by Flora Dain
I gaze into his eyes as images from the past week flash through my mind—his fury on the footbridge when he thought I was in danger, taking charge of Janice, shifting heaven and earth to trace Sonja when he thought her life was threatened.
Do I feel safe with him? I kiss him gently on the jaw. “Yes,” I whisper.
“And you’ll perform for me?”
I gaze up at him, my heart full. He’s done so much—everything I’ve asked of him and far, far more. I nod, my throat too tight to speak.
I can do this. I owe him.
It’s as if I lit a fuse. Instantly his expression changes and he becomes purposeful, focused, issuing instructions, outlining precisely what he wants. “You’ll make a sequence of moves, positions, poses. While you do it, I’ll move around you and tap you with the cane—lightly while you hold position, then sharply when I want you to shift. You can pose any way you want but I want you to create a kind of—ballet.”
How exciting. We’ve had no rehearsal time so this will be entirely off the cuff. My mind fills instantly with ideas, movements and shaped sequences. He orders me to strip and do some warm-ups while he watches.
“We’ll both wear masks—and you can try out some jewelry. It’ll be an interesting workout for some of the new pieces.”
* * * *
In half an hour we’re ready to start. I’m limbered up now, eager and glowing. He fastens me into the silver harness, the salacious leaves twisting and curling around me. The wicked pointed fronds press into my groin. Every move makes me pulse and throb.
I step into a pair of high heels in turquoise snakeskin, the color sharp and vibrant against my skin, and when I put on a bright, jeweled mask, crowned with brilliant turquoise feathers, he adds a twist of matching chiffon to cover my hair.
My costume’s completed with elaborate silver nipple clamps designed as clusters of leaves to match the harness. He pinches and teases my nipples a few times, smiling as I wince, then screws them in place.
“I’ll leave them looser than normal. We’ll be performing for nearly an hour. Clamps that really do the business have to be pulled off after about twenty minutes, and I’m guessing we’ll have our minds on other things so we may forget. I’ll just slip into costume and we’ll make a start.”
The camera’s running now and I catch sight of myself on screen. I perform a few simple moves to test out the jewelry. It’s very constricting, and the constant pull down below makes my every move an agony of arousal. My breasts look huge, glittering in their jeweled cages, my nipples rosy and swollen among the finery.
He covers my modesty with another surprise—a silver fig leaf. This one hangs from a thin silver chain that loops over my hips in a graceful drape. It’s held in place by a ridged stem that fits directly into my sex. I have to clutch it in place. Instantly it sets up a maddening pressure—and I’m already pulsing with need.
I look like some exotic bird, glittering and graceful, my face masked in bejeweled splendor, my hair veiled in chiffon, my body all a-glow—and deep down I’m on fire.
This will be fun.
At that moment he comes back in and I gasp. “You look sensational.”
He’s naked to the waist and wearing black leather jeans and a menacing black mask. He’s flexing a slim, whippy cane.
His low growl raises the soft down along my back. “You too.”
He moves up close, his long mouth stretched in a wide grin. Behind the mask his eyes glitter. “Ready?”
I drop a kiss on his breastbone, at a point right between his pectorals. I move my thumbs over his tiny nipples and thrill as they sharpen into hard little nubs. “I can only hope so.”
He smiles briefly. “Me too. Just one more thing before we start. I want you to wear this.”
He holds up a flimsy, glittering spider’s web of diamonds, with a soft, silver-colored ball about halfway along. The brilliants catch the light and spray rainbows all over the ceiling.
It’s beautiful but I know instantly what it is.
“A gag?” On no.
He frowns at my evident dismay. “We’ll work to a sound track, but I don’t want you crying out. You might give us away. Just think of it as jewelry.”
He slips it into place. Once more the ball, smaller this time, fits behind my teeth. The diamond web arches away from my lips in a graceful network. It looks like spun sugar, but the piece in my mouth feels as rigid as a horse’s bit.
With a light, cynical smile he adds some flashy earrings and touches me lightly under the chin. “Perfect.”
