"It's a ritual to show that she trusts you," Daniel said.
Jack was doing his level best to walk away from the whole situation as fast as he could.
Daniel trotted to keep up.
"And why do we have to prove that she trusts me?"
"Because if she trusts to do it, then they can trust you to trade with you."
"And why Carter? Why not you? Or Teal'c?"
"Because she's the woman. And they do this with women here."
"Of course they do," Jack muttered.
Leave it to SG-1 to end up on the planet with the alien shibari ritual. And of course he was going to have to tie up his lovely second in command. He tried to be good. He really did. But shit like this always seemed to happened to them.
"Jack, you've got to come back."
"No, I've got to get the paracord out of Teal'c's pack."
"What? Why?"
"Because if I'm going to tie her up, I'm going to do it safely."
Daniel stopped walking. "Uh, Jack?"
But Jack kept going. He didn't want to answer any questions.
Twenty minutes later he stood in front of Carter who was wearing the local traditional top and some thin looking pants and was holding a silk blindfold. "Carter, I..."
"It's okay, sir," she said softly. "What's a little rope between friends?" She smiled, but it quivered a little. She was afraid. Damn.
"The rope has to pass over the front of her body at least a dozen times," Daniel said quietly from a couple of feet away. "The ties must restrain her. And it's better if it's intricate. Beautiful, even. Do you-"
"I can do it, Daniel," Jack said without taking his eyes of Sam's. He watched as her eyes widened with the knowledge that not only was he going to tie her up be he knew how to do it right.
"Oh," the younger man said, clearly surprised, "okay."
The rope he held in his hands was tan colored and at least forty feet long. It was silky and it wouldn't burn her skin where it touched and rubbed as she moved. "I guess it's time to put that on," he nodded towards her hands and the blindfold.
"Okay."
He watched her hands tremble as she lifted the blindfold and tied it into place.
He knew he could tie a karada relatively quickly. And then he could frog tie her to fulfil the 'restraint' part of the prescription. It had been years since he'd done this, but some knowledge just stayed with a guy.
He found the center of the rope and then hung the rope around her neck, the center right on her vertebrae. The long tails of the rope hung down in front of her and he twisted it over her sternum three times.
"Stand with your legs shoulder width apart," he instructed her quietly. "I'm going to pass the rope between your legs, okay?"
She licked her lips and slowly nodded twice.
He took a deep breath and then pushed the rope between her legs. Her breath caught which caused him to exhale quickly through his nose making his nostrils flare. He worked fast, but it still took him a good fifteen minutes to tie the rope harness into place.
The first pattern he tied drew the rope over her hips. He secured the rope in the bottom twist he'd made before, then passed the rope around her body again, placing the rope beneath her breasts. She gasped when he brought the ropes back around her body to settle about five inches above the previous pass. The configuration highlighted her breasts, even though she was dressed in the robe-like top the natives had given her.
When he was done there was a diamond pattern criss-crossing down her torso with horizontal passes of the rope disappearing behind her back.
He looked carefully at her face, at the set of her mouth since he couldn't see her eyes. Her mouth was soft with none of the tension he expected and her lips were parted slightly. It didn't escape his notice that her breaths were quick and shallow.
He watched her chest expand into the rope and had an instant flash of wanting to see the rope against her skin rather than against the alien fabric. He squeezed his eyes shut and willed his overactive id to take a backseat to his super-ego.
He took a place up behind her and finished the binding leaving long tails of the rope hanging down that he would soon use to restrain her. He leaned forward so his mouth was next to her ear. "I need you to kneel."
She stiffened immediately.
"Trust me," he whispered.
Without any further hesitation she sank to her knees.
A powerful bolt of awareness surged through him at her easy acquiescence. It didn't hurt that she was wearing a karada, the ropes pressing into her gently, enticingly. Even with the barrier of the clothing it was a striking image.
He looked down at her noting the rapid rise and fall of her chest and the flush on her cheeks. She was squirming with discomfort despite her obvious interest in what was happening. Whether the discomfort came from doing this with witnesses or doing this with him, he wasn't sure.
With skill and dexterity, he bound her thighs to her lower legs gently but securely. Then he bound her hands at the small of her back. She couldn't stand if she wanted to – she was sufficiently restrained.
