by Angel Payne
Silence stretched. But not the energy between all of them. Kress and his grin suddenly found the carpet interesting. David caught her stare and held it, as if assessing where her mind was really at right now, then determining it for himself to the last, frightening detail.
Then smiling himself.
It was a smile she’d never seen on his Greek-god mouth before. If he was Zeus back in Miami, then he was certainly Eros now, the broker of love and passion. And sex. Dark, forbidden sex.
When Kress lifted his own head again, he channeled the exact same energy. They both took her in from head to toe. Dasha gripped the back of the chair she’d just left and forced down a breath. Like that stopped the wild escalation of her heartbeat. Something strange but tangible had shifted the very air in the room. The threads in the air were now wires, and they’d restrung the sensual power grid in the room. Where once there was a loop, now there was a triangle.
It terrified her.
It entranced her.
Kress finally broke the silence with a quiet question. “You said you’ve tried spanking?”
The ball in her throat erupted on a choke. She stared at David and voiced the unthinkable. “You…told him?”
“Hush.” It carried the same strength as Kress’s voice, but it wasn’t a request. Not by a long shot. “Your secrecy and security are the most important things to me, D. I’ve been consumed with ensuring both over the last week.”
“I know,” she answered fast. “I do know, David. And I—I’m grateful. But—”
“So do you think I’d deliberately talk about us to another if he didn’t place equal importance on your well-being?”
She lowered her gaze. Closed her eyes. And behind her lids, once again saw Kress slamming her to that stage. Throwing himself on top of her. Knowing it might’ve gotten him killed because of her. And then, the mind-bending kicker: she knew he’d do it again. Without hesitation.
“No, Sir.”
“Hm.” The injection from Kress was laced with approval, though he directed it at David, who now paced toward her.
“Kress and I have had a lot of time to talk this week,” he said as he did. “And since the subject was often our mutually favorite subject, your sanity and safety, we’ve discovered we have…similar viewpoints on some things.”
It took her a few long moments to respond, mostly due to the hand he now lifted to her nape. He didn’t place it there for a massage either. His hold was firm, almost too tight. And she loved it. Craved that connection of pure strength. The command of it rippled through her body, making her capable of giving him just one word.
“Oh.”
Oh?
What was wrong with her? Misgivings whirled and attacked again. This had nothing to do with her shortfalls as Senator Mark Moore’s daughter. This had everything to do with the chip in her brain that was clearly, irrevocably, wrong. Because, as David coaxed up her head in time to see him motion Kress closer, all she could feel was thrilled…needed. As the agent stepped closer, the ink-dark pupils in his eyes showed nothing but desire, fixation.
Kress stepped forward, then grabbed one of her wrists, locking her in his hold. The only reaction she could scrape was a surrendering sigh. She barely held herself back from adding another monosyllable to it.
Yes.
The world, and all its lunatics, insanity, guilt, and insecurities, began to fall away.
If this was wrong, then maybe she didn’t need to be right. Ever again.
Kress’s rugged face, framed by those unruly brown waves, hardened in all the right places. “So you’ve been hiding your real feelings from Daddy,” he stated. “Holding back from telling him what you really feel because you’re afraid you’ll hurt him?”
Dasha’s breath caught. Okay, maybe the world wasn’t going away so fast.
“I didn’t ask that for my health, Dasha.”
She gulped. And stammered, “N-no, Sir. I mean, y-yes, Sir.”
“I’m not your Sir. You can call me Kress.” His voice flowed now like water from an underground pool, shadowed yet fluid. “Now answer the question again, in a complete sentence. From what your Sir tells me, you know those pretty well.”
“Yes, Sir. I—I mean, yes, Kress. And…” She flicked a glance to David, who encouraged by squeezing her nape a little tighter. “Yes. I’ve been hiding the truth from my father.”
“Even after your Sir has told you that such behavior will harm your dynamic with him?”
