Page 329 of Wild Mustang Security Firm

“Time to go,” Christian said. As soon as they were out of sight, he grabbed her arm to heave her up again.

She heard the yell when Fariq found her room empty, the guards slumped on the floor, and the false avenue of escape Christian had tossed off her balcony, leading them a merry chase back the way they’d come.

The biting pain of his arm clamping across the small of her back and her hips made her head spin, and it took all she had not to scream. Supporting her as her uncooperative feet stumbled down the stairs, she lost a shoe somewhere. For the life of her, she couldn’t remember when that had happened.

“How would you punish me?” she asked as he stopped several steps up from the hole. Curious and needing the distraction, she looked at him, so she wouldn’t have to see how high up off the first floor they were.

“We’ll talk about it later, okay? Right now, I need to think.”

The hole was massive, nearly taking out the middle of the staircase. Only a six-foot stretch of the left-hand railing remained, although it looked anything but sturdy enough to support her, much less him. He rubbed his mouth and glanced up at the third floor. The echo of Fariq’s voice ordering the rooms to be searched helped him make up his mind.

“Would you tie me to the bed?” she asked as he set her down within three steps of the hole.

“I consider that more for fun than punishment. Look, pay attention.” Hunkering down as close to the edge as he dared, he gauged the drop before fixing his gaze on her. “I’m going to lower you through the hole?—”

“Spreadeagled?” she asked, finding it impossible to focus on anything but the mental image of her being bound to his bed. She should be horrified. She should be shaking from dread and all the bad memories her brother had tried to cement in her over these past two days. Yet try as she did, she couldn’t dredge up a single fearful shiver at the thought of Christian binding her. In fact, it was doing just the opposite. The burning pulse of thewounds on her back kept trying to shift, sending their heated throbbing down through her core to nestle in between her legs. The more she tried to imagine watching Christian’s strong hands tying her wrists and ankles to opposite bedposts, the worse—or better—it got.

The more she tried to dredge up the same fear and horror she’d felt, the safer she felt, perched a good ten feet up from the pile of rubble scattered across the marble tile floor below. Christian was strength and safety. There was no horror to be found in his arms, and she couldn’t think of anything he might do to change that. She wanted more than anything to curl up in his arms, even now, when it hurt like hell.

He snapped his fingers in front of her.

She focused on them.

“Princess, stay with me.” He checked her pupils before taking her pulse. “Baby, you’re in shock. I need you to pay attention?—”

“Spreadeagled?” she asked again, the driving need to know took priority over everything else. “I wouldn’t mind being tied like that if it was in your bed.”

“Okay,” he said, snapping out of whatever thought process that had thrown him in. “I’m going to lower you down as far as I can, but then I’ll have to let you go. Do you think you can do that?”

“Do you want to have sex with me like that?”

He laughed, soft and low. “In more ways than you can possibly imagine.” Shaking his head sharply, he started to take off his belt. “I’m going to lower you down with this?—”

“On my stomach or on my back?”

“I sincerely doubt you’ll be able to hold on at this point?—”

“Do you want to gag me?”

“The thought has definitely occurred. Look, I’m going to bind your wrist, so I can get you as close to the floor as possible, but then I’m going to have to drop you.”

Her stomach quivered, tightening in the most delicious coils as she watched him wrap his belt tight around her wrist twice before feeding the tail through his buckle.

“This won’t hold you for long,” he said, tightening it as much as he could. “In fact, if you struggle or even if you dangle too long, you’ll fall out. Can you do that for me, Princess? Can you try to be still while I lower you?”

She tried to kiss him.

Her lips brushed his only for a moment, just long enough to feel the warmth, taste the faintness of sweet coffee on his breath, and feel the softening of his mouth, just before he kissed her back as his hands settled on her waist.

“Yeah,” he chuckled, brushing her bottom lip with his own, sending her pulse to fluttering and her sex to quivering, along with all those delicious knots trembling inside her. “You are definitely the right girl for me.”

He gave her no other warning before his hands seized her waist, and down she went, tipping into the hole before she could do more than register she was going sideways. It was probably for the best he hadn’t warned her. Grabbing his shoulders was sheer reflex. She’d have wrapped her legs around him too, but she just wasn’t quick enough. Gravity had her, and down she went, the belt wrapped around her wrist, along with the strong as hell grip of his left hand. With his right, he grabbed onto one of the balustrades to keep from tipping himself headfirst into the hole.

The muscles in his arm bulged, the veins popping out against the skin with the strain. He was so strong yet gentle in his own way. The veins protruded down the length of his arm as he stretched her out as close to the ground as he could get her until she dangled a good three feet above the broken stones of both the ceiling and the shattered portion of the staircase.

“Look at me,” he ordered.

Her head spun. She had a moment of sheer amazement as she realized, for the first time in her life, her feet were off the floor, and she wasn’t the slightest bit afraid. Christian had her—he would always have her, and she would always be safe. She wasn’t scared—not of heights, not of anything. Staring up into this face, she hung by his grip and waited for him to command her.

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