The Negotiation: A BDSM Romance

by Christina Thacher

  She felt Sebastian’s—well, she assumed it was Sebastian’s—hand on her upper thighs. Without warning, he drove his cock into her, hard enough to jar the butterfly into a new speed. His cock was huge, stretching her until she felt as though she existed solely for his pleasure. She wasn’t in the calm sea anymore. She was the skydiver again, falling so fast she couldn’t keep up. He pushed her nearly off his cock, then slammed her back against him. Her clit shuddered, the butt plug felt twice as big now that both phalluses pressed inside her.

  She began to pant as the pressure built. This would be a massive orgasm, the biggest, longest, most cathartic she’d ever known. If she was allowed to have it.

  She tried to picture Sebastian standing behind her, fucking her in a nonchalant fashion, maybe checking his stock portfolio on a smart phone. Then he bent over her back, low enough that her hands could feel his silky shirt. She had a quick impression of his chest puffing in and out. Not so casual for him, then.

  Oh, God, it was coming. Sebastian flicked away the butterfly and played with her clit, rubbing it, tugging on it, flicking it, petting it. She strained against the ropes in a futile effort to—what? Get more? No need. It was like he knew exactly what she wanted and he supplied it. It was a travesty to fight a climax this perfect, but she wanted to win. She wanted more than this night. She wanted him. He was arrogant, but he was a maestro, a fucking genius.

  She smiled at her own joke, which just barely managed to let her resist the Orgasm of the Century. His hands tightened on her hips, suggesting he wasn’t so lucky. She squeezed his cock on the next in-stroke. He slapped her hips and outer thighs, but she didn’t think it was a real punishment. He pistoned in and out a dozen, two dozen times, then let her body settle. He withdrew and she’d won.

  Well, except for that instinctive effort to squeeze him to climax. She may have forfeited the bout just on that basis alone.

  He removed the butt plug and nipple clamps, lowered her until she was just able to stand on her own feet. She was quivering from head to foot, arousal and fatigue battling for control of her mind. It was a long time before she could hear the audience’s applause.

  Sebastian unwrapped the ropes in the reverse order in which they’d been applied, ending, finally, by untying her arms. She kept her wrists crossed behind her back, although it cost her dearly in energy to maintain a control she didn’t think she had left.

  His voice was soft against her ear. “You cheated, you witch.”

  “I’m very sorry, Sir.” And she was, too.

  “Still, you didn’t come, so I will consider you to have successfully completed the challenge. When you come to my place for the weekend, we’ll find a suitable punishment for that last little squeeze.”

  “Yes, Sir.” She wanted to sag with relief.

  She was in.

  * * *

  Sebastian stretched on the bed, letting the sheet creep down until it barely covered him. He’d woken early, instantly aware that it was Saturday…and that Isabelle would be on his doorstep, then in his home, in a few hours. His cock had apparently figured all that out hours ago.

  Images of Isabelle rushed into his mind. Naked in the hall, tied to the bed, braced against a table. Open to him. Obedient to his command. Her long red hair twisted into a thick rope, pulling her head back as he fucked her from behind. On her knees, her fiery hair lapping against his thighs. He shuddered. At this rate, he was going to need to jack off in the shower, which was just wrong. That was her job, which meant he needed to control his orgasms along with hers.

  Control. A sub here for the weekend. Unheard of.

  He ran a hand over his abs. Not exactly washboard, but he wasn’t paunchy. Then he caught himself. He was preening like a high schooler. What the fuck? He was the Demon Dom. He was arrogant, asshole-ish, a jerk. He did not freak out over what some high-maintenance sub thought of his body. He wasn’t going to worry whether a woman thought he was fit enough. After all, she’d wanted him, not the other way around.

  His cock twitched, clearly voting in favor of wanting Isabelle. Not hard to see why. She was fit. She was tight and toned and had the smoothest, whitest skin. No one had marred it permanently, and if Sebastian had anything to say about it, no one ever would.

  Last night. God, Isabelle had been magnificent. Perfectly, powerfully submissive without ever losing her personality. She’d been there with him with every turn of the silk ropes. That moment when he hoisted her up? He’d had subs freak out when he did that, as though having one’s feet on the ground was some touchstone of security. Not Isabelle. She levitated as if by magic, seemingly weightless, always elegant.

