Twisted Strands

by Lilia Moon

  She reaches up and touches my cheek. “Where did you go?”

  That’s a hard question—and a really easy one. “Into the part of me that’s realizing how much I like being inside your life.”

  She looks down at her chest wryly, at the ropes that are starting to leave pretty indents in her skin. “I can promise you, this is so not my life.”

  It is and it isn’t. I let the tension of that build. I’ve seen tangles turn into art in two quick tugs. It’s all in knowing where to tug, where to resist tension and where to work with it, and we’re so very close to the moment where this transforms—or hopelessly snarls.

  And it’s not just my hands on the ropes.

  I run my hand down her spine and get a good hold on the karada. A minor rocking of my wrist is plenty to let her know where I’m headed. “Are you done with your plying?”

  She snorts, but the light in her eyes says she’s ready to play. “As done as I’m going to be.”

  That’s the kind of answer that forever puts me in the camp of half-assed Doms. I don’t mind a little power exchange, but it amuses me far too much when it gets overturned.

  Fortunately, I’m not a half-assed rope master.

  I quickly survey her studio. The beam that was over her head earlier has some interesting potential, but I’m not doing this next part with both of us standing on one far-too-skinny chair. The large loop of rope hanging down from the ceiling has some potential, though.

  I walk us underneath it and reach up. It’s thick—a couple of inches in diameter and just the right height for Liane to hold on to without torturing her shoulders. It also has some sway, which will torment those roots of hers just a little.

  She eyes me suspiciously. “That’s for drying ropes after I wash them.”

  That explains its thickness. “Right now it’s for you to hold on to. Hands up and don’t take them off until I say you can.”

  The spark in her eyes says she isn’t any better a sub than I am a Dom, but we can both play at it for as long as it amuses us. Her arms go up slowly. The karada tightens everywhere, which does very pretty things to her breasts and her breathing.

  She hisses as her fingers wrap around her new handholds.

  I grin. There’s enough desire in that sound that people paddling by on the lake probably heard it. I glance over at Trouble, glad to see that he’s totally conked out.

  I don’t want to sear his eyes.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Liane

  I’m never going to be able to make rope again—or if I do, it’s never going to be boring. I had no idea what it could do to a person.

  I squirm, because I literally can’t stop, and the ropes between my legs rub themselves over bundles of nerves that are ready to come or die trying. My breasts are full, heavy in a way I’ve never felt them before, and my waist and hips are diamond-shaped zones of trembling. I’ve never been so aware of my own skin, or of the energy inside me that needs someplace to go and is working in unholy partnership with Matteo’s ropes to get me there.

  Hands brush over my skin, tracing the diamonds around my breasts. Over my shoulders. Between my legs.

  “Anything too tight?” The words, whispered against the back of my earlobe, send shivers into the rope dress.

  I shake my head. I know he likes words, but I’ve lost mine. All I have left is need.

  He chuckles, and this time his hands brush over skin where rope isn’t. My aching, taut nipples. The naked diamond-edged islands on my belly, my hips.

  I move again, needing his fingers lower, which somehow disturbs the beads and lights up my ass. I groan. I absolutely do not need any more erogenous zones right now.

  He pivots in behind me, tugging up on the ropes that run between my legs. Not gently, and it fires off small explosions perilously close to my clit—and not quite close enough.

  I push my hips backwards, seeking something to rub against. Anything. I’m not picky at this point.

  His hand slides between my legs from behind, stroking folds slick with need. I try to bend forward, to give him better access, but I can’t. His hand is firm on my lower back, wrapped around the spine of the dress. Holding me still. His fingers toy with my wetness, the kind of meandering play that lights all fires and assuages none.

  I’d stomp my feet and throw a tantrum, but I don’t think it would help.

  Wet fingers circle my left nipple and give it a sharp tug. I nearly go nova.

  Nearly.

  My whimper this time is more of a wail, one full of complaint and need and maybe even threat.

