Chapter 1
He’s waiting…and I could barely breathe in the small space of my bathroom.
I gripped the sink, fingers curling around cold porcelain, and willed my galloping heartbeat to slow.
He was going to hurt me. Physically, emotionally, psychologically.
I knew this, yet it wouldn’t change a thing.
I would still unlock the door. Still pull it open and go to him… still give him my body.
“What the hell are you doing?” I asked my reflection. “Why are you letting him back into your life?”
The panicked woman in the mirror didn’t have an answer.
I turned on the faucet in the tub and then removed my clothes, and for a few moments I concentrated on the roar of the water even though it did nothing to silence the alarm going off in my head.
I hadn’t been with a man in a year; a very long and lonely year, especially after experiencing how earth-shattering sex with him was.
He’d given me a taste of something I hadn’t realized I needed.
Like a dope dealer dangling a sample enough times until he had me coming back for more, begging on my hands and knees and selling my self-worth and my soul.
A soft knock startled me. “Kayla? Is everything okay?”
I warily glanced at the door, as if he could bypass the lock and come inside. He was good at bypassing things—my protests, my will, even the damn law.
“I’m fine.” My voice broke, giving away my shattered state of mind. “I’ll be out in a few.”
“I’ll be in the bedroom. Don’t make me wait long.”
My body broke out in goose bumps, and I couldn’t decide if they were the good or bad kind.
I sank into the hot water, closed my eyes, and let myself remember.
The first time he’d slid his fingers inside me, he’d had me strung up on my toes, gagged and thighs spread wide.
I’d been helpless and terrified. That fear still lived in me, but so did the undeniable longing to be taken by him again.
I throbbed all over just thinking about his hands on me.
Fear and arousal—why those two visceral reactions went hand in hand for me, I didn’t know. I might never know.
I finished bathing, and twenty minutes later, I stood in front of the door, my hand trembling on the knob. The comforting scent of coconut wafted from my warm, naked skin. Skin he’d left bruises and welts on a year ago.
This was a bad idea. Seriously, in the history of bad ideas, I’d win the award.
Here goes nothing.
The darkness of the hallway swallowed me, and I blinked my vision into focus as I padded to the bedroom.
He’d turned off all the lights; now only the soft glow of the nightlight I left on for Eve illuminated the way.
Thinking about her twisted my insides. My daughter’s presence was the only thing that would stop me now, but I’d sent her away with Stacey for the night.
I’d left myself with no way out.
The door to my bedroom stood wide open, like a gaping hole waiting to suck me inside.
Or maybe it was the man waiting in there, reeling me in with his gravitational pull.
My heart thudded with each step, and I couldn’t deny the dampness collecting at the juncture of my sex.
He hadn’t even touched me yet, but just the knowledge of him waiting, of what he could do to me—what he would do to me—made me tense with equal amounts of dread and anticipation.
I stepped into the bedroom, and his body brushed mine.
He stood behind me, radiating heat and arousal; the air was so thick with it, I smelled it, tasted it.
His hands drifted down my arms, his fingers curling around my wrists like shackles.
He pulled them behind my back and secured them with something soft and silky.
“Gage?” His name came out a shaky sigh, escaping my trembling lips and no doubt making him rock hard.
I was scared. I couldn’t help it, couldn’t hide it, despite knowing how he thrived on my fear—how he’d always thrived on my fear.
The pain he’d inflicted a year ago came rushing back, and I couldn’t catch my breath.
A year was a long time, but not long enough to make me forget.
“I can’t do this,” I whispered, struggling to speak each word.
“Quiet.” He spoke the command in a soft and gentle tone, yet the steel behind that single word ensured I pressed my lips together. “I’m going to make you come long and hard tonight, so long as you don’t fight me.”
“You know I can’t,” I choked, blinking back tears. “But I’m scared.”
He fisted my hair, pulling until my neck became vulnerable to his mouth.
His lips parted against my skin, and his tongue left a hot, wet trail down to my shoulder.
The sensation was so arousing that my insides clenched from that single erotic kiss.
I swayed into his body, feeling every hard plane of his nakedness, and shivered.
