This story has no ties (pardon the pun) to any of my other series. However, like some of them, it was inspired as a response to some RREEAALLLYY bad fic I read. I was hesitant to post it, but those who have read it apparently read some bad fic too, ‘cause they insisted I show people ‘how edgy erotic Clayfic ought to be done’. Well, dunno that I’d toot my own horn that loudly; but here it is. Rating: NC 17, & means it. As you read though, you will see that while the sex is graphic & the game playing kinda on the edge, its roots are firmly planted in the main characters’ love and trust. Enjoy, just as they do.( One note, just so nobody gets too lost—when the font changes, you are moving from the ‘real life’ main character to the role she is playing in the game.)

BEDTIME STORIES

By DixieHellcat

“Pardon my French, but these all suck,” I declared and flung a script across the living room. “Isn’t there one decent writer in Hollywood anymore?”

“Well, you.” Clay dropped a stack of rejected treatments on the coffee table and flopped down on the couch beside me. “Haven’t inspiration mugged you yet?”

“Sorry, sugar, but novelists don’t always make the best screenwriters. Although heaven knows I appreciate your faith in me.” I leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “If I had my way we’d do a concert piece. Just you singing would be dandy. Preferably nekkid.” He pretended to swing at me and I to duck. “Hey, performance videos have always been among my faves. You did Invisible that way, and I didn’t have a thing to do with that.”

“You should have,” he grumbled. “What took us so long to meet, anyhow?”

“The way things were supposed to be, I guess.” My first novel had been published about the time Clay’s first album came out. We met doing the talk -and-morning-show circuit, and the attractioon was instant on all levels. “Invisible was great. You looked so hot and sexy. Granted, I had another idea the first time I heard the song, but it was a little too involved. And extreme.”

“What was it?” I shook my head. “C’mon, gurrl, give!” When I still refused he grabbed my shoulders and pulled me over into his lap where he started tickling me. I shrieked and fought back, which made him relent only long enough to catch my wrists in one big hand and stretch my arms back over my head, exposing my ribs to his attack. “You’ve got to tell me…”

“Oh-oh-okay!” I finally screeched. “You’re awful,” I added as I caught my breath.

“You started it,” he puffed. “Now c’mon, tell me a bedtime story.”

“Well…it’s kind of freaky, but…I wondered what if he kidnapped her.”

“The guy in the song?” Clay looked surprised and a tad alarmed. “I never saw him wanting to hurt her. I always felt sorry for the guy. He sounded pretty pathetic.”

“Oh, me too! No, I don’t think he’d hurt her either. But he might want her to feel some of what she’s made him feel, the frustration, the need. And then I thought—he thinks she doesn’t know he exists, but what if she does? What if she’s been teasing him deliberately? And what if he realized that? It could make him a little crazy.”

“Why would she do that?”

I lay back across his lap, feeling myself slip into storyteller mode, the floating mind that had earned me a couple of best sellers so far. “She’s a young trophy wife of a rich old coot who pays her no attention. So she, uh, has to take care of herself. She’s angry and feels rejected, so she takes it out by teasing the male staff at her mansion. She can’t have an affair, because if her husband found out he’d, mm, ruin the guy or something—“

“No.” The green eyes looking down at me were big and bright with sudden revelation. “The husband’s a mobster. If she had an affair he’d kill the guy, and—he wouldn’t kill her, she’s too important to his image, his ego, but he might hurt her somehow.”

“Yes!” I exclaimed. “Oh, this is like when I was a kid and my best friend and I wrote together—one of us threw an idea out and the other thought of something to stick to it and threw it back, and before we knew it we had a story.” The crappy scripts for the new video forgotten, I rolled onto my side and hugged Clay tight around his middle. Every day brought a new proof, if I needed such, that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with this man. “I didn’t know you could do this. This is great!”

“Okay, so what about him?”

“I always thought he was, um, maybe the horse groom, the gardener, the pool boy—that lets you out—I dunno. The plumber, maybe? You’d look cute with your little butt crack showing.” He wiggled his fingers in threat, which sent me into fresh spasms of laughter. “Oh gosh, I know, he’s the computer guy! That gives him an excuse to come in the house. She comes in from the pool, in her teeny bikini—which lets me out—but she makes sure he gets a good look and a whiff before she goes to shower. She does that kind of stuff all the time. Changes clothes in front of her window so the pool boy gets an eyeful. When she knows the computer guy’s coming in to work on her system she leaves her panties hanging over the monitor. Maybe pulls out a sex toy in the limo so the chauffeur sees it. That sort of thing. Only this day he can’t stand it anymore.”

Clay was listening intently. “If she’s in the shower, wouldn’t that be the place to grab her?”

“Ooh, devil’s advocate. Picking out the inconsistencies in the plot. I really love you,” I sighed happily and flopped back over onto my back. “I don’t think so, because…hm…oh, he’s working on her computer—wait—no, he’s hacking into her private system, to send an email to her husband that she’s going out with some friends and she doesn’t know when she’ll be back! He’s covering his tracks. If he logs out now he’ll have to start over. Besides, he needs to get her to leave the house. It’d be awful hard to carry her out of the mansion naked and tied up without attracting notice.”

“Tied up?”

“Well, uh, yeah. We established he’s not violent, he doesn’t want to do her harm, and I never imagined a weapon involved. But I don’t imagine she’s easily intimidated, so simple threats wouldn’t do it either—she’ll be trying to escape every chance she gets. I’ve always figured restraint was the only logical plot device.”

His face, normally so open, revealed nothing. “How does he get her then?”

