Twisted Strands

by Lilia Moon

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Liane

  I’ve been naked before. Watched by a man with wanting in his eyes before.

  I say those words to myself, even as fever pebbles my skin and ferocious need explodes somewhere deep in my belly. I reach for him, needing to close the ridiculous distance between us—and discover I can’t. At all. I’m trussed up like a turkey. My wrists are attached to my legs and some devious thing has my legs moving all by themselves to wherever he’s putting them. My feet hang in empty space, no longer in charge of the legs they’re attached to.

  I’m not at all sure I like it.

  “It’s a simple pulley.” His fingers stroke my inner thigh, which is probably meant to relax me and causes pretty much the opposite effect. He leans forward, his naked chest dipping temptingly close to my face, and slides my flannel shirt under my head. “I can put your legs wherever I want them, and I will. Your job is to lie back and enjoy.”

  Part of me thinks I should be grumpy about an order like that, because it was clearly an order, but his hands are gliding up my inner thighs, and the heat we’ve been stirring up ever since the kiss in the boathouse is igniting under his hands.

  He looks at me again, and the fire under my skin lives in his eyes too. “I want to touch you, Liane. I want to be inside you with my fingers.” He holds up a distinctive, square silver packet. “And my cock.”

  I don’t know whether to laugh or beg. “Sex in a canoe is pretty fancy for a guy who didn’t know how to paddle two hours ago.”

  His grin punches all the way to my gut—but he doesn’t move. Doesn’t touch me.

  I groan. I’m already naked and spread open in front of him, but I know what he wants. There will be no fire until I ask to burn. “Yes. Please. I want all of that.” I can feel just how much as I say the words.

  A low, rumbling growl of pleasure and then there are two fingers inside me, invading like the demons of hell are on their heels and my wet heat is the last place left to hide. My legs jolt as his thumb circles my clit, belatedly knocking on the door and sending spiraling waves in after his fingers. The ropes bite into my thighs. They’re not painful, but close.

  A hand wraps around one of my ankles and pushes it back toward my butt. “Let the restraints hold you. Don’t fight them.” His fingers slide out of me and in again. Not slowly. Not gently.

  Like he owns the place.

  Some dim part of my brain tries to remember that my legs can’t straighten anymore. The rest of me is running as fast as it can toward the bonfire of pleasure he’s building with his fingers.

  His palm comes down on my low belly, his warm, firm skin pressing into my softness. Which somehow makes his two fingers feel like ten, and all of them are curving up inside me and finding nerves that are one small, lit match away from conflagration.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Matteo

  I meant to push on her this time. I wanted her fire, wanted to build it up inside my ropes so she could feel what restraint does to power.

  She’s not taking much convincing.

  My fingers, slick with her arousal, increase the tempo on her g-spot. One hard, hitching breath and she quivers, right on the edge. I slow my fingers down just enough to hold her there momentarily. This isn’t an orgasm she gets to take at her own speed while she rubs on my thigh. I want her to know this choice is mine. That some of the ropes I hold are invisible ones.

  She thrashes against my fingers—but she’s learning. Her feet aren’t kicking out anymore, seeking purchase on thin air. She’s rocking herself against the pulleys I rigged to hold her legs up instead, finding leverage, trying to get what she needs to take her where she wants to go.

  I pull my fingers out and give her pussy a sharp, wet smack.

  The high, thin wail she makes probably travels all the way back to her nosy neighbor’s house. I grin and add pussy spankings to the list of future delights to explore. All I want right now is her attention. I set my fingers back at her entrance and wait for the breath she finally sucks in.

  And then I give her what she needs, because I want this almost as badly as she does.

  Her back arches, her muscles clamp down around my fingers, and she’s gone, on a low, luscious moan that holds all the power the thin wail hadn’t found yet.

  I slide my arms up her ribs. Holding her while she shakes. Joining her. Drinking in the awe that is a woman willing to let go and allow me to catch her.

