So I give her what she’s begging for.
43
KATE
For a moment, I think Cole won’t yield. He must be in charge. He must manage our eternal tightrope of give and take.
I took charge with Tarasov. I laid out his choices. I delivered his punishments, creating every twisted exchange.
I don’t want to be in charge anymore. I don’t want to weigh options, to calculate costs, to measure out all the tiny variations in right and wrong and maybe.
Cole knows that. He knows me. He understands.
So he kisses me. One hand tangles in my damp hair, tilting my head to the perfect angle and pulling me close. The other shifts against my folds, his fingers hooking me, snaring me, making it clear he’ll never let me go.
His lips are soft on mine. For just a moment, his kiss tastes like dread, as if he feared he’d lose me, as if all the blood downstairs and all the anger and terror of my past shattered something impossibly fragile between us.
But when I kiss him back with lips and tongue and teeth, the flavor ripens into something new. He tastes fierce and needy and…proud. He’sproudof who I am, of what I did, of what we did together.
Because Tarasov’s death is something we both accomplished, the two of us. We took on the risk, capturing the bratva brigadier on the playground. We killed his bodyguard. We accepted the risk that Cole’s criminal past will be disclosed. We reduced an unrepentant child rapist to a hunk of rotting meat.
Cole’s teeth close over my lower lip, biting hard enough to make me moan. I can’t explain why I need this. After everything that’s happened to me, all that I’ve endured, I should want a gentle man, a soft man, an easy man.
But I want Cole. I need him.
So when he pulls away, and the faint salt of blood washes over my tongue, I whisper, “My, what sharp teeth you have.”
“The better to eat you with, my dear,” he growls. And then he collects a handful of neckties from the closet.
Cole will make things right. When he binds my wrists in silk, I’m certain he knows how tight to make the knots. When he ties my ankles to the bed, I trust that he’s already calculated the strain on my knees, the stretch of my thighs, the ache of longing he opens up inside me.
He positions himself between my legs, kneeling, studying my secrets like he’s analyzing a painting before he bids at auction. Even after everything we’ve done together, the intensity of his gaze embarrasses me. I try to draw my knees together, but he hasn’t left me room to escape.
Instead, he reaches out to tug at the soft curls of the landing strip I’ve shaved across my mound. He pulls hard, sharp enough to force tears to the corner of my eyes. “This ismine,” he says fiercely, staring at me as if I’d ever dare deny him.
“Yours,” I agree, holding his gaze.
His fingers dip lower, pinching my clit so hard I yelp. “This is mine,” he repeats.
“Yours,” I tell him.
He slides two fingers past my folds, driving hard. When I tilt my hips to give him a better angle, he adds a third finger, then a fourth. He’s filling me, stretching me, pulling me to the tearing edge of pain. “This is mine,” he says savagely.
“Yours,” I tell him, and then, matching the rhythm of his driving hand, “Yours, yours, yours.”
He adds his thumb.
I’m taking his whole fist.
His wrist is wider than any cock. His fingers scrape the needy knot inside me. My legs strain against my bonds, desperate to break free, frantic to pull him even deeper.
I’m riding his hand. We’re locked together. I’m closer, closer, closer... I catch one last breath, holding it, bearing down?—
And he slips his fist free.
As he rocks back on his heels, I wail at the loss because I was teetering on the edge, I was almost there…
“One,” he announces, sounding almost idle.
