Loves Me, Loves Me Knot

Purl 4

Jenna didn’t know whether to continue or run off in a panic. The pills in the beer had worked just the way Grace said they would, but now Gage seemed to be coming around.

On the one hand, that was good-it meant he would be more physically able to respond to her touch.

Not that she had much doubt about him in that respect; she knew Gage’s body well enough to know he could be in a coma and would still likely react to her caressing his junk.

On the other hand, being awake and lucid meant he might begin to put two and two together, figure out what she was up to… and take the house apart in a blind rage. She’d seen Gage angry before-never at her, thank goodness-and it hadn’t been pretty. But she knew his strength, and she knew he wouldn’t take kindly to being tricked or manipulated.

Swallowing hard, she ignored the trickle of self-consciousness that niggled at her and double-checked the ties at his wrists.

“I didn’t do anything,” she lied in what she hoped was a soothing, believable whisper. “Now relax, the fun is just beginning.”

He shook his head where it rested on the white pillow, his arms pinned above him, tied to either side of the headboard with a couple of her hand-knit boas. One of them was purple and not quite finished, started with the homespun alpaca yarn Aunt Charlotte had given her before leaving. The other, and the two binding his ankles to the footboard, were ones she’d brought along from home. Grace had helped her set them up and then tuck them unobtrusively under the bedding before taking off with Ronnie, so that all Jenna had to do after drugging Gage and luring him into the bedroom was secure him with the already prepared restraints.

It all felt so bad and manipulative and… wrong to Jenna on several levels, but she and Grace and Ronnie had discussed the situation ad nauseum, with no other solution coming to mind. Add to that the nearly two years of wishing, dreaming, regretting, and basically circling around to the very same conclusion…

This might not make her a good person, but it was what she had to do in order to move on with her life rather than wallowing in sadness and regret for the next fifty years.

With that thought firmly in mind, she took a deep breath and moved on to the task of stripping them both bare. She started with herself, crossing her arms over her abdomen and lifting her blouse off over her head. Then she did the same with her long, flowing skirt, because it was easier than shifting around to get it down and off past her feet.

She sat back, perched on Gage’s denim-clad knees in only a conservative white bra and panty set. It had been so long since they’d been together-so long since she’d been with anyone-that even just the act of undressing felt awkward and naughty.

But naughty in a good way. She could feel the blood turning thick and warm in her veins, and her nipples were beginning to bud inside the padded cups of her bra.

It should be just like riding a bike, though, right? Climb on, grab the handlebars, and start peddling. How hard could it be?

Glancing up into Gage’s face, she noticed that his lips were pressed into a flat line and his intense brown gaze was locked on her. “What are you doing?” he grated.

Oh, he was awake now. Whatever effect the pills had had on him, they’d obviously run their course, leaving him wide-eyed and alert. Wary, but alert.

Tugging the tail of his shirt from the waistband of his jeans, she pushed the soft cotton upwards, revealing the gorgeous expanse of his broad, tanned chest inch by luscious inch. Since his hands were sort of… otherwise occupied… there was no way to remove the shirt without untying him, so she settled for slipping it over his head and leaving it there, caught at the back of his neck and under his arms.

It wasn’t ideal, but it would do. The same as leaving his pants bunched around his ankles would have to do.

Hmm. Perhaps she should have thought this through a bit more before tying him to the bedposts. Either that, or stripped him naked beforehand, leaving only her own nudity to worry about.

“Don’t be angry,” she told him in a hushed voice. “I know this is a little unusual, but it’s the only way I felt safe inviting you over here.”

Her fingers moved to his belt, releasing it and the top button of his jeans before slowly sliding down the tab of his zipper. Dragging the thick denim past his hips was made more difficult by his spread-eagle position, but she didn’t let that stop her. A good yank did it, and she was able to shimmy them down his legs to bunch around his calves.

The thin material of his black boxer briefs didn’t leave much to the imagination, and she could clearly see that he was interested in what she was doing to him-or at least his body was. Not throbbing, frothing, fire-poker interested, but not impervious, which made her feel a little better about the entire situation.

Climbing back into position over his thighs, she took in all the sleek golden flesh her disrobing of him had revealed and felt a flutter of longing low in her belly.

At his throat, his Adam’s apple bobbed and his tongue darted out to lick his lips. “What are you doing, Jenna?” he asked again, the words even more strained than before.

