Her honesty alone would have made him test those bonds, but now her eyes slid over him, reflecting. He could feel her power building again. He steeled himself to immobility, but it was difficult, because that rope of power didn’t slide only over his chest or throat this time, as he’d anticipated. It crisscrossed his chest, then slid down straight over his groin and underneath him, so when it cinched in, he tensed, feeling the pressure between his balls, against his cock.
She crossed her arms under the magnificent breasts and leaned in to study her work. He was going to take a healthy bite out of her if she got too close, but she stayed just out of reach. “You’re right,” she said. “You could get free. Most men might soldier through pain to arms, legs, torso, kidneys. But if you threaten to mangle that one vital part…” Her lashes lifted. “I expect you could figure out a spell to free yourself, but that will take time and thought, and I intend to keep you distracted.”
He could splinter the chair, but he knew she was counting on him respecting her property. That wasn’t a reasonable expectation. He could replace her damn chair for her. “You’re not playing very fair,” he said.
“I’m playing within the boundaries of the rules. Well”—she lifted a shoulder—“as much as you are. You threw that last hand, so I assumed you were giving me permission to completely bind you.” Her gaze shuttered, as if she wasn’t comfortable examining why that was. She knew he wasn’t the type to voluntarily lose unless bigger stakes were involved. “Are you uncomfortable, being at my mercy?”
“I think we both know me being at your mercy isn’t the way it’s going to play out.”
That flicker in her gaze again, but she said nothing. It didn’t matter. It would play out a different way, no matter how much she tried to direct it, because at a certain point, instinct would take over for calculation. She’d asked if she could bind him, whereas, if their positions were reversed, he would have ordered it. When it came to her underlying nature and his own, neither of them was going to be denied. There was one predator and one prey in this room, and that prey had an undeniable craving to be run down and captured. He could smell it on her, as strong as an animal in heat, even stronger than her succubus scent. But she was an alpha in her own world, so she wasn’t going to go down until he’d earned it.
Rising from the chair, she shifted the table out of the way. She began to take off the clothes she’d won back, all the way to the stockings. Then she moved toward his chair.
Placing her foot between his spread thighs, she rolled off one sheer garment, then shifted to do the same with the other. He watched the movement of her breasts, pressing against her lifted thigh, the glimpse of her sex from the spread position. She unclipped her hair, so it draped over her shoulders, sliding along his thigh. Naked, she straightened, trailed her fingers down his chest, creating patterns with her knuckles, seemingly immersed in the way it looked, her fingers against his skin. The fiery flame of the restraints played lovingly over her knuckles, recognizing their mistress.
Men weren’t into the savoring when it came to sex. But watching a woman do it, truly enjoy his body when he couldn’t touch her, was mesmerizing. She moved to his shoulder, followed his biceps, bent and tasted him there, her fangs pricking his skin.
“Raina.” The one word was demand, desire…reverence with a dangerous edge, a desire to pillage the temple as much as worship in it. He had that dichotomy, and when she registered it, as she did now, she trembled, a little quiver over her skin.
She moved behind him, threaded her fingers through his hair, tugged at his scalp. “Did you ever wear it longer than this?”
“No. Too easy for an enemy to grip it.”
“Always the warrior.” Then she yanked, pulling his head back and trailing her nails over his jugular, leaving scratches along the pumping artery. When she bent to touch her mouth to the skin beneath his ear, his fingers dug into the chair, his muscles rippling against those bindings so he felt the burn of their hold. Despite being solid wood, well made, the chair creaked. He could destroy it if he allowed the power building within his chest to expand. He could blow out the walls of this room with it. He roped it down, a binding within Raina’s bindings, and let out a feral growl as she ran those nails down his chest, tugged his hair there, then scraped his abdomen. Her breasts pressed into his back, and he inhaled her scent. That blue-green-gold field of power was expanding from her as well, that aural mist enclosing them in this moment that belonged only to them.
Then he muttered an oath as she opened his jeans all the way. Straightening to take her hands down his back, she slid her hands fully into them, taking a hard grip on his buttocks, squeezing.
