He smiles, licking his lips. “Both. But I guess I meant with the rope.”

“You mean you couldn’t tell?”

The elevator doors open and he motions for me to get out first. From behind me he explains, “I haven’t done that with a girl in a long time.” I start to respond to this—I mean, now my curiosity is spiked; he’s got to give me more than that—but he keeps talking, “And the way you always leave right after . . . you’re not exactly easy to read.”

“Jesus, Finn.” Stopping in front of my door, I turn to look at him. “Isn’t this just hooking up? What’s there to ‘read’?” I mean this to come out a little flippant, a little jokey, but instead my drunk voice is slurred and slow. He scowls, taking my keys from me and using them to let us into my apartment.

Inside, Finn drops the keys on the little table by the door and looks around. My apartment has two bedrooms off a large main loft area with a view over a couple of city blocks and out across the ocean.

“Wow,” he says quietly. “Nice investment.”

Laughing, I push his shoulder from behind, making him take a step forward into my living room.

“I’m going to ask something that’s going to make me sound like kind of a dick,” he warns, looking over his shoulder at me.

“For once.”

With a little smirk at this, he says, “What was it like growing up never having to worry about money?”

I smile at Finn and let him stew in what he’s just asked for a bit. Because . . . seriously? “What makes you think we always had money?”

He looks around the apartment and then back at me, raising his eyebrows meaningfully.

“When my mom first started out in television, I remember my parents really scraping by,” I tell him. “She commuted for filming. Dad was here doing, like, little indie movies and stuff in his friend’s backyard. Maybe when I was in junior high they got more comfortable.” I shrug, holding his gaze. “When Dad won the first Oscar, it sort of took off. But that wasn’t until I was a freshman in college.”

He nods, and the silence stretches for a long, weird beat until he says, “I’m going to go use your restroom.” He looks down the hall and then back at me, gaze moving from my face down to my feet. “You go get a big glass of water, a piece of toast, and a couple of ibuprofen or something. I’m not going to fuck you until you’re steady.”

He turns without waiting for my reaction to his bossy tone, walking down the hall and ducking his head into the bathroom before slipping fully inside, closing the door behind him with a quiet click.

Because it’s a good idea and not because Finn told me to—a fact I have to restrain myself from shouting over my shoulder—I go to the kitchen for water, food, and two ibuprofen.

I hear the faucet turn on, the bathroom door open, and then he calls from the hallway, “Where do you keep your sports and surfing shit?”

“My what?” I ask around a mouthful of toast.

“I don’t mean your board.” I hear him open the hall closet and mumble an “Ah. Got it.”

I chug my water and watch him emerge from the hallway. My heart trips. His shoulders fill the doorway and I feel oddly intimidated. It’s only odd because I like it. I like the idea of him being a little scary, a little out of control. I like the idea of him crashing into my life and pushing everything else out of frame.

He’s got a spool of bungee cord in his hand.

“How did I know you were looking for something like that?” I ask.

“It could be the subtle way I asked you about the rope, earlier.” He wraps his hand around my upper arm and leads me to the living room.

I weave a little on my feet and he studies me, pushing his hat off his head and mussing his hair with one hand. “You gonna remember this?”

It’s troubling how his voice affects me. It’s raspy, and reminds me of a good rich whiskey, the scratch of it in my throat, its warmth in my blood. I don’t think I can pretend anymore that I’m not completely obsessed with Finn Roberts.

“Probably,” I whisper, stretching to kiss his jawline.

“I can’t wait for you to beg me to come.” He lifts his chin the tiniest bit, running his tongue over his bottom lip. “And I can’t wait for you to beg me to let you stop.”

I have the sense of sobering up just so I can get high off the feeling of him inside.

Nodding at my clothes, he murmurs, “Take them off.”

I pull my T-shirt off, slip out of my shoes and jeans. He watches every move, absently unwrapping the new roll of bungee cord. I bought it a couple of weeks ago to transport my surfboard after my last cord started to fray, but hell. This works, too.

