Bind and Keep Me, Book 2 Read online

  Bind and Keep Me

  Pierced Hearts, Book Two

  by

  Cari Silverwood

  Early praise for Bind and Keep Me

  “Bind and Keep Me, leads you down a depraved path of dark desires that you know are so wrong, but feel too good for you to care. Cari Silverwood makes losing what we all cherish—our freedom—sinfully erotic.”

  Bianca Sommerland – author of Deadly Captive.

  “Enthralling and seductive, Bind and Keep Me brings the taboo into our basements and locks us inside. A must-read for lovers of dangerous erotic fiction.”

  Skye Warren, author of Wanderlust

  Copyright 2013 Cari Silverwood

  Editor: Nerine Dorman

  Cover Artist: Thomas Dorman aka Dr. Benway on Deviantart and Facebook

  All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this e-book only. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from the author. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials.

  This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Disclaimer

  This book contains descriptions of many BDSM and sexual practices but this is a work of fiction and as such should not be used in any way as a guide. The author will not be responsible for any loss, harm, injury or death resulting from use of the information contained within.

  Acknowledgement

  With every book I write there are a bunch of great people behind the scenes helping me. I’d like to thank and give big, huge hug to Sorcha Black, my crit partner and cheerleader extraordinaire. Bear in mind that you will never, ever see Sorcha in a cheerleader costume and if you did she’d be forced to silence you forever. Pom poms are not her thing. Black is. And anything else that goes with black. Most of those things are bad. You have been warned.

  I also need to thank my beta readers Mj, Ekatarina Sayonova, Bianca Sarble (a fellow author), Lina Sacher (who did triple duty on the re-reads), and my editor, Nerine Dorman.

  A glossary can be found after the end of the story explaining some US and Australian words used in the story. Due to a large number of my readers being from the US, I have used some American words instead of the Australian ones. I've been told, since completing the book, that they'd rather have the Aussie words. Maybe in Book 3, "Make Me Yours, Forevermore", I will do this.

  Chapter 1

  Jodie.

  “You’re sure?” Melissa cocked her head at me while stepping over the splattered pink ice from a dropped frozen drink. The dark waves below slapped and sloshed at the hull of the ferry and the pylons of the jetty. “I know they won’t mind you coming with me. My car’s just down that side street.” She pointed ahead. “Stephanie is an old friend of yours, yes?”

  “She is, but…” A very long-ago friend. I shrugged and gave an apologetic smile. I wasn’t really apologetic. I also wasn’t sure if I should be refusing. Melissa was an acquaintance through work connections, but she knew people in the industry and, hell, she was friendly.

  Leon Edante, a wealthy dentist, was celebrating some big thing. A partnership, I thought she’d said. He worked on the mainland and kept a posh house here on Magnetic Island, somewhere on the slope behind Horseshoe Bay. Squeezing in on this party at the last moment, without an invite from the host, seemed wrong, despite Melissa’s insistence. I glanced at her.

  Even jostled by the herd of tourist lemmings and islanders coming home, she carried herself with elegance. My auburn hair was the same shade as hers and I was just as slim, yet I felt drab next to her. My business skirt and silver-gray knit top versus her strappy dress, and I lost hands down.

  “Okay. I’m sure we’ll see each other again. Take care. If you change your mind…”

  I nodded and she walked away.

  Damn. I’d been set to do some networking when Melissa dropped this bombshell. I toyed with my phone. To go home or not to go home, that is the question. A pleasant if somewhat hot fifteen-minute walk up the hill to our place where Klaus was waiting for me, or ask to join Melissa, Leon, and Stephanie for dinner and risk looking like a fool if he stared at me and said no?

  I sighed and selected Klaus’s phone number.

  “Hi. Where are you?” Through the phone, his words sounded distant. Maybe I was imagining the hint of masculine rumble, but my memory brought the words to life and warmed me.

