Raine cried out and arched up for more, trying to drown the dread snaking through her with the euphoria of his touch.

He bent to her ear, his voice brutally gentle. “We don’t have a problem communicating when I’m fucking you into oblivion.” Then he withdrew his fingers, leaving her cold. “It’s here.” Liam tapped her forehead, right between the eyes. “This is where I lose you, where all our troubles lie.”

“You’re right. I know. I said I’d try harder.”

“But what you meant is that you’ll find more creative ways to hide from me. Close your mouth. Don’t deny it. If you lie, I’ll truly punish you and I’ll make sure you don’t like it.”

Foreboding mixed with her arousal to create something so confusing, Raine had no idea what to say. “I understand, Sir.”

“Then prove to me that I’m important enough for you to knock down your walls and learn to trust. Show me I’m not wasting my breath.”

“I’ll do my best. But it’s not that simple. You don’t understand.”

His brows slashed down in a thunderous frown. “Really? Your father hurt you and Hammer pretended he didn’t want you for years, so now you think you’re not good enough for any man, and if I see the real you, I’ll run screaming in the other direction like some bloody nancy? Is that what you think I don’t understand?”

God, it was as if he’d shoved her in front of a mirror, then sliced her to the bone so he could force her to watch herself bleed. Though she’d done her best to hide, he still saw right through her. It felt like being naked in the middle of a crowd. Panic threatened. She tugged at her bonds, struggling, though she knew it was pointless.

“Stop,” Liam growled. “Damn it, Raine, how do you expect to learn to surrender when you spend so much of your energy fighting me and yourself?”

She had nowhere to escape his penetrating stare. Her heart chugged. The moment felt so intimate. So petrifying.

Raine closed her eyes and turned her head away.

He grabbed her cheeks and forced her to look back at him. She didn’t have the guts to open her eyes and see what was on his face. Disappointment? Anger? Scorn?

“The only way you’ll be escaping me now is by using your safe word. Say it or look at me.”

Using her safe word when he wasn’t physically hurting her would be the coward’s way out. He was trying to help her learn to give more of herself. She needed this lesson. But he’d already seen so deeply inside her, more than maybe anyone ever…

On that fateful morning he’d offered to train her, he’d told her that he intended to split her open like a ripe peach. She’d been almost smug in the belief that she’d never give him that power. Damn, she’d been a fool.

Hitching in a sob, she forced herself to open her eyes, though she couldn’t see him through her thick tears.

A voice in her head told her that sharing all of herself wouldn’t be as scary as facing an executioner. It would probably be beautiful. Raine still didn’t know if she could do it.

“I know the fact that I’m not giving myself over to you is damaging. I just keep trying to solve my problems so I don’t have to bother you.”

“It doesn’t work that way, and you know it.”

In her head, Raine did. A plea for his reassurance sat on the tip of her tongue, but she silenced it. She had to give him control.

“Raine…” He wiped her tears away, his fingers terribly gentle.

Her heart wept. Liam was so kind, so tender… She blinked up at him, resisting her every instinct to crawl back inside herself and hide.

“Good. Stay with me now.”

He eased down her body, his lips dragging over her skin, sucking slowly at each nipple before he lowered his mouth to her pussy and took a long, slow lick. She shuddered with the sensations of her soul splitting open and oozing need, her body wired and alive.

He groaned. “The taste of you, love… So perfect on my tongue.”

“Liam,” she sobbed and writhed. “Help me. Tell me… What do you want?”

“You, Raine. All of you. From the sweet to the tart and everything in between.” He sucked her clit between his lips, pulling and scraping the bud with his teeth. She arched her hips, desperate for more of his mouth on her. Liam only pulled back and slapped her clit. “You’re not in control here. Give it to me.”

She choked back a cry, her pain melding to pleasure as he slid two fingers in deep, grazing the sensitive bundle of nerves.

“We could be so good together, if you’d just trust me.”

“It’s not you,” she swore.

“I know. But I want to be the man you finally let in.”

His incessant fingers drove into her pussy, his thumb swirling over her clit. Panting and whimpering, she arched, waiting and hoping for his command to come.

“You burn so sweetly for me. And you’re so close to orgasm you can almost taste it, can’t you?”

“Yes!”

He pulled away from her quivering pussy, then straddled her body. His engorged cock hovered inches from her mouth, the weeping crest glistening. Mouth watering, she opened to take him deep between her lips.

Instead, he leaned over her and unfastened the cuffs, setting her free. Then he rolled to her side, no longer touching her. “All right, then. Stroke your pussy for me, Raine. Make yourself come. Show me how much you want me.”

Raine would far rather have Liam touch her, but he’d given her a direct order. He was allowing her pleasure. She didn’t dare question him or ask for more.

With a jagged sigh, she slid her fingers to her swollen clit. In seconds, she was panting, falling over the edge as a hard, fast climax tore through her. Even as her thighs tensed and her body shook, the orgasm was hollow, a parody of pleasure. It left her wanting.

And she knew exactly what was missing… Liam.

Reaching for him, Raine murmured his name.

He grasped her wrists. “Did you enjoy that?”

Physically, she had. But emotionally, knowing that he hadn’t allowed her to give him pleasure in return left her feeling wretched, empty, and wracked with guilt. “Not without you. I feel like…you gave and I took, but it was one-sided.”

“Exactly.” He backed away from her and off the bed. “Now you know what I feel every damn time you try to satisfy me with scraps of yourself. I can’t dominate what you won’t submit. I’ve tried to do it all for us, but I can’t, no matter how much I want you.”

