Arabella Moore.

  The woman was all too happy to tell me she’d been with my husband in the past and she’d be there again when I was gone. She went around spreading stories about us. When I tried to say something to Rowan, he waved it off as if my feelings about it didn’t matter. He made sure we didn’t run into her, but that wasn’t enough. It started to mess with my head that maybe they did have something at one time. It didn’t help that I felt like he was pulling away. That he was hiding something from me.

  “I’ll handle it,” he vows.

  I shake my head no. “She’s not the point, Rowan. My request was silly to you. I’m silly to you. Your little wife you put away and bring out when it fits you best.”

  A darkness seems to fall over Rowan at my words.

  “I told you not to move.”

  “Fuck me or untie me,” I hiss, wondering if I’ve gone too far this time.

  Chapter 7

  Rowan

  “I’ll fuck you on my own schedule. I want to hear more about this woman I’ve been sleeping with before you. While I’m preparing you, feel free to tell me all the details.” I rip my T-shirt into strips and then wrap one piece around her pretty ankle. Seeing her laid out for me like this is messing with my head. How many times have I dreamed of doing this to her? Only her. But I need to focus. So much is starting to become clear in my mind now. I had no idea it had gone this deep. What the fuck did Arabella Moore say to my wife? I will end her whole fucking career.

  “Why would I have to tell you anything? You were there.” She tries to halfheartedly kick her way out of my grip, but it’s not happening.

  “Remind me again because my memory is bad. When and where?” I fasten one leg to the bed. She writhes wildly with the other leg but can’t escape my grip. This is turning her on.

  “How would I know the details?” She pants. “I wasn’t there.”

  I slide my hands up her inner thighs until I reach her core. She’s wet. Very wet. I should’ve tied her up before. We would’ve never reached this point. “Neither was I, which is why I need some help remembering details.”

  She averts her face. “I don’t want to talk about it. Why are you hurting me like this?”

  I stop what I’m doing. “Are the ties cutting into you?”

  “I’m talking about my heart! My heart is what hurts. I’ve tried to forget that you had another woman. It was before me, right? That’s all that mattered. It would be unreasonable of me to expect you to have waited. You’re hot and rich, and women are constantly throwing themselves at you. It’s normal for you to take up a few offers before you met me. I’m not mad about that. I just hate that she’s been in our home. Put her touches everywhere. Then you wouldn’t get rid of her.” The anguish on her face says something different than her words.

  “It would be reasonable.” I reach down and quickly untie her legs and arms. Being bound turned her on—and me too—but now’s not the time for that. Or for ultimatums. She’s finally opening up to me. I pull her upright and sit down on the mattress, drawing her onto my lap. “I hate the idea of you with another man. I was fucking happy when I was your first. I have never touched another woman, never been inside another woman, never wanted another woman. You have my word against hers. Why are you believing her over me?” It’s the truth. Seeing my parents had me staying clear of anything romantic before Charlee. With her I knew I’d go through anything to have her. She changed everything for me.

  Her eyes widen at my question. She’d never thought of it that way. “Oh, baby.” I cup her face. “Why are you so ready to believe stuff that hurts you? What’s going on?”

  Tears slip down her cheeks. “I don’t know. I don’t really know. You’re hiding something from me. Holding back. I can feel it. Maybe not her but something!”

  I thumb a few tears away, and when the waterworks continue, I start to kiss them away. “Charlee, there is never going to be another woman for me. If you leave me, it’s going to be a mess. I’ll sit outside your apartment, waiting for you to come out. The business will go to hell. People will lose their jobs. Families will be wrecked. The world will stop spinning.”

  She chokes on a laugh, a watery hiccup escaping from her throat. “The world will stop spinning?”

  “Yes, scientists have said that if one true love is thwarted, the world stops. I know you don’t want to be responsible for that.”

  Charlee laughs again, swipes her cheeks, and rests her head against my chest. “You’re right. I don’t want to be the one responsible for ending the world.”