“This won’t be as soft,” he says, motioning to the cord, but I sort of hope he’s also talking about how he’s going to fuck me.

Once I’m naked, he steps closer, bending to kiss me. I love his taste—tonight it’s the faint taste of beer mixed with mint—and he hums quietly. “Tell me you want this.”

“I definitely want it.”

Carefully, he wraps the cord around my chest, above my breasts, then behind my back. Pulling it up over my shoulder, and down across my breastbone, he wraps it around my back. After he’s framed both breasts, he guides my hands behind my back so I’m holding my opposite elbow in each palm, and he binds my upper arms before tying the entire length of the cord together near my spine, just below my shoulder blades.

My breasts are framed by the cord crisscrossing over my sternum, and my arms are pinned at my back. The way Finn looks at me . . .

I feel like a fucking queen.

He presses his hand to my chest, each finger splayed so that I register just how big his hands are. I feel carved out, and now I’m famished. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to feel someone as untethered as I want him to be with me.

He runs the tip of his tongue across my lower lip. As if reading my mind, he says, “You like it when I’m a little rough, don’t you?”

I nod. I have so much need. I crave the edge, the point just before I fall where I know the relief comes and he gives my body everything. But I know he’ll make me wait for it, and the anticipation has me shaking.

“You want me just a little rough?” he asks, hands shaking where he cups my face. “Or you want me fucking wild?”

“Wild.”

He inhales, his flaring nostrils and scent making me feel as urgent as fire.

Finn reaches behind him, pulling his shirt over his head and then quickly unfastening his pants, pushing them and his boxers down his hips. He’s watching my face, my breasts, gauging my reaction as he undresses in front of me. Taking a step back, he lowers himself until he’s sitting on my couch, and curls his index finger.

“Come sit on my lap.”

I walk to him, straddling his thighs, and he steadies me with his hands on my waist.

“You good?” he asks in a quiet rasp.

When I nod, his hands slide up my sides and he grips my breasts, eyes on me as he sucks and licks, fingers moving up and over my chest, cupping me. Tongue flat, teasing.

With my arms bound, he pulls me up his body as he turns and lies on the couch, resting his head on the arm, legs stretched out behind me. Finn positions me with my legs spread over his mouth, rocking me there, and moaning, grunting against my skin. He keeps talking while he licks me, telling me he likes it, I taste good. Telling me I like it, that he can tell I’m going to come. I’m flushed, I’m shaking. He barely moves at all, just whispering and kissing and licking and somehow . . . somehow just his breath and the heat, the press of his tongue against my clit . . . I’m starting to sweat from the effort of holding my body upright. His eyes flame, hands reaching away from my breasts to grip the cord behind my back, somehow both holding me upright and pulling me farther onto him.

I can’t grip the sofa. I can’t grip him. I can’t focus on anything, anything at all, and it feels so good to just let go. To hand it all over. I’m writhing against the intense pleasure, legs wide, body so hungry I want more pressure and more wet and more of him. All of my weight is on him or held up by his arms and I’m coming so hard my legs are shaking, my back curling sharply away as I cry out. Maybe I scream—I don’t have any idea other than I feel like I’ve exploded, melted, been put back together and he’s still talking, saying,

Good girl

Oh so fucking good

You like that?

You like it?

You’re candy on my mouth, fucking sweet

Wet, so ready

You wanna get fucked now?

Somehow, the last question presses into my thoughts and pulls a “Yes, please . . . now” from me. His hands wrap around my hips, mouth sliding along my belly, my breasts, over my neck as he sits up and backs me onto his lap.

“Wait, wait, wait,” he groans when his cock slides between my legs. I whimper, wanting him inside, wanting to feel him tear loose and pound up into me.

Whispering, “Shh, shh, almost ready, almost,” Finn reaches to grab the condom at his hip and quickly tears it open. I’m gasping, feeling the sweat run down my neck and between my breasts. Feeling the cool air on my forehead, my stomach. I’m trembling against him, trying to focus on one thing, but it’s impossible. Finn is gorgeous, his chest broad, every muscle tense, skin slick with sweat as he rolls the condom on.

