Soul Rest: A Knights of the Board Room Novel (15 page)

With that first stroke of his hands, they were already wanting to do that. She felt the velvet scarf feather along her neck, then her face. Her hand came up, uncertain, as he tied the scarf over her eyes.

“It’s all right.” He settled his large hands over the area the scarf was covering, pressing against her closed eyes beneath it, her cheeks, her forehead and lips. His fingers glided down her face, her neck, back to her shoulders and down her arms once more. Shifting so he was sitting behind her, he stretched his legs out on either side of her. He kept doing that slow, easy stroke up and down, from face to fingertips and back again.

“I missed you,” she said before she could stop herself.

“I never stopped thinking about you, either, darlin’. Which is why I’m glad you came.”

“I thought you said…not for a week.”

“Yeah, I did. This is sort of different from a session.” He gave a half chuckle. “Or I’m just rationalizing, because Friday is too damn far away.”

A tiny sigh of relief spilled from her lips. Her hand curled into the denim over his thigh. “Yes.”

“So we’re on the same page. Good. I want you to be quiet and just listen. There’s a form of bondage called Ichinawa, which means one rope. I’m sure you’ve done your research and seen all that fancy suspension and intricate knot work. Right? Just nod or shake your head.”

She nodded. It was a peculiar relief, being told not to talk. She could listen to his voice, focus on how he continued to touch her, knead her shoulders, caress her neck. Her whole body was purring under his touch.

“Ichinawa is about the connection between Dom and sub using that one length of rope.” Cradling her hand in his, he trailed the rope over her arm, across her breasts, over her shoulder, along her neck, down her spine. As he teased her with it, he kept talking in that murmuring tone. “I’ll tie only one end of it to one part of you. Your wrist, your ankle, your thigh…wherever I’d like, and then wrap you up in it. Then I’ll unwrap it and do it again. Different ways, the same way, over and over. Every time I wrap you in the rope and then unwrap you, it reinforces the choice. For me to take you, then let you go. For you to submit and then come back to me to submit again. It’s as organic as breathing.”

He went quiet then, making her aware of her breath as he stroked the rope up her thigh, back along her arm. He put his other arm around her waist, so she became aware of how he was breathing with her. When he put his lips against her throat, her breath stuttered, then caught the rhythm of his as well. There was no rush to this, no fight, no urgency. Her mind was whirling in a slow chaos, not sure what to make of it.

He shifted to kneel behind her again, his knees on either side of her hips. “Give me your hand, darlin’.”

She lifted it in the air, and the rope trailed through her fingers as he spread them with his own, stroking the sensitive digits before he looped the rope around her wrist, looped it again. She felt a tightening as he inserted a finger underneath the wrap, against her pulse, then he pulled the rope through, made a knot. But it wasn’t overly snug on her wrist. More like a bracelet’s hold, draped over the point of her wrist and thumb joint.

“You just relax and let me play with you, darlin’. See where this takes you.”

He bent her elbow so her bound hand was clasping her shoulder, and then he’d pulled the rope over it so her arm was held there. He began to wrap her in the rope, under her breasts, back up over her shoulder, across her breastbone, around her rib cage. As he did that, he rocked her back against him, eased her forward, holding her with one arm so she was like a tree swayed by the wind. His breath touched her temple, but when she turned her head in that direction, seeking him, his hand cupped her forehead and she was held back against his chest, leaning against him fully as he stroked her body. He didn’t linger on her breasts or between her legs, but it didn’t matter. Her body became an erogenous zone in its entirety, aware of the hold of the rope in a dozen places, of the way he stroked the outside of her breasts, her hips, along her thighs, across her stomach, up her breastbone to her face and shoulders again.

He doubled her over his arm as he unwrapped her. Once he reached that tied wrist point he began wrapping her again. A different way this time, boxing her arms behind her back and wrapping the rope around her thigh so she was held folded forward over her knees. He lifted her shirt in back, laid his lips along the delicate arch of her spine. Then she was tumbled into his arms as he unwrapped her again and eased her to her side on the mat. This time he bound her thigh to her elbow, wrapped the rope over her shoulder, under her neck, out beneath her elbow so she was in a fetal position, and he was trailing the rope over the line of her side, her hip, her thigh, down to her ankle.

