The door opens before the knuckles of my loosely curled fist can even hit the hard wood. The bite of the cold night nips at my neck at the same time the warmth of Beth’s home welcomes me into 34 Holley Drive.

I’m only slightly aware of either, and neither could beckon me inside the way Bethany’s eyes do. Wide and cautious, but curious more than anything. In this split second, the way she’s breathing, heavy with anticipation—nothing’s ever made me so fucking excited.

“Jase.” She murmurs my name, but not in a greeting. It’s more like an omen.

As I take a step inside, dropping the duffle bag just inside the foyer, she takes a step back, releasing the door and allowing me to close it. It’s quiet; the only sound is the foreboding click of the door shutting.

Bethany nervously picks under her nails as she waits silently.

“You scared?” I ask her and she responds with a huff of a sarcastic laugh and the faintest hint of a smile that comes and goes.

“Is that your question?” she asks me and it’s then that I catch something’s off. Something happened. Squaring my shoulders, I peek behind her. The front hall leads to the kitchen in the back, with the living room to the left and the dining room to the right. It’s all quiet, all dark with the exception being the living room.

“If it’s my turn to ask a question … who do I remind you of?”

My gaze returns slowly to her. I let it travel down her body, noting that she’s in sweats and a baggy t-shirt that reads, Coffee Solves Everything.

“No questions yet,” I answer her and then brush her thick locks of gently curled hair behind her back. “You need to see what I want from you first.”

She leans her weight onto her left heel, tilting her stance and the nervousness wanes some. That’s better.

“I think I got a good idea of that last night,” she says and tries to hide the breathiness that came with “last night” and the rosy blush that slowly rises to her cheeks.

My smirk kicks up, and a warmth flows through me. I knew she needed it. I knew she’d love to be played with.

Lowering my lips to hers, but just barely keeping our mouths from touching, I look her in the eyes and tell her, “That was hardly a nibble of what’s to come.”

Instead of stepping back slightly as I expect her to do so I’m not in her space, she stands her ground and shrugs as she replies, “No need to hold back tonight.” Her words caress my face, causing a longing desire to travel down my body, all the way to my cock.

Keeping my gaze pinned on her, I stand up straighter and gesture to the living room. “After you then,” I offer.

“Not in the bedroom?” she comments under her breath as she walks ahead of me, and I don’t hesitate to grab her hip in my left hand and pull her back into my chest. Her yelp of surprise only makes me harder.

With my lips at her ear, I whisper, “The bedroom is reserved for the nights you beg me the second I walk in to fuck that pretty little cunt of yours.”

The second the words are spoken, I let her go and she falls forward slightly. Barely catching herself although she plays it off, just like she tried to hide her lust for me as she walks ahead of me. I watch her wide hips sway and grab the black duffle bag I’d dropped by the door.

“What’s that?” she asks when she sees it, taking a seat on the sofa easily. As if she’s not nervous at all, and that moment a few seconds ago never happened. It’s cute that she thinks she’s playing hard to get when she’s nothing but eager.

“Rope, for starters.” Her eyes flash, but she says nothing more.

The bag drops with a thud and as the sound of the zipper opening fills the room, she leans closer, attempting to peek inside.

“Ethanol?” she questions with a hint of hesitancy as I pull out several feet of thin nylon rope.

“I’m not sure we’ll need that tonight,” I tell her absently as I let the rope fall to a puddle on the floor and move the coffee table out of the middle of the room. It drags along the floor, and in true Beth fashion she focuses on the bag, walking to it and taking into account everything inside.

A bottle of ethanol, a lighter, candles, a torch, balm, four sections of nylon rope, two large flame-retardant blankets, a weighted blanket, and last but not least, a knife.

Her lips purse as she stiffens by the bag. The worst thing that could happen is that I scare her off. I’ve never wanted anything more than I want this right now.

“Don’t be scared,” I tell her softly with a bit of humor I know will challenge her.

“I’m not,” she bites back, even though she is. I can see it.

“If you could supply a bucket of ice, I think you’ll be grateful for that.”

At my words, she turns her head slowly toward me.

“What exactly is this?” she asks softly, backing away from the bag.

“I’m going to show you.”

Her eyes move to the digital clock and she says, “Eight fourteen…”

“We’ll start the clock at eight if you’d like,” is all I offer her.

When I stand up, the coffee table now repositioned, her arms are crossed and she’s staring down at the bag.