  The chuckle from behind me almost hides the sound of the foil packet. Almost.

  I thrust my suddenly free hips back toward the sound, finding all the freedom in the swing of the rope I’m holding on to, in the momentum it gives me toward him—and then away. Crap. The laws of physics are not on my side, and apparently neither is Matteo Ignatius.

  And then he is, his hand back on the ropes on my spine that seem to give him utter control over where I go and when and how fast, and I can feel him at my entrance.

  I want to sob in relief. “Please.”

  His free hand traces a path up my side. Touching ropes, stroking the skin in between. “You’re so beautiful, Liane.”

  If any part of his body were in range of my mouth, it would be wearing teeth marks. I’ll listen to all the pretty words he wants to say later. Right now, I need his cock in me more than I need my next breath.

  His rolling laughter is my first clue I might actually have said that out loud. “Patience, sweetheart. I have a really nice view back here and I plan to enjoy it.”

  I’m a really patient person. I can tease irascible hemp fibers into line and condition rope and sand invisible roughness off a strip of cedar with the best of them. But patience is flammable, and I’m not the person who set a match to this particular fire. The gravelly sound that comes out of me is pure, vicious threat.

  “Give me just a moment.” A pause, and a deep breath. “This doesn’t happen for me very often. I want to feel all of it.”

  Tenderness. It takes my desperate, demanding gravel and utterly melts it—into something molten, needy, and somehow patient. He slides into me so achingly slowly I almost break, except I’m liquid now, and I flow and reform around him. And then he’s all the way in, his arms wrapping around me like two more warm, solid ropes, and I feel the tenderness transmute again.

  I have just enough time to get a better handhold.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Matteo

  I had plans once I got her here, ones that involved using my ropes to put her exactly where I wanted her while I teased and played and fucked her slowly until she begged and probably a little longer than that too.

  Except I’ve been swept up in what I started and she took and threw into the mouth of a volcano, and the inferno rising up from where we join is vaporizing everything modern and civilized inside me.

  All that’s left is primal—and it wants this woman.

  It takes a moment to realize my hips are already moving, my hands gripping hard on her hips, leaving marks that won’t be from the rope. I’m not a rope master now. I’m a man with his feet firmly planted and using that to bury myself in her as hard and as deep as I can.

  The moan she lets loose is wanton and guttural and matches what lives inside me. Her arm muscles flex as she works her overhead grip, using the swing in the rope, meeting me with momentum and need and feet that know a lot more about being planted than mine ever have.

  I can feel the ropes on her ass, between her legs, hitting my hips, my balls, frictioning up the sides of my cock. Which is only a small taste of what the karada is surely doing to her, but there’s not a whisper of complaint from either of us. I’ll take whatever marks this leaves behind, and gladly, and I’m caveman enough in this moment to want them on her too.

  My balls pull up, a warning of impending orgasm that travels all the way up my spine and around my ribs. A karada of pure energy. I try to breat
he, but whatever has hold of us both is compressing my lungs, my throat, my balls, my heart.

  I thrust, short and urgent, the beads in her ass pressing against both of us.

  Her panted whimpers turn to hisses.

  One squeeze of her nipples or clit would send her over, but I don’t want fast and I don’t want to let go of what I’m already holding. I brush her nipples with my thumbs as my thrusts slow. Touching the orchid’s petals.

  She melts against me, her head dropping back onto my shoulder.

  I listen as our breathing meshes, just like my arms have meshed with her skin. Her ribs laugh gently under my arms. No words, just bubbling joy. I stroke with my thumbs and my cock, feeding the devastating softness. She sighs, an early-morning breeze, and we sway in the wind of that, two bendy stems on somehow still-solid legs.

  I close my eyes as we blow together in the last of the wind we created. My eyes have had all the art they can handle. Watching my cock slide into her was one of the visual highlights of my entire life.

  I have no scale for what came after that.

