Unbound: (InterMix) (21 page)

She stroked him slowly from the root to the crown.

Rob yearned to let fantasies run loose. Who was this woman, his hostage-taker? He
spoke without meaning to, eyes opening with surprise to hear his own voice. “What
do you want from me?”

She smiled, slow and deadly and mean. “I want your come.”

The words shot through his body, up his arms so his knuckles drummed the beam.

She kept her hand working with those callous pulls, then added the other, cupping
his balls. Her touch said things as real as if they were spoken. They worshipped and
tortured.
You’re big,
they said.
Big and thick and hard. You don’t deserve this cock. But I do.

What did she want with it? To taste it? Or simply to humiliate him, forcing the loss
of control? “Why?”

She rose again, speaking below his ear. “Because it’s special, Rob. This cock,” she
said, squeezing him tight, making his back arch and his head grind against the wood,
“and what it can give.” She fondled his balls with testing pulls. Already he felt
his excitement turning liquid—her grip was growing slick again, wet from the precome
beading at his crown.

She’d captured him. Hunted and stalked him, taken him prisoner, tied him here.

“The rest of you?” she said, dropping back to her heels. “Worthless. Pathetic. But
your cock, your come . . .” She grinned, pure evil, a toying and bloodthirsty cat,
him the cornered mouse.

“I’ll give you whatever you want,” he promised, and the quaking in his voice was no
act.

“No need. I’d take anything you didn’t offer. I’m not interested in your obedience.”

Fucking hell, she was good at this.

He shut his eyes again, imagining he was more than merely strung from this hook—there
was no escape. He was helpless.

“Let me go. Please.”

“Not ’til I get what I want, Rob.” She stroked him demonstrably. Unbidden, his hips
convulsed, driving his length deep into her grip.

Instantly, the pressure of her hand was gone, his cock abandoned. “Not yet,” she scolded.
She ran her palm under his balls, running the edge of her finger along his cleft.

“Oh.”

“Not yet. I want everything you can give.”

He was in pain. Sweet, perfect pain. He stole a glance at his reflection, over her
shoulder. Her back, the fall of her dark hair. His own pained face and naked body.
His every fantasy made real. He shook, every cell screaming for her attention.

She offered only the meanest tease—a single fingertip tracing the underside of his
cock. The pleasure surged. She wrapped him in her grip, rubbing her thumb over his
tip, showing him how slippery he’d grown.

“Oh.”
His knuckles thumped the wood, arms jerking.

“Don’t you dare,” she whispered. “Don’t you spill a drop before I tell you to. I want
everything you’ve got.”

And then she left him. He watched her disappear into the bedroom, struggling to even
name what he felt—was this relief or torture, this sudden loss of her touch?

She returned with the wool throw, folding it in quarters and dropping it at Rob’s
feet.

Oh Christ.

He wouldn’t last a minute.

She got to her knees, running warm, smooth palms up his shins and thighs and hips.

He couldn’t see her eyes, only her lashes. She looked angelic from this angle, so
benign on her knees. But she was the devil, of course, and the things she
wasn’t
doing were tearing him apart surely as any teasing touch could.

She clasped his cock in the gentlest fist, and a bolt of pleasure shot up Rob’s spine
to set his arms jerking, knuckles rattling.

“All this,” she murmured. “All for me.”

And then the world was her mouth—soft and wet and so deceptively sweet.

She wants your come. To taste it. To taste your weakness or surrender or failure.

Her lips slid along his aching flesh, nearly cool against his fevered skin. Fingertips
dug into his hip, the other hand wrapped around his base. Everything was hot and cloudy,
arousal a crazed, rabid creature, clawing from deep inside his belly. When he felt
the pull of suction and the rush of coursing blood, he bucked hard enough to thump
the back of his head on the beam. Pain there, sharp and white. Pain between his legs,
the blackest and most excruciating ache.

She wants it. Give her what she wants. Fill her mouth, just as she’s begging you to.

But he wanted more, somehow.

He wanted to be stronger than this. To please her—the real her. Merry, not this ingenious
character she played for him. He’d been a slave to these fantasies for so long, but
what if he could set them aside, to cater to her . . . ?

