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“I don’t like you,” she said through tears.
That was softer than hate. She was coming around.
“I don’t like this.” She turned her face away as tears coursed down her cheeks. “You said no more cages.”
“You’ll get used to it. This cage is better than the old one.”
“In what way?” she said, turning back to me.
“It gives both of us more room to stretch out.” I ran my fingers over her breasts, her curving waist, her trembling thighs. She moved her legs away and tried, pitifully, to wipe her tears on the bed. I reached to brush them away with my fingers.
She shrank from me, frowning. “I want to be comforted, but not by you.”
I raised a brow. “Should I call the guys back, then?”
“No,” she said at once. “No, please.” A hint of manners returning. “Who were they? They were rough with me. They spoke Russian or something. I was afraid they were in the mafia.”
“They were only as rough as they had to be to subdue you, per my instructions. And they’re Lithuanian. I’m working with them on a build in Brooklyn.”
“And you just, what, asked them to kidnap me? You’re just including them in our kink?”
“From what I understand, they’re both profoundly kinky people. They didn’t mind.” I pulled her back toward me, holding her with my gaze. “Did they touch you in any way you found uncomfortable?”
“One of them shoved me down in the car.” Her lower lip trembled. “But I guess he was pretty careful with me, for a kidnapper. I was so scared, or I would have realized…” She gave me a sideways, scathing glance. “I should have realized you were behind it.”
I reached to undo the plastic straps holding her to the bed. “To be fair, this is the first seriously terrible and mostly illegal thing I’ve done to you since we’ve been married.”
“Mostly illegal?”
Her half-hearted kick missed me as I released her other wrist. I pinned her back on the bed when she launched herself up at me.
“Don’t be a bad girl,” I warned as she struggled beneath me. “You have nowhere to run, anyway. This cage is real. It locks, and only I have the key.”
“And your henchmen,” she said. “They brought me in here.”
“They left the door open for me.”
She was calmer, perhaps, but no less furious. Well, we had plenty of time for her anger to wear off. It was easy enough to subdue her and hold her down for a kiss. I wrapped my fingers around her throat, squeezing enough to make her comply.
“No biting,” I warned. “Bad girl.”
It was too soon for more punishment, more scening, though when we were ready, this cage was packed to the hilt with every kind of implement. We had plenty of time for more sex and pain. More love. More everything. First anniversary, second, third, tenth, twentieth. I’d never get tired of tormenting her.
“And she is Lust,” I quoted E. E. Cummings with my fingers pressed against the delicate skin of her neck. “Little painted poem of god.” In Cummings’ work, he’d capitalized the word “Lust,” as if he’d known the outsized arousal Chere would someday stir in me.
I could feel her relent in small degrees, loosening for my kisses, my stroking touch. I lowered my body against hers, holding her close. She pressed her head into my shoulder.
“Do you still love me?” I asked. “After all this?”
A moment passed before she answered.
“I’ll love you more if you never kidnap me again. Sir,” she added, looking sideways to take in the cage around us.
“No promises.” I drew her into another lingering kiss, then eased away. “Except that I’ll always love you, and I’ll always take care of you.”
Even though she could escape me now, she didn’t try. Our gazes locked, and that energy, our energy, flowed between us.
“I like the cage,” she finally admitted with a tired smile. “But it’s overkill; you don’t need it.”
