Unbound: (InterMix) (20 page)

“I wasn’t, no.”

“So you don’t need to, to get hard.”

“Not always.”

“But you have to at least think about that sort of stuff, if you want to get off.”

“Yeah. A woman alone can arouse me, but eventually it just starts to feel . . . pleasant.”
His smile turned apologetic. “It’s like a hot bath, the way it feels scalding at first,
but goes tepid after a bit . . . I wish it didn’t.”

She shrugged against the pillow. “You are how you are.” But she wondered if perhaps
the longer he was with a woman . . . Did that tepidness grow along with the familiarity,
until any given lover amounted to no more than a lukewarm soak? If the rope or the
power play could always bring the heat, did it matter? Or had climbing into bed with
his last long-term lover become nothing more than a cold dunk by the time they’d called
it quits?

But she didn’t know what he needed. Couldn’t
offer
him that. Or wouldn’t.
Perhaps a woman willing to meet Rob’s needs would have herself a worshipful admirer
for life.

He lowered, kissing her neck and resuming his motions. She shut her eyes and let the
slow, insistent stroke of his erection cloud her worries for a breath, clutching his
hair tight.

It was silly to even think this way, as though she were getting attached to him, worrying
whether or not he might be feeling attached to
her
. She’d be thousands of miles away in a few days, and who knew if their idle hopes
of a reunion would prove a pact or mere pillow talk.

And perhaps that was the
why
of the attachment.

Once they parted, they’d quite possibly never meet again. This fleeting affair would
be the stuff of memories, a perfect ornament, a precious thing small enough to cradle
in the palms and admire one’s warped reflection in. For the short time it lasted,
she wanted to believe it was perfect, and that somewhere in the core of this mutual
lust was something as extraordinary as love. A love stronger than the rules of Rob’s
fetish, promising a life in which Merry could have been enough, if only they’d had
more
time
together . . .

Dumb, dangerous wishes.

She stroked his arms, reminding herself he was real, now, no mere memory. But what
was the harm in theorizing? She hoped Rob, too, might entertain soppy delusions after
they kissed good-bye. She wanted to believe he’d pine for her the same way she would
him, but that the impossibility of them would keep the memories safe, untouched by
bothersome reality.

Stop it.

These thoughts, hopeful and lamenting alike, had no place in this bed with them. Not
on this, her last night in this peculiar man’s home. If there was ever a time to savor
the present, now was it.

Rob slowed above her. She’d gone still, she realized.

“Are you okay? Should I stop?”

She smiled up at him and rubbed his shoulder. “I’m wonderful. My brain’s just being
noisy.”

“So I shouldn’t stop?”

“No. Wait, yes.”

Perplexed, he let Merry up, and she got to her feet. She wanted to get lost in the
wilderness of his sexuality, give herself over again, body and mind, to the exploration.
She crouched, reaching under the bed.

She made her voice cold. “Lie down, Rob.” She found the cardboard with her fingers,
and his eyes widened as it scraped along the floor.

“Lie. Down,” she said again, and he obeyed, expression growing dark and helpless.

Merry stifled a grin.
My God, you’re a piece of work.

And I am going to blow your fucking mind.

His gaze followed as she rummaged in the lamplight—lifting the box, drawing one of
the ropes out as she moved on her knees across the mattress. She let it trail through
a loose fist, again and again, watching his eyes glaze and his lips part. They couldn’t
keep his excitement a secret any better than his cock. It tented his shorts and loose
trousers, incriminating and eager.

She straddled his thighs. “Hold out your hands.”

He did.

“How long had it been, again?” she demanded, looping the rope around his wrists, above
his belly. Rob’s breath grew strained with every rough pass, and as she tugged to
pin his hands together, a gasp fled his mouth.

He blinked, looking drunk. “How long was what?”

“Since you’d been with a woman, before me?” She kept her eyes on the task, wondering
if he could sense her smirk. She knew the answer, of course, but her scorn stroked
this man as surely as her fist might.

He swallowed. “Over three years.”

“That must’ve been very lonely.” She said it too-sweetly, glazing the words in pity.

For a moment, though, clarity came to his face. He answered quietly, “It was.”

