Knowing the Ropes Read online

  They didn’t linger over coffee.

  Thunder still rumbled in the distance but no rain fell, though the air was so moist it might as well. Fully dark now, the night was stagnant, sticky; the pleasant breeze of earlier had died altogether. “It’s only a few blocks,” Nick encouraged, but his sexy voice seemed wilted by the heat.

  Every step was a fight between arousal—the nipple clips tugging at her bouncing breasts, the weight of need cupped in her pelvis—and sheer sweaty discomfort.

  Selene thought the discomfort had won when they reached Eros boutique a few blocks away. Sweat was pooling between her breasts because the cheap fabric of the bodice didn’t breathe at all, and while she figured the way the silk clung to her legs might look enticing, it felt like she was smothering in a wet parachute. She barely looked at the items in the small, barred display window—a chap-clad mannequin dangling a set of purple leather cuffs from its truncated wrist, a bondage Barbie and Ken set, and an elaborate leather mask. She didn’t even want to go in at this point. She wanted to get back to Nick’s place with its central air…

  And take a shower. A nice, long shower, with a shower gel called something along the lines of Cool Peppermint or Ocean Breezes.

  After a shower and a few cold drinks, maybe she’d be able to think about sex. Right now, even with over-stimulated nipples and a moist, open pussy taunting her, sex sounded uncomfortably warm and sticky.

  She’d opened her mouth to suggest the retreating-back-to-A/C plan when Nick pushed the door open and took her arm. “Let’s go shopping!” he said, childish glee on his face.

  The glee was contagious, and she found herself grinning despite her discomfort. “I’ve never heard a guy that excited about shopping before—not even for geeky electronics or tools. Maybe a car. Or where I grew up, a new tractor.”

  “Sex toys may be the only thing better than electronics and tools for getting guys to shop. How many times can you give someone a present you’ll enjoy as least as much as she will?”

  At that point, curiosity—and the cool though rubber-scented air coming from inside—got the better of her.

  Selene had never been in a sex shop before. Sure, she had Good Vibrations and Blowfish.com bookmarked because a girl never knew when the Rabbit Pearl might need company. But being in an actual store was different.

  Very different.

  Very hot and also a little intimidating, as they climbed narrow stairs lined with posters for various fetish and gay events and entered a store full of leather, rubber, latex and gleaming chrome.

  “I’m not even sure what some of this stuff is,” she whispered, brushing her lips deliberately against Nick’s ear to make her embarrassed confession more sensual.

  He whispered back, “Honestly? Me neither. That’s either a fucking machine or a really funny-looking ergonomic chair.” He pointed toward a curious black piece of furniture that did seem to have a place to hold a dildo but looked at least as much like some weird office furniture. “And that? I don’t know and I don’t think I want to know.”

  Selene stared at the offending item curiously. Rings and metal spikes. “I think it’s a chastity belt for a boy.”

  “I said I didn’t want to know!”

  She patted him soothingly. “I promise I’m not interested in trying it.”

  Not on Nick, certainly. But, she admitted to herself, if not to her lover, that once she figured out what it was, she got the most fascinating image of a faceless but very good-looking guy wearing nothing but one of those and a strained smile, enjoying the torturous yet exciting sensation of needing to come and not being able to.

  She didn’t think she wanted to put a guy in that position, but she could see why someone might. She could definitely understand why the guy would go for it. It would feel so good going along with it and feel even better when he finally earned his release from some delightfully evil, elegant domme or burly leather-clad master.

  “I’ve never seen so much latex in my life.” She grimaced. “That’s got to be sticky.”

  “No trying on latex tonight. Maybe in cooler weather.”

  Selene drew a sharp breath. Cooler weather implied a future. She’d been trying so hard to enjoy the moment and not think ahead, not assume anything, that Nick’s words set off a jumble of conflicting feelings. Warm pleasure and chilly panic, comfort and fear.

  Then she internally mocked herself. She was reading way too much into a few random words.

