“She’s tight,” he says.
I hear Sean agree, and he takes the thing off my back. “Very.”
They talk, but I’m not listening. I’m planning on ripping Sean’s face off as soon as he unties me. A hand slaps my cheek and pulls me out of my thoughts. “Breathe.”
My jaw is aching. I’m biting the gag as hard as I can. I must be holding my breath because my lungs feel like they’re on fire. I pull at the restraints, ignoring Sean’s warnings, pulling myself tighter and tighter. My legs spread wider, and my face is getting smashed in the mattress, but I don’t stop yanking. I can’t. I have to break free. I have to. I have to.
Sean’s voice moves through the room until he’s behind me. His fingers push inside and linger. “Push into my hand.” I don’t move. He withdraws his hand. For a moment, nothing happens, then his hand spanks me hard. “Do it.” Sean pushes into me again and I push back.
I can’t breathe. I can’t move. I can’t do this.
My body is covered in sweat. My wrists ache. I’m an incoherent ball of rage and fear. And lust. I don’t understand the last part. I don’t understand why I’m wet or why I want Sean to touch me at all. It makes no sense, but my body responds to him. I can’t help it. I push back into his hands, feeling him inside of me and I want more.
Sean touches me again, stroking me, making me moan. I can’t focus for long. I feel the bonds biting at me. My mind flashes to images of me trapped in a coffin, stuck beneath layers of dirt. I can’t move. There’s no air. I claw at the box, but I’m trapped.
Fear consumes me, swallowing me whole. I thrash again, or try to, but there’s no slack left. My nails claw at the bed. I can’t stand it. Sean’s voice is in my ear, but I don’t listen. I scream into the gag, but I know this isn’t over. This is what he wanted—me completely out of control. It’s what Sean was waiting for. As my mind snaps, Sean rubs his dick across my butt. He presses against the wrong spot and I’m so scared that he’s going to try and f**k my ass. I wait for it. He pushes against me harder this time, but at the last second he moves. His h*ps slam into mine and I feel his erection sink into me. Sean’s fingers tangle in my hair. He pulls hard, yanking my head back as he f**ks me. I feel like an animal. There’s no love in Sean’s actions, no man in the monster. He rides me until he shudders and fills me with come.
My heart is racing, ready to burst. I feel used, cheated, and completely crazy. He broke me. I can’t think. My mind won’t process anything. Slowly, thoughts reemerge through the haze. There was another man. My mind swirls around that thought for a moment. I feel sharper, like I’m waking up. The blind panic is clearing. Inviting another guy in was not part of the plan. I don’t even know who he was. I breathe in slowly, ticking off the minutes on my fingers, waiting for Sean to untie me—but he doesn’t.
The bed next to me dips and I hear his voice in my ear. “Lots of women fantasize about being with two men, but that thought scares you. Not seeing his face, not knowing his name. It’s too much.” Sean’s finger touches my cheek and I jump. He withdraws his hand. “But you needed too much. You keep your mind so carefully under control and I needed it.”
The blindfold unties and I can see him. Sean is shirtless. His pants hang low around his hips. He’s lying on his side next to me, watching me. He reaches for me, brushing the hair away from my eyes. I’m pulling on the restraints as hard as I can. I want to scream at him but he doesn’t ungag me.
“Fear is like love. It has the same depths, the same intensity.” He’s watching me, running his finger along my cheek. He’s concerned that he pushed me too far too fast. Sean continues, “So does pain. You use pain the way I use fear—to forget.” Sean looks at me for a moment and then pushes off the bed.
The ties on my ankles come free first and then my wrists. Before Sean has time to look up, I fly at him, ripping the gag away as I go. I slam into him hard, knocking Sean backward. He hits the floor. Before he has time to blink, I’m on him. My knee is over his throat, but I don’t press down.
I’m so mad, so angry, that spots are blinking bright red and white, glittering like Christmas lights. “What the f**k gives you the right to invite someone else in here! I said I was giving myself to you! YOU!” I want to hurt him, I want to, but I can’t. I wait too long. Sean sees the chance and takes it. He reaches behind me and knocks me down. Sean rolls on top of me, pinning me to the floor with his entire body.
“It’s what I wanted.” He’s so calm, so f**king calm.
I scream and try to claw him, but Sean grabs each hand and slams it to the floor. He leans in close to me. “I want you so broken that you can’t trust yourself. I want you to give all of yourself to me.”
“You said you loved me! How could you share me?” I’m still fighting him, trying to break free. “How could you—” His lips come crashing down on mine before I can get the question out. Sean kisses me, but I don’t kiss him back. I suck his lip into my mouth and bite down.
Sean pulls away, and a bead of blood drips off his lip and onto my face. It rolls down my cheek. Sean won’t let me up. “I do love you. I love everything about you. I can’t believe you bit me.” He blinks at me several times, like I’m the weird one. I thrash under him and almost break free, but he lays on top of me, completely stilling me. “Avery, there was no one else.”
