Bound to Her by Deborah Pin (debian ebook reader txt) 📕

“I was having drinks with Imogen.”

“You’re drunk?” She didn’t act it but he couldn’t seem to stifle the frustration in his voice.

“No!” She hung her head on a deep sigh as she walked to her sofa and sat down. “I wanted to be. I thought if I could just get a few drinks in me maybe I could sleep without thinking I was going to wake up to some

man raping me.” She spit the words out in her disgust. “I couldn’t relax

though. I had two drinks and then drank water for the rest of the evening.”

He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly as he walked to the couch

and sat. She pulled her legs up and sat cross-legged, grabbing a throw pillow next to her and hugging it to her body. He watched her fingers trembling and he scowled at the sight.

“Maybe you should stay with your friend for a few days.” He didn’t

expect her to scowl back at him.

“No. This is my home. I can’t…” He understood well enough how she

felt. This was her world that he was sitting in with her at the moment and it meant something to her.

“I’ll take a look around.” He stood and walked down the hallway to

the spare room. He peered in the closet, finding off-season clothes hung

up. The entire home smelled like her and he loved it entirely too much.

He peered under the bed, finding her strange-looking old cat curled up

snoring. Who knew cats could snore? He peeked into the bathroom, opening the linen closet and pulling back the shower curtain. When he entered her bedroom, he checked that closet as well and peeked under the bed.

He wanted to delve further. He wanted to dig into everything she

owned and study it, smell it, touch it. But instead he pulled her blinds up

and checked out the back of her house. She did have overgrown bushes

that were brushing against the side of the house in the strong wind and

there was little doubt the sound might be alarming in her vigilant state.

He lowered the blinds and when he turned she was standing in the doorway. She was leaning against the frame, watching him. Her face was

ghostly white and there were tears on the lower rims of her eyes. She was

torturing herself being here alone and he wanted to shake some damn

sense into her. Instead he walked to her and he overstepped the boundaries once more.

He wrapped his arms around her body, feeling the small fragile

weight of her against his strength. She collapsed against his chest and snuggled into him. He was far too aroused to be so close to her but he was running on erotic autopilot. He’d given over to it for a moment and

he was fighting to maintain what little space there was between them.

Her face was nuzzled up under his chin and his fingers were stroking slowly over her back.

When her lips touched his neck, he choked on his breath but he didn’t

pull back. He let her lips caress along the stubbly hair along his jaw. His

brain was screaming and his heart was pounding but his body was

soaking in the feel of her like it was a drug he was starved for—so starved, in fact, that his cock was twitching. She was only just far enough

away from his groin for him to hide it from her.

Her breath was ragged and desperate against his skin and he was

curling his fingers against her back to keep from grabbing her and mauling her on the bed. But when her lips parted and the warm breath

turned to an incredibly super-heated kiss just below his ear, he groaned

and he closed the last remaining space between their bodies. She

whimpered when his erection pushed up against her stomach and she

sank her nails into his back through his t-shirt.

He started panting, begging his body to stop, but she wasn’t done letting her lips set the pace and the moment they brushed back down along his jawline and up to his mouth, he fell apart. She parted her lips,

taking his bottom lip between hers and he let her. Why the fuck did he let her? He sank into it, letting his mouth fall lower to hers. He quite intentionally ignored the part of his brain that was screaming when he grabbed her cheeks and thrust his tongue into her mouth. She groaned loudly and whimpered as though she couldn’t quite figure out if she needed to cry or come to an orgasm.

He was losing his mind, but for all the warning bells going off in his

head, his mouth wasn’t getting the message. He was ravenous as he backed her body up against the opposite doorjamb behind her and he pushed his body to smother hers, pinning her to the doorframe and continuing his assault on her lips. Her hands were everywhere and

couldn’t seem to figure out what to touch first. They were on his back, on his chest, clutching his face to hers, down along his neck but it wasn’t until she hit the waist of his jeans and slid her hand swiftly and tightly

down under the waistband of his underwear and farther down along the

rigid length of his cock that his brain finally caught up to him.

She was grasping the base of his erection, squeezing with the most perfect pressure as his cock pulsed and begged for more. But the gears were turning again and he pulled from her mouth, grabbed her hand, yanked it painfully away from him and pinned it above her head. She was panting and her eyes were wide and shocked. She lunged for his mouth, capturing his lips again and he gave in for a split second.

“I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’t. Fuck. Oh fuck.” He was speed-talking against her mouth and she was whimpering into his. He held his

forehead to hers, pushing forward and tensing every muscle in his body

to keep himself from attacking her lips again. Her free hand was

gripping his biceps harshly and she looked as if she were ready to break

apart into a hundred pieces.

