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“Okay,” she whispered softly, reaching up to cup my cheek. “I swear that I won’t let you go.”
“I’ll remind you of that,” I promised grimly, hoping like hell that day would never come.
Chapter Eighteen
Flying Colors
Eden
“I told you you’d pay for that.”
I shivered at the promise in Luke’s voice before twisting my wrists experimentally. The silk necktie he’d wound around them before anchoring the tie to his bed’s headboard wasn’t too tight; if I really wanted to, I could probably work my way free, even if they were placed awkwardly above my head resting on the pillows. Or, barring that, if I demanded to be set free, my “punishment” would probably be over and done with.
I didn’t want it to be.
“I told you that I was sorry.” I kept my eyes on him as he rounded the bed, dressed only in partially undone jeans. He’d worked at removing all my clothes until I was only in my bra and panties, which were so soaked they were increasingly uncomfortable to wear. The sooner he took them off, the better. “I really am sorry. I didn’t mean to tickle you.”
“I hate being tickled. Just fucking hate it.” As he passed by my feet, he slid the backs of his fingers along the bottom of my foot. I gasped out a short giggle. “See? Can’t control that reaction. When I was a kid, I was often babysat by one of my mom’s best friends—to this day, they’re still tight, and she claims me as her surrogate son since she never had any kids herself. Thing is, she’s one of those cheek-pinchers. Hair-rufflers. And yeah, aggressive ticklers.”
Ew. “Was she ever inappropriate?”
“Nah, she’s a cool lady, except for that tickling shit. One day she got me in the armpits and I knocked her silly—didn’t mean to, swear to Christ, but thankfully that put an end to it. I just fucking hate being tickled. What about you?”
“I have no stance on the tickling issue. I could be persuaded either way.”
A low chuckle escaped him as he closed in on the side of the bed. “Very diplomatically put, Ms. Steadfast. I love it when you get all prissy and elegant like that. Makes me want to wreck you in all the best ways.” Still smiling, he caressed a hand, as light as a breath, down my stomach to the line of my panties. As his hand passed, my flesh quivered beneath his touch. “See? You’re ticklish, too.”
“Is that what that is?” I nudged my hips up, just a little, urging his hand to do more. “I thought I just wanted you to touch me. More, Luke. Give me more.”
“Mm.” Again he skimmed his hand over my belly, as light as air, before moving lower, skipping over my panties to caress my thighs in a maddening, unsatisfying feather-light touch. “I don’t know. I think I could do this all night.”
The mere thought of hardly being touched while I couldn’t touch him at all was akin to torture. A growl escaped me, and the frustration pulsing in that sound made his smile widen. “Sadist.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” Still grinning, he leaned over me, his body still—still!—not touching mine as he held his mouth suspended a breath away from my lips. “What are you gonna do about it, genius?”
I arched up as best I could and brushed my chest against his. I cursed under my breath when the barrier of my bra kept him from me. “I have a better question,” I said, trying not to grind my teeth in my growing frustration. No need to give him any more reason to laugh at me. “How are we going to get my bra off with my hands, um… in their current position?”
“You’re not complaining about their current position, are you?” His tongue teased the corner of my mouth before his teeth nipped at my lower lip. “Tell me.”
“I’m not complaining.” When I tried lifting my head to deepen the kiss he deftly dodged me to rain kisses along the side of my neck, frustrating me all the more. “Luke.Please.”
“Ooh. I like the sound of that. You begging me for… what, exactly? Tell me, genius. And be specific, yeah? Because I’ll give you only what you ask for.”
Oh, boy. “I want for you to be naked. I want for me to be naked. I want for us to be naked together.”
“Not a half-bad start. Except there’s a problem. You didn’t ask for anything. You didn’t even say…please.”
A shiver of pure lust rippled through me, and I knew he saw it from the way his covetous gaze slid over my body. “Please, Luke? Will you please allow me to feel all of you with all of me?”
With his eyes never leaving mine, he pushed himself away from the bed and reached for something in the bedside table’s drawer. When he turned back toward me, he was unsheathing a wicked-looking knife with a black handle and a black matte blade.
“Spending years in the military teaches a man to always be ready for any situation. Even having to cut a helpless woman out of her underwear.”
I gaped at him. “You’re going to cut off my bra?”
“I’ll buy you a new one. I’ll buy you a fuck-ton of new ones.” He must have read something in my face, because he leaned a knee on the bed beside me and looked straight down into my face. “Trust me?”
My gaze went from the knife to his face, and there I saw the truth of the moment. This wasn’t a man who would ever hurt me. He wasn’t Leonard Driscoll. Hell, he wasn’t even my father. He was my monster, my Luke, and I had only one truth in my heart as I looked up at him. “I trust you.”
