Fearless (20 page)

Leaving me there, he disappears into the closet and emerges with a metal bar with cuffs attached to either end. My mouth goes dry as I recognize the spreader bar. Dropping to his knees, he buckles one cuff around my bare ankle, and then nudging my feet apart until my legs are spread wide, fastens the other.

He takes a step back and my breath hitches at the look of raw carnality in his eyes as they sweep over me.

“You look beautiful tied up like this, exposed and helpless,” he says softly. “But I'll make this easy. Admit that you're mine and I will release you.”

Holding his gaze, I shake my head. I don't want an out. God help me, but he has awakened some dark need inside of me, and now I want to know that part of myself. I want to see how far he will take me, how far I can go. I feel as if I've exited my own body. My thighs are drenched with my wetness, and I'm shocked by my need, the abandon with which I'm willing to surrender my body and soul to this beautiful man who is capable of bringing out a sensual side of me I never knew existed. My body hungers for him.

“Make me,” I say defiantly.

Beckett looks at me, his gaze hot. “I have never met anyone like you,” he says. “No woman has ever challenged me the way you do, yet I've never wanted anyone the way I want you. You arouse every dominant instinct I possess. You may think you're incapable of letting go, but I know the truth. Inside of you is a hot core of pleasure just waiting to be released.”

I watch as he slowly unbuttons his shirt and shrugs out of it.

Approaching me, he runs his hands down the side of my body. Gripping my hip with one hand, he traces the black lines that swirl over my stomach with the other. I quiver. His touch is like an electric shock against my sensitive skin.

“My fearless Princess,” he whispers. “You are amazing.”

Moving lower, his fingers find my drenched opening and he slips one finger and then another inside me, filling me. I arch my back, eager for his touch, trying to take him deeper but unable to do anything but take the pleasure he gives. He bends his head and takes my nipple into his mouth, sucking gently, his tongue flicking the hardened bud until I moan. He presses tiny kisses across my chest to my other breast, his tongue swirling around that hardened point as his fingers seek and toy with the other nipple. His lips close around it, and I cry out as he nips the sensitive bud lightly, the intensity of the sensations swirling through me.

He drops to his knees in front of me, his fingers gripping me from behind as his tongue licks over my mound. I am completely open to him, swollen and exposed. I gasp at the exquisite pleasure as the flames of desire burn through me unchecked. He licks and strokes, his tongue plunging inside me, driving me closer and closer to the edge of some glittering madness. I moan and strain toward the exquisite heat of his tongue. He kisses the sensitive flesh, his tongue opening me, lapping my juices as I fight to hold on to my senses.

His finger traces the crack of my ass, parting me until he is pressing against my tight whirl.

“No!” I say wildly, trying to squirm out of his grasp. “I don't want that.”

“I didn't ask what you wanted, Princess,” he says softly. “You are here for my pleasure, not yours.”

But it's pleasure he gives me as his tongue flicks over my sensitive clit, even as he gently presses into that most intimate of entrances. I futilely try to escape his finger as he slowly works it inside of me, but then his mouth is on my clit, licking and sucking until I don't care anymore. I am simply a vessel for pleasure. I gasp at the feel of him tight inside of me, stretching and filling me, the slight burn of it, forbidden and dark, sending me on a daring wild ride of sensation.

And then, just as quickly as he has pressed into me, he pulls out, leaving me panting and breathless.

“Don't go anywhere,” he says, a small smile on his lips as he disappears into the adjoining bathroom.
As if I could.

I can hear the sound of running water and then music fills the air, the song hauntingly sensual and evocative. I close my eyes briefly, and when I open them he is standing in front of me with a flogger in his hand. My eyes widen in comprehension and I pull futilely at the restraints.

“I promised to punish you,” he says. “And punish you I will.” His voice drops lower. “But I would never hurt you, Emmaline.”

I nod and close my eyes in surrender, my breathing erratic. I trust him. The flogger is soft and supple as he trails it lightly over my skin. I shudder slightly, my eyes still closed.

