by Sabrina York
“Holt—”
“Or this?” He kissed her. Slowly. Softly. A light drag of his lips over hers. Maybe a hint of tongue. She tipped up her chin and followed him when he retreated. “Just say the word, Bella. Just say the word and I will never do any of that again. But know this.” He held her steady, so she couldn’t look away. “I want you. I’ve wanted you for years. I want you like I’ve never wanted another woman.”
Her lips parted as though she would refute this claim. He did not give her the chance.
“I would do anything for a chance to be with you. In whatever way you see fit. Do you understand?”
She swallowed. Nodded.
“Do you feel the same? Would you like to explore—whatever this is—with me?”
He waited, on bated breath, for her answer.
He hoped she said yes.
Bella stared at Holt, her pulse thudding a manic tattoo.
She got it. She totally got it. She totally understood why a woman would curl up at his feet and give him anything. Offer him everything.
A part of her rebelled at the concept of being a slave to any man, but a greater part of her, a hungrier part of her, craved it. It whipped through her like a howling wind.
Hunger—no, more than that—yearning for this man.
Did she want to explore this insanity, this burning, roiling, festering ache—an ache she’d carried with her for far too long? Yes. Hell yes.
But the word caught in her throat. So she merely nodded.
Heat skirled through his eyes. A little of the tension eased from his expression. But his lips firmed. “Say it, Bella. I need to hear it.”
“Yes, Holt.”
Before she’d finished, before the last consonant of his name escaped, he yanked her into his arms, hard against him. His mouth covered hers and he consumed her with a needy kiss.
When he raised his head, they were both breathless. Lust sizzled through her veins. Her nipples were taut, her pussy dripping. Why she had bothered to get dressed was a mystery.
He pressed a quick buss on her forehead. Then a longer one, murmuring something to himself as he made his way along her hairline. It sounded like, “Excellent.”
She thought he was going to strip her then, whip off her shirt and toss her onto the bed. He looked like he wanted to. His cock certainly looked like he wanted to. But he didn’t. He stepped back and tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear.
“Let’s have some breakfast,” he said.
She gaped. “B-breakfast?”
He grinned. “Trust me, Bella. We’re going to need our strength.”
He made pancakes from the gluten-free mix in the pantry and fried up bacon while she cleaned up the mess on the patio. The whiskey bottle had leaked all over the deck and her cigarettes were a soggy mess so she got a trash bag and threw it all away. Then she made the coffee while he finished up the food. They didn’t speak, but for once, the energy between them wasn’t awkward in the slightest.
Bella found herself stealing glances at him while he cooked, but who could blame her? While he’d pulled on his jeans, he hadn’t bothered with a shirt. And with every move he made, his biceps rippled beneath velvety nut-brown skin.
She loved that he was so tall and muscular. He made her feel like a petite doll. She rarely felt petite.
Normally she would never eat a whole pancake, but his were so good, she had two. And the bacon was to die for. She ate all her slices and then, to his gentle ribbing, stole some of his.
She’d worry about her diet tomorrow.
When he finished eating, he slid his plate away, cupped his mug and looked at her across the table. Though they sat apart, that broad width between them, their feet had tangled throughout the meal. Bare feet tangling, she decided, was very sexy.
“So we should talk,” he said.
“Okay.” She took one more bite of pancake and set down her fork. “About what?”
He tipped his head to the side and traced the lip of his cup. “Limits.”
“L-limits?”
“I think it’s important. Don’t you?”
She gulped. “I suppose.”
“Let’s start with the basics.”
“O-okay.” Hell. She’d never had a sex negotiation before.
“For example, I don’t do men.”
“I do.” It was supposed to be a joke, to lighten her tension, maybe, but he didn’t laugh.
He simply fixed her with a steady gaze and asked: “Do you do women?”
She choked on her breath. “I…ah…no.”
“Multiple partners?”
“Definitely no.”
“Good. Me either.” He reached across the table and covered her hand with his. “When I’m with a woman, she is my only focus. My whole world.” His voice cracked a little on the word.
“I…ah… Yeah. Me too.”
“So what kinds of things won’t you do?”
She shook her head. “I don’t really know what we’re talking about here, Holt.”
He nodded. “Okay. When I smacked your ass. Did you like that?”
Heat scorched her. She turned away. His hold on her tightened. “Look at me please, Bella. It helps if I can see your expression.” She complied. “Did you like when I smacked your ass?”
“Y-yes.” A whisper.
“Okay. Good. That’s probably something I’ll do again.”
“P-probably?” She burbled the word.
He grinned, revealing that he had, in fact, been teasing.
Oh, not about smacking her ass again. Sometime. In the near future. No. He hadn’t been teasing about that.
