Bind Me Before You Go (Entangled Brazen) (Serve) (3 page)

“Plan on giving back the loaner there?” she teased, while eyeballing her hand in his.

See? She’s getting her second wind of smart-ass.

He smiled to himself.

“If you insist.” He reluctantly let her go and shoved both of his hands in his pockets, a necessity if he wanted to keep himself in check. “Can’t blame a man for wanting to take hold. Finding beautiful in New York? Not a challenge. Finding beautiful, sexy-as-fuck, and funny? That’s a rarity these days.”

Those perfect pink lips of hers twitched, offering him a lopsided grin that hovered on the border between adorable and sassy. She cocked her head and narrowed her eyes at him.

“So, what are ya saying…that I
amuse
you? I’m here to make you laugh? I’m like some kind of clown to you?” She was using a decent, albeit fake Bay Ridge accent and had a mischievous glint in her eye.

“Holy fuck, you quoting
Goodfellas
to me, sweetheart?”

That half-smile of hers widened into a full-out grin and made those gorgeous green eyes of hers sparkle. “Yep, well, trying to anyways. You get extra points for knowing your movie quotes.”

He couldn’t help himself. He took another step farther into her space and was now only a foot or so away from her. He caught a hint of her scent—clean and sweet, like a fresh breeze after it rained.

God, I bet this woman tastes like heaven
.

He tried to quell his spiking heartbeat but failed miserably because, already, he was picturing his mouth between her legs.

“Not too many women who look like you have the balls to quote mob movies to a Brooklyn boy like me.”

She raised an eyebrow at him again and crossed her arms. “And what do you mean by ‘a woman who looks like me’?”

He fixed his naturally intense gaze on her, a tactic he often utilized to see how people reacted, what they were made of. While most anyone else would’ve looked away or started shuffling around nervously, this woman didn’t fucking
flinch
.

Jesus, if she was even half as magnificent as he suspected, he already knew he was in trouble.

“I mean a woman like you who looks like she walked off the set of a goddamn shampoo commercial with a Homecoming queen crown in one hand and the balls of every man standing in her way in the other.”

Now it was her turn to let out a laugh. It was throaty and deep and made his dick ache and his stomach tighten.

“Wow,” she answered while wiping the corner of her eye. “Say what you
really
think, why don’t you?”

“I always do, gorgeous. I have zero filters and no patience for bullshit. And on that note,” he said, drawing in a deep breath, shoring himself for the small risk he was about to take. “You gonna fill out an application or are we still going to pretend you’ve got no interest in what Serve has to offer?”

He expected Cassidy to have any number of reactions: get all wide-eyed, like a deer in headlights, or all defensive and hostile, maybe even stomp away in a huff.

Instead, she bit the side of her lip and met his gaze head on.

“Only on one condition,” she said, now taking a step closer to
him
for a change. “I’m a recovering people pleaser, especially when it comes to men. If I give this place a try, I want it to be all about me, so I can finally figure out what kind of man I really want and what
I
like in bed. We got a deal?”

David couldn’t believe his luck. When he thought about how close he had come to leaving tonight, well, that was a kick in the head. Thank fuck he’d run into Leo.

“Uh, yeah. You’ve definitely got yourself a deal.”

He got an application from Chris, Leo’s second in command and replacement whenever he was off duty. Then they went to a small, two-seater table in the back of the bar. It was perfect, ensconced in shadows but with just enough light for them to go through the paperwork together.

“Okay, Cassidy,” he started, already twirling the pen smoothly back and forth between his fingers.

Shit, was he actually nervous? He’d been with too many women to get bashful now, but… Yeah. His heart was pounding. There was something about this girl that was charging every inch of him.

Fine. He knew from his search and rescue missions that it was better to accept his emotions than try to fight them. Better to accept the feelings, let them rise, eclipse, then subside. It was the most effective way to ensure he stayed in control instead of letting his emotions control him.

And he needed to stay in control. At least for now. A nervous habit of his and David was certainly on edge. Because going through this list would tell him—without a doubt—if Cassidy was as right for him as he suspected.

