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  Now they smelled like soap and hair gel. Like Michael. He’d slept in this bed the night before, with me, while the stranger had slept in the chair and it had felt violating then. Now it felt like a lingering reminder of what I had almost lost, and I didn’t like the intrusion in my fantasy. This was our bed.

  He came into the cabin with a gust of cold air, and shut the door firmly behind him. He had been gone for two hours, longer than I was expecting. But I had learned to trust in his return and here he was, shaking snow off his hat and kicking off his boots. “Hey.”

  “Hey.” I leaned forward, turning the book over to mark my page. “I didn’t move the bin back because it was still hot from the fire. I’ll do that later.”

  He nodded. “No problem. The ax?”

  “In the river under the ice.”

  “Good. Everything else is taken care of.” He pulled his jacket off. “Hopefully it will be a while before anyone finds him.”

  He was calm, which kept me calm. “Can we change the sheets?” I asked.

  “Why?”

  “They smell like him.”

  He went still in the process of reaching for the woodpile to add a log to the stove. He pulled his hand back and turned, coming toward the bed. My skin prickled and my eyes widened. He looked angry. Controlled, but angry. Without warning he reached out and yanked the comforter off of me. “Get off the bed, Laney.”

  I shivered. But I knew then he wasn’t angry with me. He was angry at the idea of Michael’s scent rubbing up on my body while I slept or while the stranger and I had sex. Scrambling to move, I was still half on the bed when he stripped the sheets off the mattress, bunching them up into a tight ball.

  He opened the stove and shoved them in, almost tamping out the fire before the flames won and consumed the thin fabric. I stood and watched them catch fire, shrinking the ball down, smoke curling up into the exhaust pipe and thought that it was like my life in Seattle. Up in smoke. I could never go back now.

  It was a heady, giddy feeling.

  He tossed the comforter back onto the bed and yanked off his shirt. Then he reached for me and I felt the sharp ache of instant arousal deep inside me. My breath caught when he pushed me back down onto the cloud of soft down fabric and yanked my sweats down to my ankles. He paused only to take his own pants down fully then he spread my legs and took me with a quick thrust. The unexpected invasion made me gasp. He didn’t usually go straight for intercourse. He liked to tease and torture, to see how close to the edge he could take me. He liked control and he liked to draw it out.

  This was new, this was him dominating in a different way. This was him claiming me, here, on his bed. He yanked my hands up over my head and pinned me down, hauling one of my legs up onto his shoulder so his cock drove deep inside. Without foreplay, the first push had been more brute force than a wet welcome on my end, but now as he stroked, my body responded and dampened for him. He watched me, eyes locked on mine, and there was still snow on his beard from his hike in the woods, melting into tiny droplets. One dropped onto my chin, a tiny cool bead of moisture.

  He had a strong jaw, fine lines around his eyes, and skin rough from the harsh wind of Alaska. I knew his face now, had it memorized. I could close my eyes and see him behind my lids and hear his deep voice. Sometimes when I looked up at him, the way I was now, holding back cries of pleasure he hadn’t given me permission to make, I thought that I might break from the intensity of his gaze. He made no sound either, just ragged breaths in and out, but no moans, no groans of approval at the way his cock felt buried in my hot wet pussy. That wasn’t his style. He fucked with control, even now, when he had gone straight for the sexual jugular, he didn’t allow himself to display too much emotion or pleasure.

  The grip on my hands tightened as he pounded, all his weight resting there, my skin and muscles squeezing painfully, upper arms straining from being pulled. But I liked that. I liked the way the pain drew my attention to my body, allowed me to feel my skin everywhere.

  “You made a mess,” he told me. “But you already know that.”

  I nodded. “Yes. I’m sorry, my love.” Sorry that I had secrets still, sorry that I had brought trouble to him.

  “I know. I don’t mind. I’m impressed that you took action quickly. But I still think you should be punished. But also rewarded for wanting to stay. Do you agree?”

  My nipples tightened, hot saliva flooding my mouth, my pussy so wet I felt slickness on my inner thighs as he pulled in and out, his movements slower, more controlled now. I nodded and said, “Yes. I agree with both. You should definitely punish me.”