  I smiled. “I’m back. I’m down at the jetty. I’ve got an invite. Leon Edante…you know? The dentist? He’s celebrating some business success with a dinner with two other women. Just a quiet thing, but one of them, Melissa, is a producer with Channel Seven. I’d like to go and see if she’ll divulge some hot tips on what they’re looking for.” I bit my lip, and waited to hear if Klaus would okay this. “It’s at his place in Horseshoe Bay.”

  “Oh yeah. The one that was featured in Living Houses, last year. Rich then. Good-looking?”

  Was Klaus jealous? A devious urge to push took me to the edge. I gripped the phone tighter, drew in a breath, and jumped over. “Yup. Very. And he’s got these gorrr-geous bedroom eyes too.” I let out a shuddery sigh that made a man beside me shoot a puzzled look.

  “Bedroom eyes?” Ooh. Short and harsh-sounding, that reply.

  “You wondering if I might swoon, fall into his arms, and check out his bedroom furniture?”

  He laughed. “No. I know you won’t. Make sure you’re home by eight and take your underwear off in the car before you come up, female. I want to try out that new cane—with you, ass up, over the sofa arm.”

  Fuck. “I think I just swallowed my tongue. You’re such a romantic.”

  The picture that had evoked. And female? So passionless. My Klaus in sadist mode. My body tightened. I hated the cane. But I loved it too.

  “I am, aren’t I?”

  “Yes, Sir, you are. You’d out-romance a stuffed warthog.”

  “A what? Care to repeat that? My caning arm is in dire need of a workout.”

  “Uhh. Strangely, no. I think I meant to say Cyrano de Bergerac had nothing on you.”

  “Much better. Get that tongue back, won’t you? I’m going to expect to use it.”

  Where? I almost asked, but had a feeling I’d already earned a few extra whacks.

  “I will. Bye. Love you,” I whispered.

  “Bye, sweetheart.”

  I pressed the phone to my chest for a few seconds. This dinner had better not take too long.

  I found myself still smiling as I tucked the phone back into my bag. Klaus was my rock, my soul mate, my lover, my man who delivered me delicious pain over his lap, or with his hand firmly clenched in my hair or his foot on my neck. For an independent-brained feminist it had been some earth-shaking revelation to discover I liked both sadomasochism and this…this power exchange. I wouldn’t have done it for any other man. But I loved him.

  I shook my head. Be gone, fluffy love-smitten thoughts. Work calls. I jogged to catch up to Melissa.

  *****

  Crickets were chirping somewhere. I’d lost track of time. Dark, though. The downlights were on and the windows reflected the black of night. I squinted at my watch then gave up trying to focus. The residual heat of the afternoon must be making me drowsy, though the meal and the wine might have as much to do with it. I didn’t drink often, not anymore.

  From my comfy seat in the corner of the sofa, I smiled lazily across
the coffee table at something Leon murmured to Stephanie. Not much networking going on, but I was cool with that. We were all a little befuzzled. I pulled my legs up, tucked them under me, and cuddled up to the big pillow. I could lie down for a minute. Then maybe I should go home.

  We were celebrating…something…something to do with Leon. Whatever the fuck it was, the champagne was good. My cheek on the soft pillow, through slitted eyes I watched the bubbles in my champagne rise and pop. The tilt of the liquid, as it approached the lip of the glass, warned of imminent spillage but my hand refused to move. My eyes closed like a bank vault.

  Black. Swimmy darkness. There came soft voices. Laughing voices. Something tugged at me, shifted me…the cold glass was gone from my hand. My mouth numb, my heart beating snail-slow, I sank into the sea. I drifted far and deep, though somewhere out there, I knew, I always knew, things were circling me.

  Coolness on my legs. Warmth sliding up them, touching me, under my clothes. Laughing and gentle questions.

  No-no-no, someone said, ever quieter.

  Open your eyes. Open your eyes, but I only sank deeper.

  Delicious shock as the warmth touched where my limbs met and flowed farther, inside…

  I was sinking ever deeper.

