A twitch rippled across his back. “Say it, Amber.”
Her stomach twisted with shame. “I pictured you...making love to her.”
“Thank you.” His head lowered a millimeter. “Now tell me why you think I would do that.”
She closed her eyes and tightened her fists around the spindles. “You shared seven years with her. You collected her hair...your matching scars.” Her voice quivered, her eyes opening and clinging to the back of his muscular frame. “You have a child together.”
“I haven’t touched her in over a year, and tonight I felt no desire to.” His back rose with his inhale. “I enslaved her for seven years because I was selfish. The hair, the scars, Livana...all examples of my selfishness. That's not love, Amber, which was why I never thought to free her.”
He reached up, tore open the drapes, and wrenched them off the wall. Wheezing, she jerked away from the railing, caught by two feet of rope.
Fabric and metal poles tumbled to the floor as he moved from window to window, ripping and tossing. She curled into a ball, chest heaving, her face buried in her bound arms.
Every clatter of metal and rip of sheet rock made her heart jump in terror. Her breathing reached an all-too-familiar velocity, burning her lungs and beading sweat along her scalp.
Eventually, her breaths were all she heard as silence settled through the cabin, thickening, waiting. No footsteps on the stairs. No commanding voice. Was he waiting for her to pull herself together?
Her limbs shook, and her pulse ripped through her veins, but breath by painful breath, she reined it in. He'd opened the windows because he wanted to free her. He waited patiently because he believed in her.
She gathered all her courage to accept that knowledge and crawled back to the railing on wobbly knees.
He stood at the bottom of the stairs, pinching the button on the shirt cuff at his wrist. As he loosened it and moved to the other wrist, he lifted his eyes, locking them on her. Intense eyes. Dangerously beautiful eyes. She didn't need to look at the windows behind him because she held those eyes, because they told her he loved her.
He didn't look away as he climbed the stairs and rolled up his sleeves. He held her gaze as he reached the loft and removed his belt, dropping it on the wood floor before her. He didn't break eye contact until he knelt at her side and ripped the straps of her tank top.
The openness of the windows crawled on her skin. So she sat on her hip, leaning toward him, and let his touch, his eyes, and his spicy scent swallow her senses. The nylon rope bit into her arms, rubbing against her clammy skin, but she welcomed it, gloried in the restraints he'd given her.
Sliding the shirt to her waist, his fingers stroked a trail of fire down her breastbone, over the lacy bra cups, and across her belly. “Lift your gorgeous ass.”
His whisper pulled that fire inward, heating her blood and curling tendrils of warmth through her *. She raised her hips, lost in the potency of his hands on her body. There was something unequivocal about pleasing a man as controlling and calculating and adoring as Van Quiso. No need to think. She simply obeyed, placing all her pleasure, and her pain, in his strong and capable hands.
His full lips parted as he glided the shirt and skirt down her legs, his sharp silvery gaze totally and completely focused on her. No matter what kind of confrontation he'd just come from, he was here now, gifting her with the command of his concentration.
With only the bra and rope left on her body, she met his eyes comfortably and confidently. “Will you tell me about it?”
“After your punishment.” He licked the corner of his mouth, perhaps seeking the toothpick that wasn't there. “On your knees.”
She obeyed, eyes glued to the swell of his groin as he stood and unbuttoned his shirt. When he shrugged it off and tossed it somewhere near the closet, she yanked against the restraints to go after it.
He chuckled, damn him. Whatever. She'd pick it up later. Right now, she had something better to do, like take in the sight of his magnificent body.
His abs flexed with his reach for the leather belt on the floor and contracted with his stretch as he straightened. Veins ran beneath the skin of his forearms, bulging over muscle, pumping with the movements of his hands folding the belt.
Her fingers tingled to run down his chest and around his back to feel his taut muscles and absorb the smooth texture of his skin. More than that, she wanted to bask in the heat of his belt on her ass.