“It’s assurance,” Lamb explained, his voice patient and lacking any inkling of killer intent, unlike mine.
“More like a leash.” I shook it again to press my point. “I am not some pet, you know.”
“I’ve never once thought of you as a pet.”
“I find that hard to believe,” I growled, pushing myself to sit in bed. Fortunately, the chain was long enough that we weren’t forced to hold hands. I stared hard at what I assumed was the direction of his sleeping form. It would be awkward to turn on the light and find I was ranting in the opposite direction. “You take me out for walks.”The mall.“Give me treats when I behave.”Whiskey.“Bathe me and brush my fur.”Self-explanatory.“And now you tie me up in case I run away.” I shook the chains again. “If I am not a pet, then what am I?”
If I had been expecting a verbal answer, I was severely mistaken.
I found I had been facing the correct way as his body slammed into mine. One second, I was sitting up; the next, I was flat on my back, my head slamming into my pillow, and a firm, hard, warm body pressing down on me. My breath escaped out of my lungs, his sandalwood and cedar scent overwhelming this close as that familiar leg pressed between the gap of my own, his hard, muscular thigh pressed right into my core.
“You are the single most baffling thing I have met in my life,” Lamb answered, his breath rolling over my neck, tingling heat in its wake. My nipples hardened against his chest, the vibration of his voice travelling through his sternum, into my chest, and down between my legs. “You confuse me in ways no one and nothing ever has. I can’t figure you out, and in my world, that is rare. People have patterns and goals, but you …” He hesitated, and his nose touched against the side of my jaw, running alongit, tracing it up to my ear and down the artery in my neck. “Patterns very rarely change, but it’s like yours have never been set. One moment, you seem like you want to live; the next, you act like you’re ready to die.”
“So what?” It was as if his claws had sunk deep into my chest, touching a part of me that nobody,especially not him, should reach. “You are going to fix me? Make my patterns right again?”
I tried to move, but Lamb’s grip was firm. I had no way to grapple him or shove him, his hands pinning down my wrists. It was frustrating, but Lamb was a healthy, strong man, and I was a sick, weak woman. In just strength alone, we were severely outmatched.
“No.” Lamb shook his head, his nose still pressed into the soft nape of my neck. He lifted his head, a gentle brush of his hair passing over my chin. I could not see his eyes in the dark, but I could feel his breath running over my lips. “I don’t wish to change you.”
“Then what do you want?”
“I don’t know,” he said, his voice so quiet I barely heard it. “And for me, that is a first. You frustrate and confuse me, but even so, I cannot and will not let you go.”
Lamb’s grip loosened on my wrist, but it did not disappear. Instead, his hand slipped from my arm, trailing slowly over my elbow, travelling to my shoulder, tracing the lines his nose had made up to my throat. His fingers paused over my pulse, my heartbeat no doubt thrumming beneath my skin, a heat now rushing from his fingertips, over my chest, and up to my face.
“What if you cannot keep me?” I whispered, my voice breaking as the weight of those emotional claws sunk deeper into my chest, into my heart. The need to attack and push him away still burned bright inside, stinging its way up my throat and behind my eyes, but I did not move. He held me still, no longer just by his body pressing into my hips, his hard length luring myown centre to press closer. But the weight of his fingertips placed on my skin was enough that I was static beneath him.
“Be it your father, the world, or even yourself, no one will be able to take you from me now,” Lamb vowed, his voice deep and gravelly, emotions he didn’t seem to understand lacing tight into his words. Emotions I did not, and feared I would never, understand, either. “I’d bet everything on that.”
I did not know what to say. I did not know if there was anything I could say to that. What did you say to a man who said he did not care for your opinion, and that you belonged solely to him?
“But if it is a collar you want so badly,” Lamb purred, his palm sinking down over my throat, fingers bedding into my skin, holding me there, still and tamed, “I will oblige.”
Ah. That is right.
“Fuck you,” I hissed, my free hand now awakening to reach up and—
He grabbed it. I couldfeelthat smug look on his face as his thumb pressed tight against my wrist, my fingertips just brushing that annoying soft blond hair he bedazzled people with.
“Dickhead,” I hissed. “It is not like anybody would have noticed a clump missing from your head.”
“I don’t mind hair pulling.” Lamb’s voice rippled through the air, a new husk to his voice that had not been present a moment ago. “But at least let me give you a better reason to do so.”
He pressed my captured hand to the back of his neck, my other pinned hand, now free, and placed in the same spot.
“What are you—oh God!” I hissed, the chain jostling as his mouth sunk hard onto my neck. The bastard moved fast, rocking his hips to each suck and graze of his teeth and mouth against my nape. His intention was not to free my hands but his ownas they sank down to my hips, holding my body still as his hard length pressed against the thin cotton bottoms.
“Lamb,” I groaned, heat burning and aching with each roll of friction rubbing up over my folds and my clit. I had no knickers on beneath the bottoms, and there was no barrier as the heat from his own body seared straight into mine.
Both my hands were now wrapped around his neck, wanting to push him away, but physically unable to do anything but hold on. Even without his hands locked around my hips, my muscles wanted to rock in time with him as each torturous movement sent treacherous shivers deep into my core. The friction was building, my warmth soaking into my crotch to the point I doubted you could even call this dry humping any longer.
Lamb, a master of multitasking, apparently, pressed his chest harder into mine, my nipples bordering on pain as their tight little buds rubbed against the firm motions of his chest. The silk was deceptive, and the sheets beneath me did nothing to hold me still as we both began to slide up and down the bed with the motion. All it did was add to the momentum as my body slammed back into him with each increasing thrust of his hips against mine.
I nearly gasped at the hard point of his dick catching the centre of my entrance. The sponginess of the mattress had altered the angle of my hips as the force increased, and now, with each motion, the tip caught just on my entrance, pushing just past the surface before breaking free and sliding up to slam into my clit.
“Oh God,” I moaned with each poke and slap of my clit building a lava-hot fire inside. It was slow, and the friction had felt good at first, but now, it was bordering on torture as I rose and rose with no end. “Lamb, stop,” I moaned, my fingers wrapping tightly into his hair, hoping they’d be the reins to slow him down.
It did the opposite.