16. The Proposition #2
"I'm sure you have." He reached out and traced the curve of my breast—just a brush of his fingertips, light as a whisper.
"My father's hands have been here. My brother's mouth.
" His fingers drifted lower, skating across my stomach, my hip, the place where my thigh met my body. "But mine haven't. Not yet."
"Not yet."
He smiled. "Not yet."
He backed me toward the bed. I went willingly, my body humming with anticipation, my heart pounding in my chest. When the backs of my knees hit the mattress, I sat. He pushed me down, gently, and I lay back against the pillows, watching him.
He pulled his belt from his trousers. The leather was dark, supple, well-worn. He looped it around his hand, and my breath caught.
"I'm going to tie you to the bed," he said. "Is that all right?"
My mouth was dry. "Yes."
"Good girl."
He took my wrists and raised them above my head, pressing them together. The belt wrapped around them—not tight enough to hurt, not loose enough to escape. He threaded the end through the buckle and pulled, and I felt the leather bite into my skin.
He tied the other end to the headboard. The knot was firm—he'd done this before.
"There," he said. "Now you can't touch me. You can't stop me. You can only lie there and feel."
I tested the restraints. The belt held. My wrists were bound, my arms stretched above my head, my body open and exposed beneath him.
He stood at the foot of the bed and looked at me. Just looked. The candlelight flickered across his face, illuminating the hunger in his eyes, the tension in his jaw.
"You're going to beg for it," he said. "Before I let you come, you're going to beg."
"And if I don't?"
"Then you won't come."
He crawled onto the bed. The mattress dipped beneath his weight, and I felt the heat of him through the sheets, through the air between us. He settled between my legs, his body hovering over mine, his face inches from my face.
He kissed me.
It was not like Gabriel's kiss—soft and questioning. It was not like Aleksander's kiss—tender and worshipful. It was a claiming. A branding. His mouth was hard and demanding, his tongue sliding against mine, his teeth grazing my lower lip.
I moaned into his mouth. He swallowed the sound.
His hands moved down my body—rough, sure, leaving trails of fire in their wake.
He cupped my breasts, squeezed, thumbed my nipples until they were hard and aching.
He kissed my throat, my collarbone, the hollow between my breasts.
He bit down on the soft curve of my stomach, hard enough to leave marks, and I gasped.
"You taste like nothing else," he said against my skin. "I've imagined this. Every night. Every day. The way you'd sound. The way you'd move." His mouth moved lower. "The way you'd say my name."
He spread my legs with his knees. I was wet—embarrassingly wet, soaking the sheets beneath me—and he saw it. He saw everything.
"Look at you," he said. "So ready for me. So needy." He ran a finger through my slickness, and I cried out. "Is this what you wanted? When you said tonight? Is this what you've been thinking about?"
"Yes."
"Say my name."
"Nathan."
"Again."
"Nathan."
His mouth replaced his finger. His tongue was hot and skilled, circling my clit, pressing inside me, learning the places that made me moan and the places that made me scream. I arched against him, my bound hands pulling at the headboard, the leather creaking with every movement.
"Please," I said. "Please, Nathan—"
"Please what?"
"Please don't stop."
He laughed against me—a low, dark sound that vibrated through my body. "I'm not going to stop. I'm going to make you come so hard you forget your own name. But not yet. Not until you beg."
He worked me with his mouth and his hands—two fingers inside me, curving, finding the spot that made me see stars. I was close. So close. I could feel the orgasm building at the base of my spine, coiling like a snake, ready to strike.
But he pulled back every time I got near. Slowed down. Changed the rhythm. Kept me on the edge, trembling and desperate.
"Beg," he said.
"I can't—"
"Then I can't let you come."
Tears pricked at my eyes. I was so full, so close, so desperate for release that I would have said anything. Done anything.
"Please," I whispered. "Please let me come. I'll do anything. I'll be anything. Just—please—"
He kissed me. Soft, almost tender. "That's my good girl."
He pressed his thumb against my clit and pushed his fingers deep inside me, and I shattered.
The orgasm ripped through me like a wave, pulling me under, drowning me in pleasure so intense I couldn't breathe. I screamed—his name, I think, or maybe just sound—and my body convulsed around his hand, around his fingers, around the overwhelming sensation of falling apart.
He didn't stop. He worked me through it, drawing out every shudder, every gasp, every tear that slid down my cheeks.
When I finally came back to myself, he was watching me. His eyes were dark, his lips wet, his chest heaving.
"That was one," he said. "You're going to come again. On my cock."
He untied my wrists—quick, efficient, the belt sliding free. I was too weak to move. Too weak to do anything but lie there and watch him strip off his trousers, his boxers, the last barriers between us.
His cock was thick and hard, curving toward his stomach. I wanted it inside me. I wanted it more than I'd ever wanted anything.
He rolled a condom on—from his pocket, prepared, because he'd known this would happen—and positioned himself between my legs.
"Look at me," he said.
I looked.
He pushed inside me in one smooth stroke. No hesitation. No waiting. Just the sudden, overwhelming fullness of him filling me completely.
I screamed. The sound was muffled by his hand—his palm pressing against my mouth, his fingers digging into my cheek.
"Quiet," he hissed. "Do you want the whole house to hear?"
I bit his palm. He groaned and started to move.
The pace he set was brutal. Hard and fast and deep, the headboard slamming against the wall, the bed frame groaning beneath us. He fucked me like he hated me—like he loved me—like he couldn't decide which was worse.
I wrapped my legs around his waist and held on.
"You're mine," he said. "You're mine now. You just don't know it yet."
He shifted his angle, and I saw stars. The headboard cracked—a loud, splintering sound—and I felt it give beneath the force of his thrusts.
He didn't stop. Neither did I.
I came again—without warning, without permission, my body convulsing around his. He followed a moment later, his face buried in my neck, his hips stuttering against mine.
When it was over, he pulled out and disposed of the condom. I lay on the bed, shaking, my body aching in places I didn't know I had.
He climbed back into bed and pulled me against his chest. Not gentle—his arms were too tight, his grip almost painful. But present. Solid. Real.
"You're mine now," he said again.
I was too tired to argue.
I fell asleep in his arms.
When I woke, he was gone.
The candles had burned down to nothing, leaving only the faint smell of wax and smoke. The headboard was cracked—a jagged split down the center, the wood splintered and raw. My body ached. My thighs were sore, my wrists bruised, my lips swollen.
I touched the place where he'd bitten my stomach. The skin was tender, marked.
I didn't know if I was his.
But I knew, with a certainty that sat in my bones like a fever, that I would never be the same.