“Goddess, I love your ass,” she murmured against his shoulder blade. “Lift up some. The bindings will allow it for a second.”
He did, and just as she’d indicated, he had the slack for only the amount of time she needed to shove the denim and the cotton boxers out from under him. Coming back in front of him, she bent and removed them. Because the bindings were magical, the cloth passed right through them. Well, mostly. He noted the smoking burns on the fabric and she shrugged, giving him a teasing look as she dropped them to the side.
Turning, she curled her hair behind an ear and held it there as she bent over the table and considered the music choices on his player. It positioned her bare ass directly in his field of vision, right in between his knees. “Where’s that paddle?” he muttered. He’d leave bad girl in big bold relief on those quivering cheeks and then kiss away every welt.
She tilted her head so he saw a glimpse of her profile, her coy smile. Then she made her music choice. “You Look So Fine” by Garbage, a gritty song about raw love, with a sultry beat and provocative lyrics.
Turning to face him once more, she came within the span of his knees, the heat of her body so close. He might be the one tied, but he made sure his gaze was a Master’s heated appraisal of what belonged to him, and when he got to her thighs, he had to clamp down on that power surge through his muscles again. Honey trickled from the sweet flesh of her labia. Slowly, she pivoted and then folded forward, so now her cunt, glistening with that dew, brought a scent that tested his control further. His growl was back, a lethal sound of need.
She let out a purr of approval, the lioness teasing her mate, and came back up just as slow. Straddling one thigh, she rubbed her sex against him, working her hips in a circular dance, then turned to shimmy in front of him, her breasts so close to his face he made a snap at them, but she undulated back, an impressive dip of movement, particularly when she pivoted on her heel and brought her ass back against his fully aroused cock, treating him to a lap dance so thorough he fought not to come. She stroked, rubbed, teased, and then, when he was a breath away from saying the hell with it and turning the chair to kindling, she turned once more to face him. Her exotic eyes fastened on his face, she sank to her knees, her hair brushing over his cock, teasing his balls, his inner thighs.
She dipped her finger in the pre-cum on the head, used it to lubricate her cleavage, and then cupped those large, perfect breasts around his shaft. Working him between them, she reminded him vividly of what it had been like to be inside her. Bending her head, she swiped him with her tongue, tasting more of that viscous fluid gathered on the head.
“Raina.” He’d had enough, and it was in his voice, in every rigid muscle. Her head lifted, her gaze meeting his. Something became very still between them, him staring down at her between his knees, her looking up. She moistened her lips, and he felt that shift, hungered for what it meant. Her endgame had dovetailed into his, and now he had a feeling, whether intended or not, that was how it was meant to be. He’d never wanted to possess anything the way he wanted to own her.
Her expression, poised between animal hunger and a woman’s need, showed her desire for his dominance. She wanted him to prove he could master her, no matter how many bindings she put upon him. It just inflamed him further.
“Take me deep. Stretch those fuckable lips of yours.”
A feral light flickered in her gaze, lip curling back from those sharp canines as they unsheathed, became fangs. Though mature succubi didn’t drink blood, their dormant fangs became visible when they became agitated…or highly aroused. When she bent her head, he closed his eyes as her mouth sealed over him, sliding down, down, down. She took his full length, something a courtesan would know how to do, but this was more than that. Her grip on the base of his cock flexed with convulsive movements, an emotional reaction, a quivering. He wanted to touch her, hold her, but this moment was key. Mastery wasn’t about restraints; it was a tango of two minds, a power exchange. Between two minds like theirs, it had the complexity of a game of chess. He thought of the demon who’d enslaved her, and he wanted to kill the bastard. To win this woman’s willing submission…it was one of the most valuable treasures in the heavens, the Underworld, or anywhere in between, and should have been cherished as such.
He sucked in a breath as she scored him with her fangs, and he felt her smile against his cock, the fiendish, sexy bitch. The heat of the bindings was lessening as she focused more of her attention on him and her own desire. Though it took some effort with that devil-blessed mouth working his cock, he began to counter with his own magic, an inexorable push against her bindings that loosened them, and then made them let go, absorbed by his energy such that the color changed to bronze and black flame.