Knowing the Ropes

by Teresa Noelle Roberts

  It was afternoon when they got started this time, broad daylight. Selene asked for that specifically, to have the autumn sun streaming in through the blinds as Nick beat her, to make this a normal, bright thing, not a thing of darkness. Nick had drily suggested using Jimmy Buffett as scene music, and she’d smacked him. This allowed them to get into a playful wrestling match in the living room.

  It ended with them on the living room floor, Nick’s cock in her mouth and Nick’s head between her legs, as he licked her clit and she sucked him. He moved in her mouth, shallow strokes because of the angle, and she thought he tasted like heaven, and each flick of his tongue sent shimmers of pleasure through her entire body. He felt so hard, so powerful, and yet his tongue was gentle and soft. At the same time, that gentle tongue and that cock in her mouth controlled her utterly, as much as bonds or orders did.

  When the shimmering turned into a nova and she exploded, Nick said, “Love you,” in a voice that started out as a harsh whisper and ended up as a strangled cry. He flooded her mouth, hot and salty and utterly delicious.

  Still, by the time they moved from the living room floor to the bedroom, Selene had moved past sated and back to aroused, and Nick’s cock was stirring and stretching again. Nick threw open the curtains. For a second, Selene wondered if this was such a good idea. What if someone saw in?

  Then she decided she didn’t care. She wanted the light to witness this scene, because they weren’t going to let things get as dark as they had that night.

  When Nick said, “Lean over on the bed and stick your butt out,” she figured it was time for the caning. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, then let it out slowly, bracing and centering herself. Excited as she was, she was also nervous. The good mood, the arousal, the playfulness earlier, not to mention the playful sex in the living room, would make sure this was a good experience emotionally. But canes still hurt. A lot.

  Her gut roiled anxiously, anticipating that sharp, hot sensation, wondering whether she’d be able to enjoy it or even take it at all this time or if it would turn out to be something that didn’t work for her. She hoped that wasn’t the case. She knew she could stop the scene if she needed to, and Nick would find something they could both revel in, but dammit, she wanted it to work. Wanted to like it, even if she hated it at the same time. Wanted to find the fiery pleasure she’d sensed amid the turmoil of the failed scene.

  She felt Nick move in behind her and took another deep, steadying breath. His hands cupped her ass, and she leaned into the caress, figuring he was going to stroke her skin as he often liked to do before spanking or flogging her. Instead, Nick parted her ass cheeks. She felt a cool trickle of lube. One of Nick’s fingers worked into her ass, then two. As always, there was a second of burn, a hint of resistance before the pleasure kicked in and she let herself open to the exploring fingers. She groaned. They hadn’t done full-on anal sex, and she hadn’t pushed for it. There were so many other things to explore, and butt-fucking was something she’d tried before. Even super-vanilla Will had been game for that.

  Maybe it was time to change that. The plugs they’d used were lovely, and right now Nick’s fingers felt so good. Maybe, assuming her butt wasn’t too sore to ponder the pounding, she’d ask for anal as a finale. Worst he’d say was not now.

  As if he read her mind, Nick said, “I’m going to plug you now, and when we’re done with the beating, when you’re lovely and open and floaty and tender, I’m going to fuck this beautiful ass. How does that sound?”

  “Oh God, yes,” she exclaimed, perfect punctuation as he slid his fingers out and a well-lubed plug in.

  She expected the beating to start then, now that she was quivering with need, full of a butt plug, about to fly apart from excitement.

  Nick instead had her stand. And then he lovingly wrapped Selene in deep red rope, not to restrain her at this point but to arouse her further. Rope coiled around her rib cage and between her breasts, forming a harness that thrust them out and made her more aware of the weight and sensitivity. Rope slithered between her legs, one strand tugging gently on either lip, spreading out from a strategic knot right over her clit. Wherever the ropes touched her, she felt the echo of Nick’s hands stroking as he tied her. “We’re going to need to wash the ropes,” she said, half giggling and half sighing. “I’m getting them all wet.”

