* * *
You’re perfect. Ethan had been a split-second away from saying it. His mind fought for a compromise position, anything other than, I’m falling for you in a big way; you may be the one. It settled on lemon meringue pie.
Seemed almost too sweet at first, pure sugar and fluff. Then the heart of it hit you, still sweet but also so tart it made your mouth water. Your taste buds almost couldn’t handle the complexity. A truly good lemon meringue took time to appreciate, and that was Ethan’s experience with Victoria Woodcock. As innocent and sweet as she appeared, she had depth and bite, this woman, and the only thing he knew for sure as he led her up the dark hillside to his not-quite-finished tiny house was that he needed more time and more information to appreciate her properly.
Sweet Jesus, she had been fun to tie up. Perfect, in fact. He needed to let that simple truth into his calculation because it was undeniable. If nothing else was a factor, if his only consideration was how this woman rated as a rope bottom, Victoria was his ideal. And not just because of her looks, which he’d started to realize he wasn’t objective about, not remotely. But because of the way she moved, the way she moved with him, the way she followed his cues, the things they didn’t have to say to each other.
And it was the same even when it wasn’t about rope. Cleaning a damn john. He could move his arm a certain way, say, You know, under the... and she would nod and shift the scrubber and angle it the way he meant. Or helping move hay. She wasn’t strong enough—wasn’t physically large enough—to use the hooks and pitch the hay, but she’d adapted into the flow of the activity anyway, helping to shift the pitched bales into line on the back of the trailer and speed things along as if they’d been working together for years.
Holy fuck, and the music thing, which he maybe should’ve expected. She was an art student of some sort, right? He should have asked more about that. He would ask more about that. After. After he’d filled her every need, finished the scene they were both pretending had ended but hadn’t really ended yet. The scene that had shifted partway through, become something more. Because of fucking Gene Krupa and Nat King Cole and things they hadn’t negotiated aloud because maybe neither of them had realized them until right that very minute.
“You okay?” he asked her, but didn’t look back. He couldn’t. If he did, he’d end up kissing her again, laying down the blanket that currently wrapped her shoulders, feeling for a condom in the dark in his bag, and nailing her under the stars among all the potential snakes and whatever, and he wouldn’t exactly regret that if it happened, but it wasn’t his first choice. He wouldn’t regret the sex but would definitely regret a snake or scorpion.
“Yeah.” It was a whisper in the dark. Husky, eager. Probably he was reading into that, but at this point his dick was so hard he didn’t even care anymore because he knew she wanted to fuck as much as he did. She squeezed his hand, rubbing his palm with her thumb, and he almost whimpered at the pressure of his cock against the implacable barrier of his jeans. Velvet, that was what his dick kept saying, Velvet. Yes, his penis-driven brain had adopted Victoria’s scene name wholeheartedly and seemed determined to pinpoint its accuracy in the one specific area it cared about.
“Almost there.”
His eyes had adjusted to the dark, and he could make out the shape of the house ahead. Since Victoria had seen it last, the two lofts had been framed out and decked, and the windows, skylights, and door installed. The walls were still bare studs, awaiting more wiring and plumbing. Ethan hoped the place wasn’t too small for Victoria’s claustrophobia to handle. She hadn’t been comfortable in the unfinished frame, visualizing all the walls with none of the windows.
She was obviously thinking along the same lines. “Okay. Do you have a blindfold in that bag?”
He pressed his fingers into hers, trying to convey reassurance with his touch. “I don’t think you’ll need it. But we can do that if we have to, sure.”
He led her around the stakes that marked the outline of the future deck, then let her go first up the folding step stool that was temporarily acting as his front porch.
“It isn’t locked.”
She leaned to the left first, tapping the floor-to-ceiling window—a glass wall, really—next to the door, which was also single-paned glass. “Nice.”
“Taking full advantage of the view.” He was more interested in the view in front of him. She’d wrapped the blanket around her top half, but he was treated to the moonlit curves of her shapely ass in yoga shorts, just below eye level, as she turned the knob and opened the door.
