First was fear. He was a powerful man, and my hands were bound. I wondered if there would always be a hint of danger tied to this event, or if it would go away as I grew more experienced. Instinctively, I couldn’t trust any man with a hard-on.
The second emotion was pride, and it was fucking pathetic. Touching me had turned Macalister on, but so what? I hadn’t done something special or unique that any other woman wasn’t capable of. So, why did I feel flattered that he found me arousing?
The pads of his fingers rolled a slow circle over my clit, and another panicked moan welled up from deep in my stomach. I used my bound hands to grab his wrist to try to stop him, but there was no power in my attempt.
It was all for show.
My sex-starved body was greedy. It would humiliatingly accept pleasure from any hand right now.
The stubble dotting his jaw was rough against the side of my neck as he kissed and nipped at me. And his hands. Those fucking hands rubbed against me, making it so damn hard to stay quiet. I didn’t want him to know it felt good, which was pointless. He seemed to know everything.
He ground his palm against my center, and tremors worked up my legs, making it hard to stand. I sagged back against him, concentrating on not letting a moan pour from my mouth, but then abruptly the hands were gone.
I swayed as he bent and retrieved the suit coat from the ground and brushed the dirt and leaves from it. It was cool without him against me, and the breeze blew, which helped to cut through the haze of unwanted desire he’d worked up in me.
Was that it?
No. He walked around to face me, taking in my undoubtably flushed cheeks and heaving chest, and gave me a look that said we’d only just begun. He used his free hand to grab one of the tails of the tie and, like a leash, he pulled me along toward the base of the fountain. As if he were my master and I were his pleasure slave.
It was erotic and obscene.
He laid his coat down open on the bench, and my heart thudded as I recalled what was supposed to happen next. Since my hands were tied, I couldn’t resist when he scooped me up in his arms and lowered me onto my back, down on the suit coat.
The cement was rough and gritty against my bare legs, and as we closed in on the part I most dreaded, I lowered my bound hands to cover my nakedness. As if it would give me protection. I pretended that when he got to my hands shielding my most intimate part, he’d stop, even though I knew he wouldn’t. Not unless I said to.
This was my feeble attempt to not just give myself over so willingly.
Macalister put one hand and one knee on the bench and hovered over me. His gaze raked down my body, tracing the swell of my breasts and the flare of my hips and the junction of my thighs that was hidden beneath my hands.
“I couldn’t see beyond that ridiculous green hair you used to have.” He leaned down and brushed his lips over mine. “But you’re stunning.”
I turned my head away from him, not wanting his kiss or the reminder of how much control I’d given him.
But he grasped my chin and turned me back to meet his gaze, and irritation flashed in his icy eyes. “I gave you a compliment.”
My voice was empty. “Thank you.”
He stared at me like a puzzle he couldn’t solve. He could only see things from his perspective. He probably thought he’d transformed me like an ugly duckling, and I should be grateful. But was the opposite true?
I lay perfectly still as his mouth roamed over my skin. He tasted my lips again before carving a path down my body. Anticipation needled at me as his tongue swirled over my nipple and drew wet tracks from breast to breast.
Since we were beneath the fountain, whenever the wind blew, water would faintly mist over us. It sheened my skin and gave me a chill, and I told myself it was the cause of the shiver that shook my shoulders. It couldn’t be his hot mouth biting and sucking and devouring.
When he’d had his fill, Macalister snaked down to kneel beside the bench and between my legs. He pushed my outside knee off the stone and onto the ground to give him more room, and I began to quake. This hadn’t been so hard with the initiation. I’d been caught off guard, and Royce had started, and—
None of the other men had said they were obsessed with me.
His hands stroked up and down my thighs, followed by his lips. He kissed the length of my calf, the inside of my knee. Each one was an electric jolt, both pleasant and unpleasant. I stared up at the sky, full of sparkling stars and a bright moon, and chased my ragged breath.