As suddenly as he’d begun, he stopped, and distantly she heard the sound of him moving in the kitchen beyond the room they were in. Then he was back, and on top of the heat there was ice, slithering along her spine and dripping down her sides. The cold droplets found her breasts, sliding over her nipples and making her yearn.
“You’re so pretty wearing my marks, Ruthie. Does the ice feel good, baby? Does it make my marks burn hotter?” he asked.
Ruthie was so focused on the tactile sensations, the differences between the heat and ice, she couldn’t answer—her mind had retreated and she was a creature of pure feeling.
A sharp tap on her ass, and she was reminded of her situation. “Yes!”
Her response was guttural, her voice ruined by her attempts to hold in her screams of ecstasy. Her pussy wept, and his fingers swiped through her wetness, dragging it through her cleft until he swirled it up and over her anus.
Every move he made seemed designed for her pleasure. There was pain, but it passed too quickly for her to embrace, not giving her the chance to find her mind in the hot mess he’d made of her body.
“You want more?”
“Yes,” she answered.
A harder tap now, and she did give voice to her scream, the combination of his earlier marks with this new, more powerful strike bringing tears to her eyes. “Yes, what?”
“Yes, Sir,” she whispered.
“I would like to see you against my cross, Ruthie—the cream of your skin against the crimson of my cross would be lovely. I’d love to see you hanging in my swing, your thighs spread and red from my flogger, your body presented for me to use any way I see fit. Tell me, Ruthie, is your mind quiet?”
There was something she was missing, but the pleasure had obliterated her options to form a coherent response. Her body ruled her.
“I thought so, little sub,” he said before he placed another, single kiss at the top of her hip.
Her body writhed. She did her best to remain still. Having no idea what to expect, Ruthie waited.
“Remember,” he said softly. “You asked for this. Stand up, Ruthie, slowly. Call to me if you need help.”
It took her long minutes. Her legs were numb and her back was relaxed. Her muscles screamed in protest, her skin on fire, but she managed to rise to her knees. “I need help,” she told him.
Nothing. Then she remembered. “I need help, Sir.”
He was there instantly, holding her close as he lifted her to a standing position and waited for her to find her balance. Her head rested against his breastbone, and Ruthie inhaled, finding comfort in his scent.
“Raise your hands, sub.” His voice was cold now and filled with intent.
Unease skated down Ruthie’s spine and she wondered at that intent. What did he have planned? She raised her hands, wanting back the comfort of oblivion from moments ago.
Something slid over her wrists and down to mid-forearm. Leather cuffs, their softness a promise, the cold chain they were attached to a warning. Tobias tightened the cuffs until they were secure and then told her to wrap her hands around the chain.
Once he had both arms in the cuffs he stepped away. He sighed, and she had no idea what to make of that. Again, she wished for her sight.
“The chain allows you to lower your arms enough that you won’t fatigue too quickly. It is wrapped through a bolt hole in the ceiling. I want you to hold on, Ruthie. This ride will be rough.”
Another slide of leather on leather, and Ruthie tensed.
“You’re waiting for pain, Ruthie, and that tells me you have no idea what you’re doing here. Do you not trust me? Have I ever given you anything but pleasure?” he asked.
She remained silent.
“Answer me!”
She startled, the sound of the anger in his voice making her own rise.
“You’ve given me nothing but pleasure, Sir. But you said you want to break me, and I wonder, Sir, if that’s what you’re planning,” she answered.
“I want to break you so all you know is me, but that’s not fair to you, Ruthie. Because what lives inside of me shouldn’t be visited on anyone. Spread your legs, sub.”
Ruthie spread her legs and waited.
“This isn’t like the last flogger. The tails of this one are thinner and braided. It stings, but it’s beautiful for all that. What is your word, Ruthie?”
“Red, Sir.”
“Let it begin,” he said quietly, and then the flogger fell.
She hissed, she yelled, she pleaded. It was beautiful, but it was agony as well because the intent she’d heard in his voice earlier was packed into every strike. He wanted to scare her off, to show her he wasn’t what she wanted.
Yet every mark he left was infused with love, and the heat spiraled, down her back, over her bottom, down her legs until she became a supernova of want and need. It settled in her stomach, moving lower into her pussy until she knew she was fire.
The burn wasn’t sweet; it was more than that. How many times his flogger fell she didn’t know. She felt the coolness of the chains in her hands, felt her body shifting to avoid the blows, and then Tobias would stroke her skin with his palms, ease the sting and kiss away the fire with his lips. Always the sting ended in pleasure.
He knew her body and played it masterfully, giving her enough soft caresses to counteract the pain from the stinging flogger. She craved the thuds of the first flogger, finding that the sting centered her mind and allowed her a deeper insight into what she wanted. As the pain came it looped through her soul and then departed, and through it all was Tobias.
Her rock. Her love. Her Dom.
The tails fell over and over until he was begging her. “Say the word, Ruthie! Don’t let me do this to you,” he pleaded.
She remained silent, her mind shut down to anything but the bite of his flogger and the pleasure of its sting.
“Ease me, Sir,” she finally managed around a mouth seemingly filled with cotton.
She was gone, floating in a space she’d never been before—her body demanded surcease while her heart demanded everything.
