Loves Me, Loves Me Knot (7 page)

She chose that moment to scoot back even farther and lower her head until her lips grazed the tip of his cock. A shock of electricity rolled down his dick and flashed like lightning through the rest of his system.

“I’m not sure I’m going to be able to dial, let alone talk, with your mouth on me.”

“Mmm.” She parted her lips a fraction and let her tongue dart out to lick his sensitive flesh. “That could be a problem. Maybe we should wait until after we’ve eaten to participate in more . . . interesting activities.”

But instead of stopping, instead of pulling away, she opened her mouth even wider and engulfed him by a full inch.

Though he didn’t know how he retained the ability to speak, he managed a wobbly, “I like the sound of that.”

Tugging once more at his arm, he tried to touch her face, tried to run his fingers through her hair, but his hand wouldn’t budge.

He frowned. What the hell was going on? Why couldn’t he move his right arm?

He gave up on the right and tried to lift the left. Same problem. Same dogged resistance.

Okay, this was getting ridiculous.

He rolled his head on the pillow, first to one side, then to the other, in an effort to see what was holding him back. There was something there, he knew it, but his eyes wouldn’t seem to focus. And the more he tried to clear his vision, the worse it got.

He returned his gaze to Jenna, who still hovered above him. Their surroundings were different now, though. He could no longer hear the waves lapping outside the open balcony door or smell the fresh scent of the island breeze. The four walls surrounding him didn’t look like those of the hotel room where they’d honeymooned, but were darker, plainer, and closing in on him.

Mind searching for an explanation, he turned his attention back to Jenna. Something felt strange. Wrong.
And suddenly Jenna didn’t just look sexy, wanton, and desirable, she also looked . . . guilty.

“What did you do?” he asked, brows knitting as the words came out slurred. “What did you do?”

Jenna didn’t know whether to continue or run off in a panic. The pills in the beer had worked just the way Grace said they would, but now Gage seemed to be coming around.

On the one hand, that was good—it meant he would be more physically able to respond to her touch.

Not that she had much doubt about him in that respect; she knew Gage’s body well enough to know he could be in a coma and would still likely react to her caressing his junk.

On the other hand, being awake and lucid meant he might begin to put two and two together, figure out what she was up to . . . and take the house apart in a blind rage. She’d seen Gage angry before—never at her, thank goodness—and it hadn’t been pretty. But she knew his strength, and she knew he wouldn’t take kindly to being tricked or manipulated.

Swallowing hard, she ignored the trickle of self-consciousness that niggled at her and double-checked the ties at his wrists.

“I didn’t do anything,” she lied in what she hoped
was a soothing, believable whisper. “Now relax, the fun is just beginning.”

He shook his head where it rested on the white pillow, his arms pinned above him, tied to either side of the headboard with a couple of her hand-knit boas. One of them was purple and not quite finished, started with the homespun alpaca yarn Aunt Charlotte had given her before leaving. The other, and the two binding his ankles to the footboard, were ones she’d brought along from home. Grace had helped her set them up and then tuck them unobtrusively under the bedding before taking off with Ronnie, so that all Jenna had to do after drugging Gage and luring him into the bedroom was secure him with the already prepared restraints.

It all felt so bad and manipulative and . . .
wrong
to Jenna on several levels, but she and Grace and Ronnie had discussed the situation
ad nauseum
, with no other solution coming to mind. Add to that the nearly two years of wishing, dreaming, regretting, and basically circling around to the very same conclusion . . .

This might not make her a good person, but it was what she had to do in order to move on with her life rather than wallowing in sadness and regret for the next fifty years.

With that thought firmly in mind, she took a deep breath and moved on to the task of stripping them both bare. She started with herself, crossing her arms over her abdomen and lifting her blouse off over her head. Then she did the same with her long, flowing skirt, because it was easier than shifting around to get it down and off past her feet.

She sat back, perched on Gage’s denim-clad knees in only a conservative white bra and panty set. It had
been so long since they’d been together—so long since she’d been with anyone—that even just the act of undressing felt awkward and naughty.

