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“Where are you from?” Anything to take the focus off her and what he may have seen tonight. She sent him an apologetic glance. “Sorry, is that too nosy?” He had a poker face, like Ryder, his thoughts carefully hidden behind an inscrutable mask.
“Arizona.”
“You can go, Caleb.” Ryder’s voice came from behind them.
Nathalie jumped like a scalded cat. “Geez, don’t sneak up on me like that.” It didn’t escape her notice that Caleb hadn’t even so much as twitched.
“Sorry.” Ryder’s hand rested on her lower back while they waited for Caleb to back the Suburban out of the garage before closing the door.
“Go upstairs and get undressed.” His whisper in her ear was a silken promise of sin and tangled, sweaty sheets. “Be ready for me.”
She raced upstairs to her bedroom. Her hands fumbled with the zipper at her back. She stepped out of her dress and underwear and contemplated the silk nightshirt on her pillow before tossing everything on the chair in the corner.
No need to play coy. She was too needy for Ryder to waste time wearing something that would come off as quickly as she put it on. Climbing onto the bed, she perched against the pillows, naked.
Ryder appeared in her open doorway, holding a plastic souvenir cup from her kitchen. His gaze raked over her, setting each place it touched on fire. “Spread your legs for me.”
The command should have made her blush, but it was as if some wanton seductress had taken over her body. Drawing up her knees, she spread them wide, giving him a full view of the part of her that craved him the most.
He placed the cup on her bedside table and removed his tie, the fabric hissing through his starched collar. “Hold out your hands.”
Her heart raced at the carnal intent on his face. “You’re going to ruin the tie.”
“I have others.”
Silk brushed her wrists, then tightened on her skin as he bound her hands to the headboard.
His fingers moved to his shirt, unfastening the buttons with slow, deliberate twists, exposing his bare chest and torso inch by inch. “You’ll tell me if anything I do makes you feel uncomfortable, and I’ll stop.”
It was a command, not a request.
Nathalie drank in his sculpted pecs and defined abs. She didn’t want him to stop. He was a beautiful man, his body honed with maturity and physical discipline.
“Say you understand, Nathalie.”
“I understand. Hurry.” If he didn’t touch her soon, she’d die.
He removed his shoes and socks, then unfastened his belt. The leather strap whistled through his belt loops until it dangled from his fist.
She shook her head at the gleam in his eyes. “Not that.” Not even50 Shades of Grayhad made getting flogged appealing.
The corner of his mouth lifted in concert with an arched brow. “I’d never mark your pretty arse with leather.” He dropped the belt, along with his trousers, on the floor.
Dressed only in his briefs, he kneeled on the bed over her captive form. His lips caressed her ear. “Sometimes pain is pleasure. But don’t worry, I have a different experience in mind.”
She shivered as another surge of dampness slickened her thighs.
He reached for the plastic cup he’d brought upstairs and took out two ice cubes. One, he popped into his mouth. The other he held between his forefinger and thumb.
The cube glided across her lips, a frozen kiss, then trailed over her chin and down the delicate line of her throat.
Nathalie’s fingers clutched the silk binding her wrists together, icy cold trailing a damp path along her flushed skin, making chills erupt, her senses heightening in anticipation as he continued his downward trek.
He circled her nipples. Water from the melting cube trickled down the sides of her breasts. “So firm, yet soft like satin.” He held the ice to one tip.
She gasped as the cold shocked her sensitive flesh. The cube disappeared, replaced by the dueling sensations of Ryder’s warm lips and cool tongue as he suckled her.
“Ryder.” Nathalie’s legs moved, restless as desire spiraled, coiling tighter in her core.