“Music. He knows she likes music, all kinds, opera to Opry; it’s the only thing they’ve ever had a real conversation about. He drives a—hm, a van, or an SUV, something big. When she’s dressed after her shower and comes out he mentions he got a new sound system, and it’s really sweet and would she like to check it out. He pulls around back of the mansion where nobody can see and gets her in the back of his ride. In a small space like that it’d be easier to subdue her without anybody getting hurt. Either he’s got a cabin in the hills, isolated, or a garage attached to his house, so nobody will see him carry her inside.”

“And then?” Clay’s voice was low, his gaze fixed on me. Oh, I’d hooked him. He was into the story. I love that feeling of power, a magic of sorts, spinning a tale like Scheherezade to draw people in.

“As I said, he’s fed up with the teasing. He figures she’s always had whatever she wanted—which I suspect is not true, by the way. But he wants her to experience what he has. He wants to tease her, and tease her, until she breaks, until she wants him as badly as she’s made him want her.” I shifted on his lap; my resting place wasn’t as comfortable as it had been and I couldn’t quite figure out why yet.

“Does she?”

“Eventually. Which would make it consensual, I guess. But then, it’s just a story after all. Afterwards, he takes her back to the mansion, and he vanishes. I don’t know why, I never got that far in the storyline, I just know he does.”

He started to say something, then glanced away. “You’re right, it’s a little too involved for a video.” I breathed easier, happy he hadn’t grossed out, and tried to resettle myself. Clay’s fingertips ran lightly back and forth across the backs of my wrists. “What are you doing?” I teased.

The expression when he looked at me was not joking. “Honestly?” he said softly. “I was wondering what you’d look like tied up.”

I gaped up at him, and in the same instant realized what was poking me between my shoulder blades. “You’re kidding.”

“No, I am not kidding!” he said with sudden heat. “You of all people—even after all this time do you still think I’m Mr. Innocent, never have a—a wicked thought, or—“

“Hey, quit putting words in my mouth!” I protested. “I never said any such thing, or meant it.”

“Then what did you mean?” he challenged.

“Honestly?” I echoed him. “I was scared to tell you that story, for fear you’d think I was sick for even imagining it.”

“Not if you don’t think I’m sick for responding to it.”

I sat up and kissed him. “No way,” I affirmed, and laid my head on his shoulder. “Thank you for accepting me, even if my yarns are kind of twisted.”

“It may be twisted, but it’s a good story. It’s got potential. In fact, I’m thinking…maybe we should continue this collaborative writing session in the bedroom—with some props, maybe?” I sat straight up and stared. Clay’s spontaneity was one of many things I loved about him, but this time he had caught even me unawares. He looked a little scared, as if he couldn’t believe he’d dared say it. “Unless you don’t want to. I mean, sometimes—stories—are better left in your head.”

“Sometimes, but…I always wondered what it felt like to be tied up. I researched it for books, but I could never even conceive of trusting a man enough to try it—till now.”

“You can trust me. I promise. When you say stop, I’ll stop.”

“Actually, we should have a code for that. I might want to holler ‘stop that, let me go, you bloody bastard’!” I tossed my hair and let fly with my favorite old Joan Collins Dynasty imitation, which never failed to get a giggle out of Clay. “So there should be something else we can say. Something that wouldn’t be said in the context…” I thought for a minute. “Buttercup?” I suggested.

He chuckled, then scooted me off onto the couch and got up. “Wait here,” he said and strode into the bedroom. I fairly squirmed with excitement. I couldn’t believe I had bared that crazy fantasy, much less that Clay had grabbed it and run with it! In moments, he returned. “Your costume is ready.”

“What?” I jumped up and ran into the bedroom. Laid out on the bed was my white backless halter top that wrapped across the front and tied in back, a short white pleated skirt, and a tiny white thong. Quickly I changed clothes and bounced back into the living room where Clay stretched out on the sofa. “Can I be a teasing rich bitch in this outfit or what?” I struck a pose. This could be fun, especially when a brilliant and very horny thought occurred to me. “Hey, you need a costume too!” Back into the bedroom I rooted through the closet. I knew where to look for what I wanted—pushed all the way to the back—carefully laid it out and dashed back. “Okay, your turn.” My pulse was already elevated, but it began to positively pound as he disappeared through the door. I’d racked my brains for ages to find a way to get him back in that outfit. This was becoming a delightful game! I closed my eyes and tried not to bounce on the couch from sheer lecherous glee, till I heard him come out of the bedroom and looked up. His first video had not been right for its song, but at least it gifted us with this tight green T-shirt and low-rider jeans. Just the way he walked into the room in them made me want to jump up and rip them off him. (It didn’t hurt that I knew I hadn’t put any underwear out with them.) “Oh yeah,” I sighed as he stopped in front of me. “You could kidnap me anytime, sugar.”

His hands were behind him. “Do you still want to do this?”

“Do you?”

“If you do.”

“We’re not getting anywhere with this,” I laughed, then took a deep breath as if to dive into a pool. “Okay, I do.”

“So do I.” Both hands emerged. A red silk scarf from my dresser drawer dangled from one; the other he held out to me. When I stood, he turned me around, brought my arms behind me and crossed my wrists. The smooth cloth looped between and around them, then drew in till it was snug but not tight. “Is that all right?” I wiggled, moved my shoulders, twisted my hands, and then it hit me: omigod, I really CAN’T get loose! I guess a part of me assumed he would tie them slackly, just for fun. This is real, it’s real, and if I can’t trust this man completely, totally… “Hey?”

“Yes. It’s fine.” I loved this man. We had made promises, vows, to each other. I chased floating panic from my thoughts. For years I had trusted him with my heart. Compared to that, trusting him with my body was small change.

“How does it feel?”

