"I know." He kneels beside the bed. His bound hands find my face. Thumbs on my cheekbones. Steadying me. "I know what you need. Can I touch you?"
"Yes."
He doesn't go for my clothes. Doesn't reach for my waistband. Doesn't do any of the things my body is screaming for.
He kisses me.
Slow. Deep. His bound hands holding my face like I'm something he's afraid to break. His mouth opens against mine and his tongue slides in—hot, wet, unhurried—tasting me, learning me, taking his time like we have all of it in the world instead of a concrete cell and a ticking clock.
I moan into his mouth. Can't help it. My hands fist in his shirt and pull him closer—onto the mattress, over me, his weight settling between my legs. The pressure of his body against my cock sends a jolt through me so intense my hips buck.
He makes a sound.
Not a groan. Not a growl.
A whimper.
High and desperate and completely involuntary, muffled against my lips—the sound of an alpha whose control is costing him everything.
Holy shit.
That sound. That sound does something to me that all the heat and biology and scent chemistry couldn't. Because that sound is Bane—composed, guarded, careful Bane—losing it. Coming apart against my mouth. Wanting me so badly that the want leaked out as a whimper and he couldn't stop it.
I pull back just enough to see his face. His eyes are glassy. Wrecked. His lips are swollen and wet.
"Do that again," I whisper.
"Do wh—"
I kiss him. Harder this time. Tongue sliding against his, messy and deep and nothing like the careful first kiss in my bedroom. This is heat and hunger and the taste of him—amberand warmth and something underneath that makes my whole body arch toward his. I suck on his lower lip. Bite it.
Feel him shudder.
And there it is again—that whimper. Vibrating against my teeth. Shaking out of him like something he's been holding behind his ribs for months.
My hands find the hem of his shirt. Push it up. He pulls back just enough for me to drag it over his head—awkward with the zip ties, fabric bunching at his wrists before he finally just tears the fabric and tosses it aside. His chest is bare. Warm. Solid. A scar below his collarbone I've never seen. I press my palm flat against his sternum and feel his heart slamming.
"Your turn," he murmurs. His bound hands find the bottom of my scrub top. He eases it up—slow, careful, remembering the welts. His knuckles skim my ribs as the fabric rises. My stomach. My chest. Over my head.
He looks at me.
Not the way the handler looked at me. Not appraising. Not cataloguing. Bane looks at me like he's seeing something sacred and profane at the same time and can't decide whether to worship or devour it.
"Fuck," he breathes. The word is almost reverent.
His mouth drops to my collarbone. Presses a kiss there—open-mouthed, wet, tongue dragging across the bone. Then lower. Another kiss at the center of my chest. Lower. His lips trail down my sternum, each point of contact a small fire, and my hands are in his hair, gripping, guiding, because the heat is rising and every nerve in my body is tuned to his mouth.
He reaches my stomach. Pauses. His breath fans across the skin below my navel, hot and unsteady. His bound hands grip my hips—the zip ties cold against my skin—and he looks up at me.
"Can I keep going?"
"Yes. God, yes."
He hooks his fingers into the waistband of my scrubs. Drags them down. Slow—so slow it's torture. The fabric peels away from damp skin, catching on my cock, dragging across the head in a way that makes me hiss. Down my thighs. Past my knees. Gone.
I'm naked beneath him. Fully exposed. Slick between my thighs, cock flushed and leaking against my belly, every inch of me on display under the flat fluorescent light.
His eyes move over me. Slow. Deliberate. His throat works—a hard swallow that moves his whole neck.
