by Gemma James
He said I’d broken his heart.
“I’m in love with you.” My voice hitched on a sob.
“I know.” He hovered over my back and pressed his lips to my shoulder. “I never doubted that, Kayla.”
“I never meant to hurt you.” My diaphragm spasmed with a hiccup.
“I know that as well.” He scooted down my body, placing kisses along my spine, and his breath heated the small of my back. Gentle fingers kneaded my stinging flesh. Then he ran a finger between my ass cheeks and stalled at my puckered hole.
“Are you done punishing me?” I tensed, waiting for his next move. The simple act of him teasing my asshole made me nervous.
“I’ll never tire of punishing you.” He rolled me to my back and gently wedged my thighs apart. “Every Friday night until the day I die.”
So the ritual was permanent. For the rest of my life, I’d endure his belt. Just because.
Because that’s who he was.
“What if I don’t want that?”
He crawled up my body and grasped my hair. “As long as you’re my wife, you’ll get my belt.” He nipped at my neck, right above the collar. “But you’ll also get me, Kayla. Every part of me. You have my fucking soul.”
“Not every part of you,” I pointed out.
“What do you mean?”
“I want your control.”
“So we’re back to that, are we?”
Wood crackled in the fireplace, drawing my attention. The clock above the mantel ticked.
Tick, tick, tick.
Each second brought us closer to our anniversary when the shackles on my orgasms would unlock and fall to the ground.
“That was the agreement. I make it to our anniversary, you give me what I want.” I gestured toward the clock. “Our anniversary begins in fifteen minutes.”
I expected worry to darken his features. Maybe even resignation. Anything but the devilish grin that widened his mouth.
“Guess that means I’ve got fifteen minutes to make you come.”
As he lowered his head between my thighs, I became dizzy with delirium. It seemed like weeks instead of days since he’d gone down on me. His warm breath hit my aching core an instant before his mouth did. And he didn’t start off slow. Instead of teasing, like he’d been doing for days, he flattened his tongue on my clit and added the perfect amount of pressure.
My spine arched, and I moaned deep in my throat, seconds away from coming undone. My fingers found their way into his hair and clutched him to me. Begged me to push him away. What a dilemma.
I dug my heels into the rug, pushed up on my elbows, and tried to scoot out of reach. His hold on me tightened. Upon my frustrated cry, he raised his head and ensnared me inside blue eyes full of cunning design.
“Don’t move.” His do-as-I-say-or-else tone put an end to the fight in my bones. I froze, my gaze prisoner to his.
“That’s better.” Letting go of one hip, he slowly dipped a finger into my pussy, watching me the whole time. Studying my reaction. Calculating how far he’d have to go to push me over the edge before midnight. “You’re going to come on my tongue, whether you want to or not.”
“If I don’t, will you honor our agreement?”
Rubbing his rough cheek against my inner thigh, he smiled—just a tiny curve of his lips, but I saw it.
“You’ll come.” He sounded way too confident as he thrust another finger inside me, and I wondered if he wasn’t right. “Don’t move,” he warned again before returning his mouth to my clit and moving his tongue in a steady back and forth rhythm. My head plopped to the floor, and a soundless breath escaped.
Back and forth, up and down.
Flick, flick, flick.
Pressure…God, the pressure. I was nothing but a throbbing bundle of nerves between my legs.
I clenched my fists at my sides and willed myself not to move. Not to push my mound more firmly into his mouth. Not to let the upsurge of release burst through my faulty barricade.
Because I wanted him underneath me, tied to the bed, his mouth gagged. I wanted him at my mercy, only this time, I wanted to have none.
I wanted to unleash my demons and watch them rain down on him.
But hell, if he kept this up, I had no doubt he’d make me come before midnight. I cast a glance at the clock. Eight more minutes. Seemed like forever. I fastened my attention on that slow moving hand as it taunted with its lazy jaunt through each number. Zeroed in on the constant tick, tick, tick that kept perfect timing with his expertly timed tongue.
“Eyes on me.”
He would allow me no distractions. No way out. But he couldn’t command my thoughts. He couldn’t read my mind, so I mentally counted the ticks.
One…two…three…four…
His finger brought me back with a devious crook, pressing that spot just right. I launched his name from my lips with a painful groan.
“Who am I, Kayla?”
“Master,” I choked.
Counting…
God, where was I?
Eight…nine…ten…eleven…
Another come-hither crook. Another concentration break. I whimpered for more, even as I relaxed my muscles and hurtled every thought and feeling away from the rush of heat building in me.
Away from his vicious tongue.
“That’s right, baby. Come for me. You know you want to.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “No…please. Stop!”
Another flick of his tongue, followed by a snicker. “You’re drenched. There’s no stopping this, so let go. Come on my tongue.”
He went in for the kill, intending to rocket me into deep space. I shook my head, chanted no, no, no in time with the incessant ticking that brought me one second closer to freedom.
The freedom to jump off the ledge. God knew I clung to it until the last possible second. Cried in disappointed anguish as his lips and tongue and devious fingers sent me plummeting head first.
Spiraling.
Screaming.
Shattering.
