Handcuffed by Her Hero (21 page)

In the third, his fury slammed
him back into action. As he regained the distance back to her, he tore off the
T-shirt in which he’d been sleeping. “You want to throw down on this, Rayna?”
he charged. “Then let’s do it.” Ignoring her open gawk at the sudden exposure
of his chest, he seized one of her hands and forced it against the tattoo
between his pecs. The small black circle, divided into three equal slices that
bore a dot each, rose and fell with his incensed breaths. “Touch it,” he
ordered, “since you seem to know so much about it. The triskelion means
something to me, Rayna—something so deep that it’s stamped into the skin over
my heart.
All three
sections of it. Safe, sane, consensual. They’re
embedded into me. They’re part of me.”

She nodded. “I—I know, Zeke.”

He tugged her chin up with a
finger. The brat was gone. Fresh tears glistened in the dark jade pools of her
eyes. This was actually a good sign. Maybe she was really comprehending the
depth of this subject, especially for him. “You do?” he challenged. “So
that’s
why you’re standing here in a cabin in the Cascades with me, miles from any
human let alone your phone or clothes, freely offering yourself to me?” He
tilted his head. “Did I get all that right?”

Shockingly, her face broke into a
soft smile. “Zeke—”

“Because you see, honey, that
‘consensual’ part implies a little something called trust.”

She pulled his hand away from her
chin and curled one of her own around it. Her other hand still rested atop his
tattoo.

Atop his heart.

When she spoke again, her tears
flowed as steadily as her words. “Let me be clear. I know what I’m asking. I
know where I am. Right here, alone in a cabin with
you
, Zeke Hayes.
Without my phone. Without my clothes. There’s really only me. And with all of
me, I trust you. Not stupidly, not blindly. I am giving you the trust you’ve
earned from me, over and over and over again.”

He expelled a weighted huff. “And
here we are again. Back to the hero thing.” He pushed back, disentangling his
hand.

“You need to listen—”

“No,
you
need to listen.
Stop making this into something from a movie or a sappy novel. What went down
with King was doing my job.”

“And what went down with Mua was,
too. Right?”

He knew she’d go there. And was
ready. “Tied into the same stinking mess,” he admonished. “You and I both know
that.”

Rayna blinked at him fresh tears.
“So how do you explain what went down with Kier?”

Forget the boot in his gut. Her
words were the talons of a crane now, ripping into him, picking him up and
flinging him fifteen years into the past.

Kier. Holy fuck, he hadn’t heard
or seen from that asswipe since they’d both squeaked by with their high school diplomas,
though the guy had been a filthy spot on his radar for years before that.
Between shuttling drugs, fencing fake watches, and beating up half the school,
the guy always found time to hang out in the park and spin up creative ways to make
life hell for anyone who dared to cross his unofficial turf. Like girls who
just wanted to enjoy a walk on a sunny day…

Stop where you
are, asshole, or I’ll give this stupid squaw a nice little scalping.

Way to go,
Rayna. That went about as wrong as it could have, huh? Maybe, girlfriend, you
do need to go back to the jungle. Maybe you really are just a stupid little
squaw.

He lifted his head and looked at
Rayna with a stare that forced the years to fall from her face. He willed
himself to see her as a girl blooming into her teen years, with that red hair
hanging a little longer and bangs caressing her eyebrows. She was wearing capri
pants and a fuchsia pink top. Dirty tears tracked her cheeks. And Kier was
hanging his bare, dirty dick over her face.

“That was you.”

His voice was a hoarse effort.
Rayna’s reply was no stronger.

“That was me.”

“How—”

“Sally. I went to see her. I
finally let her hypnotize me.”

That made him laugh. At himself.
“The hypnosis
I
kept telling you get?”

“Yep.”

The time travel crane went to
work again. It tore him open just as deeply as it dumped him back here with
Rayna, gaping at her through a haze of shock, incredulity, amazement. No wonder
she’d come to see him at the club. No wonder that since then she’d kept looking
at him like her goddamn wishing star had just crash landed.

Maybe it had.

For both of them.

And maybe it was time to do
something about that.

