Morgan snapped to attention and brought herself back to the present. There would be time for thinking later. The time for obeying was now. With quick steps, she made her way to the center of the room and perched her ass on the table, scooting back until she was fully seated. She crossed her legs, clenching her thighs together to relieve the ache, and waited.

With a hot challenge lighting his eyes, Jack placed a hand on each knee and pried her thighs apart, then wide. “Don’t cross your legs to me. When we’re alone, they’re open wide, signaling your availability and showing me your sweet, wet pussy. Understood?”

She wanted to be angry that he was going to tell her how to sit now. It was damn demanding. Overbearing. And arousing as his stare made its way down to the wet flesh he exposed, and he caressed her with his stare. A fresh ache tightened behind her clit, gently pulsing in time with her heartbeat.

And she understood. This was why she thrilled to Jack’s domination. He was so focused on her, so concentrated on taking her in with each sense, in every way he could. He enveloped her mind in the sexual experience so thoroughly, she couldn’t possibly think, much less think about anything else. Soon, she would have all his power, testosterone, and self-control directed at her pleasure. At the thought, she felt flushed, faint.

And Jack hadn’t really even touched her.

“Do you understand?” Jack asked between gritted teeth.

Morgan answered him with a nod.

He turned away to open a few boxes on the counter behind him. He stuffed something she couldn’t see in the pocket of his pants, then turned back to her with something long and sparkling and golden. When he held it up for her, she saw it was a thick gold chain with a dangling ruby-studded heart. It was beautiful. Stunning. Too big to be a bracelet, certainly. Too short to fit around her neck and have the pendant dangle between her breasts. What did he intend?

“If you agree to wear this, you agree to be mine. Only mine. Sexually, you do what I say, when I say, how I say, and where I say. If you put this on, the word no leaves your vocabulary. You answer me with a polite ‘Yes, sir.’”

He stroked the ruby pendant across one exposed nipple, then the other. The cold of the gems, the riot of sensations, forced her to draw in a trembling breath.

“You may speak. Ask me questions before you answer.”

Be his? For tonight? That had to be what he meant. No way was the man talking forever.

Morgan licked her dry lips, aroused, oh-so-needy. “I have no questions, sir. I want to be yours.”

The pulse jumped at the base of his neck. He swallowed. His Adam’s apple bobbed. This meant something to him, and the fact that he couldn’t quite conceal it touched her heart. But her eyes didn’t stop their visual dessert. Her stare moved onto the veins roping his heavy forearms, bulged as he formed fists. His flat belly taut, as if he was poised to spring into action. And his cock. She hadn’t thought it possible but he seemed to lengthen another inch.

“I want that, too, cher.” His stare seduced and revered her at once.

Palms sweating, Morgan longed to press her thighs together to relieve the fresh, heavy ache he’d created…but she didn’t dare.

“You understand that, once I put this on you, you are mine to tease, punish, torment, and fuck at will?”

Yes. Fine. Hurry. The waiting was killing her. Quickly, she nodded.

“You know that your entire body will belong to me?”

Again, she nodded.

“That anytime I indicate I want to make use of your mouth, your cunt, or your ass, you assume the position I request, no matter what?”

Morgan hesitated for a moment, then nodded. The unknown, anal sex, and anything else he could dream up, wouldn’t worry her. She had to trust Jack to make everything good. God knew his words alone were reaching into her deepest fantasies, pushing her past caution, past her inhibitions.

She shot a deferential gaze up to him, her nipples hard as diamonds. “Yes, sir.”

“I will take care of you. Trust me to know when and how you need my cock. Trust me to understand your fantasies and make each of them come true. Trust me to know when you need a good spanking and when you just need me to wrap my arms around you.”

Wrap his arms around her? As if he would, what? Support her? Love her? He talked like he meant this to be beyond tonight. Like he did mean it to be forever…

“Understand?” His voice was soft, but no less demanding.

Not really. But she was too impatient to ask. “Yes, sir.”

Without another word, he stepped behind her and clasped the jeweled pendant around her neck. It clung to her like a choker, snug but not restrictive. The pendant of rubies pooled in the hollow at the base of her throat, rapidly warming to her skin. He walked around the table again for a peek.

“It looks perfect on you.” With a gentle finger skimming her skin, Jack outlined the pendant.

His gaze never left hers. Never wavered. A world of promise and sinful mastery lay in his eyes. Morgan had seen Jack in a lot of ways in the past few days: angry, asleep, protective, aroused. But never like this: possessive and totally determined.

Morgan exhaled a ragged, aroused breath.

“Perfect,” he murmured. “Lie back and keep your legs spread so I can see that sweet pussy.”

She only hesitated long enough to remind herself that she’d come here to be with Jack, to experience the ways he could make her feel. To embrace her sexuality.

Dark, hungry, his gaze roamed over Morgan, heating her up from the inside out. He looked so big, so…male standing over her, the hard ridges of his torso taut, defined, rippling with every breath. Her mouth went dry.

Now all she had to do was trust him with her pleasure.

Slowly, Morgan did as he commanded and laid back on the table, legs parted. She wanted to ask what he had planned for her, for them. But she knew that wasn’t allowed. She had to trust him. So far she had—with her life. And she was still alive.

Maybe for the first time, totally alive.

For a long moment, he did nothing but gaze at her, his dark stare penetrating her body, her mind. She couldn’t have looked away, even if she had wanted. But breaking the connection between them was the last thing she desired. The jolt of it was like a livewire, stunning her, shaking her to her core. Breathless. Suspended. Tormented with anticipation. She waited.

“Close your eyes.”

Oh, what did he have planned? Not seeing what he was doing… Morgan wasn’t sure she could handle it. But the weight of the choker around her neck reminded her of all she’d agreed to. The twin slashes of Jack’s black brows warned her against further hesitation.

