“Well, if I’m tied up then I won’t get…overenthusiastic.”
She took a deep breath and sighed. “You are really
that
worried about hurting me?”
“Yes.”
She blinked. “Okay. I’ll tie you up. To be honest, that is more than a little hot. And then sometime soon you can do the same to me.”
“That’s more than a
lot
hot.” I leered at her. She’d stood up and her legs were so hot in that short nightie. I was already envisioning them wrapped around me as she rode on top of me. Shit, this hard-on was starting to hurt.
She turned back to me. “You have handcuffs or something?”
I shot her a weird look. “No. Use one of my ties. In the closet.”
“You want me to tie you to the bed with a five-hundred-dollar tie?”
“The sacrifice won’t be in vain.”
She laughed and shrugged, disappearing into the closet and coming out with three ties in her hands. I raised my brows. “Just how overenthusiastic do you think I’m going to be?”
“You could be like some sort of sexual Hulk, turn green and break out of your bonds and chase me down.”
“I have a feeling you aren’t going to run far.”
“Nope, probably not.”
She tied a loop into the skinny end of one of the ties and asked for my wrist, which I gave her. She put it into the loop and then pulled my arm back toward the headboard. “So do I tie your wrists together or apart?”
“I don’t care.”
“You know, figuring out the logistics of this should probably be killing the mood but it’s just making me hotter.” She pulled the other end of the tie to the headboard, above my head. I lay down and she tightened it, so that my arm was extended above my head. She grabbed another tie and did something similar with my other arm. By the time she was done with that, she was flushed and breathing fast and I was more than a little turned on myself.
She ran her hand down my arms. “I love your arms. Sometimes I get turned on when you are fully dressed but you have your sleeves rolled up. Your forearms are so sexy.”
I laughed. “My forearms? Really?”
She ran her hand over them appreciatively again, as if admiring artwork or craftsmanship. “I love your body. And your arms are amazing. Strong forearms, your biceps…firm, powerful, but not bulky.”
“You’ve given this a lot of thought, haven’t you?” I said, my eyes half closed, utterly relishing the feel of her hot hands on me.
“Oh, I have. I do. Early and often.”
She bent over me, checking the tightness of the knots holding my arms above my head, and her breast grazed against my cheek. On instinct and out of pure lust, I turned and caught her nipple in my mouth, sucking it through the thin silk of her shirt. She let out a loud gasp and froze. I didn’t release my hold and she didn’t pull away. With my tongue, I traced her nipple, sucking more of it into my mouth. It hardened to a tight point.
Panting on top of me, she pulled back and straddled me. Then she bent to kiss me first on my mouth, then my neck, my chest. She ran her hands over every inch of my chest and stomach. “You are so incredibly sexy. It pisses me off when women look at you but how the hell can they help themselves?”
I laughed. “You’re going to give me a big head.”
She snorted, her hand gliding over the towel still knotted around my waist. “I think I already did,” she said, fondling me. I closed my eyes and as if she was reading my mind—she slipped her hand under the towel and grasped me, stroking with her fingers. Electric pleasure crackled down my spine.
I wanted this so badly I could hardly breathe. I opened my eyes and looked up at her. “Kiss me,” I said.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Mia
I undid the towel from his waist, then explored him everywhere with my hands before taking his silky-smooth length in my hand again. Firmly I stroked him, relishing the sound of his hoarse gasps. His eyes tightened again. “Kiss me, Emilia,” he demanded again.
Trust Adam to try to take over even when he was tied up and I was on top of him. I decided to torment him with my hands for a little while longer before finally leaning forward. He pulled his head up and caught my mouth with his, groaning. His tongue plunged into my mouth urgently, moving in and out quickly as if showing me how he wanted to penetrate me in other ways. My body sang in response, completely aroused and ready for him.
And since he was under me and totally at my mercy—and quite obviously ready—there was no time like the present. I scooted down over him so that our hips were even with each other, thinking I’d torment him first with a little rubbing—
He stiffened and pulled his mouth away from mine. “Stop!” he almost shouted.
