Bind Me Before You Go (Entangled Brazen) (Serve), page 4
“Tell me you want it,” he said.
“Or what?”
“Or I won’t touch you at all.” He lifted his hands and hovered over her, a show of strength in that he could maintain his balance and contain his desire in that position.
What was holding her back? She didn’t care anymore. Not that she’d met him only tonight. Not that she was ready to claim her desire in a way she’d never before attempted.
What did she want?
She wanted to feel the roughness of his tongue swirl against her center. She wanted an orgasm not by her own hand for a change. And by God, even if just for tonight, she wanted to tell him that was what she wanted.
“Do it,” she hoarsely whispered.
With that declaration, he lowered her zipper and pulled off both her jeans and panties in one fell swoop, before she even had a chance to register what was happening. She was still wearing her tank top and bra but nothing else from the waist down, which for some reason made her feel even more exposed than if she had been lying there completely naked.
God, had she said want? She needed him to put his mouth on her. And now that she’d said yes, it was like she’d formed a channel between them that he could use to sense what she wanted.
He dragged his fingernails up the sensitive skin of her inner thighs while resting his forehead just above her pubic bone. His hot breath came out in spurts against her center. He was like a feral animal just waiting for her to unleash him.
She shivered. She’d never wanted someone so much.
“Make me come with your mouth.” She paused. “I want you to do it.”
He gazed up at her, looking almost relieved over this small surrender. Then he hooked his arms under her thighs and roughly pulled her to the edge of the bed.
She liked that he wasn’t gentle, that his jagged movements expressed his raw, carnal need for her.
He then placed his full lips over her sex, sucked on her folds, and made delicious circles on her clit with the tip of his tongue. She could tell he totally got off on tasting her because he practically growled his excitement, and the vibrations thrummed through her sensitized flesh.
Her hands shook as she fisted his hair to hold him in place and gyrated her hips wildly over his hungry mouth.
“That’s it,” he groaned into her core. “Use me up. Ride my mouth. Make yourself come on my tongue.”
He inserted a couple of his fingers inside her and curved them up to massage her G spot while pulling hard on her clit with his lips—
That did it. In a flash, her orgasm thundered through her. She let out a primal cry of pleasure and released a tightly wound heaviness so constant she’d forgotten it was there.
Now she was weightless. Boneless. Pure light.
Most men she’d been with would’ve stopped the minute they felt her convulse, but David stayed on her. His tongue slowed down its motion at the same pace her orgasm receded, as though he was helping her climb down from that high point. When she had gathered enough of her wits about her, she sat up and reached for the top button of his jeans, only to feel his sharp grasp, blocking her intention.
“What the…”
He immediately brought the palm of her hand up to his lips, trying to lessen the sting—she assumed—of his actions.
“Not this time, babe.”
“But why?”
He regarded her for a beat, but instead of answering her right away, he nabbed an extra throw blanket she had on the end of the bed, unwrapped it, and then draped it over her lower half. She hadn’t realized she’d been cold until he encased her in the blanket’s warmth.
“Thanks,” she said. Her voice sounded like sandpaper, almost hoarse.
He fluffed up some of her pillows on her bed. “Lie back.”
Mindlessly she obeyed his instructions, and he proceeded to tuck her into her bed. This whole time, she realized, he’d remained fully clothed.
He sat on the edge of the bed next to her as she tried to re-anchor herself to the moment, wondering if he was staying or going and how she felt about either scenario.
“You don’t need to go yet,” she blurted out. “I mean, well…I didn’t get a chance to play with you in return.”
He was still sitting next to her. He leaned forward on one arm and brushed aside some stray hairs from her forehead. His gaze grew serious, studying, taking everything of her into him again.
“Don’t worry about me for now,” he said. “You’ve got a decision to make before we can talk about that.”
If she hadn’t been before, she was now fully present in the moment. “What do you mean? What kind of decision?”
His gaze scanned her mouth, the cadence of her breath, the combination of excitement and wariness in her eyes. “I mentioned that I have a specialty. It’s not just something I’m good at. It’s something I prefer. Something I need.” He paused then, as though he was giving her a chance to consider his words.
“Go on,” she said.
He tucked her hair behind her ear, then grazed the curve of her neck and the dip of her collarbone with the tips of his fingers before resting his warm hand on her upper thigh. Such a seemingly simple gesture, and yet now every place he touched her tingled and burned in the most delicious way.
“Tonight was about you and what you want. But moving forward—if you want to move forward—it means we’re agreeing to make this about what we want.”
A nervous but excited energy rushed through her. “So what do you like?”
“I’m a Master in the art of Japanese rope bondage called Shibari. Sometimes I use other tools, especially if there’s something you want to try, but my main thing is ropes. If you decide to become a member at Serve, we can play there. But in the meantime, I have my own setup at home that I prefer to use.”
She blinked a couple of times and then swallowed some air. “Um, okay. But I don’t know what that is or what this means, exactly.”
“It means I’d like to tie you up and use that gorgeous body of yours.”
