Page 53 of His Toy

“What do you like sexually?”

“Erotically,” he said, his thumb rubbing my chin, looking down into my eyes, “I like tying women up.”

“Restraining them?”

He shook his head. “I’ve bound you with cuffs, shackles, chains. But I have yet to tie you with my own knots.” His other hand moved the collar around my neck. “Do you wish to surrender to my desires, for no other reason, than to get to know me better?”

It sounded silly when he said it like that. As if rope could bring us closer.

But maybe it could. “Yes,” I said.

He pulled a small cord of rope out of his pocket. Had he planned for this? “It’s not much,” he said, “but it’ll work.”

He took me to a tree with a low hanging branch. Taking my hands, he brought me to the tips of my toes, linking my wrists together above the branch. His movements were quick and sufficient, like an expert at work, tickling me with his fingertips. Stepping back, he admired his work. My hiking outfit wasn’t much to look at, but his gaze lingered on my stomach. A sliver of skin was exposed.

“I should cut it off you,” he said.

His fingers were cold on my warm skin, but I loved feeling his hands on me. His big, encompassing hands, taking my stomach, reaching up under my bra, squeezing my breasts. I whimpered. He pulled the hair from my neck and breathed on my skin, growling.

“I can do anything to you, Heather. Anything I want.”

He kissed my neck, a tickling warmth, and then he bit me, making me yelp. “I can kiss you. Lick you. Bite you. Break you.” His hands went lower, over the pants, grasping between my thighs. “You’re my toy, tied up and on display, ready to be played with.”

His hand reached into my pants, between my underwear and me. Holding me. Feeling me there. “And you’re already begging for me, aren’t you, Heather?”

It felt so personal when he used my name. I was still his toy, but he was willing to go there, to addressme. A grin crossed his mouth when he felt my slick heat.

“Zaid,” I breathed.

Once I said his name, it was like a shock woke him out of the dream. He looked around, his eyes crossing over where we had come from, over that door in the ground, through the trees, back towards the house. He stepped back, then quickly straightened my clothes. He untied me from the branches with as much quick finesse as before.

“What is it?” I asked.

He gestured forward, but didn’t look at me. “We need to use the daylight.”

***

I was stunned. I couldn’t move at first. Maybe he had done it to tease me. Or maybe there was something holding him back. Maybe he didn’t want to get close to me.

It was an excuse, wasn’t it? There was something he was leaving out. But we hiked to the edge of the property line. He pointed out the blue ribbons, markers he had put there for me.

“I have one more gift for you,” he said. He turned back towards the house. “It will be best if I give it to you before sunset.”

Maybe he was just hiding his other gift. What did he have planned now?

At the house, he led me to the fireplace room, and on the wet bar, he handed me a key card, thick and white, my name handwritten on the corner. The letters were curved and carefully written. Deliberately written. For me.

“This is your room now,” he said. He gestured at the couch. “I’ve slept on that couch many times before. But should you require a bed, we can make arrangements.”

“Wait. My room?”

“The other one you occupy is still yours. But we are the only ones who have access to this room. Donna will occasionally clean, but only after we approve of the time. And I will request your permission before I access the space. It’s yours.”

It was like a cabin in the woods from a far off fantasy, decorated with masculine wood, the walls covered in books, with a few pieces of art, and a fireplace roaring to the side. It was an incredible size, fit to host a party, furnished with elegant furniture, and the view—the view was spectacular, the main drawing point of the room. The floor-to-ceiling window, paned with dark lines, the sunset coloring the woods in a golden hue, pinks and oranges, lighting the green trees, making it seem like we were looking into a dream. It couldn’t possibly be real, could it?

All of this. This room in the middle of the woods. Zaid. His interest in me.

It’s yours, he had said.