by Box Set
Why hadn’t he deleted it all last night?
Because he’d thought it was all safely off the server.
“Nate?” Cara’s voice was high pitched, strained.
She had to be so confused now. This looked bad. If he were in her place, he’d have been out the door already. How did he possibly make her understand that this…what he liked…wasn’t bad or all that weird in the scope of what was out there?
He couldn’t.
Cara was still a girl from the mid-west, sheltered, she couldn’t possibly understand this part of him. He hadn’t even fully comprehended it for a long time, either.
The cushions dipped. Cara scooted closer when she should be running.
When he told her…she’d never look at him the same again. He couldn’t expect her to get it. But she was his best friend. He didn’t want to lie to her. She’d see through the lie and then…what? She’d know he didn’t trust her and that would be the downfall. The point where things started to erode. Without trust, she wouldn’t tell him what she was thinking. And then they’d grow apart and he’d lose her. But if he told her the truth he’d lose her still, but at least it would be an honest loss. Right?
“I like…bondage. But not like…crazy bondage.” He kept his eyes straight ahead, focused on that little red light. Mocking him. How could his who world be destroyed by a click of a button?
His stomach churned and heat burned his neck, his cheeks, so hot his eyes began to water.
“Oh,” Cara said.
Oh? That was it?
Nate braced himself for the rejection, the sting of her words, but the silence dragged on.
If he’d chosen to tell her, it would not be like this.
“W-what does that mean?” Her voice wavered. “I mean, I read stuff, but…”
“What have you read?” He glanced at her, and sure enough, Cara’s cheeks practically glowed they were so red.
“Well, uh, mostly romance books.” She stared at the ceiling, her fingers picking at the hem of her shirt in a nervous, mindless act.
“What books?”
“Books. I read part of the, um, Fifty Shades before, when it was still fan fiction. Master of the Universe. And, well, um…a few others.”
“Not like that.” He shook his head. Where did he start? How did he start? “I…”
Cara leaned back into the cushions. He turned to face her, struggling for a point to begin. How to explain himself. Because while he wasn’t truly kinky, he wasn’t entirely vanilla either.
“I want to understand.” She stared back at him, brow wrinkled, eyes wide, lips pressed together.
She was freaked out…but she wasn’t running to the door.
Nate reached for her hand, and she grasped it in both of hers, holding on tight.
“I…am not into super kinky shit. I don’t belong to any BDSM type groups. That’s…way too much. I…” Nate took a deep breath. “I like…fuzzy handcuffs and blindfolds and tying women up. But not like…call me master, or anything like that. I…like…the fantasy of it. Being in control. Making who I’m with…feel good.” His only goal was driving his woman crazy. Making her feel every bit as good as she made him feel. Besides, he liked having the freedom to roam over her body. In his mind, it was Cara’s body.
He was damning himself with every word. How long until Cara figured him out? Put all the pieces together?
“Okay. That’s…not crazy weird. So…like…whips and things…?”
“No.” He shook his head.
“Okay. Because that would freak me out.”
“No, I’m only into what feels good.”
“Nothing that hurts?”
“Not…really…”
“Not really? What does that mean?” She scrunched her nose.
“I mean…if I pull your hair, that can hurt and feel good.”
“Oh. Okay. Yeah. I can see that.” She shifted, sitting up a bit straighter. “So…you’ve done this before? Or not?”
“I have,” he said slowly, bracing himself.
“And your…other girlfriends—”
“Cara, I haven’t dated. Yes, I’ve had sex with women who…who got what I liked, who liked it, too. But they were never my girlfriends.”
“Right. Yes. You said that. So you have done this with…women?”
“Yes.”
“Do you…want…to tie me up?”
Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuckity, fuck, fuck.
The truth? Or a lie? Down one path lay ruination, but which one?
He had to be truthful. Even if it killed what little chance he had at being with Cara.
“Yeah.” He stared into her big, beautiful eyes and waited for her flinch. “Yeah, I’ve thought about it.”
Cara slowly blinked, once then twice.
“Why?” she asked.
“Why, what?”
“Why would you want to do that?”
“Tie you up?”
“Yeah.”
She was asking questions, holding onto his hand, and trying to understand. That was good, right? She wasn’t making snap judgments, she hadn’t run away. He could…explain. And maybe figure out a way to shove it under the rug. After all, they only had tonight and tomorrow…then she was gone. He didn’t want to spend what time they had left like this. He…wanted to hold her. Laugh with her. Feed her a whole damn pizza.
Why did he want to tie her up?
How did he explain that?
And what the hell was she reading?
“I… When I…think about that—tying you up—it’s…it’s to make you feel good.” He needed a better answer. That was so incredibly lame.
“What do you get out of that?”
“Satisfaction.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I…” He stared at her. How did he put a hundred thoughts and feelings into a single explanation? “I…love you, Cara. And…making you feel good, giving you pleasure, makes me happy. It satisfies my need to…please you.”
“But…you make me happy already.”
“Yeah, but I’m talking about sex.”
“Oh. Well. Um, you did that fine, too.”