Stomach jumping, heart pumping, Morgan allowed her lids to flutter shut, concealing Jack and anything he might do from her view.

A moment later, a scrap of something soft and silky fell over her face. Jack adjusted it over her eyes, then tied it off at the back of her head. A blindfold. She gulped. God, he meant for her to go into this totally blind and give him total trust.

Morgan took a calming breath. She was up for this. She could do it, even if she had to disregard the wild thump of her pulse to believe it.

Jack leaned closer. She could feel his heat, scent his heavenly musk as he approached. It soothed her, even as it made her even more aware of herself as a woman, even more wet.

His lips settled over hers like a whisper. A brush of heaven, a slide of hot taste, a forbidden brush of his tongue. “Thank you for your trust.”

She relaxed into the table and arched her neck to receive more of his kisses.

Instead, she felt the grip of his fingers around her right wrist. He lifted her hand, easing it a few inches to her right. She felt cold metal around it a click later. Not tight…but not giving either. There was no way she was moving this arm. He repeated the process with her other wrist. Then he bound her ankles in the same way he had her wrists, locking them on either side of the table, knees bent, thighs wide.

“In time,” he murmured, “and, I’m sure, after your fair share of punishments, you’ll learn to trust me as you should.”

The soft note of censure reverberated through her belly like a warning. Without being told, she knew she had punishment coming now.

Still, the sharp rap of his fingers slapping the mound of her pussy shocked Morgan. The sensation vibrated through her, down her nether lips. Then the ache centered right under her clit—but it wasn’t pain. Pushing past the alarm and desire flooding her mind at once, a ferocious need seized her body, concentrated between her legs.

Jack repeated the process this time, just a fraction harder. The ferocious ache became monstrous, gripping her in its clutches with an unavoidable grasp. Morgan bit her lip to hold in her moan.

Then once more, the flat of his hand struck the pad of her pussy, with more force. Sensation zinged through her, ricocheting through her vagina. Equal parts pain and pleasure. The vise of need tightened until it strangled her thoughts. The moan lodged in her throat broke past her resistance and filled the silence between them.

“One more like that, and the pain will outweigh the pleasure. I’ll reserve that…unless you hesitate again. Understood? Shake your head or nod.”

The rumble of his voice dug down inside her, inciting a fresh wave of want. He’d already reduced her entire existence to her beating heart, her pounding pussy, and that line that seemed to run between them with some link she didn’t understand.

Finally, she realized that Jack was waiting for an answer. She nodded.

“Good. Tonight, I’d rather pleasure you than punish you.”

Footsteps across the hardwood floor told her he’d turned away, crossed the room. Was he leaving? No! She’d pushed away her inhibitions, resolved to embrace what he wanted to share with her. Dismay stole over her, and she tried to fight the cuffs at her wrists and ankles.

Then the footsteps announced his return, measured in a precise militarylike cadence.

“You aren’t going anywhere. Neither am I,” he vowed and placed his palm in the center of her stomach. His skin was like a hot brand, promising more, vowing to make her completely his.

Morgan stilled, more relieved than she would have thought possible.

The wet slide of Jack’s tongue brushed across the swell of her breast. His finger trailed a gentle path down the inside, then around, tracing the naughty cutout in her bra, so close to her sensitive areola. She arched in invitation.

He ignored her.

“Your nipples are the palest blushing pink,” he whispered, his hot breath fanning right against one of the tight beads. “They turn a sweet, pale rose when you’re aroused.”

Even as he teased her with the possibility of his mouth over her breast, his finger was on the move again, drawing in a seemingly random pattern across her chest, down her abdomen, then back up. “Your freckles are fascinating to trace, and one day, I’ll spend hours finding each and every one and licking them until you beg me to fuck you. But not now.”

God, his words were like throwing gas on a bonfire. The ache he’d started between her thighs still gripped her in its unyielding clutch, so strong, sweat broke out on her forehead. Her toes curled against the need. And now her breasts were tight, screaming for him to do something—anything—to ease the unforgiving pleasure demanding release inside her.

And she’d barely been here five minutes.

“Tonight, my mission is to see how dark I can make those sweet pink nipples.”

Before Morgan could even ponder what that meant, Jack’s tongue slid over a hard point, once, twice. He primed it with unhurried strokes, sending her heart rate into turmoil. Certain he meant to slowly kill her, Morgan moaned.

Jack sucked the peak without mercy, as if he could inhale her at once. The clasp of his teeth both above and below her nipple anchored her in place for the hot suction of his mouth. Equal parts pleasure and pain exploded sensation through her breasts, darting out in all directions through her body until, like a flash, it burst between her legs.

She gasped. In response, he bit harder, sucked more strongly in seemingly endless draws. Fresh pain bombarded her like icy pinpricks, drawing her nipples tighter. She whimpered.

“Take the pain, cher. Take it for me. You can.”

Disappointing him was not an option for some reason. Nodding, Morgan pressed her lips together.

Jack swept the same nipple back in his mouth, clamping down tightly with his teeth again as he drew on her breast with remorseless suction. The pain shot through her system again. This time, a thick slice of pleasure followed, shocking and scrumptious. The whimper that had escaped her once before became a moan.

Her nipples would be sore tomorrow—and she didn’t care. What he was doing made her body achy yet soar, made her tremble with erotic fear and sexual need all at once.

This was everything she’d ever dreamed in her deep, dark midnight desires.

A moment later, Morgan felt the grip of his fingers tormenting her other nipple in a tight press. He twisted the hard bud, wrenching another moan out of her. A tight pinch coincided with an erotic bite on her other nipple.