by Ann Jacobs
“Yes, Mistress.”
“Good.” Her motion smooth thanks to months of aerobic exercises they’d made her do as part of her rehab therapy, she straddled his face, bringing her pussy flush against his slightly opened lips. “Use your tongue on me. Make me scream with pleasure.”
It had been so long. Too long since Gareth had tied her to the bed and eaten her until she hadn’t been able to resist coming. She’d thought of those moments of ecstasy as payback for the ever-deepening pain that preceded and followed. The ecstasy that had come less often as he’d became more vicious, she more codependent. Toward the end Diana had escaped into her own world, imagined it was Matt doing it to her.
Just as she found herself doing now. The feel of the sub’s lips and tongue on her clit, her outer labia, brought back pleasure along with the pain that now was only in her head. And oh, now he was tongue-fucking her pussy and making her breathe hard at the sensations. She was feeling his lips and tongue, but it was Matt fucking her in her mind, tricking her into coming, releasing the pent-up need inside her.
It was ironic that her therapist was pretty sure she’d fallen in love with Gareth out of desperation. Her need to be loved and cared for had driven her into a relationship that had quickly morphed into a horror chamber, and when she’d taken all she could, she had fantasized about Matt this way, to make her misery bearable.
The sub licked harder, drove his tongue into her pussy as though he wanted to control her. She wouldn’t let him. Lying flat over him, she took his penis and sucked it, hard. She used her tongue to set the sound to vibrating. When a few drops of his salty cream escaped around the sound, she lapped it up like a starving bear who’d found the honey tree.
She was close. Had to take him now, feel the heat of his sex in hers. Rising, she found a condom in the drawer at the side of the table and started to roll it onto his erection. Then she remembered the sound, guessed that if she fucked him while he had it in, it would hurt him—badly. “Take out the sound.”
“Can’t.” He gestured with his head toward his manacled wrists. “Mistress.”
“Oh.” Of course he couldn’t. He must think she was an idiot. “How do I take it out, then?” Gareth hadn’t been into piercings or tattoos—he’d always said he didn’t need them to attract his slaves.
The sub’s shy smile almost made her want to untie him, order him to take over, fuck her any way he liked it. But then, that wasn’t the point of this first sexual encounter in months. “Take the ring out of my Prince Albert piercing. It holds the sound in place. Then just tug on the end of the sound and it will pop right out. I’m sorry, Mistress, I should have asked whether you wanted it in or out.”
“It’s okay. The thing looks neat, but I can’t imagine you’d enjoy being fucked with it in place.” Diana knew it shouldn’t matter to her whether the way she fucked her sub was painful to him or not—but it did. Standing between his widely spread legs, she loosened the captive bead and worked the Prince Albert ring out of his distended flesh. Then she slid the sound out. All nine or ten inches of it, way more than the length of his cock. “What?”
“The sound goes all the way inside, not just into my cock.” His erection didn’t wilt at all, she noticed as she smoothed a condom over it.
“You aren’t to come until I say so,” she whispered as she straddled him, sank down on his cock and began to move.
Diana was in control. It gave her a sense of safety, not satisfaction. But her flogger was within reach, and she clasped her fist around its leather handle. Slowly, deliberately, she set the pace, trying to pay no attention when the sub strained his hips upward, seeking deeper penetration. Sweat glistened on his brow.
He wanted to come. She could tell by the desperate look in his eyes that she’d pushed him to the edge. Strangely enough, she didn’t care.
The prospect of fucking a helpless sub had appealed. The reality left her, well, not cold but no better than lukewarm. “You may come,” she told him, realizing now that she needed more than a helpless male to achieve the climax that came easily with her trusty vibrator.
Once, twice, three times she raised her hips and slammed down hard on his cock. His heart pounded against her hand as she stroked his chest. Then his body tensed.
He was coming. And she needed to punish him because this wasn’t doing it for her. She lifted the flogger, brought its silken strands down hard on his chest, his flanks as he strained upward and came.
When it was over she noticed the vein in his neck throbbing, the flushed skin pulled taut over his bland, handsome face. Fucking like this was nothing like what she’d imagined on lonely nights in her room at the psych hospital. Lifting herself off the sub, Diana allowed a moment to mourn. Then she loosened the manacles and freed him from leg restraints that had held him helpless for her pleasure.
Pleasure? Her body still needy, seeking a release that wouldn’t come, she bent and brushed her lips over his. “Thank you,” she whispered as she walked away.
* * * * *
“Have fun, Di?” Brad looked up from the stack of invoices on his desk and motioned for Diana to sit down. He frowned, though, when he saw her expression.
“Hey, what’s the matter?”
She didn’t know, but it felt damn funny to be talking about sex with one of the younger brothers she’d practically raised after their parents’ deaths. But she had to talk to someone, and it felt ludicrous to be shy in front of a BDSM dungeon keeper, never mind the fact he was her brother. “I don’t know. It’s…it’s just that I’m not sure I’m cut out to be a Domme, but I can’t risk handing over control of my life to somebody else.”
