Page 203 of Those Who Are Bound

Becks

“Whatthefuck,Ellie?”

She stared back at him as he stood in the doorway. He was confused, angry, and horrified by the stab of lust.

And he was shocked—mortified. She had struck him nearly speechless, something his crime scenes hadn’t done since he was a rookie. And then, not like this.

Ellie shook her head at him as though to tell him he wasn’t seeing what he was seeing as she writhed on the bed. Fucking writhed! But he was seeing it. Nearly naked, tugging on the ropes that spread her legs. The reddened marks on her ankles told him her struggles were not new, and her legs were bound fast. Above her head, her wrists were held tight in a slipknot.

Bound; tied to his bed, laid out for him in her little white bra and underwear. Swallowing hard, he stared for a few moments at the darkness on her panties before he dragged his gaze back up to hers and asked again, his voice thicker and hoarser, “What the ever-lovingfuck, Ellie?”

“I wanted to see what it felt like, Becks; those pictures. Those women.”

His attention flicked to the crime scene photos he’d had in his desk that now lay beside her in the bed. He should have locked them up. He knew her fascination with them, the sexual assault cases. No—only the ones where the women were bound by rope.

He stalked over to the bed and grabbed up the photos. She was reenacting one of the pictures—of a dead red-haired woman tied in this same position. “Shit, Ellie! These women were murdered. What the fuck is the matter with you?” He snapped, “And how does it feel?”

She looked up at him, her back arching as she tested the bonds, her expression falling into one of euphoria. She answered quietly, “Good, Becks. It feels good.” She shivered.

Becks lost his breath, his gaze once again taking in the sight of her; this was his fault. He shouldn’t have indulged her morbid curiosity over the years, because it’d led to this: her tied in his bed, telling him how good it felt, her body beckoning, inviting.

“You’re like family, Ellie.” That didn’t seem to be an issue for his dick.

“I didn’t mean to.” She looked up at the rope slip-knotted around her wrists. “I slipped.”

Becks looked where she was secured; she hadn’t slipped. She’d placed her wrists inside and pulled, effectively binding them. She hadn’t intended to getoutof it. She was inhisbed, not experimenting in her room. “You forget, this is my fucking job. You aren’t here by accident.” He flicked the cord, and she made a sound that reverberated right to his goddamn perverted cock.

“Please, Becks.”

He squatted down beside the bed and looked at her, striving for the dispassion necessary when dissecting a scene; failing. She turned her head to look at him. Her dark hair swirled around her face and shoulders, damp at the temples; she’d worked herself up so much, perspiration made her skin glow.

This new vantage point was a mistake; hell, any vantage point was a mistake. She was sleek, athletic, and young; the planes of her face stunning with the flush of desire. Straight nose he’d dropped kisses on throughout her life, her pink lips lush and dying to be kissed. A long neck tapered to breasts that were the perfect size for a man’s hand, and her nipples were standing up against the thin fabric of her bra, demanding attention.

The rise and fall of her chest were as rapid as her pulse. Her tight stomach muscles contracted and rippled as she made small movements against the ropes, which increased her pleasure. She shivered again; her legs quaked. Her little white underwear were a tease, hiding the nest of black curls and the hot wetness that the fabric betrayed; her muscles there would be as tight around him.

He was rock hard. It didn’t matter that she was twenty-three years younger than him. It didn’t matter that her parents wouldkill himand he’d deserve it. It didn’t matter that he’d known her since before she was born—that she was here today, in his bed, because her life had been saved years ago.

This wasn’t a reward; she wasn’t his reward.

“You’re a goddamn virgin,” he spat out angrily.

“I’m not,” she assured him. “I trust you.”

“Oh, fuck,” he said, standing up and turning away; it wasn’t anything he wanted to hear.He tossed the photos on the dresser. He watched in the mirror. She was looking back, pleading.

“I’ll find someone else. I’ll go somewhere else; there’re places…”

Becks turned on her. “Don’t you fucking dare. You’ll likely end up in one of these damn pictures.”

She looked at him beseechingly. “Then you need to.” She took in another staccato breath. She started to tear up. “You don’t know how this feels.”

If she meant salaciously tortured, then he knew exactly how it felt because that’s what she was doing to him.

But she was looking at him with her big, gray eyes, her gorgeous, nubile, curvy body offered to him. And she’d threatened to go out on her own, find someone else to appease this appetite of hers. This appetite, born of—what?—repressed trauma during a southern storm only to be stoked to life through his fucking crime scene photos?

But staring back at her, he knew firsthand what could happen to her. So did she, having looked through his photos for years. Whathadhappened to her that she’d never recalled. The likelihood of history repeating wasn’t high, and it didn’t always come to that—rarely, in fact—but the risk was there. And the thought of some jacked-up, leather-clad man taking advantage of her in that way, tying her up…

Reaching for his tie, loosening it, he kept trying to rationalize it, what he was about to do. Hand to God, he’d never looked at her sexually before. But he couldn’t ignore her now.

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