He reached up and slid her legs from his shoulders, ignoring her whimper as he pushed her back just enough so that she could bend her knees and keep her heels on the table. He kept his hands around her ankles, and turned her whimpers into moans as he let his tongue trail from her breasts down along the center line of her stomach. When he got to the edge of white spandex, he took the elastic in his teeth and pulled. He glanced up and found her craning her neck to watch him. He grinned at her, knowing it likely looked feral with her panties in his teeth. But that’s how he felt. Feral. Primal.
Her hips lifted. He let the elastic snap back into place.
“Hey!” she protested. “I was just helping.”
“I don’t need any help.” He popped her heels off the table, grabbed her hips and pulled her up tight against him. He slid his hands up her torso and pulled her up to him, so that her handcuffed wrists came to rest behind his neck.
“I just need to give you something to do with that mouth of yours. Let’s try this.” He took her mouth, already opened in an O of surprise, and buried his tongue deep inside. She latched on to it, probably more as a protective instinct, but almost immediately took hold of it when he went to slide it back out.
So he continued the kiss, changing it whenever she thought to take control. Gentle when she wanted rough, hard and fast when she thought he wanted slow and sweet. Finally she sighed and let him have his way. He continued to kiss her until her arms tightened on his shoulders…and her legs came up to lock around his hips.
He unhooked her ankles and ducked out from beneath the circle of her shackled wrists. She started to say something, but at his warning look only pouted and stuck her tongue out at him instead.
“Watch where you wave that thing.”
She merely flickered it at him, making him laugh even as she scowled.
“What, you aren’t having any fun?”
She merely stared at him. But remained silent.
Then he spied that light in her eyes and caught her around the waist as she went to lie back again, her cuffed wrists resting at the apex of her thighs.
“Oh, no you don’t. No putting on any shows.”
She stuck that tongue out again.
“I warned you,” he said quietly, then popped the button on his jeans and ripped the zipper down. The look on her face was so comically shocked, he had to laugh. “Hasn’t anyone dared you like this before?”
She started to respond, then looked at him. “Permission to speak, master?” she said dryly.
“Permission granted,” he said, as straightfaced as he was able.
She shot him a look, then said, “I’ve played in wilder little scenarios than this.”
“Not what I asked.” He held up his hand. “And I think I knew that about you right from the start.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“You like to push things to the limit. And I would bet money that includes the sensual.”
She snapped a nod of agreement.
He leaned in, gripped her wrists and pulled them to his open fly, pressed her flat palms against the rigid length of him. “But I’ll bet everything else I own that at no time during those adventures was the guy calling the shots. If you’ve ever done anything like this before, I’m as certain as a man can be that you’re the one standing, and they’re the ones with their hands tied to the bedposts.” He curved his hands around hers, then peeled her fingers away as she started to stroke him. “Tell me I’m wrong, Liza.”
She snatched her hands from his and let the key loop slide off the thumb where she’d hooked it. She didn’t ask for help, but maneuvered the key all by herself, all the while maintaining eye contact with him. The cuffs fell to the tile floor with a clang.
She slid back on the table and hopped off the other side, pulling her shirt the rest of the way off her arms and untangling the bra from its folds.
“You didn’t answer me. But then, I guess this is answer enough.”
She spun on him, sparks shooting from her eyes, then bit off whatever she’d been about to say and yanked on her shirt, sans the bra, and began looking for her pants.
He scooped them up, then reached down for her shoes, and snagged them with his free hand. He held them out to her.
“Just like that,” she finally spluttered. “It’s your way or nothing, is that it?”
“I don’t believe I said anything like that.”
She snatched her belongings from him. “You’re on a real power trip, you know? I’m not the one with control issues here.”
He took her elbow, turned her back around. “We can go upstairs right now. Do whatever it is you want to do. You can be in charge.”
“You might think differently when you’re the one in handcuffs.”
“Maybe. I’ve never had the pleasure. Might be the best damn sex of my life. Given your presence, that’s highly likely.”
Her mouth twitched despite her best efforts to keep the scowl on her face. “You can be that nonchalant about letting me shackle you to your own bed?”
“I doubt that anything that happens between the two of us will be classified as nonchalant.”
“You’ll let me do whatever I want?”
“Well, I’m not much for pain. I prefer pleasure. But then I think you know that about me by now.”
He saw her throat work and felt his body leap in response.
She let her pants and heels drop to the floor and stepped closer to him. He took her arms and stopped her. “One thing.”
“Ah. Here come the rules.”
“No rules while you’re in charge.”
“So what is this one thing?”
“Once I let you have it your way, we come back down here and finish what we started.”
A sly smile crossed her face, but not before he saw the flicker of not quite panic, but something close to it in her eyes. Frustration maybe. She covered it well. “You’re thinking you’ll still be able to do something else when I’m done with you?”
“I’m thinking it will be a demonstration of what I’ve been trying to get you to understand all along.”
She tugged free of his grasp. “I don’t need your lessons.”
“Good, because I’m not in the habit of teaching. I had more an exploration in mind.”
“What makes you think I want or need this little exploration of yours? You don’t even know me.”
“You’re right. Sort of.” He closed the distance and tugged her into his arms despite her initial resistance. “You said yourself you were here to find out something new about yourself. If we go upstairs, do things your way, it will be mind-blowing for sure, for both of us. I think we know that much. But will it be anything else for you? Anything new? Different?”
“I’ve never had you before. That will make it different.”
The way she said it—“had you”—made him twitch. Made him wonder why in the hell he was pushing her in this direction, a direction that might leave him hard and alone, when he could have what they both wanted by saying the word and following her to his bed.
He still wasn’t sure. Didn’t know exactly what it was about her that provoked him to keep provoking her. Maybe it was instinct telling him there was something greater to be had here than the two of them just jumping in the sack together and going at each other like wild animals.
Which, when he thought about it like that, made him wonder if he was completely nuts.
“So, this is some kind of selfless lesson on your part. Teach poor Liza how to open herself up to the right man—you, of course—so she can get in touch with her inner submissive self.”
“The only thing I asked you to submit was your resistance to letting someone else—me—be in charge.” He reached out and traced a finger along her rigid jaw, then tucked his fingers into the curls behind her ears and tilted her resisting head back a bit. “Tell me this. Surely you’ve had men push their fingers into you, play with your nipples, suck on them, tease you.” Her pupils widened instantly and he wanted to take her mouth and taste everything he saw there. He swallowed against the need. “But can you honestly tell me it excites you more when you demand your lover do those things to you, than when I made you let me do them to you? When I took away your ability to choose what happened and when?”
He felt her tremble, and damn if the power of it didn’t surge straight to his cock. “What the hell is it you do to me, Liza?” he whispered roughly. “You’re strong. Capable. Independent. All the things I prefer in a woman.” He pinned her to the table, pushed the achingly rigid length of him right between her thighs. “So why does making you tremble excite me like I’ve never been excited before?”
He pushed both hands into her hair, gripped her head. “Maybe I am the one with control issues, because I’ve honestly never felt the need to be in control until you. Maybe this isn’t about just you, but both of us.” He lowered his mouth. “So tell me, do you want to go upstairs and have it out and walk away with nothing new to look back on?” He brushed her lips with his and they both shuddered. “Or do you want to climb back up on this table and let me finish this new adventure we both started?”
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