Page 22 of Binding Their Hearts

Shivering, unsteady breaths, goose-bumpy skin—sure, he might reasonably think she was cold. But his voice teased her nerves as much as the rope he started winding across her chest, outside her upper arms, above her breasts. “Not even close.”

Leaning into her, the heat of him an inferno against her back as he wrapped the rope a second time, he breathed a quiet laugh beside her ear. “Then you’ll quite enjoy this.” He called Jay’s name, his low command halting Jay in his tracks. “One more thing, please.”

Her brain caught up to her body’s warning of danger. Bound and vulnerable and—

“Fill the bowl with ice.”

Oh no. No-no-no. She shuddered in sympathy with future-Alice, Alice of unknown minutes from now who would be tormented with cold wielded by a mean, terrible, wonderful, caring master.

With more sliding and pulling and direction changes, the rope moved against her in Henry’s methodical grip. A thick line rose up the center of her back, keeping her slung arms against her body, their weight suspended by dark green rope pinning her upper arms to her sides as it crossed above her breasts.

Henry bracketed her ribs in his hands as she breathed. He swept lower as Jay approached. Crossed her belly barely above her thumping clit. Skimmed the front of her thighs and dragged his fingers back up, making faint pink trails that faded as he moved. “On the table, Jay, near the edge.”

The ice, heaped in the center and peeking over the top of the bowl, gleamed in the light from the kitchen.

“Lovely, thank you.”

She was a South Dakota girl. Cold didn’t scare her.

“Return to your pillow, please.” Henry shrugged out of his suit coat and hung it neatly over the chairback. “We’re about to play a game.”

The barren deep freeze of late January invaded her bones. A double-mitten, snowpants-over-long-underwear cold—and she stood in nothing but her skin and his rope bindings.

As Jay settled on the pillow, Henry tugged on the rope column. Alice stepped backward. Her balance utterly depended on following where he led.

Henry hummed. “I’d forgotten how delightful rope can be.”

A light yank pulled her down, and suddenly they were sitting, her on Henry’s lap with his erection pressed against her ass and her legs dangling alongside his. With a few quick commands, he had Jay shuffle the pillows and center himself at their feet. Jay’s grin widened about the same rate as Henry’s spreading knees opened her thighs and bared her for her lovers.

Heat poured into the gap as if she’d drained all of her reserves and pooled them there for Jay to lap up.

“We want Alice to maintain a proper temperature, my boy. Not too hot, not too cold.” Henry twisted to the side, and ice clinked. His grip on the rope kept her back slightly arched and her breasts all look-at-me front and center. “I shall cool her off with the methods at my disposal. You are free to warm her with the methods at yours. Shall we play?”

Jay raised his hands so they hovered beside her knees, the barest millimeter from touching her inner thighs. He captured her gaze, his deep brown eyes rich and warm. Decadent, really. So easy to fall into. “Ready if you are.”

Her participation in this game was less player and more game board. No responsibilities but to react to the stimuli until they overwhelmed her. She drew in a breath deep enough to make the ropes hold her back, the thrill and the fear of the unknown a potent zing pinballing through her. “I’m ready.”

The swipe of ice below her breast drove her shoulders back. The thin shriek couldn’t have been hers, no, and not the yelp following it either. Cold seared a curving line and Jay chased it with his tongue, but his hands—for balance, ha, a convenient excuse—gripped her thighs.

Henry led Jay around a nipple, and Jay engulfed the tip of her breast, soothing the chill there while melting ice dripped from her collarbone. Laughing, he shook water from his eyelashes and followed to the source, but Henry had abandoned his position.

Time lost meaning as the world narrowed to the back-and-forth of tug-of-war played out on her body.

Her hips bucked, fighting to throw off the freezing crescent Henry wedged into the crease of her thigh. “Fuck, ah, fuck, cold cold cold.”

Jay dropped to the floor and nosed the ice away, dipping his tongue to catch every drop tormenting her.

Ice crossed her clit, a fleeting brush, and her voice deserted her. A second pass. A third, longer, as she panted with her head against Henry’s shoulder. He pressed a kiss under her jaw, his knuckles rubbing her back in soothing circles even as he melted ice against the bonfire between her legs.

Jay twitched and dove for her center. Maybe the ice had caught his cheek. Tongue flat, he reheated her in rolling waves, then dipped low and flexed his tongue between her lips. Her moan overlapped his happy whine.

Henry pinched her nipple between chilled fingertips. “You’ve conquered two already, darling girl.” He stole his fingers away, and the ice clinked. “Let’s see how you do with a third.”

Yes, please, let’s see, she said, but not out loud, because challenge demanded response and she meant only encouragement for this game where hot and cold became the same burning rush lighting her up. Her skin must be glowing red, fiery crisscrossing lines everywhere Henry and Jay touched, bindings as visible and controlling as the rope pinning her arms.

Jay chased the ice under her breasts and down her stomach and between her lips and fuck, fuck, inside as she shrieked and squirmed against the iron rod of Henry’s cock. Jay’s heated tongue and Henry’s frozen fingers warred for space.

Babbling, begging, she pleaded for more as she danced on that edge.

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