by Poppy Flynn
"Nine, ten, eleven. Thank you, Sir," she squealed. The next four smacks, he delivered directly to her sit spot, two on each side. This time, there was a waver to her voice as she counted. He targeted the whole of her rear, and the next two brought her to the edge, so Micah knew she was finally in a place where she could let go of the guilt and find the solace she so desperately needed.
And now that had been delivered, she was going to get a reward that she wasn't expecting. As she hiccupped over the previous two swats, Micah gentled his hand against her ass cheeks, feeling the heat enveloping his palm and rubbing it gently away.
He heard the surprised little moan which slipped past her lips as he allowed his hand to wander down and stroke the tops her thighs, gently manoeuvring them so they parted slightly. Without warning, he used the tips of his fingers to lightly slap at the newly exposed area, his aim landing directly across her puffy pussy lips. Melody gurgled on a choked, indrawn breath and Micah landed another to the same place.
"Number!" he demanded sternly.
"Eighteen, Sir. Nineteen, Sir, thank you," she panted out breathlessly. He wasn't sure she was even aware of the way she was grinding her clit against his leg as she dry-humped the coarse denim of his jeans in an attempt to ease the fire he had built. He could smell her arousal and he was sure Melody must be able to feel his own, as his cock pressed painfully against his fly, which, in turn, was pressed against the softness of her belly. Or maybe she was too lost in the unexpected enjoyment to notice, he thought with a smile.
Micah deliberately dragged his hand across the swell of her ass and down the juncture of her thighs. His fingers grazed over the hot, wet folds of her labia, skimming her lightly but enough to have her whimpering and thrusting her bottom back to try to maintain the contact.
Micah moved his hand away, and Melody mewled in stark disappointment at the loss.
Micah couldn't contain the chuckle this time. "Greedy kitten," he chided. "Do you want more?"
"Yes!" she gasped. "Please, Sir!"
Micah brought the broad plane of his whole hand down across both buttocks as well as her sex, and this time, she bucked and arched beneath his palm.
"Twenty! Thank you, Sir," she moaned, writhing beneath his palm as he cupped her dripping sex.
"Oh God! Please, Sir, please!" she entreated. She seized his ankles, squeezing in her frustration. "Help me!" she sobbed out on a broken whisper.
Micah plunged his fingers into her sodden core, pushing her legs wider apart and thrusting, once, twice, then withdrawing to swirl his dampened fingers around her clit. Small, fragmented sobs wrenched from her throat and her hips writhed and undulated beneath his ministrations. He sank two fingers back into her core and crooked them at an angle, seeking out and finding her G-spot, caressing it with bold, deliberate strokes until her back arched and a thready, high pitched wail split the vaulted silence of the cavernous dungeon and echoed off the walls as she shattered beneath his touch.
Micah rode her through the orgasm, amazed at its strength as her core continued to flutter around his fingers.
Finally, he withdrew and palmed her heated buttocks and petted her as she regained her equilibrium.
And then she stunned him completely by bursting into tears, huge, noisy sobs which ripped through Micah's satisfaction and tore at his heart, hurtling his short-lived contentment down into his boots and squeezing his chest painfully.
Fuck! What the hell had he done wrong?
Micah flipped Melody over on his knee and cradled her in his arms.
"Melody?" His voice broke over her name. "Honey, what's the matter? Talk to me!" he pleaded desperately as he stroked her hair and tried to soothe her. Her leggings were still bunched around her knees and he made a vain attempt at trying to right them in case that was causing her additional distress, but Melody just curled into his chest, grasped at his shirt until it was crumpled in both of her fisted hands and wailed soggily, her head bowed and hidden from his view. At least she seemed happy enough to hold on to him and wasn't trying to push him away, so that had to be a positive, surely?
Micah wrapped his arms around her and rocked backward and forward, whispering nonsense, doing whatever he could to try to calm the distraught girl.
