Dangerously Bound

by Eden Bradley

  She took a breath. “Mick, if you have even an hour to spare, I could really use seeing you tonight. I can come there if that’ll be easier. But I need to see you.”

  He was silent for a moment, and both the anger and the hurt that had been lingering inside her all day surged in her chest. Was he really going to turn her down?

  Finally he said, “Sure, come on over. I’m still packing for this trip so it’s better if you come here, if you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t mind. Is it okay if I come now?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  They hung up and she raced around the house looking for the right shade of lip gloss, pulled on a clean tank top, found a belt for her low-slung jeans and put on her new sandals and a pair of silver hoop earrings. At the last moment she shucked her way out of her clothes and put on clean—sexy black lace—lingerie.

  We’re just talking.

  Maybe. But one never knew. And even worse than being caught in an accident wearing shoddy lingerie was being caught in a surprise sexual encounter with less-than-stellar undergarments.

  She locked up the house and jumped into her aunt’s old Coupe de Ville, fired up the big engine and made her way to Mick’s place, trying not to think about how unsatisfying their conversation had been, or the fear that was still simmering low inside her.

  Parking was awful in his part of town, but she found a spot only two blocks away. If it had been almost any other city in the world, she would be nervous walking alone at night through the narrow streets, but this was her town.

  Hers and Mick’s.

  She found his place, an old plaster-over-brick painted in a rich terra-cotta. It was covered in flowering vines, as so many of the older buildings in the French Quarter were. She’d always loved how most of the city had the scent of flowers overlaying the mild scents of decay and old plaster, the exotic cooking smells. Even the car exhaust added something to the mix that was the distinct urban perfume of New Orleans.

  She looked up and saw lights shining down through the windows on the second floor, where he’d told her his flat was. Her pulse grew warm and thready knowing she was going to see him. That he was going to touch her.

  Hell, he’d better touch her. She needed to feel his arms around her. Needed to feel the reassurance of skin against skin even more, maybe.

  But if that phone call had been any indication, he was probably still too shut down from the intensity of their night together, their open conversation, to give her what she so desperately needed from him. She didn’t want to need it, damn it. But the simple fact was that she did. Because it was Mick. Because when it came to him she was always a little desperate and needy. And maybe she was in a more intense state of subdrop than she realized, because “desperate” and “needy” were not like her at all. She sighed. Not when it came to anyone but Mick.

  Tears stung her eyes, and she shook her head, tried to shake them away.

  Stop it. Stay in the moment. Don’t project.

  She inhaled, tucked her car keys into her purse and knocked.

  She heard him coming down the stairs, and her heartbeat accelerated. To her horror, the tears burned even hotter behind her eyes.

  “Goddamn it,” she muttered—just as he opened the door.

  “All right. I guess I deserved that,” Mick said.

  “No, it wasn’t you. It was . . . I’m just . . .”

  A tear plopped onto her cheek and she started to turn away, but he took her hand in his.

  “Hey,” he said gently. “Where you going, baby?”

  And that did it. The damn tears started and wouldn’t stop. She hid her face in her hands.

  “Hey, Allie girl. Come here.”

  He pulled her into his chest, and she buried her face into him, took in his scent, tried to stop crying. It didn’t work. She pushed away from his hold on her.

  “Don’t, Mick. Don’t do this if it’s all about you being Mr. Responsible. I’m going to be honest—I can’t take it if that’s what’s going on here. I don’t want it. Do you understand me?”

  She was shaking so hard she dropped her purse. She let it sit there.

  Mick looked shocked. Not that she could blame him. She hadn’t expected this, either.

  “That’s not what this is about,” he finally ground out, some anger in his voice. “You know better than that.”

  “Really, Mick? How could I know anything after you abandoned me all day to deal with the fallout from last night on my own? No email. No phone call.”

  “I admit I should have called you, Allie, but I wasn’t abandoning you. You’re here now, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, but only because I called you.”

  “You’re right. And I’m sorry. I’m fucking sorry.”

  “Don’t cuss at me! Jesus, Mick.”

  He scrubbed a hand over his goatee. “Allie . . . I always cuss like a sailor. I wasn’t cussing at you, just . . . cussing.”

  “I know. I know that. I’m just . . . God, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Look, I’m just . . . going. I shouldn’t have come. I shouldn’t have called you. I’m just . . .”

  She turned to go once more, but he grasped her wrist even tighter and pulled her close to his big body, his arm sliding around her waist and holding her tight.

  “Allie girl, tell me what this is about. I know I didn’t call and I should have—you’re absolutely right about that, and I’m a total irresponsible dick. I know it. But this seems like there’s more going on. Talk to me.”

  “I can’t.”

  The tears were still coming, rolling down her cheeks. She was absolutely horrified, wiping at them with one hand. What the hell was wrong with her?

  “Tell me,” he commanded, making her take a breath.

  “I don’t know. I just wanted to talk. Just talk. And then this happened.”

  “What happened?”

