Chapter 86

“I, uh…”

The book is clearly in my hand. It’s too late to hide it under the pillow like I so desperately want. And with my hand down my pants, there’s no innocent way to explain away what I’m doing or reading.

At that moment, Neil lifts his head and scents the air. “I can smell your arousal, Chloe.”

He comes closer so that he’s standing directly over me. He holds out his hand.

“Give me that book. Let me see the filth that gets you off.”

First, I probably don’t want to have my hand in my panties for this conversation – or maybe I do, I don’t know, I’m confused. So I start to slide it away and up my stomach.

Neil clucks his tongue. “Did I tell you that you could move?”

I swallow thickly. His orders are hotter than anything in that book.

“Words, Chloe.”

“No.” I don’t even recognize my own voice. It’s so raw. What the hell is happening to me? It’s like the lust has broken my brain. And Gods, I want more of it.

Neil’s apparently tired of waiting for me to catch up. He reaches over me and snatches the book from my hand. Universe help me, he manages to save my place as he does it.

He clears his throat. Eyes on the page, he reads, “’He traced rough circles around my clit with his calloused fingers. He knew the perfect level of pressure to apply – not enough to hurt, but more than enough to take my breath away.’”

Heat prickles across my skin. It’s one thing to read the words and imagine them in my own head. It’s entirely another to hear them aloud in Neil’s sexy baritone.

And, oh Gods, he’s not done.

“’I thrashed against my binds.’ Excuse me, my binds? ‘Not because I wanted to escape, but because I wanted more. More of the pleasure pain. More of his tongue on my hardened peaks. More of his fingers that now teased my entrance.’ Gods, just say pussy.”

He hasn’t told me I can move my hand yet, but I’m twitching, trying to stay still. My fingers are sitting primed on either side of my folds. If he tells me I can move, I will touch myself, to hell with the consequences.

I whimper a little, hoping to convey my need.

“Stay still.” He doesn’t as much as glance up. Then he starts to read again, though his voice is rougher than before. “’The headboard slammed against the wall with the force of my writhing. I wished I could see him, but with my eyes covered the pleasure was…’”

He goes quiet a moment.

“She’s blindfolded,” he says. He only just noticed?

Slowly, Neil lowers the book. Good, because a minute more and I might have exploded. Except now, without the book for him to look at, his intense concentration is all on me.

It’s so difficult not to move. I want him to look at me like that while I touch myself. His eyes could set me on fire at any moment.

He gaze travels down the length of my body, stilling at the hand in my panties. I can feel the weight of his focus, as if he’s willing me to disobey him and touch myself.

“Why would you read something like this?” he asks. Like it isn’t obvious from the view he’s getting.

I don’t reply right away, unsure.

“Answer me, Chloe.”

I think I can obey a command. “I’ve been interested in this kind of thing. I want to learn more.”

Neil’s eyes narrow slightly. “Since when?”

How can I answer that? Since I accidentally saw Archer slapping a woman’s ass? Since I heard her call him Daddy and beg for more? Since I watched him fuck another woman while he told me to touch myself?

Since Neil placed his hand on my neck?

All of the above?

All emotion drains from Neil’s face, even his annoyance. He’s suddenly, carefully blank.

“It’s Archer, isn’t it?” he says it coolly, without a drip of his previous warmth.

The air around me is suddenly colder too. My nipples harden into sensitive pebbles, pressing up into my lacy bra. The friction nearly makes me gasp, but I bite it back.

Neil notices. His voice finally adds emotion, but not it’s a growl. “He’s always so overt. So carless. Fucking loud. Of course, you would have heard and seen him. Or did he do more?”

He comes closer to the bed, so that his knees are right up against it. He stares down at me with righteous fury blazing in his eyes. “Did he fucking touch you?”

I swallow hard. He hasn’t told me I can answer. I’m not sure he really wants to know.

Neil throws the book on the ground. It lands with a thud. I jump at the sudden noise. My hand skids to the side and I accidentally touch myself.

I suck in a sharp breath.

Neil pounces onto me in a moment. He grabs me by the wrist, rips my hand from my pants and pins it to beside the side of my head. He does the same to the other hand.

He’s leaning over me, one knee on the bed, the other foot on the ground. His hair is coming loose from the bun behind his head.

He looks wild, feral, in way I’ve never quite seen before. It makes me want to be wild too.

My heart thunders in my chest, pounding hard against my ribcage. I swear he can hear it. It’s so loud, it might be shaking the whole room.

“Has he tried to get you to submit to him? Has he called you his little slut and tried to put his mark on you?”

Neil’s eyes take on a reddish gleam. He seems totally lost to his jealous.

He has no reason to be jealous. Yes, I want Archer, but it’s not Archer I’m in this room with now. It’s not Archer I want to pin me down and take me apart.

I don’t know how to ground him. He’s losing himself, which is sexy as hell, but for all the wrong reasons. Archer doesn’t belong in this moment with us. He’s not the reason my panties are wet right now, or my breathing is so damn heavy.

What can I say, other than his name? “Neil…”

He hasn’t given me permission to speak, but this feels too important, like something worth breaking the rules for.

I want him here, with me, losing his mind with lust not jealous, just as I was.

“Neil, please…”

I tilt my neck to the side. It’s an impulsive submissive gesture. One I usually try to fight. But for Neil, for now, I’m willing to give him this vulnerability.

He blinks at the movement, and some of the red clears from his eyes. I lost sight of him as he leans down, but I feel his hot breath on my neck as he inhales long and slow, then exhales with a pleased hum.

“You don’t smell like him,” Neil says.

“I don’t,” I agree.

“He hasn’t claimed you.”

“No.”

He breathes again, in and out. Then he licks a long stripe up the column of my throat to my ear. I know he can smell my desire. He can probably taste it too.

“You want to do those things in the book. You want to be tied up and blindfolded. You want to be played with until you forget your own name.”

They aren’t questions so I don’t speak. However, despite my best efforts, a tiny whine escapes the back of my throat. That seems answer enough.

“You want to give yourself over to someone. To let yourself go and lose yourself. To place your pleasure entirely in their hands.”

My next whine is louder.

He pulls away, enough to pin me with his fiery gaze once more.

“Don’t move,” he says, and releases one of my wrists. He brings his hand to the base of my throat.

I’m burning so hot that I’m branded where he’s touching me. It takes everything in me not to move, or beg, or demand he do something. Anything. I don’t even know what, but something!

“Such a good girl for me.”

I’m losing control. “Please…”

He lifts his chin and stares down at me with a hooded gaze.

“If you surrender to anyone, Chloe, it’s going to be me.”

Then he surges forward and kisses me.