Contract Taken (Contracted Book 1)

by Aya DeAniege

  “How do you feel like this?”

  “Comfortable,” I said, the confusion plain in my voice.

  The cushion gave more protection for my knees but also raised me just slightly. Instead of feeling like I was bent at a funny angle, I was almost flush with the top of the ottoman, my hips against the edge without pressing in painfully.

  “Good,” he murmured. “Lay your hands flat on the floor at the corners there.”

  I did as he told me, laying my wrists near the feet of the ottoman.

  Nathaniel knelt and reached under the ottoman, pulling a cuff from behind each foot. The ottoman stood off the floor by a couple of inches, providing little feet for the cuffs to attach to. The cuffs themselves were made of velcro. Nathaniel placed the cuffs on each of my wrists, tightening them until the fabric portion was flush with my skin.

  “Pull,” Nathaniel said.

  I pulled at the cuffs. Nathaniel made a small sound and walked around me. He gave my backside a small slap, then walked away.

  I knew what he was doing because he had told me as much before.

  Nathaniel brought the desk chair over and behind me. He sat in the chair and studied my backside. I could have looked over my shoulder at Nathaniel, but that would have strained my neck. It was a lot more comfortable, and smarter, to simply lay there and face forward.

  “Do you only wear white underwear?” Nathaniel asked.

  “Yes, underwear is white,” I said.

  “It is many colours. You will no longer wear white unless I instruct you to.”

  “Yes, Sir,” I said.

  I had been wondering what the other colours were for. I thought perhaps Nathaniel would reduce my wardrobe eventually, and that would become my clothing. But a lot of the coloured underwear was smaller than the white underwear, which really confused me.

  How was the coloured, lacy stuff supposed to fit over top of the white ones?

  Which were cotton and covered everything. They were the only colour that covered everything, which was what underwear was supposed to do.

  After five minutes of waiting, to see how I would react to being tied up and left 'alone,' Nathaniel stood and went to the ottoman at the end of the bed. From there he withdrew a crop, a paddle, and a flogger. These items he placed on the floor in front of me, where I could see them. The crop and paddle I understood when Nathaniel had said he would use them. They were the same ones he had used on me that day in the ballroom.

  A flogger is typically made of leather, but could also be made of other material. It has many ends on it that come together in a handle. It's a multi-tailed whip, though most think of whipping a slave in olden days when they hear whip. They think broken skin, blood, and screaming.

  A flogger could be used for that if one is stupid or sadistic to the point of not caring for the sub.

  Or if the sub really wanted it.

  The flogger Nathaniel chose that night had wide tails to it. The wide tails often create a softer sensation, but can cause pain if used properly—or improperly depending on one's view.

  The crop was a standard riding crop. Nathaniel owned horses. The crops he used in play had never been used on a horse, but if anyone ever asked why he had a crop, that was the answer after a moment of hesitation.

  The paddle was long and flat. Just wider than my hand and made of wood. It was thick as well. There was no give to the paddle.

  Nathaniel moved off and returned once more. I didn't see what he brought over and set on the floor behind me. He swatted my backside playfully before bending down and over me. Most often he would stand and swing downward, but sometimes he came down and close.

  The heat of him oozed into my back as Nathaniel reached over me and picked up the crop. As he did that, his free hand slid over my buttocks and between my legs.

  “Keep your knees spread,” he said, then stood.

  I shifted against the ottoman, spreading my legs.

  The crop tapped my back and continued to tap downwards. I lay prone, not knowing what was about to happen as it tapped first one, then the other cheek. A sudden swat made me jump and squeak. Another swat was delivered to the other side.

  “Do you like that?” Nathaniel asked.

  “Not really,” I said.

  The swat had stung. It had been sudden and unexpected, and I didn't think I liked it at all. Even after answering, I felt the place where it had struck in an uncomfortable way.

