Handcuffed by Her Hero (29 page)

Terrified him.

The trepidation curled itself
into thick silence as he rocked inside her for many long minutes. Rayna’s
wordlessness scared him even more, until he pulled up to look at her again.

He couldn’t remember when he’d
seen her features at such peace.

He realized, with blazing
clarity, the answer to that was
never
.

He reached up and unbuckled her
wrists from both the cuffs. He didn’t take his eyes off her as he did. Finally
he murmured, “You okay?”

As she lifted her hands to his
shoulders, she smiled like a kid who’d just gotten away with inhaling a
chocolate bar. “Better than okay.”

His first instinct was to kiss
her senseless.

He coughed nervously and looked
away, instead.

Three words. She’d unraveled him
again with just three words.

They weren’t even
those
three
words, but something deep in his gut told him that the vocabulary was beyond
the point. The warm serenity in her voice, the summer grass beauty in her eyes,
the soft strokes she gave his shoulders along with it…they all conveyed her
true meaning. That the other three words were bubbling, waiting for their turn.

And when they did brim to her
lips…what then?

He didn’t do this. He
couldn’t
do this. Even thinking of it made the sweat on his back turn cold and the high
from his orgasm fade into panic.

He mumbled an excuse about
getting her legs free as an excuse to pull out and back from her. But he
could’ve auditioned for a
Star Wars
walk-on as a maintenance droid for
all the grace or thought he gave the motions. After he helped Rayna gain her
feet, he sent her upstairs and told her to get warm in bed. He’d be up in a few
minutes, he said. Maybe they’d pick out a movie from the online queue and—

 “Liar.”

He spat it beneath his breath as
she reached the top of the stairs and he got to the kitchen. Anger swooped into
his chest in backlash to the reprimand.

Yeah, yeah. Fine.
You lied. So what? She was untied and standing; you weren’t officially her Dom
anymore, anyhow. Besides, it was only a little white one.

And a hell of a lot better than
the nasty-ass big one.

Not that he was in danger of
letting those three words slip out, even by accident. Not as a dumb mistake.
Not as a casual second thought. Not as a drunken blunder. Not ever.

Because you know
damn well what happens when you allow those words into your life, asshole. Life
turns them into a fun little game of Craps, doesn’t it?

And when life’s
at the table, the house always wins.

He found dozens of ways to turn
“a few minutes” into a solid hour. By the time he got upstairs, Rayna was
tangled in the blankets, fast asleep—as he’d hoped.

As soon as he walked over and
gazed down at her, his decision for the delay was re-validated. She was as
delectable as a naked little fairy, her brilliant hair fanned across the pillow
and one hand curled against her neck. One breast peeked from beneath the
covers, beckoning to him like a ripe berry.

He yearned to climb in next to
her. To wrap himself around her and feel that smooth porcelain skin against his
again. To smell the spices in her hair mixed with the musk he’d left behind on
her. To crush her close to him and not give a damn that he was stepping closer
to the door of that alluring Craps game. To hope that this time, maybe life was
too busy screwing over some other poor sap and he’d actually win the gamble.

“No.”

He backed away. The effort was
painful at first, but looking to the tattoo on his pelvis made those steps
easier to take. Barbed wire and tear drops. The pain and the loneliness of
eight long years on the streets. Ninety-six months he’d survived because he’d
learned to stay away from the Craps table. There was no way in hell he was
going back now. And if he cared at all for this woman, there was no way in
fuck
he’d drag her anywhere near it, either.

Oh, yeah. He was a losing bet in
the hearts and flowers department. Rayna wasn’t a dumb shit; she knew it, as
well.

But as he settled onto the couch
with the blanket from the upstairs window seat, he accidentally sat on the
remote control for the TV. The motion made the screen flare to life again—and
showed him what movie she’d picked out for them to watch together.

The Empire
Strikes Back.

Rayna suppressed a little giggle.

