“But...” he prompted, his tongue laving her belly button before his teeth gently nipped at the skin around it.
“But I do,” she confessed. “I need so much more, Chase.”
Chloe knew what would happen next. He’d rise up above her, she’d wrap her arms and legs around him, and he’d take her the way she so desperately needed to be taken.
Instead, she watched as he moved from the bed and opened a dresser drawer. He pulled out four of the most beautiful pieces of fabric she’d ever seen.
“I’ve been saving these for you,” he told her as he moved back toward her. “I was hoping you would be able to use them for your quilts.”
She reached out to stroke the fabric. “Chase.” Her eyes filled with tears. Gathering these fabrics for her was the nicest thing anyone had ever done. “I don’t know what to say.” But she did. “Thank y—”
He smiled down at her and pressed a kiss to her lips before she could finish. “You can thank me later, after I’ve made you scream with even more pleasure,” he teased. He dragged the edge of one of the soft fabrics across her br**sts. “Who knew this fabric would be so handy tonight?”
She felt her breath go in a rush. They’d come into the bedroom for him to tie her up, but she’d needed him too much to remember her goal.
“You’re going to tie me up with them?”
Giving her one of his beautifully sinful grins, he nodded. “And you’re going to have to be a good girl and not pull too hard on them when you’re coming for me so that you don’t ruin them.”
Seeing her obvious look of distress, he bent down to kiss her again. “I’m just teasing you, sweetheart. Yank as hard as you want. Come as hard as you need to. I’ll find you more beautiful fabric.”
She was so focused on what he was saying in his low, sexy voice, she was hardly aware when he lifted one arm and began to wrap the fabric around her wrist. But then she did notice, and she instinctively tensed.
He slowed his movements, more stroking the skin at the inside of her wrist than continuing to tie her up, and she relaxed into his touch. Trying to take her mind off her fears, she said, “Tell me more about how hard you’re going to make me come.”
She liked the way he sounded surprised by his laughter. “Are you sure you can handle knowing?” Her right wrist was attached by the fabric to the bedpost by the time he finished asking the question.
Oh God, she wasn’t sure about anything right now. Only that she needed to press forward with this, no matter what. She wouldn’t let her true sexuality be stolen from her for one more night. Not one more goddamned night. This was who she was, who she’d been made to be, and Chase would never hurt her.
Only love her.
It would have been easier just to close her eyes as Chase worked from her wrists to her ankles, but she didn’t want to let herself hide from any part of this. That’s why, instead of waiting for him to lift her other arm up, she made herself put it into place for him.
She was rewarded with his smile, followed by his swift intake of breath as she purposefully shifted her hips against his erection when he moved to tie up her other hand.
“Thank God I’m tying you up, or I might just embarrass myself,” he said in a low voice.
She couldn’t believe he had her laughing when every single one of her panic buttons should have been pressed instead by the position he had her in.
“Give a tug on the fabric for me.”
Even without her legs being bound, he’d tied her wrists securely enough to the bedposts that she couldn’t get away or protect herself if she needed to.
She waited for the panic to take her over, knew it had to be coming. Any second now it would swamp her and she would be begging him to untie her, to let her go back to safety, back to a place where she wasn’t forcing herself to face down every goddamned fear.
But as the seconds ticked down, all she felt was the warmth of Chase’s gentle caresses to her hip, to her waist, to her face. And all she knew was that he was looking at her as if she was the only person in the world who mattered.
And that was when she realized something she should have realized long before now: Chase was just as afraid as she was.
He was afraid that she wouldn’t ever let herself love him back.
She would have reached for him if she could have, if her arms weren’t bound above her head. “I’m scared, Chase.”
He didn’t hesitate even a single second before beginning to untie her.
“No,” she said through a throat that felt dry and raw. “Not because of the knots in the fabric.”
His hands stilled on her wrist. “Chloe, sweetheart, you don’t have to do this.”
She felt a sob rise up from her chest. “Believe me,” she said, “I’ve tried not to.”
She closed her eyes, but even with that sense gone, Chase was everywhere, his scent, the sound of his breathing, his warmth against her bare skin.
“Love.”
She’d whispered the word against his neck once before. She hadn’t been able to keep it inside, not when so much pleasure had been turning her inside out. It had been there on her lips, a silent vow to the man from whom she’d been unable to stay away.
She waited for him to ask her to actually say it, braced herself for it.
But Chase had never played by the rules and instead of making her admit her feelings for him, especially when she was bound before him and he had the clear upper hand, she was startled by a shifting of weight on the mattress and the warm caress of hands on her legs, down her thighs to her knee, massaging her calf muscle before finally reaching her ankle.
Her eyes flew open in shock. Here she’d been on the verge of confessing her love to him and he was simply continuing to tie her up.
But, oh, wasn’t it just the most lovely sensation, feeling him spread her thighs apart wider, watching him bend over to press a hot kiss to the needy flesh between her thighs right before he moved his concentration back to the fabric around her ankle.
“I love the way you taste,” he said almost as if in passing, and when his tongue licked over her again in a sinful assault on her every sense, she would have come off the bed if she hadn’t been tied to it.
“So lovely,” he murmured against her slick heat. “Always so responsive for me.”
She moved her free leg to open herself to him even more.
“Only one limb left,” he said softly and she was just on the verge of processing what he was saying, the fact that she was almost entirely bound, when his tongue speared inside of her.