Without hesitation, I nod.
“This is going to be intense. You won’t be able to use your safeword some of the time. But I’ll be here all along, focused on you. I’ll know when you need me to stop. Can you trust that?”
Again, I nod. There’s no doubt. I want this. The rush and the intensity. But I do need a few reassurances first. “Are you going to whip me?” I ask, shuddering as another scream reaches above the beat of drums.
“No whips, no overwhelming pain tonight. Just the fear and the desire. The rush of being watched.” He grabs the hem of my dress again and starts pulling, slowly, giving me the time to say stop if needed.
But I don’t want him to stop. I’m nervous as hell—scared—but somehow, it only drives my desire. So I gather my nerve with a shuddery breath. “Okay.”
“Okay.” He smiles as I lift my arms, letting him pull the dress off. Then he sinks to his haunches to take my pantyhose and panties off, stripping me completely naked.
I hug my arms over my chest, feeling like everyone outside is watching. The lighting here is soft, but the night outside is dark. Anyone who looks up will be able to see that I’m naked and bound.
He rises before me, and I feel utterly small and vulnerable as I stare up at him—his towering height, powerful build, and his age that only adds to the power difference.
“Now be a good girl and turn around, so I can restrain you.” He leans down and whispers in my ear. “So Ulf can watch you.”
“Ulf?” I gasp.
Asbjörn turns me by the shoulders, and a dizzying sensation fills my brain when I see Ulf sitting on a bench close to the building, looking up. At me.
My whole body starts buzzing and quivering. “Oh God, I don’t know if I can do this.”
Asbjörn lifts one of my arms.Click.The sound of the padlock makes my eyes dart up to my trapped wrist, then down to the man below. Ulf is close enough to one of the big fires for the light to illuminate one side of his face. I can’t see the finer details, but I can see those eyes. I canfeelthem.
“I—It’s too much. Him. I don’t know. He just…” I keep staring at Ulf, ensnared, unable to put words to the way he affects me—unable to admit it. Shame tightens my stomach, and that sense of guilt resurfaces even though I remind myself of what Evelina said.
“I know you’re drawn to him. It’s okay, Elina. We’re not exclusive. That’s not saying I’m playing with anyone else. I won’t as long as I have you. But you don’t have to feel bad about your urge to submit to Ulf. It’s okay. As long as we’re all consenting.”
I glance back at him. “Are you? Is it okay for you?”
“Very much.” A wicked smile tugs at his lips. “I like using it against you.”
“Oh.”
With a hand on my cheek, he turns my head toward the window. “Now watch him and keep doing so while I mess with your head and have some fun with your body.”
My mind spins as I fall into the trap of Ulf’s gaze, and a delicious daze descends when he gives a slow nod as if to saygood girl. Asbjörn lifts my other arm too.Click.My arms are locked into place. I glance up at the padlock, then back at Ulf, my nostrils flaring and my heart hammering.
Two more clicks sound as Asbjörn spreads my legs and attaches the ankle cuffs to the chains low on the wall.
“Try and see if you can get free,” he coaxes as he straightens behind me.
I give a small pull on the upper chains. “I can’t.”
“Come on, put in more effort.” He leans close, his breath fanning the shell of my ear. “Let’s see just how trapped you are.”
I give one more pull, then one at my ankles.
“Keep going,” Asbjörn coaxes with a wicked tone.
I tug harder, then writhe with the effort, earnestly trying to get free. But I can’t. The fit of the cuffs is snug, the chains unforgiving. “No. I-I can’t.”
“You should try harder?” He rakes his nails down my back, making me buck forward, away from him, but he only follows, scratching harder. “After all, you have no idea what I’m going to do to you. And everyone down there is occupied; no one will stop me. Only Ulf will see, and he’ll enjoy every single moment. You’re completely at our mercy.”
“No,” I gasp as I jerk and tug, the motion and his words only lighting fire to my rising terror. Squeezing my eyes shut, I start shaking my head. “No,” I keep gasping. “I can’t. I—” I don’t know what to say. I’m not even sure what it is I can’t do. All I know is the constricting fear and the desperate urge to escape my bonds.
I start hyperventilating, and my protests go even shriller. “I’m scared,” I plead with Asbjörn. I open my eyes and glanceout over the courtyard—all the people, the fire, the whips, the drums. Suddenly, it all overcomes me in a startling flood of sensory overload. “Stop, stop, stop.”
