“Now listen to me,” she says, still clinging to both my hands. “This fucking sucks. All of it. I know better than anyone what you and that girl mean to each other—yes,to each other,” she insists when I shake my head. “And my heart breaks for both of you. I don’t know everything that happened—I suspect there are things you aren’t telling me, and that’s fine. And I don’t know if you will ever find your way back to each other. But Elliot Everett Chace, if you let this derail the career you’ve been working toward your entire life, I will never fucking forgive you, do you hear me?” She gives my hands a shake, and Ren makes a low whistle beside her.
“You were a wonder on those straps before you ever met Gia Laurent, and you’ve only grown into that potential. You have a rare gift. That’s what drew her to you in the first place. You give that up, and you will lose a lot more than one girl. You remember who you are without her, and you might discover that you never needed her to be brilliant in the first place.Youare what’s important. Don’t you dare let Gia or anyone else convince you otherwise. Now look at your mama and tell her you understand.”
“I understand.” I reach out and tug on one of the braids that frame her face, the way I used to do when I was little, and give her an almost smile.
“Good. Now both of you go home and go to bed so you can get up and kick some ass at that very expensive school of yours tomorrow.”
“Yes ma’am.” Ren salutes her, scrambling to his feet with a relieved grin.
“Yes, Ma.” I give her a kiss on the cheek as I pass, but when I go to scoop up the bag on the table, she grabs my hand.
“Leave the weed,” she says. “Mom tax for my always excellent advice.”
21
Gale
“Are we doing lifted tricks today?” Gia asks, eyeing the large spotting block I’ve set up under the point.
“Eventually.”
“Oka-ay.” She approaches cautiously, running her hand over the waist-high surface. When she reaches me, I grab her ass and scoop her up onto the block so she’s straddling my hips.
“Um, are you gonna lock the door?” She glances over her shoulder.
“No.” I skim my fingers across her exposed abdomen, tracing the lines of the birds above her hip and teasing her waistband.
“Aren’t you afraid someone might come in? Again?”
“As afraid as you are to flaunt my marks in class every day.”
Her hand flies to the scabbed ridges of a bite mark on her breast, a defiant spark kindling in her eyes. As always, it sends me straight to the knife edge between wanting to fall to my knees in worship and needing to punish her with my cock.
“Next time I’ll wear a hoodie.”
“No you won’t. I like having the evidence that I’ve claimed you there for everyone to see.” I lean in and press my tongue into a dark bruise at the base of her throat. “You like it too.”
She slides her hands up under my tank, nails scraping across my abs. “I don’t care one way or another what anyone else thinks,” she lies.
“Not evenLyot?” I never use his name, and she reacts instantly, clenching her thighs around my hips. God, she really is a glutton for punishment. Where the hell did she come from?
“Have you ever been with another guy, Gale?” she asks, moving her hands around to grip my ass. My stomach does a weird swoop that I pointedly ignore.
“Not my poison, sorry.” I run my tongue up the shell of her ear, nipping sharply, but she refuses to be distracted.
“Then why are you obsessed with Lyot?” Her voice has taken on the dark timbre I recognize from the tryout, and this time the memory that floods me is his hands hitting the floor when he came, head bowed. An unwilling supplicant at the foot of her altar. I pull back before she can feel me getting hard.
“Why is he your safeword?” I counter. “Youwanthim in here with us, because the way it hurts gets you wet. I’m playing the part you wrote for me, sweetheart.”
“And that’s all it is? Another way to hurt me?” She’s not buying it, but it doesn’t matter. We’re both right.
Time to change the game.
“Hands together, Smalls,” I tell her, reaching for the straps hanging above her head. I left them unanchored, and they slide through the pulley with minimal resistance. For once, she obeys without comment, bringing her wrists together in front of her and offering them up.
One at a time, I guide the loops up her forearms and draw the cinches tight below her elbows. I’ve been watching Shibari tutorials on YouTube, and although the flat weave of the straps is the wrong shape, it works well enough with a few adjustments. And it suits her better, like tresses on a half-wild hunting hawk.
Her breath speeds up and her irises slowly disappear as she watches me bind her, elbows to wrists, and I’m hard and aching by the time I finish the braid. The wide black webbing of my straps creases her pale skin like ink spilled across a blank page.Christ, she’s fucking…
