Vonna Harper

by His Slave

  He’d released her nipple, yet the tugging sensation slipped along her rib cage to touch her other breast. Amazed, she looked down. Both nipples stood out. Aroused!

  He was directly behind her now, expertly guiding the flogger around the X so the tips reached her buttocks. How ignorant she’d been to think the wood would protect her. There was nothing gentle about the strikes now, no more of the earlier sweet buzzing. Yet was this pain?

  “Hmm, hmm.”

  “Overwhelming, right?” He struck the back of her right thigh and then the left. “Feel like you’re flying and drowning at the same time?”

  “Yes, oh, yes. Can’t... can’t.”

  “Doesn’t matter.” Snap, snap. “Because you’re going to.”

  Rio! God damn it, Rio!

  Men were speaking, their words tumbling over each other, someone laughing. A woman cried out. Another sighed. Somewhere a man grunted repeatedly.

  One moment she felt boneless; the next every muscle locked. Her head fell back, only to sag to one side and then the other. The flogger came at her everywhere, kissing her mons, the back of her shoulders, calves. Jerking this way and that, she let sounds flow. They made no sense, had no beginning or end. Her pussy was on fire, threatening to explode. And her knotted nipples ached.

  Then, with no warning, everything stopped. The fire in her pussy continued to blaze, and if anyone touched her breasts, she’d scream. Fragmented memories of what she’d just lived through rolled over her. Not trying to fight the waves, she blinked the world back into focus. Mace stood to her right, the flogger dangling from his fingers, his stare stripping her down to her core.

  “Starting to get the idea?” he asked.

  Even though she wasn’t sure what he was referring to, she nodded. Behind him, a man laughed.

  “Changing tactics a bit,” Mace informed her as he dropped the deerskin flogger. “Introducing you to other sensations.”

  “What kind—”

  “No! No speaking.”

  “But I need to understand,” she insisted. “There’s so much. .. so many sensations ...”

  “I know.” Closing in on her, he reached between her legs and glided his finger over her clit.

  “Oh, God, oh, God!”

  “Sensitive?”

  The second time he touched her, she struggled to wrench loose. Not granting her relief, he moved his finger back and forth. Had she ever been so sensitive? Incapable of differentiating between pleasure and pain?

  “Don’t! Oh, please, don’t.”

  Chuckling, he kept after her, brought her onto her toes and trying to lean away. Overwrought, she settled herself around the experience.

  “I can’t—God damn, I can’t ...”

  “You don’t want to climax?”

  “I do. But not like this.” Because if I let go now, I’ll fall apart.

  “That isn’t your call, Cheyenne.”

  His tone had gentled. She was still trying to absorb the change when he patted her cheek with a hand coated in her juices. As she leaned into the caress, he ran his fingers over her lips. Opening her mouth, she tasted herself.

  “Starting to get it, aren’t you?” he said so softly that maybe no one else heard. “A few moments ago your body was trying to tell your mind that it was being hurt. But another part of you, something primitive and primal, recorded those sensations as sexual stimulation.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Not surprising. My observation is that the human system isn’t designed to comprehend the conduit between pleasure and pain. However”—he pushed his fingers between her teeth—“trying can be endlessly fascinating. Let’s see if that’s true for you.”

  Licking his fingers, she pushed his comment aside. Too soon he drew free and walked over to the flogger-covered table. Her body softened and became so loose she wondered if she might melt.

  “Suede this time,” he announced. “Ridiculously expensive, but then most everything associated with the sex industry is.” His expression neutral, he again stood before her and studied her.

  “What?” she finally blurted. Her arms ached, and the strain caused by her widely spread legs was getting to her. “You want me to say or do something?”

  Instead of reminding her that she had no right speaking, he shook his head. She couldn’t comprehend his expression.

  “Get on with it, Mace. Finish the demo.”

  “Give her some welts to remember you by.”