The roaring in my ears is so loud. I don’t think I heard him right. “What?”
“This is where you ask to see the video.” Sean watches me, waiting for rationality to return, but it doesn’t. He explains, “I won’t share you. I won’t ever share you. It was part of what I wanted—you, completely vulnerable to anything and everything I could possibly want—so I made you think there was another person here, but there wasn’t.” Sean stops for a second and watches the information sink into my brain. “I didn’t think you were a two guy kind of girl.” I shake my head, staring at him, wondering if it could possibly be true. My eyes flick to the nightstand—to the video camera. “Do you want to watch it?”
No. But I have to. The bastard. He planned this. The whole thing. My jaw is hanging open. I don’t understand him. I don’t know why he’d make me think that. I’m so mad. I should have known, but there was no way to know—not this. He’s so twisted. I growl, “That was a mind fuck. That’s what you wanted—body, mind, and soul. All of me.”
“Yes,” he nods, slowly admitting it. “I want all of you, in every way. I want to own you. I want you to plead with me, to crawl to me on your hands and knees and beg me to take you. I want you to surrender to me, to my wants, and give me anything and everything.”
“You don’t want me to give you anything. You want to take it.”
“Perhaps.” I give him a look. “Fine, you’re right. It’s not the same if there’s no fight. I want to break you down and make you mine. Doing this let me f**k with you in every way possible, and god, I want that more than anything.” He leans down and presses a light kiss to my lips.
When he sits up, Sean lets go of my wrists. “Watch the video with me. I want you to.” Sean stands and offers his hand. I take it and he pulls me to my feet. His hands slip around my waist until he finds the zipper. He pulls it down and my new dress falls to the floor. I’m standing in front of him wearing a little black bra. He reaches around and undoes the clasp. Sean takes the bra off me and tosses it on the floor. I’m nak*d. His eyes sweep over me, before pulling me to the couch on the other side of the room. Sean pulls me onto his lap and plays the video. His hands wander while we watch, and I can’t hide how turned on I am. What the hell is wrong with me? Sean doesn’t say much. He just watches me, taking in my reaction.
I watch his h*ps buck into mine on the TV as he f**ks me. I thought he was someone else, but there isn’t anyone. There’s a recorder by my head. I didn’t see it before. Sean must have moved placed it there after he blindfolded me. My stomach twists. I watch the video and squirm. The fear is palpable. I never thought I’d do anything like this. Watching it after the fact just seems wrong, but I can’t look away.
I blurt out, “I wish I could see your face.” I wonder what his eyes look like as he does that to me. I wonder how much of him is there when he’s like that. His body is beautiful, covered in a sheen of sweat. His muscles tense and release as he pushes into me. I watch him thrust over and over again. His head hangs back as he looks up at the ceiling when he comes. The tension rolls out of his back and he relaxes before pulling out of me.
God that turned me on. I’m already sore, but my body doesn’t seem to care. Sean watches me through the entire video. After it’s over, I glance at him. I don’t know what to say. He’s messed up, but so I am because I’m so aroused. I want him so much.
Sean inches his hand further up my leg. I part them for him and lean back against his chest. I close my eyes when he touches me down there. Sean rubs gently, making lust swirl deep inside me. I want to turn around and straddle him. A smile creeps across my face when I realize something—it’s my turn.
CHAPTER 3
I’m still trembling, still on edge from what he did to me. I glance over at Sean in his jeans and bare feet. He changed at some point and ditched the suit from earlier. I don’t see it on the floor. My gaze flicks up to his chest and those perfectly lickable abs. I can do anything I want. That was our trade. I hold out my hand to him and he takes it. I pull Sean up from the couch and he follows me across the room.
Sean stops walking. It makes my arm jerk and I stop and look at him. He’s tense, like I’m going to hurt him. “Can you tell me what we’re going to do? At least clue me in a little bit?”
I smile softly at him and shake my head. Dark hair falls over my shoulders. I’m nak*d and standing on rose petals in front of the bathroom door. A sliver of light shines through the dark room. “I won’t hurt you.”
“I know, it’s just…” Sean runs his fingers through his hair and then down his neck. He stretches, showing off that ripped body. “I’m not good at these things.”
“Are you backing out of your end of the arrangement, Mr. Jones?”
Sean grins at me every time I call him that. It conjures memories of the first night I met him. “No, of course not, but—”
“Then, don’t worry about it. Trust me a little, okay.” I’m cautious with him. For some reason, Sean seems brittle, like he’ll crack in my hands if I’m not careful. I don’t want to break him. I don’t want him in more pain than he already is, but I think this will help.
I start talking about things—my papers, Mel, grad school—as we wait for the tub to fill. I have my hands on his skin, keeping the contact between us. Sean looks leery, but doesn’t shy away. When I turn off the water, I turn back to him. I reach for his waist and slip the button through the hole on his jeans. They loosen. I tug him toward me and look into his eyes. “It’s all or nothing, Ferro.”