DutyBoundARe (4 page)

He booted up the laptop he’d brought with him—it had been stripped of the government specs that merely hindered him—and brought up the RSS feed.

It was the only one he subscribed to.

The blog came up, the banner proclaiming it Kinky Girl Blogs.

He scrolled down before he lingered on the banner image. He’d made the mistake of staring at it once for too long and had become enraged. The idea that his Lisette was some kinky slut, well, it just meant she needed to be put out of her misery. If she wanted a man to beat her, he’d do it.

The latest blog was hers, and as if that weren’t enough, the dumb cunt was talking about how being a victim wasn’t a bad thing.

“Please, victims deserve what they get. I thought you were strong, baby. I was wrong.” He scrolled to the bottom, not bothering with her empty words.

There, at the end of the post was what he wanted. A picture of her feet in the grass. The idiot even said she’d taken it a few days ago, which meant it was somewhere close.

He saved the image and brought up a program that extracted EXIF data, which was a modern way digital devices, especially camera phones, tagged images with information. The typical tags included information on the type of phone or program the image was taken with. What many people didn’t know was that phones could also geotag images to identify where they were taken.

Seth uploaded the photo on the site and waited for the extracted information.

“I’m coming for you, baby,” he sang to himself as the status crept down.

chapter three

Moments

Mathieu grunted and threw his arm over his face. Hot, fragrant canine breath fanned his cheek. His Saturday morning wakeup call was late.

“Gator, no, come here,” Lisette whispered. The front door closed with a click and she tiptoed across the room.

“You can leave him.” Mathieu’s voice sounded as if he’d gargled gravel.

“Sorry,” she whispered.

“If you weren’t here he’d have woken me up an hour ago.” Mathieu draped his arm over the dog, patting his side. It had actually been nice to sleep in for a bit.

“You hungry? I’ll make breakfast.” Her voice moved away from him, but not too far because pots and pans started clanking together.

Appeared there would be no more dozing.

Gator chose that moment to jump onto the couch, driving his paws into Mathieu’s stomach. He groaned, shifting to his back and pulled the dog down to lay on top of him. Gator strained forward until he could lick Mathieu’s jaw.

There were many things about being a dog owner Mathieu enjoyed. Face licks were not one of them.

“No. Nope. No, boy. Okay, we’re getting up.” He pushed to a sitting position and Gator slid off to sit next to him, grinning as only a dog can. Gator appeared utterly happy with himself. In fact… “Hey, did you give Gator a bath?”

“What?” Lisette was still banging around the kitchen. “Oh, yeah. He got all muddy at the dog park so I hosed him off and this lady had some dog shampoo with her so I used it and then we went for a walk while he dried.”

“The one by the bus stop?” Mathieu pulled Gator against his side and again he tried to lick Mathieu in the face.

“Yeah. Why?”

“No real reason. Had a few people complain about Gator being a pit bull, so I haven’t taken him there very often.”

“What? Really?” The disbelief in her voice was genuine, the innocent woman he knew and not the temptress from his dreams. “I’m going to make pancakes. How’s that sound?”

“Great.” Mathieu stood and stretched. “I’m going to shower while you cook.”

“Okay, I’ll keep them warm.”

He had something else he’d like her to keep warm. It was all too easy to imagine Lisette back in his arms, bound and moaning while he did everything he promised himself he wouldn’t do to her.

Mathieu shambled into the bathroom and closed both the door to the living room and the conjoining bedroom door. He turned on the shower and paused. There were fruity hair products and little signs of Lisette. She’d only stayed at his place for two nights, and already there were traces of her that would take months to fade.

He stripped and stepped under the spray. The scent of exotic flowers wrapped around him. He picked up one of the purple bottles and sniffed it. Flowers and sugar. Yup. It was her shampoo. He exchanged her product for his, and went through his routine, letting his mind wander.

The police report hadn’t yielded anything of value, though he’d spent an hour or more checking in with the eyewitnesses. If there was no sign of Seth in a few days, what would he do? Should he urge her to move on and take the chance he was putting her in danger? Or should he allow her to crash at his place, warming his bed while he slept on the couch until god knew when?