  Which is how I feel the shaking change.

  My head snaps up, because I need to see her eyes and I need to see them right now.

  She looks at me and she swallows, and I can see another one of those transmutations. One I don’t want this time. One where she wants to retreat, to stand back up on her own feet and take herself away from what just happened inside these ties.

  I pause a moment, because this is where consent is the hardest thing there is. Where the responsibility I took on when I put my ropes around her grows claws and teeth. I breathe in and brush my thumbs over her nipples. Offering apology and invitation. I made a mistake and I know it. I wanted her to see my art, and I pushed to get her to the most beautiful part as fast as I could. But I wasn’t entirely wrong, either. That need to stand on her own two feet gets in her way sometimes, and I’ve seen the woman out the other side. Pliant Liane. The Liane that knows her own strength isn’t measured by the stiffness in her backbone.

  I met that Liane once, and the desire to meet her again is ferocious.

  My hands glide up her legs, checking for anything that looks like trouble. I stroke my thumbs over her knuckles, trace them down to the cuffs wrapped around her wrists. Slowing us the hell down. I might still have her feet off the ground, but I can give the rest of her somewhere steady to land. I breathe in, appreciating the art, not of rope and skin, but of gorgeous female energy, willingly contained.

  Mistakes can be fixed.

  Her breathing steadies, and I let it. I want her with me now. Some orgasms are a storm. Some are a soft breeze in a canoe on a warm June day. I took her into the first one too fast and too hard and riding my own ego. It’s time to do better.

  I feel the light wind tickling the skin on the back of my neck, and I transfer that to my fingers. Teasing her nipples.

  She arches, which is one of the few things she can still do in relative freedom. I pause, waiting for her eyes to meet mine. “You’re going to come again for me, sweetheart—and this time, I want you to be like a leaf on the water. Let the water move you.” I run my free hand over the bindings on her legs. “Let the ropes hold you and keep you safe while everything else lets go.”

  One long blink, and when she opens them again, her eyes are shiny.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Liane

  I’m not a leaf on the water. I don’t want to be. I’m a dandelion and an orchid, and while one of those has far tougher roots than the other, they both have roots. I can feel hot, tearful resistance rising in me like the salt-water oceans of my childhood.

  He takes my hands, the ones tied to my thighs that are flapping awkwardly in the wind, ripped out of soils they know. “You asked why I do this, sweetheart. I do this because it’s beautiful. Because you’re beautiful. Because the energy living inside you is spectacular, and it’s such an honor to have all of you here inside my ropes.”

  All of me.

  I can feel the tears brimming. I feel utterly seen—and I feel ridiculous. This is either the hottest or the craziest thing I’ve ever done, but it shouldn’t be sad. I blink, trying to take myself back to the place where this was just some really amazing foreplay. He reaches for my face, touching his thumb to the corner of my eye. Touching tears that haven’t quite yet fallen. “I’m not scared of tears. They’re welcome here. Please let them stay.”

  I swallow. He doesn’t even want to know why I’m crying. He just accepts, and my orchid is busy growing another blossom for him to touch even though I think she’s totally nuts. “I’m not sure I want the same things you
want.”

  His hands move to the ropes on my legs. “Do you want me to untie you?”

  I feel the answer in my bones before I know it in my head. “No.” I swallow again, because I have more answer to give him and it’s really hard to say. “Your gentleness is harder to handle than your lightning.”

  He blinks, and the pleasure that dawns in his eyes takes away what little breath I’ve managed to find. “I want to touch all of you. The soft parts too.”

  I close my eyes. I can’t look at him and say this out loud. “It’s not a leaf. My soft parts. They’re an orchid.”

  His hands go absolutely still on my body, like all of him stopped just so he could listen to my words. And then, very slowly, his finger moves. Just one.

  Tracing a single line.

  Drawing loops over my heart.

  My breath hitches.

  Not loops.

  Petals.

