Breaking Free (12 page)

I released her hands to reach for the tie I’d discarded earlier.

“What are you going to do with that?” she asked, looking torn.

I knew I hadn’t been the last man to tie her up, and she had to feel a modicum of terror mixed with the pleasure she sought. She didn’t know me or what I was capable of. Sure, the world knew my new name and face, but celebrities could do sadistic things too.

“Whatever you want me to, baby.” I glided the silk over her breasts, watching the soft fabric turn her nipples to peaks. “I want to tie you up because I want to make love to you over and over, to give you some of the pleasure you’ve been depriving yourself of for too long. But you have to want it too. You have to ask me to tie you up. I won’t do anything you don’t ask me to do.” I held my breath, waiting. I was asking for her trust, but could a woman who’d been brutalized the way she had ever trust another man, especially one she’d just met?

A tear slipped down her cheek, followed by another. “I’m scared.”

I leaned in to kiss away her tears. I felt as if she was clenching my heart in her fist. No woman had ever extracted feelings from me so easily. “I know you are. It’s okay to be scared after what you’ve been through, but I swear to God I’d never hurt you. Do you believe that? Can you trust me?”

“I want to.”

“Then let yourself.” I kissed her again, slowly, gently, letting her mouth guide mine. “Do you want this?”

She bit her lip, her eyes traveling to the scrap of silk dangling from my fingers. “I want to feel normal again.”

“I can help you with that. I can help you erase the scars that bastard left you with. Let me help you.” I’d always feel responsible for my part in her attack, for bringing whoever hurt her into her life and for letting her leave when I should have demanded she stay, but at least I could try to undo some of the damage by helping her create new memories of incredible sexual experiences.

She nodded, her eyes still filled with terror.

“We’ll go slowly, and you say the word if you want me to let you go, okay?” I wanted to take care of her, to protect her, mainly because I’d failed her before, and my conscience had never let me forget it.

I secured the tie around her wrists and wrapped it around the bed post. Her eyes followed my movements. It was dark, so I didn’t think she could see much, but I assumed it made her feel better to pay attention to me instead of analyzing the implications of what she was allowing me to do.

“How does that feel?” I asked, bracing myself over her. “Too tight?”

She pulled on the restraints. “No.”

I laid down beside her so as not to intimidate her. The prick who’d raped her had probably forced himself on her, pinning her down with his weight. I didn’t want to trigger any bad memories.

I ran my hands over her stomach, careful not to linger on the scars that made her feel self-conscious. “Open your legs for me, beautiful.” I had to show her that she was in charge of her own pleasure again.

She opened her legs, her eyes following my path down her abdomen and over her hip before resting on the apex between her legs.

“You tell me what you need, sweetheart. This is all about your pleasure.”

“Why?” she asked, her voice trapped between sobs. “Why are you doing this? Why are you being so nice to me?”

Because I’ve never stopped loving you. Because I should have been able to protect you.
“Because for tonight, I’m your lover, the man you trusted to make your body feel things it’s never felt before. I want this night to be magical for you. I want it to help you heal.”

She closed her eyes, whispering, “Touch me… the way you did before.”

She wasn’t as comfortable instructing me as she’d been years ago, but how could I expect her to be? She had been a cocky nineteen-year-old who knew she had everything a man could want, and I was at her mercy. Now she was a grown woman with emotional and physical scars and a fiancé who was evidently too selfish to realize she was too terrified to surrender to the kind of sex she really wanted.

I inched my finger inside her slowly as my thumb circled her clit. “Like that?”

“Hmmm, just like that.”

I added another finger, my pace quickening. “How does that feel?”

“Amazing.”

Just enough light filtered through the window for me to catch a glimpse of the look on her face. She was lost in the ecstasy, and I was lost in her.

“You’re amazing.” I kissed her shoulder as I took my time bringing her to the peak. I was in no hurry. I could watch her come all night… every night.

