“Jeez, Atlas. Why on earth would you think that? You were two.”
“I’ve always been a pain in the ass.” He chuckled. “Besides, she left three days before my second birthday. Who leaves a kid right before his birthday? Obviously, she didn’t care. Money can’t make a woman who cares ditch her kids.”
She hugged him from behind. Her arms felt good, but she seemed more upset about the conversation than he was. “Maybe she was young and didn’t know what she wanted, or maybe things between her and your dad were so awful she had to leave. Maybe she thought you’d be better off, or maybe she’d planned to come back and something happened.”
He turned in her arms and kissed her to shut her up. “My brother and I have been playing the maybe game since we were little. It doesn’t change anything.”
The timer went off for the cupcakes and she let him go. He took them out of the oven and left them on the stove to cool.
“Can’t ice those for a while.” He moved the bowl of icing to the counter.
She smiled wryly at him. “What should we do while they’re cooling off?”
“Such a short memory you have. Do you forget your own name sometimes?”
“Only when I’m with you.”
He kissed her again, harder this time, and she met his ferocity with her own.
“So you’re really not scared of me?”
“Nope.”
He grinned at her, then grabbed her wrists and twisted them behind her back. His reward was an indignant squeak, but she didn’t try to stop him. He chuckled low, and transferred both of her tiny wrists to his left hand then grabbed her by the hair. Rather than complain, she moaned as he shoved her down on the table.
“You like that, Mila? It doesn’t matter how strong you think you are, or how much self-defense you know, I can overpower you and take whatever I want.”
She shuddered beneath him. It was hard to say whether she was scared or turned on or both, but she ground her ass back against his cock, which meant the answer to that question was unimportant.
Holding her in place with one hand, he hunted through the bag he’d brought and found the package of zip ties he was looking for.
“Get on the table.” He let go of his grip on her wrists.
“What? Why?”
“What was that? You’d like to write some more lines?”
“No!” She scrambled up on the table and sat there uncertainly.
In a matter of minutes, he had her on her back, with her wrists zip-tied to the chair back at the far end of the table, and her ankles separated and tied to the table legs with a quick system of linked zip ties. He grabbed the oven mitt off the counter and tucked it under her head, then unbound her lovely dark hair and fanned it around her.
Lying bound on the table, waiting for him to do something, she looked like the virgin sacrifice in a monster movie. She watched him—eyes wide, half arousal, half fear, her lips parted and enticing. How could a woman inspire both this fierce protectiveness, and this lust to inflict pain? She made him feel out of control sometimes, but he couldn’t afford that luxury. Especially not with what he was planning tonight.
Leisurely, he found every knife and pair of scissors in Mila’s kitchen and lined them up on the counter while she watched. He talked himself down while he did it, forcing his mind to calm detachment, even though it wouldn’t last once he started.
“What are you going to do to me?” she asked nervously.
“You don’t trust me? You said you did.”
“Are you going to cut me?”
“No. Just your clothes, as long as you hold very still.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “I did warn you.”
A nervous laugh bubbled up, and she clamped her lips shut, then nodded. “Yes, sir. You did.”
He turned back to the counter, angling his body so that she could see his hand hovering over various knife handles. “Are any of these fancy knifes I shouldn’t be using for this?”
“No, sir.”