by Shelly Bell
“You should be. It was unprofessional. But the damage is done. I know now, and had you asked me, I would’ve given you permission to have Mr. Bradford follow the leads. I’ll speak with Reaver about it tomorrow.” Like someone had flipped a switch, affection replaced his icy demeanor. “In the meantime, take your gun with you wherever you go. I’ve got a trial starting tomorrow afternoon, but if you need me for anything, I’ll find a way to get to you.” He rubbed her arm and lowered his head as if he were going to kiss her.
She stepped back. “Thank you.”
Nick inhaled deeply and turned his attention to Jaxon. “I assume your visit to Benediction is postponed to another night?”
Jaxon threw his arm around her shoulders. “Yes, but she’s coming home with me. Once the media connects Hannah to Kate, they’ll be all over her. At least my place is gated. It keeps them from ringing my doorbell.”
Nick’s gaze bounced between her and Jaxon again. “Take care of her, Jaxon.”
He knew.
Chapter Four
A GENTLE SHAKE lured her out of the peaceful cocoon. “Wake up. We’re here.”
She blinked the darkness from her eyes. The lamp over Jaxon’s garage illuminated half of his face, emphasizing the scar bisecting his brow. With deep lines carved around his eyes and lips, he looked fatigued, as though he’d gone without sleep for days.
“I slept the whole way?” As she sloughed off the drowsiness, the events of the last twenty-four hours crashed into her. While her pills worked to stifle her anxiety to a quiet hum, they had no effect on her guilt over Hannah’s stabbing. Yet she couldn’t even manage to shed a tear like a normal person. What kind of a monster did that make her?
“You did.” He unbuckled her belt and reached out as if he were going to touch her, but instead he pivoted and put both hands firmly on the steering wheel. “I called the hospital to check on Hannah. They wouldn’t give out any information over the phone.”
A wave of grief washed over her. “What if she’s dead?”
“It’s out of your hands. You didn’t do this to her, so don’t beat yourself up over it.” He spoke with conviction but averted his gaze.
She couldn’t help feeling him withdraw from her. The words were obviously meant to comfort, but did he really believe them? She wouldn’t blame him because she didn’t. After the police had arrived, he’d grown quiet and solemn. Had she said something to offend him? What if he’d changed his mind about her?
Air. I need air.
With shaky hands, she threw open her door and stepped outside into the stillness of the cold evening. Jaxon came around to her side and put his arm around her waist as if he thought she’d keel over at any second. She wasn’t used to being seen as fragile, and frankly, she didn’t know if she liked it. But she accepted his help, and together they strolled down the path to the front door of his gigantic house. “How can you say it’s not my fault? She was attacked in my apartment. Because someone wanted me dead.”
He stopped walking and turned her to him. “You didn’t ask her to come over, and you certainly couldn’t have known someone would try to kill her.”
“She tried to talk to me at the firm. If I had only—”
“What? Been the one stabbed at the apartment? Forgive me if I’m thankful it wasn’t you.” This time he did touch her, the pads of his fingers skimming her brows and down her cheekbone.
“So you don’t think I should forgive her?”
He took her hand and led her up the steps of the porch. “I didn’t say that. Take it from someone who knows, the person resentment hurts is the one holding the resentment.”
Maybe her pills were making her brain sluggish because she was confused. “So you do think I should forgive her?”
“I think you should forgive her for you. Not for her.” He unlocked the door and switched on the lights as she stepped inside. “But forgiveness doesn’t require you to invite her back into your life, and it certainly doesn’t obligate you to take the blame for the attack. She chose her actions, and she has to accept the consequences for them.”
She touched her neck, but the pain of the bruise had dulled and did nothing to alleviate her stress. “And I chose not to listen to her earlier, which resulted in her coming to my apartment. So my action resulted in the consequence of her attack. I know you want to help alleviate the guilt I feel, but you can’t. I deserve it.”
He tangled both hands into her hair, forcibly tilting up her head. “You didn’t cry.”