  Welts? Shouldn’t she be cut and bleeding? Instead, her flesh felt intact, alive, ready. If she ever had the chance, she’d praise his skill with an instrument of torture that wasn’t in his hands.

  “You might not be aware of it,” he told her, “but your skin has been, shall we call it, scraped. It’s sensitive everywhere. I deliberately didn’t touch you in certain places. Do you know what they are?”

  Answers, he wanted answers from her. “My, ah, my face.”

  “Yes.” He reached out as if to touch her cheek only to drop his arm. “Only a sadist would do that. Think, if you’re able.”

  She took inventory of her body, naming off the untouched parts as she did. Not a single strand had reached her neck, forearms, or hands. Her ass felt as if she’d been spanked, yet her spine was untouched, as were her feet and ankles, knees.

  “Do you know why?” he asked when she ran down.

  Aware of little except his breath on the top of her head, she shook it.

  “Because most of the places you mentioned have no padding between skin and bones. The veins are close to the surface.”

  He had her so off balance she didn’t risk responding. She needed to believe she was more than yet another sub to him, that her safety meant a great deal to him, that paramount to him was giving her an unforgettable experience.

  But Mace had been a dom long before she’d met him. And probably would be long after ...

  “I’m shaking,” she admitted. “I don’t know if I want you to continue.”

  21

  A cool smile lifted the corners of Mace’s mouth. “Oh, I’ll continue all right. The only thing you have to concern yourself with is when it’ll begin. Wait, there’s something else. You don’t know if this session will feel the same as before or be different.”

  The first time she’d gotten behind the wheel of a car, her hands had been so slick from nervousness she could hardly hold on. Fear of how her judgmental parents would react if she made a mistake had turned those early lessons into disasters. In frustration, they’d hired a professional driving instructor to take over the, to them, distasteful chore. Out from under their criticism, she’d quickly caught on and enjoyed driving.

  Because of a pro like Mace.

  By the time she’d pulled herself out of the past, he was behind her. Anticipating the first blow, she tightened her buttocks.

  “Relax.” Something brushed her ass cheek. “It’ll hurt if you don’t.”

  If he thought her capable of relaxing, he didn’t know her. But he did in ways she’d never thought a man could.

  Willing her muscles to let go, she focused on the audience. The easy chairs around where she’d been placed were full. Only men sat. The women knelt before their masters; some between the men’s legs, others with their heads touching the floor. She’d seen some of this behavior the first time she’d come to Indulgences. But in the back room, instead of the earlier playfulness, fear and despair had a smell and weight of its own.

  Was that what she’ll write about?

  “Give it to her! Show her who owns her.”

  “Yeah, enough with the playing around.”

  Other commands echoed around her, not that she cared from the moment Mace started flogging her again. The blows began stronger, came faster. She found herself in a place defined by sensation, felt as if she were being thrown about by a powerful current. However, she struck no rocks. No sharks circled her. There were massive waves, endless water, no definition between sea and sky.

  And she was alone. How she’d c
ome to be here was beyond her comprehension. As for when it might end ...

  Her buttocks were on fire with flames running down the backs of her thighs. More flames licked between her legs. No matter how much she strained to close them, they remained open and vulnerable.

  “Ah, ah, oh, shit, ah!”

  “Sing for me. Let it all out.”

  Faster and faster. Not stinging, but an endless series of deep, thin caresses. Although her bonds held her nearly immobile, she pushed her buttocks back and into the flogger.

  “Yes, yes!”

  “Feeding off it, are you? Let’s see what happens to your appetite when I do this?”

  How had he gotten in front of her? The question became unimportant the instant he pushed her away so she was pressed against the X. That done, he rotated the hand holding the flogger so the strands whirled in smooth circles. Time after time the suede flicked over her breast.

  “Hmm, hmm.”

  “Drunk on it, are you?” He punctuated his question by shifting his hold so the flogger now landed on her other breast. “Drink deep, slave.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Go deep. Keep going. Find the pain lover in you and became a slave to it.”

