Chapter 38
Thirty-Eight
Vicky
Alex slides the knife under my dress, its steel hard against the skin of my back.
I don’t breathe or move.
It’s instinctive to freeze. I trust Alex—most of the time—but I don’t want to be nicked.
I hope he’s not planning to cut me. If that’s on his list, it’s happening… it’s not about trust when he intends to do it on purpose.
Would that appeal to him?
The blade turns, pulling my dress taut, then the edge cuts through fabric. It’s that sharp.
My dress sags, loose.
“It had buttons,” I mutter. All Kirsten’s work undone in seconds.
“You already ruined it climbing out of my study window.”
True.
Wait… “How do you know?”
“Do you mean, ‘did I hear the loud bang of the window and the shutter hitting the wall,’ or, ‘did I know you would try to escape at some point’?”
Well, that’s me summed up in a line. “Never mind,” I mutter.
“Oh, the petulance!” Alex cries with mock drama. “So well named, Tinker Bell.” He leans forward, tightens his grip on the scruff of my neck, and speaks softly right into my ear. “You tried to escape me, and you were caught. Are you going to face the consequences like a good girl?”
I tremble against the bed. It’s not fear, it’s arousal—zero to ten in the blink of an eye.
No, four to ten, since I was turned on as soon as he put me over his shoulder and spanked me…
then threatened me with more spankings unless I married him…
then pinned me. Whatever. It’s still enough that it’s hard to draw a breath, my breasts ache with need, my pussy clenches on nothing, and my panties are soaked.
God, I’ve missed this feeling.
“No,” I reply, as strongly as I can. And it’s not defiance, it’s not resistance. It’s begging him for more.
Before we’ve even begun.
He chuckles, like he sees right through me. Maybe he does.
“Good,” he says. It’s just one word, but it tugs so deep inside me that I can’t help a whimper slipping out. It’s muffled by the sheets, but I’m certain he still hears it, because he chuckles again. That low, masculine, self-satisfied sound.
“Put your hands on the bars, Tink.”
Because of course he bought a bed with a wrought iron headboard.
My fingers grip the cold metal, arms stretched out, head pressed between them.
“If you move them, you’ll be punished.”
I scratch my nose with one hand, then put it back on the bars.
And Alex draws in a breath. “I see,” he says. “It all becomes clear.”
His hand pushes between my legs, under my dress, tugging aside my lacy boy shorts.
I gasp at the suddenness of it, then gasp again as his fingers find my pussy.
He squeezes my labia together then pushes a finger between, and my gasp becomes a soft cry.
His touch glides into me, so wet I am, and my hips rise of their own accord to grant him better access.
“Do you know how wet you are?”
I don’t think that question needs a response. It sounded rhetorical to me.
His hand slips away, then clenches in my hair, pulling it tight as he uses it to turn my face toward him. “I asked you a question.”
“Yes,” I squeak. Okay, it needed a response. My bad.
He gives my head a little shake, then releases me. No hand on my neck, no fingers between my legs. I’ve no idea where the knife has gone. There’s no contact at all.
Is this the punishment?
It sucks.
He’s reaching for the bedside table drawer, which is still open. If he’s putting the knife back, I’m rethinking the whole ‘going for a drive’ thing, and leaving right now.
But he doesn’t. Instead, he pulls out a bundle of jute rope, the weave tight. He had that too?
For how long?
“Finished scratching your nose?” he asks casually as he unties the bundle and shakes it loose.
“Yes, thank you.”
“Good.” It doesn’t take him long to bind my wrists to the headboard. He’s using both hands this time, and I don’t resist.
Rope presses into my skin.
My wrists are healed, I know they are. Yet I still see raw marks, the skin stripped away. The rope is a fine quality, I know it is. But in my vision, it’s coarse hemp, tattered and frayed, burning when I pull at it.
I’m not on a bed, I’m in a chair. Bound.
I struggle.
Someone grabs my hair, forcing my head around. I fight him.
“Vicky.” My name. Sharp, urgent. “Vicky. Open your eyes.”
I shake my head, screw my eyes tighter. My wrists pull at the bindings, but they won’t come free. I know they won’t; I still fight.
“Tink,” he says, his voice different. It’s calm. “Look at me, Tinker Bell.”
Tinker Bell. Petulance, defiance, moodiness.
It’s a name that makes me feel safe. And angry, but mostly safe.
I open my eyes.
Alex’s face is inches from mine. He’s kneeling beside the bed.
“Good,” he says softly. “Eyes on me, now. Don’t look away. What color are mine?”
I know without checking. “Golden-flecked hazel.”
“Look again. Look deeper.”
His eyes are so mesmerizing. “Green,” I say. “Brown… yellow. Blue.” All the colors are there.
