Zach crouched on the floor beside them and leaned close to Shea. “Steve will start easy and work up to more, based on how you’re doing, okay?” He tucked an escaped tendril of hair behind her ear.
“Okay,” Shea replied in a small voice.
Steve began to lift the hem of her dress with the intention of pulling down her panties, but Shea jerked up and twisted her head back in alarm, her hands flying to keep her ass covered. “No!” she cried. “Just over the dress. I’m not ready for more than that.”
Steve lifted an eyebrow. He was about to explain that he always insisted on skin-on-skin contact, but Zach shot him a look and gave a small, quick shake of his head.
“All right,” Steve acquiesced. “We can start that way.”
He began lightly, really just patting her ass over the fabric of her dress with the flat of his palm while Zach stroked her back and shoulders. After a while, she relaxed against him, cradling her face in her arms. He increased the impact slowly until he finally brought down the first satisfying smack, which sent a pleasant jolt through his cock.
Shea stiffened and emitted a small gasp.
Zach stroked her back. “Shh, relax,” he soothed.
Steve smacked her again, this time several good hard whacks.
“Oh! Oh, oh, oh!” Shea squeaked as she wriggled beneath his hand.
“That’s it,” Zach said calmly as he stroked her head. “You’re doing great.” He gave Steve a nod.
Steve was dying to pull up that stupid dress and yank down her panties, but he managed to control himself. He hit her hard through the layers of fabric, cupping his palm to increase the sting.
As he spanked the girl, he thought about how to reach her, to convince her of the need for skin-on-skin contact. Leaning over Shea, he said softly into her ear, “You would experience the sensation more authentically without the buffer of your skirt and panties, Shea. It would give you a better understanding of the process.”
The girl didn’t respond. She was breathing hard, her face hidden against her arms.
Taking this nonresponse as tacit permission, Steve lifted the hem of her dress. Shea didn’t move. Beneath the dress, she wore a pair of pink cotton panties that fully covered her ample ass cheeks. Steve glanced at Zach, who was grinning.
What the fuck? Zach mouthed silently. Steve knew what Zach was thinking, because he was thinking the same thing: who over the age of twelve wore cotton briefs, especially to a BDSM sex club? Yet, Steve was both curiously touched by the simple panties and intensely turned on. Could this girl possibly be as innocent as she appeared? Would Zach and he be the first to introduce her to the undeniable power and passion of BDSM?
His balls tight with anticipation, Steve slipped his fingers beneath the elastic waistband of Shea’s underwear.
All at once, she jerked her head up from her arms and twisted back, her entire body stiffening. “No!” she cried. “Not my panties. I didn’t say my panties.”
Steve removed his hand, forcing himself to resist the nearly overpowering impulse to ignore her. He pressed his lips together to keep from snapping at her.
“Sorry about that, Shea,” Zach said, coming to the rescue. “We didn’t mean to move too fast. Panties stay on. We got it.”
“Okay, then,” Shea said sulkily as she flashed a glare in Steve’s direction.
He met her gaze calmly.
Turning away, Shea lowered her head once more into her arms.
If she were his, he would never tolerate such sass, but he reminded himself this was just a scene, a very casual scene with a total stranger. He would take it—and her—on its own terms.
Steve cupped his palm and let it crash against her left buttock, his cock shooting to attention as the impact forced her hard against his thighs, her round ass cheeks jiggling. He began again to smack her in a steady, hard rhythm as Zach spoke in a soft, soothing patter.
Shea was breathing hard, nearly panting. The backs of her thighs had turned a pretty shade of dark pink. Heat radiated from beneath her silly cotton underwear. Unable to resist another second, Steve again reached for the waistband of her panties, this time yanking them down before she could stop him to reveal an ass just as red as her thighs.
“Zirconium!” Shea cried as she reached back wildly to bat his hands away. In the next instant, she rolled abruptly from Steve’s lap and onto Zach, who reached out in an effort to catch her.