But naughty in a good way. She could feel the blood turning thick and warm in her veins, and her nipples were beginning to bud inside the padded cups of her bra.

It should be just like riding a bike, though, right? Climb on, grab the handlebars, and start peddling. How hard could it be?

Glancing up into Gage’s face, she noticed that his lips were pressed into a flat line and his intense brown gaze was locked on her. “What are you doing?” he grated.

Oh, he was awake now. Whatever effect the pills had had on him, they’d obviously run their course, leaving him wide-eyed and alert. Wary, but alert.

Tugging the tail of his shirt from the waistband of his jeans, she pushed the soft cotton upwards, revealing the gorgeous expanse of his broad, tanned chest inch by luscious inch. Since his hands were sort of . . . otherwise occupied . . . there was no way to remove the shirt without untying him, so she settled for slipping it over his head and leaving it there, caught at the back of his neck and under his arms.

It wasn’t ideal, but it would do. The same as leaving his pants bunched around his ankles would have to do.

Hmm. Perhaps she should have thought this through a bit more before tying him to the bedposts. Either that, or stripped him naked beforehand, leaving only her own nudity to worry about.

“Don’t be angry,” she told him in a hushed voice. “I know this is a little unusual, but it’s the only way I felt safe inviting you over here.”

Her fingers moved to his belt, releasing it and the top button of his jeans before slowly sliding down the tab of his zipper. Dragging the thick denim past his hips was made more difficult by his spread-eagle position, but she didn’t let that stop her. A good yank did it, and she was able to shimmy them down his legs to bunch around his calves.

The thin material of his black boxer briefs didn’t leave much to the imagination, and she could clearly see that he was interested in what she was doing to him—or at least his body was. Not throbbing, frothing, fire-poker interested, but not impervious, which made her feel a little better about the entire situation.

Climbing back into position over his thighs, she took in all the sleek golden flesh her disrobing of him had revealed and felt a flutter of longing low in her belly.

At his throat, his Adam’s apple bobbed and his tongue darted out to lick his lips. “What are you doing, Jenna?” he asked again, the words even more strained than before.

She knew what he was asking—not the what of her actions, but the why. Something she wasn’t nearly ready to confess. So she simply leaned forward, pressed a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth, and whispered, “Making love to you.”

Thankfully, three years of marriage and hundreds of bouts of hot, sweaty, ultra-passionate lovemaking had clued her in to his likes and dislikes. If not all of them, then certainly enough to move them toward that fire-poker thing and get her through this evening.

Laying her hands flat at the sides of his waist, she trailed them upwards, sliding slowly along his tight abdomen, his ribcage, over the T-shirt bunched at his
armpits, and up his arms until she’d reached his hands. She enjoyed every inch of warm flesh and compact muscle, just as she had while they’d been married.

To steal a line from one of her favorite songs, Gage’s body was a wonderland. Even if he hadn’t been a cop, needing to stay in shape to keep up with the rigors of his job, she suspected he still would have been at the gym five or six times a week. Running, swimming, lifting weights. He did a bit of everything, and it showed.

And she appreciated his diligence. She always had, even if his big, muscle-bound, in-shape body tended to make her feel small and somewhat out of shape in comparison.

She’d also always loved his tattoos. She wasn’t inked herself . . . she wasn’t sure she was brave enough to let someone permanently mark her body with a thousand razor-sharp needles . . . but she could certainly appreciate the beauty of good body art on the canvas of Gage’s spectacular physique.

While they’d been together, he’d only had a couple—a tribal rope design around his left bicep and a strip of barbed wire around his right wrist. He’d talked about getting more, but to her knowledge had never started the process.

Since their breakup, however, it looked like he’d not only been busy, but perhaps spent the majority of his free time in a tattoo artist’s chair. She could see the nose of a dragon breathing fire at the top of his right pectoral. Full of bright color and angry passion, it trailed up under the black of his bunched-up T-shirt, presumably to cover the slope of his shoulder. She assumed it blanketed a fair expanse of his back, as well, because the creature reappeared below the line of his waist, its tail
wrapping around his left hip while the tip curled over his pelvic bone and ended just above his groin.

