The Escape Artist

by Kitty Thomas

She wanted to feel those things again. So badly. She wanted that blissful sexual oblivion that left no room in her mind for talking herself out of the pleasures she needed.

  Without conscious thought, she pulled back the robe, letting her legs fall open. “Yes, Sir.”

  He squeezed a generous amount onto his fingers and spread it over her sex which was already becoming aroused just from anticipation of what the cream could do. She gasped as his fingers pushed inside her.

  “Starting without me?”

  Claire looked up to find Ari standing next to the kitchen island, a transparent blue hair clip in his hand.

  “Master, I'm sorry,” she said.

  She tried to bring her legs together and pull the robe closed, but Kane held her still. He finally pulled his hand away slowly, deliberately—the opposite of someone caught with his hands in the cookie jar. He didn't care that they were caught.

  “Did you want him to touch you?” Ari asked.

  Claire looked down. She couldn't lie with Kane sitting right here to call her on it. “Yes, Master,” she said, barely above a whisper.

  “Then you have nothing to apologize for. As long as you're okay, Kane has carte blanche, as I do with his pet. Kane and I share... everything.”

  “Not everything,” Kane said. “He won't let me fuck him.”

  Claire gasped, but Kane only chuckled. She looked up to find Ari rolling his eyes.

  “I'm pretty sure Marcus would object. He doesn't seem the type who wants to share with other men.”

  Kane just smiled. “Are we ready then?” He nudged Claire, and she got off his lap, pulling the bathrobe around her, going shy again. She was grateful that wouldn't be a problem much longer. If yesterday was any indication, in a few minutes she wouldn't care what anybody thought about anything, only that they were touching her and didn't stop.

  “Go to the playroom, Claire, and wait for us. We should be there before the cream kicks in, but if not, don't touch yourself until we arrive,” Ari said.

  Claire nodded and left the kitchen, grateful to be allowed a short reprieve from the two of them to collect herself.

  The playroom had been rearranged. Bondage furniture had been moved along one wall, allowing a large open space near the window where the bright morning light shone in. One of the large fluffy rugs had been rolled up and moved next to the furniture. A plastic drop cloth was laid out over a large section of hardwood the rug had previously covered. And on top of that was an easel that held a large canvas. There was a chair and paints and brushes and a palette—all the normal things one would expect an artist to have. A small CD player sat on the floor, plugged into an outlet nearby.

  The door opened, and the two men walked in. Ari sat on the sofa at the back of the room. He laid the hair clip on the leather beside him.

  Kane took a step closer to her. She took a step back.

  “Claire,” he said gently. “I'm not going to hurt you.”

  “If you need him to stop anything he's doing, say Red,” Ari said. “Do you understand?”

  “Y-yes, Master.” Claire let out a breath. He was giving her a safeword to use with his friend. She might not have ever explored her fantasies outside her mind before Ari, but there was this magical invention called the internet, through which she'd learned all sorts of things over the years.

  Lots of people acting out their kinks used weird ridiculous things for safewords like blueberry scone or firetruck. It had to be something you wouldn't otherwise yell out during sex. It couldn't be no, please no, because sometimes in play, no didn't mean no. So it had to be something stupid and unsexy that would break the mood. Red, Green, Yellow was a standard system a lot of people used.

  Kane took another step toward her, and this time she didn't retreat. He held her gaze as he untied the belt on the bathrobe and slid the terrycloth off her shoulders. It hit the floor in a whoosh.

  Then he closed his eyes and started to touch her, his hands memorizing each curve, and not just the naughty ones—the day-to-day G-rated ones as well. The curve at the side of her nose, the gentle curve inside her elbow. The flare of her hip. She closed her eyes, taken under by this spell until what had been merely hypnotic became cruel teasing.

  “Please, Sir,” she whimpered, thrusting her hips obscenely toward him.

  Kane only chuckled. “I see our special cream has kicked in. Ari,” he called over his shoulder. “Have you started training her ass yet?”

