Strapped (27 page)

Then there is another text an hour after the original:

Taylor:

It’s been an hour, is everything okay?

Taylor:

I’m getting worried here. Harrison and I are heading downtown.

I frantically grab the phone and head outside to call Taylor.

“Shyla!”

“Hey, I just saw your messages. It’s pretty loud in there. I am so sorry and I am fine.”

“Did you go to another bar?”

“Yes.”

“You told me you weren’t going to leave without Harrison.”

“I know. I’m sorry, but you are overreacting. We ran into Lizzy, and then things took a life of their own.”

“You’re with Lizzy? You two are bad news together.”

“Everything is fine. We ran into Chad too. We are all together here. I think Chad and Kristin like each other.”

“Shyla, I don’t give a shit if they are playing patty cake in the corner. You said you would stay in one place and then we don’t know where the hell you are. You could have called or texted to let us know.”

“I’m sorry and don’t talk to me like that! I’m not used to being monitored. I think you’re being a little paranoid.”

“Don’t turn this on me. You are taking this too lightly. We’re coming to get you.”

“I am not ready to leave.”

“Fine. We’ll be outside whenever you’re ready. Seriously, watch your surroundings.”

The phone call flusters me and turns my pleasant buzz into melancholy. I didn’t do anything wrong, but I feel like the bad guy. I just want to hangout with my friends like a normal person.

My eyes scan the bar as I reenter. I spot Kristin and Chad, leaning in closer to one another, which puts a smile back on my face. I head to the dance floor to find Lizzy. She is dancing with a guy whose back is facing me. I recognize who it is right away.
This cannot fucking be happening.
I try to slide away before she notices me, but then she waves at me. I know she is just trying to make sure I don’t feel like the odd woman out, but I could really have gone without that. He turns. For the first time, I feel fear in his presence. This cannot be a coincidence. I don’t want to cause a scene, so I walk over to them, keeping a poker face.

“Shyla, fancy seeing you here!”

“You two know each other?” Lizzy seems surprised.

“We’ve met before,” I say sternly. “You two?”

Lizzy laughs. “Just met, I was waiting for you, so he offered to keep me company.”

“Alright, well I think I am going to go.” I need to get out of here. This is too much. I don’t know how I should tell Lizzy she should stay away from him without making a scene.

“Awwww! We were having so much fun!”

“I know, but you know me, I require lots of zzzs! Can you tell Kristin and Chad I said goodbye? I don’t want to interrupt the lovebugs.” We give each other a big hug. As soon as Lizzy looks away, I glare at Eric.

“Bye Eric.” I turn to walk away. Almost free.

“Shyla, hold up, can I talk to you for a second?”

I only agree to not make a scene in front of Lizzy. We walk towards the exit, where it is quieter.

“Shyla, I’m sorry about yesterday.”

“I don’t want to hear this. I don’t know what kind of game you are playing, but you need to stay away from me and Taylor.”

“Wow. What exactly did he tell you?”

“That’s none of your business, but I think you already know. I don’t know what you want with me, or why you have a sudden interest in my well being, but these chance encounters we are having don’t feel so chance.”

“If you think they’re not, aren’t you curious as to why?”

“I just want you to leave me alone. I mean it. I don’t know you and I don’t trust you. At the very least you knew I was dating your brother at the end of our first conversation, but you feigned ignorance. You will not use me as some sort of pawn.”

“Wow. He has done a number on you.”

“Goodbye Eric.” I storm out, confident that Harrison and Taylor will be outside. They pull up just in time. I practically run to the car. Only after I get into the car, do the nerves set in. I just stood up to a supposed sociopath two times my size. I look down at my shaking hands. Oh shit, Lizzy. I text her.

Shyla:

Watch out for Eric. He is a creep. Seriously.

I am confident those words will be enough for her to avoid him.

I don’t say anything to Taylor because I am peeved by him and I want Harrison to be far away from the bar before I tell him that I just “ran into” Eric.

“Shyla, I am not trying to smother you and I am sorry I snapped at you.”

“We’ll talk when we get back to my place.”

Taylor glares at me with a hint of surprise in his expression. He pauses for a moment, leans over and whispers in my ear.

“You’re hot when you’re pissed.”

His warm breath on my neck makes me shiver and stiffen. There are serious matters at hand, but those lips, those eyes...

