Chapter 27
JACK
The toys laid out on the bed made my mouth water and my body ache. The pain he inflicted was awful in the moment, but amazing at the same time. Addictive. I’d never experienced something so simultaneously horrible and beautiful, and I couldn’t get enough.
He’d gone for a run this morning while I’d showered, then he’d showered himself. Now, as the rain battered the windows outside, it was time to play.
“Everything here all right?” Devon gestured at the toys.
Licking my lips, I nodded. “All of it. Yes.”
His smile made my knees weak. “Perfect. Strip.”
Not that I needed to remove much—we’d both been lounging in the provided bathrobes since our respective showers.
I untied the belt and shrugged off the robe. The air was cool against my skin, but I wasn’t cold. Completely comfortable as I eagerly anticipated the sting and thud and burn of his toys against my flesh.
Devon changed from his bathrobe into a T-shirt and a pair of shorts.
Not the classic Dom or leather-daddy look, but it meant he had all the range of motion he needed and he wouldn’t get too hot.
It also put his powerful arms and thighs on full display, which was to say nothing about how the shirt sat on his incredible shoulders or how the shorts clung to his round ass.
He would probably look spectacular in leather, but I had no complaints about this.
Standing in front of me, Devon said, “Kneel.”
I would never stop loving how my knees seemed to be hardwired to obey that command. One word from him, and I was on the floor at his feet.
“Calisse,” he murmured, stroking my wet hair.
Just inches from my face, the shorts tented with his erection.
Would he fuck me this time? Sometimes he did, sometimes he didn’t.
I hoped he did. I wanted him buried in me again.
I wanted his hands on me. His toys. His whip.
My senses sang with hunger for all the things he’d do to me. I wanted it all. I wanted—
I wanted more.
“Sir.” I gazed up at him. “I…”
He tilted his head, concern in his eyes. Caressing my cheek, he whispered, “Tell me.”
“I, uh…” I swallowed hard. “Tie me.”
My own words sent twin surges of fear and determination through me.
Devon’s lips parted. “Tie you? But you don’t like bondage.”
I appreciated how he understated the truth—that I was terrified of it.
“I want to,” I breathed.
He stared at me, and I felt guilty for the uncertainty on his face.
Heart pounding, I reached for his hand and laced our fingers together.
“I’ve trusted you from the start, Sir. I want…
” I hesitated, asking myself one last time if I was sure.
Yes. Yes, I absolutely was, and though my voice was unsteady, the words came out clearly: “I want to trust myself to do this for you.”
He stared at me. Disbelief, but also wonder. Then he crouched so we were roughly eye level. He touched my cheek as he said, “Are you sure?”
I nodded, my skin breaking out in goose bumps as the motion brushed my cheek against his fingertips. “Yes. For you. For myself.”
Devon searched my eyes. For long seconds, I was sure he was going to tell me we couldn’t do this. Not now. Maybe not at all.
“We can stop any time, right?” I asked.
“Of course,” he said quickly. “Always. Anything.”
I smiled up at him and repeated, “I trust you.”
He chewed his lip. I was again sure the “no” was coming, but he nodded slowly. “You remember the traffic-light safewords, yes?”
“Of course.”
“Okay. If you feel even a little bit anxious—if the claustrophobia sets in at all—say ‘yellow.’” He carded his fingers through my hair. “Even if you’re not sure. Just say it. We’ll pause. We’ll catch our breath. And then when it’s ‘green,’ we’ll continue. Yes?”
I was nodding as he spoke. He’d explained “yellow” more or less the same way before, but this explanation settled some of my nerves. As if he were telling me to make more judicious use of that word this time. To err on the side of using it rather than trying to knuckle through.
I relaxed far more than I thought I was capable with bondage on the table. “Yes, Sir.”
His smile set off fireworks of delight. “Okay.” He rose. “Stand up and move to the end of the bed. Kneel facing the headboard.”
I obeyed, my knee popping as I rose.
Devon eyed me. “Are you all right? Would a different position be more comfortable?”
I considered it. Something told me this would be a protracted scene, especially as he eased me into the thing I’d feared the most. “Maybe standing?”
“Okay. Stand by the footboard, holding the post.”
I could do that, and I did. Devon rifled around in his bag. The distinctive jingle of cuffs made my neck prickle, but I closed my eyes and breathed. I wanted this. I wanted it with him.
Something thudded on the bed, and when I looked, there was a coil of rope beside all the other implements.
“We’ll work up to that,” he said softly. “But only if you want to. It’s there as an option, but I will never make you.”
