Free By My Choice...: A Valentine's Day Story (Valentine's Day Stories) by Christine Blackthorn

anchor in a maelstrom of confusing and frightening emotions; and he gave freely, held her body to his when she thought she might shake apart.  
    His kiss was not enough anymore to calm the liquid heat sensitising her skin to the level of pain, but it was enough to give her a moment of respite, though these moments grew shorter and shorter. She was breathless, her lips bruised, her eyes full of fear and lost trepidation when her mind allowed her to relate back to her surrounding. When he was certain of her attention, his long fingers took the hand with which she held to tightly to his shoulder and placed a gentle kiss on her palm. Then, with deliberation, he stretched her hand over her head so that he could place it into the cuff attached to the headboard over her head. She did not resist, not physically.
    “No.”
    But she knew he would do it anyway. The cuff was warm and soft, the harsh leather outside shielded from her skin by soft felt. It confined her wrist in a safe hold.  
    “I am sorry, Jen. There are few ErGer and few masters who would speak to me about the process of bonding, fewer still whose advice I would trust with your safety. Lucian is one of them and he suggested I limit your freedom of movement tonight, for your own protection.”
    Lucian? The only Region Lord she knew under this name, though she had never met him in person, was Lucian Neben, the Lord of London.
    “There is no ErGer in London.”
    She was certain of this, ErGer were too precious, too rare not to be known across all the lands. And their effects on the power levels of a Lord were too high to be missed by anyone.  
    “There is now.” There was satisfaction in his tone. “Kathryn has made her home there.”
    Kathryn McClusky, the mythical ErGer who had escaped bonding for over a decade now. So, even she had been caught. Jen wanted to make a comment regarding the different views of Kathryn and Lucian as to what “making a home” might mean, but her own body did not let her. Pain became an all consuming presence shivering over her skin, snagging on her clothes, on every centimetre where her body touched anything, and leaving her in temporary agony. She was almost glad for the ties that held her down, bound her wrists to the bed and restrained her in this moment.  
    Jen felt his hands on her, felt them skim her sides, unhook her bra, and when he realised he would not be able to take it off her with her hands bound, snap the straps. He made short work of her jeans and panties as well and wherever his hands touched her skin, the agony dulled, transmuted into something different, something which straddled the line between pleasure and pain. She had no idea when he lost his own clothes, when he stretched out over her, only conscious of the solace his skin, his taste, his scent gave her. She thought she might shatter under the tension when his fingers stroked over her entrance, testing, stretching. She knew she was tight, very tight after three years of no sex, of not finding even an ounce of interest for any man, or woman for that matter, but she could feel the moisture, the wet heat his fingers spread over her and knew her body was more than ready for him.  
    Her first orgasm ripped though her as soon as he began to enter her, to stretch her in a way which should have been uncomfortable but was so bound up in the need riding her body it became part of the pleasure. He sheathed himself and then simply waited whilst the trembling waves of pleasure curled her toes up and left her shaking. She wanted to grab for him, to hold onto his shoulders, to give herself an anchor but the bonds on her wrists kept her in place, immutably, securely. His eyes were the only thing she could centre herself on. Their green depth held her as her own body betrayed her to this stranger.  
    Whilst her body’s trembling calmed, her mind’s reeling cleared and she felt strangely protected in his care. He was right, there was nothing she could do. It was either him