Hope Restrained (Estate Series) (13 page)

His mouth melded to hers, his tongue demanding entrance
while the fingers he had tangled in her hair held her head in place, allowing
him to devour her slowly. Initially caught off guard by her surprise at his
earlier words, she didn’t see him strike before she was melting under lips
skilled in stealing her breath.

Hope’s body heated to feel his strong hand traveling over
her tired muscles. The grip of his fingers digging into the knotted muscles,
sending shooting sparks across her skin, each one relaxed under his hold. Rough
from years of weapons use, the skin of his palm moved under her shirt and up
her torso, each bruise ringing with pain when he touched it. She was rendered
weak almost instantly, the beginnings traces of endorphins flittering through
her blood. With her hands locked behind her back, her chest was pushed out,
easy access for his agonizingly slow exploration of her body. He teased at the
swollen flesh, brushing the tips of his fingers across skin inflamed with need
for his touch. She groaned in complaint and he finally took an aggressive hold
of her breast, rolling the tip between his fingers and causing her heart to
pound harder against her chest.

“Tell me you don’t want me now, Hope. Tell me you want me to
stop giving you everything you are desperate to feel.” He pinched the sensitive
peak sending a jolt of painful pleasure slicing along her central nerve,
sparking a fire within her core. His lips traveled along her jaw and down her
neck, his hand pulling her back by the hair slowly stretching the skin for his
kiss and his bite. Her breath pounded out of her, erratic and uncontrolled. Running
his nose along the rim of her ear when he whispered, “Do you remember what I
told you about your secret, how I would use it against you?”

She didn’t respond — couldn’t respond. Chuckling
wickedly against her skin, he explained, “Your desperate need for pain is the
only drug necessary to make you agreeable with anything I wish to do to you.” He
released her hair, only to grab the collared chain at her neck. Pulling her up
from the wall, he kept his eyes locked to hers when he directed her to straddle
his lap. “Stand up.”

She watched his hand loosen over the chain, giving her just
enough slack to stand, but not to move away. His eyes burned into hers,
enchanted her to a point where she didn’t want to look away and where she
wanted to do exactly as he instructed her. She knew, that by doing so, he would
reward her by taking her to a place where her thoughts would scatter and would
grant her relief from the anger, fear and frustration that plagued her.

His hand gripped her pants at the ankle and she looked down
to see his fingers pulling at the fabric, slowly removing the clothing from her
body. Once past her hips, the fabric slipped quickly over her legs, bunching
over his hand. After releasing the chain, he lifted her leg, one by one, and
removed the sweatpants from her body. Sliding his hands up the back of her
calves, his eyes trailing along the length of her legs and up further until the
sapphire blue locked to her eyes.

The small wisps of light that streamed through the cave
danced across his face, illuminating the violent cut of his jaw and the deep
tan to his skin. She wanted to reach out and rub her palm against the stubble
on his cheek, but the cuffs prevented any exploration between them, except for
his.

“Sit down.” Gently tugging on the chain he directed her down
so that she straddled his legs, her knees bent, her legs spread. She was
exposed to him completely, incapable of moving away or fighting him off. Somehow,
this man was able to render her completely helpless, yet stoke a flame within
her that burned along every nerve ending in her body all at the same time.

Wrapping the chain slowly around his wrist, he smirked to
gain use of both hands while still holding her restraint. Gripping the bottom
hem of her shirt, he lifted the material slowly, his eyes examining every inch
of her skin that came into view. Lifting it over her breasts, she felt her skin
tighten and swell when she noticed the open admiration in his eyes. Eventually,
those blue jewels moved to her face, locking with her eyes, burning into her.

