The Next Move

by Lauren Gallagher

  He couldn’t see her, he could barely hear her, but he was aware of her. Aware of her coming closer, walking past him. Walking in front of him. Past him again. It had to be his imagination, but he was certain he felt the weight of her stare as she circled him like a shark. He shivered and a quiet but sharp exhalation told him she found it amusing.

  She stopped, said nothing, did nothing. Even her breathing was near silent.

  Seconds went by. Maybe minutes, he couldn’t be sure.

  Metal clanged against something solid, like multiple pieces of—of something falling against a hard surface, the sudden sound strafing his every nerve ending and making him suck in a startled breath.

  Find it, find it, I know that sound, what is it?

  "You know the rules?" Her voice was calm, even, quiet.

  "Yes." Come on, come on, what was it?

  "What are you not allowed to do unless I specifically say so?"

  "Touch you." Coins?

  "What else?"

  He swallowed. "Come." Silverware?

  "Remember the safe word?"

  "Checkmate." Handcuffs. Something in his mind settled as the sound went from unknown to familiar, but the realization that it was handcuffs ignited an entirely different kind of nervousness in him. He’d known ahead of time that there would be cuffs, and he’d done it before, but now they weren’t just going to be there. They were there.

  "You okay?"

  He nodded.

  Something beside him moved, dragging across the carpet towards him. The only thing he could think of that would make that sound was the heel of her shoe, but then something bumped the backs of his knees. It wasn’t enough to knock his legs out from under him, just a nudge to make him aware of a presence behind him.

  "Sit."

  An image of one of the dining room chairs went through his mind. He reached behind him, finding the back of the chair and easing himself down to it. He half-expected her to make him sit without the guidance of his own hands, but she made no move to stop him. That gave him some reassurance. Though she was more than willing to taunt his senses and give his instincts a run for their money, she must have understood the innate fear of falling backwards. He’d surrendered his sight, she conceded the ability to move back without fear.

  The chair was cold against his skin and he sat up straight to keep his back off of its surface. Her hands were suddenly on his shoulders, and before his mind could process that contact, she pushed him against the icy back of the chair.

  He grunted. "Fuck."

  "Cold?" she whispered,

  "You could say that."

  She laughed, her warm breath fluttering across his cheek and raising goose bumps on every inch of his skin. "Comfortable?"

  "Not particularly."

  "Good."

  He sensed movement, instinctively bracing himself for…whatever was coming.

  The presence of her skin near his warmed the side of his thigh a second before her leg touched his. Then the other, the chair creaking as she moved. She was standing over him, he guessed, straddling him. There was something unusual about her skin against his. An odd texture he couldn’t quite place. His fingers wanted to investigate, to see what the subtle coarseness was, but that was against the rules. He gripped the edges of the chair, forcing himself not to touch her.

  "Give me your hand."

  He hesitated. He knew she was there, right in front of —over him, but he couldn’t be sure exactly where. If he raised his hand, he ran the risk of touching her.

  "Now." The icy, commanding tone made his breath catch. If he hadn’t already been rock hard, that alone would have done it.

  Keeping his hand out to the side, he raised it slowly, cautiously, searching for any telltale heat to let him know he was too close.

  Fingers closed around his wrist, her grasp firm but not uncomfortably so. "Relax your hand," she said. "Don’t move your fingers or try to press any harder than I let you, and don’t try to hold onto anything."

  Press any harder? Hold on? To what?

  She squeezed his wrist. "Understand?"

  He licked his lips. "Yes."

  She guided his hand down. His pulse soared as she set his palm against her leg. Now he understood her command. It took every bit of control he had not to press his fingers into her flesh, to stroke her skin. It was about as easy as putting something against his tongue and not tasting it.

  Swallowing hard, he kept his arm as relaxed and passive as possible as she drew it down, letting his fingertips drift across her skin, allowing him to touch but not explore. A coarse, alien surface met his touch and he instinctively curled his fingers to examine its surface. Kat immediately jerked his hand away from her skin, the sudden lack of contact tingling against his fingertips.

