Colton is absolutely silent except for the barely audible rush of air I hear escape his mouth in response to my body’s reaction to the delicious torment of his sensual sensory deprivation.

Colton stops the feeling at my right breast and before I can place the sensation, he touches me for the first time by capturing my nipple in his mouth. I buck my hips wildly at the warmth of his mouth on my sensitive bud. “Colton!” I cry out, tugging my hands against my bindings, wanting to touch him. Wanting to thread my fingers in his hair and hold him against me.

He tugs on my nipple with a gentle pull of his teeth and then the warmth of his mouth is gone only to only be felt again on its mate. I feel the strange object circling around my breast before his mouth closes over it again. He groans softly. “Tasty,” he murmurs against me, and its then that I realize that I remember his comment from earlier. He’s teasing me with the cotton candy.

I start to speak and am stopped as his mouth closes over mine again, the sweet sugary taste on his tongue. It’s a soft, tender kiss. A gradual easing of lips and tongue that lacks urgency yet screams of simplistic desperation. His lips travel down my exposed neck and back up, nipping at my earlobe. A slow and welcome torture that is making me want like never before.

I can feel the cotton candy slowly move down my torso to my sex. The confection leaves my skin, and I feel his fingers roaming over me, caressing my folds, and pandering to my body’s addiction to his touch. I gasp in our kiss and Colton absorbs my voracious moan of desire. He skillfully teases me with his dexterous fingertips, and I push my pelvis against his hand, wanting more. Needing the friction to inch me closer to the edge.

I hiss out a breath as he parts me, very slowly slipping a finger into my core. Heat flashes through me as I feel my muscles tighten around him, clenching as fire burns through my veins. He cups me, leisurely rocking his hand as his thumb finds and stimulates my nub of nerve endings. He withdraws his finger and then slowly tucks two back into me. He curves them, rubbing against the sensitive spot deep inside, his fingers and tongue mimicking each other as he intensifies his pace. I fist my hands inside my bindings, my nails digging into my palms, as he quickens the rhythm.

I am so gloriously close to crashing into the oblivion and then all of the sudden I’m not. Colton has withdrawn all touch from me. I cry out his name in frustration. In desperation. I hear a low, rumbling chuckle from him. “Not yet, sweetheart. Turnabout’s fair play,” he croons in my ear. “I want to drive you crazy like you do me.” I feel a softness tickle my lips and I open them, accepting the sweet bite of cotton candy on my tongue. “I want to drive you to the crest, Rylee. Take you to the brink so that your only thought is of me. So that you cry out my name when your body detonates into a million splinters of pleasure.”

His hypnotic words entrance me. Seduce me. And without a hint of what’s next, Colton’s mouth closes over my clit as he slips two fingers back into me. I call out inarticulately at the exquisite pleasure that pulses through me. He sucks, gently teasing me until my legs tighten in impatience. His fingers slowly press in and out of my channel, rubbing, teasing, and urging me higher. I lift my hips to him, reeling from his languorous manipulation, but still wanting more. I pant in need then moan in ecstasy as I feel the quickening start to build again beneath his skilled touch. I am so close. Within a few grazes of my climax. Abruptly, Colton withdraws his mouth. His fingers remain, yet stay motionless deep within me.

Damn him! My chest heaves for air as my body stays wound tight, waiting for the slightest movement to set me off. “Greedy little girl,” he admonishes, his breath whispering over my slick flesh. “I may have to rectify this,” and before he can finish his last word, he withdraws his fingers and slams into me, burying himself to the hilt in my heated depth.

“Oh God, Colton!” The sudden fullness, the unexpected stroke against my patch of interior nerves, makes me writhe against the granite slab.

Colton eases out of me slowly before plunging back in. He continues this slow withdrawal followed by his greedy drive back in, setting a delirious pace that pushes me to the edge. “Come for me, Rylee!” he growls at me.

His words are my undoing. My breath quickens. My pulse races. My muscles tense. My hips grind into him, deepening the burning ache until I am pushed over the edge. I explode like a firecracker. Detonations of little lights explode behind my closed eyelids and a white-hot heat flits though my body. Sensation shatters around me as the first wave of my orgasm explodes. I yell out, all thoughts incoherent as I pulse around him. He stills, allowing me to absorb the intensity of my climax. I release the breath I’ve been holding, my taut muscles, slowly relaxing before another wave shudders through me.