  “That's too bad,” Nathaniel murmured, dragging the crop down my spine and around, between my legs. I arched upwards, towards the crop as it slid from between my legs, wanting the contact to last.

  “Oh no, you aren't allowed to come until I tell you to,” he said.

  The crop was placed back beside the other items and Nathaniel picked up the paddle instead.

  There were no gentle taps with the paddle. He struck me enough to cause an impact and a small sting. The paddle itself was long enough to strike both sides of my buttocks. It became a favourite of Nathaniel's when he wanted to torment me. The paddle worked for the balance out that I craved, but not quite. It wasn't exactly even, wasn't exactly what I liked, but it was enough to get me through some time before I started snarling.

  “Do you like that?” Nathaniel asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Good,” he responded, returning the paddle and picking up the flogger. “This is mainly meant for the back, but I'm sure you can tell the difference between this and the feeling of discipline.”

  The strike of a flogger is indescribable. The many tails of a flogger create the sensation of many strikes, which is really what is going on. The wide tails thudded onto my back, and I almost moaned. There was simply no stopping it. Nathaniel handled all the items with an intimate understanding.

  “Did you like that?” Nathaniel asked.

  I couldn't see his face, but I could hear the smile in his voice.

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Good.”

  Nathaniel proceeded to use each of the instruments, cycling through them.

  Throughout the session, he would ask me questions. Anytime I felt floating and wonderful he would start asking annoying things. He'd have me do math, or ask me something personal, jolting me back to the present.

  All I wanted to do was sink into that feeling of comfort and cotton.

  He wouldn't allow it.

  That was the point. Nathaniel didn't want me 'checking out' mentally in the middle of a session. He talked to me to make certain that I stayed present and fully understood what was going on. To make certain I was capable of processing thought.

  Each strike shuddered through me. When the crop was used, it was a different sort of shudder, followed by the crop tracing my outline, which I did enjoy. Hands trailed down my form, fingers dug into my flesh. I writhed under Nathaniel's ministrations.

  He was very, very careful that first session. The closest thing to pain he caused was the slight sting from the crop in those first moments.

  “You've been very good,” he said, sinking down behind me.

  Nathaniel's fingers worked my underwear down. I heard a snip, a pair of scissors clipping my underwear off of me. They were tossed aside, and the scissors were set down.

  The flesh that he had just been striking was sensitive to each motion of his fingers. The heat of his hands soaked into my skin as he grasped me firmly.

  “So good that I think you need a reward,” Nathaniel said.

  I made a small sound, wondering what he meant. By that point, I wasn't even thinking about embarrassing myself by becoming wet. I needed something, anything to sate the hunger he had brought out in me.

  I writhed against the ottoman, if only to get a sensation in those moments as he withdrew his touch. All I cared about in those moments was that I was aching with need, and he promised to deliver.

  Nathaniel did something behind me and then crouched over my back. He breathed out as I breathed in.

  “Do you want your reward?” he asked.

  “Plea
se, Sir,” I moaned.

  I gasped as something slid into me. Not Nathaniel, I was certain, it wasn't as warm as a man.

  I should have known he'd tease me as long as possible.

  I didn't know what it was. Again, the slum didn't exactly have adult toys. I had heard of dildos before but thought they didn't exist any longer.

  It still made me cry out and thrust against it. With one hand Nathaniel reached under me and slid his fingers between my folds. As the toys thrust in, his fingers worked in a slow circle.

  I am not ashamed to say that I shuddered, moaned, and writhed as I begged for release. Nathaniel wasn't pressed tight against my back, but he had leaned down to be as near to me as possible. Every bit of me was on fire, though there was an underlining disappointment that it was a toy and not Nathaniel, not what I wanted.

  “Now I want you to come for me,” Nathaniel said, kissing my lower back.

  My breath shuddered out as my body seemed to respond. It couldn't possibly happen just like that, I told myself. There was a twinge deep in my gut, one that I recognized as desire.