“I’m gonna run through your choices. All you have to do is let me know your limits.”

“Limits?” she asked, then took a long pull from her drink, her eyes widening over the rim of the martini glass, like a kid peeking over a wall into a secret garden.

“Yeah, your hard limits—shit you’re absolutely not open to. And your soft limits, the stuff you’re not sure about but might be willing to try. With the right partner. Right circumstances. And of course the stuff you’re really into.”

“Oh, okay,” she practically whispered. She put her drink down and then fidgeted with the paper napkin, fraying the edges of it with her nails.

He gently placed his hand on top of hers. She met his gaze, her lips slightly parted. “What if I give the wrong answers?”

“Hey, this is about
you
. There’s no wrong answer here.” He squeezed her hand and offered her a rare smile. “And remember, you can back out at any time. You’re in control. No one else.”

Her shoulders relaxed and she let out an audible breath. “Yeah, you’re right.”

She turned her hand palm up and stroked his hand with her thumb in an absentminded, back and forth rhythm.

Jesus fuck, just the touch of her fingers spiked his pulse. This woman wasn’t even trying to turn him on, but she was doing it anyway. Under the table, he readjusted his cock, now a thrumming steel rod, ready for those delicate, soft hands of hers to surround him.

Be patient, man. Let’s make sure she’s even open to what you need.

She straightened in her seat, like she had found her backbone again. “Okay, I’m ready. Bring on the freaky.”

He couldn’t help but stare at that pink mouth of hers. He wanted to know what that mouth felt like on the underside of his jaw, on the sensitive skin of his inner thigh, and, of course, around the head of his cock. But he shook that particular stream of consciousness aside to get back to the matter at hand: her list.

“Not trying to overstep or anything, but let’s get the more extreme stuff on or off the table.”

“Extreme stuff?”

He pointed to that category of kinks on the application. “Fire play, hot wax, humiliation. Dressing up like an animal.”

Cassidy had been mid-sip when he gave that example, and she practically did a spit-take across the table. Instead, she choked for a few seconds. He gave her a couple of firm whacks on the back.

“Hey, you all right? Sorry ’bout that.”

She waved him off, then took the partially shredded napkin and wiped under her eyes with it. “It’s fine, but give a girl a warning before you go to that level of funky town, okay?”

The edge of his mouth twitched into a smile. “Sure thing.”

He knew he shouldn’t, but Christ, he wanted to touch her. So he brushed her hair out of her line of vision, a feather-light moment of contact. Her expression softened, and he wanted to keep touching her, but he needed to build this thing between them the right way, which meant he had to remain focused. He reluctantly turned his attention back to the list.

By the time they made it through the more hardcore stuff on the list, they had both finished their drinks, and he noticed that while she wasn’t drunk, she definitely seemed a bit tipsy.

She rested her elbow on the table and leaned her cheek against her open palm, then cocked her head so her hair fell softly to the side.

“Okay, let’s go over some of the softer, more traditional stuff,” he said. “Do you like when someone sucks on your nipples?” She lifted her head at that mention.
Bingo.

“Yes,” she said. “I like that very much.”

He kept going. “Okay. More personal. What about while they’re fingering you?”

She glanced at his lips while absentmindedly running the tip of her tongue against the seam of hers.

“Cass,” he murmured.

So slowly, as if she had all the time in the world, her eyes met his. “Yes,
David
?”

She was being flirty, and there was only so much restraint he had left. “You keep staring at my mouth like that. Like you want me to kiss you.”

The corners of her eyes crinkled as she smiled. “Maybe I do.” She dropped her arm and leaned forward. “Ever consider that?”

He took in a cleansing breath.
This is it.
He had to know if she was made for him as much as he hoped, as much as he suspected.

He pointed to a section on the list of kinks. “Have you ever been tied up? Been bound by someone who knows exactly where you need it tight and where you need room to breathe? Someone so in sync with you that just a slight hitch of your breath tells him exactly what to do to you, what you need…”

“N-no,” she whispered hoarsely, her excitement making her stutter. “Not even close.”

