The Bound Heart (16 page)

But that wasn’t what he did.

“Jamie, I can’t wear that.” Her hand reached out then she pulled it back again.

“Yes, you can. Come on, turn around, and let me put this on you.”

“I couldn’t. Who’s is it? I can’t wear it; what if food got on it?”

She stepped back but her eyes all but gobbled the garment up.

He couldn’t help but laugh as she struggled with her awe at the garment’s craft and obvious expense and her need to touch it, to wear it, and feel the beauty of it around her.

“I don’t want to disappoint you, but it’s faulty. Okazaki, my housekeeper and tenant… my friend, imports things every now and again from Japan. This is unsalable.”

“Unsalable?” The magic words. She stepped forward. “Really?”

“Yes. Now, turn around.”

She did and he slipped her into the robe.

Her breath hitched as it slid around her. Her burnished hair and her pale skin were the perfect compliment.

She touched the embroidery.

“This is so beautiful.”

He tied the sash around her as he stood behind her. Tugged her closer and kissed the top of her head.

“This is yours to wear while you’re here.” He squeezed her shoulders and let her go. “Come, let’s eat.”

They sat at the table. She’d lit a candle. In the glow, she looked ethereal. Something out of a myth.

They ate. Talked

She liked the food. She ate with vigor. All the while her eyes catching his then dropping her gaze away when the intensity got too much.

They would not be getting much sleep tonight. He was already hardening, his mind going back to the rope. Going back to everything he still wanted to do with her.

Olive sat at the table stroking the silk, running her fingers over the wisteria as Jamie strung the rope through the metal circle hanging from the central beam.

A lot of preparation was involved in working with the rope. He’d collected ropes and laid them out. He’d taken the large fat rope and made a circle like he had last time.

He did do that with Madeline.

“We’ll do a small suspension, nothing strenuous just so you can feel the beauty of it,” he said from across the room.

Olive got up and walked over to stand closer as he worked.

The silk slid over her thighs as she moved. This is what it felt like to be beautiful. She felt like another woman, a person she could be if she wasn’t living in Whitechapel, if she wasn’t looking for every penny to get by. Jamie’s world, Jamie’s acceptance of her strengthened her hunger for something different. To live her passions as he was living his. To be something in the world. On the inside things were shifting, about who she was, who she could be.

“Will it hurt?”

He scoffed. “No. What kind of a rigger do you think I am?”

“Well, I could be heavier than Madeline.”

“Olive, I could haul an elephant up and not hurt it if I didn’t want to. Now you are not heavy, you’ll feel pressure but I promise no pain.”

“Won’t the ropes dig in?”

“It’s my job to make the ties wide enough and your weight spread out evenly enough to make sure there is no pain or pinching.”

“Pinching?”

He finished with his preparations and walked over to her. He lifted her chin in his hand.

“Pinching means we could be damaging your body. So any strong discomfort you feel, you need to tell me straight away.”

She nodded and he bent down and kissed her.

Today, it felt like he was always touching her, always kissing her.

They’d gotten through his resistance to her, his rules and how he wanted to have sex. And today he’d shown her what his life involved and she was still here. With each of those layers something of his reserve was pealing back.

This Jamie, was relaxed. His body was fluid and his smiles came so easily she was dizzy with them.

“Let’s get the robe off you.” Her hands instinctively clutched it.

He saw and laughed.

She smiled back.

“Alright I can see the two of you have fast become friends, let’s tie you with it on.”

“I don’t want to damage it…”

“We won’t.”

He guided her to the center of the rope circle like before, pulled off his shirt but this time left his trousers on.

Her eyes went to them and he grinned.

“I need to stay focused if you are off the ground.”

Her face flushed.

He picked up the rope then came and stood behind her.

“Do you remember what we did last time? The breathing and the movement?”

She nodded yes.

“Good. We’ll start the same way to make sure we connect, calm down, and settle together.”

