by Chloe Cox
She so badly wanted to see him, wanted to be able to prepare for whatever came next. In the past she’d hadn’t been able to relax enough into being blindfolded to truly appreciate how powerless she felt without sight. It was the one sense she depended upon the most, the one thing she absolutely needed to make sense of the world, and she’d given it to him.
She was utterly, completely, under his power.
chapter 23
“Walk forward,” he said.
His hand was flat on her back, pushing her and guiding her at the same time. Walking was another thing she didn’t expect to be so difficult, but just the act of putting one foot in front of the other took on new significance without sight—and without arms. Hers were still very effectively bound behind her.
It felt like an eternity before her legs bumped up against Chance’s bed. Everything felt different, alien.
Even frightening. Frightening, and yet safe, with Chance.
“One knee up,” he said, his other hand on her stomach now, balancing her. “Then the other.”
Climbing up on a bed was surprisingly difficult with bound hands. And blindfolded. Everything, everything, seemed calculated to emphasize how helpless she was.
How needy she was.
How much she wanted him, inside her.
His hands applied pressure, bending her at the waist until her chest and shoulders came into contact with something soft—pillows? She turned her to the side and tried to relax. It left her ass up in the air, her knees apart, her arms behind her back, and her cheek pressed into cool, soft linen.
Open. Vulnerable.
She didn’t think she’d be able to get up on her own—she’d lose her balance and fall, blindly. That feeling of not being able to move was more restraining than any chains or cuffs. She wouldn’t move until he was done with her.
Oh God.
Drops of thick, cold lube fell on her ass, and she clenched at the thought of what would happen next, what he promised her would happen—if he wanted her ass, it was his for the taking, served up right in front of him.
He chuckled. “Not yet.”
Instead there was the now familiar feel of a plug, even bigger than the last time. She whimpered, and he slipped a finger inside her vagina, as though just to say hi. He laughed when she bore down on him, a reflex at this point.
“You can do this,” he said. “Relax into it.”
She thought of all the other times he’d done this, how each time there was a moment when she was sure it was impossible, and did her best to relax. This one was worse, for that moment, bigger and tougher, and her body resisted—until it didn’t.
She gave a small little cry as the plug filled her, jolting awake a part of her body that was still new to this, sending fiery waves of sensation coursing through her. It was, for the briefest second, overwhelming, and then it ebbed, and in its wake was the most pressing, driving need to be filled.
She groaned.
“I want to play first,” he said, almost to himself, and then there was something pushing its way into her vagina. Not as big as Chance, not nearly, but plastic, hard, textured. And she already had a butt plug inside her.
He couldn’t possibly…
He could. And he did.
Lena moaned loudly as he pushed the vibe into her, the feeling of being full now complete. He just kept pushing her, filling her, until she felt like a balloon ready to pop—she needed to come.
“Chance,” she panted.
She was farther gone than she’d known; words wouldn’t come.
He turned on the vibrator.
She was pretty sure she screamed. Yelled. Chance started to fuck her with it, moving it in and out of her with cruel slowness, twisting it so she felt the texture, raking it across her most sensitive nerves. It might have been the fastest orgasm in history. Fast, but not weak. He put his hand on her back, pressing her down into the pillows, just as she began to come, and not being able to move when the waves hit meant there was nowhere for the sensation to go but back inside her, folding in on itself, doubling and redoubling, until the resonance tore another scream from her throat.
She felt his hand on her butt, gripping her, as he pulled the vibe out of her. Immediately she missed it, missed the feeling of fullness, and he must have been able to tell, because he laughed.
“Now I’m going to take you,” he said. “The way I’ve wanted you. Hard.”
And he drove into her in one full stroke and she knew she cried out. Sobbed. Screamed. He was so perfect, so hot and thick, a little rough and very, very deep inside her. Chance fucked her like he said he would—hard, for his pleasure—and as soon as Lena thought of that she came again, not as quick to peak as the last time, but pulsing, squeezing, clenching around him for what seemed like forever.
He pulled out of her with a growl, and she knew he hadn’t come. She was dazed, blind, and before she knew it he had uncuffed her wrists and flipped her over onto her back. She was dragged up the bed and her wrists were again quickly cuffed, this time above her head and attached to something on the headboard. Chance lifted her legs one at a time and attached cuffs just above the knee, so her legs were bent and spread.
Then something began pulling on her legs.
He’d attached the cuffs to leads somewhere above her head, maybe where her wrists were bound, and he was pulling on it so that her legs were pulled up, her knees by her head, and spread as far as they would go.
If she thought she was open and vulnerable before…
She felt pressure on the plug. Jesus. He was moving it around inside of her, reminding her of just what he was going to take. She wanted to move her hips, to move with him, to do anything, and still she couldn’t. Her butt was lifted slightly off the bed, her arms and legs bound: she had no leverage, no movement.
She felt his breath on her thighs just moments before, but still she wasn’t prepared for his tongue, inside her, probing. Lapping. He licked her from her entrance up to her clit, and then his tongue was working that swollen, intense bundle of nerves until she screamed again. She tried to writhe; all she had was sound, and she made a lot of it.