  This question caused Claire to open her eyes, though the heightening arousal between her legs softened any alarm that phrase might have normally caused.

  “Not, yet,” Ari replied.

  “Bring me some lube.”

  She expected Ari to say no, but he got up and went to the large wooden box in the corner. He brought a tube of lube over and handed it to Kane. Claire pleaded with him with her eyes. But Ari's expression was stern.

  “Use your safeword if you need it. Otherwise, enjoy the ride.” With that, he went back across the room and sat on the sofa to watch.

  “And toys?” Kane asked, exasperated.

  “Am I your butler?”

  “I like to think of you as my art assistant today.”

  Ari rolled his eyes but went back to the box again. When he returned he had two handfuls of toys—glass and metal, all sleek and smooth in a range of thickness. He laid them across a bondage bed a few feet from where Claire and Kane stood.

  Claire swallowed hard as she looked at them.

  Ari started to go back to the couch but Kane reached out and grabbed his arm. “Don't go. I need your assistance. Put your fingers in her pussy and stroke her... slowly enough that she can't get off. I want her desperate and begging.”

  Ari held her gaze as he moved closer and started to follow Kane's instruction. A moment later, Kane was behind her, pushing a cold lubed toy into her ass. She bit back a moan, and he slowly pushed until her muscles stopped resisting him.

  “Have you ever had your ass played with?” he asked, leaning close to her ear.

  “N-no, Sir,” she said. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to process the sensation of the double penetration, Ari's fingers inside her pussy and Kane slowly fucking her ass with the hard lubed toy.

  “Please,” she whimpered, squirming between them, trying to find an angle or speed that could get her off, the arousal cream only pushing her further.

  “She's such a filthy whore,” Kane remarked.

  But he said it like it was the highest praise, and she took it that way, another moan escaping her mouth as he began to squeeze her nipples into hardened painful points.

  This went on for a long time, Ari seeming to know exactly how to keep her perched on the edge of pleasure.

  “Okay, stop,” Kane said.

  Ari withdrew his fingers. Kane put more of the arousal cream between her legs.

  “No, please... no more... I have to come... please I need to.”

  Kane smacked her hard on the ass, and she yelped. She was sure he'd left behind a bright red hand print as evidence of his displeasure.

  “Kiss her until her lips are red and raw,” Kane growled.

  Ari grabbed her and kissed her hard. It was a rough, dominating kiss as if he were punishing her because he couldn't fuck her right now. Claire reached out and stroked his hardened cock through his jeans and he groaned against her, biting her lip hard. He pulled away and licked her bottom lip, no doubt tasting blood.

  Kane came back with coils of black rope and started to bind her. She almost panicked, until she realized he wasn't binding her to anything, nor was he binding her hands or her feet together. Instead he tied intricate patterns of rope across and around her torso, winding around her legs, between her breasts, creating something that seemed more like an erotic piece of clothing than bondage.

  Kane ordered her to straddle the narrow bench of a nearby spanking horse that she realized now had been positioned for him to get a good view from behind the easel.

  When she was where he wanted her, he tied a larg
e round knot that sat right against her clit. She whimpered and tried to move her body in such a way so that she could grind her swollen bud against the rope. She let out a moan of relief at the friction and the hope that this might actually bring her release.

  Kane smacked her thigh. Hard. “No! You will not come until I'm finished painting you. Say it.”

  She whimpered. “I won't come until you finish painting me, Sir.”

  “Good.”

  He crossed to the sofa and retrieved the hair clip. When he returned, he piled her hair on top of her head and secured it loosely with the clip.

  “There. Just like that. Don't move, Claire.” Kane pushed the power button on the CD player. Slow, dark cello music started to play. Without another word, he sat behind the easel and began to paint.