Licking her lips, she linked her fingers with his and leaned down to press a soft kiss on his mouth.

“You remember this, don’t you?” she asked quietly.

She rested her breasts on his chest, the rough, springy hairs there tickling her sensitized nipples. Lower, beneath her belly, she felt him stir and knew her attentions were beginning to have the desired effect.

“You remember me,” she added, and this time it was a statement rather than a question.

His fingers flexed around hers, and she couldn’t read whether it was in desire or anger.

“I remember you.” She grazed his cheek with her lips. The stubble of his jawline tickled, but in a good way, so she did it again.

“I miss you,” she murmured, feeling secure enough to admit the truth only because he was tied up and—in theory, anyway—at her mercy.

She nipped the lobe of his ear with her teeth and was rewarded with a small, low groan. Her lips traveled down the side of his neck, pressing soft, languid kisses along the way. Every once in a while, she let her tongue flick out to taste and dampen his skin.

She’d always loved the way he tasted—salty and masculine, like a man who worked hard and played hard, and wore both scents as his own personal fragrance. High-priced colognes and aftershaves had nothing on
Eau de Gage
.

When she reached his shoulder, she gave the muscle there a tiny love bite through the material of his shirt, almost as though she were attempting to French kiss the dragon itself. A shiver of excitement swept through
her at the mental image before she moved on to outline the sharp edge of his collarbone, the base of his throat, and down to the positively mouthwatering twin rises of his pectorals.

His nipples were tight little beads at the centers of perfectly round brown areolas. Sexy circles over a mostly smooth, broad chest that tapered to a flat, narrow stomach.

Sliding her hands down the insides of his arms, she toyed with the piercing tips, first rolling them beneath the pads of her thumbs, then the palms of her hands. Letting her fingers wander off to explore other parts of his chest, she replaced them with her mouth. Kissing, licking, biting lightly before using her tongue again to wash away any possible sting.

His breaths were coming in shorter pants now, his body stirring under her sensual ministrations. Beneath her breasts, his belly went concave as his diaphragm tightened.

Her own nipples pebbled at the knowledge that she was turning him on. He might not have expected to land in her bed, but he was going to enjoy himself—of that she had no doubt.

She kissed her way down his sternum, her breath whispering over the light streak of hair that led from his navel to his groin. His penis was fully erect now, responding to her every touch and caress, and hungry to be freed from the confinement of his briefs—an appeal she was more than happy to satisfy.

Pushing them down to join the tangle of denim near his ankles, she shifted to straddle his knees rather than his thighs. It was a shame he was on his back and had to stay that way for the duration because she would
have liked to see his rear end, maybe give it a squeeze or take a nice, ripe bite out of it the way she used to.

He’d always had a world-class butt. The kind you could bounce quarters off of—something she knew as fact because she’d tried it a time or two while they were married. He’d put up a fight, acted embarrassed by her fascination with his backside, but had eventually given in.

Forever after, when he was feeling particularly frisky, he’d hand her a quarter and ask if she wanted to put it to good use. Only once, when she’d been mad at him and he’d been arrogantly pressing his luck to begin with, had she threatened to do more with the coin than simply bounce it off his tight ass.

Then again, the view from the front wasn’t exactly a scene out of
Fright Night
. There were no two ways about it—Gage Marshall was a god. An Adonis in blue jeans and tight black tees. Or in this case, nothing but his birthday suit, a few gorgeous tattoos, and the long, feathery restraints wound around his wrists and ankles.

She took in all of that, every plane and angle, every bulge of muscle and inch of sun-bronzed skin. It was ridiculous for her to be nervous about making love to him considering how many times she’d been with him in the past, but that didn’t keep cocoons of anxiety from unfurling low in her belly.

Maybe it had been too long.

Maybe she’d been missing and wanting him all this time more than even she had realized.