The contractions welled up from deeper inside her this time, like she’d been primed, her muscles warmed up, and now her entire body was in on it, pulsing and contracting and beating in time to a rhythm that quickly overtook her whole being.
She rattled the leads against the headboard.
“Goddamn, you are beautiful,” she heard Chance say.
His hands were on her body then, soft and firm, rubbing down her trembling muscles, warming her damp skin. It seemed like a long time before she floated back into the present.
“How are your arms and legs?” he asked. “How’s your circulation?”
Lena licked her lips. She could talk. Probably.
“I’m ok,” she said.
“Good.”
And then she felt it: more lube. He pushed the vibrator back into her vagina in one savage thrust, and Lena moaned. She was past anything, any thought, and fight, just ready to take whatever he would give her.
God, it felt good.
The plug moved slightly, and she realized he was pulling it out, and for just a second she was disappointed. Just a second. And then more cool lube, this time on her asshole, and Chance’s strong, patient fingers, working it into her flesh, testing her.
She could feel it too—she was stretched.
Ready.
Oh God.
“Take a deep breath,” he said.
His cock pressed against the tight ring and immediately she thought, I can’t. Too much. Too big. With the vibe in her vagina she honestly didn’t know if she could do this, but she wanted him, so, so badly. She gulped down air and tried to remember: breathe, bear down, relax.
He pushed into her with that same pop, that same ohnoicant followed by more. She wanted more. She could tell it was just the head of him, that he wasn’t seated deeply inside. The pressure, the need, was almost unbearable.
“Cha
nce,” she croaked.
“Slow,” he said.
More lube. He forced himself farther inside her, making her yelp and pull at her restraints. It felt too big, and yet she wanted more. She was stretched to the limit, so full she could burst, and all she wanted was for him to move.
“Almost,” he said.
One last push, and Lena thought she would break. Her eyes were wide open behind her blindfold, her mouth open in a silent cry, overwhelmed by the stretch…
And then that faded, and she was left with every single muscle in her body primed and tight, ready for release. She needed him. Now.
“Chance…”
The blindfold came off. Lena blinked into the light, adjusting. Chance hovered over her, supported by his two strong arms on either side, his eyes…
“Look at me.”
She locked her eyes with his and he started to move. Slowly. So, so slowly, his eyes never leaving hers. She didn’t think to speak, wouldn’t have known what to say if she had. She didn’t need to. Everything she needed was right there in front of her.
He rocked her to another shattering orgasm.
Her memory was spotty for a time after that. She remembered that he carried her to the shower, after she was too weak to stand, and cleaned them both. She remembered him holding her, like he always did afterwards. She remembered thinking how lucky she was to fall asleep in those arms.
She tried to think of all these things when she woke up in the middle of the night, next to Chance, and felt the panic.
It wasn’t the same as all those other times; it wasn’t primarily defensive. It was raw. It was that, in the aftermath of all that, Lena didn’t have the strength to lie to herself. And when all those defenses fell away, what she was left with was the bare truth that she loved him.
It was terrifying.
It was beautiful, and happy, and full of so much promise and risk, and it was terrifying. She tried it out in her head first: I love him.
Yup.
Still true. And she didn’t have a panic attack—not quite.
She lay awake for hours trying to get up the strength to say it. Chance slept next to her on his side, one huge arm thrown over her body. Just his arm was heavy enough that she had to move it off of her chest so she could breathe. She cuddled into him, her face close to his, and watched him sleep.
Then she tried it.
“I love you, too,” she whispered.
Her chest tightened, her lungs felt like they had a hole in them, but she tried to quell it, stop it before it could take root. It was an epic struggle taking place in her relatively tiny body, silent and immobile, weak and strong at the same time.
The one thought she couldn’t kill, the one thing that kept returning to bring the dread and the panic back, was this: love wasn’t enough. He said he loved her, but he hadn’t had to deal with her too long. He hadn’t had to deal with her freaking out the way she was now.
She hadn’t even been able to say it back. None of it was fair. None of it was what he deserved.
Even worse? That slow, creeping feeling that she wasn’t able to hold off any longer, the one telling her to run away and hide before she got hurt again—that need to flee wasn’t fair to Chance, either.
Lena felt a tear run down the side of her face.
“I need to talk to Thea,” she whispered.
chapter 24
Lena might have thought twice about knocking on Thea’s door in the middle of the night if her lights weren’t all on. That was unusual; Thea wasn’t really a night owl.
It was only when Thea opened the door in a nightgown that Lena got worried.
“Thea, I’m sorry, I know it’s the middle of the night, I just—”
“You know you’re lucky I’m alone?” Thea said, not quite able to keep herself from smiling.
That shut Lena up.
“Wait, really?”
“I’m not dead, honey, I do still converse with other human beings from time to time. I’ll tell you all about him in a second. Let me make some tea, and then you can tell me all about whatever’s got you up in the middle of the night.”
