35
COOPER
“Are you serious?” Neck twisted to see Ezla on the bed, I give her an incredulous look.
“Yes,” she answers without inflection.
“How the fuck am I meant to get to you with my wrists and ankles bound, HC?”
She shrugs carelessly. “Figure it out.” Then her eyes sparkle. “You may have to wriggle to me.”
More disbelief pours off me. “You want me to wriggle my way over to you like a bloody worm?”
“Those are your words, not mine.”
Tiger snickers. “Cooper the Caterpillar.”
Unimpressed, I slide narrowed eyes his way. “Caterpillars aren’t even worms.”
“Well, duh.” His eyes roll. “But they both wriggle, and Cooper the Worm doesn’t sound as good, does it?”
“Neither sounds good.”
“I am not so sure. Cooper the Caterpillar does have a ring to it.”
“Hah!” Tiger cries, shining a trillion times brighter as I gape at our Bonded. Scotty laughs under his breath, while Tate snorts, eyes boring holes into Ezla. “It’s official! That’s your new nickname!”
“No one is fucking calling me that,” I grit out, even though happiness moves through me at Ezla joining in on something like this, despite it being at my expense. “Cooper, or even Coops, is fine. But that’s the most you’ll get.”
He blows a raspberry. “Boooring.”
“And how would you feel about Tiger the Testicle?” I fire at him.
Horror takes a hold of his features. “Coops! That’s not at all the same!
” he protests loudly, but it’s not enough to drown out Ezla’s lyrical laugh.
There’s always that cruel undertone, but this is the second time we’ve heard a laugh that’s purely joyful, only full of amusement.
And this one’s all for us, the rest of the world not privy to the devastating sound.
The sound tapers off naturally this time, too, different from the abrupt cut-off in Game 5, as we stare slack-jawed at her.
“You do so amuse me,” she tells us with her gorgeous notes lingering in the air as she pushes herself up into a sitting position with her palms pressing into the silks on the mattress.
Tiger bats his lashes enthusiastically, outrage at my proposed nickname entirely forgotten. “Thank you, Ezzy.”
Smirking, she hums, absently trailing a finger over Scotty’s sternum while her eyes come to rest on me and fix themselves there. He tenses, inhaling and exhaling shakily, the effect the small action has on him clear.
But it’s my turn to tense, every muscle going rigid, when Ezla says with an unreadable expression on her face, “You would like to tie me up.”
My face drains of all colour. “No, Vengeance—”
“You what? Havoc isn’t meant to be caged. She’s our fucking queen—”
“Quiet, my beast.”
Tate’s mouth snaps shut in an instant.
My own opens, guilt and fear mixing into an unhealthy concoction, but Ezla cuts me off next. “Do not lie to me,” she says sharply. “I can hear it, sense it in you, even if it is hidden.”
My swallow is painful. “I . . . It’s nothing, Vengeance—”
“Did I not just tell you to not lie to me?” she hisses, and I feel the anger flaring up inside her. “I can feel how much the idea arouses you, how much you would like to try this with me.”
Mouth shaping around words, a billion excuses I can’t get out, I finally hang my head in defeat.
“I’m sorry, Vengeance,” I mutter. I feel like a total piece of shit.
It’s bad enough struggling with the guilt I sometimes feel when I wonder more deeply about why I like spanking her after what she’s been through, what we’ve both been through, but wanting to tie her up when she’s been caged her entire life .
. . It’s been a growing desire of mine, but I wasn’t about to ask for that. No fucking way.
And Tate’s right—she is our bloody queen. It’s sick of me to want to take her like that. How the fuck am I any different from her vile sperm don—
“I was going to let you, but I may not allow you to touch me at all if you keep thinking such ridiculous things.”
Ezla’s viciously spoken words yank me from my mind and simultaneously my head back up.
“I like to be in control. I deserve it,” she tells me steadily, and no one disputes that.
She deserves the world and more, and I’ll be on my knees for her our entire lives without complaint.
“However, I am . . .” A trickle of unbelievable guilt is pushed purposely from her to us through the bond, which she’d evidently been keeping hidden since what happened in her bathroom.
Jaw clenching at the vulnerability she’s allowed us to feel, as if it’s easier than speaking it aloud, she then says, “I . . . I think I may like to give this a go. For you. For . . .” Steeling herself, she draws herself up and hardens her voice. “I would like to give myself to you.”
I gape yet another time today, jaw on the floor along with another four.