It was the worst kind of torture to know Lisette was in his bed, sleeping just a few yards away. She was more than just a beautiful woman. Lisette was kind, she empathized with people and had a critical way of thinking that made her understand him and how he ticked in a way few women could.

Part of him wondered what she would be like now, as a woman rather than the girl who’d stolen a piece of him. She’d been a sexual novice, shy until he warmed her up, which was half the fun.

Would her eyes flutter wide the way they had when he touched the right spot?

Would she gasp?

Mathieu shook his head, shaking off water droplets. His semi-erect cock bobbed in the spray of the shower.

“Christ on a cracker,” he muttered.

This was getting out of control. There was no way he could take advantage of Lisette, who undoubtedly had issues she wasn’t sharing with him. It wasn’t as if he was the most receptive audience to her tale.

Still, if he wasn’t going to act on his urges, he could at least fantasize about them.

Mathieu tipped his head back and let his imagination paint the picture.

Lisette with her arms bound tightly behind her, rope coiling around her forearms, pulling her shoulders uncomfortably backward. If he had his choice, she’d be strapped to a waist-high stand with a leather band around her chest, the padded portion of the stand just under her chest, forcing her to bend forward at the waist ninety degrees. She’d wear a pair of come-fuck-me-heels with a spreader bar attached to either ankle, forcing her stance wide. There wouldn’t be a stitch of clothing on her. He’d leave her without a gag just to find out if she still made those sweet little whimpers he remembered.

Mathieu stroked his cock leisurely, from root to tip. If he had Lisette bound in such a manner, he’d take time to admire the curve of her bare ass, the tight furl of her nipples and listen to her heavier breathing. Her folds would be wet with arousal, anticipating his touch. His cock.

After drawing out the moment, he’d position himself behind her, all teasing aside because he couldn’t stand it anymore. He’d thrust into her tight, hot pussy and they’d both groan. She’d squeeze, constricting her muscles to give him the best fuck of his life.

Mathieu pumped himself with one hand while he flattened the other against the wall.

His grip felt nothing like a pussy, least of all the way he recalled Lisette hugging his girth, but he went with it anyway. In his fantasy, she tossed her head back and cried his name, moaning as she reached the point of climax. He’d massage her clit, plucking at it until she tipped over and her inner muscles clamped down on his, spurring him to orgasm.

Mathieu arched his back and squeezed his eyes shut, holding onto the fantasy as he followed his imaginary self over the ledge. The warmth of his seed slid down his hand, the ripples of pleasure coursing through his body pleasant, but not the ball-rocking fuck fest of his imagination.

He squirted soap into his palm and lathered up again, feeling the same bone deep emptiness gnawing at him. Maybe it was time for him to stop being so alone, but neither was he ready for a woman in his life. Perhaps what he needed was a roommate. Another cop or someone who wouldn’t mind his odd hours.

After washing more, he climbed out of the shower and dried off. If he weren’t mistaken, there were more clean towels under the sink than there had been yesterday.

Lisette?

He wouldn’t put it past her, and neither would he begrudge her doing the laundry. One more thing he didn’t have to do. He tied the towel around his waist and entered the bedroom, flipping on the lights as he went by the switch.

It was a rare Saturday he got off work and typically he spent those in sweats and a t-shirt, doing nothing. Somehow it didn’t seem good enough to host company in his ratty old gym clothes, so he pulled out jeans, a t-shirt and clean boxers. He dumped them on the bed with the intention of closing the bedroom door and dressing, but an object caught his eye.

On the foot of the bed lay his new leather flogger. The one he’d never had the chance to use before his ex took over his life.

Mathieu dashed to the door, glancing out to spy Lisette happily chattering away to Gator in the kitchen. He closed it and dropped to his knees.

The bins holding his rope and bondage equipment were where he’d left them after moving in. He hadn’t looked at them in so long, he couldn’t tell if they’d been tampered with.

He stood and stared at the leather toy.

Did Lisette even know what it was?

