Bound Temptations: Stories of Temptation and Submission

by Shiloh Walker

  Her lips parted on a rough gasp but she didn’t pull away, didn’t even move as he pushed his hands higher, higher, under the hem of that flippy little skirt that had driven him insane all night.

  Closing his hands around her hips—fuck—her naked hips, he pulled her to the edge. Her knees parted automatically and he pressed the ridge of his cock against her. “If it involves you? The answer, again, is fuck, yes,” he said, his voice hardly more than a growl.

  Then he shoved to his feet and grabbed his beer, moving away from the couch.

  “What’s this favor you want, Tania?” He turned away from her and drained his beer.

  She was quiet for so long, he wondered if he’d scared her, angered her.

  But she was just waiting for him to look at her, he guessed, because as soon as he turned back around, she said, “Did you know Kyle had told his brother about…” She swallowed and took a deep, nervous breath before she finished. “He told him about our sex lives.”

  “He what?” Drake stared at her. Pieces fell into place, forming a picture. A horrifying picture.

  Yeah, Drake liked rough games. But they were games and he never went any rougher than his partner liked. He had his own limits, too. Anything that went more than rough play or a little discomfort was over the line for him—yeah, some people got off on that, but he wasn’t one of them.

  But Drake knew things about Kent—things Kyle had known but hadn’t wanted to admit. Kent didn’t just like rough games—he liked hurting people. A lot. The one calming influence in his life had been Kyle.

  Tania stared at him, her eyes full of shadows and misery. “He told him. The morning Kent broke in, he…”

  Crossing the floor, he sat on the coffee table and caught her hands. They were cold, shaking. “You don’t have to tell me this. I can piece it together, baby.”

  “Ever since that day, it’s like he broke something inside me, damn it,” she said, her voice trembling. There was misery in her eyes, but fury as well. “Ever since that day, a part of me is missing.”

  Drake smoothed her hair back from her face, brushed away a tear.

  She closed her eyes, took a deep breath. “He stole it, a piece of me. I hate it. I hate that I can’t even think about my husband without remembering what his brother did to me. I can’t even have a fantasy sex life now because what I liked was what he ruined—he told me the same things that I used to love hearing from Kyle when we were messing around, but it wasn’t a game with Kent. I begged for him to stop, told him I didn’t want it. I meant it and he wouldn’t stop!”

  She was crying now, crying and shouting.

  It broke his heart.

  He reached for her and pulled her against him. “Shhh. I know. Shhh…”

  Damn it, if she hadn’t already killed Kent, he would have done it in that moment.

  “Why did he do that? Why did Kyle tell him, and why did that bastard think he could do that to me? I didn’t want him!”

  Stroking a hand down her back, Drake stared off into the distance. “Kent was always a little fucked up, Tania. Ever since we were kids.” Shit, that was only touching on part of it, but Drake didn’t know if it would help her or hurt her to know all of it. Pressing a kiss to her brow, he said, “Kyle helped steady him, but with his brother gone, I guess Kent lost it.”

  “He broke me—somewhere inside, I feel broken.”

  “No.” Drake eased back, cupped her face in his hands. Looking into dark, damp eyes, he repeated, “No. You’re not broken. He hurt you, but you’re only broken if you let him win.”

  “But I am. I can’t even be me, because those memories win out. I can’t even want what I want, because of him. I can’t think about Kyle without remembering him—I can’t look at my damn wedding pictures without remembering. That’s letting him win. He has that piece of me, and until I take it back, he wins, and I’m tired it.”

  Abruptly, she stopped—she closed her eyes and took a deep, slow breath. “I’m tired of it. I’m so damn tired of it and I’m done. It stops. I’m taking my life back, my memories, all of it.” She opened her eyes and looked at him. “That’s why I asked you over.”

  Oh, hell.

  And he knew. Now he knew. That inkling he’d had was more right than he’d guessed.

  She wasn’t wanting just training wheels.

  “I need my life back. I need my fantasies back. But I need to do it with somebody I can trust. And I can’t think of anybody I can trust more than you.”

  Fuck.

  Drake stroked a thumb over her damp, soft mouth.

