Captivated (22 page)

Words he didn’t know how to say lodged in his throat as the warm, solid feel of her body stirred him, even as he found a deep comfort there.

Let himself take the comfort from her, even as he gave her everything he had to give.

Moved, Julian closed his eyes and took a breath of her. He kissed her neck and she turned to him, tears in her eyes, her bottom lip trembling.

“Are you all right? Do you need a booster on the analgesic?”

“I’m sorry.” She shook her head, wiping her eyes on his shirt, which made him smile even as he was annoyed by her apology.

“What in the Known Universes do you have to apologize for?”

“I fell apart.”

“No, you didn’t.” He shook his head, keeping his arms around her, dipping his mouth to taste her briefly.

“I don’t want to be like this.”

His heart ached. “You’re perfect the way you are.”

She shook her head. “No.”

“I wish you could see what I see.”

She blinked up at him.

“Today you handled yourself as well as any other operative. Operatives who’ve had years of training. Operatives who grew up in rough, hard places. You’re strong, Hannah Black. You’re strong and smart and you forced yourself past some scary stuff because you knew there was a job to do. And you did it.”

“You didn’t have any trouble.”

He laughed a little, but there wasn’t much humor there. “Of course I did. I totally missed the soldiers in the hall.” He raked his gaze over the bruises on her face, remembered the rage as he’d turned to see the man beating her with closed fists, but he was fighting his own battle, too far away to stop it.

“Ellis spoke to me. In my earpiece.”

“He did? What did he say?”

“He told me where the man’s weapon had fallen. Told me I could do it.”

“And he was right. I’m sorry it was necessary.”

Interesting that Ellis would break through and speak to her when he so very rarely ever commented while they were on an op. But Wilhelm had his own plans, and his own ways of making them happen, so Julian had ceased to question why he did what he did a long time ago.

She sighed, hiccupping a little, and burrowed into him. He tightened his embrace, noting the way the tension seemed to wisp away from her when he did. “Close your eyes and rest. I’ll be right here. Vin and I will take care of you.”

She shuddered and took a deep breath, her hand fisted in the front of his shirt.

A
fter having been out the entire day, Vincenz moved with purpose from the front entry to where he knew she’d be. In the doorway to their workroom, he paused. Simply watching her as she sat at the comm station—her comm station as it had come to be over the last months. Features intent, fingers flying over the keys, pausing only to grab a pen and take longhand notes.

In the days since they’d returned from Silesia, she’d dived into the data they’d mined from the plant. But he knew she still held herself responsible for nearly breaking down. He’d tried to disabuse her of that notion, as had Julian, but he saw the shadows there anyway.

It was time for a new approach.

She looked up and her concentration washed away with a smile. Love flooded his senses. “Hello there, Operative Cuomo. You look like sunshine today.”

Oddly pleased, he got to his knees in front of her. “Why, hello there.” He gripped the chair arms, caging her in, slow and steady, the
tension between them building. “And why is that?” He leaned in and nipped her bottom lip. Breathed her in and fell into her mouth. Forcing himself to only take a taste.

“You’ve been in the sun. Your hair lightens when you’ve been in the sun.”

“Ah.” He took another taste, meandering through the wonder of kissing that mouth. She sighed, her fingers sliding through his hair. He pulled away but it didn’t last long and he was back for more.

His tongue teased along the curve of her bottom lip before he sucked it into his mouth, grazing it with his teeth.

She shivered against him, moaning so very softly.

“You taste like late summer. Sweet, and ripe, delicious,” he spoke into her mouth.

She smiled against the kiss. “I missed you today. It’s hard to think without your sounds and the way you smell.”

He rested his forehead to hers. “We have the entire house to ourselves. No visitors. I’m going to fuck you hard enough to make you scream.”

Her pupils enlarged as she gasped. And gave herself over to him.

Greed sliced through him. “I don’t remember a time when I didn’t need you so much.” He kissed the fluttering pulse in that sweet spot under her ear. She softened, exposing her throat to him.