Jack spared a look at Daniel who looked equal parts impressed and concerned before turning his attention back to Carter who was now bound and all but ready for something which generally came after the tying. Something his body was screaming for after the work he did. Something he was going to deny himself.
Carter was still flushed and her breaths were heavy, audible through her parted lips. She squirmed discreetly against the rope between her legs. And Jack really, really wished he hadn't seen that.
There was some murmuring off to the side and Jack's attention was pulled from Carter. Daniel was speaking in low tones with the man who set this whole thing into motion. They went back and forth for a few minutes and then Daniel nodded and took a step towards Jack. "It's done. You can untie her now."
"Do they trust us?" Jack asked caustically.
"We've fulfilled the requirement. We can be trade partners now."
Jack just nodded and then knelt next to Carter and reached for the knot that bound her hands. Slowly, probably more slowly than he needed to for propriety's sake but slowly enough that she could come down from her high at a pace that would leave her feeling a little more connected, he unbound her. After untying the frog tie, he helped her to her feet. Her hand was hot in his.
He untied the karada and tried not to feel the heat of the rope that had been situated between her legs. That way lied madness and he was already hanging on by a thread.
When the rope was securely back in his hands and not touching her at all, she lifted her hands to her blindfold. Before she removed she asked quietly, "Okay?"
"Yeah, Carter," Jack said, his voice a little gruff, "it's okay."
She wouldn't meet his eye once she'd uncovered hers. She seemed embarrassed. He didn't know what to say to her. The tying he'd done was meant to be arousing. It was the only tying he knew how to do. Maybe these people didn't tie for the same reason. Or, well, maybe they did. All he knew was that his second in command had been turned on by what he'd done to her and now she looked like she wanted nothing more than to escape.
"You're dismissed, Major," Jack said softly.
She practically ran in the direction of their accommodations. Jack didn't know what he was supposed to be feeling but the corresponding arousal he felt was feeling more and more wrong as time went on.
He, Daniel and Teal'c went on about the business of securing a trade deal that evening. A few people asked about Carter and Daniel or Jack made excuses for her. By the time it was time to retire, Jack was really worried that maybe he'd crossed a line. Maybe he should have feigned ignorance and tied little bows all down her front. Maybe he should have done anything but tie her up the way he had.
He went looking for her.
He found her in his room, back in her BDUs, sitting on a chair near the window that looked out over the city.
"Carter," he said, surprised. "Where have you been?" It was then he noticed she had the cerulean blue rope from her pack coiled up in her lap. The possibilities rushed to his neglected cock. He had to make a joke out of this before it turned, in his head, into something it wasn't. "Want me to tie you up again?"
The look on her face made the joke fall flat. Because that was clearly exactly what she wanted. She took a step towards him and held out the rope.
He took the rope from her, held it in both his hands, studied it instead of her. When he looked back up at her, she stripped her BDU jacket off. She leaned over and took off first one boot and sock and then the others. When she stood again, his mouth was agape. Surely this wasn't happening.
She reached for the button on her trousers and his brain short-circuited and the only thing he could get out was her name, "Sam..."
"Trust me," she said and undid him.
He nodded once giving her permission to push her pants to the floor. She stripped her t-shirt over her head as she kicked her legs free. In front of him she stood in basic black underwear and a sports bra. And he was pretty sure he'd never seen something more provocative in his life than a tousled and nervous Sam Carter in her skivvies.
"Nice," he said, passing the rope from one hand to the other, "but it all goes."
As she hesitated, he wondered for a second if he'd pushed too far. But then she pulled the sports bra over her head. Her breasts relaxed on her chest as she put her arms down. They were perfect – their weight causing them to cup at the bottom, her nipples already hard and ready for his touch. But he wasn't going to touch her, not for a while, not until he'd tied her up.
She pushed her underwear down her hips and he watched the scrap of fabric slide down her legs to the floor. Then, he lifted his eyes to the juncture of her thighs. She maintained herself nicely, he wasn't at all surprised to find. A small almost golden patch of hair and then smooth skin caught his gaze. He knew he was staring when she shifted her weight from one foot to the other.
When he lifted his eyes to hers she didn't look quite so nervous anymore. Perhaps it was the hungry way in which he was looking at her. No, they weren't supposed to be doing this, but he wasn't supposed to tie her up in front of a crowd, either.
She took another step towards him and then, very deliberately, she positioned her feet shoulder width apart. It was time to begin.