I nodded, eyeing the rope warily. “Thank you, Sir.”
He held up his hand, the silver cuffs dangling from his outstretched fingers. “Are these all right?”
I watched the light glinting off the metal. Oh yes, I was still nervous about this, but I nodded again anyway. “Yes, Sir.”
“All right. I’m going to cuff you in the front.” He tapped the bedpost. “You’re going to hold on to this, but you won’t be cuffed to it. Understand?”
Cool relief swept through me. “Yes, Sir.”
He closed one of the cuffs around my wrist. “Show me you can use the safety release.”
I did, and with the slightest pressure, the cuff opened. I swore it felt like a hand around my throat letting go. Irrational? Probably. But I could breathe easier now.
He put it around my other wrist and made me do the same. Then he put both on and, once again, had me release it.
“You can free yourself at any time,” he said. “I will honor a safeword without hesitation. But you have the ability to free yourself.”
“Thank you, Sir,” I whispered.
He pushed himself up and kissed me lightly. “Are you ready?”
“Yes, Sir.” I paused. “This… This isn’t too much, is it? For you?”
“I’ve done plenty of bondage.”
“But not with a sub who’s afraid of it.” I held his gaze. “You can say no, too.”
“I know I can.” He touched my chin and kissed me again. “I’m not saying no. I’m only being careful.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
One more kiss, and then he cuffed me and ordered me to hold the bedpost. I took and released a few breaths.
This was it. Though I knew I could escape with just a flick of a switch, the habitual panic swirled beneath my skin.
Some irrational part of my lizard brain thought I was actually bound to the bedpost, not just holding it, but I breathed through that primal freakout.
“Are you all right, Jack?” Devon’s voice was soft and smooth with no trace of nerves.
“Yes, Sir.”
“Okay. We’re going to get started.”
He warmed up my skin with a soft flogger smacking my shoulders and my ass. I wondered if he took longer than normal, or if time just warped while I vacillated between claustrophobia and the desire to fly off into subspace. The former kept me too grounded to fly, the latter kept me from panicking.
Almost kept me from panicking.
A sharper slap to my shoulder made me tense, and I unintentionally pulled at the cuffs. When I hit the end of the tiny chain—when the resistance stopped my hands dead—my pulse skyrocketed, and not in a fun way.
Eyes closed, I breathed.
“Jack?” Devon asked, his tone still gentle and even. “Are you all right?”
It took work to swallow, but I managed. “Yes, Sir.” I opened my eyes and gazed down at my wrists. At the short chain stretched taut between my wrists. I thumbed the quick release, my head swimming as the impulse to press the release clashed with the determination to push through.
“Jack? I can take them off.”
“No, Sir,” I gritted out, and moved my thumb away from the switch. “I want this. Please. Sir.”
He was suddenly closer, his body heat warming my naked skin a second before his palm rested between my shoulder blades. “Are you saying ‘yellow,’ Jack?”
I rolled that word around on my tongue as I rubbed the cuff with my thumb to expend this need to hit the switch.
The steady pressure of his hand brought my pulse down.
His presence, his concern, his reassurance—his invitation to pause or stop.
He wasn’t discouraging me from doing this, just encouraging me to lean on the safety rails if I needed to.
“There’s no shame in stopping,” he whispered. “I’ll continue as long as you want, but I won’t push you. Not with this.”
I twisted around to meet his concerned gaze. “Thank you, Sir.” I grinned. “Green.”
Surprise flickered across his face, then desire and approval, and oh, God, I wanted this so bad now. The claustrophobia still itched all over, but Devon being this pleased and aroused was a balm to that itch.
The hand between my shoulders moved to my hair, and he stroked it. “Good boy, Jack.”
Fucking hell. I almost melted to my knees.
He kissed me lightly on the mouth, then traded the soft flogger for a much meaner one. “Are you ready for more, Jack?”
“Yes, Sir.” The words were little more than a ragged breath. “Please, Sir.”
“That’s my good boy.” He stepped around behind me, and I let my eyelids flutter closed as the tails rattled softly against each other. This was going to hurt so good.
And I was going to endure every sting and bite, with my hands still bound. No safety release. I wanted this.
I opened my eyes again and let my gaze land on the rope coiled on the bed. The phantom scrape of rope on my wrists tingled beside the cold, vaguely sharp edges of the cuffs. Fuck, I wanted him to tie me. I wanted to be fully bound, with no way out except for him to untie me or cut me loose.
God, yes.
And the last clear thought I had before the flogger bit into my shoulder was that I wanted Devon’s ropes on my skin.