“Take off your clothes, Bianca,” he ordered, still in that offhanded way.

I did, my hands shaking a little. I didn’t know why I was so nervous, I’d had sex with him more than once that very day, but I was nonetheless. I just never knew exactly what he had planned.

“Go sit on the edge of the pool. Put your legs in the water, just up to your knees,” he told me, still in that disinterested tone.

I sat at the edge of the water, leaning back on my hands, watching him.

He was completely naked as he took the steps into the shallow pool. The water came just to his hips, his arousal clearly visible above the water. I trembled, biting my lip as I watched him.

He dipped into the water, just up to a spot right below the tattoo over his heart, standing up straight again almost immediately. All of the wet spots on his body were slick and dripping. My mouth watered. He ran his hands over his slick torso, watching me as he touched his abs and stroked his chest. The plastic covered patch over his heart was the only thing he left untouched.

He glided towards me, hips moving directly between my knees when he drew close. “What does it do to you, when you see someone else put their hands on me?” he asked. “Even the most casual touch. Does it make you crazy? Do you feel like you might do something insane, or even violent? Does it make you sick, deep in your stomach? Does it make your chest hurt, and your insides clench? Does a red haze overtake your vision? Do you lose all ability to be civil, or even form a coherent thought?” He moved against me as he spoke, his mouth speaking directly into my ear, his tone so cold it made my whole body shiver with a delicious kind of fear. He was in a mood, and he had plans for me. I just knew it. And it was nothing I could predict.

“Answer me,” he said, biting my earlobe with enough force to make my back arch, pushing my breasts into his slick chest.

“Yes.”

“Yes to what? Which of those things happens when you see someone else’s hands on me?”

“All of it. I can’t even trust myself, it makes me so crazed. I don’t recognize the person I become when I’m jealous. It’s nothing I’ve ever had to deal with before. I hate it.”

He was adjusting my body as I spoke, bringing my hips to the very edge of pool, which made my words even more breathless and desperate.

He poised himself at my entrance. “Good,” he said, his voice still cold, but with anger now. He entered me, having to work himself in slowly at that angle, my hips right on the edge of the pool.

“Why is that good?” I asked him on a little moan, my eyes going to his as he penetrated me. I had been well conditioned. My eyes couldn’t seem to look away from him now when he was inside of me.

“I want you to feel what I feel. I want you to know what that does to me, what it’s like to feel jealous and covetous. And now you do.”

One of his hands, which had been at my hip, moved up to my neck. He circled it, squeezing lightly.

“Grab my wrist with your hands,” he ordered.

I obeyed.

“If you look away from me, I’ll let up,” he told me. “But I want you to scratch me while I choke you. I want you to try to rip my hand away. I want you to struggle, but don’t look away unless it’s too much.

That will be your safe word, since you won’t be able to speak.”

I nodded, trembling and watching his beautiful eyes.

He used his other hand to push my legs wider apart as the hand at my neck began to squeeze. He thrust slowly in and out of me, but they were heavy thrusts, and so deep.

My hands began to tug at his hard hand at my neck, and I dug my nails into that thick wrist, hesitant at first, but as the pressure increased, I raked at him desperately, lightheaded with the sensation. My head fell back, and he perched me back like that, his hand squeezing and releasing in time to his heavy strokes.

My vision started to get a little hazy, and that’s when he would let up, beginning the drugging process all over again. I hadn’t realized my neck could be such a source of intoxicating pleasure, not in that way. My very pulse seemed to throb in time to his rhythm inside of me. I did what he told me and struggled against him, particularly his hand and wrist, but not one inch of my body wanted him to stop. The choking and the struggling was a marvel to me.

I saw with clarity that I loved to struggle against him, loved to fight him wildly, my efforts not even straining him, not even slowing his purpose. His sheer strength floored me. I relished it.

His grip tightened as he began to pound relentlessly.

My vision went spotty, and I came so violently that I wasn’t sure how long the orgasm lasted, and I wasn’t certain if I had blacked out for a fuzzy moment.

When I focused again, James had his choking hand gripped in my hair to hold me in place as he rubbed out the last of his own orgasm inside of me. He was making these deliciously shivery little involuntary thrusts, his neck arched back. His eyes found mine again, his heavy-lidded and sated.

“Was it too much, Love?” he asked, his voice low and hoarse. “You were having such a fit, I couldn’t tell if you passed out.” As he spoke, he hugged me against him, tilting my head back to look at him from where I was pressed to his chest.

“It was…exquisite. It was fucking perfect, James.”

He swallowed hard, studying me. “It would have been, if we could keep eye contact at the end doing that. But I probably don’t have to ask if choking is on your ‘yes’ list. I think I can figure it out. I need to be very careful with that. You’re so delicate, and I have the urge to be…overzealous when I get your neck in my hands.”

