by Helena Maeve
Ward’s gaze was more pitying than cruel, as though he was disappointed that she had confirmed his suspicions. Perhaps he would’ve preferred staunch denials. Perhaps he expected Hazel to make a scene. But what would be the point?
His forbearing sigh did nothing to shift the chill that had slithered into Hazel’s bones.
“A dance, Ms. Whitley. Nothing more.”
Hazel made herself move. Dance, monkey, dance. Inside, she was screaming.
Chapter Six
The Tesla slid to a seamless stop. The engine’s subsonic hum gave way to silence. Cars still whistled past them, rattling the sedan with their speed.
Hazel startled when Dylan took her hand.
“You’re very quiet tonight,” he opined. It was a tentative overture and so unlike the man who’d brazenly written his phone number out on a cheap paper napkin—or picked Sadie up in a fetish club. “Is everything—?”
“Just tired, I guess.” The lie had legs. She’d worked from eight that morning to six in the evening. She hadn’t had much of a weekend. She’d spent the evening making nice with Dylan’s boyfriend-cum-roommate.
“Want me to drive you home?”
Dylan’s offer seemed genuine, much like the rest of him, but Hazel shook her head.
She followed Dylan out of the car, shivering a little until he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her against his flank. They had to part again to negotiate the stairs, but just for a moment, Hazel could inhale his cologne and revel in his body heat. Her vision blurred.
This could never work.
She’d blinked away the tears by the time Dylan led them into the loft. It was, as Ward had boasted, a large, sprawling apartment. The scant, sleek furniture made it seem even grander. Everything, from the bare brick walls to the curtain-less windows, was utilitarian, cold. A metal staircase right of the front door led up to a second story. Ward’s domain, Hazel guessed.
Her heels made soft clicking noises on the bare hardwood floors. She’d spotted the austere, grunge-chic lines when she’d come to pick Sadie up all those weeks before. Being inside was a different story, though. There was a game console under the TV, for one thing. And a pizza carton rested conspicuously on the kitchen island.
“Do you want something to drink?” Dylan asked, sliding the front door shut and securing the latch. “I have coffee—”
“I want to see your playroom.”
He froze, a deer in the headlights look snagging on his features. “Okay…” He flicked a hand toward a corridor left of the door. As best Hazel could tell, the loft wrapped around the main stairwell, more L-shaped than strictly square. Bookshelves lined the walls, overflowing with brick-size paperbacks. Hazel kept an eye out for de Sade, but all she could make out were mystery writers.
Someone—either Dylan or Ward—had an obvious fondness for Agatha Christie.
The bedroom Dylan led her into was in no way extraordinary. Between the four white-painted walls and the gray rug, Hazel wondered if she’d been duped. The walnut-framed bed didn’t even have a headboard. She noticed Sleeping Murder on the nightstand, though, which elucidated the enigma of the bookshelves outside.
Yet Dylan didn’t stop in the bedroom. He marched to one of four doors leading out of the room and turned the handle. Hazel glimpsed bare brick and a St. Andrew’s cross.
Jackpot.
Insides churning uncomfortably, she trailed Dylan to the doorframe. That niggling voice at the back of her mind dared her to step over the threshold. It goaded. Hazel slid a foot forward, then the other, and let out a noisy breath.
“In case it’s not obvious,” Dylan said, “you should know I had no intention of concluding our evening in here.”
“Why not?” Hazel shot over her shoulder. Some men mounted stag heads or foot-long trout on their walls. Dylan had hung up whips and paddles and floggers of every size. Judging by the chains that crisscrossed the ceiling, he wasn’t averse to a little suspension play to go with the hardcore impact fun.
“It would be a little presumptuous, for one thing… And we haven’t talked about this.”
“What’s there to talk about?”
Dylan shifted his weight, the impeccable lines of his worsted wool suit rustling as he stuck his hands into his trouser pockets. “Are you interested in kink?”
“Yes.” The answer was a sigh. Yes, she was interested. Yes, she was terrified. Hazel picked up a pair of padded leather handcuffs. “Looks like I’m not the only one.”
