Bite Read Free

rain. It was strange at first, yet still unbelievably sexy. Damn, he had me rattled.
    “Can we please lock the door?” I asked when he broke the kiss.
    “Of course.”
    He switched off a few lights while he was at it and dropped the shades over the windows. We weren’t on the ground floor, but still, I didn’t have any exhibitionist tendencies. Apparently, neither did he.
    He stripped off his white jacket and tossed it aside, leaving him in a plain black T-shirt, jeans, and boots. The tattoos that I’d only gotten peeks at up to this point went all the way up his left arm and disappeared under his shirtsleeve.
    “More,” I said, eager to see equal amounts of bared flesh.
    “In a minute.”
    “Can we use an egg timer on that?”
    Kevin picked up a humongous butcher knife. I almost peed my panties. The terrifying thoughts that flooded my head nearly made my brain explode. He grinned wickedly while he deftly spun the knife around a finger like a gunslinger. “Got your attention, didn’t I?”
    “You’ve had my attention for quite some time,” I admitted in a whisper.
    “Is that so?”
    “Yes.” Because you shouldn’t lie to someone holding a butcher knife above your tied up and practically naked body.
    The back edge of the blade made a slow pass across my quivering stomach. “Relax, sweetheart. I’m not going to filet you. I just want you to focus.”
    “Oh. Well, I have a bit of ADD, if you hadn’t gathered that already.”
    That made him laugh out loud, and the sound made me smile in return. “I would’ve never guessed.” He grabbed an artichoke from the basket. “I suffered from it too before I started cooking. It helps you to concentrate when you have something that genuinely interests you. Any hobbies?”
    I watched him place the ugly green thing on a cutting board and whack the top half of it off with that giant-ass knife. Thankfully, he set it aside, but in its place he began picking up the severed leaves of the artichoke, touching the ends of each with a fingertip.
    I frowned. Here I lay, almost naked and completely willing, and he was playing with food instead of me. Then I remembered he’d asked me a question. Hobbies. Oh, yes. “I draw.”
    “Are you any good?”
    This conversation was making me lose my sex buzz. “I guess.”
    Kevin smiled and positioned himself between my knees, leaning over my body. “Am I boring you, Elle?”
    “No, I was just—Ow!” Something sharp poked me in the hip. “What the hell was that?”
    He held up the artichoke leaf. “The artichoke is getting its revenge. Hold very still.”
    I tried. I really, really did. But it was hard not to flinch when Kevin used the point on the leaf to scratch his name across my stomach. It hurt, but not to the point of real, tear-inducing pain, and by the time he reached the bottom of the “V,” I was already feeling the little endorphin rush. I kept craning my neck up to watch as each letter turned into a swollen, pink welt. I barely knew this man, and I’d let him tie me up and scratch his name into my skin.
    And I didn’t care. He’d marked me, with a vegetable no less, and I secretly wanted to take a picture of it and share it on Facebook, or a billboard downtown. I wanted to call up my brother Brian, a brilliant tattoo artist, and have him ink over it so it became permanent.
    When Kevin was finished there, he used it on my nipples. I bit my lip to keep from crying out at the first sharp prick, but then Kevin covered me with his mouth and his talented tongue soothed away the sting. Over and over he did this, until I was anticipating the pain then craving the pleasure, until I was arching my back in a silent request for him to suck me deeper and harder.
    The air conditioning in the room was working overtime, yet I was covered in a fine sheen of perspiration when he finally tossed the leaf away. His palm made a slow pass down my belly, the salt in my sweat making the inscription burn back to life, before his thumb