Chapter Seventeen

Kennedy’s nipples went tight with need the minute Isaac’s molten gaze landed on her at the door to the pool room.

“You’re trying to kill me, aren’t ya?”

He stepped toward her, his gaze tracing the series of thin straps over her shoulders, around her rib cage, over her hips—they were all that held the small triangles of fabric in place. Her one-piece swimsuit was adequate for the occasional soak here, and more appropriate if she happened to run into a client at the pool, but when she wanted to feel sexy, it was the skimpy turquoise bikini she put on. Appropriate that her favorite piece of clothing was essentially tied to her body. Just imagining Isaac untying it had her struggling to control her breathing as his gaze raked her body.

She glanced pointedly at the tight board shorts he wore, the thin fabric hiding nothing from her imagination—including the hardening of his cock. “I don’t think dying is what you’ve got in mind.”

“Oh really?”

She moved closer, dared to bring her hand up to cup his erection. Gave him a squeeze. “Really.”

With a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a roar, Isaac swooped her into his arms and charged toward the pool. Ignoring her shrieks of protest, he swung back and then launched her into the air. Kennedy was laughing so hard when she hit the water that she choked on her first mouthful and came up sputtering. “You dick!”

Isaac swam smoothly beneath the water to surface directly in front of her. His thick arm circled her in a bear hug. “Careful. I might have to tie you up, then punish you for calling me names.”

“Oh, is that right?”

The glint in his sea-glass eyes filled her heart to bursting. When he’d first appeared at her office door, there’d been something off, something almost…glazed in those eyes. She’d wanted to make that look disappear, and seeing him now, she knew there was nothing but sex and laughter and her in his mind. She could give him that, just like he gave her so much. It was perfect.

Almost too perfect to be true.

She ignored that thought as they played with each other in the water, Kennedy smack-talking and Isaac finding ingenious ways to torture her for it. By the time they collapsed on the steps in the shallow end of the pool, Kennedy’s body was burning with need and her mind was filled with scenarios to get what she wanted. Isaac didn’t give her a chance to even try. As if she was no heavier than a guitar he wanted to inspect, he flipped her over, adjusting her onto her knees with her hands on the lip of the pool, and tugged her bikini bottoms down her thighs. Before she had time to do more than inhale, he’d covered himself with condom from the pocket of his shorts and driven deep inside her.

“Holy fuck!”

If she could’ve thought well enough to speak, she’d agree with Isaac’s guttural words. With her legs forced so close together by her clothes, the fit of Isaac inside her was so tight she could barely breathe. He took up every centimeter, forcing everything out of his way until his body and his cock and him were all she knew, all she could conceive of.

He slid back. Her lungs stuttered. “Isaac.”

Curses filled the air as Isaac pushed back inside, just as deep as before. He crooned to her, murmured about how tight she was, how his balls wanted to explode, how he wanted to take her again and again until they were both raw and sated—except they would never be sated; they both knew that. And the whole time his words filled her ears, he was filling her body over and over and over. His fingers fumbled at the knots centered at her spine, and then her top fell away and her nipples scraped the rough skin of his palms. Isaac used his grip to jerk her back onto him. Kennedy thought she might die if she didn’t orgasm, if she didn’t split in two from the thickness of his cock first.

“Come on, love; come on my cock. Come, Ken.”

The chant gave rhythm to his thrusts inside her, the tugs at her nipples the percussion line of her pleasure. Isaac covered her, caged her, balancing them both on the knife’s edge of release until Kennedy thought she’d go mad—and then a hard pinch to each of her nipples and a thrust that lifted her off her knees tipped the balance and shoved her straight into climax.

“Isaac, Isaac, Isaac!”

A guttural roar left him, and she actually felt the pulsing of his cock inside her as the pleasure took him over. For a moment she regretted the condom he wore, denying her total access to his orgasm, and then the thought was gone as aftershocks shook her body.

Isaac left her settled on the steps, her swimsuit back in place, to take care of the condom, but gathered her securely into his arms when he returned. “Okay, love?”

A smile tugged at her lips. “I’m not sure. Does never being able to walk again count as ‘okay’?” She felt hollowed out. She might eventually walk again, but she’d likely walk funny.

Isaac chuckled against her temple. “I’ll give you a massage later to make up for it; how ‘bout that?”

“What kind of massage?”

His fingers clenched, digging into her outer thigh. “Any kind you’ll let me give you.”

She turned into his neck, her snicker spilling across his skin. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Isaac laid back against the wall beside the steps, drawing her with him until she stretched along his body, her head on his shoulder, his broad chest cushioning her breasts. A deep inhale filled her lungs with the scent of the salt-water pool and man. Why did he have to smell and feel so good?

“Close your eyes and relax,” he said, voice still gruff from the roar he’d released as he climaxed inside her. The memory had her pressing her legs together. She forced her muscles to go limp, anchored by Isaac’s thick arm across her back and the heavy leg he threw over hers. With his other hand he began to kneed the muscles along her hips and butt and upper thighs.

“You feel so right beneath my hands,” he murmured into her hair.

Kennedy did some massaging of her own, smoothing over Isaac’s well-honed body, the bulging muscles from where he held her. “Do I?”

“Yes, you do. So fucking right.”

