by Elle Luckett
“He and Thomas make it their business to know everyone. They’re clever.”
“They are. It’s why I invested in Stigmata. My family and ex can’t touch that. I’m finally putting walls up everywhere I can.”
“Sounds like you’re clever, too.”
“And cautious.” He brushed his lips over the back of my neck and hummed in pleasure, making me shiver. The anticipation was as much of a stimulant as his touches had been driving here Asher had noticed this and taken full advantage of it. “We can talk about all of that later. Right now, I want to feed you then fuck you.” He dropped the zip on my dress a couple of inches, his lips following the line. The tickle of his beard was like a drug and sent shockwaves through my body. “I hope you’re up for wearing some cuffs and rope tonight.”
My head fell to the side, allowing him better access as he worked, my ass pushing against his erection as the words washed over me like silk.
“Oh, yes, please.”
Sliding his hand under my dress’s skirt, he found me wet when he pressed his palm against the cotton over my pussy. His groan of approval only contributed to my needful anticipation.
“You could fuck me first,” I pleaded.
There wasn’t anyone around for miles, and we had a lot of open space to play in. My body was already begging in need. The agony of it felt like a weight in my gut. It had been only days since he’d last been inside of me, but the brief abstinence felt like a lifetime.
He must have felt it, too.
Asher indulged me with a finger, sliding the cotton aside, stroking gently before slipping the single digit inside me. My breath rushed from my lungs as the pleasure coalesced and pulled me under the current of it. I had no idea how he’d managed to awaken my body with such little touch, but I felt it right down to the curl of my toes.
“Oh, fuck.”
“You’re sensitive still.”
I hadn’t thought I was. The ache when I sat down had eased after my shift on Saturday and Sunday, and I’d been feeling completely normal, but he contradicted me again when he brushed his thumb over my clit, forcing my body to react.
“Maybe we should eat later.”
“Asher.” I moaned his name but yelped when he bit down on my shoulder, setting the boundaries. His erection punctuated the request on the small of my back as he straightened.
“Go inside. Our bedroom is on the right at the end of the hall. Undress, then bring yourself and my bag to the screened-in porch.” Pausing, Asher slid his finger from me and raised it to his lips, his baby finger brushing my jaw as he sucked. “Better hurry, kitten.”
I took off on aroused and weakened legs, almost tripping up the porch steps to the house. The door was unlocked, and when I stepped in, the house was chilled. Following his directions to the bedroom, I felt the smile on my lips when I saw the wrought iron bed with the intricate filigrees standing pride of place in the middle of the room. The bed had quite a few subtle rings for restraints worked into the natural style of it. This could have been a coincidence, but I doubted that considering the source of the realty reference.
I stripped quickly, folded my dress and underwear out of habit, and grabbed the dark leather bag from the bed. Kicking off my heels, I rushed to the back of the house, where an accordion window wall separating the house and screened porch framed the tree and Asher, who was standing with his back to me. Facing the tree, his hands gripped a chair while he waited, and I selfishly took a moment to appreciate the sight of him before I cracked the door and slipped out to him.
He didn’t say anything for a moment—didn’t even look at me—so it took me a moment to see the cushion that lay on the floor beside him. I lowered myself to my knees, my ass resting on my heels as I offered my wrists to him. Asher’s preferences were coming back to me, and when I stepped out of my head for even a moment, this became muscle memory, he rewarded me for this with a stroke of his hand over the crown of my hair. I leaned into his touch, excitement making my offered arms tremble. If Asher saw, he made no comment. He continued to run his fingers through my hair and watch the darkness take control of the light.
We were cast in shadows when I saw the twist of his body as he reached for his bag. The cicada and bullfrog songs were loud here but didn’t drown out the shuffling as he worked to find when he wanted from his kit. He attached the cuffs around my wrists with a speed of familiarity. The weight of them was an anchor that calmed and grounded me before anticipation grew too much. When Asher held his hand out for me, I took it, rising to my feet and dropping my eyes to dusty rose painted toenails, my stomach fluttering while I awaited instruction.