“Good girl. Where are you?”
I’m in his bed. My wrists are bound to the headboard, not to the arms of a metal chair.
“I’m sorry,” I mutter, and turn my face into my arm. I’m embarrassed, and I’ve ruined the moment.
“Eyes on me,” he says, and it’s not a request.
It’s difficult to pull them back to his face, but I do.
“Keep them here.” He points to his own eyes, his gaze locked with mine. “I’m going to give you a choice. Are you listening?”
“Yes.” I think I know what the choice is, and I don’t want it.
“Two options,” he says quietly. “First one: I leave your hands bound, and if you need me, you say my name. I’ll stop what I’m doing and meet your eyes. Do you understand?”
I nod, jerkily. I wait for the second, already knowing I’ll pick the first. I don’t want him to stop, to untie me, to think I’m weak. I don’t want to mix this with that damn warehouse. I want this, I want him. I want new memories, good memories, overlaid on old.
“Second choice,” he says, his eyes not flicking away even for a moment. “I tie your ankles too. And your neck. Those are your only—”
Holy. Fucking. Shit. “Second.”
He doesn’t ask if I’m sure, he just smiles. Then he leans forward, his hand sliding into my hair, and he gives it a little shake as he speaks to me. “Bad girl,” he whispers. Shake. “You’re going to be punished.” Shake. “Do you know why?”
God, I hate questions when I’m this turned on. “No.”
“Because you didn’t tell me what you wanted.”
Oh.
Fair.
“So now I’m going to have to punish you.”
But it takes two to communicate.
“You didn’t ask either, you bastard. It’s hardly my fault.”
His smile widens into a grin. “For that, I’m going to take your ass.”
My moment of defiance crumbles at that. He’s never taken my ass.
“Can we… rethink this?”
“Sure,” he says, reasonably. “I can add a gag to option two as well, or you can be good from now on.”
Right. No choice, then. It’s happening.
“I’ll be good.”
He leans in and brushes my lips with his. “I know you will.”
Then he stands up, towering over me.
First, he checks the knots on my wrists, presumably because my little panic attack tightened them before he was done.
He makes some adjustments, and my wrists are held just as firmly, but more comfortable.
Next, he moves down the bed, and rope loops around my ankle.
He works fast, drawing it tight and tying it off to something.
I don’t know what, only that my ankle is held.
He starts on the second, removing my one remaining shoe with gentleness, then tying that one.
And I take the opportunity to test the give on the first. I have a few inches of play, no more.
This isn’t a four-poster. The man’s a genius with rope.
“Where did you learn bondage like this?”
“Rope workshops.”
I’m reasonably certain that’s not a euphemism for nautical skills.
“Who did you practice on?”
He’s finished with my second ankle, and his hand returns to the back of my neck. “Why do you care, Tink? We all have a past. You’re my present and future. Don’t forget that.”
It’s an answer I can accept.
Alex feeds another strand of rope under my chin, draws it around my neck, then pulls it firmly against my skin. I can’t help my shudder, and I can feel it when I swallow. The loose end gets attached to the headboard, and that’s even worse, like I’m something to tie to his bed for his pleasure.
Which is exactly what I am.
“Don’t struggle too much now,” he warns me, “unless you’re into breath play, too.”
And that mocking comment only makes me shiver again.
He retrieves the knife and makes short work of the rest of my dress. It barely tugs against me, the material already loose, the blade sharp and his access unfettered. He draws it from beneath me and drops it on the floor, a puddle of ruined white silk and satin.
Custom-fitted couture with an eye-watering bill, and it didn’t quite make it through an hour.
“I’m assuming you didn’t want to dye that and use it for parties.”
I laugh. “No, I wanted to rip it climbing over a roof, then have it cut off my bound body.”
“That’s a win, then.”
His hand trails down over my bare back, cups my ass, and gives it a little squeeze. “These are a nice pair,” he says. “Shame to destroy them, but…”
The cold steel of the knife slides beneath my panties, running down the side of my hip. There’s barely a tug, and it lifts away. Alex repeats on the other side, then puts the knife back in the drawer.
“It’s like unwrapping a present,” he breathes, almost to himself, and slowly draws them from between my legs. The light, lacy material brushes sensuously against my aroused sex.
“That’s a picture,” he murmurs, almost wistful. There’s a short delay of nothing, then the unmistakable click of a camera phone. I bite my lip, pressing my face against my arm, my cheeks heating.
Being tied up naked doesn’t make me blush, but knowing he now has it recorded forever? Yeah, that does.
Then something cold, hard and metal slides between my labia, and my hips twitch. I didn’t see what it is, but I can guess. What else does he have in that damn drawer?