Page 253 of Bound By Her

“No, I don’t want to take charge,” he said, still watching her.

She looked at him, really looked. Searching his face to see if there was a hint of humor or a shred of teasing. But it wasn’t there. He was dead serious.

He cleared his throat, kneeling down, unlacing her boots. It wasn’t until he had the first one undone that he spoke.

“I don’t submit to anyone,” he said again, but thistime he said the words slowly and carefully, his fingers pulling at the laces on her next boot. “But you are not just anyone.”

She propped herself up on her elbows. He was there, right there. No walls, no subterfuge, just a young Bryson.

It was what heshouldlook like. What he would look like if he didn’t grow up under Callen. Hadn’t grown up a Winters.

How would his life have been different? But then he wouldn’t have met Seth or Kaydon.

Orher.

“What are you saying?” Her voice was foreign. She felt foreign.

He undid the last tie, and her boot slid to the floor. His hand rubbed her calf, soothing the tension knotted in there from a day in heels.

“One of us had to change, right?” he said, moving further up her leg.

She relaxed on the mattress as his massage moved over to her other leg.

“I kept telling myself after this was over, things would go back to normal. But I realized I don’t want them to go back to normal. I enjoy being around you. With you, I don’t want to be in control.”

It was the first time he had ever admitted to liking it, and Adria wished it didn’t make her feel ten-feet tall.

She sat up, grabbing his face, pulling him towards her. “Why are you telling me this now?”

His boyish grin could have killed her. “I figure you should know you’ve won.”

The grin she felt break out on her face in return was so big. She felt like a teenager.

The two embraced. She felt his hands on her, and she ran her hands over him in turn. Every touch sent tingles through her entire body, and she felt him shiver in return.

The truth was that neither of them were in charge.From the moment they started, there was only one inevitable conclusion.

They would own each other.

The subtle shifts and dances were just that, not moves and countermoves. It wasn’t a game; it was an exchange.

He was hers, and she was his.

And when they were gone, she would pay the price for allowing herself to begin that dance, but she would never regret it.

She would hold on to that pain because it would be the only way for her to convince herself that any of it had been real.

Adria pressed herself into him, and he gave into her advances. Positioning herself on top, she straddled him, squeezing him in between her thighs.

He groaned when she ran her tongue along the center of his chest and up his neck.

But when she sat back up, she noticed indecision on his face.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I don’t want anything between us,” he said.

Adria was quick. “You were tested, and I can show you my results if you’d like.”

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