I was the one who’d said I wanted to know what it felt like, and said I could trust him enough to find out. None of this would work without honesty. “Strange. A little scary. A little exciting.” Clay ran his hands up my arms, and his long fingers curled to the insides of my elbows. I’m so hypersensitive there I can barely stand to be touched, yet here he was stroking and pressing and tickling, and I couldn’t move away. My muscles tensed, and suddenly things got even more exciting. “You said you wondered what I’d look like,” I managed. “So, what d’ya think so far?”

“Well, you looked—interesting—trying to get loose just now.” After a moment and a kiss on my bare shoulder, he continued, “The same thing you said. Strange. A little exciting…a little scary that I’m finding it this exciting. I never got what the fuss was about. Now I begin to understand.”

I turned to look up into his face. His teeth sat on his lower lip, but he didn’t look troubled, exactly: more puzzled, perhaps, at what he was feeling. “It’s a game, Clay. Like live action Dungeons and Dragons, except with less clothes—although that would depend on how much your chain mail covers…We can stop anytime. Buttercup works for you too.”

His kiss was long and deep. “Hey, I’m the kidnapper here, aren’t I? Come here!” He tugged me down onto the couch, grabbed my legs and swung them across his lap. I ended up half sprawled across the seat cushions giggling again, partly amused and partly nervous—until he pulled a bright purple scarf from his back pocket and tied my ankles together with it, at which time it became mostly nervous. It wasn’t a bad nervous, though, more a thrill of the unknown, especially when he slid his hands halfway up my legs and held my eyes with his. “You trust me this much?” I nodded. “That’s scary too.”

“I love you,” I whispered. “I’m not scared. You’re worth this kind of trust.”

He stood and started to bend as if to scoop me up, then stopped. “Oops. Another plot inconsistency. Wouldn’t she be yelling and screaming for help?”

“I guess so! ‘Halp, oh mah, halp!’” My best Southern-belle-tied-to-the-railroad-tracks voice trailed off when Clay reached into his other back pocket and produced a third scarf, black, with the evilest look on his face I could ever, or never, have imagined. “Oh, you are so kidding!”

He held the look, and the scarf, for what felt like forever, while I lay torn between astonishment and arousal. Then he laughed and dropped his hand. “Afraid so, this time, darn it. It looks great in movies, but if you couldn’t talk, even for a few minutes, you couldn’t tell me if you got a cramp or something.”

“Yeah…Wait a minute!” I hopped up as Clay yelled; then his mouth fell open as I rose high on my toes and trotted toward the hall closet. “Some kidnapper you are. Can’t even keep up with your hostage. C’mon!” He was still sputtering when he caught up. “Hah. Didn’t know that was possible, didya? I told you, I researched this stuff for a book. Now, look in there and find the brown box with the red magic marker writing on it. There’s an old joy buzzer in there, one of those things you use for practical jokes.” He dug around and found the round device with a ring attached, and I directed him to step around behind me and slip it on my thumb. A push on the top produced a suitable angry-hornet noise. “See, I could hold this where it shouldn’t go off by accident, if you had your heart set on authenticity.”

“So it’s okay?” As he spoke, the black scarf, loosely rolled, slid across my face and between my unprepared lips and teeth. The ends pulled secure behind my head. “I’ll take that as a yes, unless you tell me otherwise. You’re the one who figured how to do it, after all.” We were going deeper into this, and the deeper we went the more Clay took the lead, surprising me at every turn. The most surprising thing to me, though, was that the more assertive he became, the farther I fell into his power, the calmer and safer I felt. The only uncertainty I felt now was wondering what his fertile imagination might cook up for me. I moved my head around, tried to shift my jaw or push the fabric out with my tongue, all to no avail. I should have expected this; Clay is legendary for his thoroughness. Even a ‘halp halp’ came out as a muffled mew. It packed quite an erotic punch. My brain knew better, but my body read this unexpected step as the point of no return. Allowing Clay to silence me felt like a seal set on my utter surrender to him. I went a little weak in the knees, and a lot moist between the legs.

“You should see your face,” he said when he walked around to my front. “Your eyes are so big. You look really amazed…but not scared.” I shook my head. He pressed his body to mine, one big hand at the small of my back beneath my bound wrists and the other at the nape of my neck, and moved his hips against me just enough for me to feel how hard he already was. He laced his fingers through the black scarf, and with a gentle tug tipped my head back; then he lowered his head till his open mouth hovered above mine, and his tongue flicked out and ran across my gagged and helpless lips. A little moan fluttered deep in my throat. “I love you.” His voice was rough, his eyes the darkling green of a wild forest. “I want to make you feel things you’ve never felt before. You’re worth it.”

He bent and scooped me off my feet, and I let out a smothered squeak—the strength in his slender body never ceased to startle me. “Don’t throw your back out, doofus,” I tried to scold.

“Mmf mmf?” Clay carried me down the hallway and deposited me on the bed. “Sorry, I don’t speak that language.” He knelt on the mattress beside me. “One thing I need to take care of first—and thank you for calling it to my attention, since I was not aware of it—“ With deft speed he untied my ankles, but only long enough to cross them and bind them fast again. “Can’t have my hostage outrunning me again.”

I tried not to gasp. Now there was no way I could even stand, let alone run. Not only couldn’t I break for the door the first chance I saw (which, yes, I was bad enough to have planned, just to see how he’d react), but I couldn’t close my legs against my fictional attacker’s onslaught. I couldn’t even press my thighs together to get a little relief from the quickening ache in my crotch. This game had begun with me giving Clay control; now, he was taking it. Oh Lord, and NOW he’s going to tease me? I’m ready to explode as it is! Almost without realizing it, I began to wriggle and twist, testing my bonds. Nope, they were as secure as I’d thought. He’s going to do whatever he wants to me, for as long as he wants, and no matter how unbearable it gets I can’t stop him, can’t escape, can’t resist. Sure, I could; but letting the fantasy grab hold made my body almost vibrate in response. I fought to control my arousal. I wanted to hold out, to keep this game going a while, to make this exquisite agony last as long as I could endure it.

