Twisted Strands

by Lilia Moon

  He kisses the tops of my fingers. “Be still, sweetheart. Let me touch you.”

  He’s not the only one who wants to touch, but even I can tell just how futile it would be to try to escape these bonds. And I don’t want to escape. His fingers carry promises. Of pleasure. Of rewards. Of temptations calling to dandelion and orchid both.

  I hear another murmur, and this one is mine, a quiet song of need beginning to catch fire.

  His fingers trace into the divot where my collarbones meet and then down into the valley between my ribs.

  If I could move enough to strip off my tank top, I would in a heartbeat. I’ve never been quite so unhappy about being dressed in my entire life.

  He chuckles. “Next time, I’ll ask to bind you naked.”

  He’s leaving in the morning. The part of my brain that did the booking knows that. The rest of me is busy trying to vaporize a tank top with nothing more than sheer willpower.

  His fingers slide just under the edge of the neckline, giving me a tiny fraction of what I want. Then his hand slides down to my breast, and this time he works his way under the binding and my arm, finding my nipple and giving it a good, sharp tug.

  The flame he’s been blowing on inside me roars to life. Hot, aching need, the kind that skips right over whimpers and goes straight to panting cries.

  He chuckles.

  I have a fraction of a second to be embarrassed, and then he pulls me against his chest, one arm wrapped firmly around me, the other rolling my nipple again. His fingers are squeezed in under the ropes and every time he moves I can feel it reverberating in my arms, on my back, in the bands that run around my ribs and over my shoulders and tie my wrists to my heart.

  He’s not soft, now. He’s lightning, and he’s using my nipple to bounce spears of light off every part of me.

  He shifts me just long enough to switch hands, and then he’s giving my other nipple the same treatment. Which has an effect magnitudes greater, because the left side of my body is dominant in all things, including pleasure. My clit shrieks with delight, and this time the whimper that slides out of me is pure, liquid need.

  I bury my face in his chest. I can’t look anymore, but if he stops, I might have to murder him where he stands.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Matteo

  Holy hell.

  One moment I’m playing around with her light arousal and really enjoying myself. The next, I’m holding a bonfire in a bottle.

  Which would be no problem at all, except the above-the-waist limits of this scene and my dang stupid decorative tie job mean I have a woman trussed up, fully clothed, and I can’t lay hands on any part of her that might help her come.

  Idiot rigger.

  Even more idiot Dom, because stepping into any scene and locking up my options for her pleasure is a failure of fairly epic proportions. I’ve done too many demos lately, the kind that end with a kiss to some rope bunny’s forehead and a laugh as half a dozen people help untie her.

  Instead, I’ve done exactly what I set out to do. I’ve convinced Liane to lean into rope and man and art, and when she did, she found desire—and I have no fucking plan to deal with that. Which is a totally unacceptable answer. So, much to the amusement of the cranky guy who walked in here, I revert to high school. I lean against the bench behind me, snug her up tighter against me, and slide a thigh between her legs.

  She grinds against me instantly, her hips free to express all the things the rest of her can’t.

  “That’s it, sweetheart. Take what you need.” I hear my own words, spoken into her hair, but she doesn’t need my permission. I catch her nipple in my fingers again, the left one that’s the switch on for her fireworks, and fight for the increments of space the ropes will give me inside the cage of my own making.

  It’s a hot mess of a scene at this point, and it doesn’t matter. She doesn’t need anything more than the horribly inadequate tools I’ve given her.

  Her hips move, small, intense rocking against my thigh, and my cock aches to return the favor. He sucks at remembering scene limits. None of them went anywhere near him getting naked, however, and unfortunately for him, my memory is just fine. We’re going to need to take our pleasure from hers, and that’s not hard. She’s fire in my hands, curvy, muscled fire that knows exactly what she needs and how to get there.

  I hear her breath hitching, a tight, jerky pattern that says she’s so very close.

  I have one tool left. I move my lips in closer to her ear. “Come for me now, sweetheart. Let the ropes and my arms hold you while you let go.”

  She’s over before I finish speaking, a long, rasped whimper as she sags against me, doing exactly as I asked and letting me catch her.

  I take a moment—a long one—holding on to what she’s just given me. Then I reach for the bindings. Her entire body exploded with that orgasm, and I don’t want to take the risk of pressure points with unfamiliar rope.

  She whimpers again as I start undoing the outer wrap. I take my time. She needs out, but removing the ropes is at least equal to the pleasure of putting them on, and I want to give her a taste of this part too. “Ssh. Look at your skin. It carries the marks of your rope.”

  That freaks out some people, but she’s not going to be one of them. Those marks are the imprints of strands of silk and hemp she spun herself, lasting echoes of the marvelous rope I’m slowly peeling her out of.

  Her eyes follow my hands.

  I let myself stop for a moment after I unbind her wrists, running my fingers along the eight parallel lines etched in her skin.

  She sighs quietly. “They’re beautiful. The markings. Like trace paper.”

  Definitely not freaking. “Yes.” I kiss her temple. She smells of sweat and sex and delight. I rub the rope gently over her skin, gathering the sheen of her into the rope. Whoever she might have had in mind when she made it, it’s hers now.