  I wanted to do as he commanded, I wanted to come.

  Nathaniel made a sound that might have been a moan.

  “It would please me if you came for me," this time, the shudder rolled through my whole body. "That's it,"—I cried out as he hesitated—"Come for me, Darling."

  The toy continued to thrust as the orgasm rocked through my body. Nathaniel pressed tight against me as the toy stilled. He breathed out against my flesh.

  “Good,” he murmured. “Good. I'm going to pull away now, and then I'm going to clean this up while you stay here.”

  I made a small sound in response.

  Nathaniel took that as an affirmative and pulled away. He went to the bathroom, and I heard the water run.

  The sound of the water running brought me back to reality.

  Tied to an ottoman, naked. After having been touched by a man who couldn't even bring himself to have sex with me.

  I felt like shit. All that pleasantness was replaced with a hole in my gut. The throbbing ache turned from pleasure to shame. Wanting that? Being excited by that? I fully participated, and I enjoyed every moment of it, but still I felt sick at the idea.

  Every fibre of my being felt as if I had done something wrong.

  The play was safe. Nathaniel hadn't crossed that pain line after he knew where it was. The velcro cuffs would take a moment to flick open. Nothing dangerous had happened.

  It was sane. We had discussed it before hand, and I was given plenty of time to consider what was going to happen. The idea of it had excited me.

  And it was consensual. At any point, I could have said no, but I didn't want to.

  There had been absolutely nothing wrong with what we had done. Kinky, yes, but it was still only a little kinky.

  Nathaniel returned as I was tugging at the cuffs, desperate to get away. In those moments I just wanted to hide.

  He approached me quickly, then moved very carefully as he laid a hand on my shoulder gently. I went still, breath coming quickly as his green eyes locked with mine. They were warm and filled with concern, and that was the only reason I stopped struggling in that moment.

  “Whoa, easy,” he said, releasing first one, then the other wrist. “Easy, easy, I went as fast as I could,” he followed me as I stood and came around me, blocking my way when I tried to go to the door. “You're dropping. Let me help.”

  “How?” I demanded, making a motion up and down him, “Why? I'm—I'm just not—It's not. You can't even bring yourself to...”

  And then I started crying.

  The tears were falling from my eyes, and I felt absolutely desolate. I was useless and worthless, and no one ever wanted me for anything. If they were involved with me it was from a distance. It was through something else, anything else. As long as they didn't have to interact with me.

  “I didn't promise you that,” Nathaniel said, approaching slowly.

  “I know that!” I wept.

  “Your worth isn't in whether or not I put my penis inside of you.”

  “I know that too!” I shouted.

  I was there for his personal amusement, and he couldn't even use me like that.

  That was how I saw it.

  Nathaniel wrapped his arms around me and drew me close. He held me as I cried, and until the tears came no more. Once I stopped crying, he led me to the bed and prodded me under the blankets. Nathaniel went to the bathroom, probably to dry off, then returned and slipped into bed beside me, wrapping an arm around me.

  “The drop can be pretty ugly sometimes,” Nathaniel said. “I'm not going to leave you until you're stable again.”

  “I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me,” I said with a sniffle, wiping my eyes.

  “It's okay, I've seen some pretty strong men reduced to tears and sniffling from the drop,” Nathaniel responded with a small chuckle. “You'll feel better. Oddly better about everything.”

  “What if I don't?” I asked.

  Nathaniel was quiet a moment, then he said, "We'll deal with that if it happens." He paused to kiss my temple, then took my chin in his hand and pulled my face towards him. "And I'll help you through it because you mean a great deal to me."

  And then he kissed me properly. It was gentle. It was kind.

  It was nothing like what I expected from a kiss, given the contract I had signed. It was everything in a kiss that the boys and men of the slum had never managed to do. Every kiss I had from that point forward was compared to that moment in Nathaniel's bed.

  None of them compared.