His control was slipping, though, bleeding out. He was trembling. Gasping. His raised
arms were phantom limbs—vague and numb. His legs were weak. His cock throbbed, a fierce
and savaged thing surging with every pass of her hungry mouth. The back of his head
would ache tomorrow, from the way he crushed it into the beam, gnashing his teeth
from the exquisite torture of this.

But strung through the center of all these discomforts was a deep and resonant calm
that turned flesh to jelly and worries to wisps. Those twin orgasms had sucked the
bones from his body and left him a wobbly bag of spent flesh, soft and vulnerable,
with the exception of his cock. He was suspended between blinding need and perfect
satisfaction, between this struggle for any kind of control, and fathoms-deep surrender.

Yes, surrender. Maybe that was what he truly craved, every time he longed to descend
into these helpless, passive fantasies . . .

Not capture at all. Release.

Escape.

The thought struck him hard as a physical blow. He found his agency, power over his
muscles and mouth.

“M-Merry?”

With a slow, softening motion, she eased her head back, the dry cool air clasping
his cock as her lips released him. The spell had left her eyes. She’d hit pause on
the storytelling, ever intuitive.

“Yes?”

With a great effort, he lifted his tingling, bloodless arms and unhooked himself.
Merry got to her feet, and he held his wrists out to her. “Undo them, please.”

Concern transformed her face. “Sure.”

She untied the ropes and cuff and let them fall to the floor.

He wouldn’t need them again tonight.

“Come.” He took Merry’s hand and led her back to the bedroom, bringing the big lantern
with them. He set it beside the smaller one already glowing on the shelf.

“Is everything okay?” She sat on the edge of the bed. “I didn’t take things too far,
did I?”

“Everything’s wonderful. Stand up.”

She did, and he silently undressed her so they were both naked, bathed in the bright,
dancing light, his cock brushing her soft belly. He ignored its demands. Cradling
her jaw in both hands, he held her gaze.

You’ve seen every inch of me, inside and out.
He needed to see her now. As deep as she’d let him peer.

“You spoil me, again and again.”

She smiled. “I love to. And you’ve done the same for me.”

“In singular acts, perhaps. Not fantasies.” He urged her to join him on the bed, coaxing
her to sit between his spread legs, her back to his chest, his back to the headboard.
He drew her hair around and draped it over one shoulder. It was deeply curled from
drying in its bun, and he gave it a curious stroke.

She liked his voice, he thought, so he spoke just behind her ear. “What are
your
fantasies?”

“I . . . I don’t really have any.”

“That can’t be.”

“Nothing elaborate, I mean. Nothing very interesting.” She’d gone hesitant. Nervous.
Rare qualities to find in this woman. It made him want to understand her, to invite
her to reveal herself, as she had him.

“What sorts of things do you imagine, when you . . . you know.” Funny how they’d said
such filthy things to each other, yet he couldn’t find a tasteful euphemism for that.
But they were naked now, in so many more ways than simple undress. The costumes were
gone, crumpled on the floor of the dark den beside the abandoned rope.

“Nothing exciting,” she said.

He kissed her temple. “I want to know. I don’t care if it looks nothing like the things
I imagine. I want to know what you . . . what you long for.”

She swallowed, turning her head to gaze at his shoulder or arm. “Just . . . silly
things.”

“Tell me.”

“Just, like, being approached by some handsome man at a bar, and going home with him.”

The location triggered only the briefest misgiving. He set it aside. “To his place,
or yours?”

“Either. Maybe mine, since I almost never brought anyone home.”

He imagined her dressed in city clothes, face aglow in the streetlight. Perhaps heels
clicking on the pavement, excitement in her eyes as she unlocked her door. “Then what?”

“Just . . . a glass of wine, maybe. Music, making out. Just a date. A really wonderful,
easy, perfect date,” she said, voice rising somewhat as she found her momentum. There
was indeed longing in her. “And a handsome man, looking in my eyes. Looking at me
like I’m beautiful. Like lust all jumbled up with a crush.”

“Do you let him take you to bed?”

“Yeah. And it’s just all . . . I don’t know. Urgent. Slow at first, but intense. Almost
like it’s a bad idea. Like it won’t last, so it’s all charged and loaded. But it’s
good. Really good.”

