by Hannah Ford
Nicole was looking at her closely, however. “You can have the rest of the day off, Kallie.”
“No, that’s not necessary.”
“I want you to. I’m fine and Red’s home today. Right honey?”
Red simply shrugged. He went back to reading the Times over on the table. Kallie turned around and walked back to her bedroom and closed the door behind her.
She suddenly burst into tears. Now, she finally had lost the last scrap of hope that things might be repaired. Hunter clearly didn’t want to see her.
And she couldn’t blame him. He’d caught her spying on him, snooping—even though she knew how private he was and how much he valued that privacy above all else.
Even above her.
She sat on her bed and cried, thinking again of simply quitting and moving back home. For the first time since she’d left the Danvers’s home, the idea seemed like a real possibility.
There was a faint knock on the door to her room. “Kallie?” Nicole said. “Can I come in?”
Kallie dried her eyes. “Yes.”
Nicole opened the door and walked slowly in, her face a mask of concern. “Hey, are you okay?”
Kallie smiled. “Not really.”
“Hunter?”
Kallie smiled again and laughed, nodding. More tears came. Nicole sat down on the bed next to her and gave her a long hug.
“I’m sorry I’m bring dramatic,” Kallie said through her tears.
“It’s okay. I figured the two of you were together.”
“Not anymore.”
“Want to tell me about it?”
Kallie sighed, thinking about whether she really should. Finally, she decided that the details weren’t important anyway. “I care about him, but I did something stupid and now I think it’s over.”
Nicole looked at her with sympathy. “I don’t think it is.”
“How can you say that?”
She smiled. “I’ve been there. Not that long ago, either.”
“I wish you were right, but he’s not like Red. He doesn’t love me the way Red loves you, he doesn’t look at me the way Red looks at you.”
Nicole put her hand over Kallie’s hand. “Red didn’t always look at me that way. We built this over time. And we had some very rough, scary moments where it seemed like we wouldn’t make it.”
“Did Red ever make it seem like he wanted nothing to do with you?”
Nicole smiled even wider. “More than once.”
Kallie laughed. “Thanks, Nicole. That means a lot.”
Nicole got up and looked at Kallie. “Maybe you just need to tell him how you feel about him.” And then she turned and left the room.
Kallie thought for a moment, and then she got up and left the room. She went to the supply closet—which was more of an enormous room than a proper closet. It held everything from bug spray to batteries to light bulbs to pens and paper.
The latter was what she needed right now. Kallie grabbed herself a pen, an envelope and a sheet of paper, her heart racing. She knew what she needed to do.
A few minutes later, she was back in her room, writing furiously. Her hand would cramp and she’d stop for a little while, rub her hand and think about what to write next. Once the cramping subsided, she’d get back to writing.
Some time later, she was done. Leaving the room and searching around for signs of life, she eventually found Red in the verandah on his laptop. “Red, could I ask a big favor?” she said.
He looked up from his computer. “Sure. What’s up?”
“Can I borrow your car?”
***
Sometime later, Kallie was driving toward Hunter’s house with the envelope on the passenger seat next to her. Red had actually given her Hunter’s address, although he hadn’t been too happy about it.
When she’d started to explain why she needed to go and see him, Red had waved her off. “Please, I really don’t want to know,” he’d said.
Thinking of Red’s reaction, Kallie smiled to herself. Red was a great guy, but he knew personal boundaries better than just about anyone she’d ever met. Maybe he’d teach her someday.
Thinking of boundaries (and lack thereof), she thought about showing up unannounced at Hunter’s house.
She didn’t even know if Hunter would be there when she arrived. If necessary, she’d wait until he returned. And if that failed…
Kallie decided not to think about what she’d do if Hunter never came home tonight.
“He’ll be there,” she told herself.
Soon, she saw that familiar sight of his castle on top of the large hill. Now more than ever, her pulse raced as she looked at the house towering above her head.
She was anxious to get there and do what needed to be done. More than anxious—desperate. She just hoped and prayed that Hunter would see how serious she was and give her another chance.
Finally, after what felt like hours, she drove her way up the snaking road that led to the top of the hill, slowing down as she turned into his driveway. Both his car and motorcycle were parked out front.
What if he has company? She thought, the first time such a thing had even occurred to her. What if he’s in his basement, right now, with another woman?
She couldn’t allow herself to worry about that. Kallie was determined, more determined than she’d been about almost anything in her life.
Checking her face and hair in the mirror, she took a deep breath, grabbed the envelope, and got out of the car. Slowly, she walked to the front door. Her hands were shaking as she knocked twice, loudly.
After what seemed an interminable amount of time, she heard footsteps.
“Who is it?” the voice called from behind the door.
“It’s Kallie.”
There was a long pause. “Go away, Kallie.”
“Please, I drove all the way out here. Can you just open the door, Hunter?”
There was another long pause, and she was sure he’d turned around and walked away. But then there was the sound of the lock being turned and suddenly the door opened. Hunter was standing there in dark blue jeans and a white t-shirt. As always, he looked fantastic.
