anticipation.
After laying a kiss on her shoulder, he set to work massaging her shoulders and working down her back with the skill of a trained masseuse. By the time he’d reached her hips, she’d forgotten about the restraints. Hell, her body had forgotten it had bones, she was so relaxed. If she’d been a cat, she’d have been purring.
He shifted his weight, parting her legs so he could kneel between them. His fingers trailed over the globes of her cheeks and down to her pussy. She just about purred when he dipped them into her opening and filled her. Between his thumb on her clit and his two fingers deep inside, he soon had her pressing back, her body heating as her second orgasm overtook her.
Until he picked up the riding crop she’d forgotten. He’d spanked her on occasion, a light tap on her behind, and she’d enjoyed it, but this…this was different. This would hurt.
He leaned over her, stroking the leather strip of the crop down her spine. Her body tensed, tightening around the butt plug until it felt massive.
“You either trust me.” His fingers parted her folds and unerringly found her clit, toying with it until she was ready to agree to anything. Then he withdrew. “Or you don’t.”
If he’d wanted to seek revenge from her, wouldn’t he have done that back at the farm?
“Lauren?”
You either trust me or you don’t. It was a test. She closed her eyes and nodded. “I trust you, Chad.”
She’d barely finished speaking when the crop whistled across her left butt cheek. A second stroke followed the first, this one over the right buttock. While it initially stung, it didn’t hurt. He struck each cheek twice more, then smoothed the sting with his hand. Once she realized it wouldn’t hurt, he continued until her ass was on fire and her pussy dripped with her arousal.
He settled beneath her thighs, using his tongue on her clit, his fingers scissoring into her tight passage. Alternating between licking her clit and tugging on it with his lips, he took her to the brink of orgasm. She couldn’t stop herself from crying out when he let her fly, her body clenching around his fingers and the plug, pulsing in ecstasy.
Her pussy hadn’t stopped pulsing when he withdrew the plug leaving her feeling emptier than she could ever remember. Without giving her any warning, he thrust in hard, stretching her, the burning pain mixing with an unending pleasure of the remains of her last orgasm. Only he’d known what she liked, how she liked.
He tangled his fingers in her hair, pulling it until her head arched back. He withdrew and slammed back in again until she shuddered around him. “Do you feel how much I want you?”
“Yessss…” As much as she wanted him.
“Do you know I’ve never taken another woman here? That I’ve never wanted to?”
Realizing it was important to him, she found the breath to speak. “No one else has been there either.”
At her confession, he slowed his thrusts with a groan. Moving ever so slowly he withdrew then returned.
She pressed her hips back against him, tightening her muscles, holding him in. His fingers dug into her hips as he gave into the pleasure. When he began a series of frenzied thrusts that pushed her closer and closer to the edge of her third orgasm, she buried her face in the sheets. God, how bland the last decade had been without the fire he’d brought to her, the strength of her orgasm rippled through her.
Moments later, Chad’s cock pulsed deep inside her, his come heating her passage until every inch of her felt aflame. The sensation paled to the heat of his breath on her shoulder or his gasped “love you”.
As soon as he fell on the mattress beside her, Lauren attempted to roll to him, to hold him only to be stopped by the bonds holding her in place.
Still breathing heavily, Chad cracked open an eye at her curses. “Hang on a sec.”
He reached up and loosened the bindings, but not before he’d taken her breath away again with another deep kiss. Once she was free, he gathered her in his arms. Lauren would have been content to lie there for the rest of the night, to hold him and be held. Instead Chad slipped a hand beneath her knees and lifted her. “Come on, let’s get cleaned up.”
The ensuite bathroom he’d had designed was a work of art. Where he’d taken charge in the bedroom, she pressed him against the tiles and picked up a bar of soap. The room filled with steam from the multiple showerheads and the occasional soft murmur as they cleaned up. They both seemed to sense there was no need for words, simply being in the same room together again was enough. The last of the lather swirling down the drain, Lauren wrapped her arms around Chad’s waist and rested her head on his shoulder. “I love you too.”
His “hmm” of satisfaction turned into a chuckle when her stomach growled loudly enough to be heard over the water. “Do you want to go out for dinner tonight or order in?”
“In.” Preferably something they could eat while sprawled naked on the bed.
He grabbed a towel from the rack and wrapped it around her, and tucked the end into her cleavage. Before he could wrap his towel around his hip, Lauren took it from him. She lingered over her task, patting every single part of him dry. The sun had long since set when they finally walked back into the bedroom. Chad flicked on the light. Before she could step around him, he’d shoved her behind him but she hit the doorframe with an oomph.
“Stay where you are, Mr. Miller.” Shit, there was a man in their bedroom.
Chad held out his hands and adopted the reasonable tone they’d been taught during their hostage negotiation training at Quantico. “Tom? Put the gun down and let’s talk about what you’re doing here.”
Gun. Her empty holster lay on the bed. Aw fuck. It was her own gun that Tom Whoever was using.
“I don’t think so. I know you’re hiding a whore behind you. You tell her to come out where I can see her.” Lauren didn’t recognize the voice, but being called a whore had her balling her fists.
“Tom, the woman behind me isn’t a whore. It’s my wife. You remember Lauren, don’t you?”
It was someone they knew? Lauren peered over his shoulder. It startled her to recognize their intruder. The man she’d last seen as a fourteen-year-old boy now stood at least two inches taller than Chad. “Tommy Jenkins?”
“What are you doing here, Mrs. Miller?” From the way her Sig Sauer shook he was likely to shoot one of them accidentally. “You shouldn’t be here.”
His gaze dropped to the bed, his forehead wrinkling. “You guys had sex? Didn’t you?” The gun steadied and returned to point at Chad. “Did you rape her? The way you did last time?”
“He’s never raped me!” Lauren couldn’t stop her response.
“Yes, he has. I saw it.” Tom used both hands to steady his grip. The shaking stopped only marginally. “It was on all the websites, on all the news reports. He’d tied you up and blindfolded you. He made you,” his voice dropped to a whisper, “do things. Bad things.”
“Chad never raped me,” she repeated, keeping her voice steady. How the hell could she get him to understand that she’d asked Chad to do that to her? That she enjoyed being bound and blindfolded. “He’s never hurt me, Tommy. I promise.”
“You’re just saying that to protect him. You shouldn’t do that. He’s a bad man. You need to stay away from him. You hate him, remember? He killed your baby. He killed Emily.”
“No. No, he didn’t.” She sidled away from Chad, attempting to draw Tom’s attention away so Chad could get to the drawer where he’d stashed his gun. If they were lucky, Tom hadn’t already found it.
She took another step toward him but also to the left, drawing his attention further away from Chad. “Chad didn’t kill Emily. Neither of us did.” She took a deep breath but didn’t dare close her eyes the way she wanted. “She just stopped breathing. There was nothing either of us could have done.”
“No! He killed her.” With a roar of anger, Tom swung the gun back toward Chad, who dived to the floor at the same time the gun went off.
Chapter Fourteen
Pain seared Chad’s shoulder like someone had stabbed him with a red-hot poker. Even as he fell, he saw Lauren kicked Tom in the back of the knees and grapple for the gun.
His right arm not working properly, Chad dragged himself across the floor, the six feet between him and his weapon a chasm wider than the Grand Canyon. Using his left hand, he opened the drawer and felt around inside
