Page 46 of Take Me Tender

“I don’t want a proper kiss.” Her mouth found his nipple and she rolled the tip of her tongue across the tiny, hardening point.

His back arched, pushing his hot skin against her lips. She sucked.

His free hand closed around her upper arm. “Nikki, God.”

Leaning over his chest, she found his other nipple and swirled her tongue around the areola. “Bruja,” he whispered. “Get up here.” His hand tried to drag her toward his mouth.

“No,” she said, shaking her head as she pulled back to sit on the mattress. “You keep your hands to yourself, handsome.”

“Can’t. Can’t not touch you.”

She loved the guttural tone. But he wasn’t getting his way this time. This time it was her way, her choice, her power.

His response.

Her hand brushed the length of scarf and she pulled one end, sliding it from behind his neck. “What are you doing?” he asked, as she positioned his wrists together and rested them on the flat of his stomach.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” She wound the fabric around and around, creating a soft set of bulky handcuffs.

“Hey, wait,” he protested. “I believe I called this kinky game first.”

“You talk too much. Haven’t I told you that?” Still, she was amazed at his cooperation. Not every man, she suspected, would cede control like this. “It’s time for you to shut up and take what I’m going to give you.”

He grinned. “You should have put it like that in the first place.”

Her gaze jumped to his. “You’re so bad.”

“I love it when you frown. Come up here.” His tone cajoled, laughter danced in his eyes, and she could tell he wasn’t really letting her have her way. Instead he was trying to talk her into what he wanted. “Let me bite that pouty lower lip.”

She sucked it back. “I do not pout.”

“Only when I complain about your commando boots. But right now I could sing hosannas to some thigh-high leather and a bustier, the pink tip of your breast between my—”

She bent, and the rest of his blather was lost on a choked-in breath as she took the head of his erection into her mouth. Her tongue circled the ridge of flesh before moving to the smooth skin of his shaft. Her gaze drifted to his.

“Shutting up now,” he whispered. “Quiet as a mouse. Noiseless as a nematode…”

She sucked him deeper, sucked hard to take the flavor of him into her body. Her tongue painted passion along his slick skin.

His body shuddered. “Silent as surrender.”

It was what she wanted. Him taking, Nikki giving. It was what she needed, and she couldn’t damn the man for the suspicion that he understood exactly that. He understood women.

So many times he’d understood her.

The palm of her hand brushed up his hair-roughened thigh. He twitched at her touch, then his thighs parted to give her access to the round, cooler warmths at the base of his shaft. She cupped them in her palm and then moved her mouth to suck lightly at their baby-soft skin.

“Nikki,” he whispered. “Cookie. God, you’re good at that.”

The praise was like an aphrodisiac. Like warm chocolate running through her veins. She slid against his body, cuddling closer so that her nipples pressed against his flank and then she slid her good knee over one of his thighs to hold him still for her ministrations.

Someone was moaning—oh, it was her—as she rubbed her breasts against the hot skin of his leg. She ran her tongue up and down the glistening shaft of his erection and then pressed a smacking kiss on the very top of the swollen head. From the corner of her eye, she saw his fingers flex, as if he had to move even though she’d constrained him.

She licked another path downward, then up again, stopping when she saw the droplet seeping from his body. Her gaze jumped to his, saw the burn there, that was all for her. No, from her.

I did this. I do this to him.

Power shot through her as she reached out her forefinger to claim his body’s tear. “Wet,” she whispered, looking at her fingertip, then at him. “Wet, like me.”

Holding his gaze, she sucked her finger into her mouth, savoring his taste against her tongue.

“Enough.” He reared up, his arms breaking free of her yarn chains in one swift movement. Before she could pull her finger free of her lips, she was flat on her back and Jay was leaning over her.

“Hey,” she said, pushing against his chest. “Hey, this isn’t…that’s not…” The last words were lost against his lips.

Lost in his kiss. All of her, lost.

He lifted his head as her hands slid to the mattress. “My chance now, cookie.”

