Chapter Sixteen
Pretty Tied Up
Erin
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T HE WALLS OF MY WORLD folded in around me. I couldn’t think, couldn’t believe what was happening, yet the ungainly way I was stretched over him and the final strike he landed reminded me that my very lurid humiliation was real.
Despite my fogging head, though, and the shock reverberating around my body, the heat between my legs was every bit as tangible as the pain. Utterly chastened I might have been, but the hot need emanating from my core seemed even more intolerable.
It was awful enough to be treated that way—to be ‘punished’ by the brute who was supposed to be looking after me—but discovering the spanking he’d subjected me to had actually turned me on was a bridge too far. Even though I acknowledged the actualities of my predicament, my head was unwilling to join the dots. I knew I was horny at the cringeworthy treatment, knew that if I swept a finger to my pussy, I’d enjoy the proof for myself, but I couldn’t understand it. Intensifying my woe was the knowledge that he’d taken me so close to the edge of hedonism, only to leave me hanging.
Bastard.
“Your spanking is over.” He pressed his palm on my sore flesh as though he was waiting for a reply.
What the hell was I supposed to say?
If he wanted gratitude for the humbling ordeal he’d put me through, as far as I was concerned, I’d offered him more than enough already.
“Up you get.”
His words suggested a reprieve, but the idea of getting back to my feet and having to meet his eyes was no more appealing. Unwilling to risk the possibility of yet more so-called punishment, though, I moved, and with the help of his left hand, I eased to my knees.
Head falling, my gaze flitted to the hard wood floor. Wood had become my entire world since he’d broken us into the cabin—it comprised the walls, the roof, and the floor, as well as being the one source of heat in the space—but it had rarely been as soothing as it was then.
“Up, Erin.”
He rose to his full height, looming over me as he thrust a hand in my direction. I noticed it in my peripheral vision, eyeing the hand accusingly. That same palm had spanked me, lighting a fire he apparently wasn’t prepared to extinguish. It was both punisher and tormentor.
To spite me. My eyes closed briefly at the grim thought. He’s doing it in retaliation for last night.
Heaving in air, I realized there was no choice but to obey. Non-compliance chanced another spell over his thighs, and I wasn’t prepared to take that risk. I didn’t know how to rationalize what had just taken place, but I sure as hell wasn’t prepared to empower him for round two.
Rising on shaky legs, I let go of his hand to drag my leggings up and over my spanked backside. Covering myself seemed pivotal. I’d stand if I had to, but I wasn’t ready to meet his conceited gaze while I was still bared.
“I don’t think so, little girl.” That same hand I’d learned to loathe moved to halt my hand’s progress, holding my waistband at my thighs. “Your clothes stay where they are.”
“What?” I glanced up reflexively, the fury festering inside me overcoming the weight of my shame. “You can’t be serious.”
The way his dark eyebrow slowly arched sent dread ricocheting through me.
Oh, God. My hand fell to my side. What have I done?
There were no logical reasons why I shouldn’t cover myself. I should never have been bared in the first place, but in the short time we’d been stuck together, he’d managed to condition me to dread the gesture.
“Do you want to rephrase that, Erin?” His tone was irritatingly calm.
“Why can’t I cover myself, sir?” Why did I even have to ask? I was a grown woman, and I deserved dignity and respect. “You said my spanking is over.”
“It is.” He glowered at me. “And will remain so as long as you can control that mouth of yours.”
His glare was simultaneously arousing and alarming.
A man like Eli would have turned my head if we’d met on the street, but in the intensity of the cabin, he’d taken on an amplified persona—the sexiest and most foreboding person I’d ever met.
“Your spanking might be over, but I want you bared.” He gestured to the wall beside the bed. “Go and stand over there with your nose to the wall.”
What?
I managed to hold the word in as I followed his finger with my gaze. He wanted me bared with my fucking nose to the wall. What was he, a sergeant major in the military, suddenly authorized to order me around at will?
“Is there something you don’t understand?”
His tone warned of greater repercussions if I didn’t comply, though I couldn’t imagine what those could be. In more than four decades on the planet, I’d never been dealt with so roughly or unfairly before. The sense of injustice was overwhelming.
“No, I...” I couldn’t bring myself to repeat his instructions.
