Fortune (15 page)

She pulled at the bonds, at her arms and legs hobbled and no longer under her control. “I feel restricted. Trapped.”

“Good. That’s how I meant you to feel.” He kept petting her, stroking her hair. “You’re trapped but I’ve got you. You’re okay. Do you understand? Now try it again.” He stood in front of her again, a towering pillar to her supplication. “Move. Come here.”

She moved more slowly, more carefully this time. He made an encouraging sound. She discovered that if she inched each knee forward and distributed her weight carefully, she could move forward without falling or tipping on her side. As she moved forward, he moved back. With painstaking progress she inched across his bedroom.

“Good girl,” he said finally. “Stop. Remind me what I said I was going to do to you here in the bedroom.”

“I was kind of hoping you were going to fuck me, but I’m not sure how you’d accomplish that with this—owww!” A slice of liquid fire lanced across her buttocks, and then another.
Owww.
It took a moment for it to register that
he
was doing it. There was a disconnect before she understood that he had brought back some implement from those drawers and was using it on her now. It took another moment for her to understand that she also had no power to get away, to evade any further blows. By the third stroke, the throbbing scary pain had her scrambling for an answer, any answer to make it stop. “Oww! Umm…ahh…”

“What did I say? Weren’t you listening?”

God, she needed to listen better. She thought back, thought hard.
When I’m done bringing your things in, I’m going to take you in the bedroom and hurt you.
“You—you said you were going to hurt me.”

“Very good.”

“Which you’re kind of doing right now—ouch!” She gasped and tensed at the sudden stinging pain, cursing her sassy mouth. She clamped her lips shut, drawing her legs in more tightly.

“Finished?”

“Yes Sir.” She heard him put the implement back down on the desk, a minute sound that still registered in the form of relief. He knelt beside her with something new in his hands, a small chain. “Can I—please—can I just ask a question?” she pleaded.

“Yes.”

“What was that? That you hit me with?”

“A rattan cane. And just so you know, I could have hit you with it a lot harder. That’s not a threat. It’s just the truth.”

She swallowed. Tears threatened again. “Why…why are you doing this?”

He put one hand on her back, brushed across it soothingly. “Because I like to hurt you and make you do things. I really do, Kat. But do you know what?”

He leaned closer. Kat felt the brush of his dark hair against her cheek, the warmth of his forehead on her shoulder. “What?”

“I’ll make it all worth it for you,” he whispered. “I promise. Just bear with me. Okay?”

She shivered a little at the promise contained in his low, gruff voice. His hand slid from her back underneath to her breasts. He squeezed and caressed them, then pinched one of her nipples.

“This is going to hurt too. Brace yourself.”

He reached under her with the chain. Just as it registered—that there were clamps on the chain, that they were going to be used on her nipples—pain blossomed where he touched her. The horrible clamp delivered hot hard pain that flared and settled into a dull ache. She hissed and tried to pull away from him but found herself arrested again by the inflexible web of rope.

“Please! Just give me a minute—”

He ignored her, moving to clamp the other nipple with the same horrible burst of pain. The chain hung down beneath her, cold and smooth against her knees.

“Please,” she said again, but it wasn’t a please begging him to remove them. It was a
please
of alarm, of confusion at the way she felt. She felt pain and terror and vulnerability and lust like a blanket over her.
I’ll make it all worth it for you.
He put his hands on her back again, calming her. He ran fingertips down across her hot ass.
Please, please, please.

He backed away, went to the desk, sat in the chair there. “Now, Kat, bring me the cranes.”

She turned her head up to him. He was sitting, waiting. “But…how… I can’t.”

He looked at her a moment, then reached beside him to pick up the cane again. Kat’s heart skipped. She lurched forward and picked up a blue one between her teeth, then shuffled forward making small sounds of panic. Her heart flipped over with relief as she heard the cane set down again. He reached for the paper figure and stroked her cheek as he took it. “Good girl. Bring them all.”