  I stroke a comforting hand down her back. “I don’t want the divorce, Charlee. I think you know that by now. I came here and put all these conditions on you because I wanted to make the divorce as hard as possible, so hard that you gave up. I love you. I want to stay married. Can’t we do that? If you want things to change, if you don’t like the house, if you don’t want me to work so hard, I can change those things. We’ll move. I’ll cut back. Tell me what you want, and I’ll make it happen.”

  She stops breathing for a second. I can feel her still under my hand. Then she lets out a deep sigh. “All right, Rowan. You win.” She lifts her head and cups my face. “I’ll set aside the divorce.”

  I win? That’s not what I want, though. But she fits her mouth to mine, and I can’t think anymore. This is the first time in a while that she’s initiated lovemaking. Words and explanations and questions can come later. I kiss her back, angling her head so I can dive deeper into her mouth.

  She swings around on my lap so that her sex is pressed against my hard cock. Her hands go to work on my zipper. I cup her ass and rise up so she can pull my jeans down far enough to extract my shaft. Her warm soft hands around my dick make me groan.

  I’m feverish with want and need. “Put me inside you.” It’s an order. A plea.

  She positions herself above the shaft head and slides down slowly, enveloping me in a hot, wet vise. My eyeballs roll back in my head. She begins to ride me slowly. I let her set the pace, letting my hands rove all over her bare skin, kissing her deeply, trying to show her with my body that I’m following her lead.

  Her back tightens under my hold, and her thighs quiver around mine. Pleasure sinks into every pore, wiping away my doubts and filling me with an overload of sensations. The friction she’s creating with every clutch and slide of her cunt around my erection makes me dizzy. I dig my hands into her ass and pull her close.

  She grows frantic; her movements become fractured, wild. She can’t control her reaction, and I don’t want her to. Her pussy convulses, and her cum covers my cock and spreads along my thighs. I pull her off and toss her onto the bed.

  “What—?” she starts to ask, but I answer her with my mouth on her sex. When our clothes are off and our defenses are down, when all we are doing is feeling, we are one. I can’t give that up. Not yet.

  I flatten my tongue and drink down her essence. Her core is wicked hot and sticky. I eat it all, filling my lungs with her scent and flavor until she’s thrashing on the bed. Mouth and heart full, I strip off all my clothes and plunge into her. She throws her head back and screams as her third orgasm catapults her back into the plane of ecstasy. I let myself go this time.

  “You’ll never leave me,” I vow, thrusting so deep into her that I can feel her womb against my cockhead. “I’ll never let you go.”

  Chapter 8

  Charlee

  “Let me.”

  “Sit.” I bat Rowan’s hand away from trying to help me. He doesn't look like he wants to listen to me. He’s fighting himself. He does that far too much for my liking, and it’s time for that to change if he wants to do more than put the divorce papers away. “Sit,” I say again with more force this time. “I enjoy taking care of you, Rowan. I’ve missed doing it,” I admit. He relaxes, taking a step back.

  “If you didn’t, you’d tell me, right?” he asks, putting those kid gloves back on. I enjoy them at times. Especially when he’s trying to protect me from the world. But I don’t want him to don them in every aspect of our lives. I do know he enjoys taking care of me, the same way I do doting on him.

  “Yes. I’ve learned my lesson. I need to be clearer in the things I say and want. I need to speak up more.” I finish putting the cookies onto the plate. “Start us a fire.”

  “We never got a tree,” he points out as he goes over and does as I ask him.

  “Tomorrow. It might be fun to put the tree up on Christmas.” The last holiday season hadn’t been our best one, so the thought of us having this one together gives me hope for our future.

  “It’s nice being disconnected from the world,” Rowan says.

  “It is.” I bring the plate over to the coffee table. “Hot chocolate?”

  “If you’re having some.”

  I return to the kitchen and make us both a cup. He comes to take them over to the sofa for me. I grab a throw blanket for us. Even after my orgasm induced nap, I’m still a bit worn out. Cuddling in front of the fire sounds perfect. Especially with the snowstorm raging outside.

