He was walking toward the kitchen, probably in search of a trash can, and she had the chance to admire his ass as he walked away from her.
“You’re gorgeous,” she called.
She heard the sound of the refrigerator opening. “No, that’s you. You want some water?”
“Yes.” She followed him into the kitchen, air flowing in between the torn seam of her pants. So much for comfortable lounging pajamas. She was going to make him buy her a new set.
He’d filled two glasses with ice and was pouring water from a glass bottle in the refrigerator.
“Did you eat?” Regina asked.
“Yeah, Roland had Kyle order in dinner for everyone working late. What’d you have?”
“Chicken piccata with angel hair pasta and lemon butter sauce.”
“From Gabbiano’s?”
“Of course. I also finished off that New Zealand chardonnay you had in the fridge.”
“Ah, that’s for my mother. She comes over for lunch on Sunday once a month. I don’t remember opening it.”
“Well, I might have opened it as well.”
He laughed. “Now I’m even more disappointed I couldn’t get here sooner.”
He handed her the water and picked up his own glass, drinking thirstily. His face was still a little red.
“You look like you just rode up Peters Hill in the dead of summer.” Peters Hill was at the southern end of a bike route than ran through Arnold Arboretum. It overlooked the city of Boston, and was so steep that riders usually got off their bikes and walked the last few hundred feet.
He finished off his water and laughed. “Well, good. Then I look how I feel. Next time I’ll take off my suit jacket before I get in the door.”
She smiled into her water glass, pleased with herself.
“Come on,” he said, holding out a hand to her. “I’ll show you what I do when I’m not playing with computers or chasing you around like a horny teenager.”
“You have time for something else?” She put her hand in his.
He laughed and tugged her back toward the entryway. “You’re funny. Did you look around at all while you were here by yourself?”
“I went through all your drawers and attempted to find the safe, but didn’t have much luck.”
He chuckled. “Did you check the library?”
“No, I was afraid to go in there for fear of flashbacks.”
Regina realized that she was just a little bit tipsy, maybe more than a little. She eyed his cute butt as he walked in front of her. She wanted to bite it. She wasn’t feeling exactly sleepy anymore.
“Where’s the box with the lingerie?”
“Up in your bedroom.”
“Mmmm. We’ll have to make sure we try that later this week.”
“Okay, but I’m voting for the corset. I’m afraid I’ll rip that diaphanous bit of nothing.”
“You can still say ‘diaphanous,’ I’m impressed.”
“I’m good. I don’t think I really noticed that I was tipsy until I stood up.”
His fingers tightened on hers as he pulled her up the stairs. “I’ve got you, don’t you worry.”
She wasn’t, she realized, not about much, not right now. She was—for the first time in a very long time—just enjoying herself, enjoying him. It was surprisingly easy. He had a habit of trying to take care of her, which was seductive in its own way. Regina had taken care of herself and others for so long that being taken care of was alien and strange and wonderful. She was a little unnerved by how much she was enjoying it. She’d always prided herself on her independence. So how would she feel when this ended?
They stopped in the bedroom so he could change out of his suit. She sat on the chaise longue and enjoyed the show. She especially liked the part where he whipped off his belt and made it disappear.
“Where’d it go?”
“You’ll find out.” He wiggled his eyebrows at her comically and she laughed. The thought of him spanking her—very lightly, of course—with that belt was downright titillating.
“You’re weird.”
“Not the first time I’ve heard that one.” He walked away from her toward the bathroom where double doors opened to marble tiled floors, two sinks to the left, and a large walk-in closet to the right.
With a sigh of pleasure at the memory of that morning’s shower, Regina opened the box with the two pieces of lingerie and pulled out the corset. She was tempted to put the thing on tonight, especially since he’d ripped her nightie, but she thought that might be a little ambitious since they were both tired and it was getting late.
He came out of the closet looking ridiculously cute in flannel sleep pants and a T-shirt. He tossed her a nearly identical outfit.
“I don’t want you to get cold.” He glanced meaningfully down at the juncture of her legs.
His pants were too long and too big in the hips, so she rolled down the waist and rolled up the ends of the pants. She looked ridiculous, but he was smiling at her.
“I like seeing you in my clothes.”
She snorted. “I look silly, but at least I’m warm.”
“Good,” he said, getting off the bed. “I’m excited to show you the trick so far.”
He took her hand again, and tugged her out of his room. He led her back down the main hall about halfway and then down another hall to the right. At the end of that hall there was a staircase. This one led up and then turned, opening into a loftlike room with open beams and tall, narrow windows with snow caked in the outside corners.
It was cooler up here, but not cold. A warm wave of heat drifted up from the floor. Regina shivered and rubbed her arms because it seemed like it should be cold up here.
He was walking ahead of her, drawing her farther into the room. There were posters hanging from the ceiling like in grocery stores, strung from invisible wires. There was the Hulk, just as he’d said, and Batman, and several others. Two long workbenches made of thick, scarred wood took up most of the space, their massive size and generally derelict appearance making her think of the eating halls of Viking raiders. Only the six or seven ergonomic chairs grounded the room in this century.
