Page 97 of Ricochet

“I think we’ve proven you’re incapable of hurting me, Nick.”

His chest heaved with each breath, the intervals of inhalations growing shorter, his pupils dilating as if he’d somehow gotten high off the thought. My God, what kind of tormented and abused woman did it make me, for thrilling in what would come? I might’ve had confidence the man wouldn’t hurt me, but that was the only card he’d shown me so far. What twisted pleasures hid behind that smile, those intense blue eyes, was yet to be seen, and I couldn’t wait to make myself his willing victim.

I’d never given the reins to a man before, never allowed one to take total control over me. That came with trust, something I didn’t toss out like candy. It was hard earned, and after the experience in the bathtub, I’d decided Nick was the only man on the planet that I would follow into the water the way I had.

It’d troubled me that he’d kept his desires on a short leash—that he felt he couldn’t let go entirely with me. That was something I could give back to him.

I wasn’t a fragile woman. I’d been hardened. Trained to withstand even the darkest desires. A small part of me was ashamed to admit that I found solace in that darkness. That I craved depravity and pain. Not deep, penetrating pain, like the cuts I endured from Michael’s knives, or the whips he used across my backside , but the animalistic desire to claw, bite, smack, tear him apart, unable to stand the thought of not having him inside of me. That was how I felt about Nick.

Unless I’d read him wrong, he craved it, too.

He opened the drawer beside me once more, and the clunk at my ear had me turning to see the long blade he set atop the night stand. The serrated edge caught the light, mocking me as I stared back at it. I forced a swallow, my heart kicking up in my chest, blood cooling to panic. Perhaps he misunderstood.

I wanted passionate pain. Not mutilation.

From the edge of the bed, the heat of his stare burned holes in the side of my face, while I studied the sharp teeth of the knife, and I lifted my gaze to his. Those powerful, predacious eyes studied me, looking for any sign of fear, I suspected.

I didn’t misread him. I was right about him, and I planned to prove it. Even if he thought for a moment he could hurt me, in my heart, I knew he couldn’t. That darkness beneath the surface was the rage of his pain, and I intended to give him release—the same release he’d shown me in the bathtub. The elation of conquering a fear, the ghosts that kept us at a distance. I wanted him to breach the darkness, the way I’d breached the waters.

I eased back onto the pillow in surrender and gave a nod.

The intense pinch of his brow was the last image I carried into the darkness of the blindfold.

Only the sound of tearing, the cold hilt sliding along my chest, and a slight chill against my breasts gave brief warning, before he trapped my arms behind my back, using the sleeves of the shirt I’d borrowed.

“I like slicing clothes off of you. I want to buy you a whole fucking wardrobe of shirts and panties that I can rip to shit whenever I feel like it.” He bit my bottom lip, dragging it into his mouth, before letting go.

“Or I can keep borrowing your clothes.”

With the shirt holding me captive, he peeled back my bra, and his teeth gently grazed my nipple to a hard peak before he bit me.

Moaning at the exhilaration of having my arms bound while he toyed with my breast, I tipped my head back, both peaks jutting forward, and allowed him to do the same to the other side.

“Look at the way your body responds to me. As if it was made especially for my play.” The gravelly tone of his voice, the sound so deep and rich and full of menace, had my thigh muscles working overtime. It’d morphed from before, calm but commanding.

His warm hand slid along my thigh and inside the loose boxers, until he found my wet slit. The boxers slid down to my ankles, shackling my legs as he tightened the fabric around them, and squirming atop my arms, I surrendered my knees to the side, giving him rein to play with my clit.

He kept me there, writhing, waiting for his touch.

“Please, Nick.” Licking my lips, I lifted my ass up off the bed, grinding my hips against nothing, as pain tugged deep inside.

“Why, Aubree? Haven’t you seen what I’m capable of? Why do you want to taunt this side of me?”

“Because,” I said, “I want all of you. And if this is who you are, then this is what I crave.” Through blackness, I imagined Nick’s features—those eyes, jaw, face tight and hard, his body taut, as he railed into me with such intense concentration and curiosity. My legs scissored beneath him. “Please, touch me. Do something.” Heat pulsed through my body, the need to feel his hands driving me mad. I’d have touched myself, if not for the binds at my wrists.

His skin feathered against my nipples as his lips caressed my throat, and I let out a long, droning moan that probably resembled that of a wounded animal. His fingers slid into me, pumping like two pistons in sync.

“Nick, give me more.”

“You want more?”

“Yes, give me more.”

Pressure hit my shoulder and the soft tickle of hair, like his head had rested there. “Okay. I’ll do this. God forgive me if I hurt you.”

He set my hands free from the shirtsleeves and stretched them above my head, where they were tethered to the bedpost, though he didn’t remove the blindfold.

The warmth of his body left me, and the sound of the door clicking shut had me lifting me head up off the pillow.