STEPHANIE
FORTY-THREE
He already owns my heart, and now he’s conquered my body.
I’ve said everything I can—all the facts, all my feelings, all the scary things in my soul now laid bare. Now he has a choice, because I’m willing to fight for this, for us. I have no doubt that relationships take work, but you can’t be in one alone, or it’s already a lost cause.
His gaze trails over my face before he flips us over, and my head hits the pillow with a bounce. He grips the headboard, but the belt slips free, effortlessly falling onto the mattress. I guess I shouldn’t pursue a career in bondage.
“I don’t do soft, sweetheart.”
I wrap my hands around his neck. “I don’t want soft.”
He shakes his head and leans closer, letting his breath whisper over my lips. “You have no idea what you’re asking for.”
I snake my legs around his waist and tug him closer, fitting our bodies together.
“I do. I want you to pull my hair. I want your teeth on my neck while my nails claw your back.” I nip his ear and kiss along his jaw.
“I want it dirty and rough. I want to be consumed so that my only thoughts consist of more, harder, faster. I want you to steal my breath and make me scream your name.” I cup his cheeks and hold his gaze. “I want you.”
For a terrifying heartbeat, I think he’s going to shut down and use barbed words to push me away. And this time, I’d let him. There’s only so much chasing I can do before I look weak and desperate, and only so many times I’m willing to forgive him.
He rises, towering over me like an avenging god.
My heart sinks in my chest. Then the buttons from his stolen shirt go flying across the bedroom as he tears it open.
His gaze grows darker, hooded, making my breath catch.
His throat bobs as he takes his fill of my naked body.
I wrestle with the need to cover myself.
It’s instinctual when someone is tracing your every dip and curve with their gaze.
“James?” I whisper, needing to know what he’s thinking.
His eyes fly to mine. “You’re sure?” I nod, heart in my throat. “I need you to use your words, sweetheart. If you have even the slightest doubt, or if you need to stop at any point, no matter what we’re doing, we will.”
“I understand,” I mutter as I wiggle to try to free myself of his shirt. He collars my throat with his hand, stilling me.
“Don’t move,” he instructs.
I bite my lip and try to relax into the bed. My pleasure is now in his hands. I adore it, already wet for him.
He leans down, closing the gap to give me the sweetest kiss I’ve ever known. It’s soft, a reassurance of feelings left unspoken, and a reminder that no matter what happens next, he reveres me.
It’s intoxicating.
The kiss deepens, turning heated, demanding, and everything in my already oversensitive body starts buzzing in anticipation.
Teeth tug on lips, scrape against throats, fingers pinch nipples, and he presses his thigh between my legs to give me a taste of the friction I crave, which only serves to ramp up my need, not help it abate.
We’re a tangle of limbs, and I’m lost in the scent of him, the way his pulse jumps when our bodies touch, and the way he keeps muttering my name like a prayer and a curse combined.
His lips consume mine again, and beyond my closed lids, I hear the sound of metal tinkling.
Just as I open my eyes, James leans back and seizes my wrists.
He holds up the belt with a wicked smirk etched into his handsome face.
“This,” he growls, pinning my hands to the headboard as he weaves the belt around my wrists with expert precision, “is how you bind someone with a belt.”
I stare at him in awe. He’s certainly better at this than I am.
His kisses tease and warm my skin, reaching lower and lower until he’s kneeling between my legs. “Don’t move, sweetheart.” James grips my panties, fisting the thin fabric straps at my hips. “You answer me when I ask a question, and you nod if you can’t speak. Understood?”
“Yes.”
He tears the underwear off me. I yelp, the quick burn on my skin delectable. My eyes widen when he throws my legs over his shoulder.
“What do you want me to do?” James looks up at me with dark eyes, sinful and blazing.
“Touch me.” I swallow any lingering nerves. “Use your mouth on me to make me come.”
“If you want to come…” His breath brushes over my skin, and he drags his fingers over my seam, making me squirm even as I fight against it. I’m so damn wet. “Then you need to scream my name.”
James devours me like a man possessed. He slides his fingers into my pussy, two of them filling me, and his lips clamp down on my clit, sucking hard. I go from zero to sixty, ready to come within seconds. My legs squeeze around his head, and James stops, chuckling at my frustrated whine.
“You want more? That pussy wants my mouth? Then keep your legs wide for me.”
I force them open again, desperate for him to get back to work. Before he does, James locks eyes with me, and a silent moment passes between us. He’s making sure I’m okay, and I nod once, tiny and quick.
