The Bound Heart (11 page)

Her sisters and mother said it served her right embarrassing them all these years unnecessarily.

His eyes softened. “You might be surprised what the rope will do for it.”

“Really?”

He smiled and leaned in close to her ear.

“Your body loves the rope, Olive. Whatever needs the brace fills could find a better path to be filled.”

Hope pulsed in her chest.

“If not, there is now the ribbon.”

His finger slid over her cheek.

“Are you worried about this?” he meant what they were about to do together. The idea that he would stop because she worried about the brace shot through her.

“No!” the word burst out of her, and heat flushed up her chest and face.

He grinned at her response and the tension eased.

“Not even a little?”

Her face got hotter.

“A little.”

They both knew what she was worried about now. Would she be frightened away again?

The back of his fingers brushed across her cheek again.

“We’ll use some salve. You won’t feel any pain, Olive. We have all night to make it work.”

Her shoulders eased down.

Jamie picked up the pile of her clothes, walked out of the light over to the large bed, and dropped the clothes on a chair next to it.

At the chest of drawers, Jamie leaned over and turned on a gaslight. As the light grew, it illuminated his features. His chiseled face, full lips that could pull into a tight line of judgement and annoyance, that could nip softly at her own lips, that had pressed down into the folds of her sex and released a hot tongue.

Quickly and efficiently, he took off his clothes, folding them as he went onto the top of the dresser. He lifted a pitcher and turned to her making sure she was looking.

And she was.

She couldn’t take her eyes off him, all sinuous muscle. As he poured the water over his head, his eyes never leaving hers across the space. The water cascaded over his body onto the floor. He rubbed it over himself with his hand. Efficient and fast.

An ache arose in her belly, riding low and fluttering as she watched him.

He slicked back his hair. The water glistened in the orange light from the gaslight as he leaned over and turned it down.

Her heart jumped, beat faster, her fingers curled into her palms and her belly twisted as he walked towards her.

Between her legs, she ached. Her body wanted what her eyes saw, wanted the weight he promised to push down on her chest and the thick length of him to slide deep into the heat between her legs. Wanted those lean hips to push forward one devastating thrust after another.

However, that was not where he was going to do it.

Yet, even as she thought where that thick shaft would penetrate, her sex ached even more.

When he reached the circle of light, he picked up a thick rope, one that would be too big to tie anyone with, like the kind of rope used to anchor boats to the dock. Heavy and thick, thicker than her arm, closer to the size of her thigh.

Jamie’s steps were slow and measured as he picked up the end of the rope and pulled the length of it behind him. It was dyed red. A color that made it special, the action important.

“Watch me, Olive.”

His bare feet strode surely. As he moved, the muscles on his lean, pale body rippled with strength. His skin was perfect except for some markings, like a tattoo around his wrist and forearm. Hair was scattered across his chest, down his belly, trailing to his abdomen, and ended clustered around his thickening length.

He was so comfortable in his nudity, so comfortable in his arousal. The men she’d know had never shown themselves fully, had not walked with pride and confidence like Jamie.

The rope trailed behind him as he walked the circle of light creating another circle with the thick red cord. Where the two ends met was a space of a few feet. He picked up something else from the outer edge and walked to her through that space created into an inner world, a special place within the thick red rope just for them.

Her heart beat harder as his dark eyes burned into her reading her every thought.

She looked at him in the light, watched the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed.

Her breathing sped up.

He stopped in front of her, lifted a large bundle of rope tied in a half bow. He lifted it between them, waited until her eyes met his then gave the end a vicious tug.

The rope, like a restrained beast, jumped free from its bounds, uncoiled, and tumbled to the floor like a living being eager to obey its master.

The light above them washed away the rest of the room. Olive stood in front of him, glowing; her skin a pale cream flecked with golden freckles, the burnished red thatch between her long legs.

He’d seen many exceptionally beautiful women in his life and had worked with many as well, but Olive was unique. There was very little that was striking about her, she was to a harsh critic, ordinary. Yet for him she was the most beautiful woman he had met. Her luminosity, her natural optimism and naivety shone through every pore as she stood there. It reached out and stoked him like an old fire ready to burst back into flame.

