The month stacked up like timber against the cabin wall. Bryce had stopped counting somewhere around the third Saturday, when the mornings turned crisp enough that he started his coffee before the sun.
The cabin was taking shape. Slow, but taking shape.
The internal walls were lined now, the joints stopped but nothing painted. It still looked unfinished, but less like a building site and more like somewhere somebody actually lived.
Above the bed, Bryce had installed something considerably more substantial than the screw Holly had made him put into the bare stud weeks earlier.
Holly hadn’t been around.
That was normal. That was Holly. She’d vanish into whatever adventure caught her attention and reappear when the mood struck, always with a story and a laugh and that look in her eye that said she’d found something interesting.
Bryce had stopped checking his phone for her name.
Friday afternoon found him finishing a job outside when he heard a car coming up the drive.
The crunch of gravel under tyres.
An engine that wasn’t the Ironstone ute.
He straightened and watched a dusty hatchback roll to a stop beside his ute.
The door opened.
Holly unfolded herself from the driver’s seat, a faded denim jacket over a tank top, riding boots on her feet, an overnight bag slung over one shoulder. Her blue hair was pulled back in a messy knot, and she was grinning like she’d just won something.
“Miss me?”
Bryce smiled.
“I was starting to think you’d fallen off the edge of the earth.”
“Nah. Just the edge of Queensland.”
She walked toward him and dropped the bag at his feet.
“Brought everything we need.”
He looked at the bag, then at her.
“For what?”
Holly’s grin widened.
“The weekend. I’ve got it all planned.”
“You’ve got the whole weekend planned?”
“Some of it.”
“That worries me.”
“It should.”
She bent to pick up the bag.
Bryce took it from her.
It was heavier than he’d expected.
“What the hell is in this?”
“You’ll see.”
He carried it inside.
Holly followed.
Then stopped beside the bed.
Her gaze went upward.
Bryce knew exactly what she’d seen.
“Is that what I think it is?”
“Depends what you think it is.”
She looked from the anchor above the bed to Bryce.
Her grin spread slowly.
“You’ve been thinking about me.”
“I’ve been building.”
“Bullshit.”
⸻
They ate first.
Steak and potatoes, a few drinks, Holly filling the cabin with stories about Queensland while Bryce listened.
Later, she retrieved the duffle bag.
The crop came out first.
Then the cuffs.
Bryce laughed.
“Planning.”
“Exactly.”
Holly looked toward the anchor.
“Although apparently I’m not the only one.”
“You complained about the screw.”
“I did.”
“So I fixed it.”
Holly stepped closer and kissed him.
“Show-off.”
By the time they reached the bed, there wasn’t much conversation left.
Holly held out her wrists.
Bryce fastened the cuffs and connected them above her.
She pulled hard against them.
The anchor didn’t move.
“Much better.”
Bryce picked up the crop.
Holly rolled onto her stomach and stretched her cuffed arms above her head.
He didn’t need her to tell him what to do this time.
The first strike cracked across her backside hard enough to make her body tense against the mattress.
Holly breathed out slowly.
“Better.”
Bryce smiled.
“Better than what?”
She looked back at him.
“Last time.”
The second landed harder.
Holly pulled against the cuffs, testing the anchor as much as Bryce.
It held.
He gave her another.
The crop left a line of colour across her skin.
Another followed beside it.
Bryce paused, watching her.
Holly pushed her hips back towards him.
“You can go further.”
That was where some of the caution returned.
“How much further?”
Holly smiled over her shoulder.
“Find out.”
Bryce considered her for a moment.
Then the crop cracked again.
Holly gasped.
He waited just long enough to see what she did.
She pushed back towards him again.
So he gave her another.
This time there was no pause afterward.
The sound filled the unfinished room.
Holly’s breathing changed as Bryce settled into the rhythm, no longer needing instruction between every strike. She still guided him when she wanted something different—a word, a movement, the turn of her head—but he was learning to recognise the rest.
Eventually Holly twisted around as far as the cuffs allowed.
“Come here.”
Bryce put the crop aside.
She pulled him down into a kiss.
What followed wasn’t another lesson delivered one instruction at a time.
Not entirely.
Holly still corrected him when he became too cautious.
Bryce still listened.
But sometime during the night, the difference between her showing him and the two of them simply finding out together became harder to see.
⸻
Bryce woke to warmth beneath the sheet.
His eyes stayed closed for another few seconds.
Then Holly’s mouth moved over him again.
His hand found her hair.