“Think you might like someone to do that to you?”

“No,” she answered and now it was his eyes that went wide. Had he been reading the signs wrong?

“I don’t want
someone
to do that to me.” She cleared her throat but didn’t otherwise waver. “I want
you
to do that to me.”

Ah, thank fuck, thank fuck, thank fuck…

He surged toward her, dove his fingers into her hair, and brought that temptress of a mouth close to his. He paused for a second, though, scanning her face, making sure she was down with the way he was taking over.

And when her face broke out in the most luminous smile he’d ever seen? He knew he’d made the right call.

“You need to get ready, because I want a taste of that pink mouth. You want that?”

She nodded, and that was all he needed.

His eyes fell from her lust-hazy gaze onto those bee-stung lips, and he leaned in and got a taste of her. And goddamn it, this woman tasted like sweet mint, like fucking summertime. Even better was that she immediately opened for him. Her tongue sought his, and all the while she practically mewed into his mouth.

He wrapped his other hand around her jaw and pressed himself into her. Her softness melted into his . She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him even further into her body, as if she wanted to crawl under his skin.

He’d fucked a lot of women in his life, but never,
never
had he responded to someone the way he was to her. This was beyond sexual chemistry—what it was exactly, he had no idea, but fuck it, he didn’t care. Let her dissolve into him, as long as he got to sink himself into the velvet heaven between her legs and see how much she unraveled when she came for him.

His voice so rough with need he could hear it, he whispered in her ear, “Do you want me to take you home or do you need to wait for your friend?”

The last thing he wanted to hear was that she’d made some kind of girl-code promise to wait for her friend. And yet, as much as he wanted to drag her out of the club like a goddamn caveman, put her on the back of his bike, and lock her in his house and under his body indefinitely, he wasn’t going to be a pushy douche bag to get his way. He also didn’t want to scare her off, and given the hesitation she’d shown as they went over her kinks, he knew she wasn’t the kind of woman who’d open herself to him so freely.

She needed to feel safe first. Very well. His own kink—the kink he couldn’t help but hope she’d take part in—required her to feel safe before they could move on to anything else. If he wanted that dream to become a reality, he’d make a few concessions for her sake.

“Allie’s a big girl. This may not be my gig, but she did tell me it’s safe at Serve. She just needed me here in the beginning.”

He stilled. “This isn’t your gig? Then why are we filling out an application for you?”

“I didn’t mean it like that. I don’t think…” She sucked in a breath. “I have nothing against the lifestyle, but, well, I don’t know…” She averted her gaze, looking truly unsure of herself for the first time that night.

“Yes, you do,” he said. She was hesitating, but he could see the naked desire in her eyes. She just needed a little push to claim what she wanted. “Finish what you were thinking.”

Her teeth dragged across her lusciously full bottom lip. In seconds that felt like a lifetime, she expelled a breath and gave him her eyes, a hint of a challenge within them.

“It’s just that I can’t imagine coming into a club and trusting my deepest, most privately held fantasies with someone I’ve never met before. Sex is personal for me. It’s not a casual hobby, and I have a hard enough time giving up control with someone I’m close to.” She paused, as if she’d realized just
how
open she’d been.

His chest swelled. She didn’t realize it—not yet—but what she’d said only proved to him how perfect she would be for his brand of Shibari. There’d be no need for her to give up control or trust. On the contrary…

“What you need is a guide, someone you can get to know, be comfortable with. Someone to earn your trust. Someone you can share control with, not someone who will try to take it from you. Someone who understands that submission can be mutual.”

Her mouth fell open.

Jackpot.

…

Cassidy was definitely still all about keeping control for herself, but if he didn’t kiss her again soon, she would grab him and do it herself—

“Ready to go, sweetie?”

They both looked up and saw Allie standing there with Leo, regarding Cassidy and David with expressions vacillating between surprise and amusement.

Wow. Had it already been an hour?

“Are we interrupting something?” Leo asked.