Page 43 of Unnatural (Men and Monsters #2)
The cottage felt like a completely different place than it’d been when he’d very first woken up in it, when he’d thought he’d lost all sanity and wanted to stay in the haze of madness because that was where she was.
The furniture was the same. The walls were still made of logs.
The same pictures remained on the walls, and the bed still held the same blankets he’d slept under the night before.
But everything was different. Because he was different.
And now it wasn’t simply a cottage. It was the place where Autumn had healed him, where she’d pressed her naked skin against his as steam had filled the air, and when he looked out the window, he could see the woods where she’d kissed him and he’d kissed her back.
He could die now, he realized. He could die happy.
Yet now, more than ever, he didn’t want to die at all.
He wanted to live. And breathe. And look at her and talk to her and kiss her again and again and again.
But he was scared too. He was scared because he’d never allowed himself to be with a woman. Not because he didn’t crave it; he did. But because he’d been trained and conditioned to hurt, to conquer, to make women scream and beg and cry.
He’d been taught that sex was about dominance and that men like him should take, whether it was offered or not.
They’d given him drugs and then sat him before a screen where he’d watched movie after movie.
Reality and fantasy had melded together.
He’d become desensitized to the screams and the blood.
He was built to be a monster, and that was what he’d become.
Sometimes those visions still came to mind. So he gave himself pleasure when he had the need, and he didn’t allow the possibility that he’d lose control and even come close to making a woman plead for mercy.
But now Autumn was standing by the bed, looking at him with both heat and expectation in her eyes.
He was amazed, the same way he’d been all week, every time he thought of how she’d touched his wet skin under the warm swirling steam.
But he was scared. He wanted her so desperately he was shaking with it, but he was afraid he’d hurt her, and that mattered more to him than satisfying his raging lust.
She held out her hand and he went to her, unable to resist. He couldn’t figure out how he’d arrived in this place. Not this house but with her, looking at him with desire, wanting him. “Is this a dream?” he asked.
She laughed softly. She was so beautiful. The woman standing before him was poetry itself, as though that journal had birthed her and not the other way around. He smiled because of his rambling thoughts, the way his brain was tripping all over itself.
“No,” she answered. “Not a dream.” She stepped back slightly and pulled her shirt off and then unbuttoned her jeans and pushed them to the floor.
“I want to touch you in a way that clears the shadows that appear when I’ve touched you before today.
I want you to feel pleasure that lingers, that makes you feel like the man you are. Will you let me?”
Sam’s mouth was dry, but he managed a nod. He reached out and took her hand. He could hardly bear to look at her. He wanted her. He yearned for her touch. But still his fear remained. “Autumn,” he gasped. “I need for you to tie me up.”
She ceased moving completely, confusion coming over her face. “Tie you up?” She looked stricken. “I told you I’d never do that.”
“This is different.”
“Sam, I trust you.”
“I don’t trust me, Autumn. Please. Please. I beg you.”
She searched his eyes for several seconds, and he didn’t blink.
He needed this. Not just for her but for himself.
He had never let anyone other than his doctors touch his body, and at the end, he hadn’t even allowed that.
They simply hadn’t cared. They’d defeated him with straps and needles, and he’d woken confused and in agony.
Alone. He didn’t know what he might do if he lost control, but she wanted this, and he did too.
She’d awakened something in him when she’d willingly touched his naked skin, so he was willing to try.
But only with safeguards.
“Tie me up,” he repeated. It was hard to say the words. He’d been tied up before, and it’d led to terrible things.
This is different.
Trust her.
Yes, he did. He trusted no one else, not a single soul in the whole wide world. But he trusted her because he knew her heart. It was etched upon his skin, unseen but as real as the scars he wore.
Autumn gave a small nod, so small that if he’d blinked, he would have missed it. She walked into the bedroom, and his hungry eyes watched her as she moved, her bare hips swaying, as his body shook with need.
When she emerged, she had something in her hands.
Socks. They’re long knee socks. Those would work as well as anything.
His heart jumped, from both trepidation and lust. He was vibrating with desire.
But he knew the bonds were necessary. He was a monster, and monsters were unpredictable, especially when need was pumping through their veins.
