“Sorry,” she offered again, lifting her lips to his chin, his neck. “Garrett, I really am—”
“No.” The mix of the beast’s voice and her plea was a double whammy on his dwindling restraint. He moved his hand into her hair and yanked her head to one side. As he sank his teeth again to her neck, he slid his hand to her other breast. “No,” he repeated in a seductive snarl, “I don’t think you really are.” Her peak came alive under his squeezing fingers. Her sharp gasp was exactly the reaction he sought. He could feel her hammering pulse through his questing tongue. “But if we were anywhere else, I’d make sure you were truly sorry.”
A deep swallow undulated down her throat. “You…you would?”
“Damn straight.”
Her head tipped deeper to the side, sending her hot, panting breaths into his shoulder. She nipped at the skin there and dipped her head, as if trying to determine how to crawl inside him. “How?”
Her question shot lighter fluid into his cock. It had been four hundred forty-five days since he’d last been inside her—not that he was counting. He let out a harsh breath as his BVDs chafed with a familiar wetness. Hello, precome.
“I’d have this jumpsuit down past your knees.” Acting on at least part of that fantasy, he unzipped the jumpsuit farther. Her body had warmed the inside of it, forming a perfect welcome for his wind-chilled hands. She let loose a gorgeous sigh as he swept his grip around, cupping her ass with voracious force. “Then this bra would be gone too. You’d be naked for me. Exposed. At my mercy.”
He felt her thighs tremble. She scored his spine with her nails. “But I still wouldn’t be sorry.”
“No,” he said, “you probably wouldn’t be.”
As he gripped her tighter, fitting the apex of her body against the center of his, he angled his gaze to lock into hers. Damn it, here came the animal again. It charged the disintegrating cage of his control, completely taking over his next words.
“That’s why I’d have to get you over my knees.”
Sage’s lips parted. Her eyes glimmered like a tigress in heat. Feral. Magical. Thoroughly aroused. “Oh,” she murmured. “Over your—”
“Knees.” He nodded as she shivered again. Though he hated the animal, he adored the creature it set free in her. He was transfixed by the new softness in her face, living there right beside her wildcat. He was helpless against her sensuality, drowning in it. “Yeah, that’s what I said. Over my knees. With your head against my calf, and your ass high and proud…waiting for me.”
“W-Waiting?”
“Yes.” He curled his fingers deeper against her ass, scraping the flesh inside her cheeks with his nails. “What do you think it would be waiting for, Sage?”
She closed her eyes for a second. When she opened them again, the sun kissed her tawny lashes and highlighted her deep arousal. Holy hell, she was gorgeous, wildness and tenderness together, a creature all but begging for his claim. Garrett had never remembered her so beautiful, and the realization that he’d caused it was better than ten shots of Patrón.
She was even more mesmerizing as she answered his query. “Your punishment,” she whispered. “It…it would be waiting for your punishment.”
“Damn right, sugar. It would be waiting for my punishment. For me to spank it hard, as many times as I wanted.”
He ground his bulging ridge along her crotch, letting her feel what this forbidden fantasy was doing to him.
Her head fell back against the tree as he pressed close, her heartbeat slamming at the base of her throat. “Garrett. Oh, hell!”
“Uh-uh,” he commanded. “None of that, Sage. No words during your punishment. You’d take every blow in silence, to ensure me that you were thinking about how insane you’d made me today. When I got out of the shower, and you weren’t there…” The memory of his terror twisted with the fever of his lust, making him thrust against her harder. “Fuck, Sage!”
“I am sorry.” A couple of tears tangled on her cheek. “I never thought you’d be—”
“Hush.” He slammed his mouth to hers again, reddening it like he craved to darken her ass. With his gaze planted on her face, he ordered, “Give me your hands.”
She frowned, clearly confused. “What?”
“Your hands.” He gave it harder emphasis. “Off my back, against the tree, over your head. Now.” After Sage complied, he pulled one of his hands off her ass and raised it to her wrists, pinning them together under his grip. “I’d bind you like this too, Sage. Yeah, definitely. You’d be helpless, the same way I felt this morning, not knowing where you’d gone, not knowing who you’d gone with.”
For the first time, the tigress in her struck out. “And if I’d told you, would you have let me go?”
“Damn it,” he snarled. “It’s my responsibility to—”
“Protect me. I know. Though from what, I don’t know. But protection is different than house arrest, Sergeant Hawk—”
She interrupted herself with her own high, aching cry. It exploded from her as he widened his stance in order to mash their bodies with more ferocious force. Oh, damn. Her yelp… He instantly craved to hear it again. He hated himself for the admission, but it resonated as deep as his fucking DNA. He’d never wanted to go balls-out fighting with a woman at the same time he had balls in other places too. This… Fuck, this was as new for him.
That’s not quite the truth, is it, Hawk?
He raged at the reminder note, courtesy of his past. At the same time, he couldn’t ignore the truth that was in front of him, very much in his present. There was no denying the effect of this new thing, whatever it was, on both of them. Sage was an image of writhing, breathtaking beauty as she started to match his thrusts, her eyes closed, her lips gasping, her body trembling. His anger from this morning stirred with this week’s nonstop apprehension and flipped his desire for her into pure need. It wasn’t just his body that told him to conquer her now. It was his mind, his heart. He craved her surrender in every way he could get it.
The comprehension spurred his retort, flung with no apology. “‘House arrest?’ That’s the line you’re going with, huh? Seems you really do want me to paint your ass red.”
Sage chuffed, matching him snark for snark. “It’s your punishment fantasy, baby.”
Again, he battled the simultaneous urges to spank her and screw her.
The former wasn’t happening here, but they were doing a damn fine job of dress rehearsing the latter.
“Well, maybe I’m not fantasy-punishing your ass good enough.” He crushed her even tighter against the tree, shaking the thing so hard that a flurry of pine needles scattered on them. “You’re still spitting that sass at me worse than a thirteen-year-old on restriction. Maybe that means you’ve got to have the punishment fucked directly into you.”
He didn’t give her a second to try interpreting that. Instead, he showed her exactly what he meant—with his body. As he rammed more forcefully against her, he freed his other hand from her jumpsuit and grabbed her leg. Inside a second, he forced her thigh around his waist. His other arm remained raised, his hand still a shackle to her wrists, leaving her upper body open for his gaze and his lips. He took advantage of that opportunity, taking her collarbone, sternum, and neck with his open, wet mouth. Every shiver she gave him in return was a gift better than gold. No matter what, he didn’t stop rocking against her, pseudo-fucking her into the high gasp she finally erupted at him.
“Y-Yes! Oh…yes, Garrett. Maybe that is what I need…”
He intensified the pace. The friction of their clothes was an agonizing, erotic surrogate for the bond their bodies couldn’t have. “Tell me again,” he commanded. “Call me ‘Sir’ this time.”