  I hold tight to her, because this feet-in-dirt stuff is new to me and so is landing in a whirlwind along with the person I tied up. This would be emotional whiplash, except there’s a kind of steadiness emanating from her that has nothing to do with my ropes and everything to do with dandelions and flannel and a woman who knows exactly how to be in her own skin and revel in it.

  I bury my face into the sweaty, sexy curve of her neck. I was such an arrogant asshole when I got here—and I somehow still managed to end up balls-deep in this.

  A wanderer who very much wants to stay.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Liane

  I hop out of Brittany’s minivan and wave. She gave me a ride from the ferry into Nelson, which saved me from bringing my car across and filled my ears so I didn’t have too much time to think. Brit’s a chatterbox, especially when she’s on a grocery run for half of Crawford Bay. She has my list too—the food one, at least.

  The one burning a hole in my pocket is a list of an entirely different kind.

  I head for Un-Holey Things, which is a thrift store worth making the ninety-minute trek from Crawford Bay to visit. Jenna has a consignment corner I never shop in, but if I can find my brave, it should have what I need for the night I’ve planned.

  I take in a breath that’s far shakier than it should be, and cross the street, keeping an eye out for tourists who are doing more gawking than obeying traffic signals. Tonight is just dinner. Something I do on a regular basis, and sometimes even with male company, although to be fair, not generally with guys who cause a whole lot of sexual flutters.

  When Matteo walked into my kitchen this morning, it felt like the butterflies returning to Capistrano—if Capistrano lived just below my belly button. Something happened in my studio yesterday that wasn’t just sex, and the rope marks on my body faded far faster than the rest of the effects.

  I rub a hand over my hip where the last marks finally disappeared and pull open the door of Un-Holey Things. The chorus of jingles as I walk in mostly drowns out Jenna’s cheerful greeting. I turn back around to look at the array of wind chimes dangling from the ceiling just inside the door. “Have you added some new ones?”

  “Maybe one or two.” She laughs from behind me. “People don’t buy them as fast as I seem to acquire them.”

  People leave them be because they know she adores them. I turn and give her a hug, one that I hope keeps my jitters hidden. “I need a dress and floofy footwear to go with it.”

  She stares at me. “Why?”

  Fair enough question—there’s very little I do that can’t be done in a flannel shirt and jeans. “I’m going out to dinner.” And because her next question is inevitable, I cough up the rest. “Yes, with a man. He’s a guest, he’s very nice, and I decided I wanted to dress up a little.”

  Jenna blinks several times. The last few are totally on purpose. “Would this be the same guy you paddled up the bay with a couple of mornings ago? The one who would melt Daley’s panties if she ever wore any?”

  I groan. Daley can be the world’s best secret keeper if she thinks it’s necessary, but apparently this didn’t qualify. “Yes. His name is Matteo and he’s leaving in a few days.”

  Jenna grins. “You want him to see your sexy legs before he goes, do you?”

  I bury my face in the discount rack. He’s already seen a lot more than my legs.

  She snorts. “That’s not the dress rack and you’re totally avoiding my question. Which I’ll let you do if you follow me into my parlor.”

  I follow, muttering things under my breath about spiders and flies.

  She walks into a small space that looks like a vintage dress-up trunk exploded and spins to face me. “What did you have in mind?”

  I give her a look. “Something that fits.”

  She wins the looks contest, hands down. “Try again.”

  Gods. This should not be so hard. It’s just dinner at a really good restaurant with a guy who spikes my hormones.

  And calls to parts of me I’ve never been brave enough to wear on my skin. I sigh. “Something in purple, maybe? Feminine, but not frilly.” Sexy, maybe even a little fragile, but I can’t make myself say those out loud. And it’s probably not necessary. It’s a small shop. I’ll look at the two or three dresses in purple in anything close to my size and be done.

  Except Jenna isn’t busy pulling things off racks. She’s just standing there, looking at me with a dreamy-eyed smile that makes her look like a pixie mystic. “You want to feel pretty.”

