Bound by Lust (15 page)

Her deep breath was audible through the phone. “Okay. They're in a case, so I can't get too close.”

“If there are any we want to look at closer, we can ask to see them,” he said as if he were standing right next to her.

“Jake!”

He knew that nothing made her feel more exposed than confessing her kinks to a stranger. Admission bared her soul, stripped her more completely than if she took off her clothes right then and there.

Despite her protest, though, he knew that if he asked her to, she would have the clerk open the case and hand her the clips she pointed to. She was completely divorced from her corporate persona now.

His jeans were too tight. He popped the buttons and eased them down. So hard, just from talking to her, suggesting what she should do.

Hearing her comply.

“Tell me about the clamps,” he said.

“They have the clover-leaf kind, and the tweezer kind, and some that look like clothespins.”

“They'd all look pretty adorning your breasts,” he said. God, but he could imagine that—her dark nipples pouting out between the shiny silver that surrounded them.

“Not…painful ones,” she said softly.

“Oh no,” he agreed quickly. “I don't want to hurt you. Just excite you. Just light clamps that would make you more sensitive. Maybe ones with little bells hanging off them, to chime whenever you moved. You'd sound like a whole campanile tower going off when you came. Would you like that?”

“No,” she said, and his heart sank, but then he heard, “I don't need any help, thanks. Just browsing. I'll let you know if I have any questions.”

“Was that the clerk?” Jake asked.

“Yes,” Gabrielle said. “I hope he didn't hear anything.”

“He didn't,” he assured her. “I was the one talking. Did
you
hear my last question?”

“Yes.”

“What was it?”

She wouldn't want to answer, not if the clerk was nearby. He hoped she would. He thought she was far enough along in the game, in the mindset.

“Whether I'd like it if I wore clamps with bells.” She said it in a rush, almost one long word.

“And would you?”

“Maybe. Should I get them?”

“Or maybe little tiny ones that you could wear to work. Your nipples would be hard all day, rubbing against the lace of your bra.”

“I wouldn't be able to concentrate,” she protested.

“You would if you went to the bathroom and masturbated when you got too horny to think,” he said.

“Oh god…”

Before she had time to process more than her initial reaction, her immediate mental picture, he said, “Go over to the next aisle. What's there?”

The clack of her heels against the floor. Then, “The bondage stuff.”

“Mmm. We've got those fun fur-lined restraints already. Is there anything else that looks fun to you right now?”

“There's a lot to choose from.” She sounded a little overwhelmed.

He was feeling pretty overwhelmed himself, but for a different reason. This was going even better than he'd planned. He couldn't resist a few light strokes along his hard cock. “What's right in front of you?” he asked.

“Some thigh cuffs, with cuffs for your wrists. My wrists, I mean.”

“That might be a fun way to tie you down if I used those finger vibrators on you. Keep you from flying off the bed.”

“Jake…”

“What, darling?”

“I…I need to come home now.”

He caught himself before he laughed out loud.

Keep the game going.

“Why?”

“I'm horny,” she whispered.

“Well, I should hope so. I am, too,” he admitted. “I'm so
hard I can barely think. I want you so bad. But we're not done shopping.”

She whimpered.

“Just a little while longer,” he said, not quite sure if he was saying it for her benefit or his own. “What's in the next aisle?”

“Jake, just let me buy something and—”

He steeled himself, just in case it didn't work, and said, “You keep being so impatient, and I'm going to tell you to buy one of those little egg vibrators and put it in before you get on the bus.”

She might scoff. She might just say no and walk out. Maybe he'd taken the game too far.

The silence seemed to stretch on forever. Then, she said, “Paddles and whips and stuff.”

He hadn't realized he was holding his breath until she spoke, and it took him a moment to understand she was describing what was in the next aisle.

He filed away the idea of getting one of those bullet vibes, something with a remote control, and playing with it around the house.

For starters.

“Do any of them look fun?” he asked.

“There's a paddle covered with bunny fur,” she said.

“I'd bet you'd like it if I rubbed it against you after I smacked your sweet ass with it,” he agreed. His groin tightened at the mental image of her tied face down on the bed, a pillow beneath her hips to raise her curvy butt in the air for a better target. His thumb slipped through the bead of moisture at the tip of his cock. “What else?”

“Um…a flail with soft suede strips.”

That would sting more than she realized, he thought with a smile. Oh, the marks it would make on her sweet ass…

“I don't like the riding crops or the canes.”

“That's fine,” he said. “I wanted to decide together what to get.”

Once she'd agreed to keep going, he'd known he had her. As tempting as it was to have her stand in front of the butt plugs while he described in excruciating detail how he'd lube her up and fill her ass, he wanted her home.

Wanted to hold her against him, smell her shampoo, to kiss her and tell her how wonderful she was before he led her to the bedroom and brought both of them to the release they both craved.

He imagined her there in the store, legs pressed tightly together against the pressure of her arousal, mortified at the thought of going up to the counter with a basket full of deviant purchases—the clerk and anyone nearby aware of her proclivities—but so overwhelmingly horny at the idea of playing with all the items when she got home.

“I agree with you that the bunny-fur paddle sounds like fun,” he said. “Go ahead and get that, and the tweezer clamps, too—they're the most adjustable. Those wrist-to-thigh cuffs. And some lube, whatever looks good to you.

“Then hurry home, darling. It's going to be a long night….”

 

 

 

 

 

T
he car park was empty. When he cut the engine the quiet bloomed, so that every noise was audible—the
shush
of their clothes, the
thrum
of her bootlaces as she pulled them through the eyelets, the
thunk
of door bolts as he locked up. Above them early morning bird song laced through the treetops.

