She grabbed the skirt of the loose dress and took a deep breath before tugging the entire garment over her head. She tossed it aside, standing before him in her white lace bra and panties.
The heat of his gaze made her blush, and a powerful shame drew her hands to cover herself as much as possible.
“Don’t hide,” he said. “You’re beautiful.”
She didn’t feel beautiful. She felt awkward. She’d always hated that she was so tall, that her hips were too narrow, her br**sts too small, her shoulders too wide.
“Beautiful,” he said again. “I’ve never bound a woman as tall and slender as you,” he said.
She stared at her dress on the floor, willing it to rise up from its puddle and cover her again. She was certain he’d much rather use a more feminine form for his bondage sculpture. Why had she agreed to this?
His legs entered her line of sight, and the rope he’d been holding landed in a tangle on the floor. She choked back a sob when his hand cupped her shoulder and then slowly slid down the length of her arm. She was sorry she was a disappointment. That she wasn’t an ideal specimen for his art. That she wasn’t pretty enough. Wasn’t perfect.
“Can I see your back?” he asked.
She spun around. Annoyed with him. Annoyed with herself. His fingertips traced eight slow paths down her back.
“Your lines are amazing,” he said.
Yeah, her flat as a board, straight as a stick lines.
“So graceful. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more perfect body for this.”
Her brow furrowed. Perfect? But didn’t he prefer curves? “Do you think so?” She lowered her hands and looked down at her too white belly and those stupid freckles that decorated her chest.
“Can I start? I don’t think I can wait any longer.”
She nodded, feeling almost proud of her body. How weird was that?
“Just take off your bra and panties and sit up here on the piano for me?”
Whoa. Too fast. “I’d rather leave them on,” she said.
His fingertip traced the top elastic of her panties along her lower back. “I guess I can work them into the design,” he said. “If you’re more comfortable with that.”
She nodded and was surprised when he moved to the side table and blew out all three of the candles.
“What are you doing?”
“I want to do this by feel.”
“By feel?” she squeaked.
“I don’t want to get distracted by your beauty.”
She chuckled. “Okay. That was just cheesy.”
“Just stating facts.”
“You already have me in my underwear and willing to be tied and at your mercy. You can lay off the pick-up lines.”
She felt him move to stand just behind her. His palms slid over her rib cage and down her quivering belly toward her small scrap of lace modesty.
“I don’t want you to be uncomfortable,” he said. “It’s probably a good idea to leave them on. Your exposed pu**y would be far too tempting to resist.”
He cupped her mound and gently squeezed. Her breath stalled as she involuntarily arched against his palm.
“I can feel your heat,” he whispered into her ear. “This doesn’t have to be a sexual experience, you know.”
With Kellen in charge, yes, it did.
“I can’t help it,” she said. “Just being in the same room as you turns me on. How do you expect me to react when you touch me in the dark?”
“Just as long as you realize I’m not going to make love to you. Not because I don’t want to or because you aren’t the most beautiful woman I’ve ever touched, but because I made a promise I’ll never break.”
Dawn scowled. That f**king dead girl again.
“If you want, I will make you come, though,” he whispered. “Give you more orgasms than you can stand.”
So maybe his inability to break a promise wasn’t really a burden after all.
“Do you want that, Dawn? Do you want to come?”
“Y-y-yes.”
His hand slipped into her panties. When his middle finger slipped over her fully engorged clit, her legs buckled. He drew her back against him until his hard c**k was prodding her in the ass. She squirmed against him, wanting that big thick shaft buried deep inside her already.
He bit her ear and eased her around the piano until she faced the keyboard.
“Play my song while I make you come for the first time,” he demanded quietly.
As if she could argue with that request.
She fumbled with the keys and didn’t start at the beginning. She started with the second stanza. The one that rose and fell like the waves, like a lover possessing what was hot and achy and swollen and wet just for him.
Kellen stroked her clit with the cadence of the song, rocking slightly against her with each soft and sensual caress. He wasn’t rubbing her to get her off—he was increasing her need to a feverish level. When she reached the final crescendo, he sent her flying. Song forgotten, she clung to the keyboard and cried out with release as her pu**y clenched hard on the emptiness between her legs.
Needing more, much more, Dawn bent forward so that the stiff c**k that had been scarcely rubbing against her ass was lodged firmly in her cleft. The only thing separating his hard flesh from her slick heat was a pair of lace panties and a thin pair of boxer shorts.
He jerked his hand out of her panties and stepped back, sending the piano bench tumbling backward with a crash.
In the silence that followed, she was only aware of her ragged breathing and his. The intense pleasure began to recede as she slowly regained her bearings. Her release had been fantastic, but hardly satisfying. She wanted more of him. All of him. Inside her.
“I knew I should have bound you before I touched you,” he said. “Do you think I’m made of willpower? You can’t rub up against me like that and expect me to keep my promise to Sara.”
But she didn’t want him to keep his promise to Sara. Dawn wanted to f**k Kellen until she could no longer feel her legs. But he didn’t want her enough to give her what she craved. She should probably feel bad about pressuring him into doing something he wasn’t prepared to do, but she just felt bitter toward a woman who no longer existed except in Kellen’s heart.
“I got caught up in the moment,” she said, which wasn’t a lie. “I didn’t intend to rub up against you. It was involuntary.”
He was quiet for a long moment. She couldn’t imagine what he was thinking. Probably deciding if he should locate his clothes before he fled the house or brave the storm wearing only her boxers. She pushed away from the piano and turned to look at the space where he stood in the darkness.