Текст книги "Dangerously Bound"

Автор книги: Eden Bradley

Соавторы: Eden Bradley
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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

CHAPTER Twelve

MICK SMOOTHED A hand over her stomach, taking the heat of her body into his palm, his fingertips. He concentrated on that sensation for several long moments while he tried to get his head together, his thoughts organized.

“Okay.” He took in a deep breath. “So . . . when I went away to Louisiana State in Baton Rouge, I sold all my older, crappy bikes I’d worked on and rebuilt through high school and got the new Yamaha. I loved that bike. It was fast. Beautiful. All shining chrome, and I swear that thing purred at me when I really opened her up.”

“Jamie mentioned it a time or two when I saw him after you left.”

“Did he also mention I liked to drive too fast?”

She shrugged. “I already knew that. Anyway, Jamie and his muscle cars . . . he was nineteen, too. I doubt he even noticed.”

“Yeah, probably true.”

She laid a hand on his chest. “So, what happened, Mick?” she asked softly.

He focused again on the heat of her touch, using it to calm him. He did not want to talk about this. But it was Allie, and he would do it for her. “Motorcycles are tricky things. Especially when someone too young and arrogant thinks he’s in control of that kind of machine. All it takes is one pebble on the road. One moment where you don’t let out the clutch just right taking a turn, or you’re not focused enough on what’s right in front of you. That’s what happened, I guess. I wasn’t focused, wasn’t paying enough attention. Wasn’t giving the bike and the speed the respect those things deserve.

“I don’t even know exactly what happened, as stupid as that sounds. It was stupid. Totally irresponsible. I woke up in the hospital and they told me I’d wrapped my bike around an old oak tree in someone’s front yard. In the middle of the Goddamn day. Could have been someone’s kid out there, you know?” His chest pulled tight. It wasn’t any easier to say it now, even after all the years that had passed. It felt like the damn words were choking him. He could barely stand to look at her while he said these things. “Thank God it was just my reckless, idiotic ass out there. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it—that I could have hit someone. I could have fucking killed someone. It’s still there in the back of my mind. It’s always there.”

“You can’t do that to yourself, Mick.”

“No? How can I not hold myself accountable? For what happened. For what could have happened. Especially after Brandon. We all saw firsthand what that did to his parents, to Summer. To all of us—his friends—especially Jamie. I knew better. Or, I should have. And Allie, I come from a family of men who care for the people of our community. Not only did I take a stupid-ass risk with other people’s lives, I took away my own . . . shit. It sounds selfish as hell to even mention it.”

“What?” she asked, her tone gentle. “Tell me.”

He looked away, shook his head, but he went on, his blood pounding in his temples. “I took away my chance to . . . my ability to serve this city the same way my family has for generations. That accident ate a part of my soul. A part I’ll never get back.”

“Oh, Mick.”

He flinched. “Ah, stop it, Allie. I can’t take anyone’s pity and you know it.”

He felt her fingertips soft on his cheek, and he allowed her to turn his face back to hers. Her brown eyes were sheened with tears, gleaming golden in the misty morning light.

“This is me, Mick. You know it’s not pity, that hearing you say it makes my heart break for you. To know you’ve carried that kind of guilt all this time. But I’ve never pitied you. I thought you were just mad.”

“Oh, I’m mad. I’m pissed as hell at myself.”

“I don’t blame you. I’d probably feel the same way. I know I would. But Mick, at some point you’ve got to let it go.”

“Do I? Or more to the point, should I?”

She tilted her chin, her brows drawing together. “I don’t understand.”

“The guilt is nothing less than I deserve, Allie. It’s my burden to carry with me.”

“But you didn’t hurt anyone else,” she protested.

“That’s not true. Every single day I’m not a firefighter like I should have been, like my family and my city had a right to expect of me, I hurt someone. Every day there’s one less man on the force to protect people.”