“No one here,” he said, looking at old tracks crisscrossing the dirt.

“Of course.” She looked at her watch. “It's half-six. I think I'm still asleep.”

“But we've got the hill to ourselves.”

He was right. They were the only ones on the path, just them scrambling through a bare, leafless landscape. Her red jacket was the only bright thing visible for miles.

From a distance, the trees were pale scratches against scrub, but up close, if you looked hard, the thin, stretching branches were starting to color. A willow showed shoots of acid yellow, no buds or leaves yet, but the bark tinged with the first flush of
sap, rising from somewhere deep in the wintering ground.

“It might be spring,” he said, catching the end of a twig and bending it toward himself like a whip. Jacqueline, close behind and breathing hard, pulled herself upright and looked at him.

“It'll come. No rush.”

She looked around the threadbare forest. It was utterly still. Hundred-year-old trees grew silently around them. Her heart bounced in her chest, and her lungs already ached. She hadn't worn enough clothes, just a light shirt and her anorak, zippy Gore-Tex trousers. Waterproof and breathable, she'd thought when she got dressed, not thinking about winds cutting from the northwest or the threat of ice rain.

“Alright?” he said, reaching out to touch her elbow. “Am I going too fast?”

She slapped his hand away, laughing. “I'm tougher than you think. Besides, you were talking about needing to push yourself.”

He nodded, looked at the pink in her cheeks.

“Okay. Let's go.”

She swung her rucksack over her shoulder.

“Lead on.”

They reached the tree line soon after, broke away from the shelter onto the bare mountainside. The path was a cobbled staircase, each step a big boulder. They hit a steady, hard pace and crossed the shallow stream that fanned across the saddle of the hill.

“Not far now,” he said, laying a hand on the small of her back, where sweat had soaked her shirt. The warmth of his touch spread and radiated.

“I think I may hate you,” she said, leaning over to clear her throat and spit on the ground.

“Tell me at the top.”

From there it was a steep climb to the summit. Shale slipped
underfoot. The air was sharp, thin gas, breathtakingly cold. They turned onto the peak and looked up to see the world in front of them. Above them, the sky was huge and blank, endless dizzying cerulean. And the hills stretched out, ripples and furrows, ancient old cracks following the fault line that stretched all the way to the North Sea a hundred miles away, as the crow flies.

“Wow,” she said. “Beautiful. Almost worth getting out of bed for.”

They waited for their heartbeats to slow, felt the sweat dry on their backs as they circled the hilltop, looking for landmarks. Bumping against her elbow, he took her in his arms and they cooried up against the wind, bending into the hollows of one another's bodies. Below them, the surface of the loch glowed sapphire blue. Shadows flickered over the water and across the moor, turning the landscape into a stark kaleidoscope.

“Look,” he said, “down, by the fir trees.”

Far below them, two deer paced the line of a fence, looking for a way over. As the walkers watched, the deer leapt, cleared the wire in two perfect arcs, and fled across the open grass, white tails flashing.

They tripped down the mountain, her feet sliding on loose pieces of slate.

“Damned shoes,” she said.

“Those the ones that are like being barefoot?”

“Yeah. Only much more expensive. You feel every stone.”

They reached the turn where the path swerved to follow the stream downhill. A few blaeberries, broom bushes. Mark knelt to drink straight from the burn, cupping his hands for the peat-red water. Jacqueline took a flask out of her backpack. She unscrewed the lid and poured a cup of tea, letting the steam billow into her face.

“Oh, that's good,” she said, closing her eyes and sipping. “I could drink this all myself.”

“I'm a thirsty man. Give it here.”

“Come and get it.”

Turning, he grabbed her before she could make a sound. He spun her round, rocked her in his arms. She sucked tea off her lips, squinted at him against the sun.

“You're irresistible when you're angry, did you know that?”

“Hush.”

Holding her hips fast, he unzipped her, tugged her trousers down to mid-thigh. Her thighs were shocking white, the hair between her legs jet black, as dense as moss. He tangled his fingers in it.

“What if someone comes?”

“I'll make sure of it.”

He knelt on the rock, put his face between her legs and tasted her. Apple and earth. Sharp and sweet. He sipped at her like a bee licking nectar.

“Oh, god.”

He slid his tongue inside, as deep as he could, and heard her breath stop. Flicked at her clit. Dug his fingernails into her buttocks, hard, the way she liked it. Scratched at her, meanwhile nipped very delicately around her pussy, tiny bites like an animal testing a leaf with its teeth.

“God,” she said, “oh, please.”

“Wait,” he said, reaching for her wrist. He took her cup and flask and laid them on the ground.

“Hold on here,” he said, bringing her hands to the stone ledge of the riverbank, bending her over so that her face was close enough to brush the dirt.

“Okay,” he said, and struck her across the arse so hard the sound echoed across the mountainside.

“Oh,” she said, clutching at a tuft of undergrowth. She curled her fingers into the hard-packed earth. “Yes. More.”

He raked his nails over her skin, left thin white tracks that slowly deepened to red. Hit her as if he was driving her into the ground, alternating slaps with rubs, scouring her so that her skin burned under his hands.

“Push it,” she murmured into the sifting wind. “Push me. Fuck me.”

He slid his fingers between her thighs, dug into her, up deep inside her where she was scalding hot. The flask was kicked over, the lid rolling away from them, the tea spilling all over the stones and trickling into the river. He pulled his cock out and slid it inside, cupping her marked flesh with his hands, working gently now, kneading her, whispering her name over and over. Opening her like a bruised flower, reaching inside to the sweet, wet depths of her. The orgasm rose from the root of his cock, swelling like a river in spate.

She came hard, doubled over, begging him for something she couldn't name.