Blush(30)

Knee on the bed, he leaned over her, then splayed his open hand on her slender throat. Her skin, warm, silky-smooth, and fragrant with the scent of sun-drenched tuberoses, filled his brain and shot directly to his already erect dick.

The faint throb of her pulse beneath his thumb was tempting as hell.

It would be so easy to kill her now, and fucking well be done with it.

Too bad strangulation wasn’t his thing.

• • •

Eyes closed, Mia tried to remain motionless, but she couldn’t prevent the shiver, a tiny heated flicker of reaction to his touch. Cruz’s fingers felt cool on her skin, but that wasn’t why she trembled as if chilled. She’d been aroused, anticipating, waiting for what felt like hours for him to come to her bed.

When she’d heard him come into the house, she waited for him to come upstairs. Just knowing he was in the house aroused her. Breathless, she’d anticipated the creak of the top step.

When that sound hadn’t come, she’d fallen back to sleep. Waking to find his hand at her throat, the sheet covering her pulled taut by the knee he’d placed by her hip as he loomed over, didn’t scare her. Although, with some weirdo trying to kill her in San Francisco, it probably should. But that life seemed far away and insubstantial, when everything about Cruz was in Technicolor and so alive even her hair follicles tuned in to him.

Without turning her head, she whispered, “Are you going to strangle me, or make love to me?”

“ ‘Autoerotic asphyxia’ not on your to-do list?” Voice low and husky, he nudged up her chin with his thumb while circling her throat with his fingers. A shudder went through her. His breath felt warm against her temple. He smelled of fresh air, virile male, and soap.

The threat of unnamed danger hung in the air like a seductive fog. At his words, a faint smidge of alarm seeped in. Mia’s mouth went dry. “Not on any list I’ve ever made, and I’m pretty positive I’d rather not.”

When she rolled over to face him, his hand stayed against her throat. He looked large looming over her, watching her, dressed like a burglar all in black.

Even though she could clearly see his features in the white glow of moonlight flooding the bed, a frisson of fear shot through her. His eyes glinted like those of a nocturnal animal spotting its prey, and those eyes were focused on her.

“Definitely not,” she told him firmly.

“The carotid arteries—here and here—carry oxygen-rich blood to your brain.”

That oxygen-rich blood surged pleasurably through her veins, as he exerted a little more pressure to the rapid pulse lying just beneath her skin. She prickled all over as he said, low, his voice thick and suggestive, “When they’re compressed—like this. . . .” His fingers pressed a little harder than was comfortable, and her heartbeat kicked up several uncomfortable notches. “The sudden lack of oxygen to the brain, and the accumulation of carbon monoxide increases feelings of pleasure. . . .”

Mia wrapped her fingers around his wrist and tried to push his hand away. “Don’t. I can’t focus when I imagine I’m going to be strangled to death.”

“Strangled to intense climax.”

Her fingers tightened. She dug her short nails into his skin. Hard. “My safe word is Fucking get your hands off my throat, Barcelona.” She used the low voice Amelia Wellington-Wentworth had perfected for boardroom business. The Don’t fuck with me, or I’ll fuck you over voice.

He lifted his hand.

“My cousin died playing that game. It freaks me out.” She could’ve had a cousin who played the game. It certainly freaked her out.

“How about this?” His obsidian eyes gleamed as he snapped one mink-lined handcuff around her right wrist and, before she could react, the other around her left wrist. Then attached both to a swirl in the wrought-iron headboard. “Better?”

Better was relative at this point. Where the hell had those come from? She was pretty sure not from his back pocket, since the black pants molded so closely to the curve of his ass. He was like a magician whipping out the cuffs. She hadn’t seen that coming. Beneath the silky mink, the cuff felt hard and locked with a very final metallic clink.

Mia licked her dry lips. “I’ve never tried them, but I’m game.” She had a pair just like them in her underwear drawer in her closet. She’d bought them online weeks ago, not having any idea when, if ever, she’d use them, but the titillation of thinking about using them had been fun.

Number twenty-three on her list.

Had he been going through her underwear? While that should have alarmed her, instead it confirmed that Cruz wasn’t as immune to her as he liked to pretend. Perhaps he was thinking about her all the time, just like she was thinking about him.