Handcuffed by Her Hero (9 page)

Now she silently
wished him to the bottom of the Sound. The way he bit out
expect
but finished
it in such a sensual husk…the way he pulled the rope hard then fastened the
line to a hook protruding from the wall…the way he shifted his massive body
around her with the grace and speed of a damn ninja…he was so magical, he broke
down her defiance with disgusting speed. Worse, she didn’t even mind. She
couldn’t summon the nerve to even clench her teeth as she finally whispered,
“Yes. Yes, Sir.”

“Perfect.” He
halted in front of her. Planted his feet. Lifted her chin with one of his
fingers. He was so beautiful… already, more of his beast prowled in the bronze
shadows of his stare, played at his full, battle-roughened lips, unfurled
through the majesty of his huge, gleaming muscles. Luna yearned to reach for
him with the arm he hadn’t bound yet. She could tell him, even with just the
tips of her fingers, that he could dump a dozen safe words on her tonight and
she wouldn’t use a single one. She wouldn’t banish his beautiful animal, even
if it came close to killing her.

“Safe word?” he
prompted again.

Ugh.
Fine.
She sighed and blurted, “Cinderella.”

“That wasn’t so
bad, was it?” Though he pulled her other arm out and started whipping the ropes
into its own gauntlet, he kept an appraising eye on her. “Slipped out easily
enough, too. Have you been masturbating about glass slippers and dancing with princes,
Luna?”

She let a
bristled glare serve as her silent
fuck you.
Like that stopped the man
from his scrutiny, burning it up her arm from the wrist he secured with a
flawless cat’s paw twist before knotting off the line using the eyebolt on the
opposite wall. She didn’t shy back from his stare. Let him look. He wasn’t
going to see anything he didn’t know about her so far. Nothing that he didn’t
recognize in himself first.

He proved that
as truth with the next words he gave, knowing and carnal and dark, as he moved
back in front of her.

“Oh, yeah.
Dancing’s just fine with you, yeah? Just as long as the slippers are in shards
and the prince has a blade at your throat.” He lifted a hand exactly there,
bracing her neck from ear to ear with his hand. Slowly, masterfully, he began
to clamp down. Not so languidly, her pulse began to hammer her veins.

“Mmmm,” she
mewled. Technically, it wasn’t a word. The sound was definitely more cat than
human now, the feral creature into which he was turning her as he squeezed a
little tighter…

“Yeah…you’ll
fill the night with dancing, won’t you, Luna? Just as long as you keep
wondering if your next breath will be your last…then soaring on the high when
you realize it wasn’t. You’ll keep dancing, even when it hurts, because the
pain is the reminder that you’re alive.” He softened the hold. He cupped her
nape with his other hand, making her whimper again with need. “But it’s your
way out, too. It confirms you. Then it erases you.”

For the first
time, she hated him for binding her like this, for opening her so wide to him.
It assured that he saw every inch of her reaction. The gratitude. The
adoration. The arousal. The truth in every last word he’d spoken. The craving
for all of it. She swallowed hard, swearing he wouldn’t get her tears, too.
Nobody
got those.

Past taut lips,
she answered, “Thank you, Sir. Yes.”

He studied her
for another long moment. The alloy in his eyes turned from bronze to gold. She
had no idea what he was probing for in her face, but his lips parted to reveal
teeth clenched in victory, as if he’d found it.

Then he left
her.

She was stunned
for a moment. And cold. The man was a walking radiator. The temperature drop
made her nipples pucker tighter, her skin turn to pebbled pathways. Her mind reeled
with trepidation, anticipation.

She listened to
Z’s decisive steps, now behind her once more. But there was more movement than
him. Somebody shifted, as if readjusting themselves on leather furniture. Hell.
She’d forgotten about his buddy. The appointed kink police. What was his name again?
It didn’t matter. The timbre in his voice spoke for him, penetrating the depths
of her soul.

“Christ. I
didn’t think she could get any more beautiful.”