In the mirror I sparkle in the spotlights. The effect is spectacular. He looms at my side, a menacing, leather-clad Captain Hook to my jeweled, naked and very vulnerable Tinkerbell.
The cane in his hand quivers ominously.
As the music begins, I ease into position on the circle marked out on the floor and begin to dance. After a few experimental stretches, he moves up close and silently indicates I must kneel then tilts up my chin with the tip of the cane. I look up at him and shiver, as a shimmer runs over me—part dread, part arousal—and partly the thrill of performance.
The music is Ravel’s Bolero, used often for display dance. It’s a classic sound picture of macho man at his most controlling—the toreador twirling his cloak. As the rhythm pounds through my brain, I lose my fear and I’m consumed by the music, my limbs finding patterns and shapes in the space around me and blending them into sequence to create dance.
I recall seeing this ballet in Paris, and I set up a deliberate pulse, catching the beat.
Soon it matches my own heartbeat, my rhythm perfectly in sync. And as I move, the cane begins to fall. At first the touches are light, teasing, the cane swishing in the air around me, its fearsome hiss sending shivers through me.
I tease it and seduce it, offered first one breast then another, turning this way and that, using the power of the music to control the urge to flinch as it lands, remembering to hold position when it taps, shifting into a new pose when it stings.
At the start, I focus on it and my dance turns into a duel, a battle of wits between the cane and me as I lure its snap then twist away. But soon I sense impatience in its master—the sinister, shadowy figure wielding it. Slowly he draws closer and his parted legs tower over me as I twist and writhe, laughing softly behind my gag each time I outwit him.
The music’s on a loop, but at last it swells toward its frenzied climax. I hear his breath hiss through his clenched teeth and with a final swish, he lands a double tap at each side of my slit as the cane lands twice in rapid succession.
It feels extraordinary. I’m so aroused now that I have to steel myself not to come, keenly aware we have an audience.
I scream against the gag and suddenly the music is over. As he passes between me and the camera he eases the ball out of my mouth and lets it slip down onto my neck, where it nestles at the base of my throat. The diamonds either side loop into a graceful necklace.
In the silence he murmurs low, as if to himself. “We’re done. Stay on your knees then swivel round to face the camera and smile. Put your hands behind your back and take a bow. Keep smiling.”
I obey in a daze, seeing myself smiling on screen like I’m somebody else. He looms behind me, his face in shadow. He stands with his legs astride, arms folded, the cane dangling from one wrist.
“That’s it. We’re off air.”
The shot pans out to show the audience far below are cheering and shouting at the giant screen in the park where Cade and I are posed in freeze frame, taking our final bow.
I hear him give a low chuckle. “I offered our set as a simple filler between acts. But from the look of it, you’re the star of the show.”
I spin round to gaze up at him. He tilts up my head and stoops to kiss me on the lips. When he pulls away I see his face crease into a frown.
“Does that always happen when you dance?”
“Does what happen?”
His frown darkens. “I’m not sure. You…changed.”
<
br /> I dart him a playful look from under my lashes. “You too. You look very scary in that.”
His eyes narrow and his voice drops to a sinister murmur. “You were defiant. Definitely a breach of the rules.”
I start to rise to my feet but I feel his foot on my shoulder, pressing me down.
He’s smiling at me strangely, his eyes glittering behind the mask. “Oh no, you’re not going anywhere. That was just a demo. Now for the real thing.”
But our display’s over. Surely he can’t mean—?
Some instinct tells me he does. All at once the tower room seems silent and still.
Cade looks down at me, his eyes full of heat. “I’m guessing you enjoyed that.” His rich, dark voice flows around me.
His skill created the display but it was mine that made it art, turning it into ballet and an unexpected triumph. Now he switches off the camera and gently removes my jeweled gag. He stands over me, his chest heaving.
I tingle all over where the tip of the cane teased and snapped on my skin. My nerve endings fizz like champagne. I feel almost as heady as if I’d drunk some. I beam at him. “Was that the surprise you meant—that I’d enjoy it?”
