Page 134 of Unleashed
I chase his mouth. He doesn't let me reach it.
"Ace."
"Shh."
He holds me at arm's length with my wrists still pinned and stares at me with his chest heaving. There’s blood on his lip from where I bit him. Scratch marks disappearing under his shirt. The bandana hangs loose around his neck. He looks wrecked. The frenzy drains out of the air. He releases my wrists and steps back. Just one step. Just enough that the night air hits my skin where his body was, and the loss of contact makes me gasp.
"Don't move," he says.
I don't.
He reaches for the rope, lifts it from where he dropped it in the sand, and shakes it out. His eyes never leave mine.
"Hands," he says.
I hold them out, trying to be steady. The trembling gives me away, but I don't care. I want him to see what he does to me. I want him to see every single thing.
He steps forward and takes my wrists in one hand. Almost tender. The switch is dizzying. Thirty seconds ago, his teeth were in my skin. Now his thumb is stroking the inside of my wrist, tracing the vein, feeling my pulse hammer against his touch.
"Color," he says.
Even now. Even with the bitemarks throbbing on my neck and the scratches burning on his chest. Even with those pitch-black eyes and the rope in his hand. He checks. He always checks. Because underneath everything. He's the safest place I've ever been.
"Green," I breathe. "So fucking green."
The rope comes up. Rough fibers dragging across the inside of my wrist. A loop settling around both hands as he guides them together. Tight enough that when I pull against it, the friction sends a current straight between my legs.
He ties the knot with one hand. He doesn't even look at it. His eyes stay on the side of my face, reading every breath, every micro-expression, every beat of the pulse he can see jumping in my throat.
"Too tight?" he murmurs.
I test the give. Pull once. Twice. There's enough room to move. Enough restriction that the choice has been taken out of my hands. And something about that. About surrendering control to the one person I trust with everything I have. About standing in the desert in the dark with my wrists bound and his body against mine.
Something about that makes me feel freer than I've ever felt.
"Just right," I whisper.
"Look at the mess you made of me," he murmurs. He takes my bound hands and presses them against his stomach. I feel the raised lines where my nails dragged through his skin.
"You're proud of that, aren't you?" he says.
"Yes."
He leans in and bites the curve of my ear.
"Fucking perfect," he says.
He walks me backward until my shoulders hit the sandy bank, and I'm pinned between the earth and him. His body blocks out the sky. All I can see is the width of his shoulders, the rise and fall of his chest, the blood still glistening on his lip where I broke the skin.
He plants one hand on the bank beside my head. Leans in. Close enough that his lips brush mine when he speaks.
"Now," he says. "Where were we?"
CHAPTER FORTY
Ace
"You were about to fuck me, Ace," she says. Almost sweetly.
