Bondage And Bureaucracy Read online

  Bottom line, he didn’t trust himself not to get carried away with Fiona. So, as much as his stiff dick wanted him to jump on the opportunity and into Fiona, his feet remained planted where they were until he heard the click of the bathroom lock.

  Harrison glanced down at the bulge in his slacks and swore under his breath. It was going to be a very, very long afternoon.

  At the kitchen sink, he cranked on the faucet and cupped a hand under the cool stream. It wouldn’t be as effective as a cold shower, but it’d have to do. After a few brisk splashes, he felt for a towel. Hearing a thud, he scrubbed the towel over his face a few times then glanced down. A navy blue day planner lay flopped open on the floor, staring up at him. Reaching down, he picked it up and a thin sheet slipped out from between the pages. He bent for the fallen page, then froze.

  “What in the hell is this…” he whispered, sinking to his haunches.

  It wasn’t a loose page that escaped the planner. It was a photograph. And the image hit him like a ton of bricks.

  Between the hay bales and ground cover of strewn golden straw, the picture looked like it was taken in a barn or horse stable, but it was hardly the location that caught his attention. The scenery was just a back drop to the photographer’s true inspiration. The girl.

  Maybe eighteen years of age, she was bound and gagged and naked, lying on her back. Her arms were stretched above her head and tied to the lowest fence board, her ankles secured by another wrap of thickly braided rope. Her bare feet were together but her knees were apart. Wide apart.

  Harrison swore softly as the pressure in his slacks increased.

  Although the girl was tied up like a captive, it was obvious she was there willingly. Wetness shimmered along the slit of her plump pussy lips and on the tip of her swollen pink clit. She was so wet. There was even moisture splashed half way up her thighs which indicated to him that she’d just had her pretty cunt roughly fingered or pounded with toys.

  Someone had been thoroughly teased before her photo shoot, Harrison thought with bitter envy toward the lucky bastard who had been responsible for that task. He managed to pull his gaze away from her sweet pussy to size up the rest of her. Her breasts could’ve been a little larger for his taste, but her nipples made up for the modest size. The rosy nubs were damned near perfection, swollen, dark and hard, as if they’d been sucked and twisted and abused for hours.

  He could tell by her face that she was exhausted. Her cheeks were flushed, only a shade lighter than the red kerchief she was gagged with. He could only begin to imagine how beautiful her moans sounded muffled against the taut fabric wedged between her rosy lips. A symphony only a Dominant could fully appreciate.

  He turned his attention to the day planner, examined it closer, and then frowned. With the cute little sunflower embroidered on the front, it sure as hell wasn’t his. Maybe it was Natalia’s? It seemed strange that Marc would bring his fiancé over to his place when his brother had a perfectly decent apartment of his own, but stranger things had been known to happen. He glanced back at the picture. This time when he looked at it, he was drawn to the model’s eyes. Smoldering. Lustful. Pretty green eyes…

  “What are you doing with my organizer?”

  The moment he saw Fiona standing at the mouth of the kitchen, the resemblance was obvious. Thinner today than in the photograph, Fiona’s cheekbones appeared slightly more prominent and her eyes a little more sunken. Nothing a few fat slices of cheesecake and an extra-large pizza couldn’t remedy.

  Bottom line… He grinned. Fiona McBride was a submissive.

  Chapter Four

  He’s holding the photograph. He has the photograph. Fiona’s pulse hammered in her temples as the kitchen began to revolve and warp around her. She fought the urge to double over and vomit. Don’t panic, Fee. There’s always a chance he hasn’t looked at it yet.

  But the instant she lifted her eyes to his face, Fiona knew damned well he’d already looked at it. Though surprisingly, his expression wasn’t full of the condemnation or repulsion she’d earned from Daniel. She furrowed her brow. Was…was that a glint of approval in his eyes? A bolt of lust stabbed her pussy so suddenly she nearly rocked up onto her toes. Jesus Christ, you’re imagining things. Again. She gave her head a shake.