“You know how I asked you to put your hands on the headboard?”
“You mean when you told me to?”
“Okay, yeah, that.”
“Yeah.”
“I…did that because I wouldn’t tie you up.”
“Do you…have to do that?”
“Tie you up?”
“Yeah, I mean, do you have to tie someone up to have sex? To…I don’t know, like it?”
“No.”
“But you like it?”
“Yes.”
“I still…don’t really understand. Can you…show me?”
He was not going to sit here and show her bondage porn. For one, that was a good way to get far too horny. For another, chances were, any movie she picked would be more than she was ready for.
So…what if he showed her his bedroom collection?
Chapter Eight
Cara was more than a tad bit proud of herself. She hadn’t melted from embarrassment, she wasn’t hiding in a closet, she was actually…almost adulting. Oh, she still wanted the ground to open up and swallow her whole, but since that seemed unlikely, here she stood. Next to Nate’s bed while he hauled a narrow, rectangular tub out from under the frame.
He set it on the bed and flipped the top off.
“It’s all cleaned,” he said.
“Cleaned?” She blinked at him. That hadn’t even entered her mind yet, but…that made sense.
“Yeah, I mean, none of this is real leather or fancy, but I do clean it.”
She eyed the fuzzy handcuffs, which were also padded. Bonus. There were a few pieces that looked like they might have been leather. Pleather? Some sort of vinyl material?
Cara inhaled and reached into the box.
She wanted to understand.
They were both uncomfortable as hell, but…this was Nate. And this was something he’d
never shared with her before. He was trusting her. Running away wasn’t an option.
The sinister, black cuffs were really some sort of velvet-covered material. Soft.
The long cord looking thing was a satin strip of fabric.
“It’s…fantasy?” she asked.
“Yeah. That’s a good word for it.”
“Have you tried…more stuff?”
“You mean, have I tried more kinky, BDSM stuff?”
“Yeah.”
“I did, but that’s way over my head.”
If she got this all right, Nate’s fantasy was not so much restraining, as being in control, in order to make his partner happy.
He’d done this with other women. Women he’d trusted with this part of himself, and not her. That stung a bit. She’d told him everything. Well, almost everything. Yeah, he’d flat out asked her a few weeks after she lost her virginity and they’d discussed it in very broad strokes, but nothing like this. Like how they were talking now.
In a way, it made sense though.
Nate appeared gruff and tuff on the outside, but when he let someone in, he was the people pleaser. The happier he made someone else, the happier he was. He was a giver.
“You don’t…like…spank or hit or anything?” She set the cuffs down and picked up the long length of satin. The slippery fabric slid through her fingers, cool to the touch.
“No.” He shook his head.
This was something Nate liked. She didn’t fully understand it, but…she wanted to make him happy. It was a circle, to do one, she had to do another.
What was she afraid of?
Not Nate. He would never scare her. She knew him.
So what was there to make her stomach churn like this?
She couldn’t put her finger on why or what would have her nerves so wound up.
Nate wanted her, or at least that was what it sounded like, and she wanted him. The rest was all…stuff.
Cara twisted the satin around her wrists. What would it feel like?
She’d read a few kinky books, usually on accident or from recommendations. A lot of it didn’t appeal to her, but some of it did. There was a brutal honesty on the page she could appreciate. The kind of strength it took to admit what someone wanted was…huge. It wasn’t like Nate wanted her to do things, just…let him have his way with her.
She didn’t know what that would mean, but it was Nate. It couldn’t be bad.
“So…” Cara lifted her gaze to Nate. He’d been staring at her this whole time. “Do you want to tie me up? Now, I mean?”
She lifted her hands, the satin wrapped around her wrists in an accidental binding. Her stomach did little flip-flops, her heart pounding against her sternum.
This was Nate. Her Nate. If she couldn’t be brave with him, then she was metaphorically screwed.
“Cara…” Nate did that thing again, where he rubbed his hand across his jaw, then across his eyes as though he were going to push his glasses up. Only, he wore contacts most of the time now.
“Is that wrong? Should I not…I don’t know.” Crap. Was it supposed to be a him thing? Was she not supposed to suggest it? Was it a role-gender issue? Had she stepped out of line?
“No, it’s not wrong.” Nate grasped her hand and the tail of the satin, tugging her closer.
“Oh.”
He wrapped his arm around her waist, capturing her hands between their bodies. He looked down at her…kind of funny. She didn’t know that look, but she wanted to. It was warm and a little intense.
“It’s a lot to wrap your head around in one night,” he said.
“Yeah, but I go home tomorrow. We don’t have a lot of time to really…understand.”
“You don’t have to.”
“But you want to?”
“…yes.”
“So…show me? Make me understand.” It was the kind of bold request Cara could never utter…to anyone else. But this was Nate.
“Okay,” he whispered.
She swallowed.
Awesome.
Great.
It was one thing to say she was in, but—what now? There wasn’t a rule book, she hadn’t studied for this. All she had to go on was Nate’s lead and she was horrible at figuring out the clues.