  She shrugged helplessly. “I didn’t expect you to bail on me today. Maybe I should have known it was a possibility. But somehow I didn’t. And I think I’ve been crashing a little all day. I didn’t realize it. And then I come here and you’re mad at me, for God’s sake, making me feel even more abandoned and . . . like a child, Mick. Like when my dad died.”

  Oh, God. She hadn’t meant to say that.

  “Christ, Allie.” He pulled her into his body and she couldn’t fight him anymore. He stroked her hair, his chin resting on top of her head. “Baby. I didn’t mean to set off any of that stuff.”

  “It’s not the first time,” she muttered, allowing herself the comfort of his touch.

  “Fuck. You’d better come inside. We have shit to talk about.”

  That didn’t sound good. But she let him pick up her purse and lead her up the narrow staircase to his flat anyway.

  The place suited him, she saw right away, even through her upset and tears. All neutral colors, big furniture, plenty of wood. He sat her down on the leather couch and left her there for a moment, came back with a glass of water. She accepted it and took a few sips before he took it and set it on the coffee table. He sat down beside her and handed her some tissue. She wiped her eyes and nose while he waited quietly.

  “Better?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “I do think you’re crashing, Allie. That, and I didn’t come through for you today, and for that I apologize. To be honest, I was processing last night. And today. More than I thought I’d be. It’s a lot to think about.”

  “For me, too.”

  “Yeah, I know. Which probably contributed to your subdrop today.”

  “Yes,” she agreed.

  “I wish you’d have come to me earlier. I know I should have been the one to initiate contact, but sometimes I can be pretty dumb when I’m caught up in my own head.”

>   “Marie Dawn sort of said the same thing.”

  “Yeah, well, she’s had to live with my brother for a damn long time, so she’s familiar with the inherent stupidity of the Reid men.”

  She sniffed. “She sort of said that, too.”

  He pulled back and tilted her chin, watching her face, his dark brows drawn over his smoky gray eyes. “What do you need from me?”

  It felt like a loaded question. “I don’t know.” That was as honest as she could be right now.

  “Okay. Then how about this? We get undressed and climb into my bed and just curl up and watch some TV. We can talk when you feel like it. Or not. Come on.”

  He pulled her to her feet and led her into the bedroom.

  The furniture was all sleek, dark wood, the bed on a platform and covered in a charcoal gray duvet. Mick left her standing on the white faux-fur rug at the foot of the bed to pull the duvet down, exposing the smoky lilac sheets, only a few shades darker than the duvet on her own bed.

  He came back to her and bent to slide her sandals off, drew her jeans down over her hips while she stood passively, her head spinning, a little numbed by too much emotion.

  “Climb in. I’ll be right there.”

  She got onto the bed, drew the sheets up to her waist. It felt a little odd, somehow, being in Mick’s bed. Maybe because this wasn’t about sex and seduction. It was just . . . them.

  The sex and seduction was easier. There she knew herself. There she was on solid ground. Right now she wasn’t sure what to expect.

  Calm down. He invited you here—to his home, to his bed.

  She watched as he shucked off his T-shirt, and even in her emotional state she couldn’t help but admire his broad shoulders, the bulging biceps, the taut lines of his abs. She couldn’t help notice once more the long scar running over his ribs that still looked raw and angry, even after all these years. It still hurt her to see it, to know the anguish the accident had caused him. But somehow it just made him sexier. Why were scars so hot on a man?

  He climbed in next to her in the dark blue sweats he’d been wearing when she’d arrived. He slid an arm around her shoulder and pulled her in close, sitting back against the pillows piled against the wall behind them. It felt good to be close to him, to feel the reassuring strength of his big body next to hers. But it still felt a little strange, more intimate than the things they’d done at the club together. More real.

  “Travel TV, still?” he asked.

  “I can’t believe you remember.”

  “I remember a lot, Allie.”

  She let herself relax a little into him. He flicked on the flat screen television with the remote and found her channel. They watched in silence a piece on California’s Mendocino Coast, and as the narrator’s voice spoke about the rugged beauty of the cliffs, the sea lions swimming off the shore, her shoulders loosened and she leaned into Mick’s arm around her.

  After a while Mick muted the volume and said quietly, “Tell me about your dad, Allie.”

  Her body instinctively stiffened for a moment. It made sense that he’d ask after what she’d said, but she still hesitated. “My dad?”

  Mick tugged her closer. “I’ve known you all these years and that’s the one thing you never really talked to me about. I know he died when you were a kid, I know he was a musician. I know your mom adored him, and still does. But you’ve never told me much more than that. Since it came up tonight, I thought this might be a good time to tell me.”

  “Maybe.” She had to digest the idea for a few moments. “My dad was . . . I sort of idolized him, I guess,” she said, the words trying to stick in her throat. “He spent a lot of time with me growing up, but I think you already knew that. And I guess what you want to know is how his . . . death affected me.”

