Chapter Thirty-Two
QUINN
E verything was dark.
The thick blindfold secured over my eyes blocked out even the slightest hint of light. The headphones blocked out every sound. I couldn’t even orient myself to where I was in the room.
Or more importantly, where he was.
All I could do was feel.
Pressure at my back urged my feet forward. My hands lifted from where they’d been bound in front of me. His hand wrapped around my throat, and the word trust resonated in my head like a mantra—one I cursed myself for choosing but had chosen nonetheless.
I dropped my arms and kept walking, breathing easier when his grip loosened. With slow shuffling steps, I paid attention to every sensation until a slight tug halted my progress. Breathing in the scent of cedar and rich leather, my pulse quickened.
My arms were lifted, guided by the ropes he’d used to secure my wrists. Bound in a complicated technique he’d called Shibari, he attached them to something above my head. A gentle nudge eased me forward and into a wall, flattening my breasts against the cold wood and making me shiver.
A foot kicked my legs apart.
Widening my stance, slow and soothing circles brushed over the skin of my ankle. But almost as if he’d suddenly realized what he was doing, the touch retreated.
How appropriate given his similar emotional one-eighty in the last twenty-four hours.
I would’ve commented on it, but whatever he’d put in my mouth made it impossible to speak. At least, not without drooling. And I was pretty sure choking to death on my spit wouldn’t be a good look.
Probably frowned upon for an aspiring Maiden, or a sign I needed to be punished. He’d mentioned that again last night. A bit too seriously, given the way he’d reverted to the cold, aloof version of himself I first met.
But I still had my safe words and my new safe signals—non-verbal cues I could use—if needed. With something in my mouth, I had to make three quick ah sounds and shake my head from side to side if I needed him to stop. He made me practice, too.
So fun.
The time to reflect on why I hadn’t used them yet—or why I let him shackle my ankles to the wall—would have to be later. Most likely, when this was over. In the discomfort of my therapist’s office, where I examined all my questionable life choices.
And learned nothing.
I sure as hell wasn’t going to examine my behavior while I stood spread against a wall with something that felt suspiciously like a riding crop brushing my bare ass.
I fucking should’ve examined it right then.
But the second he ran the supple leather up my swollen pussy and swatted it lightly against my clit, he drowned out any hope for rational thought.
All I could do was feel.
Landon removed my headphones halfway toward my first orgasm.
The flicks of the riding crop against my bare thighs, my ass, and my pussy drove me quickly toward climax. Combined with the sensory deprivation that forced me to let go, I prepared to come fast and hard the second he placed a vibrator over my clit.
My breathing hitched. Legs and arms tightening against their restraints, it pitched through me like a tidal wave, pleasure coursing out to my fingers and toes before driving back toward my core. But right as the crash into oblivion hit, Landon cut off the vibrations.
When I cried out, he swatted my ass with his palm. The reverberations from even that mild spank almost pushed me over the edge. My whole body shuddered.
“Unghhh.”
“Quiet, Maiden.”
I cut off the garbled moan and forced myself to take deep breaths in through my nose. I waited for more to come but nothing did, not until my lungs finally got their shit together and pulled in breaths normally. The gag made it difficult to breathe through my mouth, but if he gave me enough breaks, I could drag in enough air through my nose to keep my panic at bay.
And like he’d told me twice before, Landon did know exactly when to ease up.
My body sagged against the wall while he circled the room. My heart rate picked up when his footsteps came back toward me. A light whoosh of air and a loud thwack tightened every muscle in my body.
But the sting of the crop didn’t follow.
Still blindfolded, I had no way to prepare for what came next other than sound, and Landon made that gift feel like a curse. Because for the next several minutes, each time the whoosh-and-thwack sound warned me of an impending swat, it didn’t come.
Sometimes, he touched me with his hand, combining the harsh sound with a gentle stroke over my tender ass.
That felt fucking heavenly.
But I couldn’t even savor it because the same warning always followed. Reminding me that eventually the blow would come. Eventually, he’d make it hurt.
“Do you get it yet, Maiden?”
I didn’t respond, panting hard as he stepped closer.
“Good girl. You can answer.”
“I dnn ge id, thur.” The gag muffled my voice, but he understood the stream of random syllables I slurred at him, which roughly translated to I don’t get it, Sir.
“You will.”
The crop cracked against my ass, so close to my clit my whole body jerked in response. I stifled the cry from the sting, tears pricking the corners of my eyes.
His palm soothed the sting as he whispered in my ear, taunting, “Look at that. It seems you do know how to be obedient.”
I bit down on the gag to keep my retort from escaping.
He laughed darkly and pressed a kiss just below my ear. “Good girls get orgasms, Maiden. Remember that.”
Unable to bite back a whimper, my ass instinctively pressed back toward him, seeking him out like some kind of misguided heat-seeking missile.
