Then he moved to her thighs, creating a harness encompassing the tops of her thighs and her lower waist.
She breathed through it, feeling the way the ropes claimed her body piece by piece. There was no restriction yet other than her ankles being bound together, but his ropework always went in unexpected directions.
Heat pooled in her lower body, the temperature rising with every wrap of the rope. Every knot.
He stepped to the wall to lower the pulley, returned to her, connected the thick braided tail coming from the front of the harness, and then slowly lifted her into the air.
She couldn’t windmill her arms with them bound behind her back. Couldn’t individually kick her legs. She was on her back, looking up at the sharp angles of the cathedral ceiling with all her body weight hanging by the tops of her thighs and her waist.
The position arched her back. She kicked her legs, trying to sit herself up, but he grabbed her ankles and pulled them so she had to bend her legs — and then the motherfucker bound her ankles to her wrists, bending her backward.
When he let go of her, the center of gravity was different. Her head was lower than her knees, hanging upside down.
And she could spread her knees now, which meant he’d eventually do so, leaving her open and completely vulnerable.
Her entire body protested the position, the stretch burning through her muscles and joints. She was completely suspended, inverted, arched, and displayed for him.
She hung there, breathing hard, the full weight of her body held only by his ropes, the position already making her shoulders and back ache. Her knees. Even her already sore throat was stretched, bearing the weight of her dangling head.
He stepped so she could see him and used a quiet, calm voice to tell her, “No words. No vocal sounds. No moaning. No trying to get my attention. If you do, I’ll make it so you can’t do any of those things until after I’ve released you, and you won’t like the way I do it.”
He expected a response when he gave an order, so she gave him a tiny nod.
He stepped back and looked at her for a long moment, then turned and went to the wall, lifted her into the air.
Her body rose smoothly, but she felt every inch as the floor fell away until she hung fifteen feet in the air. Far from the floor.
She had a view though — the trees outside, the sky above, the valley below. It was dark outside, and she could see lights in the distance. Could see the stars in the inky-dark sky. She’d seen the freshly risen moon on the drive home, and she saw it a little higher, now.
Below her, Knife walked into the bathroom, and a few minutes later, the shower turned on.
And then she was alone, hanging a lot closer to the ceiling than the floor, the moon her only light source, filtering through the large window.
They hadn’t even started yet, and already her shoulders, back, and knees were feeling it. Every breath shifted the ropes against her skin. Every tiny, involuntary twitch sent fresh tension through her thighs and shoulders.
The shower ran for a long time. She listened to the water, trying to picture him under it, but mostly she just breathed and let her body settle into the ropes.
When the water finally cut off, she heard him drying off. He came into the room, but she couldn’t see what he did. It sounded like he was putting clothes on.
Without saying a word to her, he went downstairs. For a long time. The house grew quiet except for the occasional creak of floorboards far below.
The moon moved slowly across the sky, a bright slice that cast shifting shadows through the trees. The valley lights twinkled in the distance, and she could see the faint glow of Chattanooga farther out.
The world kept moving while she hung suspended upside-down in his ropes.
Her mind drifted back to their day — the climbing, the way he’d listened and learned, the way he’d let her teach him without ego. The carousel. The kiss against the tree that had melted her brain.
She tried to hold onto those memories, but the ropes kept pulling her attention back to the present. The stretch in her torso, thighs, and knees was constant now, a deep burn that flared every time she breathed too deeply. Her thighs ached at the spot between leg and ass, from the rope digging in. Her spine protested the arch. Nothing was particularly sharp, but combined, there was no way to ignore the pain.
And she was completely present and alone with it. No gag, no blindfold. Just her, the ropes, and the moon outside the window.
Eventually, she heard his footsteps on the stairs again.
He came in without speaking and went back to his chest before he let her down, down, down.
Not all the way to the floor, but only three or four feet above it.
He stepped to her, and her right nipple exploded in pain.
