“Wow. I really like that. What do you think, Kat?”
She moaned into her arm.
“After you shower, before you get dressed for the party, I want you to report back to me so I can tie you up like this. Can’t have you forgetting who you belong to at your own engagement party.”
As if, Kat thought as he started to undo the ankle ties. Rope or not, he had her tied up tight.
* * * * *
Ryan watched her circulate around the party, his face composed in an affectionate, bemused expression. He had to hand it to her, she managed to move around pretty smoothly considering the cane tracks on her ass and the rope on her clit. Not to mention the plug jammed in her backside. Can’t have you forgetting who you belong to…
It had taken him too much time and effort to make her understand who she belonged to, to ever let her forget. Not that he was worried. Not anymore.
Elena swept up beside him and gave him the thirtieth hug of the day. She followed his gaze to where Kat stood in her cream-colored floral dress, gossiping with her sisters. “You know,” Elena said. “I knew this secret of yours. I knew it all along.”
He looked over at her in alarm until he realized she wasn’t referring to the secret torment he was visiting on her daughter. “Of course you knew,” he said with the teasing cheek of a soon-to-be son-in-law. “Any fortune-teller worth her salt would have seen it coming a mile away.”
“Oh, you.” She swatted him. “You joke, but I tell you I knew. When I saw you at the hospital, when she fall down the stairs and bust her silly head. I knew then. You stood there in your fancy white coat and talk about tests and stare at her charts. I knew.” Elena gave him a coquettish smile. “I knew very well.”
Ryan returned a sly grin. “Okay. Maybe. But I knew too. Before Kat did, anyway.”
“Oh, Dr. Ryan, you listen and I tell you. My daughter is sometimes a scatterhead.”
“You mean scatterbrain?”
“Head, brain. Whatever,” she said, waving her hand at him. “But you love her. This is a good thing. You see she needs something extra to be happy. She needs…how do you say it in English? A firm hand.”
Ryan choked on the olive he’d just swallowed, prompting Elena to pound him on the back. “Um…okay. I’m fine, Mama.” He said it Mama, the way the others said it. She beamed and then regarded him with a more sober expression.
“Now, you see, you are part of our family. We watch out for each other. We watch out for you. You become part of our family at the wedding, but really it is long before that. You understand?”
“Yes, I think I do understand,” Ryan said, touched by her words.
“You become my family when you try so hard to save Dmitri. Dmitri told me many times what a special and good man you are. And he was right.” Elena’s eyes welled up a little, the way they still did whenever she talked about her late husband. But she pressed on through the mist, her voice effusive as ever. “I know you try. You know none of us ever blame you, ever be mad at you. You know this. For what you did, you stay forever in my heart.”
Ryan squeezed her arm softly. He had known that all along, but to hear it out loud silenced some part of the niggling guilt that still haunted him sometimes. “You’ve done so much for me too,” he replied in a soft voice, remembering her long-ago trip to the gift shop. Her “Yes. And Yes.”
“But this is enough emotional talk,” said Elena. “We are here to celebrate, yes? Go on. Go and be with your bride.”
Ryan was sent off with another smothering hug. He sidled up to Kat and slipped his arm around her waist, feeling for the harness. He had taken mercy on her and used his thinnest rope, almost a twine, so her secret wouldn’t be detectable. The less-bulky rope had ended up suiting his purposes. He’d made a wicked large knot out of another, scratchier natural rope, and the thinner twine made it possible to pull the knot right up against her clit. She shifted as his hand moved down over her sore ass cheeks and he saw the telltale shiver that let him know the knot was doing its job.
“How are you holding up?” he asked as he drew her out of earshot of the other party guests.
“I’m…barely surviving.”
“I’m happy to hear it,” he said with a grin. “I know I’m having a really fun time watching you suffer.”
“I think at our wedding ceremony you should have to wear weights on your balls,” she snapped back.
Ryan laughed. “Careful, or I may reconsider that orgasm I’m thinking of giving you later. You’re going to be pretty wrought-up by the time we get home. Aren’t you, doll?”
She looked up at him, the wonderfully precious look of a tormented subby.
“I can’t wait to go home with you later,” she whispered.
“Aren’t you enjoying your party?”
“I am… But there are other things I enjoy more.”
“Lucky for me.” He leaned down to kiss her, using his body as a shield to reach down and press against the knot. She moaned into his mouth. He let go, deepened the kiss and assailed