My tension was only intensified by Clay’s demeanor. For what seemed a very long time, he simply sat and watched my futile squirming. His breaths were as heavy as mine, and though he didn’t lay a finger on my skin his gaze raked my vulnerable body and burned hot as the touch of his hand or his mouth. I was in for one wild ride, no doubt! Finally he closed his eyes, sucked in a long shuddery breath and let it out. “This is insane. I don’t know what drove me to do it. Maybe because I won’t see you again after today, ever. One more flashing was one more than I could take. It seemed the time to mete out some unofficial justice…”

I watched and listened and marveled as my beloved Clay transformed himself right in front of me, as he slipped into the skin of a character I had created and made it his own. He did it when singing, all the time (though he swore he had not done it once with a love song since the day we met). What was it people said—he had a gift for finding the core of another’s creation and putting his mark on it. Now he was doing it with a role only I would ever see him play. It was my time to reciprocate. I reached into myself, to find the woman who had gotten herself into this pickle…

I was mad as hell and scared to death, but I really had no one but myself to blame. As long as I’ve lived with my thug husband I should never be taken off guard. But when the computer guy invited me to check out his new speakers it sounded like a golden opportunity for the sort of fun that’s all I get anymore. He seemed slightly nerdy, so quiet, unassuming, maybe even shy: perfect prey for a huntress like me. I figured I could cop a feel, hop out of his ride and be on my way, with a little thrill I could take care of later myself. Besides, he actually was hot. So I slipped up, and now here I was, caught in my own web, the prisoner of some gorgeous psycho, maybe, and who knew why?

He reached for my face. I jerked away and aimed as good a kick as I could his way, but he ducked it with ease. Catching my ankles in one hand, he pushed them back down to the bed. “Feisty, aren’t you?” he purred. “Conserve your strength. You’ll need it later. And don’t waste it screaming either,” he added as he loosened the gag in my mouth. “We’re miles from anyone.” I spat the cloth out and started to yell and fight to free myself.

Yes, I knew I couldn’t; but I’d gathered that seeing me try was turning Clay on, so I threw in a good struggle just to please him. From the way he watched, it worked.

I succeeded only in making my limbs sore. “You lousy son of a bitch, what is this about? Ransom? My husband can pay it.” Can and would were two different things, but I wasn’t about to tell this clown that. “Or revenge?” The man I was married to dwelt on the outer limits of the law. It wasn’t far fetched to think one of his rivals might try to get at him through brutal means. “That won’t work, I’ll warn you. Hurting me won’t hurt him.”

“Oh, I won’t hurt you. I don’t hurt women—well, unless she had a gun and I didn’t, perhaps. It’s revenge, of a sort, but on you, not him…or not exactly revenge, I suppose. Payback? That’s closer, but still not it. it’s what I said before. Justice.” Damn, those eyes could bore holes in concrete. “I’ve been watching you. You get off on tormenting every man who comes in contact with you, flaunting your sex for men below you on the food chain, men who have no power to respond. It’s time you got a taste of your own medicine, you sadistic bitch.”

You can only imagine what it was like to hear those words come out of Clay’s mouth.

I laughed at him, but only to keep panic at bay. “Great, a psycho stalker rapist.”

“Not at all. You’re used to getting everything you want, aren’t you, without even asking most of the time? Money and power do that. You love your little games. Well, now it’s my game and my rules.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Probably, but if so you got behind the wheel and drove me there. I’ve wanted you so badly it was like fever. Now you’re going to know what I’ve felt. You’re going to want it, want me, as desperately and hopelessly as I’ve wanted you. And no, I’m not going to have sex with you, until you break, until you want me that much, until you ask, until you beg.”

“Like hell!” I snapped. “I won’t beg you for anything.”

“You will,” he said simply. “I promise you that. I’m a man of my word, and I always keep my promises.”

“I won’t, and what happens then? You toss me off in some ravine?”

“You will. And then—I take you back to your mansion, and I vanish.”

“I know you will, because my husband will kill you!” Just like—like—I didn’t want to think back there. Another death laid at the door of my libido was too much to think about, even if it was a gorgeous psycho.

It wasn’t thought out, just popped into my head as I said it. Maybe she had lost a lover to her husband’s criminal possessiveness. Maybe she teased because she was afraid to get closer, to come to care for another man only to lose him and know his death was her fault. I liked the idea—it gave her more dimension—and filed it away for future use.

“No,” he said. “You’ll never see me again. Don’t worry about looking over your shoulder, because I won’t be there. If you don’t learn a lesson from this, it won’t be because I didn’t try.” He reached for the cloth now hanging loosely around my neck. “Enough talk. Walk a while in my shoes.”

I turned my head away as another thought came to me. “Hey, Buttercup,” I said.

The hands moving toward my face froze. The intense angry stranger was elbowed aside, and Clay looked down at me with concern, but no less intensity. “Something wrong?”

“Not really. I just have a question.”

He made an exasperated little noise. “You just wanted to see if I’d stop,” he accused.

“I did not! Why waste time on that? I know you’ll stop. No, I think I just caught you in a plot inconsistency.” I gestured with my chin toward the scarf drooping across my chest. “How’s she supposed to beg with that thing in the way?”

Clay lifted the cloth, and that evil look took over his face again. “That’s the beauty of it. She can’t, except when he lets her.”