  I do feel pretty. I want him to see it, and all the loaded, tricky, vulnerable territory that comes with it. “Something like that.”

  She smiles again, and this time it’s the gleeful grin of a business owner who knows she’s about to close a sale. “I have exactly the dress. Totally the dress.” She whips over to a stack of helter-skelter cubbies that looks like an accident waiting to happen and is actually very functional art, and starts rummaging. “But first, you need sandals. Sexy ones. Size eight, right?”

  She never forgets anyone’s size, even the yo-yo dieters who change their dimensions more often than their hairstyle. I don’t bother replying. She’s on a mission, and anyone who shops here more than once knows it’s better to just get out of her way once she’s locked on to a target.

  Or that’s my plan until I see what she emerges with, anyhow. I glare, first at her, and then at the footwear dangling off her fingers. “Those are sparkly.”

  She grins. “Yup.”

  I did not spend ninety minutes getting here to leave with feet that sparkle. “No. No way.”

  She puts them down in front of a small bench I’m pretty sure she stole from India’s garden. “Try them on.”

  This is not my first rodeo in Jenna’s store. People who try things on generally leave with them. “I swear I will wear my black flip flops to dinner if you don’t find me something less twinkly.”

  She laughs—and then pulls out the second pair of sandals she had tucked behind her back.

  Which is when I know just how much trouble I’m in.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Matteo

  I stroke the kitten’s head, which only makes him hiss louder. I retreat, because he has claws and teeth to back up his annoyance if he wants to use them. “Come on now. This isn’t so bad. We can figure out how to be water people.”

  Trouble glares at me from his hammock, strung just in front of my knees in Liane’s canoe. I watched her take it out solo last night, and I figure we can handle this, at least as long as we stay tied to the boathouse. I’m not nearly as reckless as my paddling companion thinks I am. “We’re in three feet of water, buddy. I promise I won’t let you drown.”

  He gives me a look that I’m pretty sure is normally seen by small rodents just before they die.

  I grin. “We need to expand our horizons, or at least I do, and since I’m on babysitting duty, you’re stuck with me.�
�� I woke up this morning to a note that said breakfast was downstairs and to help myself. Which I did, but the rest of the note is why I’m out here in the canoe with a hissing kitten.

  It very effectively put the guy I am this morning under tension and tugged.

  Trouble’s tail switches over the edge of the hammock. I keep my bare toes carefully tucked under my ass—I’m pretty sure he’d enjoy stalking my innocent body parts, and he’s not in the mood to be nice to them. He’s pointedly ignoring the tassels I tied to the side of the hammock to amuse him.

  One cat, considerably unamused.

  I rock the boat, very gently. Reminding him and me that we’re more stable than we think. Then I reach into my back pocket and pull out the note. It’s a simple folded piece of paper, except even the paper is anything but simple. It’s got fancy torn edges and flecks that looks like bits of forest and a stamp on the back that says it’s a Daley Handmade.

  On the front is a line drawing of a gorgeous purple orchid. One that’s morphing into the barest hints of feminine curves.

  The inside has a few simple words. A time. A place. A message that’s anything but simple. It’s an invitation to dinner with her orchid, and a guy who’s been a wanderer his whole adult life needs to take a long, hard look in his mirror before he accepts that invitation. Or in this case, a look out at a mirror-calm lake.

  I glance at Trouble, who’s decided the tassels on the edge of the hammock might possibly be worth his time.

  Which nicely highlights most of the reason I’m out here. Liane keeps beckoning me deeper into her life, and as much as I’m enjoying being there, camping out in her life isn’t good enough. I need to figure out the shape of mine. Not in any kind of long-term way, because that would kill whatever we’re growing just as thoroughly as growing no roots at all. But if I want to explore whatever this is, I need my own hammock. A life that stands beside hers while we take a good look at what we might be together.