Without wasting another word,
another breath, he closed the distance to her again. Before he was done
planting his feet, he curled his hand into her hair and yanked hard. A little
cry burst from her, swirling to him like an enchantress’ smoke. Like the cobra
called by that smoke, he plunged his mouth to hers. He bit, sucked and licked,
countering his violent hold with smooth caresses to her face. She bent for him
without constraint, showing him with her body what her lips had already given.

Her trust.

The most precious gift she’d ever
handed to him.

As the rain began again, the room
darkened. Zeke pulled away to watch the gray and silver shadows play across all
the lively, gorgeous curves of her face. He sucked away a few of the tears that
clung to her cheeks then delved his gaze into her eyes, giving her something in
return.

An order.

“Take this thing off. Then kneel
for me, honey.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Saying those words for a man had
never been a spark in Rayna’s mind, even after what she’d learned from Sage
about the world of D/s, but right now, they felt completely natural. Magical.
And so, so perfect.

Because she’d uttered them for
Zeke.

Because she knew what they’d do for
him.

Because she needed to know what
they’d do for her, too.

She thought the admission would
grant her a clinical distance about this, make this threshold feel safer to
jump over somehow. Yeah, and wearing a parachute made it less terrifying to
hurtle out of a plane. Detachment wasn’t happening. Shivering, tremulous, nervousness
and awareness
were
happening, along with the sense that shedding the
Dopey shirt off was stripping more than the shield to her nudity. Something
significant in her mind dropped, too. Too late, she realized what it was. Her
inner uptown girl. That horny, cavalier, this-is-just-sex girl from Thursday
night wasn’t here anymore. This wasn’t just sex anymore, either.

This was surrender. A gift that
showed him how deeply he’d woven himself into her heart, how dark the ink of
his heroism was tattooed upon her life. She made the offering with the fullness
of her soul because she knew what it would mean to him…but also what it meant
to her.

Yes. God help her, she wanted
this with every cell in her body. Not forever. Probably not even tomorrow. But
right now, nothing felt more right than dropping to her knees before him,
fixing her gaze on his rough bare feet and waiting, breath held, for what he’d
do with her next.

What
would
he do with her
next?

By the sound of his puma’s growl,
she sensed his dark answer for that. But he was stealthy and still otherwise,
continuing to stand over her, which made her shiver in anticipation…and drip in
arousal. It took a shaking breath and pressed lips to hold back her whimper as
desire clenched every inch of her wet pussy.

“So stunning,” he finally told
her in a husky grate. “Thank you, bird.”

As he lowered a hand to the top
of her head, kneading his fingers into her scalp, Rayna managed, “My—my
pleasure, Sir.”

His massages stopped. He slid
that hand to the side of her face, bracketing her jaw with his thumb and
forefinger before lifting her face up. “Not yet, sweetheart.” His answering
gaze was burnished with possessive smoke. “But soon. Very soon.”

He pulled away from her and
settled back into his A-frame stance a few feet away. Defying her control, her
gaze lifted from his feet. Up his carved and mighty calves. Over the defined
tendons and muscles of his thighs. Lingering for a long moment on the hard
force that punched at his nylon shorts before raising to the arrow of hair that
bisected the defined ladders of his abs. When she looked even higher, it was to
view his coiled arms atop the dark breadth of his chest. Across every inch of
him, there were scars, nicks and bruises, some silvered from long-ago battles
and some painfully new. He was a walking scrapbook of violent battle and
contained power.

He could really hurt her, and
nobody would know.

Why did that make her nipples go
painfully hard and her channel push out even more wet arousal?

Finally, she couldn’t bear the
unknowing silence anymore. “Wh-what happens now?” She glanced up at him though
she’d heard that was a major subbie no-no.

Zeke emitted a deep hum that
didn’t make things easier for her nerves or her nipples. “It’s already
happening, bird.”

“Huh?”

“Ssshh. Just breathe,” he
instructed. “And just be. Right now, it’s your job to simply let me look. And
believe me, honey, I’m looking.”

