Chapter 9
Knife was listening for the Maserati, but he heard an unknown engine turn onto the street. Moments later, an Audi SUV turned into his driveway. He’d left the gate open for her, and had programmed it to close behind her when she arrived.
He stood on his porch, holding his coffee, and watched her park and then climb out of the SUV wearing jeans and a sweater, a bag over one shoulder, moving through the cold morning air like she’d been up the mountain a hundred times.
She hadn’t. This was the third time he’d seen her in his life, so why did it feel so right to have her coming to his home once again?
He couldn’t figure out how to ask about the car. Why she was driving an SUV.
But he didn’t have a right to ask. That was the kind of thing you asked a girlfriend, not a fuckbuddy.
She owned both vehicles, she got to decide which to drive.
“Morning,” she said, and her eyes went to the coffee in his hand. He handed it to her without a word.
She took a sip, scrunched her face, and handed it back to him.
“Breakfast is mostly done,” he said with a chuckle. “You can make your coffee to your specs while I finish up.”
She followed him through to the kitchen, and he saw her take a breath and catalog the smells — bacon and sausage warming in the oven, bread sliced and waiting by the stove. A cast-iron pan with bacon grease in it, waiting for him to turn the heat back on.
He pulled the egg mixture from the fridge and saw her eyeing the bottle he had chilling in a bowl of ice on the counter.
“Sparkling shiraz?” she asked.
“Guy at the wine store said it works with French toast.”
He turned the eye on under the cast-iron pan. “Said something about the fruit cutting through the richness. He knows about beer, so I’m hoping he knows wine and isn’t full of shit.”
“Oh, he definitely knows his wine, this is an exceptional year.” She was quiet a moment, watching him dip the first slice of bread. “Did you tell him what it was for?”
“Told him a fancy foodie was coming for breakfast, and I needed something that’d work with French toast.”
He laid the bread in the pan, and the sizzle told him he had the heat exactly right, which is a trick for the first piece.
He heard her fixing her coffee and then settling onto the stool behind him. When he glanced back, she was opening the bottle with the ease of someone who’d done it a million times, and she poured two glasses.
He plated the French toast in stacks, pulled the bacon and sausage from the oven, and set everything on the table. The maple syrup was already out, and he sat across from her and picked up his fork.
The sparkling shiraz was excellent, and the wine guy had been right about it working with the French toast.
“How did your day with the Wellington go?” he asked.
“It came out beautifully, thanks to this wonderful butcher letting me pick the perfect tenderloin.”
“It’s good to have professionals who’ll bend the rules,” he said with a smile.
“It is,” she agreed. “My brother tells me he had a wonderful Valentines Day meal, and I stopped him before he could tell me more.”
He chuckled. “Some things, siblings don’t need to know.”
“Damned straight.”
Conversation stayed light, and she helped him clean up when they finished.
He wanted to stop her — she was way too comfortable in his kitchen for a second visit, and his weekend with his brothers had reminded him of their secrets, and why letting a pack-wolf into his life wasn’t an option.
And yet, here he was, encouraging it.
“You ready to head upstairs?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “Absolutely.”
- - - ? - - -
Tuesday walked in front of him, her wolf wanting to lead rather than follow while she could.
Breakfast had been too… intimate. She was glad to get it behind her so the scene could start.
Knife had already moved the big mat under the central beam. The pulleys and cables hung ready, silent and waiting. He gestured for her to stand in the open space, and she undressed before stepping to the mat.
He walked a slow circle around her before stopping in front of her and handing her a heavy-duty ponytail holder.
“Top of your head. Not at the back.”
She bent over, finger-combed her hair, wrapped the holder around it, twisted it a few times, and stood, feeling silly.
“Arms up,” he said quietly.
She lifted them, and he reached for the leftmost piece of rope on a nearby folding table.
Jute rope again, doubled around her torso. He built the chest harness with slow, deliberate wraps around her ribs and under her breasts, cinching just enough to lift and separate without cutting circulation.
She felt herself sinking almost immediately. The steady rhythm of his hands, the way he checked tension, the quiet focus in his breathing — it was hypnotic. Both Tuesday and her wolf settled deeper with every pass of the rope, content to let this man handle her.
Tuesday let her eyes drift half-closed, and she remembered why this was a bad idea.
Why it was dangerous to let herself trust him.
To let her wolf grow closer to him. This could never be more than a few scenes, but she was walking into it with her eyes wide open, fully informed, and choosing it anyway.
Because she wanted his ropes. She wanted his hands and his precise, unrelenting focus. She wanted to feel what it was like to be taken apart by someone her wolf actually respected and wanted to submit to.
She wasn’t pretending this was safe or smart, but she was standing still and letting him put her back into his ropes. Putting herself at his mercy, when he’d already proven to be merciless.
By the time he finished the upper body harness, she’d lost track of time and noted the clock on his side table was turned around so she couldn’t see it.
Her arms felt as if they weighed a hundred pounds each, but she kept them raised because he hadn’t told her to lower them.
