Page 15 of Hard Limits

I hid my face in his neck as he walked us past the crowd of curious onlookers that had formed a circle around me. As soon as the door clicked, I raised my head to catch him watching me. Walking us to a nearby couch, he took a seat, adjusting me on his lap. His eyes never left mine, and heat coiled in my loins. Penetrating heat that flowed in waves between us. But although I knew he felt it too, he didn’t try to touch me.

I was still shaking and with those cerulean eyes on me, I started to squirm uncomfortably.

“Stop.”

His command was firm, leaving me with chills in its wake. His hand felt warm on my thigh, comforting, not burning. I stared at it for a long time, wondering why. Why did I like his touching me, and why did another man’s touch burn me?

“What happened back there?”

I hesitated. Instead I focused on his chest. On his black shirt that was unbuttoned at the collar, and I fiddled with a button, my fingertips gently grazing his skin. I wasn’t sure what he wanted me to say, let alone an explanation as to what happened. Because there was no explanation. It had never happened before, and it hadn’t happened with him. Instead of answering his question with an empty response, I spoke of what I remembered.

“When I met Shane, he’d been a sweet man, kind. I felt like somebody had finally come into my life to protect, instead of harming me. That I was finally going to be taken care of…”

My voice cracked as I struggled with the tears threatening to fall. I paused, my throat constricting once again, and I looked up for an instant, understanding laced his gaze, and he stroked my back soothingly silently waiting until I was ready to continue.

“That first time was the end of my happiness. That was the end of any pleasure I could find in a touch.”

I lifted his hand off my thigh and stroked his fingers, mesmerized by how gentle they felt, yet moments before they were ready to kill someone for me.

“I was seventeen, I didn’t know any better. When I agreed to marry him, I didn’t think it meant… I didn’t think he’d be so depraved. I was so young, so naive, and he took advantage of me being alone in this world. He raped me that first time. I told him to go slow, but he didn’t listen. I got scared and pushed him away, so he got mad, he got so mad.”

I gripped his hand as I focused on the wall, my eyes seeing Shane on top of me. The look of rage that crossed his features when I said no. “He beat me and ripped through me without a care in the world. Fucked me like a vile creature, grunting and sweating. I could still smell his wretched breath, still feel how hard he held me. He’d snapped my wrist that night.”

“Fuck,” his deep rumble reverberated through me, and I melted into him.

My eyes fell on my right hand and he wrapped his fingers around my delicate wrist. Bringing it to his lips, he kissed it softly. His eyes met mine as his lips touched my skin, and It shocked me how this man believed he could possibly erase all the bruises that covered my soul.

“I’m broken,” I breathed, a sob slipping from between my lips.

“Aren’t we all?”

His response held so much weight and I realized that he had his own demons. That this desperation I sensed from him was something else. He was seeking atonement perhaps, a need to feel loved, a way out.

His lips met mine in a whirlwind of urgency. His hands on me only assured me that I was safe. Safe in the arms of this dark soul. I was falling for a damaged man, and I could only pray that he wouldn’t destroy what was left of me.

CHAPTER NINE

ERIC

What if I told you, her fragile state tempted me? That it made me fucking rock hard. You’d think I was a pervert, a sick minded fuck who was seeking to manipulate a woman who you saw weak. But that’s not the case here. She is stronger than she thinks she is, I just need to pull on those strings and get that strong woman to come out and play.

The weight of her scream had my whole world crumbling around me. I fought through my sea of red until I had come across the scene before me. That fool, Micah, had his hands on my woman, and the urge to snap his neck had been violent and irrepressible. A few seconds longer and I would have gladly choked the life out of him. But her voice had brought me back from the rage, from the black that encompassed my soul. She was the sole reason why I was here right now. She had led me this far and there was no turning back from this.

I stared at her kneeling form on the floor before me. I stared at her back, her perfect skin marred by scars that ran along her right shoulder. The fucker had shoved her back and she’d fallen onto a glass table where it had shattered and pierced her skin. He’d left her there, bleeding for hours, until he came home and took pity on her when he realized she was near dead.

I traced her scars gently and leaned in to kiss each one. She hung her head as tears escaped her cheeks, but she let me touch her. I wanted to erase it all, take all that harm and keep it locked up within me. Use it so that I could destroy him.

My thirst for her unquenching, I reached for her arms and she stretched them out to me, palms up. I took my time tying up her wrists with the soft rope. I took care with her wrists, coiling it around her, slowly bringing it up around her neck and taking care to tie it around the base of her breasts forming an intricate design around them so that they protruded sexily. Her tits turned a delicate red frim the rope I looped around her torso, making sure to secure it so that the blood flow would seep into those dark tips.

Grabbing a blindfold, I pressed my knees up against her shoulders. I tugged lightly on her hair, her head falling back and pressing into my bulge. Her big eyes stared up at me. “Do you trust me?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Good, girl.” I placed the blindfold on, covering her pretty eyes. I watched her for a second, her tongue nervously licking at her lips, my cock twitching at knowing she was doing this for me. She had been willing to please me.

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