He mounted the steps behind her and closed them in, debating whether to turn a light on. In the end he decided against it; their eyes had already adjusted and it wasn’t much darker inside the structure than it had been outside. No lamps were installed yet anyway, so it would’ve been a harsh work light, not really the mood they were going for.
Victoria’s silence as she peered around the shadowed space made Ethan anxious. He reacted as he often did, with unfortunate smart-assery.
“So . . . big enough for you?” His tone implied he wasn’t talking about his house and her claustrophobia.
She turned around, the planes of her face catching the moonlight as she raised her eyebrows at him, looked very pointedly down at his crotch, and then deliberately reached out her hand to cup his cock through his jeans. She pursed her lips, tilted her head, and shrugged before releasing him. “Yeah, it’s fine.”
She’d out-smart-assed him. God help him for enjoying it so much.
He dropped the duffel and went for his sleeping bag, pulling out the double layer of mat he’d been using and laying the pieces side by side before unzipping the bag and snapping it out to float down on top of them.
Victoria dropped the fuzzy throw and put her hands on her hips. “Two mats, huh? Were you planning on company?”
Ethan shrugged as he stood up. “Yep. Little lady named Roxie usually gets a whole mat to herself when we’re camping out. But for you I put it dog hair side down, ’cause I’m just thoughtful like that.”
She laughed, letting her arms drop, then swinging them back up to finger the top of the rope harness. “I appreciate it. Mind if I make myself more comfortable?”
“Oh. Sure. I can untie it. I should’ve asked . . . oh.”
She’d unhooked the back of her sports bra, and was pulling one of the straps out to work an arm free. Then the other arm. Finally, she yanked the whole thing loose, just like the magic trick girls did when they pulled a bra out from under a T-shirt.
Except it was a million times more magical when the bra disappeared and revealed perfect breasts, exquisitely framed by the rope he’d tied.
She stretched her arms over her head, then rolled her shoulders with a sigh. “Much better. Okay. Where were we?”
Chapter 11
Go big or go home. Victoria figured if she was going to jump into bed—or sleeping bag—with Ethan Hill, the best approach was brazen and dauntless. Even if, now that she’d pulled her bra stunt, she suddenly felt too exposed and like she’d gotten ahead of herself.
A lot of the rope high had worn off on the trek up the hill, and now uncertainty was creeping through the lust haze. What if he found her too forward? What if he’d wanted to take things slow, be romantic instead of going at it like rabid bunnies?
He took way too long to respond to her flippant, Where were we? Or possibly her anxiety stretched the time out because when he did answer, he didn’t seem at all displeased.
He stepped toward her, right into her space, until his chest was almost brushing her nipples, and found one of her hands with his. “We were already here.” He put her hand back over his cock, pressing his much larger one over it to shape her fingers around the curves. “Which surprised me, I won’t lie, but I’m willing to roll with whatever pace you want to set.”
God, he felt good. In her hand, in her air, in her head. She squeezed firmly, making him groan and rock his hips a little. “That’s mighty big of you.�
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“Oh, God.” He huffed out a laugh and put his hand on her cheek the way he had during the scene. This time he didn’t let go but stroked his thumb across her lower lip. “The mouth on you.”
She let him tease her lips open but couldn’t resist answering back right before he moved in for a kiss. “It’s remarkably like the mouth on you.”
His lips landed on hers, and then things got frantic for a bit. Tongues and sucking and biting and hands all over, two buttons popping off Ethan’s shirt, Victoria’s finger scraping against an unwieldy jeans zipper, boots hitting the plywood. They wound up on the sleeping bag, still somehow joined at the lips, Victoria on her back and Ethan pinning her hands beside her head. His shirt was off, jeans open at the fly with his cock pressing out against the barrier of his underwear. Boxer briefs, presumably.
Victoria’s feet were bare and her yoga shorts were shoved halfway down her thighs. She was stuck underneath Ethan’s weight, unable to wriggle the shorts off the rest of the way so she could wrap her legs around him.
