Twisted Strands

by Lilia Moon

  Matteo chuckles from behind me as the rope snugs up, running straight up the cleft of my ass.

  I’ve never worn a dress that behaved anything like this. I give in to the need to squirm and verify that the ropes running over my most sensitive parts are indeed demonic.

  He gives my ass a casual swat. “Hold still while I get the tension on this right.” The ropes tug in between my shoulder blades, and I’m suddenly contained in a loop. One that’s going to make sure I get exactly zero work done, although that outcome probably wasn’t in doubt right about the time I peeled off my tank top.

  The ropes are on the move again. I watch in surreal agitation as they run between two of the knots on my chest and spread them into a diamond. One that puts even more pressure on the rope between my legs.

  He grins. “How much work do you need to do when this is done?”

  I glower. “None, apparently.”

  He shakes his head. “Wrong answer, sweetheart. This is staying on until that project you’re working on is done.”

  It takes me a minute to realize he’s serious, or at least playing at it.

  He leans in and kisses my cheek. “I’m not trying to uproot your morning. Just add some spice to it.”

  I want to laugh, and I want to glare some more—but mostly I want to melt. Because under the playfulness, I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what he’s trying to do.

  Another diamond has formed, and as he snugs this one up, I realize my breasts have been framed. Which somehow manages to feel awkward and sexy at the same time. I breathe in, trying to land on one or the other—and then there’s a tongue lapping at my nipple.

  I jump, which does something treacherous to the rope between my legs.

  Matteo grins and gives that particular rope another little tug as a third diamond opens. He leans in and crosses the loose ends behind my back. I lift my hands to touch his hair, not sure where I want him to go, but somewhere.

  He brings the rope smoothly back around my waist. “That part comes later. I’ll suck on your nipples for as long as you want, right after Samara’s ropes are finished.” He kisses my dandelion tattoo on his way around behind me. “Your clit too, if you like.”

  The need to squirm is a frantic itch I can’t scratch. “Your ropes will be in the way.”

  He chuckles as his hands do something swift behind my back and the whole rope harness tightens. Holding me. His fingers cup my ass, right over the rope. “Don’t worry. I’ll be fixing that problem shortly.”

  I feel the weight of more rope at the small of my back, and then there are strands coming around my hips. It really is a dress. A sexy, sadistic one. I stand, more than a little mesmerized, as he wraps pretty diamond shapes over my hips. Somewhere in the back of my brain, I take note of how nicely the rope bends and defines. The rest of me is trying to hold back a never-ending whimper.

  He weaves the ropes through the lowest diamond and then he’s cupping me, his fingers tracing the path of the most intimate lines of rope. Slipping them sideways. It isn’t hard. I’m wet, and his fingers waste no time exploring my slick folds.

  He growls, low and full of fierce promises, as he crouches down in front of me.

  My whimper finally escapes as he takes his fingers away, only it’s more of a plaintive whine. I wasn’t done yet.

  He kisses my belly, his hands still doing things with the rope. I’m not watching anymore, or at least not making sense of the movements, but I can feel rope cinching around my legs, spreading the lines between my legs into some kind of devious rope underwear. Or the shortest dress in the history of short dresses.

  It should probably be kinky and strange and awkward and embarrassing, but it’s not. He’s wrapped me up like a gorgeous present and I feel like precious, treasured, incredibly sexy art.

  Sexy, aroused art.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Matteo

  There’s a moment in every tie when I know if it’s going to be magic or not. We’ve just hit ours, and we’ve hit it with so much force that it’s not even a question, because every cell of Liane’s body has melded to the simple, exquisite karada she’s wearing.

  I’m so very tempted to leave her just like that. To bend her over and show her just how glorious it can be to be a staked orchid with the right man holding you up. But I didn’t come out here just to have sex. I came out here to learn what happens when I put my feet in the dirt, and to know that, fully and completely, I need to slow this thing down.

