He checked her pulse, whispered encouragement and kissed her as he looked down at her body. The light had changed in the room. Evening had shifted the sun so that the ball had dropped from the sky, creating orange-red streaks that were already fading to bluish grays.
Shadows fell across Flambé’s face. Already she looked as if she was slipping into subspace, and he wanted her focused completely on him. He caught the rope and tugged hard, snapping it against her scalp, causing it to sting, bringing her eyes flying open. He waited until she was looking at him and nowhere else. He snaked the green rope around her neck and began to weave it in the intricate pattern that was high up on her neck and made its way down to her breasts until the ropes were draped and pulled over them in loops, covering the mounds and nipples at an angle, two strands at a time. Each weave ran around to the back and was threaded into the bindings of her hands and back up to the necklace ties at her neck.
When Sevastyan was finished, Flambé was kneeling on his rug made of sisal rope, her naked inflamed thighs and clit pressed tight into the knots there. Her hips bucked continually, riding the knots, her body bent almost backwards. At the same time, the necklace around her throat and breasts seemed almost demure in contrast to the sordid display of her open legs.
He moved out from behind her, camera in hand, and took several shots of his work, then several shots of her face before seating himself once again. He tugged on her braided hair, letting the knots unravel, watching them slide away quickly. He’d deliberately used ones that could easily be removed fast. His woman was just about done.
When he had the ropes off of her, he lifted her, carried her to the bed and took her down to the mattress, his body blanketing hers. Murmuring soothingly to her, he kissed her over and over, stealing her breath, wanting to steal her heart. Her soul. God, she was the most amazing woman he’d ever found.
He had no idea he could be tender. He was a rough man, especially when it came to sex, but for her, there was tenderness. She was slick and hot, and so tight that when he pushed into her folds slowly, filling her, he didn’t think he could make his way into that snug tunnel. She gasped, her lashes suddenly lifting in alarm, eyes staring straight into his, her fingernails biting deep into his shoulders. She shook her head at him, fear creeping into the gold of her gaze.
“What is it, baby?” he murmured, one hand stroking her mound, her inner thighs, circling her clit, feeling her body shudder as her pussy swallowed another inch of him. “Look at you taking me.” It was an erotic sight, seeing himself disappear into her body. “Look at us, Flambé.”
Her gaze slid from his face to their joined bodies. Her feminine form was flushed, covered in his rope marks, in strawberries where he’d left his personal marks behind, on her breasts, her thighs, one on her neck, but low so it wouldn’t show when she wore a shirt. She had a business and she was the boss.
He dipped his head and kissed her throat. The action sent his cock sliding another inch into her. She shuddered. Her sheath, scorching hot, tightened like a vise around him. His breath hissed out. He stopped moving and watched her face. That beautiful face while she squirmed and did her best to try to impale herself on him.
“We’re doing slow and easy, Flambé.”
She shook her head, looking as if she might fling herself off the bed and run.
He began to move again, because it was impossible not to. He needed to bury himself all the way, to feel her body surrounding his. It was easy to drown in her eyes. She didn’t want to look at him like this; he could see her trying to escape their connection. It was too deep. Too visceral. She shook her head again. “Faster. Harder. Not like this.”
“Just like this, Flambé. It’s good, baby. You know it is.” He whispered the truth to her, and it came out like a sin between them instead of the growing love he was trying to convey.
He detested that he wasn’t good at romance, at telling his woman what he wanted her to know. He could do it with his ropes, but she didn’t hear him. He was trying with his body, but she didn’t want it. Verbally, he couldn’t get the words out that would reassure her, because in the world he grew up in, those words were a death sentence. He had to try to reach her someway and she only let him close through sex or ropes.
He did a slow surge forward with his hips, forcing her tight petals to give way and open for him. This time he didn’t stop but, all while holding her gaze to his, buried his cock deep in her. The burn turned to flames licking hot and wild over and around him, feeling as if the fire was consuming him in a new and different way. That shocked him. Judging by her expression, the feeling shocked her as well.
They were both used to hot and wild. Fast and furious. Slow and easy was so different, but equally as good, very moving. So much so that terror had crept into her eyes. He tried to reassure her, but a part of him was feeling that same fear. She had taken him over when he wasn’t looking. When he’d been so busy binding her to him. Wanting his own woman for all the wrong reasons and realizing, when he had her, what the right reasons were.
He moved in her, sharing her body, her haven, in intimacy unlike he’d ever experienced in his life with another being. The fire bui
lt and built like a slow-moving storm, flames licking all over his skin, all over hers, touching and receding and then coming back again, leaving them both breathless.
“Sevastyan.” She whispered his name.
He heard a note in her voice that had never been there before. She didn’t want to admit true feelings to him. To herself. But they were there.
He kept moving, building the heat between them, that slow, easy build that was anything but easy. The fire began to roar. Became a storm of emotion. Her body clamped down on his without warning, a scorching-hot grip, a blaze of fire so hot his cock jerked and pulsed, erupting in a wild storm of white-hot ropes of semen, a volcano there was no stopping.
Flambé’s body seemed to have one continuous orgasm in response, so that even when he collapsed over the top of her, careful to keep his weight to one side to keep from crushing her, every movement sent powerful ripples through her. Her arms crept around his neck and she buried her face against his chest, hiding her expression.
“I want us to try together, Flambé,” he whispered in her ear. “I know it’s scary to you. Neither of us has ever done this, but let’s try.” He waited, closing his eyes. Hoping. Hearing his own heartbeat. Feeling her body rippling with such magic around his. “We’re good together. I know we are. Let’s try, baby.”
She was very quiet for a long time. Her head nod was barely there. He felt it and his heart turned inside out. It wasn’t much, but he’d take it. She always felt so elusive to him, like she had one foot out the door. At least it was somewhere to start.
13
SEVASTYAN didn’t think his mood could get much fouler. If Mitya didn’t fucking start cooperating with him, he was going to take out a gun and shoot him himself. How could the entire world spin out of control overnight? He’d been gone one damn day. You’d think he’d taken a month off, not one single day, but Mitya was acting as if he’d deserted him.
“Get your head out of your ass, Mitya. How can I be responsible for what Ania decided to do while I was gone? She’s your wife. You’re the one who is supposed to handle her, not me. As for Rolan disappearing, he had to have help. He had to have known we had eyes on him. Someone ratted us out. Unless you think that’s me, stop yelling at me and let me think.”
“Maybe if you’d been here instead of fucking that woman every five seconds, none of this would have happened. We wouldn’t have been short of bodyguards if she hadn’t run sniveling to you that someone hurt her feelings, and Ania wouldn’t have gotten hurt . . .”
“Damn it, Mitya, that’s bullshit and you know it. Ania takes chances. That isn’t my fault or Flambé’s fault. Miron and Rodion overheard our conversation and had no fucking right to repeat anything we said. None. They know better.”
Sevastyan pressed his hand to his pounding head. Mitya was insane over Ania. He knew that. Ania had gotten it into her head to climb to the top of the loft when no one was around. She’d been in the garage working on her engine and just got frustrated. Instead of utilizing the skills of her leopard, she tried climbing the human way, missed a step and fell. She broke her wrist. Of course Mitya was going to lose his mind, but blaming Sevastyan—or worse, blaming Flambé—was ridiculous. To make matters worse, they’d lost eyes on Rolan. That meant Sevastyan was going to have to lock everyone down tight. He’d be everyone’s enemy.