“Please,” I plead. “I’m so close.”
His mouth is on me again, fingers gliding home inside my pussy. I clench around him, eyes rolling back. It’s so good, made perfect by who’s doing it to me. “James… please.” Every nerve is on fire. I want—no, need—to explode. “Harder, yes. Please, so much harder…”
He growls into me, then sits back, his fingers reaching deeper and curling upward.
It’s primal and fast, the way his fingers rock me right up to the edge before I shatter.
“James!” He doesn’t stop, ensuring he draws every last shred of pleasure from me.
All while I can’t move, my hands locked in place over my head.
James spins me around so he’s behind me. A hand cracks down over my ass. I jump with a squeak, but it melts into a moan as the heat thrums under my skin. “I’m not done with you, sweetheart. Not by a long shot.”
A rustle comes from the nightstand. I can hardly think straight, but the sound of something tearing sobers me. A condom. Oh hell, I’m really going to do this.
I freeze, and James’s hand rests on the small of my back. “Sweetheart?”
“Don’t stop. I don’t want you to stop.”
James yanks me up by my bound wrists, freeing me.
I’m about to say I don’t want that, to insist I want him to have sex with me, when he pulls my arms behind my back, securing them there with the belt again.
I’m even more immobile now, and he shoves me back down onto the bed, pressing my face into the covers.
“Tell me what you want.” James grips my hip. “Let me hear those pretty lips say such dirty words.”
“Fuck me, please.” I squirm, trying to feel him again, to get his cock inside me. “Pull my hair and fuck me while I can’t move.”
James wastes no time. He winds his hands in my hair, circling it around his fist and pulling hard, tugging at the roots. Prickles of pain sting my scalp, and I love every second of it without guilt. Only freedom.
“Scream, sweetheart. Let me hear you.”
He jacks his hips forward, and I do just as he says, crying out his name. His cock sheathes inside me, meeting resistance for just a moment before bottoming out. His hips are right up against my ass, and I stretch around his considerable size, my pussy so full.
I’m not a virgin. We both knew that. But this feels like my first time, and that’s how I’m going to think of it.
And it’s perfect.
James starts up a rhythm, claiming me thoroughly. He fists my hair, craning my head back, my shoulders pressing into the bed. I can’t do anything but take it with my arms bound behind me.
The pace hits me hard each time, and I love the feeling of James gripping my hip, his fingers digging into my skin hard enough to bruise. I can picture his marks left on my skin.
He smacks my ass again and growls. The hand in my hair finds the back of my neck and squeezes down while he fucks me with everything he has. He’s not backing down, taking what he wants from my body. The sensations magnify and spread out, traveling down each limb.
“Please, please, please…” The words are just babble, my pussy aching to come again.
“Please, what?” James thrust in and tightens his hold. “Say it.”
“Please make me come.”
And does he ever.
James lets go of anything holding him back, thrusting hard and fast, barreling into me like I’m all he needs in the entire world. I fall apart, walls clamping down on his shaft as he thickens. The room goes fuzzy, my head floating, and the pleasure is everything.
His pace stutters, and he groans low. The sound is incredible, knowing he’s feeling that way because of me. He’s coming because of me. Every nerve sings, and he leans up, taking the pressure off my neck. I suck in fresh air, blissfully sore.
“Shit.”
I freeze. That’s the last thing I want to hear, considering the situation. James moves back, and something goes into the trash. Looking at him with my brows raised, I wait for him to fill in the blanks. “Shit, what?”
He sighs, returning to the bed where he sits next to me. “The condom broke.”
My stomach drops, my heart rate spiking as his words land like a slap.
“But I’m clean, which you shouldn’t normally just take someone’s word for, and…” He doesn’t finish, his stare not meeting mine now.
“James.” I angle his chin toward me, needing him to look at me. “I’m kind of freaking out here. And what?”
“I’m sterile.” Something flickers behind his eyes. He didn’t want to mention this right now. “You won’t get pregnant.”
“Wait.” I shake my head. There’s too much information contained in just a few small words. “What do you mean, sterile?”
“I had a vasectomy. I didn’t tell anyone, but I wasn’t about to father a child because of what I do. I won’t take that risk. So.”
My mouth gapes until I tell myself to shut it. James took precautions that mean he can’t become a father. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel about it, except with a broken condom, I guess I’m glad.
Because there’s no way I’m ready to be a mom.