Page 106 of Down Knot Out
I can’t finish the sentence. Not the way legal wrote it, so matter-of-fact. So cold.
He doesn’t react with anger or indignation. Instead, he rises and leans closer, hands sliding from my lap to cradle both sides of my head. He cups my cheeks, his beard brushing my skin, and the cider scent grows stronger.
I want to disappear into it. Into him.
“I didn’t even want to keep writing this series.” The words tumble out, growing faster to fill his silence. “I was only continuing it because they wanted me to. The publisher. The fans. Grady.”
“Forget all of them.” His hands tighten. “What do youactuallywant?”
The question stuns me. I expected to be told to fight, to push for what’s mine. I didn’t expect permission to let it all go.
I remember my original plan when I arrived on the island.
“Smut,” I whisper, my bottom lip trembling. “Weird, funny, unapologetic smut. Not princesses,not dragons, not traumatized girls learning how to save themselves with swords.”
My face goes hot, the skin under his hands blooming red. “Just messy, bright, slightly deranged stories about people falling for monsters.”
He barks out a laugh that rumbles through my bones. “You said you’d never touch another tentacle after the Sprinkles Incident.”
The laugh tears through the shame and the static, and suddenly my body is moving again, jerking with a full-bodied shudder of amusement and horror at the same time. Tears prick my eyes, but not from sadness.
“You’re amonster,” I gasp past my giggles, and he pulls me out of the chair with both arms, tucking me hard into his chest.
My face mashes into the crook of his neck, beard scraping my hairline, his pulse thudding steady beneath my cheek.
He holds me until the laughter melts into real crying, and I shake with both at once.
“I’m sorry this happened, sweetheart.” His lips brush my temple. “But maybe it’s the push you need to stop doing what other people want and focus on what makes you happy?”
I let out a wet hiccup. “What if tentacles make me happy?”
“Then that’s what you should write.” Blake’s hands move up to my ribcage, and his lips slip across the center of my forehead, the sensation crackling through the rest of me.
Before I can protest, he straightens and scoops me from the chair, the movement effortless.
He carries me out of the office and down the hall to his bedroom, where he lowers me onto the mattress.
The bedding holds his scent, the quilt saturated with his pheromones. I scoot higher toward the pillows, pressing my face into the soft down. He moves to his nightstand, rummages, and comes up holding a purple silicone object, its surface textured with undulating ridges and ripples.
Startled, I sit up. “Is that?—”
“For inspiration.” As he strokes the ridges spiraling down the length of the tentacle, it undulates obscenely. “Since you’re planning on branching out.”
My face flames with embarrassment. “I’ve never actually used it.”
“We’ll have fun exploring together.” He sets the toy at the foot of the bed and returns to me.
He unfastens each button on my cardigan andpeels it away. Dropping it to the floor, his hands return to my collarbones. He runs his thumbs over the neckline of my tank, teasing the skin beneath before he lifts it free. Cool air brushes my bare skin, raising goose bumps across my chest and pebbling my nipples.
His hands skate over my torso, pausing at the soft give of my belly, the tender dip of my hip, and the downy skin of my inner arm.
He maintains eye contact the whole time. Then he leans in to kiss me, his whiskers tickling my chin and cheek as I open to the wet stroke of his tongue.
When his hands reach for my waistband, I lift my ass off the bed to make it easier for him to roll my leggings down, leaving me in only my underwear.
Blake pulls back to trace his finger along my thigh, following a vein from knee to groin. He bends, beard scraping the inside of my knee, and kisses a path upward, spreading my legs wider as he goes. The sensation lights a direct line to my center, and my legs try to squeeze shut in reaction, but his large hands on my thighs keep me open.
I forget how to breathe.