“I don’t know if you realize just how desirable you are. I
suspect that, growing up, nobody understood the darkness in you. They may have
reacted with fear, contempt — disgust. To me, however, that darkness only
makes you a rare jewel, a woman perfectly built for a man like me.” When her
eyes widened in surprise, he paused. “I intend to tame you completely, Hope,
and not just to give to you the things your body craves, but to satisfy my own
need by exploring the depths of your darkness, by sinking inside you, only to
raise us both into the light. I know you disconnect yourself from everybody and
everything, it’s so obvious in the way you dance with death, how you throw
yourself into a fight without fear of losing your life. But I won’t allow you
to disconnect yourself from me any longer.”

“I want to touch you.” The request slipped off her lips in a
breathless whisper, surprising her even though she’d been the one to speak it. Her
hands squeezed together behind her back from her desire to run them over the
rough skin of his cheeks, through the silk strands of his hair, over the steel
of his muscle covered by the smooth perfection of skin.

Wickedly, he teased, “I’m not sure I can trust removing your
cuffs, how do I know you won’t attempt to get away from me.”

She grinned. “You’ll still have your leash.”

A single brow arched seductively over his darkened eye. Releasing
his grip on her, he pulled a set of keys from his pocket and reached around
her. She heard the metal of the key hit against the lock, the faint snap as he
released it from her wrist. However, she was surprised to hear it close again,
and even more surprised to feel Xander pull their hands between them to show
that their wrists were now bound together. Folding his hand over hers, he held out
his other hand, completely opening himself to her touch. “I’m all yours.”

Slowly lowering her hands to his chest, she sucked in a
breath when her palms tingled against the warmth of his body. His form was
perfection, raw strength barely contained beneath his skin. Moving her hands
up, she brought them along the sides of his neck, up further, along his jaw. She
savored feeling the rough skin before finally burying her hands into his thick
hair, gripping her fingers tighter and watching his eyes slowly close. She didn’t
notice that he’d taken the leash back in his other hand, so when he tugged
gently, pulling her towards him, she smiled before brushing her lips across
his. His mouth pushed against her, his tongue sweeping into her mouth only
briefly before his teeth nipped at her bottom lip. She pulled away and opened
her eyes only to be assaulted by the intensity of his stare.

 
“You taste like
my destruction,” she whispered.

His response was spoken on a frustrated growl. “That’s
funny. I was just thinking the same thing about you.”

Within seconds, he turned, pinning her body beneath his. He
grabbed her hands, bringing them above her head. His mouth covered hers, his
kiss deep, yet painfully slow. The bastard was stoking her slowly, building the
heat bit by bit, until her ache for his touch became absolute torture to
endure. His fingers gripped around hers, the tips digging between the tendons
and bones of her hand.

Trailing his lips down the side of her neck, he teased at
the sensitive skin. Small bites sending sparks along her nerves, before his
tongue flicked out to smooth away the hurt. She attempted to push against him,
to speed along the aggravatingly slow pace of his mouth. He chuckled across her
skin, the sound vibrating through his chest and into hers. Pulling his hands
away from hers, he reached between them to grab her hips and hold them in place
— her hand also pulled between them from where they’d been chained
together.

“Calm down, Sunshine, we’ve got several hours to kill before
sunlight. I intend to take my time.”

Her eyes closed — the weight of being denied instant
gratification a suffocating frustration she was unable to bear. Every sense in
her body was awakened, electricity coursing through her body, anticipating his
every touch, the dull shocks of pain blended perfectly with the warmth blooming
inside. The sound was faint, and had she not heard it so many times before, when
she’d practiced or fought, she wouldn’t have recognized it at all. But, when
she heard the small sound of metal sliding against a heavy leather sheath, her
eyes opened again — just before she felt the blade softly slide across
her skin.

Her entire body jumped at the sensation, the cold bite of
steel — the threat of death dangled before her eyes, a temptation and
fascination she’d carried with her for as long as she could remember. He pulled
the blade down along her side, teasing her; the pressure enough to warn, to
scratch the skin, but not enough to draw blood or cause harm.

His voice was a deep timbre when he whispered, “You welcome
death.”