“Then, why am I waiting?” He tapped his foot against the floor, reminding me that his feet were bare while mine were encased in the boots I’d borrowed from Chelle.
The contrast jarred, directing me back to his demand. He wanted me to stand against the wall.
Why?
I hoped my eyes screamed the question I was too afraid to ask, but the nervous energy furling inside me cautioned against hesitation. Pissing him off wouldn’t make anything any better for me. I had to move.
“Fine.” Murmuring the word, I shuffled from his grasp toward the wall, and with my leggings caught around my thighs, I really did have to ‘shuffle’.
Shame emanated through me as I moved, fresh tears pricking in my eyes as I reached my destination, but I adamantly refused to acknowledge them. I wasn’t fucking crying again. I wouldn’t give the asshole what he so obviously wanted.
“Are you in position?” His voice thundered from behind me.
“Yes.” My jaw clenched, knowing what I’d need to say next to appease the wanker. “Sir.”
“Is that pretty little nose grazing the wood the way I asked?”
My brow furrowed. I couldn’t remember anything about ‘grazing’ in his ludicrous command, but I shifted forward regardless, unwilling to get spiraled into a doomed conversation I’d never be able to win.
“Thank you.” He sighed as I moved into place, as though there was anything exasperating about his situation.
He wasn’t the one with his ass exposed.
He wasn’t the one who was crestfallen after being unceremoniously spanked.
He hadn’t lost his friend and been overwhelmed by guilt and upset.
None of it was happening to him.
“I want you there while I light the fire, and while I’d love to trust you, little girl... I really don’t.”
I wanted to snort at that. After everything he’d just put me through, how could he be the one with trust issues?
“So, I’m afraid I’ll need to take some preventative measures.”
The sound of his feet padding against the floor resounded from behind me, rousing my already inflated suspicions. I considered glancing around to see what he was doing but accepted begrudgingly that I was too scared to risk his wrath if he caught me.
How pathetic is that? I swallowed at my reticence. I’m a grown woman and I’m too afraid to turn around.
The truth magnified in my chest until my head slipped lower, my forehead replacing my nose against the wall.
What the fuck was wrong with me?
I should be better than this, shouldn’t I? Should know better than to give into the whims of a man like Eli?
But nothing about the woman who’d failed to leave the cabin and had succumbed to Eli’s stinging palm reminded me of the Erin I thought I’d been only a few days before. One night trapped in the cold with the brute and I appeared to have fallen to pieces.
“I thought I said nose against the wall.”
Tensing at how loud his voice had suddenly become, I leapt, adjusting my stance as I sniffed back tears.
“You really are having a problem doing as you’re told, aren’t you?”
Loitering behind me, he sniggered. Somehow, the bastard had managed to walk over to me without me even noticing.
“I’m sorry.” I wasn’t sorry in the slightest. “I’m not used to taking orders.”
“Evidently.” His voice was softer as his body brushed against my defenseless backside. I gasped at his proximity, simultaneously thrilled and fearing what it might mean. “It’s okay, little girl. I want to help you.”
Help me?
Nothing he’d done since he’d woken up had done anything to help. Being told what to do and then humbled in such an old-fashioned way had totally blindsided me.
“Put your hands behind you.” He mumbled the order against my nape, his warm breath eliciting a shiver along my spine.
It shouldn’t have felt as good as it did to be commanded by the cocksure tour guide who’d ripped pleasure from me in the frenzy of our shared bed, but for perhaps the same twisted reason I’d relished submitting to him, I accepted that it did.
I liked his authority, even if, at the same time, I despised it.
“Why, sir?”
No facet of me wanted to move my hands. I understood without being told what the outcome of that little adventure would be, and I wasn’t up for being bound by anyone, let alone a man I didn’t trust. Despite the apprehension bubbling in my belly, I refused to surrender willingly.
I had to at least demand his logic.
“Just. Do. It,” he breathed, squeezing my left cheek roughly.
He had no right to touch me at all, least of all handle me that way, and yet the desire for him to push me up against the wall and slide his cock into my pussy was stronger than I’d ever known. I wanted to yield, even though I hated myself for the urge.
“I promise things will be easier if you obey.” His voice had taken on a disturbingly melodic quality, as though he hoped to lure me into submission with song. Little did he know how badly I longed for the outcome, and it wouldn’t take much of a push to see me slide into the deference he seemed hellbent on.
