Bound, Spanked and Loved: Fourteen Kinky Valentine's Day Stories (32 page)

Coming home to Ahnyil was the best antidote to overseas fuck-ups possible. He drew up one of the chairs on his balcony and sat to watch her throw the ball for the dog. The heart locket he’d bought her at the airport lay across his hand and he wondered what he could place in there. Something of significance? A piece of her hair entwined with his? Maybe he had more romance in his bones that he thought?

Maybe.

When the ball fell in the water, he almost laughed.

The dog sat on its ass and barked until she ventured to the edge and rescued it from floating away.

He stood and checked the distance to the ground. Going out via the door was preferably maybe but instead he steadied himself on the railing, climbed over, and dropped to the lawn.

Ahnyil waved to him, then threw the ball again. “Hellooo! Welcome home, Adam!” She ran to him.

His stomach tightened – why he didn’t know.

He was strolling downslope to meet her, when he saw the problem. Every now and then, her feet seemed to leave the ground by a few inches, as if she were floating.

Certain angles of light bestowed a silver nimbus about her figure. A halo, of sorts.

He wanted to throw up.
No.

The solution came to him, though he regretted how quickly it had occurred to him, he embraced it. Pain made her feel real? Maybe that was the answer.

She couldn’t leave him. He wouldn’t let her.

He kissed her then towed her back to the house. She babbled news to him.

“I’ve been so busy while you were gone! You know Julia and Aaron?”

“Uh huh.”

“I helped them open this special sort of house.”

“Oh?” He opened the back door, ushered her in. Unlocked. Huh. Normal with Ahnyil about. “And.”

“It’s for addicts, to help them get clean.”

“Addicts looking after addicts? Isn’t that unsafe?” Where? The dining table called to him. “Get undressed.”

“Oh.” That made her pause. “You are in a hurry.”

“I am.” He smiled, knew it was a poor excuse for a smile.

“That’s okay.” She began to undress, slipping off shorts and shirt quickly. “And no, Julian and Aaron are no longer addicts.”

Her own smile was so bright he paused to stroke her face. “You managed that, hey?”

“Yes.” She went to her knees, dressed only in her white underwear. “Do you know Adam, how good it makes me feel when I can do this? Help people.”

“I can see, my beautiful creature. I can.” Sad perhaps that he almost wanted her to stop. It was clear to him that this was why she was changing. He drew her to him, wrapping his arms over her, kissing her head. “You’re too good for me.”

“I’m not,” she whispered. “We are right for each other.”

But under his hands, he was sure he felt something new stirring where her wings should be.

“Come.” He helped her up and led her to the dining table, where he laid her on it and placed her, just so, telling her not to move while he fetched ropes.

Chapter Six

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here was a certain anxiety while she waited. She wanted to see, to feel, to be the center of his attention again, but his actions seemed unusual. His last words before he left her were simply to stay where she was, curled on her side.

She waited, dreaded, and when he reappeared with loops of rope in one hand, she squeezed her thighs together and that reawakened the delicious inner throb.

“Be my little rope bunny,” he murmured. Then he shifted her onto her back and roped each hand above her head so they formed a V, pushed her legs upward until each was bent at the knee then tied them so the rope trapped her legs in that position but splayed apart. He passed the rope under her and wrapped her breasts in a crisscross of rope, cursing that he hadn’t thought to do that first, and he kept on tying her down to the table knotting and looping, smiling thinly as he worked. That he stopped, now and then, to kiss parts of her, her mouth, her thighs, her feet, or her breasts, made her smile too.

“Are you happy?” he asked quietly, as he threaded another loop of rope.

His question drew her from the fog that had crept upon her. This made her think, if at snail speed, but he waited patiently.

“I am. I like being your bunny. I missed you.”

“I missed you too.” His gaze was searching and somehow, distantly, terrible.

“Are you angry with me, Adam?”

“No.”

But he was lying.

When at last he was done tying her down, he stripped off his clothes then walked around the table, studying her and the ropes. “You’re my work of art for the day. Maybe for the century.”

Then he fetched a phone and showed her the device and asked permission. She nodded. What did it matter to her if he preserved the sight?