  “Only because it obviously still does. And this is not just me being the Dom getting to know the psychology of his partner. This is me, Allie. And if we’re going to get closer . . . well, it seems we are.” He paused, and she looked up to see him blink a few times. “Yeah. We are. So we have to build trust.”

  “I know.” She paused, swallowed the ache in her chest that was partly from thinking about her dad and partly from Mick caring about her and being willing to show it. Being willing to admit that the two of them being together was possibly going somewhere. But that was too much to think about and have this discussion at the same time.

  “I don’t talk about this,” she said, her fingers picking at the edge of the cotton sheet, her gaze focused there. “Not with anyone. But you’re right. I have to. And it’s you. Even though we’re in kind of a scary place right now, I still understand we’ve known each other forever.

  “So . . . you know that it was mostly Dad who got me ready in the mornings while Mama was at the bakery. He would play the piano for me sometimes while I was eating breakfast, or brushing my teeth—sometimes it would be a classical piece, sometimes jazz. Sometimes just silly stuff, cartoon music. That last morning . . . he was playing Mozart’s Piano Concerto number twenty-one. I’m sure you’ve heard it. It’s a light piece. Supposed to be cheerful. Well.”

  She stopped to draw in a long breath. She wasn’t sure how to say the words out loud. “That morning . . . the music stopped suddenly, and I came downstairs demanding that he play some ragtime for me, which I did a lot. I just skipped into the room and . . .” She stopped again, swallowed hard. “He was sort of slumped over the piano.” She had to close her eyes. She could see him there, his blue striped shirt, his dark hair shining in the morning sun streaming through her mother’s lace curtains, the pattern of light and shadow it made on the floor. She drew in another breath and went on. “Even in my ten-year-old brain I knew right away he was gone. That he wasn’t coming back. I started screaming. Apparently a neighbor heard me, because suddenly there were a lot of people in the house. I don’t remember much more after that.” She stopped and gulped past the hard lump in her throat, tightening her chest. “All I knew—all I believed—for a long time after was that he’d left me.”

  Mick tightened his arms around her. “Jesus, baby. Poor girl.”

  She shook her head—or tried to, which was difficult being held so hard against his muscled shoulder. “Don’t, Mick.”

  “Don’t what? Feel bad that you had to go through that?”

  “Don’t feel sorry for me. I don’t feel sorry for myself. Life happens, right? Everyone’s gone through something difficult.”

  “Yeah, I guess so. But not that.” His voice was rough. “No one should have to go through that. I get that you’d probably carry those feelings with you through your life. And I guess I get how you might have felt the same way when I didn’t call you, that it would have been a trigger. If I’d known more . . . maybe . . .”

  They both let the sentence fade and quiet descend as they held each other.

  It had felt good to tell him, somehow. And bad, like opening an old wound that would now have to grow a new scab. But if things were going to continue between them, she was going to have to get used to being vulnerable with him. It was different with Mick than it was with the other Doms she’d played with, the men she’d had relationships with. Mick knew her in ways no one else did, and that made the rawness all the more wide open. She didn’t like that part.

  She sniffed, rubbed at the makeup that had undoubtedly run under her eyes.

  “Mick?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Will you tell me something now?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “I sort of feel like I’ve just laid my soul out to you on a platter, and I’d feel a lot better if you did a little of the same with me.”

  He shifted her in his arms so he could see her face.

  “Really? That’s the only thing that’ll make you feel better?” he lowered his voice an octave. “What about this?”

 
; He leaned in and kissed her softly, his lips pressing to hers, then pressing again, gently, sweetly.

  “That’s nice, too,” she admitted.

  “Tell me if this is any better.”

  He kissed her again, this time teasing her lips open with his tongue. He slid the tip of his tongue between her lips, giving her just a taste before pulling away. Cupping her face in his hands he did it once more, this time sliding in farther, pulling back, doing it again, a lovely tease that built desire in her body like a slowly heating flame. She couldn’t help but moan. Couldn’t help the way her body—her need—betrayed her.

  There would be time to talk later. For now, there was Mick. She’d never been able to resist.

  CHAPTER

  Nine

  HIS HANDS SLID down to her shoulders, and he kissed her lips, her cheek, her neck, as he slipped her tank top over her head. One strong arm wrapped around her back and he unhooked her bra, and that came off, too. His mouth was on hers once more as he pulled her in close, sliding down into the sheets with her. He held her in his arms, their bodies pressed close, until she could feel his erection against her belly. The gears had shifted, her mind emptying out, her body filling with desire, her sex aching and wet.

  “Here, baby girl,” he said, kicking his way out of his sweats, then helping her slide her underwear off before rolling her onto her back and climbing on top of her.

  God, his body felt so damn good, the weight of him pressing her down. He folded her fingers into his, raised her arms over her head and held her there while he kissed her, teasing her with lips and tongue and teeth while his hard cock pressed into her abdomen, his hard thigh pressing against her swollen mound.

  “Come on, Mick,” she begged.

  “Shh, baby. Just lie here and take it for now.”