The Lady Vanishes (24 page)

When she looked to the right, she saw what appeared to be a storage area full of enormous metal toolboxes, pieces of Sheetrock, mirrors, glass. It looked like a Home Depot.

Past the benches, at the far end of the attic, there was an enormous screen, like something out of a movie, and when she looked directly upward, she saw the projector mounted from the ceiling. In front of the screen was what looked like a man’s paradise of leather couches with cup holders and reclining loungers at each end. She saw a refrigerator, a pinball machine, a Ms. Pac-Man game, and, even farther to the left, a punching bag, a bench, and a set of free weights.

“This is your man cave.”

He laughed and shrugged. “More like my geek cave, but I like it.”

Regina sat on one of the benches. “Wow. You know, some billionaires buy yachts and houses in the south of France.”

“I have a yacht and we have a corporate jet. You want to go somewhere?”

Regina blinked. “You have a yacht?”

“Yeah, she’s beautiful. She’s in Florida right now. I decided to redo the entire interior.”

For some reason, even though he rode around in a limo and wore a watch that cost probably more than her entire education at Harvard, she didn’t really think of Milton as stupidly wealthy. He went to work and he lived fairly simply, even though he had this massive house in Beacon Hill. She supposed she shouldn’t be surprised that he owned a yacht, but she was.

“I’ll have to take you on it sometime.”

Regina wished that the thought wasn’t incredibly appealing. Leave the cold-ass Boston winter behind, fly on a private jet to Miami, board a yacht, and find some island to hang out on for a few days, or a few months.

Milton was fiddling with something on the table, a rope. Regina shook her head. She didn’t see how he would handle being on a yacht and essentially doing nothing for weeks at a time. Milton just wasn’t built to do nothing.

“This is one of Nick’s knots. He’s obsessed with them, always has been. Some of them come in really handy during tricks.” He held up a complicated-looking knot that seemed impossible to untie. “Like this one. Let’s say I tie you up with it. How long do you think it would take you to untie it?”

“Four days,” she ventured just to please him.

“Pull here.” He held out one loose end.

Regina chuckled. “This isn’t a version of the pull-my-finger joke, is it?”

He wagged it at her. “You never know.”

Regina tugged on the loose end and the rope unraveled completely, as if it had never been tied. Regina gasped in surprise and delight.

“That’s pretty cool,” she said. “Is that how I’m going to be tied up?”

“Something like that,” he acknowledged. “Come here, I’ll show you.”

He pulled her over to what looked like an upright MRI machine with a clear glass front. Where he’d gotten it, she didn’t know. She hoped he didn’t intend for her to get in that thing. She’d never considered herself claustrophobic, but this was ridiculous.

“It’s the base of the trick we’re going to do. You’re going to get inside, so they can see you the whole time. I’m going to have you wave periodically, but really they’re going to be looking at an image of you on a screen.”

He tapped the glass. “This glass has one of those displays in it, like some car windshields.”

“Cool. So you and Nick are going to finish this and bring it to the hospital?”

“Yeah, let me show you.”

“Uh, Milton?”

“Trust me,” he urged. He made her stand in front of the machine while he went over to one of the long benches covered in ropes. He picked one and brought it over to her.

“Okay, put your arms out in front of you.”

Regina had liked the idea of being tied up while he pleasured her. She wasn’t so sure about letting him tie her up and put her in that box. Horror movies had scenes like this. His eyes were daring her, though, so she huffed and put out her hands.

He tied her thoroughly, with complex loops and twists, until she looked like the Road Runner tied up by Wile E. Coyote. Once that was complete, he bent and tied her feet together.

Regina felt ridiculous, but she was, oddly enough, having fun. She’d say this for Milton Shaw: He was unique, and far from boring.

“So, once you’re all tied up, the audience will think, ‘Wow. No way she’s getting out of that.’ And then I’ll pick you up and put you in the container. Once you’re in there, the screen will show a recording of your face as I put you inside, but really, you’re going to untie yourself, and then squeeze yourself against the side. You’re small, so it will work.”

“And then what, you say ‘Abracadabra’ and the screen stops showing my face?”

