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“Where?”

I take his hands and put them on my waist. “Here. Only here until I say otherwise.”

His fingers close around my hips.

I stand up on my toes and pull him down by the back of the neck so my lips can meet his. The kiss is chaste to begin with. Like it’s our first one. Just fluttering lips and breathy sighs.

Then I let my tongue join the party. It darts past his lips and tastes the sweet wine and chocolate from tonight’s dessert course.

I inch closer to deepen it. I gasp when the blunt, heavy length of his cock presses hard against my stomach.

“Look at you,” he whispers, pulling back just enough to stare into my eyes. His green eyes are glowing with a hunger that makes me feel small and cherished all at once. “So shy. So sweet. But I can feel you shaking, can’t I? I can feel how badly you want to be ruined by me.”

“Who said you could talk?” I tease.

His grin flashes as he mimes zipping his lips.

“Oh, no, no, no,” I inform him. I hook my fingers into his belt and pull him with me as I go sit back on the bed with him between my thighs. “Those need to stay open. I have some very detailed plans for them.”

I turn my attention to his lower half. His belt is heavy black leather with a steel buckle. I get my fingers under it and work it loose, then rip it through the loops and throw it into the corner.

Then the button.

Then the zipper, slow. Tkkk-tkkk-tkkk.

Kane exhales through his nose.

“Problem?” I ask.

“No problem.”

“You sure? You sound like you have a problem.”

“I have a rule,” he says. “You gave it to me. I’m just struggling to honor it.”

I hook my thumbs in his waistband and push his pants down over his hips. He steps out of one leg, then the other. I kick the pants aside.

Now he’s standing between my knees in nothing but black boxers. The tattoos run all the way down. His thighs are enormous. There’s a scar on the left one, an old one, puckered and pale.

He’s hard. Obviously, undeniably hard, straining against the fabric.

But it’s his hands I keep looking at. Both of them, fisted at his sides, fingers flexing and releasing. The tendons stand up in his forearms. The muscle in his jaw vibrates.

He wants to move them so badly that he’s sweating.

But he’s staying still.

Because I said to.

“You’re enjoying this,” he accuses.

“Enormously.”

That’s only partly true, though. I’m doing it this way because he suggested it and because he’s right: I need to protect my heart and body. I can’t take everything Kane Makov is offering me yet.

Still, though, there’s that piece of me deep down inside that wants to see all of him unleashed. Not just white knuckles and beads of straining sweat, but the full beast out of his cage.

His erection jumps when I exhale.