  Nick pulled one dress from a nearby rack and she let the movement distract her from her silly ponderings. It was certainly eye-catching: a full-length cobalt-blue gown with a tulip hem, floor-length in back, slit to well above the knee in front but with a graceful line that made it look elegant as well as dead sexy.

  “Oh yes!” She didn’t think latex would ever be her thing—give her silk, velvet and leather any day—but she could see the appeal of being poured into a dress that would mold to her every curve and show them off to best advantage.

  She could get lost just in the clothes and lingerie for hours. Not that she could think of many places to wear these clothes, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t be fun to own them. But that wasn’t what they were here to shop for.

  They were here to look for toys.

  Thinking about that went straight to her clit.

  The atmosphere in the shop didn’t help, or maybe it did, depending on the definition of help. Bondage gear everywhere, faceless mannequins in leather masks that made them look like sexy aliens, the pair of attractive young clerks, both with facial piercings and funky haircuts. The guy was eying Nick, and she was pretty sure the girl was too, but was also checking her out. Even the somewhat claustrophobic space with the barred windows and the smell of rubber and leather—it all conspired to make her aware of the clips distending her nipples, drawing them out to tortured, exquisitely sensitive peaks.

  Was that why the girl was staring at her? Could she tell that Selene had clips on her nipples and a great well of moisture between her legs, making her move as if she carried a heavy weight with her pelvis?

  Without thinking about it, Selene ran one hand lightly over her nipple, shuddered at the sensation. She shuddered in a different way when she realized what she’d done. But they were alone in the store except for the clerks. The male clerk, she suspected, wouldn’t have noticed boobs if they were on fire and waving under his nose, not with Nick and his fine ass in the room anyway, and the female one just gave her a nod and a mischievous grin, as if to say, Glad you’re having a good night.

  Emboldened, she grabbed Nick’s arm. “Let’s look at the toys!”

  He laughed and said, “Patience, little girl,” and made a show of allowing himself to be dragged to the display case, but from his smile, and more importantly the impressive bulge at the crotch of his khakis, she could tell he was into it. “I’m looking for nipple toys for the lady,” he said grandly.

  The female clerk, grinning knowingly, pulled out an array of nipple clips and spread them on the glass countertop. Square ones that operated like a vise. Ones with an elaborately engineered design that, the young woman explained, as casually as if comparing the advantages of two different sets of speakers, allowed a very firm grip so you could hang weights from them or use them as tie-down points for bondage. “And of course there are the alligator clips,” she said, displaying something that looked for all the world like small versions of the toothy clamps on the end of a jumper cable. They looked like they could draw blood.

  Selene felt her eyes widening as she stared at them, trying to imagine how that level of pain on her delicate nipples could be pleasurable. Her grip on Nick’s hand tightened. “Not for you.” Nick stroked her bare arm reassuringly, as one would pet a frightened cat. “Not yet, maybe not ever. I wouldn’t want to risk spoiling those lovely nipples. No, what I want for the lady is something lighter. Tweezer clips, or something more like this one…”

  He reached inside her bodice, and for a second Selene feared, or hoped, or both—her pus
sy hoped; the rest of her was fiercely undecided—he was going to pop her breast out of its confinement. It was so close to spilling over the top of the corset anyway…

  Instead, he pulled off the earring-like clip to show to the clerk.

  She had about a half-second of indignation.

  It drowned in a flood of sensation—hot pain as blood rushed where it had long been denied, followed by hotter pleasure as waves of arousal shot from her liberated but still-aching nipple. Sensations flooded her brain as well, threatening to short-circuit it—Nick’s casual possessiveness, the near exposure, the behavior that skirted the line of completely inappropriate, yet seemed all right in a late-night sex shop with the male clerk’s eyes devouring Nick and the woman’s devouring them both.

  It was all too much.

  Her hips swayed forward, and her pussy clenched around nothing, and Nick’s dangerous fingers found their way back inside her bodice again, to brush the throbbing nipple as he whispered, “It’s all right, Selene. You may come.”

  And, face flaming, she did, knowing that both Nick’s eyes and those of the pretty little clerk were devouring her pleasure, and the young guy was probably getting a vicarious kick out of the casual display of dominance and maybe wishing it was him instead of her.

