by Angel Payne
He arched a thick brow. “I assume you understood the command, girl?”
“Yes! Of—Of course, Sir.”
Crazy. She was truly nervous now. Her fingers trembled as she laced them behind her head, extending her elbows to the sides, securing her feet a little farther apart…opening herself to what he could do to her. She tried to concentrate on holding the pose, but as he circled behind her, she shook again. The storm was temporarily banked, but the man in which it roiled made her feel like a sapling in comparison. She needed him to tie her in with that rope. She needed to know she could fall apart and the power of his bondage would catch her, contain her, cradle her fall into joyful nothingness.
Z moved closer. Luna’s eyes slid shut. Her skin prickled with expectation, awakening to his size, his hardness, his power. God, she hoped he wasn’t gentle. She wanted to burn from those coarse hemp fibers…
He didn’t wield the rope. Instead, he clamped a hand to her braid again. “Be still.” His voice went low while his grip tugged high. Her scalp throbbed in delicious pain as he secured her hair to an overhead rig point that she couldn’t see. Before the strands slipped too far, he twisted thick long leather cords around them, securing the connection with rigid tugs. Luna breathed deep. Damn. That smell. Leather was her chocolate, her oysters Rockefeller. It woke her up and turned her to goo in one glorious whiff. Just like that, she was even more aware of every movement Z made, of even the slightest brush of his huge, strong body.
He finally stepped behind her again. She heard him uncoil the rope and then measure its length with definite calculation. With every long, steady stroke, her bloodstream danced closer to the edge of her skin, filled with the imagery of letting him drive his huge cock into her at just that pace…
Hell.
Or was this the beginning of heaven?
Why couldn’t she wish for both?
The question formed a beautiful dilemma as he laid the rope across the back of her neck. The hemp was everything she hoped for. Harsh. Hard. Heavy. As he reached over to crisscross the lines between her breasts, he settled his mouth next to her ear. She let out a shivering, needing gasp. Tell me what you’re going to do to me. Tell it to me in a filthy growl. Tell me in illicit, immoral detail. Please…
“Time to go over the rules, Luna.”
No wonder the bastard had tied up her hair. If her head was free, she would’ve snapped it with a glower to singe his skin off. She had to settle for hissing at him in disgust. “Yes, Sir.”
Zeke chuckled. “I’d swat you for that tone, girl, but you’d love it too much.” He looped the rope atop her navel and then yanked the lengths around her waist. “You know full well how I roll.”
“Yes, Sir.” She gave him the frosty cone version of it this time. If Mr. Safe, Sane, and Consensual wasn’t going to touch her until the D/s legalese was complete, then Lady Attitude-With-Wheels was coming out for a spin, too.
“You have a problem with that?”
“No, Sir.” She supersized the frosty cone.
“Then you’ll have no trouble giving me your safe word.”
Forget the frost. She unleashed the ice storm. “Are you fucking serious?” Rules, she would do. Guidelines, she would follow. But safe wording was the boundary she didn’t want or need, and Z knew that. Hard limits? Ha. Safe words were her hard limits. He knew that. But clearly didn’t care.
“That’s too many syllables for a safe word,” he drawled while continuing to cinch her in, twisting the rope around, laddering it up her spine with a series of masterful knots. Damn him, He knew how good that felt, how much she loved this. “But I’m confused,” he went on. “That couldn’t have been backtalk coming from you, right?” He secured his next knot extra hard, locking in her whole torso, squeezing her breasts between the ropes in front. “I’m not used to backtalk. That’s also part of the rules. I like being obeyed.” He extended the ropes along her shoulders, pulling her right arm straight and starting an intricate gauntlet down its length. “I expect to be obeyed.”
Now she silently wished him to the bottom of the Sound. The way he bit out expect but finished it in such a sensual husk…the way he pulled the rope hard and then fastened the line to a hook protruding from the wall…the way he shifted his massive body around her with the grace and speed of a damn ninja… He was so magical, he broke down her defiance with disgusting speed. Worse, she didn’t even mind. She couldn’t summon the nerve to even clench her teeth as she finally whispered, “Yes. Yes, Sir.”