He pulled out of me suddenly, shuddering as he did so. I was right there with him.

“We need to get moving. We need to rush, actually.” He tugged me into the water, dragging me to the steps with a firm grip on the the ring of my choker.

He dried us both with businesslike efficiency, leaving the spa’s plush towels on the floor.

“Get dressed quickly,” he told me.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

We dressed quickly, rushing out of the resort. James held my nape, steering me out of the vast property.

I was completely lost by the time we reached the casino. The place was colossal.

James’s car was waiting when we got to the valet station, Clark ready with the door open wide. He inclined his head to us politely, his face warm and smiling. I thought the stoic man might be softening towards me. “Sir. Ms. Karlsson.”

James was silent until Clark got behind the wheel and started driving, rather speedily towards my house, before he leaned in close to my ear to speak to me. We were sitting very close, but not touching, which was unusual for James.

“So, when do I get to pierce these?” he asked quietly. As he spoke he reached up a hand, pinching first one nipple and then the other. He quickly withdrew his hand.

My mind just went sort of…blank. It had hovered around in the back of my mind in a sort of disjointed way when I’d seen the tattoos, but it was still a shock to hear it out loud. I mulled it over, thinking about the ink he’d gotten on his beautiful skin. If he wanted so badly for me to do this thing, why not? I couldn’t say that I would like the piercings, but I couldn’t say that I wouldn’t, either.

“I thought that was all a joke,” I told him, but I didn’t say no.

“I wasn’t joking, obviously. But if that’s really what you thought, I won’t make you do it. And I am certainly willing to wait until you’re ready. There’s no reason to rush it.”

I thought about it, really thought about the deal we’d made. I had told myself that he was joking, but had I really thought that he was? If I was honest, I had known on some level that, though he was being playful, he always did exactly as he said he would.

I met his gaze steadily. “I’ll do it. I think I tried to convince myself that you were joking, but I’m beginning to understand you enough to know that you always do as you say.”

He pulled my head back lightly by the hair, and began to kiss me, an open-mouthed, hot kiss. He took his time before pulling back. “Thank you for being honest. But you still don’t need to do it. I wouldn’t force you, even if the thought appeals to me strongly.”

“I’ll do it. I said I would. And, though I can’t deny I’ve never thought of doing something like that, it appeals to me simply because you want it so badly. I can’t seem to help myself. I want to please you. I love to please you.”

He reacted strangely with a sharply indrawn breath. He leaned his head back against his seat, shutting his eyes, his face a little drawn.

He found my hand and squeezed it in his. “Thank you, Bianca.”

An unexpected laugh escaped me suddenly. He opened his eyes, giving me a puzzled look.

“Sorry,” I told him, smiling warmly into his eyes. “You just looked so relieved that I would pierce my nipples and it struck me as funny. That’s such a strange thing to be relieved about.”

He smiled at me, but it didn’t reach his eyes. It was a sad kind of smile, and I felt my own fade a little.

“I was relieved, but not about the piercing. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very happy about that. But it was what you said that eased my mind. The thought that you love to please me, it gives me hope. If you truly love to please me, you won’t leave me. You’ll stay with me, and live with me. If not now, then eventually. I can at least hope to talk you into it.”

I flushed. I still thought moving in with him was ridiculous, but I could see that I had already softened towards the idea, and for just the reason he had latched onto. I loved to please him. But more, I loved him. I wondered if I would have the courage to tell him. Not anytime soon. It was still a shock to me to even think it, to even realize it fully. How had this happened so fast? But how not? With him being so charming, and so perfect, so heart-achingly beautiful, but tarnished in all of the right places, and in all of the ways that I understood so well, how could I not love him?

“Did you like Frankie?” he asked. The change of topic made me flush, but for a different reason. And why did he sound so smug when he asked that question?

My mouth tightened involuntarily. “Have you slept with her? Because you seem to like her,” I told him, trying to pull my hand away.

He gripped it more tightly, still with that smug smile. “No. She’s a very close friend of mine, though, so I would like you to get along with her.”

I felt my face turning red. I looked away from his infuriating face. “I doubt I will. She likes to touch you, and talk about your body.”

“Would it make you feel better to know that she’s a gold star lesbian, and a dominant herself? She and I are as about as platonic as a male and a female can be.”

I blushed impossibly harder, feeling silly and ridiculous suddenly. Because it did make me feel better to know that. Worlds better. I was a fool.

“What is a gold star lesbian?” I asked him.

“Never been with a man, never even thought about it. She liked you, I could tell. I should probably be the jealous one, with the way she was looking at you. But I’m not. She’s too good of a friend. She may be envious of what we have, but she would never cross a line. She knows that you’re important to me.”