Free Kink's Way by Jenika Snow

of
lifestyle is that?”
    He didn’t speak for what felt like long, grueling
minutes. “The hard, unforgiving kind, Bailey.”
    She swallowed roughly at the sound of hearing him
say her real name. She had never thought she’d like hearing a man speak it, but
yeah, she liked hearing Kink say it a lot. She shrugged, not knowing exactly
how to respond to that.
    “How old are you anyway? Twenty-three,
twenty-four?” He took another step toward her.
    “Twenty-one.” She breathed out and realized she had nowhere else to go when the fridge
stopped her retreat.
    He stopped when he was only inches from her, and
lowered his gaze down the length of her body. When he made the trek back up to
her eyes, he held her stare with his own for a second. “Yeah, you’re too damn
young to be in this kind of fucking life. And you’re really too young for me,
Bailey.”
    “My name is Cookie.” She said that on a breath,
knowing it was a damn lie. She liked hearing him saying her real name, liked
the way it made her feel, too.
    “My name is Kink, but I think I’d like hearing you
call me Logan.” He lifted his arms and placed his hands on the refrigerator
right by her head. “That’s my real name, Bailey. Logan Roberts, but Kink has
always been who I was.” He lowered his gaze to her lips. A moment of silence
passed between them. “Do I make you nervous because you’re afraid of me and
what I’ll do, or because you’re anticipating it?”
    A visible shiver worked through her, and she slowly
licked her lips. He watched the act, and she wondered if he saw how hard her
nipples were. “Both.” She was afraid of him, and not just because of the way he
made her feel. This man was older than she was, probably close to twice her age
even. But the way he carried himself, like he was not afraid of what the world
held, made her realize that he could take so much from her. He probably
wouldn’t even realize he had left her behind when he was done.
    “I shouldn’t even be here, you know.”
    She didn’t say anything to his statement.
    “But there is something special about you, Bailey,
something that makes me feel pretty fucking strange inside.”
    Yeah, she knew the feeling. “Maybe you shouldn’t
explore that then.” Was she trying to push him away? It seemed like that, but
now that he was right in front of her, and she was inhaling the same air as he
was, there was this moment that her body was screaming at her to leave and not
look back. This man could hurt her, but not in the physical way that she had
experienced too many times already. He could hurt her heart.
    “I should leave, but I’m not going to. In fact, I
haven’t wanted to be anywhere else in a long fucking time.” He leaned in an
inch closer, and she held her breath. “But do you want me to walk away from
whatever it is we are doing here, Bailey?” He stared right in her eyes, and she
wanted to look away from their intensity, but she couldn’t.
    The smart thing to say was to tell him that yes,
starting something between them was so very wrong. He didn’t live a good life,
so wouldn’t being together make an explosion of disastrous proportions? But as
she opened her mouth to say that, something sparked inside of her. It was that
little voice that she had tried to bury so deep it would never resurface. She
had hidden it, and waited until it could never resurface again.
    You’ve never
had anything in your life worth fighting for. But you want Kink, want to feel something that makes you alive. Stop being afraid, take off the
mask, and take what you want for the first time in your miserable life.
    It was the voice of reason, of temptation and need,
and it was the one she didn’t let outside because it frightened her. She wanted
to live, and she was now free, had the man she wanted right in front of her,
and her fingers itched to bring him closer. She could hear her heart beating in
her ears, feel the heavy thump-thump in her throat, and actually felt the wave