He loved me. And, as much as I tried to deny it, I needed that. I needed him.
My fingers slowly released the blanket and my hands crept up over his shoulders, my arms wrapping tightly around him and pressing myself close.
“Stay with me, Brynn. I don’t want anyone but you. And I don’t want you to be anyone but you. I want all of it. Come home… come home with me.”
I could only nod slightly, my face pressed tightly against his neck. Breathing in his air and fortifying myself with his strength.
His arms tightened around me, cradling my head in one of his large hands. “I won’t let you go again. No matter how hard you push me. No matter how hard you try to pull away. You’ll never convince me that I’m better off without you. Because I’m shit without you.” He pressed a hard kiss to my temple. “I’ll fight for you, even if it means fighting you for you.”
He pulled back to look down at me, cupping my face in his hands and brushing away the tears sweetly with his thumbs.
“I love you,” I whispered. “I’ll try to be good, but I can’t promise I’ll make it easy on you.”
“I think I can take you,” he smiled.
Those words from so long ago, from the floor of the gym when all this had really started, were such a culmination of the path we’d traveled to get here.
For the first time in a long time, I wasn’t afraid of being myself.
And I wasn’t scared of loving him.
Three days later, I desperately begged to get out of the hospital. I wanted away from the machines and the hard-as-fuck hospital mattress.
I wanted to go home.
With Kian.
They discharged him the day I woke up. The nurse who checked my vitals every morning said they’d have discharged him a lot sooner, but that he was almost catatonic while I was still out. He’d simply sat by my bed, holding my hand, murmuring that he loved me and he needed me. They’d actually worried about his sanity, even to the point of considering a psych consult to determine if he’d cracked.
She also told me that, when I’d woken up, it seemed like he had, too. Like we were two halves of a whole.
I kinda felt like we were, too.
He’d taken a bullet for me, after all.
True to form, part of me still felt guilty about that.
But part of me thought it was really hot.
“Well, I think you’re going to live,” Dr. Foster smiled over her glasses at me. “Just try not to exert yourself too much. And, if you are doing anything even slightly active, you should wear your sling and keep your arm immobile.”
Kian chuckled, drawing my attention. With a wicked smile he murmured, “I’ll make sure she keeps that arm immobile.” His tone was teasing, but the light in his eyes was full of the promise of a deep violet rope.
I had to get the fuck out of this hospital. Right. The. Fuck. Away. Because when Kian looked at me like that, I desperately wanted to wrap myself up inside him, to meld my body with his and feel his life pulsing inside me. It was everything I could do not to shove the good doctor out of the room and fuck him silly.
Dr. Foster didn’t appear to hear his comment, in spite of the warm flush that flared through my cheeks. Either that or she chose to ignore him. She continued to peruse my charts, giving me a few last instructions. Then she signed off on the discharge papers and called the nurse in to process my release.
Sage had arrived a short time ago with a bag of clothes she’d packed for me. My apartment was a crime scene, so I wasn’t able to go home yet.
Not that I wanted to.
Kian had asked – well, ordered, really – that I go home with him.
Often, his orders were counterproductive where I was concerned. They tended to set me off, rile me up. But I didn’t even have it in me to pretend to defy him. Because I wanted nothing more than to be with him.
Mattie sat on my lap as they wheeled me through the doors into the cool autumn breeze outside. A gust of wind stole our breath for a moment, and Mattie began to flap her soft little arms.
“Look, mommy!” she grinned up at Sage. “I’m just like Fluttershy!”
Kian looked down at me in question.
“Pony?”
Sage and I both nodded and laughed.
“Pony,” we giggled in unison.
The thing was, I totally got how Mattie felt. My soul had been released. The ache and loneliness had finally faded away, and I had the incredible urge to spread my own wings and fly.
Chapter 24 ~ Patterns
Amazing ~ Aerosmith
Feel Again ~ OneRepublic
Brynn
Within a week of being home at Kian’s, I almost wanted to go back to the hospital. He was handling me with kid gloves, making sure I was comfortable, that there wasn’t any pain.
