Page 44 of Wicked Fantasies

“I’m not going to ask you again, darlin’.”

“It was a misunderstanding. Everything is fine now. Really. You look beat, Colt. Why don’t you go on to your room?”

“Are you crazy? Did you bump your head? I’m not going to bed until I get some goddamn answers.”

“Nothing happened here.” At his angry look, she seemed to rethink her words. “I mean, I think things just got a bit out of hand.”

“That man had you tied up and was beating the hell out of you, Kylie. I’d say things were more than a bit out of hand.”

“It was a mistake, that’s all.”

“He said you asked for that beating, but I happen to know for a fact, my best friend has more intelligence than that.”

She bit her lip and a tear escaped her lovely brown eyes before she could swipe it away.

“Aw hell, darlin’, please don’t cry. I’m right here and I won’t let that man touch you again, I swear it. I’m just trying to understand?—”

“I did ask him for it.”

He studied her face for a moment, sure he’d heard her wrong.

“Look at me,” he demanded.

When she complied, he repeated her words in his question. “You asked him to beat the hell out of you?”

“No,” she cried, “of course not. We…we were starting to get intimate. He seemed like a decent man—” Colt snorted at her words, but she continued anyway. “I mean we’ve been going out for a few months and I thought I could trust him. He asked me what I liked…I mean in bed, and I told him?—”

She stopped talking and tried to look away.

“You told him what?” He refused to let her escape and held tight to her chin, forcing her gaze to meet his.

“I told him I’ve always wanted to be tied up and spanked.” Her words were no more than a whisper, but they resonated in his head like a cannon.

“You didn’t like what he was doing, Kylie. Regardless of what you asked for, I’ve got eyes in my head and I know he was hurting you.”

She shuddered and closed her eyes tightly before responding. “You’re right,” she conceded. “I hated what he was doing. It hurt, but he wouldn’t stop, no matter how many times I asked him.”

“Then why the fuck didn’t you let me arrest the bastard?”

“Because I asked him to tie me up. Christ, can you see me sitting in front of one of your friends down at the precinct stating my case? I asked him to do that to me.”

Her tears fell freely now and his heart froze at the sight. He’d never seen her cry. Not in all their years together as roommates.

She was a tomboy, to be sure, and was most at home in a room full of itching, cussing, drinking men. She watched football and hockey with the same rabid enthusiasm as him and her language would make a sailor blush. She owned one dress that he’d ever seen and she had only worn that for a funeral. She’d never had a manicure and she cut her own hair, usually in a snit when it finally drove her so crazy she had no choice.

“Kylie, why?”

At his question, he watched her tears evaporate and the same tough exterior he’d grown used to reappear.

“I’m tired, Colt. I think I’m going to go to sleep.”

“Kylie—” He started to repeat his question, but she cut him off.

“Don’t. Don’t ask me. Please, leave me alone.”

He considered her request as he studied her face. He knew her well enough to know she wouldn’t say anything more on the subject. Not tonight, not tomorrow, probably not ever.

“Roll over.” His words were harsh. He wanted her to understand she could deny him the truth, but she would not deny him this.

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