"Her cheek rested against the cool wood of the pillar, when the first blow hit her bottom. She pulled away and looked over her shoulder at him. "I thought you were going to hit me with that thing, not caress me."
"How would you like to wear a gag?"
Suppressing a giggle, she sighed dramatically—her lips in an uneven line that brought a dimple to one cheek. Turning back around, she tightened her grasp around the upright.
The next strike came with painful results. "God, that's perfect, sir. Just like that." Her breathing had increased and she held her body absolutely still as he peppered her back with five slanted lines in one direction and then the other.
~*~
His touch to her elbow brought her back to the present. It took a moment for her eyes to flutter open and when she looked at him, her pupils were dilated and glassy. She didn't answer his question, ‘Was she all right?’ She unfurled herself from the death grip she exerted on the bedpost and reached her arms around his neck, as if she didn’t have the strength to stand on wobbly legs. He tapped the side of her thigh and she raised her leg around his hip, and as soon as he wrapped his large hand around her leg, she lifted the other one.
Declan dropped the piece of cane and held her as his mouth found hers. She tasted of mint and sweetness. Her mouth yielded under his gentle kiss. He would never understand how she could be so strong that she could accept his painful strikes with barely a whimper, and still be so delicate and fragile. With each air whistling blow, he cautioned himself not to injure her—not to take it too far, but to find that perfect balance to bruise the surface without making the strikes so deep, they’d contuse the muscles. God, he needed to fatten her up so she’d have a layer of protection.
He moved one hand to her bottom to hold her weight better as he pulled the ropes off the bed, letting them drop to the floor.
"We'll play with those later," he said.
His thighs came in contact with her sex as he climbed onto the bed one knee at a time. Her eyes glistened with need and desire, making a slight smile momentarily curl his lip.
He studied every nuance of her face as he carefully lowered her onto her back, making sure the position was not causing her unbearable discomfort. He felt like rolling his eyes at his stupidity.… As if she would let him see her pain.
"Maybe you should roll over."
She tightened her hold around his neck. "I wanted to look at my husband as we come, not the pillows. It's our wedding night—sort of,” she said referring to the fact they had been married by a judge more than a month earlier.
"It doesn't hurt to lie on your corset laces?"
"It feels wonderful, sir."
Despite her assurances, Declan entered her warm, wet passage with slow deliberate motion. Each thrust was slow exquisite torture, making sure he didn’t jar her body and grind the wounds into the covers. Their eyes were locked on each other as he repeatedly filled her with the most erotic sensation.
She began thrusting her hips forward to bring forth the hard friction she craved.
"No," he said in full Dom voice. "You will not move."
Her body instantly melted into the mattress.
"Put your hands by your head."
Her hands dropped from his shoulders to the pillow next to her head. His body stopped briefly as he took a moment to adjust the pendant of her necklace. It had fallen to the side and he moved it to the hollow between her clavicles.
"If it moves, I will be very displeased," he said.
She had flinched slightly when he reached for it, but he knew it had nothing to do with him.
He pinioned her open hands to the mattress and as her fingers closed around his, he continued his agonizingly slow pace. Her eyes closed as a sigh came from her throat on her exhalation.
"My God, sir. What you are doing feels amazing. I really am a slut for these things you do to me."
"Shut up. I don't ever want to hear you say that word again."
Confusion flittered across her face and she bit her lip, making her look vulnerable and defenseless. She was his wife, his submissive, his slave, his life, and she would be the mother of his children. Nyxie was everything he desired in the world. She was everything that mattered.
The helpless whimper drew his attention. Her cheeks and chest were stained with color. Her nipples stood out in plump points at the end of her breasts and he could feel the beginning of her orgasm milking his cock.
"Come for me, baby."
Despite his earlier intentions, Declan began thrusting into her hard enough for her to move against the covers.
Her hands tightened around his and her eyes squeezed shut. He couldn't distinguish if her cries were ecstasy or discomfort, but he suspected it was a combination of pain and pleasure, mixing in a way that only others in their world could truly understand.
With one final thrust, he buried himself in her depths, and the world disappeared as he filled her with his seed.
~*~
Fingers running through his hair brought Declan back to the present. His head nestled on her shoulder and his muscular frame pressed her small body into the mattress. He'd fallen asleep on top of her.
Her back! Christ!
He rolled off her instantly and looked deeply into her eyes, first one and then the other, until he felt certain she was more present than she was after he'd finished marking her back. The glassy far-off look was gone—her dilated pupils had returned to normal.
"How are you feeling?" he asked.
"Good. Really good. I want to see my back."
"Not yet. I, uh, need to tend to it first. I broke the skin in a few places—I really didn't think about the fact that natural cane would have an uneven surface. It's only a few small spots—nothing that should leave a scar—just a few drops of blood here and there."
"Sir, would you take pictures so I can see."
With wide eyes, he stared at her as if he didn’t understand what she said, but slowly, a grin spread. "You have no idea how much that would please me."
Declan practically sprinted from the room. When he came back several minutes later, he not only had a professional looking digital camera, but first aid supplies as well.