Easier for who?
I wasn’t a heady schoolgirl falling in lust for the first time. I should have been able to fend off his advances with ease, but I didn’t seem able to close the doors Eli opened.
“But I’m afraid.” Fresh embarrassment washed over me at the admission, if it was possible for the woman with the bared bottom to feel any more mortified than I already did.
Which I doubted.
“We have a deal,” he whispered. “Honor your side of the bargain, and I’ll do the same. You have nothing to worry about.”
Funny, I didn’t remember any part of the deal that mentioned binding me—which was clearly what he had in mind—but my anxiety-ridden paralysis meant I didn’t dare mention that caveat.
“And what about Chelle?” My breathing was labored, the heat of his breath on my neck and his roaming hand making it difficult to focus.
He was so close.
Too close.
“ Forget about Chelle.” The resonance of his growl danced down my spine. “Until this thing between us is resolved, I don’t want to talk about her.”
Easy for you to say...
Yet when his lips brushed my skin and my eyes fluttered closed, I realized how perilously simple it would be to do just that...
Forgetting about my friend’s fate was as simple as his large hand fondling my breast and the lingering passion of his insistent kisses.
What was happening to me?
“Eli?” My voice showed signs of the strain tearing at my core. The spanking had wound me so tightly that I couldn’t seem to think. Standing there on display for no better reason than his amusement, all I could contemplate was finding a way to relieve the pressure at my clit. “I mean, sir?”
He chuckled, spanking both cheeks lightly as he shifted position. “What is it, little girl?”
Pressed against the hard wood, his new name for me didn’t sound so preposterous anymore. He was so much physically bigger than I was, and in the cabin in the forest— his environment—I seemed smaller than ever. Mouth drying, and with my nose skimming the wall, I contemplated what the world would be like if I succumbed and was nothing more than the diminutive woman he could order around.
Oh, God.
The idea of such utter subjugation should have outraged me, yet as his hand snaked around my hips to the front of my underwear, I could only imagine how good the sex would be, and fleetingly, I considered whether I’d be happier in the confines of his crazy rule rather than finding my own way out there in the real world.
“Please,” I moaned. “I’m so horny...”
My pitiful tone induced fresh laughter from my unexpected persecutor.
“That’s exactly how I want you,” he purred, his other hand skimming my breast. “Always wet and eager. Be a good girl and I promise to put your little pussy out of its misery.”
As if to reinforce the point, his hands withdrew and reached for the side of my panties before abruptly tugging them down to join my bunched leggings at my thighs.
“No!” Practically naked from the waist down, the latest indignity was too much to bear.
“Oh, yes.” His voice oozed enthusiasm as he jerked my hips further back and nudged the side of my boots apart with his foot.
I complied in desperation, taking on the stance he wanted, even as terror and longing warred in my head. Did I want to kick him in the nuts and take my chance in the snow, or, as my pulsing clit demanded, did I want to give in and take everything he had to offer? The weight of my colliding emotions ensured there was no way to discern the answer, but the question remained, taunting me as he continued.
“Stay just like that.”
Immobilized with bewildered passion, I was trapped between the wall and his body, and dwelling on my misery, I sensed the first length of something coarse wrap around my left wrist.
Rope. My heart sped up. It had to be rope.
I hadn’t seen him bring any over to where we were standing, but then, with my nose to the wall, I hadn’t seen anything. Instinctively, I peered around to confirm my suspicions and was greeted with a much harder slap to my bare behind. I moaned at the impact, aware that the sting only heightened my need as the strike spread across my cheeks.
“Into position,” he snarled, seemingly without looking up from the knot he was securing at my wrist. “Now.”
Gulping back on my impotency, I shifted my weight from one hip to the other as he worked on the rope. By the side of the bed, I spotted the handgun he’d dropped there, the sight urging me to resist. There was still time to fight back, time to swing my arms and avoid his clutches, but I wasn’t doing anything.
Why aren’t I doing anything?
“Oh, God.” I couldn’t take much more of the desire burning inside.
“Your God won’t take pity on you.” He placed a chaste kiss on my nape. “But if you stay right there, I might.”
The words rang in my ears as he walked away.
All there was in the world was Eli and the damn wood of the ranger’s hut. Caught in his ropes and the sexual rapture he’d conjured, I couldn’t see a way out.