“Perfect.” He halted in front of her. Planted his feet. Lifted her chin with one of his fingers. He was so beautiful… Already, more of his beast prowled in the bronze shadows of his stare, played at his full, battle-roughened lips, unfurled through the majesty of his huge, gleaming muscles. Luna yearned to reach for him with the arm he hadn’t bound yet. She could tell him, even with just the tips of her fingers, that he could dump a dozen safe words on her tonight and she wouldn’t use a single one. She wouldn’t banish his beautiful animal, even if it came close to killing her.
“Safe word?” he prompted again.
Ugh. Fine. She sighed and blurted, “Cinderella.”
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Though he pulled her other arm out and started whipping the ropes into its own gauntlet, he kept an appraising eye on her. “Slipped out easily enough, too. Have you been masturbating about glass slippers and dancing with princes, Luna?”
She let a bristled glare serve as her silent fuck you. Like that stopped the man from his scrutiny, burning it up her arm from the wrist he secured with a flawless cat’s paw twist before knotting off the line using the eyebolt on the opposite wall. She didn’t shy back from his stare. Let him look. He wasn’t going to see anything he didn’t know about her so far. Nothing that he didn’t recognize in himself first.
He proved that as truth with the next words he gave, knowing and carnal and dark, as he moved back in front of her.
“Oh, yeah. Dancing’s just fine with you, yeah? Just as long as the slippers are in shards and the prince has a blade at your throat.” He lifted a hand exactly there, bracing her neck from ear to ear with his hand. Slowly, masterfully, he began to clamp down. Not so languidly, her pulse began to hammer her veins.
“Mmmm,” she mewled. Technically, it wasn’t a word. The sound was definitely more cat than human now, the feral creature into which he was turning her as he squeezed a little tighter…
“Yeah…you’ll fill the night with dancing, won’t you, Luna? Just as long as you keep wondering if your next breath will be your last…then soaring on the high when you realize it wasn’t. You’ll keep dancing, even when it hurts, because the pain is the reminder that you’re alive.” He softened the hold. He cupped her nape with his other hand, making her whimper again with need. “But it’s your way out, too. It confirms you. Then it erases you.”
For the first time, she hated him for binding her like this, for opening her so wide to him. It assured that he saw every inch of her reaction. The gratitude. The adoration. The arousal. The truth in every last word he’d spoken. The craving for all of it. She swallowed hard, swearing he wouldn’t get her tears, too. Nobody got those.
Past taut lips, she answered, “Thank you, Sir. Yes.”
He studied her for another long moment. The alloy in his eyes turned from bronze to gold. She had no idea what he was probing for in her face, but his lips parted to reveal teeth clenched in victory, as if he’d found it.
Then he left her.
She was stunned for a moment. And cold. The man was a walking radiator. The temperature drop made her nipples pucker tighter, her skin turn to pebbled pathways. Her mind reeled with trepidation, anticipation.
She listened to Z’s decisive steps, now behind her once more. But there was more movement than him. Somebody shifted, as if readjusting themselves on leather furniture. Hell. She’d forgotten about his buddy. The appointed kink police. What was his name again? It didn’t matter. The timbre in his voice spoke for him, penetra
ting the depths of her soul.
“Christ. I didn’t think she could get any more beautiful.”
Zeke answered with a deep chuff. “The fun’s just begun.”
The guy gave an angry groan. Luna sympathized. Every moment from here on was under Z’s complete control. Though she’d begged fate for this, the reality of it brought exasperation along with the excitement. All her fantasies of this had played out with her timing, her wants, the actions she created for him to carry out. The hugest aspect of this, his domination, was simply impossible to create. Like it or not, it filled the room now, claiming every throb of her heart, every awakening every inch of her body.
Her breaths quickened as Z paced back over. She prepared herself for the whoosh of a crop, perhaps the swish of a flogger. There’d been a few beautiful whips on his toy table, too. Dear God, would he dare start the scene with one of them? Her stomach wrenched in fear.
Thwack.