“Your reluctance is understandable, but I promise you, you want this.” My last word hisses in the air, the tempting snake that led Eve to the apple.

“I want at least one question answered first,” she tells me, lifting her gaze from the bag to meet my own.

“One.”

“What kind of business is done at The Red Room?” she asks and a glimmer of a smile pulls at my lips.

“Once you’re tied up with your hands behind your head, I’ll allow you to ask the question again, and I’ll answer it completely.”

The skepticism is there, the hesitation, but slowly she stands tall and leaves the living room, heading to the kitchen. Presumably she’s getting the ice.

I lay down the first flame-retardant blanket and leave the second within reach.

Beth makes her way back into the room holding a glass wine decanter filled with ice. “I don’t have an ice bucket,” she admits to me while I’m still on my knees, fixing the corner of the blanket.

“You nervous?” I ask her, reaching for the decanter.

“You fucking know I am.” She rushes her words like she can’t get them out fast enough, and a deep, rough chuckle leaves me.

“I’m going to need you naked for this,” I tell her as I set the ice down next to the folded-up blanket.

“Of course you are,” she says skeptically, turning away from me and breathing out deep as she shakes out her hands.

“If you want to stop, it stops. I’ll learn your limits. You’ll still get your answers and your debt paid.” I start with addressing her logical concerns, but move to the other side of her thoughts. “The exotic becomes the erotic. Have you ever heard of that?” I ask her.

“I understand temperature play and that this is meant to be …” she trails off and swallows as she turns to face me, her features riddled with a mix of nervousness and fear. “Why like this?”

“Because I crave this,” I admit to her without thinking twice. “It soothes a part of me that isn’t easily kept at bay. I will enjoy every second of this. It’s worth more to me than secrets and a debt.” I didn’t realize how much I needed this, how much I coveted her body beneath mine as I brought out the most intense reactions from her until those words were spoken.

Her eyes close and her body trembles.

“Does this excite you?” I ask her and when I do, her hands move under the hem of her baggy shirt, to the top of her sweatpants and she slowly pushes them down, stepping out of them and then opening her eyes.

Her lips part slightly, ready to answer. But she closes herself off, shutting her mouth and balling her hands into fists at her side. Clearing her throat, she looks away and I remind her, “I’ll answer your question tonight, the single question. But after tonight, it’s tit for tat. Tonight is so you can see what I want.”

She nods her head once and then again, standing only feet from me in nothing but her socks and a t-shirt. “Yes, it excites me,” she finally answers and as she does, the radiator kicks on behind her, making her jump slightly.

“And it scares you?” I ask, although it’s more of a statement. She doesn’t waste a second to answer, nodding furiously.

“I don’t like not being in control. Tied up and…” She doesn’t finish her thought, and swallows thickly.

“You’re thinking too much,” I tell her and her gaze narrows. All the jitters leave her in that instant and I have to smile. “There you go, just remember how much you hate me and this should be easy.”

With her lips pressed in a thin line, she removes her socks first and then reaches behind her back to unhook her bra, revealing a simple white cotton bra with no lace, no frills, no padding.

And with her arms crossed in front of her, she prepares to lift her shirt over her head, but I stand abruptly and stop her, gripping her wrists.

Her skin is hot to the touch.

“I want to do it,” I tell her softly. Slowly, she releases her grip on the hem and I circle her, taking my time to observe how the shirt, hitting just below her ass, is more tempting than I’m sure she thought it would be.

“You didn’t try to impress me, did you?” I ask, although the light in the room shines off her freshly shaved legs, smooth and glimmering.

“This is business, Cross,” she tells me and I simply nod.

“It is.”

Making sure not to touch her skin, I grip her hem and lift the shirt above her head, revealing one inch of skin at a time. The movement is achingly slow. Her body quivers as I let a single finger run along her side. The lone touch causes such a strong reaction in her, and it only makes me that much harder for her.

She doesn’t look at me; instead she stares straight ahead, but she doesn’t cover herself either.

She’s fucking beautiful. Every inch of her. From the freckle on her lower stomach, to the pale rose pink of her nipples. Her hips are wide enough to grip during a punishing fuck, and her ass begs me to smack those perfect curves.

Time ticks as I circle her one more time. “You’re beautiful,” I whisper and the small compliment does wonders in relaxing her stiff posture. “How long has it been since someone’s told you that?” I ask her, standing in front of her and allowing my gaze to roam to her hazel eyes.

