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I stare at the leather in his hand. “You’re not seriously using that on me.”

I don’t move, still staring at the belt.

“Jade.” He kneels astride my thighs, the leather hanging from one fist. “Give me your hands. If you don’t want the belt, tell me, and I’ll put it down. But if you do want it, give me the control and trust me to use it right.”

That lands somewhere deep enough to hurt.

Nobody has ever given me a choice before. The men in that corridor never asked. They paid, then did what they’d paid for.

I turn onto my front because I choose to, pressing my face into the mattress and stretching my arms above my head.

“There’s my boy.”

He wraps the leather twice around my wrists, then draws it through the headboard and pulls it taut. When I test it, my whole body shifts, but my hands stay exactly where he put them.

Two fingers slide beneath the leather, checking the space. “Too tight?”

“No.”

“If anything goes numb, you tell me immediately. Understand?”

I swallow. “I understand.”

I pull against the belt again. It holds.

Every muscle in my body registers it at once. I’m tied to a bed by a man who terrified me a week ago, and somewhere along the way I started trusting that he won’t let anything happen to me here.

The thought sends a rush through me so sharp that my whole body goes hot.

“That’s what I thought.” His hand spreads over my ribs, holding me against the mattress as he leans down until his mouth is beside my ear. “Your heart’s trying to beat straight through you. Still want to tell me how much you hate me?”

I turn my face into the pillow. “I do hate you.”

He drags his mouth along the side of my throat and catches the darkened spot beneath my jaw with his teeth. “Keep saying it.”

Then his mouth starts traveling down my body.

He kisses along my shoulder, down my spine, and across my lower back, taking his time and making me feel every second. The longer he touches me, the less I fight the restraint. My shoulders loosen. My breathing slows. Somewhere between one kiss and the next, I stop thinking about what my hands can’t do and start waiting for whatever he decides to do next.

Every time I arch towards him, his palm presses me back into the mattress. “Lie still for me.”

“I don’t know how when you keep doing that.”

“Oh, you’re doing beautifully.” His mouth brushes my hip. “Just let me take care of you.”

And I do. Light help me, I do.

He takes his time until I’m whimpering into the sheets, saying his name without meaning to. The belt bites when I pull against it, but even that folds into everything else, leaving me hot and loose and strangely weightless beneath him.

Then he sits back and reaches for the oil beside the bed. He pours some into his palm and rubs his hands together, warming it between them before looking down at me. “Gonna work that pretty, tight hole now.”

Spreading my ass cheeks, he spits on my rim, chuckling when I arch my back to offer him more. “So impatient, puppy.” A slick finger circles my hole before slowly dipping in. “Even cuffed like that, you’re trying to boss me around.”

“I’m not trying to boss you around,” I protest, my last words breaking into a gasp as he slides in a second finger.

His free hand cracks across my ass, startling me forward onto his fingers. The sting spreads hot across my skin while something lower pulls tight in my stomach, making my cock jerk against the sheets.

His fingers stop inside me. “Oh, you like that.” I hear the grin in his voice. “Want me to do it again?”