Page 281 of Dirty Discipline, Vol. 1

Tug, slither, pull—the ropes stretched across her fur as his fingers moved with quick efficiency. “It’s called Severing. Cutting the ropes meant you were severing the relationship with the male who put them on you. After that he no longer thought of her as his, no longer was responsible for her or her children. And unless she had another mate lined up, she often found that others were unwilling to be with her after that.”

That wasn’t really a concern she had, and she had a feeling that even if she cut off the ropes, he wouldn’t let her go. “I still don’t understand it. If they just wanted to restrain her, there had to be easier ways than this.” She gestured at the complicated web that now surrounded her body and then regretted it. Every movement caused a flair of excitement as the ropes moved.

He was silent as he tugged everything into place with one last knot. Then he stood up and looked her over, testing the ropes here and there. “It’s not about restraining,” he said finally. “It’s about harnessing the female’s own sexuality to teach and train. The heat cycle was stronger back then and it lasted until pregnancy occurred, no matter how many matings it took. Things could get… dangerous.”

She looked down at the ropes, snugly pressing into her fur, and then back up at him. “And this worked?”

“Yes, or so I was told. That was many generations ago, so who knows. But things out here are wild, and in some ways we’ve regressed, I suppose. Females are no longer as violent during their heats, but the males find the ropes work for other reasons.” He turned her around so her back was to him and she felt him adjusting something.

She twisted to look over her shoulder to see what he was doing, but that movement made the ropes tighten. The ones between her legs suddenly pulled up and stroked right across her clit roughly and a small whimper escaped her. She turned back hurriedly to release the tension. She was about to ask what he was doing, but it became clear a few seconds later.

“Walk. Back to the cave,” he ordered. She took a hesitant step, and then another, adjusting to the feel of the ropes. As she’d learned the day before, they had a strange effect on her body. It heightened her arousal and sent alternating waves of pleasure and frustration through her as she moved. The knot pressed so intimately into her cleft quickly became slippery with her juices. It slid and caressed with every step.

Her legs grew shaky and it became harder to continue, but the first time she stopped, she realized what he’d done behind her. He’d attached a leash to the harness and when her steps ceased, he gave it a tug and the ropes pulled tight. It pinched her delicate places and that was enough to get her moving again.

The trip back to the cave wasn’t pleasant for her. If she went too fast, he pulled her back with a quick jerk of the leash. If she stopped, he pulled until there was tension in the line and the ropes began to constrict painfully. She was especially vulnerable to the bite of pain between her thighs with her body being overly sensitized.

The most frustrating part of it was that the pain should have overridden the arousal, or at least backed it down a touch. It didn’t. By the time they reached the cave she was a mess. The fur on her inner thighs was sticky from her own juices and she was so in need of release her whole body was trembling.

He unknotted the ropes and pulled them free as soon as they got inside, and just the sensation of the smooth coils slipping and sliding against her clit was enough to send her over the edge. She grabbed onto him and clung as a wave of pleasure rolled through her and her knees went weak.

He held her until it passed and then, when he saw that her legs wouldn’t hold her, he scooped her up and carried her to the bedding. The powerful orgasm should have been enough to calm her, but it wasn’t. She felt empty, and something inside pulsed with need. She wanted to feel him inside of her so badly that she clutched at him when he tried to move away.

“Please. I need you. I want—” She cut herself off in mid-sentence. She didn’t want to say it, to admit it. She just wanted him to understand and take her.

He pressed in against her neck and inhaled deeply. “I can smell what you need, Mara. Poor kitten, so desperate to feel a true mating. But you’ve been a bad girl, and I’m not going to give you what you want just yet.”

He ignored her soft whine of frustration as he pulled away. “This is why the ropes work. They bring you right to the edge, and this close to your heat nothing you do will be enough. The only one who can fill that need is me. Pretty soon neither of us will have a choice, but for right now I don’t need it nearly as much as you do. So, you’ll just have to behave, won’t you?” He gave her a smirk and she cursed silently because he was right.

She’d been dreading losing control of herself when her cycle was fully on her. It seemed so unfair that biology had penalized the women, and not the men in this way. But now part of her was almost eager for it to come. He was right, she did want to know what it was like.

The emotions and the physical feelings that had come with the surging hormones were unlike anything she’d experienced before. Sex had been a pleasant diversion, but this was… this was turbulent. She felt like a small boat on the open sea, being tossed this way and that with every wave. And the closer her body got to that point of abandon, the more she wanted it. And him.

His body made her hungry. She watched him move around the cave like he was her prey, but she knew that it was all an illusion. She was the one who had been hunted and captured, and she was the one who would have to submit to him. It would be soon, she thought. She had no experience of knowing, she just felt like she couldn’t take much more without losing her mind.

Chapter Ten

She’d forgotten what he’d said about being owed more punishment. Well, not forgotten exactly, she just thought that denying her his body was the other half that he had promised her. It wasn’t. There was no way she could have guessed what he planned to do. It happened in the morning.

It was hard to sleep late in the cave. The fire would die out, leaving nothing but the coals and the stone always absorbed the chill of the cold nights. She found that she usually woke up shivering an hour or so before dawn. With that would come an irritating need to pee.

She’d developed the habit of quickly trotting outside to take care of that, and then rushing back to dive under the covers and get warm again. On the way she’d toss a few more logs on the fire so that the coals had something to feed on. Then she’d go back to sleep for a couple of hours and wake up after the sun was out and the world was less bitter.

There was nothing different on that day, except that when she finally sat up and stretched, she looked over to see him doing something odd. He had taken a thick strip of leather and was running the edge of his knife back and forth across it. He didn’t seem to be cutting the leather, so she wasn’t sure what the purpose was.

“What are you doing?” she asked curiously, as she pushed back the bedding.

“I’m sharpening my knife for shaving,” he said. He shot her a quick look that she couldn’t decipher.

“Shaving?” She frowned, eyebrows nearly meeting in the middle of her forehead. “Shaving what?”

“You.”

The answer was short, and it confused her. “I don’t understand. Why would I need to be shaved?” She looked down, examining her fur with confusion. While they did cut the hair on their heads, their pelt didn’t need to be maintained. It was naturally just the right length. The only time she knew of someone needing to have a patch of fur shaved, was when they were being treated for an injury.

“It will be part of your punishment for disobeying me and running away. And for yesterday too,” he added.

She started to laugh, but he looked up with such a serious expression that the amusement died. “You’re not serious… what kind of punishment involves making me bare? Do you want me to freeze?” she demanded.

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