I closed my eyes, soaking in the moment. “Remember,” I whispered. “If you are ever uncomfortable, uncertain, or frightened… just say stop.”
“I’ll just say stop,” she promised and I returned to gliding my hand down her body. I stroked and petted her, soothing myself as I made plans. The hooks were sturdy and I had everything I needed.
“Good,” I whispered. “Because I’m going to make one of my fantasies come true.”
Chapter
Seventeen
LAINEY
“Stay still,” Bodhi told me. “I get to touch. I get to decide. All you do is get to feel.”
The heat in that order sank into my bones. There was a fragile intensity to Bodhi in this moment. An intensity I wouldn’t shy away from for anything in the world. He rarely asked me for anything. I found I would deny him nothing.
At the same time, the liquid desire in his voice held dark promise. One I wanted to embrace and ride until we were both spent. I licked my lips, even if my mouth had suddenly gone dry. “I’ll stay still…”
“Remember,” he whispered. “If you are ever uncomfortable, uncertain, or frightened… just say stop.” The words looped around me like an embrace, fastening me securely to him in a way I didn’t pretend to understand. The only thing important here was that he needed me.
“I’ll just say stop,” I repeated the earlier promise as he stroked his hand down my arm to my side, then over my hip. Softness marked his touch, the gliding contact familiar, and it offered comfort. Whether it was for him or for me, I wasn’t sure and honestly, I didn’t care. If he needed this then it was his.
“Good,” he whispered finally and goosebumps erupted over my skin. My nipples went taut. “Because I’m going to make one of my fantasies come true.”
One of his…
Heat flooded me at that declaration. His fantasy. He wanted his fantasy to come true. Tears filled my eyes as emotion clogged my throat. At the same time, liquid need unfurled within me as he continued to stroke his hands over my skin.
Everywhere he touched me turned electric. Bodhi never failed to delight me. With each and every interaction, he opened the door into himself wider. Nothing hidden. No place forbidden.
“I love you,” I whispered, the emotion demanding to be let out. His soft chuckle was like a feather dusting over my senses. Then he pressed a kiss to my bare shoulder.
“I didn’t even bring you shoes this time.” The lightness in his statement was so at odds with the emotion drenching his tone that I was torn between laughter and tears.
“You brought me you—” I never finished the full thought because he swooped in to capture my mouth with his. The slow massage of his lips to mine sent a frisson of delight to splinter my thoughts.
He framed my face with his fingertips, the stroke of his thumb beneath my chin nudging my head back. The silkiness of the mask struck me as my eyes closed. Yet, the stroke of his tongue dipping in to tease mine deepened the sensuous nature of the kiss.
The fragile intensity in the kiss wasn’t usually Bodhi’s style. He’d always been so bold in our interactions. Normally, he seemed to take a near savage delight with how he could tease me right up to the edge before plunging us both over.
Keeping the contact light, he glided his hand down to my throat. The firmness of the way he collared me triggered me on such an erotic level, I had to gasp for a breath.
Dampness coated my thighs, but Bodhi didn’t release my mouth. Every breath he allowed me to take came from him and the world fell away until all that remained was the two of us. He was my anchor in the darkness, his touch keeping me from drowning utterly even as he stroked his thumb over my pulse.
“Sweet Lainey B,” he whispered against my mouth, every syllable punctuated with another hot caress of his tongue. “My sweet Lainey B…”
The possession in those words looped around me even more firmly than his hand on my throat. “Bodhi,” I whispered back. “My Phillip.”
A laugh bubbled out of me at the nip of his teeth to my lower lip. He really didn’t like his given name and on some level, I understood. Yet, it was his name and he should be allowed to claim it for him and no one else.
“For you,” he promised. “But only.”
I smiled, then bit him back and his groan rolled along my spine like the tide coming in. “The perfect Trouble for me.”
That earned me both, another searing kiss, as well as a stinging slap against my hip. The dichotomy between the dueling connections lit me up. Particularly when he flexed his hand around my throat and massaged the heat into my skin.
Pain had never been a kink of mine, or at least one I had been aware of, but these men… They brought out all the dark desires within me, both imagined and not.
I drifted as he devoured my mouth, content to meet his demanding kisses with the ferocity of my own hunger. Yet, even as he seemed to sate my need, he struck a match to a fresh fire within me.
I wanted everything.
I wanted to give him everything.
One by one, these men of mine had awoken a side of me that I never could have imagined. Now, I refused to live without them. They sharpened my protective instincts yet also provoked my need to surrender. Not because I had to, but because I could.
They didn’t want to control me. They complemented me. They didn’t want to own me, yet I would give myself to them body and soul. They did the same.
Bodhi was perfect for me and in this moment, suspended in this darkly sensual world, he was my everything.
Gradually, he pulled away and took my breath with him. A low sound escaped me. I couldn’t really tell if it was a moan or a whimper. It was needy though.
“Shhh,” he hummed the sound as he released my throat to trace a finger across my chest, drawing a line from one shoulder to the other. He didn’t quite touch my breasts and yet my neck seemed almost painfully naked and too cold.
A shiver raced over my skin, pulling my nipples taut. He didn’t dip his hand lower, just drawing lazy patterns down toward my breasts and up again until the tension locking up my shoulders released.
“That’s my beautiful, sweet Lainey B,” he murmured, the drift of his words adding another layer of fire to the path he drew particularly when he teased a new design around one of my nipples.