She knew what he was asking-not the what of her actions, but the why. Something she wasn’t nearly ready to confess. So she simply leaned forward, pressed a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth, and whispered, “Making love to you.”

Thankfully, three years of marriage and hundreds of bouts of hot, sweaty, ultra-passionate lovemaking had clued her in to his likes and dislikes. If not all of them, then certainly enough to move them toward that fire-poker thing and get her through this evening.

Laying her hands flat at the sides of his waist, she trailed them upwards, sliding slowly along his tight abdomen, his ribcage, over the T-shirt bunched at his armpits, and up his arms until she’d reached his hands. She enjoyed every inch of warm flesh and compact muscle, just as she had while they’d been married.

To steal a line from one of her favorite songs, Gage’s body was a wonderland. Even if he hadn’t been a cop, needing to stay in shape to keep up with the rigors of his job, she suspected he still would have been at the gym five or six times a week. Running, swimming, lifting weights. He did a bit of everything, and it showed.

And she appreciated his diligence. She always had, even if his big, muscle-bound, in-shape body tended to make her feel small and somewhat out of shape in comparison.

She’d also always loved his tattoos. She wasn’t inked herself… she wasn’t sure she was brave enough to let someone permanently mark her body with a thousand razor-sharp needles… but she could certainly appreciate the beauty of good body art on the canvas of Gage’s spectacular physique.

While they’d been together, he’d only had a couple-a tribal rope design around his left bicep and a strip of barbed wire around his right wrist. He’d talked about getting more, but to her knowledge had never started the process.

Since their breakup, however, it looked like he’d not only been busy, but perhaps spent the majority of his free time in a tattoo artist’s chair. She could see the nose of a dragon breathing fire at the top of his right pectoral. Full of bright color and angry passion, it trailed up under the black of his bunched-up T-shirt, presumably to cover the slope of his shoulder. She assumed it blanketed a fair expanse of his back, as well, because the creature reappeared below the line of his waist, its tail wrapping around his left hip while the tip curled over his pelvic bone and ended just above his groin.

Licking her lips, she linked her fingers with his and leaned down to press a soft kiss on his mouth.

“You remember this, don’t you?” she asked quietly.

She rested her breasts on his chest, the rough, springy hairs there tickling her sensitized nipples. Lower, beneath her belly, she felt him stir and knew her attentions were beginning to have the desired effect.

“You remember me,” she added, and this time it was a statement rather than a question.

His fingers flexed around hers, and she couldn’t read whether it was in desire or anger.

“I remember you.” She grazed his cheek with her lips. The stubble of his jawline tickled, but in a good way, so she did it again.

“I miss you,” she murmured, feeling secure enough to admit the truth only because he was tied up and-in theory, anyway-at her mercy.

She nipped the lobe of his ear with her teeth and was rewarded with a small, low groan. Her lips traveled down the side of his neck, pressing soft, languid kisses along the way. Every once in a while, she let her tongue flick out to taste and dampen his skin.

She’d always loved the way he tasted-salty and masculine, like a man who worked hard and played hard, and wore both scents as his own personal fragrance. High-priced colognes and aftershaves had nothing on Eau de Gage.

When she reached his shoulder, she gave the muscle there a tiny love bite through the material of his shirt, almost as though she were attempting to French kiss the dragon itself. A shiver of excitement swept through her at the mental image before she moved on to outline the sharp edge of his collarbone, the base of his throat, and down to the positively mouthwatering twin rises of his pectorals.

His nipples were tight little beads at the centers of perfectly round brown areolas. Sexy circles over a mostly smooth, broad chest that tapered to a flat, narrow stomach.

Sliding her hands down the insides of his arms, she toyed with the piercing tips, first rolling them beneath the pads of her thumbs, then the palms of her hands. Letting her fingers wander off to explore other parts of his chest, she replaced them with her mouth. Kissing, licking, biting lightly before using her tongue again to wash away any possible sting.

His breaths were coming in shorter pants now, his body stirring under her sensual ministrations. Beneath her breasts, his belly went concave as his diaphragm tightened.

Her own nipples pebbled at the knowledge that she was turning him on. He might not have expected to land in her bed, but he was going to enjoy himself-of that she had no doubt.

She kissed her way down his sternum, her breath whispering over the light streak of hair that led from his navel to his groin. His penis was fully erect now, responding to her every touch and caress, and hungry to be freed from the confinement of his briefs-an appeal she was more than happy to satisfy.