She shook her head. “That’s not realistic, Mick. You can’t blame yourself for things you might have been able to prevent. And you have found a way to protect people. Your security business—”

“I work boxing matches and rock concerts. I protect drunken fools from other drunken fools. It’s not the same thing.”

“It’s something, Mick,” she said quietly, maybe understanding that he simply wasn’t able to hear it, no matter how she put it.

“Yeah. Something.” He shrugged.

“Thank you for telling me. Even when you didn’t want to. Especially because you didn’t want to.”

But he had wanted to. That was the strange thing. Or maybe the strange thing was that they were there together, in her bed, naked. Strange that it had finally happened, the two of them together again.

A part of him felt like it was fate. Another part still believed she was too damn good for him.

He had to shake that shit off.

He lifted her hand, kissed it, shifted the gears in his head.

“Enough of this. I’m taking you out to breakfast.” He silently thanked God for the male ability to compartmentalize. “Get your gorgeous ass in the shower and get clean while I make some coffee for the road.”

“Yes, Sir.”

She was smiling at him, going along with the game. Good girl.

She was a good girl. The best. More than he deserved. But he was done trying to convince her of that. She’d chosen him. And he wasn’t that stupid anymore. He wasn’t letting her go again.

*   *   *

LESS THAN AN hour later they had made their way uptown along St. Charles Avenue to The Camellia Grill, one of the best breakfast spots in the city. It was the usual packed Sunday morning. They stood together on the sidewalk in front of the old colonial structure, with its white columns and dark green shutters, another of the city’s local landmarks to resurrect after Katrina.

It felt strange to be out with Allie, doing this kind of normal thing like going to breakfast. They’d been to this place a dozen times as teenagers, and it took him back. Him in his ever-present leather jacket. Allie’s long hair shining in the sun, her laughing with him. Everything had seemed a lot simpler then. So much less at stake. But wasn’t that always the difference between being a teenager—just a kid, really—and being an adult? Yeah, a hell of a lot more at stake now.

Don’t trip on it. Just enjoy the day.

What had happened to the compartmentalizing he’d been so good at only a little while ago? Hell, he’d had years of practice at shutting things down. He knew it was Allie that was making things harder to keep under control. And control had been the key to managing his life since those days . . . the days before his life had come crashing down around him piece by piece. Brandon’s death. Seeing Jamie’s reaction—his grief going way beyond what the rest of them had experienced. Coming to terms with the fact that he had to leave Allie behind when he went away to college. That one night when he’d seen her again. When he’d done those things to her. The way he’d felt the next morning, as if he’d fucking murdered someone . . . and the damn accident that he swore was not a death wish.

“Mick? You look like a cloud just passed over your grave. What are you thinking about?”

“What? Sorry, princess. Just woolgathering.”

“You are so not the kind of man to mingle with sheep,” she teased.

He had to smile. “Nope. Subbie girl though you may be, you’re definitely not the sheep type.”

She laughed, and some of the ice that had been running through his veins melted. “You’ve got that right. God, I can’t remember the last time I ate here.”

“The last weekend in May, my senior year. Jamie and I were cutting school, which was our right as seniors, and you were playing delinquent with us.”

“I can’t believe you remember all that.”

He reached out and tucked a long strand of her dark, silky hair behind her ear. “You were wearing a cotton sundress with tiny pink roses all over it. They were the same shade as your lips.”

Her smile widened, her eyes shining. “You’re a romantic at heart, you know that, Mick Reid?”

“Never.”

She slunk up against him. “Always.”

He grabbed her by the waist and bent to brush a kiss across her lush mouth. “If I agree with you, will it get me some later?”

“Do you really have to ask?” Her voice was a quiet purr. “You buy me breakfast and you are so getting laid.”

“Am I, now?”

“Yep. Sir. Yep, Sir.”

He laughed and picked her up until her feet left the ground.

“Hey!”

He set her back down, took her hand and kissed it, held it tightly in his.

