Tennessee Law Read online

  “Open your mouth, love.” She opened her mouth and the cold of an ice cube almost made her gasp and choke on the drops of water. “Suck.” She closed her mouth around the cube and sucked at it, hollowing her cheeks. “Good girl.” She heard the flick of a match, followed shortly by the smell of burning phosphor. She heard Sam blow out the match, but the slight smell still lingered in the air. The anticipation built and then Sam’s voice gruffly ordered her to open her mouth and give him the cube. The icicle touched the tip of her breast, teasing her nipple to the point where she was moaning with need. Sam removed the icicle and blew softly on the sensitive skin before she felt another cube rubbing against her lips. She opened her mouth obediently and started sucking again just as the first cube moved to her other breast. Sam left a shivering cold trail as he moved the cube down her stomach before dipping it lightly into her navel. Sophie moaned around the cube as Sam’s lips followed the path of the cube. His fingers tapped her mouth lightly and she opened and gave him the second cube. His mouth closed over her clit, sucking hard before the heat disappeared and the ice cube was rubbed over her sensitive nub. Sophie moaned lightly before gasping as the second cube was roughly pushed into her pussy.

  “Oh...” She arched her back as she felt Sam making his way up her body again. As she felt something intensely hot drip on her breasts, she moaned and tried to move away but she was firmly trapped beneath Sam as the dripping heat spread and covered her nipple. She vaguely realized that it must be candle wax. The wax dripped across her chest to the other breast covering the nipple at the peak as well before it trailed down her stomach in no particular pattern.

  “Mouth. Open.” She opened her mouth and welcomed the next ice cube. She wasn’t aware of the water dripping out of her pussy as her liquid heat melted the ice inside her. She tried to moan around the cube in her mouth as Sam’s fingers spread her legs wide open and then she gave a muffled scream as the wax dripped all over her thighs getting closer and closer to her core. It nearly had her whimpering, but it never reached past the soft skin of her inner thighs and she desperately needed him to do something—anything to her to cut the tension that was coiling through her body. Before she could fathom the sensation running through her body, Sam took the last cube out of her mouth and pressed it firmly against her throbbing nub.

  “Oh, Samuel!” She was unconscious of her hips trusting upward wantonly in a vain attempt to get away from the cold and closer to the heat or to get away from the heat and closer to the ice. Despite the raging blood in her veins she felt herself reach that perfect space where she trusted Sam completely with her body, where she could let go and give herself to him completely and submit to him completely. She reveled in the feeling of freedom this created in her mind. She soaked up the sensations and glowed in the effects of his domination. The wax and ice were so contradicting, she felt like she was burning alive and freezing to death all at the same time.

  But then his fingers were inside her, thrusting hard and fast and she tripped over the edge, utterly losing herself in the sensations and coming around his fingers as his mouth slurped up the juices pouring out of her. It took her a while to come down from the high and she blinked slowly. She was cradled in Sam’s arms, her hands untied and wrapped around him as well. She glanced down and saw the small red dots covering her body where the wax dripped on her, but the skin was only sensitive now and not hurting at all. He handed her a glass of water and she drank it thirstily. As she placed the glass down, she turned back toward him, leaning in but his hands on her shoulders stopped her.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked softly.

  “I’m not taking you tonight, Sophie. You need rest.” Her mouth fell open at the firm and confident tone of his voice. “But...”

  “No buts. I need you to trust me completely before I will claim you as mine again.”

  “I do trust you, Sam...”

  “With your body, yes.” He nodded as he stood up. “But not with your past and not with your heart. I need your total submission to me before I can trust you again with my heart.”

  “We are talking about sex, Sam.”

  “Sex and submission, Sophie. I can get sex anywhere, I can even get someone to play with me, but I don’t want that. I want you. All of you. And if you won’t give that to me, we will only play when I feel like it. Right now, I don’t feel like it.” His words stung, and she bit her lip to keep it from trembling, but she firmly pushed the feeling of rejection aside. She crawled over to him, kneeling in front of him on the mattress. Her hand reached out and rubbed his straining erection through his pants.

  “Feels like he wants to play.”

  He grabbed her wrist tightly.

  “Don’t dare think you can top me from the bottom. I will spank you so hard you won’t be able to sit for a week.” Sophie moaned at the thought of him being rough with her, losing control and claiming her as wetness started pooling between her legs again. “But that’s what you want and that is exactly why I won’t give it to you. You called the shots the first time and you broke me. This time, I’m calling the shots and you can take it or leave it.” He stepped away from her, shrugged into his shirt, and made his way to the door.

  “Come to me, bare yourself to me wholly, and then we can renegotiate the terms. Until then, I will keep you satisfied yet wanting at the same time.”

  With that he slammed the door shut behind him and Sophie fell back against the covers, willing the threatening tears away.

  * * *

  Fuck! That got completely out of hand. He wasn’t planning on doing anything intimate with Sophie when he had stormed after her, but he’d seen that picture of her on the news. They’d held a fucking memorial for her. There had to be someone mourning for her. Someone who had cared for her in New York, who deserved to know that she was alive. He was still waiting for his intel to come back from his friend, who was an ex-marine turned chief of police in New York, Daniel. He was trying to dig up anything he could find on Sophie, but there wasn’t much. Daniel could check the databases on a deeper level and find out what Sam was up against. He wasn’t buying this bullshit that her husband thought Sophie was dead. If it took her ten years to escape, he would bet his left nut that her husband wasn’t giving up that easily.

