TangledBound

Tangled & Bound

Emily Ryan-Davis

Friendly, adventurous, sexually
submissive…and a complete stranger. She’s exactly the anonymous,
no-consequences diversion fetish-club owner Sam needs to kick off a few days in
Las Vegas. He doesn’t hesitate to take her up against the door of the in-flight
bathroom.

Powerful, dominant Sam could have
walked straight out of one of Melanie’s dog-eared BDSM novels. When he strikes
up a conversation on a late-evening flight, fictional fantasies become
knee-weakening, panty-soaking, feminine-core-clenching reality. And oh-em-gee,
does she want another taste of that!

When Sam informs her that his plans
don’t include a long-term D/s relationship with an impulsive young blonde for
whom submission is more than likely a passing whim, Melanie throws herself into
convincing him she’s exactly the submissive lover he wants, needs and can’t
live without.

Tangled & Bound

Emily Ryan-Davis

Chapter One

August

Halfway into her nonstop flight from New York to Las Vegas,
Melanie Burke started to squirm. Her restlessness had nothing to do with her
tiny middle-of-the-row seat and everything to do with the muscular, denim-clad
thigh touching her bare leg.

The thigh belonged to a man she’d noticed hours earlier
while waiting to board. In a sea of people wearing jeans and t-shirts, he’d
stood out, and not because of his scuffed cowboy boots and oversized belt
buckle. Well, not only because of those. While the whole Texas horse wrangler
look was out of place in LaGuardia, he certainly wasn’t the only man doing the
Western thing. He
was
the only one doing it well, though.

The nice ass and hand-tooled boots weren’t what had her
snapping a surreptitious pic and forwarding it to her BFF, Brooke, who was a
self-proclaimed expert in all things BDSM. Something else was.

Something
about him declared, “I’m in charge”. Ever
since she’d gotten wet while reading a BDSM-themed novel earlier in the year,
Melanie had become a sneaky people-watcher, looking for the whole “in charge”
vibe Dominant men apparently put off. When she’d despaired ever finding
her
Dom, Brooke had advised her to chill and wait. According to Brooke, Melanie
would just know. She was on the verge of giving up and going back to her normal
sex routine of grad students and bar crawlers, but then she saw
him
.

During boarding call, she’d covertly watched the way he
stood apart from the crowd even while standing in the middle of it. Her
attraction to him was inexplicable. The cowboy look really wasn’t to her taste.
She went for guys with more of a GQ look. He didn’t exude sophisticated power
like the heroes of her dog-eared novels either, but he did take her breath
away. Some part of her she was just discovering wanted to kneel at his feet and
gaze up into his eyes from below.

When she reached her assigned seat on the plane, she was
both startled and thrilled by the coincidence that booked him in the seat next
to hers. Now, as she turned the page of her book, a “mommy porn” title on every
national bestseller list, she sneaked a peek at her in-flight neighbor’s face.

Pale, grass-green eyes met hers. Caught in the act of
looking, startled by the fact she’d caught him in the act too, she quickly
shifted her focus back to the book spread across her fold-down tray.

“Good book?” Her neighbor’s voice wrapped around her, warm
in the too-cold cabin. She pressed her thighs together as her simmering arousal
cranked up a notch.

“Most of the world seems to like it.” She glanced up to find
him still watching her. This time she was prepared for the intensity of his
examination and managed to maintain eye contact. She even did a little looking
of her own, mostly in the form of a closer inspection of his dark-blond evening
stubble and full lips. Those lips quirked while she studied them. They would be
fantastic between her legs.

As if he had access to her little fantasy, his smile
widened.

“I’m not interested in most of the world. Do you like it?”
He reached over, closed the book and turned it so the front cover showed. “Who
would’ve thought a simple neck tie would become so iconic?”

“It’s a very striking cover,” Melanie agreed. But totally
disinteresting to her now. As far as visuals went, he had all her attention.
His shoulders dominated the narrow seat. She seriously wanted to climb astride
his lap and put her hands on him. Maybe rub up against that big belt buckle.
And she wanted to beg him to keep talking. The Midwest meets New York accent
was weirdly fascinating.

“The question still remains whether you’re enjoying the
read.”

“It’s crazy popular—”

“Yes or no?” he interrupted.

Heat flashed through her. Blinking rapidly at her body’s
response to his demanding inquiry, she managed to say, “I’m not sure.”

