Jenna's Consent (19 page)

A flash of memory of the last time they were together
scorched her mind. Him taking her, owning her just as he did every second. He
buried his hard length inside her.

It was like that every time.

“Don’t remember asking for your input.”

She stopped struggling for a second, astounded he could be
so cavalier with her feelings after the way he left things. She opened her
mouth to tell him where he could go fuck himself and he shoved a ball gag in
her mouth.

“I hikjn yaoindl…” She thought to snap her fingers. Their
non-verbal safe word. The same one they’d used for years. But she just…didn’t.

“Better.”

She stomped her foot while he buckled the gag behind her
head. Yeah she probably resembled a two-year-old, but whatever.

She even wanted to say she was aiming for his foot but that
would have been a lie.

Dawning possibilities exploded in her mind and she wasn’t
going down so easily.

She moved her head forward as far as she could to get it
into the corner the two walls made. She hoped he thought she just wanted away
from the gag.

Fuck that.

Her head snapped back fast, catching him in the jaw, or
cheek, or somewhere hard with the metal of the gag.

It dug into her scalp for a second but his “dammit” was
worth any kind of pain she suffered at taking him by surprise.

A growl tore through him.

He spun her around and hauled her up and over his shoulder
before she could utter a single squeak.

He held her thighs tight against him so she could do little
more than wiggle.

The rest of the rope dangled from her wrists and he quickly
wrapped it around her ankles, hogtieing her as if she were being hauled to
slaughter.

She blissed-out in his rope so fast she didn’t want to
fight.

Her shoulders ached with the position of her arms and she
wanted to hate how much she loved neck rope. It was dangerous and sexy and so
decadently wicked she’d longed to feel like that again.

His cologne, the feel of his hand resting possessively on
her ass, the way he tied her… Deft movements—even better and faster than they
were years before—called to her, sucking her down the rabbit hole.

When he said he loved her.

She struggled again, unwilling to make it easy for him. He
had years of hurt to make up for.

“We’ll be getting better acquainted.”

Jenna mumbled obscenities the whole time as he hauled her
from the room. He whacked her ass and she loved it, pissing her off even more.

“I’m awake, right?” Chris asked the question behind Ian and
Jenna would have laughed if she could have around the gag.

Ian lugged her up to her prep area, taking the stairs
instead of the elevator. She hoped it was because he needed to burn off steam.

“Ahhhat.” He smacked her ass again and she swallowed another
moan.

Ian let himself in. To her room.

Of course he knew the code.

Great.

He untied her ankles and set her on her feet, removing the
rope from around her neck and wrists and stretching her arms out, restoring
blood flow to her upper limbs.

He straightened her arms behind her and tied them together
from her wrists all the way up to her elbows.

Then he moved her beneath the suspension ring, hanging from
the middle of the room.

He tied her wrists, looping the end of the rope to the ring
dangling from the ceiling.

A strappado.

It had been years since she’d let anyone tie her, to bind
her, to take her free will.

Goddamn she’d missed it.

He grabbed a spreader bar from where she kept them in one of
the side closets. Just walked right over to it and opened the right door.

How many times had he been in her space to know exactly
where she kept everything?

“Yu ar hutch a ahhol.”

He wrenched one of her legs up, cuffing her into the side of
the bar. “Pretty sure we’ve already established that.”

He cuffed her second ankle in before she could knee him in
the nose, finishing his complete and utter destruction of her ability to flee.

She expected him to strip her down.

Fuck her.

Own her.

But he didn’t do any of those things.

Instead…he paced.

Back and forth he moved in front of her with his hands
clenched into fists by his thighs.

Agitation bled off him, reaching her in waves of irritation.

Whether his exasperation was aimed toward himself or her she
didn’t know.

She almost felt sorry for him.

Almost.

Shock reverberated through her when he strode over,
unbuckling the leather straps from behind her head.

She groaned when he tugged the ball from between her teeth
and she swallowed to keep her drool off the floor.

He tossed the gag toward the door leading into the bathroom
and surprised her again when he hit his knees in front of her.

His thick fingers dug through her hair, holding it out of
her face.

He massaged her jaw, letting her tuck her forehead into the
crook of his neck.

His breath tickled her exposed shoulder and she breathed in
his scent just in case it was another dream. Just to make sure she took a piece
of him away with her when he left her again.

“I wanted to be…easier when we met again.”

“Easier? What does that mean?”

His forehead moved against hers. “Softer. Easier. Less of an
asshole. But I’m still just…me.”

You were always perfect to me.
She clenched her teeth
to keep from speaking.

“Fuck, I missed you,” rumbled out of him, slapping her out
of her moment of revelry.

She wrenched her head away, instantaneously missing the
contact. “Don’t lie.”

Some of her hair fell forward, blocking him from her view,
but he tucked it behind her ear. “Why would I lie, Jenna?”

She stole a glance at him, looking away because his eyes saw
too much. They always saw more than she wanted to reveal.

“Why you do anything is none of my concern. Not anymore.”
God if she could actually mean that statement…

“That’s so much bullshit I can’t imagine we’re not knee deep
in it.” He got in her face and she kept her eyes firmly on the floor.

He may have tied up her body but she wasn’t consenting to
him having a field day with her emotions.

Not again.

Not ever again.

“I didn’t want to leave you before. I was undercover vice.
You knew it was a possibility I could get pulled away on a case.”

She glared at him, pulling on her
you didn’t just go
there
panties. “You think I’m naïve enough now or then to pull that crap
with me? So you forgot my number, where I lived, how to text and about a
thousand other things making that statement utterly stupid. Cat litter is worth
more than the line of B.S. you just tried to feed me.”