She blinks and her lashes seem thicker, her lips fuller, her chestnut hair ready to be fisted as I kiss her. Everything about her is fuckable and desirable.

“I don’t know,” she whispers. Her eyes drift to the blanket and then look back to me. “It’s been a long time.”

I search her expression for an idea of just how long, but she doesn’t give an answer.

“Lie down on the blanket.”

Her shoulder brushes my arm as she obeys.

The blanket moves under her slightly, but her entire body is positioned in the center of it.

Using the longest section of the thin rope, I lift up her thighs, making her knees bend so I can lay the middle of the rope under her ass. I secure her hands with the remainder of the rope on either side of her with a simple bondage knot. I’m effectively making sure she won’t be able to reach up. Half the rope is knotted around her left wrist where it slips under her thighs, right below her plush ass and the other half is knotted around her right wrist. Perfect.

“I’m going to put a weighted blanket across your ankles,” I tell her as I pull it out of the bag, reaching past the sealed bottle of ethanol and one of the two candles.

“Why?” she asks, and I answer easily in an attempt to calm her nerves. “So you’ll have a resistance to lifting them up. It’ll make everything feel more intense.”

With the weighted blanket laying across her ankles, she’s bared to me, bound and somewhat calmer than I imagined.

“You fought very little tonight,” I note.

“Learning the ropes,” she answers softly, opening her eyes for the first time since she looked down and saw the rope twined around her wrists.

“You’re going to enjoy this,” I tell her, lightly brushing my fingers down her stomach. When I do, I hear the weighted blanket rustle, but her legs stay still, immobilized from the weight. Her shoulders shudder and her head lifts slightly before falling back down into a halo of brunette hair.

“I’m ready for you to answer my question,” she says confidently. As if we’re in an interview and she’s not bound on her living room floor, available for me to do whatever I’d like to her.

Her breasts are perky and full; taking them in my hand, I play with their weight and bend down to suck her nipple into my mouth. I moan around her nipple and then let my teeth drag up them. One, and then the other.

Bethany lets her back arch and her body sways to the side, moving further from me as she puts her weight on her left hip. Pushing her back down on the blanket, I blow across her nipple, chilling the moisture I left there and she sucks in a shuddered breath, her head falling back and a sweet sound of rapture leaving her lips.

“I’m going to take my time touching you, playing with you,” I say without acknowledging her earlier remark. “Does that scare you?”

“What are you going to use from the bag?” she asks me and a slight laugh slips from my lips.

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“My answer relies on it.” Her eyes darken, her pupils dilating as she answers me honestly. I can see the plea in her eyes to not push her boundaries, to not touch the bag of supplies.

She should know better than that.

“Everything, Bethany. I intend on taking full advantage of tonight.”

I’m scared, I can’t deny that. My entire body is alive with both fear and something else. Something sinful.

Every tiny hair on my body, from head to toe, is standing on end. My nipples have hardened and every touch from Jase sends a trail of goosebumps down my body that makes me shiver with hunger for more.

More of his warm breath on my chilled skin, more of his fingers barely touching my sides as he brings them down to my hips.

But only if he answers me. He’d better fucking answer me. We have a deal.

“What kind of business do you do at The Red Room?” I ask him as he turns his attention away from me and reaches to the decanter of ice.

He makes me wait for my answer, but not too long.

“I first created The Red Room as a place to conduct other business. My brother’s business, really.”

His voice is far too low, too soothing and seductive for the information he’s relaying. The ice clinks in the glass before he places a single piece at my lips.

I part my lips, intent on sucking the ice, but he moves it too soon, tracing my lips and then bringing it lower. A cold sensation flows over my skin in a wave.

“Eager thing, aren’t you?” he teases me.

“Fuck you.” The words come out quickly but his are just as quick as he says, “Only when you beg me, cailín tine.” I don’t know why he calls me that, cailín tine. Or what it means. And I hate that I swallow down my curiosity rather than ask him. But I want him to answer my damn question.

“My brother was dealing. Drugs, guns, all sorts of things,” he tells me and my focus returns to the one reason I have to allow this. The one logical reason I’d ever willingly put myself in this situation. Jenny.

I ready myself for another question to clarify, but Jase places a finger over my lips. His touch is so hot compared to the ice. “I’m still answering. Let me tell you everything,” he whispers.

He runs another cube from the dip just below my throat, down the center of my chest. His hand brushes my breast until he brings the ice farther, all the way to my belly button, circling it and then moving lower still, letting it sit just where my thighs meet.