His words were a silken slide down a razor blade, delivered so softly. But it cut her heart wide open.

He picked up his clothes and silently began to dress. Raine sat up and watched, pressing her lips together in mute horror and trying to hold onto her tears. There was no sense arguing with him when he was right.

Once he’d zipped his pants, Liam looked down at her with such profound sadness. “Hear me well. Half of you is no longer an option, Raine. I’ll have all or nothing. I won’t make you take the test before Thanksgiving. That gives you almost three days to prepare yourself for the result. But if you haven’t started by Friday, you will be going to the doctor. I’ll be taking you.”

Chapter 3

Liam resisted the urge to slam the door between him and Raine. As he eased out, he released a ragged breath. Thankfully, he didn’t see Hammer. But Liam had few doubts that his old mate had been listening to his entire exchange with Raine through the wall. The fuckwit probably itched to insist again that she was more challenge than he could master.

Unfortunately, Liam’s problems didn’t end there. His cock stood as hard as a ship’s stern and twice as swollen. His balls ached so badly he couldn’t walk straight, let alone think. As he adjusted himself, he considered finding an empty room and some privacy. Of course, he’d ten times rather have drowned in Raine, helpless and tethered to his bed. The ferocious need to own her all the way to her pretty toes twisted him inside. But no matter which way he took her or how often, Raine never truly surrendered.

Maybe he’d finally reached her today. At least she’d been more honest. But did that mean anything? Raine was like a damn jigsaw puzzle. The tactic that revealed a part of her today wouldn’t work tomorrow. Just after he’d collared her, he’d whisked her up to his lodge and chipped away at her defenses until she’d exposed her soft side. Now that he’d breached her again, he feared she would only hide once more.

Liam resisted the urge to punch the wall. Where the hell did he go from here? He couldn’t give up. If he ever solved her, the heart he uncovered would be big and beautiful. And his.

If that day never came… Hell, he didn’t want to think about that.

In his pocket, his phone buzzed. Liam grabbed it and scanned the screen, smiling at the name of his friend and fellow Dominant back home.

“Hello, Seth.” Liam ducked into an empty room down the hall. “Enjoying the snow in New York?”

The other man scoffed. “You’ll be enjoying it soon yourself, so don’t gloat too much.”

“I’m not coming.”

“You won’t be home for Thanksgiving?” No mistaking the surprise in Seth’s voice.

“Afraid not. I made other plans, but they fell through. Now it’s too late to get a flight, so…”

“You mean I’ll have to fist this turkey all alone?”

Liam rolled his eyes. “You’re a sick bastard, you know that?”

“And proud of it. So why are you staying in L.A. for the holiday?”

“Well, for one, I don’t want to freeze my balls off,” Liam teased.

“It might be cold as fuck here, but at least I don’t have to worry about the state falling into the ocean.”

“True.” Liam leaned against the wall and rubbed a thumb and forefinger at his gritty eyes. “Look, I know I said I’d come back for the week, but circumstances have changed. There’s this woman…”

“Tell me more.”

“She’s a beauty and a spitfire, Seth. You’ll like her, assuming I can ever figure out how to persuade her to come home with me.”

“It’s that serious? You haven’t spent more than fifteen minutes of ‘quality time’ with anyone since Gwyneth, but it sounds like you have more than a hard-on for this girl. What’d she do, put you under some kind of spell with her voodoo pussy?”

Liam laughed for the first time all day. “Something like that.”

“Aww, don’t worry. You’re always cool, collected, and smart. You’ll figure out how to sweep her off her feet. If not, you know some awesome knots. Just tie her up and carry her away.” Seth chuckled. “What about Hammer? When we talked last month, you said he wasn’t himself. Did you figure out what’s up with him?”

“Well, funny that. His problem is the same as mine. Raine. She’s the girl I told you Hammer took in years ago, remember? He’s in love with her. The fucked up part is that she’s in love with him, too.” Liam sighed. “And now, she’s wearing my collar, but there’s a good chance she’s knocked up with Hammer’s bairn.”

“Whoa! What the… It sounds like a fucking soap opera.”

Liam grunted. “It feels like a fucking soap opera.”

“How the hell did all that happen?”

“For years, Hammer refused to admit how he felt about her. But he wouldn’t allow any other man near her. I tried to help them both, but—”

“Help? Meaning that you gave her attention to see if Hammer would claim her in a jealous fit?”

Seth knew him well. “Raine needed a bloody guiding hand and some damn affection. What woman doesn’t deserve that? Hammer sure as fuck wasn’t giving it to her.”

“I guess he finally did or she wouldn’t be knocked up.”

“Oh, he did. As soon as I took her for my own. So now he hates my fucking guts. I’m not too fond of him, either.”

“Holy shit.” Seth whistled.

Liam sighed. “Jesus bloody wept, it really does sound as fucked up as it feels.”

“So which one of you is Raine actually with now?”

“It’s supposed to be me, but I don’t rightly know.”

“What shit are you guys smoking out there?” Seth huffed.

“I almost wish I had some. Half the time, I don’t know whether to laugh, scream, or jump off a bloody bridge.”

“You know the easy answer. Share her, like you did Juliet.”

It sounded so simple. Nothing could be more impossible.

“No chance in hell,” Liam said.

“Why not? You’d both get the girl. She’d feel more secure, get more guidance…”

“Hammer may have shared his wife with me, but Raine? I think he’d rather castrate himself. I don’t want that daft prick touching her, either. Besides, he seems convinced that sharing Juliet caused her death. I’m not sure why exactly, but he won’t risk it again.”