He remembered finally running into the craftsman who’d made the flogger for him nearly a year after the purchase. A year in which his life had gone straight to hell. Mathieu had taken the flogger home and chunked it under the bed, pushing it from his mind.

There was no way Lisette knew what a flogger was. None at all.

He took a deep breath and slid the toy back into the nylon before stashing it in the suitcase in his closet with the bulk of his gear.

He dressed without thinking while endless possibilities ran through his head. Would she ask? What would he tell her? How would she react?

There was a very good chance that if he came clean to Lisette, she’d run from him just as hard as she was running from Seth. While that’s what he told himself he wanted, the idea of fear in her gaze directed at him curdled his stomach. That couldn’t happen. She might not be for him, but there was a part of him that took pride in the fact that she’d reached out to him for help. That she saw him as the kind of man who could protect her.

Now, he had to protect her from himself.

Lisette studied Mathieu
wolfing down the pancakes. He hadn’t glanced at her once since coming out of the bedroom, much less said anything.

Guess you found my present.

Of course she’d left the flogger out intentionally. It seemed like the easiest way to ease into this conversation. She’d given into her curiosity and peeked inside the boxes under the bed and found some very interesting things. A whole container of rope, the kind used for bondage. Another box was full of leather straps, various restraints, a few bars of varying length with rings on the end. Another was clearly some sort of home kink furniture that broke down into smaller pieces, but she couldn’t tell what it was without putting it together. That was where she’d drawn the line, pulling anything out of the box.

Who was she kidding? The moment she’d found the flogger she was poking into his personal life. Something she had no right to do. But the idea that she and Mathieu shared a deeper sense of self, that at their core they were both kinky was something she couldn’t pass up.

Maybe she was grasping for straws here. Maybe she wanted the allure of first love back again. Maybe she was trying to paint them back into those spring days they’d spent peeling out of their clothes to lie naked in the bottom of a pirogue out on the water. For a short while she’d had everything she thought she wanted.

What the hell? In for a penny, in for a pound.

“That’s a really nice flogger you have in there.”

Mathieu’s whole body seemed to convulse and he choked and sputtered on his last bite of pancake.

“Are you okay? Here, have a drink.” Lisette grabbed his glass of juice off the coffee table and scooted down the couch toward him. That went over well.

Mathieu snatched the glass from her, splashing some of the liquid on the couch, but she didn’t think he cared all that much. He drank deeply, turning away from her as he did so. His shoulders heaved when he finished, drawing in deep breaths.

Gator sat up, his head swinging between the two of them, probably trying to decide who would offer him food or pettings first.

“Sorry, guess I should have waited till you weren’t eating,” she said.

Mathieu turned toward her, his eyes round. “How do you even know what a flogger is?”

“Because they’re fun. My first Dom was very fond of floggers.” Lisette reclined against the armrest and pulled her feet up on the cushion, facing him. Let him chew on that for a moment.

“Wait. . .what?” He nudged Gator out of the way and set his plate on the table. “Gator, no.”

“My first Dom had about ten different floggers that he used. I’m pretty sure he had more, but he only ever used one of those on me.” Their relationship had been more of a friends-with-benefits arrangement. She’d been too drunk on the high of submission. It was the act of play that drew her to that Dom. They’d parted ways as friends, but hadn’t remained close. She would always be grateful for what he’d taught her, how accepting his collar probably meant she hadn’t made the rounds, playing and sleeping with every available Dominant at the dungeon before she realized what she was doing.

“I’m still trying to process how you know what a flogger is. I’m not even ready to think about why or how you know what a Dom is.” Mathieu rubbed his eyes. The whole topic seemed to have caught him off guard.

Lisette rolled her eyes. “Oh come on, it’s all over the place now. You see the books at the grocery store. Besides, I had a lot of clients who were into BDSM.”

“You shouldn’t know about it though,” he grumbled.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Her defenses snapped up. There were a lot of people who had the opinion that there was a tried and true guide to BDSM out there, and everyone must follow a given set of rules. Lisette’s stance could not be further from that. There was no “one true way” when it came to kink.