Knowing he enjoyed seeing her like this always made her want to squirm, though she could barely move at all. A gleam came into his eyes when she tried, so she did it again.

She was trapped, and snug in his ropes, and absolutely helpless. This was more like Adam – the deviant sadist who loved her. She grinned.

He took pictures from many angles before he came back and fucked her hard, harder than ever before, but he broke off from fucking her to whip her and cane her, to flog her ass, thighs, and her breasts. He was an expert with these and never missed or wrapped the falls of the flogger where they shouldn’t be, but she began to fear, just not enough to say her never-used safeword.

She cried out at the pain, and loved it, because it was his pain. She orgasmed crazier and harder than ever also, writhing and bruising herself on the rope, ending up sweaty and still caught in his tangled web.

There would be marks from the rope, those twining ones that showed the turns.

He threw aside his implements and claimed her again with his cock – in her mouth, in her pussy, and finally, in her ass. By the end of it, she had cum inside her as well as all over her breasts.

Exhausted, she waited to be freed. Arm propped on the table and shaking, he stared down at her. Through it all she’d feared as she never had before. Something was wrong.

He’d claimed her, she saw this.

Lust, there was lust here. Desire. Same as before, except now, she read bad intentions in his every move and word and sound.

Why was this so? What had she done?

After she was untied, he brought her to the sofa and cuddled her so tightly there was no space between them but she didn’t care if breathing was difficult.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“Don’t be.”

“Did I hurt you more than you could bear?”

“No. I don’t think you could. You complete me, sir. You always do. You know that. Please don’t be sorry.” She beamed up at him from the circle of his arms.

But his answer was only a small kiss on her nose then he rocked her in his arms, silently.

She should have asked him why he feared but she couldn’t. For once, she was afraid, and unshed tears lined her eyes.

Chapter Seven

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hat night, he lay on the bed with her listening to more cries from upstairs. They almost went on long enough to make him pick up the phone. Ahnyil lay next to him, cursing into her pillow.

“He should be stopped,” she said softly.

“Yes.” He put his hand out and held her hand. If he went upstairs he knew it would result in talking to McDonald through the inched-open door at most. He’d tried. Smacking the shit out of him was an option in fantasy worlds where cops never arrested the wrong person.

“If she doesn’t uphold complaints. If he doesn’t hurt her badly, nothing will be done.”

“I know.”

He could hear her chewing on the pillow so he sighed, rolled over and hugged her. Slowly the tension drained from her body and she fell asleep.

It was dark when he awoke and the bed beside him was empty. When he sat up on his elbow, he found the sheets only faintly warm. How long had she been gone? For an elite soldier he was lacking in alertness. She might have gone to get a drink or something else innocuous but he knew she had not.

Knowing
stuff seemed a hazard while around Ahnyil. She was infectious in that way. He suspected she’d thawed his heart too, in many ways.

The bedroom door, half closed as it was, let in a wedge of diluted moon or streetlight, and it was slowly being eclipsed then brightened.

Ahnyil returned. The silhouette of light from her described the shape of great wings, flitting over wall and ceiling, then dwindling as she truly entered.

The wings that had heralded her return had vanished. A trick of light? He knew it was not so for the silver nimbus he’d seen in daylight surrounded her once more. In her hand was something so white it was impossible to see in detail. None of this white object reflected into the room. It existed but perhaps was not of this world for it seemed to ignore the laws of physics.

She came to the bed and lay down beside him again, on her back, with the whiteness clasped in her hands and aligned so it ran down to her toes.

When he closed his eyes and opened them again, quickly, he caught an impression of what it must be. A sword.

An angel’s sword.

At least the bed moved with her weight. She was still here. Still real.

Not for much longer.

“He is gone,” she said.

Adam blinked. “Who?”

“Mr. McDonald had an attack of the heart.”

An ambulance siren wailed in the distance, growing louder.

Terror flattened him. “What have you done, Ahnyil?”

At last, she turned to him. “He was going to kill her, tonight, with his hands. I saw this. It was quick. No one saw me.” Her eyes were shining with wetness. “This needed doing.”

