He moved away again, and she heard a strange grinding sound. Her heart rate kicked up a notch until she identified it as a can opener. Hadn’t he brought a can of fruit…?

Something cool and slick slid into her mouth. The gritty bite of sweet pear dissolved on her tongue. She smelled wax the instant before liquid heat burned down the center of her back. Her spine arched involuntarily. He traced either side of the hot trail with ice. His mouth moved to suck on the side of her neck. Only his mouth wasn’t hot as expected. It was cold. He let the water from the melting ice trickle from his lips as he kissed his way down her throat and shoulder. Thin rivulets of water traced paths down her chest, following the contours of her body to collect between her br**sts, slide down her belly, around her navel, and finally between her thighs. She shuddered when the first droplets found her shaved mound.

“Jace.” She’d given up on trying to figure out what he was going to do next.

He paused to put more ice in his mouth. She heard him slurp it inside, and it clicked against his teeth. As the water dripped between her legs and found new paths along her hip bone, she squirmed with impatience. He shifted his mouth to the other side of her neck and used the flat of his hands to stroke her belly and the undersides of her br**sts. He pinched her ni**les unexpectedly, and she shuddered on the brink of orgasm.

“Jace, f**k me, please. I want you. I want you inside me.”

He moved away abruptly. She listened to the sounds of his movement. A slice of peach entered her mouth. She sucked on it, savoring its slick sweetness. She waited for his return. It seemed like hours before his hands were on her again. They had an unusually rough texture now. He stroked the skin of her belly and br**sts gently with his gloved hands while he blew soft breaths over the skin of her back.

“Oh God, Jace. You’re driving me insane.”

“Do you want me to stop?” The low rumble of his voice made her spine tingle.

“Yes.” She gasped when he drew his hands away. “No. Don’t! Don’t stop.”

He curled his body against her back. She felt his c**k against her ass, and she rubbed up against him, arching her back in an attempt to get him to enter her. His rough gloves moved between her thighs, pressing them open so the cool air bathed her heated flesh.

“Hold still,” he murmured.

She tried to hold still, but the neglected parts of her body were greedy for his touch. She twisted her hips and rubbed her mound against the hand he had stroking her inner thigh. She sucked a shuddering breath between her teeth. He slapped her ass with a loud smack. Her entire body tensed.

“No, Aggie. Hold still.”

“Jace. Please. Please. I can’t take any more.”

He moved away again, and she choked back a sob of protest. Something tickled her shoulder blade. A feather? And then nothing. When she’d given up on him ever touching her again, he traced her lowest rib with the feather. She groaned. An eternity later, he stroked her hip bone. She fought her chains, her hips undulating involuntarily as she sought fulfillment.

The door opened. Two rapid inhalations came from the general vicinity of the threshold.

Jace slipped something into Aggie’s mouth. It burst against her tongue, releasing sweet juice. White grape. Aggie swallowed, her ears straining for sounds that would tell her what was going on beyond her perception.

The door closed again.

“Who was that?” Aggie whispered.

“Sed and Jessica. Looks like they’re back together.”

“Are they in here with us?”

He chuckled. “No, baby. They left.”

The mattress beside her sagged.

She leaned toward him, disappointed when she found nothing but empty space beside her. “Are you going to let me off the hook?”

He wrapped an arm around her waist and lifted her from her knees. Her hands came loose from the chain above her head.

She chuckled. “I didn’t mean literally. Are you finished torturing me with pleasure then?”

He massaged her hands, returning circulation to her fingers. He kissed each fingertip, sucking gently, before massaging each knuckle with a gentle pressure. She hadn’t even realized her hands were numb. Every sense was tuned to pleasure. Discomfort didn’t register. “Do you want me to be done?” he asked.

That was a difficult question to answer. He played her body like a mastered instrument. Within a few minutes, she knew she’d be begging him to f**k her again. “I’m not sure. How long are you going to make me wait before you give me what I need?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never had a woman make it this long before.”

So if she held out for a while longer, that would make her special to him. Is that what he was hinting at? His lips brushed a sensitive spot below her ear. She turned her face toward him and inhaled his scent. A hint of mild aftershave. A heap of hot male.

“I’m pretty sure I can keep going for hours,” he whispered. His deep voice toyed with the nerve endings in the skin along her spine. She wanted more of him—his scent, his taste, his voice. The tools he used to excite her were exceptional, but the man in charge held a far greater appeal.

“Hours?”

“If you want me to.” He sucked her earlobe into his mouth, still rubbing her hands. Her fingers were tingling now.

He pushed her back down on the bed. “Put your arms over your head,” he murmured, sliding his hands up her arms as she obeyed. He fastened her restraints over her head and then grabbed her hips to pull her down the bed and make the chain taut. “Lift your hips for me.”

She was used to issuing orders to men, not taking them. Why was she so willing to submit to this man? Because she knew he was going to make it worth her while, that’s why.

When she lifted her hips, he slid a couple of pillows under her lower back, tilting her pelvis up and lifting her butt off the bed. With one hand on each thigh, he spread her legs apart.

“If you stay like that, I won’t restrain your legs.”

She chuckled. “I already know I won’t be able to stay like this once you get to work.”

Rough beard stubble scraped her inner thigh. A smooth fabric soothed the slight sting, and then a cool tongue traced the same path. He repeated the action on the other thigh—rough, smooth, cool. It reminded her how achy she felt as it directed her attention to the emptiness between her thighs. Something hot trickled over one hip bone and then the other. She sucked a sharp breath through her teeth. Paraffin. She could smell it. The liquid heat burned a path above her mound as if he were framing her throbbing pu**y with a triangle of wax. A single drop of hot wax splashed on her pubis. Jace’s finger traced a path around the drop, drawing her attention to the cooling substance until it hardened, and she couldn’t feel it any longer. A second drop of wax near the first—more tracing.