It startled me so I sat back and looked at him. His eyes were wide. “Am I hurting you?”
“No,” he said and took a long breath before letting it go tightly. “We need a condom.”
“Oh…yeah. Shit. Yeah, we do.” We’d never used them before but for obvious reasons that was no longer ever going to be the case. For the rest of my life, I was banned from using any sort of hormonal birth control.
He looked at me, exasperated and a little angry.
“I’m sorry it didn’t even occur to me. That was dumb. I didn’t buy any.”
His mouth thinned. “Under the sink in the bathroom.”
I did not want to know why he had condoms in the house. I’d seen the box there before, when I lived here, and assumed they’d been from his swinging single days. He’d told me he hadn’t been with any other women since before we got together but sometimes the uncertainty of those days when we were apart got to me. Adam had never lied to me and I trusted him. But often it was easy to let my own insecurity whisper doubts into my ear.
I slumped, got off of the bed and went to the cabinet he referred to and saw the box. It was one of those jumbo packs with a hundred or more inside. And it was half empty. Shit.
Don’t think about it, Mia. Don’t think about all the women he’s been with before—about how much prettier and healthier and more experienced they were
.
Adam hadn’t been with another woman in over a year. Why should I still care? The thought still stung but I willed myself to build a bridge and get over it. I plunged my hand into the box, grabbed a handful and came back. It occurred to me that I’d never used one—never learned how to use one—and his hands were tied up.
I put the handful on the night table and grabbed one of them. Glancing down, I saw that he was still erect. I bent over and kissed his mouth. He enthusiastically returned the kiss. I peppered some more kisses on his chest and leaned back, tearing at the foil wrapper. “Here goes nothing…” I murmured and he watched me carefully.
I pulled out the condom and put the wrapper back on the nightstand. “Wait—” he said. “What does the date say? That box is at least two years old. Are they still good?”
“Do condoms come with an expiration date?” I said and he only answered me with a glare so I shrugged and looked at the wrapper. The date on it was sometime next year. “Yep, we’re still good.”
“Let me see it.”
Puzzled, I held out the wrapper for him to see. Apparently he didn’t trust me to read the date? I’ll admit that sometimes I forgot things or said stupid things due to chemo-brain but I wasn’t
that
far gone…
“Okay,” he finally muttered. He didn’t look happy. I frowned at him. The look in his eyes could only be described as…intensity tinged with a little fear. What on earth did he have to be afraid of?
I took the condom and placed it against the tip of his cock, hoping the thing would unroll easily because doing this now was turning me on again and I really wanted to get to it. Adam watched every move I made—like a hawk—and not with an expression of arousal but as if he was afraid I’d make a mistake.
I was aware of my first mistake when it wouldn’t unroll as easily as I thought it should. I put my other hand to the task. I could see why many couples didn’t like using these things…they certainly killed the mood and the spontaneity of being together. I sighed, beginning to feel frustrated.
“You’ve got it upside down,” Adam observed. “Flip it over.”
I did as he asked and it unrolled easily, I pulled it down, all the way against the base of him. Then I ran my hand up and down his length. I could tell it turned him on, but he didn’t take his eyes off what I was doing. “Be careful, you don’t want to tear it.”
“Do they tear that easily? What’s the point if they do?” I got up to swing my leg over him again when he moved his hips away. “Wait…”
“What now?”
“I don’t want to take a chance with that one tearing. Put another one on top of it.”
I paused. I’d never heard of that before. But again, I was so inexperienced. I’d only ever had sex with Adam. So what the hell did I know? Apparently he was all kinds of experienced—even with some of the kinkier stuff, too. My pointless jealousy rose up again. This was starting to piss me off.
“Will that work all right?” I said, reaching for another condom and pulling it out of its wrapper.
“If one tears, the other will hold. The odds of them both tearing are much less.”
“But…won’t they just rub against each other and cause more friction?”
He started to tug against the ties holding his arms. “Untie me. Let me do it.” He gave another jerk, almost frantic to be untied.
“Hold on…wait. Let me get it.”
But he was yanking again, almost panicked now.
“Wait, Adam. Let me untie it. Hold still.”
