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will away the reaction that had stirred the minute she’d shoved him. But there was no stopping it. The slap had been the final switch. “I goaded you. My fault. I’m good.”
“But . . .” At that, her gaze traveled over his face, over the place she’d struck, and then lower. She would see. He couldn’t let her see.
He tried to step around her, but she put a staying hand on his shoulder. He could easily move past her. But the simple touch locked him in place. His body obeying the silent command—stay put. He let his back press into the wall.
The expression on her face morphed from regret to something altogether different when her focus zeroed in on the obvious outline in his jeans. Her forehead wrinkled, and she glanced up at him. “Gib . . .”
He forced a smirk, tried to make it casual. “Just ignore it. Thing’s got a hair trigger around you.”
Her eyes searched his, questions there, then answers. “Because I hit you.”
“Because you’re you, sunshine,” he said, honesty falling out of him. “I’m sorry. Shitty time for my body to decide to do its own thing. I’m not trying to come on to you. Just trying to be here for you. Give me a second and it will go away.”
Lines bracketed her mouth as her gaze traveled over his body again. His cock throbbed now, her eyes on him like gas on the flames he was desperately trying to put out. She kept her hand against his shoulder, her fingers curling into him. Then her nails dug hard into his flesh through his T-shirt.
A sharp kick of arousal went through him. Before he could think to stem his reaction, a breath hissed out of him, and his cock flexed against his zipper. Sam didn’t miss it. Like a predator scenting blood, she was onto him.
She wet her lips, still staring down at his now-painful erection. “Just the pain, Gib? That’s all there is to it?”
His jaw clenched.
When he didn’t answer, she lifted her head, met his eyes. “You know what I love about this place?”
The questions threw him. Everything about this woman threw him. He tried to find his voice. “What?”
Her fingers stroked the spot where she’d gashed him with her nails. “It’s like another world. It’s the place where I can remind myself who I was before life happened. I can just be, without having to worry about any expectations or obligations or prying eyes. This house is falling apart and old, but it’s mine. My memories linger here. My name is carved in the railing outside. This is my happy place. It’s my safe place.”
His throat went tight. She was going to kick him out now. She’d tried over and over, but this time he’d have to listen. He didn’t want to be the one to mess up her safe place.
But she didn’t step away. She moved closer. “And you know what’s magical about this place?”
“What?” His voice was raw against his throat.
She lifted her hand and pressed it over his eyes, encouraging him to close them. Her voice was soft and soothing when she spoke again. “It could be yours, too.”
He tensed.
The hand on his shoulder tracked down, raking nails lightly down his chest over his nipples, his abdomen, and then lower. When her hand closed over his erection through his jeans, he couldn’t stop the groan from escaping. “Sam . . .”
She gripped him firmly, sending lightning up his spine. “You can stay, Gib. But if I let you into this place, you have to leave all that outside stuff on the other side of the door. We’re both safe here. I’ll give up my alone time, my privacy, as I deal with what happened last night. I’ll let you see me the way no one else is ever allowed to. But in return, you have to give me the same.”
Gibson tipped his head back against the wall as she gave him a stroke. His body was completely on board with any plan she wanted to offer right now, but his head wasn’t far gone enough to not hear the alarm bells sounding. “What does that mean?”
“You know what it means,” she said, a siren song in her voice. “While you’re here, you’re mine. There’s no one here to judge you for it, and no one ever has to know. While you’re here, I want what I suspect you’re more than capable of, Gibson. I want your submission.”
The rush of anxiety that went through him braided in with the arousal. He wanted Sam so much it kept him up at night, fantasies of those glittering eyes and wicked smiles as she made him do her bidding. He’d woven fantasies about her that he’d never admit aloud. And she was right. It wasn’t just about the pain. He knew what got him off when he let his fantasies charge off the reservation—the lack of control, the shame, the humiliation. He’d jerked off to stuff that made him feel sick inside afterward.
He didn’t want to be that person in front of anyone, much less Sam. What if there was no coming back from that? He liked how she looked at him. He liked that she saw him as strong and cocky and hardheaded. He’d worked hard to mold that shy, quiet kid who’d have an anxiety attack every time he heard his father drop ice cubes into a lowball glass into the person he was now. He could take Sam giving him pain, enjoy it even. That would only make him look tougher because he never broke. But that wasn’t what she was asking for.
She was asking for it all.
His mouth was dry, his body on fire. “Sam . . .”
She moved her hand away from his face and his cock. Her eyes were serious when he met her gaze. Serious and beguiling. “It’d only be for a week, Gib. I know you want me. This. Every part of you is screaming that right now. And in case you have any doubts, seeing you like this is doing it for me, too. If it’s fucked up that you got hard from me slapping your face, I guess it’s equally fucked up that I’m wet from seeing your reaction, that I wanted to hit you again.”
A breath whooshed out of him. Fuck. She was going to kill him. His hands itched to reach out for her, to feel that slick arousal against his fingers, to be inside her. He kept his hands at his sides.
“I need your trust, Gibson. We’ll have safe words. And at the end of the week or at whatever point you don’t want this anymore, you can walk away and I’ll never speak of it again. But don’t you think it’s time we both scratch this itch?” She pushed up on her toes and brushed her lips against his ear. “Because until then, I’m never going to be able to be friends with you without thinking what it’d be like to make you hurt, to make you come at my command, to make you fucking beg for me.”