  Training wheels. Teddy bear. Band-Aid. Basically, that’s what he was going to be. Oh, and a fuck toy.

  He leaned in and pressed his brow to hers. “You sure about this, Tania?”

  In response, she angled her head and kissed him. When she pulled back, she whispered, “Yes. I’m sure.”

  “Okay. When?”

  “Tonight. At least…I want to try. Maybe just not all-out sex. Hell, for all I know I won’t even be able to get far before I freak out, but I’m tired of waiting for things to fade—I’m not waiting anymore.”

  With a pained glance, he pulled away. “I wasn’t exactly prepared for something like this. I don’t have anything with me…”

  Tania shrugged. “I do. And I’ll be honest. I don’t think I’m going to be up to having sex tonight.” With a weak smile, she said, “We might make it to third base before I freak out.”

  “Third base.” He chuckled. “Well, I don’t think I’ve done any hot and heavy necking in a long time. Might be fun.” He skimmed his hands down her back. “I think I want another beer. You want any more wine?”

  “Yeah. I think I do.”

  He took a few minutes longer than he needed, letting his blood cool, forcing himself to think.

  He was about to go out there and engage in sexual antics with the woman of his dreams…but not because she had any sort of romantic feelings for him. It was because she trusted him.

  Shit.

  Back in the living room, he gave her the wine and sat down with his beer. “Before we do anything, we need to talk.”

  “Do we have to?” She scowled, staring into the wine.

  He laughed. “Yeah. Considering that I don’t want to screw this up, we probably should.” He reached up, brushed a strand of her golden brown hair back behind one ear. “If we were just going to have some quick anonymous sex, no strings, no baggage, it would be one thing. But we aren’t anonymous, there is baggage…and what we’re going to be doing isn’t just typical sex. Is it?”

  She slid him a look from the corner of her eye.

  “You want to make this complicated,” she muttered.

  “It is complicated, to an extent.” He took the wine from her, set it on the table next to his beer. Then he caught her hand, tugged. “Come here.”

  She nibbled on her lower lip and then eased across the couch.

  Not good enough. He pulled her into his lap, her back against his front. “You smell good. You’ve always smelled so good,” he said absently, stroking a hand up and down one thigh. “I don’t think I ever mentioned that it drives me nuts.”

  She was tense.

  “Am I making you nervous?”

  “I don’t know. A little.” She rested her hands on his thighs. “But it…well, it feels good. You feel good.”

  “So do you.” He wanted to tug that short little skirt higher but he didn’t, not yet. “I think you should tell me what happened two years ago.”

  She went rigid. He heard her swallow and he braced himself for her to bolt off his lap. “Why?”

  “Because whatever he did, if I do it, it will trigger some bad memories, I bet. I don’t want that.” Then he stroked a hand down her hair, brushed it aside to bare her nape. “And…while I could be wrong, but I don’t think I am, I suspect you haven’t ever told anybody what really happened. At least not all of it. Have you?”

  She shuddered. Then she shook her head. “No.” She turned her head away, dip
ping it low so that her hair hid her from him. “You know what some people will think about…what I liked. Hell, they say it about women who don’t have a taste for rough sex. If they’d known I had a thing for kinky sex, that Kyle and I used to have all these role-playing things where he pretended to rape me, where I’d beg him to hurt me, where I’d beg him not to touch me even as I was burning up for him…”

  “You were worried they wouldn’t have believed you about Kent.” He blew out a breath.

  “Yeah.”

  He lowered his head, pressed his brow to her shoulder. “I’m so sorry, baby.”

  “It was early. Almost three in the morning. Can you hand me my wine?”

  He reached for the glass but when he pushed it into her hand, she was trembling so hard, she could barely hold it. “Here,” he murmured, shifting her in his lap and turning her so that he covered one of her hands with his, steadying her as she lifted the glass.

  She took a deep, deep drink, then lowered it. Her brown eyes stared off into the distance, seeing nothing—nothing but her memories, he suspected.

