Page 109 of Unbind

He strokes my face. ‘Let’s get you out of these so I can carry you to the shower, and soap you up nice and gently, and tell you all the reasons why you’re the most incredible woman I’ve ever met,’ he whispers. ‘Then I want to dry you off, and lie you down, and rub some cream on that gorgeous bottom of yours, and tell you all over again. How does that sound?’

That all sounds truly excellent.

64

NATALIE

Christmas cheer looks like a fleet of men and women in black cargo pants and long-sleeved black t-shirts standing on Adam’s front porch with all manner of festive goodies. The team from the decorating company has turned up bright and early on a Saturday morning to transform his palatial home into a winter wonderland, and I can’t wait. It’s already the second Saturday in December, which in my eyes means at least a week lost when we could have been enjoying the decorations.

I’m going to make him keep them up for weeks and weeks after Christmas.

When Adam handed me his iPad on his jet last week and gave me carte blanche, let’s just say I took him at his word. I rapidly upgraded his pathetic gesture of ‘a tree in the hallway’ to a full festive programme including, but not limited to, a colour scheme for each area of the ground floor, scent design by room, and intricate projection mapping across the mansion’s facade.

I’m so excited!

While I’m here to make sure everything goes smoothly and that the team is clear on how to execute on their brief, I’m also in danger of getting in the way. I take tea and coffee orders and relay these to Toby, who’s on duty today, and then proceed to spend a couple of hours floating around the house as I watch the magic come to life.

It’s a huge brief, but the decoration company has sent a big team, so they make fast work of it. I sit on my beloved grass-greenchaise longuein the hallway, hugging my mug of tea to my chest—the mug is Hermès, naturally—while four people light and dress the crazy twelve-foot tree that’s taken the place of the flower-bearing table in the centre of the space and another three assemble a garland on the sweeping bannister that incorporates holly, ivy, eucalyptus and feathery fronds of fir.

Finally, they weave in white fairy lights and white and silver baubles, in keeping with the theme we’ve chosen for the entrance hall. By the time they’ve finished dressing the tree in the same colours and have added impeccably wrapped white and silver fake gifts underneath, the space looks incredible: truly magical and outrageously festive.

We—I—opted for cool colours in the drawing room where I first sat and fumed as Dr Dyson examined me. In keeping with the grey tones of the furnishings and linen walls, the tree in there and the garland on the mantelpiece are both decked out in dusky pink and pewter tones, while the ornaments have an old-world feel.

But the favourite is my beloved library. I mean, it’s Adam’s library, obviously. It’s just that it’s beloved ofme. The bookshelves’ eau de nil and dull gold accents were too dreamy not to exploit, so I gave the design team a simple, one-word brief:Ladurée.As an ode to the luxury Frenchmacaronbrand, they’ve used sugared-almond pastels inhere, bedecking every piece of greenery with duck-egg blue and pale pink velvet ribbons and pastel decorations. They’ve even found some baubles shaped likemacarons.

If I thought Adam’s home was beautiful before, as a canvas for Christmas it makes me want to sink to my knees in sheer delight. Now I just need to track down the master of the house and drag him around his new festive wonderland.

I finally locate him in his basement gym. It’s incredible down here—he has a gym, a lap pool, full-on hammam with infrared sauna, steam room and experience showers (the citronella mist one is my favourite) and his beloved ice bath. He escaped a couple of hours ago to work on some secret project for his company, ostensibly to get out of the decorators’ way but really, I suspect, to give me free rein as I oversaw the project.

Boy, am I glad I tracked him down.

I slump against the door frame, arms folded, as I take in what feels like my own private viewing ofMagic Mike. Adam is doing pull ups on some contraption with a high bar—I have no idea what the name for it is, and I don’t care, because my boyfriend is wearing nothing but a pair of black athletic shorts and footwear, and holy fucking shit.

The sheen of sweat on him. The muscles. The way his damp hair is raked back off his face. Jesus Christ. I watch as he pulls himself up again. Every single muscle in his body ripples. Those shoulders of his are fuckinghuge.Veins pop along his biceps and forearms. His glorious pecs contract. He’s bloody ridiculous. There’s something so obscenelymaleabout this show he’s putting on: the effort, the grunts as he hoists himself up and lowers himself as slowly as possible.

I realise I’m a cliché, but seeing him like this makes me want to go full cavewoman and screammine!

He grins at me with effort. ‘See something you like?’ he huffs out.

‘Hell, yes.’ I stroll towards him, eyeing up the damp trail of dark hair disappearing into his shorts.

‘How are the decorations looking?’

‘What decorations?’ I deadpan, stopping in front of him as he lowers himself, inch by trembling inch.

He grunts out a laugh that quickly turns more anguished as I smooth my palm down the slickness of his abs.

‘Careful,’ he warns as he pulls himself up again. I keep my hand where it is and smirk, pleased with myself, as his body brushes upwards against it so I’m basically palming his cock. Mmm. I gaze up at him through my eyelashes. He hasn’t taken his eyes off me, either. It’s evident just what an impressive feat this is, in terms of self-discipline as much as physical strength.

Not that that’s any surprise. Adam Wright is a man who will pour blood, sweat and tears into getting what he wants, and that’s as much of a turn-on for me as is the fine physical specimen he makes.

I keep my hand where it is, pressing against him. I swear, he fills out slightly against me in return.

‘How many reps do you have left?’ I ask innocently, batting my eyelashes.

I squeeze.

‘Fuck,’ he grits out. ‘I’m done.’ He lets himself drop to the ground, and I take a step back on instinct. I don’t want a tonne of hard, muscular man landing on my socked toes. But before I can react further, he’s hooking an arm around me and hauling me against his soaking wet body. His breathis ragged, his tone ominous, as he continues, ‘And you’re going to get it.’

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