Then I’m free of his touch before his words can sear me, and his hands are latched around my wrists, guiding them above my head.
“We’re not doing a Shibari session tonight.” At my confused expression, he says, “You’re too piqued…bound too tightly already. Trust me. Right now, you simply need release.”
Sliding his rope-calloused palms down my arms, stirring a familiar but restricted heat deep inside me, he whispers, “Keep your arms raised,” then he snakes an arm around my back and hoists me against his hard chest.
My whole body stiffens, every muscle rigid. But I keep my hands lifted, trying to relax against him. Trying to do just as he said; trust him. “This much contact was not part of our…agreement,” I say, noting the tremble in my voice.
“We have yet to discuss the terms.” As he walks us to the middle of the room, my feet drag over the cold tile floor, my shoes lost. He lifts me higher and places me on a bench. The leather cushion slicks against my heated skin.
“And those are?”
His eyes meet mine. “I help free you, and you allow me to worship you.”
My heart batters my chest. “I’m not the goddess you think I am.”
A slanted smile tilts the corner of his mouth up. “I’m about to prove differently. Now, don’t lower your arms,” he instructs. Then he grasps my wrists and brings them to his mouth, tenderly placing a kiss to each before dragging his hands down my arms, ribs, waist, shooting a thrumming need right to my core. When he reaches my hips, his teeth sink into his bottom lip. He grips the material of my red dress and yanks it up past my thighs.
I hold back a gasp as his palms slip between my thighs and push them apart.
His blue irises lit with hunger, he runs the pad of his finger over the thin satin of my underwear. A harsh exhale bursts from between his lips as his fingers expertly slide the fabric aside, his skin grazing mine, before he pulls them down my legs.
“The second you get this wet….” he says, his voice dark, “you find me. Wherever you are, it doesn’t matter. Do not wait. There’s no reason why you should ever want for release, Sadie.” He reaches up to take hold of my scarf, but I pull back.
“You can have me laying here completely bare, Colton… All but that. The scarf stays.”
With an evident mask of frustration worrying his face, he says, “We hide nothing from each other. This won’t work if we don’t have complete openness and trust. That’s a requirement.”
When I don’t pull away this time as he touches the black scarf, he begins to slowly unravel it from around my neck. Before he has me exposed, I say, “No knifes. No sharp objects. One of my rules.”
He nods, then pulls the scarf, revealing the ugly scar marring my collarbone.
My arms tremble, the need to lower them and cover myself almost unbearable. But I keep them raised, my eyes averted, as he tentatively traces the rough pads of his fingers across the white scar.
“No sharp objects,” he repeats as a reassurance. Then he threads the scarf around his fingers once before he brings it up to bind my wrists. “You’ll need one thing of yours touching you, centering you. We’ll move slowly, always. But right now, I just need you to come for me.”
He doesn’t give me time to respond, though. His words bind me tighter than the scarf wrapping my wrists. He reaches farther above us and tugs down a suspended
rope. Like the one I saw in the rope room, this too has a silver ring where he threads the scarf through, then ties it off.
“This,” he says, pushing away and taking out a length of rope from his pocket. “Is as much for me as it is for you. I want you to tell me what you feel as the rope touches your skin.”
Kneeling before me, he cups my calf and slides his hand down until he reaches my ankle, where he begins to wrap the thin rope—once, twice, three times. As he performs this action, my body tenses. But the tightening pulling at my every muscle, the ache pulsing through me, overwhelms the anxiety.
“It tickles,” I say, and he looks up, his eyes lit with surprise. “Tighter. It needs to be tighter.”
And he doesn’t deny me. His fingers curl around the ends of the rope and he pulls; the bands tighten with a pleasurable rub of friction against my heated skin. “It feels…coarse but soft. Like a hard, demanding kiss meant to chase away the darkness.”
At this, he groans and yanks the rope taut, stretching my leg outward. A small sound escapes my mouth, and I watch as he ties my ankle down to an extension of the bench. With noticeably less patience, he does the same to my other leg, leaving me open to him. Exposed and in total submission.
Bringing himself up to stand, he towers over me, his breaths expanding his chest against the black fabric of his shirt. Staring down at me, he says, “Tell me to taste you.”
My heart stutters. “I thought I didn’t have to ask…”
“Not ask. Order.” He leans down, folding his body over mine like a shield. “Here, with me, you are in control. This is your power.” He lifts one hand to grasp the knot between my wrists. “I want to touch you…everywhere. Taste you all over. Devour you and consume you. And trust that this is merely a weak form of expression compared to what I’m feeling.” His eyes shut briefly. When he opens them again, I witness the restrained hunger in their depths. “But I’ll only ever do as you ask. This is the trust between us. When you say stop, I’ll stop. When you demand more, I’ll exert myself until you’re satisfied.” His face is so close to mine, I just have to inch forward…one little inch…to taste him. “Now, those are the clear safe words between us. So tell me to taste you, and not to stop until you’re coming in my mouth.”
I part my lips, my breath unsteady as it seeks to touch what’s just out of reach. Everything he said…it’s what I want. Control. Absolute power in this completely fucked up web corroding my life. But everything, everything we desire comes with a price.
What will this trade cost me?