“Gage…” I held on to his head for the ride, squirming underneath him, back arching. Mouth gaping.
His triumphant moan vibrated to my core, making me claw at his shoulders.
“Oh God!” A week of denial had primed me for the ultimate surrender, and another body spasm bent me to his will. I succumbed to his tongue with everything I had, turned to lava, flooded his greedy mouth.
More.
There was only more.
By the time I slammed back to Earth, my body drenched in sweat and utterly spent, I was malleable flesh in his hands. Easy prey. Too susceptible to his guile.
He almost had me—had almost obliterated me beyond thought or reason. But I remembered to glance at the clock, and a slow grin stretched across my face. “It’s four minutes past midnight.”
His gaze swerved to the instrument that would ultimately be his downfall, because I had no intention of letting him get out of this.
“So it seems,” he said with a frown.
“I want your control.”
He shot a hand out and squeezed my nipple. “I’m still your Master. Don’t forget that.”
“Please, Master?” I fluttered my lashes at him.
He shook his head with a sigh, but something about the way his mouth twitched gave me hope. He almost seemed…amused. Last year, he hadn’t believed I had it in me, and he’d been right. I’d tested the waters of making him submit, but I hadn’t gone after it with purpose. With absolute bravery.
With the obsession that ran through my veins now.
A year had twisted my psyche into something beyond innocent. Not only did I want to watch him writhe, but I wanted payback.
“A deal’s a deal,” he said.
My pulse thrummed in anticipation.
“Under one condition.”
Of course there was a condition. Gage specialized in the language of contingencies.
“What do you want, Master?”
“I want you to remove
anal as a hard limit. Give me your tight little ass whenever I please, and I’ll give you what you want for one night.”
“That doesn’t sound fair. How about a night of anal for a night of your submission?” I countered.
“You’re lucky I’m negotiating at all. I can do what I want, whenever I want. That’s what owning you means, Kayla. That’s what it means to be a slave. You yield to me—not the other way around.”
“Why are we having this discussion then? Take what you want. Force me. Hold me down and show me what it means to be a man.” My voice rattled with scorn. “Hurt me. Make me cry. Is that what you want?” I was on the verge of tears again.
Something in my tone must have gotten through to him. The severity of his expression softened. “I want you to give it to me.” He slid a hand under my ass and teased the spot he was dying to penetrate. “Don’t make me force you.”
“Don’t make me beg you not to.”
He dropped his head between my thighs, his sigh of concession a feather on my skin. “Remove the hard limit. In return I’ll give you what you want every year on our anniversary.”
It was more than I could have hoped for. More than I thought he’d ever give.
“Promise?”
“I swear on my love for you.”
“Will you be gentle?” He’d been gentle in Vegas, but I sensed a restless energy in him that scared me.
“Always.”
I chewed on it for a few moments, bottom lip pulled between my teeth, and nodded.
“Since we’re laying our cards on the table,” he said, bracing himself above me on his forearms, “your volunteer work at his hospital is ceasing yesterday. Do you understand me?”
“Gage—”
“Don’t even think about arguing with me.”
I clamped my mouth shut.
“You may volunteer at any damn place you want, but if you ever set foot in that hospital again, or talk to him, or touch him, you will not like the consequences.” He grabbed my chin with the harshness of the pre-marriage Gage, who was not only a controlling and sadistic bastard, but a psychotic, controlling, and sadistic bastard.
There was definitely a difference.
“I don’t share, least of all with him,” he said. “Are we clear?”
I nodded, my throat too constricted to speak.
“Good. Now enough of this bullshit. My cock is in desperate need of your mouth.” He climbed to his knees, unbuttoned and lowered his zipper, then moved to perch on my chest. Prepared to take.
I shot a hand out and placed it against his abs. “You said a deal’s a deal. It’s our anniversary, so I believe it’s my turn to call the shots.”
He dropped his head with a laugh. “You wicked, wicked woman. You might have the world fooled with those I’m-innocent eyes, but I’m on to you.”
I veered upright and shoved him back. He dropped to his haunches, his dark hair a sexy, disheveled masterpiece. I rose to my feet and crossed to where he’d set a single duffle bag next to the couch.
Gage’s bag of tricks.
For the next 24 hours, it would be my bag of tricks. I felt his attention on my back as I unzipped it. Glancing over my shoulder, I found him in the position I’d left him.
“I’m going to miss that hair,” he said. “But I’ve got to admit the short length is not without merit. You’re gorgeous no matter what you do.”
My fingers caressed a buckle. “Are you trying to sweet talk me, Mr. Channing?”
“Maybe just a little, Mrs. Channing.”
Spending time with him like this—with the air full of laughter and love and happiness—was amazing. As I pulled the cuffs from the bag, I realized how harrowing our lives had become. But maybe that was the cost of harboring such intense passion. We felt things deeply. Loved with depth, lusted with insanity, angered with the burn of an inferno, hurt with the force of a blast.
We were both a little insane.
I carried the cuffs to him, but instead of restraining his wrists, I dropped to my knees and let them crash to the floor. I launched myself at him, much like I had the first time I’d gone to him of my own accord, free of coercion. My hands ended up in his hair, our mouths melded together, and his arms circled my waist, pulling me closer. I wasn’t sure who was submitting—seemed like we both were.
