by Anya Summers
She looked at him like she was surprised that he hadn’t left her when he entered the bedroom, shutting the door behind him. From beneath the covers, Sadie said, “There’s a toothbrush for you on the bathroom counter if you want it.”
“Thanks.” He used her bathroom, noting all the pretty little touches she’d added to make this place a home. She did something to him, hitting him square in the chest.
Unable to delay any longer, he joined her in the bedroom, switching off the light before he disrobed. He put his phone on the nightstand and set the alarm to make sure he was up before Sadie. He figured he would leave her a note in the morning. She’d already moved the covers back for him. Gratefully, he sank onto the edge of the bed and removed his prosthetic with a sigh. Some days, his body ached after wearing it all day.
He joined her beneath the covers and tugged her into his arms so that they were spooning. She sighed and drifted off to sleep. It had been a long time since he’d slept with a woman. It had been years—mainly because, once he removed his fake left foot, they tended to skedaddle.
But the night and the back-buckling orgasms made him drift off, following her into the abyss.
Chapter 11
Sadie woke to sunlight streaming in through the slats of her blinds, with her head pillowed on top of a chest. A very male, chiseled chest that belched off heat, acting like her very own space heater. They had shifted overnight so that she was curled on her side, plastered against Ram, who was sprawled out, supine, on his back.
He was gorgeous in a rough-hewn, testosterone-laden way with his broad forehead, strong nose that looked like it had been broken a time or two, and wide, generous mouth that she had learned last night could send her flying to the moon. Seeing him last night without the polished sheen he wore at his office had made her feel like she was seeing the real him.
His long, dusty blond lashes made small crescent moons against his cheeks. Her gaze traveled south, happy to study him without the intensity of his gray eyes boring into her soul. He had a strong neck with a prominent Adam’s apple. Wide shoulders thick with corded muscle. And his chest damn near gave her the vapors. It was ripped with muscles. His muscles had muscles. And over his firm, defined left pec was a tattoo where it looked like the skin had been ripped away and beneath it was camouflage from military fatigues and the words US Army inscribed.
Unable to resist, she traced her fingers over the ridges of his six pack and around the flat disk of his nipple, enjoying the way it hardened from her touch. She trailed her hand down to where the hard ridges of his stomach met the quilt. Biting her bottom lip, she lifted the cover and stared at his package. Even at rest, the man had a lot of inches—inches that were beginning to harden beneath her gaze.
“It won’t bite you, you know. I might, though,” Ram murmured gruffly, his voice thick with sleep.
It was supposed to be just one night. And yet, she wanted more. Beyond tempted, she slid her fingers around his shaft, caressing the head and stroking him all the way to the base. Ram groaned.
Before she knew what was happening, Ram rolled her onto her back and fitted himself between her thighs. He rocked his hips, sliding his cock through her crease, and claimed her lips with a growl. This was it. This was what she had woken up aching for, more of Ram and his scintillating kisses and devastating, wicked lovemaking.
Sadie didn’t hesitate, shifting beneath him. Canting her hips, she wrapped her legs around his, resting her feet on his calves—or on one calf. The left one was suspiciously absent.
Ram froze against her and tore his mouth from hers. Before she could work up the courage to ask, he was rolling off her.
Sadie sat up and stared at his legs. The right was whole and hearty. But the left, from about four inches below the knee, was gone. She ached for him, for his loss, for the strength in him.
“Ram?” She lifted her gaze to his face, which was shrouded with a mask of indifference.
“I should go.” He rose, shifting his body and giving her his back.
Placing her palm against his shoulder, she said, “Ram. You don’t have to. Stay, please.”
“Yeah, I do. I need to get my kids.”
“It’s seven o’clock in the morning.” And she didn’t want to admit she wasn’t ready to let him go just yet. To know that this was it.
Stupid of her to do, with the one night only deal he’d offered her.
He huffed.
“Is it because I know about your foot? Because it doesn’t bother me. It amazes me. From the way you move, I never would have guessed. It must have taken a lot on your part to come back from that injury. And it doesn’t diminish how potent you are, or how much I want you.”
He stared at her over his shoulder. Those gray eyes pierced her clean through as he contemplated her words. “You really don’t mind, do you?”
She shook her head, scooting toward him. And then, with more courage than she truly felt, she straddled his lap.
His brows shot up. His hands went directly to her hips.
“And just what do you think you’re doing?” he said in a deep bedroom voice that made tendrils of heat swirl in her belly.
She rocked her hips against his hard cock beneath her. In this position, he glided right through her tissues. “What does it look like?”
“Like you’re trying to take advantage of the fact that I only have one good leg and can’t get away without my prosthetic on,” he said with a seductive, lopsided grin.
“Oh, I would say you have more than one good leg. And I was kind of hoping before you left that you could show me again how good that leg is… Sir.”
The man might be missing the bottom portion of his left leg but you wouldn’t know it considering how nimble he was as he rolled them once again so they lay crosswise on her bed. He took her hands and positioned them above her head.
“Keep your hands here. Don’t move them or I will spank your ass.”
The order quivered through her. “Yes, Sir.”
