Rope 'Em Read online

  Yeah, all that was still in his mind. None of it had changed. But . . . somewhere between their first conversation about minimalism and “Gene Krupa or GTFO,” maybe he had changed. He considered that possibility as he pulled the suspension lines taut, adjusting the tension to distribute Victoria’s weight more evenly. Once her positioning was perfect, he temporarily secured the line and pulled the stool out from under her with a slightly dramatic flourish. Ta-da! The crowd seemed to appreciate that, at least.

  He whisper-crooned a few lines along with Frank as he made a few more minor adjustments to raise Victoria’s hips so her back was parallel to the floor, her head tipped up the perfect amount. Then he pulled on the line near the tie-off again enough to lift her beyond the spit-roasting zone, so the audience could see her better. And so that he could clear his head of the imagery.

  Once he’d tied the main line off to a hardpoint on one of the scaffold uprights, he turned and gave himself and the spectators a moment to simply appreciate the sight. To most of them, perhaps, it was just another demo, just another thing to try. The position was good for a lot of activities, actually, providing not only angles for sex but great exposure for paddling, caning, any sort of impact play on the ass and the backs of the sub’s thighs. And it was fantastic for bastinado.

  He wasn’t into much of that, except in an occasional playful way. If he wanted to cause pain, he knew a hundred ways to do it with rope, and savored the marks left that way better than any impact bruise or welt. After tonight’s session, Victoria’s body would be covered with evidence of what they’d done. Stripes and knot spots, her skin’s record of how the rope had embraced her. He wouldn’t get to see most of it under her sports bra and yoga shorts, but it would be beautiful. Nearly as beautiful as the sight before him now.

  He’d used purple rope for the chest harness, and the dark color was mostly lost against the black sports bra. More purple bound her wrists and ankles, and it showed up beautifully against her fair skin. The rest of the rope was undyed, and the soft tan color nearly disappeared against the backdrop of the barn walls. She almost looked like she was floating up there.

  Frank was wrapping it up, so Ethan sauntered back to Victoria and ran a hand along her side, shoulder to hip, giving a slight push to send her into a slow spin. If he had longer, he would change up her position, keep her in the air and move her around like his personal, posable kinky rag doll. She seemed flexible and fearless, either a natural at suspension or very experienced or both. Where’d she learned it? From some art school Yankee?

  Frowning and cocking his head, he crouched below her and wiggled his fingers; the audience could see what was about to happen, but Victoria couldn’t. When he tickled her soles, she jolted up from fantasyland, trying to squirm away but helpless to do so.

  “No, no, no fair. No!” She giggled frantically. “Stoooop.”

  He noted she didn’t safe out, so he kept tickling. “I don’t even get a please?”

  “Pleeeeease stop.”

  He grinned and pressed the tickled area to soothe it, slowing her spin in the process. When he stood up, they were face to face; he put his hands on her shoulders to stop her turn completely. Then he made the mistake of looking into her smiling eyes as the music changed again.

  The softly swelling violins seemed to take his heart along with them. As Nat King Cole started to sing, Ethan leaned forward, remembering at the last second that he couldn’t kiss her. No sexual touching. Instead, he rested his forehead against hers.

  “ ‘Stardust’? Are you trying to woo me through song, Velvet?”

  She smiled dreamily, then let her eyes drift closed and sighed as if she’d never been so content in all her life. “Why? Is it working?”

  Ethan swallowed and straightened, pushed her into another spin, and stepped back to let the audience watch. When she slowed down, he walked around with her for one last rotation, then reluctantly left her side to release the main line. In slow, careful stages, he eased her down to the floor, shifting the ropes like a puppeteer so she would end up in a sitting position, feet out in front of her.

  From there, it was the work of only a few minutes more to unbind her. Hair first, then hips, wrists and ankles, elbows and calves. He left the purple ropes binding her chest and helped her to her feet, where she wobbled a bit as they both took a quick bow to rousing applause.

  “You need to sit back down for a minute?” He put an arm around her waist, steadying her.