He stepped in close, pressed a soft kiss to her shoulder, and murmured, “Good girl. You’re doing beautifully.”
The praise slid through her like warm honey.
“Here’s a rule. Are you paying attention? Nod for me if you are.”
She nodded, and he told her, “No words. You can scream all you want, but if you speak even a single word, I’ll put straight cinnamon oil on your tongue and clit. Nod that you understand.”
She nodded again, and he reached for a vibrating egg, lubed it generously, and pressed it past her outer muscles, seating it deep inside her with strong fingers. He clicked it on low, and her breath hitched at the steady pulse — enough to arouse but not enough to bring her to orgasm.
Her clit ached, craving attention, but then she saw the butt plug. This one with a much wider neck than the one he’d used Friday.
As with the knots and the egg, he was perfunctory about inserting it. No romance, no easing it in — just lube, press, tug to make sure it’s properly seated, and then he flipped the switch.
And that fast, he had both holes filled and vibrating while her clit throbbed and pulsed without attention.
But then came the crotch rope, and damn, he took forever getting it exactly right.
She soon wished he’d left her clit alone, because the knot he tied right over the top of it was just…
too much. As was the huge knot pressing into her vaginal opening, and a third nestled tight against her asshole, right where the plug base sat, and fat enough it spread her cheeks.
He pulled the rope snug, tight enough every small movement would grind those knots exactly where he wanted them. He checked the tension and then tightened it a little more.
At some point he’d tied off her chest harness to the large hoop above, so she didn’t have to worry so much about standing and keeping her balance. The ropes had her.
While he’d worked, Tuesday’s breathing had slowed and deepened. Her mind felt soft around the edges, like she was drifting in warm water.
And now, with the constant low vibration in both holes, the pressure of the knots against her most sensitive places, the steady compression of the rope harness, it wasn’t hard to sink back into just being while he bent before her and started individually wrapping her legs, carefully placing every knot at every level.
When both legs were wrapped from groin to feet, he connected a rope from the hoop above to her chest harness, and then another from the hoop to her right ankle, and a third from her waist to the hoop.
And then shortened the two lower ropes until she was horizontal to the floor, both of her arms free, and she desperately hoped he’d tie them up this time.
Three more ropes from the top hoop to various parts on her body, and her body was in an arch, her feet and head aimed down, her stomach at the top of the arch.
Arms still free and dangling. Heavy. She folded them over her stomach to relieve them and wished she could do something about the damned knots pressing into her clit and vaj.
And the egg and plug needed to either be turned up or off — the low hum was going to drive her crazy.
Knife moved to her head, but she was floating, so the earplugs going into her canals were a surprise.
As was the hood when he slid it over her scalp, plunging her into total darkness.
He fished her ponytail through the top before he tightened the leather around her skull. It enveloped her entire head all the way to her neck, front and back, with a strap he secured under her chin to keep it in place.
Then he worked the laces to tighten it, and she was swallowed by the pressure.
Her breathing quickened inside the confined space, and then came the headphones, white noise canceling out even her own heartbeat.
The world went perfectly silent except for the rush of her own blood and the faint hum of the toys inside her, though it’s possible she wasn’t actually hearing the vibrators, and her body was just processing it that way.
Sight gone. Sound gone. She was floating in absolute nothing, suspended in ropes, darkness, and silence. Every nerve in her body seemed activated from the arch he’d tied her body into, the ropes abrading and compressing, the vibrations buried inside her, and those damned knots.
The zipper over her nose was opened, and something else touched her nose.
Soft and cottony — and the scent of cinnamon hit her sinuses like a living thing.
Not burning, not overwhelming, but the smell filled her nose, her throat, and her entire awareness.
There was nothing else. No forest air drifting through the partially open window, no trace of Knife’s skin, or the leather, the ropes, or even her own arousal.
Only cinnamon — thick, sweet, spicy, and inescapable, rendering her completely nose-blind.
Completely cut off from the world.
A wolf without scent was a wolf without orientation, without warning, without the most basic layer of safety.
Panic tried to rise, but it had nowhere to go — no sight to anchor her, no sound to track his movements, no familiar smells to tell her where she was or what was coming next.
Her body hung helpless in the ropes, legs spread, crotch knots grinding with every tiny involuntary twitch, toys buzzing steadily inside her, and all she could smell was cinnamon.
Her wolf should’ve been frantic, but the bitch went very still… then pressed closer to the surface. Curious at this new state.
Tuesday’s mind spun in the darkness, floating without any sensory input.
No, there was the exhaustion of her arms, her hands locked over her torso to keep her arms from dangling uncomfortably. The tension around her chest, hips, thighs, and ankles — the ropes holding her up. The awkward arch in her back. Also, those damned knots in the crotch rope.
And the low vibration that threatened to drive her crazy.
Every breath pulled more cinnamon into her lungs until the scent itself started to feel like sex. Like him. Like the promise of whatever he decided to do to her next while she couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t smell anything but this.
She was utterly, devastatingly vulnerable, but she took a deep breath and let it out.
And accepted it. Submitted to the ropes, to gravity, to the helplessness.