Page 15 of Bound

For three days, she had committed to disremembering this man’s aroused glory. In less than five minutes, her efforts were unraveled. He was not even at full mast yet, but with nothing but his infirmary smock and a couple of sheets between them, her imagination swiftly filled in the rest.

Her imagination…and her hope.

“Brickham.” She scooted her leg over, fitting it better against his groin. Despite their fabric separators, his surging cock felt like a baked gavel against her leg. The comparison fit, since his whole face was now filled with judicial pique. She cared not. “Brickham. Sir. How I have missed you.”

His sharp intake was nearly synchronized to hers. Nevertheless, he rebutted, “And how you’ve forgotten what I’ll do to you as well? For being this disobedient to a direct order from your Sir?”

“Oh, I have not forgotten.” She could not help her impish croon, which originated in the joyous well through her spirit. All of this was like a dream come true, only better. Back in Paris, even her wildest imaginings had not included a plot with Brickham returning to Arcadia with her. Now, her force of nature was not just in her homeland but in her home. Better yet, he had brought all the best of their memories from Paris with him. Best of all, he seemed ready to relive them. At least certain parts of his body did.

“Goddammit.” His utterance betrayed equal parts confusion and amusement. “What am I going to do with you?”

“I imagine whatever you feel…up to…Sir.” She swung up and over until she fully straddled him. Best and worst idea ever, since her most sensitive parts were now slotted so intimately—so perfectly—along his burgeoning length. “The monitor alarms are all off. If you go into full arrest, I’ll be right here for the mouth-to-mouth resuscitation efforts.”

She preened just a little, proud of her suggestive banter. But it was useless for wiping away the far-off scowl on Brick’s face: an expression that had been there since the end of his own growled question. It was so firmly implanted, she restrained another naughty comeback. And then fully dismounted from him.

Something in her instincts, now blaring in place of the silenced monitors, sluiced through her veins like ice.

She climbed the rest of the way off the bed.

“Well, I have provided a personal suggestion for your answer, but it seems you have your own ideas about how this conversation should be going, Sir.”

Brickham had the grace to shake his head. “Jayd? What the hell? What are you—”

“Some excellent queries,” she returned. “Perhaps you should now ask them of the man in the mirror. Maybe he can tell you what to do with me, since my very own ideas do not seem to be the right fit.”

She was grateful, however morbidly, that Brickham respected her enough not to hide how accurately her comment had landed. He floundered not for some stuttered apology either. The man was direct until it hurt, complete with his unblinking gaze and folded hands. But how did he make the pose look so forceful and alluring, while she still felt like a fidgety school marm?

“Jayd.” The supports beneath his tone were as stern as his posture. “I’m sorry, okay? This is all just…unexpected. And complicated. Really complicated.”

“Complicated.” Letting him off the hook for that last mumble was not a mercy she felt like granting. “Of course. I understand.”

And if he believed that, she would toss aside princess duties and become an actress. Gold statuette, here I come.

Oh, why did she not understand?

He had not asked to be brought here. So maybe he truly did not want to be here. Maybe he would have preferred being left behind on the tarmac at Bourget, taking his hideous chances with several battalions’ worth of the French Gendarmerie. And maybe—all right, quite possibly—he would have survived and escaped.

Which meant complicated was probably an understatement in his book.

Which meant she had to accept the truths tucked so conveniently into the corners of her mind.

One: the only reason they met at all was that the man was a contract soldier in the right place at the right time.

Two: he had been treated like a visiting nobleman at the kink club where they went hiding. The club in which he had played her body like a musician with an instrument he knew all too well.

Three: he had not had an easy upbringing, nor even a peaceful adulthood. He carried the mental scars from both. Scars that, in certain places, tore his mind away from reality.

She even wondered if this moment might become one of them—until he uttered, “No, Pixie. I don’t think you do understand.” His lips twisted. “And if you ever really did, I’d be terrified.”

Thankfully, the man was not hoarding all the grimaces in the room. The frustration in Jayd’s soul swiftly spread across her face. She unfurled it in full, letting him see every inch as she fought to construct a diplomatic reply to his noble words.

But her heart was nowhere near a benevolent bend. Not when another truth daggered its way into her conscience.

“Terrified.” As she paused, waves slammed along the beach below the palais. Funny how similar they sounded to the disappointment drowning her heart. “Well, we cannot have that happening.”

“Damn it. I’m serious, Jayd.”

“Of which I am well aware, Brickham.”