Nate took her hands in his and began unwrapping her wrists, freeing her from the satin.
“I’m going to undress you, then I’ll tie you to the bed. Something simple you can pull on and get out of, okay?” He watched her face while his fingers worked, the slid of satin soothing the heat in her body.
“O-okay.” Well, at least she didn’t have to guess what was going on anymore.
“You don’t have to, Cara.”
“I…think I want to. I mean…I want you to be happy. This makes you happy.”
“You make me happy.”
“Yeah, but…so would this, right?”
“Not if you don’t want to.”
“But I think I do,” she said slowly. How to put it into words? She was barely beginning to understand this herself. She wanted to experience all of Nate, even his deepest desire.
“You can change your mind.” He tugged the satin from between her arms and laid it on the bed.
“I’m not going to.” That felt right. Yeah, she was unprepared for this moment, but she was all in where he was concerned.
Nate pulled his phone out of his pocket.
“Can you put that away?” she blurted before she could stop herself.
“I was turning on music. Would you rather me not?”
“Oh. Okay. Fine.”
“I know I was on my phone a lot more than I wanted to be today. Sorry about that.” He sighed.
“Stuff with Ellie?”
“Yeah. We’re all pretty protective about her.”
“I’m glad she has friends to look out for her.”
Nate pressed a few buttons and soft music began to play through the living room speakers. He set his phone in the top drawer of the dresser and closed it. The amount of relief that gave her was silly. She’d been jealous of a phone all damn day. It was unfair. But now, he was hers.
He cupped her face in his hands, his touch sending electrical sparks shooting through her body, down to her toes. He leaned in, gently kissing her lips. She lifted up, and he retreated, keeping the contact light.
“You’re going to get a lot more than you bargained for tonight, Cara.”
“Probably.” Heat wrapped around her neck, working its way up into her cheeks.
Nate stroked his fingers over her cheeks and throat, his touch a cool contrast to the way her blood simmered just below the surface.
“The books you read, they use safe words?”
“Yeah.” Oh, God. She did not want to discuss some of the titles she’d read. Okay, most of them.
“You say stop, I stop, okay? That’s how this works.”
She nodded. Chances were she was going to lose the ability to speak at all.
“Cara? This is the important part. You have to tell me you get it.”
“Yes. Okay.”
“Good.” He grasped the hem of her shirt, tugging it back and forth. “Arms up.”
Directions she could do, so long as he didn’t ask her to speak. Her throat was already closing up and her mouth going dry.
Nate lifted her shirt off slowly, as though he were afraid to spook her, or give her time to change her mind. He tossed the shirt toward the laundry hamper, staring into her eyes.
The lights were still on.
He could see every bony inch of her body.
And all he looked at was her eyes. As though he were staring into her soul, her heart.
He pulled her to him again, this time his arms around her waist, his hands sliding down to cup her bottom, and set his lips on hers. There was more heat behind the touch. He licked her lips and dug his fingers in. She held onto him, her head beginning to spin.
Nate slid one hand into the waistband of her leggings, then into her panties, palming her ass. He work
ed the clothing down and knelt, stripping her clothes down her legs.
She grasped his shoulders to both keep her balance and fight the urge to cover herself. He leaned in and kissed her hip, her stomach as he slid his palms down her legs, letting gravity do most of the work now. He held the leggings and she stepped out of them, somehow managing to not fall on her face.
He stroked his hands up and down her body, leaving a trail of sensitized flesh in his wake. Her nipples tightened, chafing once more against her bra while he touched and kissed her from knee to ribs. She pressed her thighs together, hyper aware of how her body reacted to him.
Nate pushed up, rising above her. She swallowed and watched him, more than a little drunk on the way he made her feel. He hooked a finger in the front of her bra and released the catch. She shivered at the first cool touch of air. He ran the backs of his fingers over her nipples, the light, barely there touch enough to make her gasp.
“Cara?” he whispered her name.
“Hm?”
“You’re beautiful.”
He tipped her chin up and suckled her bottom lip into his mouth. She groaned and swayed toward him. She’d never had anyone kiss her like Nate. She’d also never really been in love with anyone else. This…it was a heady, drunk feeling. She wanted him. Bad enough she didn’t care what he did, so long as he was with her. Kissing her.
Nate took a step back and she followed. He guided her to the side of the bed, their mouths never once parting.
He straightened, breaking the kiss. She couldn’t hold back the whimper.
“Lay on the bed.” He patted her bottom.
Cara scrambled up, losing a little of her inhibitions. The prospect of sex with Nate was clearly more motivating than her awkwardness. Who knew?
She lay back, staring up at Nate kneeling next to her. He reached down and pulled off his shirt. No, he wasn’t in the kind of shape he’d been when he was in the Navy, but he also wasn’t preparing himself to face danger on a daily basis. She’d take this softer version, any day of the week. Even before the crazy football work-outs he and Josh had started, Nate had a way of making her feel safe and protected by just being himself.
Especially now.
Yes, she was nervous, but she wasn’t scared. He didn’t intimidate her in a bad way.