Bind and Keep Me, Book 2

by Cari Silverwood

  “Now. If you’ve got a change of clothes? We can go up to the park. I have a sudden desire to learn from you, oh wise one.”

  “No worries. I’ve got my running gear in my bag. Give me five minutes to change.”

  It was the truth. This predicament we were in disturbed me. Learning a better way to kill someone, and defend myself, seemed a good idea. Why? Who knew. I wasn’t about to fight the cops, and Steph…I could take her out with one finger. Maybe it was a male instinct of some sort, buried under millennia of evolution. When threatened, pick up a big stick so you can beat your enemy’s fucking brains out?

  Maybe. Besides, I could then teach Jodie myself. She’d had lessons from Chris for weeks. Time for me to do the same.

  Once we’d both changed into shorts and t-shirts, we strolled up the hill road to the park. A few tourists sat on picnic blankets and benches eating ice creams and other crap. We ignored them, though once we started sparring most of them looked our way.

  Actual kicking and punching wasn’t the strongest part of judo, since it was more a grappling-style martial art incorporating ways to throw someone or, in the groundwork, ways to choke, pin, or lock them down. From how Chris moved and responded to my combinations, he’d blended several martial art disciplines seamlessly.

  After twenty minutes we were both running with sweat and we needed time to shower and change, so I called a halt. To cool off, we sat on the grass swigging from our water bottles. I plucked at the chest of my t-shirt and waved it to and fro to help the sea breeze dry the sweat.

  “That was…” I looked for a good word. “Enlightening.”

  He swung to face me. “A compliment? What brought that on?”

  “A brain aneurysm maybe?” Grinning, I shrugged. “Take it while you can get it. You’re a good teacher. I should know. I used to teach at the club.”

  “You’ve stopped?”

  “Yeah. A month ago.” I swigged down more cool water. I looked about to see who was nearby. “Kink and doing things to Jodie to make her scream, even if she wants me too, it made teaching judo seem strange. That’s the best I can explain it. I stopped before I got to the stage where I was forever self-analyzing and gazing at my navel. Life’s too short for getting hung up on hang-ups.”

  “Truth. Here’s to that.” He waved his water bottle at me and chugged down a few swallows, then wiped his mouth. “I know just what you mean, man. Some days…” He shook his head and grimaced. “Some days I feel so fucked up. Some of my kinks I could follow down a rabbit hole forever and never come up for air. You get me?”

  “S and m? That power rush you get?”

  “That, yeah, sort of.”

  “Yes.” I nodded. Chris was a sadistic Dominant too. “I understand. Kat’s helped me sort out when to pull myself back, but I’m always having to double-check myself. I don’t want to hurt Jodie more than she needs me to, or more than is wise.”

  “Yup. Though Kat?” He shot me a quizzical look. “That woman is so confusing, so enigmatic. Bouncy, bubbly, mean too when she switches. Says she’s a sub, but naaah. She never really submits. If she did, though…” He pursed his lips. “She’s damn hot. I’d have kept her.”

  “You too?” I smiled. “She’s left a trail of perplexed Doms in her wake. I don’t think she understands herself either.”

  Fate likes to mess with us humans—to run us over and then come back for a second and third try. When I got back into my office, I clicked to the local news update before getting stuck into work again, and there was the report on two bodies being found at Leon Edante’s mansion. Nothing as yet revealed by the police except that the deaths were suspicious and homicide detectives were handling the case. Any members of the public with information regarding the incident were urged to contact the police.

  I sat back in my chair and gnawed my lip. Shit. Well, it had to happen. Now to hope none of the evidence led to us.

  My cell phone rang, I picked it up, and Kat was there.

  “Klaus?”

  “Hi, Kat.”

  “Have you seen the news? About Leon Edante?”

  Fate was backing that truck over me as we spoke. “Yes. Just now.”

  “Probably another case of too rich and too many designer drugs. Fucking painful how many idiots can’t handle being well off.”

  I grunted.

  “Say, Klaus. You rang me Saturday night about him, remember? About where he lived?”

  Keep calm. She cannot know. “I did, yes. Jodie and I were thinking of going looking at some of the nice houses on the island and I remembered his.”