Zeke answered with
a deep chuff. “The fun’s just begun.”

The guy gave an
angry groan. Luna sympathized. Every moment from here on was under Z’s complete
control. Though she’d begged Fate for this, the reality of it brought
exasperation along with the excitement. All her fantasies of this had played
out with her timing, her wants, the actions she created for him to carry out. The
hugest aspect of this, his domination, was simply impossible to create. Like it
or not, it filled the room now, claiming every throb of her heart, every awakening
every inch of her body.

Her breaths
quickened as Z paced back over. She prepared herself for the whoosh of a crop,
perhaps the swish of a flogger. There’d been a few beautiful whips on his toy
table, too. Dear God, would he dare
start
the scene with one of them?
Her stomach wrenched in fear.

Thwack.

The crack of the
broad paddle ricocheted off the walls, ringing in her ears. Hell, that thing
sounded big. And painful.
Really
painful. She got a little concerned,
wondering if he’d tested it on his hand, hoping he hadn’t cracked a finger or
two by doing so—

“Shhhiiit!”

The scream
spilled out of her the same second the realization hit. He hadn’t indulged her
with the mind fuck of the “test smack.” Her ass
was
the test. In fiery, consuming
intensity.  

He had the nerve
to press the damn thing to her skin again, tracing the edges of the burn with
the tip of the thick wood. Luna squirmed beneath his taunting touch. She
imagined him standing back there like a hammer that had grown muscles, now
flashing a cocky grin at the nail he’d just tamed. But when he spoke, nothing
but calm command defined the words.

“What do you say,
girl?”

His composure
was unnerving. Enraging. “Ummm, how about a warm-up next time,
Sir
?”

Thwack.

“Owwwww! Damn
it, Zeke!”

“Still not the
right answer.”

Thwack.

She twisted her
hips, hating him for this…revering him for it. Zeke stepped forward again,
making her gasp in exquisite fear, though he refrained from swatting her again.
He was utterly silent—but she sure as hell felt his stare. His assessment. His
patience. Damn him. Bless him.

Finally, she let
out a long breath. Her words were tight but sincere. “Thank you, Sir.”

He came closer.
Swept a hand across her burning ass cheeks. “You’re welcome.”

Ohhhh, yes. That
felt wonderful. She got ready to give him a blissed-out sigh, but sharp pricks suddenly
rolled down her spine, jamming the sound in her throat. The telltale squeak of
metal accompanied the pricks. She stretched the sigh into a grateful moan. A
Wartenberg wheel. One of her favorites. And God, did he know how to use the
thing. Z was relentless with the pressure, making sure the steel pins dug in
nearly hard enough to break her skin. As she cried out from the delicious
torment, a deep part of her begged him to do just that. What would he do if she
really bled for him?

She sensed the answer
to that just by listening to his breath. He was fighting hard to keep the
steely Dom veneer. His exhalations clawed at the edge of growls, especially as
he turned the wheel and ran it back up her torso. As he dug new tracks into her
skin, her delts and lats twitched with fevered awareness. With every inch he
scored, he pressed to the edge of cutting her but never did. It was making her
insane—and she was pretty sure he shared the sentiment.

She whimpered in
need.

Aggghh! Why
didn’t he listen?

She writhed and
pushed herself back at him. She parted her legs, struggling to show him what he
was doing to her, how hot and wet she was because of him.

He didn’t care.

“Damn it, Zeke!”
It burst out beyond her control. “Do it, damn you! Cut me open! Please!”

Her heart sank
when she saw the wheel fly by, as he threw it to the floor.

Her senses flew
when he replaced the instrument with his fingernails.

He used just one
hand. It was enough. He spared no mercy with those five prongs of determined
flesh, firing them into miniature blow torches, especially when he crisscrossed
the tracks he’d already made with the wheel. Another cry clamored at Luna’s lips
but he was already a step in front of her. Suddenly, he wrapped his other hand
to her throat again, compressing with more exquisite purpose than before. He
loomed close, a presence at her peripheral that was larger than life, a
haunting saber tooth with his rough breaths and silken motions.

