Page 40 of At Her Pleasure

He lifted his head, but stopped when he was gazing at her abdomen. Disciplined, firm. He thought of a crepe myrtle tree, the slim trunk stripped of bark, so smooth and silky to the touch. Would that be how she would feel, naked?

“What do you want, Mick?”

She’d already asked him a version of that question. She knew there was more. He hedged.

“I thought you didn’t care what your subs want.”

“I don’t. But I want to know what to deny them.”

His smile brought pain. And words he’d never spoken to anyone. Maybe even to himself.

“I want someone who knows me. Really knows me. All my dark places. Understands just how deep my need for pain goes. I need someone who knows how to hurt me badly enough I feel like I might be dying, but I’m not. When I get out of bed and do my job tomorrow, sore as hell, that pain will feel like those little ripples after a climax. Reminders I can savor. Is that fucked up?”

“I don’t deal in judgment.” She paused. “When you call me Mistress, it’s not how my subs mean it. You’re still calling me Mistress of the Hunt. Why are you fixated on Artemis?”

His gaze finally lifted. “I’m not one of your subs. I’m just yours.”

Her mouth tightened. “Do you have an answer to the question?”

“There was a vulnerability to Artemis the others didn't have. It suggested she needed someone's care, someone at her back, someone to hunt with her.” Mick pushed past the flash in her gaze, the denial. “As well as to be someone for her to hunt and bring down. He might be her match, but at the end of the day, when the hunt is over, what he most wants is to be the predator she captures for herself.”

Cyn hooked her fingers in a link and pushed his chin up with her knuckle. As he spoke, his gaze had shifted to her mouth, her throat, and her gesture told him she wanted him to meet her eyes again. But his lids felt heavy. He didn’t know why. For her, though, he managed it.

He was glad he’d made the effort, because he’d ignited a fire in her brown eyes that brought heat to the ice he carried at his center.

He knew the dangers of letting it melt, and told himself not to put that on her. He could keep it separate, unthawed, and give her everything else.

He wouldn’t be here long. Give her everything you want to give her. Not what that fucked up part of him was screaming for.

Screw that. Do it. Show her what you need.

It wasn’t about what he needed.

Her hand slid to his carotid. She stroked, putting pressure on it. She was good at that, too, not cutting off the blood flow, but inciting that dizzy feeling. He swayed and her hand was on his shoulder again, firm and strong.

Slowly, his head dipped. He rested his forehead against her upper abdomen.

Here. This was the spot. He would stay right here and hold it together. A sigh lifted and lowered his shoulders, and he put his arms around her hips. Curled his fingers into her waistband, dug in hard. She was a buoy in a storm.

His Mistress stiffened at the uninvited intimacy, but after a bated moment, she curled her fingers in his hair again. Stroked his nape, for at least a dozen heartbeats. Then her patience with him expired. She tightened her grip and pulled his head back.

He let his arms drop. It was enough. Any more, and that monster would be loose, and he wouldn’t be able to contain the agony inside it.

Inside him.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Mick’s move, resting his head against her abdomen, curling his arms around her tight enough to suggest she was keeping a drowning man above water, startled her. But her desire to keep standing there, just stroking his head, was even more unnerving.

She didn’t like to get into a rut, a routine. She liked to change things up. There was no need here. The terrain between them had terraformed over ten years, and was waiting for them to explore it.

Even so, a tornado of knives could come through at any moment, cutting everything she’d built for herself to ribbons. She had to stay sharper than they were, keep her armor thick.

She moved back, lifting a finger to keep him where he was. Going to the switch panel, she chose the spotlight she wanted. The warehouse safety lights and upper windows offered enough illumination to get around, but she wanted to see his reaction to the options she had.

Tape on the floor carved out a circle among the jungle of floats. Though he probably thought she rented out the warehouse for storage, the floats were hers. She bought them at auction, retired from parades across the country. A late-night Internet hobby. She liked the dark circus atmosphere it created.

The spotlight shone on a pillory inside the circle. The device was cold and unforgiving metal. She could lower the post to put a man on his knees, if that was where she wanted him. Uncooked rice scattered on concrete could be unforgiving.