  His tone was rougher than before. Things kept changing, one area after another being subjected to his expertise. One moment, an electrical current ran over her ignited skin. The next, the current penetrated her surface to circle ever deeper. She was being scraped everywhere, shaken, dancing to the wild tune. Magical drums beat in time with her heart, and the air in her lungs was so hot it threatened to scorch them.

  “Can’t... I can’t!”

  “Not hearing you.”

  Stroke followed by stroke followed by yet another in rapid succession turned her world into a kaleidoscope of reds and black. Her head throbbed and her core pulsed.

  “Too much. Oh, God, Mace, too much!”

  “Call me Master.”

  The flogger found her thigh. “Master! Oh, shit, Master.”

  “That’s what I want. You getting close, the crevasse just ahead. Do you see the dark hole waiting to pull you in? It wants you, already owns you.”

  Now her other hip was on fire. She both loved and feared the out-of-control sensation. Burgundy hues surrounded Mace.

  “Help me!”

  “Too late for that. The pit’s just ahead, waiting for you, its victim.”

  “No! Don’t make me—”

  “The hell I won’t. I live for this.”

  Just like that, the inner drumbeats moved from her heart to her sex as lash after lash surrounded her clit. There was nothing painful about them, nothing she wanted to escape. Then Mace, her owner and master, slapped her pussy with a cupped hand. Every inch of her body jolted.

  “Oh, God! God!”

  “He isn’t here, slave. Just me showing you the way and getting off on doing it.”

  Mace was a masterful drummer and her sex his instrument. His song had only one note, the rhythm fast and strong.

  Suddenly her cunt became her world. The rest of her body evaporated, died maybe. Her stretched arms and legs could have belonged to another woman for all it mattered. Mace, her dom, had led her to the edge of that bottomless cliff, and she teetered at the brink. In her mind, she held on to and fought him at the same time. She feared, not him, but her own body.

  “Help me!”

  “I am,” he whispered against her ear. Then louder: “I’m not here to help you. Surely you know that.”

  “I need ... please, Master!”

  “Don’t beg!” He slapped her mons repeatedly. “Listen the hell to me. I’m ordering you to hold back.” The slaps intensified, became almost cruel. “Don’t come. Got it, you climax and I’ll hurt you.”

  Climax? Oh, God, yes, she was there.

  “I can’t stop ... I have to—”

  “The hell you do.” His hand quieted and pressed against her pussy, shielding and covering it at the same time. “You do what I tell you, when I tell, got it!”

  “Master, please.” The eruption gathered deep inside, grew ever stronger.

  He swiped a finger from the back of her pussy to the front, ending at her clit, staying there. Challenging.

  “Oh, please, stop! I can’t—”

  “Can’t what, slave?” The pressure and movement on her clit increased.

  “Stop!” Even before the word was out, she knew it was too late.

  She’d never climaxed like this. Always before she’d sensed its approach and relished that last heady rush, known that if she needed to, she could pull back. This time there was no warning, no pause at the end, no thought of freedom.

  Her pussy spasmed, the muscle contractions so strong they frightened her. She dimly comprehended that Mace’s hand rode the waves with her. No, not just rode, he kept the waves going.

  “Ah! Oh, shit, ah!”

  “Watch her,” he said as she bucked in her bonds. “Listen to her cry.”

  No tears! Never that. But no control either, nothing but earthquake after earthquake assaulting her helpless body.

  “Who owns you, slave?”

  Although she didn’t immediately answer, Mace had to give Cheyenne credit for lifting her head and meeting his gaze. Her eyes had that post-climax glazed look. Sweat made her entire body glisten.

  “Say it!” he commanded, mindful of their audience. “Who owns you?”

  “You, Master.”

  “And you’ll do everything I tell you to, won’t you?”

