33. Sage
THIRTY-THREE
SAGE
“You’re pissed.” An involuntary shiver works up my spine.
“Not pissed,” he says, eyes never leaving mine. “Disappointed. You remember what happens when you push me, little savage?”
Heat floods my core at the memory of our first time together, and I try to look away. He tilts my chin up, forcing me to meet his eyes. They’ve gone dark, bottomless, and I see it there—the shadow self, the monster he thinks he is, let off the leash.
“You wanted to feel free for a day,” he murmurs. “I get it. But you don’t get to run and not expect consequences.”
I’m so angry, but I’m also melting. Fury and arousal fighting for space inside my chest. “What are you going to do about it?”
Eli moves so fast I’m gasping—one hand has me turned around, bent over the kitchen counter.
The pressure of his palm at the back of my neck makes my lungs compress.
He doesn’t say a word as he kicks my legs apart and shoves my dress up to my waist, yanking my panties down.
He’s rougher than he needs to be, making it very clear this is not for my pleasure—at least not entirely.
I gasp as the cool air hits my behind, then his other hand is at my hip, steadying me while he gives the first stinging smack to my ass. The shock of it almost makes me yelp, but I’m not giving him the satisfaction. I bite the inside of my lip so hard I taste copper.
“This is what happens,” he rasps, the voice right at my ear, “when you don’t behave.” He spanks me again, harder. Then again. Tears sting the backs of my eyes. Part of me wants to scream yes, more. But I won’t give him that satisfaction. Not yet.
Eli’s palm presses against the nape of my neck. He doesn’t need to restrain me—I’m not going anywhere—but he does it anyway, a clear message.
Mine.
He smooths his hand over the sting on my ass cheeks, then he slides two fingers between my thighs and finds me slick, dripping.
“You don’t get to run from me.” He lets out a low, vicious noise. “You don’t get to vanish and act like I can’t find you.” He presses the fingers deeper, crooking them, dragging the edge of pain through the velvet high before pulling away and leaving me aching, empty.
“Up,” he commands. “Bedroom. Now.”
I stumble forward, legs leaden with adrenaline and the headiness of arousal.
He stays right behind me, tugging my denim jacket off my shoulders as we stumble into my bedroom, slamming the door behind us with both violence and promise.
My room is the same as always—bed unmade, book open on the desk, clothes on the chair like my old life waited here for me—but I can’t see any of it.
All of my attention is on the drag of rope through Eli’s hands, the silence between us, the way his whole body vibrates with barely tethered need.
He tosses the coil onto the bed, then turns me to face him. My skin buzzes, my anger shrinking to a pinprick compared to the heat that rises under it. He doesn’t kiss me or say anything soft. He just grips my jaw, thumb angled under my cheekbone so my mouth can open, not close.
“You’re going to listen,” he says.
I nod.
He lets go so he can strip off my dress, then my bra, all in one motion so quick the cheap clasp breaks and the straps fly off my arms. Then he’s in front of me again, hands on my shoulders, marching me backward until my knees hit the bed.
“Lie down.”
I do. The way he says it plucks something low and animal out of me. My hands tremble as I scoot up the mattress. Eli follows, knee on the bed, and grabs the rope. I can’t look away.
He takes my wrists and binds them above my head, cinching a knot tight, then loop after loop, threading it through the headboard.
I tug at the bindings, testing them, not because I think I can slip free but because the certainty of being caught, being perfectly inescapable, sends a shock of liquid fire through my entire body.
He sits back, surveys his work, and I feel his gaze touch every bare inch of skin, lingering on my throat, then lower. I’m still angry, somewhere under the thrumming pulse of want and dread, but I’m so much more exposed than furious.
There’s nowhere to hide, nothing to do except face what’s coming with both hands anchored overhead.
Eli pulls his shirt off in one motion—his body, all pale muscle and ink, an atlas of the life he’s lived and the pain he won’t talk about.
The scars on his arm, the tattoos on his ribs and back—including the one I drunkenly gave him—that all mean something, nothing and everything.
He is strong, tense, deliberate. And he looks at me like he’s going to consume me.
He kneels over me, his knees pinning my thighs apart, and runs his hands from my wrists—testing the knots, the tension—down my arms to my shoulders, slow enough that I feel each nerve ending light up in sequence.
He lets his touch linger on my neck, brushing my choker with the rough pads of his fingers, and then drags them lower, skating over my nipples until they tighten, pebble-hard, under his gaze.
