He turned away from town, onto a service road that led out into the forest. It wasn’t the preferred location she and her friends had used, but it was similar, she imagined. A pocket deep enough in the woods that people rarely bothered to drive in, especially when it wasn’t hunting season.

Her stomach tightened and she squeezed his cock through his jeans.

“It’ll be over before it starts if you keep doing that,” he said, his teeth gritted.

“Well, we can’t have that. I want my reward.”

“Your reward?”

“I was arrested by you, and put in the back of a car. And it was one of the least fun backseat experiences I’ve ever had.” They were driving over dirt and pine needles now, the pavement ending abruptly as the trees thickened. “Scratch that, it was the worst backseat experience I’ve ever had. Given all that, don’t you think you owe me a better one?”

“I damn well think I do,” he said, pulling into an alcove of trees just off the road. “Get in the backseat.”

She unbuckled slowly, keeping her eyes on him as she did, before opening the door and getting out of the car. It was so quiet the silence seemed to close in around her, around them. It was a strange, intimate openness. Somehow much more public than being in a bedroom, but also much more secluded.

She closed her door, then opened the back door, climbing inside before closing herself in.

He got out of the car and she watched him through the windows as he moved to the back and opened the door, his hands on his belt, sliding it through the loops before joining her inside, closing the door.

“This is way more like it,” she said, leaning back, resting her head on the window.

“Yeah?” He moved over her, leaning in and kissing her deep.

“Mmm. Yeah. Much better than being back here all by myself.”

“I’m surprised you remember it,” he said, and this time, there was no judgment in his voice. No disdain.

“I was pretty drunk, right?”

“Yeah, you and everyone else. They kind of scattered and left you to it.” He brushed his knuckles over her cheeks. “I never thought that was very fair.”

“I survived,” she said. “The charges didn’t stick anyway. My rap sheet remains somewhat mythical.”

“Well, you left town anyway. Probably would have ended up getting charged with failure to appear.”

“I needed to leave,” she said, her heart tightening.

His dark eyes turned serious. “I’m sure you did.”

She looked over to the side and saw a glint of silver in the center console of the car. She knew what they were, remembered what it had been like to wear them in the back of the patrol car. Feeling trapped. At his mercy. How different that thought was now. How different it was with Eli, the man as she knew him now.

“Are those handcuffs?” she asked, reaching out and snagging them. “Well, indeed. You just leave these lying around?”

He took them out of her hand. “Not usually.”

“You put these on me that night.”

Emotion passed over his face. Something like regret wrapped in horror. “I had to.”

She smiled. “I know. But in the interest of re-creating things...”

* * *

Eli looked down at Sadie, his heart thudding dully in his throat, making him feel like he might choke. He was so turned on he couldn’t see straight, and somewhere, in the middle of just trying to remember to breathe, he was trying to parse exactly why when his ex had done this, it had turned him off. And why now, with Sadie, it didn’t just seem sexy, it seemed impossible to resist. And heavy with some kind of meaning he was having trouble guessing.

That again had to do with body parts shifting. Heart to throat, blood to cock. Things like that.

And then the handcuffs.

“You really want me to handcuff you?” he asked.

She bit her lips, the action so unconsciously sexy it sent a jolt through his body and down to his dick. “I really do.”

“Why?”

“Do I have to know why something turns me on?” she asked. “If so, I like the idea of putting myself here, of my own free will. Letting you keep me, because I want you to. Because that first time I didn’t have a choice...well, I didn’t have a choice once I’d made the several bad ones I made that got me arrested in the first place.”

“That’s a little twisted,” he said, even as his gut tightened.

“And what’s your point? Isn’t it a little twisted that I came back to town and fell into your arms?” She traced his jawline with her forefinger, a wicked smile on her face. “To tell you the truth, I think you like twisted a little bit.”

He wrapped his arm around her waist and tugged her down so that she was lying flat on the seat, then he gripped her hands, deftly putting the cuffs on. In many ways, he was more confident in his ability to handcuff a woman than he was in seducing her. He’d just never wanted to combine the two.

“Maybe I do,” he said, his words rough.

She saw things in him. The dark things. The secret things. And he couldn’t deny, something in him liked it. Because it meant he didn’t have to hide. Didn’t have to try so hard to be upstanding.

Very few people would call what he was doing now upstanding, and he knew that. But they didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but her.

“Now what?” he asked.

“I think you’re the one in charge,” she said, blue eyes wide.

“I guess I am.” He traced her lower lip with the edge of his thumb, his eyes intent on hers, watching to make sure she wasn’t nervous or afraid. “You okay with that?”

Her mouth curved upward beneath his thumb. “It’s kinda what I asked for, right?”

“I promise to make it worth it.”

He lowered his hand to her stomach, pushing her shirt upward, watching the muscles contract as she took a short, sharp breath. He pushed it up higher, his fingers brushing the rounded underside of her breast before sliding up farther, the fabric of her T-shirt folding over his hand as he moved his thumb across her tightened nipple, barely covered by her whisper-thin bra.

Her head fell back, her hands lifted upward, bound by the cuffs.

“Good?” he asked.

“Mmm.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”