Asher’s silence made me nervous, even with the gentle reassurance of his thumb over the pulse on my wrist in gentle strokes. He’d been so conversational in the car that it was disconcerting and made the mild tremor in my arms worsen with the weight of the cuffs adding to the excitement. When he pulled a leather garter belt from his bag, my breaths stuttered from me.
“This is going to fasten around your waist, thighs, and just above your knees.” He held up the long straps interconnected with metal rings for me to see. “I found it last year in a small boutique shop just outside of New York. I never had cause or want to use it until now.”
I studied the leather. The placement would give him the ability to connect my arms to any of the rings on the straps. It would also aid in attaching my knees to my hips, and my hips to anything to anchor me. I could see why he’d chosen it. Just imagining the capabilities drew more excitement from me, which pebbled my flesh in anticipation.
“Something else I was right about you appreciating.” His tone was a hum of appreciation that only aided the arousal already running rampant through me.
Winding the leather around my waist, he tightened the buckle until it was shy of pinching. He did the same with the other four buckles before he stepped back to admire the contraption. The touch of his hands had been methodical, but it hadn’t stopped my body from reacting. Heat pooled inside my body now, my thighs damp, and my breathing coming in small bursts of lusty panting. If I made it through tonight with my sanity, it would be a minor miracle.
“You look beautiful like this, all tied up in black leather, while your skin’s alive and pink with arousal. Are you wet for me?”
“Yes, Sir.” It was the understatement of the century.
“Have you figured out what I have planned for you tonight?”
“No, Sir.”
Gripping my chin, he angled my head to the yard and the tree that he’d lit up with a small fob he slid back into his pocket. The live oak was just as beautiful cast in light and deep shadow, the green leaves rustling in the light breeze from the water.
“You’re going to be decorating the tree while I take advantage of your bound body.”
Asher released my chin and stepped behind me, but my eyes were still on the tree’s gnarled limbs. There was nothing he couldn’t achieve using it to his advantage. He could make an X from my body, and suspend me, bend me over one of the arched limbs, strap me around the thick trunk, or a million other options. It was the most versatile and natural toy he could ever use, and the excitement made pleasure flare in my veins.
I heard his quiet chuckle while I stood transfixed. I felt the trail of his hands as he moved around me and added ankle cuffs. My tree still held my attention as I planned out a million scenarios to find the one I thought he might use. It was only when I saw the flash of red rope that he regained my full focus. I assumed he’d done that on purpose because the next toy he pulled from his bag was a set of rattan canes that made my legs go weak.
“I thought that might bring you back to me, kitten. Are these still a favorite of yours?”
I hoped he’d already figured out the answer to that, but he wanted me to say the words aloud—to stroke that part of him that needed to be reminded about how much I truly belonged to him, and perhaps always had.
“Only with you, Sir.”
Asher laid his tools on the back o
f the chair and closed the distance between us in one long stride. Fisting his hand in my hair, he pulled my head back in sensual violence before claiming my mouth with his. Asher pushed his tongue inside my mouth, crashing against my own and stirring up the sensation of ownership he already had over me. I lapped it up, consuming it and him as he took from me. His excitement was tangible even before he pressed his body against mine. Eagerness was a living, breathing being that squeezed and pushed, igniting my own into a dance to the songs of nature surrounding us.
We were both breathing heavily when we broke apart and, had he willed it, I would have come on his command from a kiss alone.
He owned me.
Possessed me.
I’d given myself over to him without even a twinge of doubt. Now, he was going to break me apart and leave a part of himself inside me when he put me back together.
There was no going back after this. There would never be another man who could crawl inside my soul this way, and that no longer terrified me.