  “That’s why I didn’t use hemp this time. This stuff washes well.” Nick ran his fingers between her legs, tracing the path of the ropes over her labia and up between her cheeks. She shuddered and bucked, as much at the husky love in his voice as the touch. “I love how wet you get. I love the way you respond to rope.” He put his now slick hands on her shoulders and captured her mouth. She wrapped her arms around his waist, parted her lips and fell into the kiss.

  Sweet and possessive. Fierce and tender. He tasted of her juices, and some subtle spice, but mostly he tasted like Nick, delicious and beloved. She moved her hands over his skin, loving the play of heat and muscle. The last caning, the one that had gone wrong, he’d stayed dressed. She much preferred him like this—naked, just like her, a kind of equality within the power game. Besides, this way she could cup his hard ass, feel the slight fur of his thighs against her skin, gaze at his muscular body, and enjoy his cock jutting against her, so much better bare than through clothes.

  She was reaching for that cock when Nick caught her wrist. “Oh no. Not until I say so. In fact, maybe we better tie those hands so you don’t distract me.”

  He had her lie across the bed, hands extended in front of her. A couple of quick loops fastened her wrists together, and from there, he extended the rope to a tie-down point hidden on the far side of the bedframe. Selene squirmed experimentally. She could move quite a lot, but she couldn’t get away, and every wiggle would tease at her already hypersensitive clit and full ass.

  She couldn’t decide if that was an argument against wiggling or for it.

  “Beautiful. You look so beautiful tied like that.” Nick ran his hand down her back, an innocent gesture that made her shiver with pleasure and need. He moved away and started rummaging among the toys.

  Selene made a determined effort not to look. They’d already deviated in several wonderful ways from the original night—besides neither of them acting like utter assholes, which was the most important difference—but he’d probably go for the paddle. He got a kick out of the NAUGHTY imprints on her butt. When he positioned himself behind her, she braced herself for the sharp slap of the paddle.

  What she felt was one of their lightest floggers, stingy yet soft and sensual, a caress with a bit of bite. Lovely. She pushed back as much as her bonds allowed for more. The movement shifted the ropes between her legs and she gasped in pleased surprise.

  “No coming without permission,” Nick said, although his tone suggested the consequences of failure wouldn’t be too dire.

  Still, that settled the wiggle versus not wiggle question. Not wiggle, as much as Selene could manage.

  Nick flicked the flogger again. This time just the tips caught her, stingier but still sensuous and sweet. Then again and again and again. Soon she was sighing, “More please,” and counting the strikes, though he hadn’t told her to, to distract herself a little from the firestorm building in her pussy, the smaller one in her ass.

  She lost count, inevitably. She lost herself. She lost everything but the sensations: the stinging blows on her butt and thighs, her stretched, sensitive ass, teased pussy lips and blissfully tormented clit, the embrace of the rope, Nick’s hands warm on her skin when he paused to stroke her. He was hitting her hard now but still it felt like a caress. The right word would make her come, but oddly, there was no real urgency. For now, riding the waves of sensation was enough. She was babbling yes, yes, yes under her breath, but if Nick had thought to ask her, she couldn’t possibly have explained why, just that she needed to affirm something.

  When he finally set the flogger down and reached for the cane, she was flying so high that the first st
rike felt like a love tap. Or maybe it was a love tap, a warm-up, leading her into the caning gradually? It felt good, whichever it was, sharp and hot but good, like the rush of eating spicy food. She let out a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding with a little aah. Nick laughed softly as he caned her again.

  This time was definitely harder and caught her right in that sweet spot where her ass curved to her thighs, that spot that hurt a little more than the ass proper yet radiated pleasure so wonderfully to her clit and pussy—and, with a butt plug in, to her ass too. She couldn’t help flinching and crying out at the initial pain, but she couldn’t help clenching either, couldn’t help the flames of need that seared her. She wiggled back into place, letting the ropes tug and tease at her drenched cunt.

  “How does that feel?” Nick asked.

  When his words sank into her foggy brain, all she could think was that she wanted more of that fire. So that was how she answered, with a groan of, “More.”