“Blaise…”

I buried my face in the crook of her neck, stroking her soft, lightly scented skin with my tongue. “You took my breath away tonight, Maura. You were so beautiful, so perfect.” Those were the words she needed to hear, the ones I needed to say as I helped her achieve another climax that was gentler, easier than the rest.

She wasn’t fighting me anymore. She was surrendering, learning to trust me, and her own body, to give her the pleasure she sought. “Thank you.” She tilted her head to look me in the eye.

“For what?”

“For being exactly what I needed.”

I was overwhelmed by the trust she placed in me after the hell she’d endured. Seeing her naked and bound after what she’d been through confirmed what I already knew—time had done little to lessen our connection. She felt it as intensely as I did, even after all these years.

“I could say the same.” I kissed all of her trigger spots, from the crook of her neck to her breasts to the spot just above her belly button. When I reached a scar, I felt her abdomen tense. I gently licked the puckered skin, letting her know it did nothing to lessen her beauty in my eyes.

“Make love to me, Blaise.”

I was hesitant to take her like that, worried about whether it would spark an avalanche of fear. “Are you sure, baby? Do you want me to untie you first?”

“I want you to pretend I never told you about… the attack. I want you to act as though I’m normal.” She sounded as though she was rushing to get those words out before she lost her nerve. “Make love to me the way you would if I were any other woman. Please, I just want to feel normal, to forget my past and all my hang-ups about sex, and pretend that one of the sexiest men in the world finds me irresistible.”

“You are irresistible, but I can’t pretend you’re normal,” I said, stroking her face. “That would imply you’re average, and you’re anything but.” I punctuated my point with a kiss. “You’re exceptional, like no one I’ve ever met.”

She closed her eyes as though she was savoring my words, as though they were a balm that soothed her battered body and spirit. “Thank you for saying that.”

That was the second time she’d thanked me, and I couldn’t help but feel I should be the one thanking her. I’d done nothing to deserve her faith in me. I’d set out only thinking about what I hoped to gain from being with her, not what this night could mean for her. She left me feeling humbled, and more than a little ashamed of myself.

I reached into the nightstand for a condom, thinking about a time when she’d placed her future in my hands by forgoing condoms. I’d told her I was clean, and she believed me without hesitation. Naïve maybe, but also breathtaking. I wanted to forget about the reasons I’d brought her to my hotel room and just focus on the fact that she
was
there, in my arms, in my bed, and I was finally good enough for the woman of my dreams. I had more money than I’d ever dreamed of when we’d shared a second-hand bed in my bachelor pad. I was living my dream, and she was a part of it.

Her eyes tracked my movements as I rolled on the condom. For a split second, I feared she saw it—the tattoo to commemorate my brother’s life. It was one of the only things left from my previous life because I couldn’t bear to erase it. There were so many secrets, so many lies between us. I didn’t know how we could ever move past them all, how she would feel if she ever found out the truth, but I knew one thing for sure: I didn’t want her to go back to him. I wanted her to stay with me tonight, tomorrow, for as long as she would have me.

She was tight, but gliding inside her was effortless. She was as turned on as I was, but this time I took her slowly, locking eyes with her and letting her know that I was enjoying every second of being inside her.

“You fit me perfectly, like you were made for me,” I said.

“I bet you say that to all the girls.” She smiled before I stole her breath by picking up the pace.

I’d said that to one girl before.
Her
. “Fuck, you feel so good.”

I tightened my jaw as I tried to regain my composure. Her hands were bound, but she was still in control, milking me and making me wrestle for every ounce of restraint I could muster. I couldn’t curb my reaction to her. It was building too fast, coming on too strong, taking me down.

“Don’t, baby, please. I want to make you come again. I
need
to make you come again.”

“I love watching you like this,” she said, her eyes filled with passion as she rolled her hips beneath me. “On the edge of losing it, trying so hard to hold on. It’s so hot, so sexy.”

I released a shaky laugh as she arched her back, thrusting her tits up and inviting me to caress her nipples. I withdrew to the tip of my cock and plunged in again. Grasping her hips, I tipped her pelvis at just the right angle to hit the spot that would make her explode.