Her responsive words barely escaped her. She was thoroughly
seduced with the feel of the blade against her body, the knowledge that she was
completely vulnerable and exposed to his whims. “Anything has to be better than
the life I’ve lived.”

Moonlight flickered off the steel, catching her eye when it
flashed. When she looked back up, his eyes were locked to hers, deadly heat
swirling within the blue. He stared at her for the longest time, both of their
hearts beating against their chests, both of them breathing with shallow and
erratic breaths. When he finally spoke into the silence that had settled
between them, his words consumed her mind entirely, taking from her the ability
to think clearly.

“When I’m done with you, I’ll ensure you’ll never welcome it
again. In fact …” His voice lowered impossibly more, his words nothing more
than a breathless whisper across her skin. “… The only thing you’ll desire from
now on, will be me.”

The tip of the blade pricked the skin of her hip and,
although the pain was nothing more than a quick bite against her skin, her
anticipation for it caused it to erupt along her body in waves, her mind
instantly locked within the comfortable numbness of sensation and need — his
voice echoing in her thoughts as she was lost to the incredible force of his
touch.

Before him, and before this moment, she’d always needed more
pain to make her feel, to bring a small bit of the reminder of life into her
psyche. But, because he affected her so deeply, and worshipped her with such admiration
and restraint, even the tiniest amount that he gave her became an unbridled
passion within her body — as if she’d been stung by a bee, but felt like she’d
jumped from a cliff to land on the jagged rocks below. He put her in a place
where a simple kiss against her skin was enough to steal her breath and push
her towards a plateau of ecstasy so steep, she feared she’d lose herself when he
finally forced her over the edge.

She heard the thin knife strike against pebbles when he
dropped it to the ground beside their bodies. His palm, rough from the use of
weapons, replaced the sting of steel; warm instead of cold, soft instead of
sharp. Running his hand along the same path he’d dragged the knife, the salt of
his skin seeped into the thin scratch. Her body arched, her mind reeling that
the simplest touch could pull her apart.

Almost instantly, every muscle in her body relaxed, completely
submitting to the man who held her.

She allowed him to set their grueling rhythm, losing herself
within the slow pace rather than fighting against it. Surrendering to the
domination of her body and mind, she allowed him to take her to a place within
herself she’d never known. It was warm and comforting, something hidden deep
inside, far from the daily dance with death. She didn’t want to leave this
place, not when he was the one responsible for taking her there.

His hands were rough where they traveled across her skin. But
the softness of his touch disturbed her. It was a caress, something tender and
strange and she grabbed at his hand where it was connected to hers, directing
his touch along her body rougher and harder. He resisted, and became still
above her.

“Why pain?”

His words were so soft, she wasn’t sure she’d heard them
correctly. Opening her eyes, she looked at his face, watching him study the scar
on her body that he traced with his finger. His face was bathed in shadow and
she couldn’t see the emotion hidden in his eyes, but she could feel it — the
reverence, the care, and the sadness when he looked at her.

Her chest rose and fell with heavy breath and she was disoriented
by the sudden interruption of what they’d been doing. Gathering herself
together enough to consider his question, she finally answered, “It makes me a
better fighter.”

“Your profession is why you like it?”

“No.” Her honesty in that simple response surprised her
— but it had slipped from her tongue faster than she could think to
conceal it. “I liked it before I was taught to fight — it was the reason
I was taught to fight.”

“So why?”

He finally looked up at her face, and she was desperate for
a bit of light to chase away the shadow that covered him. “I can’t answer for
when I was young, I just remember that it felt good. Not so much the pain
itself, but the feeling that came after it — the euphoria. I felt
something and nothing all at the same time.”

“You surrender to it?”

“Yes.”

“But, not when you fight?”

“No.” She cleared her throat, forcing down her discomfort
with his questions. “No, that is something different entirely. I came alive
when I fought and the pain only helped me fight harder. I took my anger out on
my opponents and didn’t care if that fight would be my last. I was good, even
when I was young.”