She had snuck in, slinked past his good intentions and with a swipe of her persistent tongue, those honorable plans unraveled.

“I wondered what rope to use.” His voice was thick and tight in his throat.

Her eyes flicked up, shot an arrow of heat through his, and darted down.

God help him she was going to take him down hard.

“I wondered what you would enjoy.”

Jamie took in all her signs, her breath came faster; her heart beat a staccato at her clavicle as crimson streaked her chest and neck.

Her hands clamped tightly at her sides as images passed behind her eyes, longing, fear, and desire. It was all there. Nothing was hidden, nothing overridden with bravado. No. She was pure courage, unmasked. Raw.

“I wondered what your skin would respond to most.”

Jamie reached out and touched her.

She tensed.

Of course, she would. She was wound tighter than any rope in the room. He knew how to channel that tension, to move it so they would both benefit.

Jamie ran his hand over her shoulder then slid the rope slowly along the same path. He draped it around the back of her neck and down over the other shoulder, the two lengths hanging down over her breasts to pool on the floor. The rope was heavy, soft, and flexible.

“New rope rubs; smells stronger. It’s stiff and chafes just like your brace when it’s first used. The old rope, the one that is thicker, is softer; its fibers are malleable after all the ties and washes its had, like your brace now; comfortable, worn in.”

Jamie let his full front move against her back, her hips, her legs. The soft touches sent shocks over his skin.

He tucked against her, needed to get closer, have her sink deeper into the rope, deeper into him. He leaned his head into the crook of her neck, rubbed his cheek against the soft slide of skin bit at her jaw.

Under his palm, her skin was a satin landscape, warm, soft, small undulations, the press of bone at her hip.

Her breath shuddered out.

His own breath he controlled, kept even and slow.

The slow glide of his hand, the calmness he worked to hold seeped slowly into her.

Another breath shuddered out of her. The tight hold on her muscles eased.

“That’s it,” he whispered as he moved his body to press closer along her back.

He clasped the rope hanging over her shoulder. Rolled it under his fingers, over her breast, her nipple, down the other side, and back up again. Then over her again.

Her breath pulled in fast, lifted her chest and expanded her ribs.

“Tell me what you feel, Olive.”

“I feel—” Her words caught in her throat.

Her chest filled and tensed. The words when they came sounded squeezed out of her.

“Tight. I feel tight…”

Was she feeling it because every muscle in his body was fighting not to contract, was fighting to stay soft and loose in order to guide her? She somehow reached out, said what was in him.

His fingers rolled the rope up the slope of her other breast, moved it back and forth over her nipple.

Her breath got faster and shallow.

His cock pushed full and hard against her back; every instinct called to move faster, to jump to the end and slip inside the hot heat of her, hear her ragged pants and cries that came from his touch.

But that wasn’t what rope men did. This tightening between them, this twisting of their separate desires together into a tight single length was what he did.

“Lean back against me, Olive, rest against my chest.”

Slowly, her weight shifted. It was a welcome press, the silk of her skin, the soft tickle of her hair, the rich womanly smell of her body’s natural fragrance an aphrodisiac assaulting his senses.

After a moment, she was fully rested against him.

“Can you feel my breath?”

“Yes, I can feel it on my ear.” Her voice was a soft whisper. She hesitated. “And against my back as your chest moves.”

“I want you to match it. Just listen to it, feel it, and match your breathing to mine.”

She gave a small nod and leaned her head back on his shoulder.

“My breath, Olive, breathe deep. Follow me. In-“

Her chest expanded and gently pushed her back against him.

“And out-” Her chest moved again. “In-. Out-“

The small minute changes of her against him were electric, were tightening his muscles even as he consciously held them relaxed. “In-. Out-.”

Her body pressed against his, rubbed in soft movements on his chest, his nipples, his cock, pressed and brushed him to agonizing need.

Olive sank deeper against him as they started to breathe together. Her weight leaned more and more against him as an anchor and her feet light on the floor.

All the while, he rolled and rubbed the rope over the front of her. The thick weight of it moved over her breasts, her belly, her mound.