Pushing them down to join the tangle of denim near his ankles, she shifted to straddle his knees rather than his thighs. It was a shame he was on his back and had to stay that way for the duration because she would have liked to see his rear end, maybe give it a squeeze or take a nice, ripe bite out of it the way she used to.

He’d always had a world-class butt. The kind you could bounce quarters off of-something she knew as fact because she’d tried it a time or two while they were married. He’d put up a fight, acted embarrassed by her fascination with his backside, but had eventually given in.

Forever after, when he was feeling particularly frisky, he’d hand her a quarter and ask if she wanted to put it to good use. Only once, when she’d been mad at him and he’d been arrogantly pressing his luck to begin with, had she threatened to do more with the coin than simply bounce it off his tight ass.

Then again, the view from the front wasn’t exactly a scene out of Fright Night. There were no two ways about it-Gage Marshall was a god. An Adonis in blue jeans and tight black tees. Or in this case, nothing but his birthday suit, a few gorgeous tattoos, and the long, feathery restraints wound around his wrists and ankles.

She took in all of that, every plane and angle, every bulge of muscle and inch of sun-bronzed skin. It was ridiculous for her to be nervous about making love to him considering how many times she’d been with him in the past, but that didn’t keep cocoons of anxiety from unfurling low in her belly.

Maybe it had been too long.

Maybe she’d been missing and wanting him all this time more than even she had realized.

That wasn’t something she particularly wanted to contemplate at the moment, however. It was too deep, too raw, and if she hadn’t figured out her feelings for him in the last year and a half they’d been divorced or the months before when she’d been torn over whether to file or not, then she wasn’t likely to have some amazing epiphany in the next five minutes.

So she pushed that aside, tamped it down and buried it away once again, bringing her attention back to the matter at hand. And speaking of hands…

She gently cupped his testicles, cradling them in her palm, exploring their soft contours. Gage was already tense, his long frame rigid with anticipation. But if possible, he stiffened even more, every muscle drawing tight beneath her touch.

His cock twitched and she used her other hand to stroke it from base to tip and back again. She heard him suck in a breath and lifted her head to find him watching her through dark, heavy-lidded eyes. Neither of them said a word.

Holding his gaze, she lowered her mouth and took him inside. His teeth clicked together and the tendons of his throat jutted out in stark relief. Between her lips, he burned, he throbbed, and she tasted the evidence of his arousal against her tongue.

She would have liked to stay there, licking, sucking, driving him crazy and doing her best to make him come in her mouth. But she wasn’t here for sexual pleasure. Or not only sexual pleasure.

Giving him a blow job, as enjoyable as it might be for both of them, wasn’t going to get her any closer to her goal. And there was no time-or sperm-to waste.

With a last long, slow swirl of her tongue, she released him and rose, shifting so that she hovered just above his upward-pointing erection.

She didn’t have to check her own readiness; she was already wet, almost embarrassingly so. Wrapping her fingers around the base of his erection, she centered the large, plum-shaped head at her opening and slowly lowered herself down his entire length.

He was big, filling her completely, and she bit her lip while her body stretched to accommodate him. It didn’t hurt exactly, but she’d been celibate for so long that there was a modicum of discomfort, a moment when she needed to remind her-self to relax and let him in.

He’d had that effect on her the first couple of times they’d been together, too, she remembered. It had taken a while for her to get used to the sensation of having him inside her, but she’d liked it. He’d hit her in all the right spots, the same as he was doing now.

“You don’t want me to stop, do you?” she asked, her voice shaky and breathless and not much louder than a whisper.

She rose up on her knees, letting him slide partially free. The friction alone sent the air stuttering from her lungs and she nearly whimpered. Gage, she was satisfied to notice, curled his fingers into fists, pulling slightly at the ties that held his wrists.

“Untie me,” he rasped.

Her hair bounced when she shook her head. Gliding back down, her internal muscles squeezing and thrumming around him, she barely managed to say, “I like it this way. And you do, too. I can tell.”

She continued to move on him. Small, almost imperceptible motions that brought her up and down, forward and back, side to side. She could feel him flexing beneath her, bucking in time with her movements.

Given his strength and bulk, Jenna had no doubt that if he really, truly wanted to break free, he could. She’d wrapped the feathery boas around his ankles and wrists several times, making them as strong as she could without cutting of his circulation, but they were still just strips of yarn, and he was six-feet-three-inches, two-hundred-plus-pounds of pure muscle.