The crack of the broad paddle ricocheted off the walls, ringing in her ears. Hell, that thing sounded big. And painful. Really painful. She got a little concerned, wondering if he’d tested it on his hand, hoping he hadn’t cracked a finger or two by doing so—
“Shhhiiit!”
The scream spilled out of her the same second the realization hit. He hadn’t indulged her with the mind fuck of the “test smack.” Her ass was the test. In fiery, consuming intensity.
He had the nerve to press the damn thing to her skin again, tracing the edges of the burn with the tip of the thick wood. Luna squirmed beneath his taunting touch. She imagined him standing back there like a hammer that had grown muscles, now flashing a cocky grin at the nail he’d just tamed. But when he spoke, nothing but calm command defined the words.
“What do you say, girl?”
His composure was unnerving. Enraging. “Ummm, how about a warm-up next time, Sir?”
Thwack.
“Owwwww! Damn it, Zeke!”
“Still not the right answer.”
Thwack.
She twisted her hips, hating him for this…revering him for it. Zeke stepped forward again, making her gasp in exquisite fear, though he refrained from swatting her again. He was utterly silent—but she sure as hell felt his stare. His assessment. His patience. Damn him. Bless him.
Finally, she let out a long breath. Her words were tight but sincere. “Thank you, Sir.”
He came closer. Swept a hand across her burning ass cheeks. “You’re welcome.”
Ohhh, yes. That felt wonderful. She got ready to give him a blissed-out sigh, but sharp pricks suddenly rolled down her spine, jamming the sound in her throat. The telltale squeak of metal accompanied the pricks. She stretched the sigh into a grateful moan. A Wartenberg wheel. One of her favorites. And God, did he know how to use the thing. Z was relentless with the pressure, making sure the steel pins dug in nearly hard enough to break her skin. As she cried out from the delicious torment, a deep part of her begged him to do just that. What would he do if she really bled for him?
She sensed the answer to that just by listening to his breath. He was fighting hard to keep the steely Dom veneer. His exhalations clawed at the edge of growls, especially as he turned the wheel and ran it back up her torso. As he dug new tracks into her skin, her delts and lats twitched with fevered awareness. With every inch he scored, he pressed to the edge of cutting her but never did. It was making her insane—and she was pretty sure he shared the sentiment.
She whimpered in need.
Aggghh! Why didn’t he listen?
She writhed and pushed herself back at him. She parted her legs, struggling to show him what he was doing to her, how hot and wet she was because of him.
He didn’t care.
“Damn it, Zeke!” It burst out beyond her control. “Do it, damn you! Cut me open! Please!”
Her heart sank when she saw the wheel fly by as he threw it to the floor.
Her senses flew when he replaced the instrument with his fingernails.
He used just one hand. It was enough. He spared no mercy with those five prongs of determined flesh, firing them into miniature blow torches, especially when he crisscrossed the tracks he’d already made with the wheel. Another cry clamored at Luna’s lips but he was already a step in front of her. Suddenly, he wrapped his other hand to her throat again, compressing with more exquisite purpose than before. He loomed close, a presence at her peripheral that was larger than life, a haunting saber tooth with his rough breaths and silken motions.
“We’ll get there, subbie. But in my time, not yours.”
Luna’s arms tensed against the ropes. She knew what words he wanted, but giving them up felt impossible. She was already so vulnerable to him physically. Giving him more surrender, even verbally, was too much. “Fine,” she sneered. “All right, all right.”
He stilled the hand on her back and constricted the fingers on her neck. “You know, I’d almost applaud you for that audacity. Almost.”
He scooped around enough to meet her eye to eye again. His grip moved to the hook and bindings in her hair, freeing her from the bondage in a pair of deft tugs. That didn’t mean he was done. After winding the braid around his fingers again, he yanked. Her head snapped back, releasing a new shower of shivers down her nape, throat, and shoulders. So much for feeling one speck sure of herself. Now capturing her from the front and back, Z directed exactly where she looked and what filled her vision—which, for now, was nothing but him.
For which she should be rejoicing…right?
