"Yes. But I . . ."
"You don't need to explain that to me, Sam." His touch returned to her upper thighs, thumbs parting her sex once more. When he pressed a simple, moist kiss on her clit, her fingers tightened into a knot where they rested on the rise of her buttocks. A needy sound broke from her lips when he touched her with the tip of his tongue, traced a circle. Sitting back on his heels, he studied her.
"Your nipples are tight little points." His fingers slid into her folds, found her wetness and spread that lubrication before he put his fingertips inside her. "Talk to me, Sam. I want to hear that breathy sound in your voice as I get you wetter."
She swallowed. "How did you notice . . . how I am?"
"Little things at first. Like when we were watching that NCIS episode where Tony tells the doctor he was dating to get behind him before they confront the drug dealer. When she asked why, and he said 'Because I tell you to,' in this really non-Tony-like commanding way, you froze up like a mouse in front of a cat." He smiled against her thigh, kissing her there. "Or when Gibbs told Abby that if he ever smacked her, it wouldn't be upside the head."
"I feel transparent." The joke fell flat, because she couldn't tell anything from his tone. Did he think that was an okay thing about her? Had he been aroused by her response? Or did he have no reaction to it at all except puzzled curiosity?
"If you know what to look for, yeah. It's there. But transparent like a creek, sparkling and showing all sorts of interesting possibilities. Most people never see anything more than the water, even though it's clear. They don't look deeper than the current, the ripples it causes on the surface. Do you notice something different about my room? Other than the candles?"
She'd thought Geoff was the sadist, but Chris was making her play twenty questions while he had his fingers inside her, his lips playing along her thighs and mons. He teased the sensitive gate of her pussy, making her move against him as much as her standing position allowed.
Her gaze skated back over the ceiling, seeking a new item hanging there. Nothing struck her as different, so she lowered her attention to the items he kept on his desk and dresser. She was pretty sure he wasn't talking about the paperwork he had scattered there or the book on organic pest control. When she'd first come into his room, the first thing she'd noticed was his mattress on the floor was made up neatly with the army blanket and couple of pillows he used. Since she'd assumed that was their ultimate destination, that explained why she'd overlooked the hammock, and how he'd adjusted it.
Rather than being strung between two corners, the hammock was hung from the ceiling, one end loose so the woven mat was vertical, gravity giving it a banana shape.
Chris withdrew his hand and rose, taking her elbow. "Keep your hands behind you," he reminded her. She thought of the cuffs Geoff had bought earlier today. It would be thrilling to have those snapped onto her wrists, but she quickly discovered that being told to keep herself restrained was equall
y powerful. The candlelight and darkness added to the persuasion, though it was Chris's mannerisms mostly doing it. He was holding himself somehow apart from her, staying in control yet so intimately close to her in mind and thought.
Chris brought her to the hammock, bent and lifted her, guiding her feet into two of the diamond shape openings of the webbed rope. The openings were wide enough he could push her legs through up to her thighs. He had her unlink her hands and threaded them through two higher holes, spread farther apart. When he brought the loose end of the hammock up from the floor, her feet were back on the ground, the webbing tight against her buttocks, snug around her thighs as he stepped onto a stool and hooked that end up where the other was.
Having her in the net he'd created, he modified her position to his satisfaction. He adjusted the ropes around her thighs so they pressed into the channel between her thigh and outer labia on either side, a sensation that compressed nerve endings, made them throb more. He cradled her breasts, framing each in a diamond opening. Withdrawing some single lengths of rope from his dresser, he wove them through the openings beneath her breasts and around her back, and did the same at her waist. He included her arms in the wrap so they were held at her sides.
He stepped back, pulling the stool away to study her again in that distracting, absorbed way. Her lips had parted, her teeth worrying the lower one, and he bent to put his mouth over it, bite it himself. "Got you at my mercy now, don't I?"
"Y-yes. You do. Did you . . . you and Geoff figure this out?"
He shook his head. "You don't imagine I think about this kind of thing, do you?"
"I didn't know. I . . . oh God." He cupped her breast, pinching her nipple between thumb and forefinger. With her already so stimulated from the restraint, if he kept doing that, she was pretty sure she'd come from nipple play alone. Especially since he could use his hands in ways that were . . . damn . . . perfect.
"You were saying?" he asked.
She choked on a chuckle. "I wasn't sure . . . how you felt about it. Didn't want to push . . . or assume you wanted the same things."
"I don't." His mouth firmed. "You called him sir earlier. That fits him. Not me. I'm just Chris. I didn't think of it, Sam. Not really. But when I saw what happens to you when he tells you what to do, the way you reacted to the TV shows, little things like that, it clicked. Sometimes you don't know how much you can enjoy something until you learn more about it."
He touched her face. "Most of the time, dating is about the games, you know. Figuring out what a girl's thinking or what she wants you to think, to say. It's different this way. I feel like you're so open to me, so raw and vulnerable, and it makes me . . . I don't want to play any games ever again. Not those kinds. I don't understand all the other stuff, so I figured, it didn't matter. I'd just follow Geoff's lead, we'd both go out with girls, and it would be good enough. But once you have this, who could settle for good enough ever again?"
"No one," she said, her voice vibrating with her need.
His gaze returned to her face, her parted lips and eyes she knew had to be feverish with wanting him. She let out a little cry as his fingers slipped through the opening of the ropes and into her, scissoring in the wetness. "God, you're so worked up. It starts with the smallest trigger. When Geoff tells you to do something, or when I told you I was taking you to bed tonight, everything else closes down. There's like this diamond in the center of your soul and everything else around it darkens so it's all about the focus of that light, the heat of it. You lose yourself in it, Sam. It's like watching a wild animal take you over, beautiful and unconditional, no awareness of anything but instinct."
She was back to making small whimpers, her heart grown too large to allow anything but feelings to escape her throat.
"When I first saw it," he said huskily, "This part of me woke up and wanted to take you down, make you helpless and screaming, pull you into me and never let you go. Hold you fast."
She swallowed. "Chris . . . I don't have to call you sir to think of you as my Master."
He locked gazes with her, his lips pressing together. She couldn't tell what he thought of that, but after a moment he bent his head again, tracing the ropes along her thighs, around to her buttocks. "Seeing you helpless, wanting me this badly, drives me to my knees at your feet, Sam. It also makes me want to be a complete beast. I may not be him, but whatever it is inside him . . . maybe a part of it is inside any man who's given the gift of what you're offering."
His gaze lifted to hers again. "I want to let that beast loose and see where it takes us. All right?"
"Yes." Her voice came out a whisper. "Please."