My parents had done a good job. They’d warned me to run away from danger and not towards it. And there I was, strung up like a prized turkey, with my body begging for him to rearrange my guts with his dick.
Graphic imagery, sure, but what could I say? Bondage and light BDSM brought out the crass parts of my psyche.
I wanted him to fuck me until I couldn’t breathe.
And he knew it.
His hand circled my throat again, squeezing lightly but hard enough to send off a warning to my brain. “Quinn, relax,” he murmured when my body tensed. “If I’m going to give you what you want, I need to know your limits, don’t I? I need to know you’ll show me what they are, right?”
His voice shifted back to the colder version he’d been using last night and when we first got to the room—the one that would haunt my wet dreams and my drenched nightmares for the rest of my life. But also, the one that made me think this was a test of some kind—one I had no idea how to pass and definitely hadn’t prepared for.
“Ah!” I let the sound out once, but held back the other two, releasing it like a warning as his grip tightened.
My head got fuzzy right before he relaxed his grip and let me suck down as much air as I could. His hands worked quickly to remove the gag so I could catch my breath. But I noticed as my breathing returned to normal that he’d left his hand on my chest, his thumb and fingers spread in a V, like a viper waiting to wrap around my throat again.
“Landon,” I exhaled his name in a rush, forgetting the rules. “Please don’t.”
I had made my peace with using my safe words, no matter what he might think of me. First when I got here, and the minute that riding crop landed harder than a gentle tap. But still, I couldn’t bring myself to say them and make him stop.
A part of me not only wanted to see how far he’d go, but a darker part of me also liked it. The suspense. The heightened state of arousal. My nipples had sharpened into points so fine, I was pretty sure I’d carved his name into the wood he’d strapped me to just by thrusting my chest against it as I flailed. I’d never been so wet in my goddamn life, either.
“Breathe, Maiden.”
He pushed in closer, every inch of his warm, naked body pressing into mine. I had no idea when he’d taken off his clothes, but I had to believe that was a good sign. A sign he was about to end my torment and slide inside me, finally tearing through that last barrier between us.
His erection dug into the globe of my ass cheek, sliding dangerously close to the center as sweat slicked our skin. And when his tongue stroked down the side of my neck, he moaned low and deep in the back of his throat. My legs trembled with the need to wrap around him.
His hand kneaded its way down my back, coming between us to take hold of his cock. He tapped the head against my bare cheek, before running the tip from the dip in my lower back to the curve leading to my slit. I froze, scared that if I moved a muscle he might retreat.
I nearly cried out in relief when he eased his finger inside me, even if it wasn’t at-all-not-even-a-little-bit what I wanted. Slowly withdrawing and pressing back in, he maintained his pace until my body relaxed.
Then, he added a second finger.
He pumped steadily, crooking his fingers just how I needed to build me toward release. “Don’t forget the rules, Maiden.”
“Please.” I whimpered, my body pulsing with the impending orgasm. “Please, Sir. May I come?”
“Yes.”
His hand gripped my throat, pushing me over the edge as my whole body tightened in response. I came—hard and fast, his grip only increasing the force of it. And just as the pleasure reached its peak and my body began to come down, he thrust his fingers deeper. Harder. Working me toward a second climax before the first abated.
And he threw me over the edge in a completely unexpected way.
He slipped one finger, slick with my wetness, between my cheeks and circled my tight, unexplored hole before gently easing his pinky inside me. I cried out, my body bucking against his hand, as he held still and whispered in my ear to relax. To let him in. To trust him.
I did. But only because something was building inside me I’d never felt before, and I needed to see it through to the end. He rubbed my clit as he slowly worked my body with his fingers.
“Come, Maiden. Again.” Landon’s low growl came right as his hand tightened around my throat. “Trust me and let go.”
It was too much. Too fast. Too unexpected. I felt like I was going to explode. Like all the desire in my body couldn’t possibly be contained. I had to come. I had to let it out.
A hoarse, strangled cry wrenched from my throat as Landon wrung out every last bit of release from my body, relinquishing his hold on my throat at the same time.
With a guttural moan, I came all over his hand as oxygen rushed straight to my brain. Pleasure exploded out from my core like a starburst, cascading all the way to the tips of my fingers and toes.
My body tingled as Landon slowed his pace. He eased me down from the high before slowly withdrawing his hand and pushing the blindfold off my face.
I hung there gasping for breath. My vision blurred as tears poured out of my eyes and ran down my cheeks. Not from fear or because I was hurt, but driven by a need to release everything.
I sobbed out the last shred of anything my body had been holding onto—grief, sadness, pain, and regret—and when it was done, all that was left was oblivion.
Euphoria, blissful and deep, washed over me.
But then a wave of dizziness and fatigue hit, right as the first swipe of a warm towel cleaned my tender body. Landon kissed my cheek when the darkness came.
And I let go and let it pull me away.