“Thank God.” Mark sighs. “Will there be single chicks there?”

“No!” Everyone yells in unison and then dissolves in laughter.

***

I’m still out of sorts about her diabetic episode when we arrive back at her apartment for the night. It’s been a hell of a roller coaster of a day. I’ve been semihard just because she’s been in that tiny string bikini all day, her skin against mine in the warm sunshine, and if my family hadn’t been around, I would have had her naked and under me in roughly three seconds.

But then to watch her episode, the sheer fear of not knowing what was happening to her, has had me in knots the rest of the afternoon.

“You’re quiet,” she murmurs after I close the door behind us. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking,” I reply and take her hand in mine, leading her to her bedroom, “about how I’m going to punish you for keeping such a big secret from me and scaring ten years off my life today.”

Her eyes go wide, and every muscle in her tiny body tightens.

“If you think you’re going to spank me like that poor girl at the club, you can just think again,” she replies. Her cheeks have gone pink, and her breathing has increased.

I pull her tank over her head and tug on the strings of her bikini, letting it drop into my hands.

“I’m not going to spank you,” I reply and kiss her forehead.

“What are you going to do?” she asks breathlessly.

“You’ll see. Sit in the chair by the window.”

She complies and watches me as I kneel before her, grip her shorts and pull them over her hips and down her legs, then tug the strings on the bikini bottom, pulling it out from under her.

Her vanity sits on one side of the chair, and the bed frame is on the other. I guide her legs up, spread them wide and rest her knees over the armrests of the overstuffed chair, then take the top of her bikini, loop it under one knee and tie it to the vanity. Then I do the same on the other side, securing it to the bed frame. She’s spread wide for me now, and she can’t move.

And she’s fucking gorgeous.

“You’re already wet,” I murmur and glide one fingertip down through her slick folds.

“I like it when you tie me up,” she reminds me breathlessly. “If this is my punishment, you’re doing a really bad job of it, babe.”

I grin humorlessly and settle in to prove her wrong.

I press open-mouthed kisses down her thighs then lick the crease between her leg and her center, making her moan and bury those amazing hands of hers in my hair. Her skin is so soft and smells like coconut and sunshine from her day in the sun.

I lick at her pussy, pushing my tongue up through her lips to her clit and back down again, and she lets out a long moan.

“You like that, don’t you.”

“You know I do.” Her hips pulse a bit, but she can’t move far with her legs secured.

“Do you like keeping secrets from me, too?” I ask and then pull her clit into my mouth, sucking firmly.

“No,” she breathes and tosses her head back and forth on the chair. She grips my hair again when I push two fingers inside her.

Just when I feel her begin to contract around my fingers, I pull out and duck out of her reach, not touching her at all.

“What the…?”

“It’s going to be awhile before I let you come, baby.”

Her eyes narrow on my face as she pants and glares daggers at me. Her lips are swollen from her own teeth biting on them, and her core is sopping wet, from my mouth and her own juices.

She’s fucking delicious.

She reaches down to touch herself, but I grip her wrist in my hand, kiss her palm and place her hand over her head.

“If you try to finish the job yourself again, I will spank you.”

I lean down and press a kiss to her freshly shaved pubis, then nibble my way up to her sexy-as-hell piercing, all the while barely touching her wet pussy with my fingertips.

“You’re killing me,” she murmurs.

“Not yet,” I reply softly and kiss my way up to her breasts, pulling on them with my teeth. “Why did you cut your hair, Nic?”

She frowns down at me. “I told you…”

“No,” I tug her nipple in my teeth, bite just hard enough to make her gasp and then suck it into my mouth. “I want the truth. Why?”

She bites that luscious lower lip of hers and I back away, not touching her, making her growl. Finally, she turns those amazing green eyes to mine. “Because when you pulled my hair that first night, I liked it too much, but I also felt like I gave you too much control, so I cut it.”

I smile softly and glide my hands up her inner thighs. “Good girl.”

“I thought you liked my hair this way.”

“I do, but I don’t want you to keep any secrets from me, baby.”

She’s squirming under me. Her hands are in my hair then gripping my shoulders. I sink two fingers inside her again and begin to fuck her hard, and just when her legs begin to shake, I stop and back away.

“Matt!”

“You see, Nic, this is how frustrated I am when you don’t talk to me and tell me everything I need to know.” I circle her hard clit with my thumb, that being the only place I’m touching her. “Just when I think I know everything I need to, I discover something new that you should have told me before.”

“Getting to know each other is a process for any couple,” she reminds me breathlessly.