“I can’t have those hands of yours distracting me, and it’s time you learned what it feels like to feel helpless—the way I felt when you ran off today.”
She’d taken years off his life, and he’d rather cut off his own arm than have anything happen to her. The only reason he hadn’t confronted her yet was the unexpected birthday celebration.
He reached for and opened the night table drawer and retrieved the bandannas he’d placed there earlier.
Her eyes widened, but she didn’t argue. In fact, she seemed to be enjoying every minute. He lifted one of her wrists and massaged her soft flesh in his hands. “I want you to be okay with this.”
/> Her dark eyes met his. There was that implicit trust again. “There’s nothing you can do I’m not okay with.”
He could almost see himself through her eyes and wished he could be everything she believed him to be. He looped a bandanna around one brass bar on the headboard, then secured her wrist before doing the same to her other hand. “Comfortable?”
“Aroused,” she murmured.
“That’s the point.” And he knew the feeling. Before Grace, he’d never known sweatpants could be too damn tight.
Grace looked into Ben’s eyes and knew she was telling him the truth. There wasn’t another human being she trusted as much as she trusted him to take care of her, body, heart, and soul. With her hands tied loosely above her, she was more exposed to him than she’d ever thought she’d allow herself to be to anyone. More vulnerable. And more receptive to anything he desired.
But she couldn’t help wanting to level the playing field just a bit. She took in his baggy gray sweats with NYPD printed down the left side and his ragged T-shirt that revealed his abdomen. Never had she seen such a sexy man. A man so comfortable in his own skin and with his own masculinity.
God, she loved him. Letting him go might kill her, and though she’d give them her best shot, she’d also keep her promise and let him walk away if he chose. “You need to do something for me.”
“I hardly think you’re in the position to be asking for favors,” he said with a grin.
She laughed. “Strip for me, Ben. Make us equal, and then you can ravish me any which way you desire.”
His eyes glazed over even more. “I hope you’re not looking for music and dancing.”
She shook her head. “All I need is you.”
He drew a shuddering breath, reaching for the bottom of his shirt, then he whipped it over his head and tossed it onto the floor in one easy movement. His pants came off next as he released the drawstring knot and pushed them down. They pooled around his ankles and he kicked them aside, leaving him standing nude.
Fully aroused and completely nude.
“No underwear?”
He shrugged. “Ran out. A certain someone’s kept me too busy to even think about basic things like laundry.”
She laughed, but she couldn’t draw her gaze from his erection. Though they’d made love more than once, his sheer size and strength were almost more than she could handle. Her nipples puckered and dampness trickled between her legs. There was nothing she could do to hide her feminine reactions from him even if she wanted to.
And she didn’t want to because opening herself to him in every way imaginable was the only chance she had of keeping him by her side when this was over. She was completely exposed and his to take as he desired.
He eased himself beside her on the bed and placed a warm, comforting hand on her thigh. At least, it was comforting until he rotated his wrist and eased his palm over her sex.
“So hot, so wet. For me,” he murmured. He slid his fingers over her sensitive folds, arousing her full and wanting flesh.
With a sigh, she shut her eyes and gave herself up to sensation. To Ben. Grace refused to look, finding the sensations twice as erotic in the dark, with bound hands and legs open wide.
She felt the weight and dip of the mattress as he moved. Yet she was shocked when she felt his lips on her inner thigh, even more surprised when those same lips found her most feminine secrets and drank them in. His strong hands held her legs wide, locking them in place while his mouth worked a magic she’d never felt before. His tongue traced her, learning her taste and discovering what made her moan, what made her writhe, what she liked best.
Grace learned that if she groaned a certain way, that wicked tongue would delve deeper, if her hips rose of their own volition off the mattress, his fingers would part her folds, giving him greater access to nip and graze with his teeth, then soothe with wide laps of his tongue. His touch was always gentle, and ever-increasing in tempo and pressure. Her body quivered on the edge of release, yet not once did he take her over the edge.
He brought her so close. With caresses of his tongue against her swollen flesh, he took her higher. With a suckling, pulling maneuver, he sent her soaring, teetering at the brink. The waves would begin to build only to retreat, climax always just out of reach.
And with each near-crescendo, the spiraling need grew higher; the pounding in her swollen flesh became harder and more insistent until her hands grabbed for the brass bars on the headboard and her hips shook hard and fast.
His technique was flawless. Not that of a man who knew women well, but that of the one man who took the time to learn her well.
Grace couldn’t take another minute of his loving torture. She needed him to take the edge off, to let her climax, and allow those rapturous waves to take over and buffet her body with painful yet exquisite force and completion.