Taylor turns off the lights in the back of the car. He moves closer to me and slides his hand on my lap just underneath my trench coat. I gasp, and dart my eyes to Harrison. He is looking straight ahead. He is obviously well trained not to pay attention to the goings-on in the back of the car. Taylor’s hand makes his way underneath my skirt. He whispers: “You kind of look like a sexy librarian today. I’ve always wanted to spank a sexy librarian.” He leans into my neck, softly kissing and sucking. The arousal is instant and intense. I keep looking at the rearview mirror to see if my eyes meet Harrison’s; he has to know what is going on back here.
Ahhhh, fuck it.

I grab his head and he practically dives onto me while pulling off my trench coat. Here we are, making out in the backseat like horny teenagers. His kisses turn into hard bites and it makes me feel primal. I pull on his hair quite hard. It stops him in his tracks. He looks at me, shakes his head and whispers: “Oh no, you don’t. You’re gonna pay for that.” He dives back into me. My hands slide under his sports jacket, I can feel the peaks and valleys of his muscles along his backside.

He comes up for air “Harrison, we’re going back to my place.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

We bust through the front door; Taylor kicks it closed behind him. He picks me up, his strength making me feel weightless. My legs wrap around his torso as he takes me into his bedroom. He throws me down on the bed and pulls his shirt off. I can see his hardness nearly bursting his fly. That body. Yum. I am hot all over and I just want him to get inside of me.

“Undress for me but keep that skirt on,” he commands.

I pull off my cardigan, revealing a black lace bra underneath. It is one of the bras I unknowingly purchased for myself. I motion to take off my thigh-highs that are held on by garters.

“No, keep that on too, but show me those beautiful breasts of yours.”

I sit up, unclip my bra and slowly slide each strap down my arms.

“Mmmmm.” He licks his lips, and looks at me like a lion stalking his prey. “Come.”

We go into the darkroom. “I just have to take you in here tonight. There’s just too much inside of me right now.”

“I want to.”

He grins that wicked grin of his and pulls a blindfold out of the drawer.

“But I like looking at you,” I say.

“I determine the rules in here,” he says, tying it around my eyes. I stand blinded, listening to his movement for cues. Minutes later he grabs my hands and ties them up with the same material as last time. I hear him walk away and seconds later the sudden blare of loud music explodes throughout the room. It startles me and I want to make a sarcastic remark, but I am sure he can’t hear me. The music is a mix of drums and synthetic sounds; it is fast paced and aggressive. A man’s voice starts screaming lyrics I can barely make out. Then the volume lowers and he starts to whisper; the change of tone is unsettling.

The volume jumps up again, it is so loud that I can no longer hear what Taylor is doing. I am totally senseless. A slap on my ass jolts me. I feel Taylor working on my hands again, clipping something to the restraints, and then my arms are quickly whipped overhead. The restraints are pulled just taut enough that I am on the balls of my feet. I am stretched, but there is no discomfort yet. The most uneasy feeling is the complete and total exposure to the unknown.

His large warm hands envelop my waist and he pulls me close to him. I can feel his bare chest against my body and then a bite and tug on my lip. I try to kiss back, but his lips are gone just as quickly as they have arrived. He takes a handful of my ass and squeezes so hard it hurts, but then abruptly lets go. He unclips the garters, each one springing as it is released, then he pulls off my panties. I experience complete sensory confusion: I cannot see, I cannot hear what I want to hear, and my hands are tied. While all of my senses are stunted, they also are completely overwhelmed: My ears are full of loud music, and while my hands can do no exploration, the nerve endings on the rest of my body are hyperaware making every touch ripple to the rest of my body.

He leans in close to my face. “Do you remember the safe word?” I nod.

He kisses my breasts, first around the aureolas and then he begins to very lightly lick and blow on the tips. I can do nothing but accept the intensity of the stimulus and wind my hips. The feeling of cold metal envelops the left one and then the right. There is a feeling of sustained pressure, not pinching, but a firm hold on both nipples. I cannot make out what they are, but I can only assume they are the nipple clamps I spotted in the drawer the first time I looked around. Each one had a dangling feather attached for cosmetic purposes, I suppose. I feel them move ever so slightly, as if he is flicking at them, and I moan. They looked so intimidating in the drawer, like devices for torture, but this feels really, really, good.

Kisses and bites run down my torso while he has both hands under my skirt, handfuls of my ass squeezed hard. A new song is playing, but the voice sounds the same, this must be an album.

He yanks down my blindfold. The room is lit in crimson as it was the last time and his devilish figure stands in front of me.

“I want you to watch,” he says in my ear. He drops down onto his knees and begins to roll his tongue tauntingly. He knows it is just enough to make me beg without taking me over the edge.

