by Violet Blaze
It would've been a funny joke if I wasn't afraid people were getting seriously hurt in other rooms. But this was why we'd come here and this was the route we had to go. I made myself think of the ice cubes, how wonderful it felt when Dash fucked me with his warm cock, melted them inside me. People had been watching then, too, only I couldn't see them. At least right now, I knew that asshole over there was just sipping his drink and staring. He wasn't out there hurting any other girls, wasn't even getting off on this. No, this was a power play, but he wasn't going to win a goddamn thing with it, not with Dash and me.
I kicked my heels off and sat down on the edge of the bed, lying back as Dash reached down and grabbed me by the hips, pushing me forward across the smooth white linens. The lights were off in the room, a gas fireplace similar to the one in Dash's apartment flickering from the corner. It had an unwelcoming white stone facade, but at least the flames were orange, added much needed color to the room.
Dash pushed the purple dress up to my hips, exposing my bare legs, the lacy panties we'd decided I'd wear underneath. I wasn't wearing a bra though, the ropes tight around my breasts, keeping them held in place, making them look twice as big and swollen as they would otherwise. He stood up casually, opening his suit jacket and taking the silver bundle of rope from inside. A little went a long way with this stuff, so it was fairly easy for him to carry it around.
“This is called the futomomo,” he said, more for my benefit than for Ingvar's. “It basically means fat leg. I'll be binding this”—Dash pushed his hand against the front of my shin, tucking my heel up tight against the back of my thigh—“to this.”
He shook the silver rope out, making a loop around my ankle and then sliding it over my thigh, as close to my lace covered pussy as he could get. His fingers were soothing as he kept in constant contact with me skin, keeping a firm tension on the rope as he wound it over my thigh and then back around. It spiraled up along my leg, binding my calve against my inner thigh, forcing me to keep my knees bent at a dramatic but not uncomfortable angle.
The spacing was even, the satin kiss of the rope a treat for my skin as Dash took his time, explaining each step as he went, his eyes focused on his work, his slacks tight over his groin, his desire thick and insistent and demanding. Once my calf and thigh were fully wrapped, he wove spirals with the rope along the crease of my leg.
“Ah,” Ingvar said suddenly, breaking the connection between Dash and me like cold water to the face. “If you'll excuse me just a moment.”
I couldn't sit up but I listened as his footsteps echoed across the floor and then disappeared, the sound of the door opening and closing cutting off the sound.
Dash and I were alone only … we weren't really, were we? There were cameras all over this damn place.
“Now the other side,” he said, still playing the game with every part of his body but his eyes. Those he left for me as he repeated the pattern on my right leg, binding me in his art so that I was completely helpless—no hands, no feet. I was trapped on that bed until he decided to let me go. It was a testament to the strength of my attraction and trust for him that we could do this here in this awful place. I knew that no matter what happened, Dash would push himself to his absolute limits to protect me.
Looking down into my face, he climbed up onto the bed and settled himself on his knees between my thighs, leaning over and breathing against the side of my neck.
“Now what?” he growled, his teeth clenched as he sat up and then smirked at me. It was an expression for the cameras, but I still liked it. “Should I fuck you?”
Dash knew I couldn't answer him, but my gaze was riveted to his hands as he unbuttoned his slacks, slid the zipper down and freed his shaft. It was thick and hard in his hand as he leaned over me and guided himself into position. My legs were open, tied out of his way, so there was no resistance when he thrust forward, gliding easily into me. The feeling of his cock inside of me was so different with my legs tied like this. I felt him everywhere, rubbing up against the swollen heat of my G-spot, just inside the opening of pussy. His pelvis ground against my clit as he draped his body over mine, his mouth and tongue slicking along the side of my throat.