His arms wrapped around her waist and pulled her back against his chest. He spoke softly to her, and she followed his breath, his words, his steps. Jamie slowly rocked them, moved them across the floor until the world slipped away and only he remained, their combined breathing, and this bond between them.

Then the ropes wrapped around her.

Glided over her skin along with his hands. He was always close. Always some part of this body pressed against her, touched her, and guided her as he worked.

He ran rope around her chest making what he called a harness and another around her hips; he said they were what would hold her weight, keep her balanced and comfortable while she hung up there.

“No fancy ropes tonight.” Jamie tugged some ropes around her hips, ran his finger under them to make sure they didn’t pinch.

“We’ll focus on getting you up and then back down. We can work on stamina and beautification with the suspensions later.”

He moved to the back of her and tugged something light that lifted the top of her so she was up on her toes.

Ready?”

Then a tug came from her back and then her hips and, whoosh, she was off the ground.

The ties he’d done at her feet were attached to rope; he pulled the slack and the rope supported her feet out straight behind her.

She didn’t know what to do with her arms; they were loose and her neck wanted to drop down.

Jamie stood in front of her, his eyes focused and dark with pleasure.

“Wrap your arms around yourself.” He positioned them across her chest. “That’s nice. Hold your head up or the blood will run down into it and make you uncomfortable.

The ropes held her, yet she had to hold herself. She could see that working like this was not a passive role for the model. She understood she would need to build some more fitness to be able to do this for any length of time.

“Here, let me swing you.” His eyes smiled as he spoke.

He moved the rope and she swung through the air.

A laugh bubbled out of her. And an amazing sense of freedom took her.

Her head felt light and her skin was singing.

“I’ll change your position.”

Jamie pulled the ropes attached to her chest harness and drew her up higher then released the ropes holding her feet and hips so she was almost standing in the air but tilted forward. It was easier to hold, but it felt like more pressure was on the ropes around her chest.

He took her hands and tied them behind her. Then he came around and stood in front of her. She was lower than he was, a strange position. His face said he knew exactly what he was doing. Her breath came faster.

Then he took his handkerchief out of his pocket. Neatly launder and folded.

“Open your mouth.”

He placed the fabric partially in her mouth flat like a folded piece of paper.

“Hold this down with your teeth and lips. When you drop this out of your mouth, I will stop whatever is happening, lower you to the ground, and untie you. Nod if you understand.”

She nodded as her heart raced.

He smiled at her, his eyes dark and plotting.

“Do you know what is nice about this position?”

She shook her head. ‘no’.

He tugged the lilac robe aside from under the bindings. Tugged till her breasts pushed out between the ropes.

“I’ll show you…”

A shiver ran over her chest as the cool air pressed against her skin.

The hunger in his face as he leaned forward and took one in his mouth sent heat racing.

His tongue and lips tormented her nipple; then moved to the other one and tormented it in the same way. She wriggled in the ropes, pressed her chest forward for more. And the infuriating man stepped back.

Need throbbed through her sex. Her breasts ached, her nipples cool and pebbled in the air.

“Let’s see what else I can reveal.”

Jamie tugged the robe open at her hips pulled the edges back revealing the deep red silk interior.

“I’ll want these out of the way.” He tucked the edged of the robe into the rope harness at her shoulders baring her from the waist down.

Then he went back over to the dresser, poured himself a glass of wine, walked over to the small table where they’d eaten, and picked up one of the chairs. He brought it into the rope circle and sat down.

Stretched his legs out in front of him as he looked at her breasts, her sex.

She hung there throbbing, his handkerchief held between clenched teeth. She wanted to yell but that would drop the handkerchief and she had absolutely no doubt he would take her down and not touch her just to make a point.

She jerked in the ropes in frustration and damn him he smiled as he took the last sip of wine.

Wine done, he placed the glass by the chair, and then unbuttoned his trousers. He pulled them open, freed his cock then wrapped his hand around himself, and started to caress himself up and down his length as he looked at her.

