Bound, Spanked and Loved: Fourteen Kinky Valentine's Day Stories

by Sierra Cartwright

  “Go in there. Show them your wounds.” He pointed through the open car window and she smiled and obeyed, strolling away in his shorts and shirt. Amazing how tall she was. He’d thought her small. When he’d carried her, she’d seemed light. He watched as she entered and the double glass doors swallowed her.

  If he’d taken her in, he’d be on CC TV. His clothes on her weren’t much of a risk unless they decided she’d been attacked and molested. He’d risk it.

  When he looked across at the passenger seat, he found she’d drawn a word on the notepad he kept in the door. He squinted, holding it up to the light from outside the car.

  Ahren? What was that? Her name? Wasn’t it Anyil or something? Maybe this was how she wrote it in her own language?

  At least he knew she could write.

  She’d be okay in there, right? They’d take care of her.

  He managed to get home without crashing. A miracle considering he didn’t recall doing it.

  Next morning there was a knock at his door.

  It was her.

  His silent curses were many.

  Hair tussled and streaming in swirls of gold down her shoulders and over his T-shirt. Her nipples showing in muted but tempting bumps. Full lips. Sunlight shimmering through her pale hair like some damn halo. He looked down. Bare feet too.

  Bare little female toes. His throat closed in. He was done for.

  “What are you doing here?”

  How had she travelled here even? Dressed like that too, half naked. With bare feet and her sensuous figure she was more naked than most women in a bikini.

  “I am declared illegal. For your country.”

  “Ahhh? Illegal immigrant?” He stayed in the doorway but glanced over her shoulder, taking in the paths, the central garden. Six thirty AM and no one else was daft enough to be up yet.

  “Yes. That. They say they come to take me away today. They think me crazy also.” She pouted, one eyebrow drifting upward as her forehead wrinkled. “I come here instead. You help me?”

  “Fuck,” he whispered, hurriedly adding, “Sorry. You surprised me. Look, come in.”

  As she wandered past and into his hallway, he added, “No one knows you’re here? No one followed you?”

  “No.” She went down the hallway to his family room and turned, examining the walls, the furniture, even his goldfish tank, as if it was all as marvelous as an art museum. “No one followed.”

  “How did you get here?”

  “I walk.”

  Six miles? At night? She was lucky she hadn’t been raped.

  He shut the door and walked in after her, the big, white tiles cool under his soles. What was he doing? He knew so little about her. It was the innocence. The vulnerability she exuded. It called to the Dom in him, even though his brain cells were yelling at him to keep her at a distance. And it was all assumption. She might have needle marks on those arms.

  He hadn’t noticed any before, but he double-checked as he went past her to the kitchen. No marks. One tick.

  “Sit down. I’ll get you a coffee while we talk.” What had the hospital done to her back? Would she need antibiotics? Who was she really? Why him?

  Start with that.

  “Black coffee?” It was his way. Black and strong. She nodded and he assembled cups, spoon, coffee, then turned on the electric jug which he’d boiled earlier. “Okay. He sat on one of the bar stools and indicated the one beside her. “Sit.”

  She studied the stool, same as she had his room then gingerly sat.

  “I’ve let you in but now, you need to tell me how you found me again –”

  With her hand she made a snakelike motion in front of her. “I followed the turns of the street.” He gaped at her and she continued, “I remembered how your car went to the hospital.”

  So much for a scrambled brain. Top marks. Unless she lied. In which case she was still thinking well.

  “Why me though? Why’d you come back? Who got you into the country? Why not go to them? You have relatives?” He poured the steaming water into the cups, stirred, and shifted hers along the countertop to her hand.

  She blinked slowly. “I...no. I do not have those here. I know no one. Only you. Besides...”

  She then took a sip from her cup while watching him do the same. Her nose screwed up as she tasted it. So cute.

  He shook himself out of a daze where all he did was stare at her nose.

  “Besides?”

  “Nothing. I make a mistake.”