Since I didn't have a single limb free, all I could do was lie there and surrender to the pleasure, let it consume me with each violent thrust, wet heat coating my spread thighs, the weight of Dash's body sinking me into the mattress. I was so far gone, I wasn't sure what sounds I was making or if they were believable. As he'd promised last night, Dash took complete control over me, pulled me out of the situation and wrapped me up so tightly in his rope, his arms, his eyes, that I couldn't think of anything else. I didn't know where I was at the moment, didn't care.
The orgasm felt too powerful to let break, and if I'd been free, I probably would've found my body unconsciously struggling against it, trying to get it to stop before it overwhelmed and consumed me. But I didn't have that choice, and I found that every muscle in my body was tensing up for this, tightening, tightening, tightening, and then like a burst dam, they all released and I saw the violet burst of pleasure against the backs of my eyelids.
I shuddered and tilted my head back against the bed, aftershocks of contentment and euphoria rippling through me as Dash came, arching his hips against mine, his face stoic and his warm mouth set in a thin line as he struggled to control his emotions.
When he was finished, he sat back and fixed his pants, reaching for the ties on my legs and managing to undo all of that careful work within minutes. Neither of us commented on Ingvar's absence. Hell, we didn't even look at each other. When we were here, we couldn't.
Dash helped me up with a rough but not unkind grip, getting me on my feet and back into my heels before heading to the bedroom door.
As soon as he opened it, I saw him him: my brother Cainen standing in the hallway.
Cainen was the second oldest in the family, after Maverick. He had the same dishwater blonde hair, the same brown-gold eyes. His sharp frown showed through his goatee as he stood stone still and just stared at Dash, at me. I had no idea what he was doing there, but my first thought was that he'd come to kill Dash and I almost panicked, wondering what the fuck I would do if my brother and my … partner got into a fight with one another—especially seeing as my arms were still firmly tied behind my back.
“Adelaide,” he said quietly, his voice and thick with some sort of emotion that I couldn't understand. For a second there, I wanted to tell him about Maverick, just so somebody else could share in my pain. But I kept my mouth shut right, played my role as best I could. Damn, though, damn. Why was Cainen here and why the fuck of all the people in the world did it have to be him that saw me like this?
He stepped forward, getting in Dash's face, putting his palms on the other man's chest and giving him a violent shove.
“If we were anyone but here,” he whispered, his eyes focused on Dash's, “ I would fucking rip you limb from limb.”
Cainen stepped back and turned, avoiding my gaze, and then disappearing down the hall and around the corner, his boots loud, his gait determined and direct. I had no idea where he was going, but he sure as hell seemed to.
My mouth pursed, my eyes flicking back to the marble floor beneath the excess fabric of my purple dress. I almost broke character there, almost begged Dash to untie me so I could chase after my brother. But if he wasn't here for Dash then … Xavier.
I looked back up in the direction he'd gone. If he really was here to kill the man that'd fucked our family over so royally, I should be helping. I should be there in case he needed backup, in case he couldn't handle those World's End goons alone, in case …
“Adelaide, it's time to go,” Dash said, his voice strong and even, his words lacking any sort of inflection. He started down the stairs and headed for the door, his gaze focused straight ahead, refusing to stray to the events happening on either side of us as we made our way out and into the cool desert night and across the bridge.
The driver was waiti
ng for us by the time we got to the other side.
Neither of us spoke a word until we were back at Dash's apartment above the Hard Sell, the ropes falling from my body into a glittering coil on the hardwood floors—and that's when he showed me the note.
Bring Layla; I'm taking you both home.
That's what the note said, a tiny scrap of ripped paper with my brother's careful handwriting, the letters in all caps. There was a phone number below it, one that I didn't recognize.
“Layla can't know about this,” I said, sitting down hard on the edge of Dash's coffin couch as he texted back and forth with Apollo on the phone he'd given us. Apparently his appointment at the Block had gone well. I wouldn't say our night at the Gibbous Moon had been entirely successful, but at least Dash had gotten a chance to prove to me that we might really be able to make this work. When he touched me, I really did forget everything else that was happening around me. “If she finds out about this, she'll try to call him.”