The fronds hit my thighs first in a soft spatter of sensation. With a practiced skill, he moves the flogger across my body slowly, brushing against my sensitive skin with the soft leather strands. Feather light touches caress my legs and then sweep briefly over my sex, across my belly, and ever so gently up my torso. The small glances across my breasts feel erotic as the soft leather brushes my hardened nipples. Moving behind me, he flicks the flogger over the backs of my upper thighs and buttocks and to my back. Rather than stinging, the leather tails hit my flesh with a pleasant thud that feels like a massage, and I relax into the rhythm of his practiced strokes.

He watches me closely, gauging my reactions, seemingly intent on bringing me to a level of pleasure I have never imagined. As a doctor, he knows the science behind what he's doing and how to bring me higher and higher. As my lover, he knows my body and what turns me on.

Keeping the rhythm consistent, he increases the intensity of the strokes across my warmed flesh. I cry out at the sweet agony. One part of me pulls against the restraints, wanting to escape the blows. The part of me that I have buried for far too long wants something entirely different. It revels in the fact that I am held firmly in place, unable to escape the stinging strikes that lick across my back and buttocks, and around to my belly. Suddenly, he whips across my aching breasts, catching my sensitive nipples with the flogger, and I inexplicably strain toward the blows. It's a sweet agony as the tiny pain quickly turns to pleasure.

I almost sob when the strokes became slow and gentle again, the leather strands stroking my sensitive skin. The soft leather lightly grazes my mound and I groan from the sweet ache that's building there. Then the force increases again, the rhythm matching my quickly escalating heartbeat. The flogger hits my breasts with a teasing flick and my nipples pucker in response. The next blow lashes directly across my sensitive nipples and the fire from the blow streaks straight down to my clit. The blows land harder and harder, lashing across my bottom and the tops of my thighs, making me stretch up on my tip toes and cry out even as my clit throbs with need. As the music crests, the flogger strikes my pussy once, twice, and I almost climax.

The flogger clatters to the floor and his lips are on my neck, my throat, my sensitive nipples, closing around them as my back arches in exquisite arousal. I don't think I can take anymore.

“Please,” I beg. “More!"

Beckett quickly strips off his boots, socks, and pants and then kneels to uncuff my ankles, tossing the spreader bar across the floor. His strong hands under my thighs, he lifts me, and my legs wrap around his waist as he tilts me up and impales me onto his hard cock, making me gasp with a mixture of relief and lust as he fills me. He slams into me, driving into me forcefully with each thrust. I want to touch him, to dig my nails into his flesh, but my arms are still tethered over my head and I am powerless to do anything but absorb each battering assault as he takes me to the edge.

This is no sweet surrender. This is rough, primal, and intense, and I don't want it any other way. The music plays in the background and his thrusts match the rhythm, pushing me higher and higher toward an almost unbearable plateau. I quiver with the impending orgasm. Spreading my legs wider, shameless, I try to take him deeper, harder, faster, desperate for the release that only he can give me. He holds me still, the head of his shaft just inside my drenched opening, tormenting me.

“Say it,” he commands. “Say you're mine.”

“I'm yours,” I agreed, my voice ragged with desperation. He plunges into me, touching me all the way to my center, and I'm home. He pounds into me, harder and faster as the music reaches its crescendo, taking me higher and higher along with it, and then my world goes white as the orgasm rolls over me.

It's still dark when I wake up to the faint sound of my phone vibrating across the room. This is the curse of motherhood, I think ruefully as I disentangle myself from Beckett, whose leg is draped possessively over mine. I tiptoe over to my phone, wondering who could possibly be calling me in the wee hours of the morning. Middle of the night calls are never good.

It's Nikki. Grabbing my phone and walking out to Beckett's living room so I don't wake him, I hit answer. “Nikki! What's wrong?”

“Mom!” Nikki's voice is strained and I can hear the hint of tears.

“What's wrong, sweetie?” I glance at the green glow of the clock on the microwave. It's five o'clock in the morning. It seems wrong to be talking to my daughter while I'm naked, so I grab a throw blanket from the back of the couch and wrap it around my shoulders.

“My stomach. It hurts so bad!”

I sigh. “Did you tell your dad?”