The ice itself is numbingly cold, sending a spike of awareness through my body. But it’s the path that I’m so highly aware of. Each trail leaves a bit of water behind and the air cools it, causing every nerve ending there to prepare to spark.

Even though he lets the ice linger at the top of my pussy, he’s quick to repeat the pattern, and I don’t know how it’s possible, but it makes my body feel even hotter. My toes curl on the third round, and my core heats.

All I can do is turn my head, close my eyes and my fists, and try not to let the ice excite me.

It’s an impossible feat, though.

In between every round, he gives me more information, and occasionally asks me insignificant things. Things I don’t mind answering, all the while Jase promises to tell me more. It’s not quite tit for tat, since he’s giving me more and more information about The Red Room and what happened to make it become what it is, all while asking me simple questions that don’t require more than one-word answers. But he’s gauging how my body reacts when I tell the truth. Taking the time to learn my body. My only response to that is that I’m not a liar. I don’t have the time to tell him that though as he continues to feed me information.

“I enjoyed the control. Knowing when and where everyone would meet up. Giving them a space where they could enjoy themselves, and observing them in the meantime. I wanted to know the ins and outs of every partner we had. I wanted their secrets…”

I can barely breathe as he gives me his past so easily, all while bringing the mostly melted ice down farther than he ever has to my pussy, and gently pushing it inside of me. My lips make a perfect O as every nerve ending in my body lights.

He continues his story as my lips part, feeling the rush of desire spark inside of my body. “So we could blackmail them. I used the bar to set everyone up to owe us in some way, or to have information we could use against both our partners and our enemies. In this industry, everyone is an enemy at some point, and we would be ready the second anyone thought they could turn their backs on us.”

It’s exhilarating.

Both his touch, and the tale of how they rose to power. Creating a place for divine pleasures and allowing everyone to taste, for everyone to fall into their grasp to be controlled and their actions predicted so easily.

He lowers his lips to the crook of my neck, letting his warm breath be at odds with the chill that’s slowly melting at my core, being consumed with his criminal touch.

“I sell every addiction possible and I don’t have rules within those walls.” As he speaks, he pushes his fingers inside of me, dragging them against my front wall and bringing me closer and closer to the peak of an impending orgasm. I close my eyes tight, trying not to give in although I know it’s useless. My toes have curled and the pleasure builds inside of me so quickly like a raging storm, unstoppable and demanding its damage be done.

“Every corner of that place is defiled; every square inch has been touched by sin. That’s the kind of business I conduct in The Red Room.”

My neck arches as I give in to the need, a wave of pleasure rising from my belly outward, followed by another, a harsher, more severe wave crashing through me. I can’t move an inch as Jase grips my throat with his free hand and continues to torture me, fucking me with his fingers and drawing out every bit of my orgasm. I wish I could move. I want to get away from the third wave threatening to consume me, but I’m paralyzed as it rages through me.

Every nerve ending in my body ignites, my body shuddering and trembling as my release takes its time, wandering through my body and slowly dissipating. Jase removes his fingers carefully, and I gasp in pleasure as he circles my clit before bringing his fingers to his mouth.

My arousal shines on his fingers as he sucks it off, one by one. I can’t bring myself to look away when he groans in sheer delight.

Even as my heart races and adrenaline and excitement race through me, fear freezes my body when Jase picks up a knife from his bag. It’s only a pocket knife.

It’s just to get the ropes off, I tell myself. It’s amazing how the sight of it destroys the previous moment. I close my eyes, waiting to hear the sound of the blade sawing at the rope, but Jase doesn’t allow me to.

“I need your eyes open for this. You need to stay still and I don’t want the touch to startle you.” He sounds so calm and in control as he splays a hand on my chest. His elbow rests on my shoulder and pins me in place as my heart lurches inside of me, ready to escape.

My gaze begs him to explain, to stop, to reconsider whatever he’s doing as he brings the knife closer to me.

“It’s only to shave the small hairs from your body,” he says, answering my unspoken questions. “I won’t hurt you,” he tells me soothingly as the blade just barely touches my skin. He drags it slowly across my breast, all the way down my mound and then back up, avoiding my sensitive, swollen nub.

“Can I let you go?” he asks me, gently lifting his elbow. “Or are you going to move?”

I can only swallow, I can barely even comprehend what he’s saying since the panic is so alive within me.

