by Ruby Laska
“That,” he breathed, “will not go uncorrected twice.” He kicked his pants off the rest of the way, leaving him completely and gloriously naked. Then he started toward the bedroom, dragging her with him.
He did not go slowly and he did not wait for her to keep up. She crawled awkwardly, but with only her knees and one hand, it was impossible to keep pace, and she ended up being dragged the last few feet. The rug burned the skin of her knees, and her arm felt like it would be pulled from its socket, but her excitement only mounted.
The suite’s bedroom was nearly as large as the living room. She had time only to register the night sky through the wall of windows, the lights of the buildings twinkling like a million tiny stars, before Ricardo picked her up and dumped her unceremoniously on the bed.
“Be still,” he snapped, before turning to a leather valise that lay open on the luggage stand.
She dared a glance around the room at the modern, sleek furnishings, the heavy draperies pulled open, the paintings decorating the walls. Very expensive, very tasteful…but anonymous. This was not home, this was only another way station in her lover’s unknowable life. There were no clues to follow here.
She would have to learn him by other means.
She returned her attention to what Ricardo was removing from the carryall. This time, it wasn’t red scarves or clothespins; in his hands was a coil of slippery, thick rope glinting with silver threads.
“This is made of silk and cotton,” Ricardo said as he picked up her wrist and looped it around, then began tying her to one of the smooth slats in the headboard, leaning over so he could position her near the center. “It has its advantages. Its only disadvantage is that it is extremely hard to find and very expensive.” He gave his knot an experimental tug; it held fast. “However, it lends itself to some rather elaborate shibari techniques, which I don’t have the patience to execute or even discuss right now.”
He took her other wrist and bound it to the first, working quickly, passing the ends in and out until a network of knots secured around her wrists and forearms.
Then he stood back and regarded his work. “Lovely,” he said. “Are you comfortable?”
“Yes, Sir,” she whispered.
“You won’t be for long.”
He reached for another length of rope and formed a loop at the end. Then he spread her legs with his hand, exposing her drenched slit, her swollen pink lips.
“Can you keep your legs still without being bound, I wonder?”
Chelsea didn’t dare express her disappointment at the question. It wasn’t his mercy she wanted.
“Make me,” she said before she was even aware of forming the thought.
“Make you?”
“Make me…force me. Please.”
One eyebrow quirked up. “My little niñita is learning to beg.”
Her face burned with both excitement and embarrassment. She hadn’t been called a little girl since…so long ago it was like another lifetime, in a distant reality where nothing bad had ever happened, where she still had a family and a home and a rosy future. But when Ricardo called her that, it took her to another place entirely…a place where her adult fears and anxiety and needs dissolved like sugar in water, as insignificant as dandelion puffs on a breeze. “Please,” she said again, closing her eyes and inviting the oblivion in.
A sudden sharp, excruciating blow to her pussy snapped her immediately back. He was watching her with the looped cord in his hand, and when he saw he had her attention, he whipped the loop against her pussy a second time. She cried out and bucked her hips, kicking out at him in an unstoppable reflex. The sensation of the flicking rope on her clit was exquisite, pain and pleasure twisted together, inseparable. He moved deftly out of the way of one foot and grabbed the other before landing three more blows in a row, and each time her legs kicked reflexively.
If he kept this up, she was going to come, and it would be torture; her pussy longed to be filled, rammed, owned. She didn’t want to come from clitoral stimulation alone, but if he continued she wouldn’t have a choice.
“Well, I can see you can’t be trusted,” Ricardo murmured, taking the foot he was holding and maneuvering her leg so that her knee was bent all the way.
Then he began the wrapping and knotting, one set of knots binding her ankle to her thigh and the other, closer to her knee, tied off with the ends. He tested the bond before reaching for the last length of rope. He made a looser loop and flicked it against her nipples, one after the other in rapid succession, and she gasped and writhed.
“Secure, I see,” he said mildly as the tied leg remained still while the other kicked. He made quick work of the other leg, while Chelsea focused on her shallow, ragged, needful breathing and the sensations of ribbed rope against skin, of her legs helpless and open, exposing her as fully as she had ever felt.
Ricardo picked up a small camera from the nightstand and, before she realized what he was doing, snapped a quick series of photos. “Don’t worry,” he murmured as he worked. “This camera is not connected to the Internet. This is like another time when photographs were meant for the pleasure of the photographer and his subject only…”
He came to sit next to her on the bed, stretching out as comfortably as she felt awkward, and held the camera so she could see its screen. The darkness outside was complete, except for the lights of the city, which lit the interior of the room with a soft glow; the image on the camera was clear and bright.
“Oh, God,” Chelsea breathed, as she looked at the photograph of herself. Her glistening, needful pussy was front and center; the laced and knotted bindings of her legs splayed on either side. It was both unexpectedly artistic and deeply erotic.
He swiped his thumb to an image of her breasts silhouetted against a backdrop of the fine linens, the line of her body sensually curved, her arms extended overhead with only a glimpse of the rope binding her wrists to the headboard. Her face was turned away, but her excitement was evident in her parted lips, her exposed throat.
