Dani glared at Rand with enough heat to roast a lesser man, but Rand seemed completely unimpressed at how close he was to death. If anything, he responded with an equally intense energy, watching her keenly as she whirled from him to look at the huge bondage cross in the center of the room.
Cold sweat broke out over her skin as she eyed the monstrosity. Holy shit.
She’d seen St. Andrew’s Crosses before, of course. She’d even seen people on the damn things. But she’d never gotten so close to one. It tripped every single one of her flight triggers, and she found her breathing had gone shallow, every sense on high alert.
Then self-preservation kicked in, and she became aware of Rand’s eyes still on her, soaking in every reaction. “You’re not a fan of the cross?” he asked, curiosity heavy in his voice.
Back it down, back it down. “I don’t like surprises,” Dani said evenly, and she forced herself to walk toward the thing. She refused to give in to Rand on something so stupid or trivial, but every step toward the large, X-shaped apparatus was like moving toward a loaded gun. She lifted a hand to caress the edge of the cross, trying not to shiver as she touched the cool metal, the supple leather of the restraining cuffs. Her reaction was exactly the kind of thing that would invite questions that she had no intention of answering. She needed to play this cool. “It’s pretty, but I don’t think we need all of these dramatics. In fact, I’m pretty sure we don’t.” She stroked the cross bar again, mesmerized by the sight of her hand against the thick rail. See, she was touching it, no big deal, no big—
“I don’t know.” Dani jumped as Rand’s voice sounded in her ear. “The more I see you with it, the more I think we do,” he said. He reached up past her shoulder and clasped her hand, drawing it higher on the bar, flattening it against the lush padding of leather. Despite herself, Dani groaned, especially as Rand crowded in behind her, the evidence of his arousal clear against her backside.
“That sounds a little more like it,” he said, murmuring against her neck. “Are you sure you don’t want to try this out—since we’re here?” He grazed his teeth along the delicate shell of her ear. “Since there’s absolutely no sex involved, I’m afraid I might have to insist.”
Son of a bitch. Rand had her, and he knew it. She was reacting too strongly for him not to notice that something was seriously off. C’mon, Dani, back it down, she implored herself. This was all playacting, all a joke. None of it was real, none of it was anything like that room all those years ago, that chair, that single bright line of light on the floor, always too far away. You’ve got this—you can do this.
Only, she couldn’t. Even the thought of having her hands strapped to those crossbars, of her being trapped, confined, unable to get away—
Dani trembled violently as Rand trailed a row of kisses down her neck now, and he had to be picking up on her adrenaline spike. Not all of that was fear, she knew. In fact, a tiny part of her did crave the idea of what she’d seen out there on the floor—the touch of a man who knew how to give her pleasure, the knowledge that she could trust him at least in this, if nothing else. But she just—
Dani shuddered again, hard, and an unbidden image sprang up in her head once more. The cramped back room with its heavily sloped ceiling, the chair bolted to the floor, the straps. How long had she been tied there, when she’d first threatened to run away? The darkness all around her, except that thin line of light beneath the door. The embarrassment of not being able to control her bladder, her tears, her eventual screams and cries for leniency, for mercy. The promises she’d made—promises she’d kept, even though Mama J hadn’t kept her promises, hadn’t ever hesitated to use that chair, that darkness, again and again to keep Dani in line. Until she’d found even better leverage.
All of that was deep, dark, ancient history. Funny how it never fully went away.
“Dani,” Rand said. She looked up, not quite understanding the look on his face. “Tell me you don’t want this, and I’ll stop, Dani. We’ll stop right now and go home.”
“No!” the word seemed almost torn out of her, and Dani felt herself shaking. She hated being weak, and this was her chance to shed some of that weakness, to put it away for good. “I can’t—I won’t let you cuff me,” she said as Rand ran his lips over the back of her hair. “And I won’t be blindfolded.”
“No problem, but remember, you were the one who wanted to come here. And you were the one who agreed to the terms of my demands. You only get one hard no,” Rand said, his words inexorable. “So what will it be Dani? The cuffs or the blindfold? Which one won’t you accept?”
