by Poppy Flynn
His hand crashed down, again and again, and she squealed, at first, though it was more from surprise than hurt. This time, Micah got straight down to business, delivering a swift and methodical punishment which had her first wriggling, then bucking, then finally subsiding into a puddle of retained grief, recent frustration, and unsatisfied lust. All thoughts were pushed away, allowing her busy mind to finally quiet, then analyse, then repent and, ultimately, to let it all go. It flowed out as if her tears were a vessel through which everything could be released, to seep away, leaving her cleansed and feeling as if the weight of all her stresses and frustrations had been lifted from her shoulders, leaving both her mind and her soul light and alleviated.
When she eventually lay limp across his hard thighs, sobbing quietly, Micah gentled his touch and rubbed away the sting and burn that smarted on her reddened skin.
He hadn't paddled her that hard. He simply couldn't bring himself to do it, knowing what she'd been through, seeing the evidence of her previous rough treatment in the scars that marred her porcelain skin. But Melody seemed to have let go of a great many of her barriers and what he gave was enough, because she understood the intent and allowed herself to release all of her pent-up emotions without having to be broken in order to force a reaction. For that, he was thankful, because had it been any different, there was no way he would have been able to satisfy that need.
"Are you going to talk to me now and tell me what's been going on in that pretty little head of yours?" he asked quietly, lengthening his strokes up her back and down her thighs.
Melody nodded her head and Micah helped her up, straightening her clothing and settling them both against the headboard, where he tucked her into the crook of his arm. When she didn't say anything, he took the lead.
"So, let's start with what you said earlier and why you didn't approach me about all of this."
Melody sighed, the fight all leeched out of her. This wasn't the way she had imagined her spanking might end, when she had confided in the other women about wanting to experience sex which centred around her for once in her life, but she supposed she owed Micah this much at least. If he understood, then perhaps he'd help her find someone, maybe he'd allow her back in the dungeon—only the dungeon, this time—and she could try to approach Masters Flynn and Cameron again. Or maybe she should just give up the idea altogether. It was a selfish thing, after all, and, so far, it had caused nothing but trouble. A little trickle of defeat seeped into her cleansed mind. But that was okay. She'd dealt with far worse in her life.
"I told you I would try to provide anything that you need," Micah reminded her.
She took a deep breath and braced herself for the telling. A little humiliation never hurt anyone, she reminded herself. She should know that better than anyone. Though, why she should be embarrassed talking to Micah about it, and not the girls, she didn't quite know.
Because he's the one you're fantasising about, the one you'd really like to do something about it, a little voice whispered in her mind. Yeah, but he doesn't need to know that, argued another.
"I know," Melody began. "But after the last time, you sort of backed off, and I felt like you didn't want to be responsible for me in that way. You already said you didn't want me for a slave and you wouldn't take…other things from me." She was feeling oddly vulnerable and her voice broke over the last words. Melody cleared her throat and shrugged one shoulder.
"And then I got talking to Trinity and Laurel and the others and some stuff came up that happened in the past, and I started feeling guilty about it all over. So I confided that I needed a spanking to help me process the guilt, but that I didn't think you'd be really comfortable providing it, after the way you distanced yourself the last time. And then there was…umm…some other stuff, too, so Laurel offered to take me to the club as her guest, but Trinity made me wait, but I still wanted to do it and I was really excited, but then it all went wrong, and I…" Melody trailed off, not knowing quite how to finish after all the words had finally rushed out like some kind of damn breaking. She let out a long breath instead.
"I see," was all Micah said. Then, after he'd considered what she'd said, he asked, "Do you need to talk about the issue that led to you wanting a spanking?"
"Umm, no, I don't think so," Melody mumbled. "I've processed that, and I don't really want to rake it all up again," she replied, picking at her cuticles of the now neat nails that Laurel had insisted on manicuring for her.
"Fair enough," Micah accepted with a single nod of his tousled head. "Then on to the 'other stuff' you wanted to experience in the dungeon. I hope you weren't searching for a whipping, because I've already told you that I don't think any heavier kind of impact play is psychologically healthy after what you've been through. Spanking should be the limit right now. That may well change in the future; I have no doubt that you probably harbour some masochistic tendencies, but at least while I have any say in the matter, I want to make sure that you're exploring those for the right reasons. I think it's too soon, right now, to be doing that. I hope you'll accept my professional opinion on this."
"That wasn't what I was looking for," Melody replied quietly, her head still bowed as she stared at the heavy brocade coverlet on the ornate bed, as if it was the most fascinating thing she'd ever seen.
"Then, what?" Micah asked with a frown.
When she didn't answer straight away, he looked down and pinched her chin between his thumb and forefinger, raising her face so he could see her expression. He raised that signature single eyebrow in query once again, and Melody clenched her teeth, her eyebrows beetling together.
Micah just waited patiently, and Melody realised that he wasn't going to let it go. She was going to have to come clean.
"It was sex, okay?" She let out her breath in a huff and looked away, unable to look him in the eye while she said it. "I wanted to have sex with someone whom I chose. I wanted someone to put me first and show me how good it could be. I wanted to replace the shitty experiences I've had, with memories of something sweeter, and I wanted to bloody enjoy it! Is that so damn wrong?"
