36
Tate
It’s still dark outside when I wake up in a cold sweat. The clock on Haven’s nightstand glows a quiet 4:18.
She’s curled up between us, her breathing soft and even. Carter’s behind her, one arm draped over her waist, completely out.
I want to go back to sleep but I can’t. Not with everything I feel clawing at the inside of my chest.
I roll onto my side, brushing a knuckle down her bare arm. Her skin prickles under my touch, warm and smooth and familiar in a way that terrifies me. I press a kiss to her shoulder, then another, lower this time. She shifts, murmurs my name in that soft, sleep-heavy voice that makes my pulse stutter.
“Go back to sleep,” she whispers.
“No,” I murmur against her skin. “Not until I give you everything.”
Her eyes flutter open, meeting mine in the dim light, and I see that fucking spark. The one that always shows up right before she lets me ruin her.
I sit up, and lean across the bed opening the drawer of her nightstand. The one she cleared out just for me. I pull out the coil of soft red rope, and let it rest between my hands for a second before dragging it slowly down the length of her arm. Her breath hitches.
“Tate, we’re going to wake Carter u—”
“I’m gonna tie you up,” I murmur, pressing a finger to her lips. “Not to hold you down. To hold you open. To hold you still. So youfeeleverything. And I want Carter to hear it.”
Her breath catches again when I press my mask over my face, the eyeholes narrowing just enough that all I see is her. Just her. “Roll over, angel.”
She does with no hesitation. Her skin is warm in the pale morning light leaking between the curtains. Every line of her back, every soft curve of her hips, bracing for the kind of worship only I can give.
The rope glides over her skin as I drag it across her arms, down her spine, over the arch of her thighs. My fingers follow the path, just as slow.
“I dreamt about this,” I say quietly. “About tying you up and making you beg until you forget your own name.”
She moans softly into the pillow.
I bind her wrists, gentle and practiced. A loose knot, enough to make her gasp when I brush my mouth over the center of her spine.
“I could keep you like this forever, wrapped in rope, drunk on the way I look at you.”
I lean down again, letting my lips kiss a trail up her spine barely grazing, nothing but pressure. Her breath stutters. Shepresses back into me. “Say it.” I whisper into the crook of her neck.
She whimpers. “Say what?”
“Say you’re mine.”
“I’m yours Tate.”
That’s when I lose it fully, everything raw and messy and honest pours out of me. “I love you in a way that doesn’t make sense. I love you in red rope and sweat and quiet gasps. I love you so much it makes me fucking reckless Haven.” I pull the rope tighter.
Her whole body shivers, and I feel Carter shift behind us, but still asleep.
I untie the rope slightly and kiss the red marks I left behind. I pull her back into my arms and hold her like I’ve never held anything so carefully in my life. “I’ll always come back for you,” I whisper against her hair. “No matter how far we go. No matter how much of myself I lose—I’ll come back.”
She doesn’t say anything, just turns in my arms and kisses me like I didn’t just take her apart and put her back together again.
My grip on her tightens, one arm looping around her waist as I bring her flush against my chest. Her hands are still bound loosely with rope, the ends trailing across the sheets like silk ribbons. I don’t untie them yet. I like the way she looks like this.
“Still with me?” I murmur into the crook of her neck.
She nods, voice shaky but firm. “Yeah.”
