On Her Master's Secret Service (Masters and Mercenaries #4)(74)

Eve’s eyes widened. “You seem pretty sure of yourself.”

He was sure of one thing. She would be underneath him tonight. He would get balls deep inside her and then she wouldn’t be able to lie to him—or herself—ever again. “We had years and years of good.”

He reached back into the bag and pulled out a length of rope. He had three lengths, each thirty feet. He’d learned that was exactly what he needed to tie up his pretty sub.

Her eyes went to the rope in his hands. “I know we did. We should honor those years by accepting that we’ve changed. Alex, I don’t want to lose you as a friend, but you have to know that once we get back to our normal lives, all our problems are still going to be waiting there. This can’t work long term. This kind of passion burns itself out.”

He unwound the first length, shaking his head the whole time. “It didn’t for me. I’ve been this passionate about you for fifteen years. I want another fifty more, and I’m willing to fight for it now. I can see where I went wrong. I thought you needed time, and one day blurred into the next until I just gave in on everything because I got confused. I thought I was appeasing you, but I was really appeasing the guilt I felt. Eve, we haven’t talked about those days, not really. Seven days. Seven horrible days and we’ve let them ruin the thousands of good ones.”

She stared at the rope, her mouth turning down and her hands flexing, a sure sign that she was getting anxious. “We talked in therapy.”

They had spent long hours talking, but it had been clinical and she’d skimmed the surfaces. After a while, they’d just stopped going and given up. “I hated those sessions. I said whatever I thought would get me out of those sessions as quickly as possible. I didn’t do the work to get us through this because it was far easier for me to concentrate on killing Michael Evans. Even after I found and arrested the bastard, I concentrated on his trial and my job.”

“I know. I understand why you did it. You could control that aspect.”

He’d made some mistakes, but so had she, and she was still making the same ones. “Strip.”

“That isn’t going to help anything.” But she didn’t move away from him. Her eyes stayed on the rope and then lowered to his cock. She was watching him carefully and those eyes were a little like a remote. His dick responded immediately.

“I did your therapy. I did it for years. I did it when it made my stomach turn and my heart hurt. I’m asking you for a couple of hours to pay me back for years of topping you on your terms. I need this.”

He watched her soften immediately, and then her hands went to the buttons on her blouse. “All right, if this is what you need to get closure, I’ll help you. I can’t tell you what the last week has meant to me, but they were moments out of time. We were just trying to hold on to something that’s gone.”

He hadn’t been. He’d been trying to build something new, and it was past time she knew that.

He watched in silence as she shed every stitch of clothing. Her blouse dropped and her hands carefully unclasped the bra she wore. It was pink, delicate with scalloped edges that didn’t hold a candle in beauty to the flesh it covered. Her breasts were smaller than before, but he loved their shape and the way they felt in his hands. She had perky pink nipples that tightened the instant she was aroused. The areola constricted as he watched, her nipples elongating, preparing for the tug of his fingers and his mouth.

She pushed the tiny skirt off her hips and stepped out of her heels. She bit her bottom lip as though waiting for him to judge her. The perfectly made mound of her sex caught his eyes, and he was almost certain she was becoming wet and soft for him. No matter what else had happened between them, they always had this. All he had to do was think about Eve St. James and he was hard and ready to f*ck because she was his mate. More than a wife. More than a sub. She was his other half. They had been hiding behind fear and shame and all those stupid clothes. They didn’t need them.

“You’re so beautiful. Turn around for me, angel.”

She smiled slightly, her anxiety obviously dialed down. She turned for him.

He could see that the curvy cheeks of her ass were still a light pink. Running a hand over those cheeks, he was pleased to see her shiver slightly. “Did you enjoy the flogger?”

It used to be one of her favorite toys. She’d found it relaxing. When she would come home from a rough day at work, he would simply look at the set of her shoulders and order her to the St. Andrew’s Cross they kept in the private playroom, and after fifty or so strokes, she would be relaxed and happy and she would curl up in his arms for the night, her day forgotten. God, he missed that.

“It was a very short session, Master.”

He couldn’t help but grin. “You still started subbing out.”

One shoulder shrugged as she turned her head to look at him. “You’re quite good with a flogger. We could try it again, you know. That also wasn’t much of a spanking if you ask me.”

Such a little brat. She had just the tiniest bit of a pain slut in her, but he never let her go too far. That was what he was here for. To give her what she needed while protecting her from going too far.

“Still trying to decide your own punishments?” He sank his hand into her hair and tugged.

She gasped because he knew damn well she liked that pain, too. “Maybe I’m trying to pick my pleasures, Master.”