If he could just keep the bullshit from invading his brain, this might turn out to be a perfect day. A perfect life.

Gotta take it one day at a time.

That was the smart thing to do, wasn’t it?

Wasn’t it?

*   *   *

THEY WERE FINALLY seated at the long counter facing the gleaming steel kitchen, the only seating there was at the crowded, noisy Camellia Grill. Mick seemed almost too big to fit on the stools lined up at the marble counter—he had to sit half-turned toward her, one long leg crossed over hers, but Allie didn’t mind. She was enjoying the closeness she felt with him today.

Maybe part of it was that he’d opened up to her and told her a bit of his story about the accident. But it was also that he’d remained open to her—a good chink in the armor, anyway—and she loved the vulnerability he was allowing himself with her.

She knew it was that he allowed himself—there was no doubt about it. Mick was still almost perfectly controlled. The Dom thing. The Mick thing. It was that lovely, melding combination of control and vulnerability that just killed her. He could ask anything he wanted of her right now and she’d have to say yes.

“What are you having, baby?” he asked.

“A veggie omelet.”

“Really? That’s no fun. I’m having the waffles.”

“Oh, that sounds good.”

“You should have them, too.”

“I’m a pastry chef, Mick. I have sugar in my mouth on a daily basis. Or, I will when I start working again.”

He leaned in and murmured against her ear, his breath warm on her skin, “I’ll put some sugar in your mouth, girl.”

She shivered, lust infusing her system so fast it made her go hot all over.

“Yes, please,” she answered.

He grinned. “Good girl.”

“Oh, God, don’t do that to me here, Mick.”

“I’ll do plenty to you later. Just leaving you with something to think about.”

“You’re a wicked man.”

“You like me that way.”

“Yes, I do. But shall we change the subject?”

His gray eyes were sparkling. “Why, when I’m having so much fun torturing you?”

“Change of subject, please.”

He looked like he was about to protest when a waiter approached their section of the counter and poured two cups of coffee for them without being asked.

“What’ll you have?”

Mick ordered for them, and the waiter, in classic Camellia Grill style, shouted the order at the cooks.

Mick turned his attention back to her.

“Okay. Change of subject, but only because you asked so nicely. Tell me how your family’s doing.”

“They’re fine. I’ve talked to Mama and Zia Renata on the phone. No one brought up my business plan, which is just as I’d expected. Brush things under the rug and they disappear—that’s our family motto.”

“That’s everyone’s family motto.”

“Maybe. How is your family? I only get regular updates on Neal through Marie Dawn.”

“Doing well. Gareth’s kid just had his fourteenth birthday. Makes me feel old. I remember when he was in diapers. Nolan’s wedding is coming up in the fall . . . hey, you should see if they need someone to do the cake.”

“Oh, I’m sure they’ve got that arranged by now.”

“Maybe not. I’ll give you his fiancée’s number. Katie’s great. You should call her.”

“I actually love to do wedding cakes.”

“Where did you learn how?” he asked as their food arrived.

“Veggie omelet hold the onions and the house waffles for the beautiful couple!” the waiter shouted for effect as he set the plates in front of them.

“Thanks.” She smiled at the waiter before turning back to Mick. “A bit at culinary school—just doing cakes, I mean—but I apprenticed at this incredible place in Vienna for about six months and they really put me through the drills. Made me stay up literally all night rolling and rerolling my fondant until I learned to do it right.”

“Fondant?” He took a big bite of syrup-covered waffle. “Ah, this is damn good,” he said, the words muffled.

“It’s like icing, except it’s heavier and more moldable. You can make flowers out of it—almost anything.”

“Ah. And now I know as much as I did before.”

“I can give you baking lessons if you’re interested.”

“No thanks. I’ll leave the art up to the artist. Tell me more about Vienna.”

She chewed a bite of her omelet, washed it down with a sip of coffee. “What do you want to know?”

