What the Lightning Sees: Part Three Read Online Free PDF

times together had been leading up to that moment.
    “I know,” he said. Had he felt it too? “You’re mine.” His fingers traced the indentations across my skin left by the rope. “Are you sore? Do you have cream? It will help soothe it.”
    “I’m fine. It’s good. Like I’m floating, still.” What he did to my body made me feel he knew me like no one else. Or perhaps he understood me so fundamentally that he was able to elicit the things he did from my body. Either way, I belonged to him.
    He pulled me closer as I lay limply across him.
    “You’re beautiful. Those marks against your skin . . . They’re proof you’re mine.”
    He kissed the top of my head and our breaths synchronized.
    “I think we should take a bath or you’re going to be sore tomorrow,” he said.
    Jake left me to regain my strength and went into the bathroom. The sound of rushing water filtered through the walls as I lay there, not quite believing what had just happened.
    “Come on, let’s go soak,” he said, returning to the bedroom. He lifted me to my feet and guided me through the door.
    “Hair?” he asked and I glanced around the bathroom, trying to spot one of the various hair ties littered across my flat. I reached out to one I saw by the sink but Jake got to it before I did, positioned me facing away from him and started to fiddle with my hair.
    “What are you doing?”
    “Braiding your hair and putting it up.”
    “Should it worry me that you can do women’s hair?”
    “I don’t think so. I like rope. It braids nicely,” he said in response.
    It was an admission that I wasn’t the first girl he had restrained. It needled me, lifted some of the afterglow. It felt too intimate for it to have happened before. Had he shared this connection with others? I wanted to be special to him, in every way, as he was to me. Maybe it hadn’t been as intense for him. I felt silly for assuming that I was the only woman to have experienced this with Jake but I hated the thought of others seeing that part of him.
    “Did you restrain Millie?” I asked.
    “No. It wasn’t like that between us,” he replied.
    What did that mean? I wanted to know how it was different. How I was different. Was I special at all?
    He held my hand to steady me as I stepped into the deliciously warm water. He got in behind me and sat down, arranging me between his thighs, my back to his front. I relaxed against his chest.
    “There’s only been one other girl that I’ve used rope with,” he said without my prompting. “A girl at college. My only relationship that’s lasted over three months, as Beth likes to remind me.”
    “Were you in love with her?”
    “Not like I’m in love with you.”
    “Jake.” My breath caught in my lungs. I’m in love with you . The words echoed around my head. He’d known what I’d needed before I had. It was as if he could read every thought of mine before it was formed. It was what I craved from him and what I felt for him.
    He pulled his cupped hand up my body and let the gathered water trickle over my breasts. Then he stroked my newly warmed skin, following the flow. “I know it’s soon, but it’s how I feel,” he said as if we were simply describing a fait accompli .
    Jake’s phone buzzed, shattering the near-perfect moment. Instead of ignoring it, as I assumed he would, he scrambled out from behind me and leapt across the bathroom to retrieve his phone from the washstand.
    “Hi, Millie,” he answered and my gut wrenched. “I’m at Haven’s. Yes. I’m sure that’s normal. Isn’t your sister there?” He sighed and gazed at me. “Okay,” he said and hung up. “She had blood on some toilet tissue and her sister’s out of town. She wants me to go over.”
    “Oh,” I said, hugging my knees to my chest. He was going to leave me.
    He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. Can I call you when I get there?”
    “Sure. Go. Do what you’ve gotta do,” I said, trying to sound as though him leaving me