by Julia Sykes
I should have broken his wrist for that, but my arms were limp at my sides. My whole body seemed to have melted into the hard-backed chair.
“Yes, Sir. I understand.” My voice hardly sounded like my own.
His hand left my throat to stroke my cheek tenderly. “Good girl.”
My lips turned up at the corners in the wake of his approval. He returned my smile, but his held an edge of triumph. It made my clit throb.
Derek’s grip on my hair shifted, pulling upward.
“Stand up.”
His hands closed around my shoulders as I found my feet, steadying me. He honored my wishes; he only touched me when he had to, and even then he avoided more intimate areas. Right now, I was tempted to lean into him and ask him to break his promise.
But I became acutely aware of Reed’s gaze on me. I glanced up at him and immediately dropped my eyes in embarrassment. Although I was well-covered by the yoga pants and tank top Derek had requested I wear, my peaked nipples were clearly visible. Derek had also ordered I not wear a bra. That hadn’t really concerned me. Until now.
Reed closed the distance between us, and his black boots appeared in my line of sight. I could feel the heat of him, but he didn’t touch me.
“Look at me, Sharon.” He spoke to me in that same deep tone Derek used, and my eyes found his automatically. “I won’t judge you. I’m here to help.”
His words conveyed more than what Derek would hear. Reed was my partner. He had my back. And he wanted to make sure I was safe with Carter. That was more important than my reluctance to allow him to see me as a submissive.
Besides, he might be in my personal space, but he wasn’t touching me. If anything, his nearness brought a sense of comfort. If I lost myself to Derek again, Reed would be there to make sure I didn’t do something I would regret.
“Thanks,” I whispered.
“Any time,” he replied with an encouraging grin, echoing his words from the night before.
A rough, slightly earthy scent wafted over me, and I turned to find Derek holding a coiled length of rope. He glanced at Reed as his fingers found my braid again.
“Do you want to help with the karada?” He asked, as casually as though he was asking Reed to join him for a drink.
To my great relief, my partner shook his head. “You’re the one training her. I’ll help you with the suspension, but I’ll leave the Shibari to you.”
Derek nodded his agreement. His eyes had flared when Reed mentioned training, and they burned with a possessive light when he turned his golden stare back on me. He was obviously pleased that Reed had given him full rights to me.
Suddenly intimidated, my body shifted away from him. But he held my braid firmly, and he tugged me back into place before I moved more than an inch.
“Stay,” he admonished.
In one smooth movement, Derek uncoiled the rope, tossing the length of it so that it snapped out before hitting the black tiled floor with a dull thud. I went utterly still, my muscles going soft and supple.
I sucked in a breath at the first pass of the rope around my torso. Derek looped it under my breasts before wrapping it around my back to cross above them. He worked quickly, so quickly that I didn’t have time to muster up embarrassment at my obvious arousal.
The rope passed between my breasts, drawing taut as Derek looped it around the back of my neck. Within no more than three minutes, my nipples were throbbing in time with the beat of my heart, and my breasts felt heavier than they ever had.
My breaths turned quick and shallow, and all of my focus honed on Derek as he stepped in front of me. Heat pooled between my legs as I watched him admiring the way his work accentuated my naturally full chest.
He raised his hand, and I automatically arched toward it, aching for him to touch me. He chuckled and passed the rope through my breast bindings. He tied a tight knot further down in the rope, and his grin turned positively wicked. My puzzled expression shattered on a shocked gasp when he drew the length between my legs. The knot pressed exactly on my clit.
I stared helplessly into Derek’s eyes. I couldn’t let him do this to me. Not in front of Reed. “I can’t… I don’t…” The weak protests came out on little pants. My fingers dug into Derek’s arms, sinking into his muscles. Only, I wasn’t pushing him away. I was clinging to him for support.
“You can’t what?” He asked sweetly. “You don’t like this?”