Less than a week ago, she’d
inwardly compared the man to a puma. At the time, he’d certainly represented
for the wildcats in about ten different forms of sexy. She wasn’t sure whether
to classify this as the eleventh…or a new category altogether.

Z had obviously fallen asleep on
the bedroom couch. She had no idea why he hadn’t just come to bed, but maybe
all that intensity did something different to a Dom’s brain than it did a
sub’s. He’d seemed weirdly amped when they finished, whereas the last time
she’d been so relaxed, she’d been nineteen and high on pain killers after
having her wisdom teeth pulled. Needless to say, she’d been down for the count
from the moment she’d gotten up here.

Now, nearly ten hours later, the mountains
outside were bathed in sun and the man inside was lost to soft snores. She
smiled as she drank in the glory of him. Z was sprawled beneath a lap blanket
across the same spot where he’d pounded into her on Sunday night. That was
Sprawled
,
capital
S
. One of his legs was hooked over the back of the couch. His
other leg dangled over the end, his toes brushing the floor in time to the
inhalations filling his massive chest. His arms, so ripped they looked flexed
even in sleep, were folded across the bronze expanse as if he were preparing to
issue orders to a lucky subbie in his dreams.

She wondered if she was that
subbie.   

She turned away and rolled her
eyes.

How pathetic can
you be? A couple of times at his feet, amazing as they were, didn’t turn you
into wonder subbie, okay? You’re still you. Rayna Chestain. Accomplished medic.
Survivor of kidnap, captivity, and seven overbearing brothers. Marching to
another man’s sexual drum, no matter how mind-blowingly great the experience,
isn’t part of your total life picture.

Now she just had to decipher why
that dropped a ball of lead into her stomach, forming into claws that tightened
around her throat.

She took a deep breath and
prepared to turn for the bathroom.
And you’re going to do it without looking
at him again. Because looking will mean fantasizing. And fantasizing will only
lead to—

“Ray-bird.”

It was a groggy mumble, barely
audible, but it whipped her stare back in a fervent second. As soon as she gave
her conscience the middle finger, she rotated her body, as well.

Z hadn’t moved. His dark lashes
were still solidly closed. The rest of his face, usually quartz-hard with focus,
was even more beautiful in the grip of deep and peaceful sleep.

“Shit,” she whispered, shaking
her head. She’d imagined it, hadn’t she? Pathetic. Why would a Dom like him, so
powerful and assured and capable of drawing out a sub’s most illicit desires,
be thinking of a vanilla dork like her in his sleep?

“
Rayna
.”

Her breath snagged. The lead in
her stomach turned into fire.  

She had
not
imagined that
full-volume moan—nor the way his upper leg slid down and helped its twin to
writhe with need.

“Fuck…Rayna…yes.”

Or the way he bucked his hips so
violently, the blanket fell free from his body.

“Shit,” she repeated. The
majestic strength of his legs was amplified by the tension winding through
them. The springy hairs along their lengths helped to define thighs, calves, even
knees that were sculpted as a gladiator’s. And at their crux was the burnished
length that now held her gaze as willing captive. His cock only twitched a
little right now, but even in its half-flexed state, it was stunning to look
at. It was so perfectly proportioned, pulsing with strength though it still
lolled against his thigh. Her heart revved as she imagined rubbing it. Licking
it. Tasting it…

She stifled a needy sigh. The
memory of an after-work girls’ night came back to haunt her. Sage and one of
the base’s lab techs, Jenna, had gotten all swoony about the beauty of cocks,
even in their not-so-aroused states. She’d label her co-workers a pair of aggro-psycho-nymphos,
which had earned her the tab for the next round and a pair of
she’ll-find-out-one-day nods.

That day had absolutely arrived.

Fascination pulled her closer to
him. Zeke let out another slumber-heavy groan. His penis shifted past the
twitching phase. She licked her lips as she watched the blood flow into his
long muscle, lifting it off his thigh, practically beckoning her with its
forceful jerks.

“Oh…hell,” he grated. “Rayna,
please.”