“I’d really like to give you a paddling…” He shifted restlessly. But then, so did she. “I’d also like to tie you up, but before you said something about that. Have you ever been tied up, Bella?”
Jesus. He looked so sincere. Spoke those words in such a fucking normal tone. As though he had conversations like this over pancakes and bacon all the time.
The thought pissed her off.
She was so pissed off, she forgot to control her reaction to his question.
His eyes narrowed. “You have. Haven’t you?”
“Yes.” A mutter. It had been a dismal experiment with an even more dismal partner.
“You didn’t like it?”
“No.” She’d hated it. The loss of control, the creeping fear. The panic when he wouldn’t untie her. She snorted and tried to make a joke of that miserable memory. “I had rope burns for a week.”
He stilled. “Rope burns?” A low snarl. “Why would you have rope burns?”
She opened her mouth. Closed it again. God. She didn’t want to relive this. Not with him.
“Why, Bella?”
“You know. From struggling to get free.”
His voice, when he spoke, was a slithery snake. “Why would you need to struggle to get free?” Ooh. This Holt scared her a little. She scooted her chair back. Just a bit.
“He wouldn’t…”
“He wouldn’t untie you? Did you ask?”
God yes. Begged. Until her throat was raw. She nodded. Nibbled her lip.
“Fucker,” he growled. Bella jumped when his palm slammed on the table. Her gaze snapped to Holt’s face. She winced at what she saw there. Rage.
She cowered a little when he stood in a rush and came around the table. He was so big. So strong. And she felt so vulnerable right now. But he hunkered down at her feet and took her hand and kissed it gently. Reverently.
“I will never, ever, ever, never, ever do that to you. Do you understand?”
“Umm hmm.” She was speechless. Because all that fury, all that rage, was on her behalf. No one had ever smacked a table for her before.
“If we ever do that, it will only be because you want to and you expressly ask for it. And by all that is holy, the moment you say ‘untie me, Holt’ you are fucking free. Do you understand?”
“Umm hmm.”
He looked up at her and tried to smile, but she could
still see anger simmering behind his eyes. He sat in the seat next to her, but didn’t let go of her. “I mean it, Bella. It’s a partnership. We’re in this together. Anytime you want me to stop what I am doing, no matter what it is… If I’m fucking you and a breath away from coming and you don’t like something, you say your safe word and that’s it. It stops.”
“My…safe word?”
He blinked. “You do know what a safe word is?”
She blew out a breath. “I read. Of course I know what a safe word is. I just…well, I don’t have one. Hell, I don’t even know how to pick one.”
“It’s easy.” He stroked her palm with his thumb. “Some people go with ‘red light’, because red means stop. Some people pick a word they might normally use, but would never say during sex. Like…bacon.” He shot her a playful grin.
“No.” She tapped her lips. “I might say that during sex.”
His chuckle warmed the room. “Okay then. What would you never say during sex?”
She snorted.
“What?”
“Oh, it’s…God. The one word I would never ever say during sex?”
“Yeah?”
“Kristi.”
He gaped at her, then threw back his head and laughed. “Yeah, that would kill the mood I guess.”
She frowned at him. She’d forgotten. He had a thing for her sister. “It would kill the mood for me. Might spur you on.” She didn’t mean to say it quite like that, with so much bitterness. But she did.
He noticed. His lips tightened. “It would not spur me on.”
“Tell me you don’t have a crush on her.”
“I don’t.”
“Everyone has a crush on her.”
“I don’t.”
“I saw the way you looked at her the last time we were all here. I saw—”
“I fucking don’t. Get this through your thick, stubborn head, Bella. I’ve never had a thing for Kristi. Not the way I—” He broke off. A red tide rose on his cheeks.
He would have leapt to his feet—escaped, perhaps, but she held tight to his hand. “Not the way you what?”
He blew out a breath. Scrubbed his face with a palm. “We’ve covered this Bella.” He met her wary gaze. “You’re the one I want.”
“Right now. You know. ‘Cause I’m here and all.”
“You’re the one I want.”
Something, maybe the waver in his tone, convinced her. At least for now. She was the one he wanted. For now. She would take what she could get.
“Okay then. Kristi it is.”
He blinked. “What?”
Her lips curved in a sly smile. “My safe word. Is Kristi. And if it spurs you on, I’ll kill you.”
Chapter Seven
Once their negotiations were finished, Holt suggested—with the waggle of his brow—that they hop into the hot tub before they began. Since Bella wanted to take a quick shower first, she asked him to dig her bathing suit out of her suitcase, which she shouldn’t have done.
Because she’d forgotten.
She’d stopped by the supplier on the way to the island and the samples were tucked in her bag.
Yeah.
Dildos and floggers and the dreaded nipple clamps.
