She needed to find herself again. She needed this.
“I’m sorry that I’ve taken you for granted all this time, Sierra. I promise to be better, because I’ve really missed this with you,” Kenna managed.
“Me, too, Ken. And you don’t owe me a single apology. I’m just glad to have you talking to me again. But promise me one thing.”
“Anything.”
“If things don’t work out with Griffin, please don’t let it set you back or chase you away from me again.”
Kenna nodded. “I promise.”
And, God, she hoped it was a promise she could keep.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Kenna was nervous when she arrived to Blasphemy on Sunday night, so the first thing she did was duck into the ladies’ room to pull herself together.
The problem was, her conversation with Sierra had left her feeling murky about what her approach to Griffin ought to be.
Part of her was determined that this was not and should not be about any kind of a relationship. And part of her wondered, if Master Griffin was interested, whether she’d be willing to give them another shot. Which was a big if based on absolutely no actual information besides him wanting to scene with her again. Given how well matched their kinks were and always had been, though, that didn’t seem all that surprising. But there was also a part of her, despite her sister’s reassuring words, that really questioned whether Kenna was too messed up right now to be capable of the emotions a relationship required, even if Griffin wanted it.
After everything, she just wasn’t sure she had any emotional cushion to weather another hit—so maybe it wasn’t worth the risk one way or the other.
Which felt a whole freaking lot like cowardice.
Bracing her hands on the counter, she sighed.
Just then, another woman stepped into the room, the red cuff on her wrist also marking her as a submissive, though a claimed one. “Hi,” she said with a ready smile. She stepped into one of the stalls and then back to the mirror a few moments later. “You okay?” With long dark brown hair and a gauzy black dress hugging her curves, she was a truly beautiful woman.
“Oh, yeah. Just...trying to screw my head on straight,” Kenna said.
“Man, I’ve been there myself a time or two.” She dried her hands, than stuck one out for a shake. “I’m Mia Breslin.”
“I’m Kenna Sloane,” she said, returning the shake with her prosthetic hand. “Sorry. Hope that wasn’t too weird.”
“Not at all,” Mia said, truly appearing unfazed.
“Are you new at Blasphemy? I haven’t belonged for that long, but I don’t remember seeing you around.”
“I used to be a regular, but I was...away for a few years. I’ve just returned,” Kenna said, not wanting to share with anyone here that she’d been in the military before telling Master Griffin—which she ought to do tonight. Knowing she needed to do so was another source of the butterflies winging through her belly because it meant she was going to have to open up about things that were still pretty raw inside.
“Well, welcome back, then. Master Kyler’s waiting for me, but I’d love to catch a drink later if you’re still around,” Mia said, fingering the gorgeous leather and silver collar around her neck. A little diamond heart hung off a chunky hook at the hollow of her throat.
Wow. Master Kyler? Kenna remembered him from her former time here, and what she most remembered was that he never seemed to play with the same submissive more than once or twice. And now he was in a committed relationship? Kenna’s gaze returned to Mia’s throat—a collared relationship?
If Kyler could commit...
Kenna wasn’t sure she should let herself finish that thought.
“I’d love to,” Kenna managed. “It was nice to meet you, Mia.” And she meant that. The conversation with Sierra had left her certain about a few things—and one of them was that she needed to cut the loner routine if she ever truly wanted to feel better. And she could use new friends in the lifestyle who understood what it was all about, that was for sure.
“You too, Kenna. Have a good night.” She gave a little wave as she made for the door.
Kenna turned to the mirror. “All right, Sloane. Let’s do this.” She smoothed her hands over the form-fitting spaghetti-strap lingerie she wore. The body of it was dark blue, and it had wide black-lace detailing around the V-neckline, outlining the empire waist, and hanging from the mid-thigh hemline. A lacy, feminine bow hung from the bottom of the V, and she wore a sheer black thong underneath.
Her prosthetic was in full view, with its black-and-silver socket that attached to her stump and connected to the matte-black hand. But she’d already received the reaction of the only person she cared about. Anyone else would have to take her as she was. Or they could stay the hell out of her way.
Oorah, baby.
With that, she went in search of Master Griffin and found him right where he said he would be—sitting at the bar, laughing hard at something Master Quinton had said. Mia and Master Kyler were there, along with another Blasphemy Master whom Kenna didn’t remember from before—a dark-blond-haired man with striking, mismatched eyes, one blue and one green.
Master Quinton did a double-take, his gaze going right to her arm. It had been covered the other night when she’d seen him again. But he just smiled. “And there’s the lovely Kenna.”
“Hi, Master Quinton,” she said, ducking her gaze. She felt it the moment Master Griffin’s eyes were on her. “Good evening, Sir.”
“Hello, Kenna.” His fingers gently grasped her chin, and she lifted her gaze again. “You look beautiful.”
“Thank you, Master Griffin,” she said, warming under his praise.
And, damn, he looked fine in that black button down, the sleeves rolled to the middle of his forearms.
He introduced her to the others, including Master Leo, the Dom she hadn’t known, before finally saying, “Gentlemen, Mia, if you’ll excuse us.” He eased off the stool. Taking her by her flesh hand, he guided them through the club’s main floor.