The sultry cadence that entered
his voice made the cold rain suddenly seem a summer cloudburst. She was washed
in liquid warmth, feeding off his sensual strength. It was a little confusing.
Wasn’t
she
the one required to give over the power here? Then why did
she feel powerful enough to fight an invading army by herself? The thought made
her squirm a little, only increasing the flow of tantalizing tingles through
her bloodstream.

“Nervous?” Zeke asked softly.

“A little,” she admitted.

“Then other things are making you
wiggle, too.”

Her head fell. She couldn’t even
look at his feet when she admitted, “Yes, Sir.”

“Let me see.”

“I—what?” she stuttered.

“You heard me, bird. Let me see
your aroused pussy. Spread your knees wider and lay your back against the
floor, so your cunt is pushed up for my inspection.”

She’d expected orders from him
but not like this. And his tone? No more seductive silk. He really was Vader
now, without the creepy hyperventilation. His deep, guttural tone said he
expected to be obeyed without question. 

She didn’t ask any questions.

With quivering limbs and a
shaking heartbeat, she moved her knees apart before lowering her back to the
floor.

“Raise your hands above your
head,” he said, reading the confusion in her awkward hand flails. “Join them
together, flat on the floor.”

Once she’d complied, she held her
breath and waited for the next instruction. None came. Zeke barely moved, aside
from stepping closer to line up his toes with her kneecaps. Two minutes ago,
she’d been unable to rip her gaze from him. This change-up took care of that
obsession.  She riveted her attention on the ceiling, just trying to maintain
the position though she was hyperaware of every breath on her lips, every pulse
in her blood, every molecule of air that hit the moist tissues she’d opened for
his examination. With her arms positioned overhead, she was completely exposed
to him from the waist up, as well. He took full advantage of the moment. The
weight of his stare was hot as a bath in candle wax, encasing her in its heat
one inch at a time. She’d never been commanded to assume such a vulnerable
physical position before.

It didn’t come close to what he
was doing to her on the inside.

She was scared. Excited.
Trembling. Rejoicing. Unsure. Unfettered. Small, so small, yet poised on the
threshold of something significant…magnificent. Beyond that doorway, something
glowed just out of her reach, a captivating but terrifying light.

“Oh, honey.” Zeke’s rough rasp
tugged her an inch closer to that magical portal. “You
are
glistening,
aren’t you? And I haven’t even told you what I have planned for your sweet
little body yet.”

She attempted a nonchalant shrug.
“M-maybe it’s okay to just surprise me.”

“Maybe it’s
not
.” There
was half a laugh in the words, but it definitely danced on a stage of black humor.
“You’re going to hear what I’ve got in mind, bird, because I want to see how
your body reacts to it. Then I need to hear your lips consent to all of it.”

She fired off a dismissive huff.
“We’ve been through this. Zeke, I—”

“You trust me,” he retorted. “I
know that. And thank you. But this isn’t negotiable, bird. Not by a long shot.”

She took her turn to laugh.
“‘Negotiable?’ Really? You want to draw up a little contract while we’re at it,
Sergeant?”

He scooted his toes to the
insides of her knees then widened his stance, making her spread further for him.
“That’s ‘Sir’ to you from this point forward, honey. And yes; we’ll stop and
draft a contract if we have to. This isn’t the part you rush through. This honesty
is the keystone of the bridge, got it?”

She let him have a frustrated
snort for that. “Of course I got it, okay? Zeke,” —she rushed to correct
herself— “
Sir
, when are you going to get it through your head that I’ve
thought about this? That, maybe just once, I really want this?”

She expected him to pull the
toe-scooting thing again. Maybe add a grunt this time. Maybe, just maybe he’d
smile in pleasure and get on with—whatever the hell he was going to get on
with.

She should’ve remembered that
this man and the word
expected
weren’t on speaking terms with each
other.

The thought ricocheted through
her brain as Zeke acted with wildcat speed. In one sweep, he’d moved to stand
above her head. In another, he crouched and grabbed her wrists. In a third, he
whipped her around to face the leather couch. The velocity of it all caused her
to lose balance and pitch forward. She was able to stop her fall by gripping
the top of the couch. He flowed his body in perfect synch with her, pressing his
breaths to her nape, his chest against her spine, his thighs along hers. He
shoved the hair off her neck before biting his way to the curve of her ear.

