Falling Hard (Billionaires in Disguise: Lizzy, #1)

by Blair Babylon

  Every time he showed off his strength, she felt smaller, and her body tingled.

  Mannix walked a few steps and slid Lizzy down his body again. He untangled her arms from around his neck, and she dropped farther down. Her head could have rested in the middle of his chest. He bent and ran both hands along her waist, up her ribs, and lifted her arms above her head. She was still looking up, looking to see what he was doing to her arms, when he whipped a rope around her wrists, tying her hands together and above her head. The rope stretched her so far that, if her knees had given out, she might have sagged only a few inches.

  Her knees didn’t give out. She wouldn’t give in to fear.

  With that, and with knowing that he wasn’t going to try to make her orgasm and embarrass her anymore, steel poured into Lizzy’s core.

  He had said that he was going to explore her pain tolerance.

  She hoped he was ready to be impressed.

  He stepped around behind her, and she stared at the closed dungeon door across the room. Wrought iron hinges held the right side. A black knob studded wooden planks to the left.

  She watched it, waiting.

  The air whistled behind her, and stripes blazed across her back.

  She arched from the shock of it, but the pain was nothing. A cry died in her throat.

  Pain had wracked her body constantly for years, both during training and at night when she had often had trouble finding a way to lie in her bed to sleep that didn’t press a bruise or cracked rib, and that kind of pain meant that she was training hard enough. Broken bones hurt far worse than a few stings on her skin. Torn ligaments and ripped muscles could hurt worse than bone cracks and took longer to heal.

  More stripes of pain. Harder. Deeper.

  She bowed backward to take the force, her shoulder blades contracting, and she gasped.

  The harsh rope scraped her wrists.

  Another lash flayed her back.

  She grabbed the rope above her head and held on, taking the weight off her wrist joints.

  Another lash. More pain.

  Pain is weakness leaving the body.

  Lizzy’s mind shifted, denying the pain, refusing the fear, not feeling anything.

  With every lash, the pain faded.

  Lizzy drifted.

  The Fatal Flaw

  At the boxing gym, in one of the back rooms where men worked on their boxing skills, Theo battered a heavy bag, punching hard. His boxing gloves smacked the bag hard in jab-hook combinations. Shock waves ricocheted up the bones of his arms, jarring his shoulders and thundering down the strong muscles in his back.

  From the other side of the bag, his gym buddy Jorge grunted, sliding backward from the force of Theo’s blows. Behind him, speed bags clattered, and men grunted, doing synchronized sit-ups on the floor mats. Red bricks staggered up the walls, and the bags were crimson, as if a matador had decorated the gym to enrage bulls and boxers.

  Theo was too honest. Not holding back was a bad habit. Telling Lizzy about the background check had been stupid.

  Sweat flicked from Theo’s hair, stinging his eyes. The gym stank of angry men and uncontrolled aggression. He slammed his fists into the bag again and again.

  Such unlimited honesty was a fatal flaw in a lawyer, and it had cost him what might have been a good relationship.

  God, what an idiot he was.

  His New Jersey vocabulary rose in his mind: mother fucker, always pronounced as two words, emphasis on the second word, and Theo was a mother fucking idiot.

  He slammed the heavy bag, punishing it.

  Theo punched it over and over, for a long time, but the anger didn’t fade.

  “Okay,” he said to Jorge and stood, shaking out his arms. “Your turn.”

  Theo jammed his shoulder against the bag while Jorge beat on it.

  An Illuminated Parchment from the Middle Ages

  Lizzy opened her eyes and panted. The medieval dungeon door was still closed in front of her. The lack of pain spun her head like the neon colors of euphoria.

  Behind her, Mannix murmured, “Beautiful.”

  Her legs quivered with exhaustion. Her thighs and calves ached.

  By her ear, his voice rumbled, “Thank you.”

  Her back burned.

  Mannix pulled the rope around her wrists. The knot collapsed, freeing her. Her arms fell, her knees gave out, and she fell but Mannix caught her around the waist.