It wasn’t as busy as it had been on Friday night, but there was still a good crowd and plenty on which to feast the senses. At one grouping of couches, a nude submissive knelt at his Mistress’s feet, his face on her thigh, her hand stroking his hair. At the St. Andrew’s Cross, a Dom with a severe-looking face and a wicked aim was doing a demonstration with a whip, something that Kenna never, ever wanted to experience herself. And up on the altar where Kenna had first found Master Griffin the other night, a submissive begged to be allowed to dismount a vibrating Sybian machine while her Dom pushed her down by the shoulders and commanded her to come.
Kenna shivered at that one.
“Like something you see, little one?” Master Griffin asked, observing her too closely as usual.
She smiled. “Yes, Sir.”
His gaze flashed to the stage, then back to her. “Duly noted.” One brow arched as they rounded the corner from the main floor space to the side arm of what had once been the church’s transept. There, he pressed her to the cool stone wall. “I certainly like what I see, Kenna.” His fingers stroked down over the thin fabric of her dress, over her breast, her belly, her upper thigh. “Not that you need me to be, but I’m proud of you for wearing something that shows off your prosthetic. I feared you were hiding it the other night, and it’s absolutely nothing that needs to be hidden.”
“Thank you, Sir,” she said, peering up at him. “Your reaction—” She cut herself off, but knew there was no way he’d let her get away with that. In for a penny... “Your reaction was the only one I cared about.”
“Mmm,” he said, leaning in. “Such sweet words.” His mouth found hers, gentle at first, then harder, more demanding. She lifted her arms to embrace him, but then hesitated. He hadn’t told her—
“God, touch me, Kenna,” he groaned around the edge of the kiss.
She wrapped both arms around his shoulders, and her real hand went right to his hair, digging into the thick, si
lky length just the way he liked. She loved it, too, how her touch could wring such tortured, delicious sounds from his throat. The kiss was an intoxicatingly slow burn of sliding tongues and tugging lips, and was enough all by itself to make Kenna wet.
“Fuck,” he whispered as he backed off. “Let’s go.”
Taking her hand again, he guided her down a side hallway that led to a series of themed playrooms, including the one they’d played in the other night.
The minute the door closed, Griffin was on her from behind. His arms around her stomach, his hands grasping her breasts, his hard cock grinding into her ass. “I’d thought the bodysuit was bad, Kenna. But you are a fucking goddess in this little thing.”
She sucked in a breath at his raw desperation and need. “Thank you, Sir.”
“But I want it off of you. I don’t want anything between me and your skin tonight. Undress and prepare for me to inspect you,” he said, pointing. “On the mat.”
Her heart tripped into a sprint, and Kenna moved to please him. Luckily, the stretchiness of the dress and thong made them easy to remove. She neatly folded them on a chair and moved to a thick, rectangular mat lying in the center of the room. Kenna stood with her legs spread, her hands behind her neck, and her eyes on Master Griffin.
Who removed his shirt until he stood there only in a pair of worn blue jeans that hugged his ass perfectly. And that gorgeous, confusing tattoo of her. That had to mean something, right? But what? And did she want it to mean something? Gah! She shook her head and tried to clear her mind. None of that was where her focus should be just now.
Master Griffin prepared a number of things she couldn’t quite make out, and then he returned to her empty handed. His gaze dragged down her body, and she felt it like he’d touched her. She wished that he would. Slowly, he walked around her. “Back straighter, Kenna. Tits out or I’ll find some weighted clamps for you,” he said in a low voice. She made the adjustment and just barely held back a whimper—she had a love/hate relationship with nipple clamps, which he knew very well. He dragged a finger down her spine, and it might as well have been a flogger for the way it brought her skin to life. “How are you feeling tonight?”
“I’m good, Sir. Definitely green,” she said.
“And how was your arm after our scene the other night?” He came to stand in front of her again.
“I had some muscle fatigue in my shoulder last night, probably from holding the bent position, but nothing at all that concerned me,” she offered.
Master Griffin nodded. “Very good. I have something just more demanding planned for you tonight, so you have to tell me if it pushes you too hard.”
A thrill ran through her, and she shivered. “Yes, Sir.”
He nodded, his dark eyes full of banked heat. “Then we begin. Right now.”
***
Griffin had been planning this since the moment Kenna had left Blasphemy the other night. He’d researched and practiced types of binding that would put the least stress on her arm while still giving her the maximum feeling of the rope against her skin and the full experience of truly being bound and dominated.
Now, he was so fucking ready to create a living sculpture using nothing but her body and a half dozen lengths of hemp rope.
Actually, those weren’t nothing at all. Not to him.
He turned on the music, an intense instrumental in which they could both lose themselves, and then he grabbed the rope and walked to where she waited so beautifully. For him.
“You will have patience. You will breathe. You will submit to my bondage,” he said, gravel plain in his voice.
“Yes, Sir,” she said, excitement palpable in hers.