  “Ahh. I see. What an awful coincidence, hey?”

  “Yes. I imagine there’ll be a ton of police around the house by now.”

  “Yes. Did you not end up going then?”

  “No, we didn’t.”

  Her pause was a little too long, but we chatted for a bit more before saying goodbye. I put my phone down on my desk and arranged it with my fingertips so it was perfectly square on to the edge. Did it matter if she suspected anything? Perhaps…if she told the cops. I’d just have to pray she didn’t. Nothing we could do. She was a friend of sorts. Most likely she’d say more to me or to Jodie, before she went that far. We’d have some warning.

  I decided then and there to put together an emergency escape plan. Fake passports, cash, and maybe see if I could find out how people went about leaving Australia without going through customs. Boat for sure, up to Papua New Guinea, then there’d be a way. We needed to end up someplace with no extradition.

  Chapter 9

  Stephanie

  All we seemed to be doing was frigging cleaning. Now it was washing up after lunch. What next? And this wasn’t even my house.

  I tried not to scowl as Jodie passed me yet another plate. Only us two, how had we used so many dishes? And not using the electric dishwasher was criminal. Their cat, Baxter, wove around my feet, looking up at me, purring, and no doubt hoping I’d give him some more of the canned food Jodie had scooped into his bowl.

  “Sorry, cat. We’re all out.”

  “He’s gotten inches fatter in the last six months.” Jodie searched under the sink water and froth for more dishes. “Klaus will be home soon.” The sideways inspection she gave me sent anxiety burrowing into me.

  Klaus…I pretended to be absorbed in drying a bunch of spoons. Was he going to expect sex? This was surreal. Ninety percent of the time he and Jodie were friendly even if there was that expectation of obedience. The rest of the time they seemed to regard me as some sort of a sexually available captive. But I was me. This was my body. I didn’t care if he was attractive, or if he had three heads, letting him fuck me was not on my fucking agenda.

  He was a sadist too. I had no need for floggings or spankings or whatever evil things he did to Jodie. Why couldn’t they just accept that I would help them and let me go?

  After breakfast and cleaning up those dishes had come and gone, Jodie had smiled at me, undone the link between the wrist cuffs, and let me dress in a short lacy and strappy dress of hers. The pastel blue suited her more than me, but I was happy to not be parading about naked. Though she’d clucked her tongue and ordered me not to wear panties.

  But… Frick. I was growing tired of these orders. I didn’t want to be Klaus’s latest second-best woman to kick around. I didn’t want to be hurt. She seemed to think I was some creature that had proven its loyalty, and so she’d rewarded me. Her praise had, oddly, pleased me. I couldn’t deny that, no matter how silly my reaction seemed.

  But then my mind had been totally fuzzed out after the shower…after she’d cornered me there. That had been so taboo, so hot, so unexpected. Jodie had made me come with her fingers inside me. I clutched the plate I had been drying for a few seconds as I ran through that in my head.

  God. Sure, once upon a time at university, I’d drooled over her figure from afar, and on Saturday night I’d stupidly done other stuff while she was passed out, but I’d never ever imagined she felt that way about me.

/>   An orgasm though, it wasn’t like she could buy my soul with one. She’d need a trillion of them to do that.

  Now, I got told to clean and they expected me to somehow destroy my life and be their little sex robot so that they could keep their life the same? Crap. Jodie’s dismissal of my intelligence and my need to be me, and not a thing she and Klaus could manipulate, was contemptible.

  Oh. Fuck me dead. I stared at what I was drying. A bunch of cutlery, among them a steak knife. Not just any steak knife. This was extra-long and extra-pointy. My ears rang; I had such an urgent need to use this. To use this and get Jodie to open the doors and let me go.

  Then Klaus could go stuff himself.

  I swiftly thought through what I should do, what might go wrong, and I waited until Jodie had let out the water and there clearly were no other knives near her. Important, that part. No point waving a knife at her only to have one waved back at me.

  The door to the outside was the other side of her at the far end of this kitchen. Locked and solid, just like the long kitchen window that looked out over the ocean far below. But she knew where the key was.

