Make Me Yours Evermore, Book 3 (12 page)

Andreas went on. “You’re going to hear me apologize, and then you’re going to hear me tell you why I want to stay. I hope you can forgive what I did.”

Oh fuck. Yet I was giddy with relief in a strange way. I could hear Scrim going down the steps.

“I see.” Chris took a deep breath. “Let’s go into the living room.”

“Can I touch her? There’s something I need to do.”

What was this? Again I tried to raise my head and was pushed down.

“You want to touch her?” Though sounding irritated, a moment later, Chris added, “Sure.”

“Thanks.”

The carpet was all I could see, and Andreas’s feet coming closer. Then he wrenched up my head by the rope and I found myself looking at him and his very angry eyes. My mouth ached from the way he’d twisted the rope. I whimpered at the pain and at how he regarded me.

I’m sorry
, I wanted to say,
ever so sorry
. But the damp rope in my mouth made that impossible. Tears wet my eyelashes.

“Kat,” he murmured. “I can only think of one reason why you’d take my laptop. Shake your head if I’m wrong.”

Confused and panicking, I pretended my eyes weren’t watering, I wasn’t gagged with a rope, and a man I’d come to respect wasn’t spearing me with a
look
. Tentatively, I shook my head then froze when his face stilled, venturing into that territory of facial expressions where the apocalypse was just over the horizon.

“I know you’re lying.” His focus wandered lower and his mouth pursed. “Not getting the cops involved…that was the one thing I asked of you. Bitch, girl, that’s pure bitch. Now you’ve got two men who want to beat your ass…and worse. Much worse.”

Ice cold prickled across my skin, yet the longer he held me and stared the more heat mingled with that cold and gathered between my legs. My nipples hardened.

God help me. What retribution did Andreas and Chris plan? Despite my fear, I also felt relief. Scrim had gone. I’d do anything not to be in that man’s power again.

So many things had just gone wrong. I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t angry at Andreas either. I’d listen to his explanation but his actions had knocked me so off balance a small earthquake would’ve been an improvement.

Kat had almost escaped.

And Scrim had been face to face with Andreas, again. The potential mess from that, if Scrim accidentally said the wrong words, made my gut crawl. He’d brought her to the door looking like he’d dirty wrestled her on a bed of nails. I could see so many scratches on her stomach. The skin of her hands had been dark from the tie around her wrists – way too tight, obviously. Then there was the rope gag. Fuck. My balls tightened.

That part, I liked.

With the rope wrapped around her head and between her teeth, she crawled so damn obediently. It was also amazingly sexy. As we headed into the living room I couldn’t tear my gaze away and did a last second dodge to avoid head-butting the door jamb. Behind us, Andreas chuckled. I raised an eyebrow when he too devoted a few seconds to watching her crawl. The sway of her plump butt would hypnotize most men.

“Stop.” The chain-attached ceiling ring was above. “Stand.”

I gave a small jerk on the rope to encourage her and watched as she sat up on her knees then rose shakily – her body and gorgeous long legs unfolding like some origami siren. If they’d had one of her for us boys to play with when we did Japanese at school, the teacher would’ve found us far more interested.

Andreas perched himself on the edge of the dining table.

The drool from the rope wedging her mouth open was par for the course but the tears tracking down her face surprised me. I felt, as I often did, that contradiction between wanting to cuddle her and shower her with flower blossoms and kiss away whatever had caused her tears…and wanting to do terrible things to her. Today was a day for terrible things. Today she’d almost left me and the need to hurt her was high.

I wanted cries and whimpers, and even more tears. As a Dom, vengeance wasn’t tolerated, as her captor, I could do what I liked. I wound up the rope in one hand and wedged that hand across her throat in a
V.

My voice was quiet but intense. “You are in so much trouble. You’re going to stand here, very still. You’re going to obey, unless you want to provoke me even more, and right now, flaying you with a butter knife is tempting. Nod.”

In the past, it had always been rare when Kat obeyed me without fuss. When she nodded, I couldn’t help that twinge of pleasure at the power I possessed.

“Put your hands behind your back.”

Again, quiet obedience. “Good girl.”

