CHAPTER FIVE
Kenna was nearly vibrating out of her skin. Adrenaline, nerves, and need formed an intoxicating cocktail racing through her veins. Her pulse pounded. Wetness gathered between her legs. Her mind raced over every detail of his reaction to learning about her arm, looking for even the smallest sign of disapproval or rejection...and finding none. That should’ve made her feel good, and on one level it did, but it also made her head spin. Was it because she’d expected his rejection again? Maybe. Probably. But she couldn’t worry about that just then.
Instead, she focused on holding the position just as Master Griffin commanded, because for the first time in two years she felt like she was back in her element.
Even after all this time.
Music filtered in from hidden speakers, some kind of electronica with a piano melody, a yearning, driving beat, and a background that was rich with synthesized rhythms and tones. Master Griffin had always liked music, and though she didn’t know the song itself, being here like this so was damn familiar.
Unlike the rest of her life right now, at least here—right here in this room—she knew what the rules were, what was expected of her, and what she could do to succeed. She knew who and what she was.
And, God, she hadn’t realized how much she needed that. All of that. Because she’d lost it when she’d lost the Marines. She’d just lost so much.
Kenna had come here wanting to feel less and needing to get out of her head—both of which she’d hoped would help her deal with the pain for just a little while. But she was already finding more here than she’d even thought to anticipate. And that was both good and bad.
Remember what you’re here for, Kenna—and what you’re not.
Her mind unhelpfully resurrected Master Griffin’s kiss from moments before. She didn’t think she’d imagined the hunger with which his mouth had claimed and tasted hers. It’d been amazing...and confusing. In fact, given that he’d been the one to cool them down five years ago, so much about the night so far had been confusing.
But now wasn’t the time to try to make sense of that, either.
Now, all she had to do was follow Master Griffin’s commands. Now, all she had to do was please him.
Please let me please him.
“Stop thinking, Kenna,” came a deep voice from right behind her.
She startled, too deep in her own thoughts to realize that he’d moved so close. And damn if that one comment didn’t reveal how well he still knew her. “I’m sorry, Sir.”
Light fingertips dragged down her legs. “Don’t be sorry.” An open-mouthed kiss fell against the curve of her ass cheek just below the swimsuit-style bottom of her outfit. And she thought she’d been wet before. “Just feel. That’s all I want you to do. That’s your whole job right now. Feeling what I’m doing to you.”
Metal clanked against the floor, and the sound was attached to a thousand memories...but she didn’t have the time to consider even one of them, because just then the rough fibers of hemp rope made contact with her ankle. Kenna moaned.
“That’s it. That’s what I want,” Master Griffin murmured.
His quick, skilled fingers brushed her skin as he wounded the rope around her ankle again and again, the gritty, firm embrace of the fibers like seeing an old friend after so very long—comforting and exciting all at once. Without looking down, she could tell that he’d tied the rope to some sort of spreader bar, because then he repeated the process on the other ankle until she couldn’t close her legs if she wanted to.
“Damn, I’ve missed seeing that, Kenna. Your skin wrapped in my bondage.” His movements told her he’d risen, and then he appeared before her, another long length of hemp rope in his hands. “Present your wrists.”
Heart pounding, she held them out to him. She couldn’t decide what was sexier—the way his big hands held the rope she knew she’d soon wear, or the way his dark eyes absolutely blazed at her.
“Wider,” he said in a low voice. She moved them to about the width of her torso, and he nodded. “Will I in any way damage your prosthesis if I apply rope to it?”
A fast shake of her head. “No, Sir.” This one she knew for sure, which was probably why her cheeks heated.
He tilted his head, taking in the change which of course he noticed. One eyebrow arched, and damn why did that have to be so sexy? With the hand holding the rope, he caressed her cheek, allowing the twine to cascade down the front of her body. “What caused this, little one?”
She only hesitated a moment. “I practiced. At home. When I was first thinking of coming back.” There was no sense in denying it, not if it would give him the confidence to do what he wanted—and she needed.
“Mmm. I think I’m going to want to explore that more some time.” That eyebrow remained arched.
“Yes, Sir.” She might agree to let him explore absolutely anything if he’d just put that rope on her wrist. And then he did. Slowly, methodically, skillfully. He looped a double width of twine around both wrists, pulled the end through the beginning loop, and then neatly wrapped the length around the loose cord in the middle until he’d made tight cuffs around each wrist and a firm spreader bar made entirely of rope.
“How does that feel?” he asked.
“Good. Green, Sir.” Good didn’t begin to describe it. Because it was as if each new binding lifted weights from her mind, body, and spirit. For the first time in so long. She didn’t know why that was true for her, just that it was. And it had been from the very first time that a boyfriend her freshman year of college had playfully, if clumsily, wrapped his tie around her wrists and secured it to the headboard of the twin bed in his dorm room.
That experience had marked her. Changed her. Until she’d craved more and more intense bondage, and finally discovered the lifestyle at an off-campus play party her senior year.
“Very nice. Can you bend your arms to bring your fists to your shoulders?”
She did it, the retention of some of her forearm enabling her to bend her right arm pretty much as usual.