“No, it's embarrassing. I'm pretty sure it's cramps but they hurt so bad! Can you come get me? Please?”

Of all of the many crappy things about divorce, this is quite possibly the worst. I can't just go to my daughter when she's hurting and wants her mom. Through no choice of my own, I have lost the right to my own daughter every other weekend.

“Nikki, I wish I could but I can't.” It kills me to say it. “Can you talk to Rebecca?”

“No,” Nikki moans. “She's barely old enough to have a period herself. But I don't think I can take it much longer. It's so much worse than any cramps I've had before.”

Immediately morphing into mom mode I ask, “Where does it hurt the most?”

“On the right side.” Nikki is openly crying now.

“Hang in there, baby,” I soothe. “On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the worst, how bad is it?”

“Nine,” she sobs.

“Okay,” I say calmly. “Go wake up your dad. Tell him what you told me. You probably need to go to the ER. It might be appendicitis. I'll meet you there. Tell your dad to call me after you talk to him, ok?”

After we disconnect my mind goes into overdrive, trying to sort out what I should do. I can't think clearly, probably because I've only been asleep for several hours. Why didn't I think to bring a bag with a change of clothes? I can't very well meet Tim and Nikki at the hospital in a medieval Princess gown. I don't even have my car, and if Beckett drives me I might as well announce that I'm sleeping with him, which is the last thing Nikki needs to deal with tonight. Plus, I hate to wake him. There's nothing he can do anyway.

I call a cab, and while I wait for it I get dressed, putting the purple dress back on without the corset since I can't manage it by myself. I scribble a note for Beckett and leave it on his kitchen counter before slipping out of his apartment to the waiting cab.

I'm almost home when Tim calls. He tells me they're on their way to Memorial Hospital, and I promise to meet them there as soon as I can. I pay the cab driver and let myself in to my darkened house. I change clothes and am in my car on the way to the hospital in less than ten minutes. When I arrive at the hospital, Nikki and Tim are already in the waiting room of the ER.

Wrapping my arms around my daughter, I ask Tim, “Do you know anything yet?”

“No,” he says curtly, throwing his hands up in frustration. He's never been good under duress. “They're really busy.

We sit together in the waiting room for over an hour, watching helplessly as our daughter curls into a ball in the hard plastic chair, moaning in pain. It's the most time we have spent together since the divorce, but we have nothing to say to each other. Finally, I can't take it anymore.

“This is ridiculous,” I say. “They've got to do something.”

“Take charge Emma,” Tim says derisively under his breath.

I pretend not to hear the biting comment. I won't give him the satisfaction of being able to hurt me anymore. I think about the way Beckett has shown me the flip side of my strength and my ability to let go with a man who cherishes the gift of that surrender, and I realize that Tim has never really known me at all.

I approach the nurse's station. “Excuse me,” I say. “My thirteen year old daughter has been here for over an hour. She's literally crying in pain. Is there any way someone can see her faster?”

“I'm sorry, ma'am,” the nurse says in a monotone, her eyes never leaving her computer screen. “Someone will see your daughter as soon as possible. We are understaffed this morning, and the doctor on call will decide who needs to be seen next.”

Frustrated, I turn on my heel and run smack into the firm but immovable body of a tall male wearing a white coat. Thank goodness—the ER doctor.

“Can you please help me?” I begin as my gaze travels from the middle of his chest up to his decidedly familiar face. “Beckett!” I gasp. “What are you doing here?”

“I work here,” he says sardonically, raising one eyebrow at me in that way of his that inexplicably makes me squirm.

“I know, but….”

“But you didn't expect to see me here after creeping out of my apartment in the middle of the night without telling me you were leaving?” he supplies, his voice hard.

He's angry.

Miserably I say, “I didn't know what to do. My daughter needed me, and I couldn't very well show up with you. I did leave you a note.”

“Yes, I got the note. That's why I'm here. The ER at Memorial after a Saturday night can take hours. If you had woken me up to talk to me about it instead of running out the door and dealing with it on your own, I would have suggested you take your daughter to Texas Children's Hospital. Regardless, I'm offering my help to you now, if you'll take it. We can discuss the issue between us later.”