  I could do this.

  Heart thudding, I stepped up to her, put the point of it into her side enough so she’d feel its sharpness. I croaked out my demands as fast as I could so she’d hear it all before she had a chance to react. “I’ve got a knife, Jodie. Show me the key. Don’t do anything stupid. Just the key. I’ll go. I promise I won’t tell about you and Klaus. Okay?”

  Silence.

  “The key.” I sucked in a breath and poked her harder.

  She leaned into the sink a second with her palms on the counter top. “What the fuck are you doing, Steph? Didn’t you hear what Klaus said?”

  “What?” What the hell was she on about? Was she trying to fool me? “I have the knife, girl.”

  “Think. Did Klaus tell you that you would be punished if you did this? Yes. Did he say the house was secure? Yes. Are we going to fucking let you go when we trust you?” She swung her head and stared at me through a fringe of her auburn hair like some tiger in the grass.

  “Um.” I gulped. My grip on the knife became sweaty.

  “Will this make us trust you sooner? No. And last of all, am I going to give you the key because you threaten me? No.”

  “What? Listen, bitch. I’m not a pushover—”

  She tapped her finger on my shoulder and went on quietly. “I obey Klaus. Not you. I know you, Steph. You’re the girl who had to carry the baby spiders outside our unit after we sprayed bug spray. I was half expecting you to do CPR on the damn things. You’re not going to stick that in me.”

  “You don’t know me that—”

  She pushed my hand back and made as if to step away, but I was cross and pushed toward her. When her hand slipped along my wrist, the point ran forward and jabbed into her.

  “Ow!” She leaped away, her hand at her side. “Oh, fuck. That went in.”

  I’m sure all my blood ran away to my toes. I’d hurt Jodie. Klaus would come home and kill me. A bunch of swearwords did a traffic jam in my head. When she took away her hand, there was a grape-sized splotch of bright red blood on her cream shirt.

  “Shit. Shit, shit, shit.” Tears pricked my eyes. “Did I hurt you? I’m so sorry! Let me see. Please?”

  “No.” Frowning, she backed away a step.

  When I followed, I made sure the knife was pointed floorward.

  My only warning—a stern, “Steph.” Then she pirouetted and rammed her foot into my side. Pain exploded in. The room went hazy and I dropped, clutching my hands to my stomach. While I was gasping and retching, she plucked the knife from my fingers. I stared up at her and attempted to speak without spewing up lunch. “What. The. Hell?”

  She placed the knife out of my reach on top of the fridge then stood, hands on hips, studying me. “I mightn’t be a black belt in anything, Steph, but Klaus is like the nitpickiest of men and once he found out I was clueless about self-defense he made me do lessons. I can kick your ass, girl. Do not mess with me again. Got that?”

  Anger spilled. “No, I do not get that! Let me go. Look…” I was sprawled on my ass still, with my legs askew and tucked under me. I stared at her feet. “I’m not your puppet. Let me go. Please?”

  She merely shook her head. “I can’t. You know why. And you’ve just set our trust of you back ten steps. What am I going to tell Klaus?”

  Shit. “Nothing? I’m sorry. You know I never would have hurt you…except by accident.”

  “You don’t understand. I won’t lie to him. I never do. Now, give me your wrists, Steph. I’m going to tie you up downstairs until he comes home.”

  “Look. No. No, no.” I held up a hand to fend her off, and scooted backward until I hit the kitchen cupboard behind me. “Can’t we—”

  With no hesitation, Jodie took a stride, grabbed my waving hand, and twisted it until I had no choice but to flip onto my stomach. Feeling like my muscles were tearing, I was shrieking as she clicked the cuffs together. “Hurts! Hurts!”

  “It’s done.” She released the grip. I heard her panting and I put my nose to the cool tile and shuddered through the residual pain. “I’m fair, Steph. I’ll tell him it was a mistake. I know you wouldn’t hurt me. That’s why this was stupid though…wasn’t it?”

  I sniffed then felt a kick on the sole of my foot.

  “Steph. Answer me.”

