by Chloe Cox
Ava did. She couldn’t help but look inside, and, for a moment, she held her breath. It was a treasure trove of things she’d only seen online or read about in books. Ropes, harnesses, vibrators (she had greater familiarity with some of those), handcuffs, all sorts of leather things, a black bar. They all passed by in a blur of potential. She felt slightly dizzy, and her heart beat uncomfortably in her chest. She couldn’t tell if she was excited or afraid.
“Ava, pay attention.” She looked back to Jackson. The chest’s contents made her feel inexperienced and unprepared, aroused and apprehensive. She was glad not to have to look at it anymore.
“I have two sets of questions for you. To the first, you will answer yes or no,” he said, and she glanced at the legal pad. “But you will answer without knowing what the questions are.”
She looked at him. “What?”
“Exactly what I said. First, reach into the chest and pull out the first thing you touch. Don’t look. Do it blind.”
Ava turned toward the chest without thinking, her hand reaching down.
“I said: don’t look.”
His voice cracked the suddenly still air, and again, without thinking, she looked away. It was ridiculous, this automatic obedience. And where just a few moments ago she’d been relieved to push the chest and its contents out of her mind, now all she could think about was what was inside. It was very awkward to try to reach into the chest without looking; she had to sort of bend sideways, keeping her eyes averted. The robe slipped further, and she remembered not to touch it. Her breast would be visible now.
Her fingers felt something round, and she clasped it. Must be the black bar. Safe enough, she supposed. She didn’t really know. She lifted it out of the chest and looked to Jackson.
“Stop there. Now answer: yes or no?”
She still didn’t understand. Ava wasn’t someone to do things she didn’t fully understand. How could you plan, how could you decide how to present yourself if you didn’t know what you were doing?
“Answer me, Ava. Quickly.”
“Yes.”
That surprised her. She’d said yes, blindly. Jackson smiled. He looked satisfied. His eyes flashed, and he leaned forward.
“Good. Look at it. Do you know what it is?”
It was the black bar, obviously. She hefted it and shook her head.
“It’s called a spreader bar.”
Ava felt her whole body stiffen. A spreader bar. It was probably exactly what it sounded like. She looked at it more closely and saw attachments, cuffs. A dull beat had started somewhere deep inside her, something she felt right behind her clit. She licked her lips and looked at Jackson. He was grinning again, that same damn grin.
“Look at you, catching on,” he said. “Or so you think. You know what, we’ll switch the order up. Give me another answer.”
“No.” He raised an eyebrow, and she quickly said, “I mean, that’s my next answer. No.”
Now he laughed at her. “Just out of spite, huh? Thing is, Ava,” he said, leaning even farther forward, his hands coming together in front of him like he was making a very grave promise, “you might regret that.”
She didn’t have time to figure out what that meant. The next set of questions went quickly. She got tired of guessing what his game was, of trying to figure out what she was saying yes or no to, and the more fatigued she got, the more she said yes. She never would have predicted that, but Jackson didn’t seem surprised. And by the end, she had a pile of toys—or pieces of equipment, or whatever they were—in front of her, each and every one representing a kind of promise. If she looked at any one of them for too long, she got nervous, and scared. That’s when she looked back at Jackson.
She was even wetter than before.
“Now,” he said, “do you want to know what the questions were?”
She looked nervously at the riding crop. “Of course I do. But I can guess,” she said too quickly.
That impulse felt familiar, the impulse to be right. To be ahead of the curve. To be in control.
“You can guess,” he said smoothly, “but you’ll be wrong.”
Ava couldn’t stop herself from piping up again, even though she knew she was pushing her luck. “It was about what…things we’ll use,” she said, gesturing at the pile in front of her.
“Sort of. I just had you take that stuff out to mess with you,” he said, smiling, “and because I got to watch your face while you did it.”
She was only half kidding when she said, “You bastard.”
He rose, lightning quick, and pulled at the tie that held her robe closed. All the lights were on in the apartment, and it had started to get dark outside. The huge window loomed over Ava, reminding her that she’d soon be completely visible.
“I will spank you, Ava,” he said. He was very calm. “And I’ll do it right in front of the window.”
She honestly couldn’t tell if she wanted that or dreaded it. What had he already done to her?
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Take off the robe.”
She hesitated and he did it for her—the third time in less than a day that he’d stripped her—leaving her naked in the well-lit living room in front of the huge window. He bunched the robe his hands and threw it back at the sofa, well beyond her reach. And then he just stood near her, not touching her, looking down at her as she held her hands up to her chest, trying to cover herself somehow in front of that big window.
“Will you tell me what they were?” she asked, her eyes cast downward. She couldn’t stand it.
“They were about what I’m going to do to you.”
She felt something in her belly flutter. “When?”
“When I feel like it. Soon. Maybe now.”
“But I don’t know what I agreed to,” she said, hugging her arms to her chest.
“That’s right,” he said, reaching up to push a tendril of hair behind her ear. “Of course, you don’t need to know. You’re mine, remember?”