  He lifted her and cradled her to his chest. “You’re so brave.”

  The air around her cleared, like the blood was returning to her arms, legs, and head.

  He laid her on padded bench, and the sweat from her skin spread on the leather and stung the abraded stripes. God, she hurt. Her whole body hurt. Every inch of her skin throbbed. She could smell her own fearful sweat and arousal on her skin.

  Pain was weakness leaving the body.

  Her leg slipped off the side of the narrow bench and fell. She was too exhausted to pull it back up. Fire burned deep in the skin on her back and the backs of her legs.

  Mannix’s hands slid up the insides of her thighs.

  She could feel the warmth of his hands and the calluses on his fingers scraping her skin. Her flesh trembled as he ran his hands up, nearly tickling, more like massaging.

  She could feel every sting and caress.

  His thumb slipped inside the folds between her legs and pressed her clit.

  Pleasure arced through her like a spark of taser lightning, as blue as his black-lashed eyes watching her face. Her gasp was higher, harsher, and she clutched the sides of the bench. She was glowing red hot, everywhere.

  She could hear him breathing, slowly, so measured, like he was conducting music.

  His thumb moved, sliding the hard bead under her skin.

  Her body seized, going rigid with torment.

  He slid one finger inside her, rubbing slowly along the top of her entry. Her wetness slid over his hand, and her hips lifted off the bench, wanting more.

  God, oh God, she could feel him.

  Mannix pushed his thumb harder on her clit, rubbing, and something smooth plunged inside her pussy, stretching her.

  The fire on her back reached the hot pleasure between her legs, combined and swirled and blew her apart.

  Her body arched off the bench, and now, Lizzy cried out.

  Wave after wave of fire crested from his thumb on her clit, up her spine, spreading through her mind like she was engulfed in flame. She cried out as each one roared through her body.

  The rolling ecstasy slowed, then faded.

  Her body quivered under his stilled thumb, still burning, still alive.

  The shaking subsided, and she sucked a huge breath of air into her body. When she blew it out, she felt her breath returned to her on her lips.

  She opened her eyes, and Mannix was there, above her, watching her.

  She touched his face with her fingers, startled that he was so close. His soft, full lips touched hers, kissing her slowly.

  “Thank you,” he murmured against her mouth. “Thank you for allowing me to do this to you and for trusting me enough to let go.”

  Lizzy nodded.

  When she opened her eyes to look at Mannix again, his light blue eyes were still blazing for her, but his breath wasn’t ragged. His calm was more frightening than any raging passion that might break someone’s control.

  He stepped back and slid a dildo out of her, smiling a slight but pleased smirk. One tendril of his black hair curved over his chiseled cheekbone. “So it is pain that does it for you.”

  Lizzy swallowed hard, still trying to breathe, and laid one arm across her face. Even the dim lights in the gloomy dungeon burned her eyes.

  Mannix said, “Let’s keep going, shall we?”

  “More?” She pushed herself up to her elbows on the bench because she should be horrified, right? She kind of wasn’t.

  Mannix smile widened. “It’s only been a half an hour. Scenes with me usually take two or three hours, if you can
bear it.”

  Sounded like a challenge. “Well, what are you waiting for?”

  He smiled. “Lizzy, you’re a very special woman.”

  Mannix unbuttoned his white shirt, stripped it off, and threw it over by the door. Tattoos scrolled over his musclebound chest and back like his skin was an illuminated parchment from the Middle Ages. Lizzy had studied the Book of Kells in a medieval lit class, and some of the woven Celtic crosses looked familiar.

  Yeah, that was what a Dom should look like.

  Lizzy’s elbows slid out from under her, and she curled down to lay on the bench.

  The Pain Vampire

  Mannix wove the silk ties and bound the girl to the frame. He was efficient, methodical, but not overly cruel. He didn’t want to scare her off. The lemon tang of air freshener drifted, mixing with the girl’s floral perfume.