  “I was sleeping. I can’t remember what woke me…I guess I heard something. There was a shadow in the door. At first, I thought I was dreaming—it was so like Kyle. There had been a few times when we’d done that sort of thing. He’d wait until I was asleep and… Anyway. Then I thought maybe the past year had been a nightmare and Kyle wasn’t really dead, because he looked so familiar.”

  “But then he touched me, and I knew. Even when Kyle was being his roughest, there was a care there. He always made sure he never really hurt me. And that was the first thing Kent did.”

  She reached up, touched her cheek. “I screamed and he covered my mouth, squeezed so hard I thought he’d break my jaw. Then he laughed and said, ‘This is going to be fun. I’m going to take my hand away in a second, just so you can beg me, bitch. We know you like it this way, right?’ He let go and I screamed, told him to leave me alone, asked him what he was doing. He slapped me. In the face. I…I don’t like being hit. Spanked, that’s one thing, but he hit me. Laughed. Told me that I was going to beg for his cock, the way I’d always begged for Kyle’s. I told him no, that I didn’t want him like that.”

  She was crying. Silent tears that ran down her face. “He covered my mouth and told me not to be so loud—somebody would hear, they wouldn’t understand. When I wouldn’t shut up, he ripped my panties off, shoved them in my mouth. Then he held my hands over my head and raped me. He tried to get me to touch myself a few times, but every time he let go of my hands, I fought him, hit him. Once I got him in the throat and…” She stopped, paused. She closed her eyes and then blew out a breath. “I think he realized then that I wasn’t exactly on board. And he didn’t care. Hell, I think it excited him even more. He finished fast. Climbed off the bed and walked over to turn on the lights. While he was walking over there, I grabbed the gun out of the bedside table. While he was talking over there, he said something like… ‘No wonder Kyle was so into fucking you. We’ll clean you up. Do it again, and this time, you’ll do some of that shit you did with him.’ Then he turned around. He saw the gun and he laughed. ‘That’s a new one.’ I told him to leave, and he just smiled and started back over toward me. I shot him.”

  She rubbed the heel of her hand over her chest. “The cops showed up about two minutes later. One of my neighbors had heard me screaming and somebody else reported the gunshot. They took one look at me and knew what had happened.”

  Drake knew the rest. It was all documented in an official report. She’d been questioned, but anybody who looked at her that day could see how she’d been brutalized. He’d visited her in the hospital, he’d stood guard outside her door for hours. Once they’d let him in, he’d sat at her side throughout the night, holding her hand.

  Each bruise he’d seen, each mark, they were like scars he’d carry on his heart forever.

  Knowing the words were useless, he said them anyway, “I’m so sorry, Tawny.”

  “Tawny…” She smiled. “I like that.”

  “Are you sure you want…? Damn it, after what he did, maybe this just isn’t your thing anymore.”

  She shook her head. “No. I’ve spent the past two years thinking that. Thinking just that. I’ve done counseling, I’ve tried nice, friendly safe men—they touch me and it’s just as bad. I’ve tried to give myself time. But I’m still lost, and I’ll stay lost until I find the pieces of me that he took, until I take those pieces back. I’m not letting him win.”

  “Okay.” Drake nodded. Laying one hand flat on her thigh, he waited, gauged her reaction. She held still, staring at his hand. “There are a few more things I want to know.”

  “Like…”

  “I need to know what you do like, what you don’t.” He used his free hand, brushed her hair aside once more, baring her neck. He pressed his lips to her there.

  “Right now, I don’t know if I’ll like anything.”

  He smiled sadly. “Then why don’t you tell me what you used to like…and we’ll go from there. And tell me what you don’t like, what you never did like.”

  “Don’t cover my mouth,” she blurted out. She licked her lips and glanced over her shoulder at him. “I don’t mind like if you’re making me go down on you, but don’t use your hand…or gag me. I don’t think I can handle that, not anymore.”

  Soothingly, he stroked his hand up and down her thigh. “No problem. Anything else?”

  “I don’t like the word cunt.” She wrinkled her nose at him. “I think it’s ugly, but if you like it… Kyle did, and…”

  “It doesn’t matter to me.” He curved his hand over the heat between her legs and caught her earlobe between his teeth. “There are plenty of words to talk about this sweet spot if you don’t like that one. Like pussy… I’m dying to taste your pussy, Tawny.”