  And she’d looked so perfect. Flame-red hair, pale cream skin, deep pink nipples—he could become obsessed with her nipples—damask rose cunt, all offset by the black rope. He’d never seen a sub look better in a shibari session.

  He made a mental note to ask her if she’d done shibari before. She had to have, but he wondered how often. And with whom. Not Bob, that’s for sure.

  Sebastian became aware of annoyance, throbbing in time with his erection. He gave his cock a quick squeeze, which reminded him of being inside Isabelle.

  He could have disqualified her on the grounds that she’d tightened on him without permission. It had been right there—his ticket out of their stupid competition. Only the moment he’d thought of it, he rejected it. He wanted her here for the weekend. He wanted to play with her, like test-driving a Ferrari on a closed track. It wasn’t practical, it wasn’t for everyday, but it was too much fun not to try.

  A weekend. Then he’d kick her loose—explain he didn’t do long-term D/s relationships—and go back to occasional scenes at the club.

  A weekend that started—he glanced at the clock—in less than three hours. He fisted his cock, but no way was he jerking off. The fair Isabelle would have that honor. Preferably while she was in appropriate restraints.

  Oh, yeah. This was going to be fun.

  Two hours later, Sebastian had arranged a temporary “dungeon” in his dining room. When he’d had his townhouse redecorated, he designed the dining room so it could fulfill dual purposes. In typical bachelor fashion he didn’t use the room for either purpose. He never hosted vanilla dinner parties and he never allowed subs over. Too personal, too suggestive of some sort of relationship. The china and silver service inherited from his mother stayed untouched in the glass-fronted top of the cupboard, while all the padded leather restraints and crops remained in their custom-made cases in the bottom cabinets.

  He wouldn’t need the antique Coalport place settings for Isabelle—although it might be a nice touch to make her a gourmet dinner—but he’d enjoyed pulling all the BDSM gear out. He attached the restraints to the legs of the elegant mahogany table—the sideboard had been modified as a spanking bench, and the built-in shelves had a St. Andrew’s Cross across them. He left his toy bag in one corner, blackout blinds closed off the windows, and the room was soundproofed. He suspected Isabelle wasn’t a screamer…unless he wanted her to be.

  He leaned against the doorway to the kitchen, surveying his Chippendale torture chamber. What did he want from her? For all that he was Dom, he wasn’t much of a sadist. A sub’s pain only appealed to him if it appealed to her as part of the pleasure spiral.

  No, what Sebastian liked was control. He enjoyed being the mastermind of the scene, inducing the sub’s pleasure—and yes, her pain—and deciding, often for completely capricious reasons, when she could have an orgasm. Nothing felt quite so powerful as orchestrating a woman’s sexual response.

  Fundamentally, Sebastian was convinced that non-kinky sex was a parallel act, two people heading to the same place on separate tracks. Back when he dated vanilla women, he followed the script. Foreplay, oral plus fingers, get her to come, then fuck her until he came. Where was the connection? Where was the sense of joining another human being in an intimate act?

  Sebastian had already gotten bored with the routine when a friend in grad school suggested a tri
p to a notorious dungeon in Manhattan. Turned out Pete was a secret masochist who wanted some stiletto-booted Domme to humiliate him and get him off. Sebastian watched the scene, fascinated. As they drove back to Wharton, he asked Pete how it felt.

  “Dude, I can’t explain it. Yeah, she’s a total stranger but she’s a stranger with my balls in a vise. I trust her, fear her, want her, want to please her, and more than anything in the entire world, I want her to praise me and let me come.”

  “What does Penny say?”

  Pete looked horrified. “Penny doesn’t know. Good lord, I’m going to marry her. I can’t let her know I’m kinky.”

  Sebastian let several miles of the New Jersey Turnpike whip past the car before he asked his next question. “So what’s straight, non-kinky sex like?”

  Pete shrugged. “You know. It’s sex. We kiss, we fondle, we get worked up, I make sure she has an orgasm, then I get to come. All fair and balanced.”

