“Then what was that in the bathroom?”

“Me.”

Lifting my head, I see the creases in his forehead, but his look is solid when he says, “I won’t apologize.”

With a faint nod of my head, I whisper, “Okay.”

“Like I told you, I don’t have the softest touch. I don’t want you to mistake that for a lack of feeling, because I won’t deny that I already feel strongly about you.”

“I’m scared.”

“I know,” he states softly.

“Do you?”

His thumb runs along my cheekbone when he says, “I won’t ever do anything to hurt you.”

“But . . . Bennett . . .”

“He doesn’t need to know anything until you’re ready to say something. He doesn’t exist here, here in my home. It’s just you and me,” he tells me before his lips touch mine in a soft kiss. A very un-Declan-like kiss. He’s gentle, and when I reach up to touch his face, he grabs my wrist in his hand and hoists me on top of his lap. My legs straddle his hips, and his erection is evident as it presses between my legs.

His hands quickly find my breasts, and he squeezes them achingly hard as I sink my fingers into his hair, fisting it in my hands. When I tug at the roots, he growls in my mouth and lifts up my top. I raise my arms in an invitation, which he accepts as he pulls off my sweater. And in a fluid movement, he stands up with my body clung to his, legs wrapped around his hips, and he walks us down the hall and into his master suite.

The room is dark, lit only by the lights of the city below. My back falls against the soft bedding when he lays us down. His mouth is all over me, dragging down my neck, over the swell of my breasts, to the dip of my navel. He unhooks my pants and slips them off my legs, along with my shoes. I look up at him as he stands over me, peering down as I lie here in my bra and panties. Slowly, he starts working the buttons on his shirt before tossing it across the room. His shoulders and arms are roped in muscle. His smooth chest is nothing but hardened, accentuated slabs that define his broad build and narrow to a deep-cut V, sinking down into his pants.

He starts to undo his leather belt, and when he slips it from the loops of his slacks, he grips it firmly in both of his hands as if he’s about to make use of it. Suddenly I run cold, and ask hesitantly as I sit up, “What’re you gonna do?”

“Don’t ask me questions, Nina.”

My eyes lock on the leather belt, and I begin to feel nauseous at the thought of it, at the thought of being tied up in a closet for days, at the thought of being beaten and the snapping of leather as it slices into the skin of my back, at the thought of being choked with a leather belt while forced to suck my foster dad’s dick. I can’t tear my eyes away from the tight hold he has on his belt and the spiraled veins in his arms. All I can hear is the pounding of my heart in my ears, and I take a hard swallow.

“Look at me,” he says, and I can’t hide the fear that I’m sure is splayed across my face. “I meant what I said, I’ll never hurt you, but I’m not like most guys.”

I nod. I don’t know what else to do because I can’t lose him when I’ve finally come this far.

“I like control. Do you understand what that means?” he questions in an even tone as I shift my attention to his eyes.

“I don’t want you to hurt me.”

He steps between my legs and touches my face. “This isn’t about pain, Nina. This is about trust. Do you trust me?”

I don’t trust anyone, but I give him the word anyway. “Yes.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

“Good girl.”

Those two words, I’ve heard them so many times from that piece of shit, Carl. He’d always say them to me when I would make him come. No one has ever said those words to me since him, until right now. And I know this is going to destroy me, but what other choice do I have? So I play the part and give him a soft smile when all I want to do is vomit.

“God, you’re so beautiful,” he breathes and then leans down to kiss me, sliding his tongue past my lips, tasting me deeply. He reaches around and unclasps my bra with ease. It’s then that he kneels between my thighs, running his hands over my knees and up my legs while he sucks my pert nipple into his hot mouth. His tongue swirls around before he bares his teeth, pulling more of my breast into his mouth and biting down, making me whimper as his teeth sink in to the supple flesh.

In a quick move, he thrusts my legs wide open and drops his head to my center, taking my pussy in his mouth, licking me through the lace of my panties and then grazing his teeth along my mound as he pulls away to take a lingering look before standing up.

“Do you have any idea how sweet you taste or what it’s like for me to look at you like this?”

“Declan,” I sigh at the same time he tells me, “Lie back.”

I do as he instructs and he takes my hip, flipping me over onto my stomach. In forceful movements, he grabs my arms, bringing them behind my back, and I feel the cool leather binding around them, above my elbows, in a painful restraint. With a sharp jerk of the belt, my shoulder blades pinch together, and all the slack disappears as the leather bites into my skin in an unrelenting vice, which there is no getting out of as he loops the belt and then fastens it. My heart trills in my throat, and my heavy breathing is prevalent. But it’s when I begin releasing panicked noises into the sheets that a ribbon of breath heats my ear as he presses his lips to its shell and gives me a quiet, “Shhh, baby. Trust me.”

He brushes my hair back as I lie there with the side of my face resting on the bed. I give him a nod, but everything in me is telling me that this is going to be too much. And then he’s off the bed, grabbing my hips and lifting my ass up in the air, propping me on my knees with my chest still on the mattress. He yanks my panties down to my knees, and then his hands spread my ass open before his mouth is on my bare pussy. The wetness of his tongue gently laps over my clit while his hands roughly squeeze my butt, and when he wraps his lips around my nub and sucks, he brings a hard hand down, smacking my ass. I yelp in pain, lying there like some animal, helpless at the hands of someone else, and I’m taken back to the fucking basement I never wanted to think about, but I’m there, on that filthy mattress being humiliated by my foster dad.

My eyes squeeze shut, and I will every ounce of effort to disengage, to think about anything other than what’s happening, but Declan makes it impossible when he slips his tongue inside of my pussy as he drags his fingers along the crease of my ass, forcing me to tense up. He then takes that hand, reaches under me, and grabs my breast, pinching my nipple between his fingers as he continues to fuck me with his mouth. I try to focus on the ache in my arms, but he grasps my attention when he takes his mouth off my pussy, grabs ahold of the belt, and pulls me back, lifting my chest off the bed, so that I’m now sitting on my heels. Turning my head to him, he offers me his mouth, saying, “Taste yourself,” and then kisses me, caressing my tongue with his.

I want to scream for him to stop because I don’t want to be doing this with him, but I don’t. I force myself to think about what I’m using him for, what I need him to do for me. The words you can do this, you can do this repeat over and over in my head, but there’s an intensity with Declan that I haven’t experienced with a man before. It’s easy to shut down with Bennett, but Declan has a power that keeps me in the moment, making the escape near impossible.

Pulling away from our kiss, he says, “Tell me what you want. Ask for it.”

“I want you,” I lie.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Fuck me.”

“Ask me,” he demands and the request irks the shit out of me, but I swallow the irritation.

“Will you please fuck me, Declan?”

Rounding his hand over my butt and down between my legs, he sinks his finger inside of my pussy, asking, “You want it here?” with his face pressed to the side of mine, his chest against my back.