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The creases around her eyes were peaceful not distressed. Good. Time to move on. He jumped off the bed.

Ginger root. That was what she’d carted in. With one end shaved down into the shape of a fat finger, there was no question about its purpose.

“I bought a butt plug this morning.” He ripped open the package and set the plug beside her hip. “We don’t need to improvise.”

“The ginger is for figging. It’s better.” She twisted her neck, blinking up at him, and must have read the disbelief in his expression. “Burns like a sonabitch.”

He cringed, even as he forced a bored look on his face.

“Use both. Double penetration.”

A formidable rock landed in his stomach. He refused to grip his gut like a squeamish chump, so he mentally chanted.I am relaxed. I am in control. It’s all for her.He rolled the affirmation over and over in his head until the rock disintegrated and his fingers hung loosely at his sides.

He tagged the lube from the desk.

“Don’t need that.” She looked over her shoulder at him and raised her ass. “Just shove her home, Jay.”

Tempting.Not. Anal penetration might’ve been uncharted territory for him, but he knew thatshovinganything in there was not safe. “Charlee, would you please just lay there—” he blew out a dramatic breath and tossed the lube over his shoulder “—and shut the fuck up.”

She threw back her head and let out belly-deep laugh. It was the sound of fucking music, and he couldn’t stop himself from launching onto the bed, grabbing her face, and turning her head to stare into her eyes.

How could she look at him, let alone laugh with him? He’d used drugs when he told her he wouldn’t. He fucked her shamefully in public. Add to that the threat of Roy, who was out there planning her next enslavement. Through all of that, she didn’t castrate Jay or throw a spectacular fit. She didn’t cower in a fetal position. Instead, she confronted him with balls of steel and laughed while tied and exposed on his bed.

Laying on his side next to her, faces inches apart, his heart brimmed to bursting. “I fucking love you. I don’t deserve to love you, but I will spend the rest of my life earning that right. You are my music, do you understand?”

Her eyes blinked furiously in the frame of his hands. “Okay.”

“Okay.” He dipped his head and kissed her. His mouth moving over hers and their tongues coiling and whipping, he fed her his breath, his love, his promise to make her happy.

When they broke apart, her lips were swollen and wet, her eyes half-lidded.

“So damn beautiful.”

She grinned. “So you’ve said.”

Perched on his elbow, stretched alongside her body, he’d say it again and again until she tired of hearing it. He wanted to wrap around her and bury his face in her hair. “You’re beautiful.”

“Uh huh.”

“So fucking bea—”

“All right, Casanova. Enough.”

He could feel himself sinking into the mattress. The longer he lay there, the heavier his limbs became. He rubbed his eyes. He hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours. Focus. He still owed her an orgasm, and he wouldn’t face plant until she had it.

68

Charlee missed the heat of Jay’s body the second he left the bed. Boy, he was full of surprises.

He loved her. It was one thing to suspect, but to hear it vocalized with such vehemence made her insides soften into squishy, girly goo. Didn’t mean she wasn’t still furious—

Crack.

Her ass cheek smarted under a sensational burn. She twisted, looked over her shoulder.

A metal buckle wrapped around his hand as he reared back the modified belt. Not what she had in mind for the sandpaper, but damn brilliant.

Crack.