"Shh, shh, shh," he hushed, holding her as tightly and protectively as he dared, until the sobs turned to little hiccups and she peeled her fingers away from his shirt long enough to try to wipe the river of tears away from her blotchy face.
"I'm so sorry, Melody. Just tell me what the hell I did wrong, and I swear it will never happen again!" Micah promised in desperation.
A fresh wave of bawling erupted, "No!" This time, it was accompanied by a light pounding on his chest from her small, ineffectual fist.
Obviously not the right thing to say! Micah grimaced and intercepted the tightly clenched hand which was beating on him, capturing it in his own and bringing it to his lips before tucking it between them and rocking her some more, pressing distracted kisses to her temple while she quivered in his arms.
When she finally settled, Micah felt as if he'd been slugged in the gut when her broken whisper hit his ear, "I'm sorry."
"No, no, no," Micah denied, shaking his head. "I'm the one who's sorry. I should have known better. I should have stuck to my guns. I already had concerns this was moving too fast after everything you've been through." He rubbed a hand across eyes that ached with the tension headache that was rapidly building behind them.
"Just, please, tell me what I did wrong, so I can make sure it never happens again."
Melody sat up straight, grasping handfuls of his tee shirt in her hands and shaking her head vehemently. "No, you don't understand, you didn't do anything wrong, you did something right!" She dipped her head again, her cheeks flaring with colour.
Micah sighed and rubbed her back. "Well, you're right about that," he replied ruefully. "I don't understand."
Melody dragged in a shaky breath. "That thing you did…the way it made me feel. I've never known that before. I didn't realise. I…" She let the breath out in a huff then laughed drily and threw her head back to look at the ceiling. "Oh God!" she whispered. "I can't…"
Micah captured her face and made her look at him. She quieted under his touch, but still had a vague look of mortification about her.
"I don't know what you're talking about, Melody," he interrupted gently. "What thing I did? What are we talking about?"
Her cheeks heated again, and she closed her eyes, even while Micah still held her head immobile.
She captured her bottom lip between her teeth, and Micah pressed on her lower lip with his thumb until she released it.
She swallowed, hard, her throat bobbing. "That thing you did with your fingers," she whispered faintly, even though there was no one else around to hear. "The way it made me feel. I didn't know…I never…" She couldn't get the words out. She simply didn't know how to say it.
Micah started at her blankly for a few beats. Surely, she couldn't mean what he thought she might be trying to say. He was having trouble wrapping his brain around the concept, but he stepped in to try to help her.
"You mean the orgasm?" he asked uncertainly.
Melody stilled. "Is that what it was?" she asked him with complete sincerity. "That sensation of euphoria building up and bursting over all my senses?"
Micah could only nod, his eyes glued to hers.
She brought her hand up to cup one of his lightly stubbled cheeks, tears welling in her eyes once again. "I never had that before today, never knew what it felt like to have such pleasure."
Her lips trembled, and Micah could barely process what it was that she was saying, even though, deep down, he knew. It just seemed so incredibly unbelievable that, in her entire twenty-seven years, she had never known the tiniest drop of sexual pleasure.
Micah could feel an answering prickle in his own eyes and closed them against the sting, but not before leaning forward and covering her lips gently with his own, sipping and tasting and exp
loring in the sweetest meeting of mouths, sealing a moment that was more poignant than any he had ever shared with another woman.
Melody wanted more. She wasn't entirely sure what it was she wanted more of, just that she wanted it.
Micah had opened doors and secrets which she had never dreamed existed, and now she was desperate to experience them all. She knew there was something beyond the little taste he had given her; she just didn't know what it was or how to ask for it.
She felt like a tightly budded, rather wilted flower, anxious to be cultivated. Parched and thirsting, desperate to be nurtured; greedily absorbing those first life giving drops of water and now waiting for some elusive ray of sunlight so that she could unfurl and reach her full potential, so that she could blossom and bloom into bursting, sated completion.