Conflict raged again. David had mandated, in no uncertain terms, that honesty with Dad wasn’t an opt-out choice. Now she recognized the order for its necessity. She couldn’t keep hiding her feelings, and every time she submitted to him, she relearned that lesson in beautiful detail. The rocket fuel that powered them into sexual heaven was blended of pure honesty and trust—which she’d promised to give him. But she hadn’t kept that promise. Tonight, she hadn’t even tried with Dad.
Where did that put the trust of her Sir now?
“Yes,” she answered Kress, yearning to hang her head. Somehow, David knew that. He moved behind her and tunneled his other hand into her hair, positioning her head even higher with it. Forcing her to continue dealing with Kress’s ongoing, unfaltering stare.
“Even after he’s said that complete honesty is essential for your relationship?” he charged.
“Y-yes.”
“Were you thinking about all this when you were speaking with your father?” Kress’s own hold became a knot around her wrist. “Were you thinking of the trust of your Sir at all?”
That broke the dam. “I wanted to say more.” She let tears flow down her face and neck, not daring to lift her other hand to wipe them. “I wanted to be honest! But he was on a plane, and the press was with him, and—” She tried to at least shake her head. David didn’t give her an inch. “I-I’m sorry.”
David tightened himself against her back. He pulled her head into the crook of his neck. “I know,” he said into her ear.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He pulled her against him a little more, sliding a hand to the valley between her breasts. “But you also know there must be discipline now.”
“Y-yes.”
It felt right to say it. She needed to have this, to make things right again between them. She hadn’t wimped on Dad on purpose, but letting David guide her, to make her better at the process next time, was a choice she could make now—no matter how scared she was about what would define discipline.
She needed to give him her trust in order to earn his once again.
“The punishment may take you past a few comfort points,” David stated. “Maybe more than a few.”
He likely felt her heartbeat react to that, increasing triple time. But he waited, his hand a steady pressure between the swells of her breasts. “Yes, Sir,” she finally replied. “I understand.”
“Very good,” David praised. As he did, Kress roped his hold around her other wrist. “Because we’re getting to the first point now.”
They moved in tighter, practically crushing her, and she felt tiny between their planes of masculine power. “All right,” she said, sounding timid and unsure and hating it but thoroughly unable to control it. Yes, these men were obsessed with protecting every cell of her body, but the heat radiating off both of them was so potent, so powerful, so overwhelming.
“Breathe,” David instructed, though lessening that possibility by nuzzling her neck with firm warmth. “And listen.”
“Yes, Sir.” Now she felt his pulse as well as hers, a thrum through all his muscles…and erection. She fell back against him, letting his energy wash through her, exposing her jaw for another of his commanding kisses.
“You must have surmised by now that I’d like Kress to assist with your punishment. I think he’s earned that right, don’t you?”
While he asked that, Dasha looked up to Kress. His features held the same protective intensity with which he’d always beheld her—only now, magnified by a thousand. As if s
he needed the impression reinforced, he shifted again, fitting the ridge between his legs into the apex of hers. She gasped. Dear God, even through their clothes, she felt the rough heat and huge length of him.
Lust tumbled from both men, filling her senses with its raw masculine magic. The elixir acted like a drug on her tongue. “Yes,” she finally answered David. “Yes, Sir, he has.”
Kress, his eyes now glittering, pressed even closer. Without warning, he whisked her arms above her head.
“Pretty words,” he drawled. “But too pretty and swift to be your truth.”
He shoved her wrists, now slammed together, back by another few inches. “Hold her for me,” he directed David. With her wrists now passed into her Dom’s crushing grip, Kress caught her face in a dual-sided hold. His fingers splayed against her cheekbones.