My mouth fell open in shock, which made it a sitting duck for him to pop the rolled-up black scarf back in and pull the knot quickly firm. “You sneaky—awmf!” He really wanted to see how far he could push me! I had the buzzer of course, but didn’t want to resort to it except for a real emergency. Now I would have to choose every time he loosened the gag, whether to end the game right then, or sentence myself to another indeterminate term of delicious torment. That it would be both thrilling and torturous I had no doubt. One look at Clay, at the fierce glitter in his eyes, the tension in his wiry body, told me that. He had embraced his desire, and was eager to go. Okay, let’s play.

I squirmed around to evade his grasp, but ultimately I couldn’t escape being gagged again. The lying bastard, saying he’d let me go if I asked and then making that impossible. Fine, bring it on, you can’t break me!

He sat back on his heels, put two fingers in his mouth and sucked on them a moment. What a fine mouth, I thought, and then thrust the thought furiously away. The fingers came out glistening, and he traced a damp line from my chin down my neck and chest into my cleavage. Then came tiny ticklish strokes, with occasional pauses to replenish the moisture, along my sides and across my stomach, anywhere my skin was exposed, and only there.

When his attention shifted to my legs, he smiled. Bound as they were I could neither completely bend nor straighten them, open or close them, and the muscles twitched as they quickly fatigued. It infuriated me that he thought their shaking was a response to him, and even more so that the tremors eased a little under the firm pressure of his hands. I watched for an opening, and tensed to kick at his pretty face, but before I could get it off he gripped my ankles, bent low and streaked his tongue up the soles of my bare feet, then began to nibble and suck at my toes.

I almost cry when my massage therapist friend tries to work on my feet, they’re so sensitive to the point of pain; but at that moment I was already so aroused Clay’s movements only added fuel to that fire.

The groan that rolled from my throat shamed me, but worse was to come when he slid his hands under me and turned me on my side. Light fingers walked up my calves, and I moaned again unwillingly into the gag when they reached the backs of my knees.

As long as we’ve been together, Clay knows all my hot spots, darn him.

I tried to focus and gauge where his face might be, then thrust my tied hands out behind me with fingers clawed. Scratching those hypnotic eyes out sounded most appealing! No such luck met me though; he caught my wrists and held them down while he explored my arms with his mouth. That cursed mouth, so soft and cruel, set my nerves trilling. After he worked his way up to the back of my neck, the pressure of the gag at the sides of my mouth eased. “Well?” he breathed in my ear.

Not yet—this is so good—what else do you have planned for me, Clay? How else will you torture me with your beauty? I want to know. I’m not ready to stop yet.

“You’ll have to do better than that, you sorry mmph—“

He sighed as he silenced me, then ran the backs of his fingernails feather-light down my spine. As hard as I was fighting it, I arched my back in response, and further humiliated myself by almost whimpering. A moment later, something pressed into my hand. “Untie this,” he ordered. Barely daring to hope, my fingers fumbled with the knotted fabric. Could it be he had tired of his madness already, and was letting me go?

I was puzzled, but I love a mystery.

The bonds around my wrists did not slacken, but something else did. “Well, look here.” My top fell in folds, and he slipped it off over my head and tossed it, before rolling me onto my back again. His hungry eyes devoured the sight of my bare breasts, and for the first time fear of losing this game overtook anger.

It was amazing to see Clay admire my breasts as if he had never seen them before, as if they weren’t squashed up against him every night.

“It’s going to take more to get your attention, huh?” Again he moistened his fingers, and this time traced the round outlines of one breast, spiraling upward toward its apex. I struggled with my mind more vigorously than I had with my muscles. It was so difficult, unable to move or speak, to think of anything but what was being done to me, to stop my traitorous body from confessing its interest; but it was too late. One faint contact across my left nipple had it erect and appealing for more. “Hey, I got someone’s attention there.” He rolled the pink bud back and forth between his fingertips, exerting a little more pressure every time, until it was rock hard and aching. Then, and only then, that secret weapon descended upon it, that awful beautiful mouth. Over and over it he went, lashing me with his tongue, worrying me with his lips and the fine edges of his teeth. I bit down on the gag, but neither it nor I could hold back the cries he elicited. My right nipple was hardening just from sympathy, and when he attacked it with his mouth while his hand continued to harass the left, I knew I was defeated. If he had pulled the gag from my lips at that moment I would have said anything he demanded.

I squeezed my eyes shut while he ripped the last shreds of self-control from me. “Open your eyes!” His voice snapped with command, and before I could stop myself my head came up and my eyes opened to be seized by his. “You can’t ignore me anymore. You looked at me for so long, but you didn’t see me, or care to see me. I was nothing to you but another in a long line of objects.” His face was so close I could feel his breath, ragged and hot, in my mouth forced half open by the black scarf, and I wanted that mouth on mine. That’s not true, I wanted to cry. I wanted you the moment I saw you, so smart, so sexy, so blissfully ignorant of the fact. Even as enraged as he clearly was, as determined to drive me mad with lust and then refuse to fulfill it, his hands on me were gentle, so unlike every man who’d ever banged me. “You can’t get away with that now. Look at me.”

“I am,” I tried to say. “I have!” He couldn’t understand, but it was clear he recognized I was speaking. The blazing green eyes searched mine for a few breaths more before he slipped back down toward my chest. The hint of gingery stubble that darkened his fair cheeks scritched against my skin with every kiss and nibble and raised goosebumps. A tiny prickly jab nearly sent me through the roof—it was his long eyelashes brushing across one nipple, still so swollen and excruciatingly sensitive that even that butterfly touch sent an electric shock through me.

From there he traveled to my stomach. Apparently satisfied that my breasts had suffered enough, his hands slid down to trace my ribs, then paused. I shuddered despite my best intention when I felt his fingers take hold of the waistband of my skirt and start to pull. Down over my hips it slid and off, leaving me only that tiny thong between us.

It took me that long to figure out Clay’s logic in choosing my wardrobe for this game—he had picked clothes he could get off me without untying me!

