Chapter 31 Ash
Ash
Teague grabs me by the waist in the kitchen while I'm rinsing the last plate from dinner, his mouth warm against my ear. "Ledger's room. We're sending you out with a bang, Sunshine."
"I told you at dinner I'm not leaving."
"Semantics," Ledger says from the doorway, already walking down the hall.
I dry my hands and follow the sound of boots on hardwood, my pulse picking up the way it does now whenever a door closes in this house.
Ledger's room is the one I've spent the least time in, the bed bigger than I expected and stripped down to the fitted sheet.
Cass is sitting on the edge of it, shirtless, his back against the headboard with his legs stretched out, turning a small bottle between his fingers.
Teague moves to the closet, pulling something from the top shelf, a coil of rope that looks soft, woven, the color of wheat.
"Okay," I say from the doorway, looking at the rope and then the bottle and then the three of them arranged around a bed that's clearly been prepared. "Somebody tell me what's happening."
Teague crosses the room and holds the rope out so I can feel it.
I run it through my fingers. It's softer than I expected, braided rather than twisted, the kind that gives under pressure without burning.
He watches me touch it with that patient expression he wears when he's about to explain something I'm going to be nervous about.
“Ledger got a new bed. It’s a California king,” Cass purrs, patting the mattress. “Isn’t it pretty? I told him we needed room for… activities and Ledger’s room is the biggest.”
I snort at that before Teague steals my attention.
"We want to tie you down tonight," Teague says. "Wrists and ankles. Spread on the bed, on your back. You won't be able to move much, which means you won't be able to grab, reach, cover yourself, or control the pace. We control everything."
My breathing picks up. I keep running the rope through my fingers because the texture grounds me while my brain catches up.
"The knots give if you pull hard enough," he continues.
"They're not designed to trap you. But they'll hold you in place as long as you're not fighting them.
" He takes my hand and turns it over, pressing the rope against the inside of my wrist so I can see the width of it against my skin.
"If your mouth is full and you can't speak, you tap whoever's closest. Two taps.
That works the same as a color or your word. Someone will always be within reach."
"What if I panic?"
"Then you tap, or you say yellow, or you say Meridian. Everything stops. Same rules as always, Ash. The ropes don't change the rules. They just change what your body can do while the rules are active. We will check in with you, too. This is meant to be fun, not terrifying."
I look at Cass, who's watching me from the bed with an expression that's trying very hard to be patient. Then I look at Ledger, leaning against the wall by the door with his arms crossed, his gray eyes steady on my face. I look back at the rope in my hands.
The old fear is there. The association lives in my body whether I want it to or not, the memory of hands that held me down because they could rather than because I asked.
But the rope in my hands is soft and the man holding the other end has spent two weeks proving that his hands stop when I tell them to.
"Okay," I say. "Green."
Teague smiles, the warm one that reaches his eyes. "That's my Sunshine. Shirt off."
He undresses me with Cass' help, the flannel pulled over my head, jeans tugged down my legs, until I'm bare between them. Teague guides me to the center of the bed and I lie back, the sheet cool beneath my spine, my heart hammering.
He takes my right wrist, loops the rope twice, snug but not tight, and secures it to the headboard rail.
Cass takes my left. The knots are careful, giving me enough play to flex my hands, to curl my fingers into fists when I need to.
Teague moves to my ankles, spreading my legs, securing each one to the footboard with the same measured tension.
I'm spread open on Ledger's bed, bound at four points, my body making an X on the white sheet.
The vulnerability of it hits me in a wave that tightens every muscle I own.
I pull at the wrist restraints, testing, feeling the rope give slightly before holding.
My breathing kicks up, excitement building in my chest as Teague's hand settles on my stomach.
"Breathe," he says. "You're safe. We're right here."
The panic settles into something else, something electric and warm, the surrender of control translating into relief so acute my eyes sting. I don't have to hold myself together. The ropes are doing it for me.
"Now," Cass says, holding up the bottle.
"This is a stimulating lube. It warms. A lot.
The heat builds over time and it doesn't stop when we stop touching you.
It'll keep working on its own, getting more intense the longer it's on your skin.
