“Uh-huh.”

Kaden glanced at the time again. “Watch her for me for a minute, please? Never leave her alone or turn your back on her when she’s rope bound. Especially suspended. With cuffs, depending on the circumstances, if you’re at home it’s sometimes okay to leave her alone for a little while. Not leave the house, of course. But like in bed or over the spanking horse or something.”

Seth nodded. “Okay,” he whispered.

When Kaden left, Seth leaned close to Leah and whispered, “Are you really okay with this?”

She winked. The edges of her mouth definitely twitched in what he thought would be a smile if the ball gag wasn’t in the way. And her eyes crinkled in a familiar look he recognized as amusement.

Kaden returned a moment later. He carried…

Holy fuck.

Seth sat back and stared, dumbfounded.

Definitely dropped through a wormhole. No other explanation.

Kaden held up a large butt plug. “Want to do the honors?”

Seth tried for words, had to swallow to form spit, and tried again. “No thanks. I’m good.”

Kaden shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He patted Leah on the ass. “Get ready, love.” Apparently they’d dropped back into formal mode.

She closed her eyes and moaned.

He lubed the plug and carefully, gently slid it in. She immediately started squirming, and her skin flushed.

Kaden patted her ass again. “I know, this is especially mean of me, using that one on you. It’ll really keep you hot all day, won’t it?”

She moaned.

The other device…good God almighty! It was a large dildo with straps. Kaden reached between her legs and slipped two fingers inside her—Seth’s cock painfully throbbed again—and Kaden smiled.

“Jesus, love, you’re really wet. You must enjoy having Seth watch this.

Her eyes were still closed but she softly moaned.

Kaden pressed the large head of the dildo against her. “Here it comes. Get ready.” He slowly slid it in while she struggled against the ropes.

Seth realized she was trying to fuck herself with it.

Kaden laughed. “No, you don’t get off that easy. No pun intended.” He seated it all the way inside her, then Seth saw what the straps were for. Kaden buckled it around her thighs and waist, holding not only it but the butt plug in place. When he was happy with how it was adjusted, he gently swatted her ass.

“Another twenty minutes like that.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small silver…remote? Then he thumbed a button on it. Leah jumped against her tethers and moaned.

Seth heard a low buzzing sound and understood what it was. It wasn’t just a dildo. It was a vibrating dildo.

He felt lightheaded, realized he’d been taking shallow gasps of air. Forcing a few deep breaths into his lungs, he watched as Kaden sat back down on the couch.

And started reading the funnies.

Seth stared. He realized the buzzing wasn’t a steady constant. It alternated patterns, sometimes a steady hum, sometimes a start and stop rhythm, sometimes stopping altogether for a moment. When it did that, Leah would whine and squirm even harder until it started again.

As hard and painfully as his cock throbbed, Seth didn’t dare move. He worried the very act of standing would trigger enough friction against his swollen member to make him come.

She was gorgeous, and as she knelt there a fine patina of sweat covered her skin.

“How do you know she’s okay?” Seth whispered.

Kaden didn’t look up from the paper. “Our code is two loud, long grunts, if she doesn’t get my attention with hand signals. If she does that, it means the gag comes off immediately.”

She was aware of them talking about her, because her eyes slowly opened. But they looked passion-glazed under heavy lids. As the vibrator cycled through another pattern, Leah closed her eyes again and softly moaned.

Kaden smiled, finally looking at her. “I don’t dare spank her like this. She’ll freaking explode. I mean, if she didn’t have that gag in her mouth, she would totally scream her head off, buddy. Trust me. You work her up like this, it’s absolutely amazing how hard she’ll come. And she loves it.”

Leah moaned her assent.

Kaden wasn’t finished. “She really loves to be fucked like this. Perfect height on this table, too. Or in bed. She’s totally helpless like this. You can play with her clit, lick her”—Leah moaned at that— “and do whatever you want to her. I love this position.”

Seth’s entire body resonated in time with the sound of the vibrator.

Kaden met Seth’s eyes with a steady gaze. “Want to try her right now?”

He gasped for breath again and shook his head. Leah opened her eyes and moaned, this time in disappointment, at Seth’s refusal.

As weird as this was, and as much as Seth wanted to take them up on the offer, he couldn’t quite bring himself to take that step yet. Especially not with his best friend sitting right there.

But…

Day-amn.

Seth struggled for a gracious out. “I need a shower. And…and we don’t have my test results back.”

