As she spun to head up the stairs, Theo caught her around the waist. Darcy gave over to her first instinct and jabbed her elbow as close to his solar plexus as she could get it. He absorbed the hit as if it was nothing and thrust them both into the door.
He twisted the deadbolt. She took advantage of his occupied hand to wiggle down and jab his stomach, reasoning it was softer than the ribs she’d ended up getting with her last attempt. She was wrong.
Still, being smaller, she used his weight against him and continued the wiggling. She slid down and out under his arm, but he tackled her again, pinning her to the floor with his body. It was a good thing she had been bent over, otherwise the fall would have been jarring.
She stilled for a moment, planning her next move. Theo’s breath tickled against her neck. “Good call. I closed the kitchen window too. Having the cops show up because of all your screaming would ruin the moment, and then you’d have to make it up to me wearing a gag.”
His hands rested on her upper arms, and his erection pressed against her ass. A sigh of relief escaped at the blatant evidence he found this as arousing as she did.
He lifted one hand off her arm and let it travel down her body. He squeezed her ass so hard she yelped. He continued on, shifting his weight to pull her skirt out of the way. Since he had removed the rope panties, no barrier existed to keep him from his goal.
Darcy didn’t dwell on that. Bucking sharply, she threw him off and broke free. She scrambled for the stairs. The bathroom door had a lock, and she wasn’t above using it. Perhaps that wasn’t fair. He’d either have to pick the lock or break down the door. The image of wood splintering under the force of his kick and the subsequent menacing expression on his face fueled the fantasy.
Even as part of her wondered whether wanting to be overpowered by a man and forced to do whatever he wanted was sick and wrong, she thoroughly enjoyed this chase.
He caught her before she made it halfway up the steps. He had grabbed her by the hair, and the sharp tug brought tears to her eyes and tingles to her pussy. As he forced her to turn to face him, she realized he hadn’t advised her to stop one time. She kicked and found her ankle caught.
Standing precariously halfway up the staircase with her ankle and hair in his possession, she used all her strength to pull away from him. She didn’t move an inch until he yanked her ankle and knocked her on her ass. She bounced hard on a step.
He used her leg as leverage. Pushing it up, he forced her to lie back against the steps. The hand in her hair moved to the front of her neck. Darcy gasped. Never in her life had a lover put a hand on her neck. Under other circumstances, she would be petrified.
However she knew Theo wouldn’t really harm her. The bruises she would sustain from her falls were mostly her fault.
His grip slid up her leg to stop at the back of her knee. He pressed her knee to her chest. The hem of her skirt dug into her leg stubbornly before giving in and rolling up. She thought about bringing her free leg up to nail him in the balls. He must have read her expression because he shifted his knee to press against her inner thigh. The position rendered her immobile.
Reaching through the railing to the cherry table, he grabbed the smooth nylon rope that she’d spent the afternoon wearing as panties.
Moving quickly and with more grace than she would have thought possible given their awkward position, he straddled her stomach. The way he had positioned her on the stairs meant her legs were useless for fighting. Her upper body strength presented no real obstacle.
Relieved at his fighting skill, a sense of security at the way he engulfed her body flooded her senses. Though she felt drugged, she wasn’t willing to give up. She tugged at the hand on her neck.
He released her, but not because she had any effect on him. She took a swing at him, and he caught her fist in his palm. Wordlessly he looped one end of the rope around her wrist and through the banister railing. She did her best to use her free hand to stop him, but he merely tied that one to the spires on the other side that gave the living room a little bit of delineation from the stairs and hall.
Hopping up, he avoided her kicking legs and captured an ankle.
Uncoiling the rope farther, he wound it around her leg just above her knee and attached that leg to another spire. He’d left a lot of extra rope where he’d tied her first wrist. He used that now, threading it through the railing of the banister and securing her other leg. The man had tied her, spread-eagled, on the stairs. If she hadn’t been the one who couldn’t move, she might have appreciated the logic and beauty of his rope work.
He stood over her and surveyed the bindings. A few adjustments later, he gave her an even smile. “That’ll do for now.”
She sneered at him. “This does nothing for me.”
“Hush, sweetheart. This isn’t about you.” He tapped his lips with one finger. “However you’re right about one thing. This does nothing for me.”
He descended five steps to the foyer and disappeared into her office. She heard drawers open and close. A whistled tune preceded his return.
Amazingly he had used one piece of rope to restrain all four of her limbs. He used the scissors he had purloined from her office to snip a few inches off the end. He coiled it and set it on the stairs next to her head. The scissors joined the coil, but he put them one step above and out of her reach.
She studied him through the wooden bars. The pattern of evening shadows highlighted his high cheekbones and the scar crossing his left eyebrow. Funny how she no longer noticed the scar. She fought the urge to ask him how he got it because his hard features didn’t invite nervous chatter.
When he finished his preparation, he came up the stairs again. Leaning down, he rested his weight on his hands and took her mouth in a searing kiss. As committed as she was to resisting him, she couldn’t fight the way his kiss sent tremors coursing through her body. She fought the urge to put her arms around him, but then it dawned on her that this bound position didn’t allow her to move. She didn’t have to think about or temper her reactions.
