Bound, Spanked and Loved: Fourteen Kinky Valentine's Day Stories (27 page)

He should have snatched up the towel again but to hell with hiding when she was being a little voyeur.

“No one ever tell you it was rude to march...”
To crawl?
It was nearly that. His cock seemed to draw up tighter at that idea. He gestured. “To stare at a man after opening a door that was shut?”

All she did was keep staring for several seconds, switching from his face to his cock again, and back, while she turned the cutest shade of pink. At last, she whispered, “I’m sorry.”

“Good.”

Getting that
sorry
was messing with his head too. He wanted to go over there and do bad things to her. The only thing stopping him was, well, everything. He didn’t even know who she really was, for god’s sake.

Ahnyil put one hand on the doorframe as if to rise but instead remained head down. Her breathing was heavier than normal.

He retrieved the towel from where it’d fallen across the claw-footed bath tub. “Are you okay?”

“I am thinking I need more penance.”

Penance? Said by her, through those lips he’d just now developed an obsession with? Say goodbye to blue balls, he was heading for purple.

He took one damp step toward her, bending a little to see her face. “What’s wrong?”

She raised that pink face. Tears running down her cheeks. There was also that sense of sublime wisdom in her expression mixed with flush-faced anger and pouting grumpiness. “I have strange feelings. Feelings of...desire that I have never felt before. I do not want these feelings.”

Oh, him too. Him too. He restrained himself. Now was the time to close the door, softly, in her face. She was probably a whore, a very clever one.

Then she put her hand on his foot. The shockwave travelled up him at the speed of revelation. He shattered and reassembled. No, not a whore. Never that.

“May I touch you?” She eyed his cock again, as if it were a strange lollipop, her tongue tip out and resting on her upper lip.

Fuuuuck.
Her words and look had strangled him.

She asked? Begging would be better. He needed more control here and he stepped back. A smile sprang to his lips when he caught her miffed expression.

“Why do you want to touch me?” When his body urged him to just go for it, he liked to brake. Besides, this was frustrating her and frustrating women was fun.

“Is it not natural? I wish to release my bad inclinations. I do this, then I can do penance.”

Whatever game she was playing it was confusing the fuck out of him.

Why not test her, see where she was heading with this? A quick screw then get her to leave before she tried to steal his life savings? That made him feel like a pimp or something. Uneasy, but this situation was off center. Maybe he was still in bed snoring?

She tempted him, though. If he did this and she stung him, she’d find he wasn’t a man to mess with.

“I...” On the verge of telling her yes, he baulked. Just couldn’t do this. Wrong was emblazoned in red on this whole scenario. “No. Please go outside.”

“Fine.” She sighed, hauled herself upright then walked away, closing the door as an afterthought.

Well. He’d thrown that away. There was a certain relief as well as regret in saying no. He needed to set boundaries if she was to stay. Fucking her...or whatever, and the
whatever
had been as tempting as the sex because he could imagine a helluva lot of doing
whatever
to her sweet body. His dick visibly twitched at that unfinished thought. “Bugger off,” he muttered at it and pulled on a pair of shorts. Yeah, fucking her was wrong.

Then he walked outside and headed for the balcony where he could hear small sounds. The sliding door was open. The gap in the curtain showed him one of the park benches that sat on the sloping expanse of lawn between Gabriel Towers and the riverbank. At least no junkies were in sight. One of the hazards of being next to a parklike area – the no-hopers gathered some nights and injected themselves. No matter how often he called the cops on them, they came back and left their litter of needles and crap. He even had regulars he recognized.

He brushed past the curtain and found her cutting her hair off at shoulder level. Curls of gold lay scattered over the tiles, shifting in the light morning breeze coming from the river.

Mouth open, he watched her hack off another hand-gathered chunk with one of his knives.

“Stop!” Carefully he retrieved his knife. “What the hell are you doing? This is sharp. You could cut off an ear or your neck.”

“I am careful.” Her eyes were so big, like a puppy caught peeing in the corner.

