A is for…(11)

“I’d want to try more than one?”

“I’m just thinking of you, love.”

Anna raised one brow.

Jensen grinned, totally unrepentant. “Right arm.”

He slid the sleeve onto her, then started to tighten it. The leather was smooth on the inside, and covered her from above her biceps to her palm. Her fingers were free, but a wide strap went around her palm, locking the sleeve in place with her thumb pressed against her hand, almost like a fingerless mitten. Laces ran up the side, allowing it to be tightened. Jensen adjusted it until it was snug, but not tight. The leather was thick and stiff, and she could bend her elbow only a little bit. Buckles around her wrist, elbow and upper arm made sure she couldn’t slip it off.

Anna’s breath caught when he was done with it. If she’d seen another sub wearing this, she would have assumed it was decorative more than functional, but it felt like he’d wrapped her in rope. Though it wasn’t restrictive, it was holding her, owning her. Suddenly she wanted nothing more than to bend her arm, the one thing she couldn’t do.

“How does it feel?”

“It’s strange. I didn’t think it would make me feel like this.”

“Explain.” He started to work the second sleeve onto her free arm.

Anna fought the urge to back away. “It’s big, and heavy. I can’t bend my elbow. I didn’t think it would make me feel so…so owned.”

“Owned?” He paused to cup her chin and kissed her hard and fast. “You’re damned right, you’re owned.”

Anna smiled and dipped her head, submitting as Jensen finished lacing her other arm up. Once he was done, he added padded restraints to her ankles and thighs.

“Okay, into bed.” He threw back the covers.

“Like this?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t sleep like this.”

“You’re going to.”

Anna sat, the thick cuffs around her thighs rubbing each other. She lay flat on her back, her heavy arms resting at her sides.

Jensen climbed in beside her.

“I can’t move,” she said.

“Maybe I’ll get some sleep.”

“You always sleep.”

“Only because I can sleep though a beating. You punched me in the kidney last week.”

Anna choked back a laugh. “I did not.”

“You’re the most restless sleeper I ever met.” He looped the straps that dangled from the ends of the sleeves through the “D” rings in the cuffs on her thighs.

“So I have to stay like this all night?”

“No. I’m not fastening the straps. They will pull free if you work at it, so you can change position. However, every time I wake up I’ll strap you in again.”

Anna had slept in restraints before. It hadn’t made her feel much besides stiff and slightly irritated—she did like to move around in her sleep. But that was before Jensen. As he turned out the lights and pulled the covers over them, her body started to tingle. Her nipples were stiff, rubbing against the sheet. Her pussy started to throb. She held still, tried to calm her mind, to relax, but sleep wouldn’t come.

“Master?”

He grunted.

“I can’t sleep.”

“Are your arms okay? Anna you have to tell me if it’s too tight.” He touched her fingers, checking to make sure they were still warm. If the sleeves were too tight they would restrict circulation to her fingers, which would get cold.

“My arms are okay.”

“What is it?”

“I’m…I’m…” Anna was at a loss for words. She wouldn’t have had any trouble telling him she was aroused in the heat of a scene, but somehow lying here, helpless, made it seem like a strange thing to say.

After a moment of silence, his hand slid from hers, across her belly to the mound of her sex. Anna parted her legs. He dipped his fingers in.

“You’re soaked. I didn’t think you liked overnight bondage.”

“I don’t.”

“Really?” He rubbed her clit and Anna arched up off the bed.

Master Jensen cupped her pussy, his palm over her mound, two fingers nestled between the lips of her sex, the others alongside the outer lips. He dragged his pillow next to hers, and lay down on his side. “Go to sleep, Anna.”

“Like this?”

“Yes.”

Within minutes Jensen was asleep, his hand cupping her sex. It was a long time before Anna joined him.





Anna jerked awake. She’d tried to roll over, but her legs wouldn’t straighten out. After a minute of maneuvering, she realized that at some point she’d curled up, and Jensen had attached the straps from the sleeves to the ankle restraints, essentially hogtying her.