He shrugged, shoving another forkful of waffle between his lips. “I don’t know. Whatever you want to tell me. What did you love about the city?”

“The history, I guess. It’s everywhere. Ever present, if that makes sense. It’s in the architecture, which is gorgeous—the museums and the opera houses and the cathedrals. In the old cobblestone streets. In the way people go about their lives there, for the most part. I mean, there are really sleek, modern structures that rival contemporary architecture anywhere in the world, like the Haas Haus. Have you ever seen it?”

“You mean that big mirrored building? I’ve seen pictures. Looks incredible.”

“It is,” she agreed. “It’s stunning. But despite places like that there’s still a sense of antiquity about the city. Sort of like there is here. I guess that’s why I felt so at home in Europe.”

“What else?”

“About Vienna in general? Or about the architecture?”

“I just want to know about your experiences in Europe. It must have been amazing to see so many countries. To live in so many places. I couldn’t have done it. I can’t bear to be away from New Orleans for too long. You’re braver than I am, Allie girl.” He put his fork down and turned to her. “In a lot of ways.”

His gaze was steady, deep somehow. It made her breath catch in her throat.

“I’m not,” she protested weakly.

“But you are. It takes a lot to be a sub. Don’t think I don’t know that. It takes strength. Courage.”

All she could do was blink for a moment. “Thank you for saying that. It does. In my experience not everyone sees it that way. But . . . you and I see a lot of things the same way. We always have.”

He nodded slowly. And in that moment she felt something blaze between them, their mental as well as physical chemistry like the sharply burning edge of ozone in the air.

He took her hand and lifted it to his lips, brushed a hot kiss across her knuckles. Her body shivered in answer.

“You are one beautiful girl,” he said, a sense of wonder in his voice.

She smiled. He smiled back, his strong white teeth framed by his wicked goatee.

She’d always loved a goatee on a man. Loved that evil edge it gave a man’s face. And on Mick’s face . . .

“More coffee for you two? Yes, and drink it while it’s hot,” the waiter asked and answered in the same breath, already pouring, bringing them both back to the world around them, full of sound and the warm scents of breakfast cooking.

Mick shook his head as he lifted his cup, one corner of his mouth quirking. “If these waiters only knew who they were bossing around,” he said quietly, humor in his low tone. He took a sip, set the cup down and picked up his fork once more, spearing a piece of waffle and offering it to her lips. “Here, have a bite before they get cold. And before we cause a scandal in the middle of this restaurant.”

She grabbed the fork. “In the interest of not causing a scandal,” she said, slipping the bite of waffle into her mouth. “Mmm, good.” She finished chewing. “Can we get out of here now?”

“You insatiable girl.”

“Luckily you like me this way.”

“Lord, do I ever.”

They finished up and paid the bill, and soon they were in his truck, moving back through the city toward the French Quarter.

Mick took her to his place, and they parked in the garage he rented for his truck a few blocks from his house. They walked hand in hand down the street, and it was sweet strolling with him through the sleepy Sunday city that smelled of ancient wood and brick, flowers and spices, along with the familiar edge of decay from the tropical air. Sweet, and yet her heart was racing, her body burning for him just from the feel of his big hand around hers. From knowing it was Mick she was walking with. From knowing what would happen when they got to his place. They reached the second block, having walked in silence when she turned to him.

“Why so quiet?”

“I’m concentrating.”

“On what?”

“On not tearing your clothes off in the middle of the street.”

“Oh . . .”

Heat shimmered through her, reached deep into her belly, in between her thighs to that warm spot that was nearly always just a little wet for him. It was tingling now. Needy instantly.

She gripped his hand tighter, and they both moved faster until they reached his door, where he let her hand go long enough to fit the key in the lock before taking her hand again and pulling her inside. He kicked the door shut behind them and grabbed her, yanking her body in tight and kissing her hard.

She moaned into his mouth as he opened her lips with his wet, seeking tongue, and her hands slid into his hair, holding him closer. In moments they were both panting, their bodies pressed close together, hips moving in rhythm.