  Hours passed like this. Each time the arousal cream started to wear off, Kane would motion to Ari, and he would smooth more of it between her legs. She tried moving against the large knot pressed against her clit, but whenever she did, Kane gave her a hard look that stilled her, even as the cream drove her more and more crazy. Nobody spoke. Not Kane, not Ari, and not Claire, no matter how much she wanted to beg them to let her come. She didn't. Kane was in flow, his mood too intense. And Ari wasn't much better at the moment, sitting on the edge of the sofa, his knuckles gone white from gripping the leather as his gaze moved back and forth between the work in progress and Claire.

  Finally Kane cleaned out the brush he was using, rose from the chair, took a few steps back, and regarded the canvas for a moment. He looked at her, made a couple of changes, and stepped back again. When he was satisfied with the work, he began to pack up his things.

  “I'll pick up the easel in a few days when the painting is dry enough to hang,” he said.

  Kane approached Claire. Only now did she dare to grind her body against the ropes he'd tied. “You'll chafe if you aren't careful,” he said.

  He leaned in close and kissed her on the mouth. It was a long, deep lingering kiss, that had her straining harder against the knot over her clit.

  “Please, please,” she whimpered against his mouth.

  Kane chuckled and stepped back, ignoring her obvious need. “You make a stunning painting. I'm very pleased. I hope to see you at Saskia's show next week.”

  Ari followed him out into the hallway, their voices turning to low murmurs just outside the door. Ari returned minutes later carrying a large knife. When she saw it, her breath went shallow, her arousal fading as quickly as it had come on. She tried to push away the images that clawed at her from the back of her mind but they just wouldn't go. The fear began to flood her.

  “M-Master, please... what are you doing?”

  He lowered the knife and set it on one of the pieces of bondage furniture. “You know I wouldn't hurt you, little one. I'm going to cut the ropes, so I can get you out of them. I don't have the patience or the skill to untie all of Kane's fancy knot work, and I need to be inside you now. Okay?”

  Claire nodded, not trusting her voice. Her mouth went dry as she watched Ari strip out of his white shirt and jeans until he stood naked, the sunlight playing over each perfectly defined muscle.

  “Close your eyes. If you don't see the knife, it'll be easier.”

  She closed her eyes. She couldn't argue with his logic, and she did know that he wouldn't hurt her. She wasn't sure at what point exactly in their short twisted relationship she'd know this without doubt, but she knew it.

  “Good girl.”

  Claire heard the ropes being cut in different places. Then Ari said, “You can open them now.”

  She opened her eyes as he carefully peeled the ropes off her body. He removed the hair clip, and tossed it aside. Her hair tumbled down, framing her face. He scooped her up and carried her to the bondage bed. But he didn't tie her up.

  This time when he fucked her he took her gently and carefully, sliding his hard length so slowly in and out of her the pleasure was almost painful.

  In another context it would have been that boring normal sweet fucking that she couldn't get off to, but the total power he held somehow shifted the experience. He wasn't asking Is this okay? How is this? Can I touch you there? Do you like that? What do you want? Or any of a million other maddening questions that men liked to ask now to seem enlightened to the needs of women when all Claire needed was a good hard fuck from a man who knew how to light up every nerve ending.

  He didn't ask her anything. He touched her like he knew what he was doing with her and to her, each touch careful but sure, precise. It was a sort of methodical lovemaking that stole her breath from her with each slow demanding thrust.

  He wrapped a hand around her throat, holding her, capturing her gaze in his, taking her body like he knew it was his to take. Each thrust said I own this. This is mine. Her body opened to him and said yes.

  “Do you need to come, little one?” he asked in response to the growing volume of what had started as soft stuttering whimpers.

  “Yes, Master.” He knew she did. He'd watched her suffer with need for hours.

  “Be a good girl and come for me, then.” He took her harder, his hand leaving her throat only to be replaced by his devouring mouth. Those two shifts were all it took. She bucked against him and came, screaming out her orgasm. Ari swallowed her scream with his kiss, and emptied himself inside her.

  Afterward, he held her quietly for long minutes, stroking her hair. Finally he got up.

  “I'm going to make us some lunch. Clean up and join me.”