He nodded. “Will it hurt your arm to be bound in this position?”
Kenna shivered, but she pushed aside the lust-filled No! that threatened to spill free and really considered his question. “I believe I could hold this position for a while without causing myself pain.”
He leaned in and kissed the corner of her mouth, the gesture a little reward that poked at things inside her chest. “I appreciate the honesty. I could be very happy with having you just like this. But do you want more, Kenna?”
“Yes. More, Sir, please.” She wanted rope marks imprinted deep into her skin. Everywhere.
His chuckle was full of a sexy smugness. “That almost sounded like begging. And I always did like when you begged.” He moved behind her, pulling the rope attached to her wrists around the back of her neck, knotting it to her opposite wrist, and then creating a crisscross that ran between her breasts and wrapped around her torso.
Kenna whimpered, because it felt fucking amazing to be bound this way. But she was going to cut this bodysuit to shreds the minute she got home for keeping her from feeling the rough, direct press of the twine.
“Regretting that suit now, aren’t you?” He came around her and winked as he surveyed his handiwork.
She twisted her lips and kept silent, because he already knew the answer. Damn him.
Silently, he walked around her, observing her as she observed him in return. The beautiful, confusing tattoo on his back. Those broad shoulders, the perfect fit of those black jeans on his thighs and ass, the prominent bulge of his cock under the denim, the longish black hair that she knew he loved for her to grip when they kissed. The thought made her struggle against the bindings.
He paused in front of her, his gaze dragging over his handiwork.
“Fuck, Kenna. I have bound you in my dreams a thousand times.” He shook his head. “But not one of those compared to the privilege of actually getting my hands on you again.”
He’d dreamt of her? His words, bein
g bound again after all this time, her arousal, all of it nearly made her dizzy.
And then he reached between her legs and unsnapped the closure of her bodysuit.
The contact of his fingers against her pussy and the too-quick brush of his touch against her clit made her moan and flinch forward.
Master Griffin caught and steadied her. “Be still, little one. And let me do what I will.”
She nodded, her brain and body still reeling. A light sheen of sweat broke out across her skin as anticipation flooded through her.
And then he left her. Her ears tuned into the movements he made from somewhere behind her, causing all that anticipation to ramp up even more until her lungs were working faster. The lights went down some and, combined with the music, the soft, golden dimness created an atmosphere that felt both sensual and risky, sexy and dangerous. And what he returned with made her inhale a fast breath.
A flogger. The kind with the delicious wide leather tails. He held the black-leather implement in both hands, the thick braided handle in his right, and the gathered tails in his left. He slapped the tails against his palm as he spoke. “Are you ready for some endorphins, Kenna?”
God, yes. This was it. The bondage was all about the build-up and the giving over of control, and in and of itself provided a heady experience. But what came after was what took the bondage to the next level. To the place where she might be able to soar. “Yes, Master Griffin.”
He disappeared behind her and lifted her hood atop her head, moving the fabric and her hair of his way.
And then...nothing happened. Long moments passed until she was on the verge of calling out to him or trying to turn her head. But she held firm, wanting to please him and knowing he was doing this on purpose. And, damnit, it was working, because Kenna was a mass of nerves and lust and need.
Swoosh.
The leather hit home on her upper back. Finally, finally. One side, then the other. It was a sensation that was both massaging and stinging. Over and over and over again. Despite the thin protection of the suit, her skin warmed. And the warmer it got, the faster her pulse raced and the more her body responded—with arousal, with a pain that read as pleasurable, and with those freeing endorphins.
She moaned and gave herself over to every bit of it as he moved from her upper back to her ass. And here she could feel the direct impact, because Master Griffin lifted the loose fabric of her suit to fully expose her skin. The leather warmed her there, too, her body nearly singing with the overload of sensations.
“Are you wet for me, Kenna?” Master Griffin asked over the fall of the tails against her ass.
“Yes, Sir,” she rasped.
“Do you want to come for me?”
The question made her clit absolutely throb. “Please.”
“No. Do not come.” He worked the tails down the back of her right thigh, then finally her left.
“Oh, God, please,” she gasped, because intense, uncontrollable need was gathering low in her belly and creating a tingling pressure between her legs that she could barely stand.
“Beg me.” The tails came down on her ass again.
The sensation of floating was so close. So damn close.
“Please, Master. Oh, God, please, please may I come?” Her muscles tightened as her orgasm barreled down.
Something hit the floor, and then Griffin’s body was tight against her back and his arm wrapped around her hips. “Come,” he growled as his fingers dipped between the slick lips of her pussy and circled her hips.
“Come now.”
Kenna cried out so loud it was nearly a scream. Her whole body went rigid and her lungs froze up, and then she was exploding, all the pieces of herself flying outward and drifting away. Far, far away...
“Fuck, yeah,” Griffin bit out against her ear. “I’ve got you.”
And she trusted in that. She had to. Because Kenna wasn’t fully there. She was completely, blissfully, irrevocably somewhere else.
