Page 106 of Gamebreaker

I knelt.

It was ridiculous how easily I did it. Ridiculous how good it felt, the rug under my knees, Cam towering over me so far up I had to tip my head all the way back to see her face. She looked about nine feet tall from down here. She looked like a statue someone had built to win wars.

"Hands behind your back."

I clasped them behind me.

"You talk," she said, "when I ask you a question. Otherwise, you watch."

And then she undressed.

Shirt first, pulled over her head and dropped. Then her bra. Then she unbuckled her belt, slowly, and slid it out of the loops one by one, and the sound of leather dragging against denim lit up nerves I wasn't emotionally prepared to unpack. She didn't drop the belt. She folded it in half and held it in one hand, and she stepped out of her jeans and the rest, and then she was just standing there.

I'd known she was fit. I'd seen her in uniform, seen the arms, the shoulders, the thighs that could probably crack walnuts. It had not prepared me. She was all long lean muscle and hard lines, a body built over decades into a weapon, abs that cast actual shadows in the city light, a scar on her knee, another on her shin. Her breasts were perfect, and her hips were narrow, and there was a tattoo on the inside of her right wrist, a line of numbers I couldn't read from down here.

"You're staring," she said.

"You told me to watch."

The corner of her mouth twitched. "I did."

She came around behind me. I couldn't see her anymore, and that was worse, so much worse. I felt her kneel. Felt her breath on my neck. Felt the leather touch the inside of my wrist.

"I'm going to bind your hands," she said quietly. "Not tight. If your fingers tingle or go cold, you tell me. You can still tap. Show me."

I tapped three times on her thigh behind me.

"Good. Okay?"

"Yes."

The belt went around my wrists twice. She cinched it, then slid two fingers under the leather to check it. Adjusted. Checked again. The care in it, the slow, methodical attention, made my heart swell, and I was glad she couldn't see my face.

Then she wrapped the tail of the belt around her fist and pulled, once, gently, so that my arms drew back and my shoulders opened and my chest pushed forward.

I gasped.

"There you go," she murmured against my ear.

She stood, still holding the belt, and walked around in front of me. She sat on the edge of the bed with her legs spread and the leather tail in her hand, and she used it to draw me forward on my knees until I was kneeling between her thighs.

I could smell how much she wanted me. I could see it. My mouth actually watered.

"Look at me."

I looked up.

"You're going to earn that," she said. "Not yet."

"Oh, come on..."

She tugged the belt. Not hard. Just enough to remind me who was holding it. "What did I say about talking?"

I pressed my lips together, glaring at her. She looked delighted.

"Up."

She helped me stand, her hand under my elbow because my hands were bound and my legs were still useless. Then she turned me around, put her palm between my shoulder blades, and bent me forward over the edge of the bed until my cheek pressed into her absurdly expensive sheets.