Chapter Forty-Six

“Take off your clothes, Skye.”

I eye the door.

“No, it’s not locked,” Braden says.

I part my lips, my whole body tingling.

“No one will interrupt us. They know the penalty for entering without knocking.”

Arousal billows through me; pinging flows straight to my clit. The door isn’t locked, and somehow, that excites me.

“I’ve never bound your wrists before,” he says.

I shake my head.

“Are you ready?”

Am I? I have no idea, which doesn’t explain why I nod.

I want whatever he wants, which is unbelievable but no less true.

“Take off your clothes, Skye,” he says again.

I tremble as I obey and then stand naked, in full view of anyone who might be scaling the building. What if the window washers are working today?

“Now hold your wrists out. Together.”

I do, and he wraps his tie tightly around them and secures it with a knot I don’t recognize. Not that I’d recognize any kind of knot.

I gape at him. His shoulders are tan and magnificent, all his corded muscles visible beneath the tank. I long to reach forward and touch him, skim my fingertips along his warm flesh, but I don’t dare move.

My wrists are bound. I can still walk, I can still touch, but something in me makes me remain still until Braden tells me where to go next.

“You look beautiful, Skye.”

I smile nervously.

“Bound for my pleasure,” he says.

My flesh tingles as he regards me, as if his eyes are lasers that tantalize me. I don’t know what he’s going to do, and that both frightens and excites me.

And that unlocked door…

“Walk to the window, Skye, and face it. Hands above your head.”

I’m so naked. So exposed. But I obey, pressing my bare breasts against the glass, my bound wrists resting on the pane above me.

Braden’s belt clinks. Then his zipper.

He’s behind me, pushing into me. He grasps my bound wrists and holds them clamped against the window. “Don’t move,” he whispers against my ear.

Then, in one quick thrust, he’s inside me.

I can’t help it. I cry out.

“That’s it, baby,” he says. “Take it. Take all of me.”

He pulls out and pushes back in.

My cheek and breasts are crushed against the glass. Braden’s hand stays clamped onto my bound wrists, rendering me immobile.

With his other hand, he grips my hip as he fucks me. “Good girl. Don’t move. Let me take what’s mine.”

I melt into the glass, closing my eyes against whatever is on the other side. Can someone see me? I don’t care. I care only about Braden inside me, taking me, filling the empty ache I never knew I had until I met him.

It’s a hard and primal fuck. No kisses to my neck, no nibbles on my ear. Just a raw taking, and I’m so willing to be taken.

“That’s it.” He pumps faster. “Yeah, baby, just like that.”

He glides his hand from my hip around and touches my clit gently. I gasp. Then not so gently.

I explode.

Quick as lightning, he withdraws and spins me to face him. My body still throbs from the orgasm as he lifts me, my ass pressing against the glass window.

“Put your arms around my neck,” he commands.

I look down at the binding. How—

“Do it!” he grits out.

Still reeling from the climax, I lift both my arms and ring them around his neck. I’m suspended now, flat against the window, and my arms bound and around him. He spreads my legs as wide as they’ll go, his arms under my thighs like a makeshift swing. He’s holding all my weight, pushing me up and against the glass. Anyone looking up can see my naked ass. Anyone…

But the thought flees my mind as he plunges into me.

Though he was just inside me, I’m tight from the climax, and this new position feels amazingly different. He burns into me, charges into me, thrusting and thrusting.

“Fuck,” he groans. “Feels so good.”

“God, yes,” I say. “Please.”

I want him to touch me. Touch my clit. Give me another orgasm.

But he doesn’t. Instead, he leans into me, our chests touching, and rocks his cock gently back and forth into me.

It’s deliciously erotic, a new sensation, and—

“Braden! I’m coming!”

“That’s it, baby.” He pulls back slightly and plunges deep.

He withdraws and then thrusts.

A fuck. A good, hard fuck.

The orgasm rolls through me, and as my body releases, I shout. I scream. And I don’t give a damn who can hear me.

Braden shoves his cock into me one last time, pulling another climax from me as he gives in to his own.

