by Cara McKenna
With his demons exorcised for the time being, he was calm, and so, so grateful. The mania was gone, and now he could do for her. With his hands or mouth, probably even his cock, if she was patient. Sweet, harsh, playful, rough . . . they had one condom left, and it wouldn’t be wasted.
He held her eyes. “Give me a few minutes, and we can do anything you like. Anything at all.”
Her smile was slow and not entirely innocent. “You think I’m done indulging you already?”
He blinked, then laughed softly. “I did, yes. If you hadn’t noticed, you nearly killed me.” Something shifted in his bloodstream. A quickening. Not enough to rouse him, not yet, but the first stirring that told him it would happen. If she demanded it.
With an evil smile, she said, “Come with me.”
It was no request—she grabbed the end of the rope and tugged at his wrists until his feet found the floor, then led him to the den like a dog.
She dropped his leash and lifted the lantern from its hook on the support beam, moving it to the deep windowsill.
“Back against the beam,” she said.
Rob did as he was told. Fucking Christ, yes.
The light cast Merry in an imposing silhouette, but he’d be illuminated perfectly to her. It invited nonexistent outsiders to witness his humiliation, made the dark night even darker, made those imaginary eyes that much easier to conjure. Wickedest magic of all, it turned the windowpane into a mirror, letting Rob bear witness to his own fate. Whatever it may be.
Merry raised his wrists. The hook was an inch or two higher than Rob stood; his arms bent to frame his head as she secured the rope. He felt it catch, felt it bite to spur his pounding heart. His belly rose and fell with rapid breaths.
She stepped back to admire her work.
What are you going to do? Tell me. Show me. God, could he come from just her scrutiny? No hands, no mouth, nothing but her eyes and words. Talk to me. Please. Her gaze dropped, and his cock responded, a faint swelling spurred by her attention alone.
She left him. She went to the kitchen and he heard water dripping and splashing. When she reentered his field of vision, she had the washcloth in her hand. She came close, and he could feel the steam just before the towel touched his tender cock, the water hot from sitting atop the stove.
“You’ve made such a mess of yourself.” A lament, soft and weary. Not cruel, but so perfectly pitying.
Rob moaned, eyes closing. He loved being degraded, but this felt wonderful as well, this gentleness underscoring how weak he was. This sense of being a possession, tended to and tidied and . . . handled.
He felt his skin grow clean and the once-warm cloth grow tepid, and felt his arousal returning with each slow, patronizing stroke of her hand. In no time he was half-hard, and the blood pounding only got angrier when she took the washcloth away.
She left him to ditch it, and now there was nothing standing between Rob and his own reflection in the window. A frightened man pinioned to a beam, to a hook, stripped and left to suffer. And it was him. Him, strung against this post, feeling the wood at his back and tender arse, rope at his aching wrists. A real woman’s hands taunting him soon enough, not his own lonely fist as he squinted through the stupor at a too-bright computer screen.
Merry took her time, returning with the slowest, most casual steps, staying in his periphery. He kept his gaze on the window, ever obedient.
She took a step, then another, standing just to his side—close enough for her breast to glance his ribs, but neglecting his erection. She rose onto her tiptoes, bringing their mouths and eyes level. Rob swallowed, every nerve crackling with anticipation.
“You’re worthless,” Merry told him, lips grazing his with each syllable. “You know that, don’t you?”
He replied with a shallow gasp, eyes closing. Her hand slid down his chest and belly to cup his cock.
“Oh.”
“Except for this,” she muttered, fondling.
He’d been half-hard before, but with just a few curious strokes, she had him ready. So ready it hurt.
“How on earth was such a pathetic, useless man gifted with such a perfect cock?” She took his lip between her teeth and bit him softly, the cruelty echoed by a firm squeeze from her torturing hand. The world tilted and rolled, upended by the sensations. He heard a faint thump thump thump from above and knew it was his own knuckles rapping the beam, his arms shaking. He knew these things, theoretically. But he felt only his lust, the pleasure-pain boiling in his belly and cock.
