“Kiss me,” she whispered.
He released her so abruptly, she almost tumbled from the piano. Her arms shot behind her to help her regain her center of gravity.
He immediately grabbed her to keep her from falling. “Sorry,” he said. “I can’t expect you to trust me with your safety if I put you in harm’s way like that.”
“Fine,” she said, glad it was dark so he couldn’t see how watery her stupid eyes had become. “You don’t have to kiss me if you don’t want to.”
“Maybe this isn’t a good idea,” he said. He found her face in the darkness and cupped it between his hands. “I haven’t been alone with a woman since Sara. I didn’t realize how much I needed Owen with me as a spotter.”
The ache in Dawn’s chest lifted, and she laughed. “A spotter? You’re not bench-pressing me, Kellen,” she said. “Just touching me.”
“But there are things a woman expects that I won’t deliver. Kissing, for example. Owen handled that part.”
“I didn’t know, or I wouldn’t have asked.”
“It’s not fair to you. I can’t expect you to abide by my weird little rules.”
“Maybe you should tell me what those rules are, so I’m less likely to break them. I’m trying to understand you, Kellen.”
“Why?”
“Because I like you.”
“Fuck.”
She stiffened, and her temper flared to life. “Sorry you find my affection so revolting.”
“I don’t. I find it wonderful. And tempting. And scary as hell. I like you too. More than anyone before Sara,” he said. “Or since.”
So she was in second place after a dead girl? She supposed it was a start. What would it take to climb to the top? She needed to be first. Maybe not tonight. Maybe not this week or this month. But someday. Someday she wanted to be Kellen’s number one. She just needed to not mess this up before then. Unfortunately, her mouth often spontaneously said things she regretted.
“Do you think Sara would want you to give up love for the rest of your life?”
“Now that she’s gone, I’m sure she wouldn’t care if I got a dog,” he said, “but she was incredibly jealous. She wanted me all to herself. She forced me to promise her all sorts of things and I did. And I meant every last one of those promises.”
“But shouldn’t they have ended when she died?”
“No,” he said. “They should end when I stop loving her.”
Which would be never.
“Now I’m going to have to remind you to relax,” he said.
“Relax?” she sputtered. “How am I supposed to relax?”
He lifted the heavy mass of her hair from one shoulder and gently caressed the bare skin he exposed. “First, you should stop trying to compete with Sara. You’re not her.”
“I’m well aware of that. I’m sure she didn’t have to make sense of your rules and worry that she was going to ask you to do something taboo like kiss.”
“No, I had no rules for her. But she had plenty for me. Rule one: no biting,” he said.
His teeth nipped Dawn’s earlobe. She shuddered and gasped as pleasure licked down the side of her neck. His nose brushed her throat, and she felt the warm moisture of his breath against her skin just before he nipped the side of her neck, her collarbone, her ribcage, belly, mound.
“Another rule: don’t put your mouth there, Kellen.” His tone was as feminine as his deep voice could produce. “It feels weird.”
God, it didn’t feel weird to Dawn. It felt great. He might not have been willing to kiss Dawn on the mouth, but he did one hell of a job kissing her lips.
“I only want to come when you’re inside me, Kellen,” he repeated more of Sara’s words. “Looking in my eyes. Promise you’ll never come inside anyone but me, Kellen. Promise.”
Wow, that woman had his head all sorts of messed up. Dawn supposed most men would have made those kinds of promises to make their woman happy, but doubted they would have taken them to heart the way that Kellen so obviously had.
“Kellen,” Dawn said. “You don’t have to promise me anything. I don’t want you to.”
His only response was to suck her clit into his mouth and stroke it rapidly with his tongue until she exploded with ecstasy against his face. She clung to his hair, rocking her hips involuntarily as she moaned in bliss. After a moment, he dislodged her fingers from his scalp and reached for the rope again. He didn’t speak as he worked, first crisscrossing the rope across her torso and back, around her breasts and over her shoulders. He climbed to sit behind her as he bound her arms together behind her back, starting at the tops and working his way toward her wrists.
Kellen tied knot after knot, as if building an intricate rope ladder between her arms. He spent so much time on each knot that it seemed to take forever. She wished she could see what he was doing back there. What did it look like? She’d never been more conscious of her skin. Her breasts, pussy, and above her neck were the only parts of her body that were not in some way associated with lengths of rope or knots, so she became fixated on those parts, wanting stimulation for those areas too.
“I wish I had more rope,” he said when he moved away at last. “I’d really like to showcase your talented hands.” His teeth sank into a bare spot on the back of her shoulder, and her spine arched involuntarily. She found her movement severely limited by the ropes binding her. “Yet I suppose they’re beautiful enough on their own.”
She felt unbalanced when he slid to the floor and left her teetering, sitting on the edge of the piano lid, her feet and legs bound, but resting on the keys, and her arms tied securely behind her. She leaned back on her hands and felt slightly more balanced. It didn’t help that the darkness was so disorienting.
She heard the strike of the lighter just before a flame broke the darkness as Kellen lit the candles she’d brought from the kitchen. He carried the candles to the far end of the piano, increasing the amount of light near her. He stared at her in the soft yellow glow until her face burned with embarrassment.
“Don’t look at me so intensely,” she said and squeezed her eyes shut.
“I can’t help it. You look just as beautiful as you feel.”
She peeked at him from beneath her lashes as he circled the piano, sometimes touching her skin as if to ensure himself that she was real and other times gazing at her for long patches of time as if she were fine art on display.
“I wish you could see the pattern down your arms,” he said. “I’m not sure how I managed to space the knots so evenly.”
Probably because he’d taken such meticulous care that she’d thought he’d never finish. There wasn’t an inch of play in her arms. She tried to pull them away from her sides and found she was breathing hard for no good reason.
“Easy, baby,” he whispered.
Kellen’s hands were suddenly everywhere, gently caressing her skin until the ropes felt as if they were part of her.
She looked down at her naked body. The candlelight gave a soft glow to her skin. She couldn’t believe how exposed she was. Her legs were wide open. She could feel that they were, but seeing them like that was quite a shock. So that’s what her pussy looked like. She’d seen glimpses of it while grooming, but she’d never stared at it before. Was he staring at it too? She was too timid to find out. She forced her attention to less erotic visions, but discovered that he’d transformed every inch of her body into something visually appealing. Erotic.
Kellen had used the blue rope on her right leg and the tan on her left. The knots were not only used to hold her limbs in a certain orientation, but to decorate. At her waist, the two ropes came together. She wasn’t sure how he’d manage to combine the two colors into a contrasting design of diamonds and small rings when he couldn’t see what he was doing, but it was beautiful. The way the ropes supported her breasts made them jut forward, proud and bare. It was as if he’d showcased them with his rope work, drawing attention to the light pink tips. She turned her head to try to see the work he’d done on her arms, but those knots were out of her field of view. She’d never felt more sexy in her life. Or more trapped.