“I haven’t known you for years, sugar.” He’d used the term in flirtation five nights ago; now he flung it with pure command. “There’s a good chance my mercy has a lower threshold than your Sir. And a very good chance I’ll use some creative techniques he’s not brought out on you yet.” He loomed, his mouth just inches away now. “But be confident in this: my creativity won’t mark you in places you’ll have to be concerned about.” A smile touched that mouth now, and he brushed those made-for-sin lips against hers. “We’ll just make it count in other places, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Dasha echoed on a sigh. She parted for him, yearning for the invasion of his kiss. When Kress didn’t return the pressure, she gave a tiny buck of her hips, urging him to satisfy even a piece of the need that clawed at her pussy. In return, he tunneled his fingers into her hair and twisted.
“Oh, no, no, no, honey,” he ordered. “I’m not here to fuck you, remember? I’m here to help punish you. Maybe my cock will help me do that too, but you’ll have to earn that as well. Dishonest girls don’t get any cocks or any fucks until they’ve served their punishment. Perhaps together, we’ll convince your Sir that you’ve learned your lesson and are ready for those again.”
By gradual degrees, he corkscrewed his hold tighter. Heavy tears came, blurring her vision. But her heartbeat revved to full throttle. “Are you ready to help me do that, Dasha?”
She swallowed again. And honestly wondered how he hadn’t pulled her hair out, roots and all. But despite that, through the splitting pain and the struggle for coherent thought, Dasha only had one answer to give. Only one decision to render.
“Yes. I’m ready.”
Chapter Twelve
Christ. Now Kress knew why Pennington was such a tireless asshole when it came to ensuring his woman’s safety. Even with tears brimming in her eyes and pain contorting her face, Dasha was a breathtaking portrait of submission. And her voice…the soprano that captivated millions with an addicting pop hook was a fucking siren’s song when she whispered her brave words of surrender.
He looked up to David and took in the guy’s face full of lust-mad impatience. And was so damn glad that, as they’d discovered countless times during the week, the two of them were on the same page.
“Set her free,” he told his friend. “So she can get naked for us.” He wasn’t surprised that, as David let her arms down, the man reached around and tore back the panels of her dress bodice himself, popping buttons and ripping fabric. Since it was one of those sundress things with the bra built in, her breasts were free as soon as the bodice fell down.
The sight of them blew the air out of his body.
But before he could confirm the truth of what he’d just beheld, Pennington ordered, “Finish up, D. You heard the man. Do it fast.”
Dasha had bent over, peeling down the rest of the dress along with her white lacy thong. When she rose back up, the air rushed out of Kress’s lungs all over again. And blood sluiced straight to his cock.
She was more gorgeous than he remembered. Her skin was the color of whipped honey, and it covered angular, muscled legs that joined in a perfect V at her bare pussy, leading up to the indent of her waist and the soft curve of her torso, shoulders draped in her golden, tumbling hair. And then…oh Christ, and then—
“You sly, fucking fox,” he declared. At last, he had the chance to stare unhindered at her perfect, firm breasts, each centered with a dark coral nipple that was wrapped in a distinct diamond letter. “That’s the most beautiful monogram job I’ve ever seen.”
David smiled, leaning to kiss his woman’s cheek. “It starts with a beautiful toy to monogram.”
“No matter what happens, she’ll know exactly who she belongs to.”
Not surprisingly, Dasha shot up a glare of pure copper fire. “I’d know it even without the diamonds, sugar. The initials might be pierced on my body, but they’re already branded on my heart.”
For a long second, he didn’t say anything. It might’ve had something to do with the rubber band now cinched around his chest. At last, Kress took her face in his hands once more. This time, he did it with gentle fingers. “Then your Sir is not only sly but damn lucky.”
“All right, man.” David’s grumble came with his reclaiming hold on Dasha. “You going soft-serve on me already?” He arched a black brow as he turned her fully to face him.
“Fuck you.” Though it was just part of the banter they’d fast developed, he almost felt guilty about the crack. This encounter was one hell of a generous gift, especially from a guy he’d first pegged as a show-biz poser.
On the other hand, maybe David hadn’t even heard him. The guy was busy giving their sub a long face-suck of a kiss. When he was done, he directed her back toward Kress. “Watch her for a few,” his friend requested. “I’m going to go get some things ready.”
