“Put it on me.”
His hands trembled as he lifted the collar.Raphael Antonov, billionaire, predator, the man who’d never shown weakness in my presence, trembled as he fastened the chain around my throat for the first time.
The clasp clicked closed.The weight settled against my collarbones, cool silver warming quickly against my skin.Unfamiliar and significant.
“There.”His voice was hoarse.“Now say it.Like you promised.”
“I’m yours.”
Something fierce and hungry crossed his face.“Again.”
“I’m yours.”
I touched the diamond-studded ring at my throat.Felt my pulse beating against the cool metal.Tried not to think about what this meant, even as I knew exactly what it meant.
I was his.Not because I had to be.Because I chose to be.
The realization should have terrified me.Instead, it was settling into my own skin.Like finally understanding something I’d been fighting for weeks.
“Raphael.”I wasn’t sure what I was going to say.Maybe something stupid.Maybe something true.
He kissed me before I could find out.
The kiss was deep and desperate and nothing like the controlled dominance he usually showed me.His hands buried themselves in my hair, tilting my head back, taking my mouth like he needed it to breathe.Like I was oxygen and he’d been drowning.
I wrapped myself around him and let him take.
When he finally pulled back, we were both breathing hard.His eyes had gone dark, almost black in the gray light, and something predatory shifted behind them.Something that made my thighs clench with anticipation.
“Stand up.”
It wasn’t a request.It was barely even a command.More like an inevitability.
I stood.
The cool air hit my naked skin, prickling goosebumps across my arms and tightening my nipples.But the heat in his gaze warmed me more than any blanket could.
He sat up in bed, watching me.Taking me in.The collar at my throat.The marks his hands had left on my hips.The evidence of everything he’d already done to me.
“Arms up.”
I raised them above my head without thinking.Trusting.
He moved off the bed with fluid grace, circling behind me.I heard him open a drawer, heard the soft clink of metal and leather.When he came back, his hands were gentle as they wrapped the restraints around my wrists.
“Too tight?”His fingers traced the leather.“Or do you want to feel me holding you even when my hands aren’t there?”
“Tighter.”The word surprised me.But it was true.
His breath caught.“Good girl.Knowing what you need.”
“Look at me.”
I tried to turn, but he stopped me with a hand on my shoulder.Instead, he stepped in front of me, and I saw what he was holding.
I didn’t know what they were at first.Delicate silver things connected by a thin chain, glinting in the gray light.Then my brain caught up, and my stomach dropped.
Clamps.