  His spine was a column of fire, radiating pain down his arms and legs, but it was less than before.

  When Lizzy had come to orgasm with just the lightest stroking after he had flogged her, he knew that she was a true masochist, which was what he needed, though he was not a sadist.

  A sadist enjoys inflicting pain. A sadist is aroused to see another person’s pain.

  Mannix never thought of his scenes that way.

  He thought of himself as a vampire. His pain transferred to the women, and he drank the women’s strength.

  He shouldn’t whip Lizzy on her back or the backs of her legs again. The flogging had left her skin red and swollen. She wouldn’t bruise too badly, he hoped, but she had delicate, pale skin. She might turn all the colors of a dark sunset.

  He could admire her skin tomorrow.

  He whispered by her shell-pink ear, tasting the salt of her sweat in her hair, “I am going to use a small signal whip on you now. The pain will be more intense.”

  She nodded.

  “You’re so small.” He ran his hand down her tiny arm. The bones under her muscle were delicate, and she was so light that he almost believed that her bones were hollow like a dove. “I’m afraid I might break you.”

  “I’m the toughest woman you’ve ever met. I can take anything,” she said. Her gray-blue eyes looked straight at him, and she said in her raspy little voice, without hesitation, “You can’t break me.”

  He liked that she didn’t have a sweet soprano voice. That rasp sounded tough.

  “I don’t want to break you,” he said, trailing his fingers down her arm. Goodbumps rose on her skin under his fingertips. She smelled like jasmine and female sex. “I want you to be strong. Pain will make you stronger.”

  Her breath filled her, like she had almost gasped. “Yes,” she said. “Pain is weakness leaving the body.”

  Mannix nodded. “I can make you strong.”

  Triumph

  Lizzy drifted through the dark pink fog of sub space, the same color as her closed eyelids.

  Pain slashed her back but didn’t touch her.

  Again.

  The world burned with ice-blue fire, and Lizzy floated through the flames, of the fire but not in it.

  The fire crept inward, and every stroke felt like a caress.

  Her legs, tied spread-eagle, trembled. Something vibrated there, against her knee, against her thigh, upward.

  Her flesh around it rippled. It pressed higher.

  Her skin felt raw like a deep sunburn, and every jiggle of the little thing reverberated from her leg through her torso to her fingertips and the top of her head.

  It dragged up her leg, nearing the apex.

  Lizzy began to surface.

  The buzzing slid across the top of her pussy.

  She gasped.

  It slid down her other thigh, circled, and rose up her leg again. This time, it slid through her folds. The buzzing expanded like a ball of force exploding in her. Her back clenched as she bowed backward, gasping.

  It left her pussy for just a second this time, just a second of tease and rest before it rose to fill her slit and press her clit and slide into her.

  The vibrations shook her apart. She blew to pieces and fell back together and exploded again.

  She was a phoenix, born anew out of the flames.

  Then it was gone, and she sagged against the silken restraints.

  She was gone.

  The recessed lights coalesced out of the fiery fog like eight suns set in the sky in two rows. Green and woodsy scent filled her nose, and she smelled the warm man under the cologne.

  She fell, like dreaming about sinking in water, but she was buoyed up by strong arms.

  She settled on the bottom, her limbs wafting down beside her.

  Warmth enclosed her, and she pried open her eyes.

  Mannix held her cradled in his strong arms, wrapped in a velvety blanket.

  She gasped, still trying to breathe.

  He was murmuring something to her. She tried to listen.

  “So strong,” he said. “You’re so strong. Thank you.”

  No, she wasn’t strong yet.

  But she would be.

  His bass sing-song murmurs slowly brought her to life.

  After a half-hour, when she could stand on her feet without her knees shaking, Mannix asked, “Shall we continue?”

  Lizzy nodded.