“But…but…” The words died. Surrender was so sweet and she’d proved her point, hadn’t she? He’d trusted her enough to let her truss him up and she’d tasted how far she’d taken him, how far her power over him could take them both. It wouldn’t hurt to let him have his turn.

He made her muscles gelatin in a matter of seconds. His mouth traced her ears, her jaw, the length of her neck. He had passionate revenge on her breasts, not stopping until she was lifting off the mattress and begging him for…something.

Then he turned her over. He was silent a moment. “That ass,” he finally said, running his palms over both round curves. “I’ve neglected that ass for much too long.” His fingers kneaded her there, and then moved upward, massaging the small of her back and then the muscles across her shoulder blades.

Her eyes closed in sensuous delight. “Jay…what you do to me—”

She shrieked, startled by a nip on the apple of her bottom. Jerking her head from the pillow, she glared at him over her shoulder. “What are you doing?”

“I’ll make it better.” He covered the sting with a sucking kiss.

Her heart stuttered. “Are you…did you…”

At a matching place on her other cheek, he nipped again, then sucked. She jerked, unsure if it was pain or pleasure buffeting her senses.

“Twin hickeys on your ass,” he said, his voice smug. “Beautiful. And our little secret.”

Outrage wouldn’t come. Only more heat, more wetness, more want that ached and pulsed between her thighs. “Jay…”

She moaned as something round and cool rolled down her spine. The scent of citrus reached her nostrils. “What are you doing now?”

“Putting one of the lemons you left on the table here to good use.”

“I needed the counter space in the kitchen.” Her bottom was still throbbing from those heated little marks, but that firm, smooth fruit was confusing her nerve endings. She squirmed as he rolled the lemon firmly down the bumps of her spine and then horizontally in the dip at the base. “I thought a bowl of fruit was more manly than flowers for your bedroom.”

“That’s me, manly man.” The lemon made another erotic trip over her back. “I always see you rolling lemons like this. How come?”

Her face burned. She forced herself not to squirm again. “To…to release the juice.”

His hand froze. The lemon pressed hard into the small of her back, and she clenched her bottom muscles in reaction, setting those silly hickeys to throbbing again.

“Is it working?” he asked, turning her over to face upward again. “Are your juices released?”

“Jay.”

“Nikki?” One of his eyebrows lifted as he waited for her response. When she stared up at him, silent, his mouth kicked up. “Okay, then, I’ll just have to find out for myself.”

He grabbed up the abandoned length of scarf. Her heart tripped. Maybe he could see it in her eyes, because his face went serious and there was a sexual hardness to it that he usually disguised with laughter and charm. With a slow movement, he reached for her left wrist.

She couldn’t help but stiffen. Being held down, feeling forced in any way, this fear was the final legacy of her old experience, no matter how much she wished it away. One look at Jay’s intent face, no longer playful, told her he knew exactly how nervous this made her.

“I trusted you,” he said. “Show me you trust me, too.”

Shivers ran hot and cold over her skin. Though they’d never discussed that what she’d claimed happened to her “friend” at that drunken, dark party had really happened to her, she understood Jay knew the truth. He’d known it from the first. So what was he doing?

Oh, God, she knew what he was doing.

She’d thought taking over would give her back what she’d lost. He thought the same…that if she gave over to him, she’d get herself back. If he took the power and gave her only pleasure in return, all the while allowing her no way to escape him…

Would it work? She only knew she couldn’t display her panic, not even now. Never let them think you’re weak.

Watching her face, he wound the scarf around her right arm then fastened it over her head to the headboard. A long tail trailed free on one end, an even longer one on the other. Threading the longer tail beneath her naked back, he didn’t smile. His chest moved up and down with heavy breaths as he tied her left hand to her left ankle, bending her good knee so that her heel met her hand. The rest of the scarf dangled from this new knot.

She inhaled a test breath as she pulled on the fastenings. He’d tied her firmly, but she realized now that as his gaze ran over her flushed skin it was passion, not panic, that drove her thrumming heartbeat and pounding pulse.

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