Dangerously Bound (14 page)

He slid his free hand under the ropes on her thigh and pulled her legs up higher,
opening her pussy even more. She was soaking wet, the pink flesh glistening. Lord,
to be inside her . . .

But no. That wasn’t part of the agreement.

He would make her come again, though. He would make her come so damn hard she’d never
forget it.

Neither would he.

He let her go and moved up to the head of the table, quickly loosened the ropes so
that her arms had more mobility. Then, moving around to the end of the table, he grabbed
the ropes on her thighs with both hands and slid her body down to the edge. He pushed
her legs up once more, held them there with one hand while with the other he parted
her pussy lips, hot and slick under his fingers. When he leaned in, he felt the heat
of her against his face. He bent closer and breathed in the rich ocean scent of her
desire. And as he moved in to flick his tongue at the tight nub of her clit, his cock
hammered with need.

He let himself feel the fire there, let his own desire guide him as he licked her,
used his fingers to spread her open and pushed his tongue into her waiting hole. She
was making a small mewling noise, but he didn’t care—he didn’t need her to be quiet
any longer. He only needed her to need
this
. To come hard for him. He needed to control her pleasure. To control his own through
controlling hers.

Christ, he was out of his head.

But she tasted so damn good, like salt and honey on his tongue. He sucked her clit
into his mouth, rasping his tongue back and forth across the tip as he pushed his
fingers inside her, loving the clenching, wet velvet of her.

He sucked harder, curved his fingers until he found her G-spot, pressing and rubbing.

Her whole body was quivering, her hips arching against his mouth. He sucked harder,
flicked his tongue faster, burying his face in her, his fingers sinking into her over
and over. He added another finger, then another, filling her up.

He swore he smelled her come before her pussy began to clench with her orgasm. Then
she was growling, panting, yelling his name, her back arching off the table. Her hot
pussy spasmed around his fingers. He kept licking, sucking, and before her first climax
was over it started again. She screamed his name this time.

“Mick! Oh, Godddddd!”

He didn’t stop until he was certain she’d stopped coming. He gave her a few last slow,
sensual licks, loving how incredibly wet she was, loving the taste of her pleasure.
Finally he pulled back and wiped his mouth on her bound calf, kissed her there, nipped
at her flesh, kissed her again.

“Beautiful, baby girl. That was perfect,” he murmured.

He stroked her legs again, down to her toes, checked the color of her skin for circulation
before moving up to her face. He held her chin in his hand.

“Look at me, Allie.”

She opened her eyes. They were gleaming, her pupils wide and dark. She was flying—on
her orgasm, on the pain play. Maybe on some of the emotional roller coaster he was
on. But she seemed okay. Maybe doing better than he was.

He leaned in and brushed a quick kiss across her lips—he didn’t dare allow himself
more.

“I’m taking you down now,” he told her.

She was quiet as he untied her, pulled the ropes off her body, watched the small shivers
running through her as he let them slide across her skin. They fell on the floor,
and he helped her to stretch first one leg, then the other, before untying the ropes
holding her wrists. He stood at the top of the table and massaged her hands while
she lay quietly, her breathing steady. He looked at her lithe body, her muscles loose,
her eyes closed, her gorgeous hair all around her. So damn beautiful. She was still
the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. No one had ever come close. No one ever would.

His.

His heart knocked against his ribs.

Have to get her into my arms.

He moved around the table and picked her up, and her arms went around his neck. He
carried her to the love seat and sat with her in his lap, pulled the soft, gray blanket
he always kept in his toy bag around her. She laid her head against his shoulder.
She felt so damn good in his arms. Too good.

He didn’t want to feel like this. It was dangerous. He’d been young and shallow when
he’d walked away from her before. Now he was old enough to know what he’d be losing
when he let her go.

And he would have to let her go again. No matter how much he felt she should belong
to him. Because . . .

Because of what? Because of the stupid things he’d done when he was younger? Even
though she’d come to him, sought him out, sought
this
out?

“Mick? Can I . . . can we talk now?”

“What? Yeah, baby. We’re out of scene. We’ll do whatever you need to do. This is what
aftercare is for.”

“I need you to talk to me.”

“Do you need to hear that I’m pleased with you? Because I am.” He stroked her hair.
“You took it all well.”

“I’m glad. But I just need to . . . talk. Like we used to.”

“Sure. What do you want to talk about?”

“How about you tell me what the tattoo on your forearm means?”

“
Non Timebo Mala
—it’s Latin for ‘I will fear no evil.’”

“Ah. So . . . what does that mean to you?”

“I’d rather we shelve that discussion for another day. It’s complicated.”

