
Good lord. Her jumper rode high as she reached up, exposing the way the leggings buried themselves between her perfectly round arse cheeks.
The evening had become an exercise in self-control.
Even the way she’d clipped up her hair into a loose pile, tendrils escaping occasionally, had me burning to touch her. To loosen the clip and run my hands through her hair.
We worked the last strip in silence, broken only by the occasional squeak of a roller and Claire’s habit of ‘accidentally’ touching me.
A brush pass became fingers grazing knuckles.
Reaching out and placing her hand on my bicep to support herself.
Rule-breaking in theory, but it hadn’t been those kinds of touches I wanted to stave off.
‘You all right?’ The third time she used my arm for support, she’d definitely squeezed it.
‘Oh, completely,’ she said, all airy and innocent. ‘Just making sure you don’t fall over.’
‘Mhmm.’
‘Done this bit anyway.’ A wicked little smile flickered over her kissable lips.
I should have been getting back, but before I knew it, Claire was topping up the kettle.
Cold air flitted in from the open windows, exchanging it for paint fumes.
With the darkness draping the cottage from the outside, the interior grew more intimate.
Claire located two chipped mugs and a half packet of biscuits.
‘You’ve been very well-behaved,’ she said dunking a biscuit in her coffee while leaning a hip against the counter. ‘For a tyrant.’
‘Gold star for me.’
‘Don’t push it.’ She put her cup down and folded her arms, which highlighted the paint on her wrists in a way that made my palms itch. ‘You said you liked… rules.’
‘I do.’
She tipped her head. ‘I think I might like the rules when they’re yours.’
The room throbbed at her admission. Not the only thing to throb.
I wiped my palms on a rag to busy my hands long enough not to press them into her hair.
I needed to do this carefully. Too much too soon, and I might terrify her.
Not enough, and I had a feeling she might lop off my bollocks for teasing her.
‘You remember what I told you?’ I asked, moving into the sitting room and grabbing my bag. ‘You need to want this. I’m taking control, but ultimately the control always belongs to you. This isn’t a performance. It’s a place I put you so you can stop performing for everyone else.’
Her throat bobbed. From what I could tell, she’d spent a long time living in performance mode. ‘You’re very good at saying things that get under my skin.’
I lifted a coil of smooth rope from the bag and turned back to her. I didn’t hide it. I let her see it. Let her choose it.
She didn’t look at the rope first. She looked at me. ‘Straight in with the big guns, huh? Still denying me a kiss?’
‘For now. Are you sure this is what you want?’
A breath. A bite of her lower lip. ‘Yes.’
I moved close enough to detect the day on her. Salt from the beach, paint and a hint of lemon shampoo.
‘I’ll go slow,’ I said gently.
‘Not too slow.’ She gave me a devilish grin.
‘Patience, you wee brat.’ I herder her closer to the dust sheet-covered couch. ‘Kneel up on the sofa for me. Back straight. Hands behind your back.’
She climbed awkwardly onto the sofa before sneaking a look over her shoulder at me. When she settled, she looked nervous and delicious.
Standing behind her, I pressed against her back, her arms folded just above my belt. I held the rope in one hand and let it run over my other so she could see the softness.
‘This isn’t about trapping you. It’s about quieting the world until there’s only the thing I’m doing and the thing you’re feeling. So you can receive without having to negotiate with yourself. So you can stop managing everything for ten minutes and let me carry the moment.’
Her eyes flashed as she looked up at me. ‘Bossy.’
‘Incredibly.’
‘And you’ll stop if I say—’
‘Driftwood,’ I said. ‘That’s your word. You use it, and everything stops immediately so I can check in with you. We breathe. We take a beat. No hard feelings.’
She breathed out. ‘Driftwood.’
‘Do you want to pause?’
‘No, just testing the way it felt. If you stop now, I might actually cry.’
The rope made that quiet sound against itself that always steadied me.
It had been too long since I’d used it for sensual intimacy.
I took her wrists one at a time, and placed them on her back.
I wrapped the rope and listened to her breath hitch.