“When are you going to get it
through
your
head that I’ve wanted this, fantasized about this, since
the night I met you?” He plunged both hands down to grab her inner thighs. With
feral force, he pulled them open, settling her naked backside against the hard,
huge length that defined his crotch. “That even in that hospital bed after the
stabbing, my cock turned my gown into a goddamn central supply tent because of
what I thought of doing with you…and to you.”

He didn’t give the words half a
second to sink in before he demonstrated for himself, scraping his fingers
along the sensitive flesh on both sides of her labia. Those intimate lips quivered
in response. Joined with the way his legs kept brushing the backs of her knees,
his assault became a torment of blissful agony. Dear God. Zeke’s College of
Power Exchange was in session, and Breathing was on the optional courses list.
Speaking? Not part of the curriculum.

“Even in Korea,” he went on in a
grate that turned the rest of her bloodstream to mush, “hell,
especially
in Korea, I dreamed of all the ways I wanted to take your body and turn it
inside out. How I wanted to tear inside your mind, pull out all your pain,
then—”

She felt him suppress the rest on
an agonized grunt. Rayna protested by surging herself back and rolling her head
against his shoulder.
Then what? Holy hell, Zeke. Tell me before I have to
throw myself over the balcony in order to ease this fire you’ve set in my body.

The new frisson of tension
through his frame told her he might just be on that mind track. Thank God she
was right.

“I’m going to start out by
keeping you right here, bird. I’m going to bend you over so your ass is nice
and high for me. Then I’m going to make it beautiful and pink by spanking it
with my bare hand. After I warm us both up, I’ll be doing it fast and I’ll be
doing it hard.”

She moaned for him. Or thought
she did. She couldn’t hear anything for a moment beyond his smoldering breaths
in her ear and the rush of arousal to her bloodstream.

 “When your pussy is dripping
from that, I’m going to make you get on the bed. You’ll be facing up so I can watch
every sigh on your lips as I secure you to the four corners of it. Then I’ll watch
every scream as I subject your skin to a bunch of very interesting sensations.”

Rayna already gave him the sigh
he predicted. “Do—do I get to know what they are?” she managed to squeak.

Zeke gave her a deep chuckle.
“What happened to the girl who wanted to be surprised?”

She got her head to cooperate
with a short nod. “She’s still here…somewhere.”

A rumble of pleasure vibrated his
chest before he slid his fingers back up her body, scoring her skin with his
nails on his way over her hips, stomach, and rib cage. When he got to the tender
nubs of her nipples, he finally stopped. The masculine thunder rolled through
him once more as Rayna gasped from the heaven of his touch.

“As I line my cock up to your
tight, wet tunnel, I’m going to pinch these, Rayna. I’m going to watch your
nipples pucker and redden for me while your cunt gushes, begging for my dick.
It’ll tell your lips to plead with me, too—but you won’t. From now on, your
words are mine, too. If any of this gets overwhelming or painful, you’ll call
out one word to me. That word is
Kier
.”

“What!” She nearly unleashed the
scream he wanted from her, as well.

His reply came with an arrogant
lilt. “You’re not going to forget it, right? And if you use it, I’ll
know
you need to stop.”

“Damn straight,” she grumbled,
though she wasn’t allowed to wallow in her irritation. The next moment, her ass
was set on fire by a swift, determined
smack
. “Oh!”

“Your words are mine, remember?”
If he was arrogant before, he was into complete Marc Anthony mode now, spinning
her so he could peer down at her like his prized Cleopatra. And damn it if her
whole body didn’t crave him just like dear Cleo, too. “You can say ‘yes, Sir’
if you understand, subbie.”

Subbie.
His
affectionate drawl turned her inner Cleopatra into a fig in the Saharan sun.
“Yes,” she whispered, sprawling her fingers along his biceps. “Oh yes, Sir.”

“So you accept the intentions I
have for you this afternoon, freely and openly?” After she nodded, he went on,
“That means you are willingly submitting your body and your mind to me, Rayna.
You’re placing yourself completely into my care. You know that choices will not
be yours. You will be mine to claim, to mark, and to fuck as I wish.”