This time, after finding the center of the rope, he let his fingers linger on the warm skin of her neck and shoulders as he positioned the rope. And if his fingertips brushed over the swells of her breasts as he twisted the rope, it was just happenstance. Carter... Sam... was breathing deeply causing her breasts to rise and fall and snag his gaze.
When he passed the rope between her legs, the backs of his fingers brushed against the warm, dewy petals of flesh that covered the parts of her that were screaming to him to let her feel pleasure. But he had a job to do, and it was a job she wanted done.
He brought the rope up over her hips, the same way he'd done earlier, only this time he could see her hip bones. He rubbed his thumbs over them making her shiver. When he made the pass under her breasts he concentrated on the weight of them against the backs of his hands as he swayed in close. Her skin was heated and she smelled like Minnesota in the summer – all fresh and warm. The rope pass that went over her breasts was enough to bring him from ready to insistent as finished the frame of her breasts.
When he had the rope completely set across the front of her body, he couldn't help but notice the way the blue rope set off her pale, pale skin. The way it highlighted the pink of her nipples. The way it just so slightly bit into her flesh and made his fingers itch to do the same..
From behind her he finished tying the karada. He admired the way the blue rope passed between her buttocks and curved up over her hips. He wished he'd taken the time to tie a pleasure knot into the harness for her, but in truth, he was more interested in giving her the pleasure himself, anyway.
He walked back around to stand in front of her and admire his work. Her skin was flushed pink from cheeks to chest. Her breaths were rapid and shallow. She licked at her parted lips. The blue ropes disappeared between her legs nestling in the crevices between her slit and her thighs. It was framing the place he wanted to touch her the most. The place where he knew by now her body was begging to be touched.
"Do you want me to restrain you?" he asked her hoarsely.
"I want to be able to touch you."
He wanted that too, very much.
In a past life he'd have restrained her anyway. And he'd have had the tools to flog her skin just enough to raise the pink and get her blood flowing. He'd have laid her out across his bed and teased her with tools designed to bring the most pleasurable kind of discomfort.
But this woman, he didn't need to make her submit to him. She did that on a daily basis. And the fact that she did it willingly, and to a point voluntarily, gave him as much rise as taking her submission from her would have.
He adjusted himself in his pants, let her watch him do it. Her eyes were dark and heavy lidded.
When he touched her she shivered. He only wrapped his fingers around her arm and steered her backwards until the backs of her thighs hit the end of the bed. Without having to be told, she sat. She scootched back on the bed until she could lie down in the center of the big thing. Then... then she spread her legs.
She was pink, so pink, flushed with desire. Her skin glistened with it. She was wet with want and it took everything he had not to slide his fingers through the evidence of her arousal. He wanted to feel it, to smell her, to taste her. He wanted to feel it soaking his cock. He wanted so many things all at once that for long moments he did nothing but stand there and stare at her.
She raised her hips slightly in what he could only guess was invitation. One he wasn't going to turn down.
He undressed hastily, careful to maneuver around the hard evidence of exactly how much this was affecting him. He never took his eyes off her as he removed his clothes and he was gratified to see the way her eyes went wide and hungry at the sight of his naked, aroused body.
He felt virile and desirable when she looked at him that way. It suddenly didn't matter that he was pushing fifty or that his hair was grey – everywhere – or that he had a multitude of scars on his body marking a multitude of sins. She wanted him, clearly, the way he wanted her.
He knew the feelings they pretended not to have played a role. And if anything, that just made the knowledge sweeter. Knowing how she felt about him, and that she wanted him, and that he was capable of making her feel the way she felt without even really touching her... it made him feel more like a man than anything had in a good long while.
He climbed onto the bed next to her, stretched out alongside her long, toned, tied body. The skin next to the rope was now so sensitive, he knew, so he fingered the pale flesh over her hip, tripping from rope to skin to rope and back again. She squirmed towards him trying to get more.
Her nipples called out to him. So pink, the color of the inside of her, the color of her lips, and so hard. He brushed one first with the pad of his thumb and listened for the hiss of breath that followed the motion. The one closest to him he laved with his tongue pulling a sound out of her that he'd catalogue and replay when he was back home, alone.