But he wasn’t smiling or receptive. “Say whatever you came to say.”
She licked her lips and tried to smile. “I have something for you.” She handed him the envelope.
He took it from her as if it might be filled with Anthrax. “What is it?”
“Please, just read it. You’ll see.”
He sighed, impatience etched in his face. He quickly pulled out the piece of paper and started to read. His expression grew more troubled. “I don’t understand.”
“I rewrote the contract from memory. I think I got most of it, but we can amend it if I left anything out. Look at the back. I signed it already,” she said. “Now it just needs your signature.”
Hunter looked up at her and slowly shook his head. “Kallie, it’s over. I’m not doing this.”
“Please. I’ll prove to you that I’m ready.”
“I don’t care if you’re ready. I’m not.”
She took a deep breath. “You know how good we are together—“
“Kallie, I heard you out. I read your note. But now I need to ask you to leave.”
And then she said the one thing that she hadn’t told him yet, the one thing she thought might be enough.
“Hunter,” she said softly.
“What, Kallie?”
“I need to be punished.”
He stared at her for a very long time. His eyes searched her face for signs of resistance or deception. She didn’t bother trying to hide anything from his perceptive gaze. In her mind, she was ready for anything and everything he had to show her.
Finally, he broke into the tiniest smile.
And then he stepped away from the door and let her inside.
His Every Touch (For His Pleasure, Book 8)
Hunter closed the front door as Kallie walked past him into the house. He was still holding the contract that s
he’d hand written and signed. “You really mean this, Kallie?” he asked softly.
“Yes,” she breathed, her heart doing a pitter-patter dance in her chest. “I meant everything I said.”
I need to be punished.
Did she really mean that? Kallie had said it as a last, desperate attempt to get another chance with him. It had worked, but she wasn’t sure that was such a good thing.
“Come,” he said, his eyes soft, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth. He walked to her and took her hand, and instantly she started to relax.
“Are we going to the basement?”
“No,” he said. “To my bedroom.”
She was confused. Hunter was always confusing her. That seemed to be what he specialized in. Not writing, not producing, not driving motorcycles—no, Hunter Reardon’s true specialty was confusing Kallie.
He walked upstairs with her, his hand intertwined with her own, and she was excited, because the last two times they’d gone to his bedroom had been sensual and beautiful. She enjoyed the basement too—in its own way—but this felt more intimate, this felt like something Hunter only did with someone he considered a girlfriend.
When they got to his room, Hunter nodded to the bed. “Get on the bed,” he said, as he suddenly pulled his t-shirt over his head and tossed it to the floor.
Now he was shirtless, his well-muscled torso smooth and perfect in every way.
Kallie walked to the bed and sat down on the edge of it.
Hunter moved toward her like a cat, graceful but quick, and next thing she knew he was on top of her, pushing her back, kissing her lips forcefully, hungrily.
She kissed him back, equally hungry for his taste, hungry to give herself to him again.
She caressed his flexed pectorals greedily as he kissed down her neck. And then he was taking her hands in his own, and pushing her arms so they were outstretched above her head. “Keep your arms up,” he said, his voice rough and growling.
She kept them just as he told her to, stretched all the way to almost the headboard. He rolled off her, and the next thing she knew, he was fiddling with something over by the bedpost and then she felt him clamping some kind of handcuff over her left wrist.
He walked quickly around the bed, to the other side, and repeated the process. A manacle of some sort was attached to her right wrist also. Now she was lying on the bed, her arms attached to the bedposts by two restraints.
She wondered what he was going to do next. Hunter stood there, looking down at her, his chest heaving. “Do you want me to fuck you like this?” he said.
“Yes,” she gasped. Her heart was pounding so fast she could barely catch her breath. Her private place was instantly wet for him. The thought of him taking her in this way was exciting, frightening, and strangely erotic.
“Can you picture me slowly pulling down your skirt and then your panties? Making you strip bare for me while my eyes take in every last detail?”
She nodded, barely able to speak now. He was making her even wetter, as he told her what he had planned. “I want to be bare for you, always,” she replied.
He nodded, but his eyes were hard and flinty as he looked down at her. “You want to feel my cock entering you, sliding into your deepest place and filling it up?”
“Yes, Hunter. Please fill me up.”
“Beg me to fuck you, Kallie.”
“Please. I’ll do anything.”
“You’ll be my little slut, Kallie? You’ll allow me to fuck you any way I want to fuck you, in any place, even in public if I desire?”
“Yes,” she said. Her thoughts raced. What did he have in mind?
“That’s very good,” he said, grinning. And then he turned and walked out of the room.
Kallie didn’t know why he’d left so suddenly. Perhaps, she thought, he’d gone to the basement to retrieve some kind of implement to use on her. She imagined him returning with a belt, a vibrator, a blindfold or whip.
And then the seconds turned into minutes and the minutes drew out. She looked around the room, feeling slightly panicked. Her ears strained for any sign of him in the house, but she didn’t hear his footsteps. In fact, she didn’t hear anything.
