“I’ll scream.”
“You promise?”
I shiver.
“I like that.”
He pulls me tighter against him. I can feel his cock in his jeans. He’s hard as a rock. He steps forward and pins me against the door.
“You still want me to fuck you, don’t you?”
I press my lips shut.
“Oh, the silent treatment, eh?”
His arms slip around me and pin mine against my sides, hard, squeezing the breath out of me. He tips back and lifts me bodily from the floor, my toes dangling above the carpet, and carries me like that up the stairs. I struggle but only weakly.
“You shouldn’t struggle in the jaws of a predator,” he murmurs in my ear. “It only makes him want his meal more.”
He’s carrying me into the bedroom.
Quentin kicks the door closed and lowers my feet to the floor.
He doesn’t let go. I’m still trapped, my heart pounding. He buries his face in my hair and breathes deep.
“You smell like tea.”
“Quentin, let’s talk about this.”
“We’re going to talk,” he says. “You’re going to tell me all sorts of things.”
“Quentin…”
“Hush. I need you to be a good girl now. I’m going to put you on the bed and you’re not going to try to get away from me. If you do I’m going to have to punish you. Do you want to be punished, Rose?”
“No.”
He laughs. “I can smell your lie.”
Quentin drops me on the bed and immediately falls on top of me, straddling my legs. I start to squirm and he grabs my wrists.
“Don’t try to fight me.”
My heart pounds as he reaches over and pulls open a drawer in his nightstand. I start to shake as he reaches inside, and blink as he draws out long lengths of silk. Scarves. What’s he going to do with scarves?
I know the answer when he knots the scarf around my wrists, tight.
“Try to get loose.”
I do but I can’t. The more I pull, the more the knot tightens around my wrists.
“Don’t fight it. It’ll just get tighter.”
He pitches forward and pulls my arms back, over my head, pulls the other end of the thick scarf around a heavy wooden post in the headboard, and knots it.
He sits back, still pinning my legs, and pulls his shirt off. I can’t help but stare, watching his muscles bunch and ripple, distorting the dragon tattooed on his chest that winds around his body, its tail disappearing into his jeans.
“This is going to be sweaty work.”
Leaning over, he pulls out more silk and ties each of my ankles to the corners of the footboard, spreading my legs. They’re just loose enough that I can squirm a little, but pulling them only makes them tighter.
There’s one more, but it’s not red, it’s black. Quentin slides it behind my head and wraps it around, covering my eyes. I can’t see.
“You’re blindfolding me?”
“Shhh,” he says.
I feel the bed shift as he kneels between my legs and runs his hands up my sides, over my breasts, where he stops to squeeze, and then up to my throat. He doesn’t choke. He just holds my neck in his hands.
“I can feel your pulse.”
I swallow, hard.
“Felt that, too.”
“Quentin, please, don’t hurt me…”
“You keep saying that. Why are you afraid I’m going to hurt you?”
“I-I-I-I saw downstairs,” I stammer. “There was weapons and things and…and bombs…”
“Yes. Tools of the trade.”
“What trade? What are you?”
He runs his thumbs along my jaw then strokes my bottom lip with the tip of his finger. It makes my whole body go rigid and I involuntarily pull against the bonds holding me to the bed.
“I’m a bad man,” he says, very softly. “I do bad things. That’s why I have to go away.”
I want to ask what things, but I don’t.
“Do you want me to go away, Rose?”
“No,” I whisper.
“You’re not lying. Pulse is the same.”
“Don’t hurt me.”
“You keep giving me orders, Rose. Do this, do that, don’t do this, don’t do that.”
“Quentin…”
“Hush. Just let go. I’ve got you now. I’m giving the orders. You like that, don’t you?”
“I…” I trail off.
“Why don’t you want me to leave?”
“My girls… My girls like you…”
“That’s not why. You’re not lying but that’s not why.”
“I want you. I want how you make me feel.”
“You want this, don’t you? You want to just let go.”
“I don’t know.”
“You have to give yourself to me completely, Rose. You have to be mine.”
He takes his hands from my neck.
“I’m going to do things to you now. I’m going to make you come so much and so hard you’ll forget your own name.”
I whimper and bite my lip.
He touches my chin. “Oh, I like that. I like it when you bite your lip like that. So sexy. Do you think you’re sexy, Rose?”
He moves his hand to my breast and teases my nipple through the fabric.
“No.”
“Why?”
“I’m old,” I confess, “I had kids…”