I observe this powerful man below me in a position of what appears to be submission but I do not fool myself for a second into thinking that I am in control. He takes one leg and crosses it over his shoulder, then the other so that my legs are completely wrapped around his neck and my body dangles from the restraints. He is inside of me, his long tongue penetrating me. I want to grab his hair, I want to dig my fingers into his back, but those decisions are not mine. My body yearns to respond and it does the only thing it can: Gyrating my hips smoothly as my abdomen, wrists and his shoulders bear my weight. I haven’t worked out like this since, well...never.

I am sure I am moaning loudly, but I can’t hear myself through the music. Just as I am about to climax, he stops. I have no idea how he knows, but he does. He slides my legs back down to the floor, they are tired from wrapping so securely around his neck. I am at a loss for what is to come next.

The music stops.

“You like to test me Shy, don’t you?”

“I don’t know what you mean?”

“You are so obstinate.” He circles me as he says this. He comes to my front side, fiddling the clamps with his fingers.

“I don’t mean to be, I guess I just do what I want. I have always been that way.” He smiles as if I just cracked a joke.

“I am going to do what I want now. You are going to trust me on this.”

He removes a pair of stainless steel balls from a pouch. They remind me of those oriental stress balls people roll in their hands. “Relax,” he says as he puts them in his mouth one at a time and then slides the cold metal inside of me. He removes my hands, which are still bound, from the overhead apparatus and picks me up over his shoulder like a captive, throwing me on the large bed.

“How am I going to fuck you?” he asks himself pensively.

I can feel my muscles involuntarily squeezing these balls and like with my nipples, there is a steady stream of tension that keeps my body yearning. He grabs two more leather wraps and binds them to my ankles, and then ties the other ends to the posts behind my head so that my legs are firmly in the air and cannot leave that position.

“God am I going to fuck you silly.”

He slides inside of me cautiously. Instantly, I feel the difference the balls make. It is almost too intense combined with his more than adequate appendage. “Oh, Taylor,” I let out. His next pump is slow but deeper. My moan is louder, he takes each pump a little further, testing my limits. Then he goes hard, it feels unlike anything I have experienced. This may be the closest to the pain and pleasure border than I have ever been before. I find myself sincerely screaming for god and I am not even religious. There is no part of my walls that is not being stimulated. One of his hands supports his weight, and holds my hands down at the same time, while the other tugs at one of the nipple clamps. The sensation of the nipple clamp is so concentrated I can only beg for him to fuck me more. Those are the only words I can utter. I am not Shyla Ball right now; I am just his slave and I beg him to damage me with his whip. He slows down, creating a steady friction, rolling his hips rhythmically. I beg and I beg until the words are unintelligible. He knows what this means, and he pulls on the clamps as I come, contributing to a full-bodied cascade that seems to never end.

I hear his labored breathing as he joins me, collapsing into my chest immediately after. He unties me, but I am unwilling to move. I lay in a drug-like haze I have never experienced before, a place between euphoria and true exhaustion. I try to ask about the balls. “Don’t worry, you can get them later. They are meant to hang out there as long as you would like.” I want to tell him about Eric, but the timing is awful. I will tell him everything tomorrow. He lays his head on my stomach and we fall asleep in his giant, satin-wrapped bed.

***

I jump out of bed in a panic, which wakes up Taylor. This damned room is a black hole, I have no idea if I have slept for five minutes or five hours. I run out into the bedroom to look at the clock. I can feel the weight of the balls inside of me, which force me to clamp around them. I spill the contents of my purse on the floor to find my phone to confirm the time. It’s 7:40. I can get to work in time, but I need to get ready right away.

“Taylor, you really need a damned clock in there.”
In there.
Last night was a tsunami. I can’t believe we did that! It felt so right at the time. I know what he meant when he said there was too much inside. The powerful release, the total abandon. Maybe, for him, this reminds him he has control; but for me, surrendering my control to him was the most intimate I have ever felt with another man.

He walks up to the threshold of the closet, completely naked, smirking as he watches me scramble.

“Very funny, Mr. Boss. Unlike you, I can’t just roll into work whenever I want.”

I glance up at the mirror. Dear lord, I look like I have been through some kind of brawl. My mascara is smeared all over my eyes and cheeks and my hair is every which way. I quickly wet my hair and slick it into a bun and wash my face. No makeup today. I grab a blouse from his closet. I recently moved some of my spare clothes from the guest closet into the master closet. Shit. I have to tell Taylor about Eric, but there’s no time.

“Are we doing lunch today?” I ask as I reload my purse.

