Mirror of My Soul by Joey Hill (book club recommendations .TXT) 📕

base of her buttocks to give her a reassuring squeeze. Her body moved restlessly as the side of his head, his soft hair, brushed the undersides of her breasts with his movements.

“It’s okay, angel. I know what this song can do to the soul. It pulls out the magic, makes it easier to give everything to each other. I don’t want you to be afraid.”

She stiffened, her hands curling into fists. “You haven’t played this song… You’re not doing something you’ve done with someone else.”

“Marguerite.”

Tyler rose, cupping her face in his hands. “No. There’s just us in this room. Now and forever.” He paused, seeking the right words. He’d never wanted to possess a woman more, to experience the sweet, aching victory of her surrender to him, the willing gift of her faith and trust. And he knew that meant he had to give her the same.

75

Joey W. Hill

“This… No woman has ever been in this room with me other than my wife. I’ve lain here in the dark listening to that song, alone after her death. That’s how I know.”

She raised her hands, closing them over his. His throat closed up at the softer set of her mouth, her sign of forgiveness.

“I’m taking off my clothes,” he said. Reluctantly he took his hands away and

unbuttoned his shirt, shrugged out of it, unfastened his trousers. He stilled as her fingers found his shoulder and touched it like the brush of an angel’s wings in truth, following the line to his neck, then down over the wide plane of his chest. His body rippled with response as she made her way over his pectorals, his nipples, the gathering of soft hair across them. Moving to stand closer to him, she lowered her touch to his trousers. Moved around and under his hands as he withdrew them, letting her take down the zipper of the garment. Her fingers went inside, stroking the surface of the cotton boxers as if she were stroking an animal’s soft pelt.

“I thought it wasn’t fair for you not to let me see you. But this is even better.”

Though she was the one blindfolded, surrendering to him, he found himself held motionless by her irresistible whisper, her intimate touch. He wondered now why she even bothered with restraints at The Zone; if he’d been Brendan, he would have simply lain there and let her burn him alive for the chance of a touch like this.

“I’m going to worship every inch of you,” he promised, wondering if she

understood that he meant forever, not just tonight. Catching her wrists before her hands could circle him and undo him completely, he set her from him to remove the rest of his clothes. When he moved back to her, the tip of his erection slid against her thigh, the point of her hip. Her tongue touched her lips, nervous anticipation.

Passion rose in him, even harder and more demanding than it had been in the

garden when he’d known all the demons in hell and the heavenly hosts could not have prevented him from penetrating her. Nothing but her refusal and she hadn’t refused.

Had accepted him. Perhaps could even accept his darkness.

He couldn’t face that. Tonight was not about that. This was all about her. Taking his belt from the dresser, he looped it around her wrists, behind her back. He knotted the strap through the railings of the footboard so she stood before him blindfolded, her arms restrained.

“Tyler…” It was a soft breath. Dropping to one knee again, he made her spread her legs so he could enjoy the nectar of what lay there.

She moaned, already wet and swollen. His hands came up and anchored her hips

more forcefully, his teeth scraping, tongue delving deep, wanting more, wanting her to scream until he’d hear the hoarseness in her voice tomorrow. See in the stiffness of her walk that he’d given her pleasure past the ability of her body to absorb it. He dug his fingers in, wanting to see the bruises that passionate lovemaking could create, the stamp of his presence on her, for they both knew that pain held power and release beyond imagining. His desire for her raged into the dark area of violence as well as the light of ultimate salvation. He wanted her to feel both.

76

Mirror of My Soul

Marguerite felt every touch in a way she knew no other man could emulate. The

few touches she’d allowed subs couldn’t compare to this and she didn’t have to have a legion of past lovers to know it. In her soul she knew this was it, the person who called to her heart, the type of person she’d heard other women talk about, dream about, rarely find. And he had reached out to her, seen it and felt it first. Been persistent enough for both of them.

Having him take her over this way brought a sense of tranquility she couldn’t begin to understand, a desire to serve him and worry about nothing else. She wondered if this was what her subs were feeling when she made them reach that elevated state past the point of choice and anxiety. This floating, spiraling…joy.

His mouth left her cunt, whispered down her thigh and across it, up the shallow valley between hipbone and stomach, his fingers touching her navel, touching her waist. Learning her. Registering every tiny mole, plane or curve with mouth and fingers. Every touch was like fanned flame on her skin without her sense of sight. Her thighs remained open to accommodate him so she smelled her scent, felt it wet on her thighs as the petals of flesh still vibrated from the movements of his mouth there.

“Tyler.” That soft word again. A plea. A statement. An affirmation.

He straightened, framed her breasts in his hands and began to suckle her, his lower body pressed against her. She moved, feeling the pressure of the footboard against her bound hands, pressed against her buttocks. His tongue played with the nipple