Cupping her nape, he brushed his lips over hers until she opened for him. The moment she did, he hungrily thrust his tongue inside and drank down her moans. She wanted to touch him, her fingers ached to, but she also wanted to please him.
It was the oddest sensation. She’d never been this way with her husband. Granted, Henry had been rather strait-laced when it came to their sex life. She’d enjoyed sex with Henry, had climaxed, and thought their sex life was perfectly acceptable.
But it seemed like another life, and that she had been another person. From the first moment Ram had restrained her last night, it had cracked open the sheen of who she had always believed herself to be and uncovered a part of herself that she would have denied even six months before.
And his kiss, oh god. He kissed her and she felt whole, she felt strong and sexy. She gave him everything, returning his kiss with the safety rails off. By the time he lifted his mouth, she was a whimpering, needy mess.
“Sir, please,” she panted.
His gaze was dark with lust. “Not yet. I’ve ignored your sweet tits and plan to change that.”
Ram shifted, planting hungry kisses on the underside of her jaw and down over her neck. He licked at the hollow of her collarbone, down over her chest to her breasts. His hands cupped the mounds. She didn’t have a ton of boobage, not that Ram seemed to mind their size as he tongued an erect nipple.
He sucked one into his mouth, his tongue lashing against the bud while his hand tweaked and rolled the beaded point on its twin. Sadie writhed, arching her back, trying to feed him more of the mound. She had always had overly sensitive breasts.
Ram took his time, sampling them like they were a delicacy he had just discovered and couldn’t get enough of. He laved the nipple and placed bites over the mound before switching to its twin. He licked, nipped, and sucked until her pale nipples were swollen and red from his attentions.
Ram left her breasts and headed south to the promised land, spreading her thighs wide to accommodate his broad shoulders.
Her belly quivered as he stared at her pussy. He drew a single digit through her labia, from her clit all the way to the naughty rosette of her back entrance.
“You’ve got the prettiest cunt, babe, and I find that I am starving. Come as many times as you need to,” he murmured as his mouth descended.
He spread her labia with his hands and tongued her flesh. She clenched her hands as he loved her, curling his tongue around her clit, sucking the nub into his mouth. Sadie mewled in the back of her throat, lifting her hips for more. But Ram held her steady, proving that even though she had started this, he would finish it.
It took her body startlingly little time before she was coming apart beneath his skilled mouth. Yet, Ram didn’t stop eating her. He sucked and licked and added his fingers, thrusting them inside her pussy as he rapidly flicked his tongue against her clit.
She was adrift in a sea of pleasure as he took her up again and again. Her tissues became swollen. Her clit poked out from beneath the hood and was so sensitive, it ached.
“Sir, please,” she cried.
“Give me one more and then I promise to fuck you,” he growled, then thrust his tongue inside her sheath. He pressed his thumb at her back-door entrance and thrust it inside.
The dual sensations sent her over the edge. She came, screaming, “Oh god, Ram, Sir!”
Her body quaked at the force of her climax. Ram finally lifted his head from between her thighs. His chin was coated with her juices. He rose until he was kneeling between her splayed thighs.
“Shit. I don’t have a condom, babe. I’m sorry—”
“I’m on the pill and clean. Just do me already or I will break your thing off,” she threatened, panting.
Ram narrowed his gaze. “Threatening me with bodily harm? That’s not the way a proper submissive behaves. I should tan your hide for that.”
“And you promised to do me,” she snapped, her need so acute, it was painful.
His gaze simmered. “That I did. Are you sure?”
She knew he was referring to their lack of a condom. “Yes. Please fuck me, Sir.”
With a rough groan, he slid inside until he was pressed deep, his balls against her bottom. He filled her, stretching her, and made her feel so many things. It was like watching a prism shine light into a darkened room. He brought forth parts of herself she had kept hidden, which slid back into place as he thrust.
“Please let me touch you, Sir,” she begged, needing to feel his skin beneath her palms.
He propped himself up on his elbows, rocking his hips in slow, steady thrusts meant to drive her out of her ever-loving mind. “I permit it.”
Sadie moved her arms and traced his shoulders first, then went down his chest to his obliques, and around to the firm muscles of his back. She gripped him tightly, canted her hips and met his downward thrusts. And through it all, his gaze held hers, and she saw herself reflected in their depths.
She felt herself falling into him, sure in the knowledge that he would catch her. The air grew thick with the scent of their lovemaking. Their bodies slick with perspiration, her hands slid down and cupped his ass. His perfectly formed globes flexed beneath her palms. She dug her nails in for purchase. Ram increased the tempo, pounding inside her, the sound of their sex filling the room. Her breathing was ragged as pleasure consumed her. Her eyes slid shut at the intensity of sensations bombarding her.
“Look at me,” he demanded with a low growl.
She lifted her heavy lids.
“I want you to see who it is that’s fucking you.”
He slammed inside her, his strokes hard, fast, and riding the edge of painful. But the pain made her feel alive, like she was no longer the walking dead merely shuffling through her days in an unfeeling haze.