The raw need in his voice dragged
her legs down. Though he was still sleeping, it felt like the most natural
thing in the world to kneel for him. “Sir.” She placed her hands on his lower
thighs, careful to be gentle about it. Though he obviously wasn’t dreaming
about a mission or battle, she was well aware of the dangers of rousing a
Special Forces man from deep sleep. “I’m here. What do you need?”

His only verbal answer was
another long moan. But visually he gave her much more to go on. His breaths
changed from full and relaxed to choppy and harsh. His thighs clenched. His
erection sprang higher, its swollen, silken head adorned by milky white drops
that broadcast exactly what movie played in his mind. She had a feeling it had
nothing to do with laser blasters or carbonite freezes. Thank God.

“Rayna. Damn! Oh honey…”

She pressed her fingers into his
legs, responding to the ache in his voice with the care of her touch. “Sshhh.
I’m here and I’m going to make it better.”

As she gave him the vow, she
moved up and over him, dropping reverent kisses up the staff that now pulsed
with dark bronze and red hues. His skin tightened beneath her lips. His thighs
hardened. His body quivered, emanating potency and power that surrounded her,
rolled through her, made her giddy from the high of getting to harness it with
the ministrations of her mouth.

As she got to the shiny mushroom
at his tip, she circled her tongue, savoring the tangy essence of his pre-cum. Z
let out a stunned snort.

“Mmmphh! Huh? What the—” He
choked and lifted his head. His gaze shot down to meet hers in conscious
astonishment. “Holy fuck,” he uttered. “If I’m still dreaming, someone pass the
Ambien.”

She let her gaze warm as she
pulled his wide, throbbing length into her mouth. He was delicious, a heady
combination of salt, spice, and musk that bathed her tongue and filled her
senses. She wanted to fill herself with him. Drown in his taste. Succumb to his
heat. Give herself completely for his pleasure.

Beneath her tongue, his thick
veins throbbed and his piercing danced. Zeke let out a harsh oath as she toyed
with the balls at the ends of the curved steel, directly stimulating the
chambers beneath that continued to swell from her exploration. She ran a hand
over the contracted ridges of his abdomen. Felt him heave from harsh, hard breaths.
Rejoiced in the cataclysm she stirred with every touch, lick, and stroke.

“You’re playing with fire,
Ray-bird. Do you know that?”

She hummed around his cock before
letting the sound morph into a languorous, “Mmmhmmm.”

She heard him swallow hard as she
lowered over his thick stick of flesh. With a sudden yank he pulled her off,
though he let her toy with his tip as he growled, “Let me be clear. I don’t let
myself ‘get blow jobs,’ honey. You keep this up and I’m going to fuck that hot,
wet, heaven of your mouth. It’ll be a full team assault. No mercy, no softness.”
As if to emphasize his point, he grabbed the sides of her jaw, one side in each
hand, digging his fingers into her cheekbones. “You’ve got ten seconds to
decide.”

He practically snarled the words
in his heavy lust. An equally charged silence gripped the next ten seconds
where the only thing that changed was the slow, smiling kiss she lowered to his
swollen, wet cock. She knew she shouldn’t be enjoying what that did to his
gaze. The way it narrowed with dangerous intent…the fire he’d warned her about
now a live flare framed by his charcoal lashes.

His lips parted. For a moment,
she thought he was about to smile at her in return.

Wrong assumption.

“Time’s up.”

Really
wrong
assumption.

Gone was his shuddering,
I-woke-up-to-a-blowjob tone. Master Zeke was back in the house—more accurately,
in every inch of the body that rose into a full sitting position, legs braced
in a massive V, dragging her to rest right at its crux. That was surely her cue
to continue, so Rayna lowered her head to continue her ministrations to his
cock, but she was stopped by his powerful fingers beneath her chin, forcing her
to look at him again.

Her throat closed on a mesmerized
choke. He was unrelenting darkness, hardness, intensity, brutality. He was
breathtaking.