The tension in the room ratcheted up a notch as Dylan bridged the gap between them with a few short steps. He closed his hand around Hazel’s, trapping the cuffs in the palm of her hand. The spicy, earthy tones of his cologne seeped into her lungs as though her skin was permeable. His scent snared her. She tipped forward.
Dylan stopped her with a hand at her waist. “Are you sure about this?”
“Positive.” There might not be another chance, if Ward got his way.
His gaze darted probingly over her face. Hazel fought not to look away. She was sure he could feel her pulse racing in her wrist.
“What’s your safe word?”
His voice rippled down her spine like a pin digging into a particularly sensitive nerve.
“Um… Nothing comes to mind.”
It wasn’t a lie. Her hindbrain had taken over the minute she’d stepped over the threshold. Everything here was a turn-on and everything was triggering. If Dylan released her hand, she was sure she’d fall to her knees.
Dylan frowned. “Do you know the stoplight system? Red for stop, green for go, yellow if you’re not sure?”
“I do now.” And because talking was becoming difficult, Hazel leaned in and pressed her lips to his. She’d been yearning to kiss him since they’d parted ways last night. She might have dreamed of it if not for liquor swaddling her thoughts in black.
Except that wasn’t true. Everyone dreams, some people just don’t remember. And for the most part, Hazel was relieved when she’d woken up with mind blank and no creeping revulsion in the pit of her stomach.
When she was awake, she could beat back the unfortunate sensation of wanting something she knew she couldn’t have.
Dylan tightened his hand in her hair.
“That’s enough from you,” he rasped, voice dropping an octave.
The rebuke elicited a small shiver, but nothing near as bad as the full-body shiver that arced through her when Dylan broke away. He circled like a hawk. The hand he’d used to clasp her waist slid down to the small of her back, then up again, over the line of the concealed zipper to seize the plastic stub at her nape. He tugged it down slowly, metal teeth clicking open one by one, until the dress fell open.
Hazel flexed her hands at her sides. If she were slimmer, the fabric would just glide down her body. She could kick it aside, and stand there looking sexy in her black lingerie.
At least this time she’d had the foresight to make sure her bra and underwear matched. A pity she’d forgotten about the girdle.
It was a revolting, scratchy torture device the color of dishwater. Heat flooded her cheeks as Dylan eased the dress the rest of the way down her thighs. He gave a sharp tug when it caught on her hips and the fabric obediently slid loose. Hazel fanned her toes inside her pumps for balance. She thought about sucking in her stomach, but that wouldn’t do any good.
“I’m sorry,” tore out of her before she could bite back the sentiment.
Dylan’s touch stilled at the edge of the girdle. “For?”
He was going to make her say it? “I’m wearing this goddamn thing.” I bet Sadie doesn’t need one. I bet you peeled her out of her clothes like something out of a movie. Bitterness choked her.
Maybe this was a mistake.
Dylan slid a knuckle under her chin and forced her to meet his gaze. “Did I say you could speak?”
Air left Hazel’s breath in a rush. “No.”
“No,” he repeated. The order was implicit. So don’t.
He trailed a fingert
ip down the bumps in her spine, only pausing to unclasp her bra. By the time he’d reached her ample hips again, his breath was already gusting hot against Hazel’s nape. He hooked two fingers in the sides of the girdle and rolled it down. The elastic fibers snagged on her curves. Hazel’s cheeks warmed, then numbed when she felt Dylan breathe out a laugh.
“Making me work for it, I see…” He kissed the slope of her shoulder.
Hazel shivered, mortification only two-thirds of the feelings roiling in the pit of her stomach. Only once it had passed her thighs did the girdle roll down her legs and slip the rest of the way off. The black bra followed soon after, robbing her of much needed padding.
The sudden urge to cover up came and went without Hazel doing anything to assuage it.
“I like the pantyhose,” Dylan purred, raking his fingernails over her hips as if to amplify the whisper of silk and skin. “But I think I’d like you better without them.”
Hazel disagreed, but somehow the comeback stuck in her throat. Already she was relearning the rules about not speaking unless asked a direct question. It should have frightened her that she could so easily fit back into that mold.