Pulling away from him, she shot to her feet, her eyes wild, the flush on her cheeks, throat and chest giving her the mottled appearance of a post-orgasmic woman.
Zach, too, had risen quickly to his feet. He reached out to place steadying hands on the girl’s shoulder. “Hey, calm down, Shea. Everything’s okay. Really, it is. You need to take a deep breath.”
Steve stood as well, furious at himself for pushing her too fast. “I apologize, Shea. I overstepped.”
“No, it’s okay,” she said breathlessly, taking a step back so Zach’s hands fell away. She slipped her feet into her shoes, reaching down with one hand to adjust one of them and nearly losing her balance in the process. “It’s not you. It’s just…” She trailed off as she reached for her purse. Hugging it to her chest, she continued, “I was wrong about this whole thing. It’s too much. I can’t— I just— I have to go.”
Steve slipped his hand into his back pocket and pulled out one of their calling cards. “Here,” he said, holding it out to her. “Take this. I hope you’ll give us—and yourself—another chance. I sense something powerful in you, Shea—something we need to explore.”
Without looking at it, Shea slipped the card into her clutch. “I have to go,” she whispered again, both yearning and confusion in her eyes.
“It’s okay. We understand,” Zach said kindly. “Don’t be a stranger.”
With a last look at each of them, she slipped away.
Once she was gone, they both sank onto the sofa. Steve blew out a breath of frustration as Zach pushed his hair out of his eyes, not noticing that it immediately flopped back again.
“Jesus,” Zach exclaimed. “What the hell just happened? She was doing great.”
“She was afraid,” Steve said.
“Of us?”
“Of herself,” Steve replied.
~*~
“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, I can’t believe I did that. I can’t believe I did that.”
Shea gripped the steering wheel of her parked car and banged her forehead lightly against it three times. She was still breathing too fast from having sprinted up the stairs of the club and out into the parking lot like a madwoman. Though the evening was cool, she was sweating, her heart still pounding. She needed some water. She needed cookies.
“No,” she admonished herself aloud. “You’ve been so good. Don’t fuck it up now.”
I’ve just had my first spanking and I freaked out and ruined everything, she reminded herself. Cookies are called for.
Leaning across the gearshift, she reached for the emergency package of Oreos she kept in the glove compartment and tore open the cellophane. She grabbed two cookies and popped them, one after the other, into her mouth.
As she chewed the crunchy chocolate wafers and lovely cream filling, she began to relax a little. Before closing the bag, she took out six more cookies.
As she ate them, the usual guilt about eating junk food began to rear its ugly head, but she pushed it away. She needed those cookies after what she’d been through. She had earned them.
She picked up the bottle of water from its holder and took a drink. She became aware that her ass cheeks and thighs were stinging. She shifted on the leather and readjusted her short dress, a dress she had bought just for this occasion and would probably never wear again.
“Oh my god,” she said again as the whole astonishing scene scrolled past her mind’s eye. “I can’t believe I did that.”
Shea had fantasized for years about just such a scenario, and now that she had actually made it happen, she’d blown it.
W
ell, that wasn’t exactly true. The scenario she’d imagined, the one she masturbated to at night before going to sleep, only involved one guy—a tall, dark and handsome guy who sometimes looked like Zac Ephron and sometimes like Cary Grant, depending on her mood. In her fantasy, pulls her into an embrace and kisses her until she loses her breath. Then he swoops her into his arms and carries her, effortlessly—she would weigh thirty pounds less than she actually did, of course—to the huge bed they share in their penthouse apartment in New York City or the Italian villa they go to in the winter. He makes her undress in front of him—a slow, sexy striptease—and then he orders her to lie across his lap.
He starts the spanking slowly, the same way Steve had, except he also lets his fingers slip between her legs. He alternates the pleasure and the pain, smacking her, then stroking her, until she’s nearly crying with the need to come.
“Beg me,” he whispers, and she does, and then she comes.