  "What did I say?" she growled.

  "Sorry," he said. "I—I’m sorry."

  "If you do it again, I won’t let you touch anything else."

  The tingling in his skin intensified. "I won’t do it again."

  She said nothing. Their hands moved again. He was vaguely aware of the chair creaking, the sound barely drifting into his consciousness. Blindness was a strange thing; every sound, no matter how minute, registered.

  A moment later, the coarse surface reentered his senses. Gritting his teeth, he kept his fingers passive, trying to identify the material with nothing more than the vague hints she let him feel. Then the surface changed, giving way to a rippled texture that alternated between what felt like rough fabric and warm skin.

  Fishnet stockings.

  The realization made his fingers seek confirmation, but he resisted, instead stiffening his hand to lift off of her leg, hoping she would be more forgiving of that error than a forbidden touch.

  She pulled his hand completely away from her skin. "What was that?"

  "I was trying not to…" His voice caught when her leg moved, almost imperceptibly, against his, as if she’d shifted her weight slightly. "I was trying to keep…" Their hands were moving again, in the air, not touching anything yet.

  "Trying to keep what?"

  "To keep…" Warmth registered against his fingertips, signaling the tantalizing nearness of skin. Of her.

  "Say it, Christian."

  "From touch…" The faintest sensation of softness whispered across his fingertip, not nearly enough to differentiate between skin, clothing, or imagination. He took a breath. "From touching you the way you told me not to."

  She said nothing. Evidently she was pleased with his answer, because she let him touch…something. He was disoriented enough that he couldn’t even tell if he was reaching directly in front of him, to the side, up, down. All he knew was that he was touching her. Somehow, some way, he was touching her, but something still divided her body from his fingertips.

  His fingers drifted passively over a strange surface. It was cool and warm at the same time, too slick to be skin, too smooth to be fabric. A solid ridge, its texture much rougher than the other surface, nearly prompted his fingers into pressing against it to understand it, but he resisted. She guided his fingers over the ridge, and cold, abrasive metal met his touch. Now she drew his hand up, following the narrow path of metal.

  Zipper.

  Patent leather.

  She flattened his hand against it and led his palm back to the patent leather, over the gentle incline that he immediately recognized as her breast.

  Corset. He shivered. How many times he’d fantasized about seeing her in a corset, he couldn’t count. And now here she was, in a corset, but he couldn’t see her. Gritting his teeth, he let a breath out through his nose.

  She moved slightly, the corset squeaking, and he realized that was what he’d heard earlier when he thought the chair had creaked.

  Abruptly, his hand was lifted away from the corset and she stepped back, releasing his wrist and breaking all contact with him. "I think that’s enough of that," she said, a grin in her voice. She paused. "You want to touch more, don’t you?"

  "Yes."

&n
bsp; "Do you want to see what I’m wearing?"

  He chuckled. "If you were going to show me, you wouldn’t have blindfolded me." He sensed movement. The corset creaked beside—behind him? Then the warmth of her face was beside his.

  "That wasn’t my question." Her tone suggested that he would be wise not to be a smartass again. "Do you want to see it or not?"

  He took a breath. "Yes, I do."

  Her breath cooled his skin at the same time that the nearness of her face warmed it. "Too bad."

  Clenching his jaw, he said nothing.

  "You’re imagining it, aren’t you?"

  Sarcasm threatened to seep into his voice, but he didn’t dare. Though her tone was playful now, couldn’t be sure what she was trying to do. Finally, he said, "Yes."

  "What color?"

  He furrowed his brow, a mannerism he’d never thought twice about but suddenly seemed completely absurd with a blindfold on. "What?"

  "In your mind," she said, her voice vibrating just below his ear. "What color is the corset?"