“So—did you?”
I feel my cheeks burn. “Maybe.” My husky whisper hides a torrent of feelings, some of them entirely unexpected. I’m on top of the world—and oddly emotional. I want to laugh and cry all at the same time. With an effort I manage a bright smile. “Quite a surprise.”
“I think you surprised us all. But now playtime’s over.”
My smile slowly dies away.
“Lose the mask.”
His voice is low and quiet, his expression stern.
Alarm clutches my belly. “What are you going to do?”
Behind the mask his eyes glitter dangerously. “You broke the rules. Defiance earns a correction. You might have been on camera, but you were still under instruction. Did you think I’d forgotten? You’ll get six strokes on your thighs, three a side. And we’ll try out a new position for this.”
He instructs me to lie down at the center of the circle and hoist my body and my legs upright into the air like I’m doing exercise cycling. He takes his time tapping me into position. When he’s satisfied that my toes arch far enough and my knees are straight, he makes me splay my legs.
“Wider. I want full access.”
He really means it. Indignation burns. This is so unfair, only minutes after such a triumph.
Then I stop myself. It’s all my fault. Maybe the caning display aroused him. It sure aroused me.
He tried to give this up. He told me so.
Tease the tiger, you risk a bite. And now, against all reason, I’m so jumpy and excitable and deeply, hotly aroused that I’m looking forward to it.
Our caning display was a triumph—and a prelude. Like he said, just the warm-up. Now I want more.
“One.” The first blow lands with a snap, stinging on my sensitive skin like fire. The sound lingers far longer than the sting. I close my eyes, savoring the sensation.
I open them to see him watching me, trying to gage my reaction, to see how I’m doing. Not just for his pleasure—he has to. He’s my Dom.
But it’s an effort to meet his gaze. Oddly, I’m ashamed of him seeing my reaction. I’m ashamed of my pleasure?
“Two.” The cane lands again. As I tense the gleaming silver ivy leaf jolts in my groin. The metal’s warm now, the silver so smooth I’d have forgotten it but for its precise, unmistakable pressure.
I’m building to a climax.
Even the sight of him doing this turns me on. Can I really be enjoying this?
As the third blow lands, he draws away and starts to trace patterns on my skin with the very tip of the cane. “How does this feel? Good?”
I stare at him, my eyes filling as emotion and endorphins rage together.
“Answer me.” The cane taps briskly at my upraised rump, making me twitch. The next second it lands with a sharper tap across my nipples.
I gasp, then moan a little as the sting warms my groin to a pulsing, throbbing ache. “Good, Sir. It feels good.”
Please, again—just there—once more…
Chapter Nineteen
The cane trails again. This time it teases between my legs and along the curves of the silverware that press my folds modestly together. It travels farther, the tip slipping inside me, circling in my moist, hidden dip and easing out again, lingering along my slit.
I whimper as heat flares between my legs.
“You’ve made the cane wet. You’d better lick it clean.” Cade smiles beneath the mask as the tip quivers close to my lips.
Slowly I extend my tongue and lick, then fellate it gently, tasting the salty flavor of my own juices, stirred and ashamed.
After a few moments he slowly pulls the cane away. It swishes through the air with a terrifying hiss. “Four.”
The sting’s lighter now. The pressure and the heat in my groin fuse into a dull ache as each blow takes me closer. He circles around me, tracing my silver harness with the tip of the cane. It snaps again.
“Five.”
I gaze up at him from the floor, admiring his firm, muscled thighs so close to my face and the distinct bulge at his fly where the tight leather jeans stretch over his swelling erection. The sight of his arousal fuels mine. Now I’m getting agonizingly close.
One more, please, please…
“Six.”
The last stroke is the sharpest, but now it hardly matters. The wicked jewelry takes over and does the rest. My orgasm flashes through me like lightning, swallowing up the effect of the blow in the violence of the convulsion that seizes me.
Instantly he knows.