He shook his head, appalled. “And the boy?”

“It will be hard on him without a father, but he will prevail. He will live.”

“You’re sure he was... Is this right?” Of course she was. Still. Killing on the battlefield was one thing. Killing here, in suburbia, his neighbors? Did angels do this sort of thing?

“It is justice.” She moved onto her back and shut her eyes, cradling the hilt of her sword.  “Justice may not always seem right. What seems right is not always Justice.”

He could hear the capitals in her words. Justice.

Sleep never quite returned after that.

In the morning he stayed away from her. She was almost an angel again. What was stopping her? When he was away, she progressed toward this...state she was in. She changed. He was holding her back. No matter what she said, he was. The sex? His general badness? The guilt he’d felt before returned a hundredfold.

What the fuck was he doing?

When he sat down to his laptop and opened his emails, he found the answer. This was
his
penance. His punishment. He ran his hand over his hair and bowed his head, holding back the ache in his eyes.

Abu has been hurt. Some gunmen came in yesterday and asked for money. He was hit in the head by a stray bullet. I’m sorry. The hospital does not expect him to live.

A sign. This had to be a sign. He should go.

He shoved back the chair, making it tip over with a bang as it struck the floor. Startled, Ahnyil looked up from her bowl of cereal.

“Adam?”

“I have to go again. Tomorrow. I’ll arrange things for you. Leave money. There’s a boy who has been hurt.”

“Abu?”

He frowned.

“You spoke of him many times. In Pakistan?”

“Yes. He’s dying. I want to try to see him before he is gone. Understand?”

“Yes.” She nodded.

He didn’t know how he would do this. His passport was in order but taking off to a country that was two steps from the Taliban and wary of fighters migrating across the borders to Afghanistan? It could be tricky.

He had friends who knew friends, though. His reputation was still rock solid when it came to contract work. To his relief and sadness, he snagged a lift on a plane the next day. The secretary of a diplomat he’d worked for before was going back and the only proviso was doing some security work for a few days.

He barely touched Ahnyil until the minutes before he left. Then he dragged her into his arms and held her and kissed her. Once more couldn’t hurt.

When he returned to Australia, he expected her to be gone. To have ascended? Whatever it was angels did.

“Be good,” he whispered in her ear.

“I will.”

Her last words to him as he climbed into the taxi were, “Goodbye, Adam.” Her wave and smile were as cheerful as ever.

Maybe she didn’t suspect? It was kinder that way.

Men didn’t cry, so he remained stoic until the vehicle turned a corner and was out of her sight. Then he buried his face in his hands, clenching them until his skin hurt. Any tears were soaked up by his palms.

By the time they reached the airport, he was normal.

He was leaving her forever and going to say goodbye to a child he’d abandoned to fate, long ago. For a man who’d thought he had the world by its tail, he’d turned into a piece of excrement.

Being sorry for himself was stupid. Ahnyil was better off without him. He just prayed he’d get to Abu in time to tell the child he loved him and that he was sorry and maybe, maybe, give him some form of comfort. The last email had said he was still alive.

He found his seat on the plane, sagged back into it. The secretary, thankfully, had accepted his excuse of fatigue and grief.

The plane took off, engines roaring, pressing him into the seat.

Gone. He’d left her life to let her become what she should be. For the best. His stomach was one solid knot of apprehension.

Damn. Damn everything.

Tomorrow was Valentine’s Day.

Chapter Eight

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hnyil sat on the deserted rooftop of Gabriel Towers, her sword across her knees, the sunlight on her face, her companions a small boy called Jacob, his dog, and a few cooing pigeons. The wind blew the clouds across, until at last the sky was a blue slate of nothingness.

Time to do what must be done.

She was sure the sword was still hers by accident, but it was here and she would make use of it.

Up here, close to the heavens, life was simple and clear. Her knowledge had crystallized. It had always been there, inside her. She was a fallen angel. She knew why she’d fallen, for lust. Specifically for lusting after Adam on that day. Sex wasn’t a sin, no, but it was unlawful for an angel. She could never become one again unless she cast that off. One fraction away, that was all she was today.