Chapter Ninety-One

Safiya

E xactly eighteen minutes later, he knocked.

Knocked.

My heart racing from more than my rush to get home, rinse off in the shower, and throw on the dress, I was already standing in the entry hall, brimming with flagrant need and anticipation. But as I reached for the door, my bare feet stepped across the cool tile, and I realized my mistake.

For a mere breath of a second, I thought of running back to the bedroom to grab a pair of sandals. But then he would be standing there waiting, and he had never knocked, and that felt markedly worse.

My decision made, I opened the door.

Then my breath caught.

Freshly showered, his hair still damp, his enigmatic expression appeared more intense in the shadowed entryway. Wearing different jeans and a charcoal dress shirt that made his eyes look more gray than blue, he was the most exquisite man I had ever seen.

His gaze, both lethal and penetrating, dropped to my lips and his eyes darkened. Then he took in my dress, lingering ever so slightly at the juncture of my legs and my breasts before he looked back up and gave me his impossibly dominant tenor.

Except this time, it was deeper, quieter, and much more commanding than how he normally spoke to me. "Forget something?"

"Yes." I stepped back.

He came inside and shut the door.

My heart somersaulted. "I'll—"

He grasped the bun of his own doing and yanked the hair tie out with one pull.

A hundred little needles of pain erupted across my scalp, but in the very next breath, he was driving his fingers into my hair and pushing them with deliberate pressure across the pain he had just caused.

A half gasp, half sound of need crawled up my throat.

"Are you moaning from the pull of your hair or the feel of my hands?"

I fought from closing my eyes in pleasure. "Both."

Stepping into me, his body heat covering my entire front, he pulled me closer with his hands that were still massaging their way through my hair. "You may put your arms around me."

I did not think.

I did not worry.

I did not question anything.

I wrapped my arms around the hard muscles of his back, and I sank into him.

Reciprocating, enclosing me completely in the strength and security of his arms, Grayson Ryker Gautier did not simply embrace me. He wrapped his entire body around mine, and we came together in the most perfect union of balanced duality.

I sighed with a contentment I had not known existed but now would never be able to live without.

His lips touched my hair. "Better?"

"Yes." Eminently so.

"Which shoes do you want?" He started to drop his arms.

"Please do not go get any right now."

A low chuckle I had never, ever heard from him rumbled from his chest, and he intensified his hold on me. "Affection."

"Pardon?"

"The answer to my earlier question." With a slow hand, he slid his palm across my back.

"I do not understand." I could not think of anything except the feel of his perfect embrace.

"You need more affection." He did not merely say the words—he exemplified them as the hand on my back slid up my spine with exquisite pressure until his fingers kneaded the base of my neck.

I did not know if he was looking for a response, but I was not going to miss the opportunity. "Please." If this was his version of affection, I wanted to live in it.

"Noted." He continued his caress.

As his strong fingers moved from my shoulders and retraced their path down my back, landing near my tailbone with a deep-tissue knead of his thumb across a part of my body I did not know could be so erogenous, both hunger and guilt struck. "What do you need?"

"Every human has basic needs." He dug his thumb in deeper, and exquisite pain matched mounting desire. "Rephrase your question."

I was boneless, shattered, and practically susurrating with lustful want. "What do you want?" No. "What do you need from me?"

"Submission."

Succinct and without hesitation, it was all at once impossibly complex and so very simple. I wanted him to manipulate my body. I hungered to forget my thoughts. I craved becoming one with his ministrations.

I wanted all of it more than anything, especially right now, but I could not let go of the notion of reciprocation. "What can I give back to you?"

His hands returned to my hair, and his fingers sifted through the long strands before he cupped my face. Tilting my head up, he put only enough distance between us so that I could meet his gaze. "When you tended your herd, what did the animals give in return? Think before you answer."

I contemplated the question, because while I understood the comparison he was making, I also recognized that he was giving me one of his nuances.

On the surface, the sheep gave nothing. We all would have existed and survived without the other. However, I watched over them. I led them toward food and water. I tended to the birthing mothers and new lambs. They gave me familiarity, company, and purpose. When I was with them, it was peaceful. They were the best part of my upbringing.

I answered truthfully. "Joy, affection, sustenance."

"Your submission will be my joy. The pleasure you give me will be my affection. And your body—your orgasms, your surrender, your complete capitulation—will be my sustenance." He gently stroked his thumb across my cheek. "Let's get you fed. I have a long afternoon planned for you."

My flittering anticipation became a slipstream in the wake of his promise, but I had to ask. "What about control?" He had given himself those seven letters just last night, but there was no better description of this man.

"That, I need." He dropped his hold on me. Then, as if to emphasize his point, he gave an order. "Go get your new sandals and bring them to me."

Used to his demands after eight years of his protocols, I did not hesitate.

But it was more than that.

As I walked to the bedroom to retrieve the pretty sandals, I was very much aware that I was not doing this because our lives depended on my quick actions. I was not doing it because it was a protocol that would keep our anonymity. I was not doing it simply because he told me to and I desired to please him.

I was doing exactly as he had bid because I wanted to.

I needed to.

Want and need.

The very juncture of those two states of being—desirous and emotional sustenance—they came together for the first time. Not like two bricks slamming into one another and the pieces crumbling, but as two hands threading their fingers and coming together in an unshakable bond based on each other's grip.

I returned to him with the shimmering gold bindings that had crisscrossed around me last night in uncertainty, insecurity, and fear.

A dominant ghost took my extended offering and brushed his lips against mine.

Then he dropped to one knee and held the delicate designer sandals for me.

I slid my feet into them.

He bound me in want.