He was gone. He’d left her tied to the bed and there was absolutely nothing she could do about it.
More time passed. The restraints on her wrists were starting to chafe, and it wasn’t helping that she was pulling on them. Kallie was growing ever more anxious as her mind started to consider some of the worst-case scenarios.
What if he leaves the house for an entire night and I lie here, unable to get up to do anything, even relieve myself? Or worse yet—what if he gets in a car accident and doesn’t come back for days? I could die here. Stranger things have happened.
She knew this was all mind theatre, and yet it was strangely compelling. With no hint of reassurance on Hunter’s part, Kallie was left to her own devices, and the results were frightening. She was stifling the desire to scream for help.
How long has it even been? She wondered. Have I been tied up for thirty minutes, an hour, more?
She glanced up at the restraints holding her wrists. They were leather, lined with fur, and attached to metal chains that were affixed to sturdy posts at the top of the bed. Even using all her arm strength, she couldn’t budge them.
“Hunter,” she called, breaking down after still more time passed. “Hunter! I’m scared!”
She hated to break down like this, but the anxiety was too much.
He’d left her.
She’d expected punishment, sure—spanking, whipping, and even verbal humiliation. All of those made sense—all of those were things she was prepared for, at some level.
What she hadn’t prepared for was that Hunter might simply leave her. This was the worst kind of torture.
It reminded her of when she was a kid. Her parents hadn’t been extreme disciplinarians, but they’d been very firm and tough when needed. One day when Kallie was about eight years old, she’d refused to eat spaghetti and meatballs for the second night in a row, and her father had angrily ordered her to go to her room for the rest of the night.
At first, she’d been glad to do so. But as the time went on, and she’d heard her brothers playing, and her parents laughing, she’d started to regret her behavior. She’d wanted to go and join her family. So Kallie had left her room, intending to apologize. The minute she showed her face, both of her parents screamed at her, told her to go back to her room and stay there.
She’d fled to her room, sobbing, thinking about the looks of hatred and disgust that had been seared on their faces. The rest of the night had been spent praying to God for forgiveness, hoping and wishing that her mother and father might come and sit down and talk to her.
But they never had. Eventually, she’d fallen asleep, and the next day it was as if the whole thing had never happened. But Kallie never forgot, and she very rarely if ever disobeyed her parents again.
Hunter leaving her now seemed to reawaken that old wound, bringing forth fresh pain. She was afraid again, as if she’d never really grown up. It was as if she was still that same eight year old, and once the lights were off and the door to her bedroom was closed, she was horrified all over again of being left alone.
“Hunter!” she cried out again. More time had gone by now.
She tried to close her eyes and sleep. She was deeply uncomfortable now, and unable to really move into a better position. Her arms were sore and the muscles were rebelling. This was becoming torture—real and actual torture.
And Kallie was getting angry. Now, instead of feeling badly for what she’d done to deserve this punishment, Kallie was glad that she’d done it. She should have looked through every last drawer, in every nightstand and dresser and desk in his entire house.
And just when her anger was reaching its peak, Hunter suddenly appeared in the doorway. He looked at her, as if assessing her general state, and then quickly moved to let her out of her bondage.
Second
s later, she was free of her restraints, and tears were rolling down her face as she rubbed her sore wrists.
He sat down beside her on the bed. “That was necessary,” he said.
“Fuck you,” she cried.
“Kallie, don’t speak to me like that. You signed a contract, remember?”
“I didn’t sign up for that. You left me, Hunter. You left me tied up for hours.”
“It was exactly seventy-nine minutes,” he said. “Not even an hour and a half.”
“I don’t care how long it was. I was scared and I called your name over and over. What if something had been wrong with me? You never even checked.”
“I told you I have cameras all over this house, Kallie. You were never in any danger. I’d never let any harm come to you.”
She just shook her head, and then she sat up and dried her tears. Now they were sitting next to one another on the bed. She smiled glumly. “I guess I have nobody to blame but myself for getting into this situation.”
“That’s accurate.”
She glanced up at him, her eyes narrowed. “You’re so superior. And yet you’re the most guarded person I’ve ever met.”
His mouth curved up into an angry smile. “I need to be guarded around someone that goes through my drawers and looks at my private things, don’t I?”
“What do you want from me?” She was so frustrated that she almost wanted to beat his chest.
“I’ll tell you what I want. I want you to submit.”
“You tied me up. You fucked me. You came in my mouth.”
“None of that matters if you won’t truly submit to me, Kallie.” He got off the bed and started to pace the room. “You signing that paper doesn’t mean a thing if you continue to defy me in subtle ways, resisting me, trying to find my weak points so you can break me down.”
“I’ve never done this before. I don’t even know what any of it means.”
He turned and faced her. “Then let me teach you. Submit.”
She pounded her fists against the bed. “I did. I did. I did.”
“No.” He shook his head. “See?” He made fists and a pouting face, like a child, mimicking her pounding the bed. And then he smiled and relaxed. “That’s called being a brat, Kallie. You need to do better than that.”