CHAPTER 33
Nick
“Blue,” she said without a moment’s hesitation.
No surprise. It was her go-to color for most of her wardrobe. Nick gestured toward the board. “Go ahead.”
Her gaze moved from the natural to the synthetic side. “What kind should I pick?”
“Which tie spoke to you?”
“I liked the … thigh one.”
“Futomomo.” Just saying the name and being this close to seeing it on her heated his blood.
“Yes, that one.”
He pointed to the left. “Let’s use the nylon, then. The thicker one.”
He watched her gorgeous ass shifting as she went to lift the coil off the hook. She stood there with it in her hands, staring down at it for a moment.
Bare-breasted, wearing that lacy thong, with blue rope in her hands.
Fuck, he could come right now from that sight alone.
“Bring it to me, beautiful girl.”
Nick saw that she was trembling, barely perceptibly, yet clearly trembling, as she took a step. Before he realized it, he’d met her halfway. Reaching for the rope, he used it to pull her the last few inches toward him.
She didn’t let go; now they held the coil together.
“All of this …” He motioned toward the wall of rope, the mirrored walls. “All of this is nothing if there’s no connection. By the time this evening is over, I’ll make you understand.”
He felt the energy crackle, electric, between them. The rope might as well have been a live wire, so intense was the vibe. Her eyes were huge as she stared into his.
“Do you trust me?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Use your words,” he gently urged. “Everything must be crystal clear in here.”
She nodded again. “I trust you.”
“Good.” He reached to grip her chin and tip her face up to his. “I’m going to give commands, and you will obey them.”
A flash of defiance sparked in her eyes, but it vanished just as quickly. “OK.” She tilted her head. “Do I address you in a certain way?”
“‘Sir’ is the formal way to address your dom.” He couldn’t help but smile a little. “Unless you’d rather call me Captain.”
Her smile blossomed, swift and beautiful.
Nick gave the rope a tug. “Let go.”
He didn’t just mean the rope. How could he explain this?
After a beat, she unclasped her fingers, leaving the soft nylon to him.
“That’s it.” His free hand slid up her arm to her shoulder, to finally ever so lightly wrap around her throat. He nudged her chin up with his thumb and looked deep into her eyes.
“I’m going to kiss you now,” he whispered directly in her ear. “Don’t kiss me back.”
Her eyes widened a little, but she said nothing.
Slowly, slowly, Nick lowered his head and brushed his lips over her temple. Her eyelids fluttered closed, and he kissed one and then the other. He kissed her cheek, barely a graze of his lips against her soft, smooth skin, then kissed the corner of her mouth.
“Part your lips for me,” he murmured.
She did, and he swept in, controlling his passion with an iron will as he took her mouth in a hot, languid invasion of his tongue.
He kissed her until her knees buckled. “Breathe.”
The breath whooshed out of her in a sharp exhale.
“Open for me.” Nick tapped her inner thigh, and her legs parted.
He took her lips once more. She sighed into his mouth. Nick slipped a finger past the elastic of her thong to glide along her slick, soft flesh, in rhythm, motion and pressure identical to what he was doing to her tongue, until she leaned into him with a soft whimper.
Looping the rope over his arm, he bent and easily lifted her, carrying her to the bed as she buried her face at his throat.
She didn’t kiss or lick him as she usually did.
He placed her on the bed. She immediately sat up.
He shook his head. “Lie back.”
She scooted up on the bed, drawing up her knees, bracing herself with her palms on the mattress. “Like this?”
Nick nodded. “Just like that.” He reached down and caressed her shoulders, her throat, her chin. Her gaze drifted past him, focusing on their reflection in the mirrors, and a smile spread across his face.
He leaned down, knowing she could see their profiles as he claimed her mouth, his hands roaming over her knees and outer thighs, parting them gently.
Breaking the kiss, he forced himself to take his time, even as it was surely killing him. Jannie watched his every move, shivering a couple of times under his fingertips. Her breasts rose and fell rapidly as he slowly peeled off her pretty thong, leaving her exposed.
Beautiful.
And she was about to become even more so.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Yes.”
Nick studied her expression carefully, seeking her unspoken consent. Satisfied with what he saw, he slipped a hand under her calf and placed her leg, her heel touching her buttock. “Keep this position.”
He picked up the rope. In practiced, precise order, he began executing the steps of fashioning a Spiral Futo. Making a single column tie around her ankle, he wrapped the rope around her thigh and shin five times, then began tying munter hitches to fix it in place.
He glanced at her often to find her watching him intently. Her eyes were glassy with desire, her lips parted, and her arousal between her spread legs told him just as much as her expression.
