Page 44 of Roped

“’Cause before you were a princess named Peyton Turner, you were my Princess. With a mole on the side of your waist,” he whispers, and I gasp. I gasp harder when he takes his hand off the tree and grabs my waist, his thumb somehow digging into the very spot where my mole is without even looking, as if he has it memorized. “Right here.”

“It’s not a mole,” I blurt out, as if that’s the most important thing right now.

“No?”

“It’s a birthmark.”

“A birthmark.”

I blush at his almost indulgent tone. “I, uh, don’t really like it very much.”

He hums, pressing his fingers in. “And I really do.”

“Oh.”

“Very fuckin’ much.”

“It’s strange-looking,” I insist, ducking my head because it does looks like a dark blotch I wish I could erase.

“Don’t know about strange, but it does look like somethin’.”

I jerk my eyes up. “What?”

“Somethin’ I wanna put my mouth on.” He pauses to lick his lips, catching his tongue on his scar. “And suck.”

“You want…”

He moves his hand then, slides it over to my back, just above my ass. “And these.”

I arch into his touch. “Th-these?”

“Two pretty dimples above your pert little ass.”

I swallow, unable to say anything at all.

“Thought about puttin’ my mouth on those too.” My eyes flare while his glitter. And his hand moves again to press on another spot on my belly. “And this”—to emphasize, he pushes his thumb in, making me almost moan—“your swipe of a belly button, all tight and tiny. Somethin’ else to put my mouth on, to taste. Somethin’ else to lick with my tongue, bite with my teeth.”

“B-bite?”

His mouth tips in that lopsided smile of his and my belly melts. “Bite.”

I swallow thickly. “Not like… not like how I bit you, though. Right?”

His smile only widens and a light flashes in his eyes. “No, darlin’. Not like that.”

I blush again, or maybe I’ve been blushing all this time, and at his tone, which makes me feel so much younger than I am, I blush harder. Either way, my cheeks burn as he continues, “That was war. When I put my mouth on you, I’ll make magic with my tongue and make you see stars with my teeth.”

“Radisson—”

“And the list of places on your tight little body I wanna taste and bite and suck on is pretty fuckin’ long. So let’s just say you’ll be seein’ galaxies by the time I’m done with you.”

“You have a list?”

“Fuck, yeah, I’ve got a list.”

“What’s on it?”

“What do you think’s on it?”