It didn’t.
Dylan crouched to roll her stockings down, pausing only when he reached her ankles. Goosebumps bloomed over Hazel’s skin as he helped her out of the black pumps. The floor was warm beneath her toes. Perhaps a hot water pipe passed underneath. Anything was possible with these old buildings—including paper-thin walls.
Hazel bit her lower lip when she felt Dylan stroke his hands up the backs of her knees. Her legs nearly buckled.
“Ticklish?” Dylan asked and Hazel could hear the smile in his voice. “Good to know.”
Did he not have eyes? Was he disappointed that she wasn’t as slim and toned as Sadie? Did he regret bringing her here in the first place?
Thoughts obliterated as he stood with a sigh and pressed his clothed, perfect body against her back. Hazel bit back a moan, swaying listlessly. She could feel his cock through his slacks. His hard cock.
Dylan slid an arm around her waist and pressed his lips to her ear. “Do you like to be told what we’re going to do or do you want it to be a surprise?”
“Tell me,” Hazel got out tremulously, figuring she was permitted to speak as long as she was answering a direct question. She didn’t know what she liked—not anymore—but now wasn’t the time to have that conversation. There was a very real danger that Dylan might stop if she brought it up.
He brushed a lock of hair from Hazel’s shoulder, baring her neck to his lips. “I’d like to tie your hands over your head and go down on you. How does that sound?”
Pretty fucking amazing. Hazel swallowed hard. “I’d like that.”
She could feel him grinning into her shoulder blade.
“Good.” He took the handcuffs from her hand and slid one leather manacle around her wrist. If he noticed her shiver as he fastened the buckle, he didn’t let on.
Hazel inhaled sharply as he guided her arms up and over her head, clipping the length of chain between them to a hook in the ceiling.
“Give it a tug,” Dylan whispered in her ear.
She did. The leather bit into the skin, but because the cuffs covered so much width, it felt more like an Indian burn than a sharp, piercing sting. Most importantly, the hook held fast. Hazel felt a panicky whimper build in her chest. She had just allowed a man she barely knew to tie her up in his scary, BDSM dungeon. She was all but naked, on display before him like a piece of meat.
And though Sadie knew she’d gone out to dinner with Dylan and his ‘friend’, she didn’t know that Hazel had wound up at Dylan’s. She wouldn’t know to come here.
She wouldn’t get here in time.
In time for what?
Hazel’s worst fears were a hazy, amorphous what if, her thoughts snarling into a tangled web as the pressure in her chest intensified.
The dread building at her core nearly spilled out.
Then Dylan stepped into her field of vision, peeling off his jacket. Nothing remotely scary about him. He was the same guy who’d done dishes at her apartment out of some bizarre notion of chivalry. He’d refused to sleep with her because she’d had a couple of drinks.
Those wicked black eyes were crinkled when he turned back to face Hazel, sleeves rucked up to the elbow and his throat bobbing with ill-disguised excitement.
“I can hear you thinking from all the way over here… You nervous?”
Hazel shook her head, hair spilling over her shoulder in curling strands. She was so hyper-aware that even the idle touch of his hand brushing the ringlets away from her face sent a zing of pleasure straight to her cunt.
“Good. You shouldn’t be.” Dylan dragged his fingertips down the swell of her breast, cautiously avoiding her nipple. He smirked when Hazel squirmed, swaying languidly between floor and ceiling hook, and laughed when she moaned as he pinched her nipple between thumb and forefinger. “Something to say? By all means, don’t edit yourself.”
He scraped the blunt side of his nail into the sensitive nub of flesh, waiting for her whimper before letting go.
“You and I are going to have so much fun together.”
Was that a backhanded compliment? Before Hazel could make up her mind, he was repeating the process with her other breast, alternating achingly sweet caresses with sharp, painful castigation. Hazel rocked back on her heels, torn between wanting to arch her back and offer herself up for more, and inching back as far as her bonds allowed to escape the torment.
Dylan made her mind up by wrapping an arm around her waist, fingers splayed against the swell of her ass, and dipping his mouth to her chest. If Hazel thought him kissing her lips was breathtaking, she’d been too quick to judge. Warmth pooled low in her belly, gushing out as she curled her toes into the floor.