“I had her buy condoms.”

Fuck.

Seth shook his head. “Um, maybe…later.” He jumped up, grabbed his coffee, and hurried back to his bedroom, closing the door behind him. He started for the bathroom, then returned to his bedroom door and locked it.

Just to be safe.

He turned on the TV again—this time Lester was talking to some high-profile chef about raisins versus citrons—and turned on the shower.

It took three strokes on his cock to explode. And he didn’t go soft. Almost frantically he continued stroking and a few minutes later he came again, the memory of Leah’s ass in the air setting him off.

* * *

When he finished his shower—after jerking off one more time—he wandered back out to the kitchen, relieved to see the living room empty.

And just a tad disappointed.

That was fucking hot, no denying it. Had he not been so absolutely shocked he would have enjoyed it.

Or might have forced himself to take them up on the offer.

It was nearly ten, and he was starving. What did that say about him that he felt a brief flash of irritation that Leah hadn’t fixed his breakfast yet.

And where were they, anyway?

He looked down the hall, saw the playroom door standing open. Swallowing hard, Seth forced his feet to move.

Leah was now strapped to the spanking horse, her legs spread far apart and cuffed to the bench. She still had the butt plug and vibrator in. Her arms were also cuffed to the bench, and now she was blindfolded. She wore a smaller ball gag, though.

He heard the vibrator click on. Leah’s hips jerked, frantically squirming against the bench. When the vibrator shut off she moaned, whimpering.

Kaden’s soft voice in his ear nearly scared the crap out of him. “You know you want to.”

“Fuck,” he whispered.

Kaden handed him one of the riding crops. “Right now, before the vibrator comes back on, just one square across her ass. It’s not enough to get her off.”

Seth’s dick led the way. He nervously lined up the blow as he’d been shown in class the night before.

Kaden crossed his arms and smiled, watching.

Fighting a twisting in his stomach, Seth swung. Leah jumped, whined, and wiggled her ass at him. He looked at Kaden. Kaden held up his hand, indicating wait.

Sure enough, the vibrator clicked on again. Leah moaned, squirming against the bench.

Kaden waved Seth out into the hall and whispered, “She doesn’t know which of us did it, or when we’ll do it again. It’s driving her crazy.”

“Are you really going to leave her like that all day?” The thought of that made Seth partly feel bad for her.

And partly excited him.

Kaden raised an eyebrow at him. “I wouldn’t stop you if you want to give her some relief. You’re entitled to.”

Seth pointed down the hall to the living room. When they were safely out of Leah’s hearing, Seth asked, “What if I can’t be kinky enough for her all the time?”

“What do you mean?”

He wiped his mouth with his hand and wished for a drink. He knew he couldn’t have one for that very reason. “I mean, geez, yeah, okay, right, it’s fucking hot seeing her like that. But damn, you know, there’s a lot of times I’ll just want to cuddle or have straight sex and not all of…” He waved his arm down the hall. “That.”

“What?”

“That!” He pointed again.

Kaden smiled. “She doesn’t get off on the kink.”

Seth took another step toward the hallway and waved his arm again. “Uh, duh! What the fuck is THAT then?”

Kaden sat on the couch and picked up the sports section. “She would be happy having vanilla sex for the rest of her life. That’s not what this is about. It’s hotter, sure, but that’s just a bonus.”

Seth’s jaw dropped. “How about some fucking answers to my questions?” He stormed over to Kaden, grabbed the newspaper, and tossed it over the back of the couch. “What the fuck do you mean she doesn’t get off on the kink?”

“The pain is to help her process emotions, especially painful emotions, when she’s overstressed. If she gets off in the process, even better. They are totally different things, even though they’re related sometimes. If you did nothing but missionary with her for the rest of your lives and spanked her with your hand over your lap when she needed it, she’d be perfectly happy with that, too.”

“Then why do you do all of this other stuff?”

He shrugged. “We just sort of fell into it. As we got to know more people in the lifestyle and saw things, we decided to experiment a little. I told you, she’s not a pain slut. You’ll see people who put dozens of clothespins all over themselves, needles, hot wax, knife play, shit like that. She has no desire to do any of that. All she needs is the occasional grounding. That’s what the spankings are about. She likes and enjoys the other stuff. It’s fun. The shibari is nice for her—when done properly and she can’t get loose—because it forces her to relax and just be for a little while. You know how they say you should swaddle babies?”