Release Me

know.”
    “Damien, no. Please, no.”
    He pauses and looks at me. “Do you know what a safeword is?”
    “I—yes. I think so.”
    “No doesn’t always mean no. But the safeword always means stop. If I go too far, that’s what you say. Do you understand?”
    I nod.
    “What do you want your safeword to be?”
    My vocabulary has entirely left my mind. I look around the room, as if something will leap out at me, then gaze out at the ocean. “Sunset,” I say finally.
    His mouth curves into a smile, he nods, and then he ties thedrape to the post at the foot of the bed. I swallow and watch him.
    Slowly, he reaches for my right foot, easing my legs apart. He looks at me, and I see the question mark in his eyes.
    “Will you hurt me?”
    His eyes dart to my scars. “Do you want me to?”
    “I—I don’t know.”
    “Do you know what passion is?”
    I blink, confused.
    “Most people think it only means desire. Arousal. Wild abandon. But that’s not all. The word derives from the Latin. It means suffering. Submission. Pain and pleasure, Nikki.
Passion
.” The flash of heat that burns across his expression is unmistakable. “Do you trust me?”
    “Yes,” I say without hesitating.
    “Then trust me to take you where you’ve never gone before.”
    I nod, and he looks at me with such naked desire that warm satisfaction fills me. Gently, he binds my ankle, then moves on to the other. When he’s done, I’m spread-eagled on the bed, naked and helpless and undeniably turned on.
    “You’re mine, Nikki. To touch. To soothe. To pleasure.” He tenderly cups my sex. I’m slick and hot and he groans with desire. “I want you, Nikki. I want to bury myself in you and fuck you hard. I want to hear you scream when you come. Tell me you want it, too.”
    “Yes, oh, yes.” I’ve wanted it since he first touched me. Wanted to feel him inside me, filling me, claiming me.
    He sits beside me on the bed, still in jeans and T-shirt. He trails his index finger up my stomach to my breasts. Slowly, he circles one, then the other. “Should I make you beg for it?” he teases.
    “I will,” I say, utterly shameless.
    His expression is devious. “I want you hot, I want you desperate.”
    I swallow. “I already am.”
    “We’ll see,” he says. Then he reaches for the robe and pulls off the sash. Without his eyes ever leaving mine, he puts it over my eyes.
    “Damien?”
    “Shhh.”
    He ties it behind my head. I think of the word
—sunset
—but I keep it to myself. I want this. I want to
feel
, and how much more will I be able to if I can’t see?
    The bed shifts, and I realize he’s no longer beside me. I bite my lower lip, but I refuse to call out. He’s playing a delicious game with me, and I fully intend to hold my own. He’s taken me full circle, I realize, from fear and shame, to excitement and arousal. I don’t think anyone but Damien could do that, and whatever he has planned for me now, I trust him.
    I jump as something cold and wet hits my breast.
    “Ice,” I whisper.
    “Mmm.” But he doesn’t speak, because he’s licking the water off, his mouth hot against my nipple. He traces the cube down my belly, and my muscles jump and twitch from the cold and from excitement. His mouth follows, his tongue, his lips. He leaves a hot trail down my body. I tug against the sash that binds my wrists, wanting to touch him, wanting to rip off the blindfold. And yet I don’t want to, either. There’s something exciting about being so totally at his mercy. Of seeing just where this will lead.
    My legs are spread wide, and I can feel the cool night air against my soaking wet sex. I shift my hips, partly to try to quell the growing need and partly as an invitation. Either that or a demand. I want him in me, and I want it now.
    “Getting anxious, Ms. Fairchild?”
    “You’re a cruel man, Mr. Stark.”
    His laugh suggests that I don’t yet know just how cruel, and then I feel the bed shift again. One finger stays on my belly, but Idon’t feel the rest of him. And then—oh, God, yes—I feel his warm breath against my sex followed by the brush of his cheek against my inner thigh.
    I almost come right then, and my hips buck up involuntarily.
    “Please,” I whisper. “I’ll beg. Damien, I’ll beg.”
    “I know you will, baby.” His mouth is right there, and then I feel the sharp flick of his tongue and I cry out from the almost painful pleasure that shoots through me. “But you’re not ready yet, not quite