Now that she'd had that first taste, she was hungry for another. She wanted to know everything that might possibly exist between a man and a woman, where tenderness and consideration sustained their deeds and behaviour, rather than any of the things she had previously experienced. And she wanted Micah to show her.
She looked at him in a new light.
In the beginning, there had been relief that spawned gratitude and a certain amount of curiosity, since he was different to any other men she had met. Not that she had a huge amount of experience.
Daddy had been old and gentle but fundamentally selfish when it came to intimacy.
V had been a brute, and those he had shared her with had been all of the same ilk. Vicious, sadistic beasts who revelled in her pain and powerlessness, monsters whose deviance and depravity had magnified and intensified when they had been given the means and opportunity to live out their basest, most perverted fantasies without fear of judgement, condemnation, or reprisal.
She had suffered at their hands, but Micah had shown her that there was something else—something she wanted to explore for herself, something…beautiful.
Melody looked at Micah now with speculation and some other emotion she wasn't familiar with. But every time she was near him, her senses lit up and sharpened. Her mouth went dry, and there was an almost awkward awareness that she simply couldn't shake, no matter what. It made her skin sizzle and her breath hitch. It made her heart beat faster in anticipation…of what? She didn't know. But she damn well wanted to find out!
Unfortunately, she didn't think Micah was feeling the same things that she was.
Since the revelation he had provided, he had been friendly and courteous and as considerate as always, but there was a distance, too, which she didn't know how to overcome.
Tonight, was a club night, which inevitably meant a late night. But that was fine; there was plenty of opportunity to sleep in in the morning, so she never felt tired. Besides, being able to sleep in the warmth of a comfortable bed meant that she was better rested than she could remember since she first went to live with Daddy as a teenager, almost a decade ago.
Melody found she enjoyed the vibrancy and energy of club nights, even though she wasn't involved. There were interesting people who wandered in and out of the behind the scenes area where she hung out. They were friendly and accepting and many made a point of coming to talk to her.
Dr Xavier and Detective Storer, of course, always came to check on her or update any progress. She had come to realise that they were both members of the club, more used to being referred to as Master in the context of this place.
Then there was Trinity, the assistant manager, and the other women she had introduced Melody to, Desi, Charlotte, Luanna, and Laurel. They always came with confident, rather intimidating men in tow. Nobody had told her so, but she suspected these were the men who owned the business. She tried to keep out of their way when she saw them, becoming a ghost, in case they started to object to her presence within the club. She still didn't know what she would do if they required her to move on. While she might be recovered, for the most part, she didn't have a job or any place to live, no means to support herself and no idea how to go about it.
Micah had her running errands around the club, and for that she was grateful; she was doing more and more now that she was stronger. It made her feel like she had a purpose, that she made a contribution rather than just leeching off of these nice people.
Still, the girls always sought her out, bringing her little gifts—fragrant body lotion, pretty underwear, a brush and stuff to tie her hair back with, even chocolate, little extras and luxuries which gave her an odd little twinge in her chest, not unlike the one she felt when she looked at Micah.
She felt a camaraderie and acceptance amongst these five women, like they accepted her as a person, not just some itinerant victim with whom they sated their desire to do good deeds because she needed help. It made her feel as if she was a part of something bigger.
She only hoped that wasn't a mistaken perception on her part because it would hurt her to lose these new bonds she was creating. Friends were something she had never been able to claim at any part of her life before now, not even when she'd been growing up in foster care. Families were too suspicious of kids in the system, saw them as a bad influence and encouraged their children to steer clear. And in the group home, it was always more about competition than comradeship, everybody looking after number one.
What she had found at Club Risqué was wonderful on so many different levels, and the things, the people, the friendships she had discovered, she didn't ever want to lose.