He didn’t let her go until he was certain he could walk away, and as

he staggered back away from her down the hallway, he watched as she

sank to the floor, clutching her knees to her chest and letting her head sink to rest on top of them. Her shoulders shook as she silently started to

cry. His soul was chastising him loudly, making it clear he was the cause

for her pain and while logic said her state was far more complicated than

simple lust for him, it didn’t abate the agony or the guilt he felt for what he’d allowed to happen.

He stumbled back from her until he was standing back in the living

room, still watching the emotion that was coursing through her body.

“I’m so sorry.” His voice came out on a hoarse whisper and she shook her head, refusing to look up.

He couldn’t leave her like this—there was no way in hell he could just

walk away from her in this state. He’d fucked up. Her emotion wasn’t just about what had happened between them but he’d sure as hell made

it a whole lot worse. “I want you to stay with your friend Imogen. You’re

exhausted, you’re terrified to the point of falling apart. You need to get

away from this place, even if just for a few days. Please.” He was pleading with her and as she continued to shake her head, he let his drop

back in absolute helplessness.

All he wanted was to scoop her up and take her to bed, hold her, make love to her, give her some small amount of peace but he was rooted

to his place in the living room, afraid to step even one inch closer to her.

When she climbed to her feet, she padded down the hallway past him and into the kitchen, slipping on her hiking boots and coat, grabbing a tote bag that hung by the back door and snatching up her cell phone from the counter.

She stood by the door, staring at his feet and waiting for him to get the hint. He finally did. He snatched his own keys from the kitchen counter and stepped through the door to the cool spring air.

She said nothing to him and he didn’t press. He’d done enough

already. He followed her all the way to Imogen’s house, where he’d dropped her off the night she’d been attacked. He pulled over, waiting to

see that she got through the gate okay. She was eyeing him in the rearview mirror and he waited until the gate was closed behind her to finally put some much-needed space between them.

Too bad he’d not thought to do that sooner.

Chapter Nine

“Oh, love. I’m sure it’s not as bad as all that. Talk to me.”

“I touched his penis.”

“You what?” Imogen was practically shrieking at her. “You box-

grabbed the detective?”

“Imogen, where did you hear that? It’s not—”

“Study hall. Why? I’m not using it right, am I?”

“No. You’re not using it right at all. Backward. You’ve got to stop copying junior-high sex slang. Half of them don’t even know what sex is

and the other half know more than we do.”

They were lying on their stomachs on Imogen’s bed, staring out the wall of windows to the rocky shoreline below. Imogen’s bed didn’t have

a headboard and not because she couldn’t afford one. The head of the bed butted right up against the expansive window wall and it was the most incredible feeling in the world to lie on her bed and just stare down

at the water beyond. She was curled up in one of Imogen’s soft thick white down blankets, letting the sight of the steam rising off the water soothe her overtaxed noggin.

She’d made a damn fool of herself. Again. She’d been half crazy the

night before, deliriously mad in her exhaustion and emotional lunacy.

He’d come to check on her and she’d crumbled into his protectiveness like some seriously mentally disjointed woman. Maybe she needed to be

locked up in an insane asylum. She felt crazy. But he’d felt amazing…

His desire for her was real. Hers for him was real as well. But that was

beside the point and she understood that. She didn’t like it, especially not when that steadfast strength was what she needed most. But she got it.

Until she forgot about it last night and he apparently did too. Dear God,

she’d grabbed his wanker.

“So that’s not like a metaphor? You like actually grabbed his Roger Moore?”

Talk about metaphor. She cocked her head to the side quizzically. It

wouldn’t be the last time Imogen threw down a word that meant absolutely nothing to Katrina and she could only assume a Roger Moore

had something to do with a man’s dick. So she nodded, turning her head

to rest on her upstretched arms as she looked at Imogen. “Like I zoned in

and attacked. No buildup, no inching my hands down along his body slowly, just—cock, hand, grab, squeeze. I really think I lost my mind temporarily.”

“What was it like?”

“Losing my mind?”

“Don’t be coy with me. ‘Fess up.”

“Scary big.” She sighed as she returned her eyes to the water. Lovely.

Deliciously and arousingly big. Intimidating. Hard as steel but smooth, like silk over steel. So very fucking masculine. Her mind was going adjective-crazy on her.

“Ah. So, it was a Roger Moore.” Katrina was still clueless. “Back in a

flash.” Imogen hopped from bed, padding out of the room as Katrina got

lost in her adjectives.

Why couldn’t she have been sane last night? Katrina finally felt

human, thanks to the most decent night’s sleep in well over a week.

She’d slept next to Imogen all night long, falling asleep to the dizzying sight of the lights surrounding the water and when she woke it wasn’t to

a nightmare, it was to dawn over the lake. She finally felt rested or something very closely resembling it. She couldn’t stay here forever. In fact, she wouldn’t allow herself to but she needed this break.

“Here.” Imogen handed her a long beanbag that was incredibly warm

to the touch.

“What is it?”

“It’s kind of