She held his gaze, knowing what he said was true.
It was,
his eyes told her.
Until you came.
Merry let that hover between them for a breath before resuming the game.

She tugged the ends into a tight knot, doubled it, and sat back expectantly.

Rob held her stare, awaiting an order. “Yes?”

With a flicker of a smile she said, “Show me how you fucked yourself, Rob. All those
years, all by yourself.”

The words struck him like whip, shutting his eyes and tensing the length of his body.
Driving his head against the pillow.

“All those lonely nights,” she went on, and she undid the bow of his pajama pants,
eased them and his shorts down to free his erection. She slid them all the way off,
moving to his side. “Get on your knees, facing the wall.” She leaned back as though
lounging while he obeyed, struggling with his hands bound. The power felt amazing,
like an actual drug high coursing through her. “Good. Now show me how you comforted
yourself.”

Rob sat on his heels, thighs spread. He brought his tethered hands to his cock, dropping
his gaze. It had to be awkward, with his wrists hugged tight. She wondered if the
right one was already raw from her games this afternoon, and if he liked it. Wondered
if the rope rasped that skin anew as he adjusted to expose a palm. He wrapped his
cock in one hand, cradled by the second. The tail of the rope glanced his balls and
the tender skin of his innermost thigh, and his hands shook faintly.

“Fuck yourself,” Merry ordered, making her voice cold—as cold as her body was searing.

He squeezed his ready flesh, drawing the fist to his flushed head and back down.

“Good,” she said, watching his arms, his cock, his face, enthralled by what she could
do to him. He kept his own gaze glued obediently to his fingers.

“Fuck your hands.”

He stilled his fist and rose up from his heels, making the motion with his hips, thrusting
into his grip. Merry’s breath caught high in her chest, but she worked to keep her
expression cool, in case he stole a glimpse. His body was glorious—strong and needy
at once—and it lit her up to control it.

Was this how he looked when he pleasured himself alone? Or some other way? Would this
become his method from now on, his mental script rewritten to resemble this very moment?
She took it all in, watched him for minutes on end. His eyes sought hers. Just a glance,
but she could read his mind in that second. He was dying to know what she wanted from
him—longevity or helplessness, or that odd, dirty dynamic from their time together,
during the storm. Surrender as an act of disobedience.

What he wants,
she realized,
is whatever I want.

She ran her fingers lazily down his spine. It spurred his hips, their motions growing
fitful. “You’re close, aren’t you?”

He jerked his head in a nod, then shut his eyes, getting lost in the strokes or the
rasp of the rope, or both. Or her words? The exposure and degradation? Everything.
A hundred things he’d wanted all these years but never been gifted.
Never until me.

Within a dozen breaths, he was panting.

“You’re dying to come, aren’t you?”

Another nod.

“Talk to me.”

“Yes,” he managed, voice raw.

“You’re going to lose yourself again, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I see . . . Look at me.” She said it sharply and he obeyed. She narrowed her eyes.
“Stop.”

Genuine distress passed across his features, but he slowed and let himself go. His
ribs expanded and collapsed with heaving breaths, and sweat shone on his forehead.
His linked hands hovered at his abdomen, trembling.

“You would’ve come if you’d kept going,” she said.

He swallowed, the effort looking painful. “Yes. I would have.”

“Without my permission?”

“Oh.”
He said it so quietly, and squeezed his eyes shut. He looked as though he could come
from that alone—her disapproval. The things she said affected him as surely as any
physical caress.

“Is that a yes?” she asked. “Would you have come if you’d kept going? Without being
you told you could?”

His eyes opened and he nodded once more. “Yes.”

“That’s bad,” she murmured, steeping the words in disappointment. “Very bad.”

She sighed loudly into the quiet night and let the ensuing silence echo in his ears
and amplify whatever he was wallowing in—her contempt, the uncertainty of what might
come next. She let them both listen solely to the ragged hush of his breaths for long
moments, meditating on how wonderfully twisted this man’s mind was. And how for Rob,
there really was no greater reward than punishment.

What a delightful wreck you are.

She gift-wrapped her next words in a final disgusted sigh, then handed them over.

“Hands and knees.”