  Well, except the other kisses I earned from Nathaniel.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I wasn't exactly better the next day. Tender would be a more apt way to describe how I was feeling. Not physically, physically I was fine. Nathaniel had been gentle with me. He hadn't even tested the limits. My backside ached a little bit, maybe, but it was more like the tenderness after a day of hard work.

  My soul, though, that was raw and aching. I felt as if, emotionally, I had been through the ringer.

  Nathaniel had to leave the estate for some work. There was an emergency due to a health hazard discovered in one of his plants. Something to do with a new chemical they used for cleaning.

  He had to meet with inspectors to come up with a solution. To come up with a solution, he had to tour the plant with the inspectors. I remember him grumbling about it because the tour wasn't just to fix the initial problem, but to try to find new problems.

  So he left me in the care of Patrick.

  Like usual, Patrick was in the library reading. It seemed the only time he left the library was to tend to Mr. Wrightworth's visits.

  The young man taught me a lot in the few hours we had together. His lessons kept my mind off of the trouble swirling inside my mind. That day was a refresher on basic math and working up to more difficult mathematics. Patrick started with the bare basics to see how much I knew.

  Not as much as I thought I did, that's for certain. It was humbling for me to realize that in the slums I knew plenty to get around, but in the real world, I knew little.

  Nathaniel returned sometime just before midnight. I only know that because Patrick and I were still in the library. He was talking about ancient history, and I found myself fascinated by the lecture. We were both promptly lectured on staying up too late and pushing ourselves too far.

  I stumbled to bed, exhausted.

  For days afterward, Nathaniel initiated absolutely nothing. It was like those first three days I was in his estate except we spent more time together. We still showered together, but by that time it almost seemed normal to me.

  When we were in Nathaniel's study, I continued my reading, and he continued his work. I had no idea what he was doing on his computer, it was beyond me to understand how a business could be run mainly from a computer, but somehow he managed it.

  Friday was quickly upon us. Nathaniel had a poodle skirt dress sent to my ro
om with a servant. It was black and white with bright pink ribbon and embroidery. I traded the dress for the one I had chosen, then asked the servant to show me the way to the entertainment room.

  When I entered the room, Nathaniel was already sitting with a bowl of popcorn. He sat on the couch where I had been the week before. The movie box was sitting on the table directly in front of him. The television was even paused, with the emblem of the production company that had made the movie filling the screen.

  On the table in front of Nathaniel was a bowl of popcorn and two bottles of soda, looking like they had already been mixed with alcohol.

  I sat on the couch, and he patted the cushion beside him. Trying not to sigh, because I found everything irritating at that point, I shifted to the spot he had patted.

  “How are you feeling?” Nathaniel asked carefully.

  “A little better,” I sighed out.

  “Was it too much?” he asked.

  This was a question he asked me every day. While I found it irritating that he kept asking, I also found it endearing. Even though we had played several days before, he still checked up on me to see if I was all right. However, he had asked me that already that day, only at lunch time as I was pushing my food around my plate.

  “What?” I asked, surprised that he was asking me again. “No, I would have said something if it was.”

  I still couldn't meet his eyes. I felt like he was judging me, like he was going to send me back because I hadn't reacted the way he wanted me to. There was no doubt in my mind that I wanted to stay. I even found myself frustrated that I still felt the way I did. Like my emotions were no longer in my control, and I had no idea how to deal with that.

  “Okay, let's try something that was suggested to me, then,” Nathaniel murmured as he stood.

  He motioned to where he had been sitting, on the end of the couch.

  I scooted over and settled into the warm spot he had left. Nathaniel reached past me and pulled the blanket from over the back of the couch. This, he draped over me. Once I was sufficiently covered, Nathaniel took his place beside me and wrapped an arm around my shoulders.

  “I warmed up the seat for you,” he said quietly, reaching for the popcorn to bring it over. “And the popcorn has extra butter.”