“If you move, it will cut you,” he tells me.

“I’ll be still,” I whisper and as the blade lowers to my skin I consider the word, stop. So easy to say. I could say it; it’s right there, waiting to be spoken. But Jase drags the knife along my chest before I can utter it and then he kisses the sensitized skin. An open-mouth kiss that feels like everything. Like this is the way a kiss is meant to be, and every other way is wrong.

My head’s fuzzy and a haze clouds it as he scrapes the knife along my body, leaving a pink path occasionally, but his kisses and the ice make the evidence vanish.

It’s all overwhelming and agonizingly slow. By the time he gets to my pussy, I’m on the edge of another release. My impending orgasm is waiting for the knife, for his touch, for a kiss. But it doesn’t come.

After the longest time, my body feels his absence and I open my eyes. He pours ethanol onto a rag, then wipes down my body in one swift stroke and before I can say anything, a flame lights on a candle and he lowers it to the ethanol, lighting my skin ablaze.

The scream is trapped in the split second, but before its escape, his hand follows the path, quenching the heat and leaving me wide eyed and breathless.

So hot, and then so cold.

With a pounding heart, I take in the reality. “You lit me on fire.”

“No, I lit the alcohol just above your skin on fire.” He does it again and this time hot wax drips with it and I suck in a tight breath, my hands turning to fists from the slight pain, the immediate heat, and the cold absence that comes afterward. My head thrashes from side to side as he does it again and again. The pain morphing to unmatched pleasure makes my body feel alive in a way I never knew was possible.

Every climax feels higher and more unbearable than the last. My words fail me as Jase moves down my body, not sparing any inch of my skin.

The alcohol, the fire, his touch. Over and over. He massages the wax onto my breasts before using the knife to pick it off, and the third time he does it, I cum violently.

The pleasure rages through my body with no evidence of it even approaching until the blinding pleasure rocks through me, from my belly to the tip of my toes and fingers.

It’s as if my body has rebelled, choosing his touch and this heat over any sense of calm. It prefers the chaos, the unknown, the absence of all control and stability.

With my bottom lip still quivering and my belly trembling as the tremors of the aftershock subside, Jase kisses me, madly and deeply. I feel all of him in this kiss and it kills me that I can’t lift my hands up, keeping him where I want him.

I’m at his mercy. Fully and truly, and that very fact plays tricks on me. Telling me I love it. Telling me he knows what I need more than I do.

With every pleasure still ringing in me, he pulls away and stands up, removing his shirt and the light from the candle plays along the lines of his defined muscles. I can see his thick length pressing against his zipper and when he palms it, I have to look away. I’m so close to another orgasm. My clit is throbbing; I feel swollen and used, but he’s hardly touched me there.

The sound of a zipper makes me look back at him and the instant I do, his pants, along with his belt, drop to the floor with a clink and a thud and his dick is all I can see.

His girth is so wide I’m not sure I could wrap my hand around him. I can practically feel the veins pressing against my walls and pulling every ounce of pleasure from me, practically imagine his rounded head sliding back and forth over my clit. Oh my God. He’s massive. He grabs his cock and rubs the glistening precum over the head and that’s when I lose it.

Cumming again, and he didn’t even touch me. That’s how much power he has over me. Just the thought of what he could do to me, how he could ruin me, how he is so much more than any boy I ever thought of letting touch me… all of it is fuel that ignites a raging fire inside.

Jase groans deep in the back of his throat, dropping to the floor so quickly and so hard, I know it will leave bruises on his knees. “Cum again,” he commands me breathlessly, leaning over my body to kiss and bite the crook of my neck as he pushes three fingers inside of me and ruthlessly fucks me with them.

The waves of my last release have barely left me when the next orgasm crashes through me, harder and higher than any of those before. My scream is silent, my body stiff as it commands attention from all of me. My body, my soul.

And Jase doesn’t stop, even as my arousal leaks down my ass, he continues. Even as I feel myself tighten around his fingers, he doesn’t stop.

I can’t. I can’t take it. I can’t breathe.

I can’t move. I can’t speak.

I’m helpless and consumed by fire and lust.

I try to focus on Jase when he whispers in my ear, but my body won’t stop shaking and my neck is rigid. “When you look at me, know this is what I want from you. Only I can give you this.” His words hiss in the air, crackling and demanding to be burned in my memory.

Jase Cross destroyed me and what I thought was pleasure.

And where I thought my boundaries lied with him.