From Sanctum with Love (Masters and Mercenaries #10)(37)

“I’ll teach you the knots later,” Kai said. “Watch me now. It’s important to get them tight but not too tight. You want to make sure her circulation isn’t cut off. You also want to make sure that she feels bound, that she understands there’s nowhere to go. Tell him what you like about ropes.”

Kai used the word “him” referring to Jared, but she knew that man. He was asking the question for himself. Now that he had her here, he couldn’t help but poke and prod and try to figure out what made her tick. It was part of Kai’s nature. “I like the feel of them. I like the fact that they hold me here. Sometimes, when the play is good enough, I feel like I could float away, give myself up. The ropes hold me. Metaphorically, of course. I think in a lot of ways, they keep me in the moment. When I’m bound and trussed up, I’m not thinking about how crappy my day was or what I should worry about. I’m only thinking about how the rope feels against my skin, how it holds me in like arms hugging me close.”

Even as she spoke, Kai slid the length of jute over her skin, winding it around her wrist and binding her to the bench. He was a master at this. Kai didn’t do things by half measure. He mastered them as an art form or he didn’t practice it at all. He taught a Kinbaku class here at Sanctum so she was bound quickly, the tension perfect. She sighed, her body relaxing as he tied her other wrist and moved on to her ankles.

“May I touch the ropes?” Jared asked.

There was a slight hesitation before Kai answered. “Yes, but if Kori feels uncomfortable, she’ll tell you to stop.”

Jared dropped to one knee, his gorgeous face coming into view. He reached out and touched the knots Kai had tied. His fingertips played along the curve of the rope, but he seemed careful not to touch her skin. “He’s jealous.”

The words had been whispered and it seemed Kai hadn’t heard. Jared stood up again and stepped away.

Kai wasn’t jealous. Certainly not in the way Jared intimated.

“I’m going to start with a crop.”

With Kai’s words, she braced herself for what was to come. Would he turn out to be all talk and no pain? Sometimes Doms thought they were badass when they were actually softies. It all depended on the sub. So much was subjective. Sarah thought some Doms were too rough when Kori found them to be easy on a girl. She never told them. It would be rude to tear a man or woman down that way.

Kai could be like that. He could call himself a sadist, but pain was in the eye of the beholder. Or rather in the flesh of their ass.

He flicked the crop. The sound cracked through the air, but the pain flashed and then was gone.

Damn it. He was soft.

Another three flicks. She loved the sound of the smack and then the sting that came, but he was using the flat of the crop, the leather part. It made a nice sound, but the sting was fairly ho-hum. She was sure it made other subs cry and quake in fear of his awesome cropping abilities, but she would likely take a nice nap.

He continued, laying out a pattern across her backside and thighs. He did all the right things—avoided her spine and kidneys, stuck to the fleshy parts of her body.

He was like the others. He called himself a sadist, but there was no real torture to this. There was a level of comfort in that. Kai wasn’t really her dream Dom, and that was good news because she so loved having him as a friend. She could take a deep breath and know that they weren’t truly compatible. He wasn’t the man who could drag her into the life she’d sworn never to go back to.

He continued to warm her backside as she went over all the ways finding out Kai was fooling himself about his predilections worked in her favor. She wouldn’t be so tempted by him now. She could truly find a pure, platonic friendship with her boss. After this, she wouldn’t have to avoid him and hey, if it made him feel better, she would play with him from time to time. Because this was no big deal at all.

She tried to cover her yawn and heard the whispers going on a few feet away.

Maybe she should try to eek out a couple of tears to preserve his reputation. She didn’t like the thought of all those other Doms talking about him. He wouldn’t like it either.

“So this is a nice warm-up,” Kai said behind her. “I like to use this crop because it’s not particularly stingy. When I say that what I mean is I would have to use a great deal of force to provoke a pain response.”

“I thought you were trying to provoke a pain response,” Jared replied.

Like two professors. She had to stay awake. He would be humiliated if he was the Dom who put her to sleep. Not that it hadn’t happened before. Sometimes the rhythm and the sound of flogging had been known to send her right into nappy time. It was like rain on a tin roof, the sound soothing to her soul. Not doing as much for her libido, but hey, that was okay, too.

“It is the object, but with a sub I’ve never played with before, I have to gauge her reactions. Some subs have a very low tolerance for pain. Some a very high one. If I use this crop and this force and I get a reaction, I know a little more about the submissive’s limits. Do you see how her skin is already getting pink?” Kai’s hand ran over her ass.

That felt nice, but she had to admit some of his power over her was gone. His hand felt warm on her skin, but there wasn’t the edge that had been there before, the tiny hint that any moment that hand could slap at her, come down on her flesh with power.

“Yes, but she didn’t have a reaction to it,” Jared replied. “I don’t think she found it painful at all.”