He turned all the lights on to their brightest settings and began snapping pictures. He took close-ups of the blood drops that had formed on the surface of the abrasions. Pictures that showed the welts and bruises. He snapped photos of the pattern on her back and then he tied the ropes to her wrists and ankles, and posed her and took more. He took pictures with her standing holding the bedpost and tied to it. And some where she sat on the floor clinging to the upright, looking as if she had collapsed during the caning.
"May I see them?" she asked, reaching for his camera as he began treating her back.
He slapped at her hands. "Not yet."
“May I take the ropes off my wrists?"
"No," he said.
His tone of voice and curt answers told her not to press the issue further, so Nyxie sat there sullenly while he tended to her back.
When he finished, Declan dashed down the steps and came back a minute later with his laptop and a cable. He plugged the camera into the laptop and tapped a few buttons to begin downloading the pictures onto his hard drive.
Before he let her see them, he disappeared into his closet for a few seconds and returned with a white dress shirt. He loosened the restraints on each arm long enough for her to slip her hand out and put on the shirt before sliding her hands back through.
"Leave it open," he said, when she reached for the buttons.
He controlled the order in which she viewed the photos, starting off with an extreme close-up of a spot where the tiny drops of blood had re-formed after they had made love. He posed her sitting cross legged in the middle of the bed with the laptop on the mattress by her knees, and took a picture of her reaction to each and every photo, her hands and ankles surrounded by lengths of red rope.
Many showed a hint of breast in the opening of the shirt. When he place
d her lying on her stomach with her rope clad ankles casually crossed above bent knees, he allowed the curve of her bottom to peek out from under the shirttail.
When he was finally ready to reveal the first wide shot of her whole back, he had her sit in the middle of the bed, her legs drawn up and her arms hugging her knees, with the computer a yard away. Nyxie's eyes widened as she saw her back for the first time. Others would no doubt be repulsed by the sight, but to Nyxie, it was overwhelmingly beautiful. To her, each welt and bruise bound her to Declan in a manner more real than any rope ever would.
To her side, she could sense Declan coming close to take more pictures. Most of the time it made her self-conscious about her expression, but now she was only vaguely aware of his presence. She dropped her leg as she reached out and brought the laptop closer.
The precision of the pattern surprised her. Each set of lines appear to be spaced exactly the same, the angles also perfect. The spots where the lines intersected had darker bruises, like a piece of tartan when two lines of the same color intersect.
She bit the corner of her lip, and her face contorted slightly as she felt her sinuses prickle with the beginnings of tears. She cast an embarrassed smile at Declan, even as her eyes welled up. He held his finger on the shutter release, and let the camera take one picture after another to capture each little micro-expression.
"Why are you crying?"
Nyxie poured over her thoughts and feelings for a moment. "I don't know. My back looks…beautiful, but most people wouldn't understand."
"No, they wouldn't," he agreed
"I barely understand it myself."
Declan reached for the tear running down her cheek, wiped it with his thumb, then put its tip between his lips.
"Ew. Is that a weird doctor thing, tasting a person’s tears?"
He chuckled as he sat down on the edge of the bed with his hands on her knees, as if he couldn't keep from touching her.
"No, just a weird Declan thing, I guess. Is it weird that I want to know everything about you—from the way your tears taste to what foods you don't like. I want to know how many minutes it takes for you to fall asleep at night and how many times you hit the snooze in the morning. There is no detail about you that I don't want to know."
She rolled her eyes and shook her head. "You're so obsessive."
"I don't deny it. I want to know everything."
Declan closed the laptop and turned the digital camera so she could see the display. One by one, he showed her the pictures he'd taken while she perused the other photos. "I think this one is my favorite," he said as he stopped on one where she looked directly in the camera lens. Her large brown eyes and parted lips showed just how aroused she appeared from looking at the marks on her back.
Nyxie laughed. "You like the one that doesn't even look like me."
He turned the screen back to himself and looked again. "No, that looks exactly like what I see when we're in the bedroom. Look how bright your eyes are—how focused you are on me. I would bottle that look if I could.”
Chapter 33
Nyxie couldn't believe she was about to do this. This was crazy. Declan had given her detailed instructions of what he wanted her to do.
She sat in the car in the Chimera Flats High School parking lot for several minutes rereading his instructions and getting her nerve up. Her hands shook as she turned on her phone’s video camera and slid it into the exterior pocket of her purse. Shutting off the engine, she climbed out of the Lexus and headed through the front doors of the school. The halls were completely deserted. Summer school had ended a month ago and only a handful of teachers were there getting ready for the upcoming school year, if the dozen cars in the parking lot were any indication.
As she opened the door to the office, the secretary and attendance clerk looked up from their computer screens.
"Hi, may I help you?" Mrs. Tomlin asked, not bothering to get up.
"Hi." Nyxie's voice cracked with stress. She cleared her throat as she leaned against the counter, putting her purse in front of her so the camera would catch the woman through the lens. "I don't know if you remember me, I used to go here. I-I wanted to see if I could get a copy of my transcript."