She stroked him slowly from the root to the crown.
Rob yearned to let fantasies run loose. Who was this woman, his hostage-taker? He spoke without meaning to, eyes opening with surprise to hear his own voice. “What do you want from me?”
She smiled, slow and deadly and mean. “I want your come.”
The words shot through his body, up his arms so his knuckles drummed the beam.
She kept her hand working with those callous pulls, then added the other, cupping his balls. Her touch said things as real as if they were spoken. They worshipped and tortured. You’re big, they said. Big and thick and hard. You don’t deserve this cock. But I do.
What did she want with it? To taste it? Or simply to humiliate him, forcing the loss of control? “Why?”
She rose again, speaking below his ear. “Because it’s special, Rob. This cock,” she said, squeezing him tight, making his back arch and his head grind against the wood, “and what it can give.” She fondled his balls with testing pulls. Already he felt his excitement turning liquid—her grip was growing slick again, wet from the precome beading at his crown.
She’d captured him. Hunted and stalked him, taken him prisoner, tied him here.
“The rest of you?” she said, dropping back to her heels. “Worthless. Pathetic. But your cock, your come . . .” She grinned, pure evil, a toying and bloodthirsty cat, him the cornered mouse.
“I’ll give you whatever you want,” he promised, and the quaking in his voice was no act.
“No need. I’d take anything you didn’t offer. I’m not interested in your obedience.”
Fucking hell, she was good at this.
He shut his eyes again, imagining he was more than merely strung from this hook—there was no escape. He was helpless.
“Let me go. Please.”
“Not ’til I get what I want, Rob.” She stroked him demonstrably. Unbidden, his hips convulsed, driving his length deep into her grip.
Instantly, the pressure of her hand was gone, his cock abandoned. “Not yet,” she scolded. She ran her palm under his balls, running the edge of her finger along his cleft.
“Oh.”
“Not yet. I want everything you can give.”
He was in pain. Sweet, perfect pain. He stole a glance at his reflection, over her shoulder. Her back, the fall of her dark hair. His own pained face and naked body. His every fantasy made real. He shook, every cell screaming for her attention.
She offered only the meanest tease—a single fingertip tracing the underside of his cock. The pleasure surged. She wrapped him in her grip, rubbing her thumb over his tip, showing him how slippery he’d grown.
“Oh.” His knuckles thumped the wood, arms jerking.
“Don’t you dare,” she whispered. “Don’t you spill a drop before I tell you to. I want everything you’ve got.”
And then she left him. He watched her disappear into the bedroom, struggling to even name what he felt—was this relief or torture, this sudden loss of her touch?
She returned with the wool throw, folding it in quarters and dropping it at Rob’s feet.
Oh Christ.
He wouldn’t last a minute.
She got to her knees, running warm, smooth palms up his shins and thighs and hips.
He couldn’t se
e her eyes, only her lashes. She looked angelic from this angle, so benign on her knees. But she was the devil, of course, and the things she wasn’t doing were tearing him apart surely as any teasing touch could.
She clasped his cock in the gentlest fist, and a bolt of pleasure shot up Rob’s spine to set his arms jerking, knuckles rattling.
“All this,” she murmured. “All for me.”
And then the world was her mouth—soft and wet and so deceptively sweet.
She wants your come. To taste it. To taste your weakness or surrender or failure.
Her lips slid along his aching flesh, nearly cool against his fevered skin. Fingertips dug into his hip, the other hand wrapped around his base. Everything was hot and cloudy, arousal a crazed, rabid creature, clawing from deep inside his belly. When he felt the pull of suction and the rush of coursing blood, he bucked hard enough to thump the back of his head on the beam. Pain there, sharp and white. Pain between his legs, the blackest and most excruciating ache.
She wants it. Give her what she wants. Fill her mouth, just as she’s begging you to.