  Shark deep.

  Chapter 2

  Klaus

  I was on the phone to Kat when I realized Jodie was really late. I stopped in the middle of explaining yet again that I didn’t know if Jodie would be interested in attending another play party. The other one, a year ago, had left its mark on both of us.

  “Klaus?”

  “Yeah?” I studied my watch. Almost nine. Last time I’d checked it had been ten past eight and not drastically late enough to ring alarm bells. But an hour overdue? My alarm bells turned into a siren for a few seconds. Where had she said she was going?

  “Hey, Kat, did you see that house featured here in Living Houses? Owned by a dentist called Edante. Very nice architectural design and somewhere in millionaire row in Horseshoe Bay?”

  “Um, no. Sorry, I’m not into magazines about houses and shit.”

  “Okay.” I frowned. She had to still be there, yet this late…she’d have called. Our arrangement was for her to inform me if anything stopped her being home on time. I drummed my fingers on the arm of my leather armchair. “Kat. Gotta go. Something I need to do. We can talk tomorrow.”

  “Sure. Sure. Say hello to Jodie for me.”

  “Yep. Will do.”

  Kat was nothing if not persistent and had the tenacity of a cute bulldog. She’d been trying to get into Jodie’s pants again ever since that awful night. It had started well. For a sometime submissive, Kat had made a great Domme. Whenever I heard she was looking for a Dom who was man enough to dominate her, I raised a skeptical eyebrow. The woman liked to boast of all the potential Doms she’d scared off.

  I tried contacting Jodie, only to hear her phone divert me to message bank. My heart did a little screech to a halt before resuming beating. It wasn’t impossible that the battery had run out, or she’d dropped it in a fish tank or something. Just unusual and unlikely. But this was a respectable professional, wasn’t it? A dentist. She’d be perfectly safe, if she were there, at his house.

  Maybe I should check.

  I had no phone number for him.

  “Phone book,” I muttered. Nope, not in there. I grabbed the laptop off the table and fired it up. No number listed online either. “Damn.”

  I needed to figure out if she was there, first, surely. The police wouldn’t be interested in a girlfriend staying over late at a party. Nine o’clock? It wasn’t even midnight, for chrissakes.

  Was I being premature? I swiped my hand down my face. Yes, I was. Nobody was perfect. I should go do something to distract myself. Jodie would turn up soon.

  I found a comedy show on Tivo, slumped back into the lounge with a light beer in hand, and flicked play. One of the benefits of having employed a second accountant was getting a full Saturday off. Next weekend I’d make sure Jodie and I shared the time together. This was ridiculous.

  It reminded me of one of our differences that really wasn’t that different. Jodie and her “I love yous”. I grimaced. She wanted me to say it too but love was such a strange undefinable thing. How in the world was I supposed to know if I suffered from it? If pushed, I was happy to repeat to her how she was my one and only. Because she was. Jodie took that as love, but I knew she wanted me to say it. I liked things I could touch, handle, and count. Love was for poets, not me.

  Half an hour later, I gave up and turned off the TV. I couldn’t stop wondering what Jodie was up to. The least I could do was figure out where the house was. Then…another hour? Yeah, an hour at most. But the six kilometers of roads from Nelly Bay to Horseshoe Bay were tortuous and there was the possibility she’d had an accident.

  Stuff this. I had to know.

  If she wasn’t there, and if she’d left ages before, I’d be getting the police involved. So, plan. Drive to his house and check the road along the way. Except I still didn’t know the address.

  “Right.” I threw down the remote and it bounced onto the floor. I left it there. Where to start? Google?

  Ten minutes later I’d narrowed it down to three possibilities from Google Maps. And she still hadn’t called and wasn’t answering. I practiced wearing a hole in the ceiling by staring at it for another few minutes before I swore, gave in, and grabbed the car keys. I didn’t care if I looked a fool turning up at this private party like some forlorn lover.

