by Lea Griffith
When the water reached her neck, she turned it off, afraid that if she ran any more she’d make a mess on the floor outside the tub. The peppermint-lavender blend should have been obnoxious to her nose, but instead it was calming. The oils sank deep into her skin, bringing peace and the relaxation she’d been hoping for.
She floated on a sea of bliss, the water remaining warm for a long time. She felt so peaceful that the sound of Tobias’s chuckle startled her. She sat up suddenly, water indeed sloshing out of the tub.
“Hi,” she said with a small laugh.
“Hey, baby,” Tobias returned in a low, gruff voice. “You know what? No matter what scented oils you use, you always smell like jasmine.”
He padded to her and before she could breathe he was in the tub with her, pulling her astride his lap. “Why is that, Ruthie?”
His cock was a brand between her legs, so close, yet too far away. She shimmied until she was even closer, but his hand at her hip kept her from impaling herself on him. “It’s my hair,” she murmured, lowering her face to his.
“Nunh-unh-unh,” he said firmly, a small tap on her ass as a warning. “Tell me, Ruthie, how are you feeling? Is your neck bothering you?”
She shook her head, elation moving through her body in a slow, almost agonizing wave. His tone and touch were demanding. She might get what she was hoping for.
“It’s healing perfectly, Tobias. No pain,” she responded hastily.
His hands clenched on her hips. “He hurt you, Ruthie. I don’t ever want to experience that again.”
“I know, Tobias. But I don’t want you hurt either.”
He continued to hold her at arm’s length. It was frustrating. “I’d give my life to protect you, you know that, right?”
“I know you’d damn well better not!” She stilled. There was something he was trying to tell her but she was missing it. “What is it? What’s happened?”
“There was a woman killed on the northeast side of Atlanta last night. It has Gallo written all over it. But he’s in the wind and I have no idea where he is. He wants to hurt me, Ruthie, and the best way to do that is to hurt you.”
She shuddered, but it was with rage.
“I won’t let him hurt you again. I promise.” His vow echoed in the bathroom, and her heart squeezed painfully.
“You can’t always control everything, Tobias,” she murmured gently.
“I can control this,” he said in a hard voice. “And right now, I’m going to control you.”
Oh, the sensual promise in his words! Her nipples furled tight and her core heated. “Yeah?” It was all she could manage around the lust that had copped a squat in her throat.
“Oh, yeah. You sure you aren’t hurting? It might be too much, too soon,” he said cautiously.
“I’m positive. Give me your best shot,” she said around a moan.
He shifted and leaned up to lick across her lips. “Oh, baby, I’m going to give you way more than that. I’ve got a need to take us places we’ve not been before. I need to own all of you—your responses, your reactions, your pleasure. I want it all to be mine. Let’s start now.” He got to his feet and lifted her to hers. “No talking unless I give you permission. You nod or shake your head unless you need to safe word. What’s your safe word, sub?”
“Red, Sir,” she whispered.
“Good enough for now.” He stroked her shoulders, moving his palms down and over her arms, bringing chills to her heated skin. He grabbed her hands and lifted them to his mouth. He kissed each knuckle and set them back down. Then he kissed her wound and moved back. “Get on your knees.”
Ruthie lowered to her knees, excitement racing through her bloodstream straight to her clit, which began to pound in need. She could probably come from his voice alone. It was insanity.
“I’m always hard for you, sub. All I have to do is think of you, smell jasmine in the air, or know you’re close and my cock goes hard as a brick. Take me in your hands and stroke me,” he demanded in a guttural voice.
Ruthie did as he commanded, cupping his velvet-over-steel cock in her hands and stroking up and down the rigid length, thumbing the crown before she played with the vein that ran from root to tip. She licked her lips.
He grabbed her jaw. “I didn’t tell you to lick your lips, sub. For every infraction tonight, there will be punishment. And it will hurt. Trust me, sub, when I tell you it will hurt before it feels good.”
Ruthie bowed her head. Maybe she wasn’t so good at this whole submission thing? She’d just wanted a taste.
“I control every move you make. That’s the bargain we made yesterday in the kitchen, Ruthie. If you can’t handle it, release my cock and leave the bathroom,” he said in a harsh voice.
Ruthie remained where she was. She wasn’t giving him up. Not now. She’d do better and control her automatic responses. She could let him have control here.
Long moments passed. Tobias said nothing and the water began to cool uncomfortably. She still held him in her hands, still stroked him, and his breathing sped up, but that was the extent of the byplay between them.
“Since you wanted to lick your lips, lick my cock instead,” he instructed her.
He was giving her what she wanted even though she’d disobeyed. Elation filtered through her body.
She leaned forward, stroking down his shaft as she replaced her hand with her mouth, taking him to the back of her throat and swallowing reflexively.
He groaned loudly. Ruthie did it again, the feel of him invading her in a way so erotic she had no frame of reference. She’d gladly suck his cock every day for the rest of his life because she enjoyed it just as much. The water that reached to her waist had cooled, but her lower body was on fire as she took him in again and again.