He hooked the end of the rope through the back of the chest harness and pulled it taut. A shocked shout burst from my lips. The knot rubbed against my clit, and the rope slipped into secret parts of me, slightly abrasive even through my yoga pants. It tugged against me as Derek tied off his blessedly torturous work. My knees buckled as pleasure slammed into me.
Strong hands closed around my shoulders, preventing me from falling.
Reed.
I knew he was the one holding me up, but I couldn’t muster up the shame that should have flooded me. Derek filled my vision, my mind. There wasn’t room for anything other than his pleasure, his will.
And my state of unravelling clearly pleased him. I could see it in his own shallow breaths and his gleaming eyes. He looked… hungry. He was every bit as lost in me as I was in him.
His hands found my waist, and he accepted my weight from Reed. My partner left me, and I was dimly aware of the sound of something scraping across the floor. Confusion allowed me to break from Derek’s gaze to find Reed rolling something towards us. I had seen it pushed up against the wall when Derek had first brought me into this room, but I hadn’t known what it was. As Reed kicked down the stops to hold it in place, I recognized it from my research.
Suspension frame.
Two black metal beams stood seven feet high. At the top, they were joined by an equally long beam welded to them at either end. It was studded with eyebolts.
Reed deftly wove more rope through them, leaving one long length dangling. Derek’s fingers sank into my waist as he lifted me off my feet and spun my body to place me beneath the frame. When he was satisfied with my position, the two men looped more rope around me and through the complicated ties that already crisscrossed my body.
“Cross your arms over your chest,” Derek ordered a few minutes later.
Dazed, I obeyed. My body felt foreign, almost detached from my brain. And yet my mind was sharply honed on every strange new sensation that pervaded my senses: the scent of the rope, its roughness against my skin, the way it bit into my flesh. And Derek. Derek was everywhere. He was everything.
He held me in place with his fiery gaze as he tied my arms in place, securing them to my chest.
His hands braced behind my back, and Reed gave a strong heave on the end of the rope that was hooked through one of the eyebolts.
I cried out as the world turned. My body was suddenly parallel to the floor, my eyes staring at the ceiling. The ropes embraced my flesh, holding me firmly as I was hoisted up into the air. All of my muscles tensed as instinctive fear shot through me. I twisted against my bonds.
I moaned when my struggles were rewarded with a torturous pass of the knot over my clit. My head dropped back, and I went completely limp. The hit of adrenaline from my spike of fear sent me flying high. It combined with the suspension of my body to make me feel like I was flying.
More rope twined around one ankle, making my knee bend as it was lifted. The other ankle was similarly bound, but it was drawn down and back. The rope between my legs sank further into my cleft as I was spread. My ragged cry seemed utterly disconnected from me.
Derek’s grip returned to my braid, pulling so that my throat was completely exposed again. He anchored the end of the rope around my ankle to the rope twined through my hair, securing my head back and my leg down.
“That’s really beautiful, Derek.” Reed’s voice was imbued with deep appreciation. I could almost feel him studying me as though I was a particularly striking work of art.
My groan mingled with a soft buzzing in my ears.
&
nbsp; “Thank you.” Derek’s low rumble seemed to float up to me from far away. I was blissfully weightless, no longer tethered to the world and its worries.
My deep sense of peace was shattered by intense need as soon as Derek’s fingers brushed against the hollow at the base of my throat. Every millimeter of my skin burst to life, yearning for his touch. I twisted toward him, and rope tightened around me, squeezing my breasts and pressing into my pussy.
I opened my eyes to search for him, to plead with him. I was swallowed by his gaze instantly, and my world sparkled gold.
“Please.” My moan was guttural, desperate.
“But you don’t like it when I touch you. Remember?” His voice was cruelly amused. I whimpered, and his soft laugh curled around me, teasing across my skin.
“I want it. I want you to.” I was completely lost to my painful need. He had to touch me. He had to…
“No.”