  Right after I add one last touch.

  I grin. Nobody ever said roots didn’t come with a few neighborly thistles. I reach into my bag again and hold what I just pulled out on my palm so she can see them. My other hand wraps around the back spine of the karada. Holding her steady.

  Her eyes widen.

  I know the answer already, but I ask anyhow. “Do you know what these are?”

  She nods slowly.

  I don’t say anything further. I move in tight behind her, letting go of the ropes because I need both hands and because if she’s going to protest, I’ll know it now. I give her shoulders a gentle push forward and down. “Hands on the stool and spread your legs for me.” It won’t bend her over much, but I don’t need much. These anal beads are the size that make grown Doms snicker, but they’re just garnish on this particular scene. Another small reminder that roots can come in many shapes and sizes.

  And a bit of a warning. I’m pretty fond of ass play. She might as well know some of what might be on the table down the road.

  She bends over slowly, and it looks like hesitation—right up until the point where she whimpers and her ass wiggles in my direction. I swallow a grin she wouldn’t be able to see anyhow. Apparently she’s not done surprising me.

  I trace my fingers down the valley of her ass, nicely spread by my ropes. My view of her pussy is limited and I’m sorely tempted to bend her over more and change that, but this isn’t about me getting what I want. Not yet. I lube up my fingers and circle my way in, pushing on muscles, but not through them yet.

  She sighs, and while her body isn’t doing all of the right things to let me in, her mind is. I file that away to ask about sometime when my fingers aren’t on the brink of invading her ass. She whimpers again as my first finger enters, but it’s not an unhappy sound. One is all I need to prep the way for the beads, but I’m not a guy who turns away from a wiggly, needy ass. I line up a second finger, easing it in next to the first. Keeping a really solid hold on the karada and using it to move her back onto my fingers. Giving her the first tastes of just what this rope dress is good for.

  She sighs, a ripe and luscious sound.

  I grin. If this is roots, I’m all in.

  I don’t have a free hand for the anal beads, but she does. “Liane. The beads are by your right hand. Reach them back here for me.”

  She manages to find them on the stool and waves them my general direction. It’s a silicone strand, more of a beaded finger than separate beads. Which is going to suit my next purposes very well. I move my hold on the karada higher so I can steady her as she twists around—and so I can create some interesting tugs on those luscious breasts. “Line them up with your ass, sweetheart. Right on top of my fingers.”

  She freezes.

  I hold steady. Her desire is there, and that’s the roots. My words are the rain. It’s up to her to grow this. Which is light years away from how I would normally introduce a newbie to anal play, but it’s the right answer this time.

  Feet, meeting dirt. Trusting her roots to help her find her wings.

  She’s still not moving, but her breathing is back online. She’s thinking.

  My job isn’t to push, but a little extra watering might not hurt. I gently move the fingers in her ass. “I want you to slide those beads in while I watch. So that even when my fingers aren’t in you anymore, you’ll remember that they were, and that they will be again.”

  She shivers, a small earthquake that travels over the surface of her skin. This time, when she r
eaches back with the beads, it’s more intentional. Better aimed. I slide my fingers out and lube up the beads. She watches over her shoulder, eyes wide.

  One last squirt of lube and I step back, slowly letting go of the karada and the woman inside it. Trusting her roots, and getting a good line of sight on the show, because this is going to be sexy as fuck.

  I figure out really fast that I’m not wrong about that, even if my eyes don’t know whether to watch her ass or the amazing array of emotions chasing across her face.

  Embarrassment. Pleasure. Confusion. Delight.

  The first two beads slide in easily, narrower than a finger and mostly there to help with her aim. Which is impeccable. Her eyes finally lift to mine, and I want to grin at everything I see there, but that’s not what she needs right now. “Keep going. All the way in.”

  She exhales, a soft, breathy moan as the third bead goes in. Her eyes close.

