“If that’s what you think, then you don’t know me very well.” She forced a grin. “I could cause trouble even if you tied my feet too.”
He cupped her jaw with his warm palm and brushed his lips over her cheek. “Maybe we’ll try that next.”
A couple stopped in front of them. The man dressed in leather pants and a vest gave her a wink; the woman wearing a green and gold corset dress smiled. They twined their arms around each other as if settling in to watch the show.
Lana’s stomach twisted in a knot and she squeezed her eyes shut. Waves of nausea roiled in her stomach. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea. Letting James restrain her when they were alone together was one thing. But this public display, so like what she had endured at the Wolverine clubhouse…
Memories rose like bile in her throat. Hands touching, punching, pinching, squeezing, slapping, stroking. Restrained, alone, there was nothing she could do to stop them. Levi’s cold laughter. Fang’s angry growls. They kept her for the entertainment value as much as for doing the clubhouse chores.
Her lungs constricted, her body prickled with heat and her pulse raced. She tried to open her eyes but icy black claws threaded through her vision. She heard a whimper and realized it was her own.
“Look at me.”
Her head jerked up at James’s sharp command, and she fought back the blackness to look into his steel-blue eyes, calm and safe. And then he said the words that sent the memories away.
“Do you remember your safe word from when we played together that one time before?”
“Thrash,” she whispered.
“Works the same here. Say the word and we stop. In the end, you control this, babe. Nothing happens that you don’t want. Just keep your eyes on me and breathe slow and deep.” He trailed his finger along her jaw and down her throat. Lana took a few deep breaths and the darkness began to recede.
I control this. I can make it stop.
“Better now?” He inched his finger down to the swell of her breasts and lightly caressed her heated skin. Fire replaced the ice in her veins, burning a trail down to her core.
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
James looked over his shoulder and jerked his head at the couple. The man nodded and they walked away. Lana breathed out a sigh and she managed a half smile.
“Ready to play?” he murmured.
Emboldened by the power she’d never had with Levi, she answered quickly, “Yes.”
He slid his hand into the low V of her dress and gently palmed her breast, stroking the soft swell with his thumb. “Your body likes being restrained. I can see it in the flush of your cheeks and I can feel it here.” He ran his thumb over her nipple, already painfully hard.
Lana struggled against the restraints as his touch unleashed a firestorm of desire through her veins.
“Be still.” His sharp tone locked her in place.
Bracing himself with one arm on the post, he leaned closer and pushed down her clothing, releasing her breasts from their restraint. When his lips found her nipple, a zing of sensation flashed straight to Lana’s clit and her hands yanked against the chains.
“Oh God.”
James chuckled. “No, babe. Just me.”
With calm deliberation, he tormented first one nipple and then the other until her breasts swelled, the nipples tight and throbbing. Pressure built inside her, a deep aching need, and she moaned and writhed, straining against the chains, arching her body toward him, desperate for more.
“You have the most amazing breasts,” he murmured as he pulled away.
Lana groaned when he covered her up. “Apparently not amazing enough.”
James smoothed his hand down her stomach, leaving a trail of fire in his wake. He rested his palm over her mound, his fingers barely brushing over where fingers should do more than brush.
Panting, she stared up at him, willing him to touch, to take, to rip off her panties and plunge his fingers inside her aching center.
Instead, he kissed her. His lips crushed hers, claiming her with a passionate intensity that took her breath away. His tongue dove into her mouth, possessive and demanding, and he deepened the kiss until her bones turned liquid and she sagged against the restraints.
“You’re doing well, babe.” The raw sensuality in his voice almost made her come right then. With a light stroking tease of his hand, he reached under her dress, parted her legs and pressed his palm, warm and firm, against the curve of her sex.
Lana’s head snapped back at the delicious heat of his hand over her barely there G-string panties, and a thin whine escaped her lips.
“Keep going, should I?” He gave her a wicked smile and shoved her panties aside, then slicked his finger along her wet folds. Fire swept through her body, incinerating everything in its path.