‘Trust me,’ he said, and brushed a strand of her blonde hair off her forehead. He was staring down into her eyes with an earnestness she was unaccustomed to in her usually light-hearted lover.
Elizabeth smiled uncertainly. ‘Of course I trust you,’ she replied.
He slid his hands down her arms and grasped her hands in his, then slowly brought them around behind her and held them there. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I mean, “Trust me now.” To do this.’
She took a sharp breath, unnaturally loud in the sudden stillness of the room. ‘Eric–’ His hands were firm, but gentle. He stroked his thumbs along the inside of her wrists, where they met each other in his hands. She shivered.
‘I know you’re afraid,’ he said softly. ‘But trust me, Elizabeth. I won’t hurt you.’
She held herself very still, wanting desperately to pull back against his hands, knowing it was illogical to feel the fear that coursed through her at just that minimal level of confinement – but there it was.
‘I–’
He lifted one hand to her cheek, brushed a finger across her lower lip. His eyes, grey green in the morning light, never left hers. ‘Trust me,’ he said again.
Of all the things she’d let him do to her in the almost-year they’d been together, she’d never let him pin her, never let him restrain her, could barely tolerate him even holding her wrists above her head. It was irrational, she knew, but she had been unable to shake her terror of it, of being bound in any way. And so he had spanked her, fucked her, slapped her, dripped wax on her, made her scream with orgasms and occasionally with pain, all without once binding her with rope, leather, his hands or restraints of any kind.
A sacrifice to be sure, for this man who loved all things rope, who used leather with abandon, and who loved the feel of a woman helpless beneath his hand.
Still holding her wrists, still holding her gaze, he moved her slowly back until she felt the couch behind her knees. Moving carefully, like one would around a frightened animal that just might bite in its fear, he reached down and picked something up off the sofa. She shuddered as she felt the slide of silk rope on her skin.
‘I’m not going to make it tight,’ he said. He looked down and began to loop the rope around her wrists. ‘This rope won’t even hold a good knot. But this isn’t about what’s here–’ he tapped her wrists where he’d looped the rope, ‘it’s about what’s here.’ He tapped her temple lightly. ‘And here.’ Another tap, just over her heart. ‘I’m going to take care of you this morning. All morning. And you’ll have to trust me to do that.’ He stopped what he was doing and looked back into her eyes. ‘OK? Can you do that?’
She licked her lips. Felt the sensuous, intoxicating slip of the rope against her skin, felt her own incipient helplessness. She’d never let anyone take care of her, not since she’d left home at 16 to escape her bully of a stepfather; not since she’d seen what a killing-noose dependency was, after her father had passed away and her mother had found herself barely able to function without her husband’s direction. She’d quickly remarried another domineering man, the stepfather Elizabeth had run away to escape, and had fallen into the same helpless role with him.
Elizabeth looked into Eric’s eyes, searching for something, though she wasn’t sure what. All she saw there was love and gentleness. This was the man she had let love her in ways she had never imagined, the man she trusted with all her heart. He had never abused that trust, but instead had built on it, day by day. She felt something loosen inside herself, unravelling like the silken ends of a frayed rope. Slowly, her eyes never leaving his, she nodded.
She had arrived at his house after her morning run, still in her work-out clothes, as was her habit on Saturdays. Normally she would run a bath and he would make coffee, then he would sit on a chair by the tub and they would sip coffee and chat while she relaxed and bathed. Now he untied her wrists long enough to pull off her tanktop and sports bra, then retied them behind her back and bent to untie her shoelaces and remove her shoes and socks. With a hand under each arm he helped her to stand, and she stood mutely as he slid her shorts down over her hips and to the floor. He unwound the band that held her hair in a ponytail and ran his fingers through it, tousling it, shaking it out into a curly mass over her shoulders, where it brushed against her naked skin and tickled her. It was an odd sensation, being undressed in this almost-detached way, and yet she felt a tingle of excitement, of arousal, at the efficiency of his hands, cool on her exercise-heated skin; at the thought of being touched by him, in just this way, all morning.
He led her into the kitchen and sat her carefully on a barstool at the breakfast bar. She was surprised at how much she relied on her arms being free for her balance, and was grateful for his close attention to her. Part of her attention stayed on him as he moved around the kitchen, grinding the beans and setting the coffee to brew, but another part was acutely focused on the sensation of the rope around her wrists. It was not loose, but neither did it bite into her skin. Instead it simply held her, firmly, as his hands had done earlier.
She moved her wrists experimentally, and then with more determination, testing the limits of her movement, and felt a brief flash of fear, a tightness in her chest, when she realised she couldn’t slide or twist her hands free. She started to genuinely struggle, to panic, her breath coming faster as she twisted her hands this way and that.
And then she felt his hand on her head, felt him stroking her hair, soothing her. She hadn’t even realised her eyes were closed, had forgotten his presence in the room. She stilled under his hand, breathing in his scent.
He continued to stroke her, brushing the hair off her forehead and over her shoulders; cupping his fingers around the back of her neck, under her hair, in a gesture made all the more intimate by the fact that she was captured there, hands behind her back, by his rope. Eyes still closed, enjoying the sensations, her breath caught.
His hands continued their soothing of her, stroking down across her shoulders and still further, until he was cupping her breasts in a way that was achingly familiar to her. Familiar, and yet entirely new, with her arms bound. Her nipples tautened beneath his palms and she arched her back unconsciously, thrusting them deeper into his hands, her earlier panic subsided in the surfeit of sensation as he pinched and pulled at her nipples, rolling them between fingers and thumb. She felt his breath against her lips and then he was kissing her, his mouth covering hers as one hand snaked still lower, across her flat belly and to the “V” between her thighs. As his tongue parted her lips and pushed deep into her mouth, his fingers parted her pussy lips and pushed deep into the wetness he found there. Thrusting, dipping, teasing and spreading, his fingers kept time with his mouth and tongue until she was writhing beneath his hands. Just when she thought she could bear it no longer, when she knew she was going to explode in an orgasm–
He stopped. He pulled his mouth away and slid his fingers gently out of her even as she thrust her hips toward him as though to pull them back in. She stared at him stupidly, panting.
‘Not yet,’ he said against her mouth, before turning away, a glimmer of amusement in his eyes.