Page 36 of Return of the Outback Billionaire

‘There are ties in my suitcase,’ he offered.

‘Show me.’

He removed his cufflinks on the way and she might have objected except that following him to his bedroom gave her the most wonderful opportunity to ogle the breadth of his back and the globes of his rear.

He found two ties and held them out to her with an air of challenge that was impossible to resist. She slid them around her neck, where they hung like a dressmaker’s tape. She’d get around to using them, as promised. Soon.

First, she had a man to undress.

Bridie’s thoroughness was killing him. Slowly, surely, as inevitable as sunset, she built a fire in him that threatened to become an inferno. She finished undoing the buttons of his shirt, and the brush of her fingers and knuckles almost had him coming out of his skin. She pressed a kiss to his chest as she slid the shirt to the floor, and then tilted her head up towards his.

‘How am I doing?’ Her voice only wobbled a little bit.

‘Not bad.’

‘Let me just strike gives effusive praise off your list of strengths.’ But her hands kept exploring and her eyes shone with gentle humour and encouragement.

‘Pretty good,’ he offered in an effort to redeem himself.

‘Funny man. May I kiss you?’ Her lips brushed his, more tease than kiss. ‘Please?’

‘Yes.’

Her next kiss delved deeper, took longer and he couldn’t help but take command of it. Showing her how to savour the sweetness, and by the time he’d done a thorough enough job, she’d opened his trousers and he was making tight little sounds of what could have been taken as protest but were far more aligned with surrender.

‘Are you sure you want me to tie you? I mean...this is going pretty well.’

He stepped back, but only to take his trousers off, and she looked down and her eyes widened.

‘Oh,’ she murmured. ‘Oh, boy.’

Virgin, his mind supplied helpfully. And he was definitely no boy.

‘I should, er—or you should... I mean—’ Flailing looked good on her. ‘How does that even fit?’

‘It fits.’

‘Right. Of course. Of course it does. So if you just...lie on the bed and raise your arms and grab a couple of bars on the bedhead, I’ll, wow, okay, that’s a lot of muscle mass. How strong is a brass bedhead, do you think?’

He curled his hands around two rounded bedhead rails and figured them for hollow. ‘I’ll replace it if I have to.’

‘How very reassuring.’

‘Tie me up, Bridie. Do it now.’ Before raging need got the better of him and he reached for her and forgot to be gentle. He wasn’t even sure he knew how to be gentle these days. It was as if he had two settings: indifferent or destructive. The middle ground had deserted him.

She straddled him to do it, but instead of resting any weight on him she held herself a couple of inches above him. Suddenly his hands were on her hips, pulling her down against him before she could squeak. Silk panties, warm and slippery against his sensitised skin, meant he almost lost it.

Forget his overwhelming hunger for sex and how it might scare her. He needed in.

Needed to push aside her panties and sink into tight, willing warmth.

‘No, you don’t.’ She reached for one of his wrists and slid a loop of fabric over his hand and pulled it tight and then raised his arm to the bedhead again. ‘Co-operate,’ she murmured, and he gave in to the urge to bury his face against the softness of her belly and surround himself with her scent.

‘I am co-operating.’ His voice was muffled but he trusted her to understand. He hadn’t ripped her panties off, rolled her onto her back and buried himself inside her yet. How could she possibly think he wasn’t co-operating?

She tied his other hand to the bedhead and smiled as she sat back and set the palms of her hands to his chest.

‘Sit,’ he urged. ‘Make yourself comfortable.’ He almost whimpered when she removed herself from the bed altogether, but it was only to raise her top over her head. ‘Or that. Do that.’

---