It took awhile. She got better, over time, at moving and leaning. A few times she even managed to get two at once between her teeth. A couple times he chided her not to drool on them, an embarrassing reminder of just how turned-on she was. The way he sat and watched while she crawled around to do his bidding had her pussy aching.

She saw mostly cranes and floor, but every so often she raised her head to see his hairy calves, his knees with their sculpted muscle, his cock standing up hard and thick. In time she realized he was stringing each crane she brought on a length of fishing line. A bead at the end prevented them from falling off. She lost count of how many cranes she retrieved, but noticed him tie off one strand and lay it across the desk, beginning another. Her back and thighs began to ache near the end. He made soft sounds of encouragement as her energy started to flag. When she brought him the final crane, he took it and leaned to kiss the top of her head. She arched her neck to look up at him, then huddled on the floor at his feet, overcome.

His eyes, the way he’d looked at her. Pride and approval, affection and hot animal hunger. She laid her cheek against the carpet and wept.

The tears slaughtered him. She destroyed him.

She could have brought a knife and asked to kill him in that moment and he would have helped her plunge it into his chest.

He was out of the chair and draped over her back before he knew what he was doing. “Kat,” he sighed against her ear. “Don’t cry. You’re such a good girl.” She sobbed harder, great heaving sobs that pressed her back up against his stomach, the scratchy rope an irritant between them.
Release her, idiot.
He slid his hands beneath her, braced her, held her tight as he released the clamps. Her breath caught as the blood rushed back into her sensitive nipples. He went to work on the knots next, untying her with an alacrity that bore no resemblance to the slow, deliberate way he’d originally tied her. Her sobs weakened as he worked, diminished to intermittent sniffles. At last the rope loosened and slipped away. As soon as her ankles were free, she moved to get up.

“No.” His voice sounded loud in the silent bedroom. His hands closed on her hips, held her still. “Don’t move yet,” he said more softly. “Give your body time to adjust slowly. And give me time to check you.” She stayed still, shivering, not resisting him. He released her hips and reached for her hands, inspecting her wrists for cuts or chafing. He’d used soft rope but with beginners there was always a risk of damage. He was relieved to see only redness, no abrasions. He placed her hands on either side of her head and then moved down to her ankles. They were unblemished, no abrasions or cuts either. He circled them with thumb and finger, marveling at their shapeliness. Wondrous, compelling femininity.

“Okay,” he said, reaching for her waist again. “Come here. Don’t try to stand up yet.” He pulled her into his lap and tucked her head under his chin. He held her—a huddled bundle—against his chest to warm her and felt the moisture still on her cheeks. “Okay, okay,” he murmured against her hair. She moved one leg, pressed it against his throbbing erection. He was close to bursting for her. The bedside table was right there. He shifted to his knees, sitting back on his ankles. He reached over with one hand and got a condom from the drawer, still cradling her with the other hand. She was floppy, loose in his grasp, still in subspace. He ripped the condom wrapper open with his teeth and nudged her aside to roll it on. He positioned her slender body on the head of his cock.

He wanted to thrust deep, to yank her hips down onto him. He didn’t. He eased into her, his hands all over her. Hips, breasts, back, stomach, every magical female plane. He took her face between his hands and thrust his tongue in her mouth, capturing her faint moan, a resonant secret. Her thighs tensed and she shuddered as he finally filled her completely. He tilted his hips, thrust upward so she took him to the very hilt. She twitched her hips and he groaned from the sensual tease, pulling her closer. Her arms reached for him, clasped around his neck as she plastered herself to his front. He began to fuck her. He wanted to possess her. He ran his hands up and down her back, pinching, scratching, massaging. Each small arch she made, each shivery undulation sent sparks of heat flashing to his pelvis. Soon he felt a feverish need for release.