We were submitting to something bigger than the two of us.
“Do I have to call you Mistress?” He was nowhere near taking this seriously.
“I don’t care what you call me, as long as you get naked and let me cuff you to the bed.” I rose, picked up the restraints, and sauntered toward the bedroom, not bothering to see if he would follow.
I knew he would.
14. Kayla's Reward
Gage lay spread-eagled on the bed, his wrists and ankles trapped inside his own cuffs. I’d buckled those fuckers tight. He wasn’t getting free. The way he followed my movements with his nervous gaze told me that he knew it too.
Digging through our suitcase, I selected one of his silk ties—a deep blue color that brought out the brightness of his eyes—and climbed over his powerful abs to straddle him.
“Lift your head,” I told him.
“You’re having too much fun with this.”
“You have no idea.”
“Did you forget who you’re talking to?” He raised his head off the mattress by a couple of inches. “I know you better than you know yourself. You’ve hungered for this.”
“You’re right, I have. Now shut up.” I fastened the tie around his eyes. “No talking unless you’re begging.”
He pressed his lips together, but a devious curve hinted at a smile. I scraped my fingernails down his chest, enjoying how his muscles jumped under my touch, and hunched between his muscular thighs.
His cock was huge, harder than the man himself. I wet my lips, my pulse racing in my ears as I hovered. Waited. Drew out the torture. I lowered my mouth over the tip, and he balled his hands, rattling the chains tethering him to the four poster bed. I’d barely touched him, but he was already squirming.
God, I loved this power.
He could hold off for hours when he was in control, but take control away from the sadist, and he came undone at the slightest provocation.
I fondled his tight balls as I swirled my tongue. He raised his hips, bringing his cock deeper into my mouth. I squeezed his sack and clamped down with my teeth, not enough to hurt, but enough to tame him.
“Fuck, Kayla.”
“I don’t hear you begging yet. Are you allowed to speak unless you’re begging?” He didn’t answer, so I increased the pressure on his testicles. “Answer me. Are you allowed to speak?”
“No!”
“That’s right, my sexy husband. I don’t want to hear it unless you’re ready to admit defeat. I want your surrender.” I ran my tongue along the length of his shaft, from base to head.
“Baby, take me in.” He raised his hips again, seeking entrance into my mouth. I flicked the slit at the end, and he sucked a painful breath between clenched teeth.
“I’m in charge,” I reminded him. “You don’t get to shove your cock into my mouth. You’ll get what I give you when I give it to you.”
“You’ve learned too fucking much from me.”
“You’re the best teacher, Gage. Just think of all the things I’ll pick up before our next anniversary.”
He groaned. “Giving in to you was a bad idea.”
“I disagree,” I whispered, licking and tasting. “I love this idea.” I softened my lips and sucked on his tip, flicking my tongue back and forth. Keeping my eyes on him, I glorified in the sweat that broke out on his temples as I bobbed my mouth on and off his shaft.
Just the head of it.
Just enough to get his blood pumping.
Gage would hold onto his last thread of control until I wrenched it from his being. And I wasn’t fooled—taking him there would require some work.
Steady, patient work. My mouth had a long road ahead of it. I le
t my eyes drift shut and gave myself over to the heady taste of him on my tongue, to the sensation of his silky soft tip sliding between my lips.
Tonight, I owned his cock, and I could kiss it for as long as I wanted. Tease it for as long as I wanted. Torture it for as long as I wanted.
I wanted.
“Good God, you’re killing me.” He lifted his hips again, and I gave his sack another squeeze.
“You’re not behaving. Don’t make me punish you.”
That drew a laugh from him. “I’d like to see you try.”
Letting go of his balls, I sucked on my finger before inching it up his ass.
He howled, a cross between pain and intense arousal. Taking advantage of his helplessness, I pulled his entire length into my mouth and gagged.
“Shit,” he groaned. “Take my cock down your throat.” He pulled at the restraints, his spine arching, his lips imparting groan after groan. Every muscle in his body had turned on him, holding him captive to my torture.
I had him.
For the first time ever, I had him.
“Dammit, Kayla. Give me your mouth. Stop fucking around.”
“Is your cock throbbing for me?”
He growled. “You know it is.”
Grinning like a true sadist, I took him in my mouth and drew his shaft down my throat like I meant it. He veered upward like a man possessed. I circled the base with one hand and kept time with my busy mouth as my finger played with his ass.
And I took him there—that tricky place where one more slide of my lips would send him spinning out of control.
“God, yes…oh fuck…don’t you dare stop.”
Abruptly, I pulled away.
“Kayla, for God’s sake, make me come.”
“Maybe in a few hours.”
“Baby, I need you. It’s been too fucking long.”
“What you need doesn’t matter tonight. You’re not coming until I say so.” A wicked grin captured my lips. “I can make you edge all night long.”
He groaned, thrashing his head back and forth, and wrenched at the restraints with real effort, as if determined to break free from the metal chains keeping him at my mercy.