by Angel Payne
“You’re into trying all kinds of new things tonight. Aren’t you, bird?”
He finished the growl by scooping his arms around her, one under her knees and one around her waist. The room swirled by as he picked her up, spun her around, and carried her to the middle of the room, a few feet in front of the truss. The rope now lay in a tidy red coil next to the tripod, entrancing—and scaring—her more in this state than it had in a tangle. It was ready for Z to use on her now. To transform her into his complete submissive. His total captive.
And that was okay.
She was okay.
No matter how nervous he made her with his new and wicked chuckle.
She threw him a scowl. The pirate boots had definitely gone to his head. His grin was a naughty slash that parted his beard scruff, emphasizing the effect more. It was nearly impossible to concentrate on the large box he dragged off the hearth with one toe. She hadn’t been paying the container much attention, thinking the truss had come in it, but she now realized the proportions didn’t match.
The bullion flecks in his eyes, matching his smirk and his laugh, didn’t relieve her disquiet. She tried to loosen the tension by quipping, “Another present?”
Zeke tilted his head, leaned in, and stared deeply at her. Crap. He knew what his version of the come-hither gaze did to her bloodstream, and right now, was clearly enjoying it. The firelight danced on his jaw as he murmured, “Santa was good to me, too.”
Though he nudged the box’s lid in a spirit of suspense, Rayna guessed the contents by the time he said “good.” She remembered the other item they’d tried at the lifestyle convention. More accurately, she’d tried—while Zeke had watched with a growing surge in his crotch. Sure enough, as the imprinted tissue of the specialty boot maker was revealed, she barely stifled an anxious sigh.
She had to go and fall in love with a guy who’d lived on the streets for eight years but had a weird passion for ballet. More specifically, ballet dancers. More explicit than that, ogling her as a ballet dancer. The second she’d put on the fetish boots, which were like a ballerina’s toe shoes with heels, her Sir had let out a low groan and openly adjusted himself there on the exhibit floor, his eyes betraying a craving to hike up her skirt and plunge into her while the crowd cheered. The reaction had gotten her so hot that she’d almost asked to be charged for the things so she could keep them on, teasing him all day.
That was before she’d tried to walk. And nearly broken both ankles, not to mention her neck. Zeke’s reflexes had prevented both when he’d rushed and caught her so fast she’d almost looked for the rockets hidden in his ankles. Three minutes later, kinky ballerina was officially written off as a role from her past.
But her past always had a way of haunting her. And now its invasion was accompanied by the beautiful hulk of a man who crouched next to her, infiltrating her with his hot gaze, taking her breath away with the granite of his muscles.
Suddenly, a couple of ghosts from that convention didn’t feel like such unwanted visitors.
“Wear them, Rayna.” A tiny trace of supplication dotted his husky tone, letting her know the option to refuse was still hers. A tiny trace. “Wear them tonight…for me.”
She swallowed and looked at the boots. They were stunning. He’d ordered them in a custom black-and-white patent style, making them look like a pair of Victorian lady’s boots, a nod to her love for Steampunk. And even the pair at the trade show had made her feel elegant before she’d turned into an outright elephant. “I guess I only have to stumble a few steps.”
Zeke kicked up a corner of his mouth. “Who says you’re ‘stumbling’ anywhere?”
“Huh?”
He answered that by pulling out one of the boots and sliding it onto her foot. She winced a little as the extreme arch forced her foot to go en pointe, but since the front laces were only for appearances, it took Z five seconds to yank the zipper along her calf, sealing her in. As soon as he did the same with the other boot, he leaned back on his haunches and took her in with a hooded, heated gaze.
“Holy fuck.” He cleared his throat. “I’ve been fantasizing about what you’d look like in those and nothing else but…” His head started an appreciative back-and-forth roll. “My imagination sucks ass.”
Her head fell lower, a natural reaction to the gruff edges of his voice. With her gaze fixated on his huge hands, now resting on the thighs that bracketed the strained bulge beneath his zipper, she adjusted to a position that best showed off the shoes for him. “Thank you, my Sir,” she softly replied.
