Page 125 of Breaking Free

Chapter 30

“ARE YOU READY?” TRISTANasked.

“No,” she replied, unusually succinct.

He gave her a stern, quirked-brow master’s look that signaled it was time to get serious.

“Yes and no?” she said, amending her answer.

“Is this last-minute cold feet?”

“I’m prepared for the stage, sir. But, um, I should mention that I have a thing about heights. Not a full-blown phobia or anything, but I thought you should know.”

He closed his eyes, and seconds went by as if he was counting to ten. When they opened, he said with a tinge of annoyance, “This information would’ve been good to have forty-five minutes ago before I began tying you up.”

“Right, my apologies,” she said, looking at the round stage still recessed in the floor. “Never mind. I’ll be fine.”

He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her close, their bodies coming together from chest to knee. “Of course, you will, since I’ll be with you,” he assured her. “It will help if you keep your eyes focused on me the entire time.”

She did so now, her gaze drinking in every handsome feature from the top of his smooth, gleaming head, which she’d watched him shave as they got ready for the evening, to his eyes, more blue than gray these days, to the neatly trimmed beard she lovedrunning her fingers through. Of course, Tristan would take care of her. She was silly to have worried.

“I trust you implicitly, sir. I also have a failsafe. If I’m tied in your ropes and bound to a pole, how could I possibly fall?”

He kissed her, lingering and poignant, with all the love he professed to her each morning upon waking and every night before she fell asleep in his arms.

“Let’s try this again,” he murmured, his lips brushing hers. “Are you ready?”

“Yes, sir,” she replied more confidently.

“That’s my brave imp.”

He escorted her to the center of the stage and then pointed at the floor. “Kneel at my feet for the ride up.”

He’d already tied her into a butterfly harness with her arms stacked, wrist to the opposite elbow behind her back in a way that arched her spine and made her breasts stand out even more. The intricate knots, which were artfully disguised anchor points, had taken the most time in the suspension room upstairs. He’d shown her his work in the mirrors. In a word, it was stunning.

Tristan steadied her with his fingers curled around her upper arm as she sank to her knees. After being his rope submissive for months now, she was practiced, and it was no longer necessary, but she loved his touch and how attentive he always was with her.

After he activated the lift through the control panel on the floor, he quickly returned to her, his hand cupping her head as she leaned against his leg, accepting his strength and security. Already halfway to rope space from the preliminaries, Piper surrendered to the floaty feeling Tristan’s touch inspired.

When the stage stopped at its zenith, thirty feet up, before he activated the spotlight, Tristan whispered, “It’s showtime, sunshine. Anything I should know before we begin?”

“Yes, master. I’m ready to fly,” she softly replied.

A beam of blue light gleamed down on them from above the next instant, and a ripple of murmurs swept through the audience below. Piper could sense their excitement and feel their eyes upon her as Tristan secured the suspension ropes—two at her back and one at her hips. With him working behind her, she couldn’t use him to stay focused, so she closed her eyes and let her body relax under his expert command.

Losing one sense heightened others, she’d heard. The heady scent of leather and the lemon oil they used to polish the wood, a combination both sharp and sweet, filled the vast room, and the heart-thumping drum beat of the alternative rock in the background amplified the mood. But her tactile senses, more so than any other, took over.

Every brush of his hand or tug as he tightened a knot seemed magnified. She followed his commands, and, when she physically couldn’t, he moved her where he wanted her to be. When his fingers deftly rechecked all the knots and pressure points, lightly brushing a nipple or grazing her inner thighs, she moaned, so aroused she couldn’t keep from it.

“I feel it too, baby. Hang in there. We’re almost done.”

Two more tugs, and he shifted her onto her side.

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