“Please. Now,” she pleaded. “Yes.”

“I like your enthusiasm, but . . .” He stopped just shy of probing her wet folds and withdrew his touch.

She mewled in protest. “Axel!”

He nipped her earlobe in warning. “If you can’t be quiet, I can’t touch you anymore.”

“I will,” she promised. “Just don’t leave me like this.”

“I have something in mind.”

Mystery sent him a frustrated grunt but didn’t protest otherwise. He took her silence as assent and smiled at her. She couldn’t see him, but if she could, she’d know she should worry.

Axel gripped her around the waist and lifted her again. As she gasped and tried to flail a bit once more, he leaned back on the pillows and held her above him.

“Mystery . . .” His voice lashed the air between them in warning.

Instantly, she stilled and fell silent. She bowed her head, looking somewhere between chagrined and beautifully submissive.

“Good. Remember to be quiet.”

Leaving her to ponder his meaning, Axel lowered Mystery on top of him, settling her thighs on either side of his head. He raised his face to her pussy and raked his tongue through her wet folds.

“Axel!” she squealed, a high-pitched cry full of sensual panic and need.

In answer, he devoured her clit, flicking it with the tip of his tongue, then laving the sensitive bud with the flat. He reveled in the way she squirmed on top of him, looking for either control or relief. He didn’t allow either. Instead, he gripped her hips in his hands and eliminated her ability to move. Mystery might be sitting on top of him, but Axel wanted to make sure she didn’t have any illusion that she held the power. He set the pace. He provided the sensations he chose to give her. He alone determined when she orgasmed . . . or if.

When he clamped his fingers around her hips, restraining them as fully as the rest of her body, she panted and struggled harder.

He dug his fingers into her flesh and withdrew his mouth from her cunt. “Are you giving yourself over to me? Or fighting for what you think you want?”

Mystery let her head roll back on her shoulders and sucked in a breath. “Fighting. I don’t know how to just give myself up.”

“You’re going to learn, princess. Whether we’re talking about pleasure or danger, I’m always going to do what’s best for you. But you have to let me. Relax. Let your mind go and give your will to me.”

She gnawed on her lip again, her entire body strung tightly. Finally, she dragged in a couple of long breaths and let them out in controlled exhalations. Then she nodded. “I’ll try.”

“Just surrender.”

Above him, she relaxed her thighs and forced her breathing to even out.

She gave in.

With his dick aching and his patience running out, he lifted her back over his face and surged up, latching onto her pussy again, tormenting her clit with his tongue.

This time, Mystery didn’t fight against his rhythm or silently demand more. She put herself in his hands, quiet, still. As he raked through her folds and nipped the sensitive bud of her nerves with his teeth, her body tensed. She spread her legs wider, gave more of herself, allowed him to control her utterly.

Her breathing picked up speed, and he watched the rosy flush cover her skin. Against his tongue, her folds engorged. Her clit turned harder than stone.

“You’re close, princess.”

“So close,” she breathed.

“Have you been good enough to earn this climax?” he taunted.

“I’ve tried. Please . . .”

On the one hand, Axel really hoped that she’d learned that fighting him and insisting on doing everything her way wouldn’t get her what she wanted. So maybe she’d think twice before she picked up and left without talking to him again. At least he hoped so, because he was damn desperate to get inside her.

Shit, he needed to tamp down this impatience. Axel didn’t remember a woman ever stealing past his control so easily or thoroughly, and he’d have to be diligent in the future so she didn’t figure out that she could wrap him around her finger with that pretty pussy. But that was a worry for later.

Right now, he wanted to taste her essence on his tongue.

“Quiet.” He released her hips and pinched the clothespins around her nipples open. “Come for me.”

A breathy sigh turned into an almost animal whine as Mystery tensed and shuddered on top of him. Using his fingers, he twisted and toyed with her sensitive nipples. As the blood rushed back into the tips, her entire body jolted. He laved her swollen pussy through the long, trembling climax, relishing the way she opened her mouth in a long, silent scream and opened to him completely.

As her clit slowly softened, her body sagged. Axel petted her with his tongue, sinking beyond her clit, to the tight opening he hoped to invade soon. He scooped her against his mouth, then prodded her clit with the tip once more.

Mystery shivered and let out a little moan. “I’m so . . . Ohmigod.”

“Sensitive?” he asked against her pussy.

“Uh huh.” She nodded, squirming.

He loved reducing her to nearly incoherent syllables. Later, when he didn’t need to be inside her so damn badly, he’d do it again for the sheer joy of watching her melt in his arms. Now, he needed more.

Axel settled her thighs back on his torso and eased her torso down until her breasts rested against his chest, until she buried her face in his neck and glided kisses across his jaw, jacking up his desire even more. He felt around the mattress for his condom. He couldn’t see his cock past her body draped over his, warm and damp and welcoming, but he could sure as hell feel his aching erection as he tore the foil apart with his teeth and wrapped his arms around her to sheathe himself.

As if she finally caught on to what he had in mind, she paused, her body still. “Axel?”

“Do you trust me?”

“Yes.” She didn’t hesitate.

“Do you want me?”

“Always.” Mystery sounded even more certain.

“Then let me take you the way I want. I need that. I need you.”

*   *   *

AXEL’S words made her bite back a gasp. What the hell could he possibly do to her when she was all trussed up, hands and arms bound together behind her back, legs bent and restrained, her heels nearly digging into her ass.

But Mystery had no doubt he would show her exactly what he had in mind. Even though her shoulders ached a bit, she knew she’d love whatever he did to her.

“I’m all yours,” she murmured.

He lifted her into the air. Though she couldn’t see, his sheer strength in raising her off the bed from something near a supine position amazed her.

“Princess . . .” He began lowering her again—and she felt the head of his cock prod her hungry opening, now gaping with the need for him to fill her.

As he shoved her down on his cock, he lifted his hips, rising beneath her to plant his erection deep, as if embedding himself in the place he considered home.

“Fuck,” he hissed. “This is mine. You’re mine. You’re always going to be mine.”

His growled words sparked need inside her, even as his stiff length tunneled deeper, tripping across every nerve ending. Mystery tossed her head back, lacing her fingers together behind her back because she had nothing else to hold on to. He controlled everything. She could do nothing more than allow him to fuck her. And she drowned in the experience.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Yours. I think I always have been.”

“Then take what I give you.” He pounded inside her, withdrew, and thrust up again relentlessly. “All of me. Every inch. Everything I have.”

His possessive insistence lit something inside her. No way could she keep any emotional walls or barriers up between them. Whatever happened tomorrow, she was all in right now—so deep Mystery felt sure she’d never escape. She was totally at peace with that realization.

Under her, he continued to lift her up his cock as he tilted his hips into the mattress, then lunged up as he yanked her down again, plunging deeper inside her than ever. The slow rhythm incinerated her. His harsh breathing. Her pounding heart. The squeaking mattress. Every thrust into her scraped the head of his cock against her most sensitive spots, over and over, until she felt dizzy and breathless and ready to scream.