Page 92 of Binding Their Hearts

“Fucked?” Jay mumbled, his breathless laugh tickling as he laid his cheek against her.

She snorted, ungracefully, and didn’t give half a damn. “Yeah, that too.” Flinging an arm wide, she searched for Henry. “Wrung out. Thank you for the surprises, Henry.”

A broad hand caught her own and pressed kisses to her knuckles. Her husband crouched before her, his face eye level, his shirt collar and the creases in his dress pants somehow still pristine though he’d been throwing a flogger for god only knew how long. “Surprising you is its own reward, sweet girl.”

His cock, a hard outline beneath navy fabric, said otherwise. “You sure about that?”

“Quite sure.” He swooped in and claimed her mouth, and she poured all her love and gratitude into the union. He hummed against her lips, sliding into a growl as he nipped her. “I have other uses for that.”

She squeezed her hands, one husband’s hand in each, and light bulbs illuminated the recesses of her mind. Henry was holding off his own orgasm for— “Oh! Now? Is it now?”

Laughing, Henry placed a kiss on her forehead. Slow and deliberate, he tucked her hair behind her ear. Probably sweaty. She’d been working hard, after all, lying on the flogging horse doing absolutely nothing.

“You may wish a few moments’ rest and a glass of water. No cause to sprint, dearest.” Henry tipped his head toward his cock. A wry smile—dare she say a smirk?—spread across his face. “Age and experience tell me this will keep until I have need of it.”

“Is what now?” Jay wriggled against her like a cat stretching in the sun. “Do you want water, Alice? I can get it.”

The pitcher and glasses sat on the desk; she’d seen them in her assessment of the room. Completely missed the convertible furniture, but a person couldn’t be expected to spy every secret in a brand-new dungeon immediately.

“I do…” She tried to turn, an impossibility in her position, locked between her stud of a husband and their intriguing new flogging horse. “Umm…”

Sweet, intuitive Jay lifted her to her feet as he stood, his cock sliding free from their embrace. She spun in his arms even as he sought to steady her, and crushed him in her hug. Suddenly shy, she buried her face in his neck.

“Water, yes, please.” But she refused to let him disengage, her heart hammering with fresh nerves. “And then I want to give you something.”

Her voice didn’t tremble, so that was something. Dominant-esque. Despite her preparation and conversations with Henry, she couldn’t be sure this would turn out right. The dominance thing was all educated guesswork—studying the materials and the structure and hunting for the key mechanism to bring the pieces together.

“Me?” Jay cradled her close, stroking her back, his chin dipping. She didn’t need to lift her head to picture the what is happening here look he undoubtedly shot Henry. “It’s your birthday.”

“I know. It’s just…” Every engineer brought flaws into the model—the things they didn’t anticipate, couldn’t see, refused to accept. Ideally, she and Henry covered each other’s oversights. Came to the right conclusion about Jay’s needs and desires. She had to get this right for Jay. The perfect mix of loving and possessive, to show her husband she valued every dimension of him. “Important. To me. To us, I hope.”

Another hand touched her back, resting at the base of her neck. “Alice has asked for a more active gift this year, Jay, to suit her more active role in our relationship.”

“But only if you’re ready, Jay.” She pushed back, needing to see Jay’s face, and nearly ran into Henry’s chest. “Sorry.” Her scrutiny yielded a ruling of amiable confusion in Jay’s earnest brown eyes and gently pursed lips. “But it’s okay to say no or not yet or I’m really rethinking this whole concept, Alice.”

“Okay…” Jay clasped her shoulders and ran his hands along her arms, giving her little squeezes the whole way down. He linked their hands and lightly swung them. “I guarantee I’ve never said a sentence like that in my life, so maybe you tell me what the gift is? And then I say”—he spread their arms wide—“that’s a fantastic gift, Alice, I’m so down for it.”

“But only if you’re feeling it.” Her voice firmed around a nugget of—protection. That was the key. If she focused on protecting Jay, her nervous energy settled into determination. “I suspect Henry has what I picked out on the dresser.”

“I do.” Henry’s calm, casual tone should be the target she aimed for every time.

Black fabric still covered a wide section of their makeshift toy chest. “Jay, you know I’ve been practicing—”

“Flogging? For months, I know.” Jay flung his attention from the dresser to the room’s new wood-and-leather centerpiece, dropping her hands only to swarm her hips and lift her off her feet. “It’s my turn? You mean it?”

“That first.” The added height nearly made her dizzy after the flogging and the orgasm. She planted one hand against his shoulder and ran the other through his hair, smoothing strands thrown into chaos when he delivered the climax Henry had ordered for her. “And then, if you want, I’d like to…”

She’d spent an entire afternoon with Henry trying things on and making her selection. Nothing too lifelike, nothing oversized or oddly shaped or designed for advanced users. If Jay enjoyed the scene she’d planned, they could choose new tools together when they were ready. For today, she had a comfortable harness and a simple, thin, short, silicone cock.

“Will you let me fuck you, Jay?”

Chapter forty-five

Jay

Jay stood still only because Alice wore intense-focus face, and he wasn’t about to unsettle her before she got her gifts. How they were her gifts when he’d be the one receiving, he couldn’t say, but his whole body attuned to her with the crisp attention of the air before a lightning strike. So standing still? Not easy at all.

She smoothed each strap on his harness, buckling and checking the fit and petting and stroking. Alice didn’t have Henry’s confidence at scene running yet. But that was okay—perfect, even, for what they were about to do. Five years ago, not one person had given a damn about his comfort or readiness. His emotions mattered less than a tails-up penny lying in a gutter.

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