She almost sagged against him. “The cuffs,” she whispered, her heart thundering now in her chest. He gave her hand a tiny squeeze and then stepped away from her, but he was back a second later, refitting the blindfold around her head. She stiffened as darkness descended once again, but Rand never stopped moving. The moment that the blindfold was secure, he reached down to the hem of her dress and pulled it straight up. The silky fabric stretched over her long curves easily, and Dani couldn’t avoid the shiver as she extended her arms and held her hands high, the material shooshing over her hair in one long motion, leaving her bared to his eyes except for her panties and bra. She struggled to remember what they looked like, but Rand didn’t comment on them.
Without waiting for her to say anything—even think anything—he moved with both speed and assurance, turning her around and placing her body against the cross. He lifted her hand, stretching it to about three-quarters of the way up the cross. “There’s a brace here that you’ll have to hold on to,” he said, curling her fingers around a grooved half circle, then moving to her other arm as she drew in an unsteady breath. “You can’t let go, no matter what, you understand?”
“Of course,” Dani said, pleased that her voice sounded stronger now, more sure. Rand ran his hands down the length of her body until he reached her ankles.
“Good. Your feet can fit here—a little wider…” He worked until she had adjusted her stance to accommodate the broad base of the cross, and she found herself gripping the handholds more firmly, desperate to stay upright as a feeling of vulnerability swamped her.
Rand must have noticed, because he chuckled as he stood, clearly aware that she was following his every movement by sound as she jerked her head up, trying to see through the blindfold. “How do you feel, Dani?” he asked, and he traced his fingers down the length of her right arm, causing her to redouble her grip.
“Exposed,” she said bluntly.
“You’re supposed to feel that way. And it would be easier on you if you would allow me to secure at least one of your—”
“Not going to happen, Rand.”
“Very well.” He slowly slid his hands to her waist, cradled her hips with his palms, then leaned forward to kiss her lightly on the mouth. Even though she was expecting the movement, she still flinched back, and he followed her, capturing her lips. His mouth tasted like salt and amaretto.
“Are your arms comfortable?” he asked, and she nodded tightly, then turned her head with a sharp jerk as he moved away, once again trying to see him through the thin barrier of her silken mask.
“That’s it, Dani. This is just about how I can touch you—touch you and make you feel good. You don’t have to do anything but explore your own pleasure, ride it as high as you want it to take you.”
“Touch,” she rasped out, and even she could hear that the word was a breathy mix of pleasure and fear, excitement and trepidation. “What if I don’t want you to touch me?”
Rand smiled, then leaned in very close to Dani’s face, close enough to kiss her but not quite. “Then you would have used that as your hard no, wouldn’t you? And you wouldn’t have ever let me bring you into this room in the first place.”
“But—”
“Shhh…,” he whispered. “I think it’s time for us to begin.”
Dani held herself as still as she possibly could, but she was swamped with sensual overload, her brain skittering out of control, her fingers tightening again into fists as Rand stepped back from her. The room was dimly enough lit that she couldn’t even see his outline through the silk sash tied around her head, and her bra and panties felt woefully insufficient in the suddenly too-cool room.
She wanted to babble, to direct, to demand, to plead, but she was too embarrassed to do any of those things, embarrassed by the waves of heat that chased over her, the prickling of her skin, the way her head jerked with Rand’s every movement. And mostly afraid of the quivering of her abdomen, as moisture pooled between her legs, waiting, almost desperate for Rand’s touch.
What is wrong with me?
Rand didn’t give her time to analyze that question too closely as he traced a finger under the straps of her bra, running his fingers lightly over her straining nipples. They were already pebbled into hard, tight nubs, and he chuckled as he touched them, clearly watching her lips part, her chin come up. He squeezed both of her breasts, hard enough to make her gasp, and then he was gone from her, his long strides moving across the room and then back again, the sudden change in location almost dizzying for her to follow. A sudden cool sensation touched against her abdomen and she uttered a small cry of confusion. “What’s that?”