“Hold the position.” He stands over me, directing my pleasure as sternly as he directed my limbs.
I writhe and twitch, desperate to balance, intensely aware of his gaze as my orgasm consumes me, the storm of it raging through my splayed legs and my tense supporting arms.
As the heat fades, the force of it leaves me drained and limp, my thighs on fire. He watches in silence as I fight for control and to stay in position.
“Now relax. Curl up into a ball then kneel up, hands behind your back.”
Shakily I do it. I hear the telltale rasp of his zipper as he unfastens his jeans. This can only end one way.
Menacing and stern, he towers over me as his huge erection leaps free and jerks in my face. He stays silent, his stance alone expressing his desire.
As my climax still ripples through me, I lick gently at his hot, swollen tip then surge forward, my rhythm swiftly matching the rise and fall of his heaving chest.
“Easy.” He sounds surprised.
Smiling around him, I slow a little, thrilling to his hard, ridged length as it fills my mouth.
Gently he withdraws. “You’re too good at this.” He lays a hand along the side of my face, his gaze warm.
I close my eyes and lean into his touch. His tenderness, so soon after the torment of the caning, is deeply unsettling. The aftershocks from my climax still rage inside me. I think I’m close to tears.
He tilts up my face, scanning me anxiously. “What?”
I swallowed. “Are you—turning me away?”
He drops a kiss on my hair, his voice barely a whisper. “Never. But—I need more of your mouth.”
Startled, I scan his face. I can see he does. He looks huge and ready—and good enough to eat. But for once he seems unsure.
I feel a rush of tenderness at the thought that at a moment like this he can hesitate. What is it he wants? Is he scared to ask? Scared of hurting me? Or of going too far?
With a flash of inspiration I slip onto the leather-clad seat under the window and lie back along it with my legs splayed, my breasts thrust upward and my head hanging off the end. “Try now.”
Do subs take charge like this? If not, I’m in big trouble. But taking charge gives me the confidence to smile up at him, touched at his look of surprise. He crouches down b
y my shoulders, his grateful gleam telling me he understands.
I shiver as he strokes the side of my face, his touch loving and gentle, then kneels up to prod my lips with the head of his swollen erection, now glossy with my saliva. Instantly I open wide to draw him in. With a sigh he slides deep into my throat.
This angle is a revelation. He slides right in to his full length. For once I’ve no need to fight the reflex or pause to swallow. It’s glorious.
He thrusts again and again. I accept him eagerly, letting him possess me, fill me, glide through my mouth with the lithe ease of the conqueror.
It seems to be just what he wants—and right now, it’s everything I need.
At last he pauses, quivers, then comes with a shout of triumph, his hands clasping my head. Slowly, almost reluctantly, he withdraws. He hauls me down onto the floor and takes me in his arms, burying his face in my hair, murmuring my name over and over.
Sated with pleasure, I close my eyes, leaning back in the rare luxury of his embrace. When I open them again, he’s smiling, his dark eyes as deep and blue as the sea.
“Today I’d planned a day of surprises for you. So far, they’re all on me.”
At the end of our session he carefully lifts away all my cruel finery, the silver body harness, the naughty nipple flowers and finally the wicked ivy leaf, suspended by the glittering diamond chain that loops from my hips.
It fits so neatly over my most private place that it looks modest and beautiful, while its hidden secret, the deep ridge at its underside, makes it anything but. I’m still aglow from the orgasm it gave me.
I feel vaguely disappointed when he frees me from my elegant silver restraints. Without the teasing pressure on my nipples and the tight, provocative pinch of the silver at my waist and between my legs, life seems tame and flat.
But as we get dressed, I feel light and happy. He seems different too. He catches my eye like he’s seeing me for the first time.
It reminds me fleetingly of Jake, unable to tear his eyes away from Sonja, the now-not-so-chilly ice maiden. “How’s Sonja?”
“We only talk about work.” Cade shrugs. “Like when she called me from the hotel this morning. How should I know how she is?”