  This had to be some sort of mind game. Some way of fucking with his head, trapping him into giving a wrong answer so that she could punish him somehow. Punish him by withholding, and she’d already withheld enough to drive him mad.

  "Answer the question." The sharpness returned to her voice.

  He licked his lips. "Black."

  She laughed, letting her lip brush the side of his neck, nearly making him whimper. "Come on, Chris, be more creative than that."

  He thought quickly, trying to decide what color it could possibly be.

  She spoke against the raised hairs on the back of his neck. "Just think. It’ll come to you." And her presence left his side, the air beside him suddenly chilled with her absence.

  Handcuffs rattled nearby. The sound was already committed to his memory from earlier, and although it wasn’t as loud and jarring as before, it still set his nerves on edge. He steeled himself against the cold metal on his skin, but even that mental preparation wasn’t enough to keep his blood from turning to ice when the first bracelet closed around his wrist.

  He expected her to bring his hand back to shackle it to

  his other, but instead, she kept his arm straight. The cuff snapped against a rung below him, the vibration surging up his spine. She moved around him, her presence registering even when she made no sound. A moment later, his other hand was cuffed to the chair in the same fashion. It was an odd choice of positions for his hands, leaving them at his sides rather than binding them behind him. Given the rather sharp edges on the chair back, it was probably the more comfortable option, too.

  Particularly if he was going to be held this way for any length of time.

  Her hand touched his knee, pausing just long enough for his startled reaction to come and go, then slid down his leg to his foot. Cold metal encircled his ankle, the cuff creaking as she adjusted the tightness. A second later, a vibration told him that she’d fastened the other end of the handcuffs to the leg of the chair.

  When she did the same to his other ankle, the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end again and a primal sort of panic uncoiled in his gut. Until now, he’d only been bound by a verbal agreement to stay. Now, he was truly bound to this experience.

  Naked. Immobile. Vulnerable.

  Completely at her mercy.

  Queen captures king.

  A memory flickered through his mind of Kat triumphantly flicking his black king off the board after yet another victory.

  "White," he said.

  "What?"

  "Your corset. It’s white."

  She laughed. A moment later, the gentle touch of her lips against his almost drove him insane with desire. Just before she completely pulled away, she whispered, "You’re better at this game than I thought."

  Twenty Four

  She walked around him again. Stopping behind him, she put her hands on his shoulders, letting them run down his chest and abs. "Have you ever wondered, Chris, what happens to the king after the queen captures him?"

  He opened his mouth to speak, but paused when her tongue flicked against his ear.

  She didn’t wait for him to say anything. "Do you think she takes him back to her castle?" She kissed the side of his neck. "Maybe takes him home to be her little plaything?" Her fingertips made light circles on his abs, making the muscles quiver. "Torments him for her own entertainment?" She raked her nails across his skin.

  "Oh…fuck…" He breathed. Though the pain startled him, the shudders it sent rippling through him were anything but unpleasant.

  "I think I like tormenting him for my own entertainment." She flicked her tongue between his shoulder blades as she drew her nails across his pectorals, the conflicting sensations vying for his focus.

  Then she came around in front of him and sat over him, straddling him and dragging her nails down his chest and abs again. Her touch alternated between almost ticklish to digging her nails in hard enough he thought she’d draw blood, and every bit of it drove him insane with both pleasure and frustration.

  Then she stopped. Her center of gravity shifted a little, as if she’d leaned back. For a long moment—a few seconds? A full minute? Longer? Nothing happened. She didn’t move. She didn’t make a sound.

  Just inches in front of his face, something metal jingled quietly. Then a sound like cloth slowly tearing. No, not tearing. Not cloth. Something…

  The zipper.

  Clenching his fists, he strained against the handcuffs as he imagined her slowly drawing the corset zipper down. He desperately wanted to see her with the corset on, he wanted to see her breasts, he wanted to see her.

  Her body shifted again. He suspected she was leaning forward, a suspicion confirmed when an odd material scraped the side of his face. Metallic. Abrasive. But warm.