“This is . . . I am not very good at expressing my . . . feelings.” Her nose scrunches in that bloody adorable way of hers.
“So I think maybe I could tell you this way. That I am willing to let you bind me. And it can be a physical representation of how . . . of how yours I am, as you are mine. Only . . . only you can claim me.” Proceeding to glare down at her lap, Ezla falls silent, and I can feel her struggling with self-loathing that she doesn’t manage to hide from us in time.
“Love . . .” Scotty starts gently, sitting up and bringing a hand to her lower back to rub circles into her skin. “This isn’t weakness. I know you think it is, but the fact you find it so difficult to tell us these things but do it anyway is only strength.”
Her brow creases. “It is humiliating.”
“It might seem that way, but it means the world to us every time you give us another piece of yourself.”
“Hm.”
Lips twitching as he fights a smile, Scotty then lifts his head to glance over at me warily. “Are you sure this is a good idea, though?”
Guild floods me once more. “No. That’s why I didn’t say anything,” I reply stiffly.
Ezla huffs. “It will be fine. I want to try this. It is the only way I know how to show you how I feel at the moment. Besides, this may be your only chance to have me like this. If I were you, I would accept the offer while it still stands. In fact . . . when Cooper is done, I will allow the rest of you to enjoy me like this. I do not like the doubt about our relationship, nor the fact that I put that doubt there.”
Breathing rate picking up in both growing apprehension and need, I shake my head. “I can’t, Vengeance. I won’t do that to you.”
“But I want you to,” she snaps. “Are you going to deny me what I want?”
“I—”
I’m cut off when she sends a mental image of her with her face pressed into the pillows by the headboard, her arms stuck behind her back.
Her naked body jolts with each of my harsh thrusts, the force making her plump ass bounce as my pelvis slams into her over and over again from behind.
In the scene, I can hear my own groans mixing in with her breathy ones, muffled with her position, and one of my hands has a firm grip on her hip, while the other holds the rope wrapped securely around her slim wrists.
More than that, there’s also a harness constructed of rope around her upper arms that circles around her back, though I can’t see the stunning sight that must make of her already-mouth-watering front half.
My cock throbs so violently it hurts, and I feel a steady stream of pre-cum leaking from the slit in my tip, running down my shaft and to the base of me.
“Oh . . .”
Tiger’s breathed word has me blinking, trying to shake myself out of my trance as I come back to reality.
It’s clear when I look at all the brothers that my line of sight has access to that they’ve seen the scene, too, and I can’t see Alby with where I know he sits identical to me on the other side of the bed, but I’m sure he’s experienced it as well with his nearly inaudible whimper.
Tate’s pupils have expanded to leave no grey at all behind, and he’s clearly not so against the idea of tying our Bonded up now if the way he licks his lips and grinds against nothing is any indication.
Tiger looks to be hypnotised, glazed eyes starstruck and fixed unwaveringly on Ezla, while Scotty’s throat works, more red crawling up his neck than was already there from his joining with her.
“Well?” our Bonded prompts, waiting for an answer to her question.
I’m ashamed of myself when I hardly spare a moment to hesitate. “No,” I murmur roughly. “No, I won’t deny you.”
She grins slowly. “Excellent.”
Evidently—and thankfully, because I was really not looking forward to attempting to wriggle my way to her, even though I would have definitely done it—Ezla’s given up on the idea of making me attempt to reach her while bound like this, as she moves my way, giving Tiger a warning look when she reaches his legs.
It results in him putting on an atrocious “innocent” look while he attempts to keep his limbs still as she climbs over them.
Somehow, though, he manages it, and soon, HC’s before me, smirking cruelly down at my helpless form.
“I will certainly be seeing you like this more often. I am truly so excited for all the punishments to come. How do handcuffs sound? We definitely have some in the drawers.”
Coughing at the mental picture as well as her bluntness, I admit quietly, “I’m not opposed, Vengeance. I wouldn’t exactly consider myself the submissive type, but I enjoy anything with you.”
“Good, because I was not asking for permission.”
I snort. “Of course not.”
Pressing her lips together, Ezla puts a mask of sternness on, but I know damn well she’s trying not to smile. I have to resist the urge to demand she let it out. It’s too fucking gorgeous for her to be hiding it from us so much.
“Hands.”
Hungry eyes skimming over her naked body as she dips to get closer to me, I lean forwards without argument.
Quiet as she works on the black rope on the wrists bound behind me, I offer up my ankles before she can ask when she’s done, and she places the other rope on the floor beside us before she gets to work on the second.