  “I want to get everything out in the open, Rowan. I don’t want there to be these unspoken things between us anymore.”

  “I want that too.” He pulls me to sit in his lap. “This last year has been hell.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. It just really hurt when I told you I didn’t want anything to do with that girl, and well…” I take a deep breath. “You didn’t do anything about it.” I let the words I’ve wanted to say for so long slip past my lips.

  “Sweetheart—”

  “Rowan.” I cut him off. The last thing I want to hear is excuses.

  I get it. I might have been a bit extreme, but I’d felt as though he was disregarding my feelings. He didn’t get it because he knew he wanted nothing to do with the woman. He didn’t return her feelings in any way. But I know if it had been a man who had come on to me, he would have been long gone. It wouldn’t have mattered if they were under someone else's contract or not. “Please don’t—”

  “She’s gone. I should have made it happen then. I get it now. You never ask for anything really. Before this I can’t remember a time where you were so upset. I vowed to take care of you, and I fucked up. I made a mistake. I underestimated how much it hurt you, and it was stupid on my part. Like I said, you never ask for much. I should have known.” I’ve waited so long for him to say those words to me.

  My eyes fill with tears. “I’m sorry too. I know it’s my past. When I met you, I felt heard for the first time in my life. You never dismissed me, and I think in that moment when that happened I freaked out. It’s not all on you.”

  If I’m being honest with myself, I have to admit that I bear some of the blame. I could have easily spoken up and told him how I felt instead of holding all of those feelings inside. That him not doing more made me feel second in his life. But once I went down that path, I couldn't seem to find my way back. Then he was giving me space like I’d asked, and I hated it. It let my insecurities grow in my mind.

  “You’re being too kind. You always are. One of the million reasons I fell in love with you.” He pulls me in closer to him. “I’ll do better, but know I’ve never stopped loving you, Charlee, and I never will. But we’re not going to make it if we can’t be honest with one another.”

  “Or if we hold back,” I add with a challenge.

  “I never want to hurt or scare you.”

  “You don’t scare me.” I shift to straddle him. “What scares me is when you pull away. That didn’t help with any of this. I honestly thought if I pulled back from you and threatened you with a lawyer, you’d come bulldozing your way back to me. It shocked me when you gave me space.” He closes his eyes for a long second.

  “It scared me. The things I wanted to do when you told me you wanted a divorce. Hell, some of the fantasies I’d had even before then I was worried would send you running.”

  “What did you want to do?” I can already feel Rowan’s cock thickening under my ass.

  “Kidnap you away. Tie you to my bed. Hell, those nights I’ve been sneaking into your bedroom and seducing you to be with me I’ve been praying to get you pregnant. I know it’s crazy, but I knew you’d never be free of me then.” His possessive words have an ache forming between my thighs.

  “I’ve fantasized about that.” I lick my lips. “It’s why I was so shocked when you’d asked for that deal in the bedroom. I kept thinking you’d snap. Tell me I wasn’t going anywhere. When you asked me to come here I thought maybe…”

  “I was going to take back what is mine.” He grips my hips. “Did you like being tied to the bed? Or how about when I smacked your pussy?” I nod my head yes.

  “I’ve always loved when you take control, Rowan. I rather enjoy the bubble you put me in to protect me and keep me all to yourself. I like being there,” I admit. I’m sure a therapist would tell me it’s unhealthy, but I don’t give a crap. I know what I want, and I have a pretty good idea of what my husband wants. It’s one and the same.

  “You might want to be careful what you ask for, wife,” he warns. That only turns me on even more.

  “I’ll be happy where you put me as long as I’m always number one to you. That you don’t hold back when it comes to us. I want all of it. When you hold back, I feel it here.” I put my hand over his heart.

  “You are number one to me, Charlee. Always. None of this other shit matters without you. You want all of me, you'll have all of it.”

  He stands with me in his arms, carrying me toward the bedroom, where he strips us both down to nothing.

  “There will never be anything between us again,” he vows. “Now get on the bed, wife. I’m going to give you everything you asked for and so much more.”