Something between a frustrated whine and a sob escaped me at his calm refusal. I jerked against my bonds, struggling to lift my head to plead with him. The rope between my braid and ankle caused the movement to pull my leg back. The knot dragged across my clit.
I wanted to beg for release, but my cry was unintelligible. I was a quivering, whimpering mess.
“That’s it, sub.” His lips brushed across the shell of my ear. “Make yourself come. I want to watch.”
He wanted me to come. That would please him. And I needed release more desperately than I needed my next breath.
Obediently, I shifted my leg again. My head bent back, and my scalp lit up as the rope pulled at my hair. At the same time, the knot made another merciful pass over my clit.
Derek’s fingertips found the hollow of my throat again, slowly tracing upward to my chin. The light touch made my pussy convulse as though his fingers penetrated me.
“Come for me.”
I writhed in response to the intense pleasure of his touch. My body bucked wildly, and the knot found my clit again.
I exploded with a scream. White lights popped across my vision as fiery pleasure erupted at my core, raging outward to consume every inch of my flesh. The blaze roared in my ears, and the golden flames flickered across my eyes before everything went black.
* * * * *
Something wet and cool pressed at my lips. I parted them obediently, and water slid over my tongue.
“You with me, Sharon?”
“Mmmhmmm.” I hummed out my reply. The world was dark and warm. My body felt heavy and sleepy, and my mind floated in a blissful haze.
Someone gave my hand a little squeeze. “You passed out on us for a minute there. I was worried too much blood had rushed to your head. We had to cut you down.” The familiar voice was relieved.
I opened my eyes to find a set of black ones studying me carefully.
Reed’s hand left mine to brace the back of my head, holding it up while he touched the water bottle to my lips again. As I sipped, my sluggish brain took inventory of my body, and I realized that I was no longer restrained. I was sitting in the wooden chair. It was jarring to feel something solid beneath me after floating for so long. A sense of loss rolled over me.
“Where’s Derek?” I asked before I thought.
“I’m right here.” The coldness in his voice robbed the words of any comfort they might have held. I peered around Reed to find Derek standing well away from me, his arms crossed over his chest. Behind him, the suspension frame was surrounded by a mess of frayed ropes.
My sense of loss multiplied at his distance. He had taken me so high, and now I was crashing back down. And he wasn’t there to catch me.
Fat, warm tears dripped from my eyes. My hand trembled as I reached for him without a thought.
He cursed under his breath and closed the distance between us in three long strides. Even when he dropped down to his knees beside me, my gaze was barely on a level with his chin. He watched me, his expression uncharacteristically uncertain.
Tentatively, I rested my head against his shoulder, silently giving him permission to touch me, to hold me. I wanted that far more fiercely than I cared about my pride. I let out a shaky breath when his powerful arms closed around me. One large hand settled across my back while the other cradled my nape, tucking my head beneath his chin.
I breathed in his clean scent, and my tears stopped flowing.
Chapter 9
“I can’t reach Santiago. I can’t establish contact to gather intel on Ortiz and Reyes.” Clayton’s deep voice emanated from my phone, filling the car.
Reed glanced over at me from the passenger seat. Unlike the rest of us, he didn’t know Javier Santiago personally. The skeptical slant of his dark eyes let me know he was doubting the allegiance of the undercover agent. A year in deep cover with the Latin Kings could change a man.
“This isn’t the first time he’s gone silent on us,” Clayton ended the pregnant pause. “If he’s refusing contact, he has a damn good reason for it. The last time he stuck his neck out for me, he almost ended up dead.”
“Without Santiago, we have nothing new on the Kings,” I insisted. There had to be more than Reyes’ known ties to the Kings and suspicion about Ortiz.
“Javier saved Rose from a rival tribe and almost got carved up for it. I won’t put him in danger like that again.” Clayton’s tone turned hard, forbidding any further discussion on the matter.
I sighed. “Okay, Clayton, I get it. How is Rose?”
It had only been a few weeks since she had been attacked by the Kings.