If only I could draw what I could see. The lines, the lines. I had an artist’s eye but not the hands to render her on paper. Exquisite. Charcoal background with pastels for her breasts, her face, her body then maybe more fine black lines for the rope on her face. I held both her breasts in my hands, weighing them, enveloping them. “Mine.”

She sucked in a quivery breath, her shoulder muscles rolling as if she debated the rightness of doing this.

Fuck, I could live on this elation for a week.

Once she’d settled, I attached the rope to the ring and pulled it through until there was very little slack in the rope. The piece of rope that had been around her wrists I laid across her chest just beneath her breasts, crossed it over at her back and brought it to the front above them. As I worked to create a harness, I sometimes brushed my hand against her breasts and nipples to show her I could do what I liked, when I liked.

I pretended to ignore her few shivers. Inside though, I exulted. No swearing, no garbled arguments through the gag – beautiful.

When I was at the stage of attaching the rope ends from the harness to the above ring, Andreas arrived at my shoulder.

“Need help?” Andreas rasped his palm across the stubble of his mouth and chin.

“No.” He wasn’t looking at me. The absolute mind-bending focus as he stared down at Kat made me tumble down that pathway I’d been avoiding for days. The man was spellbound. I almost ground my teeth. But, he was my friend. Maybe I could tolerate this if it were him. Another man I’d be ready to kill.

“You want her?” Can’t have her, I wanted to say. Uh-uh. I should play nice.
Friend.

Kat’s breathing faltered and I scraped a fingernail up her arm, smiling at her predicament. Listening to two men calmly discussing whether they wanted to fuck her, or do other nasty things, must be unnerving.

Though I was thoroughly unhappy with what Andreas had done, I wasn’t a man who dumped friends, or punched them, on a whim. If he murdered someone, I’d give him the benefit of the doubt. If he wanted the same woman as I did, I’d make myself listen.

“Do I?” he murmured.

“Difficult question?” I hadn’t quite heard what he’d said to Kat earlier when he crouched over her, but he’d sounded pissed off. I had never seen him talk to a woman like he had to Kat. Never. Full stop.

While he thought, I finished the last knot above with a firm tug on the rope that jolted Kat and made her breasts bounce. Her feet shuffled as she adjusted position.

With my finger and thumb, I caught each of her prominent nipples and squeezed. “No moving.”

That I’d forced her to move made me want to grin. I was like a boy with a new toy. I could do anything to her. Turn her fucking world upside down.

On both nipples, I added pressure, until she gave a tiny grunt. A little more and she whined and tried to escape my grip. Her nipples stretched out an inch then I saw the telltale way she brought her thighs together. I narrowed my eyes. She’d kept her hands at her back despite the pain.

For a second I contemplated feeling her pussy to see exactly how turned on she was. Very, I was certain. I could probably slide straight into her. God, I wished I could. I could almost feel the moist slide of her along my cock, opening up…

But Andreas was here.

Simmer down. I released her nipples and satisfied myself with watching her pant. Punishment first. Blue balls were staying blue. I stepped away, assessing my work.

Most of her weight now hung on the chest harness, making her tits pop out. Manipulating her nipples had made them nicely pink-red. And that downcast submissive gaze…

Pornography personified. The woman almost made me groan.

Shit.
I needed to stop gawking. I stalked over to the TV and picked up a coiled power cord from the shelf. As I walked back to them, I let one end uncurl then doubled over a few feet of length. The weight was good. I flicked it lightly on Kat’s lower thigh, making her jump.

Her tongue tip came out below the rope and again she did the whole body tremble. I’d barely done anything. What had happened when Scrim caught her?

“Can we talk now? Over there?” With a jerk of his head, Andreas indicated the kitchen.

“Yes.” We had to figure things out.

I went round behind Kat then curled my fists about her upper arms – hard enough to make her skin twist. The hiss through her teeth and straightening of her fingers said I’d surprised her at least. She still had her hands clasped above that succulent, bruise-dotted ass.

“Is this hurting? What I’m doing?”

“Mmm.”

“Good.” I bent to growl in her ear. “While Andreas and I talk, you’re not going to move, girl. Keep your hands where they are. You’re in so much trouble that I’m not sure what the hell I can do that won’t alarm the Piñata preservation society or Andreas.” I flicked a glance across at him where he was dragging two of the red-topped stools to this side of the breakfast bench.