Mick pulled away. “Fuck it,” he growled as he yanked her tank top over her head, and she was grateful she’d gone without a bra today. His gaze lingered on her bare breasts, making her feel all the more naked for him.

She helped him slide his T-shirt up. It caught on one arm, and they both yanked together, the fabric ripping before they were able to work it free. She groaned as she slid her hands over his chest, over his flat, hardening nipples, leaned in to taste his skin.

“Christ,” he muttered. “Come here, baby.”

He wrapped a hand around her hair and pulled her head back, biting into her throat, then sucking at the skin, while with the other hand he unbuttoned her jeans and shoved them down her legs. He slid a few fingers under the edge of her underwear, and she heard the tearing of lace as they came off.

“God . . . yes, Mick.”

She went for his jeans, and his hands were there, too. He shoved them down around his ankles. They got stuck and he kicked off his boots, the worn denim of his jeans slipping off easily, and she found his big cock hard as granite, her fingers wrapping around it.

He filled his hands with her breasts, squeezing, caressing. Her body was on fire, desire a fierce blaze, building so quickly she couldn’t think straight. She didn’t want to. All she knew was this panting desperation, this tearing of clothes, the need to touch and taste and feel.

He bent to take one nipple into his mouth and she surged into him. He licked until it was hard, began to suck while she moaned and held his head, her fingers digging into his scalp. When he bit her she only sighed. And began to stroke his cock.

“No.”

He grabbed her hand and pulled it away, and before she could protest he turned her around, had her on her hands and knees at the bottom of the stairwell.

“Can’t wait to be inside you,” he said from between gritted teeth, picking her up and moving up a few steps.

“Don’t wait, Mick. Come on.”

She reached back for him, digging her fingernails into his thigh as he gripped her hips with firm, hurting hands. She welcomed the pain, welcomed his command. She spread her thighs wider.

“Hang on, baby,” he ground out as he plowed into her.

“Oh!”

But it was all good—the pain and the pleasure as he thrust into her in one long, hard stroke. The hard surface of the old wooden stairs pressing into her knees. He pulled back, stabbed into her. She swore she could feel the tip of his cock ramming against her G-spot over and over. Pleasure speared through her, desire rising to a dizzying height instantly.

“Come on, baby. I’m going to fuck you so hard. You can take it. Tell me,” he demanded.

“I need you, Mick. Fuck me hard. As hard as you can. Please,” she gasped.

He bucked into her so hard she would have collapsed on the stairs if he hadn’t been holding on to her. And along with the exquisite pleasure was the warm sense of yielding to his command, like lightning filtering through her veins in small electric jolts.

“Oh, fuck, baby girl. You feel so. Damn. Good.”

He rammed into her, again and again, bringing her to the edge.

“Not yet,” he ordered her. “Don’t come yet.”

“God . . .”

But she bit it back, forcing her climax to hover at the precipice. He reached around her and pinched her clit.

“Oh!” She shook her head, her hair flying around her face.

“Not yet,” he ground out, his body shivering so hard she knew he was fighting it, too.

She inhaled, struggling against sensation that threatened to overload, her sex squeezing his big cock with every punishing stroke.

“Gonna come.”

“Please,” she begged.

“Wait.”

To her surprise he turned her over until she was sitting on the stairs. He wrapped her legs around his waist, pausing with the tip of his cock at the opening of her hungry, aching sex.

“Mick,” she breathed.

“Look at me, Allie.”

She locked her gaze to his as he reached under her, lifted her, and impaled her.

“Mick . . . oh . . .”

Her arms went to his shoulders and she hung on while he surged into her.

“Ah, baby girl.”

Something shifted. He tilted his hips, in, then out. Slowly. Excruciating. Wonderful, as pleasure coiled inside her, waiting. And his glittering, gray gaze never left her face.