Chapter Thirteen

Rob fumbled with his joined wrists, bracing his weight on his forearms. Heart pounding.
Cock pounding. He caught the end of the rope in his fingers. He was playing with fire,
letting himself feel it, but this was their last evening, his last taste of this role-playing.
No time for temperance. If ever he ought to embrace his bygone gluttonous tendencies
and binge, it was tonight.

For endless moments, Merry did nothing. Was she watching him, as she had while he’d
masturbated for her? Christ. The stroking had felt good, the friction exquisite . . .
but it was Merry’s eyes on him that’d had him gasping. Her judgment, her assessment,
her commands. Hotter than his fists, hotter than the rope. He’d seen approval in those
eyes, the way they recorded his body in profile. He’d been that aching, bruised man
for so long, he’d come to feel ugly, deep down to his bones. But the way she’d looked
at him . . . She liked what she saw. The disdain she affected couldn’t hide it.

He longed to turn his head, find her eyes on him . . . to earn perhaps even more punishment
than he already had coming. But obedience felt so right. Let her rule him as wholly
as the bottle had. Bruise him, even, if in such utterly different ways . . .

“Why are you kneeling?” Her voice was a shadow, dark and chilling.

“Because I got too close.”

“That’s right.” She laid a palm on his back, stroking up to his neck, then drawing
short fingernails down the gulley of his spine. Rob shivered and fingered the rope,
icy misgiving chased by fever.

I’m her slave,
he imagined.
Her toy. She owns me, completely.
Again, like the bottle. Both Merry and the gin had proven harsh mistresses, but where
Rob had once hid in the false comforts of his addiction, Merry’s indulgence drew him
out—made him feel wildly, vibrantly conscious, when alcohol had only deadened. The
bottle had been a blanket to cower beneath. This . . . This was exposure, pure and
sharp.

Her hand caressed his arse—one cheek, then the other, and his arousal screwed tight
as a fist.

Please. Please.

She fisted his hair with her other hand, pinning his head in place, his gaze locked
on his bound wrists. He gasped, so quietly she might not have heard.

“Do you know why I’m really upset, Rob?”

He nearly couldn’t get the words out, throat and jaw so sore he felt strangled. “Because
I was too excited?”

“That’s right. And because I need your come.”

Fucking yes.
Her nails raked his arse and he gasped.

“I need every drop, and you know that. Yet you nearly wasted what’s mine, because
you’re weak.” The first slap landed, stinging only for a moment, then blooming with
heat. The degradation lingered far longer, pulsing pink and restless in his body like
embers.

“And selfish.” The second spank was far harder, landing on his other cheek with a
ringing pain and a fearsome, perfect sound.

“Fuck.”
He choked on the word.

“And worthless.” The word stung as deep as the strike, dousing him in the sweetest,
darkest, hottest shame.

She rubbed his tender flesh, and Rob imagined the scene—how red his pale skin must
be, the way his shoulders shook and his ribs rose and fell with these wild breaths.
How this glorious woman’s face must look, that perfect expression of scorn eclipsing
her dark eyes, setting her full lips in a hard line.

For the first time in his life, Rob’s reality looked like those videos and images
he’d sought out and masturbated to. He was living in his fantasy. And sober. Sober,
and yet so completely intoxicated. Desire coursed through his veins, hot and dizzying
as wine.

Just as his stinging arse began to cool, her voice cut through the silence.

“Selfish,” she declared again, and spanked him—
hard
.

“Oh.”

“Shut up.”

Oh fuck.
That nearly toppled him. He sucked a heaving breath, fighting for control.

“Lower,” she ordered, pushing at the back of his head.

Rob let his arms straighten, fists slipping under the pillow. He rested his forehead
on his elbows, and he heard his own tattered breaths, felt their heat on his face
and arms.

“Weak,” Merry repeated, with a slap that bucked his hips. “Worthless.”
Smack.
“Selfish.” One more, the hardest and meanest of the lot. “Do you know what that makes
you, Rob?”

“N-no.”
Tell me.

“A very bad pet indeed.” No more spanking. She let his hair go, then moved behind
him, nudging his thighs wide so she could kneel between them. He felt exposed and
vulnerable and fucking
wonderful.
She rubbed his backside, soothing the tingling burn. The touch moved lower, until
one hand held his hip, the other slipping between his thighs, cupping his balls.