  And bloodless, Sebastian reckoned. “But, man, don’t you want some of that passion you feel with Mistress Extrema in your relationship with Penny?”

  “God, no. That would be gross. I figure the need for kink will diminish over time. I like sex with Penny, it’s just not very involving.”

  Sebastian never forgot that trip. He got annual Christmas cards from Pete and Penny, now a family of four. And every once in a while, when Pete had business in D.C., Sebastian hosted him at The Club where he got worked over, earned his explosive orgasm, and left looking five years younger. Sebastian pitied the bastard.

  Pete’s experience confirmed Sebastian’s fundamental assumption that vanilla marriage and kinky sexual preferences simply couldn’t be mixed. That left trying to have a kinky relationship full-time or giving up the kink. Sebastian could give up the kink but why should he? There was always an unattached sub at The Club who wanted to do a scene with him. None of those subs was even close to being a long-term fixture in his life, let alone someone he imagined making a lifetime commitment to. Sebastian still figured he was better off than Pete was.

  He scowled and turned to refill his coffee mug.

  Trouble was, he was starting to feel about the subs at The Club the way he had about vanilla sex. It was a routine, a choreographed series of choices. Sure, he got to be the choreographer, the one in control, but the pattern was getting stale. Restrain the sub. Work her over with an impact toy. Play with her tits or cunt until she was panting to come. Back off, advance, back off, then fuck her until it’s time for her to climax. That triggers his orgasm, and they’re done. A little aftercare—not too much or it encourages the sub to think he cares—and he can hang out with his friends.

  Jesus. And wasn’t that weird, that Mac Lyon and Cal Raynes were his friends? Sebastian didn’t like people much, but Mac and Cal had earned his respect over the past few months. True, it was tough, sometimes, to sit with Cal and Sara. They were so much in love, it was almost revolting. Plus, it brought out all of Sebastian’s cynicism. There was no way that couple could make it for the long haul. Hell, Sara had been listed in her former Dom’s will. “And to my nephew, Cal, I leave my slave.” Cal had explained how love had grown from a bequest, but no matter how great he insisted their relationship was, Sebastian still thought it seemed destined to fail.

  He glanced at the clock. Time to text his instructions to Isabelle. He wanted her naked as soon as she entered. Subs didn’t wear clothing in his house.

  Chapter Three

  The gleaming brass handle made no noise as Isabelle pushed Sebastian’s door open. The house, a brick townhouse in a very upscale neighborhood, seemed completely out of character for the Asshole Dom, as Katie called him.

  Isabelle stepped into the hall, onto the silky Persian carpet and started to take off her clothes. When she was naked, she proceeded into the living room and knelt on an even silkier rug. No risk of rug burn here.

  She kept her gaze lowered, but she’d caught a glimpse of the furnishings before assuming the proper position. Not at all the black leather man cave she’d been expecting. In fact, it reminded her of an ambassador’s private residence in London. The ambassador had been twice Sebastian’s age, though, so the whole priceless-antiques-and-Old-Masters look seemed more appropriate there. This house looked lived in—the distinctive pink newsprint of the Financial Times was piled haphazardly at the end of the sofa, as though Sebastian had read it but not yet tidied it up for recycling. There were a couple of Forbes issues on the coffee table, along with a David McCullough biography.

  Footsteps—down the stairs? Along the hall?—forced Isabelle to draw her thoughts back to her job.

  “Isabelle.”

  She didn’t look up, but just the sound of his voice made her shudder with desire. She imagined his black hair, pulled back perhaps, or flopping forward onto his cheeks. She hadn’t touched his hair. She hadn’t even kissed him. Didn’t matter. The moment she’d seen him with the tawse, he was the Dom she wanted.

  Now he would learn what sort of sub she could be.

  “Sir.”

  “Your safe word is duckling?”

  “Yes.”

  “And if you need me to go slow?”

  “Orange.”

  “As in, ‘duck à l’orange’?”

  She heard the smile in his voice. “Yes, Sir.”

  “And you’ve told Mistress Kathryn when you arrived and arranged to call her periodically as a safety precaution, I assume.”