An approving rumble emanated from his chest. God, she loved making him do that. It always told her Z was on his way to his happy Dom space, trusting her enough to throw down his own walls and be the man to deliver the control she craved—and he needed.
“Goddamn, you please me.” His voice was an extension of the thunder, rough and dangerous. It brought her head up a little, and her gaze was captivated by the gleaming lust in his.
“Then I’m happy,” she whispered.
A deep breath expanded his chest. Warmth spread through hers before drifting to pool in the tender layers of her sex and the darkest corners of her vagina. That arousal thickened when he spoke once more, his graveled rasp transformed into a full master’s growl.
“You’ll please me again by following me to the truss, little bird,” —he rose and turned, clearly expecting to be obeyed— “on your hands and knees.”
Her first reaction to that was…nothing. She didn’t flicker so much as an eyelash, let alone a protest or glare. Deeper confusion set in. She should be enraged. Probably mortified, too. Sure, he’d given her similar directives in their playtimes over the last year but never something like this, literally trailing after him in a hands-and-knees crawl. It was an action of complete servitude, obeisance—of damn near captivity. So shouldn’t the alarms of horror be pealing up and down her body?
But there was no such dread. Or fury. Or fear. No matter how hard she tried to muster the stuff, it wasn’t there.
Instead, she took a little breath that vibrated with need. She uncurled her legs and recognized her moist desire in the cleft between them. She squeezed her eyes shut and felt only the mesmerizing pull of the man across the room…the Dom who’d ordered her to his side so he could lift her into unfathomable pleasure.
Hardly believing she did so, she moved into the position he’d ordered.
A smile of delight spread across her lips. Trusting him like this, pleasing him like this…it permeated her in wonderful warmth. The feeling intensified with every slide of her hands and knees across the carpet. The journey, along with the tight bonds of her new boots, wrapped the security of Z’s dominance even closer around her mind and heart, preparing her body for the same paradise. By the time she arrived at his feet again, she was ready for anything the man had in mind. “Putty” was a good word for it. “Pure goo” was another. But Z bested her on both accounts with the words emitted in his carnal growl.
“My perfect ballerina.”
She knew he didn’t expect an answer. That was a good thing. All she could do was sigh her thanks and press her head against his knees, repeating the sound as he brushed a hand along her hair—until he gripped her scalp and pulled hard. Her throat tightened to give him a grateful keen as he used the pressure to guide her beneath the truss. With the firelight playing across the carpet, it almost seemed like they were going to be playing Indians in the teepee—only tonight, she wasn’t going to be the squaw. She was going to be dinner, hot and swinging on the sticks.
She couldn’t wait.
“Up on your knees, honey.” His voice thickened into magma that flowed straight to her core and coated her sex. She trembled in need for his next instruction, but after he widened her pose by nudging her thighs out with a boot toe instead of a spoken direction, instinct dictated he was shifting to “Stealth Zsycho” mode—another choice that would get no argument from her. When Zeke went silent, he became intense. The benefits, as she’d learned
over the last year, were like sticking one’s finger into a sexual light socket.
The thought, along with the anxiety that still nagged thanks to the pile of rope next to them, made her lungs pump and her limbs shiver. Though she struggled to calm herself as Zeke knelt behind her, she was certain he felt it all, anyway.
“Breathe.” The word was nothing but air in her ear as he drew the rope across her skin, beneath her breasts. She thought he’d caress her nipples as he did, but he scraped his hand between them instead, focusing on the space where her heart hammered her ribs. “Red light or yellow light if you need to stop or slow down. Breathe, honey.”
Breathe. She could do that, couldn’t she? All she had to do was focus on that. In, out. In, out.
The task was easy…for about a minute.
She was able to stay centered while Zeke wrapped the rope around her torso three more times. He maintained a silence that was nearly clinical, focused wholly on matching lengths of the rope and settling it around the places that would give her the greatest comfort.