“Okay. Then tell me about your work.”

He lifted her chin to look into her eyes. They were glassy as hell, and he knew she
was still subspaced pretty heavily.

“I’m sure Marie Dawn has told you plenty. Is this really what you want to hear about
right now?”

“Yes. And she has told me some. But I want you to tell me.”

He knew sometimes it helped a bottom to come down by idly chatting. Why did this feel
like something more? But he would do it, anyway.

“I’m sure you already know I have my own business. I do private security for fairly
large venue events—concerts, boxing, that kind of thing. The company has grown a lot
in the last few years. I have a staff of maybe thirty, including three in the office,
although mostly I work from home when I’m in town. I’m trying to talk my friend Finn
in Atlanta into coming to work with me here, to handle Internet and firewall security
for my clients so I don’t have to contract that out. And he could do some of the on-site
work, too, so I don’t have to travel so much. Currently, I travel a lot. I go to meet
promoters, the venue managers,
to check out a space if there are special circumstances I don’t want to leave up to
my security heads. Not that I don’t trust them. But I might have a few control issues.”

“No kidding.” She laughed a little, turning her face into his chest. He loved seeing
her like this—relaxed with him. It felt easy. Familiar. “You have the perfect job
for a Dom,” she said.

He smiled. “Yeah. Maybe. What about you? I heard you were studying all over Europe.
That must have been incredible.”

“It was. It was also hard. The pastry chefs I studied with were like drill sergeants.
It was almost impossible to do anything right in their eyes. But when you did . . .
well, you knew you’d really done it perfectly, and that makes it all worth it.”

“Sounds like you’re in the perfect profession for a submissive.”

“Maybe. But I really want to do my own thing now. I’m ready.”

“What do you want to do?”

She was quiet for several long moments while she played with a button on his shirt.

“Mick.”

“Yeah, baby?”

“All I want right now is to be here like this. With you. Is that okay?”

“Sure. We can stay here as long as you need to.”

“No. That’s not what I meant. I meant can we . . .” She stopped and he felt her breath
hitch.

“Can we what?” he asked.

He thought he knew the answer. “Allie, if you’re suggesting what I think you are . . .”
he started. “I don’t know. I just don’t fucking know. Do we even dare try again? Everything
went so wrong before, and it was my own damn fault. This—the kink—I can handle. But
even this is starting to spiral out of control.
This conversation wouldn’t even be taking place if we weren’t playing together.”

“No, of course not.”

She looked crushed. He hated himself a little. But he owed it to her to be honest
with her.

Damn it.

He never should have kissed her. One kiss, and it could be the beginning of his undoing.

S
HE STRAIGHTENED UP
until she could look him in the eye. He could see she was still flying a bit. Probably
emotionally raw. He would have to be very careful about where this conversation was
going. He wished he’d been more careful already.

She twisted her fingers in the loose fabric of his shirtsleeve. “Mick, tell me what
happened. Tell me why we haven’t been together all this time.”

“Allie . . .”

“It’s okay. I need to hear it, and maybe this is the only time I’m going to be brave
enough to ask.”

“Do we need to rehash ancient history?”

“Yes,” she answered simply.

He knew she was right. But damn it, he did not want to do this.

He tightened his arms around her. “If this makes you bottom out, I’m going to feel
like shit.”

“And if that happens, I know you’ll take good care of me. Just tell me,” she insisted.

He pushed her long, silky hair from her face, stroked her jaw with his thumb, checked
her eyes. It was clear she was still pretty full of endorphins. But it was also clear
she knew exactly what she was asking.

“Okay. But you know a big part of why we haven’t been together is because I haven’t
wanted to have this conversation.”

“I know,” she said softly, her tone laced with hurt.

“And you’re asking me now because you know damn well I can’t say no to you when you’re
sitting naked in my lap, and you know how badly I want you.”

She smiled a little. “Well, I’m sure it doesn’t hurt.”

“Oh, it hurts. Princess, you sure know how to get your way.”

“Not always, apparently. And you’re stalling.”

“Yeah.” He paused to gather his thoughts. How the hell did he say something to her
he’d purposely kept from her for nearly eleven years? Something he’d never fully admitted,
not even to Jamie? Where did he begin?

“All right. You know how in high school I always told you how sweet you were? You
know that was truly how I felt. You always had this sweetness about you. You were
so . . .
fresh
is the only word I can find. And I’ve always had these demons. This darkness. These
urges.”

“Do you still see your urges for kink as dark? As demons?”