  I will my ropes to do their job and keep holding her tight. The beads won’t be a problem, but her taking charge of her own pleasure under my instructions and while I watch might.

  She sighs, a whispery sound, as the second to last bead glides into her ass, and I know we’re going to be okay. I left her feet on the ground and used my ties to stake her to her own strength, and now I’m the guy who gets to watch with my feet in her dirt as she blooms.

  Because that’s exactly what’s happening, one slippery bead at a time.

  The final bead goes in and leaves a flat circle that plays nicely with ropes tucked in tight against her ass. Her fingers rest on top of it.

  I grin and step in, delivering a cheeky swat to her naked ass just because I can. “It won’t fall out, I promise.” I pick up the ball of twine and the spindle she was working with earlier. “Back up on your chair, sweetheart.”

  She’s looking at me with the kind of dumbfounded ire that says I might want to tie her arms up next time.

  I grin and scoop up Trouble before he pounces on the dangling ends of her work. “You have rope to finish. I’ll be keeping this guy busy while you do.” And ogling the scenery, because Liane is halfway to orgasm and three-quarters of the way to bashing my head in with a poker, and it’s absolutely gorgeous.

  She stares at me.

  I look around for a ball of twine that looks expendable. I need something to keep my hands busy or they aren’t going to be able to resist her. And they need to, even if they just got the really welcome new information that a certain rope maker’s kink interests might line up even more nicely with mine than I’d been imagining.

  Because none of the roadblocks here are kinky ones.

  I came out here to take a run at the blocks that live inside me.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Liane

  I stare at the spindle and the plying ball, my brain offering up nothing but emptiness on what to do with them. It can’t. It’s too busy trying to figure out how I ended up naked in my own studio with things I’ve only seen in sex-toy shops shoved up my butt.

  Not that I’m complaining. I’ve spent the last decade wishing I was brave enough to buy one or two and see if Steve the blacksmith was willing to expand our itch-scratching sessions in that direction.

  Fingers brush against my cheek, and Matteo’s chuckle rumbles near my ear. “Focus, sweetheart. It looks like you’re doing a clockwise ply, seven strands or so, jute running mostly down the middle, although I have no idea how you’re accomplishing that.”

  His words jerk loose the part of my brain that knows how to make rope. I blink several times in rapid succession and then I start to laugh. Which shakes the rest of me out of the surreal zone I was immersed in and lands me back in my life. The one where there’s a fire in my wood stove and a cup of tea on the end of the bench and a kitten chasing the end of a ball of twine.

  I shake my head. Which is about all I can move without the ropes doing dastardly things, and even a headshake sends interesting tremors running down my body.

  Matteo heads over to my small sink and washes his hands, which is wildly distracting. I know where those fingers just were, and watching them do something as simple as suds and lather is not helping any part of me get remotely interested in work.

  He finishes up at my sink and takes a seat on a low-slung deck chair that usually lives outside. He leans over to my bench and snags the bigger sister of the small ball of string he’s been rolling around for Trouble. “Is it okay if I use this?”

  My self-preservation instincts are in full working order. I give him a dirty look as I climb up on my plying chair, which is every kind of tricky. Every move of my legs or my spine creates ripples everywhere else. “Maybe. Why?”

  He chuckles and rubs Trouble’s belly. “I’m going to make this guy a rope hammock. Or maybe a climbing gym.”

  I’m not going to question the skills of a man who can make a torture dress out of forty feet of rope. “Go ahead. If you want something softer, there’s probably some cotton twine in one of the drawers over there.”

  He gives me a look that says his fingers don’t sully themselves with cotton.

  Somehow, that makes me giggle. Which makes the contents of my ass shake, and that turns into a feedback loop that has me clutching hard at the beam over my head.

  Matteo looks up, eyeing the beam and me with appreciation—and thoughtfulness.