  The way she spoke. Staccato. Unfamiliar. Illegal immigrant fitted her situation, except the back wounds. The notepad from the car was on the countertop and he placed it before her, tapping the word she’d written. “Is this your name? Ahren?”

  “Yes. But no, not said like that. Ahn-yel.”

  The twist she gave to that word eluded him. No matter how he said it, she shook her head.

  “Fine.” He smiled back. “Can I call you Ahnyil?” Seemed close enough to him.

  Slowly the lines of a smile appeared around her eyes and her mouth curved. The blueness and the gold of her irises seemed to deepen. “Sure. I will be Ahnyil.”

  “Good. I’m Adam.” Funny, she hadn’t asked his name. “Now tell me why you’re here.”

  “To stay? I would like, Adam, to stay.”

  “Uhhh. Until what?” A woman didn’t ask this of a stranger, especially not a pretty woman asking a man.

  And that was where things broke down. After much coaxing, she said she would stay until she found people who could help her but she was terribly unconvincing. Lying. Really. She was so bad at lying he was lost.

  Unsure why he was persisting with helping her, he told her he needed to look at her back wounds. She stripped off the shirt in front of him before turning.

  Breasts. Round, beautifully formed breasts that fairly begged to be handled. Again, with the lack of air to his brain. His cock stood to attention in his black track pants as if it’d been asked to salute an officer. His eyes had possibly popped outward for a millisecond.

  There’d been a glimpse of something dawning in her eyes, when he reacted to her nakedness, like the sun coming up for the first time on an alien planet. Or like a woman suddenly figuring out she could knock men down just by flashing her boobs. How naïve was she?

  The more he knew about her, the more it seemed negligent and unwise to kick her out onto the streets.

  “How old are you, Ahnyil?”

  “Very old.”

  “How many years.”

  “Yes. I am years old.”

  He chuckled. This wasn’t going anywhere. Funny, sometimes when he’d caught her unawares, her expression evoked this floating serenity, as if she knew more than she was saying. Like, in their somewhere, was packed a millennium of knowledge. She switched, back and forth, from ingénue to Buddha-like calmness.

  The shirt had fallen lower and he lifted it again, careful not to touch her skin. Near her shoulder blades were two shallow but wide scratches. Nothing else.

  “They bandaged me too,” she murmured. “But I took it off before I left the hospital. It was itchy. So many feelings here. I’ve never felt itchy before.”

  His eyebrows popped up.

  This was becoming weird...make that weirder.

  He talked to her some more but mostly found himself going in circles. She didn’t know where she’d come from or how she’d arrived apart from to say from above. He wasn’t going to inquire about people falling from the sky. She had no past she could recall, or she wasn’t telling him. No future except for one thing that had chilled him when she’d said it: I must pay penance.

  Was what had happened to her back a part of that penance? He didn’t believe she’d done that to herself. That had been blood. He’d been so sure there were nasty wounds beneath. How could she have healed that fast? Perhaps she had a blood-clotting disorder. That would explain it. Someone had still done her back for her. Cutting yourself there and being that precise would be damn difficult.

  So wha
t was he going to do? Let her sleep here for a day or two? He’d be back at work on Monday and leaving her alone in his place would be stupid.

  So he had a shower while he thought about it some more. She’d need clothes, toothbrush...guess he’d decided she could stay. He scrubbed his hair dry with the towel. When he tossed it aside and turned around, there she was, peeking around the doorway. Well, not exactly peeking, kneeling, and staring at him, at his dick to be exact. The thing took that to mean it should wake up, and slowly but steadily, his slight erection turned into a massively obvious one.

  He should have snatched up the towel again but to hell with hiding when she was being a little voyeur.

  “No one ever tell you it was rude to march...” To crawl? It was nearly that. His cock seemed to draw up tighter at that idea. He gestured. “To stare at a man after opening a door that was shut?”

  All she did was keep staring for several seconds, switching from his face to his cock again, and back, while she turned the cutest shade of pink. At last, she whispered, “I’m sorry.”