  “Is this why you offered to let me come up here? So you could go through my belongings in hope of discovering some dirt you could use against my ex-husband?”

  “I don’t need to run a smut campaign against your ex-husband to beat him in an election,” he murmured with disinterest, still preoccupied with the picture. “When was this taken?”

  Startled, her mouth opened, closed, and then opened again. What he was asking was none of his business yet the strange compulsion to explain came over her. “I— It was taken a very long time ago.” Her cheeks scalded. “I was young and…curious.”

  “Are you still curious?” His eyes lifted from the photo and found hers across the kitchen.

  Her skin heated. She self-consciously touched a hand to her throat. “I hardly see why it would matter to you, Councilman.”

  “It matters,” he assured her, and stepped closer. “Quite a lot, actually. Is this your only experience with BDSM, or has there been more?”

  Shocked to silence, Fiona stared at his broad chest. Did she hear him correctly, or was she imagining things again? No. He clearly said BDSM. She was sure of it. But she had only started researching about it after Daniel confronted her with the old photograph, triggering her to remember her past. What would a stuffy politician know about BDSM?

  She suddenly remembered the organization of his loafers and literature, the obsessive, sterile cleanliness of his home. Her heart beat faster. It was all starting to make sense. Harrison Lancaster wasn’t just some pretentious suit with a stick up his ass. He embraced control, structure. Not just in his daily affairs, but sexually.

  “You’re a Dominant,” she whispered.

  He clasped her chin between his thumb and forefinger and turned her face up to him. “Yes. And, you’re a submissive.”

  Mesmerized by his nearness, his touch, and the way he looked at her as if he might hoist her onto the counter and fuck her at any minute, it took Fiona a second to register what he’d just said. You’re a submissive.

  “I’m not. I mean, I’m not a submissive. Well, not a real one, anyways.” The skeptical arch of his eyebrow prompted further explanation. “I know how that,” she gestured to the photo in his opposite hand, “might make you think I’m in on the scene, but I’m not. I’ve never been trained or ever been with a Dom.” Hearing herself, she paused and shook her head. “Are we seriously having this conversation?”

  “We most seriously are,” he confirmed, dark amusement dancing in his eyes. “You seem to know a lot about BDSM for someone who claims she isn’t in on the scene. Are you aware of what big bad Doms do to little ones who fib?”

  She sucked her bottom lip behind her front teeth. From what she had discovered on the internet, there were an infinite number of things Doms could do as punishment, but the first thing that came to mind was a firm spanking. Her gaze instinctively shifted to one of Harrison’s large, beautiful hands. At the idea of it coming down across her bare ass, an immediate shiver shot up her inner thighs and her pussy clenched. An uneven breath squeaked out of her.

  “Well, I’d say that answers that question,” he reasoned. “Now, would you like to try again, or should I skip right to taking you over my knee and spank your lying little ass?”

  A bolt of excitement zipped through her limbs and her knees went weak. The wicked gleam in his eyes said he would spank her in a heartbeat and take great pleasure in every sound smack. Her throat dried. Why did that make her so incredibly hot? Although her parents swore they had an answer to that question, she managed to force their condemning voices out of her mind long enough to answer Harrison.

  “I’m telling you the truth. The only experience I have with anything resembling BDSM was over a decade ago, and it was with no mor
e than an adventurous boyfriend, who was not, at the time, a Dom. And my God, I still can’t believe we’re having this conversation.” Obviously I slipped in the bathroom and hit my head on something. This is me hallucinating. I am not actually talking ass-smacking and kinky sex with Harrison fucking Lancaster.

  “The adventurous ex-boyfriend was also the photographer?” he questioned, in a very rational and casual voice that didn’t support her delirium theory at all.

  “Yes, he took the picture.”

  “Why?”

  Cheeks warming, she stammered, “I—I don’t see how any of this is your business.”

  “It’s not.”

  When he continued to look at her expectantly, she let out a resigned sigh. “He was a few years older than me and had an appreciation for art and experimentation.”