“Tie me up?” She raised her eyebrows. She’d seen something about rope play on the list of kinks, but they’d moved on before she could ask what it meant. “Is that like domination?”
He smiled. “For some, yes, it’s about domination. But for me? It’s the opposite. It’s about letting go of control. If I do it right, I will know what you want by working your body, learning your signals, and I’ll find a way to make it good for you. Really good for you. That’s what helps me get off.”
She licked her lips. That sounded…amazing. Maybe this was the kind of situation she needed. With her previous lovers, she’d lost herself by focusing so much on what they wanted that she didn’t stop to ask what she wanted. But with David? She could abandon herself to his desires, his fantasies, because the thing he wanted was to find out what she wanted.
“I’ve never done this kind of thing before. Does this mean we’re seeing each other?”
“You mean like dating?”
“Well…yeah.”
“You need to know up front that I’m not the type of man you want to bring home to Mom and Dad someday.”
“Really? You seem all right to me.”
He shook his head. “I’m damaged goods. Trust me on that.”
She smirked. “Okay, but I never said anything about forever. I’m asking if you’re offering something more than a kinky booty call.”
He chuckled. “Did this feel like a booty call?”
Her breath hitched in her throat, and her heartbeat quickened as she remembered how he’d devoured her.
No, it hadn’t felt like a booty call. She’d had those before, an impulsive hookup where her lover took what he needed without either of them stopping to ask what she needed, too.
“It meant something to me, you telling me what you want,” he continued. “I know that’s not easy for you.”
She swallowed and licked her lips. “No, it isn’t.”
He nodded. “Then let’s agree to an arrangement that works for both of us. Give me two weeks.”
“Two weeks?”
“Two weeks of the best sex of your life. Two weeks to help you discover that letting go of your inhibitions is a way to share yourself and your power, not blindly give it up.”
“Why two weeks? That just short enough for neither of us to get attached?”
He shrugged. “It’s also when I leave for my next assignment. That’s all the time I can offer. Whatever happens between us has to be temporary.”
She nodded and looked away from him. “I swore to myself I would look for the real thing when I moved here.”
“Cass. Just because this isn’t permanent doesn’t mean it’s not real.”
His face grew solemn, as if he was carrying a burden greater than himself. That’s when she recognized that underneath all his smoldering sexuality resided a sadness he must rarely allow others to see.
“You’re an amazing woman who deserves to get everything she wants. I can’t give you true love or forever, that’s for sure. But I’m offering more than a casual hookup. For me to get off, I need to be able to know I’m fulfilling your deepest fantasies. That you trust me completely. The relationship is still only a sexual one, but I can promise you more than the flings you may have had before.”
She nodded. “And do you, well…do you have others you play with?”
“No. What we have might be temporary, but for as long as it lasts, it’s exclusive.” His expression softened, and there was a hint of a smile curling at the corners of his luscious mouth. “Think of our time together as a bridge between your old self and the new.” He took her hand into his. “How does that sound?”
She swallowed. It sounded…
Crazy? Exciting? Perfect? Terrifying?
Because what he was offering—the space in between sex and love—felt like a murky place, a slippery slope where she could too easily lose her footing and fall, ending up with something worse than a broken heart. A broken spirit.
He stood up and retrieved a business card from his wallet. He placed it in her hand. “Think about what I proposed. And then call me when you’re ready.”
Chapter Four
Not to sound like an arrogant prick, but David couldn’t even remember the last time he’d given out his card to a woman and she hadn’t called him. At first, he thought she was just playing it old school, making him wait a few days. By the end of the week? He realized the only game she was playing was hide-and-seek, with her doing too fine a job of hiding from him.
If he’d thought she was truly disinterested, he would let it go. But his instincts told him she was not only hiding from him, but also from herself and what she truly wanted.
So he was done waiting. He knew where she lived from when he’d taken her home. He’d go there today and put the decision to her. Did she want to move ahead with this? Then she needed to tell him. It would be a bold move given how hesitant she was to admit what she wanted, but the control would be all hers.
He reached the Upper West Side in record time, but as he parked his motorcycle in front of Cassidy’s building, his phone buzzed in his pocket.
“Hey Ma, how’s it going?”
“Io vivo con una maledizione sopra la mia testa, mio figlio.”
He blew out an exasperated sigh. His Italian-born mother was stereotypical in a lot of ways: beautiful, passionate, quick to anger and quick to forgive. A woman who believed family was everything and that family could take care of their own. Her starting off the conversation by lamenting how curses hung over her head wasn’t a good sign, whether you were superstitious or not.
“What’s wrong, Ma?”
“It’s nothing new. The same old thing, just another day.”
He knew that was a crock. His mother didn’t call him unless something had happened. But he knew, even amongst the family, she had a lot of pride and didn’t like to share anything ugly. He both admired that quality and hated it, because it meant he had to spend that much extra time excavating the truth out of her.
“Ma, I don’t have time to drag this out of you. Just tell me what it is so I can fix it.”
