All I wanted was to fuck her senseless, untie her and retie her on my lap, and lock the door for the night. Too much to ask, huh? Maybe I’d earn the right to keep a soul mate for more than a few scant hours in the next life if I managed to redeem myself in this one.
“What?” Josie stirred against my chest, raising dozy eyes and puffed, ruby-stained lips to meet mine in a light, gentle kiss that blew my fucking mind. “Knox?”
“I have to let you go. Can’t keep you forever,” I murmured, thumbing her soft lips, though I wanted to do just that. “Can I have this back?” I reached for the rope end I’dleft in her hand as an emergency escape measure, though she hadn’t seemed to want to use it. Probably didn’t know how, in hindsight. Yet another error I’d made in my haste to have her.
“What? No!” Her fingers curled into a tight fist and she gripped the rope like a lifeline.
“You wanted down before,” I coaxed, “and although I’d love to give you orgasms for the rest of the night and fuck us both into oblivion afterward” —why was I telling her that, why?— “I think we’d better talk about what I can do to apologize to the girl who never asked for any of this. Fuck, I must have actually terrified you.” The knowledge sent my stomach plummeting on a five-story drop straight into purgatory.
Bad Doms went to hell. Shit ones got left in the void between, praying for their submissive’s forgiveness for eternity.
She wasn’t evenmine.
I couldn’t believe how fucked up tonight had become so damn fast.
“Don’t untie me,” she croaked, her eyes blown wide in panic again.
“Josie,” I started, curving my hand around her cheek to caress her gently. Soft skin molded to my touch, and I let out a groan. “I’d really like not to get my ass sued for fucking around with a girl who didn’t give me permission, and I’d also really like to keep my boss out of hot water. Let me let you down, get you some blankets, and we can talk.”
“I don’t want to be let down,” she cried, arching up to press her mouth to mine. A flash of something sharp passed through her gaze. “If you let me down now, I’ll—I’ll—do all the things you don’t want. I’ll call you out on your behavior tonight and I’ll expose the club. Rafe. Just don’t let me down. Not yet. Please, Knox,” she begged, her eyes flaring as her panic returned in full.
I stilled, arcing my palm to match the smooth lines of herthroat, tilting her head back until she couldn't look away from me, but she didn’t fight. I hadn’t expected it, and that fledgling pit of hope burned a little hotter.
“You want—what? To have a good time with me tonight, walk away, and write your article, exposé? Thing. Whatever.” I flapped a hand, narrowing my gaze. “Don’t play games with me, pretty face. You aren’t in the best position to negotiate.”
“Aren’t I?” The little siren arched into me, rubbing her body against mine like a kitten. One calf, the one I’d massaged, slid along my thigh and hooked over my hip, leaving herself exposed and open.
I growled low in my throat. “Pretty girl gets a good fucking at notorious nightclub. Great headline. Career maker, huh? Got a camera on you too?”
She shook her head, straining against the ropes but pressing into me. “No.”
Truth.I’d learned to read her during our previous game, and I knew I wasn’t wrong.
“So, what would your headline be?” I taunted her, running my hands over her luscious curves, cupping the swell of her breasts with a slightly rougher touch.
She moaned, twisting in my grip, but I crowded her space. “Come on, Josie. Tell me.”
“I’ll drop it!” she blurted and snapped her mouth closed.
I toyed with a tight nipple, milking it with her arousal that still coated my fingers. “You will?”
“I—yes,” she whispered, staring up in mortification. “I wasn’t comfortable with the idea to start with, anyway. I don’t want to do anything to expose the community, not knowing what I’ve learned about what Rafe—and you and everyone here—does. Not even if the shifter community can never accept me.”
I dropped my hands, though I ached to cup her ass and draw her body along the length of my cock. “Who says you’re notaccepted?”
She gave me a one-shouldered shrug. “Family. I don’t really have many friends. Okay, none. Just the people I work with.”
“People who ask you to dig into a shit-scary community to earn a day’s wage, if that? Great workplace. Must be filled with swell people,” I muttered.
She offered me a wan smile. “You’re not wrong.”
I considered everything she’d said to me tonight and couldn’t pick out a speck of mistruth in it, apart from that shitty lie she’d told me when we first started. Now I got why she’d resisted like she had.
Whether she was a hell of an actress and I deserved to get my ass roasted, or she genuinely was in a space she didn’t belong, it didn’t really matter. I wanted her, and I still wasn’t ready to let her down. That part about not fitting in though…
That part, I could fix.
Resolve settled on me. “Okay, pretty face. I’m going to let you down now. We’re still going to talk but”—I raised a finger to tap her nose when she opened her mouth, no doubt to blurt out the next thing that came into her furiously spinning mind—“you’re not getting thrown out on your ass, and I’ll defend you to Rafe. I’m trusting you not to hand me or anyone here to a human law agency, which is one hell of a risk. I trust you, and I believe what you’ve said. Don’t screw the freedom you’ve earned by fucking with me. Are we clear?”