Not too tight. Just perfectly secure. A loop, a tuck, a perfect knot holding her arms there.
Usually, I’d have wrapped around her chest too, but small steps.
I checked the lay of every turn, checking her hands to make sure the blood still flowed.
‘Comfortable?’
‘Very.’ Her voice had grown huskier, and I had to close my eyes a moment to focus.
‘Too tight?’
‘No.’
‘Good.’ I stood there for a second and waited. Sometimes a little of nothing could do a whole lot. She shivered, then stilled.
I sat on the sofa beside her so that I could see her pretty face.
‘Tell me what you want.’ I wanted to hear her say it.
She lifted her chin a touch. ‘You know what I want.’
‘Say it anyway.’
A small, defiant smile and a flush of pink to her cheeks. ‘I want to see what it’s like to let you take charge.’
A wave of desire hit. ‘Then here’s what happens. You put your clever mouth away for a bit. You listen to me. I go slow. I tell you exactly what I’m going to do before I do it. You don’t rush at this like the last biscuit in the packet. You let go and enjoy.’
‘Bossy,’ she said again, but there was no sting in it. Only letting her nerves talk.
I ran a thumb over the paint-smudge on her shoulder.
Applied the tiniest pressure causing her to inhale sharply.
I traced up the line of her collarbone to her neck, to the place her pulse thundered.
I didn’t kiss it, however badly I wanted to.
To revel in the way her heartbeat danced under my touch.
Leaning forward, I placed one hand on the rope holding her arms and whispered against her throat.
‘That’s it. Breathe.’
The room narrowed to that space between us. No villagers. No emails. Just the lamp’s small pool of light and the sound of the sea outside.
‘You’re being very restrained,’ she murmured, because of course she couldn’t behave.
‘I think you’re the one who’s restrained, Claire.’
‘Point well made.’ Her breath tickled against my temple as I revelled in having her all to myself. This fiery, funny woman giving herself over. Trusting me.
‘Tell me you want this, Claire.’
Silence.
I ran a hand up her throat, ripping her chin until we were but a breath from a kiss.
‘I want this.’
‘Rules and all?’
‘Yes.’
‘Louder.’
‘Yes.’
‘Good girl.’ The words left me before I could stop them, and I felt her jump. Shit. Too much too soon? I smoothed a hand down her back, and she leaned into the touch. Phew. ‘Tell me if it’s too much. You tell me if your hands tingle, if your shoulders hurt, if your head goes funny.’
She swallowed. ‘Can I tell you if it’s not enough?’
Damn.
‘Brat,’ I growled against her throat, and she made a small, helpless sound that had me to full, throbbing, mast.
I dragged my mouth over her sweet-scented skin. Tasting her neck. The edge of her ear. The paint on her shoulder. My thumb pressed the edge of her jaw until her eyes fluttered shut.
The whimpers she gave had me on edge. I was testing her resolve, but my own crumbled faster than a week-old cookie.
It took everything in me not to tip her onto her back and pin her hands over her head and devour her mouth. To press myself between her thighs and lose myself in her wet heat.
I ached to fill her.
‘Tell me how you feel.’
She considered. ‘Like I might scream if you don’t kiss me soon.’
‘Another.’
‘I like that you didn’t kiss me the other day,’ she said, surprising both of us.
‘Do you?’
‘It made this…more intense.’ She shifted in the ropes, not struggling, just feeling the give. ‘Normally, the moment is over before I’ve had a moment to appreciate it.’
I closed my eyes to quiet my own rushing desire.
The room settled around us, both lost in a moment of before.
Before we opened the floodgates. Before I opened myself up to potential heartbreak.
Before she gave herself over to my demands.
When I finally brought my mouth close to her lips so that she could feel the shape of my words, she went very still.
‘Tell me what you want now.’
‘Kiss me.’
I hovered a heartbeat from yes. My mouth ached with it. The rope grazed against my fingers where I held her steady.
‘Again,’ I said, because I greedily wanted to hear her repeat it.
‘Kiss me, Owen.’ Her words were a plea. Throaty and desperate.