That phrase, “you’re mine,” felt like something strong, something she could grab hold of to help her stand up when she was feeling so weak. He hadn’t touched her in what seemed like forever, but she was still feeling overwhelmed. He always had her number. He was always the only one who could see through her crap, and apparently he still could. Ava realized that he’d wanted her exhausted, mentally, too strung out to fight him, or herself.
“Smart man,” she whispered.
He pretended not to hear her. Instead, he kissed her, quick and hard, crushing her naked body into his. Then he let her go.
“Cuff yourself,” he said, gesturing at the handcuffs on the floor. He walked past her. She could hear him messing with something behind her even as she bent down to retrieve the cuffs.
“If you want to know the questions you’ve already answered,” he said from somewhere behind her, “you’ll answer a few more. This time, real questions, real answers. Otherwise, you’ll just get a bunch of surprises.”
Apparently he remembered how she hated surprises, too. Smart, smart man.
Ava stared at the handcuffs, glinting silver in the light from the overhead, wondering at what they meant to her. A week ago she might have fantasized about this, but only in a strictly theoretical sense. She never would have allowed herself to be in a position to be confronted with the actual, real life possibility of being handcuffed by a man who was about to fuck her. If asked, she would have said maybe, one day, but it was a big step.
That step didn’t seem so big now, up close. Or maybe it was Jackson who made it feel normal, less terrifying. It just seemed…inevitable.
Stop thinking, Ava.
She cuffed herself and turned to show him.
He looked down at her cuffed wrists and attached a length of soft black rope with a clip on the end to the cuffs with a definite clink. The rope extended to the other side of the room, where it was attached to a pulley that he’d hung on an eyehook that protruded from the wall. She jerked at the rope and the pu
lley gave slightly. There was some slack on the line. She followed it, and saw that Jackson held the other end in his hand.
He looked at her right back. Then he looked at her hands, cuffed, but still held up so they covered her breasts. His eyes flickered to the window and back to her.
“Close the chest and sit on it,” he said, and returned to his seat on the sofa opposite her.
Bewildered, Ava did as he said. Part of her felt like this was ridiculous. She was naked and restrained in plain view of much of Manhattan. And he hadn’t touched her since he’d come back. She’d been aching for him for hours now, and the more she thought about it, the more the pressure behind her clit grew. It was making it hard to focus, hard to think.
She remembered what he’d said only that morning, when she’d tried to run out: You’ve been thinking for ten years. How’s that worked out for you?
She looked at the grey eyed man who sat across from her, his face giving nothing away. Could he really know her that well? Still, after all this time?
“Spread your legs for me,” he said, and began to slowly gather the slack on the line.
Ava looked out on the city and up at the windows of other apartments.
“Jackson, the window…”
“Don’t make me repeat myself.”
Ava took a deep breath and scooted up to the edge of the chest, the metal studs along its edges digging into her soft skin. She risked another quick look to the window. She wished she hadn’t; it was dark outside now, and there were lights on in other apartments. She must be completely visible to anyone who cared to look. She brought her cuffed hands to her chin, hiding her breasts, and gingerly began to spread her legs.
“Wider, Ava,” Jackson said, frowning. “Don’t mess around.”
Why was this so difficult? To just spread bare, like that. Even in front of Jackson. Perhaps especially in front of Jackson.
Slowly she inched her legs apart, balancing on her toes, until her legs could get no wider. She’d always been flexible. Her chest fluttered nervously as she hugged her breasts with her arms, her hands still cuffed together, until she looked up and saw Jackson’s face, raw and hungry and utterly uncomposed for the first time since they’d been reunited. He was staring at her with his mouth slightly open. For a moment, she thought he might jump up right then and…
“Very nice,” he said hoarsely.
She smiled.
“First question,” he said, rising from his seat and walking towards her. “What is your favorite sexual fantasy?”
Ava blinked. She had a lot of fantasies. One by one, they flashed across her mind, but she didn’t focus on the sex, or the situations, or those key moments that made any fantasy a…fantasy. For the first time, Ava realized that the one thing they all had in common was the kind of man—or the man—who starred in the leading role.
It was shattering.
Had she really been thinking about him all these years? Had it really been always, only, forever him? What the hell was she doing here, thinking she could get away with just sex, that this wouldn’t…
“Ava.”
He was standing over her now, looking down. He wrapped the length of black rope around one of his hands and began to pull.
“Stay where you are, keep your legs spread, and answer me.”
She saw the coils of rope begin to pile up, and she felt the tug on her wrists. Slowly, the rope began to pull her wrists up and back, towards the ceiling behind her, forcing her to uncover her breasts. He kept going until her arms were held up above her head, bent at the elbows. She was totally bare now. Physically.
“Ava…”
“This,” she said softly. “Being tied down. Captured. Taken.”
By you.
Jackson locked the rope and knelt down beside her. He reached for the spreader bar at her feet, then stopped, his gaze falling on her spread sex. He placed one large hand on her knee and slowly pushed up the length of her leg, his thumb pressing into her thigh, until he couldn’t stand it anymore and he bent down to kiss her between the legs. Ava felt his lips surround her clit, and his hot tongue worked on her until she uttered a low, begging moan.
