by Rachel Nixx
He pulled out and shucked off the condom. She practically purred as she straightened and turned to face him. He hadn’t expected that from her, this visceral sexiness. He’d expected her to be awkward and uncomfortable in her own skin after sex. But she wasn’t. Anna stretched, pulling her arms way up over her head and leaning to the side.
“Damn bra,” she muttered and finally unclasped the purple lace, draping it over the back of the couch, the same fucking place she herself had been draped. Zee felt his cock stir again even though he normally took at least thirty minutes to come back.
She stood in front of him, her breasts tipped with pink, pert and sweetly balanced. Her bush was neatly trimmed but thick, just the way he liked it. Something to bounce against. Anna looked proud in her body. And God, she had every right to. She was amazing.
“I have to go,” Zee said. It was the only thing he could think of.
And damn it all, her face fell.
Well, hell. What had she been expecting? That she’d make him a drink and take off his wet boots and dry his clothes for him?
Oh, God. What if she had been thinking that? Zee searched for anything he could say, anything at all, but nothing came to him.
“Okay,” she said. “So how do I go about paying the agency for this?”
Paying. Of course that’s where her mind went.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“What?”
“On the house. It wasn’t scheduled.”
Anna held up one finger and disappeared momentarily around a corner. When she came back, she’d drawn a green silk robe around her. Jesus, what that green did to her eyes. It should be illegal.
“Okay, what does that mean, on the house? This wasn’t part of what I signed up for? I put down on the form that I was okay with playing in my apartment.”
Zee cursed himself. He should have taken at least a second to think this through, but that’s exactly what he hadn’t done. He, who planned everything down to the last detail, had shown up here without a clue as to what he was doing. If he’d said he was on the clock, if he’d had that in his mind, he could have used it. He’d have been doing his job, instead of fucking everything up.
“I shouldn’t have come.”
“But you did,” she said with a playful smile. “You came for a long time.”
Fuck. He had to get out of here, the sooner the better. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I have to go.”
And then he was running down the stairs of her building and back out into the rain. He didn’t glance up to see if she was in her window, watching him run.
He knew she was.
Chapter Three
Three days later, Anna walked into the back alley behind Fantasy Fulfilled’s play space. The rain had finally stopped, and Anna enjoyed the feeling of weak sunshine on top of her head. Corinne was there again, waiting with a smile. She’d barely had time to say hello to her when Zee roared up on his Harley. Lord, he looked good. No one had probably ever looked better on the back of a motorcycle.
He took off his helmet and jerked a nod in her direction. He took the clipboard from Corinne and scanned it.
He was waiting for something, and Anna knew what it was.
“I’ve already told Corinne how happy I was with your service the other night.”
“My...”
“How you were so concerned about me that you called, and I moved a session to my apartment. That was above and beyond the call of duty, and Jake was happy to hear about it, too.”
Corinne nodded. “Zee’s always the man.” She led the way into the building, Zee trailing Anna.
“You didn’t have to do that.” His voice was quiet.
“I know,” said Anna. “I wanted to.”
“I don’t want to owe you.”
Stung, Anna turned to meet his dark gaze. “You don’t.” She’d been trying to do him a favor, as he done her one by fucking her senseless the other night. She wasn’t in it to get him to owe her. Was that the way it worked in his world?
“Fine,” he said.
Obviously, it wasn’t.
He stalked ahead of her, and took a large plastic bin down from a high shelf. “Stand in the middle of the room.”
There would be no ceremony, then. This was just work to him. Of course it was. And it should be for her, too. This, her therapy. No couch, no talking, just working it out.
She stood in the middle of the cold room. The single space heater churned out only a tiny bit of heat that barely reached her.
Corinne dumped a briefcase and a paper bag on the table at the back. “I’m gonna go round up some players. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Anna, you’re all right?”