“There’s a simple way to tell.” He leaned close and spoke
directly into her ear. “If you’re wet right now, you’re enjoying the book.”

The powerful confidence of his voice stirred something low
in her abdomen. She was wet before his lips brushed her ear. Now she felt
soaked.

“Answer me, honey.” He touched her chin and tilted her head
at a slight angle. Calloused fingertips settled on a spot just below her jaw.
“Your heart’s racing, but I don’t think you’re scared. I think that book has
you so hot, you’re dying to slip your hand into your panties.”

“The book isn’t that good.” She summoned the remaining
shreds of her self-possession and managed to teasingly say, “Maybe I’m enjoying
you.”

“Not yet, you’re not.” He straightened and flagged a flight
attendant.

Melanie raised an eyebrow but kept quiet. It was almost a
relief to share his attention with somebody else and she needed a minute to
breathe.

When the flight attendant reached them, her green-eyed man
didn’t request a drink as Melanie expected. Instead, he said, “The lady’s
getting cold. Would you bring a blanket?”

She started to protest but he put his hand on her knee and
the simple silencing gesture sparked such an internal display of fireworks that
she forgot what she was supposed to be objecting to. She couldn’t see where he
touched her because the plastic tray was still pulled down, but she could feel.
Oh boy, she could feel. That touch said things she wasn’t sure it should say,
but she didn’t want to contradict it.

“Put the book away, honey.” He stroked her knee with his
thumb and lightly squeezed her inner thigh.

Wanting to obey but certain she should at least try to fight
the urge to surrender, she said, “I’m trying to read it.”

To prove her claim, she stared at her book. Goose bumps
spread across her skin. They had zero to do with the temperature in the cabin
or her choice in attire, a lightweight sundress to combat the August heat. Up
until he touched her, she was perfectly comfortable in the strapless blue dress
she’d chosen that afternoon.

Speaking so softly nobody but she could hear, and so close
she could smell the subtle notes of shaving cream used hours and hours ago, he
said, “The real thing is much better than what you’ll read about between those
covers. Put it away.”

“The real thing?” She turned toward him to ask the question,
and that was a mistake. His breath mingled with hers. She could practically
taste the mint she smelled. Trying to keep her head on her shoulders, she asked
for clarification. “Sex? Because duh. Or do you mean…”

Not quite sure how to word what she needed to ask, she
trailed off and stared at him expectantly. He quickly supplied what she
couldn’t voice.

“Submission. That’s what you’re reading about.” His smile
returned, faint at the corners of his mouth. “Critics are calling that a
gateway book. Were you surprised by your response to it?”

Melanie nibbled at her bottom lip and tried to ground
herself by taking stock of her surroundings. Her other neighbor continued to
snore. Very little conversation was happening in the cabin, nothing more than
the occasional murmur of sound between traveling companions. Most other
passengers sat in the dark of a nighttime flight, their seats reclined and
their eyes closed. A few read by the glow of tablets or e-readers, and tinny
whispers of music came from two dozen sets of headphones. An action-heavy movie
flickered on a screen up ahead. Nobody paid a bit of attention to Melanie and
her impending erotic encounter.

“This isn’t my first book. I knew what I was looking for.”
Her voice quaked a little, which only seemed to amuse him. She raised an eyebrow.
“Are you laughing at me? I suppose
you
have years and years of
experience tying women to beds and…whatever else gets you off.”

“Years and years about covers it, but I’m not laughing.
Power exchange doesn’t amuse me. Are you going to put that book away and let me
keep going?”

God. His hand was so hot on her leg, practically between her
legs. And she was seriously wet, partly from the erotic novel but mostly from
the promise in his intense gaze. Making her choice, she stashed her paperback
in the pocket on the seat in front of her and secured the tray. Once she had a
clear view of his fingers splayed on her skin, she knew any semblance of
control she had over the situation was completely gone. She’d given it over to
him.

The flight attendant returned with a blanket, which
Melanie’s mystery man shook out and spread across her lap. He reached up to
turn off her reading light. In the sudden dimness, she forgot how to breathe.
Some sane part of her brain warned her to stop things
right now
. The
reckless, thrill-seeking part that she too often obeyed urged her to part her
knees beneath the blanket. In honor of her tiny remaining sense of public
decorum, she closed her eyes. If anybody happened to look her way, she didn’t
want to know.

“Lean your seat back and hold the armrests. Don’t move your
hands.”

