Zeth is fully awake now. I can tell by the way his muscles have tensed, his body hardening against mine. All of it. I can feel the rigid pressure of his hard-on pressing up against my ass. “You’ll never have to beg me for what I’m about to give you, angry girl. Misbehave badly enough and you can have it whenever you want it. Wait here.”
He springs out of bed, throwing the covers aside so that a blast of cold air hits my back. It’s chilly outside of our little cocoon of blankets, and I immediate miss his hot skin on me. He pads barefoot across the room, the muscles in his back shifting beautifully as he walks. His naked ass—he refuses to sleep in clothes, even though it’s the dead of winter—is the very definition of perfection. He laughs a wicked laugh as he pulls…as he pulls out his black duffel bag from the bottom of the wardrobe. My heart starts knocking against my ribcage like it’s trying to get out.
“What are you doing?” I ask warily.
When he turns around, Zeth is working his fist up and down his hard-on, grinning darkly. “What does it look like I’m doing?”
I don’t bother answering him. I push myself up in the bed, half considering leaping out of bed and making a break for it. I get like this—a thrill of adrenalin zips through my body every time I see that damn bag sitting there in the bottom of our wardrobe. I’m always either stopping myself from opening it up or stopping myself from running away.
“Have you been a good girl this year, Sloane?” Zeth rumbles, stalking his way toward the bed. Toward me. “Or have you been…bad?”
I cover my mouth with my fingers, holding my breath. “What’s the right answer here? I get the feeling there isn’t one.”
A moderately sinister smile spreads across my boyfriend’s face. He’s reached the bed now. He’s lowering the bag down onto the foot of it, moving with calculated caution as he takes hold of the handle and slowly begins to unzip…
“It doesn’t really matter,” he says. “You’re getting the same treatment either way. Close your eyes.”
We play this game of chicken, where I pretend I’m braver than he thinks I am, and I do everything he asks me to first time. Today it’s much harder to comply, though. I’m a little perturbed by whatever he might be pulling out of that duffel this morning.
“Sloane?” Zeth tips his head to one side, lifting an eyebrow. I close my eyes, my pulse throbbing in every part of my body as the bed dips and he climbs up onto it. “Open your mouth, angry girl,” he whispers.
I do it. I can taste the saltiness of him as he teases the very tip of his cock over my lips. Over the tip of my tongue. This…this is something I can handle quite happily. I duck my head forward, ready to take all of him into my mouth, but Zeth grabs a handful of my hair and jerks me back.
“Ah ah ah. You haven’t earned that yet.”
“Fucking—” I bite back the urge to call him something bad.
Zeth stoops down over me, pulling at my lower lip with his teeth. “Such a dirty mouth.”
There are a million comments I could come back with here, but I know him. He’s in a playful mood and I don’t want to rile him. I gasp, flinching against the delicious pain of his teeth pulling at my flesh, his hand pulling at my hair.
He draws back a second later, and then I feel the cold, hard sting of steel against the skin of my wrists. Handcuffs. Zeth cuffs my hands over my head, making appreciative noises as the covers fall away from my body to reveal my naked breasts. The cold doesn’t seem to matter anymore. All that matters is what Zeth pulls out of that bag next.
He doesn’t make me wait long. The rest of the covers are ripped from the bed, and then it’s just me cuffed to the headboard, vulnerable and on show, while he positions himself over me. “You want this, angry girl?” he whispers, his breath hot and fast against my cheek.
I nod, my head swimming with the need to open my eyes. That’s part of the game, though. If I open them, I’ve disobeyed him. If I resist and keep them closed, I’ve done as I’m told.
These days, half the game is waiting to find out whether I’m going to be receiving pain or pleasure. I’ve given up pretending that I prefer the later. I’m always torn between the two, wanting the delirium of the pleasure washing over me, but also the furious sting of the pain lighting my body up and making me come alive. It’s almost as though I can’t have one without the other these days.
I nearly jump out of my skin when Zeth presses something cool and hard against the inside of my leg. “I need you on your front,” he tells me. “Be a good girl and get up onto your knees. Now.”
I spin over, my wrists twinging a little as the cuffs dig into my skin.
“Good. Now spread those legs for me. And bend over.”
Heat flushes up through me, half embarrassment, half anticipation. I have absolutely no reason to be embarrassed anymore. Zeth’s explored every single part of my body from every single angle possible, but exposing myself to him like this is always a little confronting. He hums as he places his hands on my ass and lowers himself, ducking down so he can run his tongue over the very center of me, licking my pussy.