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He reaches for the hem of my top and lifts it slowly. I raise my arms.

“You're so beautiful.”

It’s getting harder to breathe as his warm, rough hands span my waist.

“Thank you,” I whisper.

“Aye,” he says, his voice dropping. “Take your clothes off.”

I do. There's no performing modesty in it, no hesitation. He's watched me before. He's seen all of me. I step out of my clothes and stand there in the low light of his room. He takes his time, as always, just staring.

Then he reaches into his pocket, takes something out, and wraps it around his fist. His tie.

My pulse spikes.

When he nods to my hands, I hold them out. He loops the tie around my wrists and tests it with two fingers. Something in him darkens. It’s Torin, the ex-con, standing in front of me now, and I’m not complaining.

“On the bed,” he growls, spinning me around with a sharp slap to my ass.

He crosses to the door and turns the lock, then slowly unbuttons his shirt from the bottom.

I stare at the ink across his chest and shoulders, the scars and muscles. The kind of build you get from years of necessity, not vanity. I can't look away.

He walks to the bed and stands over me, reaching for my wrists and lifting them above my head. I shiver, feeling exposed.

My wrists are bound above my head, and his eyes move over me the way they did at the auction, only this time I know what's behind it.

“Do you know what I'm going to do to you tonight?”

“I could hazard a guess, but why don't you tell me anyway?” I sound bolder than I feel.

He bends and puts his mouth at the curve of my throat, and I feel his warm voice against my skin before I hear it. “I'm going to take my time,” he says quietly, “and you're going to let me. When you want me to move faster, you're going to ask nicely, and I'm going to decide whether you've earned it.”

My breath catches.

“Understood?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

I close my eyes. “Yes, sir.”

I will never admit this to him, but I’ve missed this.

The low growl he makes in response goes straight through me. He drags his mouth up the column of my throat, deliberate, unhurried. I tug at the tie above my head and feel it hold. He finds the sensitive spot below my jaw and stays there until I make a sound I didn't plan. Then he pulls back and looks at me. “There she is.”

“Don't look at me like that.” Like he's already won, and we both know it, and he's enjoying the part where I catch up.

He grins but doesn’t respond.

He kisses the corner of my mouth. “Woman.” He presses his hands over mine and leans his body against me, a subtle reminder of who’s in charge.

He works his way down patiently. Every time I shift toward him, he pulls back just enough.

“Torin.”

“Mm.”