***
Griffin caught Kenna’s limp body in his arms and cradled her against his chest as the orgasm ripped through her and left her out of it. It’d taken maybe ten minutes to secure the simple rope work he’d done, and he’d flogged her for a good twenty minutes, which had always been key to making her endorphins flow, but he’d still never seen her tumble so far into subspace after so little stimulation. Which left him with all kinds of questions.
What was behind the change in her responsiveness? How long was it since she’d last had an orgasm? How might her injury and general frame of mind be playing into this?
But all of that would have to wait.
As would his own needs. He adjusted the persistent erection filling out his jeans. Wringing a bone-melting orgasm out of her had been his sole objective for the scene. Given everything he didn’t know and how long it’d been since they were last together, he was taking things slow. For now.
He worked at the releases on the roping, freeing her torso, her arms, her wrists. And then he lifted her into his arms, carried her to the padded bondage table, and laid her down so he could free her ankles, too.
She smiled and mumbled, “Griff?”
“I’m here, pretty girl. You rest,” he said, reaching for a blanket he’d set out. He draped the soft fleece over the length of her body. His gaze settled on her face, and Christ, she was fucking gorgeous. Her cheeks were flushed and her lips a shiny red. Long eyelashes fluttered and she lifted her hands as if searching. “I’ve got you, Kenna.” Standing on her left side, he lifted her into his arms again.
“Hi,” she whispered, tucking her face into his chest.
Jesus. That one gesture. That one fucking little gesture. She might as well have reached inside his chest and grabbed his very heart. “Hi,” he said, carrying her into the lounge again. He’d clean up later. Right now, every bit of his attention was right where it needed to be.
On her.
He managed to grab a bottle of water and settled into the couch with Kenna in his lap. “Close your eyes,” he whispered, remembering that when she really slid into subspace, she would sometimes fall all the way asleep.
And, God help him, she did.
Her warmth was like a balm to his regret-battered soul, and that was a comfort he hadn’t felt in a long time. But the ease he took from holding her was also a problem, because she’d raised about a dozen red flags of various sorts since the first moments of their reunion—her wariness of him, her reserve around him, the way she hadn’t wanted to answer all of his questions, the clear fear she’d had about revealing her arm.
I need to feel good again.
That again. That one little word potentially held all kinds of meaning about how she was really doing.
And then, of course, there was the large elephant in the room of the way he’d failed her all those years ago. Tonight had proven that she could trust him again, but there was the trust that he’d take care of her in a scene, and then there was the trust that he’d take care of her forever. And it was the latter one he most wanted but might never be allowed to have.
“Mmm,” she moaned deep in her throat as she stretched and shifted, bringing his erection back to life. Her eyelids eased open and for one glorious moment, she looked up at him with what he could only believe was love.
And then her eyes flared wide and she jerked like she was trying to get away from him.
“Hey, easy,” he said. “Just relax for a minute. Get your bearings.”
She stilled, but that wariness was back in spades. “Um. I’m sorry, Sir. How long was I out of it?”
Damn if the hard right turn in her demeanor didn’t sting. “Not too long. And, anyway, I had you.” He uncapped the water bottle and handed it to her. “Drink.”
As she did, he moved his hands to her neck and shoulders, massaging and spending a little extra time where he encountered knots. Slowly, finally, she relaxed again, until she was soft and pliant against him.
“Would massaging your biceps be helpful or hurtful?” he ask
ed, sliding his hand down her arm.
“Um, helpful,” she said. “But you don’t have to—”
He froze. “Look at me.” After just a moment, she lifted her gaze to his. “We can’t do this—we can’t do any of this—if I can’t take care of you the way a Dom should. I need that, Kenna. I fucking crave it.”
“O-okay.”
He arched a brow and mentally poured a bucket of water over the embers of anger stirring in his gut. Anger at himself for making her so doubt, so forget who he was.
“I’m sorry, Master Griffin. I didn’t mean it that way.”
Carefully, he began to massage her biceps. “I know, little one. Just relax. Let me make you feel good.” Again.
After a few minutes, she spoke. “Can I ask you something, Sir?”
“Of course,” he said, curious about what she’d want to know. After all this time.
“Did you not...I mean, we could, I could...” She gave a little huff.
“What are you trying to ask me, Kenna?”
Her cheeks went pink. “What about you?”
He frowned, and then understanding hit him. He shook his head. “Not tonight.” Although of course the question had his cock stirring again.
“Oh,” she said.
He tipped up her chin. “Tonight was for you.”
She nodded, but there was something about the cast of her eyes that worried him and made him need to know.
“Now’s when you tell me there will be other nights, Kenna. So, will there?” His gut churned. “Will I get to see you again?”
CHAPTER SIX
The next morning, Kenna lay in bed long after she should’ve gotten up. Normally, she was only too ready to get up because she never slept that well anyway. She was way more familiar with the middle-of-the-night cable TV schedule than any person ever ought to be. But last night, she’d actually slept the whole night through.
It might’ve been the emotional drain of seeing Master Griffin again after so long and after so much had changed. It might’ve been the mind-numbingly good orgasm she’d had and the way that submission and bondage had set her free. Or, it might’ve been the way that the whole of the experience—the reunion, the conversation, the orgasm, her immersion into deep subspace—had so taxed her mind and body that she’d just shut down.