But under the fear was another emotion. Something deep and thrumming, a shining golden thread that tied me to him.
Could I really go back to life without Cal? Could I really spend my days in dull, gray lifelessness, chasing the next client, the next invoice, the next bill? What was the point? All to give the finger to my parents like I was still an angry teenager trying to reject everything they stood for?
What was the point of fighting for my independence if I couldn’t make the decisions I truly wanted? Decisions that made me hum with anticipation and joy and contentment. Decisions that might, on occasion, align with what Mommy and Daddy Dearest had always wanted for me.
Cal wasn’t just a control freak who wanted to win me over because I presented a challenge. He felt it too—the braided golden thread that linked his heart to mine. Running away right nowwouldn’t snap that thread. It would only make it pull tight and hurt the two of us.
So, as Cal stared at me with the overwhelming immensity of his feelings written in his gaze, I leaned in and pressed my lips to his. It was gentle, just a soft kiss that lasted no longer than a breath. Then I pulled away and said, “I’m staying.”
For one long, unending moment, Cal just stared at me. He didn’t believe his ears; he was sure, so sure, that I was going to run. Then something clicked, and his expression turned fierce. His grip on me tightened ever so slightly, the bonds tying me to him knotting securely.
It should have terrified me. Itdidterrify me, a little. But it also made me feel like I was flying; there was freedom in commitment.
Cal stood, lifting me in his arms as water streamed from our bodies. He set me on my feet on the tile floors warmed with under-floor heating, then wrapped a gigantic, fluffy towel around me. Then I was scooped up into his arms again and carried to the bed. Cal dripped water everywhere as I tried to dab at his chest with my towel, but he didn’t seem to care. He just laid me down on top of the blankets of his bed, draped his body over mine, and kissed me. His cock pressed against my stomach, and I shivered. I held him tight to me, bending my knees to brace my thighs against his hips. I loved feeling the heat and weight and strength of him on top of me. I loved how thoroughly he kissed me, how unhurried he was in his attention.
“Do you know what you’ve just agreed to?” he rasped near my ear as he trailed kisses down my neck. He plumped my breast with his hand and took my nipple in his mouth.
I arched off the bed, gasping. “Yes,” I replied.
“I don’t think you do,” he said, lips brushing my peaked nipple for a moment before he sucked it harder.
I moaned.
“You just agreed to be mine, Deena,” he said, moving to the other breast. He bit and sucked and licked until I was panting, my fingers tangled in his hair. He looked up at me, big body braced above mine, eyes dark as night with only the thinnest ring of blue around the pupil. A tremor went through me, but it wasn’t fear. It was anticipation. Excitement. Surrender. Cal ran his lips over my breast, kissing the underside of it as he moved lower, into the cradle of my thighs.
He spread me open as I trembled, exposed. His thumb rubbed at my opening, spreading my arousal up to my clit. My hips jerked. “You agreed to be mine,” he repeated, “and I’m not letting you go.”
Then his mouth was on me, and I shattered. He hummed in approval but didn’t stop. Not until another orgasm began to build, until I was keening and thrashing and whining his name. But just as I felt the edge of it begin to slice against me, Cal suddenly pulled away.
I inhaled sharply, lifting my upper body to glare at him in complaint. He watched me, sitting back on his heels with his mouth glistening, every line of his body screaming triumph. I was here, and he wasn’t letting me go.
“Crawl over here and suck my cock, love,” he murmured softly. “Then I’ll fuck you good and hard.”
God, that shouldn’t have turned me on as much as it did. But I got on my hands and knees and went to him. He lay back, his head near the foot of the giant bed, propping himself up on his elbows while I wrapped my hand around his cock and sucked.
His moan made a shiver run through me, and I took him deeper. I realized, as my hands dipped down to cup his balls, that I’d never enjoyed this act as much as I did at that moment. When my lips were stretched around him and he thrust gently into my throat, when he leashed himself savagely even though I could feelhim wanting to take his pleasure from my mouth. I hummed and took him deeper, wanting him to lose control. Wanting him to be utterly mine, just as I was his.
I should have realized he already was.
It only took one swirl of my tongue around his tip for him to pull me off and toss me onto my back. Then he was there, so all I could see was Cal. His broad shoulders, his curling hair, his wet, parted mouth, his dark, dark eyes. I cried out when he thrust into me, body arching off the blankets. My towel was still crumpled under my back, but I didn’t care. He was inside me, and everything was right again.
Cal went deep and slow and unrelenting. His thrusts were steady, his eyes watching my every reaction. My orgasm built steadily and crested for what felt like endless, suspended moments. I chanted his name, but I couldn’t tell how loudly.
“So fucking pretty when you come on my cock,” he said between pants. “Want this every day, love. Every single day.”
“Yes,” I said, still gripped in an unending climax. “Yes, yes, yes.”
“Never letting you go.” It was a vow, fierce and true.
I blinked up at him, arms circling his broad shoulders. I’d never felt so safe, so cherished. I’d never felt so connected to another human being in my life. “Never,” was all I managed, but it was a vow of my own. He was mine as much as I was his.
Cal understood what I meant. I felt it in the strength of his kiss, in the way he drove himself deeper into my body. And he felt the way I took it, the way I spread myself open and softened to accept him.
He came with a roar, pulling out to paint me with his release. Body trembling, he pressed his hand to my stomach and spread his seed over my skin. Like the first time. Marking me.
Cal’s eyes were wild, an animal quality to the way he looked atme. Then he lowered himself on top of me and kissed me, rolling to his side so he could tuck me into the cradle of his body.
As my body softened into his embrace, my mind knew only one thing: There was no going back now.
