Page 133 of Bad Enough

Centering his breathing helped him clear his cluttered brain. “I love you, Sylvan. I honestly never believed I’d find someone I wanted permanently in my life, but I’ve discovered that now I do. You are all the pieces of me that are missing. I want to make our arrangement permanent. I know it’s probably not the type of arrangement you’ve dreamed of, but to me, it’s far stronger of a bond than a marriage would be. I can’t marry you. Not in a traditional sense, because I technically don’t exist. But this I can do.

“As for the lock, it’s a reminder. Not for you. For me. Not that I really need it, but it’s a reminder of the gift you’re giving me. A reminder to take care of you. Because if you don’t take care of something—if you just lock it away, it withers and dies.”

Her palm cradled the side of his face. “I would be honored to wear it.”

He exhaled in relief.

“Turn around, Sylvan.”

As she turned her back to him, with shaking hands, he removed the collar from the white silk bed it lay upon. He closed the box, tossed it on the landing, took each end, raised it up over her head, then lowered it down in front of her face. He placed it at her throat just above the hollow he loved to kiss so much. With a quiet click, he locked the collar in place. He kissed the back of her head, then gently turned her on the stair to face him.

She stepped down off the stairs and went to stand in front of the mirror in the hallway. She reached up to touch the gems that dangled from the chainmail links. He stepped up behind her—his hands on her shoulders, his head bent down to rest his lips next to her ear. Their eyes caught in the mirror, and he was reminded of the first night they met at the club when he showed through the mirror exactly the beauty that she was. The flush on her chest, neck, and cheeks told him she was remembering as well.

“It’s beautiful on you,” he assured her. “I knew it would be.”

“It’s more than I deserve.”

Shaking his head, he turned her to face him, arms banding gently around her waist. “No. In fact, I have one more gift for you. That is if you don’t mind being late to the party tonight.”

“Hmm.” She pretended to consider the option. “Does this gift include multiple toe-curling orgasms? Because if it does, we probably will never make it to the party at all. I don’t think you want Tripoli mad at you.”

Normally, he would have chuckled at her playfulness, but the collar was only the first half of what he’d been fearing tonight. Now, he needed to give her the second half.

“I have a sneaking suspicion he’d understand.” He thought about what he’d just said and then about his plan. “Then again, he probably wouldn’t.”

Do I dare?

Can you do it?

For her, yes. I can give her this. And if I do, it means I’m giving her everything. Everything she wants. Everything she needs.

Everything I need.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think my big, badass interrogator was nervous,” she teased.

“Worse. Terrified.”

“What could scare you?”

Releasing her waist, he dragged his arms from around her, snagging her forearms as he backed up. When his hands reached hers, they gripped them tightly. “Come with me.”

With a gentle tug, he pulled her to the stairs. Together, they walked side-by-side up to the second floor, then down the hall to the staircase to the third floor. A hand on her lower back, he urged her to climb the spiral staircase ahead of him. When they reached the top, she turned to ask him what was going on, but her eye was caught by something in her peripheral vision. A double take clarified what she had seen.

A white, silk blindfold.

A short coil of white silk rope.

Grinning, she crossed over to the bed and picked the items up, modeling one in each hand, her hip cocked and a sultry smile on her face. “Are we taking them with or putting them to use now?”

Without a smile in response, he crossed the room to stand in front of her, his fingers deftly unbuttoning his dress shirt and untucking it from the waist of his jeans. “Now.” He dropped the shirt on the floor at the foot of the bed.

Standing shirtless before her, he removed the wire-rimmed glasses perched on the end of her nose, folded the arms, and set them on the bookcase at the foot of the bed.

One by one, he began pulling her hairpins free, placing them neatly on top of the bookshelf. Once he thought he had them all removed and her hair hung loose down her back, his hands threaded through the long tresses, ensuring all of the pins were gone and that the tangles were combed out.

God, I love her hair. Totally obsessed with it.

He took one step back from her, leaving her standing with the blindfold and rope still in her hands and her lip being worried by her front teeth. Reaching out, he rescued the lip from being wounded.

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