She struggled against the pressure of his hands, hoping he would take the hint. He broke the kiss and breathed for a moment, dipping down again for a lingering bite at her lower lip before speaking. “Tie you up a little?” He squeezed her wrists.
“Thought you’d never ask.”
“Okay. Real quick. Ugh, don’t wanna move.” He flexed his hips, grinding against her a few times, then levered himself off first into a plank position, then springing to his feet. “Right, need a fifty. No, a thirty. Uh. . . . yeah, fifty just in case.” He shuffled his jeans off as he went for his gear bag, hopping on one foot, then the other, to kick them away. Then he swore, reached for them, and pulled what looked like his phone out of the pocket. “Cover your eyes.”
“What?” She covered them and was glad she had a moment later when she saw a glare of light around her fingers. “What’re you doing?”
“Ow. Looking for a fifty. The whipping at the ends is color-coded by length. Blue, no. Black, no . . . Aha! Red. Okay, lights out again. Now I can’t see shit. Hope I don’t trip over you.”
She peered through her fingers, watching his return to the sleeping bag, rope in hand. Yes, boxer briefs, some dark color that looked black in the scant moonlight. He held a wrapped bundle of rope and was already loosening it, playing it out to give himself some slack. He could apparently see well enough to kneel astride her waist without any trouble at all.
“Hands, please.”
She held them out, wrists together, as she had by the rope walk a few days earlier. This time Ethan tied off the wrap, snugly securing her wrists together. He stood up and stepped over her head, holding the long tail of the rope, and fastened it to one of the wall studs behind her. She had enough slack to twist and watch him make the slipped half hitch: the binding was enough to let her feel secure but so quick-release she could easily get free if she cared to. She pulled against it, relaxing as the resistance pressed the rope into her skin. “Thank you.”
“Aw, wow. No, beautiful, thank you. You . . .” He held up a finger, then returned to the sleeping bag and quickly tugged her yoga shorts off. “Ooh, commando.” Then he yanked his boxer briefs out and over his erection, which bounced gently as he skimmed the underwear all the way off and tossed it, and the yoga shorts, over to where his jeans had landed. “Okay, better. You . . . are too lovely to be real. So now I have to figure out what I’m actually dealing with here.” He knelt by her feet, wrapping one hand around each of her ankles.
“Eldritch horror in a human suit. Damn, you’ve guessed my secret.” She lifted a foot to nudge at his thigh, then tried to stretch enough to pull him closer somehow.
Ethan laughed. “I was going such nice places with it. I was gonna be all wood nymph, fairy princess.” He bent over, shifting his position and starting to work his way up the inside of her leg with a series of slow, almost tender bites that flirted with the edge of pain and set her nerve endings alight from toe to pussy. Then he lifted his mouth from her thigh long enough to start singing “Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground.”
“You lure me in with Nat King Cole,” she muttered, letting her eyes close as his teeth sank into the soft flesh a few inches below her pussy, “then you hit me with Willie once I’m tied up. Sneaky.”
“Only a problem if you don’t like Willie.”
His hair tickled her labia as he worked his mouth. She spread her legs, arched her back, tried to scoot an inch closer. No use; he seemed keenly aware of the rope’s exact limit and was using it to help him tease her. Oh, he was good.
She should have anticipated that by now. He was good at so many things. Until recently, she’d usually been the same. In her former sphere, she’d been confident and smooth and one of the acknowledged talents. People sought her out, asked her advice.
I can’t get this jacquard to come out like the design. Jackie said you could help me set the loom?
I know your thing is handcrafting, but Annika said you’re really good at CAD and I just don’t understand this, do you have time ... ?
But here, she was . . .
Ethan started down at her other ankle, drawing her back in, keeping her in the moment. The sweet cloud of subspace hadn’t dissipated entirely, but he seemed to keep her right at the borderline. Like the line between dreams and waking, it sometimes brought confusion, but sometimes clarity.
“Ethan.”
“Mmm?” He kept his teeth at her inner knee, scraping against the skin.
“Ethan. My major is basically hand-dying shit like in the old days. Not . . . I mean it’s textile design, but that’s what I’m sort of known for?”