I took a step away then I made her turn so her body was close to full frontal toward the kitchen. No point missing out on the view as we talked.

Once we were both seated, I kicked back and propped an elbow on the counter – shifting focus between my delectable Kat and Andreas. Where the hell to start? I scrubbed at my hair, allowing some of that anger I’d kept bottled up to resurface. “Hit me. Do your worst. I’m guessing you helped her escape?”

He nodded.

“Shit.” I struggled to keep my emotions in check. “Christ all-fuckin’-mighty, Andreas. Why? We’re friends. I just don’t understand. I told you, I’d rather you be honest. Why the sneaking?”

He nodded almost imperceptibly. “Yeah. You have every right to fucking beat me to death. I know I messed up but I didn’t do it without thinking damn hard. Nothing, nothing, means more to me than you, mate.” He stared out across the room. “I figured you just needed a chance to get back on the right side of morality. That she deserved freedom…”

I could see him looking at her. He was struggling with something. His own morality, probably. Right and wrong – such funny concepts. We changed our ideas on murder as soon as a war came along. Different circumstances and we’d be going, wait, maybe it’s okay to do that when…if…

I brought myself back. “Why did you say you wanted to stay?”

“Because I’m a fool?” He stretched out his legs before him, leaning back against the counter. “You were right. I told her I’d let her go if she said nothing about you. But she had my laptop and there’s no reason for that unless she wanted the pictures. She was going to the cops.”

It didn’t surprise me. I swore under my breath. “Though…if I were her, I’d have done the same thing.”

“After someone asked you not to? After they said, agree to this, promise you won’t do it? Because there was no way I’d have let her go just so she could send you to jail. I thought I was helping you. I’m sorry. Plain and simple.”

I nodded, tapping the counter lightly with my fist while I thought. “And here I thought you were just trying to piss me off.”

“No.” He grimaced. “If she’d succeeded, I would have been charged too. Telling her to conceal what was done is definitely a crime and letting her go wouldn’t change that. That’s how grateful she was.”

Time to end this. As if Andreas could ever be anything but a friend. “I forgive you.” I put out my hand. “It’s water under the bridge.”

He leaned in and clasped my hand, shaking it slowly as he spoke. “Thanks. Next time I’ll listen harder.” He let go of my hand and smiled. “Doesn’t mean I’ll believe what you tell me but I’ll try.”

“Bullshit.” I snorted.

Kat hadn’t moved yet. The background light leant a luminescence to her skin. Naked and outlined in a halo of sunshine, she was the epitome of beauty to me. Maybe not to everyone. But I liked my women tied up and gagged, and at my mercy.

“If they were a friend and it was a vow made in earnest to them, I’d stick to my promise.”

Andreas grunted. “My thoughts exactly.”

I found the main point that bothered me. “But…you want me to let her go.”

His deep inhalation sounded loud enough to pull his soul from its moorings. Out of respect, I waited.

“Not now. Not after she crapped on what I gave her. It’s what I said before. I want to stay.”

Where was this heading? “To stay and…I don’t want an observer. That’s done. Creepy bastard though you may be, I don’t want you hanging about watching.”

He didn’t answer and the silence just stretched and stretched until I had to break it.

“You’re tempted?” I looked at him from under my brows. Say no, Andreas.

“That makes me a bad man though…”

“Yeah. Sometimes you have to embrace your bad side to live with yourself. But if you can’t live with that, you need to bugger off now. Run away, or stay where the big boys play.”

I was taunting him but I didn’t give a shit. He needed to get himself figured out. And I didn’t really want or need him to stay.

“Asshole.” He shook his head. “You want me to say it? Okay.” He paused. “I want to fuck her. Even…watch you punish her. I think that’s going to really make me happy. I know I’ll find it hot even though it’s kind of sick. But mostly I want to share her with you.”

For a man who’d never been kinky, that was pretty amazing. Even if I didn’t agree with the
sick
part.

I sat back and regarded him. “You’re sure?”

“Yes. I’m sure. I’m very sure.”

“I don’t know.” To have Andreas just drop in like this. Disconcerting. I was Frankenstein about to torture Mary Shelley. Batman with a naked Catwoman in his grasp. Sharing? I turned the idea over some more.