She wriggled in the rope. Wanted, wanted him to come touch her, wanted out of the rope to touch him. But she didn’t let the fabric drop out of her mouth, didn’t want him to stop the delicious things he was doing in front of her.

She made sounds in her throat that caused him to smile as he pumped his hand faster over himself.

She twisted frustrated in the rope and he stood, laughed.

She wanted to scream at him, but simply jerked in the ropes again. Jamie walked to the dresser and came back with a bottle.

He poured some of the liquid over his cock then over his hand and stepped closer.

“Ready Olive?”

His hand pressed between her tied legs and his fingers moved between her folds. He worked his hand and fingers between her clasped highs and sex making her whole apex slippery and damp from the liquid he used.

She felt his legs straddling her closed ones, one on either side, and then his came around from behind her and pushed down between her legs. His finger found the spot between her folds, rubbed.

Then he pressed the hard length of himself between her thighs from behind.

“Squeeze your legs, squeeze me, Olive.”

He was going to rub himself clasped between her tights. Rub himself as he played her to her own completion. She was past caring; her body was burning, from his mouth, from the feel of the rope, from watching him and he watching her.

As he started to move, she squeezed her thighs, squeezed him.

He shifted, angled higher. The tip of him slid between the folds of her sex, bumped into the entrance of her sex as his fingers moved on her nub.

Her head was light. She tried to arch her hips in the rope and couldn’t. That bump, bump, bump of the head of his cock.

The rope swinging with his thrusts, tugging her, pushing her higher.

She could hardly breathe, needed to open her mouth but daren’t risk him stopping if the fabric fell from her mouth.

Jamie’s guttural pants drove her; his fingers on her sex flicked side to side over her.

She made a crooning sound as her body sang and the rope pulled; they groaned against each other her, the rope, and Jamie.

“I’m close, Olive.”

The tightness in his voice, the need, the rhythmic flick of his finger. The creaking of the ropes at each thrust, each bump at her entrance, each press into his hands and fingers.

It sent her over.

A call, a howl rolled out of her and the handkerchief dropped. He shouted her name. Then she couldn’t squeeze anymore, couldn’t think as a fissure of light streaked through her. It shivered through her muscles and whispered all over her skin.

Vaguely she felt his weight at her back lift. The world tilted and she was lowered, caught in his arms and lowered to the floor.

Then, there was just Jamie.

Jamie wrapped around her, holding her as she twisted in his arms and sought his lips.

Here she was waking in his bed a second time.

And there had never been a bed in her life that was this soft, this big that she had ever slept in, let alone seen. Even her sister’s marriage bed was a stuffed hard mattress and smaller than this. Olive slid her hand over the sheet, so soft, so fresh. The pillows were billowing white clouds and she was warmer than she had felt in her entire life with the full length of him behind her.

Jamie’s arm draped over her hips and the other wrapped under her waist as if it wanted to be a piece of rope.

And, she had to go to the bathroom.

Slowly, she lifted his arm from over her. He stirred and she stilled. Then his breathing grew heavy again, and she inched out to the edge of the bed.

The lavender kimono was over a large carved chair. She limped over and slipped it on and headed out the door and down the stairs.

The floor on the next level down held the parlor. She felt foolish remembering how she’d panicked. Especially given the ease, with which he entered her now, and the wonderful, deep, full feeling of him. Strange and addictive all at the same time.

At the landing, she saw the door to the parlor, and the one she identified as the bathroom, and another one.

When she came out of the bathroom, she looked at the other door. Then moved over and opened it.

Inside was dark.

Olive switched the gaslight on and pain flashed through her chest. She stood at the door of his bedroom.

It was simply furnished. A bed with a dark indigo bedspread, one side table with some books and a gas lamp. The walls were a beautiful red and many framed pictures hung on the far wall.