She cried out in protest when he pulled away. He turned back to the spreader bar, as though he hadn’t just sent her sky high only to leave her there without release. Her legs were shaking as he fastened the cuffs to her ankles. She couldn’t close her legs now if she wanted to.
“You’re lucky, Ava,” he said, resting his hands on her hips as he looked at her face. “You remember that first question, the one you answered ‘yes’ to so bravely?”
She nodded, trying not to breathe too hard.
“The question was whether or not you’d be allowed to come.”
“Oh, please,” she begged.
He laughed.
“Next question,” he said, and selected a large, textured, blue vibrator. “I want to know more about these fantasies. What do you think about? What gets you off?”
She shook her head, afraid to speak. She wasn’t trying to be disobedient; she just didn’t want to tell him the whole truth. He’d be gone in a week. He’d said no strings. How would he react if she said, “You?”
Jackson frowned and grabbed the riding crop. Quickly, he swatted both of her nipples—one, two. The sudden, sharp sting took her breath away and set the rest of her on fire.
“Tell me. Don’t think. Answer.”
“Being powerless. Being…” She gasped as she felt the pull on the rope again, and she had no choice but to lean back. Her abdominal muscles burned, and her hips strained until she was lying prone on her back, her arms pulled back behind her, immoveable, her breasts falling slightly to the side, her legs held apart by the spreader bar. She couldn’t see him now, couldn’t see where he was, or what he was about to do.
“Being under your control,” she finished. She was panting.
“Good,” he said from somewhere in front of her spread legs. “You answered ‘no’ to anal, though I’m considering a veto on that, I’ve got to tell you.”
She clenched involuntarily. He laughed. Oh God, he could see that.
“I’m not done with these questions, Ava. You’ve got to relax.”
And she felt his finger slip inside her, quickly, as though just testing. She didn’t even have time to miss it before it was replaced with the head of something larger—much larger. Something cool and rubbery.
The vibrator.
She tried to think. It had been big, as big as Jackson himself. God, she wished he would just…
She cried out as he pushed it inside her. Not knowing it was coming made it seem about five times as big, and he filled her to the hilt. He moved it around inside her, pivoting in a slow circle. Her hips tilted up as far as they would go, and her back arched.
“Goddamn, that’s beautiful,” she heard him say.
She didn’t think she could speak.
“C’mon, stay with me,” he said, and came around her side, one hand still holding the vibrator inside her, the other smoothing the hair on her head. She felt like she was stretched tight and thin, impossibly so, like a bubble that was about to burst, and she had no idea what would happen when she did.
“Ava, look at me,” he said, and his free hand moved to her breasts. She did, and she realized her lips were pressed tight together, like there was something she was trying hard not to say.
He pulled the vibe out, slowly, and pushed it back in. She groaned.
“You get off on being under my control?” he said. She nodded.
He fucked her a little faster with the vibe.
“On being vulnerable?” he asked.
Again, she nodded. She felt tears welling up in her eyes. She had no idea why she would be crying.
“On being with me?” he said.
Oh God, please… She didn’t want it to be true. Why would he ask her that, why would he…
She writhed, and he held the back of her head and looked into her eyes.
“Why did you run away f
rom me?” he said.
She shook her head and tears fell out of her eyes. She was crying. She couldn’t do this. She could do just sex, she couldn’t do…
“Please,” she begged.
His eyes softened, and his thumb brushed her cheek before he kissed her. “Shhh,” he said. “You don’t have to answer, it’s ok.”
Then he turned the vibe on and fucked her with it until she came, screaming his name.
chapter 9
Jackson had been rocked by Ava’s orgasm almost as hard as she had—he was sure of it. Just the sight of her, flushed, a sheen of sweat shining across her arched body as she was pushed over the edge—Jackson was no choir boy, he’d seen plenty of women enjoy themselves, but that was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. If he could make that happen every day, he’d be happy.
But it had come with a price, for both of them. He’d done it again. He’d pushed her too far, too fast, and only just caught himself in time. He’d felt the old self-loathing rising within him as he had uncuffed her and carried her to the couch, and it had kept him from being fully in the moment with her. Now, as he held her close, wrapped in his old bathrobe, and he rubbed her legs up and down to keep them from cramping, he didn’t want to be thinking about anything else. He wanted to be there, with her, only.
Too bad.
He had to think about things he’d rather not, or risk hurting her. Risk becoming the person he’d fought so hard not to be.
Fine.
His original plan—if it could be called that—was still a good one. He knew he knew Ava better than he’d known anyone—really, better than he supposed he had a right to, after ten years. He just did. Couldn’t explain it. Knew enough to know that he had to tread carefully, that there was something deep inside her that she had to learn to let go of slowly, and he knew that for an over-thinker like Ava, the way to do that was through the physical. Just side step the rational altogether, let her body show her the way forward, and her mind might choose to follow. Otherwise, she’d fight. He could see it happening a little already. He’d seen her do it over a million little things back in school.
Ava was a fighter in every possible way. He figured she had reasons to be.
