“Focus on my lips.” He took her mouth, and after a few coaxing nips, she melted into him. He kissed her with a deep ache in his chest, a burning need for her total attention. Sucking and licking, he dominated her mouth, fingers plunging into her hair, angling her head to deepen the kiss.
The phobia might've slipped in, but she was still entranced in subspace. All the endorphins and adrenaline that had been released with the pain would be buzzing through her body, floating her in a warm, drifty cosmos that gravitated toward her Master.
As their tongues swirled together, tangling and tasting, his hands edged around her breasts, down her flat belly, and tiptoed over her hipbones. Her skin prickled with goose bumps, her pelvis lifting toward his, enthralling him.
He continued his caress to the creases between her mound and hips, sliding down her inner thighs, and returning to her waist. A vibration thrummed beneath her flesh, heating with circulating blood. He knew how to toy with her, when to ease off, teasing the anticipation by touching everywhere but the one place that would send her into a blissful spiral. He broke the kiss. “Tell me what you need now.”
A visible tremor skated over her. She tried to bend her elbows, unable to budge the rope, and dropped her head to his chest. “I...I'm scared.”
Quiet, desperate, her admission shivered through him. He needed to hold her, to assure her. If he released the cuffs, would she try to run? Doubtful, but if he was wrong, he'd catch her.
With years of practice in rope work, he freed the French bowline knots in seconds. He caught her wobbly descent, mindful of the welts, and carried her to the thick carpet of grass. When he laid her on her side, she curled in on herself, her face distorted in terror, and her body wrenched into the violent throes of panic.
It happened so damned fast, locking her muscles and pinching her breaths. He watched helplessly, gripping the back of his neck. He could take her inside—avoidance. Or he could try something else—distraction.
He rolled her to her back and blanketed her body with his, bracing his legs and arms on the outside of hers, caging her in, knowing the coolness of the grass would soothe the lashes. “No one can see you. Look. You're completely covered beneath me.” Not that a soul would dare step foot on his land. The Fuck Off signs he'd posted had been anything but welcoming.
She grabbed at his ribs with rigid fingers and pulled him closer, rooting her body into the core of his while fighting for breath. Fuck him, but he wanted to be her security, her anchor, her fucking everything. Not as her captor but as her lover.
As she burrowed deeper beneath him, her fingers stumbled against the waistband of his jeans. Maybe it was accidental, but she didn't jerk them away, rather they inched inward along his tightening abs.
A heady rush of exhilaration connected his spinning emotions to his groin. His cock, instantly hard and hungry, strained against the zipper. He ground the aching thing into the dip of her clenched thighs, and she responded in kind, bucking and gasping as her fingernails dug into his stomach.
His heart raced. He wasn't alone in these feelings. She needed him as much as he needed her, physically as much as emotionally.
He ducked his head and captured her mouth, kissing her deeply and thoroughly. She met him, her tongue sliding against his, but her breathing didn't slow its sharp, shallow rhythm.
The grass was cold and damp beneath his forearms where they bracketed her head. He ran his hands through her hair and gathered the thick mass, using it to hold her still while he plunged his tongue between her sweet lips.
The panic hadn't fully tapered, evidenced in the heave of her chest and the jerking of her body against him. She kept her elbows tucked in and her shoulders curled between his as if she truly believed he was shielding her from her biggest fear.
He strengthened the kiss, fucking her mouth with his tongue, stealing her breaths and, hopefully, the noise in her head. The earthy scent of soil and the musk of their mingled sweat bathed his inhalations as he chased her tongue, pinning it and releasing it in a sensual dance.
As her breathing slowed from anxious to aroused, he wedged a hand between their bodies, caressing her belly and lifting his hips to glide lower. When he reached the hood of her clit, he watched with awe as her eyes closed and her chin rose, exposing her neck.
Warmth sifted through him, lifting his broken soul to the surface. Where was the temptation to jump on that vulnerable throat and crush it with a ruthless hand? He wanted to own her, but not if it scarred her. She was his weakness, and with a confidence that punctuated every revelation he'd come to accept since he'd taken her, there wasn't a damned thing he'd do to change it.