He showed her one after another, every inch of her body on display. While he paged through the photographs, he stroked his cock lazily, but his casual motions were belied by his cock straining and bulging in his hand. The photographs aroused him at least as much as they did her.
“You’re beautiful, Chelsea,” he said. “My treasure.”
“No I’m not,” she said. “I’m only…” Average, she was going to say, but the things they were doing were proof that she wasn’t that. Her body was a firestorm of desires and inclinations that were surely out of the ordinary. As for the way she looked…she only wished she could look as splendid to Ricardo as he did to her.
He tossed the camera aside and slid his hand down to her nipple, squeezing hard and twisting, eliciting an anguished gasp.
“How dare you,” he said menacingly, unrelenting in his pressure on the sensitive nub. She writhed below him, but the knots held fast. She’d never felt as helpless, unable to get away from his punishing touch.
He pinched harder, and she cried out.
“You’re mine, Chelsea, and I only possess the best. Surely you know that by now. The things I choose come from all over the world, and they are united by one feature alone: they are the finest. This rope is made by hand in a convent in Italy where the nuns are all over sixty; they work by candlelight. That valise cost four thousand dollars and was made to my exact specifications. But it isn’t the money that makes it exquisite. Do you understand that, Chelsea?”
She was barely able to nod, given the pain he was inflicting on her, twisting and abrading, but it was her mounting pleasure that stole her voice. If she tried to speak now, there would only be cries of pleasure and need.
Suddenly he released her and knelt next to her on the bed. She gasped with the sudden relief. He regarded her, sitting back on his haunches. It was a singular view; his sculpted abs and muscular thighs were shown to gorgeous advantage while the planes of his face were luminous in the dim light. She swallowed nervously
. Was he going to untie her now that she’d submitted to him…or was there more to come?
“Can you turn over on your own?” he asked, his voice almost conversational.
She drew her bound knees together and let them fall to one side. It was an odd sensation, to have such a limited range of motion. Her hair fell against her face and she could not push it out of the way; she tried to lever herself onto her knees and could not.
“No matter.” He lifted her hips with his hands, positioning her on her knees. The rope binding her wrists twisted easily, allowing her to rest her forearms on the pillows.
“Is this your favorite position? With your ass in the air, waiting to see how I’ll use you next?”
“Maybe,” she said because it was certainly one of her favorites, but it was hard to stay focused given all of the possibilities.
“Maybe?” His voice was sharp. “What kind of answer is that?”
He laid his hand on her ass, resting it there lightly. “Maybe is the answer you might give, for instance, if I asked you if it would be cloudy tomorrow. You have no way of knowing—the weather is unpredictable. So you might justifiably say maybe.”
His tone was serious as if they were having a discussion of great importance, when she’d only said the first thing that came to her mind.
But Chelsea was getting the feeling that for Ricardo, nothing was without meaning. Everything he did was so deliberate; every move he made was designed for a specific outcome.
“But if I ask you how you feel about something,” he continued, “about your preferences or desires, I expect the truth. I do not care to be brushed aside, given some meaningless answer.”
His hand lifted only to come crashing down on her buttock. The shock of pain was followed immediately by delicious pleasure. This was what she had needed; this was her temporary release. She writhed and wriggled her hips, bracing for the next blow.
“Oh, I see,” Ricardo said. “You thought to manipulate me with your response.” Another hard blow crashed down in the same place, smarting against the already tender flesh. “To manipulate me.” A third strike, even harder. “To take charge.”
“No, I—” Chelsea grunted, excitement giving way to alarm as the blows escalated.
“No matter.” He got up from the bed and went to the valise, pulling out a slim, luminescent wand. “Hold this for me for a moment,” he said and slipped it between her lips. She held it in her teeth, using her tongue to explore its surface; it was slick and cool, a little thicker than a pencil and perhaps a little longer.
He slapped her other ass cheek, and she smiled around the object in her mouth, knowing he couldn’t see. Now that she’d had a moment to recover, the burning sensation was deeply pleasurable. Let him match the other side. She was ready.
A laugh bubbled out of her, unexpectedly. He hesitated, his hand stilled in midair in her peripheral vision.
“You think this is funny?” he asked, quietly. She shook her head vigorously, careful not to drop the object, but she couldn’t stop the sounds or the quaking of her shoulders. It wasn’t laughter, exactly, that issued from her…but she couldn’t control herself. She was provoking him, and she liked it. She had survived everything he had done so far—and she wanted more.
He reached for the object and took it carefully from between her teeth.
“I give you permission to speak your mind. Tell me, Chelsea, what exactly is so amusing to you?”
She tried, she really did. She took a deep breath and tried to think of how to explain it, as he seemed genuinely curious. He had never felt what she was feeling, after all; there was nothing submissive about Ricardo. How could she tell him how deeply gratifying it was to relinquish control? How exquisite it felt to expose herself? How each time the pain increased, it brought her closer to total release?
“It wasn’t too hard,” she mumbled through chattering teeth. “I didn’t mind it.” What she meant was that she was surprised to have endured, but that was too complicated to say. Nonetheless, she felt him tense; the bed went as still as cold steel.