  The zipper. The side of the zipper. The open zipper which means she’s right there, right there, so fucking close, Jesus Christ… Just knowing how close her exposed breasts were to his lips made his mouth water.

  Her body moved, cool air touching his face as she leaned back and widened the gap between them. She touched his face, her hands on either side, letting the very edges of her nails brush across the light stubble of his jaw. The scratching sound, imperceptible in anything but this heightened state of awareness, made his arms prickle with goose bumps.

  Then her fingers moved up the sides of his face. They caught the elastic of the blindfold and kept going, pulling it off. He blinked a few times his eyes adjusting to the light. When at last he could focus, he couldn’t breathe.

  The corset—white patent leather, just as he’d predicted—was open, held together only by the last inch or so of the zipper, the sides partially obscuring her breasts. Below the zipper, a simple white garter belt hugged her hips, but she had bothered with neither panties nor thong. Everything from hips to mid-thigh was bare except for the thin strip connecting the belt to the white lace of her thigh-high stockings.

  Movement pulled his attention to her hands, and his lips parted as he watched her draw the zipper down. It caught briefly at the very end, but she gave it a slight tug, and it separated. Chris’s cock twitched as the corset fell away.

  Instinctively, he tried to reach for her, to touch her breasts, but the handcuffs caught his wrists, jingling as he

  swore under his breath.

  "Am I frustrating you, Christian?" she said, grinning.

  "Yes."

  "Good." She put her hands on his shoulders and leaned forward, bringing her nipple so close to him that his own sharp exhalation ricocheted off of it and warmed his lips. Then, she backed away just slightly, widening the narrow canyon between her nipple and his lips. No, come back. Yes, give me room to breathe without tempting me to break the rules. Damn you, Kat…

  "My God, I want you." The words rolled off his tongue before he could stop them.

  "I know you do." She bent and kissed him, sliding her tongue between his lips. Unaccustomed to kissing her without touching her, his hands o
pened and closed, searching the vacant air for her skin, her hair, anything.

  She whispered, barely breaking the kiss. "In fact, I think I’ll let you have what you want."

  His eyes widened and his lips parted with disbelief. She stood, disappeared behind him for a moment, and when she returned, the condom in her hand made him salivate. She was going to fuck him. Thank God, thank God, she was going to fuck him.

  She stroked his cock slowly, making his entire body tremble. With the devilish grin she gave him, he thought she was going to go down on him, but then she turned her head and tore the condom wrapper in her teeth.

  "I guess I should help you with this since your hands aren’t readily available," she said with a smirk. He didn’t even have time to think of a smartass retort before she rolled the condom onto his cock.

  "Oh fuck," he whispered.

  She turned around so she was facing away from him, then straddled his legs and lowered herself onto his cock. She took him into her pussy inch by agonizing inch. Biting his tongue, he willed himself not to come, to hold back, to abide by her rules, but she felt so good, her tight pussy accommodating his cock like they were made for each other.

  Leaning back, she whispered in his ear. "Jesus, you feel good, Chris."

  The only response he could muster was a low growl,

  one of both relief at being inside her and aggravation that he couldn’t fuck her hard and fast like he ached to do.

  "If your hands were free," she whispered, rising slowly before coming back down just as slowly on his aching cock. "You could touch my clit." Rose and fell. "Do the things you did to me in the hot tub." Rose and fell again. "And you could do it while you were fucking me at the same time."

  Closing his eyes, he let his head fall back. "Oh my God…"

  Kissing his cheek, she moaned, "Your cock is right against my G-spot, Chris." She rose just a little, gasping and shivering. "If your fingers were on my clit…" She whimpered. "You’d make me come."

  He clenched his teeth. "Then let my hand go."

  "Why would I do that? My hands aren’t cuffed."

  He swallowed hard as her shoulder moved against his chest, and a second later, her pussy tightened around his cock in the same moment that she let out a hiss of breath.