I squirm, and the rope bites deliciously at my wrists.
I expect him to take—for Eli to be rough, the way he was in the kitchen, at the club, to just fuck out his anger and let the world reset to zero. But he doesn’t. He makes me wait. He makes me ache for it—just like I’ve been doing to him.
“You’ve been keeping this from me,” he says, sliding his hand between my legs and slipping two fingers inside, moving back and forth. But then he stops. Holds them there, not moving, not giving in.
“You hurt me,” I spit, fighting the urge to writhe and take what I want. “You needed to earn it back.”
“And have I?”
I laugh once. It comes out thin and wrecked.
“Not fully.”
His fingers flex inside me. A warning pressure that makes my whole stomach tighten.
“Why?”
“Because you don’t get to act like I matter one day and like I’m a liability the next.
” The words come hot now, easier because they’ve been living in me for weeks.
“You don’t get to shove me out when I’m inconvenient and then decide I’m yours when I scare you.
I needed to know if you wanted me, Eli. Me.
Not just when I’m easy. Not just when I fit in the box you can handle. ”
His expression hardens as his free hand comes up and brackets my jaw, firm enough that I feel his control in the bones of my face. My pulse is everywhere—between my legs, in my throat, against the silk at my wrists.
“I wanted you,” he says quietly. “From the beginning. That was never the problem.”
“Then why did you try to send me away?”
He releases my face and his fingers slide out of me. I almost swear at him for the loss, but he drags that same wet hand up my stomach instead, over my ribs, between my breasts, and cups my throat.
The scar there burns under his palm.
“The problem,” he says, voice lower now, rougher, “is that wanting you doesn’t sit where I put it.
It doesn’t behave.” His thumb strokes once over the side of my neck and my whole body tightens.
“You get into everything, Sage. My work. My head. My fucking sleep. Every line I built—every wall, every boundary—” He swallows. “You keep breaking them.”
“Good.”
The word springs from my lips.
“Yeah,” he says. “That’s the problem.”
I tug once against the rope, making it creak, reminding both of us what this is.
“Stop acting like I’m the only one who has to bleed for this.”
“You think I haven’t?” He leans in close, and my anger sharpens.
“I think you’ve been bleeding in secret and expecting me to be grateful for the stains.”
His jaw flexes and my thighs tighten around him.
“You think if you let yourself want me all the way, it breaks something,” I say, quieter now. “But I’m already broken, Eli. So are you. Join the fucking club.”
He kisses me.
A collision. Teeth and heat and all the restraint he’s been white-knuckling finally snapping its leash.
I make a sound into his mouth that’s half anger, half relief, and he swallows it, one hand still at my throat, the other braced by my head.
He kisses me like he’s trying to shut me up and confess at the same time.
I kiss him back just as hard.
Because screw him. I’ve wanted this version of him almost as badly as I’ve hated him for hiding it.
He tears his mouth from mine and sits back on his heels.
“Safe word.”
The command comes out ragged.
“Hangmen,” I breathe.
“Good.”
His hand cracks across my breast.
I cry out—more from the shock than the pain, though the sting blooms fast, hot and bright, my nipple tightening in the aftermath of it. Eli’s gaze doesn’t flicker.
He does it again, on the other side, then drags my nipples between his fingers, twisting each until I cry out again.
The rope and his weight and the sharp, teasing pain set off something inside me—a flood, a shudder, a need to be even more open, even more bared.
He slides his hand down and slaps my pussy, a perfect, stinging hit across my wetness that makes me arch and try to writhe away, but I’m pinned, every inch of movement tightening the bonds.
“Stay still,” he commands, shifting down my body to spread me open with both hands.
He lowers his mouth to me.
The first touch of his tongue is feather-light. Then he’s there in full—licking and sucking.
He doesn’t build up slow. He drives his tongue hard and deep, lapping at me audibly, the way only pissed-off men can do and still make you melt.
His hands lock to my hips, holding me open so I can’t twist away, can’t do anything but take what he’s giving. The rope scrapes my wrists, the headboard creaks against the strain, and I have to bite my tongue not to scream at the first sharp spike of pleasure.
His tongue drives in, curling just right, and my whole body bows up enough to strain the ropes. Then he pulls back, cracking his palm across my cunt, sharp and sudden. The sting cuts hot through the slick heat.
“Fuck you,” I snarl, voice shaking with want and fury. “Finish the job or go jack off in the corner where you belong.”