“Yes.”

  The honest answer surprised me so much, all I could do was blink. He took advantage of the silence.

  “That’s exactly what I want. And more. I want to tie you to my bed and fuck you until you scream my name. I want to bite your clit and eat you so hard, you come on my face.”

  Desire stirred inside me, unwelcome but slithering and twisting through me nonetheless.

  “I do want to fuck your mouth, Emery. And your sweet pussy. And your ass. I want you to beg me to let you come until your throat is so raw the words are trapped inside you. And you want to know what I want after that…?”

  I couldn’t speak, because if I did, I was afraid I would beg him for everything he’d just said.

  He reached between us and squeezed my hand. His cock was like steel beneath my palm. “After that, I want to do it all over again.”

  A whimper escaped me, and I forced my lips closed.

  His voice grew deep, lower. “Emery, do you know how much I want you?”

  I didn’t answer, instead shook my head in the smallest of movements.

  He dipped his head, his mouth just a few inches from my ear. “Give me permission to touch you, and I’ll show you exactly how much.”

  I found my voice. “Why? Why do you need permission? Aren’t you the kind of man who just takes what you want?”

  His nostrils flared. “No,” he barked, his hands moving to my biceps, giving me a little shake, “not when it comes to this.”

  I watched his face, saw the pain flicker and disappear in his eyes. I reached up and ran a thumb over his forehead, smoothing out the frown lines that had appeared. Without my hand between us, his erection pushed into my belly, hard and throbbing.

  “Rhett…”

  His thumbs began to stroke my skin again. “Yes.”

  I swallowed, praying the words I needed to say would come. “I’m not ready to let you touch me right now. If you did, I don’t think I could ask you to stop.”

  Disappointment flared through him, through me, and he took a step back, honoring my decision. Blowing out a deep breath, he raked all ten fingers through his hair before pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes.

  Trust bloomed inside me, and I took a step in his direction.

  “Rhett…”

  He dropped his hands, his eyes flickering when he noticed how close I’d come to him. “What do you want, Emery?”

  I took a deep, cleansing breath.

  “For now,” I said, my voice tentative in spite of myself, “could we start with me just touching you first?”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Rhett

  Holy. Fucking. Shit.

  From the moment I walked into my gym to find this little mite of a girl punching and kicking the bag with all of her strength, I’d wanted nothing more than to hold her. When she collapsed against it, sobbing her heart out into the leather, I couldn’t hold back anymore. I’d gone to her, her tears breaking my heart instead of pissing me off. Making me even more curious about her.

  Hers was a silent agony. Very much like my own.

  I felt a kinship to her I’d never felt with anyone before.

  And now…

  Now she wanted to touch me? She asked the question so tentatively, so softly, I wasn’t sure what to make of it. She’d kissed me with the sweetest passion, her fingers holding onto me so tightly it was like she was afraid she’d float away if she didn’t have me to anchor her.

  The taste of her lips and tears were still on my tongue, and I needed more of her, but the thought of not touching her in return might drive me crazy. The salt on her skin from her workout was something I knew I’d always crave. But she wanted to touch me, and I didn’t have her permission for anything else.

  As badly as I wanted to throw her on my bed and lose myself in her body until we could no longer move, I found myself also wanting to give her what she wanted. What she seemed to need.

  That was new.

  It wasn’t new that I always wanted to please a woman, but that pleasure seldom transitioned to anything outside of the bedroom. Usually occurring only inside a club or a hotel room, occasionally her place. It had been more than fifteen years since I’d invited a woman into my home, other than socially. And I normally kept women at arm’s length at work.

  The exception to that rule was Katrina Delaney, my PR exec. I liked and trusted her, and also liked that she was completely in love with Todd Morris, my catcher. She was also the daughter of a longtime friend, putting her further off-limits. That meant I could control myself — my urges — around her.

  I didn’t want to control my urges around Emery.

