Shadow Fire (Shadow Riders 7)

Elie couldn’t keep his gaze from his wife as she turned and walked to the kitchen counter to retrieve her clothes. Her bottom was bright red and swayed with every step she took. She was graceful and feminine, and when she moved, she was wholly female. Her wild hair tumbled down her back in complete disarray, pointing to the vivid handprints on her ample cheeks.

Elie was so hard, he was afraid he might shatter if he didn’t get some relief soon. He considered what to do next, what might be the best options to get his woman to continue building that craving for him until she was ready to beg. She needed that kind of relationship. If he was entirely honest, he needed it as well. He liked games. He had learned them at a young age and those games had stayed with him so that he preferred his sex that way.

He believed the woman who had filled out the sexual questionnaire was absolutely perfect for him. Now that he knew she was Brielle, he wasn’t so certain of taking her to the club with him as he had been before. He would have to think that through. He would have used the club to keep a sexual interest in a woman he didn’t love, but he didn’t need that with Brielle and he knew he never would.

Brielle was deliberately trying to entice him, using her body to seduce him into fucking her when she’d been punished. He didn’t want her to think she was ever going to be in control. He’d lose her that way—and he wasn’t going to lose her. He knew he was going to fall hard for Brielle. It was happening already.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Brielle paced back and forth, trying to get her body under control. She was on fire. Fire. There was no other way to put it. There was no hiding from Elie who she was or what she needed. She’d been so silly, disclosing so much about herself, thinking she was writing to a perfect stranger and telling him what she was like.

From the moment she learned about the wickedness going on in the clubs, her body had come alive. She had found ways to visit them, to see for herself what went on. Just watching had been such a turn-on when nothing had made her in the least bit aroused. Then she heard Elie’s voice telling a woman what to do in that low, compelling voice of his and she’d had to go to the ladies’ room. It had been her very first orgasm and it had been huge. He had only told the woman to behave herself.

After that she had erotic dreams of him giving her orders and punishing her if she didn’t obey. Sometimes he would take her outdoors where they would almost get caught. He would force his cock down her throat in a club while the music pounded around them and people danced. She would have multiple orgasms just fantasizing about him holding her in place but shielding her with his body even as he insisted she suck him dry. Other times, he would spank her with his belt. Still other times, his friends would come over to the house and into the bedroom while he had her handcuffed and her bottom presented. They would start a conversation with him, ignoring the fact that he spanked her with his belt. She liked when he was tender and gave her a million orgasms after he treated her as if she was his toy. That was all part of the fantasy. In every fantasy, her partner had been Elie.

Fortunately, she hadn’t disclosed those fantasies to her potential husband. Only that she preferred to be submissive in the bedroom and she liked pain on a limited basis—a very limited basis. She agreed that she would be willing to try exhibitionism, bondage and a host of other things but she wrote down clear limits as well. Knife play was an absolute no. Cheating was an absolute no.

Under certain circumstances she had a very strong sex drive. Elie and anything to do with him were those circumstances. She couldn’t stop shaking, but at the same time, the longer she waited for Elie, the more every nerve ending in her body was alive, begging for relief. What would he do next? The uncertainty was such a turn-on.

She stood in front of the one mirror in the master bedroom and stared at herself, for a moment unbelieving that the woman looking back at her could really be her. Her hair was wild, her skin flushed. She looked aroused, her full breasts jutting out, nipples stiffened into hard peaks. She turned slightly to catch a glimpse of the darker red staining the cheeks of her bottom. The heat had spread straight to her sex, making her channel throb and burn.

Brielle moved to the very large bed she’d been avoiding. Just looking at the various cuffs hooked to the decorative wrought-iron spindles on the headboard caused another flush of heat to spread through her body. At the same time her heart accelerated. She’d said bondage. She glanced up at the sheets laminated and pinned to the wall right beside the bed with her answers on her sexual preferences.