“She still wakes up screaming every night.” The words were a furious rumble. “I want to take these fuckers down just as badly as you do, Sharon, but I won’t do it at the expense of Javier’s life. I won’t let any more people I care about get hurt because of them. And that includes you.”
I shifted in the passenger seat, avoiding making eye contact with Reed. This conversation was getting deeply personal, and Reed could hear every word.
But the thrill I would have once felt at Clayton’s protectiveness and the pang of grief that would have shot through me at the mention of his girlfriend were absent. All I could think about was Derek and protecting him from the Kings.
It had been almost a week since our suspension scene, and every minute I spent with him convinced me of his innocence. I suspected that he knew what was going on in Decadence, but he didn’t like it. The ferocity with which he craved control suggested a loss of control in other aspects of his life. I wasn’t a psychologist, but I had spent enough time with him to begin to read the subtle shifts in his expression, the tension in his muscles.
And I had spent enough time with him to know that he was a good man. Even when I asked him to touch me in the throes of passion, he resisted. He honored my wishes even when I forgot to honor them myself.
“I’m not getting much on Carter,” I admitted.
Because there’s nothing to get on him.
I kept that thought to myself. If Clayton suspected I was coming to care about Derek, I would be pulled from the op in a matter of minutes. “I’ll keep trying, but we should focus on the Kings.”
“Then you and Reed will have to do it from the inside,” Clayton brooked no argument. “I won’t put Santiago in the line of fire.”
“No,” I agreed heavily. “I don’t want that, either.”
“I’ll stay on the Kings,” Reed interjected. “I’m getting fuck all talking to the strung out customers, so maybe I should try to get friendly with Ortiz. I’ll buy him a few shots tonight and see if I can get him talking. If I can get him to sell me a hit, we’ll at least be able to arrest him for dealing.”
“And I’ll stay on Carter,” I promised.
So I can prove his innocence.
A part of me realized that I was losing objectivity when it came to Derek. Just because he was a good Dom, that didn’t mean he wasn’t a criminal. Just because he set my body on fire, that didn’t mean he wasn’t manipulating my mind.
“Good. Check in with me soon.
I want to know what’s going on.” Clayton ended the call before I could inform him that he wasn’t my superior.
But the annoyance I would have felt only two weeks ago was a shadow of what it had been. Clayton wanted to take down the Kings so they couldn’t hurt anyone the way they had hurt Rose. His sights were set on revenge, not on belittling me. Between Reed’s calm insistence that I needed to stop taking things so personally and my sessions with Derek, I could see past my own sensitivity over my personal failings.
“So you’re going to stay on Ortiz,” I said to Reed as he pulled into a parking space not far from Decadence. “Does this mean you’re going to leave me alone with Carter again?” I couldn’t keep the hopeful note from my tone.
Reed had watched me with Derek over the last five nights, keeping a sharp eye on Derek as we covered form training and went through more rope work. Our sessions were more instructional than sensual, and I couldn’t help but wonder if it was Reed’s presence that was causing Derek to hold back. I hadn’t hit subspace since the suspension, but I had come damn close while kneeling at Derek’s feet in the proper pose, his words of praise making me feel light and beautiful.
“Yes,” Reed answered with some resignation. “I know what you’re thinking, and I agree. Carter is a good Dom. He won’t betray your trust. That doesn’t mean I trust him as a man, but I don’t believe he’ll take advantage of you. Besides, I really do need to focus on the Kings. We have to report back to Kennedy tomorrow. If we don’t get more soon, we have to tell him about Carter’s possible ties to the Westies.”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath to stave off the anger and hint of panic elicited by that idea. No way was I going to let Derek get arrested on a hunch.
When I met Reed’s eyes, mine were full of steely determination. “It won’t come to that. We’ll get something on them. And I’ll find out about Derek’s involvement. One way or another.”
Reed gave me a short nod before getting out of the car. We left our FBI personas behind, adopting the attitudes we needed to blend in at Decadence.