“Scissors,” Rand said, sliding the metal up her belly to where her bra connected. Without giving her a chance to protest, he sliced through the material, allowing her breasts to swing free of the restriction.
Then she heard him drop the scissors to the carpeted floor and felt his hands on her breasts—and she forgot everything else. Rand’s thumbs worked over her nipples, and he caught the rough tips in his fingers, squeezing until her breath hissed between her teeth. His chuckle seemed to reverberate through her very bones.
“You are so ready for me, aren’t you, Dani?” he murmured, and she felt the change in the air around them as he dipped forward, leaning in to her body, the rasp of his tongue sliding over her nipple even as his other hand tightened almost painfully—almost, but not quite—on the tender skin. Rand took her breast into his mouth and suckled hard, the pull intimate and shocking and so very, very good.
Dani tried not to squirm, to fight the need to clamp her thighs closed, but the thin scrap of fabric between her legs was now completely damp.
Rand seemed to know it, too. As he moved from her left breast to her right with his mouth, she felt the slow, sensual slide of his fingers drifting toward her stomach, leisurely working their way down, down, down until they skated against the material of her panties. “Mmm,” Rand said, the vibration against her oversensitized skin turning her inside out. “I wonder if I should take these, too?”
“No!” She lurched forward, barely able to keep her grip on the cross’s handholds, even as she yearned for him to cup his hand against her sex, to relieve the ache spiraling through her body. But removing her panties seemed so—intimate, so extreme, in a way different from her bra, in a way she couldn’t explain.
Rand’s words were the shrug she couldn’t see. “Very well,” he said.
He stepped away from her abruptly again, the sudden loss of his touch almost a physical pain. Dani tried to hold on to that pain, to ground herself in it, but she felt the loss more, need and desire and want ratcheting up inside her. She turned to try to follow him, and then there was a finger on her chin, tilting her head up, up.
“You like telling me no,” Rand said, his face close enough, once more, to kiss her lips, though he didn’t. He kept his distance even as his words fanned over her. “You like telling me no, and you like telling yourself no even more. You say that you’re selfish, but I don’t think that’s the case. I don’t think that’s ever been the case. You ration out the pleasure you allow yourself like it’s something finite, careful always not to take too much.”
His words swirled around her, making it impossible to focus. “That’s not true,” she said into the silence, willing him to talk, to do anything, as long as it slid her away from these sudden, unwanted thoughts.
“Not to worry,” Rand said. “There are many options for your pleasure in this room. And I am not nearly so grudging with my desire to dole it out.”
The whirring sound of an electrical device drew her up short. Jesus Christ. He had a vibrator. Dani’s mind cascaded through a thousand and one thoughts as Rand brought the thing up to her mouth, touching it to her lips as he slowly increased the power from a throaty murmur to a more high-pitched whine. When she dipped her tongue out to taste the edge of the device, Rand issued a sound that came dangerously close to a growl. He pushed the thick nub into her mouth, dipping it in and out, until she pressed her lips around it, suckling it as if it were his own shaft.
The movement seemed to fascinate Rand, or maybe he was doing this on purpose, to focus her mind on something she couldn’t control, couldn’t direct. He pushed the vibrator deep, then dragged it out, and she gave her full attention to it, her mind diminishing to a pinprick of awareness, the sensation of the foreign object in her mouth, then out again, then in and out. It was strange and wrong, and yet so simple, really. So basic. If nothing more than this was in store for her, then she could handle it, she knew. If nothing more than this was going to challenge her, she could take it.
As if sensing her growing complacency, Rand took action again. Freeing the nub from her mouth, he moved to her right breast and cranked the vibrator up more, touching just the very tip of the wet device to her already painfully tight nipple, making her gasp. She couldn’t see him smile, but she felt it just the same, his other hand coming up to squeeze her breast, holding her nipple erect as he pressed the device against it more firmly, the vibrations driving down deep into her core. He did the same to her other breast until her body arched outward against her restraints, her thighs trying once more—unsuccessfully—to spasm closed.