Kress nodded, using the moment to widen his stance. His erection was already at torture status. Dasha, watching her Dom disappear with a look mixed of confusion and longing, didn’t help the sitch at all. God damn, she was so gorgeous. And so naked. And so close…
“What ‘things’ does he mean?” she asked him softly.
Though Kress didn’t know the answer any more than she, he debated his choice of responses. Let her ruminate while he enjoyed—make that really enjoyed—the sight of her, or take advantage of the chance to see how she liked his style?
He decided within seconds.
Without preamble, he leaned over and gave her little ass a firm strike.
“Owww! What the hell, Kress?”
He pivoted to stand in front of her. “First, I’ve changed my mind about that. Addressing me as Kress clearly has given you the illusion you can take casual address with me tonight. So from this point, I’ll be Sergeant to you. Second, initiating questions without asking permission is also not your place. Are we clear?”
He half expected her little smirk. “Sergeant?”
Before the word left her lips, he’d dropped to one knee and slammed her over it, delivering another series of whacks to her lovely, smooth backside. “My rank in the army before I left for the Bureau. Anything else you want to challenge me on, as long as we’re at it?”
“No, Sergeant,” came her breathless response.
“Damn shame,” he replied. “Because your ass is stunning with my palm marks on it.”
She writhed in a delicious way beneath the appreciative strokes he now gave her cheeks. “It…feels nice too. Thank you…Sergeant.”
Though she hesitated over the last word, her voice gave it to him with a dreamy cadence. Too dreamy. It was acclimation time. He’d get her too dreamy; they had a lot more ground to cover first.
With a determined sweep, he returned her to her knees, then rose to his feet.
“Stay right there,” he bade when she moved to join him. “You’ll assume proper submissive position while we’re waiting. Ankles beneath your ass, hands atop your thighs, back straight, gaze on the floor. Do you understand the instruction?” he asked when she shot another questioning look at him.
He watched her mouth twist as if she’d just swallowed something nasty. Still, she complied with, “No…Sergeant,” as she
slowly lowered to the floor.
“Could’ve fooled me,” he returned.
“I’m fine.”
Her starchy little quip had Kress chewing back a chuckle. Ahhh, the sound of a subbie fighting her feistiness. It had been too long for him; the Internet was a crapshoot, and he’d given up on club play at least a year ago. Even in the members-only BDSM houses, the unattached submissives were so eager to be attached, they’d nearly let a guy slit their wrists in exchange for the dynamic. Now he had a beautiful pixie at his feet who could barely string two civil words to him right now, let alone submissive phrasing. The challenge doubled the tension in his cock and jacked his senses like an addict after a dry-out.
He had to look at her again. Up close. He crouched, nearly eye to eye with her—only she took care now, keeping her gaze turned down, exactly as he’d instructed. Kress didn’t mind. Not only was her acquiescence a thrill, he knew exactly where her stare now rested—and knowing she was getting her fill of his crotch gave him a pure, hedonistic thrill.
But he had other things to address with her. Such as the event that had gotten her like this in the first place.
He gently tugged up her chin with his forefinger. She met his eyes directly, though hers surged like a bronze tempest. So many layers that compromised this fascinating creature. Some that made perfect sense. And others…that clearly didn’t.
He followed just a strand of that contemplation. “I’m not here to bust out a psych-job on your issues with Daddy, at least not tonight—but I do need you to be brutally honest with me right now, D.”
The solemnity of his tone settled over her whole face. “Okay.”
Kress dipped in closer to her. “If you don’t want this to happen, then you say so right now. Though we’re here because of what you can’t communicate to Dad, I’m not him. I won’t take offense. I won’t hang up in your ear or disappear in a sulk, and neither will David. He’ll still drag you off somewhere, have you fifteen ways till tomorrow, and I’ll be right here outside the door, still watching out for you, still ready to go hunt the bad guy for you tomorrow morning. Do you understand?”