took her mouth. Instantly there was an explosion low and wicked. Flames leapt. Fire rushed through her veins like some terrible drug. She wound her arms around his neck, needing to hang on to something solid when he was transporting her to a place she hadn’t known existed.
He lifted his head. “You’re safe with me, Scarlet. You’re always safe with me. We’re going to make good partners.”
She could get lost in his eyes. They were so strange, really, like two crystals that could see inward, not outward. She liked that he used the word partner. She wanted to be considered a partner. She was more than a plaything in a bedroom. If she gave herself to him of her own free will and did as he asked sexually, that was one kind of partnership. Outside of that, she wanted to be considered on equal footing at all times, otherwise they would never work.
“Keep giving me your trust.”
“You haven’t said what you need from me sexually other than you want to be able to tell me what to do and that sometimes your club might be around us when you do that.” She felt the breath he took and that gave her pause. He was worried she wouldn’t like what he would ask of her.
He took another deep breath. “I know, baby. Some things, in our bedroom, might be difficult for you, and I’ll understand if you can’t do them for me.”
But he would still need them. That was unspoken between them. She got that. He dropped his arms and turned away from her, but she caught the expression on his face and for the first time, the real concern in his mind. He was definitely worried that she would leave him over his sexual needs, whatever they were. Absinthe was reluctant to disclose them to her until he had pulled her in deeper.
She contemplated that while she ran the bathwater. His hesitancy gave her more confidence than ever. That glimpse into his mind actually let her see just how much he really wanted her. All along she had been certain a man like him couldn’t possibly really want her or fall in love with her because—well—she wasn’t that lovable. In spite of what he’d told her about grief, she still was that seventeen-year-old in an adult prison hearing that her beloved sister had committed suicide and her mother and stepfather had followed suit, leaving her alone. She’d been grief stricken, horrified, terrified of being alone. And she’d wondered why she hadn’t been enough for her mother to live for. Now, it seemed, she was enough for Absinthe. More than enough. For him, she was everything.
The door to the closet was open when she had the bath ready. She walked through and stopped dead in her tracks. The closet was nearly the size of her former house. It was that enormous. Really it was two separate closets. Absinthe sat on a long low bench, his shirt off and his jeans open, working on the cords of his motorcycle boots.
“Kneel down, Scarlet,” he said immediately and leaned back, indicating she take over.
That little thrill went through her. Her stomach did a slow roll and her sex fluttered, heat rushing through her veins to pool low. She dropped to her knees in front of him, deftly loosening the laces.
“Pull them off.”
That was much more difficult, and she couldn’t do it from the position she was in. She looked up at him after struggling for a moment or two with the first boot. “I’m going to have to stand.”
He smiled at her. His smiles were never completely genuine. She was beginning to know him, mostly through the connection that was getting stronger. She realized the more they touched, the stronger they established a bridge between them. Her brain had always worked fast, but she had thought of it in terms of speed in learning academics. She had quick reflexes, which allowed for physical capabilities as well. This was something else altogether.
She wanted to be able to make him really smile. To find a way. She hadn’t seen him smile at any of his fellow club members either. She knew if she could have a genuine laugh, one completely real, it would be a gift. “I don’t know what you want me to do,” she admitted.
“You didn’t ask, baby.”
That voice, so gentle, played over her skin so gently it felt like the touch of fingers. She wondered if that was part of his gift. Could