  Immediately he pulled entirely out, abandoning my body, leaving me empty and unsatisfied. I gave a moan of disappointment.

  “I need to feel your skin,” he said. “I need to see you on your knees for me. Not because you’re a prisoner tied up, but because you want to be here, with me.”

  It was the first time ever that he had said he needed me in any way. He had said he wanted me, but want was superficial, fleeting. We could all want and change our minds. Need was different. It was more pervasive, more desperate. It was binding. He might want many women over the years, but how many would he need?

  Just me.

  I swallowed my disappointment at losing his cock, knowing this was a greater gift. Rolling onto my stomach, I raised up onto all fours, lifting my ass for him. He shifted on the bed, moving in behind me, but his first touch wasn’t a smack, it was a light tap, urging me forward.

  “No, doll, you need to move up on the bed. Grab the headboard because you’re going to need to brace yourself.”

  Nervous anticipation made goose bumps rise on my flesh. He was going to spank me hard. No easy soothing smacks. I did as I was told, shoulders tense, knuckles going white as I gripped the wood headboard, waiting for the first contact. I always thought this was the most arousing part of his foreplay, when he ran fingers over my skin, lifting as if to come down hard, but then not doing it. This teasing anticipation. Then he would bring his palm down hard and I would realize this was even better. That there was no best part. It was all amazing and it all made me feel things I hadn’t even known I was capable of feeling.

  It was teaching me to live in the moment, to take each touch as pleasure. As being alive.

  My breathing was increasing, my chest started to heave, nipples taut and breasts heavy. I arched my back, lifting my ass for him a little more, an offer. I could smell the scent of my arousal, tangy in the air. The stranger spanked me with a loud crack, the sting so powerful tears instantly rose to my eyes. I shut them, clamping down hard, focusing on letting the pain radiate out into all parts of my body.

  I absorbed it. Owned it. I forced myself to relax, starting with my neck and shoulders and on down throughout my muscles. It hurt more if I tensed. The second smack was a little lighter, and not as loud. He’d moved lower, and the sting wasn’t as great. I sank my head down, focusing on controlling my breathing, on the sound of his breathing, and easing back into the pain.

  The next blow was hard again, shoving me forward, my forehead knocking against the wood wall of the cabin, an involuntary cry spilling from my lips. That’s what I wanted. Hard. Powerful. Him making me aware of every inch of my body. Him taking me to a place where nothing else existed save for the two of us. Our space. An intimate cocoon of hands and skin and vibrancy. It was like being high, with everything heightened, and crystal clear.

  He found a rhythm, and I bit my lip hard to prevent myself from crying out in pain, tender flesh tearing, my tongue tasting my own blood. Blood and pain. Love and lust. That was us. And it was fucking beautiful.

  At certain points it felt like my ass had gone numb, then suddenly the next spank would prove that a total lie, stinging flesh on fire. I lay against my forearm, trying not to orgasm. I couldn’t. That would ruin the punishment.

  When he had decided enough was enough, I knew because his hands skimmed my lower back, my ass cheeks, with a quiet reverence, quieting the electric pain,
a soft whisper of a touch. I swallowed hard, licking my abused lip. His arm encircled my waist and he pulled me back, easing me down onto my stomach. His callused fingers brushed my hair off my face before flipping the comforter over my nakedness. I stared at the wall beyond the nightstand, unable to speak, a shiver rolling through me. He cupped each ass cheek softly through the down comforter, as if to smooth away the sting. I shuddered, pain still reverberating, my pussy wet and aching for him.

  He rose off the bed and kissed my temple. “Take a nap, doll. I have work to do.”

  I couldn’t see him much out of the corner of my eye, my head too heavy to lift. I raised my hips without thought, pushed my clit down onto the bare mattress, hoping for some kind of relief. I repeated the action, a little faster, a little harder, grinding in a circle, desperate to erase that ache. There was no thought to what I was doing, my mind blissfully and completely empty. I was a sentient creature, nothing more.

