Harper smirked. “What kind of consequences?”
“The inevitable kind. Since I doubt you can stay composed.”
Harper groaned. Why did Maya have to say it like that? An ‘or else’ would be far easier to deal with than a challenge; especially one that was phrased as though Maya expected her to fail.
Harper knew why she was doing it, too. Twisting an act of obedience until doing it felt like defiance. But just because Harper saw through her tricks didn’t mean they didn’t work.
She only had herself to blame for this predicament. She had known what she was inviting with that phone call, but it had been far too easy to ignore in the moment. Especially since she hadn’t thought Maya would have planned this level of payback.
When would she learn? Not anytime soon, most likely.
“Do you know why you have the blindfold on?” Maya asked.
Harper stiffened. Maya had sat down behind her, her soft voice right in her ear.
Harper hadn’t even heard her move. She’d appeared as silently as a shadow.
“Because you’re feeling mean?”
“That’s part of it. But it’s also because it’ll make this next step a lot harder.” Maya nipped at her earlobe, and a flare of heat shot through Harper’s body. “Hold out your hands.”
Harper jutted out her chin and kept her arms crossed. An act of defiance that was only allowed for a moment before Maya grabbed her wrists and forced her arms into the requested position.
She barely strained herself. And even though Harper pushed against it, Maya didn’t even tighten her grip. She just moved Harper’s arms out in front of her body, a metallic clinking following as something cold and hard was placed in her hands.
A chain.
“Now listen carefully. Keep it still—”
Harper shook her hands, producing a loud rattling. She stopped when Maya’s fingers went around her throat. Slowly and carefully, her touch not even firm. Not a grip, really. More like a reminder that it could easily turn into one.
“Listen,” Maya whispered. “Keep itstill. Otherwise, I stop.”
“Stop doing what?”
Maya ran her hand from Harper’s throat to her shoulder. Then along her ribs, down her spine, over the side of her hip. Teasing the sensitive skin on the inside of her thigh.
“Touching you. That’s what you want, isn’t it? You were fantasizing about it last night when the thought of me doing whatever I wanted was so hot that you couldn’t help but get yourself off.”
Harper’s grip on the chain tightened. She hadn’t exactly been subtle during that phone call. She wasn’t sure when it hadhappened, but at some point, Maya had flipped the conversation into one she was in charge of. Like she always did.
Harper almost lost herself to it right then. To the idea of letting Maya take charge. To falling apart under the fantasy of this woman losing control and enacting a punishment for all her previous behavior that involved fucking her until her vision turned spotty.
“You want my attention so badly, don’t you?” Maya muttered the words against Harper’s neck. “You’d do anything to get it, including acting out. But you don’t need to. I don’t have eyes for anyone but you.”
This shouldnotbe as effective as it was. It was just touching.Innocenttouching, accompanied by words that were barely dirty talk.
Despite it, Harper’s heart was racing. And Maya’s touch, despite being so light, felt like it left fire in its wake.
It was the blindfold. Her vision being gone heightened everything else. Every sound, every touch, every whispered word.
Yeah. Yeah, that was definitely it.
“Is this all it’s going to be? Justchatting?” Harper asked.
“We’ll stopchattingsoon. But it’s been a while since I’ve seen you like this. I need to reacquaint myself with all your buttons.”
Maya pinched a nipple, and the sudden touch made Harper stiffen.