He spoke so softly, yet with an authoritative quality she
couldn’t refuse. As she angled back into a reclining position and gripped the
hard plastic armrests, it occurred to her that she was doing something foolish.
She didn’t even know his name. Instead of asking, she blew out a slow breath
and inched down in the seat, closer to his stroking fingers.

He didn’t rush to accept her invitation. Instead, he started
talking to her again. “Do you belong to someone, honey?”

Swallowing, she shook her head. Behind her closed eyes, the
flickering scenes of the movie created crazy patterns not much different from
the lines and circles and swirls he drew on her inner thigh with his short
fingernails. Just when she thought he was going to go all the way up her short
skirt, he scratched a path back to her knee. The goose bumps didn’t let up
either, and a fresh wave tightened her nipples.

“If you were mine,” he said, “that’s not the answer you’d
give a man who asked that question.”

If she were his, she’d probably melt into a hot puddle of
need on the floor. She squeezed her eyes shut tighter. “What else?”

“What else if you were mine?” His fingers ventured up her
thigh again, feather-light strokes beneath her skirt.

Melanie nodded and tilted her hips, angling toward him. When
he touched her through her panties, she whimpered. He probed gently, testing
the material’s give and tracing a path down the valley between her swollen
lips.

“If you were mine, I wouldn’t cover you up with that blanket.
I’d make you spread your knees wide and lift your dress so anybody who looked
could see how pretty and wet you are.” He hooked his finger behind the narrow
strip of cloth covering her pussy and tugged, drawing the sodden fabric away
from her skin. “I’d pull your top down too, and let those hard little nipples
go free.”

“Why don’t you do that anyway?” she whispered, half afraid
he would, half afraid he wouldn’t.

“Because you’re not mine,” he said, with what sounded like
regret.

Her chest tightened. That wasn’t what she wanted him to say,
wasn’t how their exchange should be going. She mentally revised his words to
better fit the fantasy she wanted to live.

Because you’re mine and I don’t feel like sharing right
now. Would you rather I shared?

No Sir. I love being just yours.

That’s good, honey, since you don’t have any other
choice.

Her imagination stopped there, unable to fill in what he’d
do next, reminding her that she didn’t know him at all. Swallowing, she asked,
“What else would you do?”

“You’re not ready for that either.”

But he touched her, long fingers sinking into her while he
cupped her mound and squeezed, and she didn’t care to argue. The way he flexed
his hand, he stimulated her clit with her own soft, wet folds. The sensation
was miles away from what she associated with manual stimulation, more like
being licked than touched, and she wanted his mouth on her. Until he pumped his
fingers, reminding her she could feel in more than one place at the same time.

Curling his fingers inside her, he compressed her clit from
inside and out. Liquid pleasure flooded all her receptors. Her back arched like
a fully drawn bow and she gasped so loud she didn’t know how the snoring
businessman didn’t wake up then and there.

Horrified by her inability to keep quiet, she started to
cover her mouth with her hands but, at the last minute, remembered his
instructions to keep her hands on the arm rests. Her forearms strained with the
effort to obey him. As she bit down on the insides of her lips and swallowed
the moan that threatened to vibrate into the quiet of the cabin, a barrage of
thoughts crashed through her head. Most thoughts were of the extremely-bad-idea
variety, with one notion that she should try to hurry. The sooner she came, the
sooner she could stop worrying about attracting an audience. Or getting
arrested by airport security in Vegas.

“Stop thinking,” he whispered directly into her ear. “Stop
worrying. Even if people can hear, they’re socially conditioned not to look.”

Melanie swallowed and turned toward him. Their lips brushed
and her eyes flew open at the unexpected contact. Surprise flashed across his
face too, along with something else, and his fingers stopped moving. Only for
an instant. He wrestled the surprise out of view and started moving again,
vigorous strokes that had her biting down on his shoulder. When he thumbed her
folds apart between thrusts and pressed directly against her clit, she broke.
Her instincts waged a war inside her, half demanding she hold on to him for
safety, the other half demanding she keep her hands in place because he’d told
her to do so. Obedience won—she couldn’t seem to physically lift her hands from
the armrests.

Cotton and muscle muffled her startled cry as he cradled the
back of her head and tucked her face against his chest, keeping her from
spinning off without an anchor. She couldn’t have escaped even if she’d wanted
to. He held her to the seat, pinning her with his still-moving fingers while
she jerked with small, deep convulsions.