Anna nodded. She wasn’t. She wanted Corinne to stay, to be witness to whatever happened, but Anna was a big girl. She’d signed herself up for this. She wanted it.
Corinne let herself out the front, and Zee continued his preparation. He had something that looked like a collection of black leashes in his hand.
“Take off your clothes.” His voice was harsh.
But under the harshness there was a heat to his voice that thrilled through Anna’s body. She took off her sweater and the undershirt beneath it. She unzipped and stepped out of her wool skirt. She stood there, stock still in her black bra, tights, and heels.
“All of it.”
Oh, Jesus. She’d been naked in front of him the other night, but this was so different, here, in this cold room.
Her breath coming quickly, she finished stripping, pushing the pile of clothing away from her with her toe.
She shook her hair forward. It was long enough to cover her breasts, thank God. Anna had never felt more bare. She was pulsing with it. The sheer amount of her skin on display unnerved her, but Zee barely glanced at her. When he did, it was with an appraising eye, as if to see whatever it was that he was fashioning would fit her. “How tall are you exactly?”
“Five six.” She was dying to cross her arms over her chest.
“Here.” Zee chucked a black hair band at her—she caught it without thinking. “Pull your hair back into a ponytail.”
There went the small consolation of hiding behind her mane.
“Okay.” He came to her, his hands full of the black webbing. “Hands behind your back.”
She complied, and her hands were strapped tightly together.
“Is that comfortable?”
Anna didn’t think lying would be a good idea. “No.”
“Good.” He brought the webbing around her torso, wrapping her stomach once, like a belt, pulling it so snugly she caught her breath. Then he traced it up her body, around one breast and then the other. Using small carabiners, he forced the straps closer together so that her breasts were bound. The straps pushed her up and out. It wasn’t painful, exactly. But it was uncomfortable, and the webbing did nothing to warm her up.
Next, Zee brought the webbing up to her throat. A moment of panic made Anna’s breath catch. What if he did it too tightly? What if she couldn’t breathe? Air felt suddenly difficult to get into her lungs, and he’d barely used any pressure at all yet.
“Look at me,” he said brusquely.
She did.
He said, “You’ll be able to breathe.”
Her fine trembling slowed.
“But you’ll be bound. I’ll be in charge. Of everything, at all times. Your pain and your pleasure are mine to command. Trust me.”
Anna nodded, once, and then lifted her chin so he could fasten whatever it was he was doing there. She didn’t trust him. The only thing the man had really done to her was fuck her on a night he wasn’t supposed to. But there was something in him that allowed her to release her breath, knowing that she’d be able to take another deep one, because he said so.
So far, the bindings were only from the waist up. She was trussed from her wrists to her breasts and neck. Her feet were still free. She could bolt if she wanted to. She knew the back door opened with a push to the bar across it—she could do that with he
r hip. It would take about two seconds to flag down a cab or someone passing by outside. Maybe a few more seconds to convince whoever she found that she wasn’t crazy, that she needed help out of the bindings and something with which to cover up. Anna thought about it for several long seconds.
Then she let it go.
She didn’t want to run. She’d put herself here. She’d been the one who’d called, insisting that Zee had gone above and beyond the call of duty to make her more comfortable with their agency, saying that she wanted to meet with him again, their first aborted attempt notwithstanding.
And the whole time she’d been talking to Corinne on the phone, she’d been remembering the shape of Zee’s cock, the weight of him on top of her, the way his mouth had tasted.
Now he stood in front of her. He seemed to be judging his work. He tested a strap by pulling on her arm. She stumbled sideways. “Good,” he said. “You’re not getting out of that.”
“No,” she said, agreeing with him.
“Huh.” He rocked back on his heavy motorcycle boots. “The slut speaks. Did I say you could? Did I ask you a direct question?”
Anna bit her bottom lip and shook her head. She should have known better. And good God, what was with her? The way he said slut, the word heavy with his accent, made her wet. A boyfriend who called her that? She would have tossed him out on his ear. This man? She wanted to hear more. She wanted to be that slut he thought she was.
