She pulled him into the master bath and washed his hands gently.

“Most of this isn’t your blood. You’ll be sore, but it doesn’t look like you broke the skin anywhere.”

“Take your shirt off.”

He backed her into the bedroom as he said this.

And then she did, reaching down to grab the hem of her shirt and whipping it up and off exposing all those f**king curves that drove him so wild.

“Damn. Look at you. I want to lick you up one side and down the other.”

He reached out, removing her bra. He stepped a little closer, feathering his thumbs over her collarbones. Watched as she swallowed hard and dragged her eyes open.

So confident in his power in that moment, he was felled when she took a cube of ice from her glass between her lips and bent her head over the hand she’d just pulled into hers.

Lower, her head bent over his lap and he let out a shuddering sigh. And then the ice against his sore knuckles.

It was…hot. So f**king hot he shivered from head to toe three times. And then it was tender. And hot. So hot again when she cut her gaze to him.

“Goddamn,” he snarled as she ripped sensation from him with nothing more than her gaze and that mouth. Sucking on an ice cube so her lips were a little swollen, glossy from the melting water.

She spit the cube out at long last and dried his skin gently. “I’m going to tell you you really need to ice your knuckles. And you’re going to refuse,” she said quickly before he could do just that. “And I’m going to say that you can touch me one handed while the other is in ice.”

Taking his hand, she kissed his knuckles gently before brushing the backs of his fingers against her ni**les.

The sexual energy between them sizzled along his skin.

“All right. After.”

“After what?”

He grabbed his belt, unbuckling it slowly, fascinated by the way her gaze locked on his hands. Her ni**les darkened and hardened. Her mouth had rested in a rather tantalizing O of surprise as she’d shivered and sighed.

Someone liked that very much.

He pulled it from the loops slowly. Once the belt cleared his jeans, he whipped his wrist just right so the leather snapped.

“After I use this belt to restrain you, I’ll ice one hand while I use the other on you.”

She licked her lips and offered her wrists.

“On the bed. On your back. Hands above your head gripping the headboard.”

She got on the bed and laid out like he’d told her to. He straddled her body, using his belt to tie her wrists to the headboard. It wasn’t enough to hold her. Not really. Enough that she could struggle though.

He kissed her elbow and then scooted down her body. He unbuttoned and unzipped her jeans, and she writhed as he gripped the pants and pulled them off her legs. Her socks he tossed over his left shoulder.

“Your jeans are still on,” she panted.

If he took them off, he’d be inside her before he could remember he had plans. So he left them on.

He eased his injured hand into the ice. “I like it when you take care of me.”

With his free hand, he plucked up an ice cube, sliding the edge of it over her nipple. He drew it around and around, watching as it beaded, pleased at the sight of rivulets of water sliding over her breast.

Her eyelids fluttered a little as she arched on a sigh.

Pleased by his life right at that very moment, he tossed the ice back into the bucket. “Tell me something about yourself,” he said as he lowered his head to lick over the iced nipple, knowing the change in sensation from cold to hot would make her wet.

“I know it’s silly and shallow,” she began in a desire-rough voice, “but it makes me all kinds of hot just thinking about what you were like earlier at the bar. No one’s ever punched someone for me.”

She laughed and the sound drew him close with the need to kiss her. “You taste like something I need a lot of.”

With his free hand, he grabbed a piece of ice again to trace the curve of her pu**y through the whisper-thin, translucent material of her underpants, and she stilled. He tossed the piece of ice back and changed hands. And icy-cold wetness seized her nipple. One and then the other until his hand started to warm up.

“I don’t think this is the spirit of our agreement that you’d ice your hand.”

He hooked a finger around the side of her panties and tugged. She lifted up and he pulled them off. “I’m a rebel, Caro. Now would you look at that?” He tickled the tip of a finger against her labia and then brushed it back and forth until he finally got to her clit, and she nearly yelped.

“You’re close. Already.”

“My body is super easy for you.”

“Thank God for it.”

Sweat sheened on her skin. There was a light out in the hallway, and the shaft of it bathed a slice of her leg. He rolled off the bed and flipped the light switch, filling the room with a pale yellow glow from the vintage bulbs in the wall sconces.

“There we go. Look at you, darlin’. Luscious.”

He dried off his other hand, moving the bucket of ice out of the way before crawling back to straddle her body.

“How is it?” She nodded at his hand.

“Swelling has gone down. Enough for me to touch you all over and punch Garrett when I find him.”

“I don’t want to talk about him or any of that. Especially right now. You were doing something?”

“Oh that’s right.” He shimmied from his jeans and shorts fairly quickly before returning to the bed with a condom. His hands slid up the inside of her thighs and paused, looking at her for long moments where he said nothing,