  The drive to Horseshoe Bay must have left finger indentations in my steering wheel. Why was I so tense? Jodie was an adult. Even if we had an almost TPE arrangement, she could, if she chose to, terminate it. Or she could be bloody late and get caned extra hard.

  I was getting ever more sure I shouldn’t be thinking those thoughts about punishment. Not now…not when something was wrong. But accountants didn’t have telepathy, did they? This would be nothing…some miscalculation. I pulled over and stared along the steep, rising road.

  As if it would jar loose a brilliant deduction, I scrubbed my fingers back and forth through my hair. Then I resumed driving slowly along the street, trying to decipher numbers in the meager light.

  Fuck. Where was it? And why didn’t millionaires have good street lighting?

  Number twenty-four turned out to be the one. I recognized the house from when I’d cruised along like numerous other rubberneckers, inspecting the award-winning dwelling.

  Three levels, crisp minimalistic design, and a color scheme that tended toward chic white and ocean blues and etched, cantilevered glass. From where I’d parked my jeep under the gum trees, I gazed up the slope. The pinpricks of the stars behind the roofline made it seem fairy tale pretty.

  Time to go ninja style and find Jodie?

  No, first, be polite. I knocked at the front double timber doors with the sculpted wave-patterned handles. Nice, but they were locked. The soft light from the other side of the glass panel showed no flickers that might mean people moved about inside. No one answered the knock. No one called out.

  I knocked again. Nothing. Then a few more times just to be certain.

  I stepped back and looked up again, surveying the second story balcony. A light was on up there.

  The scent of flower blooms sweetened the air. Peaceful, really. There wasn’t a domestic argument to be heard anywhere nearby, or even a piece of rubbish on the poorly lit driveway, or out on the street. A perfect, nice neighborhood. The worst bit of violence came from a possum that had clambered up a tree, a black silhouette against the lighter sky. It set to screeching at its fellow tree dwellers. Maybe it was claiming all the mangos?

  I tsked at myself, hands in my pants pockets. Indecision wasn’t my thing.

  I might be at the wrong house. If I went sneaking about, I might get shot, yelled at, arrested. The law said invading other people’s houses was bad. Apart from liking to beat Jodie, tie her up, and cause her exquisite pain while making
her climax, I wasn’t bad. I was a pillar of society. A pleasant, unassuming accountant who was into kink.

  Still no voices, no noise from inside.

  The sick churning of my stomach when I thought of Jodie, lost or injured, decided me.

  I sighed. “Bugger this.” Sometimes even accountants got a little crazy. Dancing on tables, tooting party horns, and rescuing lost girlfriends from the clutches of millionaires wasn’t just for stock market hotshots. Ninja-ing it was.

  Scaling up to the balcony, where the main living area seemed to be, required a leap from a tree stump, and one determined heave of muscle. Then I swung up my legs and shimmied under the steel-and-wire railings. From an overhanging tree branch, some creature chittered indignantly. But as I padded inside through an open sliding door, I heard no man or woman-made sounds.

  “Hello? Anyone home?”

  Silence.

  I made my way past a long, low coffee table cradled between three sofas. On it was a sprawl of wine glasses, platters with the remains of sushi, and glossy books. After checking out a kitchen, a games room, and an entertainment room, I found the stairs and went up to the third floor.

  The first door, partly open, spilled a wedge of light into the carpeted hallway. I sucked in a breath. If this was the wrong house, here came my police record.

  Some black cloth draped on the floor caught my eye. Underwear. Lacy. With tiny red hearts embroidered along below the elastic.

  Jodie’s. I’d given them to her a week ago.

  Fuck.

  I’d eat my hat if she was having a swinging affair with this guy. No, no way, I’d fucking eat his heart. Fair was fair.

  Except I knew she wasn’t. So, I counted to ten and told myself to relax. Maybe there was a good, plain, simple explanation for this… Nope, couldn’t think of one. I wished I’d brought a gun. But I hadn’t. Being a second dan black belt in judo would have to do.