Chapter Twenty
Everett
She was smiling.
That was the part that broke me. Not the part where I let loose the part of me that dwelled in shadow. Not the part where I'd come so hard I nearly blacked out. No, it was that quiet moment where I looked down at her, worried and anxious over having revealed myself and she was smiling up at me.
"Hey," I whispered, too awestruck with her to be more articulate than that.
"Hey," she whispered back, reaching out to cup my face even though the ropes still held her tight.
I turned my head and buried my lips in her palm. I sat up, unknotting her wrists. I slung the rope back down to the bed and then began the slow, delicate process of retracing the knots I had tied over her skin. The white lacework fell away, revealing the image of itself, like a developing negative on her skin. I couldn't help but lean over and press my lips to the marks, kissing lines that crisscrossed her body.
When I reached the final knot between her breasts, I paused and looked for a moment. I needed to burn this image into my brain. The way her pert breasts were perfectly displayed between the X of my rope. If she had let me, I would have taken a picture but I had no idea how to ask such a thing so I swallowed and set to work undoing the intricate knot I had tied. Boy Scouts came in handy.
At last the rope fell away, brushing the chafed skin. She winced a little and it was like an arrow straight to my heart. "The marks will fade," I promised her, transfixed by the sight of the pink lines. I brushed a kiss along the underside of her wrist where the pulse still fluttered, then looked up at her eyes.
She was looking where my lips had been and then reached down to trace the lines between her breasts. "What if I don't want them too?" she exhaled.
If she was trying to make me her slave, she was succeeding.
"Well," I said, clearing my throat and trying like hell to keep from declaring my everlasting devotion. "I guess you'll have to let me do it again?"
It came out like a question, but her eyes went deadly serious. "I didn't think... that was intense," she breathed, catching herself.
I wanted so badly to know what she didn't think, but I didn't press it. She had already given me more than I ever expected. "It was," I agreed.
How to explain how intense it was? I was Everett McCabe. I grew up the golden son of doting parents. I was a literal Boy Scout. I helped old ladies cross the street. I was the upright paragon of manly virtue. To want what I wanted in the bedroom; to dominate, overpower and control, it was the opposite of everything I should be. I'd fought it for years, maybe my whole fucking life. I kept it tamped down and under control and I thought I could handle it until Brynn...
And then she'd said yes.
And then she'd let me.
And then she'd liked it.
Intense was too small a word for what this was.
"How are you?" I asked, checking in, worrying. I smoothed my hand lightly over the places the ropes had marked. "Can I get you anything?"
Her lips curved back into that smile and she touched my face with her newly freed hand again. "What are you?" she asked.
I blinked. Then stiffened. Pulling away, I looked down at her. "What do you mean?" I ventured cautiously.
She sat up, shaking her head. "I can't..." She peered closer at me. "There are two of you in there, aren't there?" she asked, staring into my eyes. I blinked and swallowed. "Jekyll and Hyde, right? Boy Scout Rett and Rett the..." She blushed.
"The pervert?"
"No." She shook her head. "Is that what you think? That you're perverted?" She bit her lip and grinned, subconsciously tracing the line along her wrist. "Well then guess what?"
"What?" I breathed.
She slid her hand over my sheet and closed it over mine. "Guess I'm a pervert too."
My heart turned a cartwheel in my chest, crowding my lungs so I couldn't speak. She leaned back onto the headboard. "So... oh fuck I sound like such a fucking girl when I ask this shit."
I grinned faintly at her. "You are a girl," I reminded her, reaching out to brush her breast.
"Fair point."
"What were you going to ask?"
"Well..." She bit her lip and looked away. "Is that what we're doing now?" She cleared her throat. "Being perverts together?"
I clenched my fist and then relaxed it. Slowly I regained control, pushing down the part of me that was ready to fall to my knees and declare my devotion. She was still thinking of this as a bit of fun. A diversion to keep her occupied over her summer vacation.
If that's what it took...
"Yeah. Sounds good to me," I said, stretching. If she wanted casual, I would be casual. I would do whatever she wanted. She just had to ask.