His body hummed with a need so intense, he thought his heart might burst.
He passed a long length of rope under the spiral that wrapped around her leg, slowly pulling the nylon as he tied the hitches to avoid causing burns.
Placing his fingers between the rope and her skin to protect it, he adjusted the tension to be nice and tight, allowing the munters to do their job, making sure they pulled the wraps downward toward the center.
Nick looked up. “How are you?”
“Fine.”
He raised an eyebrow.
A little smile. “I’m doing well. But can you please take off your shirt?”
He blinked. “My shirt?”
She swallowed. “I want to see your body.”
He held out his wrist and turned it, tacitly inviting her to undo his cuffs, pleased to see her eyes light up as she flicked open one button, and then the other one he offered.
He shrugged out of his shirt and tossed it. “Good?”
“Very.” She eyed him hungrily before lying back again to rest on her elbows.
He nodded and went back to work.
For the next several minutes, Nick worked methodically, checking in often. Finally, he fashioned the last wrap above the midpoint of her thigh, then tightened the bottom until he heard a satisfying squeak.
Nick drew back, studying his handiwork critically, and smiled. “What do you think?”
She looked down at her gorgeous, adorned leg, then at her reflection in the mirrored wall across the room. “It’s beautiful.”
A slow smile spread across his face at the awe in her voice. “Don’t move.”
Striding back to the wall of ropes, he grabbed the red coil, returning with it under her heated gaze. Her eyes devoured him, moving over his bare chest, then to his face, and finally, to his hands as he set about tying her other leg.
By the time he finished, his blood was pounding.
He stood and took her in. God, she was so beautiful, bound and spread for his viewing pleasure, and he had never seen her this aroused.
He allowed himself to have his fill of looking at her before reaching out to gently gather a drop.
“Look at all of this.”
“Ah!”
Nick smiled with satisfaction. There we go.
“This—” he circled his thumb “—is mine.”
He pushed two fingers deep into her. Jannie cried out again, arching her back, her chest heaving.
Nick slipped his fingers out and slid them into his mouth, savoring her essence, closing his eyes in bliss. He opened them to find Jannie watching him suck, regarding him in silent, wide-eyed awe.
“Look what you do to me.” He took her hand and placed it on his rigid shaft, squeezing. “What should I do to you, beautiful girl?”
She sat there, legs apart, each a work of art, one tied in red, the other in blue, her breasts rising and falling, and all the blood seemed to rush downward to where Nick ached with need.
“Look up,” he said.
She did, gazing up at the explicit view in the mirrored ceiling.
“Does it turn you on to see us like this?”
“Yes.”
Good, this is progress.
“Do you see how beautiful you are?”
This time, she didn’t answer.
He reached out and ran his fingertip along the edge of her bottom lip. “This mouth—” he followed the soft curve “—is perfection. I’ve been obsessed with it for fifteen years.”
She swallowed hard, then looked down.
“Look at me,” he murmured.
She did. So much apprehension in those wide blue eyes.
He cupped her cheek, his thumb sweeping across her cheekbone. “These eyes are matchless. No matter where I went or who I met, no other pair could compare.
“Look in the mirrors, Jannie. You have twenty different views of yourself. I challenge you to find a flaw in any one of them.” He pointed to the one across from the bed, reflecting the most graphic view.
She took one look and shuddered.
Nick caught her hand, using her fingertip to trace across her own swollen arousal, dark pink and glistening and exquisite.
“You’re beautiful here. You’re beautiful everywhere. Inside and out, body, mind, and soul. Such beauty deserves to be worshipped, and I want you to see it.” He paused for a beat. “Do you see what I see, Jannie?”
Her breathing grew so rapid that Nick was worried she might hyperventilate.
“Do you?” He placed his hand over hers, forcing her to cup herself. “Look in the mirrors. Look at the way I look at you.”
Her gaze flicked from him to one mirror after another.
He recognized the shift the moment it clicked. Her chin lifted, her shoulders squared, and in that instant, she embraced the mantle of the golden goddess he always knew she was.
“You see it,” he said softly.
“Yes.”
“Do you feel it? The connection?”
She nodded slowly, her eyes never leaving his.
She reached out to him, then hesitated. “May I touch you?”
It was barely a whisper.
His throat closed. Jannie, who always aggressively took whatever she wanted, was asking him this.
And gazing up at him just the way he’d always hoped she would.
He took her hands and kissed one, then the other, and placed them on his chest where his heart was pounding, just for her. “Let’s make this perfectly clear. You never need to ask to touch me.”