"Sure, I can run you a copy. I'll need to see your ID."
Mrs. Tomlin rose from her desk, joined Nyxie at the counter, and waited patiently for Nyxie to fish out her license.
"My last name was Carmichael when I went here," she said, pointing to Carmichael on her license.
The woman nodded as she peered down at the name on the card. "Yes, I think I remember you. Stryker? I didn't know we had any other Strykers in town but our football coach and his wife."
Uncertain whether Roy had told anyone that Declan had married her, Nyxie chose to be evasive rather than claim any kinship. "My husband and I live in Lubbock."
"Oh, I see. But you weren’t married or living there when your brother had his accident?"
Small towns, jeez! She barely remembered this woman, but she knew all about Nyxie's family.
"Yes, ma'am."
Nyxie clamped her mouth shut as she tried to figure out how to change the subject.
"Do you know how your brother is doing? Do they let you visit him?"
"Of course. They've already returned custody of all three kids to me. It was all a misunderstanding because I was never granted custody of them legally."
Nyxie wondered if the woman would believe the lie. She tried to tell herself she didn’t care what people thought, but she did. Only now could she admit how truly neglectful she had been, but it had been a combination of ignorance, pride, and fear of losing the kids, that kept her from pursuing the help she needed.
"Oh, the news said…."
"The news got it wrong. And of course they don't do a story about getting custody returned. They only care about the negative stuff. But to answer your question, Cody is doing much better. He still has a long way to go."
"The woman handed the driver's license back to her and moved to her desk to pull up the transcript on her computer.
"I'll be right back," Nyxie said. “I need to use the restroom."
She darted out of the office before the woman could say anything, and made her way to the girls' room down the hall. It was the same one she'd gone into after the paddling that had brought her into Declan's focus.
She stopped just inside the room and pulled Declan's instructions from her back pocket and read them again. She wanted to do this right—the way he wanted. Having reread the note at least five times already, it didn't take but a moment for her to be assured she hadn't forgotten any of his instructions. From the clothing she wore—the low rise jeans and V-neck T-shirt he had bought for her online that looked surprisingly like a shirt she had owned when she was still in school; everything was planned out—including her filming herself so he could witness her obedience. This was the main reason for her visit to the school, as she suspected she could have called the school and had her records mailed.
Nyxie took a deep breath and looked under the stall doors to make sure she was alone. As per his instructions, she washed her hands and headed into the small toilet cubicle. Since the hook on the back side of the door was broken off, Nyxie put her purse over the corner of the door and pushed it closed. Declan had told her not to lock the door—he was a bit of a germaphobe—although in his note he told her to leave it unlocked for him. She knew he wouldn't be joining her since he was at work, but she knew this was the way his fantasy played out in his mind. With the long purse strap wedged in the gap, the door was secure.
Nyxie adjusted her purse the best she could, so the phone lens was pointed at her. With a shy smile at the camera, Nyxie slowly unfastened her low rise jeans—looking right at the lens as she lowered the zipper.
With disbelief that she was going to do this again, she shook her head. It was not a conscious gesture. It had been an incredibly stupid thing to do when she was a teenager. She only knew her orgasm would help her pain dissipate. There had b
een no thought of getting caught, or the consequences, if she had.
Although she better understood the risks now, she also knew, with no students and few teachers at the school, she was unlikely to get caught this time either. This was what her Dom wanted.
Her eyes closed as she reached inside her pants and cotton panties, sliding her first two fingers over her denuded mons and between her folds to find the fleshy nub. She hadn't expected to be wet, but she was.
Her eyelids parted and she smiled at the lens, imagining Declan watching her.
"I love you, sir," she said quietly—the sound of her voice echoed off the tile walls and seemed amplified in the quiet.
At first, she rubbed slowly, enjoying the slippery feel, but realizing she didn't have an abundance of time, she closed her eyes, concentrated on the task at hand and picked up her pace.
Thinking it would have been easier if he had given her a good thrashing this morning, she reached under her shirt and pinched her nipple painfully hard. A small airy gasp drew her breath in as she felt the orgasm beginning.
"Oh, Declan," she somehow managed to utter. He had told her he wanted to hear his name on her lips as she came. As each wave and throb of intense pleasure engulfed her, Nyxie imagined it was Declan's hands on her. "I love you, Declan. I wish you were inside me."
In the breathy aftermath, Nyxie withdrew her hand and looked at her phone. Unfortunately, his instructions had not ended there. He was not going to allow her to wash her hands. He had written that she should use her mouth to clean her fingers for thirty seconds. Nyxie decided to pretend her fingers were his cock, so she began licking and inserting her fingers into her mouth in a suggestive manner, smiling at the camera, knowing she would give him a real show until her half minute was up.
Making quick work of putting her clothing back in order, Nyxie left the girls' room behind and returned to the office.
"Are you sure you don't have it?" Mrs. Tomlin asked the attendance clerk.
"Why would I have it? I don't use it."
The Love He Craves (The Love She Craves: Selling Her Soul to Declan Book 2) Page 31