He was sleeping beside her, lying on his back with his head turned away. She tugged until the straps slipped free and she was able to straighten her legs. Lying on her back she stared at the ceiling.

Quiet mornings were hard for her—they allowed for too much thinking. Anna usually fell into bed exhausted at night, so mornings were when her mind raced. It didn’t help that she’d been in the middle of a bad dream, the same one she’d had for years.

In the dream, she was sitting in a stiff plastic chair in a waiting room. That was the whole dream—waiting. Waiting for news, waiting for her heart to break.

Anna closed her eyes, willing away the memory, and the accompanying feelings. She was here now, getting what she needed. Jensen was right beside her.

But she could still remember the smell of that waiting room—coffee and old paper. She’d sat in a plastic chair until her legs went numb. She’d lied to get in there, saying she was the soldier’s fiancée, instead of his ex-girlfriend. She’d been in her final year of law school at the time and she couldn’t help but run through the ramifications if she were caught lying to the US Army. Eighteen hours after she’d gotten the terrifying phone call, and fifteen since she’d arrived at the base, a trim woman in a frumpy suit had stopped in to tell her that the boy she loved was alive. She’d pressed her hands over her face and sobbed, finally pulling herself together enough to ask when she’d be able to see him.

They were college sweethearts who’d carried their relationship over as he went off to the army, fulfilling his ROTC obligation. She’d worked at a non-profit for a year after graduation before starting law school. He’d come back from his first tour tired and bitter, mumbling about shitty equipment and even shittier maintenance plans. She’d listened, but hadn’t really heard, too wrapped up in the drama of her first year of law school. Over the course of the next year, they’d grown apart. Anna had slipped into the polished, wealthy world of law, while the boy she loved struggled and slogged through war zones, piloting helicopters.

The last time she’d seen him she’d dragged him to a cocktail party, despite the fact that he was due back at the base early the next morning. The firm she wanted to work for was hosting the party, and she needed to make an impression if she was going to land the all-important summer internship. She’d wanted to show off her handsome US Army Lieutenant. In the world of trim lawyers he was a gladiator, his height and imposing physique making him seem like a god among mortals.

He’d been quiet and standoffish, finally telling someone point blank that the thing they were talking about was stupid. The night had ended with them screaming at each other, all the differences that now separated them mounting up like a wall neither one was willing to scale. He’d packed his things and left. Anna cried herself to sleep, and by the time she woke up the next morning it was too late—he was already in transit to the Middle East.

Eighteen months later she’d received a call from the Army. He hadn’t updated his emergency contact information, and when the phone call woke her, some instinct had kept her from revealing that they hadn’t spoken in eighteen months. He’d been in a helicopter crash and was being brought home for medical treatment. She’d jumped in her car and raced down to Camp Pendleton, tears streaming down her face.

That was three years ago.

Anna turned her head, looked at Jensen’s scarred back. As if he felt her looking, he rolled over, rubbing a hand over his face. He blinked, then frowned.

“Anna? You okay, love? You hurting?”

“I’m okay.”

“You’re crying.”

“I am? I didn’t realize.”

“What’s going on?” He undid the buckles on her left arm.

“I was having a bad dream.”

His fingers stilled. “The waiting room dream?”

“Yes.”

He pulled the sleeves off her. “Come here.”

Anna cuddled against his side, breathing in his scent. He let her rest there for a while, but then his hand stroked her from collar bone to hip, fingers bumping over her nipple. “Anna, you haven’t been addressing me properly.”

From one breath to the next, Anna’s mood went from melancholy to excited. “I’m sorry, Master.”

He rolled her onto her belly, stroking her back and ass. “I can still see the marks from the abrasion. I like it.”

“I liked it too, Master.”

“And this?” His hand slipped between the cheeks of her ass, rubbing her anus. Anna sucked in a breath.

“I’m sore, Master.”