Unsure of whether he’d seen the change in me, I followed Asher obediently when he gave a tug on the garter. He picked up the things he’d need and held the porch door open for me to pass. The warm breeze wrapped around me as I stepped into the springy grass that led to the tree, and it accompanied me until the live oak rose around us like a cradle. When the rough bark on the limbs was close enough to touch, I reached out and ran my hand along the thick bough that plunged from high and danced along the surface of the earth, only to rise again at the other end. The bark would be an added layer of torture that I looked forward to. I wouldn’t walk away unscathed from being against its surface, even if Asher did decide to lay something between it and me.
“Safeword, kitten?”
“Red, Sir,” I answered easily, dropping my hand and lowering myself slowly to my knees in the grass.
He didn’t ask me about the yellow again. There was no need for slowing down. I was all in, the safeword nothing more than a formality that was needed to cover the just in case scenario. The trust was established between us, reignited to the full capacity and displayed by my willingness to kneel naked in a yard against a spotlighted tree so he could take and break my body as he pleased for both our pleasure.
Circling my body with slow steps, Asher ran his hand over my hair and bare shoulders, then trailed a path up my neck and along my jaw. He left a trail of fire in the wake of his fingers, and the gentle sensation that preceded what would come next made my knees press into the earth below, the pressure sliding them farther apart.
“You are so fucking beautiful.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
Gripping my chin between his thumb and fingers, he angled my face up to meet his as he bent and brushed a soft kiss over my lips. The gentleness surprised me. The energy rolling from him called for urgency and speed, but the kisses were a contradiction. I felt it as they brushed along my jaw and down my neck, reversing his fingers’ path. He lingered on my shoulder, his teeth gently grazing the flesh before falling away.
“Stand for me,” he requested, his hand dropping from my chin to take mine as he stepped back with a warm smile of affection.
The softness threw me off until I accepted his hand and rose onto weakened legs. I swayed in the gentle breeze like pine trees would bend in a storm, my chest on fire for an entirely different reason than mere anticipation.
Asher’s eyes washed over every inch of my flesh on display, lingering on my breasts, hips, and slowing on the stretch marks I’d earned while carrying Ashleigh. He stayed there for a while, only moving to crouch and look closer as his fingers trailed the snaking lines in my flesh. When he replaced his fingers with his lips, my hands twitched before they plunged into his dark hair and stroked with every ounce of love that washed over me.
The connection between us was full of apologies and wishes that could never be, and we embraced it for those moments, allowing the things we would never say aloud to move between us. Unspoken hurts fluttered away on the breeze that flowed around our connected bodies. The silent conversation faded as Asher eventually pulled back, but for those few blissful moments, there was nothing left unsaid, and the air between us became transparent.
“I missed you,” he said to my belly button, pressing a kiss below it.
“I missed you, too, Sir.”
Asher rose to his full height, his gaze meeting mine, the color of his eyes like blue flames. The gentle affection he’d been using faded the darker they grew, and when the darkness of his need for ownership took control, I dropped my gaze to my toes.
We swayed together in the breeze for a few breaths before he drew in another breath, full of resolution. Reaching out, he pressed his hand to the small of my back, then guided me into the open space in front of the wide trunk.
He took his time positioning me, his hands roaming over pebbled flesh before spreading my legs and arms apart like an offering to the gods. Every brush of his warm hands built up the tension in my body, the need pulsing through my veins as I mentally followed his progress.
I watched in my peripheral as he threw the red rope up over low-lying branches, tested their strength with his body weight before attaching the ends through the rings on my wrists, then looping them through the silver rings of the garter before tightening them. He did the same on the other side until I was locked with my limbs as far apart as possible without losing my balance. He circled again, checking his handy work, tugging on the taut lines of rope until I had no choice but to wind my hands around the red knots and throw my trust at him.
“You always did look good against the red,” he said, slipping behind me, his erect cock pressing his rough jeans against my back.