  “Yeah. That’s a good idea.” She let him hold her all the way down and then relaxed into the mat as if she might fall asleep. The dreamy smile was on her lips again. He had never wanted to kiss anyone as much as he wanted to kiss her.

  “Hang on.” He put a hand on her hip, allowing himself one last touch before the scene felt entirely over with. “I have a blanket in my bag.”

  It was fluffy and patterned with giraffe spots; Robert had given it to him for Christmas and he’d kept it in his bag ever since. He spread it over Victoria now, bending over to make sure she was all tucked in. She nestled deeper into the cozy warmth, murmuring a thank-you.

  “Do you need anything else? Hugs? Water? You were amazing, by the way. You did such a good job.” Okay. Maybe that last touch wasn’t the very last one. He ran his hand over her hip again, then her waist, her shoulder. It was hardly sexual. She was like a cute, cuddly plush animal, a kitten or puppy, snuggled up with her eyes barely open. He didn’t want to fuck her so much as spoon her to sleep.

  “I’m good. Go ahead and clean up.” Her words were still slurred a little but starting to clear, her eyes blinking back to normal as she reoriented herself to the world around her. But her mouth, the curve of her lips, held a hint of regret, of tension not yet relieved. Under the blanket her body was restless, her legs shifting against one another, her back arching slightly.

  He took a wild guess and lowered his voice. “Do you need to go somewhere and . . . come?”

  She squeezed her eyes closed, then opened them and shrugged. “Kinda, yeah.”

  “Okay. I’ll clear this out and then we’ll go, okay?”

  “Okay. Thanks. You’re wonderful . . .” Her voice trailed off again, her eyes drifting shut, but her body shivered.

  Rope could work like magic on the right person, transporting them to places they could never go without being bound. But it was dark magic sometimes, exacting a price. Ethan gathered his ropes quickly, not stopping as he usually would to wrap and stow it carefully in his bag. He didn’t want to leave Victoria hanging in this limbo, her body all revved up with no place to go. No harm would come to her if she didn’t get off; she had almost certainly been tied up and not pleasured before now and would again. But he wanted her to get what she needed from the experience.

  His brain and libido had been at war for some time, not just that evening but since meeting Victoria. The battle came to a crisis now as he fetched her phone from the speaker and collected her clothes. Did he help her to her cabin, usher her safely inside like the gentleman he knew himself to be, then hie himself off to his own tiny house to jerk off into a sock or dishrag? Did he linger just inside her cabin door, making it plain he was available for her use if she needed any assistance with her pesky arousal problem?

  Or did he boldface lie to himself, tell himself he was playing it by ear, when all the while he was planning to work in a kiss at the earliest possible opportunity that wouldn’t make him seem like a manipulative, using assface?

  Yeah. Probably that last one. And he didn’t lie to himself; he was honest. He was planning to go for it. He kind of wanted to figure her out, but he also really wanted to figure out her vagina with his penis, and he was over feeling weird about that. Yes, she was young, and yes, it was probably ill-advised to hook up with her. But she was over twenty-one, she was incredibly hot, and she had seemed to be flirting with him even before the scene. He had condoms in his gear bag, they were two healthy young animals with what seemed to be compatible sexualities, so . . . yeah. Obvious outcome. If
he’d met her at a club and they’d done that scene, and she’d talked about his underwear and confessed that she needed to come, he’d already be plotting the fastest route home to get her into bed.

  This wasn’t a club, though. And he’d never met anybody quite like Velvet—Victoria—at a club. Or a kink convention. Or anywhere. She was the weirdest mix of perfect and the absolute worst, intelligent and completely lacking in what he thought of as common sense.

  But it was more complicated than that, wasn’t it? It was only common sense if you’d learned it growing up, if you’d seen and lived it and expected it to be part of your life. And the areas in which she was the worst were the same areas she was striving to change. When he took her hand to help her to her feet again, his other arm naturally found her waist like it was made to fit there. She was still a bit shaky, but they exited the mat gracefully, like the royalty of suspension bondage, because together they seemed to form a unit that worked better than either of them individually. Fuck. How was he supposed to resist that?