But he wanted more, somehow.
He wanted to be stronger than this. To please her—the real her. Merry, not this ingenious character she played for him. He’d been a slave to these fantasies for so long, but what if he could set them aside, to cater to her . . . ?
His control was slipping, though, bleeding out. He was trembling. Gasping. His raised arms were phantom limbs—vague and numb. His legs were weak. His cock throbbed, a fierce and savaged thing surging with every pass of her hungry mouth. The back of his head would ache tomorrow, from the way he crushed it into the beam, gnashing his teeth from the exquisite torture of this.
But strung through the center of all these discomforts was a deep and resonant calm that turned flesh to jelly and worries to wisps. Those twin orgasms had sucked the bones from his body and left him a wobbly bag of spent flesh, soft and vulnerable, with the exception of his cock. He was suspended between blinding need and perfect satisfaction, between this struggle for any kind of control, and fathoms-deep surrender.
Yes, surrender. Maybe that was what he truly craved, every time he longed to descend into these helpless, passive fantasies . . .
Not capture at all. Release.
Escape.
The thought struck him hard as a physical blow. He found his agency, power over his muscles and mouth.
“M-Merry?”
With a slow, softening motion, she eased her head back, the dry cool air clasping his cock as her lips released him. The spell had left her eyes. She’d hit pause on the storytelling, ever intuitive.
“Yes?”
With a great effort, he lifted his tingling, bloodless arms and unhooked himself. Merry got to her feet, and he held his wrists out to her. “Undo them, please.”
Concern transformed her face. “Sure.”
She untied the ropes and cuff and let them fall to the floor.
He wouldn’t need them again tonight.
“Come.” He took Merry’s hand and led her back to the bedroom, bringing the big lantern with them. He set it beside the smaller one already glowing on the shelf.
“Is everything okay?” She sat on the edge of the bed. “I didn’t take things too far, did I?”
“Everything’s wonderful. Stand up.”
She did, and he silently undressed her so they were both naked, bathed in the bright, dancing light, his cock brushing her soft belly. He ignored its demands. Cradling her jaw in both hands, he held her gaze.
You’ve seen every inch of me, inside and out. He needed to see her now. As deep as she’d let him peer.
“You spoil me, again and again.”
She smiled. “I love to. And you’ve done the same for me.”
“In singular acts, perhaps. Not fantasies.” He urged her to join him on the bed, coaxing her to sit between his spread legs, her back to his chest, his back to the headboard. He drew her hair around and draped it over one shoulder. It was deeply curled from drying in its bun, and he gave it a curious stroke.
She liked his voice, he thought, so he spoke just behind her ear. “What are your fantasies?”
“I . . . I don’t really have any.”
“That can’t be.”
“Nothing elaborate, I mean. Nothing very interesting.” She’d gone hesitant. Nervous. Rare qualities to find in this woman. It made him want to understand her, to invite her to reveal herself, as she had him.
“What sorts of things do you imagine, when you . . . you know.” Funny how they’d said such filthy things to each other, yet he couldn’t find a tasteful euphemism for that. But they were naked now, in so many more ways than simple undress. The costumes were gone, crumpled on the floor of the dark den beside the abandoned rope.
“Nothing exciting,” she said.
He kissed her temple. “I want to know. I don’t care if it looks nothing like the things I imagine. I want to know what you . . . what you long for.”
She swallowed, turning her head to gaze at his shoulder or arm. “Just . . . silly things.”
“Tell me.”
“Just, like, being approached by some handsome man at a bar, and going home with him.”
The location triggered only the briefest misgiving. He set it aside. “To his place, or yours?”
“Either. Maybe mine, since I almost never brought anyone home.”
He imagined her dressed in city clothes, face aglow in the streetlight. Perhaps heels clicking on the pavement, excitement in her eyes as she unlocked her door. “Then what?”
