It was just odd. Not one I'd heard before.
When he turned me around, dragging my gaze from the mother and the daughter who were trying to work things out, trying to come back from the fact that Cyan had almost trusted someone she most definitely shouldn't have, I let my brain switch off.
I had to.
The need to go to her, to tell her what it was like when an older man gave you that kind of attention, to reveal secrets I'd only told Cruz, was a weight on my soul.
I'd never meant to tell Cruz, dammit, never mind a little girl, but I'd see how things panned out.
Her dynamic with Martin was entirely different than the one I had with Kevin.
I'd been terrified. She, quite clearly, wasn't.
"Stop thinking," ever diligent and ever the goddamn mind-reader, he rumbled.
And because he made it an order, I found myself willing to obey it.
With my focus on my room, I saw a couple of things that had my brows rising.
"Thought you got rid of corpses, didn't think you made them."
He sniffed. "Every serial killer's tool is the same as a cleaner's tool, except the blood is shed post-mortem, not ante."
My nose crinkled, because I knew that meant a knife wasn't used to end life, but to chop up limbs.
Great.
My boyfriend.
The cleaner.
And we weren't talking toilets here.
I cleared my throat as I took in the knife which was sitting on the nightstand, then the two kind of knots of white nylon rope which gleamed silver in the light.
"Indy," Cruz barked. "I won't warn you again. Keep your focus on me."
I shot him a look. "How do you know when it isn't?" I wasn't speaking with belligerence, more like curiosity.
"Tension leaves your body, and I want you very much tense. I don’t like it when you turn to ice on me”
I crinkled my nose at that. "Charming."
The quirk of his lips in a barely there smile had me rolling my eyes.
"Now, you won't like this, but you're not supposed to like a punishment, are you?”
And with that, he began.
Cruz
There was a soothing rhythm I found when binding a woman, making loops here, knotting there, sweeping the length of cord over elegant limbs, framing bones just so.
But with Indy, it was actually hard.
With every ripe curve I unveiled, I wanted to taste it. Wanted to taste her.
Punishing her involved punishing myself, and that was one of the things I'd always hated about BDSM.
There was so much pageantry sometimes, so much effort when, some nights, you just really wanted to end the day with your cock in your woman without having to whip her ass first.
But a vanilla life wasn't something I could enjoy entirely either, so I found myself at an odd crossroads as I tied Indy into the position I wanted.
A crossroads that delved into the fact I'd only started being a little more masterful because she needed it, but I saw that I needed it too. Maybe not as much as her, maybe just as much. I wouldn't know until we'd been together for a while.
Until we were out of the closet, and the excitement of hiding behind closed doors had waned.
Not that I'd felt that way, but I knew a lot of women liked the idea of the forbidden. Knew it got some of them wet.
Speaking of...
A garbled noise escaped her as I finished my last ties, and I peered at her, saw the anxiety in her eyes, as well as the relief.
Such an odd combination.
I knew she'd expected something worse than this, but she wasn't going to get it.
As this wasn't about sex, I'd stripped her down to her panties, not even complaining about her wearing them when I’d ordered her not to—this was about trust, and with her pussy covered, she knew that from the get-go.
Leaning forward, her stomach against her thighs, I had each forearm bound to her calf, strapped there with a web of knots that ended at just above the elbow and starting in a cup I made around the ball of her foot.
One leg was already complete, the other, I was just making that cup for her heel.
The bright red ball gag stopped her from speaking, but had drool trickling out the sides of her mouth and down her chin, some of it pouring over her tits, some of it landing on the mattress or on her legs.
As I finished the final knot, I stepped back to take in my work of art.
It was good.
Very good.
I'd gone for a white nylon because I'd known the shiny white would look breathtaking against her golden skin, and here was my confirmation.
I hummed as I moved forward, and started to unravel the bun I'd put her hair in at the start. When the shorter strands tumbled loose, I sighed in delight at the picture she presented.
A picture I needed to capture.
Grabbing my phone from my pocket, I snapped her defiant eyes, the grace of her arched back, the intricate knots that made diamond shapes along her limbs, and the general submissiveness of a pose that restricted her movement to that of rolling around the bed and simply spreading her legs wide or closing them.
There was a reason this was called the crab pose.
If this was entirely sexual, I'd have fucked her like this, while she was incapacitated, unable to do anything other than take what I had to give her.
Instead, I was teaching her a lesson.
More garbled noises escaped her as I took a couple dozen pictures, focusing on little points that only I'd recognize and appreciate. The way the skin dimpled under the pressure of the rope here, how one diamond of bound flesh was redder than the next.
When I was done, I returned my phone to my pocket, and eyed the strip of material between her legs which was damp.
And not from her drool.
I shook my head at her, wagging my finger as I murmured, "Good girls get rewarded. Bad girls need to think about what they've done."
I twisted around at that, and started to walk away from the bed. Her garbled words turned higher in pitch, her panic clear. I turned back to look at her and intoned, "Calm down."
But her eyes were wide, and those gorgeous tits of hers were heaving from a combination of panicked breathing and the restrictions of her position.
