Whatever particular sins she wishes to escape—and to me emotions that control us are sins—she doesn’t just want someone to fuck. She wants that invisible something that she believes I can give her. After two years of trusting no one, she’s chosen to gamble on a man who’s here to expose more than her passion. If she is guilty of murder or blackmail, or both, I’m a master in every sense of the word. If she’s innocent, I’m a bastard in every sense of the word. I kiss her again, and this time there is anger on my tongue, accusation, my own lies, and maybe hers.
And when I pull back, my anger, my own torment over my actions, her trust, her possible sins and mine, have shifted the mood between us. Intensity that wasn’t there moments before pulses between us, a living thing, a band wrapping us, pulling us closer but in a dark, volatile way. Her hands grip my arms, fingers flexing into my skin. Our breathing is ragged, heavy. I scoop her up, aware of how naked she is but for her thigh highs and her high heels, aware she is mine to own now, and mine to destroy if I so please. And she doesn’t know it. There is something powerful and arousing about this idea that I’m pretty sure makes me a sick fuck, and I’m accusing her of being no better, she just doesn’t know it. But I reject the guilt that pierces a tiny part of my black, steel heart for her and her alone. I’ll make being owned feel so good for her.
I carry her to the living room, but I don’t take her to the couch. I take her to the rug in front of the fireplace and lower her to her feet in front of me. She reaches for me, and damn, as much as I crave those hands on my skin, I resist and catch her wrists.
“You touch me when l say you can touch me from this point forward.”
Her eyes flash with defiance. “And if I don’t agree?”
“Then I don’t touch you.” I walk her to me, her elbows bending, arms resting between us. “We both know what you want from me.”
“Which is what?” she demands, a hint of vulnerability in her voice that I find sexy as hell.
“An adrenaline rush. The kind that pushes your limits but comes with a burn for more tomorrow, not with the regret your nerves fear I’ll give you. But your hard limit pushes for just that. It says, all or nothing tonight. It says, go there now or there is no chance to go there later. I won’t go there now just to live up to your hard limit.”
“I didn’t set sexual limits. I set a time limit.”
“If you didn’t have a sexual limit, you wouldn’t have gotten spooked earlier and you wouldn’t have gone untouched for two years.”
“That two years has nothing to do with us tonight.”
“It does to me. You have limits. Someone broke them.”
“I don’t have limits tonight.”
“Except one night. And that creates a limit for me. I won’t take you too far and find out it’s too far, too late, to turn back time. Consider that my new hard limit, added to my promise to make you want more than tonight. Because I do.”
“If you plan to treat me like a delicate flower, this ends now.”
“I don’t do delicate flowers, sweetheart. Cowering females don’t get me off. But you aren’t that, and you do. You get me off, Faith. But submission isn’t weak. It’s fearless. It’s pleasure. But it’s also trust. You have to trust me like I did you with the knife. Trust for trust.”
“That’s why you let me use that knife.”
“I gave you what I give no one. My submission.”
She laughs. “That wasn’t submission.”
“As close as you’ll ever get from me. But that’s not what you want from me anyway, now is it?”
“No,” she whispers. “It isn’t.”
“And I want your trust, but I’m not demanding it. I’m asking you to let me earn it.”
“You’re asking?”
“Yes. I’m asking. Do what I say, but tell me to stop at any time. Just say stop. Or no. Or whatever language you want to use. I’m not the man who’ll tell you no means yes. Understand?”
“I understand that you are not what I expected.”
“Is that good or bad?”
“I haven’t decided.”
“That’s a good answer. Because you shouldn’t, and if you did, you wouldn’t be the woman that has me this fucking hard.” I lean in and brush my lips over hers, licking into her mouth, before I add, “You taste like temptation and I am never tempted.” I inhale. “And you smell like amber and vanilla, not flowers tonight. This suits you better than the flowers.”
She breathes out with those words, her face lowering as if I’ve punched her in the chest. I release her wrist and cup her face. “What was that?”
“You talk too much and ask questions I don’t invite. Fuck me or leave.”
Her tone is defensive, but I’ve observed and pushed enough people in depositions and in the courtroom to know torment when I see it. And I don’t like where torment leads us. I don’t want to be there with her right now. “You’re right. Too many words.” I rotate her and press my hands to her shoulders, stepping into her, lowering my head. “Trust for trust. On your knees, Faith.”
She inhales deeply, but she does as I order, kneeling in front of me, and her spine is straight, her hands on her knees. A submissive position, and more and more, I am curious about her past, her sexual coming of age that she then denied until tonight. I squat behind her, stroking her hair away from her neck, my hand on her naked shoulder, my lips at her ear. “I own your pleasure for the rest of the night.” I brush my lips over her ear lobe. “And we’re going to start by getting you out of your own head.” My lips trail down her neck to her shoulder, where my teeth scrape before my tongue soothes that bite. “A nice guy doesn’t bite.”
“And you’re not a nice guy,” she whispers.
“Nice guys are boring,” I say, caressing down her arm and back up again, my fingers stroking the edge of her breast in both directions, “but you already know that, now don’t you?”
“But safe. They’re safe.”
“Like I said,” I gently tease her nipple, “you didn’t want a nice guy.” I cup her breast and meld it to my palm, two fingers tugging at her nipple. She reaches up to cup my hand, something I’ve noticed she does often, and I lean into her. “You don’t touch me unless I tell you to touch me.”
“I want to touch you, Nick.”
“And I want you to touch me, sweetheart. But not yet. Now, you let me take you where you want to go. Put your hands on the stool.”