  Chapter 10

  Why hadn’t he kissed her? His mouth had been right there; she’d been able to feel his breath on her lips. Though what he’d done instead had been almost more intimate. Putting his face against hers, whispering about the music they’d just found out they shared a taste for. She hadn’t been trying to woo him through song—at least not consciously—but it had obviously worked. And once the idea was out there, her mind and body had latched onto it. Possibly the ropes had played a role.

  Okay, more than possibly. Almost certainly. After months of deprivation—she hadn’t really even dated anybody all year, and her last kink encounter had been a platonic one in December—doing a complicated suspension with a guy she found attractive and insisting on no sexual stuff during the scene had been naïve at best, stupid at worst. She was literally aching with need, her knees weak and her brain unable to clear itself. Even the pressure of Ethan’s arm around her waist, the warmth of his body against hers through the heavy layer of blanket over her shoulders, was enough to keep her at a boil.

  It hit her like a blinding flash when they stepped out of the barn: The scene was over. Right? They were just two people again, two consenting adults. When Ethan started to walk her back in the direction of the horse barn, and presumably from there back to the cabins, she balked and twirled out from under his arm, catching his hand at the end of her swing and pulling him the opposite way. The trail to the Bondage Barn kept going up the hill, past the stake lights. Within a few steps they were in shadow.

  Ethan shifted his grip on her hand, following her with a nervous laugh. “What—where? Hey, where are you going? I thought you wanted some privacy.”

  “Shh.”

  He repeated himself in a whisper. “I thought you wanted some privacy.”

  “It’s private up here. Nobody behind the barn. Nobody farther up the hill.”

  “Well. Except probably some snakes, maybe a scorpion or two. And you’re barefoot right now.”

  Good point. “Did I leave my boots in there? Oh . . . where are my shorts?” She was still way too out of it.

  “In my bag.” Ethan slung it forward and unzipped it, digging for a moment and then pulling out her boots. She stomped her feet into them, grimacing at the lack of socks and the fine layer of grit. But probably she wouldn’t have to do too much walking like that.

  “There. All set.”

  “You’re . . . Victoria, you have got to get some real boots. Look.” He set down the bag and knelt beside it, then reached for one of her ankles, curving his fingers around it and sliding them up the back of her calf. “Your feet are sort of covered. But if a snake strikes, it won’t just aim for your foot. If you walk past some thistles, they won’t be on the ground. Even through jeans, your skin could take damage. And that would be a real shame.” He reversed course, looping around the arch of her foot, then tracing the backs of his fingers up the inside of her leg.

  By the time he got to her knee, she had to bite back a groan. “Okay. Point taken. I’ll find some real boots.”

  “Promise?” He shifted his fingers a few inches higher, grazing her inner thigh and sending a hot shiver of need straight to her clit.

  “Oh yeah.”

  Ethan tsked. “Victoria, I don’t think you’re really focused on this important safety issue right now.” To her vast dismay, he pulled his hand away and stood up again, pulling the bag back onto his shoulder.

  Her eyes had adjusted enough to the moonlight to see that he was smiling, though. A good sign. “I think maybe some altruistic cowboy should show me all the places a snake might get me if I’m not adequately protected. That’d probably learn me.”

  “Oh, I’m all about adequate protection.” He patted the duffel. “Like a good Boy Scout.”

  “You probably really were a Boy Scout, weren’t you?”

  “I ditched it after Cub Scouts. That whole thing was more Logan’s jam than mine.”

  She shifted her weight, making no effort to hide the fact that she was rubbing her thighs together. Pressure, damp and incessant, persisted where her legs met. She could deal with it alone, but that wasn’t nearly as much fun as having help. And tonight she was definitely in the mood for help.

  “My cabin,” she pointed out, “is all the way across the main venue down there, past everybody you know. My boss . . . I guess your boss, too, now? Or however y’all work that out.”

  “Yeah, Logan’s pretty much the boss.”

