I scrubbed a hand over my stubbled jaw, listening to her move around on the other side of the door. Drawers opening. Fabric rustling. The soft pad of her feet against carpet.
But somewhere between my impatience and my need, gratitude crept in.
She’d planned something. Taken time out of her life to create something just for me. Whatever it was, lingerie, candles, I didn’t care. The fact that she’dthoughtabout me, wanted to give me something, meant more than she’d ever know.
I smiled.
Her voice floated through the door, nervous and sweet. “So … I’ve never done anything like this before. If you don’t like it, we can stop, okay?”
My brow furrowed. What the hell was she up to?
“I’m just going to lie here and pretend to be all bold and brazen,” she continued, her words tumbling out faster now, “and that this isn’t making me nervous that you’re not going to like it, or you’re going to think I’m weird, or whatever. In my head, I’ve been planning this for days, and it soundedperfect, but now that I’m actually doing it, I feel a little silly because if you don’t like it?—”
“Harper”—my voice came out softer than I intended—“there’s nothing you could do that I wouldn’t like.”
Seriously. She could be wearing a hazmat suit, performing an interpretive dance about proper dental hygiene, and I’d still be undone.
“Okay,” she said, and I could hear the tremor in her voice. “Open the door.”
I turned the handle.
Pushed.
And the second I caught sight of her, I froze.
Every muscle in my body locked. My lungs forgot how to function. My heart slammed against my ribs so hard, I was pretty sure she could hear it from across the room.
Harper lay sprawled across the bed, completely naked. On her back. Legs spread. Arms stretched above her head.
And her wrists were handcuffed to the headboard.
Holy shit.
“I figured,” she said quietly, “you’ve been shackled for fourteen years. And the first intimate moment we had together, you were cuffed.” She swallowed hard, her throat bobbing. “I wanted to be shackled foryou. I wanted to be an offering. Something you could take however you wanted.” Those green eyes, so full of trust that it made my chest ache, locked on to mine. “I want to be your prisoner, Knox.”
I couldn’t move.
Couldn’t breathe.
Couldn’t do anything but stare at this woman who had just handed me the one thing she’d never given anyone.
Control.
I knew what that word meant for Harper. I knew about the childhood spent watching her parents surrender themselves to addiction, powerless to stop it. I knew about the years she’d spent under Silas’s thumb, learning that love was something that could be weaponized. Control hadn’t been a personality trait for her. It had been a survival mechanism.
The only thing that made her feel safe.
And by handcuffing herself to the bed, she was surrendering it. To me.
The magnitude of that hit me somewhere behind my sternum. She wasn’t just offering me her body. She was offering me the most terrifying thing she possessed. Trust. Real trust. The kind that couldn’t be faked or forced.
She bit her lower lip. “Is it too much? Too weird?”
A rough laugh escaped me as I stepped into the room. “No, Princess. It’s fucking perfect.”
And, my God, her body.
Creamy skin that seemed to glow in the soft lamplight. The swell of her breasts, her nipples already pebbled and begging for my mouth. The soft curve of her stomach. The flare of her hips. And between her spread thighs, her glistening pink center, flushed and ready.