“As dark, sure. Maybe not as demons anymore. I’ve worked some of those out of my system.”
He stopped, shrugged. “Some of them are still there, though, if you want to know the
truth. But being a Dominant has helped me to control them. That’s how I got into rope.
That part of me needed to be kept in check, and the rope . . . it’s a symbol to me,
maybe. The binding, the
restraining, restrains my own darkness. I know it doesn’t make much sense.”

“No, it does. I get it. Go on.”

“It’s more than that. It’s a sense of connection with the bottom, an extension of
my hands,
myself
. There’s control in the patterns. In the elegance of the knots.”

“Yes, that’s one of the things I love about it, too,” she agreed.

“But it’s the way the rope requires control. It’s mathematical, even. It’s discipline
in itself to bind someone properly. And it’s that sense of absolute discipline that
keeps me on track. That’s not something I discovered until a few years after I last
saw you, and it’s only been in the last couple of years that I’ve come to understand
it more completely. I’m sure I still have more to learn.”

“Don’t we all? But tell me how this relates to us. To what happened.”

He did not want to go there. His gut was in knots. But he was going to do it. She
deserved that much from him.

“Back in high school I told you all the time that you were too good for me.”

“Which was crap, Mick. Pardon me for saying so, but it was.”

“I felt that darkness, though, Allie. I didn’t want to sully you with it. You were
so innocent.”

“Mick, even in high school we were doing things that weren’t entirely innocent, even
though you wouldn’t help me lose my virginity.”

“Help you? You say that like it would have been a good thing.”

“Only with you,” she said quietly.

He couldn’t believe she still thought so. That adulthood hadn’t brought her more hindsight,
especially knowing what she did about him.

“It would have been a disaster.”

“I don’t agree. I loved you.”

Hearing her say it made his heart twist painfully.

“We were teenagers, Allie. What did we know about love?”

“Maybe not very much. I only knew what I felt.”

“So did I. Fuck it—you’re right.” He stopped, ran a hand over his hair. “And I felt
it was wrong to have you follow me down that road. That’s why when I left for college,
I knew leaving you to find another kind of life—a better life without me in it to
screw things up for you—was the only right thing to do.”

“That is so . . . all kinds of messed up. Did you never think of me after that, Mick?”
she asked, her brown eyes burning with gold fire.

“I thought about you all the damn time.”

They were both quiet for several moments.

“But you never came back for me.”

“I knew I couldn’t do that to you. And then there was the accident.”

The fucking motorcycle accident that had ruined his life, ruined his future, ruined
his sense of self and his place in his family.

He had a flash of that sick, skidding sensation, the world blurring, no control—no
fucking control! Intolerable pain, then blackness. Waking up knowing he had fucked
up, but not how badly. No, that had come later, when the doctors told him his leg
would never be the same again.

“I’m sorry, Mick. I knew it must have been so awful for you, but you refused to see
me when you were in the hospital, and after you got home.”

“Because I was ashamed,” he admitted. “It was damn stupid of me. I threw away everything
that was important to my family. My opportunity to serve my city in the way my father
and grandfather had. In the way my brothers do now. I couldn’t
stand for you to see me like that. Defeated by my own fucking foolishness. It was
bad enough things had had to end between us the way they did. I couldn’t face you.
I couldn’t face anyone. I’m still ashamed, if you want to know the truth. It fucking
haunts me. And that’s not something I say to anyone.”

*   *   *

I
T HURT HER
to hear him say it. To hear the old pain in his voice. To feel his body tense up.

“I’m sure they don’t hold it against you,” she said.

“I do.”

“Oh, Mick.”

She stroked the back of her hand down his cheek just to feel it, to let him know how
she felt.

“Don’t pity me, Allie,” he said gruffly.

She pulled her hand back. But she knew him well enough not to feel wounded by his
tone. “It’s not pity. I
feel
for you, that’s all. Does your leg still hurt you?”

“Yeah, it gives me some trouble, but I deal with it.”

She knew that was what the bare-knuckle fighting was about, that he felt he had to
prove himself. She’d caught a glimpse or two of his limp, but he was still the strongest
man she knew. He had nothing to prove to anyone. If only he could see that.

“Change of subject,” he suggested.

“Okay. I want to hear about what happened in college, when I came home. When we were
together.”

“Fuck. Really?”

“That’s what this conversation was coming to.”

He scrubbed at his closely cut goatee. “That night never should have happened. It
was all wrong.”

“It never felt that way to me. Other than the part where you left and never turned
back.”

“Allie, you were twenty years old,” he protested. His arm was around her waist, holding
her in his lap, and his fingers flexed hard.