“Something like that,” he agreed, smiling. “Though I’m thinking that instead of making it look like I’m making you disappear, you as the evil princess can seem to have escaped. It makes more sense with the narrative.”

He scratched his head, frowning, and Regina couldn’t help but think to herself.
My God, this man is crazy.
Wonderful crazy, but crazy nonetheless.

“So, untie yourself,” he said, gesturing, and Regina searched for the tail end of the rope. It was sticking out near her forearm. She bent her head and used her teeth to tug on it, pulling it loose.

The rope unraveled, spilling to her feet. She grinned, pleased with herself, and bent to release the one near her ankles. She liked knowing how things worked, liked being in on the secret.

“Great.” He laughed once she stepped out of the coil of ropes. “Easy, right?”

She nodded. “Not bad at all.”

“Okay, so let’s try something else.”

There was a gleam in his eye. One that promised the wicked sort of fun that she’d come to expect from him.

Regina folded her arms over her chest. “Why do I suspect that getting out of this one won’t be quite so easy?”

“Because you’re a very smart woman.”

Regina sighed and dropped her arms. “All right, magician, bring it.”

“Awesome.” He took her hand again and pulled her toward the area with the punching bag and the weight benches.

“Okay.” His eyes gleamed. He was practically vibrating with excitement now and Regina couldn’t help but smile at him. “So I know I brought you up here to show you the effect for the show we’re putting on, but I also bought something the other day that I thought you might be willing to try with me.”

Oh, dear lord.

He turned away and went to the wall and pressed some kind of button. The length of chain holding the punching bag descended and he removed it from a carabiner, setting it aside against the wall.

He pulled out something that looked like a tangle of nylon straps, padded leather supports and restraints. He hooked one curved piece to the carabiner and let the straps hang down.

“Is that a sex swing?”

He nodded, studying it. “I’m fairly sure we could figure out a way for you to escape from it, but it would take some practice.”

“Escape from it?”

He looked up at her and nodded. “I’d like to fuck you while you attempt to get free of the swing, but we can try that another time.”

“You want me to strip down and let you tie me into that thing? And then you want to fuck me?”

“Yeah.” He nodded, his eyes gleaming. “You down?”

Regina looked at the straps, at the cuffs, at the chain dangling from the ceiling. If she was looking at it right—and it was hard to tell with the straps hanging down—she could be put in a variety of positions, and if he raised the swing off the ground with the chain, she would be completely vulnerable to him, and completely exposed.

She felt herself getting wet at just the idea of it. Looking at the front of his flannel pants, he was more than ready to give it a shot.

“You have a condom in those jammies?” she asked.

“No,” he said with a grin, “but I can pull up an email . . .”

He did, showing it to her on his computer. She pulled up her email as well, and within minutes they were smiling stupidly at each other.

Moving suddenly, he ducked and lifted her over one shoulder. “Now for perverted sex.”

Hanging down over his back, Regina patted his ass fondly over the flannel.

When they reached the mat below the swing, he set her down on her feet. “Okay, strip, woman.”

Laughing, partly out of nerves, partly because she was so aroused she felt giddy, Regina stripped his shirt over her head and tossed it onto the weight bench.

“God, I love those tits,” he commented, but he didn’t touch her. He did shuck his flannel pants, standing before her naked and proud, his dick straining fiercely toward his belly. He was frickin’ beautiful with a sculpted chest, a washboard stomach, and those little notches in his hips that pointed like an arrow down to his cock. If she could draw, she would want to sketch him in all his naked glory.

His pants were so loose on her that all she had to do was shimmy her hips a little and they fell to the floor, leaving her naked except for her glasses. She took them off and set them on the weight bench where they wouldn’t get broken.

“God,” he murmured, stroking himself absently. “Maybe we should just fuck on the weight bench.”

“No, now you’ve got me all excited for a sex swing.”

“Well, get that beautiful body over here.”

Regina walked over proudly, making sure her breasts bounced with each step, enjoying the ways his eyes followed the movement. When she reached him, he grabbed the back of her head and kissed her fiercely.