I took a lighter off Dash's coffee table and lit the note on fire, setting it an ash tray to watch it burn, raking my fingers through my hair. I'd finally taken it out of the bun I'd slicked it into, but it was stiff with hairspray and not being entirely cooperative.
“How the hell you think he got in there anyway?” Dash asked, nursing a beer and watching me with that intense gaze of his. Seeing Cainen tonight was really getting into him. I'm not sure if he was worried about his dad, about himself, about me. I couldn't tell.
“I have no idea,” I said, blinking through a sudden surge of fatigue and putting my elbows on my knees, my head in my hands. Tonight was rough on so many levels and that was just night one. To take these assholes down, there'd have to be a dozen more—two, three, four dozen more—just like it. I felt a little queasy even thinking about it. To have to attend one of those things and not take anyone out was painful. “But I can't see him or this whole thing will blow up in our faces.”
“No,” Dash agreed, “you can't. I'm sorry, honey pot. If anyone in TSR finds out you're communicating with your family, we're screwed. Unfortunately for Layla, that means she has to stay put, too. Thought I've got half a mind to take her back to the auction house for a refund.”
“Wow, dark humor,” I said with a smile, “I like it.”
“Oh, I can get much, much darker than that,” Dash said as he checked out the window facing the parking lot. “You ready?”
“Ready,” I said, wanting nothing more than to collapse into bed at the first chance I got. I needed a little mental vacation after being around those psychos. The only satisfying part of the night—besides sex with Dash—was seeing Ingram's black eye. But damn, the way she looked at me … it was downright terrifying.
Dash and I left our party clothes behind, changing into the jeans, boots, and t-shirts that we'd packed in the duffels earlier, and then hopped on his bike, sneaking through the usual all-night traffic around the Strip.
As soon as we set foot inside the apartment, I knew something was wrong.
“Layla?” I asked, fully expecting to walk in to harsh screaming and a creative string of curses and insults. There was nothing; it was completely silent.
Dash and I exchanged a quick look, and he pulled his Browning out from under his jacket. I did the same with my Ruger and we searched the apartment, but there was nobody and nothing.
“Where the fuck is my sister?” I asked as I stood next to the open handcuffs and looked from the mussed up bed to the flickering TV. The sound was still on, some argument playing out between the characters as I spun in a slow half-circle and found Dash running his hand through his hair and cursing.
“Cainen?” he asked as we headed back out into the living room, holstering our weapons as I stood there and tried not to panic. “Nah,” Dash said before I could chime in. “There's no way he got all the way back here 'fore we did, grabbed your sister and bailed.”
“So then what?”
“Let's talk to Cecil; he knows all the coming and going that happens around here.”
Dash took my hand, his fingers warm and electrifying, comforting in a way I hadn't expected. Honestly, I was almost as shocked at him holding my hand as I was at the fact that my sister was missing.
Inside, I wanted to panic.
On the outside, I stayed calm with the help of Dash's firm grip, squeezing tight as he gave me a look.
“We'll figure this out,” he promised as he picked up the phone and called down to the security desk. As I waited for Dash to get an answer, I heard a familiar sound, a crack in the air like lightning, echoing down the hallway outside the apartment door.
A gunshot.
The scream that followed was also achingly familiar: it was Layla.
Dash dropped the phone as I took my Lady Lilac in my hands and opened the front door, glancing around the corner before I stepped out and started running, pausing at the bend in the hall and checking that just as carefully.
That's when I saw her, bleeding on the ground next to the elevator, Cainen kneeling down by her side, holding her head. He glanced up when he saw us coming, his face grim, lips tight.
“What happened?” I breathed, wondering how he'd found us here, how he'd gotten here so damn quick. I knelt next to Layla and noticed that the blood was coming from a wound in her abdomen, just bellow the fabric of the mid-riff tank she was wearing. “Honey,” I said, putting my hand on her wound, trying to staunch the bleeding.