She felt him harden and then he pulled away. She heard him finishing himself off, heard the plops of his release into the water of the tub, and anger replaced the elation. His release was hers, damn it.
“You didn’t earn it. Your disobedience cost us both. I wanted to come in your mouth, watch you swallow my release, and I’ve denied myself to punish you. You hurt us both. Remember that, sub. Every time you disobey, something you want will be taken away. I don’t have to strike you with a flogger, a crop, or a whip to inflict pain.”
He’d read her mind, or more probably the expression on her face. Was there anything she could hide from him?
“Stand up,” he demanded.
Ruthie did as he instructed, wariness making her shiver once again. She definitely wasn’t cold—far from it. It was a sensual anticipation she was having a hard time controlling.
It hit her then that this was what it was all about—her not having that control any longer. Giving up everything and letting Tobias carry the weight of that power. He’d told her that ultimately she had the power through her submission. She could rest in that knowledge.
It was freeing that even as she wanted to demand he take her, please her, it wasn’t her call. She trusted him to take them both where they needed to go. Her mind fractured in a beautiful way then, every sense she had flaring out to experience the joy of this moment. She heard the soft lapping of the water, felt the air conditioner shooting cool air over her heated skin, and heard the rough sawing in and out sound of her own breathing.
“Step out of the tub,” he commanded.
Ruthie obeyed, head down, arms lax at her side.
He handed her a soft, plush cotton towel. “Dry me off.”
She did and loved every minute of it. She’d once taken an entire night to learn every curve of his body. But it had been three years, and while he’d been pressed against her several times over the last couple of days, she now had the opportunity to learn him all over again.
She started at his feet, drying him slowly as she worked in small circles up his strong calves and cut thighs. She traced the indentations of his musculature, reveling in his strength. Tobias was a big man, strapped with muscles but not body-builder heavy. Neither was he lean, ra
ther somewhere in between the two, and it was magnificent. A few times she took the liberty of caressing him with her palm, using the guise of the towel slipping.
She had no doubt he knew her game and she loved it. It became a cat-and-mouse game of sorts as she made him wait for the next stroke of her hand over his body. But she continued to use the towel to dry him, between his legs, rubbing less vigorously over his testicles. He hissed and she heard his pleasure in the sound. She moved the towel around to his magnificent ass. Taut and hard, it taunted her mouth. She loved the way it flexed as he stroked deep inside her body. Ruthie wanted to bite him there, hear him hiss again.
“You’re playing,” he said in a rough voice. “I said dry me off.”
Ruthie noticed the tremor in his tone and smiled to herself. She hid her smile against his stomach and casually stood, drying the broad expanse of his back as far as she could reach around him, and then his ripped abs and chest. His body was a wonderland—a play place for her hands.
She reached his face and took a corner of the towel, wiping over the contours of his strong, stubbornly square jaw, over the bridge of his aristocratic nose, and over the elegant line of his brow. Ruthie brushed gently over his eyelids and his forehead before she took a single step back, lowered her head once again, and waited for her next instruction.
She was almost completely dry herself except for her wet hair, which continued to drip down her back, over her nipples, and down her belly.
“You have no idea how close I am to simply sinking so deep inside of you we lose ourselves,” he said harshly.
He took the towel from her and began drying her body much as she’d done with him. He started at her feet, moved up over her slender calves and thighs, and paid particular attention to completely drying her pussy. He played with her rear for a few moments, separating the globes of her ass and running the cotton over her nether hole. She barely held back her groan.
She wanted him to take her that way, she realized. Hell, she was so jacked up on sensation right now she’d take him any way she could get him.
“Don’t move. I’ll touch you when and where and how long I want. You move, I stop.”
Ruthie stilled immediately.
Tobias laughed, and her spine tingled at the erotic intent in the sound. “Good little sub,” he praised. He dried her hair with the towel and then braided it for her. Ruthie would have preened if he’d allowed it. He loved her hair, and that was one reason she’d never cut it after she’d left. With the exception of a trim here and there, her hair was left in the same long, straight style she knew he loved.
“Follow me,” he ordered.
Ruthie did, stopping when he placed a hand on her shoulder. She heard the sounds of him opening his dresser drawer. But he didn’t tell her what he was doing and she was growing frustrated.
“Grab my waistband and follow me, sub.”
Ruthie did, and she knew by the number of steps they took and the single turn they made that they were now in his living room.
Memories cascaded one on top of the other and she was reduced to a trembling mess.
He brushed her braid off her shoulder and kissed the cut on her neck. “You remember when we were here last?”
She nodded.
“The words, Ruthie—it’s safe to give me the words right now,” he murmured.
“Yes, Sir.” She swallowed thickly. “I remember everything.”
“Me, too,” he whispered at her lips. “I remember you like my floggers and my chains. I wonder if you’ll like my swing?”
He would break her apart so hard they’d never find the pieces of her.
“I will like whatever you decide to give me,” she assured him.
He hummed, the sound neither commitment nor detraction. “From this point on, no more words unless it’s the safe word. Even if I ask you a question, you do not answer until I give you permission.”