A funny thing happened on the way to the rope bondage. All her dreams of this night had never made room for one key element: the magnitude of this man’s energy. The potency of his presence. The dark splendor of his beast, taking over more of him. He was so perfect it hurt to look—but shutting her eyes was as futile as breathing. The second her lids descended, he growled and wrenched her hair tighter.
“Eyes right here, girl. Right. Here.”
Her obedience wasn’t without reward. His lips twisted in a smirk that made her breath turn from a wad in her throat to a boulder in her chest.
“Very nice. You’ll stay like this until I tell you. I want to watch you through this next part. Best to remember the rules again on this one. Especially the clause where I expect to obeyed.”
“Yes…Sir.”
Miracle of miracles, she prevented the punctuation on it from being a shaky question mark. His instructions took on another tone she’d never heard from him before, frost and fire mixed so seamlessly she couldn’t determine what to prepare for. His lips curled higher, telling her it was where he wanted her, too. Wavering on his strings. Teetering on his ledge. Slowly, achingly, fulfilling her dream—on his terms.
As she worked to accept that thought, he unwound her hair and brought her braid forward, draping it between her breasts. His knuckles brushed her skin, making her quiver. She released a rasp of shock. Simple caresses weren’t supposed to do this to her. She wasn’t a silk and ribbons girl. She was barbed wire and steel chains, a creature built for Doms who bit as hard as they barked. Z knew that, too. Knew it and craved it as much as she did. So why was he pulling the lame seduction moves? Why did he follow that stroke on her breast with a duplicate caress? Why did he slip his other hand down in order to fondle the other peak in the same manner? Why did he keep up the mushy-gush treatment, even when she let out a protesting snarl?
Probably had something to do with how he planned to rip that sound in two. Or a thousand. That was what her voice felt like once a pair of nipple clamps seemed to appear in his hands from nowhere and were guided to the tips he’d coaxed to full attention.
Without a second of warning, her crests went from aching need to receiving mind-halting pressure. She screamed, wondering if she resembled one of the immortals from Highlander, with lightning bolts ripping her apart. The pain went from mere torture to what-the-fuck-is-that within a second.
“Holy shhiitt!”
Z was still as a damn monk. She got her head under control l
ong enough for a chance to look down and gauge if his cock was behaving like Friar Tuck, too. If she was going through this and not getting a damn inch out of him, her snarl was coming back if she had to hog-tie it in her chest.
Her gaze never got as far as his crotch. As soon as she saw his fingers on the strings of the clover clamps attached to her breasts, tightening their sadistic clutches on her nipples, her snarl came with no problem.
“I’d think twice about continuing that if I were you, girl.”
She bared her teeth as she lifted her glare. He released the strings but continued batting at them, taunting her, his eyes aglow. He knew exactly what his arrogance did to her, didn’t he? He was confident of every drop he elicited in her pussy now, with his massive body in front of her and the clamps pumping an agonizing elixir through her whole torso.
Through those clenched teeth, she issued, “Wasn’t thinking of continuing anything, Sir.”
His lips quirked. “No?”
Unbelievably, she summoned a smile. The endorphins from that, blended with the adrenaline from the pain, curled a tendril of delirium through her brain. “Words aren’t the only way to talk, Master.”
Z chuckled. “Very nice point. They certainly aren’t.” Through foggy vision, she watched his hand dip into his pocket again. “Which is why you won’t mind this at all, hmmm?”
Before she could follow his movement, he showed her the “this” to which he referred. Luna grunted in surprise as he fitted a hard silicone bit gag between her lips with expert speed. He had the nerve to laugh softly again, the mirth lingering on his lips as he cinched the buckles to hold the bit in place. When he finished, he slid his fingers back to the sides of her face, tilting her up for his scrutiny.
He began stroking her bottom lip with his thumbs. The motion clicked as her cue to do something, right? But what was it? It was time for her to glower at him again, right? Or stamp her cute sandaled feet at him? To pick something out from the “bratty” column to drive a new thorn into his fur, so a bigger chunk of his civility finally fell off and he—