  “Good.”

  Getting that sorry was messing with his head too. He wanted to go over there and do bad things to her. The only thing stopping him was, well, everything. He didn’t even know who she really was, for god’s sake.

  Ahnyil put one hand on the doorframe as if to rise but instead remained head down. Her breathing was heavier than normal.

  He retrieved the towel from where it’d fallen across the claw-footed bath tub. “Are you okay?”

  “I am thinking I need more penance.”

  Penance? Said by her, through those lips he’d just now developed an obsession with? Say goodbye to blue balls, he was heading for purple.

  He took one damp step toward her, bending a little to see her face. “What’s wrong?”

  She raised that pink face. Tears running down her cheeks. There was also that sense of sublime wisdom in her expression mixed with flush-faced anger and pouting grumpiness. “I have strange feelings. Feelings of...desire that I have never felt before. I do not want these feelings.”

  Oh, him too. Him too. He restrained himself. Now was the time to close the door, softly, in her face. She was probably a whore, a very clever one.

  Then she put her hand on his foot. The shockwave travelled up him at the speed of revelation. He shattered and reassembled. No, not a whore. Never that.

  “May I touch you?” She eyed his cock again, as if it were a strange lollipop, her tongue tip out and resting on her upper lip.

  Fuuuuck. Her words and look had strangled him.

  She asked? Begging would be better. He needed more control here and he stepped back. A smile sprang to his lips when he caught her miffed expression.

  “Why do you want to touch me?” When his body urged him to just go for it, he liked to brake. Besides, this was frustrating her and frustrating women was fun.

  “Is it not natural? I wish to release my bad inclinations. I do this, then I can do penance.”

  Whatever game she was playing it was confusing the fuck out of him.

  Why not test her, see where she was heading with this? A quick screw then get her to leave before she tried to steal his life savings? That made him feel like a pimp or something. Uneasy, but this situation was off center. Maybe he was still in bed snoring?

  She tempted him, though. If he did this and she stung him, she’d find he wasn’t a man to mess with.

  “I...” On the verge of telling her yes, he baulked. Just couldn’t do this. Wrong was emblazoned in red on this whole scenario. “No. Please go outside.”

  “Fine.” She sighed, hauled herself upright then walked away, closing the door as an afterthought.

  Well. He’d thrown that away. There was a certain relief as well as regret in saying no. He needed to set boundaries if she was to stay. Fucking her...or whatever, and the whatever had been as tempting as the sex because he could imagine a helluva lot of doing whatever to her sweet body. His dick visibly twitched at that unfinished thought. “Bugger off,” he muttered at it and pulled on a pair of shorts. Yeah, fucking her was wrong.

  Then he walked outside and headed for the balcony where he could hear small sounds. The sliding door was open. The gap in the curtain showed him one of the park benches that sat on the sloping expanse of lawn between Gabriel Towers and the riverbank. At least no junkies were in sight. One of the hazards of being next to a parklike area – the no-hopers gathered some nights and injected themselves. No matter how often he called the cops on them, they came back and left their litter of needles and crap. He even had regulars he recognized.

  He brushed past the curtain and found her cutting her hair off at shoulder level. Curls of gold lay scattered over the tiles, shifting in the light morning breeze coming from the river.

  Mouth open, he watched her hack off another hand-gathered chunk with one of his knives.

  “Stop!” Carefully he retrieved his knife. “What the hell are you doing? This is sharp. You could cut off an ear or your neck.”

  “I am careful.” Her eyes were so big, like a puppy caught peeing in the corner.

  He shook his head. “Why?” Then he sighed and stooped to pick up some of the locks. “You have such beautiful hair.” His chest actually ached as he looked down at her.

  “Did I hurt knife?”

  “Huh. No. Here, I guess I may as well even it up. You look like a lawn mower attacked you. Is that okay?” He shifted the knife in his hand.

  “Yes. You may fix it. Please.” Something, a shaking of her voice, betrayed a depth of emotion here. She was upset?

