Free Exposed by Fate by Tessa Bailey Page B

her blindfold, searching her eyes. Whatever he saw there only caused his expression to coat with awe, lust. For her. “Let it come. Let me have it all. Want it so bad.”
    It was so close, shimmering in front of her like a mirage. How do I get there? She made a sound of frustration, making Oliver’s jaw harden once more. No more concern existed on his steam-slicked face, only determination.
    Without breaking pace, he grabbed hold of her hair, twisting it in his fist. Prickles of pain assaulted her scalp, but it didn’t hurt. Not like it should. It was welcome. “You will come right now , Eliza, or I’ll put you over my knee and whip it out of you.”
    Bliss. The blindfold had been discarded, but she was even blinder now than she’d been with it on. Every muscle in her body trembled as wave after wave of draining, consuming pleasure rolled through her body. Distantly, she heard Oliver shout a curse, before a hot flood was released inside her, colliding with her own. No longer able to hold herself up, she let the excess leather unravel from around her wrists, completely confident that Oliver would be there to catch her. Support her. And he was. He reached up to unfasten the restraints, then buried his face in her neck, holding her against the shower wall as they both came down from the soaring heights he’d brought them to. Eliza couldn’t catch her breath…it just continued to rattle in and out of her chest. She wanted to stay there forever, basking, marveling…but as seconds passed, something ugly bled from her subconscious into her conscious.
    What she’d just experienced with Oliver had been the single most amazing moment of her life. Freeing. Self-actualizing. It had felt right . But she’d wanted to explore this world to empower herself. She’d been told numerous times by Caroline, read it in articles, that there was power in submission. Yet when she’d been restrained, had her sight taken away…she hadn’t wanted control. She’d wanted none . At all. Had wanted Oliver to take every ounce of it away. What did that mean?
    An unwanted image rose in her mind of her mother, always taking abuse. Almost… wanting it.
    Eliza felt sick, unease clawing at her throat. A logical part of her brain told her this was just the aftermath of her first experience with this type of thing. She just needed to calm down and think about this when she felt more rational. When hormones and emotions weren’t pouring through her body from several different waterfalls. Even as she told herself to stay put, she found herself desperate to get out of the shower. Out of the apartment. Away from Oliver and what they’d done.

Chapter Nine
    I’m so screwed.
    Oliver reached down to massage Eliza’s wrists, just so he’d have an excuse to keep her flattened between him and the wall a little longer. Too many new things were happening here. Things he wasn’t accustomed to. Things and feelings and earth-shattering orgasms that depleted him to the point he could barely stand. He’d known sex between him and Eliza would be good. There had been a mutual attraction simmering for a long time, one he’d sensed from the get-go. It would be the enactment of a fantasy, something they would wink-wink-nudge each other about next time they were in the same room. That’s what he’d thought. Expected. He hadn’t anticipated her to reach inside his chest and rearrange everything.
    No, no, wait…that sounded serious. His heart was in his chest, and no one had been able to touch that. Maybe he wasn’t even capable of feeling romantic love for another person. This…thing, though, happening in his chest…it hurt. It felt like someone had inflated one of those stupid rafts inside his ribcage and it was pushing, growing, trying to get out. At the same time, his throat wouldn’t seem to stop aching.
    How was he supposed to deal with this? It hadn’t just been incredible sex. No, something else had happened when he’d been buried inside of her