Page 42 of Captured Pawn
Several low lights came on as he stopped to flip a switch inside the door. Part of me wished he’d left the lights off… worried he might not like what he saw. But once he’d laid me on my back in the middle of his huge bed, I was grateful for the lights, making it impossible to miss seeing his naked body in all its muscular glory.
I was stunned into silence as I watch him moving around the room, comfortable in his own skin. His broad shoulders and arms were covered with tattoos. His chest was well defined, only lightly camouflaged with dark hair I wanted to run my fingers through.
But it was his long, thick cock—jutting out proudly from his body—that held my attention. My pussy contracted, reminding me it had been empty for a very long time.
“Like what you see?”
My gaze snapped up to his grinning face, so handsome he took my breath away. I felt a full body flush wash over me at being caught red-handed admiring his body. I tried to keep my embarrassment in check, not wanting to come off as the naive little girl he’d clearly thought me to be at the cemetery. Yet if the hungry look in his eyes was to be trusted, I shouldn’t be worried about him seeing me as an innocent any longer.
I’d just finished that thought when my gaze moved past Nick to the tall armoire behind him, its doors flung open. Like the kitchen counter, the entire compartment was filled with a smorgasbord of sex toys. Shelves and drawers held smaller objects, but over a dozen paddles, crops, and items I couldn’t even identify hung down from the many hooks inside.
A pang of jealousy squeezed my heart realizing that instead of keeping his ties and belts handy, it was his sex toys that he used so frequently he kept them front and center. The sight of the punishment tools should have frightened me, but they didn’t. It was acknowledging my own resentment of the plethora of women who would experience them, both before and after me, that scared me to death.
“Shit… I didn’t expect you to…” His voice trailed off after following my gaze.
I moved my arms in front of me, self-consciously shielding myself from him.
“It’s not your fault,” I answered truthfully, pushing myself to sit up before adding, “I shouldn’t be here.”
Even as the words left my mouth, I wanted to pull them back, but not because they weren’t true. I absolutely shouldn’t be there, and I knew it deep down.
But that didn’t stop me fromwantingto be there… in Nick’s room… in Nick’s bed.
Nick closed the distance between us, kneeling down in front of me, making it impossible to ignore him. “This is exactly where you’re supposed to be, Sophie.”
I wanted to believe him, but as I glanced around the room, I had the perfect view of the bedroom wall in front of me. Every inch of it was covered in a floor-to-ceiling mirror. Between the bed and the mirror sat a heavy wooden piece of furniture that my imagination had absolutely no problems furnishing the images of debauchery it was used for.
Christ, he’d been right all along. I was an innocent compared to him. I was in way over my head with a sex god like Nick Knight.
He reached to cup my chin, pulling my attention away from the room and back on him. I felt my face turning red like a naive little girl.
“Don’t you dare get scared on me now, kitten. You’ve been fearless up until now. Trust me… I’m going to make it hurt so good.”
That was exactly what I was afraid of.
Before I could find the right words, Nick let the smile fall from his face, getting serious. “I don’t normally offer this, but… Do you know what a safeword is, baby?”
“Sort of,” I admitted. “I’ve heard about it in books and movies.” My voice sounded shaky, only making me seem even more inexperienced.
“Well, tonight it will become part of your real life. I’ll try not to get too hard core on you, but in case I do something that you don’t like, all you need to do is call outredand I’ll stop, okay?”
I could tell he was trying to put me at ease, but reading between the lines, what I heard was that he was going to treat me like the innocent little girl he’d always thought I was, and it pissed me off and comforted me in equal measure.
“So, I’ll be getting the watered-down version of you then?”
Where had that question come from?
“Sophie… it’s not like that.”
“Oh, what is it like then, Nick?” Agitated, mostly at myself, I tried to stand, but he held me in place.
“Where is this coming from? I thought we were on the same page here?” he bit back.
His mischievous grin made my insides flip-flop. Warning bells were getting louder in my head. It was totally irrational. I’d already lost my brother, but in that moment, I suspected it would hurt every bit as much when I had to leave and never see Nick again. Maybe it was his connection to Matty that made me feel close to him… but maybe it was something more.
The smart thing would be to grab my clothes and leave now, before anything else happened between us.
But Matty’s death had changed everything for me. It had shown me how fragile life could be… how tomorrow isn’t promised to anyone. Not me… not Nick.
