Rae hadn’t been sure what kind of outfit she should choose from the warehouse-like costume closet, so she wore basic Domme-wear: a black bustier corset and skirt that fell to mid-thigh. Georgie cranked the laces on the corset so tight that Rae could barely breathe, but the tight whalebones did curve her waist in.
The tall door to Play Room Three looked like it was off of a Spanish bordello, all honey wood and Moorish rococo adornments. Rae peeked around the cracked-open door.
Play Room Three looked like a jungle, except the hanging vines were ropes, and the air smelled like jute and salty iron instead of rotting leaves. The air conditioner hissed a cold breeze. No music played in this room of silently swinging rope ends.
Some of the ropes were skinny, snaky tendrils that curled from the ceiling. Others were thick, coarse cables that looked like severed elephant trunks. Chains hung from the ceiling, too. Evil silver links glittered in the bright lights. Black rings looked like cruel cast iron. Occasionally, one clinked.
Most of the hanging bonds ended in some kind of link: a loop, a shining metal hook, or shackles.
Wulf sat in the middle of the room in a huge wooden chair, a throne, a battle throne like Henry the Fifth might have taken to France on one of his campaigns, wearing black pants but stripped bare to his lean waist. The black tattoo crept over his pale shoulder. The overhead lights cast shadows under the defined bands of his chest and abdominal muscles. His blond head was bowed as he stared at the green rope coiled in his fists, and he didn’t even look up at her.
Rae almost backed out of the room, but she screwed what remained of her courage to the sticking place and stepped inside. The air conditioner blew cold on her bare shoulders. She closed the door behind her. “Sir?”
Wulf raised his head. The cold expression in his blue eyes looked like he could slash her throat without blinking, and then it was gone and he was as implacable as wind-smoothed desert sand dunes.
Maybe, instead of firing her, he was going to make her beg to quit.
Her heart clenched, but she didn’t turn and run.
Wulf let a length of the green rope fall from his hands. He looped one end of the rope into a noose and began tying hangman’s knots up the length of it.
Because he had taken his shirt off and exposed that dark Japanese tattoo and blown-out gunshot scar, Wulf must have told whoever was in the security booth to turn off the overhead cameras. She glanced at the black globe above her. It never made any sound, so she couldn’t tell if it was on or not.
They might be alone.
Her useless paranoia sounded the alarm claxons, but she ignored it. She wasn’t going to cut and run on him. If he fired her, fine. If he told her that he never wanted to see her again, fine.
She had violated his trust, but she wasn’t going to walk away from him.
Wulf finished fashioning the noose. “Come here.”
His voice sounded normal.
Rae walked across the dungeon to him, brushing aside ropes that snagged on her shoulders and hair.
“Take off your shoes and the skirt,” he said.
“And the corset?” If she was going to be mostly naked, she would like to breathe.
“No,” he said. “I’ll take that off you.” He spun the rope with each turn, coiling it at his feet.
Rae had grown up on a cattle ranch and could rope a steer from horseback. Wulf had coiled that lariat correctly, an unusual skill.
The noose had a tidy row of seven knots above the loop.
Rae didn’t move to take off her clothes, yet. “Why are we here, Sir?”
“Training,” he said. “Regular Domme training session. Today you will gain experience with kinbaku-bi, a Japanese term that means ‘the beauty of tight binding.’ One uses a slim rope for it.” He gestured toward the rope on the tile floor, which was indeed a thinner, more supple rope than Rae had used for roping steers. “It utilizes simple knots but complex patterns. Now take those clothes off.”
His British accent clipped his words, stronger than ever, but she could hear the Germanic inflections, too.
She was not going to leave him.
Rae unzipped the boots down the backs of her calves and used her toes to pry them off. Even after only a short walk through the office hallways of The Devilhouse, the boots’ seams had pressed red creases into her feet. She shucked her skirt but delayed taking her off her panties until Wulf’s pale eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch.
She dropped her panties.
“Turn around,” he said.
She pivoted and wrapped her coppery hair around her wrist to pull it aside. She felt Wulf move in close behind her. Whether it was warmth from his bare chest on her shoulders or air displacement brushing her naked ass, she couldn’t tell, but she knew he was there, and close.
Her skin blushed hot, thinking that he was standing right behind her. He had dropped her off at her dorm less than twelve hours ago, but desperation at the thought of never seeing him again, never touching him again, filled those hours.
