him with this. That she meant to break them as thoroughly as possible. Not untangle, she wanted to unravel them. She was tearing at the threads that bound them just as she tore at her clothes.
A warm bundle of firm female flesh hit against his chest and his arms came up to gather her. How not? Even if she was trying to prove something to him, or herself, he couldn’t turn her away.
She was frantic and he tried to slow her. It made for an awkward dance, her wanting brutality and him working to seduce. She bit his lip and he tentatively caressed hers with his tongue. She tugged at his hair and he brushed hers from her eyes. She wrapped her hand around his cock and he groaned, closing his eyes and pumping into her fist.
She hissed and his eyes snapped open. Focus. He cradled her face, bracing his legs as she tried to push him back onto the cushions, or the rug, he couldn’t be sure which. Her eyes were wild, but he waited until they fixed on his face. “I love you, I want you to stay.”
She tried to turn her head, but he didn’t let go. “Please, Ily.”
A shudder passed through her. She trembled beneath his fingertips, all raw anguish and frantic energy. He needed to convince her. He kissed her temple, moved his mouth across the graceful curve of her cheek, touched the corner of her mouth. Her lips twitched, parted. He traced her mouth with his tongue, licked his way inside.
She shoved him back, hard. His ankles caught on the edge of the raised platform and he landed flat on his back in the center of the rug. Ily’s eyes flashed silver white and the threads crept up his arms, layering themselves around his wrists and ankles, binding him in place.
He pulled against their weight, but he was well and truly bound. A chill passed over his skin. She was very angry.
“Don’t struggle,” she said. “You’ll ruin it.”
He stilled, thinking at first that she meant she would end this. Not climb onto his body as she was doing now, not straddle him so that her soft nest of curls tickled the base of his cock. Then he realized she was talking about the stupid rug.
“I don’t care about the rug.”
She braced her hands on his chest and flicked her tongue over his nipple. “I happen to know that you care very much.”
“You understand nothing.” He flexed his arm and heard an awful tearing noise. The thread didn’t actually break. He’d seen to it that she’d had the best, hadn’t he? But he managed to loosen it just enough that he was able to slip one arm free.
She glared bloody murder at him. The horrific image of his blue and lifeless corpse trapped in thread flashed through his mind. “You’re not going to murder me with a rug, are you, Ily? Allow me some dignity. There’s a knife in my belt.”
Another strong pull and his other arm was free. She was angry, but there was a hint of humor in her eyes when she said, “You don’t deserve the knife. If I’d intended to murder you, I would have wrapped the threads around your neck not your arms.”
He caught her and rolled, pinning her weight to the rug. “Where would be the fun in that?”
“You’ve destroyed it.”
He kissed her nose, her chin. “You’ll make me another.”
“I’ll charge you triple the price...quadruple. I didn’t know what I was getting myself into when I accepted the commission. I didn’t know my benefactor was such an unscrupulous man.”
He laughed because she had believed that he was a supremely unscrupulous man when she’d accepted the commission and they both knew it. Relief flooded through his body because—thank the gods—she was teasing him, softening with every breath she took. “I never suspected my artist would attempt to weave me into her masterpiece.”
A vibration in her chest that might have been laughter. There was tenderness in her eyes but still wariness. He hated it, would drive that doubt away with any tools at his disposal.
“It was a good deal of work, wasted.”
“Next time, you can weave red into the border. Make a hundred, a thousand. I’ll buy them all. Better yet, I’ll hand over to you all that I own. Only say that you’ll stay with me, in my home, in my bed. Please, Ily.”
She closed her eyes for a long moment. When she opened them, he saw her uncertainty and