" He unscrews the cap and tilts it so I can see the clear gel inside.
"We're going to use it on you and inside you.
If the heat gets too sharp, you tell us.
Yellow to ease up, Meridian to stop. You need to know what's going on your body before it goes there. "
"How intense are we talking?"
"Intense enough that you'll be begging for us to sink inside your sweet ass in ten minutes," Teague says cheerfully from beside me.
"That's not comforting."
"It's honest." Cass warms the lube between his fingers, the gel catching the lamplight. "Ready?"
I nod slowly as he smears a little on my arm. It’s definitely warm but not all that intense. I stare at it for several seconds before nodding again, pretty sure that that sensation is only a fraction of whatever I’m about to feel.
Cass reaches between my spread legs and his slicked fingers press against me, the first sensation cool.
He slowly works me open with two fingers, reading my body the way he always does, and for a few seconds it's just the stretch, the fullness, the intimacy of being opened by someone who pays attention.
Then the lube starts to warm.
It blooms outward from where his fingers are buried, a gentle heat that spreads through me in expanding waves. It pulses like a second heartbeat has started between my legs, throbbing in time with my actual pulse but hotter, more insistent with every passing second.
"Oh," I breathe, my hips shifting on the sheet. The ropes catch my ankles, keeping my legs spread, preventing me from closing against the sensation. "That's, oh god, that's—"
"Give it a minute," Teague says, his hand still on my stomach. "It gets better."
Better is generous. The heat intensifies in waves, each one stronger than the last, spreading beyond where Cass is touching me until my whole lower body feels lit from the inside.
My cock hardens without anyone touching it, the stimulation so internal and so relentless that my hips start rocking against the air, chasing friction I can't reach because my hands are tied above my head.
"Fuck," I gasp. "That's intense."
Cass withdraws his fingers but the heat doesn't stop.
It builds. The lube works independent of contact, pulsing inside me in waves that make my thighs shake against the ankle restraints.
I pull at my wrists, not trying to escape, just needing somewhere to put the energy that's gathering in my body like pressure before a storm.
Teague leans down and takes my cock in his mouth.
The wet heat of him combined with the chemical warmth pulsing inside me sends my back off the bed so hard the ropes go taut at all four points.
The sound I make rattles the lamp on the nightstand as Teague hums around me.
The vibration layers on top of everything else and my vision starts to swim at the edges.
He pulls off, licking his lips, his eyes bright. "Cass, taste him."
Cass replaces Teague's mouth, the switch seamless, his technique rougher, his hand gripping the base while his tongue drags flat across the head.
The contrast between Teague's finesse and Cass's hunger makes my whole body jolt against the restraints.
My wrists burn where the rope catches and even that sensation feeds into the building heat, every nerve ending I own firing at once.
Teague moves up the bed and kneels beside my shoulder, freeing himself from his jeans.
He traces the head of his cock along my lower lip and I open my mouth before he asks, taking him in, the weight of him on my tongue grounding me while the rest of my body spirals.
His hand rests on my jaw, his thumb stroking my cheek, gentle even as his hips push deeper.
"That's it, Sunshine," he murmurs, his eyes locked on my mouth. "You look so fucking good like this. Tied down, mouth full, Cass between your legs. You were built for this."
Cass pulls off my cock with a wet sound, and wraps his hand around me instead.
His grip is slick with spit and the stimulating lube he's spread along my shaft.
The heat hits the sensitive skin almost immediately and I cry out around Teague, my hips jerking off the bed.
The warming sensation is everywhere now, inside me, around my cock, building with every heartbeat into something that's careening toward overwhelming.
Ledger moves from the wall, stripping as he approaches before moving between my spread legs. Cass shifts to my side on the bed, his hand still wrapped around my cock, making room for his brother.
Ledger's fingers press into me, testing, adding more of the stimulating lube alongside what's already there. Two fingers crook deep, and the fresh wave of heat that blooms inside me makes me arch off the bed with a sound that Teague swallows by pushing deeper into my mouth.
"Color," Ledger says, withdrawing his fingers.
I pull off Teague long enough to gasp. "Green, god, green."