He chooses the wall binder. He touches the padded panel where he wants me, then looks at me for the consent that tells him I am with him.
I nod. I am with him. I am also somewhere else, at a window with a shade lifted, with my palm to cold glass and a phone at my ear, listening to a voice that will not let me unhear it.
“Hands here,” Roman says, and I lift them to the level he indicates. He kisses each palm before he fits the leather and closes the buckles. He does not pick up speed when he could. He looks at my fingers as if they are a fragile thing he intends to return whole. The cuffs hold without biting. The pressure is clean and exact.
My breath seesaws. He hears it. He pauses and waits until it is mine again.
“Feet,” he says. He kneels and fastens me at the ankles with the same care. I can’t budge more than two or three inches from the wall. He taps the release on the left ankle and shows me how it gives. “If this is too much, that’s how easily I can let you out. Understood?”
“Yes.”
He fastens the clasp again and stands. He leans his shoulder to the wall next to me and lets his weight rest so I can see he is not in a hurry. “This room runs on three rules. We say what we want. We say what we will not do. We stop if we need to stop. That is it. That is all.”
“Simple.”
“It has to be,” he says. “When the body is loud, the mind can only hold so much, and vice versa.”
He steps close and takes my chin the way he did upstairs. He raises my face until I have to look at him. It’s unbearable. This closeness. The love in his eyes. I want to look away. But he kisses me, slow and sure. He tastes like mint and metal and patience.
He tastes like something I do not deserve, and that I want anyway.
“What is wrong?” he asks against my mouth.
My eyes close unbidden. “Not now.”
He touches my throat with the back of his fingers. My pulse knocks against his skin. He smiles, but this smile carries an edge. “I’m not letting you go until you tell me what troubles you. I know tonight is frightening. But there’s something you’re not telling me, and I have a right to know what troubles my wife.”
He’s right. I know he is. But I can’t make myself say the words. If I say them, I’ll lose my nerve, and then I’ll lose more than that. I’ll lose everything.
“Please, Roman?—”
“Your safeword islatte. Understood?”
“What are you talking about?”
“We will begin.” With that, he steps to a wall of paddles, canes, and things I don’t recognize. “What are your thoughts on impact play, wife?”
“You’re going to hit me?”
“Only in ways you might enjoy.”
My mind works on that. “You mean, like when you spanked me during sex?”
He nods once. “I noted how much wetter you were after that. You enjoyed it.” A question and an answer.
I swallow as my throat dries. It’s the only dry part of me. “Yes.”
“Then we will experiment.” He takes a small leather paddle from the wall. “Something simple to start.”
“But how will you use that on my ass? I’m attached to the wall, facing you.”
His smile turns sinister. “Oh ye of little faith.” He clicks a button on the wall next to me, and suddenly the unit I’m bound to thrusts slowly out from the wall and turns from above, then pulls me back to the wall. There’s even a fucking chin rest there.
He presses another button, and the wall reforms with a padded bar at my hips and adjustments at my legs so my ass comfortably sticks out from the rest of me.
“You really thought of everything.”
“I do enjoy my toys.” His rough hand raises my dress the way he did when we were fucking. My ass is completely exposed. “Now, as I was saying. What troubles you, wife?”