Melody shrugged out of his hold and scooted across to the far side of the bed. It was too intimate, suddenly. She needed some space. As she dangled her legs over the side of the high bed, she wrapped her arms around her waist and sucked in the lip that had started to judder.
"It was a stupid idea, okay. I know that now. But I just thought, for once in my life, I could have something for me, and since you made it clear that you didn't want me, I thought maybe…someone else…" She swallowed, her throat thickening to match the tears that prickled in her eyes. She tried to blink them away, angry with herself for the weakness.
She shook her head in defeat. "It doesn't matter." It came out as a coarse rasp around the increasing ache in her throat and Melody looked up at the ceiling, willing the tears not to spill. She didn't want to be this pathetic, needy creature. She took a stabilising breath and let it out evenly.
As she shook her head sadly, she let her stiff back droop. "It doesn't matter," she reiterated with an air of finality. It was time to put that dream to bed.
The mattress dipped behind her and Melody closed her eyes. She didn't want to see the pity in Micah's sympathetic gaze. She didn't want to sense the awkwardness that her admissions might cause between them, either.
"I think I'll go to bed now," she told him, forcing herself to inject some strength and resilience into her voice, when all she really wanted to do was curl up and cry away the loss of her stupid, impractical hopes and pipedreams. She didn't want an audience for that, however.
Surely, he would leave her alone now that she'd spilled it all and he knew there was nothing serious for him to have to worry about. Just some stupid little girl who thought she could conjure something beautiful where there had only ever been ugliness.
Well, the old saying was true; that was another thing she'd discovered. You couldn't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. And she was fool enough for trying, but i
t had been a nice dream while it had lasted, even if it had really only been a delusion.
"I'm okay, Micah. Thank you." She forced some starch back into her spine and was careful to keep her voice even and impersonal. "You should go and get some sleep. It's been a long day."
"It's Sunday tomorrow," he reminded her, not appearing to be in any hurry.
"Great! No need to be up early then." She tried to inject some false cheer into her voice, but it fell flat.
Strong hands settled on her shoulders and Melody gritted her teeth, bracing herself against the wave of yearning she felt. She sensed his breath, hot against the side of her neck, and a streak of goose bumps raised and skittered down her spine. Jesus, she couldn't take this. Couldn't he just go, already? She didn't want to make an even bigger fool of herself by begging for something he didn't want to give.
Micah swept the heavy weight of her long hair to one side, exposing her neck then pressing a kiss against it, followed by a gentle nip. This time, she couldn't prevent the shudder, which started as a ripple across her shoulders before whooshing like a waterfall down the rest of her body, tightening her nipples, flipping her belly, before pooling in her sex and ending with a tingle in her fingers and her toes.
A soft little mewl broke from her throat. "What are you doing, Micah?" she whispered.
"What do you think I'm doing?" He chuckled, placing another hot kiss against the sensitive skin of her nape.
"I don't want your pity." The words trembled on her tongue even as she canted her head further to the side to give him better access. She had some pride…didn't she?
"Pity is the last thing I feel for you," Micah murmured against her ear as he pulled her torso back against his chest, wrapping his sinfully muscled arms around her waist, over the top of her own.
"You're one of the strongest women I've ever met and you have no idea how much I admire that."
The next kiss fell against her shoulder then the graze of his teeth, which he followed with a sensual laving from his tongue.
Melody groaned. She couldn't fight this, she didn't want to, but she didn't want to just be a pity fuck…or maybe she did. Who the hell was she to question his motives if it got her what she wanted?
Except, she still wanted to respect herself in the morning, and that was one thing she'd been denied for a long time. The thought might just give her the strength she needed to halt this sensual foray, even while her body melted under his touch.
"But you said…" The thought faded as his questing fingers found their way under the hem of her pyjama top and came into direct contact with her skin, trailing pleasure in their wake as they stroked across the planes of her abdomen.
Melody scrunched up her eyes and tried to think. This was important, wasn't it? She couldn't concentrate. Right now, the heady pleasure seemed the most significant thing she could contemplate.
"Wait!" Micah loosened his hands and ceased his ministrations immediately. Shit! Why had she said that? Oh, yeah, respect…it was seeming less and less important in the wake of the storm of wonderful feelings Micah was plucking from her with such devastating ease. Did she really want to stop that?
His withdrawal gave her a moment to breath, a moment of clarity. She frowned as a slice of reality settled in.
"You said you didn't want me, Micah. You said there was a line you couldn't cross." She sighed. "I don't want to push you into a place you don't want to be."
Melody felt the mattress depress again as Micah settled back on his haunches, his arms dropping to her hips. She felt a moment of loss so crippling, she wanted to beg him to forget what she'd said and just show her some more of the wonder, but it was too late, now, for that.
"I didn't say I didn't want you, Melody," Micah clarified. "I said I didn't want you to be my slave. There's a big difference," he murmured softly but clearly. "And that line I was talking about crossing had nothing to do with making love to you and everything to do with taking something from you that was only offered out of some misplaced sense of compensation due to the mind-set you retained after your captivity. I understand that you felt it was offered freely, but, to me, it felt like I was taking advantage of someone whose emotions were skewed by an extreme set of circumstances."