If she didn't calm down soon, she'd pass the fuck out.
I stared at her, rumbling, "You will calm down, Indy, or the punishment is over and I'll be falling asleep in my bed and not yours."
Her eyes flared wide, but she made a choked effort to gentle her breathing.
I nodded as I headed to the door, where I toed out of my boots and placed them in the rack there. Then, barefoot, I ignored her entirely and went to the kitchen.
Thanks to the open plan nature of her apartment, I knew she could see me from the bedroom, and I made it a point not to look at her once, not now I'd taken all the pictures I needed to remember tonight.
Not that I'd forget what had gone down, not exactly, but at least this way, I'd end it with a better sight than how it had started.
Indy's wet panties were a helluva lot more interesting than her assistant's sightless eyes staring up at me.
Peering into the refrigerator, I saw she had the makings of a pot roast in there, which came as a surprise because as far as I knew, she didn't really cook.
Still, seeing carrots, onions, a bag of string beans, the chicken itself, and then upon further inspection, finding some potatoes, I decided that was what we'd be having for dinner.
Which fit with the timeline.
Though it was a deceptively simple position, it couldn't be maintained for long. But, because it was deceptive, in her mind, she'd be thinking I could leave her like that for hours on end.
I wouldn't do that, even if I was tempted. Which, today, I wasn't. Maybe in the future she'd piss me off enough to tie her up with the intent of leaving her there for hours, but today wasn't that day.
Today, she'd been traumatized, in more ways than one, and I was just grounding he
r.
Reminding her that she wasn't the kid who'd been abused by someone she should have been able to trust.
Today, she was a woman. A woman who'd helped a girl that could've ended up as twisted up inside as Indy.
Here, now, she was more than just Indy. She was a woman. A living, breathing sculpture who needed to remember that, to me, she was more than the sum of her past.
Every day was a fresh one when you had a submissive. You couldn't take bitterness over into tomorrow, otherwise you'd spank too hard, whip deep enough to bleed.
Doms were only human, and filled with foibles, but when you had a sub, one who allowed you to enact all those kinks that made you different, one whose trust enabled you to be free, you had to tread lightly. You had to forgive.
They trusted you.
You had to live up to that trust.
So, I cooked. While she watched.
I scrubbed the potatoes, peeled the carrots, chopped up the onion, and tossed them together in a little oil I placed in a baking tray. When I found some rosemary on the windowsill where she had some fresh herbs, I tossed that in too, before I placed the chicken atop the veggies, covered it with foil, then set it in the oven.
Prepping the string beans, I placed them in a pan of cold water, ready to boil them later when the chicken was done.
All that set, I saw it had taken me thirty minutes from the time on the stove, and I washed up, before I padded over to her.
She hadn't moved, and her gaze tracked me as I headed for the bed.
When I stripped off my cut and Henley, leaving my jeans on, interest lit those bronze eyes, and I climbed onto the bed, before I arranged her how I wanted her.
On her side.
It was awkward, but I was a fan of awkward.
Nothing worth doing was ever simple.
So, to the 'C' shape she made, I curved myself around her, letting my front cup her back, and my hand moved over to her front.
She was wet with drool, and I started to swirl my fingers in it. Not to soothe, just to ground.
Nothing was dirty here.
Not drool, not pussy juices, not my cum.
I wasn't into piss or scat play, but if I was, that wouldn't be dirty either.
What we had transcended the regular bounds of a relationship.
I didn't want to see her at her best.
I wanted to see her at her fucking worst, because that was trust.
That was freedom.
"Last sub I had, I was only twenty-three," I murmured, hushing her when she tensed.
It might not have seemed wise to talk about another woman when I was in her bed, but there was shit I needed to share, shit she needed to hear. I didn't need feedback, just for her to grasp the reality of the situation we found ourselves in.
"Not many subs will trust a Dom as young as that, but I found them. Usually they were older than me. A lot. I didn't mind. I kinda liked it because they settled on me for the age difference. Bored housewives with aging husbands who had pouches over their belt buckles—why wouldn't they like a trim guy who reminded them of what they could have had when they were my age? When they were too scared to play how they wanted to?
"The reason subs don't trust young Doms isn't just because of a lack of experience, it's the lack of wisdom. It took me a long time to realize that I had a lot of disdain for subs, especially the ones who were eager to obey.
"That was why I stopped. I backed off, because that wasn’t, and isn’t, how this dynamic should work.
"I was a disrespectful cunt, and I actually apologized to the women I dominated. They didn't understand, because I hadn't mistreated them, so they didn't get why I'd be annoyed at myself, but it was a point of honor for me to apologize and for me to move on with my life because no Dom should ever feel that way.
"Submission is something a man earns. It isn't something he deserves."
A noise escaped her, but the gag did its job. I cast a look at my watch, registering I had another twenty minutes max to keep her like this. That was edging it, but Indy liked to push boundaries and I knew she'd tell me if she was in outright pain.
Trust worked both ways.