The muscles in her arms tensed as she strained against the bonds. If she managed to pull free, she could touch him. She could tangle her fingers in his thick, dark brown hair. That would be her reward.
Nevertheless tugging got her nowhere, and he made no contact any place other than her lips. She arched her back, pressing her chest upward, but the ropes around her thighs didn’t allow for much movement in that direction, either.
He ended the kiss, breaking it off suddenly though it had gone on for several minutes. Darcy groaned at the loss. He stared into her eyes, and she wondered what he read in them. For the first time in a long time, she didn’t think about what she could and couldn’t do, what emotions she could show and which of those she had to suppress.
Reaching up, he snagged the scissors from the step above her head. She marveled that he could hold his weight on one hand without showing any kind of strain.
He drew the tip of the scissors over her shoulder and down the front of her blouse. Darcy had never been interested in edge play. Knives and other sharp objects were not on her list of erotic implements. However she knew he didn’t intend to hurt her with them, so she didn’t worry about physical injury, but she did wonder what he planned to do with them.
His knee came down on the step right below her pussy, and his thigh, covered by his gray slacks, brushed against her wetness. She tried to read his face, but she could find nothing outside of his implacable calm.
A snip drew her attention to her belly. He lifted the lowest button away from her shirt.
“Can’t you unbutton a shirt like a normal person?”
He cut another one away. “Nope. In the future, when you run from me, you should be naked or wearing clothes you don’t care about.” As he spoke, he made his way up her blouse.
By the time he finished cutting away her buttons, fury stained her chest. He slid the open scissors between her breasts and cut the narrow band of fabric connecting the cups.
“Damn it, Theo. This is my only white bra, and it’s almost summer.” While she knew she needed a few more light-colored bras to get her through the season, it wasn’t easy to find a comfortable one that fit well and made her breasts look good. That bra had satisfied all criteria.
He lowered the scissors. “I guess you’re going to be really pissed about this, then.”
Darcy watched in shock as he sliced open the skirt bunched around her thighs. He didn’t even cut on or near a seam, not that it mattered too much. The tight skirt didn’t allow for repair from this kind of damage. She struggled against the ropes, but with her feet in the air because the ropes were wrapped around her thighs, she had no leverage. Her hips thrust forward in an overtly sexual manner. That would come in handy later, she was sure, but now it just pissed her off.
When her ability to speak returned, she screeched. “You son of a bitch! You didn’t have to do that. It wasn’t in your way!”
He put his hand on her pelvis and pressed down when he got closer to her skin. “You might want to stop squirming for a second, sweetheart. I’d hate to nick you with the scissors. I’m not into blood or body fluids not normally associated with coming.”
When he finished, he stepped back to survey his handiwork. Tied to the banisters on both sides, she reclined on the stairs with her clothing pooled around her body. The edges of the steps pressed into her back and neck, and she hoped he didn’t notice how the sleeves of her blouse still covered her arms. As it stood, the blouse was salvageable. Buttons could be sewn back on.
Darcy didn’t take the moment to bask in his open appreciation. She growled. “Fucking Neanderthal. I’m surprised you didn’t just rip all my clothes off.”
He grinned, easing the hawkish severity of his features. “I’m downright civilized, sweetheart. Tearing off a woman’s clothing isn’t romantic. It hurts in all the wrong ways. You like to feel stinging and heat against your skin. I don’t get the sense you care for pulled muscles or ripped tendons.”
Stepping around her splayed body, he ascended the stairs. “No, scissors are the way to go. Take note because every time you run from me, I’ll take that as an invitation to cut off your clothes and use your body how I want.”
She strained to hear him as he disappeared into her bedroom, but he stopped talking. She listened for sounds that would betray his intentions, but she heard nothing. Closing her eyes, she wondered what he was planning. While she couldn’t move, and she wasn’t panicking, she couldn’t say she felt a need to submit.
A rule from a demonstration she and Scott had seen surfaced in her memory. “Hey! I thought you weren’t supposed to tie up anyone and leave them alone.”
“You aren’t alone.”
She threw her head back so fast that it thunked on the step. She grunted because she felt stupid for doing something so lacking in grace, but she didn’t wince because it hadn’t actually hurt. “Sneaking up on people isn’t nice.”
He smoothed her bangs back away from her face. “Hurt your head, sweetheart?”
“No.” Nobody should be able to move so quietly. It was disconcerting, and she wasn’t even blindfolded. Then silky darkness stole her vision, forcing her to adjust her previous thought.
“No, what?”
She rolled her eyes under the blindfold. “You cut my clothes. I revoked your title.”
His low, rumbling chuckle rippled through the air. “When you misbehave, you go all out.” Hot breath warmed her neck. “I like that in a woman, sweetheart. You’re about to find out how much I like to punish my closeted smart-assed masochist.”
She snorted. Being bound freed her to not resist her urges. The worst he could do with her in this position would be to flog her and fuck her. As much as she might wish for the single tail, he wouldn’t use it anywhere except on her ass, the back of her thighs, and her upper back. Because this was a punishment, he probably wouldn’t let her come, but Darcy didn’t care. Given a choice, she would take the flogging any day. An orgasm was icing on the cake.