"And you don't feel like that now?" Melody whispered, hardly daring to hope.
"Hey, you don't want to be a pity fuck, and I didn't want to be a gratitude fuck. I think we're both past that now." Micah pulled her back into the shelter of his body. "And what I feel for you…what I want to show you, has less to do with fucking and far more to do with genuine intimacy."
"You really mean that?" she asked in a voice that wavered with emotion.
"Melody, what happened to you this evening scared me on a truly emotional level. Not because it offends my sensibilities, not because it impugns my club, although it does all that, but because I have come to care about you and what happens to you," Micah revealed, slipping his hands around so that they covered her belly, one above the other. She was sure he must have felt the way it rippled and flipped in response, a response which was due as much to the value of his words as to his actions.
"When I found out that you had planned to seek a spanking from someone else, I was angry, yes. But it wasn't because you'd gone out to the club without telling me; it was because I resented the idea of another man laying his hands on you."
Micah crushed her to him possessively, one hand slipping below the elasticated waistband of her pyjama trousers, the other gliding up toward her breast.
"To hear that you might have taken that further, to have given the gift of your body to someone else…I can't even describe how that makes me feel, Melody. You see, you were right when you said that things between us had changed after that first spanking, but you got the reasons all wrong, sweetheart." He grazed his teeth along the graceful slope of her shoulder, following it with his tongue like he was tasting her, his fingers flexing into the softness of her skin as if he needed to assure himself that she was really there.
"I kept my distance because, suddenly, I felt like I couldn't keep my hands off of you. Because I was greedy for all those sweet responses you gave during your orgasm and I wanted to keep them for myself. I wanted to explore what other reactions I could coax from your body, but I wasn't convinced you were ready for all of that, and I didn't want to risk my desire getting the better of my morals."
Melody reached up behind her and hooked one arm around Micah's neck, tipping her head back until it rested on his shoulder. She arched her back and turned so she could look at him. "Show me!" she demanded before she pulled his mouth to hers in a move bolder than any she had ever made in her life.
This was different to what they'd shared before, Melody realised when Micah speared one hand into her hair, tightening his fingers deliciously as he threw himself into the kiss. His dominance erupted as he took control, making her realise just how much he had held back previously. Her heart gave a little flip at the knowledge of just how much he had protected her, even from himself, while she'd been throwing herself at him. It made her appreciation for his innate moral character even stronger, and she knew that she was slipping deeper and deeper under a spell he didn't even know he was weaving. Because it wasn't really a spell at all, he was simply one of the good guys, and her life had been so devoid of one of those that now that she'd found one, she couldn't help but be captivated.
She couldn't have done this with someone else, she realised with sudden clarity as Micah moved from nipping and tasting her lips to thrusting his tongue between them so that it danced with her own. Kissing was a new thing, too. Oh, there had been a few fumbled attempts when she was a teenager, but they had been all teeth and slobber compared with the smooth, erotic glide of Micah's mouth against her own. Daddy's had all been chaste pecks as he played out his role and after that, well…
What she shared with Micah, in these precious moments, was personal and intimate; even more intimate than sex.
Melody knew, to her detriment, that there
wasn't necessarily anything intimate about fucking. It was just an action, one that could be impersonal and often brutal, but this? Some might say it was only a kiss, but to Melody, this was the most intimate and cherished she'd ever had the joy of feeling, and it had unfamiliar reactions bubbling up and lodging in her chest…as well as other parts of her body!
Micah came up for air and Melody took the opportunity to suck breath into her own lungs. She wasn't in the most comfortable of positions, but it didn't matter, the gentle touch of his fingers stroking against the skin of her lower abdomen and the underside of her breasts, the sensual glide of his tongue against hers, had her body simultaneously bursting into flames and melting into a puddle, if that was even possible. That's what it felt like anyway. She had never known anything like this before and she was hungry to experience more.
Wriggling to try to move around, she was surprised when Micah scooped her up and laid her gently in the middle of the enormous bed. Before he followed her down, he stripped off his shirt and undid the top button of the soft black jeans which sculpted his muscled legs like a second skin. She wished he would just remove them altogether, but she knew better than to ask. She'd already come to realise that Micah moved at his own pace and there was no pushing him into anything he didn't want to do. His was a quiet dominance but one which was absolute. He didn't exude that sexy but demanding arrogance like some of the men she'd met during her stay at the club, or the on again, off again fluctuation of command that others shifted between. It was more of a subtle but indomitable confidence and conviction, a calm but innate authority which was constant and unwavering. It made her feel safe because she knew it would absolutely never change on the whim of his mood. And that was one of the most attractive things about him, which was saying a lot, because he was drop dead gorgeous, with a body that could grace a fitness magazine to boot. And yet his quiet strength was one that would never be pitted against another to deliberately terrorise or intimidate, and there was a certain security in that, too. He was a man who made careful moral judgements and then stuck to his ideology, a man of the utmost integrity who was worthy of being loved and yet one who deliberately avoided the prospect.