  I hastily bring my hands back down. Plying ball. Spindle. Get the darn rope made before this gets any more dangerous. I don’t want to have to explain to the local urgent-care clinic how I knocked myself out by falling off a chair while having an orgasm. Especially if I arrive at the clinic dressed like this.

  “So.” Matteo’s hands are moving, making a quick latticework of diamonds that looks suspiciously like what I’m wearing. “Tell me why you know what anal beads are but you’ve never had them up your ass.”

  I gape, spindle entirely forgotten.

  He looks up, catches me staring, and winks.

  I somehow manage not to laugh. “That’s your idea of casual conversation?”

  “No.” His hands slow, and it’s clear he’s being thoughtful about his next words. “It’s a question for a woman I’m really interested in getting to know better. One who’s done a lot to build herself the life she wants, so I want to know why it doesn’t include a kind of sexual play that she finds intriguing and arousing.”

  My cheeks are two fire-roasted jalapeños—and his words are somehow still really sweet. The kind of sweet that deserve an honest answer. “It’s not all that easy to find someone who wants to experiment like that.” I wince. It might be if you hang out in a sex club. “Not here, anyhow.”

  He nods slowly. “Fair enough.”

  It isn’t fair. My marriage was about as sexually adventurous as a stack of pancakes, and while I’ve expanded my horizons since then, they haven’t made it as far as the sex-toy aisle. I give my spindle a sharp spin down my thigh, annoyed to be looking this closely at one of the inbuilt limitations of my chosen life, and gasp as every bit of that motion transits through the rope dress.

  I catch the spindle on an inarticulate groan. Whatever else might be happening to my life, it clearly isn’t suffering from sexual inhibition anymore.

  Matteo’s just keeps making his contraption of twine, entirely unperturbed by either my antics or Trouble’s paws tangling with his fingers as he works.

  I pick my spindle back up, determined to match him in this silly, mesmerizing, provocative game. Just another day at the office. I’ve got this.

  Chapter Forty

  Matteo

  I came out here thinking I’d tie her up and then we’d talk. Which was me not trusting my ropes, because everything that needs to be said this morning is happening without words. I look over at Liane, standing tall and strong on her chair, plying the strands in her hands—anal beads and all. Twisting whatever this is neatly into her life.

  I contemplate that as my fingers keep working on a way to hold a kitten captive for long enough to properly finish what I’ve start
ed in this fire-warmed studio. Although, given the droopy orange eyelids lazing on the arm of my chair, the twine in my hands might be redundant.

  I rub a furry nose and try to soak in a little bit of Trouble’s ability to utterly let go. This feet-in-dirt stuff is trickier than ropes. They both hold you steady, but roots don’t get untied when the scene is over.

  Although at the moment, a certain woman is bringing everything she knows about roots to her time inside my ropes. A dandelion diligently trying to work as she falls into a pit of arousal so deep there’s only one way out.

  I didn’t mean to send her quite that far in. I intended to talk about roots and ropes and frayed spots and twisting our strengths together and not being quite so darn worried about our weaknesses. Instead, I’m a guy watching the woman inside ropes that are as much hers as mine and wondering just how I managed to drive my truck down a winding road into this.

  Because she’s not the only one trying to bloom right now. I can feel the still curled-up, surprised flower inside me that wants this—that wants it in every variation we can think up and quite a few we probably can’t yet, and for a lot longer than a week.

  I swallow as my fingers make diamonds from twine. That’s a hell of a thing to be growing up through a crack in my modern urban sidewalk.

  Fingers brush my knee.

  I look up and discover I’ve somehow lost track of the gorgeous naked woman in the room and she’s crouching down at the side of my chair, making faces and muttering some very inventive curse words as she goes.

  I grin and catch her halfway down. There’s a reason no one sits in a karada unless their Dom pushes the issue. I stand and take her in my arms. It’s well past time I get to hold her again, and maybe she’ll have some idea of what to do with this insane urban bloomer of mine. “Hey, you.”