  I didn’t know if I had the willpower to try.

  Emery shifted from one foot to the other, and I realized I was taking too long to answer. Her anxiety squeezed at my already hard cock, then tightened my balls when she bit her bottom lip. She was so incredibly sexy, and I bet she didn’t even know it.

  “Touch me, Emery. You have my permission, but let me care for your hands first.”

  She looked down at her knuckles again, almost as if she’d forgotten the wounds. She nodded, and I reached around her to open the drawer containing some first aid supplies. Using a pair of small scissors, I snipped the tape off, revealing the swollen joints underneath. The skin had broken in only a few places, and the bleeding had already stopped.

  “Turn around.”

  She did as I said, facing the sink and the mirror, our eyes meeting as I stepped up behind her, pressing my front to her back. Reaching around her, I turned on the water, waiting until the temperature was warm. Squirting soap into my hands, I made a lather and washed her hands, taking my time and being careful around the tender wounds.

  She shifted her head, and I looked up in time to catch her doing a subtle pit sniff. She groaned when she saw me catch her, a pretty blush reddening her skin.

  “Just making sure I’m not assaulting your nostrils,” she admitted with a small laugh, and I liked that she didn’t try to deny or avoid what I’d seen.

  “I like the way you smell.” I did. Even after her hard workout, there was a scent about her that was very pleasing. Lowering my head, I nuzzled her neck. “What is the scent?”

  She shivered, gooseflesh crawling up her arms. “I make my own lotions, actually. It’s the same recipe my mother used.” She met my eyes. “Shea butter, almond and coconut oils, with drops of jasmine essential oils. Jasmine was my mother’s favorite flower.”

  I continued to wash her hands, the gesture oddly intimate. “Was?”

  Sadness clouded her features, but only for a moment before she forced it away. “She died when I was born.”

  “The mother always dies,” I murmured, and her eyes grew wide, her fingers gripping mine, the soap the only barrier between our skin.

  “Yes.” The sound was as soft as the air around us. “They do. I’ve never understood why.”

  My own mother’s face flashed in front of me. The smiling face. The crying face. The angry face. I never knew which face would appear.

  Emery squeezed my hands. “Is your mother gone too?”

  I closed my eyes as my mother’s final face haunted me again. Red and puffy above the noose surrounding her neck. I’d found her like that and remembered the roiling feelings that had assaulted me in those first moments. Horror. Relief. Sadness. Relief. Guilt. Guilt. Guilt.

  “Yes. I was a teenager when she passed.”

  I knew the question that would come next and braced myself for it. “And your father?”

  I hadn’t braced hard enough because the word punched me in the balls, the gut, the throat, shoving an ice pick into the brain of my emotions. This conversation needed to stop, and instead of answering, I moved her hands under the running water, washing the dirt and blood away.

  Finished, I grabbed two towels and handed her one, using the other on mine.

  “Let me see.”

  She raised her hands for my inspection, and I grabbed some ointment and band aids for the two minor cuts.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  I didn’t look at her. “For what?”

  “For mentioning your parents.”

  My teeth squeaked as I clenched my jaw. “Not a subject I like to revisit.”

  She lifted a hand and cupped my cheek, her thumb rubbing the skin under my eye, the gesture soothing. “I’m sorry.”

  I turned my face to kiss her palm. “I’m sorry about your mother’s loss too.”

  She lifted her other hand until she was holding my face in both hands. “Do I still have permission to touch you?” she asked, her eyes appearing even greener under the lights.

  “Yes.”

  She licked her lips. “Can we go to your bed?”

  I grinned. “Um, hell yes.”

  She laughed, and the tension between us fell away, the sorrow transitioning into something deeper. “I’m not saying we’re going to do anything there,” she warned. “You just look so tense, I thought I might be able to help you.”

  Thoughts of her hands wrapped around my cock, her tongue stroking my length made me groan. “I can think of many ways in which you could help me de-stress.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You have seven other women who would fight each other to the death to do that. Probably a million others outside this house.”