Just as he’d told her, he kept doing it. Wrap, unwrap. Untie, retie to a different anchor point. Never hurried, as gradual as the flow of water in the Mississippi. The other night, the darkness within her had surged up from her soul, compelling her to fight. This had the darkness confused. Like river water, Leland simply washed over her, around her, held her up, drew her under. She became ever more malleable under his strong hands.

She was intensely aroused in a dreamlike way, no urgency to it, though moans started to break from her lips as he integrated more forceful actions into what he was doing. He brought her up on her knees again, wrapped both her hands behind her neck, the rope crisscrossed over her breasts and around her thighs. He held the two ends in his hand, which he rested with firm pressure just above her pubic mound as he curled his hand around her throat and pushed his body firmly against hers from behind. The two of them rocked and swayed together, him letting her feel how securely he held her.

On his next unwrap, he unbuttoned the shirt she had over her tank, removed it. She welcomed the tension of the rope against her bare upper arms, the compression of it over her breasts, the hold as he wrapped it around her back. Then her head fell back against his shoulder as he wrapped the rope over her mouth, parting her lips so it fitted between her teeth. He kept wrapping the rope over the scarf, over her eyes, before he settled his hands on her face as he’d done before, over both rope and cloth.

So much was surging through her. She wanted to say his name. Not Leland, but the name in her heart, poised on the cusp of all the need he was building inside her. She wanted it to be her safe word, but the literal meaning of “safe word,” not the functional one.
A
safe word.

“Master.”

She breathed it, barely a sound at all. He surrounded her, the focus of every sense she had—smell, touch, taste, sight and hearing. She thought he’d heard her, because his lips touched her ear.

“There’s my kitten. Good girl. Good girl.”

Did he realize the power of those two words? Maybe so. She thought he knew everything, understood everything. While a distant part of her mind rationalized he’d put her in some strange trance state and such unrealistic certainties wouldn’t last, she’d take the respite. He unwrapped her slowly, his hand tracing the light rope marks. He left the rope knotted around her wrist, but eased her down to her side, and spread the throw over her. She was trembling. He’d left the blindfold on, and when he fitted himself behind her, holding her, she found his arms through the blanket, curled her fingers over them. The brush of his fingertips against her wrist and the tension on the rope told her he still held it, keeping her tethered to him. But it wasn’t enough.

Maybe it was the blindfold making her as impetuous as a child, but she turned in his arms, following the rope past his hold by touch. It took some fumbling, and she had to sit up, splay her hands over his chest to figure out how he was lying next to her. He was lying on his hip and one elbow, propped up and probably watching her. Imagining those golden-brown eyes focused on her, she ran the rope around his back, underneath his arm. She wanted to wrap the rest around her back as well, make a full circle, but her coordination was off. She couldn’t manage that without toppling over, unbalanced by the pull on her bound wrist her movements were causing. He took over, doing a second wrap around both of them as she laid her head on his chest, her bound hand against his side. She felt the pull as he tucked the end of the rope somewhere that kept their upper torsos wrapped together. He closed both arms around her and held her, spoke in a quiet voice, the bass increased by emotions the scarf allowed her to absorb without worry or question.

“All right, darlin’. All right.”

He allowed them to lie together like that for a while, tugging the blanket back over her until her shaking stopped. When one of those large hands descended to cup her ass, slide his hand into her jeans pocket to stroke and knead, she moved against him. The desire that had been flowing through her like a river immediately surged up. If the ropes hadn’t been holding her, she would have tried to push him to his back, open his jeans and impale herself on his thick cock. She shuddered, imagining how it would send sensation spearing through her, catapulting her toward a climax.

“Easy. Move with me.”