Silly guy. I was dying for a little pain.
As we sat on the couch watching football, he was incredibly restless. Wound up. Asking me if I needed something to drink. Asking me if I needed a blanket. Was I sure I didn’t? Because it was a little chilly. He wondered if he should turn up the heat.
I wanted to scream bloody murder.
Finally, I started to stand.
“Wait,” he said. “Where are you going? What do you need? You take it easy, and I’ll get it for you.”
“I need to go to the bathroom, Kian,” I sighed as I walked down the hallway towards the master suite. “I think I can handle that myself.”
As I came out of the bathroom, my gaze caught the dresser. The tall dresser along the far wall. The one with that drawer.
I loved when Kian went for this drawer. And it had been so long. Since before I freaked. Before Evan and the hospital. We’d been intimate since we’d been home, and it was intense and sweet. But, God, so vanilla. I was craving more.
I opened the drawer and looked inside. A few key items caught my eye right away.
My Doc Johnson.
And a couple lovely, neatly coiled lengths of a deep purple rope.
Lifting one coil, I skimmed my fingers along the braided stiff cord. We’d only used it a few times since that amazing, intense night that he first brought me here. But a shiver of longing coursed through me as remembered the way it teased my skin, how it bit into all those little pressure points, those erogenous zones that I never even really knew existed. I closed my eyes and I could almost feel it, that blissful trance he could take me to.
A slight sound at the doorway caused me to turn my head to see Kian standing there. I could read the conflict in his eyes. His hunger.
Turning fully towards him, I slowly offered him the rope.
“You sure you’re ready for that?”
All those simple little bodily functions to keep me alive suddenly became an exercise in concentration. Every heartbeat rattled against my chest. My breathing became labored, and my tongue instinctively wet my lips. I nodded slowly.
He stepped closer to me and slipped the deep purple coil from my hand. “Take your clothes off, Brynn,” he said with a thick voice as he stepped back and sat on the bed, watching me closely.
My fingertips rose to the buttons on the shirt I was wearing, a thick flannel shirt of his that I’d put on to curl up on the couch. Kian was about three times my body mass, and the shirt nearly reached my knees. Under it, I only wore some tiny lace panties and a pair of thick wool socks that bunched around my ankles.
While he’d approved of the whole no-jeans thing, he also insisted on the socks to ensure I’d be warm enough.
As I reached the last button, the cooler air of the room around me teased the newly bared skin of my breastbone, down my stomach. I parted the shirt and slowly lowered it from my shoulders. My bandage came into view, and Kian’s face darkened slightly. He stood and stepped towards me, standing there in only some tiny lace panties and slouchy wool socks, and his fingertips gently skimmed over the dressed wound. His eyebrows furrowed, and his breathing hitched ever so slightly.
I stepped forward and undid the buttons on his shirt as we
ll, working it down over his shoulders until he was bare-chested. Sliding my arms up over his shoulders, I pulled myself up against him gently, aligning our bandages. My fingertips cradled his face, nudging slightly for him to look at me.
“I love you. You saved me,” I whispered as I pressed my lips to his for a sweet, gentle kiss. “And I don’t mean this shit with Evan. I mean… me. You saved me from myself. From my fear. My loneliness.” I kissed him again and smiled against his lips. “Now tie me up and fuck me.”
With a deep chuckle rumbling through his chest, he tossed the rope to the bed, then lifted me slightly to set me beside it.
“And Kian?” I breathed. “Make it hurt.”
“Okay, baby, but doctor’s orders. I need to immobilize that arm.” He cradled my face in his hands for a hard kiss. “Kneel,” he murmured against my lips.
I complied, then held my arms out in front of me, and he guided my motions to bend them, lining my forearms up so my right hand held my left elbow and vice versa. Slowly, he uncoiled the rope, intently looking down at me. “You’ve gotta tell me if it hurts too much, though, okay? What’s your word, Brynn?”
