Page 41 of Sinful Mafia Santa

I reach between us to find her slick clit. I wait for her to meet my gaze. I hold my body still for just a moment.

I pinch. She blinks. I slide home.

She clenches so tight around me that neither of us can move. Sunk to the hilt, I grip her hips as she bears down, as her eyes flare wide, as her jaw turns to granite. She screams into her gag, and her grip on my cock stutters loose, clenching and releasing like a second mammoth heartbeat.

I ride her for three more thrusts, my balls pulling tight. One last stroke, and I finally spill, holding her close as she clutches and drops, clutches and drops, milking me dry.

When I’m able to think again, my cheek is pressed to her belly. I can feel her breathing, fast and ragged. My thighs ripple as I stand, threatening to cramp from the strain of taking my weight.

I take care of the condom, tossing it into a stainless steel wastebasket beneath a container for sharps. Turning back to the table, I go for her gag first, deploying a pair of angled first-aid scissors to cut through the springy bandage holding it in place. I pull the cotton panties past her lips, dropping the soaked mess onto the floor.

“Babygirl,” I whisper.

For a moment, she just works her jaw, rolling her lips over her teeth. I smooth her hair from her forehead. I’m a Dom. I know how to be patient.

She rallies faster than I have any right to expect. “You’re a right bastard,” she says, before she has to swallow. “And that was feckin’ brilliant.Sir.”

I know she needs water, but she needs to get out of her bonds first. I scoop a melting piece of ice out of the bin at the end of the table and slip it past her lips. Then it’s time for some careful work with the scissors, starting with the medical tape on her ankles, letting that stick clatter to the ground.

I take more time with her wrists, cutting away the stick that stretches her arms. Those are the muscles that have beenworking the longest. Even with my caution, she hisses as she finally lowers her arms to her sides. I help her, so she’s spared the iron lockdown of cramps. I ease her bra off her shoulders, tossing it onto her crumpled dress.

I try to take the bandage from her hand. She doesn’t need a safeword now. But she pulls it close to her chest and says, “I’m keeping this.”

I let her.

When she tries to sit up, though, I settle my palms on her shoulders, holding her steady on the table. “Easy, sweetheart,” I say. No morebabygirl.Games are over now.

I help her to roll onto her side, to pull her knees toward her chest as she stretches out the taut muscles of her lower back. Only when she’s steady do I cross the room for my boxers.

There’s coconut water in one of the refrigerators, along with packets of the energy gel trainers squeeze down players’ throats to get them back in a game. I grab the triple-berry flavor, the least disgusting of the bunch. I retrieve a white cotton blanket too—the type that can be bleached dozens of times. Helping Aeryn to sit on the side of the table, I cover her shoulders, then pull the blanket tight under her chin.

“Hold me?” she asks as I stand in front of her, taking the empty gel pack and settling the plastic lip of a water bottle against her mouth.

My heart squeezes hard enough to make me wince. “Of course,” I manage to say.

I’m the luckiest man in the world, getting to sit on the table beside her. As she curls into my side, I bury my face in her hair, pulling her close, holding her tight, content just tobe.

The treatment room is quiet, but not silent. There’s the hum of the ice maker. A softer purr from the refrigerator across the room. The rasp of our breathing, easing as we both continue to recover. I’m not sure if she’s still awake when there’s one new sound, the faint click of both hands reaching midnight on the industrial clock mounted above the treadmill.

“Hmmm,” she says, proving she’s still in the realm of the living. “Merry Christmas.”

I laugh. “And Merry Christmas to you. I owe you a present.”

“You bought me a present—that gorgeous blue dress from Gallagher Samson. A pearl necklace too. Pearl earrings.”

“And panties. But I’m sorry to say I ruined those.”

“I’m not sorry.”

She says it too quickly. I can make some sort of joke, tell her I’ll find her something to wear in the equipment room, tell her she got what she deserved for wearing panties without lace, tell her I’ll buy her replacements in Paris.

But I owe her more than that. She deserves to be taken seriously.

I try to pull away so we can have an actual discussion, but her fingers close around my wrist, holding me close. I could force the issue. I could walk across the room and pull on my jeans and my shirt, shove my feet inside my shoes.

But I let her win. I stay.

Still, I have to answer. “I’m glad you’re not sorry. But what are we doing here, sweetheart? What’s the plan?”