Olive walked over and looked at them. They were Japanese, of all kinds of things. Farm life, erotic situations, a woman in ties, what looked like a theater, a street scene. The ones she liked the most was of women under the water collecting shells of some kind, clams or oysters.

Her gut tightened.

Upstairs wasn’t his bed.

That was where he took his women.

This was his place. This was where he was himself.

A heaviness settled behind her eyes.

She was street smart; men like him, who lived in big expensive houses didn’t keep girls from Whitechapel. They clearly didn’t let them into their real world.

Olive walked back to the door, switched off the light, closed that room behind her, and made her way back upstairs.

She walked to that big wonderful bed. It was so much grander than the bed downstairs and yet she would give anything to be curled up down there instead.

Jamie flipped back the comforter.

“Come back in, Olive.” His voice was sleepy.

“I should head home.” Home now she understood how things really were between them. Home before her heart wished for things that were a world away.

“Come on. Just a bit longer.”

Just seeing him there, his hair all out of sorts, his eyes full of that hungry darkness, she dropped the robe and slipped in under the covers. He reached out and maneuvered her so she was in the crook of his arm. He nuzzled the top of her head.

“Are you sore?”

She nodded her head “A bit. But I don’t mind.” She went to move and he tightened his hold.

“But I don’t mind…”

“Shhh.” His mouth came down on her head, kissed it, and then blew onto her scalp and the heat of his breath made her giggle. It felt like a wave of warmth rippling over her.

He did it again and she twisted into his chest. The hair on his chest tickled her nose.

“I’ve been thinking of suspension holds and how to accommodate your leg. Does the joint give way at all? Are the muscles weakened?

His questions made her tense up. His hand rubbed up and down her back.

“I only ask as I don’t want to unwittingly hurt you or place you in a physical position where you will be compromised.”

She relaxed.

“My legs are fine Jamie, just different lengths.”

His hand continued to rub up and down her back.

“Why do you wear it?”

Eventually everyone wanted to know that.

“It’s my brother’s, Billie. We both had infantile paralysis. He suffered more than I did but he was stronger than I was, he made sure I came through it. Held me when I wanted to die rather than feel the pain for another single second.”

Jamie’s hand squeezed her.

“What happened to him?”

“I’ll tell you more if I can ask a question too…”

“Curious Olive?”

“About you, very much.”

He was silent for a while, his hand moving over her in soft strokes.

“So what happened to him?”

“He really needed the brace, had a pronounced limp and walked very awkwardly. A trolley car knocked him into the path of an omni-bus. His body was so broken, I don’t know if there was a bone left unbroken.”

She lifted his arm and drew it to her chest, wrapped hers around in.

“I took his brace and started to wear it. My mother and sisters wanted to take it away once. I screamed at them so long and so hard the neighbors came from both sides of the tenement.

They’d accuse me of not needing it. I’d get so angry with them, I’d denying it and then over do my limp for weeks till they gave up pushing me to take it off.”

She rubbed her cheek against the back of his hand.

“You see I just wanted Billie to still be there. Needed him to be there still. But I also thought if I wore his brace a part of him was still in the world somehow. He’d walk through life with me.”

He kissed the top of her head.

“I think it makes you feel confident.”

He was right; it did.

His head dipped down next to her ear.

“The rope does too, doesn’t it?”

Her head nodded. It did. Like the brace, it held her. Wrapped around her and made her feel as though she wasn’t alone. Made her feel supported, held together.

After a while as he didn’t ask her anything else, she spoke. “My turn.”

He chuckled behind her.

She lifted his arm, wrapped her hand around his wrist and placed her fingers on each of the tattooed marks.

“What are these?”

He stilled behind her. Stiffened.

“They are where my father’s hand held me as he died. I like to remember that. It helps me make better decisions than he did.”

It was hard to know how he felt about that from his voice.

Olive went to turn around and he held her still.