He shook his head. “Why?” Then he sighed and stooped to pick up some of the locks. “You have such beautiful hair.” His chest actually ached as he looked down at her.

“Did I hurt knife?”

“Huh. No. Here, I guess I may as well even it up. You look like a lawn mower attacked you. Is that okay?” He shifted the knife in his hand.

“Yes. You may fix it. Please.” Something, a shaking of her voice, betrayed a depth of emotion here. She was upset?

“Left side.” He stepped in front of her. Gently, he pushed on her shoulder and she shifted to let him have access. Cutting this was close to sacrilege, but he sawed off the missed longer parts then turned her chin to check out the overall evenness.

A cut, he’d not noticed, dribbled a thin line of blood down the right side of her neck.

His mouth tightened with annoyance that approached anger. She
had
injured herself.

Putting his hand on her sent his head and heart spinning out again. He could smell her body as well as a lighter, somehow exciting, lemony scent that made him wonder if cutting her hair had done that.

Her raggedly shorn hair also made her seem less surreal. Less perfect. He studied her. Rougher. And more available. Sexier.

Not mine, he reminded himself. Not.

If
, his imagination prompted him.
If she was, what would I do?What would I do to my girl for using my knife without permission?

Spank bank material. He could see himself alone in bed tonight, wanking merrily to that.

“You’re still pretty.” He took the plunge, keeping his voice warm. “Prettier than anyone I know.” When she wrinkled her nose, he smiled. “Now tell me why.”

He firmed his grip on her chin and noted how that seemed to make her focus on him, and he on her.

A notion nudged in, as soft as the fall of warm rain on skin, and said
there’s me and there’s you and nothing and no one else matters. No one even knows she’s here.

Ugh.
He wasn’t some deranged serial killer.

But her eyes, looking at him. The blueness, the gold.

He knew then, she was something unearthly.

As a soldier he understood solid reality. Death. Fucking. Sorrow. Blood.

He didn’t believe in magic or god or the devil, or any of those weird stories mankind had told himself since he emerged from his cave and created fire. He didn’t believe in fairies either. But her, this girl-woman-creature, she was not from
here
.

Ridiculous. He needed to knock off the scotch, late at night, and Facebook, that too.

He shifted his fingers farther along her jaw, curling them over her soft skin. Small muscles moved as perhaps she thought of swallowing. Her lips parted.

“Why,” he asked again. “Why did you cut your hair?”

“Penance. I looked at you when I should not have.”

For that she’d cut her hair and, accidentally, or not accidentally, her neck? My, oh my. Someone needed to steer her safely to shore. He dreaded what she might do if some worse tragedy occurred.

That’s an excuse
, he told himself.
No, it’s not.

It was and it wasn’t. This was something he wanted to do as well as something that should be done. Just because he wanted it desperately, didn’t mean it wasn’t needed. He had certainty where none had been before.

He gripped her jaw, so tightly he was sure it must hurt, yet her eyelids only closed a fraction of an inch before opening fully again. “Can I show you what I think your penance should be?”

Her answer was the faintest murmur. “Yes.”

Then he took her by the hand and led her inside, sure that he was heading full speed toward the unknown, toward darkness or light, but whichever, it was going to be some ride.

Holding his hand was a woman who captivated him.

Chapter Two

––––––––

W
ith his hand enclosing hers, the man, Adam, led her into his small house. He hesitated at that place all other doors led from – his living room. Then he drew her toward the sofa and sat there with her standing before him. Not once did he relinquish her hand. It was exhilarating to be connected like this to someone, to a man.

He took both her hands in his then and said, “Kneel.”

Being accustomed to commands, she did so.

In the past she’d listened to those above her and obeyed, and he had a similar way about him: an air of command.

Once she’d kneeled, he merely looked at her, with the smallest curve to his mouth.

“May I?”

She angled her head to the side.

“This.” He reached out, as if to touch her. A frown creased his brow then vanished. “You attract me like no other woman.”

