One Dirty Night - Page 126

Right now, I was tied and trapped for his pleasure.

Both times, I’d been totally at his mercy.

And that knowledge did something to me.

It cracked open a gushing floodgate. It turned the key on whatever chemicals switched pain to pleasure within my naughty, demented blood.

The lessons Hunter had given me about surrendering to agony instead of resisting it flowed through my bones. I floated. I flew. I settled on a cloud of abdication and gave myself entirely to the man I’d chosen.

Nick noticed.

Of course, he noticed.

He let loose a savage snarl as I sagged in my binds and whimpered with every longing, every lusting chaos within me.

“Fucking hell, Ella.” The TV reflection showed him fisting himself. His cock speared up like a deadly weapon, his hand pumping hard flesh, granting a tenth of the pain he’d delivered to me with the spoon. “You’ve undone me, woman. You’re all I ever think about, and you’re all I ever see as I jerk off. I wish I’d snapped one night and broken down your door. I wish I’d found you with your legs spread and your greedy pussy waiting for me. I wish I’d fucked you when we were both half-asleep and barely aware, so I never had to watch another man pleasure you.”

Tears poured down my cheeks and soaked into the tie gagging me.

With a roar, Nick whacked my ass with the spoon. Once. Twice. Together. Apart.

I surrendered to all of it.

To the night we’d shared with Hunter and the future where it would just be us.

To the days we’d ignored our true feelings and the nights where we would be our true selves.

I gave myself over to this and then and before and after and when Nick’s harsh breath panted over my shoulder blade, I sobbed at the beauty of letting go.

At trusting him to put me back together again.

At knowing he might hurt me, but he’d been hurting for months, and now we were even.

“Eight for making me beg to become immortal to keep you. Nine for terrifying me that forever might not be enough. And ten…”

Rearing back, he palmed my ass, squeezed the branding fire he’d painted, then delivered the final crack without warning.

I screamed. Loudly. Incoherently.

The strike ricocheted through flesh and muscle and bone. It echoed through my entire body as Nick threw the spoon onto the couch, dropped to his knees, and shoved his face between my legs.

“And ten…” he said against my clit, his lips teasing me, feeding the words directly into my core. “Ten is for making me yours, just as you are mine. Ten is for forcing me to chase after you, forcing me to claim you for my own, forcing me to put aside my fears of death and dying all because…you never forced me. Not at all. You made me wake up. You made me see. You made me be honest with myself, and in return…I’m free.”

Free.

My heart sprouted wings and soared.

In his passion, I was free.

In my surrender, he was free.

Uncaged and uninhabited, we had power and privilege and the absolute knowledge that we could be honest with each other.

Open and abused and adored.

No lies.

No secrets.