Lucas’s hand caressed the inside of my ankle before he moved away, and I bit back a moan, wanting his hands all over me. My skin tingled in anticipation as he fastened my ankles to the post of the bed until I couldn’t close my legs even if I wanted to.
My heart stopped in my chest as he climbed on the bed a moment later, straddling my hips as he reached for my bound wrists. A lock of hair fell over his forehead the moment that his hand touched my wrists, and I looked at it longingly, wanting to smooth it back. He had asked me to call him don, trying to exert control over me, but to me, he was Lucas.
He would always be Lucas.
His eyes met mine, and for a split second, I saw an emotion there that I couldn’t decipher.
But then it was gone, and his hardened gaze returned. “Tell me,” he started out in a soft, sexy voice that sent thrills throughout my body. “Where should I start? Should I start here?”
I tried not to arch my body as his finger trailed down the vee of my robe, right behind the cleft of my breasts.
“Or here?” Lucas continued, his finger now hooking the belt on the robe. “I was intimately familiar with this particular area this morning.”
Oh, I remembered how his rough tongue had felt on my clit, how he had driven me crazy with his fingers. I had thought I would be dreaming of any other activity between us, but Lucas was going to punish me with sex.
Or I hoped he was going to punish me with sex. I hoped he wouldn’t be cruel and leave me tied to this bed, hot and bothered and thinking about what could have been.
Lucas expertly looped the ties on my wrists around the headboard and I suddenly was defenseless to him, submissive to how he probably wanted to have me. “Tell me, Leda,” he replied, that arrogant smirk on his face now that he was in control. “Where do I begin to punish you?”
He was punishing me now. I wanted to wrap my arms around his broad shoulders or strip him of his shirt so I could touch his bare flesh.
I wanted my lips on him, to cover his body with mine so that we could continue to stoke the fire between us.
I wanted it all.
“One more thing,” Lucas said, pulling out a final strip of sheet. “You don’t get to see.”
A flare of panic shot through me as he covered my eyes, my field of vision going dark. “Lucas,” I started, my heat turning into something far scarier. “Wait.”
“Shh,” he said near my ear, his hand brushing over my cheek almost tenderly. “Do you trust me, Leda?”
Did I trust him? Did I have any choice right now? He saved my life more than once, gave me everything I didn’t know I needed in a partner and in, well, a friend. I didn’t see Don Valentino when I looked at him. I saw Lucas, and I wanted to save him.
I wanted him to love me completely and outside of anything that the Mafia could give him. But did I trust him? I wanted to say yes, but somehow, the words didn’t come to the surface.
Lucas’s fingers halted. He was waiting for my answer.
“Leda,” he whispered, some of the sultry voice giving way to an air of concern. “Do you trust me?”
He wasn’t going to continue if I didn’t. Well, I hoped that was what he was saying. I felt like he was showing me a glimmer that he genuinely cared for me, and this wasn’t just sex between us.
That it might actually be love.
“Yes,” I whispered. “I trust you, Lucas.”
His hand fell away from me cheek and his lips moved over mine softly, carefully. I let him kiss me, hating that I couldn’t hold him in my arms as he did so. Lucas had clearly not had much to care for him in the past, and I wanted to show him that it didn’t have to always be about control.
That he could love, and it would be okay. It had taken me some time to reach a point where I knew everything Lucas did with me was about being in control because he was scared.
Lucas was scared. Scared of me, scared of what he was feeling, scared of what he might be willing to give up. It wasn’t a good feeling for me either, but I wasn’t about to abandon him.
His lips left mine, and I whimpered. I couldn’t see him, but I could smell the spicy scent he preferred to use as his aftershave. I could hear the harsh breathing as his teeth nipped my jaw, his hand sliding into the vee of my robe to part it, to bare my flesh to him. The frigid air rushed in, and I arched my back as his hand ran over my breast possessively. “You want this,” he said softly, his thumb brushing over my aching nipple. “You want to be punished.”
If this was my punishment, he could do it all day long.
Lucas’s lips moved down to my neck, suckling gently, and red-hot need shot straight between my legs, flooding the space. Even though he had pleasured me an hour before, I wanted him again. When his teeth grazed my nipple, I struggled to release my wrists, wanting to keep his head there. God, he knew what he was doing, every pressure point I had to make me ache for him. “Lucas,” I breathed. “Please let me go.”
He chuckled against my breast. “You wouldn’t last a day under real torture.”