  Unfortunately, Sam knew there was no way to leave no trace; no one could ever really disappear in this day and age. Technology was a gift to some and a curse to others. There were cameras everywhere these days and if her husband had a good hacker at his disposal, they could track her down. Chances were slim, but he would prefer it if chances were nil and fuck all of that bastard getting his hands on Sophie again. He was going to need her cooperation to keep her safe, but she wasn’t talking so he figured he’d use a different tactic. His own version of pleasure torment. He’d play with her, give her a couple of orgasms, just enough not to make her desperate but to leave her yearning. If it gave him blue balls in the process, he could live with that as long as she stayed safe.

  He stomped up the front steps of his house and made his way upstairs to take a long and cold shower. As the water cascaded over his shoulders and down his body, his mind went back to Sophie and how eagerly she submitted her body to him. Dammit! His hard-on had no intention of going anywhere so with a resigned sigh he reached down, grabbed his dick firmly, and started stroking himself to images of Sophie tied to the bed, gagged with her panties and her face flushed with excitement. He thought of the little noises she made as she was reaching her climax and he shuddered as he shot a load on the wall and floor of the shower. He grunted as he watched the water wash the evidence of his release away. He screwed his eyes tightly shut as a memory of Sophie on her knees in this very shower flashed through his mind. She always swallowed his load, jokingly telling him that a girl didn’t play with her food. With a resigned sigh he quickly washed his body and got out of the shower as though the simple memory of a better time was threatening him.

  An hour later he was sitting on the dark porch with a beer in his hand, unab
le to sleep. He was thinking of how much Sophie had changed over ten years and he wondered if she thought the same about him, about how much he had changed. One thing that hadn’t changed was his love for her. If anything, it was more fierce, stronger, and it knocked the breath right out of him. He remembered how her pupils had dilated as she had reached her climax and that told him that she trusted him completely because without trust she wouldn’t be able to let go like that, to hand over her vulnerable body to him. But his training as a marine also taught him when someone was holding back or lying. She was deliberately keeping something from him. Something big. And that something was going to either save her or kill her.

  Chapter Six

  A knock on her door had Sophie jumping upright on the bed. It was only eight in the morning and she didn’t get much sleep. Thoughts of Sam and her past and how much she could allow him to know kept running around her mind, making her restless. After hours of pacing up and down, she had finally succumbed to the bone tiredness of her body and gave in to sleep just as the sun had kissed the horizon with the first rays of a new day. She had accepted that she still loved Sam and had never stopped loving him. It had been impossible to admit to herself for the past ten years, when a confession of that magnitude would have broken her fragile mental health while in the arms of Grant. The knocking came again, and she grumbled as she made her way toward the door. She knew it wasn’t Sam; he would simply barge right in, uncaring of whatever she was doing. She opened the door and had to swallow the rude greeting hovering on her lips as Riley was standing in front of her.

  “Hi! We didn’t get to meet properly last night, but I’m Riley. Here,” she shoved a thermos mug at Sophie, “I brought you coffee and some muffins I baked earlier.” She pushed past Sophie and placed the basket down in the kitchen, taking out plates and serving them each a chocolate chip muffin. Sophie could still see the steam rising from the muffins and the chocolate chips were still melted.

  “Earlier? It’s only eight. How early do you get up?” Despite being slightly shell-shocked at the bubbly brunette’s invasion of her privacy, the girl had barged in with coffee and fresh muffins.

  “Oh, I have nightmares, so I get up at like three every day.” She shrugged like it was nothing serious and took a huge bite out of her muffin. Sophie took a gulp of her coffee and sat down across from Riley. She knew all too much about nightmares and she was not going there with a complete stranger. Time to change the topic.

  “Yeah, well, I’m not generally a morning person and I only went to sleep three hours ago so excuse my grumpiness.”

  Riley got a mischievous look on her face.

  “Sam kept you up, huh?”

  “What? No! Well, yes, but not in the way you think. He’s messing with my mind but I’m not totally comfortable discussing that with you. No offense.” Riley waved her hand as she stuffed another piece of muffin into her mouth.

  “None taken.” The words were muffled before she swallowed and smiled at Sophie, bits of muffin stuck between her teeth. The girl was gorgeous, no question about that, but she was weirdly outspoken, and it was hard for Sophie to rekindle the resentment and jealousy she felt toward the woman the previous night at that moment.

  “You’re strange,” Sophie murmured as she took another sip of coffee.

  Riley rolled her eyes. “Tell me something I don’t know. That’s what you get growing up with a crazy dad and three wild boys.” Sophie nodded, not knowing how to reply.

  “Anyway, you gotta get dressed, I’m taking you out.”

  “Out where?”

  “Shopping of course. I’ve got Bob’s credit card and this place needs a facelift and I need a mani and pedi.”

  “Uhm...”