Together we soar through the window and over the skyscrapers of Boston.

I open my eyes, and the colors are so much more vivid. Downtown isn’t gray and brown. It’s silver and gold and bronze, the sun casting luminous rays over the buildings and down onto the cars and passersby below.

I close my eyes once more and surrender to the feelings bubbling through me even as I remain immobile.

Inside I’m flying, waving my arms, and laughing. Feeling vibrant and free.

So vibrant and free.

When I finally open my eyes again, Braden withdraws, panting.

I want to turn, to see him—his face glistening, his hair in disarray, his muscles taut and tight.

But I don’t move.

He told me not to move.

Finally, he touches my wrists and brings my hands down, turning me to face him. Without saying a word, he loosens the knot and removes his tie from my wrists. He rubs them. “Okay?”

I nod.

“Tell me.”

“Yes. I’m okay.”

“Good.”

Did he fuck Aretha Doyle against the window in his office? Anyone else? I want to ask, but I don’t. I won’t do anything to spoil this moment.

“Braden?”

“Hmm?”

“That was…amazing.”

He nods. “It was.”

Now what?

“I mean, really amazing. Anyone could have seen us.”

His lips curve slightly upward, as if he wants to smile but is holding back.

“What?” I ask.

“The windows are tinted on the outside, just like my apartment. We can see out, but no one can see in.”

“Oh.” Oddly, I’m a little disappointed. I almost wish he hadn’t told me.

“Did you like being bound?” he asks.

“I’m…not sure.”

“You’re not sure? You said yourself it was amazing.”

“I meant the sex.”

“Your wrists being bound was part of the sex.”

“It was everything, though. Being in your office. The unlocked door. The window.”

His blue gaze penetrates mine. “You like to be watched.”

Do I? “No, not really. It was more—”

“You just admitted it. You never cease to amaze me, Skye.”

“I guess I never thought about it. It was knowing anyone could walk in. The suspense. It was…”

“Erotic,” he says. “Erotic and a little frightening because you were taking a risk. Did you like being tied up?”

My cheeks warm. “Yes. And being tied up with your tie,” I say without thinking.

Why does stuff always sound funnier in my head?

“Would it surprise you to know I’d like to bind all four of your limbs, have you splayed out, naked, for me to do whatever I want?”

My body quivers as heat sparks from my core outward. Tied up? Really tied up?

My mind goes again to the strange contraption hanging from the ceiling above Braden’s bed. Is now the time to ask about that?

Maybe, except that I’m unable to form the words.

“Skye?”

“No,” I say, trembling.

“Good,” he says, “because I want to do all that to you and more. Have you ever been fucked anally, Skye?”

I gulp. I shouldn’t be surprised at his question. He’s made it clear he likes to play with my ass. “No.”

“Do you remember the instrument I stroked you with while you were blindfolded?”

“Yeah. It felt cool against me.”

“Did you enjoy it?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know what it was?”

“How could I? I was blindfolded.”

His lips twitch. Again, I feel like he wants to smile but he’s holding back.

“It was an anal plug.”

“What’s that?”

“A tool. To prepare you for anal sex.”

“Braden, I—”

“Don’t worry. We won’t go there yet. Not until you’re ready.”

I may never be ready for that, but I don’t say so. I don’t want to say or do anything that might deter Braden’s interest in me.

“Go ahead and get dressed,” he says, “and we’ll go over your contract.”

As I dress, Braden picks up his shirt and opens a door on the opposite side of the room. At least a dozen crisp white shirts hang inside. He takes one, puts it on, and then stuffs his original shirt in what looks like a laundry bag.

Why does he have so many clean shirts in his office?

Does he fuck a lot of women in here?

I tell myself it doesn’t matter. That he’s promised to sleep only with me as long as we’re together.

But it does matter.

Jealousy slides through me, not in a raging way but subtler, like a tiny bug inside me that I can’t swat away.

Since Braden won’t talk to me about his past relationships with Addie and others, I fear the bug will never leave me in peace.