“I love your fear,” he said, his confession rumbling along my shoulder. “But you don’t have to be scared. Have you fucked anyone else?”
“No.”
“Good.”
His arms enfolded me and his palms shelved my breasts, thumbs and forefingers squeezing and twisting my nipples as he walked me further into the room.
As soon as my thighs hit the mattress, he stepped away.
I followed his progress around the bed, unashamed of blatantly ogling him.
The soft light from the hall cast a glow on his skin, and I realized his body was just as firm as I remembered.
If he hadn’t tied my hands, I’d smooth them over his pecs, drifting lower until the muscles of his stomach quivered under my touch.
Was he even capable of reacting like that?
I couldn’t recall; the past was a foggy recollection of pain intermingled with pleasure so hot it had branded me all those months ago.
He climbed onto the bed and stretched on his back. “Come straddle me.”
Joining him became a challenge, considering he’d restrained my hands behind my back, but I managed to press one knee onto the mattress and hop up.
His large hands reached for my hips, and my head spun as he settled me against the hard length of his cock.
A simple adjustment, and he’d be inside me. A delicious shudder seized my body.
“Have you thought about me, Kayla? About this?”
Only every night. I blinked, refusing to give voice to the truth.
He dug his fingers into my hipbones. “Answer me.”
My eyes drifted shut, and a small moan formed in my throat then broke free when he arched into me, just enough to tease. “Yes,” I said with a groan. “I thought about you.”
His hands glided up my sides and cupped my breasts.
With a whimper, I leaned into his touch.
“I thought of nothing else,” he said. “A whole year thinking about you, of the way you smell…” He pulled my head down to his.
“The way you taste.” His mouth urged mine open, and his tongue swept inside for a mere second before he pushed me into a sitting position again.
“It’s not enough. I want to taste you all over. ”
I gasped when he hauled me up his body.
Oh God.
I lost my balance and almost hit the headboard, but his hands braced me as he settled me over his face.
I remembered the measure of his strength when he’d whipped me a year ago, and now he held me upright with that strength.
My thighs shook as he licked between my folds.
He found my nub and added enough pressure until I was bucking my hips and moaning his name, but each time release threatened to take me, he went back to teasing with the tip of his tongue.
“Please,” I begged, panting, “let me come. It’s been so long.”
He groaned. “You’re so fucking perfect. So wet.” In one swift motion, he moved me down his body and entered me.
“Oh!” This was what I’d been missing—feeling him pulsing and alive inside me.
“Ride me until you come.”
My hair curtained my cheeks in red waves, falling into my eyes as I rocked my hips, and I moaned with every slow slide. The sensation was both ecstasy and excruciating. He held onto my hips, never allowing me to fully sheath him, but I needed him deep.
“Please…”
“Who am I, Kayla?”
I groaned. “My Master.” A loud cry poured from me. “Gage…deeper…”
He pushed higher. So incredibly deep. Oh God, he felt amazing—one hundred percent man, hard and slick and rubbing all the right places. Our bodies slapped together, damp with sweat and pure madness, and my name rumbled from his lips as he thrust to the hilt.
But it still wasn’t enough, and he must have realized it too. The room spun, and I was on my back with him hovering over me. His breaths came hard and fast as he pressed me into the mattress, settled my ankles high onto his shoulders, and made our bodies one with abandon.
“So fucking good,” he growled, burying his cock so deep a pang resonated in my heart.
“You’re mine. I’m never letting you go.” He expelled a long sigh, and I drank him in, growing dizzy from the poison that was Gage.
His mouth crushed mine, opening and plundering, tongue thrusting in time with our bodies.
My hands bit into my lower back, and my shoulders burned from being restrained, but the pain didn’t register. Exquisite tension started in the arch of my feet, in the muscles of my legs, and crawled up my thighs until it pulled so tight at my core I was about to burst at the seams.
His mouth ate up my cries as the intensity pulled me under before launching me free. I came and came and came in a shuddering ball of surrender, soaring to a realm so high I was sure the crash would kill me, but damn if it wasn’t a place I wanted to visit every night of my life.
Nothing had ever felt so wrong but so right, so painful yet unbelievably good, and nothing and no one existed in that moment except Gage Channing.