Both of his hands gripped my hips as he rocked himself against me. The sensuality of movement made that finger of eroticism ride my spine, the hairs at the back of my neck rising to attention. I shivered when he pressed his cheek against my shoulder, his beard’s hairs adding to the smooth slide of his palms up to my breasts. He massaged them, gently at first, the pads of his fingers running over the hardened flesh of my nipples and circling in stimulating strokes. The gentle strokes slowly grew rougher with every pass, and he rolled them between his finger and thumb between pinches that grew in intensity.
“I like that your breasts are more sensitive,” he whispered against my back, plucking them until my back arched and pressed against his erection enough to steal his breath. I hadn’t thought he’d noticed the last time we’d scened together in the club, but I should have known nothing would get past him, which was why I wasn’t surprised when he stepped away and swung under the ropes, his hand appearing in my line of vision where he held two metal circles with a screw and two subtly spiked clamps.
I had expected the clamps, but my breath stuttered from me at the sight of the small metal bumps that came to a point. They were designed for playful torture.
“You can handle this,” Asher said conversationally, the hoarse bite of arousal in his tone betraying him.
“Yes, Sir.”
I saw the hint of his smile in my peripheral, the beard twitching as he dropped his head and closed his mouth around the right nipple, his teeth pinching after a flick of his tongue. My body bowed, offering him more as my hands twitched with the need to push fingers through his hair and hold him to me. He licked, flicked, and tugged with his teeth until the nipple ached with sensitivity before he slid the circle over the flesh and screwed it closed. I could feel him watching for my reaction, every twist an experiment to see how far he could go before I fell apart.
The pain was subliminal... until it wasn’t. The spikes pressed into my skin lightly until they were followed by a pressure that had me grunting in surprise. It felt like fire laced with the sweetest ambrosia of promise, and my brain couldn’t decide which side of the fence to land on until Asher moved his mouth to the neglected nipple on the left with the same brutal and heady process.
I wound my fingers tighter around the rope as my legs trembled under me. My body roc
ked for a moment, and Asher slowed to steady me before he continued the screwing of the clamp around my left nipple.
Pressure grew through my body and gathered like an impending storm in my gut, the intensity not lessening when Asher stepped away to admire the decoration. The need to look at him was as much of an ache as the pressure on my nipples. I wanted to see the pleasure and satisfaction in his eyes. I wanted to know that I had made him proud.
“Too tight?” The question came as he brushed the back of his fingers over the right clamp, but my body responded with a startled buck. “I’d say not.”
“Sir,” I agreed, my voice breaking on that single word.
Asher hummed out his approval, but my mind was in a warm haze from the arousing pain that held me in as much suspension as the ropes. The rattan canes were his implement of torture tonight, and he’d been right about them being a favorite of mine in the past. The anticipation of that pain after seven years was distracting. I loved everything about it, and watching Asher’s slow steps as he made his way to my back had me holding my breath, waiting for his touch.
Asher’s warm palms started on my shoulder, running over me in slow sweeps that warmed the skin. He worked his way down, over the curve of my ass to my thighs. There, he slipped his hand between them to cup my sex with an erotic groan before moving away again. I loved the way he touched me like this, the brush of his skin against mine as he slowly warmed my skin in the first wave of preparation so it would be supple and responsive for the second round.
My arms and legs trembled as his steps cracked on long fallen bark when he circled back. A slight twist of my head showed me the soft leather tails of the flogger he held by his thigh. Excitement blossomed as the tension in my body coiled tighter. I would be begging before he even made it to the cane. I was already on the tips of my toes on a cliff, one more soft breeze and I would plunge into the recesses.
The tails of the flogger draped over my shoulder, trailed from one to the next as Asher got me used to the feel of it before beginning. Words wouldn’t be so forthcoming once he began. While I would rise to the clouds, he would fall into his own space where the world outside ceased to exist but the two of us. My pleasure was for his consumption and vice versa.