  His hands returned to me, on top of the comforter and he pushed me down, stilling the motion of my hips. “Easy, don’t be so frantic,” he murmured, bending over me, his voice rough with arousal. “We can finish this.”

  It wasn’t so much being frantic as it was being swept away on the tidal wave of passion, knocked around, drowning, but still trying to kick and fight against it.

  He pulled the bedding back down and rested his hands on my bare ass, pushing me deeper and harder into the mattress, massaging my warm flesh, rolling my hips a little so that the silken fabric of the mattress stimulated my clitoris. My legs were spread wide still, hands raised above me, nipples rubbing. I lifted my chest a little so I could tease the taut buds back and forth since I knew what he wanted. He was going to have me come with no actual contact with my pussy. I wanted to give it to him, and to me. They were the most freeing, the most painful, the most hypersensitive orgasms I had. It was my body acknowledging it was built for sex and that was the most powerful sensation ever.

  I wasn’t expecting him to spank me again so when he did, I cried out before clamping my lips shut.

  “If you need to come, you’re allowed,” he said, his fingers drifting down into the crevice of my ass cheeks, tickling there, before traveling north again and disappearing.

  When the second blow came, so did I. The orgasm burst forth so hard I screamed into my pillow. The last hour, the last day, the last month of shock and frustration all seemed wrapped up in that howl, erupting from the very pit of my stomach, and tearing forth, smothered by the cotton pillowcase, lips vibrating as my vagina pulsed and ached. He spanked me rhythmically, in tune with my waves of ecstasy, drawing them out, prolonging my pleasure.

  As the height of my arousal crested and mellowed into tingling convulsions, I didn’t have the strength to lift my face from the pillow. I turned my head to the side so I could breathe, unable to focus, fingers falling slack on the bare mattress. My thighs relaxed but I didn’t bother to draw my legs together, the stranger’s hands merely resting on my ass again. I was so wet and sticky and hot, deep inside my core. Once, I had read a fiction book about BDSM and they had talked about this place, this vacant floating cloud of pain and self-awareness and heightened nerve endings. I couldn’t remember what it was called, but I both craved it and feared it. I could get lost here, in this glorious haze.

  It was the ultimate intriguing paradox of feeling like I could lose myself, yet at the same time recognizing that here, with him like this, I was more me than I was anywhere else or in any way.

  “That’s my girl,” he said, brushing my tousled hair back off my face. His voice sounded thick with pleasure and pride. He kissed the back of my neck, slid his tongue along my shoulder.

  I shivered, on sensation overload. My ass was burning, my lips throbbing.

  “Go to sleep.”

  I nodded, already drifting. I stirred a little when he took my hand, eyes trying to open again but my lids not cooperating. So sleepy. Then I felt the roughness of the rope and I realized he was typing me up. I didn’t fight it. Right hand to the right bedpost. Left to the left bedpost. Then he moved to my ankles, tethering me to all four points of the bed. He’d never done that before. I roused myself, seeking his eyes, an explanation.

  He had moved away from the bed but returned to slip an ice chip into my mouth. The cool melting cube was nirvana in my mouth and I sucked on it, before asking in a soft whisper, “Did I disappoint you?”

  All I could see were his forearms and his muscular abdomen, a tuft of hair above his cock, which wasn’t visible to me. He wasn’t hard, or I would have been able to see it pointing skyward, which made me feel bad. He didn’t seem to need my body the way I needed his.

  “No, of course not, why would you ask that?”

  “Because you tied me down.” He had bound my hands many times, and bound me to him, but never like this, never contained so I couldn’t move.

  “I just want to make sure you stay in bed while I’m gone.” His grip on my hair tightened. “I don’t want you to run away.”

  “Why would I run away?” I asked, confused. Hadn’t I proved that I wanted nothing more than to stay with him?

  “Because you killed a man today and you might freak out. Decide you need to get help. Confess.”

  I swallowed my bitter disappointment that he would think so little of me. That he would assume I would cave. That I was weak. But there was only one way to continue to earn his trust-obedience. I would show him how strong I was. That I deserved his love. That I had fucking earned it.