“Don’t you remember I know most of what Gareth did to you?” Brad clenched his fists so tightly the knuckles turned white. “I’m sorry for biting your head off. I guess, in addition to feeling guilty that I didn’t step in and do something before it got so bad…
“Never mind, talk to me if it helps. Jared will listen too. That’s what brothers are for.”
Diana felt the tears coming, searing her cheeks. Crying didn’t help. She’d learned that in the time she’d been away. Crying was a fucking sign of weakness, weakness she never meant to show again, even to her closest friends and family. The therapists had taught her that, but they hadn’t helped her with her deeper issues.
They hadn’t understood the lifestyle that Brad seemed to manage with such joyful male abandon and Jared embraced fully out of love for his 24/7 slave. The shrinks had tried, but they hadn’t been able to sell her on the idea that BDSM was at the root of her problems. All she’d gleaned from them was how to do and say the right things so she could come home.
She guessed that was why she still felt so fucked up, as if she was still fighting through the darkness by herself. It probably had a lot to do with the fact that her brothers still watched over her so closely, unless they were giving her payback for having run herd on them when they were wild schoolboys.
She grabbed a tissue from the box on Brad’s desk and scrubbed fiercely at the evidence of her frailty. “I’m sorry. God but I need to come, and having a sub who has no passion of his own doesn’t cut it for me.”
His expression serious, Brad looked out toward the dungeon playroom. “Take a look. It seems your sub prefers guys, or at least that he swings both ways.”
Diana followed Brad’s gaze to a St. Andrew’s Cross where the man she’d brought to climax hung, writhing with what she guessed was pleasure while one Dom fucked his ass and another jerked a chain connected to his nipples with wicked-looking clamps.
“Oh no! He has to be in agony. Aren’t you going to stop them?”
Catching her chin in one hand and turning her away from the observation window, Brad made her look him in the eye. “He’s a sub, honey. From what I see, he enjoys taking it rough. Most of the male subs I’ve observed seem to need more of the S&M element in their play than the women.”
Images rolled around in Diana’s brain, confusing her even more. The nameless sub, seeming
to enjoy torture far greater than she’d ever be willing to inflict. Herself, cringing under Gareth’s cruel onslaughts until one day she woke up in a hospital, broken and battered, finally ready to charge him with abuse and call a lawyer to get him permanently out of her life.
She pictured Jared and Ninia. Their mutual love overshadowed Ninia’s need for hard-core kink and pain that was more than she believed Jared needed to inflict for his own pleasure.
Even Brad, whom she’d watched earlier while he serviced a pretty redheaded sub Diana thought she recalled being in the same high school class as Jared, was stern in the dungeon scene, but never cruel.
“I know all about masochism, brother dearest.” The compulsion to be hurt had nearly killed her, after all. “I just don’t think I’m cut out to cause another human pain, not after all I went through. But I know I dare not pick another Dom. I can’t be sure of my judgment, and I don’t think I can ever trust a man that far again. You and Jared don’t count.”
“We’re not men? Sis, a long time ago we quit wearing short pants and jumping when you cracked the whip over our butts. And we both grew up to be Doms.”
“I don’t know. I need to be pushed sexually, but not cruelly and not in a way that makes me a laughingstock. Maybe I should just forget about sex.”
Brad rubbed his thumb across Diana’s hand. “You know, have you ever considered going more vanilla, with an Alpha guy who’d realize you need a little domination and would work hard to fulfill that need? Maybe you should give some thought to settling down and raising a family.”
She’d given up that dream long ago. “It’s pretty much too late for that, Brad. After all, I’m almost forty years old.” Actually, she’d turned forty last summer. She was pretty sure Brad knew that—he’d always been good at math. But she wasn’t quite ready to say it out loud without the modifier.
“Why, you’re just a baby. Did you know we have members in this club who are pushing seventy and still going strong? Not only men, either. You got your life back from that bastard, now make something of it. You deserve to live and to enjoy all the pleasures of life. Not just sex, but love and affection, companionship, and so on. Tell you a secret. I’ve been thinking a lot about persuading someone to be my lifetime sub, giving up rodeo and settling down to raise a family.”
Diana and Ninia had talked about Brad’s seeming change of direction just the other day. Ninia had mentioned she thought Brad had fallen hard for one of the subs who he played with regularly at the club. Glancing toward the playroom to see if she could see the woman he’d been playing with earlier, Diana didn’t see the pretty redhead.
Instead, her breath caught in her throat when she saw a familiar face. Oh no. She didn’t know if seeing Matt Rogers here was an answer to her earlier fantasies, or an embarrassing nightmare about to happen.