His fingers, his long, manly fingers came nearer, and she could scent the essence of him on them. A unique scent.
Adam
. Even with her eyes closed, she would know if he was beside her.

From the corners of her eyes, she watched his hand, so close now she could see every crease and the whorls at the tips of his fingers.

Surely this was forbidden? Say no. Say stop. Her words of denial were born to her tongue and the moment he laid his skin on hers, on her face, they died.

Bliss
– an intensity of sensation sparked across her skin and she inhaled sharply and closed her eyes. When her eyelids drifted apart, she saw how he’d watched her reaction and the mild shock on his face.

“What are you?”

Such a quiet question. He was puzzled. He suspected she wasn’t normal.

She hummed and nudged his hand, hoping. And so it began.

At first, he only ran his knuckle lightly down her cheek. She trembled and he grew bolder.

Sometimes, he held both her hands. Sometimes he released them to caress her shoulder, her neck, or to feel her hair. Once, he traced her eyebrows, but he always picked up her hand again, as if the need for contact was there for him also. When he had her hand, he would massage her there with his fingers and thumb, as if waiting for her to recover her senses.

She didn’t protest because this was a time of awakening for her. Feelings arose and lingered and built. Waves of cool shivers made her skin hypersensitive to the next caress. The pulse of her blood became louder, more insistent. She sighed when he ran his fingers through her short hair. She half shut her eyes when he spent time playing with her lips. The more she stayed quiet and let him handle her, the slower his caresses became and the more this agonized her, because she yearned for more.

She knew this was novel to her, the same as she knew she had a past, even if she recalled little.

So many things she knew, and yet did not know.

She was here to set things right and he, this Adam, was the pivot upon which all else hung.

She had a glorious bank of information at her fingertips within her mind, and yet could not access it.

She’d seen many naked people and men before and never blinked, and she remembered none of them. She’d never blinked, except for when confronted by him and his arousal. The shaft of his manhood had fascinated her...and she knew not why.

She’d eaten and drunk today and that was also new. She’d used a toilet and, miracle of miracles, found herself equipped with female anatomy. That was definitely new. Putting her hand there had made her mouth fall open at the ripple of pleasure and she’d wondered how Adam’s hand there would feel. Or his mouth.

Sex, she’d seen sex before and never participated.

She was here for penance, but Adam’s penance was surely not the penance those who’d sent her here intended. That intrigued and appalled her. She must be careful not to overstep.

There was a hunger in his eyes for her that said he was dangerous.

She prayed his penance would satisfy her remorse, but a need spread from that small place between her legs, consuming her thoughts.

His touch was setting her afire.

This was not why she was here.

“You are exquisite,” he whispered. For the first time, he ventured to brush his fingers beneath her breasts. When she registered that, she grew so confused her heart seemed to stop, for a moment, just a tiny moment.

Panic froze her.

“You’re a woman, and yet...more than that.” He traced the curve of each breast through the cloth of her shirt, slowly, deliberately, pressing upward so they shifted, while he watched her to see what she might do.

Be still, she told herself, but she couldn’t help squirming.

He smiled.

She wanted to pull his hand downward to lay his palm upon that place below: his heat on her heat. Wait, no. She should pull away his hands.

Then she broke and tried.

“No.” He grasped and squeezed her breasts.

She stopped, horrified. Slowly, she lowered her arm.

“Good.”

Good was her not stopping him? Or had she meant to make him do more lewd things to her? She wasn’t sure. Her world was upside down.

She quivered, torn.

Again he took her hands in his, but he slid his grip down until he held her wrists. She could feel the strength there, see a new wildness in him.

“What will I do with you? What should I do?”

Oh, she was dying to find out. If she didn’t encourage him, would that mean there was no sin in whatever happened?

His thumbs drew small, insistent circles on her flesh that somehow drew lines of tension through her arms to her head, then down to between her legs, as if he’d knotted and tied her to him. With each circle of his thumbs the tension tightened.

Was moaning a social rudeness like watching him bathe had been? She struggled to stop herself.