“Helpless to resist me.”
“But I . . . don’t. . . . want to . . . resist you. You know . . . that,” she managed between kisses, her body melting against him as he leaned over her, demanding every existing modicum of her attention. He lifted his head and his hand slid down her arm. He grasped her hand and led her toward the bed.
“The ropes will just reassure me,” he replied.
“Ropes?” Francesca asked, dazed. He’d used cuffs to bind her during foreplay and sex, and padded restraints and whatever else he might improvise with on the spur of the moment, including his own hands. But ropes?
“Don’t worry,” he said once he’d led her to the edge of the bed and encouraged her to sit. He leaned down and nibbled at her lips fleetingly . . . but convincingly, Francesca decided. “The ropes are made of silk. Do you think I’d ever put anything next to your beautiful skin that would mar it?” he asked near her ear a moment later, his low, rough voice causing goose bumps to rise along her nape.
She just stared up at him, enraptured by his small Ian-smile.
* * *
Less than ten minutes later, she lay completely nude horizontally at the foot of the large, luxurious four-poster bed, her hips and body near the perpendicular angle of the edge. She’d watched in amazement and growing arousal as Ian had meticulously—and knowingly—bound her wrists to her calves in an elaborate, precise design of black silk rope twists and knots. She lay on her back, her knees bent toward her chest, her thighs spread wide. He’d instructed her initially to hold her calves, the pressure of her gripping hands pressing her folded legs into her body. Then he’d begun to bind her, forearms to calves and then calves to thighs.
She was trussed up good and tight, although she was not uncomfortable. Unless the erratic pounding of her heart and the mounting need for friction on her exposed, naked sex counted as discomfort.
She watched Ian anxiously as he returned from the room at the right side of the suite, their private sanctuary—the room that was typically kept locked and contained all manner of instruments for bondage, punishment and pleasure.
“What have you gotten from your room to torture me?” she asked teasingly her head twisted to see what he held in his hands. She saw little, however, his body blocking what he set on the top of a bureau. He turned toward her, still completely dressed. Her nipples prickled beneath his hot stare as he examined her, as ever his gaze striking her as cool and assessing and blazingly possessive at once.
“My room?” he repeated as he came toward her. Her clit twanged in conditioned excitement when she saw the small pot of cream he held in his hand. It was the clitoral stimulant that he always rubbed on her when he was doing something new to her . . . something challenging. Francesca had dubbed it a ‘wicked cream’ because it was known to make her want in ways she’d never before imagined. It was known to make her beg.
“Yes. To whom else does the room belong?” she asked distractedly.
“You, of course,” he said, holding her stare and untwisting the cap of the cream. She watched his every move with tight concentration as he dipped a thick finger into the little pot, a dull ache mounting in her by the second.
“You are the only one who has a key,” she said as he withdrew his finger and a dollop of white cream. He placed a knee on the trunk at the foot of the bed and leaned over her supine, bound form. “Therefore it is yours.”
“I control the room, yes,” he said, reaching. She lifted her head off the mattress, holding her breath as he neared her spread pussy, her mouth watering uncontrollably, her nipples tightening into almost painful hard points. He’d conditioned her body so exquisitely. “But the room exists for your pleasure,” he continued. She gasped at her held fell back as he knowingly massaged the cool cream between her labia onto her clit. “Therefore, it is fair to say it is both of our domain, wouldn’t you say?” he growled softly as he rubbed.
“Oh . . . yes,” she moaned. Already the cream warmed beneath the hard, agitating ridge of his forefinger. Soon, very soon, it would make the nerves tingle and burn. It would make it so that she did just about anything to climax. Despite her growing arousal, what Ian meant was not lost on her.
Before they’d met, that room had been for Ian alone, the ecstasy he gave other women a mere byproduct of his personal pleasurable aims. He was still the master of that room, but for him to say the room was ‘theirs’ was special, and she was touched.
He straightened and stood, screwing the lid on the pot as he looked down at her with a hooded gaze, his expression hot but also vaguely frustrated.
“Why do you look at me like that?” Francesca whispered.
His nostrils flared slightly and he turned away. “I was thinking there is nothing more beautiful than you on the face of the earth,” he replied, his back still turned to her. “And that . . .”
“What?” she prompted when he faded off as he picked up some items on the bureau.
He turned and walked toward her, and for once she was so preoccupied by his intensity and what he was telling her, she didn’t immediately try to ascertain what was in his hand or determine what he planned to do to her, like she normally would do.
“Ian?”
“I wish I could . . .” He paused, his gaze once again trailing over her from face to bound legs and arms. “Keep you with me always,” he said after a moment. He came toward her.
“I am with you always,” she said. Sensing his dark mood, however, she strained to lighten the moment. “Just try to get rid of me, and you’ll discover how hard it is to escape.”
He gave her a swift smile. “It would be an utter impossibility for me to escape you.” She opened her mouth to continue the conversation—she sensed it was important—but he sidetracked her by setting the items he carried on the bed and reaching between her thighs. He rubbed her clit with a quick, expert touch. She gasped. She’d always wondered at the fact that he touched her even more knowingly than she touched herself, as if he were inside her head and could feel what she did.
“Is the cream starting to work?” he murmured.
“You know it is,” she accused between gritted teeth. He met her eyes and she felt his smile all the way in the pit of her stomach. God, she loved him so much. Sometimes she worried he didn’t realize how mu
ch . . .