Page 63 of Conquer
But, as he runs his fingers through my hair, smoothing the strands back from my neck, I suspect that I haven’t even come close to what he’s planned. Not by a longshot.
“Do you trust me?” he asks near my ear, his voice a low rasp.
My heart stutters. Breaths quicken. Excitement builds, nearly impossible to contain.
“Yes,” I croak, sensing him lower something from above my head. His hands brush my cheeks as I blink to recognize a black strip of silk being positioned before my eyes. His tie?
Make that a makeshift blindfold, in this instance.
I don’t resist as he loops the silk around my head, tying it in the back. Warm and dangerously soft, I sense the shape of his fingers dance down my forearms, finding my wrists next. With gentle pressure, he urges me forward, forcing me to follow his prompting blind.
And it is an experience unto itself. Trust had a different meaning before this moment—being naked, at his mercy, completely under his control.
At the same time, he tied the blindfold loosely enough that I have to keep my head still to prevent it from slipping. An oversight? Or by intention…
The latter, I suspect, predicated on one twisted bit of reasoning. If I want to see where this new game goes, I have to commit fully. There is no room for doubt or hesitation. The second I falter, his illusion will quite literally fall as well.
Sneaky devil.
The implicit insinuation is that every step, every bit of obedience to his touch, is entirely of my own free will and completely at his discretion.
“Kneel,” he whispers against the column of my throat, his voice sensually warm.
I start to obey before he even finishes getting the word out, sinking to my knees on the plush carpeting.
“So beautiful,” he praises thickly, sounding somewhere above me, still behind. “Now lie flat, onto your stomach.”
My unease only grows in the most delicious of ways. Taking care with my back, I ease myself down onto my belly. From this position, I’m painfully aware of just how vulnerable I am. Open and naked to any assault he deigns to dish out.
For now, he seems content to make me wait. I breathe in and out, my face pressed against the flooring, him presumably watching down on me. Surprisingly, I feel anything but degraded. I know without even having to see his face, his expression is only one of lust.
And desire.
But just as I start to relax, I sense movement near my right. His footsteps? They’re muffled, harder to track. I can only interpret him moving maybe a few feet away before he returns. A hiss of air betrays him sinking to his knees, I think, his fingers trailing down to my wrist. Something softer than flesh replaces his touch a heartbeat later. Silk? He loops it around, securing it tightly, but the sensation is nowhere near painful.
With a deliberate series of movements, he does the same to my other wrist. A subtle bit of tensing makes me suspect that my binds aren’t manacles this time. They don’t feel secured together, or even to the floor or any nearby surface. From up above instead?
I’m distracted from my suspicions as my ankle is next to receive the mysterious silk treatment. Then the other. Finally, his hands rove up to my waist, smoothing over the bones in my hips.
“Beautiful,” he breathes before silken fabric brushes over my lower back in a teasing swipe. The gesture urges me to arch inward, allowing him to loop the fabric underneath. When I lie back down, I sense a swath of the silken material wide enough to stretch from my upper thighs to my navel.
“Do you trust me?” he asks again, but this time his tone makes me shiver in anticipation. It’s low. Hoarse. Alluring.
And too damn smug beneath it all.
“Y-Yes,” I whisper. The word barely escapes my lips before…
Ascent. Glorious, heart-stopping, mind-bending ascent. I don’t know how he does it. The fabric carefully looped around my limbs goes taut, but not constricting, Regardless, the sudden tension lifts me from the floor completely—my belly first, then my wrists and ankles, suspending me seemingly by a thread.
A startled gasp escapes my throat. I can’t even tell how high up I am—or if there is anything beneath me should I fall. But before I can voice my doubts fully, a stern voice reminds me, “You trust me.”
That’s all he has to say for it to click. So,thisis the swing he envisioned for us—a completely different concept to the sturdy, more traditional base I helped him build what feels like a lifetime ago. Even now, I’m swaying, my body lying limp in this virtual harness.
But the logistics of my predicament aside, his care for me is readily apparent. He made sure there is no pressure on my back, for one. The position of the strap beneath my hips is expertly placed, ensuring that the tension is spread out evenly, preventing any one limb from taking too much stress.
It betrays an impeccable attention to detail, and I have a feeling that—as he has with most of his toys—he ensured this was designed with my specific measurements in mind.
“Are you afraid?” Vadim wonders, sounding somewhere in front of me. I almost reach out for him, feeling disarmingly unmoored. Lost. But his voice is like an anchor, imparting a calmness that heats me down to my core. “Don’t be,” he urges in a tone like sin. So deep, rumbling in earnest. “You never need to fear me. That isn’t what I crave from you. But do you know what Idocrave?”