He cursed, and she heard it as if from a distance. The flogger dropped to the ground and he grabbed her hips, canting them to the angle he wanted, and then his cock was between her thighs, a heat all its own.
“Say the word, Ruthie!”
He was pleading with her. Her soul insisted she give him what he wanted, but her mind commanded her to remain silent. This was her chance, and if she failed here, he would be lost to her.
“Please, Ruthie, say the word,” he said at her ear. “Don’t let me do this to you.” The same plea again, and it almost broke her.
“Fine,” he ground out. “But I won’t forgive you for this.”
Then he was inside her, his long, thick cock sinking deep, filling her and taking her over with a single thrust. He rode her through it, not stopping, setting a pace that had her crying out with every thrust. He was gentle, then hard, then harder, and it was glorious.
She flew so high she touched the sky, but when he stilled behind her and pulled out without coming, she knew she’d lost him.
It had all been a lesson. Could she handle him? Yes. But he’d shown her he would never accept her submission. He wanted more. Ruthie wasn’t enough.
He uncuffed her hands, and when her body dropped into his arms, he picked her up gently and carried her to his bedroom. She knew the path, counted his steps, and tried to keep her sanity. Her body ached, but it wasn’t painful. Her heart hurt and it was excruciating.
He hadn’t come. He had the last say, and by not giving her his release, he’d shown her what he’d apparently known all along—he didn’t really want Ruthie. Not all of her, anyway.
Her mind was numb, her body depleted. Her overall emotional state wasn’t conducive to figuring this out right now.
Tobias gently laid her facedown on the bed. The silk of his sheets was a taunt to her body so she groaned, because she couldn’t handle any more sensory input at this point
.
He murmured nonsensical things to her, and she floated in her subspace, recognizing that he was applying balm to her back and small kisses over his marks, but she couldn’t be bothered with it.
“I wish you hadn’t come here tonight. I wish you hadn’t pushed me, Ruthie,” he said against her neck. He shifted and lay down beside her, careful not to touch her back but running his hands through her hair. The hair he’d pulled earlier.
His hands traced her cheeks, over her lips and the shell of her ear. A tear fell from her eyes because even though she was floating, she knew that when she woke up he would be gone. He wasn’t going to give her what she wanted, and Ruthie wondered what was so broken inside him that he couldn’t see he’d obviously taken her to heaven.
But the darkness tugged at her mind, and her body gave over to it.
“I love you,” she whispered, determined to leave him with those words.
“You shouldn’t,” he promised.
Then Ruthie closed her eyes and slept.
—
She woke up disoriented. The feel of the silk sheets beneath her wasn’t the cotton of her own bed. Somewhere in the house a cuckoo clock sounded. She was in Tobias’s house.
And with the last crow of the cuckoo, the night before came rushing back at her. Her hand splayed out, running over the other side of the bed. He was gone.
So much ecstasy, and she was falling hard now into reality. Her hand bumped into a piece of paper. Her heart clutched in her chest. She didn’t want to read it. She couldn’t read it.
The heavy embossed paper taunted her with its series of raised dots that held the promise of painful words. She sat up, pushing her hair back and telling herself it was just a note. He’d learned Braille for her—had even gone so far as to buy a Braille typewriter so he could leave her little notes.
Dear Ruthie—
You gave me something precious last night. Something I don’t deserve. The simple truth is I cannot take what you’re offering. I need more and I won’t break your sweetness to get it. Stanton will be waiting to pick you up. If you love me as you say you do, you won’t revisit this. Move on with your life as if I don’t exist, and I’ll do the same.
I wish you well.
Tobias
Oh, it was worse than she’d suspected. He’d ended it all. She’d pushed him and he’d withdrawn. The tears fell down her cheeks, her heart roiled in her chest, and her brain splintered. She was the one who couldn’t see, but Tobias was the blind one.
Ruthie ripped the paper into tiny pieces, flinging them away. Then she got out of bed and reached for her coat, which she knew he’d placed within arm’s length. She winced as she pulled it on. Her muscles had been well used, and his marks reminded her of everything she was losing, so she ignored her body’s protests.
It took her minutes to make it to the door, and when she opened it, Stanton was there.
“Miss,” he said politely.
“Hey, Stanton,” she responded softly. She grabbed his arm and let him lead her to the car. Had she sight, she wouldn’t have looked back, because even though she’d left her heart there, she would not let him mock her.
He’d left, and sure as hell was hot, Ruthie was finished giving herself to a man who didn’t want everything she was willing to give.
More, he’d said. Ruthie wondered if he’d ever find it.
“Where to, Miss Copeland?”
“Home, Stanton. Thank you,” she said.
As the car pulled away she didn’t mourn. There’d be time for tears later, but even as she told herself that, the tears fell again, hot and scalding, burning a wicked trace down her cheeks.
She’d get over this. She would.
So it became a mantra, one she repeated until even she began to believe it. She’d have to be in the same space with him in the future, but not for a while. Before she’d become involved with Tobias she’d considered a move to Las Vegas. Ruthie loved the sun, and the sun always shone in Vegas.
She could paint, let the constant sun banish her shadows, and she’d find peace.
Damn it, she would find peace.
Love stories you’ll never forget
By authors you’ll always remember
eOriginal Romance from Random House
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