The slight pain sent a buzz down her spine, helping to clear her mind. “What?”
“You didn’t cry. At least not that I’ve seen. You didn’t tonight, and you didn’t after finding Hannah and Tom together.”
“I told you. I don’t cry.” She tried to step away, but he refused to loosen his grip, which resulted in another tug of her hair. She stifled a moan. “You didn’t believe me?”
“I thought you were exaggerating.” He pinned her under his pitying gaze. “Why don’t you cry, Kate?”
She shrugged and laid her hands on his chest. “Because tears don’t change anything. All they do is make my eyes puffy, my nose red, and my head pound. What’s the point?”
“It’s a release. Everyone needs to cry now and then.”
“Not me.”
“There’s so much you keep hidden. Doesn’t it ever tire you?”
“Every day.” She didn’t want his pity. Not when there were so many other things she did want from him. “What about you?”
His hands fell to his sides. “Me? I’m an open book.”
“Why’d you stay married to Alyssa? Why didn’t you ask for a divorce?” He clenched his jaw and didn’t speak. She didn’t think he would. “Not an open book after all, are you?”
It was so easy for Jaxon and Nick to play hero to her damsel in distress, but she couldn’t help feeling as if she were playing with fire, and in the end she’d be left burned and alone. “Do you think Nick suspects we’re involved?”
A flash of anger crossed his face. “Would it bother you if he did?”
“No. I think I’d be relieved if he knew the truth. It feels as if there’s a boulder on my chest whenever I see him.”
“But you’re not sure if you want to let him go either,” he said quietly.
She glided her fingers over the banister of the staircase. “I don’t have to let him go. I don’t have him.”
“You’re wrong.” He swerved her around and pressed her back into the banister. “I see how he looks at you. He’s in love with you. It killed him to let you go home with me.”
Her heart thumped a little bit faster, thrown by his dangerous reaction. “But he did. If he loved me, don’t you think he’d fight a little harder?”
He dipped his head, his lips curled. “Is that what I am to you? A red flag to wave under the bull’s nose to get his attention?”
She slid her arms around his waist. “No, I told you. I have real feelings for you.”
His gaze bored into her. “But you don’t trust me.”
Panic edged its way in along with a bit of anger. “I’m here aren’t I? I’ve let you spank me with my brush and fuck me at a sex club. What else do I have to do to prove to you that I trust you?”
“Tell me why you’re afraid of the police and the media. You were fine in court, but you freaked out when the media surrounded you and when the cop questioned you.” He braced her head in his hands. “Tell me why Rachel Dawson saying Katerina sent you spiraling out of control.”
Her eyes burned with tears she couldn’t cry. She was going to lose him. “I want to, Jaxon. You have no idea how much I want to. But I can’t. I’m sorry.”
For a moment he didn’t speak. Didn’t blink. Then he dropped his hands to his sides and stepped back from her. “I’m sorry too.” He started climbing the stairs. “Come on. I’ll show you to your room.”
She sprinted after him and tugged his elbow to get him to stop. “My room? You’re not going to sleep with me?”
/> He peered over his shoulder. “No. You’ve had a shock today, and you need your rest.”
“What I need is you.” She stepped past him, blocking him, and placed both hands on his shoulders.
“Sex won’t make things better.”
He was right. Sex wouldn’t make things better. But it was more than sex with him. And tonight, more than any other night in her life, she wanted the escape making love with him afforded her. Wanted the rush of endorphins that temporarily transported her to heaven. Especially since a girl like her would never get to heaven any other way.
She brushed her fingers over his frown lines on his forehead. “You’re upset with me.”
He let out his breath with a shudder and grabbed her wrists. “Kate, I was married to a woman who kept secrets from me. I don’t think I can go into another relationship with someone who doesn’t trust me enough to be honest with me.”
Her heart skidded to a halt. “I don’t understand. What do you want from me?”
