Chapter 21 #2
Losing her baby girl would destroy her. For ten years now, the pregnancy and then her daughter had been the center of her entire universe.
Ariella was the only reason she’d survived losing Leo.
Kate couldn’t even imagine what her life would be like without her little girl in it, and didn't want to imagine what her life would be like without Ariella.
“A distraction?” she asked as she automatically wrapped her arms around Leo’s neck.
“Mmhmm,” Leo agreed, and the fire in his eyes had her squirming as a sudden rush of heat shot straight between her legs. “Say goodnight, Kate.”
“Goodnight, Kate,” she whispered without thought, then blushed at the chuckles from the others. “I mean, goodnight, everyone.”
A chorus of goodnights was returned as Leo carried her out of the room.
The smirk on his lips had her stomach flipping and anticipation zinging along her skin, which suddenly felt much too tight, much too sensitive, and much too hot.
“I like knowing I mess with your head, Katie-Bear, because you mess with mine.” Leo’s lips were close to her neck, and the warmth of his breath on her skin had her pressing her legs together as arousal coated her panties.
“You’ve always messed with my head,” Kate admitted as Leo carried her up the stairs.
She’d moved the clothes she’d brought with her up to his room, and when they’d returned late last night, they’d shifted Ariella up to a room on the third floor as well.
The little girl had then spent half the day planning how to redecorate the space to make it her own.
As much as Kate loved seeing her daughter make plans for her future, she just hoped the child was alive to follow through on them.
“No thinking about that right now, Katie-Bear,” Leo told her as he reached their room and set her on her feet. “Now you're just going to feel. Take your clothes off and go lie on the bed.”
Her mouth opened to protest him ordering her around, but then she decided her body was already desperate for his touch, and if she had to do things his way to get it, that was really no hardship.
So while Leo disappeared into the bathroom, Kate stripped out of her clothes and tried not to be critical of her stretchmarks as she went to lie down on the bed.
Of course, her body didn't look the same as when she and Leo had been together a decade ago. She was no longer a teenager. She was approaching thirty, and she’d been pregnant for nine months.
That hadn't seemed to bother Leo before, but now they were officially together, engaged, maybe he’d find he no longer liked the way she looked.
She definitely hadn’t spent as much time taking care of herself the way she should have.
Between working full time, raising a kid, and then dealing with Ariella’s illness, there had just been no time for her to think about herself.
“I better not be hearing the thoughts I think I'm hearing running through your head,” Leo growled as he stalked, completely naked, across the room toward the bed.
“You can't hear my thoughts,” she shot back.
“Don’t need to. I can see them written across your face.
Kate, this body is the most perfect thing I've ever laid eyes on, and I have never even looked at a woman after you.
You're it for me. I don’t care if you have a few stretchmarks, you carried our daughter inside you.
Grew her, gave her life, raised her all on your own. You're superwoman.”
The compliment made her chuckle, and then she sucked in a breath as she saw what Leo was holding in his hands. “What are you going to do with those?”
“Exactly what you think I am,” Leo replied with a chuckle of his own.
“Tonight is about feeling, and you know one thing I've learned since getting enhanced vision?” When she shook her head, he continued, “That when you see you don’t feel as much.
Seeing takes over, becomes everything. I've gotten used to not feeling. Until you came back into my life and brought our daughter with you. Stop thinking, babe, stop looking, just feel.”
When she gave a shaky nod of permission, Leo reached for one of her hands, brushing the pad of his thumb across the sensitive skin on the inside of her wrist, making her shiver.
He pulled her hand above her head, and with the rope he’d brought, he tied it to the headboard.
A small shiver of fear, well, not fear exactly, more like uncertainty and apprehension, flushed through her as he tied up her other hand, leaving her completely helpless and exposed.
“Feel, Katie-Bear, let yourself be free,” he murmured as he took a piece of silk and placed it over her eyes, tying it behind her head.
Another shiver of trepidation hit her system, but then a fingertip brushed over one of her nipples, and she sucked in a breath as that nervousness turned to pleasure. The touch was light, brief, and she felt the bed shift beneath her as Leo obviously moved.
Now it was anticipation humming through her body as she waited to see where he’d touch her next.