Page 13 of Fearless
Covering her eyes with her other hand, Kitty gave in to temptation, but it felt awful. A pale mockery of what it could have been with a strong man standing behind her, one fist tangled in a leash of her own hair, breathing those intoxicating words of censure into her ear. Things like, ‘Is this what you think bad girls deserve? Is this how you think I’ll treat you? Ah, love, you haven’t earned a pet on the kitty from me.’
Pussy molten and throbbing, Kitty opened her eyes. That wasn’t Ethen’s voice. That was Noah’s, his thick Australian accent making those words echo in her head.
Her chest was tight, but for the first time in days, it was tight because it was lust (not fear) making it hard for her to breathe.
She took her fingers off her swollen clit, pulling her hand back to take the belt off her back so it wouldn’t fall when she stood. She should have put it back in the closet. She should have closed her bedroom door. At the very least, she should have put her clothes back on, but Kitty didn’t do any of that. As quiet as she could, she crawled into bed alone.
Pulling the quilt up over her head, she buried her face in the pillow so as to muffle the sound and hugged the strap to her chest while she cried.
Chapter 5
Noah stood frozen in his own doorway, knowing if he moved any further out into the hallway he risked the bathroom light casting his shadow into her room. But then, he didn’t need to lean out any further. From here, he could see the metal rail that made up the foot of her bed. And, up until a minute ago, he’d seen what she was doing to herself as she bent over it, hips thrust back for punishment, strap laid across her back as if waiting for someone to take it up. God help him if his own hand didn’t itch to do exactly that. When she’d slipped a hand down to touch between her thighs, it had itched even harder… but not for the strap.
The thing about having thin walls, it was easy to hear how restless she was. When he’d heard her leave her room, for a moment he’d wondered if she was planning to run. He’d actually gotten dressed, in case he needed to chase out after her into the night. But she’d only gone to the kitchen. He’d heard the water run, heard her washing and putting away the dishes he’d left in the sink. He’d then heard her make her way back down the hall, past his closed bedroom door and into her room again. The sound of her passing had been a singular sound, not the padding of two feet, but the crawling of all fours. He knew that sound. Hell, his cock had recognized it before his perking ears did. The whispering brush of bare hands and the slightly louder thump of bare knees on wooden floorboards. Oh yes, she was crawling.
Before he could stop himself, he too was down on hands and knees, cheek to floor as he peeked under the door and caught that first intoxicating glimpse of confirmation before she neared too close. The tip of a naked breast. The shadowy curve of a mons shaved naked and smooth. He’d never been as frustrated with an inanimate door as he became a half-second later, when she closed the distance and all he could then see was her hands and lower legs as she crawled into her room.
She didn’t close her door.
She was absolutely naked, in his house, and she did not close her door.
She did not go to sleep, either. Instead, kneeling at his own door but staring incredulously at the shadow-blackened wall that separated his room from hers, Noah listened as her whispered movements continued restlessly for some time. From her bed to her closet—the door scraped open and bumped closed once more—and then back to her bed again.
He should stay hidden. Hell, when it came to ‘should’ he should go back to bed and give her her privacy. He didn’t. Instead, knowing if he got caught he’d have a lot of hard explaining to do, he opened the door far enough to lean out. No more than an inch, maybe three. Just far enough to glimpse around the span of wall that separated their two doorways and into the darkness of her bedroom.
The bathroom light was on, but the door was only cracked. That left enough light to illuminate her bent-over position. The slope of her long legs; the curve of her hips as she arched her back to offer her ass. The minute wiggle as she pushed her hand down under her, between herself and the railing, and touched herself.
She was beautiful, and yet she covered her face with her hand and buried both against the mattress as if she were ashamed. The strap across her back—one he’d patterned after his grandfather’s razor strap; one of the first Noah had ever made when he was first learning how to leathercraft—spoke volumes as to her desires.
Was she aching for impact play for the sake of release alone, or was her need for something more? Something disciplinary. Offenses could be real or imagined, with some submissives the two were often the same, but he didn’t think it mattered. If she were his, he would not have left her waiting long. He’d have given her what she needed—not the punishment she was offering herself for, but the peace of mind that would follow.
How long had she been doing this, trapped, her submissive needs going unrelieved? If she was his—
But she wasn’t his, the sensible part of his brain replied. That’s what the problem was, she wasn’t anybody’s.
Her soft breath hitched. A moment later, Kitty carried his strap into bed with her. Though she kept it quiet, he knew when she started crying.
Noah stood in the doorway, every inch of him straining to lock back the urge to go to her. It wasn’t a creepy moment. For all that he’d wanted her body beneath his hands a raw second ago, what was in him now was nothing more than one human being’s selfless ache to comfort another in her misery. He would have stroked her hair, rubbed her back, lain behind her on top of the blanket so he could wrap her tightly in his arms and whisper that, believe it or not, things really would be okay. For all that she might feel lost in the middle of nowhere right now, she was in the middle of his nowhere and he would keep her safe. Whatever or whoever was out to hurt her in the States, they couldn’t get at her here.
Comfort might be his only motivation at the moment, but deep inside, Noah knew if he went into her room right now, she would neither welcome nor accept his touch, his sympathy or his whispered words of anything. She had completely cocooned herself within the folds of her blanket, but beneath that thin barrier she was naked and they were strangers. No, she wouldn’t welcome him at all and, frankly, if he’d heard of another dom doing what was right now burning through his brain, under these very same circumstances with a traumatized submissive, he’d have called the man an idiot for not thinking it through.
Police got involved over less.
Closing his bedroom door did little to muffle the plaintive sounds of her weeping, but Noah forced himself to go back to bed. He lay down, but after what he’d witnessed, sleep did not come for him until long after Kitty had cried herself out. And when it did come, it was fitful at best. He tossed, he turned. He had questions, and every time he startled awake in the night after dozing off, it was to find his questions had multiplied and he didn’t have the answers for any of them. But he knew who would.
The pre-dawn sky was little more than a blanket of grey, dotted only by the brightest stars and the thinnest line of golden amber along the tree-studded horizon when Noah gave up on sleep. Pulling his jeans on, he grabbed his cellphone and padded barefoot out on his front porch. Sneaking around the side of the house to make sure her windows weren’t open, he followed the screened-in veranda all the way around, putting the entirety of his house between her and this conversation.
“Hello,” Garreth said around a mouthful of something. The upbeat jingle of a McDonald’s commercial was singing in the background before it cut abruptly to a much more obnoxious car commercial.
“Get you in your tucker?” Noah asked.
“Just sat down to dinner,” his American friend confirmed, “but that’s all right. Wish you could be here. Hadlee makes a mean spaghetti sauce. Homemade meatballs, too. I’m going to have to step up my exercise routine or I won’t be able to fit in my leathers before the year is out. What’s up? How’s she doing?”
“Sleeping still,” Noah deflected, making the effort to sound far more cheerful than he felt.
“That’s good. She barely slept the whole time she was here. The last couple days or so, I don’t think she slept at all.”
“I could tell. If you’ve got a moment, though, I’ve got some questions.”
