Uncommon Pleasure by Anne Calhoun

It was an old-fashioned room, pretty bare, but she’d left it that way to show the bones of the house, the light against the hardwood floors and original trim around the doors. A chenille spread covered the oak spindle bed, and a cheval glass mirror stood in the corner. The oak dresser across from the foot of the bed matched. The set looked old but was new; she was too tall to sleep easily in an antique bed. She had braided rugs on either side of the bed, but otherwise the polished wood gleamed in the moonlight.
    He crossed the room to her nightstand and glanced at it. “Twenty-first-century woman, right? What’s in the drawer?”
    She added the occasional moments of humor to her growing list of things she liked about him. “Help yourself,” she said, because questions of trust seemed key to Ty Hendricks. He told her not totrust him, then looked almost hurt when Gretchen recoiled. Definitely a hot-button issue.
    He pulled out her red leather restraints, tossed them to her, then strode back down the hall. Pure sexual heat blended with a sense of freedom. The unassuming way he chose the cuffs from the modest assortment of toys in her nightstand told her he was comfortable with sex outside the realm of plain vanilla. More to the point, he didn’t shy away from having her under his control. He hadn’t missed her body’s shuddering, female response when she’d struggled between him and the door at the hotel. That visceral flash of memory, and the way he moved across the helipad, so completely self-assured and all man, surfaced as he walked out of the room, and her blood heated and thickened to molten lava.
    When he returned he held one of the chairs from her dining room table. He set it down in front of the oval mirror, eased into it, and gestured her to stand between his knees. When she did he held up his hand and beckoned for her to give him the restraints.
    She dropped them in his hand and felt her heart start to pound hard against her breastbone, slow, sledgehammer-like thuds. She watched him turn the cuffs over, examining them, getting familiar with them.
    “Red?” he asked as he deftly unfastened the snap hook hanging from one D-ring. “Really?”
    “I like color in my accessories,” she said.
    A wry smile. “I noticed. Wrist.”
    She held out her right wrist, then the left, waiting docilely as he slid the leather over her hand and drew the loose end tight before fastening it in the buckle. There were two ways this could go down. He could fasten the cuffs in front of her, turning the scenario playful and giving her some measure of independence. Or he could fasten them behind her, placing her completely at his mercy.
    Hands on her hips, he turned her to face the mirror and then fastened the cuffs behind her back. Even without removing a stitch ofclothing, vulnerability washed over her in waves. He peered up at her through the hair tumbled in his eyes, and for a charged moment the carefully indifferent facade faltered. Without thinking she bent her head. He reached up to release the clip holding her hair in a floppy updo. The strands slid forward, into her face, and his hand followed, long fingers caressing her cheek before his thumb brushed over her mouth.
    His rapt attention on her mouth made her think she was about to end up on her knees, but he turned her and seated her facing forward on his lap. She let her legs drop to the outside of his. Her ass rested directly against the thick erection, her hands wedged against his hard abdomen. The short-shorts exposed her leg from inner thigh to the arch of her foot, and her breasts pressed against the T-shirt’s thin fabric, nipples erect.
    He stroked the backs of his hands down her bare arm, sending shivers down her spine. She shifted a little, his body hard and strong under hers. Then he tucked his bristly chin into her shoulder and slowly tugged up her shirt, exposing belly then bare breasts, his movements smooth, unhurried, his gaze focused on her.
    “No