He shuddered. “Hate it.”

She turned and stared at him with one eyebrow raised. “I have never met a man who hates bacon.”

“Well, you have now, beautiful. I do not understand the fascination this country has with bacon.”

Her heart skipped a silly beat. “I have to tell you something, Ryan.” Turning her voice intensely serious, she whispered, “I hate bacon, too.”

He cupped her cheeks and kissed her. A quick morning kiss. “You let my dog out to pee and you hate bacon. I knew you were my perfect woman.”

“Sit and eat or your eggs will get cold.”

After the meal, he pulled her onto his lap in his chair, and thanked her for breakfast. “And now I have a question for you. You told me yesterday you don’t have pool-boy fantasies,” he said, reminding her of her joke at the pool.

She nodded. “That is true. Nor stable-boy fantasies either, I might add.”

“Good.” He kissed her earlobe. His voice went low and husky, sending a shiver through her as he asked, “What fantasies do you have?”

That was an easy answer. She pulled back to look him in the eyes. “You.”

He grinned wickedly. “You don’t have to fantasize about me. You can have me. I want to know what you fantasized about before you met me so I can do it to you.”

She widened her eyes and stared at him, then gave the same answer. “You.”

He furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”

“I wanted someone like you. I fantasized about the things we do. The kind of sex we have is the kind of sex I’ve always wanted to have. Dirty, kinky, rough.”

He groaned sexily. “You told me in your car you’ve never had it like this before. How did you know you wanted it like that?”

“The same way I can code with my eyes closed and one hand behind my back. The same way I can tell which cards are most likely to be played next in a blackjack hand. The same way I know two seconds after I see a dress if I want it. I just know. It’s second nature.”

“And you just knew you wanted to be tied up? You wanted to be spanked? You wanted to be told what to do?”

She nodded eagerly. “If you’re making sure I’m still on board, the answer is yes. I want it this way. But if you want to know why, I think it’s because my mind feels so busy all the time. Like mild OCD. I always make sure I’ve turned off the stove before I leave my home, and I check twice that I locked the door. I’ve always felt like I have all sorts of information and facts and details clanging around in my head, back when I was in school, and then when I was running the company. And now, even though I love what I do, I feel like I’m juggling one million things. But when you tie me up, I’m living in the moment. And I’m loving the moment. And that’s why I fantasized for so long about being on my knees, tied up, or bent over the bed for a man like you. And now, just for you.”

He groaned and crushed her lips in a bruising, demanding kiss, giving her exactly what she wanted and erasing anything else in her mind. Just like she asked for. Just like she dreamed about for years. When he broke the kiss, he spoke firmly to her. “I need you to do something right now.”

She recognized that tone instantly, and her nipples hardened in response. He was going to give her an order. “Go to my bedroom. Strip down to nothing. Go into my closet and pick a tie. Put it around your neck. I assume you know how to tie a tie?”

“I do.”

“Then wait for me, bent over the bed, ass raised high in the air, wearing only a tie. While you’re waiting, I want you to get yourself wet,” he said, then took her fingers and slid them into her mouth.

“Suck,” he told her.

She took her own fingers deep in her throat, moaning as she sucked.

He breathed out hard. “Just like that. I’m going to clean up the table and do the dishes, since you cooked breakfast. When I’m done, I want you to be good and ready for me to fuck you.”

* * *

He found his beautiful woman standing at the end of his bed, his green tie nestled between her breasts, the very tie he’d been wearing the day he met her. The fact that she’d chosen that one made him even harder.

Her palms were pressed onto his mattress, her ass lifted in perfect view, her pussy glistening.

“Move closer to the edge of the bed.”

She did as told, glancing back at him, awaiting further instructions.

“Lie on your elbows,” he said, and she lowered herself, offering up her body even more.

He unknotted the tie from her neck and bound her wrists together, so tight she couldn’t move them a millimeter. Running a hand down her spine, he watched her bow her back as he mapped her body, as if he were an explorer and she the territory he planned to claim.

When he reached her round and luscious cheeks, he bent down to flick his tongue between the tops of them, eliciting a sexy moan from his woman. He bit the soft flesh. That earned him a breathy gasp, then she circled her hips, an invitation that turned his dick to steel. Clasping her ass in his hands, he smothered her rear in soft, quick kisses, then dipped his finger between her legs.

The wetness was divine, like a fucking slippery paradise that he needed to feel greeting his cock.

“You are good and ready,” he said on a groan. He stripped in seconds, rubbed the head of his cock against her, then sank in, stopping to savor the absolute bliss of her gloriously wet cunt before he set to work on the important matter at hand.

Fucking her furiously.

“Did you fantasize about me fucking you like this?”

“Yes.”

He grabbed her ass cheeks, squeezed them as he slammed into her. “You want it harder, right?”

“Please.”

He took her savagely, pleasure tearing through him, her moans ringing in his ears. Snaking an arm up her neck, he brushed his finger across her lips. “Get it wet, like you did to your own.” She drew him into her mouth and sucked, swirling her tongue around and up and down. “Good,” he hissed, then dipped that finger between her slick folds before he returned to her rear, rubbing against her entrance gently at first, then insistently as he kept fucking her.

Her high-pitched pants were his permission to slide his finger inside all the way. “And this too? Tell me. Did you fantasize about this too?”

“With you, yes,” she whispered, then her whispers turned into screams of ecstasy as he asked more questions, unearthing deeper and darker fantasies from his Sophie, ones he intended to fulfill, today and beyond.

For now, he took her over the edge, and they came together with her shuddering beneath him.

Later, when evening rolled around, he asked her if she’d consider spending the night again. She said yes.

It was all he wanted her to say.

Once upon a time, he’d wanted that yes for the sex. And he still wanted that from her. Oh hell, did he want it, over and over.

But he wanted more. He wanted everything else. He wanted the woman, inside and out, body and mind, heart and soul.

For the first time ever, Ryan Sloan was falling.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The game moved too quickly for Ryan to talk to Marshall about anything more than their strategy on the ice. The opposing team demolished them for the first two periods, rattling his teammates with penalty after penalty. The last period wasn’t much better, and Ryan had to hold one of his guys back from starting yet another fight.

“Cool off, man. It’s just a game,” he told him before the ref threw the guy in the penalty box.

The game ended with a loss for his team, and his guys cursing up a storm, frustrated by their own poor play.

Ryan hardly cared today. Marshall had texted him earlier that he had an update, so when the other men headed to the showers, Marshall pulled him aside. They took off their skates, and then trudged up a few rows, removing bulky gloves before parking themselves on blue plastic seats.