There were at least three or four computer screens on each table, all coming to life as he walked through the room. One showed some kind of diagrams, another had scrolling code like something out of The Matrix, and another looked like a video game of some kind. On the rest of the surface were what looked like props for the magic tricks: drills, pieces of wood, hinges, and different lengths and kinds of rope tied in knots.
When she looked to the right, she saw what appeared to be a storage area full of enormous metal toolboxes, pieces of Sheetrock, mirrors, glass. It looked like a Home Depot.
Past the benches, at the far end of the attic, there was an enormous screen, like something out of a movie, and when she looked directly upward, she saw the projector mounted from the ceiling. In front of the screen was what looked like a man’s paradise of leather couches with cup holders and reclining loungers at each end. She saw a refrigerator, a pinball machine, a Ms. Pac-Man game, and, even farther to the left, a punching bag, a bench, and a set of free weights.
“This is your man cave.”
He laughed and shrugged. “More like my geek cave, but I like it.”
Regina sat on one of the benches. “Wow. You know, some billionaires buy yachts and houses in the south of France.”
“I have a yacht and we have a corporate jet. You want to go somewhere?”
Regina blinked. “You have a yacht?”
“Yeah, she’s beautiful. She’s in Florida right now. I decided to redo the entire interior.”
For some reason, even though he rode around in a limo and wore a watch that cost probably more than her entire education at Harvard, she didn’t really think of Milton as stupidly wealthy. He went to work and he li
ved fairly simply, even though he had this massive house in Beacon Hill. She supposed she shouldn’t be surprised that he owned a yacht, but she was.
“I’ll have to take you on it sometime.”
Regina wished that the thought wasn’t incredibly appealing. Leave the cold-ass Boston winter behind, fly on a private jet to Miami, board a yacht, and find some island to hang out on for a few days, or a few months.
Milton was fiddling with something on the table, a rope. Regina shook her head. She didn’t see how he would handle being on a yacht and essentially doing nothing for weeks at a time. Milton just wasn’t built to do nothing.
“This is one of Nick’s knots. He’s obsessed with them, always has been. Some of them come in really handy during tricks.” He held up a complicated-looking knot that seemed impossible to untie. “Like this one. Let’s say I tie you up with it. How long do you think it would take you to untie it?”
“Four days,” she ventured just to please him.
“Pull here.” He held out one loose end.
Regina chuckled. “This isn’t a version of the pull-my-finger joke, is it?”
He wagged it at her. “You never know.”
Regina tugged on the loose end and the rope unraveled completely, as if it had never been tied. Regina gasped in surprise and delight.
“That’s pretty cool,” she said. “Is that how I’m going to be tied up?”
“Something like that,” he acknowledged. “Come here, I’ll show you.”
He pulled her over to what looked like an upright MRI machine with a clear glass front. Where he’d gotten it, she didn’t know. She hoped he didn’t intend for her to get in that thing. She’d never considered herself claustrophobic, but this was ridiculous.
“It’s the base of the trick we’re going to do. You’re going to get inside, so they can see you the whole time. I’m going to have you wave periodically, but really they’re going to be looking at an image of you on a screen.”
He tapped the glass. “This glass has one of those displays in it, like some car windshields.”
“Cool. So you and Nick are going to finish this and bring it to the hospital?”
“Yeah, let me show you.”
“Uh, Milton?”
“Trust me,” he urged. He made her stand in front of the machine while he went over to one of the long benches covered in ropes. He picked one and brought it over to her.
“Okay, put your arms out in front of you.”
Regina had liked the idea of being tied up while he pleasured her. She wasn’t so sure about letting him tie her up and put her in that box. Horror movies had scenes like this. His eyes were daring her, though, so she huffed and put out her hands.
He tied her thoroughly, with complex loops and twists, until she looked like the Road Runner tied up by Wile E. Coyote. Once that was complete, he bent and tied her feet together.
Regina felt ridiculous, but she was, oddly enough, having fun. She’d say this for Milton Shaw: He was unique, and far from boring.
“So, once you’re all tied up, the audience will think, ‘Wow. No way she’s getting out of that.’ And then I’ll pick you up and put you in the container. Once you’re in there, the screen will show a recording of your face as I put you inside, but really, you’re going to untie yourself, and then squeeze yourself against the side. You’re small, so it will work.”
“And then what, you say ‘Abracadabra’ and the screen stops showing my face?”
“Something like that,” he agreed, smiling. “Though I’m thinking that instead of making it look like I’m making you disappear, you as the evil princess can seem to have escaped. It makes more sense with the narrative.”
He scratched his head, frowning, and Regina couldn’t help but think to herself. My God, this man is crazy. Wonderful crazy, but crazy nonetheless.
