“No one’s ever been able to get you off. There’s nothing you have to do. No work. No phone calls. No yoga or swimming or shopping or manicure. No ranch hands to ask a question. No assistant.”

“We just… what, have sex while we wait?”

“I’m not playing Scrabble with you.”

“Jed,” I said on a sigh, although my nipples were hard with anticipation.

“Do you have a better idea? Because I sure as fuck can’t think of anything better than getting my mouth on that pussy.”

Heat spread through my body. “Okay, so why the handcuffs?”

He dropped them on the bed, put one knee on the mattress and lifted the t-shirt up and off me. His eyes slid over my pale-yellow bra and panty set, but he said nothing. Only reached behind me and deftly removed the bra.

“Because when you’re cuffed to my headboard, you’ll have no doubt who’s in control.”

He grabbed the cuffs, watched my eyes as he carefully snicked one closed about my wrist. I didn’t say anything, but I also didn’t tell him no. I’d never been into bondage. No one had ever tied me up during sex. Not even using a tie or a pair of nylons. The handcuffs and Jed… together? He was taking me places I’d never even considered, but definitely got me hot.

“Someone shot at me, Jed,” I said, all of a sudden feeling very vulnerable.

Instead of hugging me or throwing something against the wall, he only nodded, ground his teeth together, and closed the handcuff around my other wrist.

He helped me lay back, raised my arms overhead. I wasn’t sure how it worked, but the cuffs should have gone around the headboard.

Jed slid the belt from his jeans, then used that to wrap around the wood and then the chain of the handcuffs so my hands weren’t near the thick logs. I tugged, testing. I wasn’t going anywhere. I wasn’t sure if I should be panicked or excited. I was… both.

“Fuck, look at you.”

His gaze was heated, but filled with something like reverence, as if what he was looking at—me—was too beautiful to be real. All my concerns slipped away.

His eyes snapped to mine as he ran his hands up my calves. “Time for you to give me everything, princess. Your pleasure, too.”

14

JED

I was used to compartmentalizing shit. Cases and real life could be kept separate. Now they bled together. North was my case and my life. She’d been shot at. Someone wanted her dead. While she’d convinced herself it wasn’t one of her brothers, I hadn’t ruled that out. Yet. I’d have to update my boss, get North in her network. Check in with her brothers and see what they said. All of that.