  “Does that bother you?”

  She lifted her chin and dropped her hands away from my face. “I don’t know, honestly. I know it shouldn’t, but I’ve never played a game like this before. I’ve never had to fight to win a man’s attention in this way.”

  I thought about what Dillon said about her being the girlfriend to one man — a gay man — for many years. Dillon thought she’d served as the man’s cover, but I thought there had to be more than that. What if he was bisexual, and Emery shared her boyfriend with other men? Did she participate with them? Enjoy watching her boyfriend fuck and be fucked in such a way?

  I slammed my mind shut on that train of thought, not wanting to imagine her with even one man let alone two. She seemed so innocent in so many ways, I found it difficult to make the image fit.

  It was on the tip of my tongue to mention her past relationship, but I didn’t want to go down that conversational path either. The man had died, and whatever their relationship was, whatever they were to each other… I didn’t think I wanted to know.

  Knowing she deserved complete honesty, I said, “I’ve never played a game like this before either, Emery. I don’t know what to expect from day to day. I don’t know who I’ll be paired with. I don’t know what will happen when I am. I agreed to do this show for personal reasons, but not because I in any way thought I’d leave with a girlfriend on my arm.”

  She nodded. “You mentioned that earlier, and I appreciated the honesty. Juliette said—”

  I frowned. “Juliette?”

  She smiled. “The makeup assistant. We were rooming together at the guesthouse and became friends.”

  I remembered the blonde. “Right. I saw the two of you leaving together.”

  “Yes.” Her affection for her friend was clear in her eyes. “Well, she reminded me that what you’re doing on this show is what people do in the real world except this is compressed into a much smaller space of time. She said that people tried each other on to see if they could find one that fit.” She lifted a shoulder. “So I can’t expect you to not be with those other women, and give them the time you’ve given me.”

  I narrowed my eyes at her. “How old are you again? Eighty-two?”

  She laughed. “I had to grow up fast, take off the rose-colored glasses, ya know?”

  Was that how she saw sharing her boyfriend with other men? As seeing the world clearly? Did she not think she deserved better than that? The thought made me sad.

  “Can we not talk about other women right now?” I asked.

  “Yes! That’s an excellent idea.”

  I stepped closer to her. “I’d like to actually get back to the subject of you touching me.”

  Her eyes hooded, and she looked up at me through her lashes. It was the first overtly flirty thing I’d seen her do. “I do remember that subject. And if my memory is correct, we were going to go to your bed.”

  “Your memory is excellent.”

  She laughed and reached out to take my hand, and I walked with her to my bedroom. “Sit,” she instructed, and it didn’t bother me a bit to have her order me around. When I was on the side of the bed, she knelt in front of me, untying and sliding off one shoe then the other. My socks came next.

  “You have big feet,” she said, running her fingers along the arch with just enough pressure not to be ticklish.

  “The better to kick your ass with,” I deadpanned.

  She laughed, the sound musical, not grating like other women’s voices.

  I groaned when she increased the pressure. “I’ll give you a million dollars to never stop doing that.”

  She grinned, taking my big toe between her fingers, doing some crazy relaxing thing that made my eyes roll back in my head.

  “You’re so tense. You don’t get enough sleep.”

  “Did my toes tell you that?”

  She tossed her head, forcing her mass of hair back over her shoulder. “No, the ball of your foot tells me that. It’s where you carry emotional stress.” She ran her thumbs down over that part. “See, it’s so tight, and I can feel little knots that need to be worked out.”

  “How do you know this?”

  She shrugged, looking up at me with laughing eyes. “I know a little bit about a lot of things. Just enough to be dangerous.”

  This little thing was incredibly dangerous.

  Looking back down, her hair fell into her face again, but this time, I leaned forward and gathered it in my hands. It was soft and thick as I wrapped it around my palm.