“You’re insatiable.”

“So now ‘doing lunch’ is a euphemism for sex?”

“Ummm, yes?” He walks up to me from behind and kisses the back on my neck. It has an instant calming effect.

“Who’s the insatiable one?”

“I should be able to, no problem. I think I’ll work from home today, so text me with enough time to get down there.”

With that, I bolt out the door. Harrison, who knows my schedule, is already waiting outside. “See you later Mr. Boss!”

I roll into the office with a minute to spare, but I don’t even think that Chad notices because he looks like he is on cloud nine. I text Kristin immediately.

Shyla:

Did you have sexy times w my boss?

“Hey Chad. How are you today?”

“Great! You didn’t say goodbye last night.”

“Well you seemed so engrossed, I dared not interrupt. How much longer did you stay out?”

“Oh another hour or so.”

I asked Lizzy to say bye for me.

“Hey did you see what happened to the other friend I was with? I told her to say bye for me.”

“I’m not really sure. She came back to the table to grab her things and left maybe a half hour before us.” My heart drops. I only hope she did not leave with Eric.

“I’ll be right back.”

I go into the hallway and call Lizzy. There is no answer. I leave her a voicemail and send her a text. I don’t know what to do. I was so stupid to leave her with Eric like that.

Five minutes pass without a response. I go to my desk and try to focus on work. An hour passes with no response. I don’t know what else to do but call Taylor. His phone goes to voicemail too so I follow up with a text.

Shyla:

Have you spoken to Lizzy today by any chance?

10 minutes pass.

Mr. Sexypants:

Lizzy took a couple of days off. I don’t know her whereabouts. Is everything ok?

I don’t think this can wait until lunch. I ask Chad if I can step out for a second because I think I might have a family emergency. He permits me to do so without hesitation. I call Taylor from the lobby.

“Shy? What’s going on? You sounded a little off in your voicemail.”

There is no way he is going to take well to me waiting until now to tell him about Eric.

“I am just a little worried about Lizzy. I haven’t heard from her since last night.”

“Well it’s Lizzy, you know she’s a little crazy. Did something happen?”

I pause.

“Shy, what’s going on?”

“Okay, but you can’t be mad when I tell you. I was going to tell you last night once we got home, but then we started making out in the back of the car, and then the darkroom...”

“What happened.” It is a command, not a question.

“Eric showed up at the karaoke bar last night.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“It was right after I got off of the phone with you. I walked back in and he was dancing with Lizzy.”

“He is out of his fucking mind. Now I know he is following you.”

“He saw me and acted like nothing was wrong. I told them I was going to leave. I was going to find a way to tell Lizzy to stay away from him without telling her about your relation, but I didn’t have time.”

“I am so fucking livid right now.”

“What else could I have done?”

“Well, you weren’t supposed to be there in the first place. Do you think this is a joke?”

“No!”

“Listen, I am pissed at him. He wants to play games and he has no idea who he is fucking with. What did he say to you?”

“Not much. He apologized and I told him to just leave me alone. He tried to start a conversation, he didn’t deny following me, but he implied it was for a reason. There was no way I would find out without engaging him further but, I knew you were coming and I didn’t want to risk another confrontation.”

“Why didn’t you tell me right away?”

“Taylor, my boss and one of your employees was there. I didn’t know what you would do! I was scared around him for the first time and I just wanted to leave”

“So you never got a hold of Lizzy?”

“I texted her.”

“You didn’t - ”

“No, I didn’t tell her who he was. I only said to keep away from him. I assumed she had gotten it and then I got distracted.”

“I’ll call her and if she doesn’t respond, I’ll go to her place.”

“I tried calling her and texting her an hour ago and there was no response.”

“Fuck.”

This was the wrong time to start a new job. Each day there seems to be a new distraction that completely dominates my thoughts. I sit at my desk, exasperated. What kind of shitty friend am I? I left Lizzy with an attempted murderer.

My phone buzzes.

Mr. Sexypants:

No answer. I’m going to her place.

Shyla:

I want to come with you.

Mr. Sexypants:

On my way to your office

I stop into the office to tell Chad it’s worse than I thought. I promise him I will take work from home tonight if I am gone too long.

Taylor sends me a message when he is almost there and I hurry to meet him.

He pulls up in a dark blue Mercedes that I have never seen before. The passenger side door opens up instead of out. Taylor hops out to help me with the door.

“What’s this, a spaceship?” I ask, marveling at the rich interior.

“It’s an SLS.”

“Looks fancy.”

“It is.”