He was loosening the wrap from around the both of them, putting her on her back on the mat. His fingers slid over the knot on her wrist, underneath the wrap, soothing abraded flesh. But he didn’t untie it. Instead, he inflated the throbbing need inside her by taking the rope over her shoulder, behind her neck and across her mouth again, fitting it between her teeth, around her scarf blindfold, then down over the other shoulder and across, wrapping the rope above and below her breasts, tucking it in so her elbows were held against her sides. Then he slipped the button of her jeans. Bending, he lifted up the tank and brought his mouth to her navel.

Her panties were the same thin cotton fabric as the tank. When he removed the jeans, he left them in place, kissing her pubic mound with that barrier between them. As he moved to the top of her thighs, she bit back a whimper. She could speak around the rope, but she understood she shouldn’t. She didn’t need to speak.

He’d secured the rope so it was now a binding, not just a wrap, which coaxed some of her darkness to the forefront. But he anticipated that, dispelled it. His hands returned to her waist, her arms, stroking, and then they were spread out along the sides of her face as he straddled her hips, bent and kissed her open mouth. The top lip, the bottom one. His mouth moved over her cheeks, over to her ear and the tender skin of her neck between the bands of the rope. She moved restlessly, needing him, her legs pushing against his knees, braced on the outside of her thighs.

He shifted off of her. She wanted to see him get undressed, but she didn’t as well. In the darkness, her darkness stayed dormant, as if light was what pissed it off, like cancer being disturbed by a biopsy to explode, metastasize into something far worse.

She must have made a distressed noise, because he slid an arm around her, scooped her upper body against him, one knee planted between her thighs, the other foot now braced outside her hip. He was still wearing the jeans but, blissfully, he wasn’t wearing a shirt. She pressed her cheek hard against bare flesh. She could feel his erection against her shoulder. She opened her mouth, tasted the ridges of muscle across his stomach, tried to wiggle lower. She wanted to wrap her lips around him.

“No. You’re not ready for that yet, darlin’. But you’re burning, aren’t you?”

She wanted him inside her. He was right, it would probably break her like a boot stepping on glass. He was good at using his mouth or hands on her, but that wasn’t what she needed, what had her aching. Which, perversely, was why everything in her was afraid again. She hated this about herself. Hated it more now than ever before. Why couldn’t she just get past it? If he’d just let her go and they fucked, they’d both come and that darkness wouldn’t be disturbed at all. Except she’d go home feeling hollow.

“Celeste.” She’d started to strain against the bonds, was making angry noises, and he tugged her hair, bringing her focus back to him. “Hold on.”

He untied the rope, unwrapped it, though she didn’t want him to do that. When he tried to remove the scarf, she scrambled away from him, intending to rip it off herself, and gasped as he caught her back against his body. “Behave. Settle.”

She expected he used that hard voice on his rookies. It worked on her, though she quivered with repressed resentment. She was aware it was projected self-loathing. It didn’t make him any safer from the flak.

He removed the scarf, smoothed back her hair. With him behind her, she saw only the shaded windows, her folded jeans resting next to the crumpled throw. “Put those back on,” he said.

He released her and she jerked away. Moving over to the pants, she yanked them on. She kept her head down, but she was aware of his gaze as she zipped and buttoned them, tucked in her tank, picked up the button-down shirt, put it on. While she did that, he moved to lean against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest. He was beside her shoes. She didn’t let herself hesitate, coming over to stuff her feet in them, resisting the urge to reach out and clasp his forearm to steady herself. She used the wall instead.

“I’m not doing Wednesday or Friday,” she said shortly. “I can’t—”

A man she estimated at two hundred fifty pounds shouldn’t be able to move like a pouncing cat, but before she could blink, he had caught her around the waist. He swung her across him and toward the wall in a swift arc. She would have face-planted into it, except he controlled her movements so she had time to put up her hands. When her palms met the wall, he’d snaked one powerful arm under her arm and behind her neck, an effective headlock as he shoved his other hand down the front of her jeans. It was a snug fit, given the size of his hand, but his fingers plunged down into her panties and found her damp pussy, began to stroke. No, stroke was the wrong word. Worry, tug, demand a response from her.

She went up on her toes, scratching the wall with her fingers as he held the clamp on her neck. “Come for me, sub.” He spoke the last word in a whisper that resonated through her, shot right down between her legs.