“Everything. Every breath. Every thought. Every smile. Every damned tear.” His eyes darkened. “I won’t share you. Not with Nick. Not with anyone.” He nuzzled her neck. “If another man breathes the same air as you, I want to rip his lungs out. Break his nose so he can’t inhale the sweet perfume of your arousal. Blind him so he won’t see you smile. Burn his hands so he’ll never touch you. I want all of you.”
Her pussy throbbed in time with her pulse, and his possessive words made her nipples bead. But she wasn’t sure she believed him. “You shared Alyssa.”
He smiled bitterly. “No. I couldn’t share what I didn’t have to offer. She refused to give me all of her. She shared herself.”
“And you let her. Didn’t it bother you?”
“Yes. But it was what she needed, and as her Dom, I was responsible for giving it to her.”
She couldn’t help pushing the issue. He wanted honesty? It was going to start with him. “Bull. I may know little about BDSM, but I’ve heard about topping from the bottom, and if there was ever an example, Alyssa was it.”
He released her wrists. “You’re right. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You always talk about what she needed.” She ran her hand down his cheek, scraping across his stubble. “What about your needs? Who took care of you? Who made your fantasies come true? Do you even know what they are?”
He turned his head into her palm and held her hand on his face. “You. It was as if you walked straight out of my dreams and into the police station.”
She inhaled sharply. “Why? Because you found me beautiful?”
“There’s no question you’re every boy’s fantasy with your blond hair and blue eyes. The sweet girl next door who turns into a vixen in the bedroom. But that’s not why. It was the way you refused to interrupt by asking for a chair and the way your eyes lit up when I requested it for you.” He bit into the fleshy pad of her thumb. “You didn’t look at me like I was a man under suspicion of murdering his wife. You looked at me . . . like I was a hero. And for a brief second, I felt like one. Not a man who needed his wife’s money to set him up with a business. Not a man who lived in a house that never felt like a home. Not a man who’d failed to save his wife. You made me believe my life was beginning at a time when it felt like my life was ending. My second chance to do it right.”
A pang of bitterness made her stomach clench. “I’m not Alyssa. I don’t need you to save me.”
“You’re right. You don’t need anyone.” He slid his thumb over her bottom lip, and she fought the urge to suck on it. “That’s what makes your submission such a precious gift. Any Dom with half a brain would kill to have you on your knees before him with your soft, plump lips wrapped around his cock and those blue eyes staring up at him like he was loved, especially when it had been years since any woman had looked at him like that.”
The heat of arousal rushed through her veins, and her body went soft and liquid.
He made her want to embrace her submissiveness and prove how much he deserved it from her. This man gave and gave and gave and asked for so little in return. Alyssa had been a fool, but Kate wouldn’t make the same mistakes.
Tonight, it was his turn to take.
“Let me take care of you tonight, Jax. Whatever you need. Take it. Use me.”
His pupils grew large, darkening his eyes. “You don’t—”
“I’m removing my bondage hard limit. Tie me up.” She placed her hand over his heart and felt its beat accelerate. “I trust you.”
“Are you sure?”
She nodded, her nipples tingling at the thought. “You’d never harm me.”
“Wrap your legs around me,” he ordered, her only warning before he put his hands on her hips and lifted her off the step. She clung to him, and he carried her up the stairs as if she were weightless. With strong, purposeful strides, he brought her to his playroom. He flicked on the lights and dimmed them to a comfortable twilight. Her gaze roamed over the room, once again taking in the normalcy of it. Simple furniture for complex uses. But as she looked at it with different eyes, she realized he had hid the kink in plain sight. The gorgeous armoire he’d hand-carved was used for storing sex toys. The bench could be used for spankings. Of course, the St. Andrew’s cross and examining table weren’t typical items she’d found in a home. Then again, she hadn’t been inside many houses.
He gently lowered her to the floor in the middle of the room, and she waited on her knees as he separated two pieces of the U-shaped couch. For the first time, she saw the multitude of attached D rings. That was no ordinary couch. He kicked the metal feet at the bottom of one of the sections so it slanted at a forty-five-degree angle, and then he did the same to both sides of the other, dropping the cushion to fit flush with the wedge.