  “And his experimentation included bondage and pain play?”

  Maybe it was his moderate tone and noncommittal expression—neither approving nor condemning her past—that relaxed her muscles and loosened her tongue. Harrison and she had never been friends, but they weren’t complete strangers, either. Somehow the middle ground made it easier to confide in him.

  “I didn’t know those terms back then,” she explained, and a touch of nostalgia tightened her throat. “I only knew it was what he wanted. Considering I’d known him nearly all of my life and had a crush on him for easily half that time, I would’ve done anything to…please him. It sounds juvenile, I know.” She let out a quiet, self-depreciating laugh. “I might as well be describing the past of every high school girl from here to China.”

  “Except not every girl discovers they harbor submissive tendencies,” he interjected in a low voice. “Not every girl gets off being tied up and teased.”

  Fiona shivered and closed her eyes.

  “No, I’m sure that’s true,” she agreed, in a husky voice she hardly recognized as her own.

  “And it doesn’t sound juvenile. It sounds like you were born with a nature to please. It’s a quality I happen to have great appreciation for.” His long fingers threaded and clenched in her semi-damp, tangled hair, and the tension made her gasp. She opened her eyes and met his gaze head on. Hungry eyes looked back at her. Hungry, predatory eyes that made her pussy damp. Jesus Christ. This was really happening.

  Unable to speak, she focused on her breathing. She wasn’t sure when it happened, but sometime between the beginning of the conversation and now, her anxiety and unease were overtaken by the sexual needs of a woman who hadn’t been intimate with a man in six years.

  Maybe she was wrong earlier. Maybe this was exactly the place she was meant to stop at first on her soul-searching journey. If not…to hell with it.

  “You still haven’t explained how you know so much about the lifestyle,” he reminded her.

  Distracted by his middle finger tracing a path across her collarbone, it took her a minute to register that he’d spoken. “I…I did a little research on the Internet,” she managed to say in a ragged breath.

  “Is that so?”

  She nodded eagerly, staring at his mouth, desperate to taste it.

  He freed his fingers from her hair and grasped her shoulders, holding her away slightly. His eyes suddenly darkened, and she could feel the instant shift in mood.

  “Show me.”

  She swallowed. “Um…show you what?”

  “Show me what you’ve learned from your Internet research,” he clarified. “You can start by kneeling.”

  At his request, a nervous flutter shifted in her tummy. She knew there was a proper way to kneel in front of a Dom but wasn’t sure on the specifics. Unfortunately, all she’d done for research was watch a few short videos and read a blog post, neither explaining the technical details of how to kneel. But really, how difficult could it be? Maybe it was exactly how it sounded. Kneel.

  Under his watchful gaze, Fiona forced down her nerves, adjusted her robe, and made the slow descent onto her knees. The flutters quickened. The tile felt cold and hard against her bare knees and shins, but she didn’t notice the discomfort for long.

  Black filled her vision.

  Well fitted, wool slacks hugged his long legs to perfection, so perfectly that it would’ve taken a blind woman not to notice the pronounced bulge at the crotch. Glorious, was the first word that came to mind. Massive, was the second. Her pussy clenched eagerly, and she bit the inside of her cheek to stop from squealing in delight. Licking her lips, she reached for his belt buckle.

  “No,” he gently scolded, grasping her wrists. “Not yet.”

  All the air exited her lungs in a sigh of disbelief. That was a huge erection testing the fortitude of his zipper, was it not?

  “Your legs should be apart,” he informed her. “Like this.”

  Still holding her wrists, he stepped forward and wedged his foot between her knees. The sensation of coarse wool against her smooth inner thighs had her biting back a moan.

  “Your arms should be behind you, palms on your heels.”

  Gently, he guided her arms behind her back and then stepped away. Air stirred with his movement. A cool draft licked up over her warm, damp folds and puckered her clit. For the love of God…

  “Be still,” he ordered, when she began to squirm.

  Easier said than done, Fiona wanted to tell him but bit her tongue and tried to obey.