“It’s the truth.”

She kicked up an eyebrow and simply waited.

“Maybe not all of it.”

“You’ve been tight-lipped about your past, your family, for
as long as we were together. Does this have anything to do with that?” “Family.
What a crock of shit. Especially when you’re the black sheep of it and everyone
looks down their damn noses at you.”

“Maybe if you talked about it then you’d—”

“No.”

“But if you need to get it off your chest—”

“You’re so fucking stubborn,” he accused.

“Ditto, dumbass,” she muttered.

“Do you even want to know why I’m here?”

She barked out a brittle laugh and clenched her fingers
together. “As if I care, Ian. You won’t be here long enough for it to matter
anyway.” She mumbled the last part under her breath, doing her best to get
under his skin.

“You sure as hell cared when I was balls-deep inside you the
other night and you were coming around my cock.”

Oh, fuck.

It was him.

She’d thought she was imagining things. The similarities to
him and another man.

Part of that made her feel better about being shared.

Shared…

She shook her head back and forth, trying to shake away the
fear of what he must think of her.

That he was part of her first and only ménage made her want
to cry in happiness. Knowing he would never forgive her made her want to
crumble.

“It was my tongue on your clit when you came the first time.
My fingers on you, my cock inside you at the end. Mine, Jenna. Mine.”

“I’m not yours,” she snapped. “You have no claim over me
after you walked away last time.”

“Really?”

He moved behind her and she prepared for him to spank her,
to mark her, to bruise her, to prove he still owned a piece of her no matter
how small.

But the strike never came and then the sound of a zipper
being lowered made her shiver.

She froze, expecting him to take her, to use her. Moisture
rushed to her sensitive inner folds and she wanted to curse her reaction to
him.

But he didn’t touch her.

She moved as much as she could to see him and he was
crouched down, next to her rope bag.

He stood, striding back around her and tossed something at
her feet.

“No claim, huh? None at all?”

Her mask.

Pain, panic and regret tore through her system like a flash
flood breaking through a levy.

He undid the cuffs at her ankles, tossing the spreader bar a
few feet away.

“Don’t lie to me. After everything we went through, you can
do anything else. Hate me, forget me. But I know you. Even now you’re not as
unaffected as you’d like me to believe.”

He brushed her shoulder with his abdomen as he stood.

She wanted to argue, to curse at him some more, but staring
at her mask stole any other words she would have hurled at him.

The tension on her arms lessened as he untied her wrists and
the end of the rope fell beside her. He pulled her to stand, slowly lowering
her arms at the same time.

She gritted her teeth at the pain, welcoming the distraction
from their reunion.

Standing on her own was more than she could handle and he
knew it.

Feeling weak in front of him scared her. She had to be
strong, to keep some part of her safe as he pulled her into him. She wanted far
more than just physical support.

Instead of sitting her down right there on the floor and
untying her or letting her lean against the table against the far wall, he
pulled out one of the stools around the makeup mirror and sat down.

Did he sit her on his lap and face her away so he could
reach the rope?

No.

Did he have her sit in the chair next to it?

Of course not.

He pulled her onto his lap, making her straddle him and then
tugged her forward until her cheek rested on his shoulder.

His scent surrounded her again and she shivered.

He grabbed her hips, moving her closer until her pubic bone
dug into his pants zipper.

He reached around her, caging her in as he set out to free
her.

The term “oxymoron” had nothing on her.

The untying of the jute took a long time, probably because
he’d tied it so tightly and it was difficult to work loose.

She wanted to believe it was because of the way her body fit
against his, how he could rub his jaw against her head or a palm down her
thigh.

His rope sang to her in his silence, but that was dangerous
because it told her all the things she wanted him to say. As he untied the
double column ties around her wrists, freeing her, she tried to close her ears
to his siren song.

It would do nothing but dash her heart across the rocks
circling the shoreline.

He was dangerous to her. Her sanity, her freedom and
independence.

She didn’t need him anymore.

Not him.

Not after what he did.

He laid her arms down on either side of his thighs and rubbed
them up and down, urging her blood to flow back to her fingertips.

It was all-consuming to feel his strong hands against her.

She tucked her arms between their bodies to push him away.

“Not yet,” he soothed, grasping the back of her neck,
holding her to him.

She listened, no matter how much she wanted to fight him.

Satisfied she wasn’t going to go anywhere, he picked up his
length of rope from wherever he had it behind her. Maybe across his knee.

He moved his arms back and forth and she didn’t even have to
open her eyes to see what he was doing.

Coiling his rope.

The look of concentration that would be on his face to get
it just right, the way the muscles in his arms moved and flexed as he wound the
strands between his fingers back and forth. His look of satisfaction as he
tucked the end of the rope into the wraps he wound around the middle.

She remembered him doing it before.

After a long scene together and after he cared for her, he’d
coil all his rope, readying them to start again.

She curled her fingers against his chest, pushing her upper
body away from him. He held her hips to him, kneading her flesh, enticing her
to stay.

Jenna stared at him, confused, wondering so many things. But
for once she kept her mouth closed, along with her heart.

“For you,” he mumbled.

He held the rope up between her arms, giving it to her.

As if it were some sort of peace offering.

A gift of rope from a rigger to their bottom was a big deal.

She took it with one hand and their fingers met around the
substance that brought them together the first time so long ago.

The sizzle and a shock of electricity zapped up her arm and
she cried out. She tried to trap the sound but it would stay caged no longer.

His mouth was on hers before she could say his name.

It wasn’t all his doing, though she wanted to blame him for
it.

They met in the middle, coming together with an explosive
kiss poets could write sonnets about.