Oh my God. Why was she telling him this now? Back, go back words, rewind! This was why she had so much trouble getting laid outside of kink. Where is the motherfucking rewind button?
“I . . . what?”
“I got my internship at Balenciaga because they wanted to do a season of lining fabrics with hand-dyed inspirations, and I’d just won this big competition and . . . so my block prints and batiks were on the linings of some of my mom’s friends’ couture leather bags this year, and it’s ridiculous? Because mostly I spent the summer getting people coffee and snacks and wishing I could see more of Paris. Oh fucking hell, why am I still talking?” She tugged at the restraint, but it was too late. She had completely fallen back into the real world.
Ethan seemed to have frozen between her thighs. She gritted her teeth, then raised her head to look at him. His face was mostly in shadow—the glass door and window were behind him—but he didn’t look freaked out, only startled, as far as she could tell. He had pushed himself up a bit to lean on his arms, and his erection was clearly visible. Still going strong.
“So . . .” He tipped his head from side to side, then used one hand to press his chin even farther up in one direction for more stretch. She didn’t hear a pop, but he seemed satisfied with the result. “So that was unexpected. Let me ask you two things, m’kay?”
Only two? God, that seemed more than fair. “’Kay.”
“One: So you’re saying you can tell me how to dye the fucking hombre thing that I’ve been kicking my ass over for weeks now?”
“Yeah. You have to do a bath with the sodium carbonate first, then start with the lightest color and—”
“That’s . . . that’s okay. You can tell me how later. These are yes/no questions.”
“Oh. Okay. Yes.”
He reached into his lap and stroked his dick a few times thoughtfully, twisting his neck again. “Two . . . okay, three questions. Two, can you tell me how to get this shit off my damn hands?”
“No. Yes. Um. Not . . . I can tell you what to do next time, but this time it’s too late. Sorry.”
Ethan sighed and let go of his cock, then sat back and leaned in the other direction, crawling toward his duffel bag of many wonders. “Okay. Just tell me later what I should’ve done, please?”
“I will. Aside from wearing gloves, I mean. Yes.”
He t
urned toward her, and even in the semidark she could see the oh, really? expression. “Do you want me to get a love glove out of this bag or not?”
“I do. Yes. Please. I really do. Is that still an option?” Because how could he still want to do this, after she’d babbled her weird brain garbage all over his unsuspecting face?
“Pfff. Yeah. I’m sorry, did we suddenly stop being unwisely attracted to each other in the last two minutes?”
She shook her head. “No. I still totally would like to do you.” Somewhere in the middle of her statement, the headshake turned to a nod. Yes. Sex. Yes. Wet, hot, stupid, sleeping bag sex in the unfinished tiny house thing in the moonlight. Her whole body cried out for that, even as her brain threw up its hands in disbelief at the entire situation.
“Same,” Ethan reassured her as he pulled a strip of foil-wrapped condoms from the depths of his bag. “That wasn’t one of the original questions, by the way. Oh . . . these are polypro, is that okay? I know you don’t, but I do actually have a latex allergy.”
“That’s fine.” Her brain nagged at her, suddenly more alert than it had been in over an hour. “So was that the third question?”
“Not yet. I’m getting there.” Ethan ripped the end packet open without separating it from the strip, pinched the tip, rolled the condom down over his cock, and then crawled the few feet back to their weird love nest. He pushed her thighs apart unceremoniously, propping himself over her on one arm and taking his dick in his free hand to position it. He started to seat himself at her opening, then shook his head and backed off a few feet, lowering himself and swiping at her cunt with his tongue.
Electricity shot up her spine, zipped down her thighs, escaped her throat in a long, strangled sigh. When he licked again, slipping his tongue, then a finger, between her folds, she groaned and yanked hard at the wrist restraints, wishing she had her hands free to grab his hair. Knowing, at the same time, she would somehow enjoy that less. The ropes were all the security she had in this strange place they occupied—the ropes, and Ethan’s voice, somehow not hating her, somehow reassuring her that she hadn’t ruined everything.
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