AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You like it when I’m submissive,” she says, her gaze luring me toward her. The color of her dress casts her eyes in this enchanting glow, a piercing cobalt. “And I love being that for you. It’s oddly liberating. All those weeks without you—clicking the pieces together, clawing my way through the fog—made me realize how capable I am. That was empowering, to be steps ahead of you—the best erasers and identity miners in the world—to coax you to chase me. But you know what I wanted more than that?”
“What?” I ask in a low rasp that has her chest heaving, a tantalizing peek of cleavage teasing me as I tower over her.
“For you to hold it all, to be in charge.” A puff of air falls from her lips as her focus drops to her shoes—or mine right before them. “I may be about to seize a powerful position, but you are the only destination where I don’t have to feelon, Wells. With you, I’m free. Everywhere else is like a shadowy prison, especially now.”
My chest tightens with both pride and concern at that confession. I cradle her chin in my palm, lifting her misty eyes to mine. “Do you want to postpone? I’ll tell them we’re not ready.”
“No.” Her dark, fanning lashes flutter with a subtle headshake. “That’s not what I’m saying.”
She rises off the bed, strokes her fingers over my lapels, and walks away. Pacing. Until she turns on her heel so gracefully that it’s like she’s floating. “I can’t relinquish the execution to you. I know you want to handle it, to take it from me, slaughter them. Gage outlined some terrifyingly graphic methods for consideration. I get it. It’s a tangible way to save me, and I love you for it. But I need to do this my way. For myself … and for my father.”
She saysfatherso tentatively, as though it transports her to another place. There’s something more behind it, but I don’t want to push her when I can sense the fragility.
I already thought I’d lost this battle. Rankling her two hours before the ceremony isn’t worth it. “Okay.”
Relief washes over her petite frame, her shoulders dropping, head lolling back a bit. “I bought something for us.” Her eyebrows waggle with a coyness that has my balls tightening. “Remember that battle we had over you guarding me, when I said you should buy me a leash?”
Fuck me. Where the hell is she going with this?
“At La Lune Noire,” I confirm, shoving my hands in my pockets in an effort to mask my feverish titillation.
“Right.” She struts back toward me, the alluring sashay of her hips making me salivate. The oval mirror hanging above the bed supplies a glorious backside view. “You said that was exactly what I wanted—to be on your leash.”
My head bobs as I attempt to mask my enthusiasm regarding this topic and remain composed. “I remember.”
It’s one of my favorite memories with her, before we became us, because I could tell she felt the same intense, magnetic pull for me that I’d been a slave to for years. And the notion of a fucking collar kept my hand sheathed around my dick several times a day until I finally thrust inside her.
“You were right.” She pins me with an impassioned gaze, heat rocketing up my spine.
Goddamn.My wife’s got me panting like an eager teenage boy without laying a finger on me.
“I don’t know about you,” she continues, voice a sultry warble, “but all I could envision after that was a collar matching my ring.”
Jesus Christ.I should throw her down and fuck her until she feels me in her throat, but I can’t bear to break this enrapturing spell. I have to see where she’s headed.
I hum, hands still stowed in my pockets while rocking on my heels. “Is that so?”
“Mmhmm,” she muses, rounding me before unhooking her purse and sauntering into the bathroom. “It was weird,” she callsout, “the hold it had on me. The image of … I mean, I’ve read about collars in books. Never a leash, but …”
“Ivanna,” I growl, cock full-mast and patience nonexistent.
She spins, looming in the doorway, a diamond-and-sapphire-studded collar adorning her delicate neck. “Do you like it?”
“Jesus, fuck, Little Storm.” I scratch my chin, fully entranced by the way her dainty throat bobs below the gems. “So gorgeous,” I murmur before I regain myself and plant my prowling ogle on her face. “I need to fuck you—now—before we land.”
She laughs, a sexy, under-the-breath simper tugging at her luscious rose-painted lips, which should already be wrapped around my cock. “That’s the plan.”
She shimmies past me toward the bed, whirling around with a flare of her gown, and holds up a finger. “But there’s one thing I need, Chief.” Her hand rises to the jeweled collar as a haze coasts over her features. “I’m hoping it will help me stay present. Sometimes, textures ground me.” Those blue beauties snap up to me, imploring. “And it’s a link to you, so that might … I don’t know if you’ve noticed because I’m not sure if it’s worse or not, but I’ve been slipping away.” Her lower lip quivers. “KORT, they’ll see it as a weakness, so if I start to …”
Fuck, baby.
I rush toward her, snaking my arm around her waist and cupping her chin even though her focus is somewhere beyond me. “I’ve got you. Look at me, Ivanna.” I wait until she obeys with a timid bat of her lashes. “I’ve always got you. But nothing about you is weak. Those men were blown away by your genius, so there’s nothing to prove. You’ve been through so much. We just buried your father, Ives. Cut yourself a break.”
“I don’t need a break,” she whispers. “I need you. To feel the weight of this around my neck tonight and know that even when you’re across the room, you’re holding me. You’ll carry me through—”
I press my mouth to hers, tender nips at her bottom lip,unhurried, savoring. When I tilt my head to deepen it, she opens for me, her inviting whimper licking into me with the velvety stroke of her tongue against mine. It’s wholly dissimilar from our typical frantic passion. This is a promise. A promise I’ve made before, but one I’ll continue to make until my dying breath. She’ll always come first.
She severs our connection, her fingers skimming her swollen lips, like the first time we kissed at our wedding. “I also have a leash, for good measure.” Her eyes crinkle with a mischievous smile as she opens her fist, revealing a balled-up leash. “Fuck me, Chief. I need your cum leaking out of me—a reminder of who owns me.”