Real life always returned at that point, and she was still alone in her bed in her small Portland apartment.
Another fantasy was darker, and the man in that one had no face. He is there when she opened the door to her apartment, pulling her inside before she even had a chance to take the key from the lock.
He slams the door and pushes her hard against it. When she starts to protest, to scream, he slaps her across the face and then presses his hand hard over her mouth to muffle her cries. His other hand comes to her throat, and he catches her beneath the jaw so she can’t breathe.
“I’m going to take my hand from your mouth,” he says, his voice low, hard and sexy. “And you’re not going to make a sound.” He squeezes harder, her very life in his powerful hand. “Understand?”
She nods, barely able to move her head. He takes his hand from her throat, but only long enough to rip her clothes away. He forces her to the floor, holding her down with one hand while he pulls off his shirt and jeans. He rises over her, revealing his hard, muscular body and huge, erect cock. His hand once more on her throat, he slaps her thighs hard to make her open her legs, and then he forces himself inside her as he covers her mouth with his to stifle her terrified cries.
Shea’s hand had slipped into her panties. She stroked her sopping wet pussy as the fantasy followed its much worn path in her mind.
A sudden rapping on her window caused Shea to yank her hand from beneath her dress with a cry. She whipped her head toward the sound.
Two young women were standing outside her car, concerned looks on their faces. Shea couldn’t open the window without the car being on, and for a second, she just stared at them until her brain kicked back into action enough to allow her to open her door a crack.
“Is something wrong?” she asked, wondering if the heat in her face showed in the glare of the parking lot lights.
“Are you okay?” one of the girls asked. “We were just having a cigarette when we saw you run out of the club and to your car a few minutes ago.”
“Then when you just sat in your car for so long, we were, like, you know, worried you were sick or something,” the other girl said.
A flurry of thoughts and emotions rushed through Shea—embarrassment and annoyance at their intrusion on her privacy, appreciation that they’d noticed and cared about another woman who might be in distress, and disgusted anger that the two girls, who definitely should have known better, were smoking cigarettes. She tried to harness the better of her emotions as she replied, “Oh, no, I’m fine. Really. I just—I just needed some air, is all.”
Grabbing her bag, she fumbled for her key and slid it into the ignition, praying the car would behave. The car started and she smiled at the girls. “Thanks, though, for looking out for me. That was really nice of you.”
With a wave to the retreating girls, Shea pulled the door shut and put the car in reverse. As she drove out of the parking lot and onto the streets of Portland, her mind returned to Hardcore, and the two guys who had appeared out of nowhere and offered to scene with her.
To scene with her!
It sounded so sexy and sophisticated. She, Shea O’Connor, had been in a scene, a BDSM scene! People really did this stuff, and not just in fantasy.
Her thoughts segued to the couple at the whipping station. They’d been engaged in a lot more than just a little spanking. Jesus, the guy had used a bullwhip on that woman. He’d left marks—raised red welts that had to hurt like hell. And the woman had liked it. No, she had loved it.
Shea’s pussy pulsed at the memory. As scary and astonishing as it had been to watch such an intense scene just a few yards away from her, it had also been exciting, even thrilling.
Zach Wilder and Steve Hartman. They were good names. Romance novel names. Master Zach and Sir Stephen. Sir Stephen, like in Story of O!
She would never want to be like O, though. O was stupid. O let herself be passed around like an object. She let René just hand her off to Sir Stephen—a guy who didn’t care a thing about her, except as a total object. Not even a sex object—just an object to be used and discarded. Sir Stephen even had his maid whip her when he didn’t feel like it. What kind of man did that?
But she’d loved the book, just the same. She couldn’t lie—not anymore.
She was the new Shea O’Connor. The scientist who didn’t shy away from her feelings, but instead explored them so she could better understand her own psyche and motivations.
