Either way he’d made his choice, and she’d made hers.
Something metal clicked, then she noticed the cold weight around her left wrist. Santiago lifted her right wrist above her head, and she felt the second cuff click shut. When she tried tobring her arms down, there was little slack before the cuffs met resistance. He’d handcuffed her to the metal headboard.
“I’ve been wanting to do this since the first day I laid eyes on you,” he said, climbing on the bed and straddling her hips.
She could feel his balls, his erection, her trepidation.
She had never been handcuffed. Her heart raced as she tried to pull her wrists free. He chuckled so fucking evilly, bent down, and pulled a handful of her hair braids into his hand and fisted it. Pulling her head back he bit into the side of her neck, hard.
His teeth released her flesh.
“Now it’s time for me to be nasty about it.”
Even if the sun wasn’t shining, the sun was shining. Even if the birds weren’t singing, birds were singing. Yet none of them compared to the song of his little wren. Even if the world wasn’t warm and peaceful, in this moment it was. Because last night he slept. No night sweats, no night terrors, no nightmares. No dead people living through his dreams.
Opening his eyes, the reality was that the sun wasn’t shining, birds were indeed singing, and his bed was warm and peaceful despite Lauren’s soft snores. Her thigh covered his groin and her arm lay across his chest.
He turned his head and pressed it against the top of her bonnetless crown. She sighed, pressing tighter against his side, her quieting breaths meant she was awakening.
They laid together quietly, touching as if the waking world were the dream they didn’t want to leave.
“You’re off work today?” she asked cautiously.
“All day.”
“So...we don’t have to leave the bed if we don’t want to?”
“We don’t.”
After all the exertion of the night, he knew she could handle hard and rough but this morning, he wanted to treat her like she was a wild bird that was finally willing to trust him enough to feed her from his hand.
“I have to go pee,” she said, not moving.
“Please don’t do it in my bed.”
She sat up and looked at him as if he’d grown a second head.
“You better pray I don’t do it on you!”
She attempted to scramble away from him but he wasn’t ready to let her go. He wrapped his arms around her back and hooked his feet around her thighs. She eventually stopped struggling and rested her head against his chest.
“So, you do have a kink. Maybe a golden river instead of a golden shower?”
He smacked her ass and released her. “Get out of my bed.”
“That’s what I thought,” she said, flipping her braids over her shoulder. He tucked his hands behind his head and watched the buoyancy of her ass until the door closed behind her.
Getting out of bed, Santiago walked to the French doors, pulled them open, and stepped out onto the balcony
He frowned. The lake waters were choppy. Billowy gray clouds floated above him, but above the distant mountain, the sky looked dark and turbulent.
He smelled the rain in the air. A storm.
Just a storm, he told himself. Not a portent. At least that’s what he wanted to believe.
A draft floated across his back when the bathroom door opened, and moments later soft flesh pressed against him from behind, arms circled his waist.
“Can I tell you something that might surprise you?” he asked.