“You’re tired. Sleep a bit longer.”

Sleep here in the bed for his girls, not in that red room below.

She took a deep breath. “I think I need to be heading home. I am still looking for work.”

He let her go, watched as she got out of bed.

“Use the cloth.”

Her face heated and he shook his head at her embarrassment and got out of bed. “I’ll find your things.”

It didn’t take long to wash again.

And he was up and had collected her clothes.

She moved over to a chair and sat down. He came over to her with her brace in hand. His trousers were on, but nothing else.

“Here let me.” Squatting at her feet, he wrapped the brace around her leg, undid the small rope around her calf. Something in her relaxed. A comfort came back from its hold. His fingers ran between the buckles.

“I’ll put some leather softener into it next time. We’re not that different, you and I, Olive.” He ran his palms up her calves, squeezing the muscles.

“Do you still have pain?”

She shook her head ‘no’, yet the truth was her hip did get sore from the difference in length.

His head tilted. “If you need shoes to make your legs even—”

Her jaw tensed and her eyebrows came close together. Damn him for reading her. Always seeing what she thought.

What that meant was that he knew how she felt about him. Knew what she wanted.

Heat flushed up her neck. He must think she was an idiot.

The lightness about him when they were with the rope, when she was in his bed was fading away. And for some reason, he got moodier as he helped her dress.

They went downstairs into the kitchen where he made her some tea, then left the house and went to hail a cab. It was a good ten minutes before he came back; and by that time, none of the gentle lover was left. In his place was Mr. Edwards, the closed-faced bookbinder.

The cab rocked and clattered over the street. The sounds were louder with the streets empty and everyone in their beds.

Jamie sat next to her, tall and stiff. He was perfectly groomed. As usual. She, on the other hand, could feel her hair starting to slip out of its pins and she’d buttoned her coat askew.

“You didn’t have to come with me.”

His eyebrows rose, but he didn’t say anything.

A heavy inkiness washed across her chest like sludge drowning out her too hopeful heart. Had he found what they’d done so ordinary? That blast of freedom as the ropes coiled around her. As he slipped into her hard and full, a strange wonderful fullness that broke her into shards.

“Have I done something wrong?”

“No.” He looked surprised by her question.

“Do you want to see me again?”

He’d imprinted her with a new view of the world, its wants, and its passions, and she’d left him indifferent.

“Yes, of course I want to see you again.”

“You seem upset.”

He scowled at that.

“I just don’t have anyone stay over.” He looked out the carriage window; the gas lamps they passed threw in handfuls of light between the shadowed darkness inside the cab.

“I understood that.”

That inky sludge started to drown her as she sat there pushing down the tears that would most certainly tear her open when they eventually forced their way through.

The carriage came to a stop outside her boarding house.

She took a deep breath in and twisted on the bench to face him.

“Well goodnight. I might be busy looking for work.” He looked annoyed, but she continued. “I want to see you again. I’m not sure what’s upset you but if you’re disappointed, it’s probably best just to tell me.”

The cab door opened.

“Here, sir.”

Before she could step out, Jamie stilled her.

“I’m not disappointed, Olive, far from it.” Then he moved past her and helped her step down.

The brace was a little awkward, especially when the carriage made movements due to the horse.

“Wait here,” he said to the driver.

Jamie’s hand came to the small of her back as she moved to the front door.

“There’s no need for you to come any further.” Now that she’d seen his house, how he lived, she didn’t want him to see the squalor she called home.

“I’ll see you to your door.”

“I don’t want you to.”

His eyebrows rose again.

“I want to make sure you get to your room safely.”

Tension spread through her shoulders and that awful hot heat ran up her neck and face. The feel of that wonderful robe, the way it had made her feel, made her forget just how low her actual station was.

“I don’t want you to see how I live.”

His eyes softened, “I’ve been in places worse than this, Olive. I know Whitechapel and I know you live in it.”

He reached out and opened the door.