This wave is more than he can bear. My muscles milk his orgasm out of him. He rears back and pushes into me a few more times, my body gripping his. He yells out my name, his own climax tearing through him, and his hips jerking against me until I can feel his warmth erupt within me.

He collapses on top of me, pressing his face into the curve of my neck. Our chests heave in uneven unison, and I can feel his lips form a smile. My breath shudders as I exhale, the frantic tattoo of my heart beginning to ebb. That was … Wow! I go to remove the blindfold and remember that my hands are still tied.

I wiggle underneath him. He laughs into my neck, the vibration of it seeping into my chest. “I take it you want your hands back?”

“Hmm-hmmm.” I don’t think I can speak. My body is still processing what has just happened.

He lifts up and I can feel his hands tugging at my bindings. When one hand is free, I reach down and pull off my blindfold, my eyes easily adjusting to the dimmed light in the kitchen. Colton’s face is above me, etched in concentration as he works the other knot free. I see the lines ease as my other hand releases from what appears to be a velvet type of braided rope.

I reach up to run my hands over his cheeks as he looks down at me, an errant lock of hair falling over his forehead. A shy smile lights up his face. I lift my head and brush a soft kiss against his lips, the only way I can express how I feel, how much what just happened meant to me without having him run for the hills.

I lay my head back down yet Colton’s eyes remain closed, the corners of his mouth still soft in a smile. He shakes his head subtly before opening his eyes and easing his weight off of me. “C’mon,” he says, pulling me up by my arms, “This can’t be all too comfortable for you.”

I hop off of the counter, suddenly modest in my nudity. I look around for my clothes as Colton pulls his jeans up over his naked hips. I put my arms through my bra straps as I watch him button up the first four buttons, leaving the top one undone. I have to stifle a sigh as I stare at him naked from the waist up in pure appreciation of his toned physique.

I hook my bra together and drag my shirt over my head, fearing the disheveled state of my hair. I start to run my fingers through it but stop when I catch more than just a glimpse of the tattoos that line the side of his torso. I’ve never really been able to see the whole of them, so I take a moment to look. Four symbols align vertically down his side, all are similar in their style but different in their image. The first three images are solid in color, the ink filled in completely while the fourth is just the outline. I angle my head, trying to figure out what exactly they are of when Colton looks up and notes my inquisitive stare.


CHAPTER 17


“What are your tattoos of?”

He looks up at me, turning his body and raising his arm overhead so that I can see the markings. “They’re Celtic knots.”

“What do they mean?”

“Nothing really,” he says gruffly, busying himself by opening the refrigerator, which I notice is almost empty, and grabbing a beer.

“C’mon.” I prod, curious as to why he is suddenly averting the question when he’s been so forthcoming all evening. He holds a beer out to me and I shake my head no to the offer. “You don’t seem like the kind of guy who marks himself permanently without having a reason or the tattoos a specific meaning.”

I lean against the counter with my shirt and panties on as he takes a long tug on the beer, his eyes meeting mine over the bottom of the bottle. He slides them down the length of my bare legs and back up to my eyes. “The knots mean different things.” He lifts his arm again to show me as I move near him. He points to the first one just below his armpit, “This one means to overcome some type of adversity in life,” he moves to the next one. “This is the symbol for acceptance. This one is for healing, and the bottom one’s for vengeance.” He looks up slowly, a darkness in his eyes as they hold mine, waiting for my reaction. Waiting for me to probe with the obvious question asking why does he need acceptance, healing, and vengeance. We stand in silence until he sighs, shaking his head at me, disbelief on his face that he’s said so much.

I step toward him, reach out tentatively, and run my fingers down the four symbols on his body, their meanings resonating in me, telling me somehow, someway they are a marker of his past history and where he is in his present state of dealing with it. His body shivers at my touch. “They suit you,” I whisper, trying to convey to him that I understand this range of emotions. “Did you get them all at once? Why are three colored in and not the fourth?”