Sam’s Creed by Sarah McCarty

that teased his interest, caught on his lust, drowned his better judgment.
    The fifth button revealed something wrong. A wide band of cotton. He explored it with his fingertip. It ran horizontally across her chest. “Are you injured?”
    “Oh, madre. ” She clutched at the lapel and her lids popped open. “I forgot.”
    He let her hold the lapel up high while he worked the buttons below. “Forgot what?”
    She tried to sit up, hit the wall of muscle pain and flopped back down with a groan. “It is my bindings.”
    “Bindings?”
    “Could we not do relations without undressing? It is not pretty beneath.”
    That gave him pause. He cocked an eyebrow at her. “You think I’m planning on making love to you?”
    “Why else would you be undressing me?”
    Why else indeed. “To see what’s beneath this bandage.”
    “It is not a bandage.”
    The death grip she had on the top of the shirt didn’t hinder at all his spread of the bottom. The wrapping went all the way down to her surprisingly narrow waist. He pulled his knife from his boot. “What is it, then?”
    “It is binding to contain my…chest.”
    The binding was substantial. It only stood to reason that what it contained would be, too. Sam’s mouth went dry as he put the edge of the knife beneath the wrap. Her stomach sucked in, creating a gap between the material and her abdomen. His imagination galloped ahead while his cock throbbed and his pulse raced like a green boy’s. Isabella grabbed his wrist.
    “Do not.”
    “Why not?”
    She was blushing so hard he could see it in the near dark. “I do not have any other bindings.”
    “You won’t need them with me.”
    He would never let another man touch her.
    Her eyes met his, as soft and velvety smooth as melted chocolate, dark with embarrassment. “It hurts—”
    The knife sliced through the bindings.
    “To not have support,” she finished in an agonized whisper as the bindings fell to the side.
    “Hell!”
    He just bet it did. Bountiful. That was the first word he came up with to describe her breasts. Bountiful, plentiful and gorgeous. The full curves belled inward from the compression of the shirt, all but the nipples revealed. He opened his hand over her midriff, the palm itching with the need to touch. More than a handful. Maybe even two handfuls. Damn, she couldn’t have been created more perfectly to his taste. “Perfect.”
    “Are you looking at me?” she squeaked.
    He glanced up. She’d retreated into the only defense she had left. She’d closed her eyes.
    “Yup, and getting an eyeful.” He slid his hand up toward the treasure she’d hidden from him. Her lips moved, but no sound came out. Her hands slid down the lapel. He stopped her with a shake of his head.
    “No.”
    “I am not comfortable.”
    He could see that. The binding had left her breasts reddened and swollen. They’d look like that after he loved them, too, but they wouldn’t have an angry rash surrounding them from the bindings, and they’d be swollen from pleasure, not abuse.
    “You won’t bind your breasts again.” He rubbed his fingers along the ridges left by the bindings. She gasped and arched away. He followed her down, supporting her as he promised. Firelight played across the pale flesh. Anger snapped through him when he saw the shadow of a bruise. “It’s a wonder you haven’t damaged yourself permanently.”
    Her hand closed almost convulsively around his wrist. “I need support.”
    He hefted a heavy globe, grazing his thumb along the underside. He just bet she did. “I’ll take care of you.”
    “You cannot walk around all day holding my breasts!”
    He laughed at her expression. She clearly hadn’t realized how that was going to sound when she spit it out, but now he had a feeling that if she could have dug a hole, she’d be in it in a second.
    “The thought has merit.” He said that just to get her going. It worked. She sat up so fast the bottom of her head barely missed his chin. One look