“I’m taking care of this for you,” he insists.
“Not anymore. You can stand by my side, step aside, or try to lock me up—but you’d better be sure I don’t have a gun if you do.” I shove the box at him and take off walking. He falls into step with me but doesn’t speak, dropping the gun off at the counter as we head to the door. We exit the building, gravel crunching under our boots, neither of us in a coat. I barely feel the rapidly dropping temperature, but I am aware of the unison of our steps. I stop at my side of the Jag and he opens my door, but before I can enter, he pulls me against him.
“I’m standing in front of you, protecting you, whether you like it or not.” He releases me and all but sets me in the car, shutting me inside.
My heart is racing, a new rush of adrenaline assaulting my body, and the instant he is in the car, the door sealed, we whirl on each other, our gazes colliding in a battle of wills. “I don’t need you to protect me,” I grind out through clenched teeth.
“Too fucking bad.”
“I am not your responsibility.”
“Yes. You are.”
“Says you.”
“That’s right. Says me. And if you think that because you can handle a gun, you can handle the mob, you’re sadly mistaken. You’re running on heartache and adrenaline right now. And you need to come down.”
“I just remembered killing two men, and watching my father die in a pool of his own blood. How the hell am I supposed to come down?”
“The same way I do. Sex.” His fingers twine in my hair and he drags my mouth to his, his tongue licking into my mouth, a hot rasp of demand. I lean into the kiss, needing the outlet, needing it so damn bad.
“Don’t you dare coddle me,” I hiss when his mouth leaves mine.
“You want dirty, sweetheart, I’ll give you dirty.” He releases me and starts the car.
twenty-one
Kayden and I enter the castle without speaking, sexual tension crackling between us, and he is right. I need to come down from the adrenaline rush. I need the escape I know he can give me and that he claims sex can deliver. Sex with him. And it’s not just about the escape. It’s about honesty and choice, about the freedom for him to be him and me to be whatever I feel I need to be right here and now with him. We climb the stairs side by side and he doesn’t touch me. I know it’s to drive anticipation, a way to claim control, and I’d rather he have it than I have this firestorm of emotions inside. With every step we take, the promise of an experience that will be dark, erotic, and all-consuming echoes through me.
My pulse races as we approach the door to his bedroom, our bedroom, and Kayden is at my back, reaching around me to open it, and still he does not touch me. I cross the threshold and he is quick to follow, a wolf at my back, and I am most definitely his willing prey. I whirl around to face him, and he kicks the door shut. “Get naked,” he orders, tearing his shirt over his head, giving me a wicked, hot view of taut skin over lean, hard muscle.
I wet my lips and turn away, walking to the rug in front of the fireplace as it flickers to life. There is no hesitation in me as I undress, and oh how I feel the heat of his stare, a heavy caress that might as well be his tongue for the way it licks every intimate part of me. I toss away my bra and step out of my panties, but when I’m about to face him again, his hand comes down on my back.
“On your knees,” he commands, his voice low, sultry in its demand, but the order stirs a memory I try to reject. On my knees. A tight knot forms in my chest as my mind takes me back to that night in the club. To the woman tied up. To me tied up and the punishment, and the pain, that followed. But this is not then or him. This is Kayden. This is a man I think I’m falling in love with, who I trust. He won’t hurt me. There is no question of this in my mind or heart, and it infuriates me that the monster of my past has invaded this night.
Rebelling against my own weakness, I lower myself to my knees, but Kayden doesn’t follow. Seconds tick by, and I listen for every sound that does not come, waiting for a touch I desperately crave, goose bumps rising on my skin that have nothing to do with being cold, and everything to do with how much I want Kayden. It is amazing to me how alive my nerve endings are, how my nipples tighten and my sex clenches, when he has done nothing but issue a command. That is the power of this man over me, but there is no fear. There is only arousal. And the promise of pleasure.
Finally, thou
gh, he kneels in front of me, naked, magnificently male, his thick shaft at my hip. There is power in knowing I arouse him, and that no matter what control I give him, it is never all his.
His finger slides under my chin, that one touch shivering through me and tightening my nipples, his gorgeous, pale blue eyes glinting with what manages to be lust and tenderness, when I never knew two such things could coexist. “The things I want to do to you are many, and not enough. But tonight, I have only one purpose. One goal. I want you to conquer a fear tonight.”
“I’m not afraid.”
“Not of me, but this isn’t about me, now, is it? It’s about a past you might not fully realize, but it affects you and us.”
“You’re talking about him—and he doesn’t belong here with us.”
“He, like Elizabeth, has to be here, because those pieces of us we can’t escape. We shouldn’t try. They’re part of who we are, separately and together. We can’t pretend the things they make us feel don’t impact who we are.”
As much as I wish to reject this idea, Kayden is right, and he is only trying to make me, and us, stronger. “What are you suggesting?”
“I have no intention of destroying us, Ella. Just the opposite. I want to give you a memory of being tied up that isn’t about punishment, but trust and pleasure. I want to bind your wrists.” He holds up a black silk sash. “This is your choice, though. Say yes or say no. It changes nothing and it does not mean we won’t try again later. There is no pressure. This isn’t our only night together.”
My chest is tight with the magnitude of this moment and the mix of nerves, arousal, and tenderness this man stirs in me. “Yes is my answer,” I whisper, but as sure as I am as I issue my reply, a dark memory tears at the back of my mind, words finding my lips that I did not even know existed. “But I will never call you Master.”
Surprise registers on his handsome face, his arm circling my waist, molding me close to him, that silk sash dangling at my hip, teasing my skin. “How do you even know that word?”