“No one thinks worse of you that you had a rough time back on Silesia.”

She stiffened and sighed, trying to straighten. But he kept his upper body against hers, his waist insinuated between her thighs.

She wavered between anger and searingly hot desire. She shouldn’t get hot all over when he was this way with her. So aggressive and dominant. His way of holding her down was no less powerful than Julian’s was.

Her reaction to and connection with it went to her bones. All the noise and chaos wisped away when he took over.

Her entire body had lit. Already wet. Each time he pressed himself against her, the seam of her panties tightened, pressing into her pussy, stroking against her clit. That wave of pleasure broke over her annoyance that he’d brought up Silesia. Sent all her thoughts of anything but his mouth on her neck, the slight sting when he bit and more pleasure when he licked over the bite, skittering away.

He pulled away quickly, leaving her gasping at his sudden absence, reaching for him. Covetous hands stroked over her arms, up her sides and over her breasts. He hummed his pleasure at the hollow of her throat, the vibrations sliding straight to her nipples, which now slid against his palms.

“Bare breasts. My favorite.”

Before she got the chance to formulate a reply, he’d pulled the front of her shirt away from her body and then ripped it open, sending buttons everywhere. The shock of the cool air against her skin beaded her skin, but her nipples hardened because of the man kneeling between her thighs.

His gaze on her was a tangible thing and she suddenly felt a little bit like a mouse with hawks about. Only the fear was replaced with anticipation.

“It is not that you faltered when confronted with not only labs that looked a great deal like the one you were held in but a man who tried to kill you with his bare hands, having to kill that man and then had to walk through yet another set of labs, this one with cells.”

She made a face, annoyed. Why did he keep bringing this up? She had no one to blame for her terrible performance but herself.

He stood. “I’ll be right back. Don’t move.”

She frowned at his back. But didn’t move.

When he returned it was with one of the little black bags he kept all manner of naughty toys in.

He bent, kissing her and before she knew it, her wrist was strapped to the arm of the chair. She pulled against the hold, sending white-hot shards of pleasure through her system.

At first she knew they
wanted
to be rougher with her than they were. But they remained ever so gentle as she healed. But it never felt totally real to her, their desire for her, their connection to her until the first time Vincenz had let his control go and gave her exactly what she wanted, how he wanted to.

And when he trusted her to know what she wanted, when he trusted himself to let himself want her, to give himself permission to
take
her, everything felt utterly right.

She kept her words, watching him as he bent to strap her other wrist to the chair.

“You and I have a problem, Hannah.”

He knelt again, this time to strap her ankle to the chair. And then he paused to look into her face carefully, assessing, she knew, to be sure she was still all right with what he was doing.

“That’s the difference, you know.” Her face was solemn.

He rested his chin on her knee. “What do you mean?”

“Between what happened to me—what they did to me while they kept me prisoner—and what you do to me.” She licked her lips just before he pinched her left nipple, tugging until she arched as well as she could against the leather pressing into the ultrasensitive skin at her wrists.

She stuttered a breath. “This is what I want. I choose this.”

He paused, caressing her neck. So much emotion on his face. She was utterly helpless against what she felt for him. There was nothing she wanted more than to be here with him. To be his.

“I should cease to be surprised by you. I try to get you to see a
truth and then you turn around and do the same to me.” He swallowed hard. “I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to make you think about before.”

“That was about
breaking
me. About stealing parts of me until there wasn’t enough left to stay together. It was about humiliation and harm. What you do, what Julian does, it’s different because it’s about holding me together, not ripping me apart. For a time I felt as if I might fly away. I was so light, so empty, it felt as though I could lift up and float on the breeze until no one knew me anymore.”

She needed him to understand, but she barely understood it herself.

“I can remember who I am when you touch me.”

He bent to her nipple, licking over it. “It’s because there is much about us that is the same. A foot in two worlds. Your story makes me think of my own though it’s not entirely the same. You came to me, let me give you a place to call home and then you did the same for me.”

