Page 111 of The Tower

For a moment, he’s still, allowing me to adjust to the feel of him. Then he begins to move, each thrust deliberate and controlled, building a rhythm that has me straining against my bonds, desperate to touch him, to pull him closer.

“More,” I gasp, wrapping my legs around his waist to draw him deeper. “Harder.”

He complies, his control fracturing as he drives into me with increasing urgency. One hand slides between us, finding my clit, circling it in time with his thrusts.

The dueling sensations push me over the edge, my release crashing through me in waves of pleasure so intense they border on pain. I cry out his name, my body clenching around his cock as I surrender completely to the ecstasy he’s created.

He follows moments later, a groan tearing from his throat as he finds his own completion. His weight collapses onto me, his breath hot against my neck as we both struggle to recover.

After a moment, he shifts to the side, his hands gentle as he removes first the blindfold, then the bonds at my wrists. I blink in the dim light, my eyes finding his, surprised by the tenderness I see there.

“I like having you bound. At my mercy” The words are hard, a contrast to the fingers softly brushing a strand of hair from my face.

“I like it, too,” I whisper. And it’s true. I’d willingly given up control, but not only had it been the stark opposite of terrifying, it was also empowering. Because I was the one who’d given it up. It wasn’t taken from me, ripped away without my consent. I’d surrendered willingly, and in doing that, I’d found a new kind of bliss.

He gathers me against him, his arm a warm weight across my waist, his heartbeat a steady rhythm beneath my ear. We lie in comfortable silence, our bodies twined, our skin hot. The city lights twinkle beyond the windows, casting patterns across the ceiling.

His arms tighten around me, and I feel him press a kiss to the top of my head. “You’re perfect,” he murmurs, the words soft enough that I wonder if I was meant to hear them.

I drift toward sleep, wrapped in his warmth, more content than I can ever remember being.

Tomorrow brings uncertainty—the hearing, my father, the public scrutiny—but tonight, in this moment, I’m exactly where I want to be. In the arms of a man who demanded everything and gave me more in return than I ever thought possible.

Thirty-Four

Silken Chains

She was glorious in the ambient light from the city, all soft curves and delicate strength, her body a map he intended to memorize with hands and lips and tongue.

Liam watched her sleep, her golden hair spilling across the white pillow, her breathing deep and even. Her lips were still slightly swollen from his kisses, and marks from the silk bonds lingered faintly on her wrists. The sight of those marks sent a surge of possessive satisfaction through him, a primal response he hadn’t expected to feel so strongly.

He’d played bondage games before, but it had been only one more item in his bag of sexual tricks. With Sasha … well, with her it had been a fuck you to her father.

Liam may have bound her, but he hadn’t caged her. On the contrary, he’d given her a sanctuary where she could finally let go. Her father’s control had stolen her choices—his offered her the freedom to surrender them willingly.

And in that surrender, he hoped that she’d found something her father could never take away again—her own power.

She’d given him one hell of a gift, too. She’d trusted him. Completely. And that realization was both exhilarating and humbling.

Now, the room was quiet except for the soft sound of her breathing and the distant hum of the city outside. He reached out, unable to resist tracing the curve of her shoulder with his fingertips. He saw the small scar from that damn tracker and frowned. He’d found someone in London who could remove it without triggering the mechanism her bastard of a father had built into the device. A failsafe that emitted a burst of poison upon tampering—and thank God Leo had managed to bribe the right people to acquire that information.

They’d take a trip and take care of that once things calmed down. In the meantime, he’d given her a dampener to keep in her purse or pocket.

Reed had tried to get her back. He’d failed.

He was going to fail again at the hearing.

He had to. Because if Victor Reed prevailed at that hearing, then Liam would have to kill both Reed and Bane. Because there was no way he’d let either of those men get close to Sasha again. “Not ever,” he whispered. “I promise you that.”

She murmured something in her sleep that might have been his name, and his heart squeezed, just like a sixteen-year-old boy with a crush on the cheerleader.

What the hell was he doing?

This was supposed to have been so straightforward. Use Sasha Reed to get to her father. Take his revenge for what Victor had done to his mother. Simple. Clean. Uncomplicated by feelings.

But nothing about this was simple anymore.

He thought back to that moment when she’d shown him Elysium—her eyes bright with pride as she navigated through the world she’d created. He’d watched her write code for years, witnessed her brilliance firsthand in that virtual world. But he’d convinced himself she was complicit in her father’s schemes, a willing participant in the lies about his family.