That was all before he started peeling her comfort away. Inch by incredible inch. Moment by breathtaking moment. And God help her, kiss by amazing kiss.
He began by folding her arms together behind her back, having her wrap fingers around the opposite forearm so that binding her there would mean taking some of her balance…and a lot more of her freedom. She tensed from that recognition until he ran his lips along each arm first. With every touch of his mouth, her anxiety melted like honey in hot water. Once he finished tying her arms, he looped the ropes around her waist, caressing her skin in his intended path before he pressed each new length of rope against her.
With wet suckles to her nape and shoulder, he swept around to kneel in front of her. The world grew a few more shadows as he loomed close, eclipsing her view with his bulk. Rayna almost sobbed at how beautiful he was, hair tousled, jaw scruffy, face focused. His battle-toughened fingers brushed her skin as he created an intricate lattice over her breasts, waist and stomach. Through every moment, he acted as though it were a vanilla-style seduction too, stopping to give soft nips of his mouth and strokes of his knuckles, every move filled with intentional desire.
Despite her efforts to breathe evenly, air sawed in and out of her lungs like a rusty knife. Like she could be blamed. The man gazed at her with the force of a hurricane but touched her with the care of a summer breeze. Though his knots were secured tight, his kisses were as seductive as August stars. He might have resembled a mountain incarnate, but his concentration was an ocean, fathoms of strength beneath angles of dark beauty. She returned his attention with a gaze of awe…and arousal.
As he looped the ropes through the crevice between her thighs, his low growl confirmed he’d noticed the same thing. He captured her stare while pulling the lengths toward him, sliding the rope along the sensitive lips where she burned most for him. As Rayna expelled a pleading whine, she wondered how he could maintain his mien of silent composure. If anything, only his eyes changed, narrowing as if to chastise her for begging at all, but obviously pleased with the magic his ropes had unleashed in her body.
Still without speaking, he jerked the leads a little tighter around her upper thighs. Once done, he wrapped them back toward her ass. Rayna swallowed, feeling small yet sheltered as he leaned close enough to push her forehead against the center of his chest. The powerful cadence of his heartbeat vibrated through her while his arms, massive and steady, bracketed her body. He stroked her back in slow but urgent sweeps, his long and mighty fingers working heat into her skin and muscles. As she sucked in a huge breath, so did he. Rayna moaned and gently bit his pectoral. Thunder rolled through his chest again. He pulled her tighter, nearly locking her body against his. They swayed together, pulled by rising tides that were mastered by a moon of need…
And her Sir’s wicked intent.
She should have recalled that he’d asked her to fetch the lube. He readily provided a reminder now, pulling the tube from one of the deep pockets in his historical breeches. Only the damn ghost of Shakespeare knew what else he’d stashed in there for his amusement, though she had a feeling she’d learn soon enough.
“Breathe,” he whispered again. Despite wanting to sling a retort, Rayna was powerless to refuse. Damn him, the man knew what effect his voice had on her when he lowered it like that. The magic of it was more intense because he had her physically at his mercy. Bound by his ropes. Submissive to his will.
Which now included the soft trail of his fingers into the cleft of her ass.
“Breathe.”
Since she was chest-to-chest with him, the command literally echoed in her body. She successfully heeded his words while he circled the tender puckers at the rim of her ass hole, as he slicked some lube along those dark tissues, even as he spread that forbidden entrance and started to push a finger inside. But she lost the battle when he fished in the pocket of doom again. His hand came back out quickly. Should that make her relieved or worried?
When he spoke, his voice rasping the air with nasty knowingness, she got her answer.
“You’re such a good girl scout. Brand new lip balm, right in the front pocket of your purse. Remind me to be a good boy scout and buy you some more. ”
Worried. She needed to be very, very worried.
She expressed as much in another tight whimper, not that he let her get far with it. The sound became a full cry as he pushed the tube halfway in, giving it a little twist so the lube was spread, too.