“I’m going to move. I want you to follow.”

The sound she made was a murmur.

She was relaxed. Trusting.

She knew he was going to tie her; knew how he was going to take her. Yet she followed him with more trust than he deserved after how recklessly he had treated her last time she was in his house.

Jamie wrapped his arms around her, the soft, full feel of her breast in his right hand and the warm comfort of her belly in the other. His height gave him a wonderful view down the front of her body. He brushed his thumb over her nipple, gave it a pinch, and she sucked in her breath, goose flesh rippling over her alabaster skin.

He swayed first to one side then the other. Then he took a small step back guiding her with one hand on her belly and the other over her breast. To follow him, she would have to relax, have all her focus on him, feel and anticipate his body’s movement before he moved. Follow with trust. A swaying backward shuffle.

She followed.

He moved again slowly. And she followed.

“Do you know which rope I chose, Olive?” his voice whispered into the shell of her ear, her head on his shoulder. “Do you, Olive?” His lips nipped at her lobe, tugged it into his mouth.

He moved again and she followed.

“Yes.”

With each step, as he moved in a circle, her movements followed his as if their minds thought the next step together.

“Which one?”

The rope on the floor wrapped, circled at their feet as their shuffled circle repeated.

“The soft one,” her voice said on the exhale.

His belly tightened another notch.

She was perfect.

She knew him instinctively. It wasn’t a guess; she just knew.

“Why?” His hand on her belly moved down lower.

She lost flow as his fingers moved through the soft, red curls between her legs. His hand stilled until she regained focus and moved with him again.

“Olive?”

“Don’t stop. Please.”

He slid his fingers further into the damp silk, deeper into the wet velvet of her folds.

“Why, Olive?” His voice was demanding as his fingers glided over her sex, dipped into the soft heat and drew out the dampness to rub over her bud.

Her breathing faltered.

He dipped his fingers in again. Rolled the dampness around, around, and around.

Her breath shuddered.

Her chest arching out, her breasts pushed up as desire knotted through her body.

“Why, Olive?”

“Because it’s my first time.”

He swiped over her again.

Her hand came over his as he moved his fingers deep into her.

“Tell me more.”

“Because it will feel like my brace.”

He started moving his fingers in and out of her as his other hand pinched at her nipple, squeezed her breast.

Her breathing came fast. The damp flesh under his finger was swelling with need, glistening with moisture. He pushed his cock against her back. His muscles tightening across his abdomen drawing his balls up tight.

“And.”

Her legs tightened. He stopped their shuffling steps, moved his fingers faster, and pulled her back against him closer. He rubbed his cock up against her back as she neared her peak.

“And, Olive?”

“And you, it will remind me of you, like you are holding me right now.”

“Oh, yes, sweetheart.” She knew him, knew what he wanted her to feel.

He felt for the rope, guided it over her hot little peak, and rolled it over her tight sensitive bud, once, twice.

Her breath drew in sharply as her hand came over his and the rope, her fingers squeezing his.

He rolled the rope again, back and forth.

Her steps faltered.

His heart beat faster. His body attuned to every nuance of her, evert shift as she tightened for her release.

That’s what he wanted her to feel the rope was, what the rope did. That it was an extension of his touch and extension of his will around her.

His other arm drop from her breast to hold her waist, hold her as her legs started to shake.

“That’s it…”-he whispered in her ear-“let it go.” He rolled the rope back and forth.

He tightened with his own need, burned with the desire to drop to his knees and lick her over the edge have her drop down over his face and rock her need over him.

He rolled the rope again, back, forth, back, forth as her hand pressed him and the rope down harder over herself, as she panted and pushed her hips forward. Back and forth and then she called out.

A sharp surprised call as her pleasure hit.

Her body undulated against him. His arm around her waist tightened as her legs lost their capacity to hold her.

His heart beat hard, his breathing tight and controlled, and his cock thrummed, pressed out in front of him with the desire to bend her over right now and slip into her tight, dark passage and make her come all over again.

Instead he held her as she regained herself, found her feet and held her own weight again.