The Lake House Had One Bed Left for Our Parents' Wedding Week, So I Shared It With My Soon-to-Be Stepbrother novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: Scarves

"Tie me," I said.

The guest bathroom was the size of a phone booth.

It had a pedestal sink, a clawfoot tub with a plastic curtain, a mirror with a speckled gold frame.

A lock that took two hands and a prayer.

Jack had used both.

Now he stood with his back to the door and his hands at his sides.

He was looking at the navy silk scarf I had pulled from my bag.

It was the only nice thing I owned that wasn't hospital-adjacent.

"Say that again," he said.

"Tie my wrists. Not hard. A bow, so I could slip out if I wanted."

"Do you want to?"

"No."

"Then why a bow?"

"Because I want to choose it the whole time."

He took the scarf out of my hand and held it.

His eyes went dark in a way that I felt in the backs of my knees.

"What's the reason?" he said. "Tell me the reason, and I'll do it."

I had thought about this on the porch, with my head on a cardboard place card.

"I'm the one who handles things," I said. "I've been handling things for years. Dad's taxes, Mom's insurance appeals, Marlene. In an hour I'm going to stand up in a tent and handle your aunt. I want ten minutes where I don't have to do anything. Where it's just you, and I don't hold a thing."

He was quiet.

"Nothing to hold," he said.

"Nothing."

"All right."

He turned me by the shoulders until my back was against the door, and lifted my hands over my head.

Over the door hung an old brass hook, the kind that holds a robe.

He wound the silk twice around my wrists, soft and cool.

Made a bow with two fingers, neat and loose, and slipped the loop over the hook.

My arms stretched up.

I stood on the balls of my feet with my body fully open to him.

My wrists in the silk, and my heart going so hard I could see it in my vision.

He stepped back and looked.

"Oh," he said.

That was all.

He said it.

"Look at you," he said, after a moment. "You're doing it. You're letting go."

"I haven't done anything yet."

"You're standing there with your hands tied over your head, and you trust me, and you look so beautiful that I don't have a word for it."

He undressed me.

He did it slowly, button by button, the way he had in the cabin, with his eyes on every inch.

My shirt first, parted and pushed off my shoulders so that it hung from my bound wrists.

Then he drew my shorts down over my hips.

He took his time with my underwear.

"You're so soft here," he said, and put his mouth against my hip bone. "And here. Your skin is the softest thing I've ever touched, Kate. You have this little place on your side, right here, just under your ribs, that shivers when I breathe on it."

He breathed on it.

I shivered.

"See?"

"Jack."

"I notice everything, you know. I'm a teacher. I watch for a living. I see when someone's about to speak, and I see when they're about to cry, and I see you." His mouth moved up my ribs. "You bite your lip right before you come. You do it every time, and you don't know."

← Chapter 17 · All chapters · Chapter 19 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend