Bind and Keep Me, Book 2 (25 page)

“I don’t though,” she answered quietly. “I don’t.” Over her pretty eyes, her eyelashes quivered. “I obey him because I have to, because he scares me, and I guess, also, when he uses his strength it’s like Bambi versus a wolf. With you, it’s different.”

I’d seen her over his lap out there. She was so wrong. Klaus had her figured out more than that.

“How am I different?” I kissed her once. “Tell me.”

“Do I have to?”

I stroked her cheekbone with my thumb. “Yes. I’d like you to. Is that so awful? Telling me?”

She sighed. The warmth of her breath touched my lips. “No. It’s not. I do it for you because I want to.”

“Thank you. That’s beautiful.” I think my heart had done a little skip and dance when she said those words. They were almost as good as her saying I love you. I tucked a stray tangle of hair behind her ear.

“Can I kiss you, Jodie? Please? I’m dying here, being so close without kissing.” She wriggled against me. Under her light dress, her pussy was next to mine. Neither of us wore panties but, I contemplated evilness, Klaus had only instructed me not to let
her
come.

The power she’d just given me. I smiled and I kissed her delicately a few times before I said, “You may have more soon, but first, I want you to kneel and apply those lips and tongue between my legs.” As I spoke, I pushed the straps of her dress down her arms until I could scoop out her breasts.

Hell.
I paused, aching at the sight of her. Not playing with her when I could, was like having champagne in my mouth and not swallowing.

When she went to kneel, I stopped her. “Wait.” I exhaled, pushing my fingertips along the lower curve of her breasts, just enough to feel the fullness. “You’re such a temptation.”

Her grin made me shake my head. I could see definite advantages to having her naked all day. Though I’d never keep my hands off her. Fascinated, I circled her silk-smooth nipples until she shivered and they tightened and rose into bumps. Scratching lightly and pinching and squeezing made her skin flush and her breathing hasten. My mouth watered at the prospect of sucking on her.

But, I’d been distracted. I rested my hands on my thighs while I admired the red streaks. She pushed her chest out and whined, begging me for more.

I laughed. “Maybe I should call you little slut and not pet?”

“Jodie!”

“
Shh
.”

After slapping her breasts together, I watched with amusement the small jiggle as they bounced. With finger and thumb, I pinched the peaks hard, flattening them until she both moaned and whimpered, rubbing her groin on mine.

“That’s better.” I nipped her ear, wetly licking while I toyed between her legs. She was so aroused her clit was easily found, easily stirred. Once I had her in a wonderful senseless state, back arched and writhing, I said, smiling, “Now get down and eat my pussy.”

*****

Completely withdrawing from contact with everyone outside our house would be both suspicious and bore me to tears. On Friday, I let Adrianna come over to visit. Steph, of course, I locked in the room. Using the excuse of perfect weather, with a pot of tea and plate of fresh scones as lures, I enticed Adrianna out into the back yard. We sat under the small gazebo where there was a white-painted ironwork table.

I quietly admired her, my craziest vanilla friend. Her blond hair was longer than last I’d seen her, and in a ponytail, and she seemed to have added to her tattoo collection somewhere I couldn’t pinpoint.

“This always seems so British.” Adrianna swept her hand across the air, indicating the bits and pieces on the table. “I mean tea with scones, cream and jam. Next you’ll have me playing polo and crocheting.”

I just shook my head.

“It’s true!” She leaned an elbow on the table, unintentionally showing off a new Japanese-style tattoo of a flock of birds. “Patricia thought you’d been sucked up by aliens and Jess thought it was Klaus keeping you to himself, again. But, moi,” She touched her lemon-yellow t-shirt over her chest. “I knew you’d just gone insane and started eating scones and drinking tea. I was so right.”

“
You
are insane. Have another scone.” The woman was bubbly, as always. And I’d never worked out how she got the blond surfer-chick look down so pat when she never ever surfed. Not that we had any surf near the island.

“Thanks.” She stuffed it into her mouth in two bites, chewed, and swallowed. “Yummm. Honestly though, when are you coming out with us? The Island Trekkers are doing a bushwalk to Balding Bay next weekend. Coming to that? Drag Klaus along if you must. We can rag his ass if he isn’t fit enough.”

“As if. The man’s so fit.” Though I hadn’t jogged with him for weeks, he still went by himself. Another byproduct of our kidnapping venture. I shifted my chair next to hers so I could look out over the sea then sat again with my legs outstretched and my ankles crossed.

She grunted. “I know. He could win the Olympics by himself. I just want to see you again, out doing stuff.”

I frowned down at my lap. “I will. I’m having a rest away from everything for a month or so.”

That should give us enough time to figure out Steph. Then I could find proper work again, and be me. Be me without her around. Except I’d gotten used to having her next to me while we cooked or researched or joked about things. And we had been doing that more and more. She was even a better cook than me. Not hard to do, but still. It was fun seeing what she made from ingredients I could happily turn into burnt mush. The first time she’d done that Klaus had raised both eyebrows in surprise.

“A month,” Adrianna muttered. “Hell. That’s a long time by yourself. You sure that’s all it is?”

I nodded.

“Sweet thing.” She grimaced. “You look sad. If I find out you’re hiding something I could have helped you with…”

“I’m not!” I threw up my hands. “We’re having a quiet time is all.” I scrambled for something to distract her. “Maybe thinking about moving.”

“Fuck. No way.” Looking alarmed, she put her hand on my shoulder. “Not away from here? I’d miss you heaps. Why?”

I shrugged, lost. Maybe I’d said the wrong thing. Too late though. “I don’t know where we’d go. Klaus and I, we’re discussing it.”

“Oh. Okay.” She sat back.

Phew.

But that was when I heard the rattle of the side gate. It wasn’t a normal low gate. We had our kinky privacy to protect. On both sides of the house, and partway along the sides where they were climbable, were two and a half meter high fences. The one gate was padlocked.

“Who’s that?” She turned to peer back at the house and the continued rattling. “Are you expecting a meter reader or something?”

“No.” I rose, and all the way to the gate, I wondered who this could be.

My stride faltered as I recognized the face through the white timber framework. Kat. The basement room was on the other side of the house, thank god. Why was she here? I’d fended off a few recent phone calls from her, said we were busy. I frowned.

Adrianna’s car? Had she noticed it and decided I was more likely to let her in? Coincidence surely. Her work with Children’s Services meant she visited the island regularly. Maybe it was just a weird coincidence? I slowed, and stopped a yard from the gate.

She was leaning on the thing with her shoulder, patient, dressed in a dark pair of pants and a collared shirt with her hair in a bun. Dark hair too this time. I never knew what color she’d try next, though rumor was she was blond at birth.

“Hi.” I put on a stiff smile.

“Hi.” She pushed off the timber to stand and face me better. “How are you, Jodie?”

“Good.”
And I’m wanting you gone.

It wasn’t that I hated her. It was more that I knew she’d turned against Klaus. More and more as the past year had unwound she’d become unhappy with him. I guess that was the best phrase. She seemed terser and less interested in his opinions on things. I didn’t know why, though. It made me feel on edge around her. Because, seriously, she had dommed me so good that one time when we first met that I’d never forgotten her. I seriously melted a bit when she came close. Kat was like a fucking sun to me. Bitch.

Then, like the coming of an Armageddon, panic soared. With Adrianna it was simple, one on one. With both of them near our house, Steph in the basement became, in my mind, as obvious as a neon sign.
Not logical. Not logical
, my mind screamed. But my heart stampeded, my stomach filled with butterflies and all my words got stuck in my throat.

“You don’t look so good. Can I come in?” She indicated the gate.

Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck. No. You fucking cannot.
Panic morphed into full-blown something else so bad I couldn’t think straight but it was black and made me feel ill and it filled my head with a maelstrom of nonsense.

I’ve been on stage. Handle this. Grow a fucking spine.

Fuck no.

“No,” I said automatically, hating that I’d chickened out the
instant
the words were launched from my mouth.

“No?” She cocked an eyebrow. “Why? I thought we were friends?”

“I can’t say.”

Adrianna arrived at my elbow. “Hi, Kat.” Kat nodded back. “Why aren’t you letting her in, Jodie?”

“Christ.” I put back of hand to forehead. “I’m sorry, but I’m not. Klaus told me not to.” I had a feeling I was digging an ever-deeper hole. Now Adrianna seemed in shock, to some small degree.

“Really? Kat, what did you do?”

The woman shrugged but never varied in her missile-deadly stare that seemed to penetrate my brain.

“Jodie.” She wrapped her hands about the timber of the gate and I saw her take a deep breath. “Look. I don’t know exactly what this is about…but you are not behaving normally and, knowing Klaus, he has something to do with this. I came to check you were okay. I see that you both are and you aren’t.”

She didn’t know? Truly?
Knowing Klaus?
That phrase burrowed in.

All I could do was stand there with my fists clenched.

“If you need me, or if you need advice, I am here. Okay?” She frowned at me. “Contact me, please. I’m worried about you.”

Oh god. What. The. Hell. I was both mortified and pleased, pleased because…I just was. I nodded back and summoned the most noncommittal reply I could think of. “I heard you.”

After that, our little afternoon tea party disintegrated. When Adrianna left I leaned back on the front door, head in hands, and I cried. Only I wasn’t sure why.

*****

When Klaus came home it took me a minute or two to get the courage to tell him, but I did. He merely hugged me for a long time, with his awesome arms about me, stroking my head, until I closed my eyes and sank into him. Everything was right again.

“I think I messed up.”

“It’s okay.” He kissed my head. “She can’t know anything. Maybe she’s suspicious because of that one phone call I made to her, but that’s it. It will die away if we don’t feed her suspicions. Okay?”

“Sure.” I let out a last long sigh and looked up at him. “Let’s go have dinner.”

The pasta marinara was exquisite. Again, Steph had created something stupendous. It was curious having a meal each night with her eating below us to one side. At least Klaus had rescinded his eat-under-the-table order. Before she came, it was me under there, or at his feet. It made me wonder what would happen if Steph was ours forever. Would he eventually make me go back to eating on the floor? It had only been a sometimes thing yet I missed it. I missed being his slave at times, maybe I should tell him so? I made a note in my mind to do that. I was fairly certain he’d find something interesting to do to two slave girls.

The aftermath turned into a relaxed time in the living room with a few glasses of wine, or scotch in Klaus’s case, and with the video game console turned on. Once Steph had permission to curl up with me I made sure to make room on one wing of the L-shaped couch arrangement. The black chemise with the leaf pattern that we’d dressed her in was see-through and delicate. It molded to her every feminine curve like the sky fitted the earth. If she’d sat on the floor, I would have followed just so I could pat her.

I’d never had a pet, never had a woman I could call mine, or my girlfriend. If she was leaving someday soon, I would make the most of this time we had.

Though we talked in soft voices while Klaus blasted away enemy soldiers, I noticed her watching him and the TV more than seemed…normal.

She was nestled into me facing outward, so I mouthed her ear and asked the burning question, “Don’t tell me you like
Call of Duty
?”

“Don’t you remember me at uni?”

“What?” But then I did. “Ahh. You were the one who played the guys at video games?”

“Yeah, and I still love them. Though RPGs are more my taste. Do you think he’d mind?”

“You can ask?”

“I’m not deaf, girls. If you want to play split-screen multiplayer, Steph, the controller is there.” He indicated the cabinet the TV sat on.

“Jodie?”

“Go ahead. Not that I want you to get up, but go ahead.”

She sat up, sending me a rueful grin before sneaking over to grab the controller. When she came back I sat up too. At least I could still make her cuddle into my side a bit, even if all she did from then on was shoot things and stare at the screen. I draped my arm across the back of the couch and tugged her closer.

“Be aware,” Klaus growled. “I take no prisoners.”

To my surprise Steph replied grimly, “Neither do I.”

She flinched when he turned to look at her but all he added was, “And it’s hardcore mode. I’ll drop out so we can start from scratch.”

“Okay,” she said so softly it was nearly inaudible.

“He won’t bite you during a game.” I nudged her waist.

“You never know,” she whispered back.

The game commenced and I watched some of the time, read my ereader one-handed the rest of the time with it perched on the arm of the couch. This setup was cozy and so nearly normal if it weren’t for the knowledge of what had gone before…or for the set of black leather cuffs that Steph wore and her matching collar. Klaus had permitted them to be undone, but they were there, and a constant reminder.