Before she could respond, he’d pulled away. “All right, turn so you’re facing away from me.”

She moved so that she was standing next to the swing and turned away from him.

“I’m going to raise it up a little so that I can secure your wrists and the strap under your arms a little more easily.”

He did, and Regina heard the soft whirring as the swing was raised several feet.

“All right. Take this padded piece and put it under your arms, just above your breasts, and then bend forward.”

Regina did, letting the pad hold her upright while her arms dangled. Her ass felt very vulnerable and exposed, which he seemed to appreciate, running a hand over it with a soft hum of pleasure.

He cleared his throat. “Okay, now put your arms behind your back.”

Regina did what she could. It was awkward with the pad under her arms, but she managed to get her wrists together at her lower back.

She felt them being manacled with soft leather cuffs. She wasn’t laughing anymore. Half bent over, her wrists behind her back, she was more vulnerable to him that she’d ever been to anyone.

“Okay, if you get too uncomfortable or I hurt you or something, just yell something ridiculous, like ‘Abracadabra.’ Bend forward a little more.”

She did, and he looped another padded leather strap under her hip bones.

“Okay, hang on, I’m going to raise it.”

Regina waited, already panting. The cool air in the room blew over her exposed flesh, and she could smell her own need.

The pulley whirled again, and Regina felt herself being lifted off the ground at her hips, until she was hanging with her head slightly below her waist, about four feet off the ground. She could barely touch the floor with the tips of her toes if she stretched.

“Okay, now for those ankles.” He sounded winded, like he’d been running, and she felt a stir of movement behind her, where she was exposed.

She heard the sound of a strap being tightened and then he was lifting her left leg up by the ankle and securing it with another padded cuff. Then he tightened the strap so that her knee was bent beneath her. This opened her, exposing her even more to his gaze, his touch, his cock.

“Right leg.” He secured the other one the same way, until she was hanging as if she were kneeling with her legs spread in midair, her arms locked behind her.

“Wow,” he murmured. “Just wow.”

“Milton,” she gasped. “You better start touching me.”

“Oh, yeah.” He picked something up off the weight bench—the shirt she’d been wearing—and folded it into a flat piece of cloth. Walking back to her, Regina was privy to a full frontal view of the brutally red and throbbing dick that he was currently sporting. Some pearly white liquid was already gathered at the tip, and Regina shivered at the idea of taking his come inside her.

She thought he wanted her to suck him a little, and she was happy to oblige, so when he came within a few inches of her mouth, she opened her lips and gently sucked him clean.

“Good fucking God,” he gasped and immediately covered her eyes with the shirt and knotted it behind her head, blindfolding her.

Regina continued to taste him while he worked, enjoying his fumbling, but then he pulled away from her, touching her lips gently in parting. “I can’t handle much more of that, not with you all tied up.”

Regina arched and wiggled. Her arms were going a little numb. “Hurry, Milton. Just fucking hurry.”

“Oh, no, not too much hurrying.”

He sounded calmer. Regina felt his hand run over her shoulder blades and then down her arms. “I can teach you how to get out of this,” he said, but he didn’t explain. Instead his palm, warm and callused, went to her butt. He rubbed her gently, and then with a sharp crack, he spanked her, hard enough to make her gasp and jerk.

“I thought you’d like that,” he said, his voice gruff. He did it again. And then a third time, until her ass felt on fire, but it was nothing, nothing, to the aching between her legs.
This was too much, this was amazing.
She thought she could come if he just touched her, just once, on her clit.

He didn’t. Instead she felt the tickle of something, like a feather. It brushed over the burning cheeks of her ass and down, in between her legs. Regina waited, each muscle in her body taut, as the tip of the feather brushed over the damp heat at her entrance and then down, tickling over her clitoris, so faintly she could barely feel it.

She heard a soft creak and felt him move behind her and then his hands were on the backs of her thighs and she felt his hot breath between her legs.

“Oh, no. No,” she moaned. She’d come right away if he did that. She could feel it.

“Beg me to do it,” he ordered. “Beg me to suck on that clit, nibble it with my teeth.”