“No,” she said, tossing her head from side to side. “It’s too much, too intense. Please, Blaise. No!”

I stilled, prompting her to look me in the eye. “If you’re telling me no because you’re not ready to trust me, I understand. I’ll let you go. But if you’re telling me no because you’re afraid of what you’re feeling, I can’t let you run from it anymore. You deserve this, Maura. You deserve to feel pleasure that makes you lose yourself, makes you forget your own name.”

She hesitated before she whispered, “I don’t want you to stop.”

She’d reacted the same way the first time we made love. She feared the loss of control, but I’d convinced her to trust me. When she finally did, it was unlike anything she’d experienced before and, I suspected, since.

“That’s it. You know what you need to do,” I said, helping her reach for her release. “That’s the spot.” I maintained the right amount of pressure, the right position. “Now you just need to let go and explode for me. Your body knows what it needs, baby. Let me take you there.”

She cried out, pulling on her restraints as she thrashed, trying to pull away from me. “I can’t. It feels too...”

“You know it’s going to feel amazing.” I knew she needed this to help her remember what it felt like when she let go and trusted her lover to take care of her. I probed the elusive spot with the tip of my cock as I prevented her ass from touching the mattress.

I realized I may have said too much. The only way I could know she’d been there before was because I had been the one to take her there. I had to be careful. I couldn’t give myself away.

“Ohhhh…..” She shuddered and cried my name, the sound reverberating through the room.

I was certain the people next door could hear her, and I didn’t care. The only thing on my mind was her. Her pleasure.

“Yessss….” I found my release at the same time she did, spurred on by the relentless outpouring I felt from her.

I gave her a second to catch her breath. I held her, tenderly kissing her lips, her cheeks, her forehead. I couldn’t get enough, couldn’t express in enough ways how incredible I thought she was. I hadn’t expected her to be able to let her guard down with me, and the fact that she had reminded me of all the reasons I’d fallen in love with her fourteen years earlier. But that girl loved life. This woman was just going through the motions. Putting that sparkle back in her eye, reigniting that passion in her was one of my greatest accomplishments, bar none.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked.

I chuckled as I released her hands, nervous that she may have seen the depth of my feelings in my eyes. “I’m just stunned. I never expected… this.”
I never expected to still love you after all these years.

“Neither did I.” She rotated her wrists when I released them, cuddling into me as soon as I lay down beside her. “You knew exactly what I needed.”

I kissed her forehead. Letting her go would be the hardest thing I’d ever had to do. “You’re easy to read.”

She smiled, planting a kiss on my chest as her hand traced my abdomen. I tensed, thinking of the tattoo that could give me away even though it was dark and the blanket covered it. I had no doubt she’d remember it. She’d commented on it numerous times, often outlining it with her fingertip as she asked about my brother, the kid he’d been before drugs got the better of him.

“I should go back to my room. I have an early flight in the morning.”

I tightened my arms around her. God, I didn’t want her to go home. Home. The town where we’d met, the people and landmarks we’d once had in common now seemed like another planet. Even the parents who’d once loved and supported me were strangers to me. I’d fallen off the face of the earth as far as they were concerned, and it had to stay that way until I found the evidence I needed to clear my name and reclaim my life.

“Forget about your flight,” I said, rolling over so I could pull her closer. When she wrapped her arms around me and slipped her leg between my legs, I felt a sense of contentment I hadn’t experienced since the last time she was in my arms. It was that feeling I remembered when I was alone in my dark, cold jail cell, the feeling that had helped me survive the endless days and nights. “You can take my jet when you’re ready to go home.”

She smiled as she tipped her head back to look at me. “That’s a sweet offer, but tomorrow’s my birthday. Jeff and my parents are planning a lunch for me.”

Her birthday. I thought of how we’d spent her birthday when we were together. I’d saved my money to buy her a gold bracelet and took her out to the nicest restaurant in town. It meant eating peanut butter for the rest of the week, but she had been worth the sacrifice. Now I could give her anything she wanted, but she didn’t want anything from me. That was killing me.