The corset loosened around the tops of her boobs, and she could breathe a little freer already. The soft ribbons whispered as they slid through the metal loops down her spine. The bustier slid over her ribs, and she caught it with her hands, not so much out of modesty as reluctance to let go of that last bit of protection.
The dangling ribbons brushed her bare ass cheeks.
“Drop it,” Wulf said, and she did. The black satin fell to the floor. Steel whalebones thumped on the tile.
Wulf walked around in front of her, surveying her body again, just like he had that first time in a play room just a couple weeks ago.
That time, he had tied her up with sophisticated enthusiasm and teased her until she thought she would go nuts, and then he had taken her from behind.
This time, he had a rope, and he was angry.
At least, she thought he was from that flash she had seen in his eyes.
He should be pissed as heck at her. He’d asked for one thing from her, to not pry. She could rationalize the crap out of it, and if she’d found something despicable then it would have been better for her and Lizzy to know, but in looking, she’d crossed his line.
He didn’t look mad anymore, but his default expression was a detached calmness and controlled predatory gaze like a slightly hungry lion.
He hung the noose around her neck with the hangman’s knots dangling between her breasts. The soft rope felt like braided ribbons, like it was made of fine cotton or even silk.
He asked, “Have you ever seen kinbaku-bi?”
“No.” Her shaking voice betrayed her nerves.
“I thought not.” He didn’t sound like he was chiding her for her inexperience nor disappointed in her lack of research. He was just stating a fact. “The experience is in the tying, the process, not the final product of knots and binds. Usually, the rope master finishes the knots, admires his handiwork for a moment or displays it for the audience, and then releases the woman.”
“And it’s always a woman being tied.”
“Except in homosexual situations. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a woman rope master tie a man, but that may be an artifact of Japanese culture.” He walked around behind her again. “Your arms will be like this.”
He turned her arms and held them behind her—both thumbs up, palms out, and forearms stacked together—like she had crossed her arms over her chest but behind her back. Her boobs pushed out when he folded her arms.
The position was more extreme than a straightjacket. If he tied her like this, she would be helpless. If he strung her up on one of those hooks, he could kill her, easily. A drain was cut into the tile floor, just like in Play Rooms One and Two.
When one’s brother was savagely cut down only a foot away, what kind of psychological damage did that cause? Maybe she should have let the browser translate those newspaper clippings under the pictures or looked up more about early childhood trauma in her psychology textbooks.
Those crazy, too-late paranoid sirens screamed in her head.
No, Wulf wouldn’t hurt her.
She trusted him to not hurt her, so she ignored the crazy, too-late paranoia screaming in her ears. It was usually wrong, anyway. It hadn’t gone off when Corn Guy rufied her. It felt more like a fear of change than an actual warning system.
Her shoulders strained from Wulf holding her arms crossed behind her back, but not too much.
He said, “When I say to, you fold your arms this way.”
Rae nodded. He released her arms, so she let them fall to her bare hips.
Wulf walked around to the front of her and picked up the rope from between her breasts. “Arms out.”
She raised her arms, trying to keep them from shaking. The shakes were a biological reaction, nothing more.
The hangman’s knot dangled around her neck like a necklace. The rope brushed the back of her neck when he snaked it under her arms and then threaded it through a loop at the center, then back around and under her breasts, framing her boobs with rope. The jade green loops down her sternum looked more like jewelry than a restraint, and Rae tilted her head to see it better.
Wulf threaded the rope three times around her waist, lacing the cord together down her ribs and stomach. He yanked it tight until it indented her skin. Her tan flesh plumped around the green rope.
Since kinbaku-bi meant the beauty of tight binding, she assumed that the tightness of the rope was part of it.
The last loop settled around her hips, and he pulled it tight. Except for how terribly naked she was, the green cord looked like the structural parts of a ball gown, and against all odds, she felt pretty with the rope cinching her waist.
He glanced down at her abdomen, tied a knot in the last length of the rope, and let it dangle in front of her.
He picked up another coiled rope, scarlet this time. “Turn around.”
Trepidation crawled up her spine, but she turned.
“Position your hands like I showed you.”
She wound her hands behind her back and tried not to flinch when he eased the silken rope around one of her arms.
Wulf threaded her whole arm through a loop, pulled it tight around her biceps, and then wove the rope around her arms. Though he was behind Rae’s back, she could feel the intricate pattern that laced her arms together. Her arms’ position jutted out her breasts, and the jade rope girdling her waist and encircling her boobs made her feel unconscionably sexy. It felt like he was adorning her with jade and ruby jewelry.