  Petals, and then a long, spindly stem that bends and winds down the valley between my breasts and ends in a tangly mass over my solar plexus that says he’s seen orchid roots before.

  A man, asking, without a single word, to touch those petals today.

  I hear the condom wrapper, but his fingers never leave the orchid he’s drawn, not even when he slides into me, rocking a wave of emotion with his entry that could capsize a small cedar-strip canoe in a heartbeat.

  But it doesn’t.

  Because he tied us to safety before he paddled us into the storm.

  Because he can be lightning—and he can be this.

  And because he drew the lines of the tattoo I’ve never been brave enough to get.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Liane

  Every tiny hair of my body can feel the summer breeze as I paddle us into the small strip of white sand, one of the pocket beaches tucked into nooks and crannies all over this lake. Matteo’s paddle is up, but I don’t know whether he’s watching the beach, or the woman in capris waiting for us, or nothing at all.

  We’ve hardly spoken since he untied the ropes and held me close and helped me slide back into my clothes, but the fierceness of what just happened hasn’t ebbed at all. Or its gentleness.

  I’m not sure we’re ready for anyone else to land in the fragile, potent space between us, but if anyone can crash a party with grace, it’s Daley Cohen. She waves and walks out into the water to catch us, totally oblivious to the water lapping against the hems of her capris. She grins at Matteo. “Go ahead and hop out, sexy man. There’s fried chicken waiting. I’ll help Liane take care of her baby.”

  He chuckles, but he hops out into the water with only a slight wince. Bonus points to him—I’ve had guests scream bloody murder at their first introduction to the less-than-balmy waters of Kootenay Lake.

  I give Daley my best hairy eyeball, because I don’t need any help to tie a painter to a log and she knows it. I also know there wasn’t any fried chicken in my refrigerator. I open my mouth to say something along those lines and her finger lands on my lips. “Ssh. Let the magic happen, Li. Because what you’re wearing right now is utterly gorgeous.”

  Damn her all-seeing artist soul. “I’m wearing confused. He’s only here for a week.”

  She shrugs. “All that can change.”

  We have entirely different belief systems on that front.

  She pats my cheek. “Hop on out before he thinks we’re planning his kidnapping and confinement as our sex slave.” She says this loud enough for Matteo, who hasn’t made it any further than the edge of dry land, to hear.

  He gives her a look that would make most women blush to the roots of their hair. “For fried chicken, I might agree to kidnapping.”

  She beams at him, her sex-goddess routine in full swing. “Excellent. Li can keep you until Tuesday, and then I’ll take you home with me and treat you right.”

  I snicker and tie my boat off to a log. “No harassing my guests, Daley. What did you do with my kitten? I heard he was with Lee.”

  “I left them both with Xander.” She hooks a hand around each of our arms and herds us over to a bright red picnic blanket, already laid out in the sun.

  Xander manages the shop where most of the local craftspeople sell their wares. He’s also wise to the ways of ten-year-old boys and troublesome kittens, and can be repaid for most kindnesses in chocolate cake. “Thanks. I’ll pick them both up soon and feed them.” I read on Google that kittens need small spaces and calm and consistency when they move to a new home. At this rate, Trouble’s going to need kitty therapy when he grows up.

  “You will not.” Daley eyes me sternly and points at one side of the picnic blanket. “You’ll sit here in the sun and eat the really delicious picnic I packed you and soak in some more of whatever yumminess this man is feeding you, because it looks really good on you.”

  I close my eyes as the blush rises up my cheeks. Discreet, Daley is not. She also has a thing about women embracing their inner sexy and letting it shine, and there’s just no way to hate her for that, even when she’s just embarrassed me beyond words.

  Warm lips brush my cheek. His, not hers. “I agree. You’ve got smart friends.”

  Daley snorts, but the sound is from far away enough that I can tell she’s leaving. I open my eyes just in time to catch her saucy wave. “Enjoy your picnic. I recommend eating with your fingers. And licking. Lots of licking.”