She’d agreed to bondage but she’d also stated she wanted to get to know her partner. She had stated plainly she thought it necessary to be given the time to work up to trusting him before entering into that kind of play with him. Involuntarily, she reached up and touched one of the three scars on her body, running her finger over the faint reminder of her stupidity.

“Let me see.”

She nearly jumped out of her skin. How could the man possibly sneak up on her that way? She had been trained like every shadow rider to know when there was danger, and Elie Archambault was a very dangerous man. Very slowly, to give herself time to get her breathing under control, she let go of the cuff and turned to face him.

“Elie.” Just saying his name made her ache even more. Seeing him, barefoot, dressed only in his trousers, chest bare, heavy muscles rippling as he approached her in that stalking way he had, increased her hunger for him tenfold.

“Let me see,” he repeated. This time his much larger hand reached out, fingers shackling her wrist, pulling her hand away from the upper curve of her left breast and holding her arm out and away so there was no hiding from him.

His gaze moved over her breasts. He frowned, stepping closer, leaning down, examining that faint white slash on the upper curve just on the side of her breast. The pad of his finger traced the mark and then his gaze lifted to hers.

“Do you have any other scars like this one?”

Before she could answer, he leaned down again and brushed his lips over the white slash that had hurt so bad when it first had ripped her open that she thought she might die. Just the touch of his lips, the feel of his tongue sliding along the slight dip where her skin had been gouged out, set butterflies soaring in her stomach. She lost her ability to speak. To breathe. To function. She was back in brain fog.

Elie straightened again, his dark, nearly black gaze meeting hers. “Brielle, focus for me. Do you have other scars made by a knife? Ones like this one?”

That low commanding voice snapped her out of her haze. She nodded and pulled at her hand. He let her wrist go and she pointed to another faint mark on her lower abdomen. “Here.” That one had her screaming until her throat was so raw, she couldn’t talk for hours. “And here.” She pointed to the third and longest one. It had been the deepest cut on her body, right along her ribs, under her left breast.

“Crawl onto the bed, Brielle,” Elie commanded. “Lie down on your back.”

For the first time, there was an edge to that low, compelling tone. It was still velvet, rubbing over her skin like a caress, wrapping her up in sensual magic, but there was a rasp to it that added another layer.

She shivered, wondering why she reacted to his particular tone, why she needed to comply with everything he wanted from her. How, just by speaking, he could make her feel sexy even when he wasn’t saying anything that had to do with sex.

Brielle crawled up onto the very wide bed, aware Elie watched her every move with that burning gaze locked onto her. The duvet was gray and very thick. Her knees and hands sank into the soft comforter as she made her way up toward the headboard. She felt wholly feminine, her hips and breasts swaying with every movement. In the center, she stopped, dipping her chest to the duvet first and then lowering her bottom before she rolled over to comply with his order.

She had deliberately gone all the way to the top of the bed. She was short and she knew her feet wouldn’t reach the bottom of the bed and the footboard where the ankle cuffs were. She did trust Elie, but she didn’t have confidence in herself yet. She still had nightmares and panic attacks. That was the last thing she wanted to have happen with Elie. What if he decided he didn’t want to play in the bedroom? Or that she was too much work?

“Legs wide apart.”

Elie stood at the bottom of the bed, his arms behind his back, his dark eyes drifting possessively over her. She liked that look on his face. It wasn’t just that he regarded her with the look of someone who could be by turns objective or affectionate. Maybe more than affection. That was Elie’s gift. He could make a woman believe she was special to him—real to him even as he made her his toy. One look or touch, one smile or just a word could bring a woman to her knees, make her want to do anything for him.

Brielle had watched him all those years. He hadn’t even seen her, no matter what he said to her. She’d paid close attention to him and how the women reacted to him. He was so offhand, barely showing his dates any kindness and then suddenly bestowing his famous smile on them. Immediately the woman would fawn all over him. Brielle understood and felt sorry for his date. She knew the woman wouldn’t last long; they never did. He had a pattern. What did that mean for her?