Yes.
That callous sensation of appraisal. He moaned—a frightened, pitiful sound.

“I’m going to test you,” she announced, voice dark and scheming.

“I won’t disappoint you,” Rob said, no clue if he could keep such a promise. Or indeed
if he
wanted
to keep it.

She took her taunting hand away, and her hips bumped his backside as she scooted closer.
He felt the smooth fabric of her underwear and the whispering hem of her silk base
layer, both so dry and alien against his bare, damp skin. So exciting, the way they
compounded his nudity. His vulnerability.

For a long time she merely kneaded his hips, the motion softly, rhythmically driving
her body into his, gifting him an entirely new and nuanced experience—this echoing
sensation of being
fucked
. Bent over and fucked by a woman. Penetration had never been central to his fantasies,
merely a passing, occasional curiosity, wildly trumped by his desire for cock-worship.
But it was thrilling, feeling her bumping into him this way. All the domination he
craved, and this hint of his capacity for being the vessel, as well as the implement.

Her palms slid lower, fingers tracing the creases where his thighs met his hips. Finally,
she cupped his balls again, the other hand closing around his swollen cock.

“Oh.”

“Shh. This is your test. Be a good boy, and stay hard for me.”

That was no issue—he doubted he’d ever been this hard in his life. But if she meant—

“And don’t you dare you lose yourself before I tell you to.”

Yes, that. His head swam as she stroked him, making the impossibility of this test
plain. When she crested his crown, the downstroke was slick. His face burned hot with
shame and excitement.
I’m wet. Wet as a woman. Wet enough to fuck.

She slicked him with another mean stroke. “Close already,” she scolded.

So close. Did she actually want him to succeed? That hand on his balls was demeaning—blessedly
so. It weighed and taunted, stimulating as though prepping him.
I need all you have,
it ordered him.
More than you even knew you could give.

She fucked him. Fucked him with her fist as he took it, prone and tied and helpless.
If this was a test, she was the strictest of taskmasters. For Rob it was win-win—hold
out, and he’d earn the satisfaction of obedience. Fail, and wallow in that oddest
of kinks, his hunger for disapproval.

“Don’t you disappoint me, Rob.”

“Oh.”
But he would. He had no choice.
And you bloody well know it,
he thought, craning his neck, watching her with wonder. Her dark eyes met his, and
he was done for.

It was slow-motion, his defeat—like fingers clawing at a crumbling cliff’s edge, scrabbling
uselessly for purchase before he finally went over. Lost it. Quaking, moaning, dying
from the pleasure, he emptied into her waiting palm. Before the spasms even stopped,
she stroked his length, bathing him in his own warm, shameful mess.

Something extraordinary happened.

A faint sensation of release and a strange, taut, exquisite pang, deep in his belly.

It forced a guttural sound from his chest and throat—an ugly, pained thing, resounding
with a cleaving spike of pleasure. He came down from it, trembling.

Fucking hell, had he just come twice? Was that possible?

Her grip softened, filthy as ever, but gentle now. She was quiet. Silent.

What are you thinking?

Rob’s arms shook, ribs heaving. He felt his come cooling, growing tacky between his
softening, spent cock and her palm. She let him go, moving behind him on the mattress.

He got himself turned over on numb arms, sitting back against the headboard. Merry
was cleaning her hand on his shorts, smiling at him.

He smiled back.

When she approached it was no cruel owner, just that charming woman. He eyed the cut
on her temple, barely more than a dark line now. He tried to remember all that panic
he’d felt when she arrived. He tried to remember his thoughts in those first frantic
minutes of their acquaintance, about being
stuck
with her. Burdened by her. Resigned to her cheerful prying.

He could laugh now, to know everything she’d brought to him, way out in this loneliest
corner of a lonely country.

She scooted close, sitting cross-legged before him with her cool hands on his feet.

He felt bloody
high
. For the first time in his life he had to wonder—did normal men feel all this from
sex? Merry might be onto something, thinking his twisted tastes had their merits.
Maybe he couldn’t get off just from simple intercourse, but if he got to feel all
this . . . was he really so deprived?