  Nick complied, this one cutting like a hot knife, but at the same time, delicious. Selene jumped and shrieked by reflex, but the pleasure overcame the pain. The next didn’t hurt, exactly. She was aware of the cutting strike, of the fire in its wake, but the fire was so sweet it burned away pain. After that, she floated away, the pain transmuted to bliss, feeling each hot strike as a pulse of pleasure, almost a caress. The need was building. She was going to erupt like a volcano.

  But she couldn’t. There were words she needed to say and hear before she could let go. Words were hard, though. She couldn’t remember many. But she did remember, “Please, sir, please,” and she repeated it like a prayer.

  “One more, Selene. Just one more. This one will be harder.”

  She remembered a few more words then. “Yes sir, but please…please…”

  “Love you.” He struck again, and it was harder, hard enough to shock through the euphoria and actually hurt. As the cane smacked down, though, he said, “Come, Selene. Come now.”

  The inferno broke free, consuming what was left of Selene’s consciousness in an explosive orgasm. The orgasm encompassed not just her long-teased clit and pussy and ass, not just her delightfully tender butt, but the soles of her feet, the hair on her head and everything in between. She’d never been sure if there was such a thing as a soul, but she was pretty sure she felt her soul coming, bursting into flame in its own way. She came keening and howling, shaking like she was caught in an earthquake, pounding and tearing at the bed with her bound hands. It took a long time for her to start to come down.

  And just when she thought she had, just when she thought she could start breathing normally, Nick removed the butt plug.

  Her body clenched and released in anticipation. She pushed back. When Nick’s cock began its slow, inexorable journey into her ass, that triggered another firestorm, smaller than the last but still powerful.

  “I feel you,” Nick groaned. “So tight. Your ass clamps down when you come.” He came to rest, his hips against her ass, his cock fully inside. “I’m almost scared to move. Once I start, I’m not sure I can hold back.”

  “Move.” There—another word she could manage to speak. “Please?”

  “I may not be gentle.”

  She squeezed deliberately this time and pushed back against him. “Please. Move. Please.”

  He did.

  He’d been right. He wasn’t gentle. He went hard and fast, slamming against her sore cheeks, fucking her ass like he normally would her cunt. Fire and darkness and a bright, lovely edge of pain when he pressed his fingers into the cane marks as he gripped her. It might have been too much at some other time, a time when he hadn’t taken her as far before they reached this point, but it was just right now.

  All the time he fucked her, he was muttering words of love that sounded like obscenities, obscenities that sounded like words of love, a vulgar litany that rose to a crescendo as he came.

  He didn’t even manage to untie her hands, just helped her to crawl onto the bed and curled up around her. “Love you,” he whispered into her hair.

  “Love you,” she whispered back, and then, “thank you.”

  Much later, after a nap, and a shower, and a snack, Selene said, “I don’t think you hit me as hard as you did that first time. I had bruises for days after that fiasco.”

  “Look.” Nick led her over to the mirror.

  She had to crane her neck to see her own ass. But sure enough, her ass was striped with distinct red double lines with bruises forming around them. “I…I…” She couldn’t speak, just turned and buried her face in Nick’s chest.

  “You’re welcome,” he said.

  Chapter Thirty

  Nick rolled over in bed the next morning—okay, it was more like afternoon—looked at Selene and said, his voice still harsh with dreams, “I love watching you wake up. You look so gorgeous.”

  Selene laughed. “Yeah, right. With just-been-fucked hair on top of bed-head, my eyes bleary and probably swollen, pillow wrinkles on my cheeks… You must love me.”

  Of course Nick looked disheveled himself, his hair all over the place. But that just made him look like deliciously wild, like a naked pirate, all long limbs and hard muscles, his blue eyes keen and intent on her. And he smelled well fucked, just like she did—but it was easier to enjoy it on him.

  “I do love you,” he said simply. “But honestly, you look beautiful all rumpled and sleepy and soft. Especially rumpled and sleepy and soft with my marks on your sweet butt.”