“So, untie yourself,” he said, gesturing, and Regina searched for the tail end of the rope. It was sticking out near her forearm. She bent her head and used her teeth to tug on it, pulling it loose.
The rope unraveled, spilling to her feet. She grinned, pleased with herself, and bent to release the one near her ankles. She liked knowing how things worked, liked being in on the secret.
“Great.” He laughed once she stepped out of the coil of ropes. “Easy, right?”
She nodded. “Not bad at all.”
“Okay, so let’s try something else.”
There was a gleam in his eye. One that promised the wicked sort of fun that she’d come to expect from him.
Regina folded her arms over her chest. “Why do I suspect that getting out of this one won’t be quite so easy?”
“Because you’re a very smart woman.”
Regina sighed and dropped her arms. “All right, magician, bring it.”
“Awesome.” He took her hand again and pulled her toward the area with the punching bag and the weight benches.
“Okay.” His eyes gleamed. He was practically vibrating with excitement now and Regina couldn’t help but smile at him. “So I know I brought you up here to show you the effect for the show we’re putting on, but I also bought something the other day that I thought you might be willing to try with me.”
Oh, dear lord.
He turned away and went to the wall and pressed some kind of button. The length of chain holding the punching bag descended and he removed it from a carabiner, setting it aside against the wall.
He pulled out something that looked like a tangle of nylon straps, padded leather supports and restraints. He hooked one curved piece to the carabiner and let the straps hang down.
“Is that a sex swing?”
He nodded, studying it. “I’m fairly sure we could figure out a way for you to escape from it, but it would take some practice.”
“Escape from it?”
He looked up at her and nodded. “I’d like to fuck you while you attempt to get free of the swing, but we can try that another time.”
“You want me to strip down and let you tie me into that thing? And then you want to fuck me?”
“Yeah.” He nodded, his eyes gleaming. “You down?”
Regina looked at the straps, at the cuffs, at the chain dangling from the ceiling. If she was looking at it right—and it was hard to tell with the straps hanging down—she could be put in a variety of positions, and if he raised the swing off the ground with the chain, she would be completely vulnerable to him, and completely exposed.
She felt herself getting wet at just the idea of it. Looking at the front of his flannel pants, he was more than ready to give it a shot.
“You have a condom in those jammies?” she asked.
“No,” he said with a grin, “but I can pull up an email . . .”
He did, showing it to her on his computer. She pulled up her email as well, and within minutes they were smiling stupidly at each other.
Moving suddenly, he ducked and lifted her over one shoulder. “Now for perverted sex.”
Hanging down over his back, Regina patted his ass fondly over the flannel.
When they reached the mat below the swing, he set her down on her feet. “Okay, strip, woman.”
Laughing, partly out of nerves, partly because she was so aroused she felt giddy, Regina stripped his shirt over her head and tossed it onto the weight bench.
“God, I love those tits,” he commented, but he didn’t touch her. He did shuck his flannel pants, standing before her naked and proud, his dick straining fiercely toward his belly. He was frickin’ beautiful with a sculpted chest, a washboard stomach, and those little notches in his hips that pointed like an arrow down to his cock. If she could draw, she would want to sketch him in all his naked glory.
His pants were so loose on her that all she had to do was shimmy her hips a little and they fell to the floor, leaving her naked except for her glasses. She t
ook them off and set them on the weight bench where they wouldn’t get broken.
“God,” he murmured, stroking himself absently. “Maybe we should just fuck on the weight bench.”
“No, now you’ve got me all excited for a sex swing.”
“Well, get that beautiful body over here.”
Regina walked over proudly, making sure her breasts bounced with each step, enjoying the ways his eyes followed the movement. When she reached him, he grabbed the back of her head and kissed her fiercely.
Before she could respond, he’d pulled away. “All right, turn so you’re facing away from me.”
She moved so that she was standing next to the swing and turned away from him.
“I’m going to raise it up a little so that I can secure your wrists and the strap under your arms a little more easily.”
He did, and Regina heard the soft whirring as the swing was raised several feet.
“All right. Take this padded piece and put it under your arms, just above your breasts, and then bend forward.”
Regina did, letting the pad hold her upright while her arms dangled. Her ass felt very vulnerable and exposed, which he seemed to appreciate, running a hand over it with a soft hum of pleasure.
He cleared his throat. “Okay, now put your arms behind your back.”
Regina did what she could. It was awkward with the pad under her arms, but she managed to get her wrists together at her lower back.
She felt them being manacled with soft leather cuffs. She wasn’t laughing anymore. Half bent over, her wrists behind her back, she was more vulnerable to him that she’d ever been to anyone.
“Okay, if you get too uncomfortable or I hurt you or something, just yell something ridiculous, like ‘Abracadabra.’ Bend forward a little more.”
She did, and he looped another padded leather strap under her hip bones.
“Okay, hang on, I’m going to raise it.”
Regina waited, already panting. The cool air in the room blew over her exposed flesh, and she could smell her own need.
The Lady Vanishes Page 17