This evening was no exception. Melody was curled up at the side of one of the comfy couches in Trinity's office. Officially, the assistant manager was working, but she was on her break right now, and Charlotte, Laurel, and Luanna had piled into her room for some girl time and pulled Melody along with them. Desi was missing this evening, but Melody had quickly picked up on the fact that the other woman was having a difficult pregnancy and required a lot of bed rest. She no longer visited the club as a participant, which only led credence to Melody's belief that her husband, Joel, was one of the owners. Why else would she visit, otherwise?
And Charlotte had just had a baby, so she didn't play so much these days, either, though she did pop in quite often to meet up with the other girls. But perhaps it was Trinity they visited. She supposed it must be difficult to keep up with each other when they all had such differing time commitments. Trinity, especially, since she worked long nights, slept in the daytime, and spent three or four nights a week living away, so she could be with her fiancé, Christian.
They were an eclectic mix. Trinity was tiny and pixie like, with dyed bright red hair, but her dainty appearance belied a strong character. Luanna was as tall and curvy as Trinity was petite and exuded an unmistakeable aura of calm maturity and serene elegance.
Though buxom, but not as tall, Laurel was completely the opposite in character, being a bubbly live-wire. Her chatter filled any silences. But Charlotte was, perhaps, the one with whom Melody felt the most kinship. It wasn't just that she, too, was tall and thin with hair that reached her waist, albeit it brown, not grey, like hers; there was something about the travel writer—an empathy and understanding—which Melody somehow felt came more from personal experience than simple compassion, although she didn't like to ask.
They were all piled into the sitting area of Trinity's office, which suddenly seemed considerably smaller than usual with all of them packed in there. Luanna was sitting with Melody on the couch, while Charlotte took the tub seat, and Laurel had casually plonked herself on the coffee table in the centre, leaving Trinity to wheel her office chair across to join them, once she'd handed out hot drinks all around.
"So how are things going with Micah then, Melody?" asked Laurel. She wasn't the type to hold back if there was something she wanted to know.
Melody held her breath for a couple of beats, her face blooming. How could Laurel possibly know about her preoccupation with Micah?
It took her a couple more guilty seconds before she realised the other girl didn't know any such thing, she was just speaking generally. Unf
ortunately, Melody's silence and pink cheeks had given her away, and four heads turned to look at her speculatively.
"Umm…he's very…ah… nice, and um, pleasant," she stammered lamely, knowing she'd just made the whole thing worse.
Trinity raised an eyebrow, and Melody was aware of a suddenly sharpened, almost possessive, contemplation from both her and Charlotte, which she couldn't quite fathom since both women were in serious relationships with other men.
Laurel just snorted in a decidedly unladylike manner. "Aha!" she exclaimed. "So you've got the hots for the professor beefcake, eh?" She winked exaggeratedly. "Can't say I blame you; he's a whole yummy slab of muscled hunkiness!"
Melody didn't know where to look as her cheeks blazed even hotter. "I didn't mean…"
"Pfft!" Laurel cut her off. "Girl, you're not going to fool anyone with that act, now spill! What's the deal with you and the good doctor?"
"Why do you call him doctor?" Melody asked instead. It wasn't quite a diversionary tactic, since she truly didn't understand the connotation.
"Because he's a psychologist; now quit stalling." Laurel giggled, refusing to be distracted.
Melody looked at her and blinked. "He is? I thought he was the club manager?" She frowned, genuinely confused.
"Oh, he is," Trinity confirmed with a smile. "But he's also a qualified psychologist who used to have his own practice."
"Huh! Well, I guess that explains a lot," she conceded.
"He still does psyche evaluations on the members, to ensure we don't have any predators or dangerously unbalanced participants."
"So has he probed any other parts of you beyond your brain?" Laurel asked irreverently, rubbing her hands together in glee.
Could she confide in these women? Why the heck not? That's what friendship was all about, wasn't it? And when all was said and done, maybe they could offer her some insights, because she sure as hell wasn't getting very far on her own.