  I throw the first thing I can reach at her, which sadly is a hunk of tree moss that thunks to the ground about ten feet short of its target. “Thank you. I think.”

  She grins over her shoulder as she hightails it toward the faint path that leads back up to the road. “If you’re not thanking me by later, then he’s doing it wrong.”

  I groan as she disappears into the shrubbery. “I’m sorry. My friends can be a little overwhelming.”

  “Your friends are wonderful.” He kneels down and pats the picnic blanket, which is red and fuzzy and didn’t come from my house either. Daley must have raided half the neighborhood. “Come sit with me.”

  I give in to the basic laws of Crawford Bay physics and my own desire and drop down beside him. The sand is warm under my toes, the sun is shining on my bare shoulders, and a man is looking at me like he wants nothing more than to spend the next several hours in my company. I’d be a flaming idiot to walk away from that because I’m feeling a little discombobulated.

  He lies down on his side behind me, curling up around me so that I’m surrounded by sexy, lazy guy. He props his head up on an elbow, his other arm wrapping comfortably around my waist. “Is this okay?”

  He’s so careful to ask—and it waters something inside me every time he does. “Yes.” I take a deep breath and relax into him a little. “Let’s eat. If it’s Bee’s fried chicken Daley stole, it’s really good.”

  He grins. “If it’s half as good as it smells, I might have to add her to my list of kidnappers.”

  I have to laugh. “She likely wouldn’t object. She’s got three men in her life, although I don’t think her fried chicken is the primary attraction.” I shrug, still feeling raw and new and naked. “She’s a lot better at outrageous than I am.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Matteo

  This might be one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever done aftercare—and the most fraught. I can feel the energy pulsing in the woman I’m wrapped around. That she’s letting me see it is a gift. One I need to damn well not screw up, but I don’t know what she needs right now.

  Or what I need.

  So for now, I’ll follow her lead. Which is apparently heading us through some interesting territory. This tiny little place in the middle of nowhere, and it keeps surprising me. Liane has some interesting neighbors—and some really good friends.

  I reach up and rub her shoulder, warm from the sun and a fascinating mix of tense and entirely boneless. “I like your people. They’re not afraid to be who they are.” I kiss skin I can reach, just inside her elbow. “Neither are you.”

  She sighs quietly. Orchid pet
als, blowing in the wind, and I’m suddenly grateful for the guardians in her life. The ones who have fed and watered that side of this woman and her layers.

  Liane relaxes against me, another microscopic bit of softening. The tension hasn’t left her, exactly—but she’s not trying to tuck it away. Which is good, because we need to talk about it. We need to talk about a lot of things. Words are as much a part of what I do as the rope, and I need hers. However, I have no problem lubricating that conversation with the ridiculous smells coming out of the fully loaded picnic basket.

  I tug the basket closer to Liane’s leg. “Introduce me to our lunch?” It’s not a request for service, or not only that. I’m hoping that she’s like me, and something for her hands to do will help her mind and heart stay free.

  She busies herself pulling out containers, pretty glass ones covered with napkins that come off to unveil bread that looks like someone made it this morning, butter in the shape of a flower, several kinds of cheese, and more berries, tiny misshapen strawberries this time. Those get a happy sigh from the woman tucked against me. She picks one up and offers it to me. “These grow wild around here. I know they don’t look like much, but they’re out-of-this-world good.”

  I don’t tell her I used to hunt them in the woods as a kid. I just open up, because it’s probably been twenty years since I had a wild strawberry, but my taste buds haven’t forgotten.

  She blushes as I lick her fingers along with the berry.

  It’s puny, barely enough for my tongue to find—and it’s full of rich, sweet juice that tastes like bottled sunshine. I groan, because it’s been a day for heady pleasures, and then I lever myself up and capture the mouth of the woman who’s been responsible for most of them. Our mouths meld into strawberry goodness and the luscious taste I’m beginning to recognize as uniquely her.