Again he sat back and stared at my body, almost totally exposed now to his pitiless intent, before his hands moved up my legs. This time their trembling was not altogether due to fatigue. With slow deep inescapable strokes he kneaded my thighs, now unprotected by clothing, then pressed against their insides to open them as far as my bound ankles would permit. His head dipped—and he breathed on the soaking wet string crotch of my panties—

And I broke. I writhed under his relentless caresses, made noises I didn’t even know I was capable of making. He played my body like a musical instrument, but never approached the core of my need. My crotch throbbed with every hammer blow of my heart. I thought I would burst if I couldn’t get some release, yet he wouldn’t even give me the small pity of allowing me to surrender. He kept on, and on, until my mind was almost gone in a red-hot blur of arousal. At long last he slid back up me, his gaze piercing me. “Do you want me?” he whispered hoarsely, as his hands freed my mouth.

My reply was a keening, inarticulate wail, as if every pent-up second of years of loneliness and neglect were being hauled out of me with a hook. “Do you want me? Do you want me this much? You lied, you said you wouldn’t hurt me but this hurts, it hurts so bad! Do you want me this much? No man ever wanted me this much, not me. My husband,” I spat, “doesn’t want me. He wants what I represent, respectability, legitimacy. He doesn’t want me—but he doesn’t want anyone else treading on his turf either. I had a lover, once. They—they found him up Del Mar way with a bullet in the back on his head…” I choked and twisted my face away. “Can you imagine how long it’s been since a man touched me, a man I wanted to be touched by? A very long time. And even then no man ever touched me like you do…” I pressed my lips together, screwed my eyes shut and tried not to cry, fought to keep one scrap of dignity to clothe my nakedness with. “Why am I even saying this?” I muttered, barely coherent. “It doesn’t matter. None of it matters to you. You don’t…”

There’s a surprise for you, Clay. I just changed the whole direction of this game. Hope it doesn’t rock your world too much. How will you respond now? I lay still and waited. My characters always seem real to me on some level even on a piece of paper, but playing this out, it startled me how actual her anguish felt.

His hand slid under my cheek, and turned my face upward. “Look at me.” I did, but because this time his voice was so inexplicably, ineffably tender. His eyes, still dark with passion, now held something new, or rather lacked something old: the anger was gone. “I do,” he said softly. “I want you that much. Do you want me?”

Bravo, Clay! Damn, I knew you could act.

It was a true question now, and I could only give a true reply. “I’ve wanted you all along. I watched you when you didn’t know. I was cruel to you, I know it, worse than the rest, but only because I wanted you, and I couldn’t risk having you. I couldn’t charge you your life for my pleasure. I still can’t—we can’t—you’ve got to let me go, he’ll k-kill you too, and I couldn’t stand that—“

“I’m not afraid of him.” His eyes never releasing mine, he reached back over his broad shoulders and peeled that tight T-shirt off. Half the male staff ran around the mansion in just shorts or whatever, but I’d never seen him less than fully clothed. The first sight of his lean muscular torso was both a joy and a pain.

“Untie me?” I asked, and he scooted down the bed and loosed my ankles. I let out a shaky sigh of relief as I straightened my legs out, then gasped when he slipped between them and knelt over me. With one smooth gesture he pulled the saliva-soaked black scarf away and tossed it aside, then lowered his head to silence my mouth instead with his. His lips were as sweet and firm and gently demanding as I imagined. His hands found my breasts again; the tiniest stroke of his fingertips across my taut nipples made me moan loudly into his open mouth, holding nothing back now.

Clay lifted his head and looked as if he might just spontaneously combust. My, did he like that!

“Untie my hands,” I pleaded. “I want to touch you.”

“I can’t. It’s not safe. Please, trust me?” His voice wavered, and I had to choose—start the fight all over, or yield this much more to him.

I could’ve opted out right then, but why after this far? If Clay wanted to keep me his love captive a little longer, that was fine by me.

“Okay. Okay, I trust you.” He kissed me again, my mouth, then my cheeks, my eyelids, my forehead. Then he proceeded to kiss his way down me—except that neglected aching crotch. “You’re still teasing me, damn you!”

“I’ll make it worth the wait, I promise.”

“And you always keep your promises?” Unbelievably, I was able to kid, and my reward was a tantalizing hint of a smile. He massaged my legs, and spent a little time kissing the pink and slightly puffy creases the purple scarf had pressed into the flesh of my ankles. When he turned me on my stomach to get at their backs, his mouth journeyed up my calves, revisited my knees, and planted moist baby kisses all over my now bare ass.

As I felt his mouth leave my buttocks, I reached back with my bound hands, guessing blindly, and this time I scored: my fingers found his face. I half expected him to pull away, but he remained perfectly still while I explored his sharp cheekbones, strong jawline, that beautiful mouth. When I touched his lips he drew my fingers in to kiss and nibble them, then moved to my palms, and even my wrists around the scarf that bound them. His fingers laced through mine and lifted my hands slightly, and the next thing I felt was the hot wet pressure of his mouth on the base of my spine. It was a wonder I didn’t soak the sheets I lay on, my crotch was so wet. With a whimper, I ground my pelvis against the mattress. His hands, caressing my hips, caught them and pulled back, lifting them off the bed just far enough that I couldn’t make contact. I struggled against him, frantic to at least take a bit of the edge off my arousal, but he would not have it. “Ohhh, c’mon, darlin’, don’t start without me.” For a frenzied moment I almost wished I were gagged again—I was afraid I might chip a tooth when my jaw clenched and I groaned with frustrated desire.

He rolled me onto my back again and stretched out on top of me. His crotch pressed urgently against mine, and the crisp-soft ginger hairs of his chest set my sore nipples to throbbing anew. “Do you want me?”