  “I won’t,” I said, wishing I could see his eyes. “But whatever you think is best, my love.” I wished he would lean closer so I could lick him. I wanted to taste his flesh, suck on it. He never let me suck it. I wanted to swallow him, take him down inside me.

  “That’s my girl.” He petted my head and I closed my eyes again, sighing into his touch, wanting to purr. He bent down and whispered in my ear. “We’re the perfect fit, do you know that? You and me. A match made in death.”

  When I was a little girl, I was jealous of my mother’s bed. Sometimes, she let me sleep there when she was alone, and it had a half dozen pillows and sheets that smelled like her perfume. She didn’t like to sleep solo and I liked to fill that void, because I didn’t like to sleep alone either. But if she had an overnight guest, which she frequently did, I was relegated to the saggy sofa in the living room of our dingy apartment. I didn’t have a bedroom, not until my mother married Dean. He also had started insisting, way before they were married, that she put me to bed in her room at a reasonable time when he was over our apartment, and they would hang out in the living room, talking and watching TV, and I assume having sex.

  Those were the best nights, really, because I was the princess in the pretty bed. I wasn’t totally alone, because I could hear their murmured voices and the TV in the next room, so it wasn’t scary. I loved to sleep with my mother, but she was a covers hog, and she tossed and turned a lot, her hair damp on her forehead. She usually slept naked, which never seemed odd to me as a kid. I slept in my shorts and a T-shirt usually, garage sale clothes gotten by my grandmother. But it didn’t matter what I was wearing when I was tucked up in that big bed with all the pillows, warm and cozy and small, cradling the scent of my mother on the pillowcase to my face.

  I never got used to sleeping alone, though when we moved to the big house with Dean, I did get a real princess bed, with a canopy of pink ruffles. It made me feel safer, protected. Like the closet always had. But I was happier when someone slept next to me, their breathing a calming rhythm, or when in college, guys would crawl out of my bed leaving a cloud of cologne in their wake that lingered for days.

  The stranger didn’t wear cologne. But he had a scented deodorant and soap that were inherently masculine, woodsy. It seemed to me in my hazy post-sex daze that the very mattress itself carried his scent, down into the interior. I could smell sex and my own arousal too, but mostly, I smelled him.

  Tethered up, protected by him, both from the outside world, and fro
m myself and all my bad choices, I felt secure. The princess in the big bed.

  His captured princess.

  The air in Alaska smells like clean. Like fresh, crisp, washed air that’s been wrung out by Mother Nature wearing pine gloves and lavender perfume. It smells like mud and wood and sawdust and wet. It doesn’t snow much in Seattle but here, the snow was not only beautiful, it was clean. The fresh blanket lifted up in the air and dropped down over all the muckiness of everyday human and animal living.

  As I sat in the sled, the stranger poised behind me running the dogs along the trail, I felt washed too. Refreshed. The blood was gone, the fear was gone. It was a brand new day. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, letting the wind sting my cheeks. He had assured me it wasn’t particularly cold for Alaska yet but it was cold enough for me. It numbed my flesh in the tip of my nose and along my cheeks, and forced me to bend my fingers repeatedly in my gloves to ensure the tips still existed.

  The sound here was soothing. There was the clink of the dogs’ leashes, the smack of the sled’s runners on the packed snow, the occasional sounds of encouragement to his team from the stranger. Then mostly silence. Wind. Nothing else. The absence of chaos, that’s what it was. That’s what my life here could be.

  For a while, before Michael arrived, I had started thinking of the stranger as Trent. I had tried many names and discarded them when he wouldn’t tell me who he truly was. He said it didn’t matter and maybe it didn’t. But it was convenient to have a label, nothing more. I had decided to give him the name Trent, because I had thought I loved Trent. But sometimes, I did things to scrub wash the past and that was one of those.

  I had done things to Trent that weren’t good.

  But he had done things to me that weren’t good.

  So who was more wrong?

  We both were. I knew that. Maybe that’s why I had given that name to the stranger. Weren’t he and I both wrong? Or at least both not right? But we weren’t going to end badly and he wasn’t going to betray me. He’d buried a body for me. So he deserved a different name. A better name.