He was fighting the urge, though, she could see it in his eyes. Whatever he thought of her little game and the tricks it had taken to get him here, he was more interested in letting her finish what she’d started.

Thank goodness, because at this point, she just might cry herself if he left her.

Pressing her mouth to his, she kissed him, startled when he kissed her back.

What this man could do to her without the use of his hands she suspected other men couldn’t do with a dozen.

When their mouths parted, they were both out of breath, and she was pretty sure she knew what his answer was going to be. She asked anyway, her lips continuing to brush against his.

“Do you want me to stop, Gage? Or do you want me to keep doing what I’m doing? Riding you. Fucking you.”

His cock flexed inside her, showing its approval of both her language and her continued gyrations on his lap.

For the most part, she was a good girl. Not quite Pollyanna, but close. She swore only occasionally in the presence of close acquaintances and was exceptionally careful of her word choices when it came to working with her young students.

But sex with Gage didn’t count. With him, she’d always been a little wild and a lot uninhibited. He liked it when she talked dirty… and she liked it because of the response it evoked in him.

A muscle ticced in his jaw. His molars ground together. He continued to clench and unclench his fists where they were bound above him. When he spoke, his voice was sandpaper rough, but firm, and she knew there would be no turning back.

“Don’t stop,” he grated. His body echoed his sentiments, hips lifting to spur her on.

She smiled and kissed him again, letting her breasts rub seductively along his chest, and purposely gave him a small Kegel exercise that made him groan.

“Good answer,” she murmured before pushing herself up on his chest and into a sitting position.

Knees locked tight on either side of his thighs, she slowly began to angle her hips so that she moved forward and back on his hard length at the same time she rose and fell just slightly.

“And it feels even better,” she told him. Her hands were still flat at his waist, and she used them for leverage as she increased the speed of her movements. Just a bit. Just enough to add to the friction.

Gage licked his lips and swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing like a fishing lure in his throat.

“I forgot how big you are. How you fill me like no one else ever could.”

His pelvis rose up at the same time hers came down and she gasped, biting her bottom lip to keep from crying out.

“And how right it feels.”

Her eyes slid closed as sensations continued to swamp her. Oh, how she’d like to believe she was in control. That she could maintain control no matter what.

But she wasn’t a fool, and she couldn’t lie to herself, even if she tried.

With Gage, she was never in control. Not entirely. Not when he touched her, kissed her, moved inside of her.

“I forgot how good this feels. How good you feel.”

He gave a low grunt and thrust his hips upward in a quick, stabbing motion as high as he could go. “Then for Christ’s sake, speed it up,” he growled.

A flare of heat burst low in her belly and spread out to every extremity. She wished he would do that again but was afraid if he did, it would all be over too soon.

He hadn’t been inside her for five full minutes yet, but already she was teetering on the edge. Completion was right there, within reach, and she could get there in a blink if she put her mind to it.

But then it would be done, and she’d really rather make it last. Maybe not all night… after all, she was kind of hoping for an encore later, if he was up to it and the boas held… but something that lasted more than five or ten minutes would be nice. If only to give her a longer memory to carry with her through the rest of her life.

“You don’t want to rush, do you?” Without even trying, she sounded as though she were channeling Marilyn Monroe.

Gage’s voice, however, was anything but soft, anything but yielding. “I want you to finish what you started. Finish what you dragged me in here and tied me up to do.”

A spurt of guilt thumped through her heart and caused it to skip a beat. “Please don’t be angry,” she said. Later he would be furious and demand answers, but until then…

Trailing her hands from his waist, she let them slide along her own thighs, then inside to lightly skim the triangle of dark curls surrounding him, over her belly and up to her breasts. They weren’t large, but they were perky and Gage had always claimed to find them fascinating.

He’d also liked to watch her touch herself, and she did so now, feeling his gaze lock on her like a heat-seeking missile. On her fingers where they cupped the small globes. On her thumbs as they coasted over her hard, raspberry nipples, making them pucker even more.

His chest rose and fell with his sharp, shallow breaths, and he was struggling beneath her now. Not to get free, but to get her to move, to drive deeper, to bring them both to a fast, fiery climax.

Bringing her right hand to her mouth, she licked the pads of her thumb and forefinger, then returned them to the same nipple to roll it between the damp digits. “Tell me what you want,” she ordered, her voice little more than a lacy wisp of breath. “Tell me what you want me to do.”