"The way you looked coming in at speed." His mouth moved to my nipple and closed over it warm and I bit down on the shirt and made a muffled sound that echoed off the trailer walls. "Incredible." He pulled back just enough. "Reckless. But incredible."
I said something into the shirt that wasn't a word.
"What was that?" he said.
I said it again. Still not a word.
"Drop the shirt," he said, "and we stop."
I held the shirt.
"That's what I thought." His mouth came back and this time he wasn't being gentle about it—his tongue, his teeth, just enough pressure to make my whole body clench—and his other hand came up to the other side and I was actively trembling and completely unable to do anything about it because my hands were tied and my shirt was in my teeth and this man was methodical and patient and absolutely merciless.
"Sawyer—" Into the cotton. Muffled. Wrecked.
"Mm." He didn't stop.
"Sawyer—"
"You're doing so well." His thumb moved in slow circles while his mouth kept working and I pulled against the lasso again, both hands, and it held and he held and I was trapped between all of it. "Staying so still for me." His voice dropped lower. "You want to know what you get when you're good?"
I nodded frantically.
He pulled back just far enough to look at my face.
"I'm going to tell you what you get," he said, low and even. "And you're going to hold still and listen."
I nodded again.
"I'm going to free your hands from the headboard." His thumb moved once, slow circle, and I bit the shirt harder. "Not take the lasso off. Just give you enough slack to get on your knees." His mouth brushed the curve of my breast. "And you're going to put that pretty mouth on me and take what I give you." His eyes came back to my face, dark and certain. "And when I decide you've been good enough—when I think you've earned it—I'm going to take you from behind and fill my future bride up so deep she forgets what she did wrong today." His hands gripped my hips. "And you're going to take every bit of it. Because you're mine. And that's what mine does."
The word landed low and warm and total.
Mine.
Future bride.
I let the shirt fall from my teeth.
"Yes," I breathed. "Please. Sawyer, please?—"
"Drop the shirt," he said, "and stay dropped."
"It's dropped?—"
"Good girl." He reached up and freed the lasso from the headboard—not off my wrists, true to his word, just enough slack that I could move—and guided me forward onto my knees in front of him.
He stood at the edge of the bed.
Got his belt open. His jeans. Pushed everything down and stepped out and stood there and just—let me look.
I'd never get used to it. Four months and I still hadn't gotten used to it, the specific way he looked at night in low light. The medal. The line of his stomach. The patience in his face that wasn't patience at all, just control, and the control slipping at the edges because of me.
My hands were still loosely bound in front of me. The lasso trailed warm across the blanket.
I reached for him.
His breath hissed out.
