Her breathing quickened inside the confined space, and then came the headphones, white noise canceling out even her own heartbeat.
The world went perfectly silent except for the rush of her own blood and the faint hum of the toys inside her, though it’s possible she wasn’t actually hearing the vibrators, and her body was just processing it that way.
Sight gone. Sound gone. She was floating in absolutenothing, suspended in ropes, darkness, and silence. Every nerve in her body seemed activated from the arch he’d tied her body into, the ropes abrading and compressing, the vibrations buried inside her, and those damned knots.
The zipper over her nose was opened, and something else touched her nose. Soft and cottony — and the scent of cinnamon hit her sinuses like a living thing. Not burning, not overwhelming, but the smell filled her nose, her throat, and her entire awareness. There was nothing else. No forest air drifting through the partially open window, no trace of Knife’s skin, or the leather, the ropes, or even her ownarousal. Only cinnamon — thick, sweet, spicy, and inescapable, rendering her completely nose-blind.
Completely cut off from the world.
A wolf without scent was a wolf without orientation, without warning, without the most basic layer of safety. Panic tried to rise, but it had nowhere to go — no sight to anchor her, no sound to track his movements, no familiar smells to tell her where she was or what was coming next. Her body hung helpless in the ropes, legs spread, crotch knots grinding with every tiny involuntary twitch, toys buzzing steadily inside her, and all she could smell was cinnamon.
Her wolf should’ve been frantic, but the bitch went very still… then pressed closer to the surface. Curious at this new state.
Tuesday’s mind spun in the darkness, floating without any sensory input.
No, there was the exhaustion of her arms, her handslocked over her torso to keep her arms from dangling uncomfortably. The tension around her chest, hips, thighs, and ankles — the ropes holding her up. The awkward arch in her back. Also, those damned knots in the crotch rope.
And the low vibration that threatened to drive her crazy.
Every breath pulled more cinnamon into her lungs until the scent itself started to feel like sex. Like him. Like the promise of whatever he decided to do to her next while she couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t smell anything but this.
She was utterly, devastatingly vulnerable, but she took a deep breath and let it out.
And accepted it. Submitted to the ropes, to gravity, to the helplessness.
Chapter 10
Knife checked the time. He’d been at it a little over an hour, but he was nearly done. He stepped in close, running his hands over the ropes, checking tension and pressure with the same precision he used breaking down a carcass.
Satisfied, he grasped her left foot and bent it, bowing her spine further into a deep, elegant arch. He wrapped the fingers of her right hand around the top of her foot, then tied her palm to the top of her foot, locking the position. The stretch through her shoulder and the additional pull on her left hip on top of her bowed spine made her whimper inside thehood.
Her left arm was still free, dangling uselessly below her. She lifted it to rub all around the leather hood, tried to put it back on her stomach, but without the other hand to hold onto, there was nothing to do with it.
It was a deliberately cruel choice on his part, the constant, low-level reminder that she had one small illusion of control, and it was useless to her. He smiled to himself and tested the crotch rope again, just because.
Finally, he tied her right ankle off to the last rope hanging from the circle, stretching her body out with a graceful arch in her back, her head hanging down.
She needed fluids, and that meant being creative, but he’d planned for this. He soaked a long sponge in a tasteless electrolyte mixture, unzipped the mouth hole, and touched the sponge to her lips. When she opened her mouth, he inserted the sponge and watched her suck the liquid from it. He gave it to her two more times before zipping the hole over her mouth closed.
Then he worked the pulleys.
The cables tightened with soft metallic clicks. Her body rose slowly, smoothly, lifting higher into the air. She twitched hard at the sensation — the sudden awareness of height with no way to see how far above the floor she hung, no way to judge distance or safety. Just the ropes holding her, the stretch deepening, the knots pressing harder between her legs as her weight shifted.
He raised her until she hung high enough he could easily walk under her, and then he stepped to his gaming setup and got comfortable.
His new post-apocalyptic game waited on the big screen. He’d barely started it and was still early in the map, accumulating weapons and ammo, learning the ruined landscape. He set a one-hour timer on his phone and let himself sink into the game.
Between objectives, he glanced up at her, but he wasalwaysaware of her scent — steady pain growing slowly, arousal simmering. Her breathing was slow and deep, the rhythm of someone firmly in subspace, floating through the pain. Every so often her body twitched and jerked, likely when a knot shifted over a nerve or the toys pulsed just right. He watched her for a long moment, then went back to the game, content.
When the alarm chimed, he made it to a place he could pause and save, and he walked to the wall. Lowered her.
She had a long way to go before the pain grew and seasoned her enough for him to play with her, but it wouldn’t do for her to spend the entire time in subspace.
Oh no, he’d have to yank her out every hour, and this was her first excursion back to the real world.
He took his belt off, aimed, and the first strike landed across the front of her left thigh — a crisp, stinging snap that left a beautiful red line. Her shocked scream filled the room, followed by a sharp yelp when her jerk did interesting things to the knots in the crotch rope.
He worked methodically, laying down a dozen neat stripes across both thighs, watching the way her muscles jumped and her breathing hitched inside the hood.