Rae wanted to dance in this sexy get-up.
Her paranoia must have finally broken, like a bad fever.
Wulf finished tying the red rope around her arms behind her back, and he bent down, reaching between her calves for the long green rope dangling in front of her. He snagged it and dragged it up. It rubbed her skin between her knees and all the way up her inner thighs, until the rope nestled between the lips of her pussy. A knot rested on her clit and sent a shock of sexual heat through her.
He wound the rope through her arms in back, and she felt the noose hugging the back of her neck shift backward. The ropes pushed down on her shoulders, now more like a harness than a noose.
He pulled it taut, and the knot pressed her clit like a man stroking her.
Wulf stepped away from her, but she couldn’t see him back there.
She asked, “So how do I look?”
“Beautiful.” His voice was huskier than before.
She pivoted, turning toward him so he could see all the results of his handiwork.
He looked down her body to her legs and her feet, then back up. Rae could see the fire in his eyes. His breath was shallower that it had been.
She leaned toward him, feeling like a femme fatale. If he hated her, he could have tied her up in some hideous knot job, but he hadn’t. This was a little kinky, but it was beautiful. Every time she inhaled, her boobs strained in their ribbon harness. Every time she breathed out, her arms behind her back lowered, pulling the rope between her legs up and tightening the knot against her clit.
Lord, if she didn’t quit breathing, she was going to come.
Her rising passion made her breathe faster, and the rope ground harder against her clit, rippling her with pleasure.
He must see what it was doing to her. Surely he would make it stop. The ropes around her boobs felt like a man squeezing them, and her nipples hardened. Her eyes began losing focus with every time she exhaled, when knot lifted and rubbed her clit.
Her wet pussy soaked the rope, making it slippery.
Now, her every breath moved the knot, sliding back and forth across her clit. Her body began to tighten.
She fell to her knees, unable to stand when all the energy in her body was flowing down to her pussy, condensing and ready to burst.
Oh, she couldn’t come with him watching her like this. She bit her lip and wiggled her arms, trying to free herself, but that made the knot gyrate in her pussy, nearly sending her over the top but she held her breath to stop it.
“Are you going to leave me here, like this?” she gasped.
“Leave you here alone, so helpless, so vulnerable? No, I’m not that cruel.”
He walked around behind where she kneeled on the stone floor and yanked, unraveling the rope that tied her arms and releasing the rope between her legs. Her arms tingled as blood rushed into them. That intimate rope fell away from her clit and she nearly orgasmed as the slippery pressure came off, but passion made her crazy for him.
She jumped to her feet and grabbed Wulf around his neck, needing to touch him and his body. Pushing her bare feet to stand on tiptoe, she kissed him hard.
Just for a second, his lips didn’t move under hers.
Horror boomed in her head because she had made a hideous mistake and he was finished with her, but then Wulf’s lips opened and his strong arms crushed her to him, even tighter than the jade green rope still strapped around her breasts and waist.
Her breasts pressed against his bare chest, and their skin heated together. His hands were grabbing her bare ass and the ropes cinched around her waist, and he held her pelvis to him. She stroked up his neck and felt his short hair on her palms.
They kissed, their mouths fitting tight against each other and tongues sliding. She was already so close to coming, but she wanted him inside her. She plucked at his pants’ waistband, wanting him to take them off so she could have him, but his body was pressed so hard against her stomach that she couldn’t reach his belt.
Instead, he swiveled in her grasp and his arms lifted her behind her shoulders and knees. “Don’t,” she said yet again, like she did every time he picked her up.
His bare shoulders were hot under her hands. He kept kissing her while he carried her against his wide chest over to the huge wooden chair and sat down with her on his lap. The bulge in his pants pushed against her thigh, then her pussy. She gasped and almost came, but she twisted in his hands and straddled him, kneeling on the wide chair.
Sitting beneath her, he seized her boobs, lifted them in his hands, and sucked one nipple hard. She threw her head back and cried out. She ground her pussy against his pants, still trying to figure out his belt, and finally she managed the buckle.
He flicked open his fly and pushed his underpants down. His cock sprang out, a drop of pre-cum already glistening on the top. His hands roamed over her, squeezing and lifting her ass, and she tried to position herself over his cock but he pushed her back, denying her.
“Please!” she gasped.