As she drank in his masculine
beauty, her nipples and her clit hardened in tormenting tandem. In some crazy
recess of her mind, she made a note to seriously suggest the gladiator gig as
his first civilian job after the teams.

“Your safe word is ‘red,’” he
finally said. “‘
Red,’
not ‘
Kier.’
I don’t want you sparing a
single fucking thought on that dickwad right now.”

She felt her eyes go wide. Just
as fast, she let them fall. Though her body was coursing with arousal and
excitement like
Crazy Taxi
at level two hundred, her mind instantly
downshifted then left the driver’s seat altogether. Zeke was driving and she
was beyond joyful to let him. Her trust was his. Her surrender was his. Every
inch of her body was his to command, to use, to dominate.

She nodded and rasped, “Yes, Sir.
I understand. My safe word is ‘red.’”

“Outstanding.”

He gave her the word as fact, not
endorsement. At the same time, he skated his hand from her chin to her nape.
With his other hand, he anchored the top of her head by sinking his fingers
into her hair from the forehead back. In both places, he dug into her scalp
with circles of brutal possession, branding irons that scorched all the way
inside her brain.

Rayna gasped and let her eyes slide
shut. This didn’t feel physically good. But she wanted it this way. No…she
needed it this way. With every cinch of his bondage and grip of his captivity,
Zeke replaced her nightmares with pleasure, her shame with survival. He showed
her that the crucible could be good. Really, really good…

“Open your mouth.” Again, his
voice was low and nearly emotionless. He lowered her head until she felt his
penis pushing at her lips again. “Relax your jaw. Breathe through your nose.”

The next second, he was inside
her. All the way inside. Though Rayna obeyed his directions to the letter, she
could feel him pounding at her gag reflex with the fullness of his length. She
concentrated on letting him get deeper into her throat. His vow had been
spot-on accurate. He turned her head into a receptacle for his lust, shoving
her down over and over onto his huge, hard pole. The pace was relentless. His
cock was enormous. Her jaw hurt. Her eyes teared.

Her spirit soared.

“You like this, honey?” he said
with rough tension. “Yeah, I think you do. Your mouth is so perfect for
fucking, Ray-bird. So soft and wet and slick. Bet you love how hard and huge
you’ve gotten me.” He shoved her down and held her there, letting her feel his
head pulsating at the back of her throat. “Bet it’s made you hard, too. I want
you to use your fingers and check. Stroke that erect clit for me. You’re going
to touch it until you climax for me—and as you do, you’re going to swallow
every drop of my come in that sweet, perfect mouth of yours.”

She sighed in grateful
acquiescence, though the man could’ve asked her to walk naked through the mall
right now and she’d comply without question. The moment her hand cupped her
mound, her fingers skimming over the silver bar that had such a different
meaning even a week ago, a startled moan shot up her throat. She knew she was
turned on, but from the second her fingers hit that moist, quivering ball of
nerves, her sex clenched and her pussy turned to fire. She was ready to crash
and burn right now.

“Don’t.” Zeke’s charge pounded
into her senses, another unnerving reminder of how he could read her more
clearly than a CNN news crawl. “Hold it in, honey. Your orgasm belongs to me as
completely as your mouth.”

She whined as submissively as she
could, trying to tell him she understood. The sound made him grunt in approval,
though it earned her no mercy from the pace of his fucking. Harder, faster, deeper
he pounded. His fingers were claws at her scalp. His cock was everywhere in her
mouth. His hoarse, commanding breaths consumed the air.

“Now. Feel it all, honey. Take it
all from me.
Now
!”

The climax hit her deep. Her sex convulsed
and flared, dying and reborn in the same blissful, beautiful second. At the
same time, Z pumped his seed into her with a roar of glory and a shuddering
thrust. Everything went dark then blinding white. Her equilibrium swam, yet
she’d never felt more clear. She was a damn phoenix from ashes. She was destroyed
yet overjoyed. She was—