Zee’s dark eyes locked on her mouth. “There’s only one way to deal with a whore like you.” He rummaged in the box at his feet, bringing out a red ball gag.
A slight trembling went through her as he fastened the gag around her head.
“Have you ever worn one of these?”
Was she supposed to answer? Would she get in trouble?
Holding the red ball in front of her mouth, Zee snapped, “Answer me when I speak to you.”
“No.”
“A gag virgin. My favorite. Open wide.”
She did. The rubber tasted bitter and smelled like rubber bands. Zee pushed it so far back she felt a gag reflex. He waited, holding the ball in place. Anna swallowed hard, blinking back the moisture that rose to her eyes.
“Good. Breathe through your nose.”
Anna pushed down the panic that beat in her chest. It was okay. This was fine.
“Remember your safe word?”
Her eyes flared. Banana. How could she say it now?
“And remember what to do if you can’t talk? Shake your head five times in a row.” His voice was kinder now. As if he actually cared how she felt. “We’ll stop whatever you don’t want to do. Got it?”
Anna nodded, her lips stretched around the ball.
“Are you cold?”
A shiver ran through Anna as she realized that yes, she was freezing. She nodded again. She couldn’t hunch her shoulders for warmth because of the bindings that drew her arms back. The heater seemed to be putting out no warmth at all, though it rattled and clacked behind Zee.
“I couldn’t hear you. I said, are you cold?”
“Mmph,” was all she could manage.
“I can’t hear you.”
“Ymmph.”
Zee frowned, and his face, caught in the half-light from the front window, was frightening in its intensity. “I thought I’d made myself clear. You answer me when I speak to you, and not until then. Are. You. Cold?”
Anna tried as hard as she could to force the word around the gag. “Yssmph.”
Zee shrugged, one large shoulder going up and dropping. “Now you’ll find out what happens when you fail to follow such a simple instruction, whore.”
From the box, Zee extracted a whip. Short-handled, it had many longer black leather strips hanging from it. He slapped the whip gently against his jeans. The thwack it made startled Anna. If that’s what it sounded like, and he wasn’t even hitting anything...
“Turn.”
She did, as fast as she could.
He laughed at her. “Jumping to my command. I like that in a whore. Now. Hold your breath. It will make the first blow hurt less.”
It came hard and fast, landing on the backs of her legs. The pain sliced through Anna, a direct and instant agony that felt like nothing she’d ever experienced. And he was wrong, holding her breath didn’t help. It made it more intense.
She closed her eyes, blocking out the front window, blocking out the large empty room. Breathing heavily through her nose, she waited for the next strike.
God help her, she wanted it.
Zee was in so much trouble.
The one thing he was good at was hurting people. He knew how hard to push them, knew instinctively where their edges were, knew where the line between tolerable and intolerable lay. It was a good job. He enjoyed it. He’d lucked into it, really, and at least once a year, he thanked Jake for giving him a job that finally suited his talents, which had been wasted on the security jobs he’d had before. A bouncer only got to really bounce a few people before he had to look for another gig.
But this girl...
She brought back feelings he had no right feeling. The image of Keren’s face flashed into his mind. She’d been a redhead, too. That flaming fall of hair was bringing it back—the way Anna’s ponytail blazed in front of him was a reminder, that was all.
He’d just have to work harder on doing his job.
Concentrating, he drew the whip back again. He knew exactly the weight of blow a novice needed. You couldn’t hit them too hard or they’d run and never come back. You couldn’t hit them too softly, either, or they’d miss the whole endorphin rush, the best part of the whole scene. He understood the addictive part of the game, and had paid a female Dom more than a couple of times to tie him up, to whip him senseless, so he could remember how that kind of pain felt. It was worth it. Swimming through the pain as it came, holding oneself up, breathing into the next blow, it was all worth it. Made you a better person. And if you were really lucky, it made the person holding the whip a better person, too.