Plus she didn’t plan to hold back. One mistake and she would snatch a forbidden orgasm.
His hand slid behind her neck, lifting her head and the upper part of her back. “You’re going to be here for some time before I get a chance to work on your backside.”
Something plush filled the space between the hard step to pillow her back and head. She figured it for a pillow. Considering the awkwardness of the location, she was surprisingly comfortable.
He slid a finger along her slit and found very little moisture. She had found the chase exhilarating, and the struggle had turned her on, but being bound and blinded did not further that arousal.
He used his mouth to reverse that trend. He used it on her neck, brushing his lips against her skin so lightly he left nothing but shivering gooseflesh in his wake. He didn’t use his teeth or tongue to nip and lick as he normally did.
The paths and curlicues he traveled widened. He spent time on her shoulders and chest. Her nipples hardened in anticipation, but he veered off to lavish attention on her arms. Darcy had never considered her arms erogenous zones, and Theo elicited reactions she would have never imagined when he feathered his lips over the tender skin on the undersides of her arms.
Moans escaped, quiet at first, but growing louder as he kissed the insides of her ankles and the undersides of her breasts. Her body became a mass of shivers, reacting to the slightest stir of air.
When he closed his hot mouth around her nipple, she screamed. “No. Yes. No. Fuck.”
She wasn’t able to sense a reaction. That last word might have been an oath or a plea. She wasn’t sure which.
He sucked with a gentle pressure that almost overwhelmed her senses. Comprehension eluded her. She could understand being this sensitive after she’d been flogged, but she couldn’t fathom how this gentle treatment could arouse her the same way.
This time, when he ran his finger along the edge of her labia, she dripped wetness.
And then his mouth was there. Slow licks gathered cream and commanded her body to make more. The tip of his tongue teased around her clit, never coming into contact with the hard nub poking from its hood and clamoring for attention.
Her body strained to maneuver so that his tongue landed where she needed it. She whimpered and moaned. Her head thrashed from side to side. Even as she appreciated the deviousness of his technique, she hated the way he commanded her body’s reactions.
“Please. Oh please.”
He kept right on licking, circling her clit with clever strokes that kept her on the edge.
She gave in a little. “Sir, please make me come.” What she meant as a command came out as a plea punctuated by sobs.
His lips locked around her clit and suckled with the same gentle pressure. She threw her head back and keened as the climax washed through every part of her body he had kissed.
Instead of backing off, he increased the pressure of his mouth. He sucked in short, hard bursts. Her hips jerked as much as they could, trying to escape the extra stimulation. Wanting to pull his head away, she found her intent hampered by the ropes she kept forgetting about.
“Sir, please stop. I need a break. Oh fuck.”
Her pleading only served to goad him to continue. He sucked harder and faster, pushing her over that cliff again. She screamed, and tears wet the blindfold where it caressed her eyelids.
Now he added his fingers. They traced her folds while he kept sucking in that hard, fast rhythm. Her entire body shook. None of her muscles responded to the messages her brain sent. Either that, or her brain had forgotten how to send messages.
Her clit throbbed and retreated behind its hood. Theo peeled it back with his teeth and flicked his tongue over the hard peak. He slid his fingers into her opening, curving to rub against her sweet spot. He kept her there, trembling on the brink for an excruciatingly long time, and then he pushed her over.
She came again, and Theo moaned. The vibrations drew out her climax, as did the fingers
in her pussy that never stopped moving. She thought he might have a heart and let her rest. Since he didn’t let her come down, she decided he was heartless and the only rest allowed would be what happened after she passed out.
“One more, sweetheart. Give me one more.”
Her oversensitive pussy throbbed, and she wanted to close her legs, but the ropes wouldn’t let any part of her hide. Gathering her willpower, she calmed her breathing to prepare for one more. He wanted one more. She could give him that one more, and he would let her rest.
As punishments went, this was far worse than not being allowed to climax. While it felt wonderful, it sucked away all sense of control. For the first time, she began to believe he could force her surrender.
“Yes, Sir. One more.”
He pressed the flat of his tongue hard against her clit and used his fingers to massage her pussy in all the places he knew made her tremble and writhe. The ropes allowed only trembling, so all the energy she might have released through writhing came together between her legs. It took longer, but she managed to give him the “one more” he demanded.
Light returned as he yanked off the blindfold. She lifted her head to impale him with a glare, but her face failed to form any kind of forceful expression.
He sat between her legs on the step below where her ass rested. Her reclined position gave her the perfect vantage point to see everything. He leaned against her thigh and traced lazy circles around her clit with one finger. Every revolution sent electric waves of sensation through her body. It hurt and it felt good, much like those feelings generated by a thorough flogging.
Lifting his finger to his mouth, he licked her juices away. The gesture drew her attention to the way her juices glistened around his lips. She whimpered at the thought he might continue and at the thought he might stop.
“This is one gorgeous pussy. It’s mine, sweetheart. Say it.”
Re/Bound (Doms of the FBI Book 1) Page 25