She raised a hand to the back of his head and held him to her breast, encouraging him to suck the little bud into his mouth. When he had her body rolling with pleasure next to him, he bit down gently causing her to gasp and push her hips down into the soft mattress seeking some measure of relief.
He trailed a hand down her sternum, over the bumps of the rope, down her flat belly to the space between her legs she'd shown him to beg him for attention. The first slip of his fingertips against her was like coming home. She made a wanton sound he couldn't help but echo with a groan as he felt her heat, her wetness on his skin.
He teased her, his fingertips swirling around her clit until she begged with her body for his fingers to enter her. He placated her with his hands for as long as he could before she was moving restlessly and making little frustrated, thwarted noises.
He couldn't help but kiss her lips, drink up all those little sounds she was making, rub his tongue against hers, so hot and slippery. Slippery like the rest of her. It made him want to taste all of her, not just her sweet mouth.
Without grandeur, he shifted until he was positioned over her and with a quick but sincere, "Ready?" - and then her nod – he slid first against her slit and then, happily, inside her.
Her body clutched at him in a way that made him worry that he wouldn't be able to hold out for her. It had been a long time and she felt so good, so slick, so warm... He pulled out and pushed back in setting up a quick rhythm. The sound their bodies made together was wet and sloppy and turned him on so much he was having trouble thinking of anything except the next thrust.
Until she reached between them to settle her fingers on her clit.
He realized that while she may want to be filled, that wasn't enough to push her over the edge. He pulled out of her completely and she made that frustrated sound again, but he shushed her with his lips against her clit.
He devoured her.
He sucked her clit between his lips and drew on her until she keened. He released her little bundle of nerves only to flick at it relentlessly with a stiff tongue. He worked her over until her hips were rolling against his face and he could tell by the frenzy of her movements and the feel of her fingers in his hair that she was close. Very, very close.
And then he filled her again with his hard, dripping cock as he pressed his thumb against her clit. He made fast circles as he thrust into her. She threw her hands over her head and clutched at the pillows. He drove into her, causing her breasts to bounce. Her head tossed back and forth as she rocketed towards completion.
And then she was coming on him. Her channel rippling around his hard-on. Her voice was a hoarse and gentle scream of pleasure – quiet enough that he knew she was still conscious of her surroundings, but with enough release to give the pleasure somewhere to go.
Her orgasm evened out into tiny little ripples that massaged his cock as he began thrusting again, chasing his own release. It didn't take long and then he was forced to choose between emptying himself inside her or coming on her alabaster skin.
He pulled out, holding onto himself as white ribbons of pleasure splashed against the wet flesh between her legs. Lazily she reached down and settled her fingers on her clit, swiping at it gently, rubbing the evidence of what they'd done into herself. Seeing her fingers soaking in his ejaculate was doing things to his brain that he didn't want to admit to.
She made a lazy, happy sound that caused him to look at her face. He could see she'd been watching him watch her play in his mess.
"You could have come inside me," she said, but then she lifted her fingers to her mouth, to taste the two of them together.
"Oh, this had its advantages," he said and slowly moved himself to stretch out beside her on the bed. "Give me a minute and I'll go get a washcloth."
She nodded, a happy smile on her face, and her eyes slipping closed.
He coaxed her to roll onto her side and started the task of untying her. Together, they freed her from the rope. When that was done he pushed himself up from the comfort of the bed and retrieved from the ensuite the washcloth he had promised.
Gently, he wiped her clean.
"I knew this was going to happen from the moment you told Daniel you knew how to tie me up properly."
"You like being tied up?" He reached out and traced the lines left on her skin by the rope. Even though she hadn't been tied tightly or uncomfortably, they'd left their mark.
"I wouldn't have liked it if it hadn't been you," she confessed.
"You trusted me," he said, a little awe in his voice. He knew, on a level, she did. But this was beyond that.
"I'll always trust you."
His eyes slipped close as he hoped that would always be the case. But he knew better than most the cost of doing business in their line of work.
"Sir," she said softly, and he knew she chose the honorific on purpose, despite what they'd just done, to prove something about their relationship, "I'll always trust you. I may not always agree with you, but I'll always trust you."
He smiled. That was his girl. Not that he'd ever let her catch him saying such a thing. "I trust you, too, Sam." Her name chosen purposely, too.
She sighed and turned into his side. He wrapped an arm around her. Everything that came next could come later as far as he was concerned. And he closed his eyes.