He didn’t miss the movement. “Something you want, Dani?” he murmured, but if he was waiting for her answer, he gave no indication, instead taking the vibrator away and punching it again, so that the intensity of its whirring cycled up another notch. Saying nothing more, Rand returned the vibrator to Dani’s belly, working it down. By now, she was shivering uncontrollably, her hands tight against the restrictions, her thighs rigid.
“You really need to relax more,” he said. “I wonder what we could do to help you out with that?”
And he touched the vibrator against her clit.
The half-muffled scream that burst out of Dani gratified Rand on a soul-deep level, and he watched her face as he drew the vibrator along the damp satin of her panties, the combination of sensations seeming to twist her inside out. Her climax was so close that he had to be careful, to deliberately move over to one side or the other, drawing the pulsing device along the sensitive skin of her thighs, giving her just enough time to breathe, to recenter, before edging back again, reveling in the small, tight moans she couldn’t quite keep from uttering.
He’d never had one of these crosses in his own home, but it might be time to reconsider that. The image of Dani stretched out and open to him—even still somewhat dressed the way she was—would fuel his fantasies for the next several months, he had no doubt. And hers as well, if her face was any indication…her mouth open, perspiration sheening on her skin, her fingers clenched, her legs quivering. He touched the vibrator to her again and she managed only a sigh. He drew the material aside with one finger, and Dani stiffened.
“I think this will help a little, too,” he said, and shifted forward again, the sensation of the plastic against her clit without the satin in between making her cry out, first in startled surprise, then in frustration as he slid away from her core, away from where she needed him to stay. He touched that quivering point with his finger instead, smiling fiercely as Dani stilled with almost feral intensity. It was as if she’d forgotten that he had hands as well, and he moved his finger back and forth, fluttering against her. The waitress had explained the rules succinctly before they’d ever come back here; he knew he could not penetrate Dani, not even with a finger, but the wonder of her body was that he didn’t need to.
Still…he couldn’t resist exploring just a bit farther, with her bared and open to him. Moving from a crouch to his knees, he leaned into her body, sliding his tongue along her tight folds. Dani bit off a curse and he tucked the vibrator down into the edge of her panties, pressing it against her more deeply between her thighs as he licked his way up to her clit, teasing it with his tongue. She gasped something he couldn’t hear, the urgency in her voice clear and immediate, and he angled back again. He wanted to watch her when she came apart, he decided, and he moved the vibrator slowly, deliberately up her sex until it hovered just over her where she most needed it to be. Her face was a study in concentration, and when he touched the whirring device to her again…she shattered.
Something broke inside Rand at the same time, a careful control that he’d always had locked firmly in place with everyone. Now it was swept away in the face of Dani’s reaction, and he reveled in the shocking power he felt, the crashing tide of desire and want that rushed over him and threatened to unmoor him from everything he held important, everything he knew to be real.
He’d had the pleasure of orchestrating Dani’s orgasms before, but this was something different, rendered more potent because she could not escape. Even though she was not officially bound—her hard no that generated a thousand questions he couldn’t wait to have answered—he knew she wouldn’t lose her grip on the handholds, wouldn’t show any further weakness. Still, she thrashed and writhed, her entire body thrown forward, and he reveled in the racking shudders that seemed to ebb only to be punched up again with the slightest shift of the device. He followed her as she tried to twist away, held her in place to take more stimulation until she broke again, and rode the wave of her climax twice—three times—until she hung forward on the sturdy cross, held up only by grit. When he unwrapped her fingers from their death grip, she fell heavily against him, her body slick with perspiration as he gathered her in his arms. He pulled the sash from her eyes and she blinked at him, dazed, seeming only then to take in his face—his body—his clothes.
“You’re still fully dressed,” she said, the words slurred and helpless in a way that made his own desire tighten within him. He’d done this to her, and she’d let him.
What else might she let me do?
Once again, the idea struck him on a different level than he anticipated. He planned to fully push Dani’s limits physically, that was the point of this exercise, of course. But now, with her lying limp and spent in his arms, he found it wasn’t just her body that he craved. He wanted more of Dani—everything—her thoughts and emotions, her mind and her ideas, her future and her past. He wanted to know every last detail about her, to drink her in completely. And now she’d given him something to focus on, and she had to know it. Her refusal to cede him control in this one, highly specific area tantalized him on an almost soul-deep level. He would find out all her secrets, too—one, by one, by one.