One big hand cupped her ass, and with the other he reached between them to press on her swollen clitoris.

“Now, baby. Come for me now.”

His voice, his command, triggered her climax. She came, and came apart, her orgasm rippling over her skin, deep into her belly, her sex. Sharp and soft all at the same time. Hard yet liquid. She was shaken by the intensity of his gaze on hers.

“Say you’re mine. Allie,” he demanded, his voice rough. “Say it.”

“Yes. God . . . yours. Always.”

“Mine.”

His body went stiff all over and he plunged into her, shaking as he came.

“Mine, my girl,” he muttered, his mouth going beautifully soft with pleasure.

The reverberations seemed to go on forever as they trembled together, coming and coming. And she saw it in his eyes, in his pleasure-torn expression.

Love.

There was no mistaking it—naked on his face, all of it written there as if in indelible ink, as stark and raw as she felt at that moment herself.

Love him. Always.

She loved him. With all her heart, with every cell in her being. And it was a love strong enough to hold up to the years, the times he’d broken her heart. But even broken, the love had remained. Had only grown stronger in knowing the man he’d become.

Tears stung her eyes. She blinked them away even as her heart dared to soar.

Love him so damn much.

He loved her back.

She’d known it in some cerebral way. But now she felt it. And that was something entirely different.

She blinked. Blinked again in wonder. “Mick.”

He tilted his head, his brows drawn together as if he were thinking very hard. Then he leaned in slowly and kissed her mouth. He pulled back a few inches, then kissed her lips once more. Then her cheek, over and over as she melted into his touch. Then her temple, her ear, her hair, before pulling back to look at her again.

His hand went around the back of her neck, cradling her head in his palm.

“Allie . . .” He paused. Started again. “I love you, Allie girl. My girl.”

Her heart twisted in her chest, wanting to sing, to leap. “I am your girl.”

“You love me,” he said. It was a statement, not a question.

The tears welled in her eyes, making his face swim before her. She blinked them away. She needed to see him. “I do. I love you.”

“I never stopped,” he told her. “Never. I was just . . . stubborn. Stupid. I never gave you enough credit.”

She pressed a fingertip to his lips. “Shh. Don’t. You never gave yourself enough credit, either. But we’re here now. That’s what’s important.”

He nodded, kissed her fingertips, took her hand in his and held it to his cheek. “How can I ask you to forgive me for what I did to you? You loved me, and I didn’t believe in either of us enough. I fucking hurt you.”

“Yes. You did. But it’s time to put all of that behind us. We have to if we’re going to be able to hang on to each other. If we’re going to be able to love each other.” She slid her hands down over his shoulders, gripped the bulging muscles of his biceps. “Mick, tell me you can do that. Tell me you’ll try.”

Suddenly her heart was thundering in her chest. What if he didn’t know how to let himself love her? What if he couldn’t let the past go and move forward with her? Simply saying he loved her was only the first step.

“I don’t have any other choice. Not now. I love you, my baby girl. I love you. I don’t know how I’ve lived without you all these years.” He stroked her hair from her face, his fingers lingering there. “You’re mine now. The way you always should have been.”

“Mick . . . can we really do this? Can we really start over? I’m not foolish enough to think we’ll be starting with a clean slate. No one does that. We can’t pretend the past never happened—”

“I don’t want to. You’re as much a part of my past as you are my present. As I hope you’ll be of my future.”

She smiled, stroked his cheek. He turned his face into her palm and kissed her there. Softly. Lingeringly.

“But things may come up that we’ll have to deal with,” she said. “We have to communicate with each other.”

“You know I kind of suck at that sometimes. If it’s kink related, I’m all about the transparency, but the emotional stuff . . . that’s a lot harder.”

“I know. I promise I’ll cut you a little slack. For being male, if nothing else.”

“Oh, will you now?”

She grinned up at him. “I will. I’m generous like that.”

“I’ll show you generous, my girl. I’ll be generous all over your fine ass.”