  Isabelle nodded. “Yes, Sir.” That’s when Katie had called him the “Asshole Dom.” Isabelle resisted her amusement at the memory. The Perfect Sub and the Impossible-to-Please Dom. This was going to be a fun weekend.

  “Rise.”

  Isabelle followed Sebastian into the dining room. Bob had called her last night, echoing Katie’s warning about Sebastian being a heartless Dom. But then he’d surprised her by saying, “I think you might be good for him. He’ll have to work hard to get you all the way. Lord knows I never made it there.”

  “Bob—” Isabelle started to assure him that he’d been great.

  “No, kitten, I know I was just an okay Dom for you. Your head is like Fort Knox, and you’ll only open it for the Dom with the perfect set of keys. Sebastian D’Alessandro might be that Dom.”

  “Aw, you’re such a romantic,” Isabelle had teased.

  “Well, I may love Marjorie but I’ll always have a soft spot for my ginger kitten.”

  As Isabelle entered Sebastian’s elegant dining room, she smiled at Bob’s insistence on matchmaking. Who said the BDSM community didn’t have a heart?

  Sebastian turned to face her. “Is wax play a hard limit?”

  “No, Sir.” Isabelle assumed the proper stance, feet apart, hands behind her back, chin up, eyes down. She stared at his groin. He was already erect, a fact that zipped her back to the shibari session and the feel of his hands on her hips as he fucked her while she flew. She quivered at the memory.

  “Excellent. Up on the table.”

  It was a huge dining table that could probably seat over a dozen people. The chairs had been removed and a thick leather padding covered the top. Restraints dangled from hidden fixtures on the underside of the tabletop. Isabelle sat on the edge and swung her legs up, scooting over until she was in the middle.

  Sebastian leaned his hip against the table’s edge. “Look at me.”

  That wonderful sardonic smile and flyaway eyebrows gave him the look of a bemused demon. She wanted him to touch her, pinch her nipples, play with her clit. She wanted him to be carried away by the sight of her nudity. She opened her mouth a tiny bit to hide that her breathing was speeding up.

  “Do you like being restrained, Isabelle?”

  “Yes, Sir. If you prefer, though, I can keep still without restraints.”

  One eyebrow soared. “Can you? Even during wax play?”

  She imagined him dripping the hot wax on her breast, coating her nipples in solid heat, then trailing down, down, down to her clit. “If I may hold onto the edge, yes, even during
wax play.” Her legs might shift a little, but Isabelle wanted to show him how powerfully she could control her body.

  “We’ll try it your way, although I may apply the restraints if you fail. And, of course, you would be punished for the failure.”

  No hiding the huge rise and fall of her chest as she sucked in air and slowly let it out. “Yes, Sir.”

  He turned away and she heard the scrape and whoosh of him lighting a match. A moment later, he’d turned back with a special candle. “Not too hot. It’ll just leave your skin pink for a few hours,” he assured her.

  Isabelle nodded, her eyes never leaving his. He didn’t look at his hand, or at her chest, as he tipped the candle. She gasped a little when the first trickle of wax hit the outside of her left breast.

  He zigzagged the wax, working slowly and spending extra time on her left nipple. She loved wax play—the feel of hot wax on her tits, the anticipation, the burn, the lingering heat, even the slight tug when the Dom peeled it off. She pressed her shoulders and hips harder on the table to keep from arching up, eager to feel that pain again.

  Another zigzag, then a line between her breasts, another zigzag ending at her right nipple—God that felt good—and a complicated loop near her right arm. When he pulled the candle upright, she had to bite back a whine. She wanted more. She wanted him to adorn her tummy, trickle wax down to her sex, find her clit.

  She wanted to come.

  It hit her then—she’d never before struggled to keep from climaxing until the Dom gave her permission. Maybe she’d never cared enough. Now she did. She couldn’t remember being this keyed up, this torqued, eager for the next hit of pleasure tinged with pain. She wanted more, and she really wanted to come. She clutched the table, hoping Sebastian didn’t notice that she was literally white-knuckling it.

  He smiled at her. “Tense?”

  Damn him, he had noticed.

  She smiled back. She wouldn’t lie, but she wasn’t going to admit to anything.