“Ahhh!”
“Breathe.”
“Damn it,” she snapped. “Stop telling me to—ohhh! Ahhhh!”
As he spread her ass and seated the rest of the tube in, her body went taut to accommodate the invasion. Zeke’s gratified growl, along with the way he started braiding the rope into a restraining harness across her ass, were little consolation for her new discomfort. “Sshhh,” he admonished when she flung a frustrated huff. “Breathe and accept it, bird.”
Her teeth locked. “I am breath—”
He severed her attitude by sweeping a hand up, yanking her head back, and crushing his mouth to hers in raw possession. In an instant, her brain was mush again. Her equilibrium vanished. The only elements keeping her upright were the cliff of his body, the haven of his kiss.
As he dragged his lips back, she struggled to pry open her eyes. Oh God, she didn’t want to. Though her ass still hurt, the warmth in her blood made it better. And the heat in her pussy. And the firestorm in which her head now spun. She was achingly aware of the shaky sigh she emitted…and of Zeke’s breath mingling with it as he moved his hand to cradle her chin, keeping her head aloft.
“Keep them closed.” His voice blended with the storm, thick as thunder, silken as rain. “Surrender to the darkness, little bird. Lose yourself in it. Fly in it…for me.”
Yes.
She was conscious of wetting her lips, struggling to summon the words to them, but nothing escaped save the breaths he’d been demanding of her every two seconds. She was nothing but air, light and fragile yet strong and essential, mastered by every move Z made, every touch he gave, every new knot he tied. As the ropes dug into her skin, the gates creaked open a little wider on her soul.
And she flew.
The floor disappeared beneath her. So did the pressure on her knees, even gravity itself. A dim corner of her brain questioned what was going on, but the gentle creak of the truss gave up the answer, along with Zeke’s soft snarl. He’d bound her and suspended her.
And it was Heaven.
She let her limbs go totally limp. Sure enough, the ropes kept her in place better than a safety net. She was weightless. Boundless. She felt like a precious treasure, an erotic jewel waiting to be claimed by her owner. New shivers claimed her vagina and sizzled through her pussy, especially as Zeke adjusted the suspension lines to spread her legs a little wider. Someplace precious and primal in her soul knew exactly for what he was preparing her, igniting every inch of her skin with new heat.
> This was more amazing than she’d dreamed. She almost laughed from the realization. God, she’d been so worried about all the old shit this experience might stir up, it’d blocked her from considering the new vistas it might open. The incredible levels of erotic awakening to which it would help her soar…
The next moment, Zeke was there to show her just how high.
If the panther-like sound from his throat didn’t give away his arrival between her legs, the press of his thighs certainly did. From the way his massive muscles flexed against hers, opening her body more, she could tell he was standing now. He grabbed the ropes that bound her waist in order to slide her tighter back against him, which tightened the cinch against her ass. The balm tube slid in a little deeper, making every muscle clench around it…and sending a new ache deep into her pussy for good measure. She moaned, feeling her sex shiver as new drops of need formed.
“My beautiful little firebird.” Zeke let both his hands trail down her suspended legs. His fingers roamed over the laces of both her boots before circling around to flow up again, teasing the backs of her knees and inner thighs.
Don’t stop there. Please…please keep going…
She needed his fingers in her sex. Needed him to spread her labia with his big thumbs, stretching her for something even more massive after them. She needed his knowing strokes on the ridge of her clit, drawing her desire to heights that nobody else could.
She needed him. Only him.
At the first brush of his fingers between her legs, she moaned. As he plunged two fingers into her, she shrieked.
“Holy fuck.” Z added a third finger, penetrating with more insistence. “Your pussy has never felt more perfect, subbie.” With his other hand, he yanked at the loops of his breeches, which parted easily. The irony wasn’t lost on Rayna. That those royal court designers decided to make men’s crotches the easiest thing to unfasten, in an age where the queen’s authority was based on her virginity, had to have been someone’s idea of a joke.