“Morning.”
Her answer was muffled.
Bryce laughed and let his head fall back against the pillow.
She had woken him like this before.
Her hand sliding lower was new.
Bryce opened his eyes.
“Holly.”
She continued.
Her hand moved farther.
“Holly.”
This time she stopped and looked up.
“What?”
“What are you doing?”
“Something different.”
“I noticed.”
She reached towards the bedside table and came back with the lubricant.
Bryce stared at it.
Then at her.
Holly’s mouth curled into a grin.
“You trust me?”
Bryce hesitated just long enough for her grin to widen.
“Apparently.”
She disappeared beneath the sheet again.
Her mouth returned to him while her lubricated finger moved slowly between his cheeks.
Bryce tensed immediately when she pressed against him.
Holly stopped.
Waited.
He exhaled.
“Keep going.”
She did.
Slowly.
The pressure was strange enough that every muscle in Bryce seemed determined to resist it.
Holly gave him time.
Her mouth kept working while her finger pressed farther.
Bryce gripped the sheet.
Then she moved inside him.
His entire body tightened.
Holly stopped again.
Bryce breathed out.
“Okay.”
She continued.
The sensation was strange.
Not painful.
Just completely outside anything he’d expected to be doing when he opened his eyes that morning.
Then Holly changed the angle.
Bryce jerked.
“Fuck.”
She did it again.
His hand tightened in her hair.
Holly laughed around him.
“Don’t you fucking laugh.”
That only made it worse.
Her finger moved again, finding the same place while her mouth continued.
Bryce’s hips lifted involuntarily.
“Oh, fuck.”
Holly had found something.
And now that she knew where it was, she was merciless about it.
The unfamiliar pressure combined with her mouth until Bryce stopped trying to understand any of it.
His breathing became ragged.
His hand tightened in the sheets.
“Holly—”
She didn’t stop.
Bryce came hard, his body tensing before dropping heavily back against the mattress.
For several seconds he stared at the unpainted ceiling above him.
Holly crawled back up the bed.
The grin was already there.
Bryce pointed at her.
“Don’t.”
“I haven’t said anything.”
“You’re about to.”
“I was only going to ask whether you learned something.”
Bryce stared at her.
Holly waited.
“You’re a pain in the arse.”
She burst out laughing.
“Apparently so.”
Bryce grabbed her and dragged her against him before she could get away.
⸻
The rest of the weekend disappeared from there.
Sex when one of them reached for the other.
Food when they remembered.
Sleep when they ran out of energy.
At some point the crop came back out.
Later the cuffs.
Then neither.
By Sunday afternoon, Holly’s bag was open on the floor and Bryce was lying across the bed watching her collect everything she’d scattered through the cabin.
“You heading off?”
“Yeah. Got a thing in town.”
She picked up the cuffs.
Stopped.
Looked at them.
Then at Bryce.
“You know what you need?”
Bryce immediately regretted asking.
“What?”
“Better cuffs.”
He looked toward the ones in her hand.
“What’s wrong with those?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why do I need better ones?”
Holly shrugged.
“Because you could make better ones.”
Bryce sat up.
She tossed one to him.
He caught it and turned it over in his hands.
Cheap hardware.
Narrow strap.
Functional.
Nothing particularly clever about it.
Holly saw the change in his expression.
“Oh, I’ve done it now.”
“Done what?”
“Given you a project.”
Bryce examined the buckle.
Then the attachment point.
“You’d want wider leather.”
“I would?”
“Spread the load.”
Holly dropped her bag again.
“Go on.”
Bryce reached for her wrist and wrapped his fingers around it, judging the width.
“Probably lined.”
“Comfortable?”
“More comfortable.”
He turned the cuff over again.
The construction wasn’t complicated.
A decent piece of leather. Better hardware. Proper edges. Something made to fit rather than something made to fit everyone.
“And matching?” Holly asked.
Bryce looked at her.
“Matching what?”
She touched her throat.
His gaze followed her fingers.
“A collar.”
Bryce looked back at the cuff.
Brown leather would work.
He could already picture the hardware.
Holly laughed.
“You’re actually designing it, aren’t you?”
“No.”
“Bullshit.”
Bryce tossed the cuff onto the bed.
Holly picked up her bag.
She leaned down and kissed him, long and unhurried.
“See you around.”
Bryce watched her leave.
A minute later he was still sitting on the edge of the bed.
He picked the cuff up again.
Turned it over.
Then looked toward his tools.