Cruz (Dark and Dirty Sinners' MC #5) - Serena Akeroyd Page 0,82

how they sanctioned my patching-in in the first place."

"I'm surprised they didn't shoot you between the eyes."

"I think they were hoping I'd be able to get information out of her to feed them, but in the end, I had other talents they preferred to take advantage of."

"Like getting rid of bodies?"

He hummed. "I'm not saying either of us is ready for branding, Indy, but I'm just saying, I can see a light at the end of the tunnel, and there's a shape blocking it that looks like you."

Emotion choked me, making it hard to swallow, making it difficult to breathe for a handful of seconds until, like always, I fell back on snark. "That your way of saying I have a fat ass?" I wheezed.

When he tapped my thigh, with enough force to jerk me to the side, I bit my lip.

"That your way of trying to earn a worse punishment? Just take the declaration in the spirit it was given, hmm?" He pressed a kiss to my throat once more, only this time it was an open one. As he sucked down on the sensitive skin, the tissues that were raked to life had me shuddering in his hold and turning me into a pile of mush. Any other man’s kiss there would have me shrieking too, but this felt so good. A whisper of calm before the scream of a storm that was brewing. "Now, are you ready for your punishment?"

My fluttering eyelashes froze, but I released a breath. "Y-Yes."

This felt different somehow. I was used to the stern taskmaster, the man who could order me to kneel on my welcome mat and I'd obey. But his voice was a little... Crap, the only way I could think to phrase it was odd.

It was just odd. Not one I'd heard before.

When he turned me around, dragging my gaze from the mother and the daughter who were trying to work things out, trying to come back from the fact that Cyan had almost trusted someone she most definitely shouldn't have, I let my brain switch off.

I had to.

The need to go to her, to tell her what it was like when an older man gave you that kind of attention, to reveal secrets I'd only told Cruz, was a weight on my soul.

I'd never meant to tell Cruz, dammit, never mind a little girl, but I'd see how things panned out.

Her dynamic with Martin was entirely different than the one I had with Kevin.

I'd been terrified. She, quite clearly, wasn't.

"Stop thinking," ever diligent and ever the goddamn mind-reader, he rumbled.

And because he made it an order, I found myself willing to obey it.

With my focus on my room, I saw a couple of things that had my brows rising.

"Thought you got rid of corpses, didn't think you made them."

He sniffed. "Every serial killer's tool is the same as a cleaner's tool, except the blood is shed post-mortem, not ante."

My nose crinkled, because I knew that meant a knife wasn't used to end life, but to chop up limbs.

Great.

My boyfriend.

The cleaner.

And we weren't talking toilets here.

I cleared my throat as I took in the knife which was sitting on the nightstand, then the two kind of knots of white nylon rope which gleamed silver in the light.

"Indy," Cruz barked. "I won't warn you again. Keep your focus on me."

I shot him a look. "How do you know when it isn't?" I wasn't speaking with belligerence, more like curiosity.

"Tension leaves your body, and I want you very much tense. I don’t like it when you turn to ice on me”

I crinkled my nose at that. "Charming."

The quirk of his lips in a barely there smile had me rolling my eyes.

"Now, you won't like this, but you're not supposed to like a punishment, are you?”

And with that, he began.

Cruz

There was a soothing rhythm I found when binding a woman, making loops here, knotting there, sweeping the length of cord over elegant limbs, framing bones just so.

But with Indy, it was actually hard.

With every ripe curve I unveiled, I wanted to taste it. Wanted to taste her.

Punishing her involved punishing myself, and that was one of the things I'd always hated about BDSM.

There was so much pageantry sometimes, so much effort when, some nights, you just really wanted to end the day with your cock in your woman without having to whip her ass first.

But a vanilla life wasn't something I could enjoy entirely either, so I found myself at an odd crossroads