He worked on her left arm first, starting at the wrist. He made a series of beautiful diamond knots up the outside of her arm, allowing her multiple points at which she could feel the rope. Each twist, each wrap, each knot was just like a stroke of paint and brush against a canvas. The act of tying himself to a submissive this way—to Kenna, especially—was incredibly fulfilling to something fundamental deep inside him.
Using a shorter piece of rope, he secured Kenna’s left hand palm down against her upper thigh by threading the twine around the inside of her leg in the soft crease between her thigh and the lips of her pussy. And then he moved to her right side.
“I’m not yet comfortable wrapping rope around this arm, so I will bind it flush to your side for now,” he said in a low tone. When she nodded, he knotted the twine around the wrist of her prosthetic and then pushed the loop between her legs to hold her hand to her thigh as he had on the other side. He stood back and examined his work. “Already so fucking beautiful.”
Kenna’s lips parted at the compliment, and it made him want to put her on her knees and have her take his cock deep into her mouth. But not yet. Creation, first, and then reward.
The next length of rope was much, much longer, and Griffin used it to secure her upper arms tight against her ribs by creating beautiful intricate designs around her breasts and across her belly. He teased her with brushes of his fingers, prolonged drags of the twine against her nipples, and his breath against her skin. Each gasp and flinch and moan felt like a little victory, and he quietly cheered every fucking one. Of course, the teasing was a double-edged sword since his jeans were tight with the urgent demands of his cock.
Drawing lengths of rope over each of her shoulders, he paused to create exaggerated knots against the pressure points between her neck and her shoulder blades. In addition to its erotic uses, the Japanese used Shibari as a form of massage, and Griffin had learned that the knots and tightness of the rope work itself could be used to stimulate pressure points on the body, similar to acupuncture or Shiatsu. With Kenna’s arm in mind, he’d read up on what he might do to alleviate any lingering pain she still had, because her words hadn’t stopped haunting him.
I need to feel good again.
With her arms and front fully trussed, Griffin paused. “How does this feel, Kenna?”
“Green, Master,” she said, her voice almost sleepy in quality. Which made his cock fucking ache. Because it meant she was already becoming seduced by the grip of his bondage. And did she even realized she’d not said his name? Because a submissive only called a Dominant Master by itself when she’d been collared by him. And hearing her say that when she was in this unguarded state sent hope raging through him, demanding that he tell her, claim her, never let her go again.
But he needed more of that unguardedness when she was fully in her mind, first. Luckily, doing Shibari had taught him to be a very patient man. Though the soul-deep need to reclaim Kenna once and for all was testing that patience. Hard.
Next, he walked behind her and took a deep breath, because her back was going to be the real masterpiece. Giving himself over to the almost meditative movements of binding her, Griffin created an intricate web of diamond-shaped knots, making sure to place as many of those knots as he could against muscles or pressure points that would heighten her pleasure.
Because he wanted her rope drunk before this night was through.
Just because he was patient didn’t mean he planned to play fair. And their year together had taught Griffin what Kenna liked. And needed.
Kneeling in front of her, he continued the diamonds down the outsides of her thighs to where he finally created a strong, detailed series of knots that would support a spreader bar connected to her ankles. “Wider,” he said, tapping at the inside of her leg.
Griffin had first learned about Shibari nine years ago, before Blasphemy had even opened. After he’d graduated with his MBA, he’d landed in the corporate offices of a multinational retailer of men’s clothing and shoes, and the job had involved occasional foreign travel for project and sales meetings and launch events. Even as a younger man, Griffin had known about his need for sexual dominance, but it was during his stays in some of those foreign cities—Paris, London, and Tokyo, to name a few—that he’d visited his first BDSM clubs and learned about Shibari.
> Having spent summers helping out in his grandfather’s furniture business, he’d always loved making and building things with his hands, so the artistic rope work of Shibari spoke to something deep inside him. And the more experience he acquired doing it, the more he became immersed in the lifestyle, and the more he realized that corporate America wasn’t where he was meant to be. He became a partner in his grandfather’s business shortly before the man died, and that same year, Griffin had met Master Hale and a number of the other Doms who became partners in the venture that was Blasphemy.
Then he’d met Kenna. And he’d been too young, immature, and arrogant to realize that he’d found his forever.
By the time Griffin was done tying the knots on her ankles, adrenaline was flooding through him, gathering force and picking up steam. The rigor, tightness, and demanding positions of Shibari alone could put a submissive into subspace, but it could also give the Rigger an adrenaline rush of his own. Both sides could experience a euphoric response. And he was definitely feeling that just then.
From the position on his knees, he peered up at Kenna’s face and knew immediately—so was she. Her eyelids appeared heavy and her muscles relaxed, almost like she was in a trance-like state. She was swaying just the littlest bit, which meant she was starting to lose touch with the physical reality around her.
All of which was fucking perfect.
He rose and grasped her cheeks. And then he kissed her. Because he couldn’t not kiss her. He needed to taste her beauty and her submission right from her lips. And the moan she unleashed, like his kiss had plugged her back into her body, was so desperate that his cock jerked. “Tell me how bad you want it,” he rasped.