his breath blaze a trail from behind her ear down to her collarbone. When she shivered he had to stop a groan. “Come inside with me.”
She didn’t trust her voice not to shake so she nodded her yes. It had taken him just seconds to reduce her insides to molten lava. A whisper in her ear, a breath of air on her neck, and the grip of his hands on her waist were enough to set off every nerve ending.
He released her waist and took her hand, pulling her out of the pool. He took a towel for himself and handed her one so they could dry off. All of that was a blur to Ellie, because she was too busy watching him slide the towel over the tanned planes of his chest.
Taking the towel from her hands, he turned her around and began to gently dry the water from her hair, working his fingers through it to get out the worst of the tangles. Something as simple as the feel of him stroking her hair, being careful not to pull or yank—it went against the tough image he projected to world and made her heart stutter.
He started leading her inside, but she was so distracted by the play of the muscles in his back that she didn’t notice until she was standing next to the bed. Candles were lit and several of her scarves were lying on the bed, waiting. Page 328, in real life.
Eyes wide, she watched him watching her. His mouth was relaxed but there was a tension in his body language that gave away his nerves. Knowing that helped settle her own. There was an unspoken question in his eyes. Trust was what he was asking for, and trust was what she offered. She moved back to the middle of the bed and smiled, the edges of her lips trembling almost imperceptibly.
The blindfold went on first. Immediately, her hearing seemed to heighten and focus on Rex’s every movement. She felt his hands undo the back of her suit and pull the top down to her waist. She felt his breath on her shoulder, followed by the tips of his fingers running down over her arm to her elbow, then lower to her forearm. Taking hold of her wrist, he ran his thumb over the thin-skinned area where her pulse pounded. His fingers left only to be replaced by the softness of a silky scarf.
The scarf wasn’t tight on her wrist, but her heart rate still kicked up a notch or two. There was a gentle pull as he tested his knot, then a more demanding pull as he stretched her arm back toward the headboard. Knowing how to respond from the scene she’d written, she lay back and let him tie the other end to the bedpost.
He repeated the same motions for her other arm, and then there was nothing but silence. She couldn’t hear him moving or breathing. It was a disconcerting sensation. When his fingertips touched the skin between her breasts, she sucked in a hard breath. With both hands, he caressed her stomach, reaching under the suit to work it down and off of her legs.
There was something inherently erotic about the fact that he could see her while she couldn’t see him. Completely nude, tied to the bed, and at his mercy. What was he thinking? Without her being able to see him, there was no way to judge his thoughts. The touch of silk against the skin of her inner thigh was so soft that for a moment she thought she’d imagined it—until it wrapped around her ankle.
The longer he took, the more hyperaware she became. Her own breathing was so loud in her ears that she lost track of Rex after he finished tying off her legs. It seemed like hours had passed, but she knew it had only been minutes. She was so hot and so wet that she could feel the wetness seeping from her body, nipples hard as diamonds and trembling on top of mounds raised high by the position of her arms.
A barely perceptible rustling of fabric let her know that he was still in the room. A real-life experience of something she had written was showing her that she really hadn’t had a clue what she was talking about. This was so much more than what she’d imagined.
If there had