“Oh, fuck, yes…” A ragged breath tore out of her lungs—close to, but not quite, a moan.
She never thought she could come from someone playing with her nipples before—the very idea seemed like Cosmo levels of pseudo-science—but with Dylan rolling his tongue against her flesh, she began to revise that firm denial. Every swipe of his teeth, every wet, mind-blowing suck had her inner muscles clenching around thin air, cunt begging to be filled. Her clit throbbed in time with the pendulum flick of Dylan’s tongue. And just as her pleas rose to a crescendo, he pulled away.
Hazel groaned, breaths knifing in and out of her chest. “Bastard.”
“Careful,” he warned. “I have gags in here, too, you know.”
Adrenaline pumping through her veins, Hazel found the oft-traveled road to alarm easy to scale. She sucked her lips between her teeth, clamping her jaw shut.
Dylan took her chin. “That’s better.” The kiss he planted on her cheek was gentle and wet. “Wouldn’t want to have to punish you, would we?”
Hazel didn’t know if it was safe to shake her head, so she didn’t. I’m at his mercy. He calls the shots. I obey. It would’ve been simple to do, if that little voice at the back of her mind didn’t keep up a steady stream of taunts whenever she started to get too comfortable in her bonds. Look at you, independent woman… A little overweight, a little desperate. You think you’re the kind of chick he usually goes for? You’re an exotic dish. He’ll want someone like Sadie when he’s done with you. A palate cleanser.
“Don’t cross your legs,” Dylan said, a note of caution in his voice.
Hazel hadn’t even realized she was doing it. She had to force her knees apart as Dylan knelt in front of her. Could he see that fleshy bit over her hip bones? Duh. What about the dimples in her thighs, the ones that women’s magazines kept telling her to exercise out every summer?
Obviously.
She wheezed when he kissed her knee, wrapping her hands around the metal chain that held her suspended. The links clicked like wind chimes. Dylan must’ve heard, because she felt him grin into the plump bit of flesh along her inner thigh.
“Anticipation is a terrible thing,�
�� he teased. “Absolutely terrible.”
He went on to prove it as he painted a trail of soft, chaste kisses all the way to the apex of her thighs, then down again over her other leg. Despite her misgivings, Hazel felt arousal gush out of her, more turned on than she’d been in years. This was what she liked, how she liked it—the loss of control, breathtakingly scary and scarily easy to give into.
Dylan stroked a fingertip along the seam of her black panties, avoiding the crotch until Hazel trembled before him.
“Look at you, sopping wet and practically begging to be touched… Is this what you want?” He dug a knuckle between her folds, wet cotton dulling the sensation even as he zeroed in on her clit.
Hazel bucked into that single point of pressure, a gasp catching pitifully in her throat.
“You’d settle for something to grind against, you greedy little slut. Wouldn’t you?” He removed his hand and Hazel lurched forward, chains clinking overhead.
When she didn’t answer fast enough, Dylan lightly smacked her inner thigh.
“Yes,” Hazel gasped. “Yes, please. Anything.” It scared her that he’d struck her. It scared her even more that she’d enjoyed it.
It wasn’t so long ago that she would’ve begged for a spanking.
She wasn’t far from it now, but Dylan’s orders on whether or not she was allowed to speak were contradictory, distracting. She couldn’t risk it.
“Is that right? Anything? And here I thought you wanted me to get you off with my tongue…” He ducked his head against her cotton-covered pussy before she could reply and did just that.
Hazel whined, a decidedly unattractive sound, body going rigid under his ministrations. “Oh, God… Don’t stop.” So much for following orders.
Dylan didn’t seem to be listening, because after just a few deliciously precise swipes of the tongue, he pulled back again. His lips were red, chin slick with her juices. “I said I’d go down on you,” he remarked, albeit a little choked. “I didn’t say I’d get you off.”
Dismay sank like a block of cement in Hazel’s gut. “No, please…” The churning pleasure building at her core ebbed back. Hazel panted. “Please. Come on. You have to.”