“First,” Autumn said softly, “I’m going to undress you.”
He supposed that was necessary. He couldn’t speak. It was almost too much for him. Her. This.
Autumn’s cheeks were flushed, her eyes shining with some unnamed emotion, but her hands were steady as she unbuttoned his shirt, spreading it open and then laying her palms on his pecs.
She leaned her head back, her lips slightly parted, her delicate throat moving as she swallowed.
“Everything about you is so beautiful, Sam,” she said.
A sound vibrated in his throat. Sam had heard himself make all sorts of noises before, some automatic, unbidden, but he’d never heard himself make a sound like that.
She trailed her finger down the scar that ran from his throat to his navel.
He’d received that one when he was very young.
He didn’t even remember what it’d been from.
And he didn’t care. He’d always hated his scars, hated what they represented.
But he was suddenly grateful that particular scar was especially long and gave Autumn something to run her finger over for several breathless moments.
He’d never look at it the same again. Autumn leaned forward and grazed her lips lightly over the puckered skin, and he shuddered, his breath emerging in staggered pants.
“Autumn,” he breathed. An urgent plea. A desperate prayer.
She leaned away, pushing his shirt over his shoulders and letting it drop to the floor.
For a moment, she simply gazed at him, her eyes roaming over his shoulders, his chest, and down to his navel.
He felt the way he did when she’d first stared at him after the shower when his towel had fallen.
He buzzed with electricity, with life , with some magic he couldn’t define but knew was in her and somehow was leaving its traces on him as well.
She hooked her thumbs in the waistband of his sweatpants and brought them down his hips and over his straining erection, and those too dropped to the floor.
He stepped out of them and kicked them aside.
She stared at his manhood, and impossibly, he swelled larger, throbbing with what was both pleasure and pain. Autumn swallowed again and let out a small nervous laugh. “I’m skeptical this is going to fit,” she said.
Fit. She meant to put him inside her. Oh God.
“Tie me up now,” he grated, lying down on the bed and lifting his hands to the wooden bedposts. “Make them tight.”
She straddled him, leaning forward and tying his wrists one by one.
“My feet too,” he said.
She met his eyes. “Sam—”
“Please,” he begged.
She paused but then got off the bed, walking to the footboard and tying each ankle in turn.
She looked at his feet for a moment, tracing the scars at his ankles, her pretty lips dipping into a frown momentarily.
She returned to the bedside and then climbed up and straddled him once again.
She grazed his erection, and he hissed, a zap of bliss causing him to arch his back, his body seeking more.
He felt an urgency to take and pound and possess, and even while he instinctively tugged at his bindings, he was simultaneously grateful she’d tied them tight.
Autumn leaned forward, feathering her open mouth over his, using her tongue to trace his lips.
He groaned, his hips coming off the bed, seeking.
“Madagascar,” he sighed. He couldn’t think.
He only had his senses. And she tasted like her scent.
Vanilla beans. Flowers. Sunrises. Snowfalls.
All things sweet and clean and wonderful.
Moments he’d been in so briefly and never wanted to leave.
He wanted to weep with the beauty of her, the intensity of this moment, unlike anything he’d ever experienced or ever thought he would. Even in his wildest dreams.
Autumn smiled against his skin, moving lower, licking slowly around his nipple as his nerves lit on fire and burned like a thousand sticks of dynamite, flaring toward some unknown end, not just a climax of his body but of his heart.
Sparking. Buzzing. She kissed over his scars, rubbing her lips and her tongue and her hair over his skin, causing him to groan and writhe and beg, words and phrases spilling from his lips between harsh pants of breath.
He couldn’t even hear himself over the blood whooshing in his ears and rushing through his body.
A strangled gasp burst from him when she wrapped her hand around his cock, sliding down slowly and then coming back up. She was right, it was different when someone else gave you pleasure. He wanted to laugh—with joy, with disbelief, with wonder—but he didn’t think he was capable.
“Sam,” she whispered, “you’re very large, and I think it’s best if I…” And then the heat of her body was gone as she got up, and he made a strangled sound of dismay, lifting his head as a smile played on her lips.