She stepped out of the bathroom to find him sitting on the living room floor with toys strewn all around him like a kid at Christmas.
“Oh, hell.” Heat crawled up her cheeks as she watched him finger a leather collar with metal studs. “Give me that.” She snatched it from him. She did not understand the glint in his eye. “What?” she snapped.
“You know, when a sub takes a collar from her Master, it has a special meaning.”
She tried to glower, but his grin was too engaging. “I am not taking a collar from you—”
“Yeah, I think you just did—” He winked.
“And you are not my Master.” Yet.
He arched a brow. They had agreed to one trial session. With her as the meek little sub. She didn’t hold out hope she could make it through without bursting into manic laughter. Or punching him in the gut.
He’d offered to take it slow, but she’d dredged up her courage and told him not to hold back. If she was going to try this, she should try it all the way. Shouldn’t she?
Only now she wasn’t so sure…
He held up a package. “This looks interesting.”
“What is it?” She leaned closer. She hadn’t paid any attention to the new items her distributor had foisted upon her. She was planning to go through all that stuff on Monday.
“An egg.”
“An egg?”
He waggled his brow. “With variable controls. And a remote.”
Ooh. She didn’t like his expression.
Or maybe she did.
“And this…” He picked up a leather flogger with knots tied along the multiple tails. He glanced at her. “Probably too much to start with.”
She gulped. “St-start with?”
“This one is better.” A slender wand with a flap on the end. The flap had a little heart cutout.
“Cute.”
His expression was wicked. “Maybe we should put off the hot tub until later. What do you say to a game of 8-Ball?”
This change of topic surprised her. She blinked at him. “You want to play pool?”
“Did I say pool, little slave?”
“I’m not your slave.”
“I think I said 8-Ball.”
“I’m not your slave.”
He ignored her, making a pile of items and tossing the rest back into her suitcase, which he zipped closed. She was delighted—beyond words—to see the collar and the leather restraints go back in the bag. He did, however, leave an evil-looking halter out. And the egg. And the flogger. He came to his feet and took her hand. “What do you say? Are you game for…a game?”
She pursed her lips. Oh, sure. It had been one thing talking about this over the dining room table. It was another thing entirely now. Three feet away from that table. “No.”
He tipped his head to the side and studied her. “No is not your safe word. No doesn’t stop anything. You understand that?”
She swallowed the lump in her throat. Nodded.
“So if I don’t hear that very special word…I’m going to assume you’re just being a brat—”
“I’m not a brat.”
“A brat who wants more punishment.”
God, he was so sexy, standing there like that, staring at her. Like that. The sensuality simmering in his eyes. The scratchy scruff on his chin. Those full lips…
Excitement lashed her.
She was good at being a brat. She kind of liked that he was encouraging it.
And the thought of punishment… Why did that make her nipples tighten? Dampness pool between her thighs?
Oh, she knew why.
What really turned her on was the fact that he knew too.
“So we’re agreed? We both understand the rule?”
“The r-rule?”
“No safe word, no stopping?”
Something caught in her throat. She swallowed heavily. Nodded.
“I need to hear you say it, Bella.”
“Yes, Holt. Only my safe word really means no.”
He squeezed her fingers. “Okay. Let’s go downstairs.”
“Down-downstairs?”
“Umm hmm. Pool table’s downstairs.”
“You said you didn’t want to play pool.”
He narrowed his gaze on her. “Are you talking back?”
The way he said it. That harsh tone… It sent a sizzle through her womb. “N-no.”
“Call me Sir, if you please, Bella.”
“S-sir?” Why was she stuttering?
“Indulge me.” He waited, studying her as she worked up the courage.
It took a while.
“S-sir.” A whisper.
Only a whisper, but the change in him was dramatic. His expression went firm and stern. His beautiful lips pulled down into a frown. “Well, darl
ing? What are you waiting for?” She turned to head for the basement, but he stopped her. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
“Hmm?”
He waved at the toys on the floor. She gulped. “You want me to carry them?”
His grin was wolfish.
The basement, the rec room, took on a new light somehow as Bella made her way down the stairs carrying the implements of her impending torture. For some reason, the thought of that impending torture didn’t scare her in the least. It should. But it didn’t. She trusted Holt to keep his word and stop if she said the magic word.
Still, her pulse fluttered as she stepped off the last stair into the darkened room. It could have been a dungeon. There were sofas and chairs strewn around the large screen television, but a large pool table dominated the room. Balls were neatly racked at one end.
“Go ahead. Put those things on the table,” he said. And then he stood and watched as she did just that, diligently arranging each item next to the racked balls. She hated that she trembled. “Nice. Good girl.”
He seemed taller in the shadows. More menacing, perhaps. Definitely hotter than he’d ever looked before. It was probably the scorching hunger in his eyes.