With his demons exorcised for the time being, he was calm, and so, so grateful. The
mania was gone, and now he could do for her. With his hands or mouth, probably even
his cock, if she was patient. Sweet, harsh, playful, rough . . . they had one condom
left, and it wouldn’t be wasted.

He held her eyes. “Give me a few minutes, and we can do anything you like. Anything
at all.”

Her smile was slow and not entirely innocent. “You think I’m done indulging you already?”

He blinked, then laughed softly. “I did, yes. If you hadn’t noticed, you nearly killed
me.” Something shifted in his bloodstream. A quickening. Not enough to rouse him,
not yet, but the first stirring that told him it would happen. If she demanded it.

With an evil smile, she said, “Come with me.”

It was no request—she grabbed the end of the rope and tugged at his wrists until his
feet found the floor, then led him to the den like a dog.

She dropped his leash and lifted the lantern from its hook on the support beam, moving
it to the deep windowsill.

“Back against the beam,” she said.

Rob did as he was told. Fucking Christ,
yes
.

The light cast Merry in an imposing silhouette, but he’d be illuminated perfectly
to her. It invited nonexistent outsiders to witness his humiliation, made the dark
night even darker, made those imaginary eyes that much easier to conjure. Wickedest
magic of all, it turned the windowpane into a mirror, letting Rob bear witness to
his own fate. Whatever it may be.

Merry raised his wrists. The hook was an inch or two higher than Rob stood; his arms
bent to frame his head as she secured the rope. He felt it catch, felt it bite to
spur his pounding heart. His belly rose and fell with rapid breaths.

She stepped back to admire her work.

What are you going to do? Tell me. Show me.
God, could he come from just her scrutiny? No hands, no mouth, nothing but her eyes
and words.
Talk to me. Please.
Her gaze dropped, and his cock responded, a faint swelling spurred by her attention
alone.

She left him. She went to the kitchen and he heard water dripping and splashing. When
she reentered his field of vision, she had the washcloth in her hand. She came close,
and he could feel the steam just before the towel touched his tender cock, the water
hot from sitting atop the stove.

“You’ve made such a mess of yourself.” A lament, soft and weary. Not cruel, but so
perfectly pitying.

Rob moaned, eyes closing. He loved being degraded, but this felt wonderful as well,
this gentleness underscoring how weak he was. This sense of being a possession, tended
to and tidied and . . . handled.

He felt his skin grow clean and the once-warm cloth grow tepid, and felt his arousal
returning with each slow, patronizing stroke of her hand. In no time he was half-hard,
and the blood pounding only got angrier when she took the washcloth away.

She left him to ditch it, and now there was nothing standing between Rob and his own
reflection in the window. A frightened man pinioned to a beam, to a hook, stripped
and left to suffer. And it was
him
. Him, strung against this post, feeling the wood at his back and tender arse, rope
at his aching wrists. A real woman’s hands taunting him soon enough, not his own lonely
fist as he squinted through the stupor at a too-bright computer screen.

Merry took her time, returning with the slowest, most casual steps, staying in his
periphery. He kept his gaze on the window, ever obedient.

She took a step, then another, standing just to his side—close enough for her breast
to glance his ribs, but neglecting his erection. She rose onto her tiptoes, bringing
their mouths and eyes level. Rob swallowed, every nerve crackling with anticipation.

“You’re worthless,” Merry told him, lips grazing his with each syllable. “You know
that, don’t you?”

He replied with a shallow gasp, eyes closing. Her hand slid down his chest and belly
to cup his cock.

“Oh.”

“Except for this,” she muttered, fondling.

He’d been half-hard before, but with just a few curious strokes, she had him ready.
So ready it hurt.

“How on earth was such a pathetic, useless man gifted with such a perfect cock?” She
took his lip between her teeth and bit him softly, the cruelty echoed by a firm squeeze
from her torturing hand. The world tilted and rolled, upended by the sensations. He
heard a faint
thump thump thump
from above and knew it was his own knuckles rapping the beam, his arms shaking. He
knew these things, theoretically. But he felt only his lust, the pleasure-pain boiling
in his belly and cock.