I tapped her thigh, just above the webbing, and murmured, "Just listen. No talking." A sigh heaved from her, a disgruntled one, and even though I grinned, I murmured, "Now, at the clubhouse, there's a glut of pussy, and I won't lie, I took advantage of it. But the second I saw you on your hands and knees, scrubbing the floor in Stone’s bunkhouse, well, hell, all those old urges came tumbling back.
"I realized that I wasn't just a Dom to get easy pussy, because as a brother, I have access to that all the time.
"Naw, I was a Dom because I like to see a woman stripped bare, and I ain't talking clothes.
"I don't like bullshit, and you're the Queen of Bullshit, Indy." She tensed. "You are. You're a liar. You wear a mask. You hide from the truth because you don't want people to know what you are. Who hurt you.
"You've let men into this beautiful cunt of yours to punish yourself. To make yourself feel something." I reached up and rubbed my fingers over her mouth. "I've seen these sexy lips that look perfect stretched around my cock in all kinds of colors, none of them sexy. You were made for reds and golds, Indy. Not greens or blacks. I've seen you with thick make up, and while that's your choice, and you can wear whatever the fuck you want, it's why you wear it that disturbs me.
"Because you, sweet Indy, are beautiful. You can't hide from it. And you don't have to anymore.
"Covered in saliva, a gag straining the seams of your mouth, sweat on your limbs and beading at your temples... you're beautiful.
"And this beauty is mine. I’m not ready to brand you, and maybe neither of us will ever be ready for that, but we both know, that whatever happens, once that door is closed, this is the real you." I pressed a kiss to her temple. "And I see that real you, and I understand that you, and I want that you. No one else. No other shade of Indy. This Indy. Do you understand me?"
I let the words sink in, let her process them before I asked for an answer to my question, but then I got it.
In sobs.
They wracked her slender frame, poured out of her like a burst of rain in a summer shower. They made her heave with them, her body, already tethered, shuddered with reaction to the outpouring of emotion she hadn't expected to shed.
That I hadn't expected her to shed, in all honesty.
I hadn't said any of this to decimate her.
I'd said it for her to know her fucking worth.
This woman was a fucking queen, and it was time she started living like that.
With nothing else to do, I held her. Until the sobs stopped, until her breathing grew raspy, I was there for her. And then, I pulled out the knife I'd stored with my cell in my pocket, and I started to pop through the taut bindings. Releasing her flesh from the diamond webs, not stopping until she was free.
And when she was, she twisted around and huddled into me, so tightly that it was a struggle to release her mouth from its bondage too.
But I got it.
I did.
And this was honest.
Real.
Exactly what I'd asked for.
So I held her in my arms, gave her what she needed, and let her be the Indy she was born to be.
Mine.
Thirteen
Indy
With the emotional wreckage laying around me, I didn't even notice the pins and needles in my hands and feet that came with liberation, I just noticed his hands and his feet. They pressed into me, rubbing my calves and my back, holding me tight, so tightly that I felt like he'd never let go.
And I wanted that.
I wanted him to keep me.
I wanted him to be there. Always. To hold me when I fell. Uncaring that I was a mess, uncaring that I wasn't perfect and pretty.
Wanting me raw and open.
A soothing hum escaped him as he touched me, and though I could feel his boner, and I knew I was wet, this wasn't sexual.
It went deeper.
So deep that I didn't understand it, but found a curious freedom in realizing that I didn't need to.
It just was.
Earlier, I’d watched him head for the door, certain he'd leave me like this, only to watch him untie his boots. It was then I realized how wrong it was for me to trust him so little. He’d never leave me like this.
Ever.
Then, I’d seen him in my kitchen, preparing dinner, and after, I'd listened to his experiences in the lifestyle when he was younger. In the white space he'd left me in from when he cooked, my mind had been curiously adrift. My one focus him.
It wasn't buzzing with thoughts of today or last night. It wasn't buzzing with worries or fears.
Just him.
That was all I saw.
All I heard.
All I breathed.
All I needed.
With my lips pressed against his throat, in my favorite position of them all, he grunted when the timer went off on the stove.
I clung to him harder in response, knowing he'd be getting up soon, and he didn't chide me. Didn't slap my ass like I'd thought. Instead, his embrace turned fiercer, and he asked, "Who do you belong to, Indy?"
My mouth trembled, my eyes darted from side to side behind my closed lids, my breasts heaved with shaky breaths, and my body ached from the enforced position he'd put me in.
And while, emotionally, I was more tied up than I'd been with the rope restraining me, I felt curiously free as I whispered, "You."
"Me."
I heard the vow there, knew it represented so much that neither of us had agreed to. He said he didn't want to brand me yet, that we might never be ready for that, and he could be right, but brands weren't always visible.
Brands could be made on a person's soul, and I knew I wore his name etched on mine.
Now, I just needed to make sure mine was etched on his.
He kissed my temple again, then when he started to make a move to let go of me, I didn't struggle. I stopped clinging and watched as he went to the kitchen, peered into the stove, pulled off the foil, then shut the oven door again.
When he set the timer, I thought he'd come back to me, but he didn't. He set the string beans on to boil, before he finally returned to my side.
Cruz : A Dark MC Romance (A Dark and Dirty Sinners’ MC Book 5) Page 21