“Promises, promises,” she teased.

She yelped as he picked her up, threw her over his shoulder and started up the stairs.

“You’re a caveman, Mick Reid!”

“Tell me you don’t love it.”

“I . . . plead the Fifth.”

“Ha!”

“Where are you taking me?”

“To bed, where I can do terrible things to your gorgeous body. Do I hear more arguments?”

“Um . . . no.”

“No, what?” he demanded.

“No . . . please?”

He laughed. “That’ll do.”

They reached his bedroom, where the afternoon light was seeping through the curtains, illuminating it with the kind of soft golden sunlight that made dust motes dance in the air. His muscles flexed under her palms as he bent and laid her on the bed. He was so beautifully built. She’d always loved the breadth of his shoulders, his narrow hips, the pale gold hue of his skin. She loved the wicked gleam in his eyes, the cocky half smile on his face. The mix of bad boy and occasional tender lover and the sadistic streak that ran through it all.

“What are you going to do with me?” she asked.

He rubbed his chin. “I’m working on it. I just had a mind-blowing orgasm and told you I love you. I might need a minute to recover.”

“Mind-blowing?”

“Every damn time.”

“Really?”

“Don’t think that gives you any bargaining power.”

“Doesn’t it?” She batted her lashes.

He chuckled. “All right, I give up. You know damn well it does.”

“I rather like that idea.”

“Don’t get too comfortable with it. I’m still the Dom.”

“I’m pretty sure you won’t ever let me forget it.”

“Damn right,” he said as he lunged for her.

“Mick!”

“Shh.”

He flipped her over onto her stomach and straddled her, pinning her down with his legs while he found the ankle cuffs he kept attached to his bed, and shackled her with lightning speed. Immediately he began to spank her, a quick, sharp volley of slaps. They came too quickly for her to have time to convert the pain. She was overloading, squirming, panting. He smacked her harder—her ass, the backs of her thighs. The pain built and built. She couldn’t give herself over to it—it was too much, too fast.

“Mick!”

“My name is not a safe word, princess.”

She almost laughed, but his hand came down again and again, fast and stinging like crazy. Her flesh was burning hot.

“Do you need to safe-word?” he asked, still spanking her.

“Mick,” she said, her breath rasping in her lungs as she struggled uselessly to get away from him, from the padded cuffs holding her ankles so securely.

“Yes?”

He smacked her again, impossibly harder.

She did laugh, then, as the lovely brain chemicals broke free and swarmed her head, her body. She went limp all over.

He stopped, unbuckled the cuffs, turned her over and held her in his arms.

“Lord, I love to see you like this,” he said quietly, almost reverentially. “Your pupils wide, your cheeks flushed. Your lips . . . so damn beautiful. I always love you, but when you’re like this, yielding to me so completely, well . . . that’s when I really fall for you all over again. Every damn time. Because I know you’ve given yourself into my hands. You make yourself so vulnerable it makes my chest ache. And I have never said anything like that to anyone in my life.” He paused to stroke her cheek, her jaw, her throat. “Love you, baby girl.”

“Love you, too, you beast.”

He smiled, leaned down to kiss her. When she tried to curl her hands behind his neck, he gently pried them away, held her wrists as he lowered her arms to the bed and laid her down once more. He lowered his body over hers, and it was only when he brushed up against her stomach that she realized he was hard again.

“You’re such a nymphomaniac,” she murmured, her body heavy and languid with endorphins and an aching renewed desire.

“Men can’t be nymphomaniacs,” he argued as he took his rigid shaft in his hand to guide it to her. “And it’s only with you, Allie. Only you.” He paused, the tip of his cock resting just inside her. “Tell me again.”

“I’ll tell you everything. Anything. I love you, Mick. I’m yours. Always.”

“Always,” he said, slipping inside her.

She was so wet she took him all in one smooth thrust, gasping as sensation trembled through her.