The Gilded Cage by Lauren Smith

was there. It had festered there like vines strangling her heart as they grew and twisted, without anything strong enough to sever them. Now that that knot was gone, she could breathe for what felt like the first time in years. He’d given her what she’d craved for so long, a way to release her anxieties and feel free again. She’d been safe while he was in control, pushing her to her limits of what she’d needed from him. She’d trusted him.
    Hayden cupped one of his hands in hers and kissed the back of his knuckles. “Yes. I’m fine. I wanted you to do it.” She was still in a daze. She really had reached subspace—the beautiful state of mind where a sub truly surrendered and the pleasure/pain swept through them. They didn’t think about anything else except the cathartic release of their pent up emotions. She had never trusted another man enough to let her reach this euphoric state.
    “Did I hurt you?” He cupped her chin and lifted her face, forcing her eyes to meet his.
    “It hurt, but in a good way.” She should have been embarrassed at how easy it was to speak with him. The intimacy of what they’d just done had broken her barriers more than sex with other men ever had.
    “I don’t know what came over me. I’ve spanked a few girls in my day, but this was something else.” He brushed the pad of his thumb over her lip and she bit it, letting her subtle sassiness shine through.
    “Honey, you just like to push a man’s buttons.” Fenn groaned as she flicked her tongue over his finger. She could taste the salt of her own tears on his skin from when he’d stroked them away from her face a few moments earlier. A tiny shiver rippled through her.
    “Promise me you’ll tell me if I ever truly hurt you. I mean it. I’m not an abusive man, and would never want to harm you.”
    Hayden sighed and leaned her head back against his shoulder. “You’re not that kind of man. If you really hurt me, I would have castrated you.”
    “Bit of a spitfire, aren’t you?” Fenn fisted his hand in her hair. “I don’t want that fire to go out.”
    “We could use a safe word,” she suggested.
    “‘Safe word’?” His brow creased as he contemplated the phrase.
    “Yes. If I say it, you know to stop or to slow down.”
    “Very well. What word?” He rubbed a hand down her back, the soothing touch making her melt.
    “Pineapple,” she replied instantly.
    “Pineapple?” His chest rumbled with laughter. “You don’t like pineapple?”
    She grinned. “I love it, actually, but it’s just an easy word to remember in the middle of…er…passion.”
    “Pineapple it is. I suppose this means that I have to let you come into town, huh?” he asked.
    “Oh yeah. You owe me, cowboy.” She stroked a fingertip along the leather belt he wore and paused when she hit the belt buckle. It was a shiny piece with a bull etched into it. Probably a buckle he’d won riding some devil like Tabasco.
    “Maybe I do.” He shifted her in his arms so that he had the perfect angle to kiss her. She tilted her head back. When he noticed her willingness, he grinned playfully, but the fire just barely banked in his eyes made her own body respond like tinder lit by a shower of sparks just as he dipped his head toward hers. He kissed her like a man savoring a rich glass of wine, or a favorite dish of food. He lingered on her lips, explored the inside of her mouth with his tongue and threaded his fingers through her hair.
    “You’re addictive, too addictive,” he whispered in her ear.
    A trembling need stole through her, stealing her control, and secret parts of her body tingled in excitement.
    “Right back at you,” she laughed breathlessly. “We really shouldn’t—”
    He silenced her with another kiss, this one more desperate and harder than the last, as though he had to prove to her that he was the one in control, he was the dominant one, like a wolf nipping his mate on the throat during mating, reminding her she wasn’t to