“Hyper,” I whispered.
One more firm touch of his lips, and he began to wind the rope around my arms, twisting them into an entangled criss-cross pattern, then looping the rough purple cord around my waist to secure my forearms just below my breasts.
“Turn around,” he quietly commanded, nudging my shoulders. His large hands steadied me as I complied, turning to kneel away from him, giving him access to my back. I looked down at the dark cord that held my arms steady and tight against my torso.
“Why do you use purple?” My voice was quiet, barely audible as I stood still and breathless watching our reflection in the mirror. “I was reading something online about this, and it’s generally a natural color.”
“When you were sick,” he said softly as he tenuously worked behind me, “and I came to check on you. Your apartment was so… bland. It was like you didn’t even live there. But then, I took you into your room, and everything was so purple.”
“I didn’t want to decorate much,” I explained breathlessly. The warm sensation of the binding was beginning to course through my veins, causing me to feel ever so lightheaded. I could feel him weaving the rope against my spine, creating a woven pattern that pressed rough twists against the magic little places that felt so amazing. “Didn’t want more stuff than I could fit in my car. In case I needed to get out quick.”
Kian tensed and paused for a moment before he lightly kissed my shoulder, following it with a sharp, fast bite. A small moan escaped my lips, and my head fell back. His voice was gruff and sexy as he murmured in my ear. “After I saw your bedroom, everything purple reminded me of you. I immediately went out and bought the purple rope. I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to use it on you. Didn’t know if you’d be into it. But I hoped…”
With a small nip at my earlobe that jolted straight to my sex, he lifted me to lay me down on the bed below him. He threaded the rope down along the cleft of my ass, crossing and twisting it up just above my clit, and the pressure drew a ragged moan from my lungs. Kian’s hands wound the rough cording around my thighs and calves, spreading my legs wide and tightening the ropes to draw my ankles up tight against my ass. After a heady sweep of his tongue up my throbbing sex, he stood straight above me to gaze hotly down at my bound form. Totally confined. Waiting blissfully for his possession. My eyelids felt heavy, and my entire body floated with a combination of need and serenity.
He stepped back to the dresser to grab another length of rope, looping it up through a link at the top rail of the heavy bedframe. Watching me closely, he strung it through small loops of my binding at my shoulders, up through another link of the frame.
“Tell me if this pulls at your wound, baby, okay?”
I nodded, to breathless to even talk, and he began to steadily pull at the thick braided cord. I felt my body begin to rise. All the twists of coarse rope pressed headily along my spine, biting at my inner thighs. My breath caught and shuddered. He tied the rope to a thick iron cleat on the heavy bedpost.
“You okay, baby?”
I nodded.
“Tell me your safe word, Brynn.”
“I don’t want you to stop.” My voice rushed out, frantic and needy.
“I’m just making sure you’re still with me. Say it.”
“Hyper,” I whispered. “Please… don’t stop, Kian.”
“Okay, baby.” I could hear the faint smile in his voice, mixed with a heated passion. “Since you begged so nicely.” Looping a length of rope through a twist at my ankle, he wove it into the first that held me, the stringing it through another hook and pulling. One of my knees began to rise, tightening the intertwined strands over my sex as it pulled my thighs further apart. He deftly knotted the lengths of rope that held me, securing them along with the first rope.
My body felt completely weightless. Surreal. My mind was in a haze, and my head fell back as I welcomed the trance this suspension had lifted me into. I faintly heard the sounds of him shucking his jeans, and then felt the heat of his hands on my thighs. Up over my breasts. Carefully caressing my bandage.
“This okay?” he asked softly.
“Yes,” I breathed out.
Kian’s hands slid down to my hips and his body brushed along my inner thighs. Slowly, I felt the heat of his hard length fill me, slick and smooth. He began slowly, gently. Swinging me lightly in the ropes. Every movement shot thrills of ecstasy through me from the twists of rope and the heat of his cock inside me.