She had lied for years, both to herself and the guys she occasionally went out with—though with them it was a lie of omission. She’d told herself her fantasies were sick and needed to be ignored. She’d told herself they were what was preventing her from finding a boyfriend, from finding love, but she was coming to understand at last, at her ripe old age of twenty-eight, that she was never going to find love if she didn’t first understand herself.
She pulled into the parking lot at the back of her apartment building and slid into her assigned space in the carport. As she reached for her purse, she saw the small, white card on the passenger seat beside it. It must have fallen out when she was getting her keys. She picked it up and read it.
Steve Hartman/Zach Wilder
Professional BDSM training
Explore the passion and the power of erotic submission
The flip side of the card included a phone number and email address.
What were these guys—professional Doms? Masters for hire? What did that even mean?
Whatever it meant, Shea couldn’t deny she was deeply intrigued. Maybe she could sign up for training. The possibility both excited and terrified her. She thought about the BDSM training site she occasionally visited—okay, that she constantly visited—where sub girls worked with a trainer who made them do all kinds of thrilling, sexy, submissive things. Did she really have the nerve to do something like that?
She looked at the card again, recalling the two handsome guys she had run away from, like Cinderella escaping the ball. She had to admit, exploring the passion and power of erotic submission did sound pretty darn good. At least in theory.
It was all too much to think about. She needed to take a deep breath and decompress.
Clutching the card, Shea climbed out of the car and made her way into her first-floor, one-bedroom apartment. She dropped her purse, keys and the card on the kitchen counter and went directly to the freezer. Yanking open the door, she rummaged behind the peas and fat-free, sugar-free, flavor-free ice-cream-like substance until she found the emergency stash of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey.
Just a few spoonfuls to calm her nerves.
She took the carton to the counter and grabbed a spoon. The first bite was always the best. She moaned with pleasure as the wonderful creamy explosion of banana with chunks of fudge and walnuts melted in her mouth. As she ate, she slipped off her shoes, glad to be rid of the toe-pinching high heels.
She continued to mull over the evening, going over every moment with a fine-tooth comb. True, at first she’d said only over the dress, but then, when he’d lifted the hem, she hadn�
��t protested. She should have spoken up, instead of just hiding her head in her arms.
Steve hadn’t done anything wrong. He had followed her cues, and yes, she had wanted to feel his hand on her ass. The skin-on-skin, as he’d called it. She’d wanted it more than anything she’d ever wanted in her life.
Dropping the spoon into the nearly empty carton, Shea reached back to touch her bottom. The skin still stung a little, though it was no longer hot to the touch. Her pussy gave a throb as she saw herself draped over Steve’s lap, his hand making such intimate contact with her body. Around thirty, he was about five foot ten, with longish, wavy blond hair. He exuded a kind of tamped down sex appeal, something in the set of his somewhat cruel mouth and the intense focus of his dark blue eyes. He’d looked good in his black leather pants and button-down black shirt, his forearms muscular and ropy with veins.
Zach appeared younger, somewhere in his mid-twenties, she guessed. He was tall, maybe six foot four, with the build of a football player—massive shoulders and chest, narrow hips, muscular legs. He was more boyishly handsome than Steve, with an engaging smile and dark hair that hung down over his eyes. He had a beard—not the big, bushy beard some guys were wearing these days, but more of a two-week cover of sexy stubble that gave him a rakish appeal.
Her eye fell on the calling card Steve had given her as his parting words returned to her. I hope you’ll give us—and yourself—another chance. I sense something powerful in you, Shea—something we need to explore.
He was right. She had come this far. She had embraced her deep-seated erotic urges and thrown herself headlong into researching the topic. She had learned she wasn’t sick and twisted after all. She had discovered there were thousands—no, millions—who shared her needs and desires. She had found the courage to go into the field like an intrepid explorer. She had met two hot guys who were interested in scening with her. She had allowed them to spank her!
And yes, she had loved it, even while she’d been afraid.
What must they have thought of her when she cut things off so abruptly and fled the scene? Were they laughing about it now—about the newbie wannabe sub girl who ran away in the middle of a spanking?
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