“She went back and forth between remissions and reoccurrences, a few months of health followed by another round of treatment, for more than five years before she died,” Joy said. For a few seconds, she was scared he was going to mutter some kind of hollow platitude—one of the many reasons she typically didn’t mention her mother’s illness and death—but he didn’t. He just took another sip of champagne and stroked her hip, the gesture striking her as bizarrely both reassuring and sexual.
“And you really hold no anger for your father whatsoever? He left not just your mother when she was suffering, but you,” Everett said, his brows knitted together.
Joy turned and set down her champagne glass. “Have you ever had someone close to you die from cancer?” she asked when she turned back around.
“No.”
“My dad isn’t a monster, Everett. He had the guts to be honest in a situation he couldn’t bear. He did what he could. It’s all we can ever do in a heartbreaking situation—what we can.”
He emptied his glass and reached around her, setting the flute on the table. She thought he didn’t seem entirely convinced. He couldn’t understand what she meant. His life had been graced, and she was glad of it. More glad than she could put into words. Everett deserved the life he led. In spades.
She leaned forward and kissed an erect nipple. It’d been tantalizing her, tempting her the entire time they talked. She felt his hand at the back of her head, cradling her against him. She closed her eyes and tested the turgid flesh with her tongue. He exhaled harshly. She felt him stiffen even more against her circling tongue.
“You’re a closed book, aren’t you?” she heard him mutter from above her.
She blinked and glanced up at him in surprise. Why did his features look so hard when his stare was so soft? “I don’t mean to be.”
“No?”
She swallowed thickly at the hint of sarcasm in his question. His eyes seemed to bore right into her. “Then why don’t you let me restrain you before I make love to you again?”
The silence seemed to stretch tight and then slowly start to spin like a vortex, seemingly catching her thoughts and her very breath and swallowing them.
Had he really just said that?
It might have been something straight out of one of her overly zealous sexual fantasies in regard to him. His nostrils flared slightly as he studied her. “What’s wrong? Does that idea turn you off?”
She swallowed thickly. “No,” she said breathlessly. “I mean . . . I don’t think it does. I don’t have that
much experience . . . considering it. Do you mean you want to tie me up?”
“I want to restrain you. I would have anyway—even not knowing you, I mean. It turns me on, in general. But in your case, I’m exponentially interested in the possibilities.”
“Why?” she asked.
His mouth flattened into a straight line. He spoke quietly near her ear.
“Because you’re one of the most tempting, beautiful women I’ve ever laid eyes on,” he murmured, his deep, low voice making the hairs on her neck stand on end. He opened his hand wide at the small of her back and caressed her through the silk. “Because you’re soft, and you’re sweet, and because I want to give you as much pleasure as your mind and body can take.” He leaned up and speared her with his clear-eyed gaze. “Because I think you want to do the same for me.”
“I do,” she said honestly.
He leaned down and kissed her softly. “I see the shadows in your eyes.” She went still beneath his warm, moving lips. Shock reverberated through her flesh as she absorbed what he’d said. “I want to make them go away.”
“You mean . . . through sex?” she asked, confused, thinking about how he’d expunged everything from her brain on that night in her apartment save raw lust.
He sat up. “I won’t turn down the opportunity if it works.”
She just lay there, bewildered by his grim expression. He swung a long leg around her and stood. She couldn’t take her eyes off him as he got up from the bed, crossed the luxurious bedroom and opened a dresser drawer.
She turned and sat up slowly, her elbows bracing her upper body on the bed. He closed the drawer with a thud and faced her. He held several padded cuffs and a tangle of black straps in one hand. She felt the pulse at her throat start to throb and a pinch at her clit. He was always beautiful to behold, but seeing Everett stalk toward her holding those cuffs was a sexual sin in and of itself.
He stood at the side of the bed and started to unravel the straps.
“Four of them?” she whispered when he separated all the cuffs and set them on the bed.
“Yes. Is that all right?”
She met his stare. Her pulse now felt like it was trying to leap out of her throat.