  They came away from Eros with a set of delicate tweezer clamps with bells on them and a slightly sturdier set connected with a chain, as well as a new dildo and butt plug for her, and a toy for Nick that made her giggle with nervous glee—a paddle that left an impression of the word NAUGHTY on the spankee’s ass. It looked like it might really sting, but there was something so tongue-in-cheek about it, so playful, that she was more charmed than anxious.

  The threatened rains came on the way back to Nick’s car, dancing in to the accompaniment of thunder and lightning. “I love sex during thunderstorms,” she told him as they poured their drenched selves into the car.

  “Funny,” Nick said, pulling her almost out of the seat with his kiss. “So do I.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Of course there were no parking spaces near Nick’s place. By the time they’d run two blocks, squealing with glee at particularly bright lightning bolts and occasionally stopping to kiss because they were going to get soaked one way or the other anyway, and Nick fumbled with the complicated series of locks on the outside door of his building, Selene was drowning in drenched silk and soggy poly satin, and Nick’s khakis had soaked up enough water to irrigate Arizona. She kicked off her sodden shoes as soon as she walked in the door, felt her slick bare feet squelch against the hardwood floor.

  They left streams of water behind them as they ran up the stairs, laughing all the way.

  They were still laughing when Nick, neglecting his own clothes for the moment, pulled down her skirt, letting it fall into a puddle on the floor. “I want you naked,” he said, fumbling with the wet lacings of her pseudocorset. “Naked and slick like a water goddess.”

  Because the warmth of his breath made her shiver, because her nipples were still swollen and aching, echoing her swollen, aching clit—and because the pseudocorset, not the most comfortable garment to begin with, now felt like she was wearing a boned wetsuit—she took pity on him and, while he was still working on the lacing, she liberated herself using the hidden zipper in the back.

  For a second, or an hour, he stared at her reverently in a dim room strobed by lightning flashes. “A water goddess,” he repeated, reaching out to stroke between her breasts and down her torso. “Pearl skin and mermaid hair.”

  “Mermaid hair?” she sputtered. “Is that a poetic way of saying my hair’s a disaster?”

  “Your hair style’s a disaster. Your hair is glorious, all damp and curly. And your skin… I want to lick those rain drops right off you.”

  “Why don’t you?” she purred. Partly because she liked the idea, partly because the way Nick was talking sounded perilously romantic.

  He didn’t mean it that way, she told herself, or maybe he did in this rain-soaked moment with lightning flashes illuminating the room.

  Nick followed up his words with delicious, distracting action. He came around behind her, lifted her sodden curls and traced a rivulet of water down her spine with his tongue. Worrying about the future was definitely overrated when a gorgeous man was doing something like that to her. This relationship might grow into something more than sex or it might not, but now, she’d enjoy the sex.

  The bag of toys sat neglected in the foyer as they licked and nibbled and stroked the rain from each other’s skin, tasting the lightning that trembled inside them. But as the storm picked up—the rain drumming like Niagara Falls, violent thunder following right on the heels of white-as-day lightning—Nick fumbled in the bag just long enough to open the new box of condoms, then bent her over the couch. “This way, we can both watch the storm out the window while we make love.” His voice was low and intimate in her ear.

  Too low. Too intimate. Too scary, and not the roller-coaster scary of his evil-dom voice. She could fall for a man who wanted to watch lightning while they made love.

  He’d never said “make love” to her before. Must be the storm getting to them both.

  “Let’s try the tweezer clips while we fuck,” Selene suggested, maybe a bit too brightly and eagerly. Nick hesitated a second, his blue eyes dark and stormy.

  Then he grinned. “Now why didn’t I think of that?”

  Nick’s hands were hot on her breasts, the clips and the chain between them delightfully cool. Selene almost regretted the suggestion as he adjusted the clamps on nipples already tender from the jewelry she’d worn earlier. The weight, when he let go, was startling, tugging at her sensitive nipples painfully.