Then why the hell was he having such a hard time raising the whip against her? Jesus, he was weak.
With an inaudible curse, he let the whip land again on her legs. The first stripes were just beginning to rise, lovely pink against creamy white.
Anna stiffened. She gave one muffled cry around the gag and then swallowed the noise.
She was doing well. Zee watched as she shrugged her shoulders as much as she could, as if testing the bindings. Then her head lifted higher, her long red ponytail swinging against her pinned-back wrists.
Another blow. This time she hardly moved and gave no cry at all. The welts grew. Zee longed to touch them, to run his fingers along them. For one insane second, he imagined kissing them, rubbing lotion into them later.
This was incredibly fucked up. What the hell was happening to him? With his free hand he rubbed his eyes. As if that would help.
With impeccable timing, the front door opened. Thank God for Corinne. He needed backup, though he’d die before admitting it to her.
“Saved by the bell, whore,” he said, his voice feeling rusty. He cleared his throat. “Who’ve you got there with you, Corinne?”
Corinne led four men into the room. They hung back a bit, as they always did at first. They moved in two pairs, the taller two on Corinne’s heels, and the shorter two in back, near the door, bobbing on the balls of their toes.
“These guys were down at the bar. I bought them all a round and asked if they wanted to see a pretty slut getting a workout.”
“Turn around, slut,” said Zee. “Meet your new audience.
As Anna slowly turned, bringing her naked body into full display, the guy farthest back laughed and said, “Oh, ho, now. Damn.”
Yeah, it was sinking in. Zee knew their type. Hell, he’d been one of them, ten years ago. He’d been picked up by another one of Jake’s assistants, Samantha. She’d found him at closing time at the bar he was working at, shrugging into his jacket. “You wanna see somet
hing nice, big guy?”
Not that he wasn’t offered ass almost every night of the week. Being a bouncer had some perks. But there was something in Samantha’s voice, a spark in her eye that made Zee nod and follow her three blocks away to a warehouse in the meat packing district. There, he’d witnessed one of the prettiest sights he’d ever seen: a small blonde strung up, hands over a hook, spreader bar at her feet, getting the tar beaten out of her, screaming that she wanted more of it, and harder. Jake, perhaps recognizing something in Zee, had allowed him to try out his belt on her.
It was what he’d been looking for. He was only good at hurting women anyway, might as well be the best one in the business. Might as well get paid for it. Might as well do it right.
But while he remembered that little blonde as outrageously pretty, the woman in front of him had just stolen his top-ranked spot. There was something about the set of her shoulders, the way her soft lips looked around the ball, and the way her green eyes looked at the new guys—damn, she got to him.
And for one unbearable second, Zee didn’t want the men to touch her. He didn’t want them to even look at her.
Hell, no. That wouldn’t fly.
Go harder, then. Go deeper. Always the answer.
He struck Anna with the whip across the belly. She made that garbled noise around the gag again, and he saw a fine trail of spit dripping from the ball. Good. She was doing it right. One of the lashes of the whip tangled around the binding at her waist, and as he tugged, she took a step forward.
“Did I tell you to move?”
She shook her head. He waited, to see if she’d shake it five times, but the motion was clear. Once.
She still wanted this.
He’d give it to her, then.
There were four of them, four men she’d never seen before. In the interview, Corinne had made it clear that they might bring other people into the scene, men or women who might be professional actors. Then again, she’d said, “Sometimes we find some rather enthusiastic amateurs. And we won’t tell you which they are.” Anna had agreed to this. Now she stared at them, breathing carefully around the gag as she fought back the pain from the last lash. The blow they’d watched had made their faces shift—they’d gone from amazed and astonished to frankly lustful in the space of a second. Were they professionals? Paid to act this way? Or were they just working men Corinne had rounded up from a bar somewhere?