“Yes, yes!” I lifted one leg and ran my foot up the back of his leg. Just because, for whatever reason, he chose to deprive me of the use of my hands, and just because I chose to allow him to, didn’t mean I couldn’t touch him! My toes stroked his butt, so tight under the denim, then hooked in the waistband of his jeans and tugged.

“Aren’t we getting impatient—and creative!” He slid off the bed and reached for the button of his pants.

“Let me!” I squirmed up and sat on the edge of the mattress, turned my back to him and peered over my shoulder. After a second’s hesitation, he moved closer, took my hands in his and guided them to their target. Enthusiastically I unfastened and unzipped, then halted and reached upward to caress his flat and lightly fuzzed stomach, tracing the edge of a hip bone. “Remember, I can tease too,” I chuckled when he caught his breath and his hands gripped my shoulders. Then my hands dropped inside his jeans. I couldn’t turn far enough to see, but I could feel: he was long, and hard, and eager, and I stroked him with much delight.

You said you wondered what I’d look like tied up, Clay—what are you seeing now, when you look down at my hands you tied, on you?

“Untie me,” I begged again. “Please, you feel so good, I want to touch you all over.”

“I can’t.” Now he was groaning too. “There are reasons—you wouldn’t understand, but it’s not safe—and this way if your husband finds out, you can tell him it wasn’t your fault, you can tell him I forced you, and you won’t have to lie. It’ll be true.”

Ah, I knew that devious mind of Clay’s would have a explanation!

“I don’t give a damn anymore what I tell him, or what he does.”

“I do! You’ve shown off every inch of skin, needing someone to look at you—do you think I didn’t see the bruises? Here?” He touched the side of my neck, just below my jaw. “Or here?” His hands folded around my upper arms. “I thought maybe you liked your sex rough, but you don’t, do you? You were too afraid when I brought you here.”

I was stunned that he’d noticed, that he knew. I had no idea.

Neither did I, though it made perfect sense. Clay was the one who’d first said the husband might hurt her. Ad libbing again! I loved it, almost as much as I loved him.

His arms came around in front of me and drew me to him in a tight embrace. “I won’t put you in that position. I won’t risk him hurting you because of me.”

“Same here.” I tipped my head back to look up into his handsome face. “But I’m more scared for you than for me. What he’ll do if he finds out about this—“

“He won’t. He’ll never see me again.”

“You said I’d never see you again, either. What do you mean?”

My turn to be sneaky. Clay clearly had an idea of where this story was going, and I’d get it out of him one way or another.

He shook his head. “Let’s not worry about that now. Come here.” He helped me to stand—I was a bit anxious about my shaky legs but they held me up just fine—and slipped my panties off. They fell to my ankles and I kicked them aside, then watched appreciatively as he slid the jeans down over his slim hips and long powerful thighs. And there, of course, was the main attraction, marvelously ready. I smiled, and lay back on the bed and opened my legs to welcome him.

He knelt between my knees and started to kiss my belly and knead my thighs, then trailed down my groin with his tongue. I shivered when it traced the edges of my lower lips

as it had my mouth when this game began, so long ago now it seemed

and let out a little cry when his fingers parted them. In the next moment his lips found my clit and fastened on it, sucking and pulling. I screamed, literally, and tried to thrust upward to get more of him—but he grasped my hips again, and this time pushed them to the bed, holding me down, keeping me from experiencing my relief before his appointed time. He released my clit to tease my engorged inner lips and plunge into my depths with his tongue, but always returned to what had obviously become his favorite bit of me. All I could do was lie there and take his sweet merciless punishment, my body shaken by the shockwaves of sensation he sent coursing through me. I was trembling and sobbing for breath when he moved up me, crushed my body beneath him again, and explored my mouth with his tongue, so I could taste myself on him.

Incidentally, Kimberley was only partly right. A man with a great tongue is actually the Eighth World Wonder. Thank heaven she didn’t figure that out before I met Clay.

“Sweet as honey,” he rasped. “No doubt about it. You want me.” It was no longer a question; my body affirmed it. “Tell me. I need to hear you say it.”

“Yes,” I gasped. “I want you. I want more of you inside me, all of you. I’m so sick of being banged or screwed or nothing at all. If you truly want me, then make love to me. Please.”

That hint of a grin rekindled, and now lit into a smile as bright as sunrise. “All you have to do is ask,” he said, helped me position myself, and slid inside. I was so wet it was no trouble, despite his more than respectable size.

“So long…” I murmured. It had been far too long.

“Not that long. I have no future as a porn star.”

The unexpected wry joke in the midst of passion made me giggle—until he gasped and his eyes bulged. I realized my laughter had made me tighten around him like a vise. “Ah, I’ve got you now!” His look of consternation was priceless. “Consider this payback for not untying me.” I sucked in several deep breaths to calm my amusement and relax my muscles enough for him to move. He pulled out, glared at me, and promptly wiped the remains of my chuckles off my face when he took hold of himself and started to tease my clit and lips with his head. My body was a banked hearth erupting into fresh flames, begging anew for him to take me.

Finally he reared and thrust all the way into me. I hooked my legs around him, braced myself with my bound hands, and was thrilled to find that with their support behind me I could thrust my pelvis higher and harder to meet his. Together we drove toward our goal. “Don’t close your eyes,” he panted as the tempo increased.

“I won’t.”

I wouldn’t, either. I never do when we make love. One of the most beautiful sights in all creation to me is Clay’s face at the moment of his climax. I adore watching his passion for me claim him.

Harder and faster we went, urging each other on. I felt release approach, nearer, nearer—yes, yes—and then it was on me, screaming like a freight train. I swear, my body arched so violently I think the top of my head and my hands tied behind me were the only parts of me actually touching the bed. As it hit he slowed, moving out of me only a little before plunging full length again. “Don’t stop!” I cried, and he didn’t, deep forceful strokes sending breakers of pleasure crashing over me.