  Her breathing hitched and he could have sworn her body temperature shot up about five degrees in five seconds. Smiling against her hair, he said, “Now why don’t you tell me what you do like…”

  “Rough and hard,” she whispered. “I loved it rough and hard. I used to love it when Kyle held my hands or tied me up.”

  He pushed a finger inside her sex. This time, she shuddered. But it wasn’t fear, and if he wasn’t mistaken, she actually arched her hips just the slightest fraction, clenching down around him. “What else? Oral? Anal?”

  “Both. I loved it when he held my head and acted like he was making me take his cock in my mouth, like he was forcing me to go down on him.”

  “That didn’t happen that night, did it?”

  “No.” Her voice was a mere ghost of a whisper. Her thighs spread wider.

  “About talking… Kyle called you a bitch. Told you to beg him.”

  She moaned and rested her head on his shoulder, rocking against his fingers. “Yes.”

  “You like that? Want me to do it?”

  She stared at him through her lashes. “If you like to—I want you to do what makes you hot. Call me your bitch, if you want. You can call me your little slut…” Her breathing hitched and she smiled a little. “I know I’m not, but I’ll pretend to be yours, and if I can find that again… I’ll love it. It makes me hot thinking about it.”

  “You want to be my little slut?” His dick twisted even hearing her say it—no, she wasn’t a slut. But thinking of her as his… His heart ached, his dick throbbed. He added a second finger and twisted his wrist as he murmured, “Want to be my little fuck toy?”

  “Drake…” She gasped. “Yes.”

  “I remember Kyle telling you what to do—you like that?”

  “Oh, yes. But he didn’t do it much. He didn’t talk all that much really, just enough to get me—oh!”

  “You’re wet,” he said quietly as he screwed his fingers in…out. “You like being told what to do.”

  “Yes. And if I don’t listen…”

  He could see the blush spreading up her cheeks. “Drink your wine and tell me. I want to know exactly what you like
d then. I want to help you find it again.” And more. He wanted to free her from the nightmares, if it was even possible. “You like being punished? Do you like to fight back?”

  She panted and rocked against him, but didn’t answer.

  He tangled his free one in her hair, tugged lightly, arching her neck. “You didn’t answer me, Tawny.”

  “Yes. Both.”

  “Good girl.” He stopped stroking her and withdrew his fingers, simply cupping her in his hand. “How far do we go? How far do I push you?”

  “I…” At the loss of his touch, she whimpered, then licked her lips. “I want to want that. But I might not be able to.”

  “Fair enough. We need to find a way for me to know when you’re serious about me stopping if I’m pushing too hard.”

  Tania nodded. Then, to his surprise, she reached up and back, touched the tattoo on his forearm. “How about Superman? It’s not like I’m likely to ever use it much outside of this anyway. And I’d feel weird using most anything else…knowing me, I might even forget it and at a bad time.”

  “Forgetting would be bad,” he agreed. He smiled as she continued to stroke the tattoo on his arm. He had that iconic S —had it there since shortly after he’d turned eighteen. He was a comic fanatic, and the Man of Steel had always been his favorite. She’d only mentioned the tattoo once before tonight. She’d only seemed minimally aware of it.

  “If you’re sure that’s what you want, that works. But are you sure you want to use that to call things off...what if you use it when you don’t mean it or something?”

  “Then I tell you.” She made a face. “I don’t want any sort of ‘safe’ word. This isn’t a bondage thing—I like role-playing, not all that ‘master may I’ bondage stuff. You try to turn me into an actual sub and I’ll shave you bald while you sleep. And I’m not kidding. I’d probably panic, and forget. I won’t forget Superman.”

  “Like I said, if that works for you…” He brushed his mouth against her hair. “Now…pretty girl, my hot little slut, I want you to pull your skirt up for me.”

  She groaned and then reached down, tugging her skirt up until he could see his hand between her thighs, until he could see the neat little patch of curls there. “Do you wax or shave?”