Surrender (Careless Whispers #3)(17)

“You just what?” he asks, leaning in to press his cheek against mine, his fingers teasing my nipple, tightening it into a hard, sensitive knot.

“I just want to . . . ” He gives my nipples gentle tugs and I swallow against the sensations rolling through me, before I manage to finish with, “ . . . do the right thing.”

He goes still for a moment, his breath warm on my neck, his hands bracketing my waist. “Do the right thing,” he repeats softly.

“Yes,” I say. “Do the right thing.”

He leans back to look at me, his blue eyes etched with shadows, and some emotion I cannot name. Seconds tick by that give me zero answers to what he’s thinking, and without a word or a response, he reaches over and pulls open a drawer before setting something next to me that I can’t see.

“What are you doing?” I ask, curious and confused.

He takes my hands and presses my palms together, never once looking at my naked breasts. “Lace your fingers,” he orders softly.

There is a sudden newly sparked erotic charge in the air and my nipples tighten again of their own accord. I do as he asks, and for a moment, his hands hold mine, the look in his eyes dark, unreadable, and for reasons I cannot name that reach beyond that charge in the air, my heart begins to race.

“Do you trust me?” he asks.

“You know I do.”

“I do know,” he surprises me by saying. “But though you say you know, too, I’m not sure you really do.”

“I do,” I insist. “I absolutely do.”

“Just know this. I would never betray you. I would never hurt you. I would, as I have said, and will say over and over, die for you.”

“As I—”

“No,” he says roughly, his voice gravelly, affected. “Do not say you would die for me, because that is not what I want from you. Never do I want that from you.”

“I know you don’t want that,” I say, my voice now gravelly as well, “but you see, I feel what you feel. I can’t stand the idea of living instead of you, without you.”

“I don’t plan to let you.” His fingers flex around my hands. “Hold them right here.” He waits for my reply and I give a tiny nod, before he reaches beside me and produces a roll of masking tape, already tearing a long piece.

“What are you doing?” I ask again, my heart now skipping and racing, but by the time I start to pull my hands back, he’s already holding them.

“Aside from protecting your newly inked wrist by avoiding a tie that would be on top of it,” he says as he attaches one side of the tape several inches up my arm, “I’m proving a point.” He finishes wrapping my arms, then grabs the roll to pull off another piece.

“What point?”

He wraps more tape around my arms. “You can’t get free,” he says, tossing the roll over his shoulder. “I can do anything to you I want to do to you, and you can’t stop me. You could fight, but I’m bigger and stronger. Does that scare you?”

“No, it doesn’t scare me, but if I wanted to get free, I could fight. I’m good at fighting.”

“Do you want to fight me, Ella?”

“No. Of course not.”

“Because you’re safe with me. I want you to stay safe with me. That is why we can’t go to Paris. Not now. Not yet. I’m not trying to dominate you or control you. I just want you to be alive to fight with me like you just were. To change my mind. And for me to change yours, and in this case, I’m going to.” He folds my hands behind my head, and orders me to keep them there while his hands slide to my back, molding me to him, his breath a warm wash on my lips. “I can’t lose you, Ella.”

“Kayden,” I breathe out, emotion tightening my chest, so many emotions I cannot even begin to name them. Things I’ve felt in the past and present, things I know and do not know, colliding and erupting inside me. I need him and I know he needs me, and I have never felt such a thing with anyone, ever.

“Not can’t,” he amends. “I won’t lose you. Do you understand?” He doesn’t give me time to answer, or to let my fears that I will become his weakness take shape. Already he is kissing me, deeply, fiercely, kissing me and lifting me as he does. And even this, the way he holds me and I cannot hold him, not with my hands behind my head and my forearms taped. So I just savor the taste of him, of us together, and all we are here and now.

He settles me on the couch, my hands going to his chest as he comes down on top of me, lifting himself long enough to pull his shirt over his head, the sweet weight of his big, muscular body quickly returning to settle onto mine. “Lace your fingers behind your head again,” he orders, helping me move my hands to rest there. “I don’t want you to hurt your wrist. Keep them there.”

“Are you still making a point?”

“If you have to ask, I haven’t made it.”

“Is that point that you have control and we aren’t going to Paris?” I ask.

“No. That is not the point. At all. Now. Don’t move your hands.”

“And if I do?” I ask, challenging him to give me everything, to take everything including the memories I want to erase. To show me how he erases his. “Is this where you show me that dirty sex you say is your escape?”