They drifted in the silence for a long time. The tension that had filled Isaac when he’d come to her door this evening had dissipated. She didn’t want to lose the peace, but neither did she want him to think she wasn’t here for him if he needed it—in more ways than just the physical.

“Do you want to talk about what happened today?”

Isaac sighed. “Couldn’t miss that, could ya?”

He scooted her onto the step beside him, making her mourn the loss of his warmth, his touch. Of course when he came around to kneel between her thighs in the shallow water, eye to eye, she got a perfect view of his sun-kissed good looks. What would he look like on a surfboard riding a giant wave the same color as his eyes?

“I really don’t want to think about anything tonight but you, yeah?”

She loved that little lilt at the end of his sentences, the yeah that seemed like a question but was more of an emphatic this is what I want. And really, she’d give him just about anything he wanted if it relaxed the lines around his eyes, the frown bracketing his mouth like it had when she’d first glimpsed him in her doorway tonight.

Except that frown was back. And there was something else, something in his eyes—a hesitant look that said he was holding something back. “But…?”

Isaac dropped his chin. “But nothing. We’re together tonight; that’s all that matters.”

The tension in his body said otherwise. “Isaac, I can’t give you what you need if I don’t know what it is.” If they were talking about needs, that was hers: to give him what he was searching for.

“No, love. This”—he raised a hand, tucked the wet strands of her hair behind her ear, but he didn’t meet her eyes—“this is enough. You’re not ready for anything else.”

“I’m the one that decides when I’m ready.”

The words were automatic, but so was the dread in her belly. She glanced down, noticing that the hands he’d planted on either side of her hips were fisted tight, the knuckles white, screaming his tension. Or maybe that was denial.

He needed, and he didn’t think she could provide. It was her biggest fear come to life, and it was time to face it. They needed to get this out in the open. “Just ask me.”

“I—” Isaac met her eyes, and his words died. He pressed closer, gathering her against him. “Don’t be afraid, Ken. I’d never hurt you.”

He read her so well. Too well sometimes. “But I might hurt you. By not being what you want me to be.”

“No, absolutely not.” He leaned back, cupping her chin to force her to look at him. “You are what I need.”

But that wasn’t all. “I need you to tell me, Isaac,” she said, her voice ragged with emotion. “Don’t hold back. We’ll never know what we can be if we hold back.”

Her heart stuttered as the words echoed in her ears, forcing her to hear them, to acknowledge them, whether she was ready or not. We’ll never know what we can be if we hold back.

God, was she really ready to let go like that? Completely?

Isaac’s arms caged her, holding her tight and safe against him as he sank lower in the water until his forehead rested in the valley between her breasts, his breath a warm wash of air on her skin. “I need…” He shook his head the slightest bit. “No, I want… I want more than anything to tie you tonight. Completely, no restrictions, no rules but your safe word.” He turned to brush his mouth across her nipple, the wet cloth an unwanted barrier to his skin on hers. “I want your surrender so much I can hardly stand it.”

She closed her eyes. “Even though I’m not really a sub?”

“Hey, look at me.” He waited till their gazes locked. “You submitted the first time I tied you; that’s what a sub is. And the next morning, when you let me control you as you rode me. Are you saying you faked that?”

Kennedy sputtered. A little-boy grin teased Isaac’s lips. Pain-in-the-ass man. She splashed water at him.

“I did not fake anything.”

He grabbed her hands, forcing them behind her back, holding her in place. A shot of something that felt like anticipation hit her belly. “I know that. If you had, you wouldn’t have been able to sit the next day.”

“I—” She shook her head. A tiny smile sneaked past her guard.

“Kennedy.” The amusement still lurked behind his eyes, but his tone told her he was serious. “When are you going to realize that it’s okay to be who you are, to explore? Does a word really make that much difference? Does it erase the pleasure we’ve found together, ropes or not?”

Did it? Something deep in her gut, something she didn’t want to admit aloud, told her he was right. “No.” The word was barely a whisper.

“Are you afraid I would use a label against you, see you or treat you as less than I did before?”

“You wouldn’t.” But others might. They would see her as less than. Just as she’d been guilty of seeing subs as less than.

Isaac’s mouth tightened, his eyes narrowing. “Let me make something very clear, Ken. What’s between us isn’t going to be open to anyone else’s interpretation or criticism or interference. If you had been wearing my collar that night, the visit to Club X would have gone exactly the same. I’d never allow anyone to use you or treat you as inferior. Being a sub doesn’t mean that. Submission is the most precious gift you could give me besides your love, and I’d never let anyone demean you or use it against you.”

Kennedy’s eyes went wide. “L-love?”

“Love.” Apparently he wasn’t afraid to say it. And when he dropped his head to nuzzle her neck, her ear, surrounding her completely, her fear drained away too. “No matter what happens, I will cherish everything you give me. Everything else we can figure out together. Build your trust in me on that one promise, and know I’ll keep it.

“If tonight is a no, then it’s a no. I’m a big boy; I can take a no.” She felt his lips curve against her neck. “I’d love a yes, to know that you’re willing to try, but if we need to wait, we will.”

He would wait, but thinking back on the need she’d seen in his eyes, Kennedy realized she didn’t want to. Why wait when he needed her now? Something inside him was reaching out for this, for her. And something inside her needed this too.

Grasping her courage with both hands, she gave him the only answer she could: “Yes.”