  “I guess.” Humiliation at my position and how easily she’d subdued me was vying with a draining despair. What would Klaus do to me? I’d hurt Jodie and I knew that was one of his triggers. Last time he’d been so angry. And I was so frigging dead.

  “Hey, pet. It won’t be that bad.” I heard the rasp of cloth. When her hand stroked my back and then meandered down to pat my ass, I’d guessed that she’d squatted behind me. “I’ll help you as much as I can. Okay?”

  Defeated, I breathed a few times and closed my eyes before I replied. “Okay.”

  Chapter 10

  Jodie

  I smiled ruefully down at Stephanie, getting my pulse rate to settle before I tried doing anything else. I’d been all gruff and authoritarian with her, but hell, I’d never kicked anyone for real before. I hadn’t wanted to hurt her either but she’d left me no choice. This was getting so fucked up.

  My gaze tracked to where my hand was resting…the little dress was so short that half her bottom peeked out from underneath. Pale skin, gorgeous, biteable ass with a distinct view of everything between her legs. As I examined her, I became aware of my clit throbbing in time with my pulse. Seemed I had a thing for her lying down showing me her ass. Bewitching view. I’d love to see her get off again, right now. I so wanted to be the one to make her.

  Such a submissive posture. And incredibly wrong, staring at her. Though it pained me, I took hold of the hem and started to pull it down.

  “What are you doing?” she whispered.

  “Making you decent.” But my hand stopped moving, almost before my thoughts caught up. “Oh, baby,” I breathed. “You so tempt me.”

  I think I heard her make a tiny noise. Though I listened, she was silent, but her thighs rocked, once. Did that idea stir her?

  I stroked her again, struggling to remain…to become calm.

  Why had I never felt this way before? Klaus, ass up before me…me dominating him. Uck, no way. Ditto when I thought of Kat. I had zero desire to do that to either of them. It was just Steph then? Or this whole fucked-up situation? If it was that, oh my, I was a closet psycho.

  “Jodie?”

  I looked up. She had her face to the other side and couldn’t see me. Did she not want to see? Afraid to? Was there something in her that matched my own desires? I fucking hoped so. I squeezed my thighs together and kept on looking at her…her everything. The posture, the peekaboo baring of her ass, her lack of protest… It fairly screamed at me to do her.

  I swallowed and stood, despite the tractor-beam-like pull that made me want to touch her again.

&nbs
p; “So…you won’t let me go?”

  The plea in her voice was so pitiful yet also so ridiculous considering what had just happened that I chuckled. “No.”

  “Can you at least tell Thom? That I’m okay? Please?”

  What the hell? Thom was her stepbrother. Was she insane? Tell him and he’d do what? Ignore us? Though my gut twisted at the idea we were causing her family grief, this had not begun with my bad choices. I shook my head. “No. Hell no. Get through your head. You’re here now, until we decide to let you go. Us. Not you. Not anyone else. Us.”

  I caught my breath, staring down at her, cuffed and subdued. This was power. Having a girl at my feet I could do all this too. And wrong, surely, to get a thrill from it?

  “I’m getting your leash.” I bent and clicked her ankle cuffs together. “Don’t you dare move until I get back or I will cane your ass myself, pet. Understood?”

  Her yes was tiny and inaudible; it might have been a mouse squeaking.

  As I walked to the bedroom, my groin was aching so much that as soon as I went through the door I had to press my hand against myself down there. I sucked in a huge breath.

  Surely, wanting to do this was wrong. I recalled feeling the same guilt back when I used to read erotic BDSM romances and capture fantasies by the truckload—before Klaus and I worked out our relationship. I’d felt dirty and ashamed, like I was a freak. I’d been wrong about myself, of course. That was completely normal.

  Was this normal then? Wanting to sexually dominate a woman who…was tied up and couldn’t get away. Who couldn’t say no?

  I covered my face with my hands, sagging against the doorframe. This was freaky. But I still wanted her.

  If she was screaming no at me, I’d not do it. I frowned. That would be so ugly. That would horrify me. So, I guess I had limits. I knew I liked seeing her get pleasure from my touch. That was at least half the enjoyment for me. Thinking of making her climax sent my thoughts racing for that memory. Yeah, I liked that, a lot.