“Have no fear. A gentleman never leaves a lady disappointed. And those of us who aren’t exactly gentlemen tend to be overachievers.” He parted her thighs with his hands and held them wide with his knees. “You sure you’re okay with this?”
“I’m fine. Can we move things along? I can’t ask you not to stop if you never get started,” she said.
“Unbelievable… Who’s in charge here—you or me?”
He placed a kiss on her belly. His thumbs stroked her skin as he held her hips steady.
Then, sitting back on his heels, he again reached for the condom. He leisurely rolled it over his erection, taking his time while she watched. It seemed he had a bit of exhibitionism to go along with all that self-confidence.
Anticipation tightened her toes. The position of voyeur wasn’t such a bad spot to be in, particularly when the object of scrutiny was an incredibly hot cowboy with a side sizzle of dark, Byronic hero thrown in.
He eased the tip of his erection inside her, very slowly, then a little farther, until they were fully joined. He began to withdraw, maintaining the same slow, steady pace, keeping his eyes on her face. A light line of sweat appeared at the hairline of his forehead, but other than that, he appeared unperturbed by his less than sufficient performance, acting as if he hadn’t a care in the world. In reality, if he didn’t step up his game, he had seconds to live.
Then, he pulled out completely, leaving her without satisfaction and aching with need.
She could have wept. “Are you out of your mind?”
He cupped a hand to his ear. “What was that? Did you have something you wanted to say?”
“Don’t make me have to finish this myself.”
Both eyebrows went up. “This, I want to see. How do you plan to do that with your hands tied?”
“You told me this bed wasn’t a torture rack.”
“You probably should have insisted on that safe word. It turns out I have more of a taste for torture than I thought.”
She tried to decide if she loved seeing this side of him or if she planned to kill him once they were done. “You win, Black Bart.” She wriggled her hips. “Don’t stop. I’m begging you. Please.”
“You could sound more sincere.”
“You’re a dead man. I mean it. How’s that for sincere?”
He laughed at her, the sadist. “Good enough.”
He took himself in hand and slid into position. She hooked her heels over the backs of his thighs. He didn’t get to pull out again. Not before they were both satisfied.
She needn’t have worried. He threw himself in with far greater enthusiasm this round. The headboard creaked under the strain of her bound hands struggling for freedom, unused to a lack of participation, which only served to tighten the knots. Bondage—this total dependency on another for pleasure—was more intensely erotic than she’d imagined.
Heat exploded like a rogue ocean wave from the insides of her thighs. The rippling of tightly coiled inner muscles against the hard length of his erection elicited a swear word from him. Her orgasm preceded his by a fraction of a second.
He collapsed next to her, one hand on her breast, his chest heaving. When he got his breath back, he disposed of the used condom and untied her hands. She was too limp to move more than her head as she watched the deft play of his fingers as they worked the knots loose. He dragged the tip of his finger down the line of her nose, then kissed her. She smiled up at him. He was fun in bed.
“Well, that was unexpected,” she said.
*
Ryan
Someone hurled arock through Ryan’s bedroom window while he was taking a shower.
He rushed out of the bathroom, naked and dripping wet, to find shards of broken glass sprinkled across the cream-colored carpet. He pressed against the wall, away from the glass, and lifted the side of the heavy curtain, peering out in time to see Jonas hurdling a hedge and making a mad dash for the barns.
He let the curtain fall back into place. A logical conclusion would be that someone had either told Jonas how he’d be spending the next month, or the boy objected to Elizabeth moving into the house. Maybe both.
He’d have to reconsider his stance that the Endeavour wasn’t a prison. He didn’t care about the cost of the vandalism so much as the inconvenience it created.
He tramped back into the bathroom in search of a towel and his clothes and thought through his next move while drying his hair. He considered not telling Elizabeth about the broken window, but quickly discarded the idea. If he didn’t, and she found out, it would open the door for her to keep things from him. So far, she hadn’t. He’d like to keep things that way. The silver lining was that he’d have an excuse to sleep in her room until he got the carpet cleaned and the window repaired. Not a good one, perhaps. But good enough.