“I see,” he said gravely. “If you will be so kind, hold this again.”
He’d barely slipped the wand back between her lips when he struck again, hard enough to knock her sideways. The blow traveled through her spine, her entire body—and she discovered that she had endured this too.
Another giggle escaped her lips.
He took the wand from her, pushing her lips apart with his index finger. She wasn’t sure what came over her when she nipped at his finger, catching the flesh between her front teeth. He twisted his hand back with an exclamation. Then he grabbed her hair and forced her head up and around so that she was looking into his face.
It was glistening with exertion, his inky eyes flashing and his mouth set in a firm line. “You’re sure you want to do this, little girl? If you continue to play with fire, things are going to escalate.”
She tried to contain herself. But when he tightened his grip on her hair, almost pulling it from her scalp, she could no longer control herself.
She laughed. “I can barely feel it,” she said.
His hand stilled in her hair, and then he released her. “You do remember your safe word.”
She shrugged, meaning to communicate indifference, even as it echoed in her mind. Magnolia, magnolia, magnolia; surely a sane woman would employ it now. What sort of madness was she courting? If the energy between them truly was a fire, she would be singed, burned, incinerated.
He stood and stalked to the end of the bed. There was a swishing sound, and Chelsea looked over her shoulder to see that he’d extended the wand to a thin, tapering cane a little less than a yard long. The first blow landed before she could register what he intended to do, halfway down her thighs, glancing off the ropes that bound her so that there was little pain.
“This is made from a new polycarbonate,” Ricardo said. She was coming to understand that this was one of the ways he distanced himself, by focusing on the objects in his hand, the mechanics of his technique, rather than by the emotions that propelled him.
“I don’t care,” she gritted out. “I don’t care what it’s made of.”
She tensed and waited for the next blow, but it didn’t come.
“Is that right, Chelsea?” he murmured very softly, and then the cane came down, right on the sensitive flesh of her ass where she still stung from the earlier pounding.
This was a far more focused and intense sensation, though, like being sliced through, opened up, cleaved, and Chelsea shivered and cried out. It was like being burned and salved at the same moment. Her fingers dug into the mattress and she tossed her head from side to side.
“More?” Ricardo murmured. “Can you take it, niñita?”
While he spoke, he reached between her legs again and resumed his gentle tracing of her pussy. He dipped his finger in, drawing out her moisture, opening up a minifloodgate of unmet need, and she felt herself drenching him, her body begging for release.
“I can take it,” she murmured, wondering if that was true.
Another blow and she had her answer. It crisscrossed the first, and immediately afterward, he plunged his fingers inside her so that as she writhed, she worked him deeper.
“No,” she cried out, breathlessly. Because though she could come any second with him touching her this way, expertly teasing and manipulating her, she needed him to be right there with her. “I don’t want it like that. I want you to fuck me now, to take me.”
Another two blows in quick succession, the pain doubling down, ratcheting through her while he stroked and fingered. “Are you making demands of me? Have you forgotten who owns you?”
She gave a mighty heave against her bindings, but they only knotted more tightly, cutting into her wrists. “No!” Of course she hadn’t forgotten. Now, more than ever she needed the release of giving in, the blindingly sensual pleasure of giving over all her power to him. In recent hours she had literally run for her life; she’d seen the aftermath of t
he killing of an innocent man, a death she feared she was partly responsible for. She had fallen for a man who was a deadly threat to some and a hero to others, a man who walked in the shadows of everything she had always believed to be true, a place she couldn’t follow.
She needed one thing to be sure, to be beyond question. She needed to be overwhelmed not just with sensation but with the feeling of security and safety of giving up control. She needed to feel less alone, the way she had felt alone for so long.
Another blow, but this one faltered, glancing off with less force; his hand on her pussy stilled.
She caught her breath. Would he refuse her this?
He turned away and went back to the carryall. She slumped down on her knees in a fetal position, her ass burning with the punishment she had received, catching her breath. A moment later he was back. He put his hand on her waist and pushed her gently but firmly sideways so that she was looking at him.
He held a knife in his hand, one she’d seen before; he’d used it to scrape melted wax from her flesh. The blade glinted in the candlelight, its curved length wickedly sharp.
He hooked it deftly under the knots, a fraction of an inch from her fingers, and yanked savagely, severing the binding. The rope fell away; her wrists were numb and useless. As she rubbed the sensation back into them, he sliced twice more, freeing her legs. Now she was lying in a tangled mass of soft rope and twisted sheets, a sheen of perspiration along her breasts, her thighs. Her pussy ached with longing, her nipples almost painfully stiff.
Ricardo pulled the ropes away impatiently, and they fell soundlessly to the thick carpet.
“I’ve told you what it would mean if I make love to you,” Ricardo said, and his accent was thickened, his eyes clouded with an emotion close to torment. Make love…a quaint and unexpected phrase. She didn’t have time to tease out if she liked it before he got onto the bed next to her, looming over her. His cock hung heavy and huge, barely touching her thigh as he loomed over her. “There will be no turning back. You will be mine, and I do not—ever—relinquish what is mine. Do you understand?”