“Yes, Mick, I was twenty. I wasn’t a child anymore, and I wasn’t a virgin by then.
I’m even less a child now. And that night was everything I’d ever wanted. Not just
the sex, but all of it. Being tied up with your belt. The smell of the leather. The
biting. The spanking. The roughness of it all.”

“That can’t be true. You couldn’t have known back then.”

“
You
did. From what you’ve said, you knew in high school. Wasn’t that what you were trying
to protect me from? But can’t you see, Mick? Once you gave me a taste for it, that
was
my
fantasy, too. You gave me that tempting little bit, then you took it away. You took
yourself away from me, too.”

“You cried that night after we had sex,” he insisted, his tone going harsh. “I saw
the tears.”

“I was crying because that night with you was the fulfillment of every fantasy I’d
ever had!” She almost wanted to cry now. “Fantasies I’d had when I was practically
a child, things I didn’t understand until much later. But I loved it. I loved the
passion of it, the intensity. The pain.”

He shook his head. “No, that’s not right. It can’t be.”

She took his face in her hands and gazed into his eyes. His were dark, shadowed, his
brows drawn. He was so damn beautiful it made her ache.

“Mick, I wanted it. I wanted you, and I wanted all those things you did with me that
night. You say you feel those desires were some kind of demon. If that’s true, then
I have demons, too.”

He tried to shake his head again, and she tried to hold it firmly, but he took her
hands and pulled them down.

“Don’t say that, Allie.”

“How can I explain this to you? It’s as if my being here with
you, you knowing my kink history, counts for nothing, even though you said it did,
that it’s made you think, but here we are again with you protesting my desires, Mick!
That’s what it comes down to—with you still doubting that you can be with me.”

“Look, Allie . . . it isn’t only the stuff around the breakup in high school. A lot
of it was—and maybe still is—the accident. That was something I couldn’t come back
from. It only proved what I’d always known about myself. You deserve more than that.
And what happened between us later, when we slept together . . . that was a mistake.
I know I didn’t handle it well. I know I was an asshole. A lot of it was because I
had
demonized myself for wanting the kink, and it was only later that I learned to accept
that about myself. But us not being together then was the right thing, Allie. You
weren’t ready for full-on kink at twenty.”

She watched him in frustration. His face was shutting down again, a veil of stubbornness
over his handsome features. But she wasn’t done with this conversation. “Mick, this
is something I’ve been turning over in my mind for years. I’m going to tell you how
I see it. You know that for those who are born to New Orleans, it’s in your blood.
It lingers there no matter where you go. BDSM is the same sort of thing. If you’re
born to it—the way you were, the way
I
was, whether or not you want to accept that—you can never shake it. It shapes the
way you think, the way you respond to . . . everything. And those who were a part
of unleashing those desires . . . you never forget them, either. That’s what you did
for me, Mick.
For
me, not
to
me.”

“Christ, Allie. I can’t accept that.” He looked like he was fuming inside, color high
on his chiseled cheekbones.

“Do you think there’s something intrinsically wrong with kink? Do you?” she demanded.

“No, of course not.”

“Then why is there something wrong about the combination of kink and
me
? I’m not that sweet teenager anymore. I’m not delicate. Haven’t I shown you that?
What do I have to do to get past your relentless inflexibility, Mick? I would have
thought you’d outgrown it by now.”

“I have. Some. I guess we’ve both changed a lot since high school. I just need some
time to absorb it.”

“We have changed. And you need to learn to see me for who I am
now
.”

He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, and some of her anger dissolved under
that small gesture.

“And you need to see me for who I am now, too,” he said. “You were so driven to play
with me. You started to ask about us starting over. But Allie, do we even know each
other anymore?”

He had a point. Was it Mick as he was now that she was in love with, or some image
she’d carried in her head all these years? The idea made her stomach go tight.

“Some, yes,” she said, trying to figure it out even as she spoke. “I believe some
parts of us never change. I know you’re still loyal to a fault. That you love your
family. That you can still be grumpy as hell.”

A shadow of a grin quirked his mouth. “Yeah, you’re right on all three counts. I’m
also more stubborn, maybe. More set in my ways. I’m sure I’ve developed a few more
character defects over the years.”

“Probably,” she said.

“I should spank you for that.”

She batted her lashes. “Yes, please.”

“You are one bratty sub.”

She smiled. “Yes, I am.”

“What am I going to do with you, Allie girl?” he asked, his gaze narrowing. But his
features had relaxed. So had his hold on her waist.

She laid a hand on his chest over the silver cross he never took off, felt the steady,
reassuring beat of his heart beneath her palm. This was still Mick, wasn’t it? “How
about getting to know me all over again? Letting me get to know you?”