Beast.
Quickly, I undo the knot at her wrists, ignoring her low, drugged moans as the knot rubs her.I’m not doing this to pleasure her,I tell myself fiercely, even as my cock throbs and reacts to the sounds of her moans, the way her helpless body shudders as the knot pleasures her. The moment it’s free, I pull the rope loose, flinging it away from her.
The length of it where it was between her thighs is wet. My fingertips are suddenly sticky with it, withher, and I groan as I grit my teeth, forcing back the fog of need. I’ve deprived myself for too long. It’s been a month or more since I’ve allowed myself release that wasn’t involuntary in my sleep, longer still since I’ve had someone else touch me. Since I’ve been inside a woman.
Not since that horrible evening when the fucking Irishman broke in and took Anastasia from me.
Those memories crowd in all at once, the anger that overcame me, the horrors of what I’d said to the woman I claimed to love, what I’d done to her.
Lying little chienne! He is your lover, or why else would he come here—
She’d begged me to believe her, and I hadn’t. Begged me not to do the horrible thing I’d forced out of them both, ripping my heart out in the process, blackening my soul beyond repair.
The worst thing I’ve ever done. The greatest sin I’ve ever committed.
I can’t be forgiven for it.
I untie the knots at the girl’s wrists and ankles, carefully unwinding the ropes from her legs, arms, waist, and her throat, until the shibari is a pile of green silken rope coiled on the bed like a particularly harmless snake.
Whoever tied her was an expert; there’s not a single rope burn or mark anywhere on her. Carefully, I roll her onto her back, doing my best not to look at her nipples pushing against the red lace of the corset, or the damp slit of her panties where her soft pink pussy, shaven and swollen from the pleasure of the knot, is peeking out.
Merde.My cock throbs again, my abs slick with pre-cum, my balls tight and painful. I look at the girl’s full red lips, and I remember with a burst of hot guilt and desire wrapped into one the night that I snuck into Anastasia’s room, stroking myself to a shameful climax as I watched her sleep.
Comme l’espoir de l’amour peut être violent.
How violent the hope of love can be.
Quickly, I tug a blanket up over her, hiding her body. It eases me a little. She looks more innocent like that, the blanket up to her slim pale shoulders, and it clears away some of the aching need. I reach for the note that had been hanging from her throat, opening it to see Kaito’s heavy-handed, slashing script.
My friend,
You once told me how very much you admired the art ofkintsugi, how you wished for nothing more than to give every damaged beautiful thing a home, to fill in all the cracks with gold so that nothing but beauty remained. It seems, my friend, that there is no one now more broken than you. You are in need of your ownkintsugi, something to make you feel alive again. A proper pet, a fresh start. This is my gift to you, at this joyful season, when so many seek to find a fresh start--an innocent virgin girl. Isn’t that what this season is all about?
May this woman be the gold that fills in the cracks of your soul.
Merry Christmas,
Kaito
P.S. Don’t fucking lose this one
I snort, reading the card over again. I’d paid a massive amount of money for Anastasia. Kaito might have pointed me in the direction of Alexei’s party, but Anastasia had hardly been a gift, even if this one is. I glance down at her, frowning. Kaito hadn’t included her name, which doesn’t shock me—I’d be surprised if he’d even bothered to ask it. I’m curious about it, though, and other things too.What made him choose her for me? What secrets is she hiding? What will she say and do, when she wakes up and finds herself here?
My first instinct is to refuse the gift, no matter how offended Kaito might be by that. I know I should wait for her to wake up, and then send her back to him—or to wherever she came from. But the longer I look at her, peacefully sleeping, the more I can feel the tendrils of my old compulsions creeping around my soul, sinking their barbed thorns into me. I can remember faintly what it was like to not be alone here, to not feel as if my home was a tomb, to not be so painfully, achinglylonely. To not spend all my days waiting for death to finally claim me.
I tug back the blanket, looking down at her, wreathed in red lace. Gift-wrapped for me, my Christmas present from a man who I have occasionally called my friend, if a capricious one at best. I can feel a growing need inside of me, not only lust, but something else, too. A need to reach out and take this chance that’s been offered to me.
A fresh start.
What if this is my chance to do better? My mouth feels dry as I look at her; she is so perfect, so beautiful. I don’t see a physical mark on her, no flaw like the others, nothing to make someone else call her damaged. But perhaps that’s better.
I’mthe broken one, and Kaito has sent me my gold. A perfect, flawless pet, when I haven’t had one to care for in so long.
You don’t deserve this. Monster. You swore you wouldn’t do it again.
You promised.
Don’t you loveAnastasia? Don’t you miss her?