Page 77 of Marrying My Professor

She obeys, rising from the bed, her bound hands held slightly in front of her. I guide her, one hand on the small of her back, towards the far wall of our bedroom. It’s not just a wall. Built into the dark paneling is a Saint Andrew’s cross, two beams of polished walnut forming a stark, beautiful X. I’d had it installed years ago, a monument to a lifestyle I thought I’d left behind. Until her.

I press her against the cool wood. “Arms up.”

She raises her bound wrists. I separate them, securing one to the top left arm of the cross, the other to the top right. The rope bites just enough, holding her firm. I move down, securing her ankles next, spreading her wide open. Vulnerable. Displayed. A shiver wracks her frame as the final knot is tied at her right ankle.

I step back.

God, she’s a vision. Pale skin stretched taut over the dark wood. Back arched, offering the sweet curve of her spine, the perfect swell of her ass. Her head is bowed, auburn hair cascading over her shoulder. I can see the rapid flutter of her pulse at the base of her throat.

“Color?” I ask, my voice rough.

“Green,” she breathes out, the word tinged with a desperate edge. “Please.”

That ‘please’ unravels something in me. The planner, the strategist, the woman who just hours ago was mapping out a murder with cold precision is gone. In her place is pure need.

I retrieve the flogger from the same drawer. The falls are soft suede, designed for sensation, not punishment. I trail them over her shoulders, down the length of her spine. She jumps at the first whisper-soft touch, a gasp catching in her throat.

Then I bring it down.

Not hard. A light, stinging caress across her shoulders. She moans, the sound low and surprised. Again. Across the tops of her ass cheeks. Her skin blooms a faint, beautiful pink under the suede.

“Stop thinking about tomorrow,” I command, my voice low in her ear. I don’t remember moving, but I’m pressed against her back, my body a solid wall of heat against her bound form. “Stop planning. Stop controlling. There is only this. Only the feel of the rope. The feel of the flogger. The feel of me.”

I drop the flogger. My hands replace it, skating over the warmed skin, learning the new heat map I’ve created. She trembles under my palms. I lean in, my lips grazing the shell of her ear. “Tell me what you feel.”

“The… the wood. It’s hard. Cold.” Her words come in bursts. “The rope… it’s tight. It aches, but… it’s good. It holds me. Your hands are so hot.”

“And this?” My fingers slip between her thighs from behind. She’s already soaking wet, her heat an undeniable shock against my probing touch.

She cries out, her body straining against the bonds. “Alexander…”

“Tell me.”

“I’m so empty. I need… I need you to fill me. Please.”

The raw need in her voice is my undoing. I unfasten my trousers, freeing myself. I’m painfully hard, just from watching her, from hearing her beg. I press the head of my cock against her slick entrance, not entering, just applying that exquisite, teasing pressure.

She sobs, pushing back against me, trying to take me in. The ropes hold her fast. She can’t move. She’s utterly at my mercy.

“Please,” she whimpers again, and it’s a broken, beautiful sound.

I push inside.

Slowly. An excruciating, inch-by-inch invasion. She’s tight, clenching around me, her inner muscles fluttering in a frantic welcome. I bury myself to the hilt, my hips flush against her ass, and we both groan, a ragged, shared sound of relief.

For a moment, I don’t move. I just feel. The heat of her surrounding me. The tremors running through her bound body. The smell of her skin, of us, filling the air.

Then I pull back and thrust.

It’s not gentle. It can’t be. This isn’t about gentle. It’s about claiming. It’s about obliterating every thought of blood and consequence from her mind. I set a brutal, deep rhythm, each drive of my hips slamming her against the unyielding wood. The sound of skin on skin, of her muffled cries, of the faint creak of the cross is the only music in the room.

“Is this what you needed?” I grind out, my hands gripping her hips, holding her steady for my onslaught. “To be used? To be taken? To feel something so raw it burns everything else away?”

“Yes! God, yes!” Her confession is ripped from her. She’s meeting every thrust as much as her bonds allow, her body a bowstring pulled taut. The earlier pink from the flogger is deepening to a rosy red. I can see the sweat sheening her back.

I lean over her, my chest to her back, my mouth finding the juncture of her neck and shoulder. I bite down, not hard enough to break skin, but enough to claim. She screams, her inner muscles clamping down on me in a vicious, perfect spasm.

She’s close. I can feel it in the way her body is winding tighter and tighter, a coil about to snap.