Dash was already pulling the other phone from his pocket, dialing up 911.
“I'm sorry,” Cainen said as I glanced up at him and then saw him pull out a Taser. “I didn't want to do this, Adelaide.”
There was the horrifying crackle of electricity, and then Dash was dropping to the ground behind, the air feeling like it was sizzling around me seconds before Cainen switched his focus on me and pulled the trigger.
A Taser doesn't knock people out in real life like it does in the movies, but it fucks you up hard enough that when the enemy—your own goddamn brother—pulls a familiar looking syringe out of their pocket and puts it to your neck, you don't have the strength to stop them from pushing the plunger.
The cocktail of drugs that Cainen fed me did the same number on me that they had at the Block, turning me into a stumbling zombie. Combined with the aftereffects of the Taser and I was virtually unconscious. I saw things sure: the walls of the hallway sliding past as my head lolled on my shoulders and I hung limp over my brother's shoulder, the beige walls of the stairwell, the pavement, the back of a white van.
By the time I was conscious enough to register what was happening and actually look up toward the windows on my side of the van, I noticed the sun peeking up above the horizon. Layla was lying next to me, still bleeding—and we were both tied up.
These rough ropes, this painful tension, it was nothing at all like what Dash did.
Dash.
Fuck.
Did Cainen kill him? The thought terrified me so much that I immediately wiped it from my mind and tried to focus on the situation at hand. Before I could help Dash, I had to help myself.
I rolled over and found Layla awake, her eyes glazed with pain, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Don't be scared,” I whispered as we looked at each other, questions of why and how could he passing unspoken between us. Layla's brunette hair was tangled around her face, her hands trussed up behind her back just like mine were. “I've got this,” I told her, even though I really didn't have a fucking clue how to get out of this one.
“Adelaide, you don't have shit. I'm sorry, but this is the way it has to be.”
“What are you doing, Cain?” I asked, trying not to get hysterical. But how could my brother, my family, be the one doing this to me? It just didn't make any sense. “This is ridiculous. You know that. No matter what's happened, we can find a way to deal with this.”
“Shut the fuck up. It's too late, Laide. I'm sorry, but this is just the way it has to be.”
My ankles were also bound, but
I could at least wiggle my body. I scooted toward the back of the van as I Cainen kept talking.
“What the hell is wrong with you? I saw that perverted shit you were into last night. You're going straight to hell, Adelaide. I didn't want to believe it when they told me, but you really did like that, didn't you? Letting Xavier Buchanan's son fuck you like he owns you. Jesus, I can't stop seeing that damn face you made when he was fucking you. The first time I saw it, in the video, I thought maybe you were in shock. But last night?”
I let him rant, confused as hell, a pain deeper than anything I'd ever felt before slicing right through me at his words. But that, too, would have to be dealt with later.
I rolled onto my belly and bent my knees, lifting my head and chest and managing to touch my fingers to my the soles of my boots. It wasn't as hard a move as it looked, really. A little practice and daily stretching was all it really took. I found the small blade buried in the heel of my right boot and used my fingers to wiggle it out, cutting myself in the process but ignoring the pain, fighting through it until I held a tiny piece of my metal in my bound hands.
“You never were right in the head, were you?” Cainen asked, his voice thick with a mixture of strange emotions that I didn't quite understand. He sounded regretful, sad, but also irrationally angry. “I never liked your mother either,” he continued as I sawed at the ropes around my hands with the blade. It was sharp enough that I managed to wiggle it between the strands of cording that made up the rope, unraveling it and bleeding all the hell over everything as I sliced my fingers to pieces getting the damn thing undone.
Finally I'd loosened up enough of the strands that some strong pulling and a little maneuvering freed my hands from the coil. I shook them out, the silver chain around my wrist that I[d forgotten to take off last night jingling with the motion.
