Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 77016 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77016 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
“What?”
“I never doubted you’d come to my bed. And I never doubted you’d eventually yield to me.”
She cocks her head. “You said I was a challenge.”
“Yes, and you were. You are. But I never back down from a challenge, and there’s not one thing I’ve gone after that I haven’t gotten.”
“So you’re saying…”
I breathe in, adjust my stance, ready to tell her the ultimate truth. “I’m saying there’s only one true master of control standing here, Skye, and it’s not you.”
Chapter Seventeen
My sanity is hanging on by a thread. Skye is looking inside herself, learning about herself, and I…
Fuck.
I just want to take her. Hammer her. Pound her. My cock is fucking granite inside my jeans, and my heart is nearly beating out of my chest.
“What if I said I wanted to fuck you right now, Skye? Right here, against this pole that frightened you so long ago. I’d like to blindfold you, tie you to it, and take you from behind hard and fast while forcing you to stay quiet the whole time.”
“I’d say do it.”
I groan. “You have no idea how much I want to.”
“No one’s stopping you that I can see.”
“Only you.”
She widens her eyes. “Did I not just tell you to do it?”
“You did, and I’m tempted.” I grab her hand and lead it to the firm bulge below my waist. “You feel what you do to me? What you always do to me?”
She nods, shaking.
“But if we go back there—back to that place we both desire—you will still want things I can’t give you. Until you can tell me why you want those things, I can’t go there.”
“I can live without it.” She gulps.
“Can you?”
“For God’s sake, Braden, I’ve lived without all of this for the first twenty-four years of my life. I’ve had sexual relationships before. Satisfying sexual relationships.”
I wrap my arms around her, pinning her to the scarecrow post. “As satisfying as ours?”
She slumps against me, her body like jelly. “Well…no. But that’s because I love you. I didn’t love any of them.”
“Is that the only reason?”
She doesn’t reply right away. Instead, she reaches forward, squeezes and rubs my erection.
I steel myself and whisk her hand away. “Stop it, Skye.”
“We both want it.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“Why? I can live without the choking, okay?” She gasps back a sob. “I don’t know why it spoke to me so much. Maybe if I knew why you won’t—”
I place my fingers over her lips. “Knowing my story won’t change yours.”
“But—”
“It won’t, and it shouldn’t.”
She doesn’t reply.
“This place doesn’t scare you anymore.”
“No.” She gives me a mischievous smile. “It would scare me less if you fucked me here.”
I touch her cheek. “Nice try. Let’s go back now. I’ll buy you lunch in town, and then I need to get on my way to New York.”
“I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss you, too. Take some time for yourself. I’d like you to be able to answer my question when you return to Boston.”
She nods. “I will, Braden. I promise.”
I believe she wants to keep that promise.
God, I hope she can.
I need her too fucking much.
“I’d like to take you to lunch,” she says.
“Oh?”
“Yeah. There’s this great little Italian place called Luigi’s. We can walk around town a little, have some lunch, and then you can catch your ride to the airport.”
“I’d like that.” I kiss her lips. “I’d like that a lot.”
…
Skye drives us into town in her mother’s hatchback again. I saw the whole place this morning on my run, but I want to see the Kansas farm town where she grew up through her eyes.
She parks behind the hotel.
I’m tempted to take her up to my room and spend the rest of the time in bed, but that would be missing an opportunity to know her better through her roots.
We leave the car, and she points out the water tower on the edge of town, its paint faded.
“It’s the Liberty Bell,” she says. “Or it used to be. The paint is all worn. But the town was named after the bell.” She grabs my arm. “Come on. I want to show you one of my favorite places.”
We walk down the street and enter an old bookstore. It’s quaint and charming, books stacked from floor to ceiling with no apparent order. “If Dad came in town for the day, I’d hide out in here,” she says, a soft smile lighting up her face. “I love books.”
I remember well how I caught her in my library at my New York penthouse, thumbing through a book of bondage photographs.
“May I help you find anything?” a clerk asks.
“We’re just looking,” Skye says. “But thank you.”
She leads me through the rows of high shelves. The store houses the latest bestsellers along with used books and an antique book section. I inhale the earthy aroma of leather and parchment.