She laughs—a real laugh, full and genuine, and it breaks through the tension like sunlight through clouds. For a moment, we're not predator and prey, captor and captive. We're just us. Luke and Seraphina, still figuring out all the ways we fit together.
Then her expression shifts, and the predator is back.
"I'm going to take my time with you," she says, her voice dropping to that low register that makes my cock ache. "And you're going to lie there and take it, because you can't do anything else."
"I could safeword," I point out. Not that I'm going to. Not in a million years.
She leans down again, her lips brushing my ear. "Your safeword still applies." Her breath is warm against my skin, making me shiver. "But I don't think you're going to use it."
She's right. We both know she's right.
"No," I admit. "I'm not."
"Good." She presses a kiss to my jaw, soft and almost sweet. "Then let's play, husband."
She climbs off me, and I make a sound of protest at the loss of her warmth. She ignores it, moving to the table where I laid out the wine and grapes hours ago. I watch her pour a glass of cabernet, her movements deliberate, unhurried.
She's making me wait. The way I made her wait.
God, she really did learn from the best.
"You know," she says conversationally, swirling the wine in the glass, "I wasn't sure I could pull this off. You're always so careful, sothorough. I kept expecting you to find the supplies I'd hidden. Or notice that the water bottles had been moved.”
"Remind me never to underestimate you again," I say.
"Oh, I will." She returns to the chaise with the wine glass in hand, settling beside me. "Every single day for the rest of our lives."
She takes a sip of wine, and I watch her throat work as she swallows. Then she leans down, and I know what's coming—the same move I pulled on her hours ago, wine passed from her mouth to mine.
But knowing doesn't prepare me for the reality of it.
Her lips seal over mine, and the wine flows between us, warm and rich and flavored withher. I swallow instinctively, and she makes a sound of approval against my mouth has me writhing beneath her.
When she pulls back, her smile is sharp enough to cut.
"How does it feel?" she asks. "Being on the other side?"
I lick wine from my lips, tasting her beneath the cabernet. "Honestly?"
"Honestly."
I meet her eyes through the masks—her brown ones glittering with mischief and power, mine probably showing every ounce of the desperate want I'm feeling.
"It feels like I have the only person who can keep up with me."
Her expression softens, just for a moment. Then the predator is back, and she's reaching for the grapes.
"Let's see how well you keep up with this."
CHAPTER 11
SERAPHINA
Power is intoxicating.
I've never understood it before—not really. Luke is always the one in control, always the one orchestrating our scenes, always the one who decides when and how and how much. I've loved every second of it, surrendering to him, being taken apart by someone who knows exactly how to put me back together.
But this? Having him tied up and helpless beneath me, his muscles straining against restraints he can't break, his eyes dark with want behind that mask?