There was a prolonged hush and then, “First position.”
He apparently liked her on her knees. She lowered to them once again, lowered her head, and held her hands behind her back.
“Spread your legs and rest on your heels. Let me see my pussy,” he demanded.
She did as he asked, grateful for the reprieve to her knees but knowing if she stayed in this position long, her legs would fall asleep.
“This is second position,” he informed her, pride in his voice.
She’d pleased him. It made her immeasurably happy to have done so.
He walked around her, the air he stirred beading her nipples again, but she held her position, waiting.
Tobias moved away and Ruthie heard him moving in the far corner. The scrape of metal on metal and the sound of leather sliding against leather had her interest piqued. Then Tobias returned and she was once again focused entirely on him.
He went to his haunches in front of her and Ruthie felt the softness of silk at her neck.
“I’m going to wrap your neck, because even though I don’t think it will rip open, you’re mine to protect and I always protect what’s mine, sub.”
Ruthie didn’t move, allowing him to do what he would.
“Such a good little sub. I wonder if you’ll be so compliant when the pain of my flogger is on you?”
His tone was bland. His meaning anything but.
He took hold of her shoulder and said, “Stand, sub.”
She stood and waited, head still bowed, posture still perfectly submissive.
“You’re tense. I like it,” he said in approval. “Because that means I’ll have to work extra hard to get rid of the tension. One more time, sub, give me your safe word.”
“Red, Sir,” she said in a soft voice.
“Grab my waistband and follow me,” he told her.
Ruthie did, and they took a few steps until he stopped her. “Now begins the trust. Face me.”
Ruthie turned until she faced him. Excitement raced along her nerves, building heat in her loins and making her wet. She wanted to scream at him to hurry the hell up, but it was all part and parcel of what he needed.
She’d give it to him come hell or high water.
“There are two vertical straps hanging from the ceiling,” he said as he placed said straps in her hand. “Hold onto them and lower yourself until you feel the cradle of the swing. You won’t fall through—there are straps along the back and under your ass that will hold you off the ground.”
Ruthie lowered herself, breathing through her fear. It was made doubly difficult by her lack of sight, but it would be no different had he blindfolded her.
Trust. The word whispered through her mind and settled in the pit of her stomach. She could do this.
“Raise your left leg,” he demanded.
Ruthie did and she felt him strap her in. He did the same with the other leg. This left her spread eagle, sitting in the air in a swing made of straps that showed every part of her body. It was at once terrifying to have zero control of her body and exhilarating to know that Tobias had put her thus.
The wetness on her thighs cooled swiftly, but the tickle of air was delicious. A single bead of sweat tracked down her spine. He hadn’t really touched her sexually since they’d entered the living room and she was ready to explode.
He pushed her and she almost lost it, holding in her scream by dint of will alone. She was swinging, and it was difficult to enjoy the motion with her heart in her throat. He slowed the swing and stepped to her then, his cock at her chest level, his hands cradling her head.
He lowered to her mouth. “I’m going to fuck you so hard, Ruthie. So hard, baby, but first, I’m going to flog you, leave my marks on your thighs so that when I dive between your legs with my cock, you feel every move of my body against them. I’m going to make you sting, then I’m going to make you fly.”
He licked her lips, biting down hard enough that it hurt for a moment before he suckled at the wound. Tobias stepped back and she heard him rummaging again.
The flogger fell with no warning. One minu
te she was appreciating the cool air on her exposed parts and the next, her back was bowing under the sting delivered to the inside part of her thigh.
It wasn’t the thudding flogger—it was the stinging one, and he absolutely held true to his word. She lost herself to the strikes; by the fifth one she was no longer dreading them, rather anticipating them like the bite of a sexually charged cobra. He gave equal attention to each thigh, the insides screaming from the fall of the flogger.
Then he stopped.
Ruthie might have been sobbing, but it was pleasure. She couldn’t concentrate on anything but the feel of the leather on her skin—the sharp kiss, then withdrawal—and she wanted more.
So much more.
There must have been a sane part of her mind left because she didn’t cry out—it would have broken his rule of no talking. He had the control—she’d please him.
Yet even as she pleased him he rewarded her by switching to the thudding flogger, and the heat from his earlier marks sang with a heat that had her head falling back and her heart stuttering in her chest.
So much pleasure, and still all she could think was that she wanted more. She heard him move behind her, tried to concentrate on the words he was saying, but the heat spreading up her legs to her core was impossible to resist, so she focused on it instead.
A prick of pain at her scalp and her head was pulled back; she felt as if she were sliding out of the swing and she gasped. His mouth hovered over hers. Ruthie tasted his breaths and craved more.
“I said pull yourself over until you’re facing the floor, sub,” he bit out ruthlessly.
He steadied her and she did as he asked, finding the movement easy, though she would have to work to hold this position. She wasn’t in danger of falling out of the swing because her legs were strapped in, but if she let go of the two main vertical lines, her hands would fall to the floor.
So she held on because Tobias told her to.