  “Left side.” He stepped in front of her. Gently, he pushed on her shoulder and she shifted to let him have access. Cutting this was close to sacrilege, but he sawed off the missed longer parts then turned her chin to check out the overall evenness.

  A cut, he’d not noticed, dribbled a thin line of blood down the right side of her neck.

  His mouth tightened with annoyance that approached anger. She had injured herself.

  Putting his hand on her sent his head and heart spinning out again. He could smell her body as well as a lighter, somehow exciting, lemony scent that made him wonder if cutting her hair had done that.

  Her raggedly shorn hair also made her seem less surreal. Less perfect. He studied her. Rougher. And more available. Sexier.

  Not mine, he reminded himself. Not.

  If, his imagination prompted him. If she was, what would I do?What would I do to my girl for using my knife without permission?

  Spank bank material. He could see himself alone in bed tonight, wanking merrily to that.

  “You’re still pretty.” He took the plunge, keeping his voice warm. “Prettier than anyone I know.” When she wrinkled her nose, he smiled. “Now tell me why.”

  He firmed his grip on her chin and noted how that seemed to make her focus on him, and he on her.

  A notion nudged in, as soft as the fall of warm rain on skin, and said there’s me and there’s you and nothing and no one else matters. No one even knows she’s here.

  Ugh. He wasn’t some deranged serial killer.

  But her eyes, looking at him. The blueness, the gold.

  He knew then, she was something unearthly.

  As a soldier he understood solid reality. Death. Fucking. Sorrow. Blood.

  He didn’t believe in magic or god or the devil, or any of those weird stories mankind had told himself since he emerged from his cave and created fire. He didn’t believe in fairies either. But her, this girl-woman-creature, she was not from here.

  Ridiculous. He needed to knock off the scotch, late at night, and Facebook, that too.

  He shifted his fingers farther along her jaw, curling them over her soft skin. Small muscles moved as perhaps she thought of swallowing. Her lips parted.

  “Why,” he asked again. “Why did you cut your hair?”

  “Penance. I looked at you when I should not have.”

  For that she’d cut her hair and, accidentally, or not ac
cidentally, her neck? My, oh my. Someone needed to steer her safely to shore. He dreaded what she might do if some worse tragedy occurred.

  That’s an excuse, he told himself. No, it’s not.

  It was and it wasn’t. This was something he wanted to do as well as something that should be done. Just because he wanted it desperately, didn’t mean it wasn’t needed. He had certainty where none had been before.

  He gripped her jaw, so tightly he was sure it must hurt, yet her eyelids only closed a fraction of an inch before opening fully again. “Can I show you what I think your penance should be?”

  Her answer was the faintest murmur. “Yes.”

  Then he took her by the hand and led her inside, sure that he was heading full speed toward the unknown, toward darkness or light, but whichever, it was going to be some ride.

  Holding his hand was a woman who captivated him.

  Chapter Two

  With his hand enclosing hers, the man, Adam, led her into his small house. He hesitated at that place all other doors led from – his living room. Then he drew her toward the sofa and sat there with her standing before him. Not once did he relinquish her hand. It was exhilarating to be connected like this to someone, to a man.

  He took both her hands in his then and said, “Kneel.”

  Being accustomed to commands, she did so.

  In the past she’d listened to those above her and obeyed, and he had a similar way about him: an air of command.

  Once she’d kneeled, he merely looked at her, with the smallest curve to his mouth.

  “May I?”

  She angled her head to the side.

  “This.” He reached out, as if to touch her. A frown creased his brow then vanished. “You attract me like no other woman.”

  His fingers, his long, manly fingers came nearer, and she could scent the essence of him on them. A unique scent. Adam. Even with her eyes closed, she would know if he was beside her.

  From the corners of her eyes, she watched his hand, so close now she could see every crease and the whorls at the tips of his fingers.

  Surely this was forbidden? Say no. Say stop. Her words of denial were born to her tongue and the moment he laid his skin on hers, on her face, they died.