He visibly swallowed as he watched me and it was the first moment where I realized that it was more than that small fear I had detected in his eyes earlier. He was downright terrified.
I untied him and he sat up, rubbing his wrists. Judging from the marks around them, he had pulled pretty damn hard to get out of his bonds. I sat back, suddenly too worried about him to care that we probably weren’t going to go through with this now.
He pulled off the condom and wrapped the towel around himself again. Tears clogged in my throat. “I’m sorry…I screwed that up, didn’t I?” I said in a quiet voice.
He shook his head. “No.” He leaned forward and put his face in his hands and I watched him for long, silent, tension-filled stretch of minutes.
“What the hell just happened?” I asked, my throat tight.
He didn’t answer, just ran a hand through his dark hair, focused intently on some spot in front of him on the bedspread.
He’d actually been afraid, panicked, terrified of something. I thought back through it all. His reaction when he thought I was going to proceed with sex without a condom—then the insistence on looking at the date to see if they were still good. Then the suggestion to double the layers. I sucked in a long and painful breath.
When I spoke my voice was trembling. “You’re afraid I’m going to get pregnant again.”
He abruptly stood up from the bed and went into his closet. When he came out, he was dressed in pajama pants and a T-shirt. I hadn’t moved. And when we looked at each other, I knew that I had hit the nail right on the head. He didn’t deny it.
My breath rushed out of my lungs and I wasn’t certain I’d be able to draw another.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Adam
I watched as her face clouded, like a storm suddenly sweeping overland. Her eyes filled with tears and she blinked. But I had no words. And even if I had them, what could I say? She was absolutely right. I was fucking terrified to touch her. The thought that I might get her pregnant again not only petrified me, it made me nauseous.
Finally I looked away. I couldn’t watch as her heart broke—and know that I was the cause, however unconsciously.
The silence in that room was deafening—like a distant ringing that buzzed in my ears. I looked back at her. Her eyes were damp, focused somewhere in the middle distance between us. I clenched my jaw. There was nothing I could say right now to comfort her. And part of me didn’t even want to. This was the harsh reality of what she had tried to avoid earlier—when she’d insisted over and over again that she was fine, that she was tough, that she could get over this by herself.
It was best this came out now. But I honestly had no idea how we could possibly resolve it.
Suddenly she stiffened, as if she was tired of waiting for me to say something. Biting her lip, she stood up. “I’ll go sleep in my room,” she said in a shaky, quiet voice.
I watched her go and I didn’t move a muscle.
The minute she disappeared into her bedroom, I ran a hand through my hair and began to pace. My mind whirred through everything that had just happened, every thought that went through my head. The moment that everything had snapped for me—that minute when I thought she was going to initiate sex without even a thought about the lack of birth control.
Things slipped her mind a lot these days. She’d forget things or do things she’d just done over again without realizing it. It was a side effect of the drugs she’d been on. I could have just as easily attributed that to this—her almost starting sex without even thinking about a condom.
But it had been reckless, dangerous. It could have killed her.
I
could have killed her. Or brought her cancer back. Just by having sex with her. Just by getting her pregnant again.
I buried my face in my hands, a sense of helplessness smothering me. Then, I heard her walk down the hallway toward the stairs. I could let her go, or we could talk this out. I could convince her that she needed to talk to someone.
And who knows, maybe I did, too.
Because goddamn. The weight of our baggage was finally beginning to bury me and I could see no way out except to suffocate under it.
I moved to the stairs, half the length of the stairway behind her, calmly following her. She had changed from the silky nightshirt into some yoga pants and a T-shirt. Turning her head slightly, she seemed aware that I was behind her but did not speed up to avoid me as she moved to the side door, opening it and leaving it ajar for me to follow her.
As I was still approaching the water’s edge, I saw her sit down in the sand and hug her knees to her, burying her face against them. When I got closer, I could hear her quiet, weak sobs. Each one sliced right through me. I stood inches from the spot where, a few months ago, I’d kissed her so tenderly, where she’d questioned our future. I had silenced her then, so intent on one thing and one thing only—her survival.