“Thank you,” I said, laughing. “I think.”
As if remembering that she was punishing me for something, she threw me a stern look. “Stay here.”
She left and although I was tempted to see what she was up to, I followed her instruction. After only a few seconds she returned with one of my high-backed dining room chairs. Once she had it situated behind me, she pressed on my shoulders to urge me to sit down.
Turning, she walked over to my sound system, picked up the remote, and scanned the buttons.
“First turn on the—”
“Shh.” Without turning, Chloe held up a single hand to quiet me.
I closed my mouth, jaw tense. She was stretching my patience a little. If she hadn’t indicated that I was supposed to stay seated, and I didn’t suspect she wanted to play, I would have had her flat on her stomach by then and already yanked her ass in the air for a spanking.
After only a few moments, a smooth, pulsing rhythm slid into the room with a woman’s husky voice layered on top. Chloe hesitated at the stereo, shoulders moving with her deep, nervous breaths.
“Baby, come here,” I whispered, hoping she heard me over the music.
She turned, returning to me and standing so close that her thighs pressed against my knees. My face was at her chest level, and I couldn’t help but lean forward, kiss her breast through her shirt. But her hands came up and pushed my shoulders back so that I was again sitting up straight.
She followed my body, moving to straddle my lap. With both hands, she reached forward and toyed with my tie.
“What you said outside . . . ,” she whispered. “Maybe we do need to talk some more.”
“Okay.”
“But if you don’t want to do it now, we can go to your room and you can do everything you want to me.” She lifted her gaze to my face, dark eyes searching. “We can talk later.”
“I’ll talk about anything you want.” I swallowed, and smiled up at her. “Then I’ll take you to my bed and do everything I want.”
I could hardly catch my breath. I reached up to undo the top button of my shirt, but she caught my hand and pulled it down, her eyebrow raised in silent question.
Slowly, she undid my tie until it was wrapped around her fist like a boxer’s tape. I was so turned on by this power in her that when she moved my hands to the side of the chair, I didn’t really notice. My cock grew uncomfortably hard, and I shifted my hips to adjust the angle in my pants, my heart pounding beneath my ribs. What the fuck was she going to do?
“Tell me you love me,” she whispered.
My heart was racing and my blood seemed to pound through my veins. “I love you. Wildly. I’m . . .” I’d imagined this a thousand different times, but this moment felt way too loaded and my words came out in a breathless rush. Taking a deep breath and closing my eyes, I murmured, “I’m wildly in love with you.”
“But you were mad at me when I left.”
My stomach tightened. Was this going to turn into a fight? And would that be a good or a bad thing?
Chloe leaned forward, kissed my chin, my lips, my cheek. She slid her mouth to my ear.
And then I felt a tug around my wrists; she had bound my hands behind the chair with my tie. “It’s okay,” she said. “Don’t worry. I just want to talk about it.”
She wanted to talk about it, wanted to feel comfortable hearing how it had affected me, how I’d been angry. But she needed me tied up first? I smiled, turning to catch her lips in a kiss.
“Yes, I was mad at you. I was mostly heartbroken, but I was angry, too.”
“Tell me why you were mad.” Her mouth moved farther away from mine, to my neck, and she sucked along my skin while I considered how to answer.
It felt like our breakup had happened a million years ago, but also like it happened only earlier today. The fact that she was here, straddling my lap and kissing me, reminded me that this was in many ways ancient history. But the way my chest twisted at the memory of her leaving me . . . it felt too close.
“You never let me explain, or apologize. I called. I went over to your place. I would have done anything to work it out.”
She didn’t say anything, didn’t try to defend herself. Instead, she stood and stepped away, bending to unfasten the strap of her heels. She stepped out of them, returning to me, running her fingers into my hair and pulling my face against her chest.
“We knew it wasn’t going to be easy to transition from hate-fucking to being in love,” I said into the soft fabric of her top. “And the first time I messed up you left me.”
She slipped the top button free on her jeans, slowly pulled the zipper down, and then peeled them off her legs. In a few more seconds, her shirt joined her jeans on the floor. She stood before me, completely naked but for her bra and tiny red lace panties. In the shadowed room, her skin looked like silk.