“Just . . . a glass of wine, maybe. Music, making out. Just a date. A really wonderful, easy, perfect date,” she said, voice rising somewhat as she found her momentum. There was indeed longing in her. “And a handsome man, looking in my eyes. Looking at me like I’m beautiful. Like lust all jumbled up with a crush.”
“Do you let him take you to bed?”
“Yeah. And it’s just all . . . I don’t know. Urgent. Slow at first, but intense. Almost like it’s a bad idea. Like it won’t last, so it’s all charged and loaded. But it’s good. Really good.”
“Who’s on top?” Rob murmured.
“He is.”
And on the shelf above them, beside the lanterns, was that final condom. Rob slipped out from behind her, grabbing it, and with gentle hands, he urged her onto her back.
His cock was ready. Perhaps it had been her indulgence from earlier that had made him this hard, but she’d kept him stoked with nothing more than these sweet, conventional fantasies. He sheathed himself in a slow motion, sucking a tight breath as the pressure licked up his flesh in hot, short strokes.
You can do this. Like plate-spinning. He could think of the rope when he needed to, just a quick jolt to keep him hungry. Keep him stiff enough to please her, not so excited he’d lose himself. Spurs to a horse, for as long as it takes to get her where she wants to be.
“Could you imagine the man is me?” he asked, dropping to braced arms, knees planted between hers.
“Yes, of course.”
“Perhaps with a haircut and shave,” he teased. “Fit to come through the door of a nice San Francisco bar.” Yes, this was a wild fantasy in more ways than one. He’d be fit for that only if straitjacketed and strapped to a wheeled dolly. But no matter. It was safe to imagine these things, this way. For this woman.
“Or just you,” she said quietly, “as you are. Right here.”
He lowered to his forearms, nose brushing hers. “What do you want to feel? The way I always want to feel degraded—what do you want to feel with this man? With me?”
“Desired. Like, cherished.” She mumbled the final word, looking sheepish. “Just like, the way guys look at girls in stupid romantic movies.”
A deep sadness rose in R
ob, to imagine her fantasies were made of such stuff. Did this mean she felt denied those simple things in her waking life? This kind, affectionate, beautiful woman?
You’re the last man on earth who should he think he can fulfill those needs, said a hateful voice.
But perhaps the only man who’s yet bothered to offer. That alone made him feel worthy of the task.
“I want you,” he told her, looking dead in her eyes. “You’re lovely, and warm, and the most beautiful person I’ve ever met. In every sense.”
Her lips pursed and quivered.
“And I want to make you feel those things you need. I know . . . I know I’m not quite right. But I’ll do the best I can.” Until a more deserving man comes along and sees everything I do in you. I’ll suffice, if you’ll let me.
She smiled up at him. “You’re more than right, Rob.”
“Tell me how to be. Gentle? Or more excited and rough, or . . . ?”
“Just tell me how you feel about me, with your body, I guess.”
Yes, of course. That was what every woman wanted from sex, surely. How had Rob not grasped that, all these years? Because you’re not wired like that. His sex was no expression of love, no surrendering to feelings. Rather a surrender to the bullies in his head. Give in to the thoughts, it demanded. So very much like his other voices, urging him to give in to the gin.
Give in to her, said a third voice. A kind one. Merry’s. Be an eager slave to the sweetest mistress you’ll ever know.
He sat back on his heels, grazing his palms along the outsides of her soft breasts and over her belly, kneading her hips. He held one, stroking his fingertips along her swollen lips. She was ready. Pleasing him had primed her body, but he’d take her the rest of the way, just as her fantasies dictated.
Tell me how you feel about me, with your body.
How he felt . . . Grateful. Awed. Her palms were warm and soft on his ribs. With a final, slow stroke of his fingers, he abandoned her sex, but only for a moment. When he next touched her, it was with the crown of his cock. He traced her lips, then again, again, then eased inside, one inch and one breath at a time. When their hips touched, he held steady, savoring.