  When he bent her over the leather sofa again and positioned himself behind her, though, the sensation changed. Just as painful in some ways, but it made her more aware of the cool, smooth leather, of the hard heat of Nick’s body and his hands firmly grasping her hips, of her own arousal.

  He thrust into her. The movement jarred the clips, tugged on the chain, but now the pain mingled with pleasure and was good. No, great.

  With each thrust, her need built. The thunder and lightning added to the sensation, making her head swim, making her body thrum.

  “Edge,” she gasped, although Nick hadn’t actually said anything about telling him when she was about to come. It just felt right.

  “Good girl.” Supporting himself with his strong thighs only, he slipped one hand between her legs, used the other to yank on the chain between the tweezer clips.

  Selene exploded like the sky overhead, and Nick was close behind.

  Then a hot shower, a glass of wine, and round two, because the storm’s unabated force was still making Selene’s clit quiver.

  She refused to let herself consider whether emotion might have anything to do with that quivering.

  The sound of a ringing phone woke them. Drowsy, lulled by the sound of rain still falling on the roof, by memories of last night’s sex and by Selene curled against him, Nick was inclined to make sure Selene let voice mail get it while he got on to the far more important business of discovering just how tender Selene’s nipples were this morning.

  One good suckle and she began to moan. Pretty tender indeed. He gave a light slap, just enough to make the soft but firm flesh jiggle enticingly. “Hey!” she exclaimed, not sounding upset. “Is that fair?”

  He was about to expound on the meaninglessness of the concept of fair in the context of their peculiar relationship when the answering machine began to spew forth a message.

  “Selene? Please pick up if you’re there. Please. This is Natalie, and I need you to get a message to Nick…”

  At the sound of Natalie’s voice—at the edge of tension, even fear in it—Nick froze.

  Selene pushed him off her and in the general direction of the phone. He grabbed it before Natalie had gotten much further. “This is Nick, honey. What’s up?”

  A sob, quickly suppressed. “I’ve screwed up. I t
hought I wanted this. I really did. I do want it, but not like this. I’ve given Master everything, and he still wants more.” Another sob. “And when your new girl called like I was some kind of role model, I just knew… I’ve been trying to call, but it took a while to get permission. I guess I’m not a slave. Not the way Master wants. I don’t know if I can do this, and I just wanted to talk to you. I’m so confused.”

  “What do you need? Try to stay calm.” Selene had picked up the other line, her voice calm and soothing. For the first time ever, Nick was glad that the cell reception was iffy enough in his condo that he’d kept a landline.

  Natalie drew a deep breath. “Are you Selene? You don’t sound…”

  “Yeah, it’s Selene. Long story. Are you in danger? Can you get to a safe place?”

  Another deep breath, the kind that was definitely holding back the urge to fall to pieces. “I don’t know. I don’t think I’m in physical danger, but I’m in way over my head. I’m scared, I’m losing my mind and I can’t leave. I don’t have a car. I don’t even have a license anymore. I don’t know anyone up here except for Master, and he’s not going to let me go, and we’re in the middle of fucking nowhere. I’d try walking to town, but it’s six miles, and my only shoes have five-inch heels.”

  “What? You had fifty pairs of shoes, and most of them were flats.”

  “He threw them away when I moved up. He wants me either barefoot or in really high heels. Same with most of my clothes. The people in the grocery store must think I’m a hooker. It’s probably good I don’t get to go out too often.”

  The professional tone in Selene’s voice cracked. “He threw out your shoes and clothes? Girlfriend, that’s not quite like killing your cat, but it’s pretty high on the seven-warning-signs-that-you-should-run list.”

  Natalie laughed bitterly. “Someone should have sent me that list before I hooked up with Master.”

  “We tried,” Nick said. “We all tried. I know I did, and I know Betsy did too.”

  “But it was what he wanted. I tried to give him everything. I tried. I tried to do the right thing. But I’m a failure. I don’t know if I can live this way. I know I should be able to if I’m a real slave, but I guess I’m not. I’ve failed him, but he won’t let me go. Says he’s going to make it work, but I can’t take it. I don’t want to take it. I know that’s not my choice anymore, but I don’t know…”