  A minute passed. Then, another. On the third, Fiona ventured a look upward and was met with the weight of quiet evaluation. His blue gaze was intense and probing. If there had ever been a time when she felt under the microscope, this was definitely it. As the silence stretched on, arousal and apprehension spread through her.

  “Very nice, Fiona.”

  And she could breathe again.

  He outstretched a hand and helped her up from the floor. As she slipped her fingers into his much thicker, larger hand, a smile quirked the corners of her mouth. Here he’d had her kneel on the floor in front of him, legs spread in offering like a slave set to please her Master, and now he extended his hand to her as if she were a true lady born and bred by royalty.

  “Thank you,” she murmured, and the flutters from earlier returned with a vengeance.

  “Thank you, Sir,” he corrected mildly, and lifted her hair gently behind her shoulders.

  Right. Sir. How could she have forgotten that? The submissive in one of the videos only screamed it about five hundred times.

  “Thank you…Sir.”

  With the ghost of a smile haunting his lips, he arched an eyebrow. “Research, hmm?”

  Her face warmed, and she wrinkled her nose. “Research might not have been the most accurate of descriptions.”

  He traced her lips with the pad of his thumb and she shivered. “You don’t say?”

  The smile now reached all the way into his eyes and melted her.

  “But I’m a quick study,” she declared, and instinctively turned her face into his open palm.

  “We’ll see.”

  Distracted by the hand cupping her face, she hadn’t noticed him freeing the knot on her robe until it was too late. Before she gasped, the terrycloth hit the floor and she stood stark naked in front of him.

  Those pretty eyes could bring many a good man to his knees, Harrison decided when she looked up at him like a doe in headlights. But it wasn’t the shock in her wide-eyed gaze that thickened, lengthened, and stiffened his cock. Apprehension and exhilaration poured off her in waves. The genuine reaction was like a drug to him.

  That, and it helped the baggy clothing she’d worn earlier hadn’t done her body justice. In his opinion, she could still use to gain a few pounds, but naked certainly agreed with her.

  “Close your mouth, love,” he brushed his lips lightly over hers then kissed a slow path to her ear, “or I’ll have no choice but to thoroughly use it.”

  Her shudder of hot breath against his throat made his eyes roll back in his head. Harrison bit back a smile. Who was the lucky bastard now?

  He drew off his necktie, then gu
ided her arms behind her, all the while keeping his eyes locked on hers. Anxiety and arousal lived in her gaze. Such a natural and beautiful combination of emotion for a submissive, he thought, winding the fabric around her wrists. And, while the protector inside him wanted to soothe her anxiousness, his sensual sadist wanted to stoke it into a blazing inferno.

  Torn, he decided to split the difference, kissing her forehead in reassurance as he snapped the knot secure on her wrists. At the quickened movement, she sucked in a sharp, audible breath that played like music to his ears. His balls tightened with urgency. An appreciative growl vibrated up his throat. Fiona might lack submissive experience, but his dick had readily decided they’d chalk that up in the plus column.

  “Do you know what a safeword is?” he asked.

  “I think so. Is it a word I can say that will make everything stop, Sir?”

  “It is,” he confirmed. “Your word will be ‘red.’ Say it once now.”

  “Red.”

  “Good girl.”

  After running a finger inside the tie to be sure it wasn’t going to cut off circulation, he gave her arms a light tug to test the resistance. Just right for a beginner—tight enough to restrain without causing pain. He’d considered a four-post bondage scene using the kitchen table but decided against total restraint for their first time together. Not that he wouldn’t love to have her completely tied down and struggling as he teased and tormented her into a mind-blowing frenzy of orgasms she’d never forget.

  “You might not be completely restrained…yet,” he drew his hand up the inside of her trembling thigh, “but if you don’t obey, I’ll gladly strap you spread eagle to my bed posts and flog your sweet body till the sun comes up tomorrow. Now, widen your stance and keep those pretty eyes forward while I drink in a good, long look at you. All of you.”

  “All of me?” she breathed.