Bound by Bliss (Bound and Determined #2)(67)

“No, you were perfect.” The fingers that still lay tangled in hair brushed down to cup her cheek. He sat beside her on the bed. “It is merely that I was more forceful, more out of control than I liked. I would not like to risk truly hurting you.”

“But I made you that way, that out of control? It was because of me you felt that way?”

A cautious yes.

“Then how can I complain?”

“I did not say that you complained, merely that I should have been gentler.”

She pulled away from him, moving to sit, pushing her skirts down until she was completely covered. “Why should you have been gentler? Am I not capable of deciding what I like? I liked that. I relished it. I want to do it again, but with more time to play first, to run my tongue about your length, to feel the changes of your cock within my mouth, to…”

“Enough,” he commanded. “I am as spent as I’ve ever been and you have me growing hard again.”

“I do?” She leaned forward, eager to see.

He was going to have to work on command. Placing a hand upon her chest, he pushed her back upon the pillows—and prepared to push her in other ways. “You don’t like it when others make decisions for you, do you?”

“Does anybody?” She pulled her knees up to her chest.



“Perhaps not, but I see fires light in your eyes whenever you feel pushed. I am not sure that is quite so usual.”

She rested her chin upon her knees. “I don’t know. I think I’ve been responsible for myself for so long that I know no other way. Maybe I can blame it on Swanston.” The faintest hint of a smile. “After my mother’s death we all pretty much did what we wanted, but then he’d come back from school and try to add some order to the situation. I always resented that since I would be managing just fine. I’d have the cook cooking and the maids cleaning, but when he came home he would change how everything was done. When I am given orders, not choices, I always feel that I am being told the way I would do it is not good enough.”

His breath caught as her words penetrated. He was used to controlling everything and everyone about him. He’d inherited the title as a child and from that point forward his word had been near law. The elderly uncle who’d acted as his guardian had rarely bothered to visit the estate and when he had he’d only nodded at Duldon’s efforts. He tried to imagine what it would have been like to be Bliss, young and in the midst of trying to care for her wild family only to have Swanston return in all his glorious competence to take over. He’d heard Swanston’s stories of that time period and doubted he’d even noticed his sister’s efforts. “You’ve always been good enough for me, more than good enough, Bliss.”

“Not always.”

Her words made him feel more vulnerable than sitting beside her naked as she remained fully dressed, not that that had bothered him much beyond a desire to get her out of her clothes. “I am not sure what you mean.”



She was quiet, her face turned down to her knees so that he could not see her face and her words were muffled. “When I was seventeen I wasn’t enough.”

He pushed himself fully onto the bed and sat beside her. His head tilted back into the pillows. When she’d been seventeen, he’d been twenty-five. It had been a wonderful year. The year he’d truly discovered who he was and what he’d wanted in life. A year he’d worked hard and played just as hard. And Bliss—he did remember Bliss that year. He remembered seeing her at a ball and being overcome by her perfect young beauty. She’d made him feel seventeen again himself, randy and ready to pop his breeches in public. What he didn’t remember was turning her away in any fashion, or implying that she was not enough. She’d always been enough. “I must admit that I am still not sure to what you refer.”

Bliss turned her face from him. It was not enough that he could not see it, she must actually face away. “You don’t remember.”

Her words ate at him. He could feel her belief in her lack of importance in them. She did not question, she merely flatly stated. “I don’t know if I remember if you won’t tell me what this is about.”

“Clearly it was not important to you.”

She was killing him. “How can I know if you won’t tell me what it is?”

She said nothing, although her shoulders heaved a little.

Don’t let her cry. Sex and play could bring out a strange cacophony of emotions, but he was not prepared for her tears, not now—not when something crucial was flying about and he could not quite catch it. “Please tell me, Bliss.”



A gasp of air, a straightening of shoulders, and she lifted her head. She did not turn to him, but he could see the gentle curve of one cheek. Her hair was escaping its pins and beginning to curl in a riot about her face. “It is no longer important. I was young and have probably put too much importance on something very small and insignificant. It made no true difference in my life and I have moved past it. I have come to understand that wishing does not make the world the way I wish it. I learned that with my mother and I learned it again with you.”

She had been young, and he must admit that he could not believe he would not remember if it truly had been important. No, that was discounting her. “Please tell me, Bliss. If it is unimportant what can it hurt to tell me? And if it is important surely then I need to know.”