Chapter 3 #3
And God help me, I wanted him to keep it.
He glanced down at the paper between us, the gold-embossed pen resting in his fingers.
“I’ve read through your list.” The statement came with the quiet authority of a man who had absorbed every line.
“Your ‘like’ column includes bondage and suspension; blindfolds, heavy bondage, leather restraints, immobilization, chains, rope… shibari. Upright, horizontal, inverted, body harness. All marked under ‘experienced’. That’s correct? ”
“It is.” My voice was steady, but my pulse wasn’t.
His gaze lingered on me, and when he spoke again, there was a shift—an almost imperceptible recalibration. “Shibari is one of my specialties. Have you ever been tied in a way that doesn’t just restrain you, but frees you?”
The question hit harder than I expected.
“It’s more than rope,” he continued, voice lower now, almost coaxing.
“It’s the art of mapping the body, learning where each knot presses, each line bites, each pull awakens something you didn’t know was sleeping.
Done right, it suspends more than the body.
It suspends thought. You float, not because of where the rope takes you, but because you’ve given over every ounce of control, and in doing so…
you find the kind of freedom you can’t manufacture any other way. ”
I wondered whether this the original speech? Or had he already decided to change the course of the evening?
“I was told you’re the resident sadist,” I said, tipping my head slightly, studying him. “I didn’t think you’d want to do something slow like shibari.”
For the first time since we’d sat down, he hesitated. Just enough to notice.
If it had been anyone else, I might have assumed it was because he was reconsidering my question. But with him… I sensed something else.
It would be easier, faster, for him to take me to the cross, to go hard and fast, to live up to whatever image “resident sadist” conjured in my head. I could feel it in the stillness of him, the awareness in his eyes. But instead of brushing the thought aside, he leaned into it.
“To me,” he said finally, voice low and even, “being a sadist isn’t just about pain. Pain is a tool, not the definition. The point isn’t to break skin, Hecate, it’s to break walls. To push someone past the edges they thought they couldn’t cross.”
His gaze caught mine, steady, deliberate.
“Sometimes that’s with pain. But sometimes…
it’s with something far slower. Rope. Anticipation.
The awareness that you can’t move, can’t escape, and yet…
you’re safe. It’s stripping you down, not just your body, but the armor you didn’t know you wore, and building you back up into something you never imagined you could be. ”
Heat curled low in my stomach, a different kind than I’d expected when I walked in here tonight. I’d come for fire, for the fast burn, but his words made me wonder about the slow, steady flame that could consume me just as thoroughly.
“I haven’t,” I admitted, my voice softer now. “No one’s been worthy enough to hand that consent to.”
A faint smile curved his mouth, though his eyes never left mine. “That’s about to change, Hecate.”
He looked back down at the form in front of him, scanning further. “The single-tail whip—hard limit?”
“I’ve had incredible scenes with floggers, paddles, belts, canes. But the single-tail… it demands absolute mastery from the one wielding it, and absolute trust from the one receiving. I’ve never met someone I was certain wouldn’t push past where I was willing to go. So I’ve left it a hard limit.”
Truth was, I’d always been tempted. I’d seen it done beautifully, like a conductor building toward a symphony’s crescendo. But I’d never met the right composer. And I wasn’t about to hand him that piece of information just yet.
“Then maybe it’s not a hard limit,” he said, making a small notation. “Maybe you just haven’t found the right hands yet.” His gaze flicked to my bare arms. “You have very pale skin, Hecate. I bet you mark beautifully.”
It wasn’t a question. And he wasn’t wrong. I did. I loved seeing the art left behind as proof of the moments I’d handed myself over entirely.
He kept reading. “Orgasm control. Anal beads. Plugs. Vibrators. Violet wand. Double penetration. Clothes pins. Nipple play.” His eyes lifted to mine, a heat in them that made me shift in my seat. “I can’t wait to see those gorgeous nipples and torture them until you beg to come.”
My nipples tightened instantly, traitorous in their anticipation.
“But you won’t beg, will you, my little goddess?” His mouth curved in something between a smirk and a challenge. “You’ll try to hold on. Keep that regal edge right until the end. You fly”—his voice dropped, intimate now—“but are you ever really free?”
The question slid under my skin, too close to truths I didn’t want a stranger to see. But I couldn’t ignore it.
“I promise, Master Loki, to receive what you give me. And that is all I can promise… for now.”
His grin told me he accepted my terms.
“Come, Hecate.” He stood, extending his hand. “Let’s see if tonight, this bird can be set free.”
When his fingers closed around mine, he tugged me to my feet and against him in one smooth motion. Steel and velvet. The controlled strength of a man who could crush and cradle with equal skill.
I thought he’d lead me toward the St. Andrew’s cross for the flogging I’d assumed we’d start with. Instead, he steered us away, toward a dimmer space where coils of rope hung like strands of captured lightning. The shift was subtle, but intentional.
My heart picked up speed.
Maybe tonight wouldn’t go the way I’d expected.
Maybe… it would go exactly the way I needed.