  She spreads her wrists a little, experimenting with movement. Checking that her fingers still work.

  I drape the rope over them.

  She clasps it between her hands and cuddles back into my chest. Staying, but also going. I can feel her pulling inward, even as I hold her. Appreciating, but also collecting herself.

  I let myself hear both messages. She needs this hug—and then she’s going to need space. Lots of it.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Liane

  The first huckleberries of the year usually get my full and complete attention. This morning, I’m struggling to remember why fruit exists.

  “Hello, Liane.” India snaps her fingers in front of my face and snickers. “You look like you fell into a vat of memory-loss potion. What’s up?”

  I take the bowl of huckleberries from her hands. They’re her babies, semi-domesticated and grown in her backyard greenhouse, treated to some of the best dirt and worst karaoke opera singing on the planet. “Want a waffle?”

  She snorts. “Duh.”

  I mentally double the recipe again. India eats like a small elephant, not that you’d ever know it from looking at her. I figure she burns it off. Unless she’s crafting her gorgeous jewelry, she never sits still.

  Her hands are flittering, taking plump huckleberries and arranging them in a smiley face on my counter top.

  I grin. When we first met, she never let me see under her tough exterior to the whimsy that lives in her heart. “You must be done with the copper from hell.”

  She makes a face. “The next time I decide to buy metal from some guy on the Internet who promises me it will be the best I ever worked with, take me out back and duct tape me to a tree until I regain my sanity.”

  I chuckle and add more milk and flour to my enormous, bright-green mixing bowl. “How did the pieces turn out?”

  “They’re amazing.” India chomps a huckleberry like it kicked her puppy. “They freaking glisten, Li. Is that even kind of fair?”

  I have some experience working with materials that are evil and still worth the trouble. “Come spin flax with m
e sometime and we’ll talk about fair.”

  She grins and chomps a second berry, more gently this time. “Not a chance. And these are damn good berries. You should eat one.”

  India has never lacked for opinions on what I should do—but she’s never been anything but utterly supportive, no matter which way I end up heading. I eye her carefully. “I have a guest.”

  She raises an eyebrow, which is wearing one of her new creations. It’s stunning. Simple and curvy and gleaming in the light. Someday I’ll get brave enough to put more holes in my body so I can wear her artwork. I reach out and touch the small globe just above her eyebrow. “This is beautiful. You should order more of the copper if he’s got it.” I’ve learned to have opinions too.

  She keeps eyeing me. “Right. I’ll get on that, right after you tell me why your new guest has turned your brains into mashed bananas.”

  It’s not that bad. Quite. Having a friend in my kitchen is helping. I have a life here. A good one. It can roll with a few surreal afternoons. “He came by yesterday to pick up some rope.”

  Both eyebrows fly up this time. “As in, you have a guy into rope bondage sleeping upstairs in your back bedroom?”

  I don’t know that part of India’s story. It’s the one part she never talks about. But she’s no stranger to the world so many of my customers play in, although I get the distinct feeling it’s past history. Which is part of why I’ve always been careful about what I sell. “Something like that.”

  Her lips quirk. “Did he tie you up?”

  I can feel my cheeks turning the color of tomatoes. I start separating eggs. My life is about yolks and whites, not about how long the imprints of silk and hemp on my skin took to fade last night. I could still feel them as I slept. Ghost ropes. “Yes.”

  India nearly chokes on a berry. “What? Are you serious?”

  I set down my bowl and remind myself she’s the least judgmental person I know. “Yes. He offered and I said yes. I wanted to understand what my ropes are being used for. He said what he did was something simple.” The memory of the stunning web of rope that held me while I came apart is anything but simple. “It wasn’t at all what I expected.”

  “It never is.” Words said so quietly I barely hear them.

  I shoot her a sharp look, suddenly concerned. “Are you okay talking about this?”

  She smirks, tough exterior back in place. “Talking, yes. So, did you like it?”

  That’s an ordinary word for an experience so far out of my ordinary I can’t even begin to name all of what it was. I cast a quick glance at the ceiling, but there’s been no indication yet that my houseguest is up for the morning. “It was intense.”

  India shakes her head and pops a huckleberry in my mouth. I take a moment and savor as the early taste of deep summer chases away the last dregs of a Canadian winter. She swears the late-summer wild berries are better, but there’s something about the first ones each year that can’t be equaled.

  Maybe ropes are like that too.

  She hugs the rest of the berries tight to her chest. “I’m withholding the rest until you spill more beans.”

  I’m not usually a bean spiller. And I can’t sit in my kitchen and talk about dry humping a stranger’s leg, not even with one of my very best friends. Especially since that wasn’t actually the important part. “I surprised myself. I let go in a really big way and I have no idea what to do with that.” I make a face and go back to beating waffle batter. I do know what to do with that.

  India doesn’t say anything, but her eyes do.

  They think I need to be careful.

  I chase away the frown that’s trying to form. That isn’t the answer I expected from her—and maybe not the one I wanted, either.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Matteo

  I look over at the kitten who’s been keeping me company while I doze. The crack of dawn woke me up, and I had enough to think about I never really made it back to sleep. Which is how I ended up in the small reading nook on the landing, a book on one arm of my chair and a yawning kitten on the other.