Just being in Thea’s kitchen was a relief. Thea, who was the one person she had let her guard down around besides Chance, and that had taken years of hanging out with the woman daily. Lena always imagined that this was how comforting chats with your mother were supposed to go—a warm kitchen, tea, someone who knew you better than you knew yourself. She considered herself lucky that she got a second shot to have them, this time with someone who actually cared about her.
She had no idea what she’d do without Thea.
“What’s wrong with your arm?” Lena asked.
Thea was favoring her left arm, holding it close to her body like she’d hurt it. Tea was marginally harder to make in that position.
“It’s nothing,” Thea said, shrugging. “Just been bothering me today. Part of getting older.”
“You going to tell me about your boyfriend?”
Thea turned and scowled. “Don’t make it sound like I’m thirteen. It’s much more dignified than that.”
Lena’s jaw dropped.
“Ha!” Thea cackled. “Dignified. Yeah, I went down to the country club and snagged the fattest guy chomping down on a cigar I could find. Please, Lena.”
“You are acting thirteen, FYI.”
“My prerogative. Falling in love makes you dumb at any age.”
Lena put down her tea, unable to keep herself from smiling. “In love?”
Thea put her nose up in the air and dunked a cookie into her tea. “Well, what do you think I’ve been doing while you’ve been off having some sexual adventure? Sitting at home?”
“Where did you find him? A casino? A strip club? An underground cockfight?”
Thea laughed again, and it made her look about ten years younger until she coughed slightly. She sipped her tea slowly, but Lena didn’t miss the frown on her face. She didn’t know what to make of it.
“The beach. He was painting the most hideous portraits, and when I realized he thought they were funny, I asked him out.”
“Name?”
“John.”
“Age?”
“Hush.”
“Occupation?”
“World’s most fabulous man. No, silly, he’s retired. Used to be a stockbroker, now he has a houseboat.”
“A houseboat! Are you guys going to go on cruises? Like up and down the coast?”
Thea narrowed her eyes over her teacup, and the effect was impressively menacing. Lena knew she’d been caught.
“You didn’t come over here to talk about my love life or houseboats,” Thea said. “Now you’re just avoiding. Out with it, while I’m still young.”
Lena looked down; she had destroyed her napkin, tearing it up into tiny little pieces. She hadn’t touched her cookie. And she could feel the constriction building in her chest.
“You’re lost your mind over Chance, haven’t you?” Thea asked.
“How did you know?”
“Please. Look at you. I’ve never seen you so wrapped up in anything that you didn’t call for weeks at a time. You look like you haven’t slept in ages, and now you look miserable. Obviously it’s love.”
Lena grimaced. Yeah, Thea was more right than she knew. Love was the whole problem.
“He told me he loves me,” she whispered.
Thea stared at her. Finally, she said, “Let me get my mourning dress.”
“C’mon, be nice, Thea. I’m really messed up over this.”
“Because you love him, too?”
Lena sighed. “Yes.”
“You know, for most people this doesn’t constitute a problem,” Thea said.
“I know. That’s why it is a problem. I’m too much of a mess. I just…I can’t do that to him.”
Lena didn’t want to see her friend’s face as she said that, maybe because she was afraid it was as stupid as it sounded, maybe because she was just too raw already. That’s how she missed w
hat happened next.
~ * ~ * ~
Chance woke up and instantly knew Lena was gone.
It was the strangest thing—like a transfer of the kind of situational awareness he remembered from military missions. He just knew. Gone. His mind ran efficiently through all the possibilities. Most probably she was reverting to “irrevocably skittish” form; most likely destination: Thea’s house. He would find her, they’d talk. It was time to stop coddling her.
He hunted down his phone and sent Thea a single text message: “She with you? She ok?”
~ * ~ * ~
Lena thought Thea was just prolonging the silence to make a point. To let the ridiculousness of Lena’s fears sink in. Stubbornly, she rinsed her teacup out extra thoroughly, feeling dumber by the minute.
When she turned around, Thea was pale. Short of breath. Clutching at her arm.
Funny how fear works. That moment seemed to last forever.
“Thea?” Lena asked. “Thea, what’s happening?”
Thea shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “Can’t breathe. My chest…tight…”
Thea wasn’t even sitting upright now, just slumped over the table, like she didn’t have the strength. Lena was petrified. She fumbled for a phone, sure one moment that this was an emergency, sure the next that Thea would recover in a second and make fun of her for panicking. The operator picked up and Lena felt such a rush of relief as she explained the situation, sure that the operator was going to tell her they’d send someone, but probably it was fine, Thea was going to be fine, everything—everything was fine.
“An ambulance is on the way. Do you have any aspirin in the house?”
Lena felt cold. Aspirin.
Thea was having a heart attack.
~ * ~ * ~
Chance must have been in the shower when the ambulance came, because he didn’t hear the sirens. If he’d heard the sirens, he would have known right away. As it was, he came out in his towel and saw the lights, the red and blue lights, so weakly reflecting off the wall on the roof garden that he might have missed them.
He felt ice cold.