  “But this trail leads up the hill to your place, right?”

  He literally dropped his jaw; it hadn’t occurred to him. She could see it plain as day on his elastic face. Cute.

  “My place.” He tried to shift the subject. “I haven’t heard anybody else call it that. I like it. My place. Yeah.”

  “Ethan?”

  “Mmm?”

  She stepped forward, framed his face with her hands, and kissed him. Warm lips, evening stubble, wintergreen, salt. No hesitation: he kissed her back as if he’d been anticipating it. As if they’d done it a thousand times before, but the repetition made it no less enjoyable.

  His bag thunked to the ground again and still his hands found her hips, resting there without trying to pull her closer. She was close enough to feel his dick start to firm up against her belly. And she was horny enough to take full advantage, arching her back and letting her weight press into him. Almost like it was an accident, but she was under no illusions. He knew exactly what she was up to.

  There were at least a dozen reasons this was a bad idea, but Victoria had been reconsidering her life choices for months and was all out of considerations. The spell of the rope and the night swirled through her veins, compelling her toward the nearest source of trustworthy touch—toward a means of safety and comfort, even if it was only a temporary fix. They were both single, Ethan didn’t seem any more inclined to drama than she was, and they could work out any weirdness after the fact.

  He kissed her slowly—not hesitantly, but thoroughly, really taking his time. When he finally moved his hands, exploring her spine and then down to the curve of her ass, he seemed thoughtful about that, too. Pondering, learning. Even under the warmth of the blanket she still wore like a shawl, she shivered when his fingers reached the tops of her thighs and he pressed her firmly against him, lifting her slightly.

  The kiss ended gradually. They nipped and sucked and tasted away from each other, moving on to necks, ears. Victoria needed more but hadn’t wanted that moment to end either.

  Ethan murmured against her ear, raising every fine hair on her neck. “My place, huh?”

  “Yeah. You have a sleeping bag up there, right? We have this extra blanket if it gets too cold.”

  “True.” He rested his forehead against hers as he had during the scene, this time letting his nose brush the tip of hers. He was breathing hard, way less calm than he’d seemed during the kiss. “Are we just fooling around for fun or . . . I’m not in a place where I’m really ready to—”

&nbs
p; Impatient, Victoria placed a finger over his lips. “If I’d wanted to find a man and settle down, I wouldn’t be here in the first place. I’m not looking for a boyfriend. I’d just like to have sex because that’s usually more fun than masturbating alone. And you . . .” She ran the finger down, toying with the vee of neckline his buttoned shirt exposed, then sliding her hand down to grab his belt. “You seem like you’d be a lot more fun than masturbating.” She was debating whether to go the last few inches, cup his cock, really let him know how she felt, when he reached up and started echoing her movements.

  The finger on her lips. Then playing around the top hem of her sports bra, which exposed a lot more than his shirt. When he turned his hand to move it farther down her body, he made sure to graze the inner curves of both breasts with his outspread fingers. He looped his fingers around the bottom wraps of the chest harness she still wore, pulling the rope tighter and higher for a second before releasing it. Then his hand crossed her bare stomach and she gasped. So close. So close to where she needed his touch.

  She didn’t have a belt on. He went for the hip-hugging waistband of her yoga shorts instead, gripping the fabric and twisting it in his hand as he had with the rope until it pulled up tight, squeezing her pussy and clit. “I want to tie you in a karada in the worst possible way.”

  “Maybe later.” She pulled on his shirt, backing up along the trail, trying to ignore the flood of slick heat between her thighs. “Takes too long, and it’s too hard to fuck around the crotch rope.”

  “Oh my God. You’re . . .” He licked his lips, then let go of her, stepping back and picking up the dropped duffel bag.

  “I’m what?”

  “You’re so right. This is gonna be much better than masturbating.”

  He grabbed her hand and pulled her in his wake, forging up the trail. She followed, holding the blanket around herself with one hand, trusting Ethan to lead her in the dark. And hopefully, if there were any snakes, they’d aim for Ethan’s sturdy leather boots.