He looked down into Dani’s haunted eyes, wondering what she was thinking. From her panicked expression, it might not be wholly dissimilar to what he was thinking. That thought pleased him more than he wanted to admit.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, and when she could do no more than blink at him, he leaned forward and kissed her, long and searchingly on the lips. She softened immediately beneath his touch. Gone was any stiffness, any uncertainty. Gone was any resistance. It was as if, at least for this brief moment, they’d reached an understanding with each other, where the intensity of the experience they’d just shared made anything as simple and unassuming as a kiss easy ground to cover. Their boundaries had been stretched, leaving that which used to be on the edge now squarely in the center. It was almost like they’d crossed some threshold, never to return.
He could get used to that idea, he decided. From the smile on Dani’s mouth when he broke away from the kiss, so could she.
“I feel…good,” she said, as if coming to the decision after some thought. “Strange, I’m not going to lie. Like I’ve just stepped out of a speeding vehicle that I wasn’t sure wasn’t going to crash into some wall.” She offered him a soft glance. “Well, I guess it did sort of crash.”
“It crashed spectacularly,” Rand said. “It was a five-alarm crash.”
His banter seemed to ground her further. “You gonna stop gloating sometime soon?”
“It seems unlikely.”
Dani snorted, and turned to scan the room. The table where he’d found the scissors also yielded towels, lotions, bottled water, even energy bars—everything one might need to recover from the physical stimulation that the intense acts performed on the cross might inspire. Rand dimmed the lights again as Dani stripped off her bra and tossed it in the trash, her eyes finally drawn to the scene below.
“Oh! A one-way mirror,” she said, stepping forward. She picked up her dress, sliding it over her body with a sinuous grace. “I never realized these walls were set up that way.” She looked another moment at the stages in front of them, then shook her head. “It—it doesn’t have the same effect now.”
“You don’t find it exciting?”
“Not—” She ducked her head and glanced at him, and he marveled at her expression, suddenly shy. How much of herself had she really bared to him, under the guise of a simple sexual fantasy? “Not like that.” She turned and stared at the cross, still imposing in the center of the room. “That was different.”
“You’d like to try it again sometime?”
She blew out a long breath. “No,” she said. But the way she said it left just enough doubt in his mind. Doubt—and more than a little irritation. Because after the next few weeks, it wouldn’t be Rand that she’d be experimenting with, would it? It would be some other man. And that was supposed to make him feel relaxed, free. On top of the world. Because the whole point of this experience was to win and move on. Dani was never supposed to be anything more than a “temporary distraction,” an adversary in a very enjoyable game. After all, Rand had his business, his life to attend to. A dozen trips and more already planned, to all corners of the globe. Dani didn’t fit into that carefully scripted vision. She just didn’t.
And even if he wanted her to, he knew better than to ask. He had a feeling she would turn him down just to prove she could. He wasn’t going to give her that satisfaction.
Then Dani turned to him and smiled, challenge in her eyes. “What about you?” she asked. “Did any of that”—she waved vaguely at the cross, as if it could encompass the totality of their experience—“work for you? Or was it just something you did for me?”
Rand arched a brow. “You really have to ask?”
“I was blindfolded.”
“But you weren’t dead.” He shook his head, trying to push away the sudden sense of uneasiness that seemed to be filling them both. “It worked so well for me that the only thought I have now is getting out of here so I can fuck you up against some wall, Dani. Does that clear things up for you?”
She nodded, her smile seeming a little too bright, a little too desperate in the dancing light. He knew exactly how she felt. Both of them needed to get back to the place where what was happening between them was just about sex, dammit. Outstanding but mindless sex. Nothing more.
Fortunately, Dani seemed very much on board with that idea. “That clears things up for me completely,” she said. “Ready to go now?”
He nodded. “The sooner the better.”