“I honestly regret the day we met. Kidnapping me was the dumbest thing you could possibly do.”
“Mm.” He doesn’t sound concerned. Why doesn’t he sound concerned? “I’m going to take a shower. Then, you can shower. This’ll be the first and last time we shower separately.”
The fog clears. Clarity cuts deep. He’s going to allow me in the bathroom alone, unsupervised.
One of my specialties is making weapons where there aren’t any available.
“Sorry about this in advance, Flame,” he says.
“Sorry about—” I cut off when he scoots me up the bed and grabs my bound wrists. He picks up the strip of dress he used to gag me—I sense where he’s going with this, so I start struggling,hard. I writhe, try to relieve him of his ability to have children by kneeing him in the balls, let out a shriek of outrage… and all of it’s moot. He ends up tying my wrists to the metal bedframe.
I shriek again; he claps a hand over my mouth. “Don’t bother,” he says. “I told the receptionist that my girlfriend and I are here for kinky activities. They’re under instruction to ignore any screaming that originates from this room. Now, I’m going to take a shower and make some calls, and I’ll be safe in the knowledge that you’re not going anywhere.”
He gets off me, rising to his feet at the foot of the bed. “Think about it this way,” he says. “At least you won’t be able to earn another punishment.”
He disappears into the bathroom, whistling a merry tune, and I release a roar of sheer fury.
Chapter Seven
Max
Iturn on the shower and go through the notifications on my phone. There’s one from Cain, sarcastically congratulating me on my first fuckup, and saying that we’ll have a serious talk when I return. I know exactly what that talk will look like; he’ll tell me I'm an embarrassment and demand I pay him so he can give the client an apology fee.
After three years with the Nighthawks, my bank account is nicely padded, and my bills are mostly nonexistent. I’m not worried about the financial hit I’ll take.
Then, there’s a message from Tobias, telling me that he’s taken care of all the footage and covered our tracks, but to hurry. Apparently, Dagon’s obsession withmyEmber is well-documented, and he’s already put out a capture-or-kill order on me.
I can’t blame Dagon for his infatuation. I learned quite young that it’s impossible to spend time with Ember andnotfall for her. She’s just… so unabashedly, unapologeticallyherself. Sassy. Witty. So damn smart, and beautiful enough to make my chest ache. She’s the whole package.
I might not blame Dagon for whatever obsession he has with Ember, but I am going to kill that motherfucker,slowly, because he hurtwhat’s mine. The scars on her back… I nearly threw up when I saw them. When I get my hands on Dagon, I might whip him to death… except that’d be a bit too fast for my tastes. No, I intend to make his death lastmonths. Maybe even years, if I can get him to the fortress alive.
First, I need to get my hands on him… and before that, I need to find out why the hell Ember is so eager to get back to him. Ihaveto know what he has on her.
In the meantime, my priority is getting Ember to the fortress, and making it abundantly clear that there is no world in which she’ll escape me, and no reality that exists where we don’t end up together. She’s mine—end of story. She was mine before I had any romantic interest in her, she was mine even after I thought she’d died, and she’s still mine despite her belief that she belongs to Dagon.
I answer Cain’s text, order Toby to gather all intelligence on Ember, and get in the shower to wash. I take my time, letting Ember stew in silence and slowly come back to herself. Images of the spanking I just gave her flash through my mind, and my hand travels to my cock. She turned so pliant beneath my hands as I warmed her up, then spanked the hell out of her. I recall the way her magnificent ass bounced with each hit. The way the scent of her arousal perfumed the air…
Pleasure zips up and down my spine, setting my skin on fire. I brace one hand against the shower wall and wrap the other around my base.Fuck, she turned so beautifully submissive for me. Went straight into subspace. Stared at me with a dazed,please fuck meexpression even while denying me.
Little Flame turned into an incredible woman, and I am going to fuckingdevourher.
It takes me an embarrassing four pumps before my balls tighten, my jaw clenches, and an explosive orgasm rips through me. I come somuch I think I’ll die of dehydration, and as soon as it’s over, my knees go weak.
I’ve never had such a powerful orgasm—by myself or with a woman. And that’s all from knowing that the only girl I’ve ever loved is waiting for me, tied to the bed like a sacrifice, and she is every bit as incredible as I expected she’d grow up to be.
I finish up, shut off the shower, and wrap a towel around my waist. She stared at my body so hungrily earlier, I’m surprised she didn’t drool; no harm in giving her something to look at again.
I step out of the bathroom. Ember’s exactly where I left her, and exactly where I’d like to see her for the rest of our lives; tied to a headboard, waiting for me.
She glances me up and down, then pointedly turns away, averting her eyes. I chuckle under my breath. Flame always had a sparkle in her eyes when she looked at me; after she turned sixteen, that sparkle turned into a hungry fire. Time and memory-loss hasn’t changed that.
There are many things thathavechanged, though; no denying that. I still need to find out exactly how she lost her memories. There’s a lot I need to find out about her—my Ember has changed. The last five years have not been kind to her.
“It’s okay to stare,” I assure her. “Art deserves to be admired.”
“And dogshit deserves to be avoided.”
I bite my lip to hide a laugh. “Alright, Flame. I’m going to let you go. You’re going to take a shower like a good girl, and then, we are going to go to bed. If you fight, I’m assuming you want another punishment. I won’t be as kind to you next time.”