“Oh God,” I gasp, when he kisses my breast, sucking the peak and groaning.

I’ve never felt this desperation—I’m bound, he’s huge, he could do anything he wants but . . . look—look how careful and focused he is, look how he makes me come and talks to me and praises me. A tiny pulsing suspicion at the back of my mind tells me this urgency isn’t about escaping reality right now.

It’s about him.

“Hurry,” I whimper.

He steadies me with a hand on my thigh, holding his cock with the other hand, and whispers, “Okay, shh, shh, I’m ready, I’m ready. Here. Come here.”

I lower my body with his help, taking him in and oh God. It takes forever to feel the length of him ease into me. I’m shaking and a little wild, wanting to ride him, but he’s holding me down on him with one fist curled around the cord at my back, the other knotted in my hair. He’s so deep, so deep inside—and I swear I can feel his pulse, can taste his need to buck up into me.

He groans, rocking his hips just the slightest bit. “Don’t make any sounds,” he murmurs into my neck. “Your little sounds will make me come before I’m ready.”

I have to bite my lip to stay quiet, and he praises me for the effort with a kiss. With his hands spread wide on my hips and across my ass, he raises me, and lowers me, and when he raises me again, he holds me there, and then starts a fast, relentless rhythm up into me. He speaks the whole time, and it isn’t even really about what he’s saying, because half the time I’m lost and can’t process anyway. It’s the sound of his voice. The richness of it, the reassurance of it. Words like pretty and good and strong and lose it, oh fuck I’m gonna lose it filter in through the haze of pleasure.

It’s so good. It’s so good.

This is the only thing I can think, over and over. He’s making me stare right into his eyes—at least it feels that way, though I don’t think he’s actually told me to. But the way he’s looking at me . . . it’s intense and obsessed and tender and adoring. I can’t look away, I don’t want to.

I don’t remember ever coming like this, where I can’t localize the sensation, can’t pinpoint where it starts, or even how long it lasts. I’m trying to be quiet, trying so hard, but my cries slip out even as I taste blood on my lip. I give up, screaming and pulling against the binding as the wild bliss tears through me.

Finn growls, thrusting up hard and fast—and then he bellows, pulling at the cord behind my back and shoving so deep in me as he comes that I feel bent in two.

He slows, and then stills, wrapping his arms around me and grunting into my neck with every quiet exhale—fuck, fuck, fuck—long after he’s already come. Around me, his big arms are shaking from exertion, wet with sweat, and I’ve never felt more overwhelmed by someone in my entire life.

I realize I’m going to cry only a split second before I feel the tears spill and run down my cheeks.

But his face is still pressed to my neck, his breaths slowly evening out. “Harlow. Don’t move. I can’t . . . just give me a second.”

I don’t think I could even if I wanted. I don’t ever want to move off him.

His mouth slides over my shoulder, and he begins to slowly massage my thighs, my ass, my lower back. Lifting me carefully, he reaches between us and takes off the condom, quickly tying it and dropping it somewhere on the couch next to us.

And then he’s loosening the knot at my back.

“No,” I choke.

He looks at me, sees the tears on my cheeks and maybe thinks I’m crying because I don’t want him to free me. I don’t even know why I’m crying. I’m just spent, and if he can’t be inside me anymore I need to be tied up, and if I can’t be tied up I need another way to know that, right now, I’m his and he’ll take care of me. That he’ll take over and fix everything because I’m not sure I know how.

Finn swipes at my face with his thumbs. “I have to, sweetheart, you can’t be bound up any longer.”

It just feels like it’s the only thing holding me together.

“I know,” he says.

Oh God. I said it out loud.

“Shh, shh, come here.” He unwraps me like a gift, running a gentle fingertip along every groove the bungee cord left in my skin, and then he picks me up like I weigh nothing—I have no bones, no muscles, only skin and lust and blood—and carries me to my bedroom.