“Fuck, Brynn,” he ground out. “I missed this. You feel so good. I love when you trance.”
The thrusts grew stronger and faster, building the pressure inside me. One of his hands left its place at my hip, and the thumb pressed hard circles around my clit before he pinched at the sensitive bud. A desperate cry wrenched from my lips, and my body began to tremble. I was so close, reveling in the sensation of his cock filling and stretching me as he smoothly guided my body to swing against him. Another pinch, and I exploded around him with a scream, trembling and sobbing. A few more strokes, drawing out my orgasm, and then he shot off inside me, a silky wet wash that spilled through my body.
Kian lowered me to the bed and released my binding. Something about the release of my bonds always brought tears to my eyes. It was so freeing and painful all at the same time. He held me tightly, pressing soft kisses to my tearstained cheeks. “Made for me…” he whispered. “My Brynn.”
After tucking me into the softness of his flannel sheets, he left me momentarily to shut off the television and turn off the lights. The hallway light spilled dimly into the room.
Lethargically, I lifted a hand to brush a strand of hair back from my face. In the shadows and faint light, I noted the marks from the rope down my arm. Indentations in my skin from the sweet pressure. I traced along one line with the fingertip of my other hand, then pulled back the soft flannel sheets to view the rest of my body. A criss-cross pattern spread down my abdomen with deeper marks where the ropes had been twisted. Along my hips, perfectly spaced across my thighs.
My mind flitted back to the sensation of the ropes along my back, and I rose to stand before the full-length mirror on the closet door. Twisting slightly, I could see them over my shoulder. An intricate pattern that decorated my back, over the curve of my ass, and down my thighs.
“Brynn?” Kian stood in the doorway, softly and carefully watching me.
Looking at his reflection in the mirror, I couldn’t trust my voice to speak. A swell of emotion grew inside me, and every bit of my brain was concentrating on breathing, on my heartbeat. A small tremor escaped and rippled through my body, releasing in a shuddery breath.
Kian crossed the room to stand behind me, his piercing eyes conveying concern at my trembling silence. “You okay, baby?” he asked as his warm hands rested at my hips.
I leaned back against his solid strength, resting my head ag
ainst him as my fingertips traced the lines across my abdomen and over my breasts. Kian watched closely as they trailed over my skin, his body taught and wary.
“It’s beautiful,” I finally whispered.
His lips pressed against the curve of my neck as his hands slid over my body to cover mine. But his eyes never left my reflection as he guided our fingertips over my skin. Every caress warmed me and kindled a deep visceral sense of belonging inside me.
Slowly, I turned in his arms, sliding my hands up his chest to frame his face. His eyes spoke volumes, conveying possession and pride, a little bit of concern. I pulled at him slightly guiding his lips to mine for a soft kiss.
Kian slowly led me back to bed, nudging me softly to lay down below him. With a tender expression, he gazed down at my nakedness while his fingertips reverently trailed across my body, following the faint lines from the bindings, pressing more firmly at each indentation from the rough, twisted cord.
I leaned up to kiss him lightly. “Thank you.” My voice was barely audible against his lips as I wrapped my arms around his neck, drawing my entire naked body up against his. Feeding off his strength and warmth.
Feeding off his love.
“For the purple rope?” he asked with a smile. “That was all my pleasure, baby.”
I shook my head. “For loving me.”
“How could I not?” he whispered as he softly kissed me back.
Epilogue
It’s Time ~ Imagine Dragons
Moving ~ Travis
Brynn
I’m still a wreck. A veritable fucked up mess, but I’m getting better.
Kian is still with me. Still patient and understanding. Still commanding and powerful. I continue to freak out from time to time and try to run. Every now and then, things rattle around in my brain and I start feeling again like he’s better off without me. That I don’t deserve him.
Because of Kian Page 18