“We’ll get there,
subbie. But in my time, not yours.”

Luna’s arms
tensed against the ropes. She knew what words he wanted but giving them up felt
impossible. She was already so vulnerable to him physically. Giving him more
surrender, even verbally, was too much. “Fine,” she sneered. All right, all
right.”

He stilled the
hand on her back and constricted the fingers on her neck. “You know, I’d almost
applaud you for that audacity.
Almost
.”

He scooped
around enough to meet her eye-to-eye again. His grip moved to the hook and
bindings in her hair, freeing her from the bondage in a pair of deft tugs. That
didn’t mean he was done. After winding the braid around his fingers again, he yanked.
Her head snapped back, releasing a new shower of shivers down her nape, throat,
and shoulders. So much for feeling one speck sure of herself. Now capturing her
from the front
and
back, Z directed exactly where she looked and what
filled her vision—which for now, was nothing but him.

For which she
should be rejoicing…right?

A funny thing
happened on the way to the rope bondage. All her dreams of this night had never
made room for one key element: the magnitude of this man’s energy. The potency
of his presence. The dark splendor of his beast, taking over more of him. He
was so perfect it hurt to look—but shutting her eyes was as futile as
breathing. The second her lids descended, he growled and wrenched her hair
tighter.

“Eyes right here,
girl. Right. Here.”

Her obedience
wasn’t without reward. His lips twisted in a smirk that made her breath turn
from a wad in her throat to a boulder in her chest.

“Very nice.
You’ll stay like this until I tell you. I want to watch you through this next
part. Best to remember the rules again on this one. Especially the clause where
I expect to obeyed.”

“Yes…Sir.”

Miracle of
miracles, she prevented the punctuation on it from being a shaky question mark.
His instructions took on another tone she’d never heard from him before, frost
and fire mixed so seamlessly she couldn’t determine what to prepare for. His
lips curled higher, telling her it was where he wanted her, too. Wavering on
his
strings. Teetering on
his
ledge. Slowly, achingly, fulfilling her
dream—on
his
terms.

As she worked to
accept that thought, he unwound her hair and brought her braid forward, draping
it between her breasts. His knuckles brushed her skin, making her quiver. She
released a rasp of shock. Simple caresses weren’t supposed to do this to her.
She wasn’t a silk and ribbons girl. She was barbed wire and steel chains, a
creature built for Doms who bit as hard as they barked. Z knew that, too. Knew
it and craved it as much as she did. So why was he pulling the lame seduction
moves? Why did he follow that stroke on her breast with a duplicate caress? Why
did he slip his other hand down in order to fondle the other peak in the same
manner? Why did he keep up the mushy-gush treatment, even when she let out a
protesting snarl?

Probably had
something to do with how he planned to rip that sound in two. Or a thousand.
That’s what her voice felt like once a pair of nipple clamps seemed to appear
in his hands from nowhere, then got guided to the tips he’d coaxed to full
attention.

Without a second
of warning, her crests went from aching need into mind-halting pressure. She
screamed, wondering if she resembled one of the immortals from
Highlander
,
with lightning bolts ripping her apart. She had the head flinging, body
thrashing part down, that was for sure—especially when the pain went from mere
torture to what-the-fuck-is-
that
within a second.

“Holy shhiitt!”

Z was still as a
damn monk. She got her head under control long enough for a chance to look down
and gauge if his cock was behaving like Friar Tuck, too. If she was going
through this and not getting a damn inch out of him, her snarl was coming back
I she had to hogtie it in her chest.

Her gaze never
got as far as his crotch. As soon as she saw his fingers on the strings of the
adjustable clover clamps attached to her breasts, tightening their sadistic
little clutches on her nipples, the beginnings of that snarl came with no
problem.