“Got something to tell me?” Hunter crooned, as his palm slid up my knee and circled the tendons there.

“No.” I shook my head as words like “love” sat painfully on the tip of my tongue.

“Will you come home with me?”

“I didn’t know I had a choice.” I shifted, my thighs rubbing together, my agitation growing because I felt like I was playing a game with this man, this back and forth sexual cat and mouse that had me ready to burst. Why hadn’t he had sex with me yet? Was that connected to his secret too, or could he be a genuinely nice guy that believed in courting a woman before fucking her? I could hardly imagine a man like that still existed.

I sucked in a slow breath when the car pulled to a stop. “You always have a choice.” He clasped my hand in his after we’d stepped out of the cab. “I just like to take it away from you once in a while.”

My world crashed and burned. The spinning stopped, the thoughts ceased, and I was here, just me and him. Without words, he let me take the lead up the stairs of his brownstone, through the entry and down the hallway and up the stairs to his room. I was conscious of his eyes on me, his hand wrapped in my own at my back.

“What now?” I nearly choked when I reached the door to his room.

“The anticipation is killing me,” Hunter growled in my ear as his hands worked their way up my thighs and hovered at the hem of my dress. He teased the sequined edge, flipping it between his fingers.

“It’s killing me too,” I said, unable to form any other words.

“Good,” he said, before my arm stretched to flip the switch to brighten the dark room.

“Leave it.” His hands worked up my thighs and my heart lodged in my esophagus.

“Bend over.”

thirteen

I did as I was told, without hesitation or second thought. I’d been waiting for the moment to finally feel Hunter buried inside me. I’d dreamed of it, my eyes closing at night imagining being in his strong arms, his legs wrapped around me, owning me, using all that pent up energy contained within him.

I felt Hunter’s hands slip up my thighs, raising the skirt of my dress as I bent over the leather bench at the end of his bed waiting, my breaths shallow with anticipation.

“So fucking beautiful,” he uttered as he raised the sequined fabric to reveal my ass to the chilled air of the room. I squirmed and waited for his touch, something more, more of anything. His fingers, his tongue, his cock. I wanted to feel him everywhere.

I wiggled, frustration growing, and holding my muscles tense when his deep chuckle filtered through the silent room.

“Anxious, Princess?” His thumbs splayed across my ass cheeks, then kneaded and pulled, causing the cool air to brush against my hot pussy and making me grow wetter with every passing moment.

“You’ve been waiting for this?” he hummed, leaning across my back, his teeth catching the zipper that ran down the back of my dress and pulling it down one inch at a time. With my breathing ragged, the dress fell to the floor in a whoosh of fabric and left me standing in a strapless bra and nothing else.

I felt him bend to his knees behind me, his hands still kneading at my ass, his warm breath now dancing across the backs of my thighs, arousal pulsing and surging between my legs. My hips bucked of their own accord, and with agonizing slowness, I felt Hunter’s warm tongue run up the slit of my soaked pussy. He flicked and dragged his tongue across my hardened clit, and I clutched at the cushions.

Hunter continued to lick and dive with his tongue, swirling and then teasing with light nips and licks, pulling away just as I was on the edge.

“Let me hear you. I want to know how it makes you feel to have my tongue in your hot pussy,” he grunted, and his hands fisted tighter, my hips pushing and biting into the arm of the couch, pleasure surging as he thrust two fingers into my pussy and curled them, hitting a tight bundle of nerves deep inside that sent me groaning and moaning without reason or care for why. I slumped, breathless, thighs shaking.

“Not done yet, Princess.” He ushered me across the length of the bench at the foot of his king bed. With my knees firmly seated on the cushion and ass in the air, I turned and watched as he shrugged out of the tux jacket and unbuttoned the crisp dress shirt with quiet precision.

“Close your eyes,” he ordered, his eyes boring into mine, and I saw the switch then. The lowering of his tone, the heat that burned in his green irises. This was Hunter fucking. Hunter fucking was so much hotter than Hunter shooting, and Hunter behind a camera made my stomach swim.

I closed my eyes and turned away from him.

I waited, my breaths slow and measured as the goosebumps raced across my skin. I waited and I fucking waited, every nerve in my body on edge, aware of every shift he made, until finally his fingertips traced the curve of my ass, before both hands wrapped around my wrists and I felt the rough fibers of a rope slipping against my skin.

“Wait.” I choked and pushed back, waves of anxiety and guilt replacing arousal. As if he hadn’t heard, he continued to wrap the long length of rope around my wrists and up my forearms before he slipped the rope around one tall mahogany bed post.

My stomach curled and flipped, my arms instinctively pulling back, resisting the control he wanted. “Hunter, wait.” Words burned on my lips like fiery cinnamon drops.

“What?” he growled and his eyes darted to catch mine.

“There’s something I have to tell you.” I dreaded the words that hung on my lips. It was the wrong place, the wrong time, but I couldn’t take it any longer.

“You don’t have to tell me anything.” He tightened the rope with a swift tug and then his palms were back to running the lengths of my arms and down my torso, my hips twisting as my thighs grew slick.

“There are things you don’t know—”

“I know more than you think I do, and I don’t want to talk about it right now.” Giant palms jerked my ass against his thick erection beneath the fine fabric of his dress pants. I wiggled and sighed, wanting desperately to get lost in this moment with him, but the guilt had been weighing me down, loading my feet with lead blocks that left me stumbling and moving much too slowly for my own good.

“I’m—”

“Shut your mouth, Princess.” The fingers of one hand dug into the flesh of my ass cheek, while a thumb on his other pushed past my lips and into my mouth, forcing me to bite down. “Don’t act so disappointed — I have you right where you like to be.” He leaned across my back, his crisp shirt rough against my cool skin as my arms stretched to hold the pressure of his heavy body. “Without control,” he growled and tightened his hold in my mouth, forcing my head to turn and catch his stare. “I don’t want another word from you until I say so.” His eyes flashed with warning. My pussy clenched and my thighs shifted. He was right, this is exactly where I wanted to be. With him I felt protected in a way I never had. My feelings were barricaded by his imposing voice and giant body. Twisted up in his bonds and helpless, I was finally safe.

“Answer me.” His thumb loosened its hold at my cheek and slipped out to caress one corner of my mouth.

I smacked my lips, stretched taut from his warning, and sucked in a shallow breath. “Yes, Sir.” I smiled, my eyes darkening, lids lowered with lust as his eyes shone in the soft rays of moonlight that floated in the window. My wrists burned with the grating fibers, and still my body vibrated and hummed with excitement. I loved the pain, loved the reminder of his control.

“Good, girl.” He groaned and turned me in one quick move, pinning me beneath him, my wrists pulled taut and stretched above my head. With one hand wrapped at my waist, his head dipped and teeth pulled the cup of my bra aside to bite at my aching nipple, tight and puckered from the cool air. I arched and sighed, wrapping my legs around his waist and rubbing my body against his.