  Chapter 9

  Rowan

  “On your knees.”

  Immediately she moves into position. I don’t even need to ask her to put her hands behind her back. She places them, back of the hand to palm, right at the base of her spine. Blood rushes downward as I stare at her bent head, her folded legs, the prim positioning of her hands. She wants this as much as I do.

  “Head up, babe. I want you to see what I’m doing.” I snap the hemp rope between my hands. “I’m going to tie your wrists because when you get aroused, you can’t keep your hands to yourself. The rope will loop around your waist and between your ass cheeks. When you shift, the rope will tighten and rub against your pussy. Once you’re bound, you will sit on my lap while I suck your tits, but you can’t come.”

  “Why can’t I come?” She shakes her ass, bouncing her unbound hands lightly.

  “Because the longer you can last, the sweeter the release will be.” I wrap the rope around her wrists and then her waist. She moans when the hemp makes contact with her sex. Her lips are swollen, and the rope grows damp. I pull the binding tight until it’s slightly uncomfortable so that Charlee is forced to squirm and wriggle to find relief, but each movement only intensifies her ache. I draw her onto my lap and onto my shaft so that the rope and her pussy are in direct contact with my sensitive skin.

  I grip her breasts, taking one into my mouth and massaging the other. I kiss her skin and lick her nipples, bringing her to the edge and then pulling her back. She arches toward me but I tip her backward, making sure that she doesn’t have any balance. Her only stability is my hand on the rope, my mouth on her body.

  Her cunt convulses over my cock, firing my need. I’m hungry for her. I devour her tits, her shoulders, her neck, her ears. I eat at her lips, then shower kisses on her eyes and cheeks and jaw. I pull at that rope, rocking her back and forth, and when it feels like she’s about to explode, I stop.

  I bring her to the edge again and again until her cheeks are wet with her desire, and my cock is soaked with her need.

  “You want my cock? Nod if you want me.”

  Her head bobs.

  I tug on the knot, and the rope falls away. Surprise colors her face. “How?”

  “Years of calving, darling.”

  “I want to tie you up,” she declares.

  I laugh softly. “We’ll see.” I swing her around, ass up, elbows down. Her forbidden pink hole flares exotically. I lick my thumb and circle the puckered skin. She shudders under my touch. “One of these days, I’m going to take you here.”

  Her response is to wiggle her ass. “I hear a lot of talk back there, but I don’t feel any action.”

  That earns her a whack across one round cheek. She yelps and tries to scoot away. I haul her back. “Brace yourself,” I warn and then drive my cock into her sopping pussy in one swift, hard motion.

  She comes immediately. Her pussy convulses, tiny tremors sending shockwaves against my sensitive tissues. Her swollen lips stretch to their limit as she is forced to accommodate my girth. I hammer into her, slapping her ass, squeezing her tits. She keeps orgasming, one after the other, floods of her pleasure drenching my groin and thighs. I grab her hair and twist her up and around so I can claim her mouth. Our tongues parry in an exotic duel. My cock is a column of steel, driving into her fast and hard. I am hardly more than an animal at this moment, reduced to chasing down that fiery sensation of total oblivion.

  I wrench my mouth away. “Say you’re mine, Charlee. I can’t come until you say you’re mine.”

  “I’m yours,” she cries.

  “Say you belong to me,” I demand.

  “I belong to you. I love you, Rowan. I’m yours. Always.”

  Always. The climax hits me like a fist to the head. My vision blurs, and a dull roar fills my head. I come, spurting streams of fluid inside her cunt. Her back bows as my hot fluid pours out and sets off another climactic response. This is a new beginning. The first day of an adventure for the two of us. She’s not afraid of me. There’s nothing I want that will scare her.

  “I love you, Charlee. I love you.” I chant those words over and over even after I’m spent, after her shudders turn to small shudders. I slip out of her and draw her into my arms, stroking my hands over her shoulders and down her slender back. She gulps at the air, trying to find her breath. Her forehead burrows into my neck as she allows me to soothe her.