His hands grasped her hips, then his fingers wiggled under the ropes woven across her stomach and between her breasts. When he gripped the bindings down the center of her chest with both hands, he held her over his cock with the head just poking into her.
He didn’t let her move, even though she struggled to press herself down on him, holding onto the heavy cords on his shoulders. She could barely open her eyes. “Please, Wulf!”
His face was close to hers as he leaned forward, holding her with his fists knotted in the ropes.
Rae wiggled, trying to take him in, but he held her off for another agonizing minute.
He squeezed the rope in his fists and jerked her down onto his cock. The rope bit into her breasts and waist as he used the rope like handles to muscle her, controlling her body. She could have gone limp and he still could have lifted her off him and rammed her down again.
His cock filled her as she came down on him. She arched her back and cried out. She was frenzied for him, and she tried to pump faster. Using those ropes, he levered her up and down his cock, harder but slower than she wanted, coercing her to accept his rhythm, his need.
Her ass slapped his thighs. She writhed, trying to take him faster, and the energy twisted inside her, compressing. Her fingernails dug into his shoulders as his cock breached her body so deep that he pushed a shriek from her lungs.
Her pussy clenched hard one last time, coiling tight like a spring. He dragged her down with the ropes.
Her orgasm ripped through her. She clung to Wulf’s muscled shoulders as he worked her twice more, each thrust zooming blinding pleasure up her spine, and then he gasped and arched under her.
His cock throbbed inside her as he came, sending her over the edge again. She grabbed his neck and held on as the orgasm quaked through her flesh.
The orgasm subsided, but she still twined her arms around his neck, not wanting this to end because she had thrown herself at him and he had resisted at first. She didn’t want him to stalk out, leaving her shattered.
Her vision cleared, and she turned her head, nuzzling him. His neck smelled like citrus and spiced tea.
Wulf pried his fingers out of the rope bindings and wrapped his arms around her. His biceps strained, holding her tightly, and his hands were bunched into fists. His voice was so hoarse that it sounded like he was forcing the words out as whispered near her ear, “All this, you let me do. Why couldn’t you have trusted me like this before?”
She took as deep a breath as the ropes around her ribcage would allow. “Lizzy was going to tell you how she felt. No one knows anything about you. I was the only one who could find out if there was a real reason to warn her off.”
“And now you know.”
“I saw the pictures. That’s all.” Her throat clenched around her voice. “Why did you tell me your name if you didn’t want me to know?”
His arms tightened around her, and she squeezed her arms around his shoulders, holding him close. His breath trembled on her bare shoulder. His voice didn’t quaver. “That first night, you didn’t know I was The Dom or Wulfram Augustus or anyone. You didn’t know anything, and you didn’t want anything from me. You saw me, as a man, and I could not stop myself.”
Rae didn’t understand, not really, but she held him close and stroked his neck.
“I don’t make mistakes like that. I don’t let information slip, and I don’t accidentally divulge things.” The harsh tension in his voice sounded angry, not mystified. “I don’t lose control.”
She stroked the back of his head down to his broad shoulders, trying to soothe him. Her hands shied away from that soul-rending scar.
He said, “You were funny, and bright, and ambitious, and aggressive to the point of recklessness. I knew you were struggling to stay in college and build your clinic.”
She nodded to let him know she was listening.
“I lied to you that night. I said that I must have you for the Devilhouse. Even then, I wanted you for myself.”
But she had ruined all that because she hadn’t trusted him.
Inside, her whole body trembled, on the verge of tears. “But you should want someone like Lizzy, not me.”
“Why would I want her?”
She summoned all her fears and laid them out. “Because she’s pretty, and thin, and blond, and she would kneel naked at your feet and call you Master, and I won’t.”
His derisive tone surprised her. “Submissive women are as common as muck.”
“Because she wouldn’t pry. Even when she was mooning after you, she didn’t even try to find out anything about you.”
Wulf pried her arms from around his neck and lifted her off of him, standing her on the cold, stone floor. He arranged his pants and walked over to his white shirt hanging like a ghost from a hook by the door.
Rae covered her breasts with her arms, trying not to look naked and pathetic.
Pulling his shirt over his shoulder and the black tattoo around the deep, twisted scar on his back, Wulf said, “A submissive woman wouldn’t pry, that is true. Perhaps I should not have fallen for a natural-born Dominatrix.”
Wulf’s flat tone had been filled with regret, not sarcasm, and it struck Rae cold in the heart even as she latched onto his words, that he had fallen for her.