  Mannix tied his hair back at the nape of his neck, and his smile slipped away.

  ~~~~~

  Mannix stood over Lizzy after tying her arms above her head to a Gothic-looking bench. “I will tie you,” he said, holding a soft, white rope. “Then I will have you.”

  She nodded, still exhausted, but she was going to see this through.

  He wrapped the cord around her ribs and waist tight enough to constrict her like a corset, but she could still breathe.

  Lizzy had heard about breath play, where a Dom controls even when you are allowed to breathe, and it scared her.

  Fear is weakness. Pain is weakness leaving the body.

  Knots decorated the front of the bindings around her torso in a perfect S-curve. The ropes skimmed around her small breasts like a cutout bra.

  She could still breathe. She was all right.

  Mannix layered the cord around her arms, tying them tight and hard until the rope reached halfway down her arms like manacles.

  He twined the cord around her ankles, bent her legs up and back, folding them up and out of the way, then bound her knees beside her waist. She was utterly vulnerable to anything he did to her.

  He leaned over face. His tidy, black ponytail slipped over his shoulder and dangled above Lizzy’s eyes. He whispered, “You’re very flexible.”

  She nodded. Yep, she was a bendy mutant that could take any pain.

  Mannix said, “I’m going to take you now.” His voice, always deep and dark, had fallen to a rumble. He said, “Don’t come.”

  “I don’t know if I can help it.” Lizzy’s hoarse voice was exhausted. The skin on her back and ribs was so sore that she could feel every fray on the soft rope. Her whole body was raw, and she thought she might come again just from thinking about how much she could feel.

  “Don’t,” Mannix said.

  Frustrated tears leaked out of her eyes and ran down the sides of her face into her sweaty hair.

  Mannix positioned himself between Lizzy’s tied-back legs. His zipper grated as he unzipped his pants. She heard the crinkle of a plastic packet being torn open and the small snap of latex.

  He used his fingers to open her pussy, pressed himself against her opening, and stopped.

  Lizzy wanted to press down to push herself around him, but the ropes didn’t allow her to even squirm. They dug into the raw skin on her back, hurting, burning.

  If she could feel the ropes burning, she should be able to feel more.

  Lizzy drew a shallow breath, panting, and another one.

  And again.

  And still Mannix didn’t move.

  Her moan was low and under her breath, and she tried to wiggle closer and onto him, but she was pinned tight.

  T
he head of his cock rested just inside her folds. “Please!”

  “Be quiet,” Mannix said. “No talking, or I won’t fuck you.”

  A sob cramped in Lizzy’s throat.

  He pushed inside her a little at a time, so slowly, stopping with each breath.

  Her back arched as much as the ropes would allow, which wasn’t enough, not nearly enough.

  He inched himself inside her and kept going, pushing inside her, filling her, farther and more.

  She whimpered and pleaded with him, “Please,” and tried to keep breathing. Her back stung as the ropes abraded the raw stripes, and yet somehow, his dick pushing into her rubbed everything inside, everything. “I think I’m going to come.”

  “Don’t come.”

  Mannix slowed down more, dragging himself backward and then pressing in, while Lizzy stared at the ceiling and tried not feel him.

  His cock rubbed all the way through her, igniting nerves that she had thought were torn and gone forever, shivering pleasure up her body.

  The ropes caressed her like they were his hands, holding her just how he wanted her. Her body rocked against the ropes with his thrusts, breathing him in and out, and every brush on her so-sensitive clit spiraled tension into her, winding her body more tightly. Her body compressed, hurtling her toward the edge. She gasped, and she balled her fists as he fucked her with a rhythm that pushed her harder and harder.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, but he rubbed a glowing stripe of pleasure inside her. Her body swelled, clamped down, and she held her breath but his hard body forced her over and she fell, throbbing hard with him still pushing inside her.

  ~~~~~

  Mannix’s strong arms wrapped around Lizzy, swaddled again in the baby soft blanket, and he rocked her.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he said.

  She clung to him even though something inside her head insisted that she get up and run.

  No, she told that small, stupid voice. Nyet.

  “You’re so brave, mon ange.” His deep voice murmured beside her ear.