“Who’s on top?” Rob murmured.

“He is.”

And on the shelf above them, beside the lanterns, was that final condom. Rob slipped
out from behind her, grabbing it, and with gentle hands, he urged her onto her back.

His cock was ready. Perhaps it had been her indulgence from earlier that had made
him this hard, but she’d kept him stoked with nothing more than these sweet, conventional
fantasies. He sheathed himself in a slow motion, sucking a tight breath as the pressure
licked up his flesh in hot, short strokes.

You can do this. Like plate-spinning.
He could think of the rope when he needed to, just a quick jolt to keep him hungry.
Keep him stiff enough to please her, not so excited he’d lose himself.
Spurs to a horse, for as long as it takes to get her where she wants to be.

“Could you imagine the man is me?” he asked, dropping to braced arms, knees planted
between hers.

“Yes, of course.”

“Perhaps with a haircut and shave,” he teased. “Fit to come through the door of a
nice San Francisco bar.” Yes, this was a wild fantasy in more ways than one. He’d
be fit for that only if straitjacketed and strapped to a wheeled dolly. But no matter.
It was safe to imagine these things, this way. For this woman.

“Or just you,” she said quietly, “as you are. Right here.”

He lowered to his forearms, nose brushing hers. “What do you want to feel? The way
I always want to feel degraded—what do you want to feel with this man? With me?”

“Desired. Like, cherished.” She mumbled the final word, looking sheepish. “Just like,
the way guys look at girls in stupid romantic movies.”

A deep sadness rose in Rob, to imagine her fantasies were made of such stuff. Did
this mean she felt denied those simple things in her waking life? This kind, affectionate,
beautiful woman?

You’re the last man on earth who should he think he can fulfill those needs,
said a hateful voice.

But perhaps the only man who’s yet bothered to offer.
That alone made him feel worthy of the task.

“I want you,” he told her, looking dead in her eyes. “You’re lovely, and warm, and
the most beautiful person I’ve ever met. In every sense.”

Her lips pursed and quivered.

“And I want to make you feel those things you need. I know . . . I know I’m not quite
right. But I’ll do the best I can.”
Until a more deserving man comes along and sees everything I do in you. I’ll suffice,
if you’ll let me.

She smiled up at him. “You’re more than right, Rob.”

“Tell me how to be. Gentle? Or more excited and rough, or . . . ?”

“Just tell me how you feel about me, with your body, I guess.”

Yes, of course.
That was what every woman wanted from sex, surely. How had Rob not grasped that, all
these years?
Because you’re not wired like that.
His sex was no expression of love, no surrendering to feelings. Rather a surrender
to the bullies in his head.
Give in to the thoughts,
it demanded. So very much like his other voices, urging him to give in to the gin.

Give in to her,
said a third voice. A kind one. Merry’s.
Be an eager slave to the sweetest mistress you’ll ever know.

He sat back on his heels, grazing his palms along the outsides of her soft breasts
and over her belly, kneading her hips. He held one, stroking his fingertips along
her swollen lips. She was ready. Pleasing him had primed her body, but he’d take her
the rest of the way, just as her fantasies dictated.

Tell me how you feel about me, with your body.

How he felt . . . Grateful. Awed. Her palms were warm and soft on his ribs. With a
final, slow stroke of his fingers, he abandoned her sex, but only for a moment. When
he next touched her, it was with the crown of his cock. He traced her lips, then again,
again, then eased inside, one inch and one breath at a time. When their hips touched,
he held steady, savoring.

He tucked his arms close to her body. His savaged wrists stung where they pressed
her skin, but it wasn’t that old taboo that had lust surging hot. It was knowing she’d
made him sore, and how. It wasn’t from the degradation, but the indulgence. He smiled
at the realization, so broad and humble that she smiled in return, looking happily
perplexed.

“What?” she whispered, and bit her lip.

“Just you. Being with you. Inside you.”

Her fingers curled against his sides, short nails scraping. For once, though, friction
was overshadowed by more pleasant sensations—her warmth, and this feeling of being
held by her, hugged, nearly. He drew out all the way, and eased back in, smooth and
slow.