  “Thanks. I’m not sure what happened to the elastic.”

  I pulled. She didn’t cry out as she fell forward, off balance, but caught herself, her hands on my thighs. If I pulled a little more, she’d be face-first in my lap. It was tempting. So very tempting.

  “Is that what you want?” she asked, her voice soft as her fingers gripped my thighs harder.

  “I want everything.”

  She moved to stand up, and I let go of her, her hair tumbling around her like a cloak. We were about the same height as she stood between my legs. “I need to ask you a question.”

  Wariness hit me like a fist. “What’s that?”

  “In one of the forms I was given, there was a questionnaire about submission and dominance. Safe words. Will I need a safe word if I want to be with you?”

  I wouldn’t lie to her. “Yes.”

  She swallowed. “Why?”

  “Because there are things I’ll want to do with you, and the safe word will let me know if I’ve gone too far.”

  “What things?”

  I stood, but she held her ground, not backing up. We were so close, my erection touched her belly. “May I touch you?” She licked her lips and nodded. It wasn’t good enough. “I need a verbal answer.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s important to me.”

  She examined my face. “You have my permission.”

  I moved my hands into her hair again until my palms were gripping her scalp. “Does this feel good?” I asked, massaging her skull.

  “Mmm… very much.”

  I tightened my hands into a loose fist, knowing I was pulling her hair just a little. She moaned. “How about this?”

  She looked up at me, her pupils growing larger. “It feels wonderful.”

  I nodded and squeezed my fist tighter. “And this.”

  “Still good.”

  Tighter.

  She closed her eyes. “Some pain, but still good.”

  Breathing hard now, I tightened my fist a great deal, pulling her head back, watching her face twist with surprise and hurt as her eyes screwed shut. “Now?” The word was hard, sharp.

  She reached up and gripped my wrists. Her eyes opened, pupils blown. “More.”

  I pulled her against me, grinding my cock into her and pulled harder, arching her back, her long, elegant throat exposed for the taking. She whimpered, her nails biting into my skin. But she didn’t lose eye contact. She didn’t try to pull away. “More.”

  I growled and found her throat with my teeth as I yanked harder. The whimper became a cry as I grazed my mouth up to her ear, biting the lobe. Then my mouth was on hers, all my rules about asking be damned. She opened for me, her tongue darting into my mouth first, wrapping around mine.

  Turning, I took us down to the bed, my mouth still on hers, my hands still deep in her hair. She took my weight, her legs wrapping around me, her body writhing against mine.

  I ground into her, humping her like a rabid dog, growling into her mouth as her nails sank into my back, then pulled my shirt up until she touched skin.

  “More?” I asked, my voice rough and raw, my hips pulsing, my cock feeling the heat of her through our thin clothes. I let go of her hair and palmed her breast, the nipple a hard point, ready and waiting to be pinched.

  She groaned when I twisted it, then gasped when I yanked her tank up her chest to expose her breasts to my gaze. “Tell me to stop,” I said before taking her nipple between my teeth. She wailed as I sucked it deep into my mouth.

  Moving some of my weight off her, I trailed a hand down her stomach and over the tiny athletic shorts. She cried out as I cupped her sex, grinding the heel of my hand over her clit as I pressed into her through the material.

  “Is this what you want?”

  I ground hard, being rougher than necessary, but she needed to know.

  “Do you want to come on my fingers? My mouth? My cock?”

  She whimpered, and it wasn’t a yes or no.

  “Look at me,” I ordered, and those green eyes snapped open. Desire was evident, but there was something else. Fear.

  Fuck.

  I’d gone too far.

  Pushing off the bed, I turned and walked away from her, wanting to fall to my knees and howl. I’d scared her. I’d scared this sweet young woman. More than that. I wanted to scare her some more. A great deal more.

  “Rhett—”

  I didn’t deserve to hear her voice, the softness and question lying inside the words.