  Her head bobbed, causing her ruined hair to bounce. He’d freed her as she was coming back to earth, but although others undoubtedly expected him to command her to unzip him and wrap her mouth around his hard-on, he’d simply watched, fighting his own body, as she sank to the floor. She’d lain there in the proverbial heap, lungs heaving, prompting him to fold his arms over his chest and glare down at her as if she were some deer he’d just bagged. The truth was, although he’d wanted to back when he controlled nothing, he’d never shot anything.

  “We’re getting out of here,” he said in his stage voice. “You know where the door is, don’t you?”

  When she gave him a confused look, he jabbed an impatient finger. “Get going.” He punctuated his command by swatting her ass. “Crawl.”

  More confusion clouded her eyes, but to her credit, she did as he ordered. Although tradition said he should lead the way, he followed behind, occasionally slapping her, other times nudging her ass with his shoe.

  “Where you going?” someone asked. “Party’s just getting started.”

  “Yours, not mine. I’m taking this private.”

  “Ah, don’t. We’re all more than interested in seeing what you have in mind for her. Come on, Mace, there’s some newbies in here who could learn a lot from you.”

  “Not tonight.” He shoved Cheyenne with enough force that she fell forward. “What the hell’s your problem, slave? You’re going to get punished for moving so slow.”

  Rising off the floor, she continued crawling without looking back at him. He pondered whether she was crying, then squashed the thought; the last thing he wanted right now was for his expression to hint at compassion.

  When she reached the door, she stopped and straightened, waiting as a dog would to be let out. Stepping around her, he reached for the door only to have the Handler stop him.

  “That’s not the way the game’s played, and you know it,” the beefy man said. “The entertainment doesn’t leave until the night’s over.”

  “She’s no one’s entertainment,” he countered. “She’s my property.” He poked Cheyenne in the side. “Like I said, I’m taking this private.”

  The Handler made no move to get out of the way. “Management won’t like it.”

  “Then they can take their gripe up with me later. Right now the only thing I care about is getting her to sing some more, for me. By the time I’m done with her, she’ll have forgotten she had a name. Pleasing me will be the only thing she cares about.”

  “Th
en why aren’t you taking the floggers?”

  They’d attracted a small crowd he had no doubt would grow if he didn’t immediately get out of here. “Those belong to Indulgences. I have my own collection. Damn it, the night’s young. I intend to make the most of it.”

  Although the Handler’s nostrils flared, he backed away. “Bring her back next weekend,” he ordered. “Let us see how well her education’s going.”

  “You know me, I take pride in my work. I just hope security comes to the same conclusion.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Mace leaned close so he was nearly nose to nose with the Handler. “The camera that’s been following us since we got here. First time I’ve seen one inside.”

  “You just haven’t paid attention.”

  “The hell I haven’t.”

  Shoving what he couldn’t do anything about now out of his mind, he risked a glance at Cheyenne’s back. He’d gotten too close to her tonight. Damn it, he’d spent years perfecting his solitary existence. No way was he going to let down his defenses now.

  But she might be in danger. Him, too, but he’d never put that much stake in his own life.

  22

  Camera? Cheyenne couldn’t make sense of the brief conversation between Mace and the man who’d initially tied her up. Neither was she ready to face the fact that she’d submissively crawled through both the back and public rooms. At least, she tried to comfort herself, he’d let her stand and walk once they reached the parking lot.

  When Mace ordered her into the trunk, she gaped at him but said nothing because his glare warned her not to. Feeling less than human, she did as he ordered. The lid slammed into place, locking her in a small, silent, albeit not too uncomfortable world. Although her pussy was still hot and sensitive, she didn’t touch it, because if she did, she wouldn’t be able to concentrate on anything else.

  Curled into a ball and trying to find something to rest her hip on, she first fought the memories and images, and then gave in. It hadn’t been her in there! The competent professional she’d worked so hard to become would never let herself be restrained and flogged for the amusement of a bunch of arrogant men. Admitting she’d been naked with her legs spread and her sex on display while those men gaped at her made her moan with embarrassment.