The climax ripped through her system like a rocket exploding. She held on tight as he jackhammered his cock into her quaking channel, straining as he found his release.
He buried his face in her shoulder and held her tight as he came. His guttural groan as his spunk poured inside her caused another series of aftershocks. Sadie held him tight, not wanting to let him go just yet.
It was only for one night, and she knew she had to get with the program even as a part of her whispered that she wanted more.
Then Ram shifted and looked at her, his face so near, she could make out the light blue and gold flecks of color amidst the gray in his eyes. He searched her face and she wondered if he could see that if he asked it of her, she would meet him again at the club, let him continue training her to be a proper submissive.
Sadie worried that she might need him to retain this feeling, this return of life that surged through her veins. Deep down, she was terrified she would lose it again the moment he left. He brushed his lips against hers, softly at first. On a muttered curse, he deepened the kiss until they were both breathing heavily, like he couldn’t help himself, until he finally ended the kiss, tore his mouth from hers, and stared for a moment. As if he were imprinting her image to memory.
“I really do need to go,” Ram murmured, withdrawing from her. He moved away and she watched in stunned silence as he tossed up emotional walls. She could feel the emotional distance he erected. It made her movements slow, and she was thoroughly discombobulated by the swift severing from her and change in him.
While he dressed, she slid off the mattress, feeling his semen drizzle down her inner thighs. She grabbed her robe and belted it, needing to cover herself.
When Ram was dressed, he turned. Regret blazed in his eyes. “I’m sorry I have to leave. I need to get my kids. I never meant to… anyway, I will call you tomorrow with the therapist I think you should see. And then I’ll see you at group on Tuesday.”
“Sure,” she replied, angry with herself and with him for the way this was ending.
She walked him to the front door. He gave her a final glance, an unreadable one.
“Just go, Ram. It’s clear this was only a one-night deal. You held up your end of the bargain and are free to go.”
“You can come talk to me, about anything. I will do whatever I can to help you.”
She nodded. “Thanks for that. But I will be fine. Just go.”
With a final glance and a nod, he walked out her door. Sadie was left wondering—if it was only supposed to be a one-night deal, why did she feel like she had lost something before she had ever truly grasped it?
Chapter 12
After Ram left, Sadie indulged in a long, scorching shower where she washed away all the traces of their lovemaking. What she could of it, anyway. The bruises in the shape of fingertips on her hips and on her bottom would be there for a few days. The ones on her bum from the flogger were slight discolorations of her flesh and some were a bit deeper than others.
He’d not kissed her goodbye. It shouldn’t matter, except after everything they had shared, it did. It was ridiculous for her to get attached, to want more than a single night, yet she did. Today, Sadie felt renewed with an infusion of energy and verve that hadn’t been present yesterday morning.
The question was: were her feelings because she had experienced multiple orgasms last night? Or was it because of the bondage and flogging? Had it been the combination of the two? Before meeting Ram, she had never thought she was into anything decadent and wicked in the sex department. Yet last night had been incredible. She’d enjoyed every second with Ram—well, right up until he’d left that morning like his feet were burning. Up until that point, it had surpassed her fantasies.
It left her wondering whether all the emotions the night had engendered were because of Ram, or the BDSM, or the combination of the two. Would she have a similar reaction to another Dominant? That was something to consider. She tried to think of herself with the guy from the scene she’d witnessed last night, and her reaction was mixed. The thought of the whip, of being bound, got her all hot and bothered, but the guy did nothing for her.
Sadie had no clue. She was so out of her depth when it came to the lifestyle. All she did know was that
she wanted more.
With nothing on her agenda for the day, after breakfast, she made her decision and headed to the hospital. There was one thing that had bugged her. The little girl from the accident was an orphan now. Sadie had no idea if she had grandparents or aunts and uncles, any type of extended family who would become the girl’s guardian. And she wanted to check on her; it had been a niggling thought since Luc had sent her home the other night. She couldn’t explain the need inside her other than it felt like it was the right thing to do.
Sadie decided to trust her gut.
At Saint Mary’s Hospital, she headed over to registration.
“Linda, hi, did you get your hair cut?” she asked the older woman, whose short hair was styled with a feathered look that had been popular in the 1980s. But Linda was nice enough.
“I did. I go every other week to the salon on my day off. You like it?” She preened.
“Looks good on you.”
“What can I do for you? Aren’t you supposed to be taking some personal time?” Linda asked with a healthy dose of skepticism.
This was the tricky part. “Look, I know it’s none of my business, but I was hoping you could give me the room number for the little girl of the patients we lost in ICU last week. Her last name would be Sanchez. It’s been bugging me that she’s now an orphan, and I just wanted to bring her a few things that might cheer her up.”
Linda gave her an assessing look. “You know I could get fired for this. It’s against the law.”
“I know. I swear, I won’t say anything. And the next time I stop by, I’ll bring you some of the raw sugar toffee you like so much.”
“Bribery will get you everywhere. Give me a minute,” Linda said, typing a few things into the computer. Her fingers moved quickly. “You didn’t hear it from me but Grace Sanchez is in the pediatric ward, second floor, room two-zero-nineteen.”