She stared at it, wondering how he planned to use it.
“Katerina, tell me your safe word.”
“Gunshot or red to stop. Yellow to slow down.”
“I expect you to use it if you need to. You don’t have anything to prove with me.”
She did. She had to prove to him, to herself, that she trusted him enough to turn over complete control. No escape. No hiding.
The idea of it made her feel as though her heart had grown ten times its size, causing a fiery throbbing from her neck to her pussy. She couldn’t deny part of it was fear, but it was so much more. It was passion and anticipation and excitement and desire.
To give her body was easy. To give a piece of her heart was more difficult. But tonight she was gifting him a part of her soul. He’d wormed his way into it the last time they’d made love, and now she’d hand him a piece to carry within his own.
Intertwined by destiny, loss, and life.
He laced his fingers in hers and pulled her to her feet then eased her back onto the soft couch. “For the first time, I don’t want to overwhelm you too much.” He picked up something from the floor and dangled it in front of her. “Just simple, padded Velcro cuffs. See? Feel them.”
He palmed the back of her head and claimed her lips, running his tongue along the seam and infusing her body with his heat. She invited him inside and greeted his tongue with her own, the tips lightly brushing against one another in introduction, almost as if they were strangers. She already wanted more, craving the erotic mating of thrusting tongues and urgent lips, but like always, Jax controlled the pace, and this time, he preferred it languid and smooth.
The world fell away. In this room, Alyssa and Stephanie, Nick and Hannah didn’t exist. Only they remained. Jax’s firm body against hers, taking possession.
And possess he did.
Who was this girl who was about to allow a man to bind her?
He unbuttoned her suit jacket and peeled it back off her shoulders, leaving her in her white blouse.
“You’re not going to order me to strip?”
“Not this time. This time I want the pleasure.”
He slowly raised her blouse over her head, exposing her pebbled nipples to
the cool air and his sizzling stare. “You didn’t wear a bra? Naughty girl.”
“I don’t need one when I wear a suit.”
He brushed his knuckles across them, swiping back and forth, sending shivers down her abdomen. She waited for him to pinch, but he kept his touch agonizingly light.
His tongue darted out of his mouth and moistened his bottom lip, leaving it glistening. She rose on her tiptoes and nabbed his lip between her teeth and pulled it gently. A rumble erupted from his chest, and she smiled in satisfaction, releasing him. Let’s see if he can hold back now, she thought.
“Trying to top from the bottom, are you?”
“Me? Never.”
He unzipped her skirt, letting it drop to the floor. She stepped out of it, wearing nothing but soaked panties and black heels. He cupped her bottom in his hands and squeezed, his fingers delving between the crack.
Would he take her ass tonight?
Her breath caught in her chest at the thought. A moan escaped her lips, and Jax swallowed it with a kiss. His lips were warm and soft, and she melted into him like chocolate on her tongue. He backed her up until her thighs hit the couch and then hooked his thumbs into her panties, lowering them inch by agonizing inch.
Pressing his nose to her pussy, he inhaled. “So sweet. So mine.” He stood and ground his erection against her mound. “Leave the heels on and lay back.”
Her pulse roared, and she bit the inside of her cheek. Could she do this? She’d listed bondage as a hard limit because she was convinced it was the only way to ensure she’d be able to escape. But she’d quickly grown to trust the fact that he’d honor her safe word, making her bondage limit irrelevant.
So why then did it terrify her?
Chapter Five
FOR YEARS SHE’D fantasized about bondage, picturing red silk sashes encircling her white thighs and stretching her open. Sometimes she dreamed about thick, braided rope crisscrossing her body in intricate patterns and raising her breasts in offering. Other times a man took her from behind as she stood on her tippy toes, her wrists chained to a hook in the ceiling. She’d thought herself depraved and was ashamed of these images that would flash in her mind before she fell asleep at night, when she drifted her fingers down her flat abdomen and underneath the waistband of her panties to rub that sensitive spot.