  “You can’t see those,” she said in a teasing singsong.

  He took that as a challenge, just like she’d hoped he would, and the next thing she knew he was wrestling with her and the sheet, attempting to flip her over and pull the sheet down.

  He won, of course. Since he was bigger, he would have even if she hadn’t wanted him to, but she did want him to.

  Wanted to feel him overpower her, overwhelm her again, in a lighthearted way this time, in contrast to the previous night’s fire. Wanted to feel his strength, his energy, his mock fierceness that could become real, intensely sexual fierceness at the drop of a hat, or in this case, a sheet.

  After the inevitable result—tracing the lines left by last night’s caning, giving her a few delicious smacks to redden her again, warm her up, make her sex swell and dampen and her need for him, which had been dulled a bit by sleepiness, rise again, a quick, furious, good-morning doggy-style fucking that brought her over the edge and tumbling into the oblivion of space—after all that and the cuddling and the laughter, he looked at her again and said, “And I love to see you like that too, all flushed and tender and sweaty from sex.”

  “Now that I’ll believe. I love you seeing you that way too.”

  “Doms do not get not flushed and tender!” he proclaimed in his most pretentious voice.

  She couldn’t resist.

  She hit him with her pillow.

  He retaliated, and before they knew it, they were chasing each other through the condo, buffeting each other with down.

  This time, she wasn’t going to let him win and smacked at him with the pillows for all she was worth.

  And in the middle of the laughter, Nick said, “Yeah, I definitely love waking up with you. Move in.”

  The pillow that was about to come down on Nick’s head without mercy fell to the floor. “Nick, did you just ask me to move in?”

  “You’re not on the lease at your place, right?”

  She shook her head. “Moved in to fill a vacancy. I need to give Lashonda time to find someone new.” She hadn’t gotten close to her roommate, but she didn’t want to leave the other woman in the lurch, stuck with more rent than she could afford. Lashonda was fresh out of undergrad, without the savings reserves Selene had from selling her house in Rochester.

  “Funny you should say that,” he said. “I’ve got a new coworker. Nice kid, moved out here from Cincinnati to take the job. She’s living on a college friend’s couch now, but she’s kind of desperate for a room of her own. I think
she and Lashonda would get along okay. How about it? Eventually we’d need to find someplace bigger, where we could have pets and throw parties and stuff, but this could do while we’re looking.”

  The reality of the question hit her, and she threw her arms around Nick and squealed like a happy little girl. “Of course! I’d love to. I love you. I…”

  She stopped abruptly. “Am not very coherent at the moment?” Nick suggested helpfully.

  “Yeah, that too.” She stayed silent, thinking. Of course she wanted to move in. That wasn’t a question. She loved Nick, loved being with him, wanted to see if they could make it work on the next level.

  But something was niggling at her.

  “If I move in…when I move in… will there be rules?”

  “Yes,” Nick said unhesitatingly. Then, a little more hesitatingly, “If it works for you too. Not slave rules, nothing too strict. Just little things to remind you that you’re mine.”

  Her heart fluttered. “Yours?”

  “Mine. Not my slave, just mine. Mine always, because I’m not going to let you go. Mine.”

  He grabbed a handful of hair at her nape as he said mine the final time, and Selene felt herself melting. She thought the recent lovemaking had left her sated, boneless, but all it took was those words, that gesture, to make her pussy swollen and slick, her nipples achingly taut.

  Nick’s blue eyes bored into hers, and the world narrowed to him and her and that was just as it should be.

  “Yours always,” she said softly.

  And that was all the talking they did for a long, long time. At least with words.

  About the Author

  Teresa Noelle Roberts started writing stories in kindergarten and she hasn’t stopped yet. A prolific author of short erotica, she’s also a published poet and fantasy writer—but BDSM-spiced contemporaries and hot paranormals are her favorites. She’s hard at work writing the kinky tales of hot dominant guys and smart women who submit to them—but not anyone else!—and making more sexy Duals and Donovans magic for your reading pleasure.