“Oh,” she sighed against his ear. “Ryan…”

With a growl he pitched forward and laid her on the floor before him. He splayed her legs wide and levered himself over her, pounding into her with his weight supported on his arms. Below him, she arched and met his thrusts with equal fervor, her arms thrown high over her head. She closed her eyes and he almost ordered her to open them, but then he felt her shudder and tense beneath him. He felt her walls grip him, contracting in rhythmic beats of ecstasy, an ecstasy reflected in her breathless pants. She did look up at him then. Her gaze dropped lower, to where he joined with her. The ache inside him broke wide and ambushed him. He climaxed with explosive force, emptying himself, jerking wildly in the harbor of her lovely, welcoming passage. He felt connected to her completely—mind, soul, nerves, organs, bodies. He fell over her, gasping.

“Holy fuck,” he burst out against her shoulder. It was all he could think of to say.

He helped her up shortly afterward. They didn’t speak right away, not about anything important. She tiptoed around as she prepared for bed. He haunted her space and she haunted his. They were both spooked.

“Should I… Do you want me to sleep here or in the other room?” she asked.

“Here. Naked. Just as you are.”

She crawled under the covers and he slipped in beside her in the low light of the bedside lamp. She curled into a ball but he still pulled her against him. He held her so she couldn’t scoot away. She stared off at something, her eyes distant and he watched her, wondering how she felt. She finally met his eyes. “It’s so quiet here,” she whispered. “I’ll never be able to fall asleep.”

He thought of her house, the crowded living areas, the room she shared with her nieces. He thought of his own quiet, sterile life.

“I’m so glad you’re here, Kat,” he said.
For a thousand reasons, I’m glad.
He turned off the lamp and held her close in the darkness. He thought he could hear her heart pounding away beside him. He heard her breath lengthen and grow even in sleep long before he so much as closed his eyes.

Chapter Eight

Kat was slogging her way through a horribly boring text on animal husbandry, trying to put thoughts of Ryan out of her mind. She had it bad for him. After two solid weeks of hedonistic pleasure, even translating passages about pigs fucking gave her a little thrill. She tried to focus, puzzling over a trick of phrasing. She hoped whatever Russian pig-farmers-in-training read this text appreciated her attention to small idiomatic detail.

She closed it right at five o’clock and headed home. His home. Her temporary home, where she felt more and more comfortable. He would be another hour at least, maybe later since it was Friday. She might do a half hour or so on his treadmill while she waited for him. Well, maybe twenty minutes. She’d get plenty more exercise later in bed.

He called when she was just finishing up to tell her he was bringing dinner home. He sounded pleased to hear she was exercising. He had an endearing preoccupation with her health, her eating and exercise habits. Well, it was kind of endearing but mostly exasperating. At first she’d pouted and resisted a healthier lifestyle. To her horror, his house was a no-junk-food zone. No chips, no cola, no candy, no coffee, not even any chocolate. Actually, he’d allowed her a little chocolate the week before when she was on her period. Otherwise, she’d told him bluntly, she would cut off his nuts while he was asleep. And she sneaked junk food at work for a while to get her fix, bought chips and candy out of the vending machine. He would never know, she thought.

But he knew. When he questioned her, she cracked and confessed. He spanked her, she cried, they fucked. Afterward he held her and caressed her, pouring warnings into her ear about the dangers of too much fat and high-fructose corn syrup. She heard nothing. She could only focus on his touch, his smell, the deep tone of his voice. Well, she heard something, she supposed, because his lectures were working. Just yesterday at lunch she found herself craving salad. Salad!

Last week, one day after work, she’d found herself snacking on
haricot verts
dipped in hummus. Hummus, for fuck’s sake. And what the fuck was an
haricot vert
anyway? Some kind of rich doctor French green beans he’d turned her on to. She was always grabbing them out of his fridge.

There were other lessons, too, really intimate lessons about attention, pleasure and discipline. He touched her, grabbed her, stroked her and manipulated her. He tied her up regularly, practiced his “art” of shibari. She didn’t totally get the art part or what he got out of it. She just knew it made her feel strange and nervous. She liked the fucking a lot more. She was even getting into stuff like going down on him. She was getting past her selfish impatience and starting to get into the ways she could make him react. He said anal was next. She was dubious but that never stopped him. If anything, it drove him on.