  When he'd left her alone, Claire lay there for a few more minutes. She had to will herself to move. She got out of the bed and went over to the easel. No one had shown her the painting yet, and she was curious to see if Kane was as good of an artist as his arrogance seemed to announce.

  What she saw on the canvas drew a sharp gasp from her. It wasn't the lewd pose. It wasn't the sultry red lips swollen from hard kisses. It wasn't the nudity. And it wasn't all the emotion he'd somehow captured and pulled from her soul to put on the canvas for just anyone to see. A Q in the lower right-hand corner of the painting seemed to laugh at her with its mocking scrawl. But she didn't need the clue. The work spoke for itself. It wasn't possible. She had to be wrong.

  This painting couldn't exist. The artist was dead.

  16

  It had been a week since the painting of Claire had been hung over the fireplace in their bedroom. Ari paced the hall, dressed in a tux. He tugged at the bow tie. He fucking hated formal events. He stared down at the invitation in his hand. It had been in the stack of unopened mail just like Kane had said it would be. He ran his fingertip absently over the raised black lettering on crisp off-white Crane card stock. He turned the invitation over to see the indentation on the back. Engraved. Kane always used the best stationery—especially when it came to Saskia's art shows.

  It wasn't just about the kink with those two. It was about art: the unbridled passion and obsession of it. Kane had taken her on as his protégé and molded and mentored her and had seen to it that her art found an audience. It was a hungry audience, as dark and sexually twisted as Kane and Saskia.

  Ari wondered if it was too soon to take Claire out in public. There wasn't even a hint of defiance in her. They were a perfectly matched pair of complementary opposites, joined together by fate. He'd started to believe this so strongly that it had finally caused the lingering self-recrimination to go silent. After all, if this thing between them, however twisted, was meant to be, why fight it? Why beat himself up over taking this woman who was obviously so deeply alone and needed everything he could give her.

  Still, the easy way between them, the routine, the orders, the obedience, the pleasure, was that enough to take her off the property? Could he take that risk with her now? Or ever? Realistically he knew it would be cruel to never take her anywhere, to keep her locked up in this prison. And besides, he wanted to show her off.

  The moment Kane had left the painting with him, Ari had shut himself in his office and order
ed a dress for Claire online. He'd made a note of all her sizes when he'd first brought her to his home and undressed her.

  While he was at it, he'd gone ahead and bought other things for her: shoes, winter boots, jackets, coats—both formal and casual, jeans, shirts, sweaters, casual dresses. He'd had everything shipped rush delivery.

  At this moment, if she was following his orders, she was putting the evening gown on right now. As if on cue, she stepped out into the hallway.

  “You look beautiful,” he said, trying not to gape at her like some lovesick fool. Correction. Ari fucking loved formal events.

  Claire wore a floor-length teal evening gown that brought out the brilliant green of her eyes. It was off-the-shoulder with a plunging neckline and a high slit up one side that would reveal plenty of thigh and allow him easy access. The only jewelry she wore was the gold collar around her throat.

  “Master, are you really taking me out?” She looked hopeful, but wary, as if this were some prank and at the last moment, Ari would rip it away.

  “We're going to Kane's estate.” He could see the pulse leap in her throat when he revealed their location. Nervous? Afraid? “We're attending his pet's art show in his private gallery.”

  Even though Ari had commissioned the painting, he was in the market for more. He'd seen some of Saskia's work, and was eager to purchase a piece to add to his collection. Her paintings always went fast when she had a collection ready to sell.

  “Come with me.” Ari led her down the hallway toward another wing of the house he generally kept locked. He pressed his thumb against the biometric keypad, and the door slid open. “It's okay,” he said at the wary expression on Claire's face.

  In the time she'd been with him, she'd never asked about the locked wing. Maybe she'd never noticed it or ventured that far through the estate. Or maybe she'd been afraid to know what he kept behind such security.

  She gasped as she took in the walls and walls and rooms and rooms of paintings he'd collected over the years. He needed her to know the way he felt about art before taking her to a show. He hoped she would appreciate it as much as he did.