she murmured as he took the seat opposite, candlelight and shadows making him even more beautiful.
‘When I was eight I wanted to be a submariner,’ he said as he reached for the bread. ‘When I die I want to be fed to the fishes.’
‘Do you think about dying a lot?’
‘I think about surviving more.’ He broke his bread, put it in his mouth and chewed.
‘When I was eight I wanted to be a foreign correspondent news reporter,’ she offered.
‘Seriously?’
‘Yes. I grew up an only child in a very serious household where news ran twenty-four-seven. Foreign correspondents were my rock stars. I guess you had to be there.’
‘Chances are I wouldn’t have stayed there. I like being outdoors—anything to do with water and swimming in the rain.’
‘Is this a song?’
‘Feel free to add your own verse,’ he offered generously.
‘I like scalding hot showers, with multiple shower heads.’
‘Hedonist.’
Their conversation continued, sporadic and easy, as they ate their way through plates of truly excellent appetisers.
The fact that Jared wanted to be open and honest with Rowan didn’t mean that it came effortlessly to him. It had been years since he’d last shared pieces of himself with anyone, even if she did make it easy for him.
And then their main meals arrived, and he tried not to let the silence ratchet up his tension again. Every scrape of cutlery on a plate fed his senses. Every taste and touch—every glance—branded straight through his skin to enflame the beast beneath.
When she pushed her plate aside at the end of the meal and leaned back in her chair to study him he was hard-pressed not to start trembling, his need to reach out and take was so big.
‘Ro …’
He wished his voice worked better, but all he could manage was a gravel-scrape across the vowel. He needed to lose himself in sensation, sink so deeply into it that there was no thought for anything but pleasure, no thought of anything but sex. No room for memories, no way to screw up.
‘How do you like your sex?’
And she looked at him with those all-seeing eyes and just knew where he was going with this.
‘Soft and sweet not really going to cut it for you?’ she asked.
‘No. And I don’t want to break anything. You, especially.’
‘I’m hungry,’ she murmured. ‘It’s been a while for me. If we do this, I don’t mind getting a little reckless.’
She was saying all the right words, and her delivery was malt-whisky-smooth. Then again, she’d read his psych report.
‘I’m trying to be honest here.’ And maybe—just maybe—he was trying to avert disaster. ‘I’m touch-starved, apparently. And I’m hungry for you. I’ve been sitting here fighting the need to reach for you. And it’s big, this need, and I’m struggling to control it. If we start this … If you want to … I need to know that you’ll be okay if I get a little greedy.’
He needed more from her than a simple touch, more than a simple caress, and he didn’t know where this would take them or how it would end.
‘I usually lead during sex—I take control. But—’
The thought of bringing two years’ worth of abstinence to the table and not being able to control himself …
She stood and crossed to the bar, poured him another whisky and brought it to the table, leaning into him and brushing her breasts against his shoulder as she did so. She threaded her fingers through his hair and he closed his eyes on an indrawn breath, unable to do much more than ride the spark of heat that shot from head to groin.
‘There is another way we could do this,’ she whispered. ‘A way to take all that fear of breaking things right out of the equation. Shall I tie you up, Jared? Would that help?’
One hand was still in his hair and the other was tracing a slow trail around his neck. He swallowed hard and nodded as a tremor ripped straight through him.
‘Yes.’
She kissed him then, slow and careful—until he framed her face with his hands and let the hunger lick through him.
‘Get up,’ she whispered, so he did.
And somehow they made it to the bedroom without breaking anything.
She undressed him and kept his tie in her hand. He knew that silk was strong—he’d trusted his life to it on more than one occasion—but if she thought one necktie was going to hold him she was mistaken.
The knot she used to bind his hands together in front of him was impressive.
‘On your back, on the bed, arms above your head,’ she said next, and then crossed the room and reached for the thick silk rope that held the curtains back.
That was more like it …
He groaned, his dignity in tatters, because … yes.
She tied his hands to the bedhead—the very centre of the bedhead—and she had to straddle him and lean all over him to do it. Or maybe she didn’t have to. Either way, he wasn’t complaining. He twisted beneath her, seeking skin with his lips—the soft inner skin of her upper thigh—and tasted salt and sweetness, felt the give in her as she momentarily melted against him, the strength in her as she redoubled her efforts to secure his hands.
The scent of her … he breathed it in. Skin—he wanted more of it. She obliged by lifting her dress up over her body to reveal two lacy scraps of underwear and then she leaned forward again, so that the skin across her ribs was within reach of his lips, and sighed her approval when he went there, and then higher, to the underswell of her breasts. Higher still as she pushed the lace of her bra aside and gave him access to her nipple. He took his time with that, played her soft and sweet, until finally he clamped down and sucked hard, deeply satisfied by the dark flare that lit her eyes. Yes, she’d take more of that.
And then she pulled away and leaned over him again, testing the strength of the ties by curling her hands around his wrists and pulling until the cords drew tight. She trailed her hands along his arms and over his shoulders, slid her body down his and went to work on him. Mapping him with her hands and with her lips, every ridge and valley, she explored him until he was little more than a straining, moaning mess.
‘Good?’ she whispered.
‘Yes.’
And then she blanketed him with her body and started kissing him, languid, messy, got-all-the-time-in-the-world kisses, while her body learned the shape of his and how best she’d fit against it. She kissed him until he was iron-hard and straining for release, slick with promise … He hadn’t come from just the touch of a body against his since he was a teenager, but tonight he thought
