Carnal Urges

45

23

Declan

I

set her down next to the shower, tell her to stay where I’ve put her, then get a pair of scissors from one of the drawers under the sink. I use them to cut the remains of her shredded shirt from around her wrists and the handcuffs, put the scissors aside and pull off her panties, then turn on the shower.

I strip.

She watches me remove the rest of my clothing with a wild look in her eyes. The pulse in the side of her throat hammers. She looks like she might bolt any second.

But she remains still and silent. Beautiful and bound. My brave hellcat Venus in chains.

My d**k is so hard for her.

She looks at it with wide, greedy eyes. “Thank god.”

“For what?”

“Never mind.”

I pull her against my chest and kiss her, wrapping a hand around her throat and fisting the other in her hair. The shiver of pleasure that runs through her body makes me feel ravenous.

I say, “Here are the rules.”

Her laugh is throaty and scornful. She stops laughing when I slap her bare arse.

“The rules,” I begin again, relishing the small, involuntary moan that slipped from her lips when I spanked her. “Number one: total obedience, or you’ll be punished. And not in the good way.”

Her eyes are machetes. Revving chainsaws. Sharpened swords held aloft with a battle cry. I wouldn’t expect anything less.

“Number two: total honesty. If I ask you if you like something I’m doing, I expect an honest answer. If you don’t like it, if you’re uncomfortable or unsure, tell me. This isn’t about me. It’s about us. It has to work for both of us, or it isn’t a turn-on for me. I don’t want to do anything you don’t like.”

The fury in her eyes cools. It’s replaced with a sweet sort of hesitancy, like she hopes I’m telling the truth but can’t decide if I am or not.

My voice softer, I say, “Number three: total trust.”

She swallows. A panicked look replaces the hesitant one.

“I know that will be the hardest for you. Even more than you hate to be told what to do, you hate being vulnerable. Correct?”

After a moment, she nods.

She looks truly frightened now, the first time I’ve seen this from her. Kidnap her in a blaze of gunfire or tell her there’s a good chance she could die from a brain clot, no big deal. But ask her to open her heart, even for a night, and she reacts like a cornered wolf.

I wrap my arms around her and hold her tight. “It’s the same for me. The exact same. That’s why you have my word I’ll earn that trust and never break it.”

“You can’t promise that. You can’t say ‘never’ and mean it.”

Stroking her hair away from her face, I say, “I can. And I do. But if you can’t trust me, I understand. All this will end now if you want it to.”

I lower my head and kiss her gently. “You’re the one in control here, lass. We’d just be pretending otherwise for a while.”

She searches my face for any sign of dishonesty. “Trust, huh?”

“Aye.”

“And honesty?”

“Aye.”

“Okay. You go first. Do you really think I look like a camel?’

“No. I think you look like Rockefeller Center at Christmas, Japan in cherry blossom season, and the thousand vivid shades of green in the wild moors of Northern Ireland, all rolled into one.”

Her lips part. Her eyes shine. Her throat works as she swallows. Then she says in a choked voice, “Finally, you’re making some sense,” and rises up on her toes to kiss me.

All of who I am meets her in that kiss.

Everything inside me expands at the same time it unravels, leaving me bigger than before, but also more exposed. I’m thousands of acres of unplanted farmland, and she’s the plow that’s upturned me and tilled new seeds into my dusty soil.

My heart and body aching, I lead her into the shower.

Turning her so her back is to the spray, I grab the shampoo bottle and pour a dollop into my hand. “Tilt your head back. Hands on my chest.”

She complies without hesitation, flattening her palms over my chest and closing her eyes as she lets the water run through her hair.

When it’s all wet, I move the showerhead to one side. Then I work the shampoo through her hair, massaging her scalp. She leans into me, sighing.

I bend my head and whisper into her ear, “Good girl.”

She makes a little noise of frustration. I know what she wants.

“You can speak.”

“Thank you. God, I can’t believe I said that. I’m never submissive. This is so weird.”

Watching her face, I move one hand between her legs and slide my soapy fingers through her folds. When she gasps, I say, “So weird you want me to stop?”

“If you do, I’ll kill you.”

“That’s what I thought. Now be quiet. Get out of your head. Just let your body feel this.”

I slide my thumb back and forth over her c**t and kiss her. She shudders and digs her fingernails into my chest. When I pinch her c**t between two fingers, she makes a desperate little noise deep in her throat.

I want so badly to pick her up, pin her against the shower wall, and f**k her. Hard. But I manage to control myself and rinse the shampoo from her hair instead.

When I do finally shove my d**k inside her, I want her so wound up, she’ll come in instant convulsions, screaming my name.

I don’t know how much time I have before she decides this wicked game we’re playing is too much and shuts down completely.