And then, while I was still twitching, he shuddered and let out a low throaty groan that vibrated through our joined bodies.

He’s almost there. I know the signs—his eyes widening and then nearly closing; his cheeks trembling, just barely; the death grip his teeth take on his lower lip, that’ll release at the moment he does.

My fingers were clenched in the sheet on which I lay. I braced myself again, and thrust up as hard as I could, timing it to coincide with his downward push, to help him over the edge; and it worked. A thrill of satisfaction caught hold of me when he threw his head back with a hoarse cry—joined in the next instant by my own cry of surprise, as a second and totally unforeseen storm broke within me…

I came back to earth with Clay lying on me, both of us slippery with sweat and assorted nookie-related goo. His eyes were closed, and his breathing as hard as if he had just run a marathon. I paused to admire his lovely face relaxed and sated, but after a few moments I realized I might get pretty stiff if my hands didn’t get untied soon. Before I could speak, though, he stirred, blinked up at me, and smiled a slow languid smile. Instead of reaching under me, his hands moved down to bring my thighs closer to him. Taking the cue, I wrapped my legs tightly around his hips; he was still inside me, and my motion pulled him in as far as I could. He locked his arms around me and rolled us onto our sides, then started to fiddle with the scarf knotted around my wrists. He better be able to do this without looking, I grumbled to myself as a flicker of concern crossed his face: not as if I couldn’t turn over and let him free me, but I love the warmth of him inside me so much I hate to give it up prematurely for any reason short of planetary crisis. Fortunately, the knot gave way in another second. I threw my arms around him and clung to him, still shivering a little from the intensity of the experience. “Are you okay?” he breathed, rubbing my back with long slow strokes.

“Fine. Worn out, but fine. You?”

“The same. Wow. Not something I’d want to try every day.”

“Me neither. It was incredible, though. Not that I need props.” I kneaded his shoulders and reveled in the feel of his hair through my fingers. “I get as moist as Manila in monsoon season just from you touching me.”

He giggled, and we snuggled together a good while in enjoyable silence. “I think I know how the story ends,” Clay said suddenly. “Or what comes next, more like. Not the end necessarily.”

“I thought you might! You said some things I didn’t get.” Sadly, he had finally slipped out of me; he rolled onto his back and I nestled into his chest. “Okay, tell me a bedtime story.”

“He takes her back to the mansion, and vanishes.”

“Blech. That sucks. She may agree, in her head, that it’s safest for him, but after this? It’d tear her heart out. Like, how would I feel if you walked in one day and said out of the blue I’d never see you again? You’re turning out to be a crappy storyteller, Clayton.”

“It’ll get better if you’ll hush and let me finish. Or do I have to go find that gag? You know, you made some pretty interesting noises when I—“

“Watch it, pal.” The red scarf was still looped around my arm, and I grabbed the free end and wrapped it around one of his wrists. “You gotta sleep sometime, and I’m not above tying you to the bed and having my way with you. I have no doubt I can make you beg just as nicely as you made me.” A little shiver went through him when he gazed at his arm, and I flattered myself by hoping it was more anticipation than dread. I know a tingle went through me at the thought of taking him to that wild place to which he had carried me. “Well, go ahead, and make it good.”

“Writers,” Clay mock-grumbled and pulled me back down into his arms. “Several days later, at the mansion, a gang of people burst in, all in black, masks, gloves, the whole deal, and they yell ‘Federal agents!’ They arrest the husband and take him away. While they’re doing that and searching the house one of them takes the wife aside to keep an eye on her—they’re not arresting her, but, uh, the lead agent, I guess, says to keep her out of the way so she can’t shred evidence or something. The guy guarding her doesn’t say anything at first, but when they get in a corner away from the others he says—“ Clay leaned forward until his lips brushed my ear. “’We’ve got to stop meeting like this’.”

I shrieked with sudden comprehension and delight. “Omigod, of course. He was undercover! He hacked the computers to gather evidence against the husband. And when they had enough to make the arrest they pulled him out, so he really did think he’d never see her again! He knew the bust was going down and she’d be free, but he had no reason to tell her at first, and later he wouldn’t have for fear of putting her in danger. That would even explain why he couldn’t untie her—she might do something, like pick up something in his house to try to use to find him later, and without realizing it she’d blow his cover and put herself in harm’s way too.” Clay’s grin was satisfied. “Maybe he even asked to be in on the bust so he could see her one more time. I bet he didn’t intend to say anything, but she’s sitting there crying just from sheer relief and he couldn’t stand it. Ooh, this is wonderful!”

Clay laughed as I hugged him. “There’s more.”

“Good!”

“The agents take her downtown, just for questioning. They talk to her and then let her go, she’ll have to testify or something but she’s more than happy to do that if they’ll protect her. So they tell her that’s covered, they have an agent assigned to guard her. She gets on the elevator and goes down to the lobby—it’s a big old government building—it’s almost dark—she gets off the elevator and starts for the doors—“

“And he’s standing there,” I finished. “Not in front of the door, but off to one side.”

“Because he doesn’t know how she’ll react.”

“But she sees him, and she goes right to him, and she says ‘thank you’ and puts her arms around him.”

“He holds her for a minute, and then he moves back and takes her hands in his, and kisses them, and moves them back and forth—“ Clay spread his arms then brought them back in. “Then he takes her in his arms again, and she hugs him again, and he says ‘that feels so much better than the last time’.”

“And they walk out together, as you sing over the closing credits!” I laughed.

“So, Miss Best Seller, did I do okay?”

“Oh, you did better than okay. I love a good happy ending.”

“So do I.”

***************

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