  Riley stood up and clapped her hands together. “No. Bob said to get you a few things to make the apartment homier and we are girls, we love to shop. Come on.”

  Seeing no sense in arguing with the little spitfire in front of her, Sophie stood up and moved to the bedroom where she quickly grabbed a pair of jeans and an oversized T-shirt.

  “You think Sam is driving you crazy? Babe, I’m pretty sure you are doing the exact same thing to him with those clothes.” Sophie frowned at Riley’s sarcasm and gave her a scathing look where she was leaning against the door lazily with her arms crossed.

  “I’m not here to impress him.” She shrugged her pajamas off and pulled on her clothes, keeping her eyes averted as she was sure Riley was carefully inspecting her scarred body.

  “I know, but since he is driving you crazy why don’t you return the favor?”

  “What do you mean?” Sophie ran a brush through her short hair and used gel to get it into the spikey style she chose but hated. She missed her long hair.

  “I’m not gonna pretend to know what the deal between you guys is or was for that matter. Lord knows, no one was even allowed to mention your name unless he brought it up first, but he is a spiteful, stubborn asshole if there ever was one. He isn’t going to be easy on you, but you are his weakness, make him give in to you.”

  Sophie grabbed her sling bag and made sure there were a couple of dollars tucked inside before slipping on sneakers. “It’s not that simple, Riley.”

  The brunette shrugged as they made their way out of the apartment.

  “Actually, it is. He is a guy, he wants something from you, you want something from him. Give it to him and he’ll be putty in your arms.”

  They left through the bar’s front door and Sophie made sure to lock the door behind them before she got into the pickup truck Riley was already seated in.

  “I can’t just... he wants me to talk to him.” She sagged back into the leather and looked out of the window as the small town was left behind.

  “Oh, heavens no! Not that! A man that wants to talk? Whatever will you do?”

  Sophie had to give a grudging smile at Riley’s fake posh accent.

  “The thing is, you know what he’s like... all overprotective and alpha male and he wants to know about stuff that won’t be safe for him to know.”

  “Sweetie, you know he was a marine, he is the sheriff of his hometown, of course he’s going to pull rank on you and be the alpha male. Maybe you should just let go and let him.” Sophie let the words wash over her. Never before in her life has she made such an instant and intense connection with another woman. She barely knew Riley, but she felt like she had known her all her life and she felt like she could trust her. Like she could talk to her.

  Then another thought registered in her mind.

  “Wait—he was a marine?” Riley nodded like it was nothing.

  “Yeah. He and the guys did like, four tours or something.”

  The guys?

  “Luke and Dan?” Riley glanced over at her again quickly.

  “Yeah. You didn’t know?” Sophie grimaced. She had avoided both of the Hunter men as much as she could while working for Bob and living above his bar. It was her safe haven, but this was their home—she couldn’t jeopardize their safety because she wanted to know what it felt like to be part of a family.

  “Sweetie, you seriously need to stop thinking so much.” Riley patted her hand quickly before focusing back on the road.

  “What if I lose him again?”

  Riley reached over and gave her hand another reassuring squeeze. “It’s always a possibility. Nothing in life is guaranteed. But what if you don’t?”

  It was silent in the truck after that. Despite telling Sophie to stop thinking so much, Riley allowed her to get lost in her thoughts as she turned on the radio and started humming softly to the country music playing. The hour and a half’s drive to Memphis passed quickly and soon Riley was back to her bubbling self, telling Sophie stories of her growing up with the boys Daniel, Luke, and Sam. How they always got in trouble and she had to sweet-talk them out of it again. Sophie laughed so much her ribs were starting to ache again, but Riley handed her a bottled water with her painkillers, not even glancing her way or stopping with the story of how the boys decided
it was a great idea to go skinny dipping until they realized Riley had stolen their clothes and they had to walk home butt naked.

  After a few more minutes Riley pulled into the parking lot at a mall and gave Sophie a dazzling smile. Sophie knew enough about dangerous people to know that the next couple of hours shopping with Riley were going to be new form of torture all on their own. How right she was! Three hours and aching feet later they sat down at an outdoor café to have a well-deserved lunch before treating themselves to manicures, pedicures, and facials. Sophie had not only bought new decor for the apartment, but Riley one-upped her, ordering a king-sized four-poster bed that Sophie felt sure wasn’t going to fit in her small bedroom. At her protests, Riley smiled at her wickedly and told her that any self-respecting woman gave her man a decent bed to tie her to. Sophie had flushed bright red and stomped away from a giggling Riley.

  “So, what’s your plan?”

  Sophie looked at her new friend in confusion. “What do you mean?”

  “Come on! You’re miserable, Sam is miserable, and I can promise you when we get back to town and Daniel and Luke are there, he’s going to spill to them, and they are going to have a plan of attack. What is your plan? Offense? Defense?”

  Sophie bit her lip. A plan would be a good idea. Get Sam and keep him safe by omitting the truth or at least some of it? Why couldn’t she have her cake and eat it too? She has spent so many years being miserable, and happiness was within her reach, she’d be damned if she wasn’t going to grab it with both hands and hang onto it for all that she was worth.