shoulder and rolled her onto her back. Her heart jumped when she saw his tense expression. He leaned down over her.
“Do you really believe that, Harper? That the good things can be mixed up so closely with the bad?”
“Yes. I think so,” she whispered, her heartbeat starting to pound in her ears at his intensity.
“Is that what you think it’s like, to be with me? Scary?”
“A little, yeah,” she whispered, staring into his hypnotic eyes. “But it’s wonderful, too. So much so that I would never want to give up the beautiful part, because of the fear.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you about us being together more.”
“I know. I know it is,” she whispered emphatically, reaching up to touch his mussed hair. She dragged her fingers through it, loving the sensation against her skin.
He straightened and her hand fell away from him.
“I’m not going to let you push me out because you’re afraid, Harper.”
“No. I don’t want you to.”
His face looked achingly sober and beautiful when he reached for the edge of the sheet. Slowly and deliberately, he drew it down to below her thighs. He opened his hand along her hip and caressed the side of her naked body, then her ribs and belly. Her breath stuck in her lungs at the expression on his face . . . at a touch that she could only call worshipful. He caressed her thigh and then opened his hand over her outer sex, lightly rubbing her. Warm, achy arousal flooded through her. She felt it again, that sense of being cherished.
Possessed.
“Turn over,” he directed huskily. “Stretch your arms over your head.”
She did what he asked, pressing her cheek to the pillow, her arms above her head. That increasingly familiar, full feeling had swelled in her chest. He swept her unbound hair over one shoulder, baring her completely. Pleasure unfurled inside her as he began to caress her . . .
As he silently owned her.
He traced the lines of her shoulders and her spine. He touched the back of her knees and her thighs, and cupped her buttocks gently in his palms.
“Spread your thighs,” he said, and she did, feeling the cool air tickle at her damp sex. She held her breath. When he did penetrate her with his finger, air flew out of her lungs. She lay there as he stroked her, drowning in sensual pleasure and mounting excitement. Soft moans vibrated her throat as he took her higher. Just when her body began to tense, he withdrew his finger and used both hands to part her buttocks. Her ass clenched tight at the unexpected exposure. She waited, her body subtly vibrating with arousal.
He lightly brushed a fingertip over her anus. She whimpered softly.
“I want you everywhere, Harper,” he said gruffly from behind her. “I want to know you’d allow it. I need it. For me. Do you think that’s selfish?”
She couldn’t draw air. The moment felt almost unbearably intimate. He continued to spread her ass cheeks, making her entire sex, perineum, and anus tingle beneath his stare. Not for the first time with him, she experienced that potent sharp feeling of arousal at the idea of him taking control, of him finding so much pleasure and release in her body. She thought of how he always gave her so much in return . . . of how strangely safe she felt with him.
“Maybe. But then . . . I like when you’re selfish sometimes.”
And your selfishness isn’t like any selfishness I’ve ever known.
He grunted softly and again ran a blunt fingertip between the crack of her ass, caressing her softly. She tensed in excited trepidation.
“Then I’m going to tie up your wrists and put a dildo in you. Get you ready. Then I’m going to use a spreader bar on you. And I’m going to have you.”
Her sex clenched tight in arousal. She wasn’t entirely sure what he’d meant, except for the certainty that he planned to penetrate her anally. But her excitement was spiked with trepidation.
“Won’t it hurt?”
He released the tension in his hold,