“You’re my heart.” She sniffled.

“Then I want you to forgive yourself for being human.”

She pulled against her restraints to get more contact as he pulled away.

“Ah, ah, ah.” He bent to retrieve something. A blindfold. She looked at him and then down to the fabric he held.

She froze. And he moved closer. Her heart pounded.

He crowded her then and drew her in. The way he always did.

He drew the silk over her breasts and then let it rest against her shoulder. He held up a small silver clip and then he put it on her nipple. Slowly tightening it until right on the very knife-edge of pain before moving back and putting a similar clamp on the other nipple.

She drew in a shaky breath as the not quite pain bloomed into something warm and insanely pleasurable.

“Yes. Gods above and below, Hannah, you’re beautiful.” He kissed
her again, leaving her panting, his taste painted all over her senses. He flicked a fingertip over one of her nipples and it sent a rush of wetness to her pussy.

Her words were all gone. Far, far away so she nodded. Hoping he knew that meant she wanted more. More of whatever he had to give.

Feeling exposed, drawn by this woman in ways he’d never have imagined before, Vincenz knew he’d have to push her harder to get her to admit the truth of the situation.

Her gaze had returned to that glossy state she’d had before he brought the issue of their trip to Silesia up.

“Do you trust me?” He kissed her neck and then down her chest down to the waist of her pants.

“With my life.”

Her words were serious, as was the look on her face. He took the blindfold up and let it trail over her nipples, which he imagined had begun to throb in time with her heartbeat. And while she watched, he drew it into both hands and straightened.

He placed it over her eyes. She was stiff at first, but he kept caressing her, keeping his hands on her until she relaxed.

Moving to her ear, he whispered, “If it gets to be too much, you only have to say so.”

But he knew her, knew that well of strength she possessed and he knew she’d never give in too soon. If she said it was too much, it would be.

She wouldn’t be the only one excited with anticipation. He had to force himself to go slow, to make this something pleasurable, even as he broke through her defenses. The last thing he wanted was to remind her of the labs. But they were past that now, he believed. She let him put the blindfold on, and he could scent her desire. She was with him on this journey.

Rustling through the bag, he found what he needed. Heavy-duty scissors with curved tips to use on clothes.

Starting at her ankle, he took that delicate foot, bare, which made him smile, and held it still so he could cut the leg of her pants, all the way up her body to the waist.

She gasped, but there was no fear.

He paused to kiss the back of her knee, now exposed to his touch. She shivered, as he knew she would. As he did.

And then the other leg.

He pulled the tattered remains of her pants off, tossing them over his shoulder. She wore panties he knew Julian had given her. Bright pink against the cream of her skin. Startlingly pretty.

He kissed up her inner thigh, breathing hot air over her cunt, and then kissed his way down the other leg.

She pulled against the restraints, but not to get free.

To get more.

He hummed, his lips barely touching her through the material of her panties. She whimpered, arching into his touch.

“Contrary to what you might think, you’re allowed to have moments where you have to pull yourself together sometimes.”

She growled and he wanted to laugh. So fucking strong, even when she was being disobedient.

He opened his mouth over her and that growl dissolved into a whimper.

Smiling, he sat back on his heels. “You’re not a trained soldier. And yet it was your work, your contribution to the mission that Julian and I, hells, Ellis and Daniel too, found to be the most useful.”

“
Why?
Why now?”

He grinned at the stubborn line of her mouth.

“I’ve tried it the nice way. Julian’s tried it the nice way. And now, well, I’m trying it the
really
nice way.”

She smiled and shook her head.

“You’re so beautiful.” He leaned in and licked the underside of her breast, one and then the other. He kissed up the curve of her ribs. “And you’re human.”

“Don’t want to talk about this.”

He kissed over her lips, just a ghost of a touch, and then carefully touched the cool metal of the scissors to her hip, slitting the panties down one side and then the other.