  I scratch under his chin. “I think we’d better go put in an appearance downstairs, sleepyhead.” I can hear the murmurs from the kitchen. I can’t make out the words and don’t want to, but the ebb and flow of their conversation has been oddly enjoyable. Normally the parts of my life that involve ropes and sexy interludes don’t intersect with the everyday sounds of making breakfast. It’s disconcerting, like I’ve just seen a body part in the mirror I didn’t know I had.

  One that wants breakfasts and kitchens.

  I shake my head at the kitten. It’s never good to get philosophical before coffee. “Ready to go wreak havoc on a new day, hot stuff?” His sleepiness doesn’t fool me—my toes got plenty of action last night, and it all involved sneak attacks from razor-sharp claws. I pick up the book I never managed to start reading and slide it back onto the shelf. It’s a small, eclectic collection that has the same feel of carefully chosen care as Liane’s ropes.

  I breathe out as I scoop up Trouble. I’m still not sure what I’m about to do when I get down there. I had one of the most intimate experiences of my life yesterday with a woman who is a virtual stranger, and I’m supposed to load up and leave by noon.

  Which will get infinitely more complicated to navigate now that she’s got company. I sigh and try to set my biases down on the bookshelf too. The small town I grew up in wasn’t kind to a small boy who was different, or the teenager he became, but this one seems like it has nurtured Liane just fine. I have no business prejudging strangers just because they’ve made my morning trickier.

  I stroke my finger along the arrow of fur between Trouble’s eyes and head down the stairs. I’m about halfway when the smell hits—and then I don’t care anymore what personal or emotional minefields I might have to navigate. I step into the bright light of an open, sunny kitchen, following my nose. “Please tell me that’s pancakes.”

  A woman I don’t know shoots me an assessing look from behind the bar counter. “Waffles.”

  I’ve been measured before. I can deal. I offer her an easy grin. “Those are just pancakes wearing a shoe print.”

  She laughs, which eases the tension a lot more than my bad joke deserves and provides decent cover as I close the distance to Liane. I’m not sure what being close to her this morning is going to involve, but I know I need to be there. I stop far enough away to stay respectful of her personal space, but just barely, and peer over her shoulder. “Anything I can do to help?”

  She smiles at me, and it’s a little uncertain, but genuine. “There’s coffee in the insulated pitcher over there, or I can make you tea or a fancy juice cocktail if you’d like one.”

  The stranger at the bar counter is silently daring me to pick the fancy juice. “Coffee’s good.”

  “I’ll get it. I’m India, by the way.” She bounces off her stool and heads in the direction of the urn and coffee fixings. One lion, deciding she doesn’t need to guard the gate.

  Liane gives me another look, longer this time, and winces as she spies the kitten in the crook of my arm. “Oh, no. Please tell me he didn’t spend the night with you.”

  Clearly she’s acquainted with his nocturnal hijinks. “He did. And I’m a grown man who knows how to close a bedroom door if he doesn’t want visitors.”

  She blinks, and flushes, and I belatedly realize what I just said and how she’s taken it. I step in, because sometimes personal space isn’t what matters. “You would have been welcome, but I didn’t expect you to join me. My invitations are more direct than that.”

  That doesn’t help her flushed cheeks any. She swallows. “I had to think.”

  “Me too.” I ease off, because all I really wanted to do was chase away any sense that she isn’t desired, or that she made a mistake by taking the space she needed. “We can talk in a bit. For now, I’d love a waffle and some of those berries.”

  A coffee mug slides across the counter. India, back from her mission. “I
haven’t decided if you deserve any of my berries yet.”

  She’s not kidding. I study her eyes, but it isn’t until her gaze drops to her coffee that I know. Whoever India is, she knows a Dom on sight—and she’s not all that happy I’m in her friend’s kitchen.

  That’s an interesting complication in an already-complex morning.

  The kitten in my arms yowls like I’ve stepped on him, and I nearly drop him into the waffle batter.

  India snickers. “I think he’s hungry.”

  He’s a menace with an impeccable sense of timing. “A man’s got to eat.”

  Liane’s laugh is luscious and free and full of something that sounds piped straight from the bowl of berries. “That little guy ate his body weight in food yesterday.” She glares at India. “We’re going to chat about him later.”

  Her friend looks totally unrepentant. “He’s cute. I think you should keep him.”

  Liane sighs, but it’s really obvious to everyone that decision is already made.

  Which gives me the opening line for the pitch I didn’t know I was going to make.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Liane

  He’s got something on his mind. I don’t know what, and it’s not obvious to anyone else. India’s chatting with him casually, finally treating him like a paying guest instead of like someone she wants to skewer, and Trouble has taken up residence on his lap, a small, orange ball of fluff who’s being suspiciously well mannered and making me wish I was a purring kitten.

  But Matteo’s got a tension in him, like a ply of silk that’s been slightly overspun.

  I jar as India kicks my ankle under the table. I look up into laughing dark brown eyes—his—as my friend announces she needs more waffles. To go.