There was silence on the other end, but he waited. He knew her well enough to know she wasn’t being quiet to be cagey. She was working up the nerve to tell him what had happened.
“Your brother is gambling again. Ten thousand is missing out of our account.”
Fire blistered the nerves under his skin. That was how hot and fast his anger rose through him. If his brother wasn’t into gambling, it was drugs. If it wasn’t drugs, it was going missing for days, usually to be found beaten bloody in an alley or with some crack-addicted prostitute.
But David knew his mother didn’t need his anger. She was more on the front lines than he was, and he sure felt in the thick of battle, so he summoned every bit of patience he had in him for her.
“Now, Ma, how did he get ahold of the money in the first place?”
“Non è importante.”
“It is important. Tell me.”
“I gave him my debit card.” She must have sensed his irritation through the line, in spite of him not making a sound, because she said the rest in a mad rush, as though if she spoke at a high enough speed, she could win a race against the rise of her son’s temper. “He said he was going to buy a new suit for a job interview he had. He wanted to look his best, and the suit he had wasn’t right.”
In a voice even he recognized was so calm and low it was eerie, David answered, “And you fell for that?” He hated himself for snapping at her. He knew as much as she did how hard it was to take care of his brother. Where did they draw the line? Did they take away all of his freedom? But the words were out before he could take them back. “Bad enough what we all have to live with, but you letting him pull shit like this makes things harder on all of us.”
“Mi dispiace per i soldi.”
“The money is the least of what I gotta worry about now. Is he still out there? Or is he home?”
“He’s home. He’s resting now.”
At least that was one less thing he had to worry about. David couldn’t recall how many days and nights he’d spent looking for him, in some of the worst pits in the five boroughs. He’d been doing it since he was fifteen, and he’d learned early how to track someone without being seen, how to cultivate informants, information of any kind.
It had set the stage for what he would eventually make his life’s work, but he would have gladly traded it all in for a shot at normal. Too bad that he’d since learned “normal” wasn’t really in the cards for him. Happiness. Love. Commitment. It wasn’t that he didn’t want those things, but it was pretty clear that those things weren’t meant for a man like him, who came from such a fucked-up bloodline.
It never failed when someone got close to him, when they discovered the truth about his family, they all bailed. Even Marla. He’d gotten used to it. At least that was the story he told himself.
The good news was that no matter how badly his brother screwed up, replacing the money really wasn’t a big deal. No one liked losing money, but he was very well compensated for his services, and so was his team.
“Listen, I’ve got to go. Do what I said and go to the bank. Call me when that’s done.”
“Okay, mi figlio. I love you.”
“Yeah, Ma. I love you too.”
He hung up, let out a long breath, and looked at the floor Cassidy lived on. He needed her mouth on his. One deep kiss to drown his frustration in her need.
God help him if she turned him away.
…
Cassidy had been surprised to find Allie home at all when she’d come home from work, because ever since Allie and Leo had spent that one night together, Allie had spent each night going out with her friends.
But Allie had an explanation—and a glass of wine—ready for her.
“It was too good, Cass, if you can believe it,” she said. “It was like this instant connection. So I need some distance from the guy. I have to keep reminding myself it was just sex. Crazy, amazing sex. But still…”
“You don’t have to explain to me,” Cassidy said.
“I knew you’d understand,” Allie said. “Don’t wait up for me. Me and the girls are going to a new club tonight.”
She sat down and sipped on her wine as Allie got together the rest of her things. She ought to ask her friend about this new club, but all she could think about was David.
For the umpteenth time that day, she took out the card he had given her. The cardstock was thick and substantial, with raised calligraphy that said Cavill Security Group. She’d handled it so much that the edges were curled inward, almost as though if she didn’t call the number printed on there soon, it would fold into itself and disappear. The opportunity for something and someone different? Gone. It made the space in the center of her chest feel heavy, and she let out a breath to try to lighten the load.
The phone rang just then—and it was the customized ring assigned to the doorman downstairs. Allie ran back into the living room and grabbed the phone.
“Hello? And a good evening to you, Deacon… Who?” Her eyes widened and then slid off to the side where Cassidy was. “Yes, that’s fine. Send him up.” She placed the phone back on the cradle. “Cassidy? Ca-Sa-DEE?”
“What?”
“Do me a favor and get the door when it rings. Deacon said we’ve got a delivery coming.”
Cassidy’s eyebrows shot up. “Did we order something?”
She beamed back. “In a manner of speaking.”
“What does that mean?”
Allie smirked and waved her off. “You know me. I take my Ambien to sleep, then order shit online and forget about it the next day.”
There was a staccato knock at the door. Cassidy expected Allie to go for the door with the same gusto with which she’d gone for the phone, but Allie crossed her arms and held back.
“Okay…” Cassidy said.
She made her way to the door, and just as she was about to turn the knob, Allie called out, “You can thank me later, by the way!”
Cassidy had a very funny suspicion about where this was going.
She opened the door—