She couldn’t tear her gaze away from his huge, rugged body. The years had treated him well. Other than a short beard that matched his dark brown hair, Matt looked pretty much the same as he had when they graduated from high school more than twenty years ago, except that now he’d packed on more muscle and had a few new scars. When they were kids, he’d favored worn-out jeans and skintight T-shirts. He looked damn good now in that pair of brown rough-out chaps and matching vest. His sex was even more impressive than she remembered. Of course she’d never before seen his massive, satiny-looking cock and low-hanging testicles displayed so brazenly.
Her mouth went dry, and her pulse started racing as she remembered sweet times with him, times that came back as clearly as if they’d happened yesterday. “Is he married?” Where did that come from? Matt had left town right after graduation, after she’d told him she couldn’t marry him or anybody else until her brothers were on their own. He’d gone to college first then played pro football until he retired almost a year ago. He’d been a temptation before that, since he spent off-seasons at the ranch his grandfather had left to him, a piece of land that bordered her portion of the McTavish spread.
So many times she’d caught glimpses of him, wanted to go and welcome him home. But she hadn’t dared to do it. Gareth would have killed her and him both, even though Matt had several inches of height and at least fifty pounds of solid muscle on her miserable ex. “Not that it matters whether he is or not,” she said, but she wasn’t quite able to mask the regret that she’d let Matt get away.
Brad followed her gaze, obviously aware as soon as he saw Matt that she’d singled him out from the others at play. “No, he’s not married. Never has been, as far as I know. He plays here with the unattached subs, almost as if he’s going through the motions.”
Brad paused and stared briefly at the scene where Matt and another man were making their sub writhe with pleasure. Then, his expression serious, Brad turned back to Diana.
“You used to be in love with him, didn’t you?”
She never thought she’d been so transparent that a twelve-year-old could tell, and she wasn’t about to let Brad carry around misplaced guilt. “Puppy love. It was the wrong time for us. He had college and a dream of playing football in the pros.”
“And you had us to take care of.” Brad touched her cheek, a gesture he used to make back then, when he was trying so hard to be a man despite his tender age. “Maybe it’s time for the two of you to get together now.”
“I don’t think so. He’s obviously a Dom, and I’m pretty sure I never could rest easy, anticipating the day he’d turn mean.” Still, she couldn’t help watching Matt through the observation window, imagining his hands on her as she grew wet, needy. Almost as needy as she’d been when they made love underneath the stars.
Stop it, Diana. It would never work.
But Brad’s suggestion just wouldn’t go away. Watching Matt commanding the sub’s shattering release in the erotic scene made her horny, hotter than she’d been in years. Longer than she could remember. She couldn’t even put her finger on the exact time Gareth had killed her desire for him.
“How long has Matt been coming here?”
Brad hesitated a minute, she thought. But when he spoke, his tone was thoughtful. “A little over year now, except for a few months when he was doing product endorsements out East after retiring from playing football. He told me he wanted to try the lifestyle. I thought then that he was doing it because of you, because word had gotten to him that our whole family is into the BDSM lifestyle. You’d just gone back to rehab, after testifying against scumbag Gareth.”
Brad reached across the desk and took Diana’s hand. “Life goes by too damn fast. If you want the guy, go grab him. Frankly I think he’s ready to settle down, just waiting for the right woman.”
When she thought about that, Diana knew she was no Domme. She’d never have the balls to go up to Matt or anyone else other than a club sub she’d never have to see again. And she’d never be able to tell him she wasn’t about to be a slave to any Dom, ever again. Sadly, she looked away. Matt hadn’t been right for her when they were kids, and he wasn’t the man for her now.
“I’d better be getting back out to the ranch. You and Jared did a great job keeping up with things while I was gone, and you’ve been cutting me a lot of slack since I’ve been home. Now it’s time for me to be pulling my share of the load.” Determined to get out of her brother’s office before she started to cry, Diana grabbed her gym bag and made for the door.
When she opened it she merely ran into a brick wall, only it wasn’t a wall. It was Matt Rogers. His huge body glistened with sweat, and she couldn’t help noticing he still had on the chaps and vest. Now he’d added jeans and a Stetson that shadowed the gorgeous dark brown eyes she’d been seeing in her dreams for so many years. “Hello, Matt. I was just leaving.” It took a mighty effort for her to tear her gaze away from his.
He made no move to let her by. Instead he set his callused hands on her shoulders.
“No hurry, Diana. I saw you come into Brad’s office and decided to welcome you back home. I’ve been meaning to drop over to your place, but some
how the time has never been right. You know we’re year-round neighbors now.”
Yes, she knew. “Jared told me months ago, when he brought his wife down to Denver to introduce us. I’m sorry you quit playing ball, I remember how much that meant to you.” Quit acting like a ninny, spouting out all kinds of useless drivel when all he’s doing is saying hello to an old friend.
“It’s okay. I had a lot of playing years, more than most tight ends in the NFL. Even more important, I’m still pretty much in one piece. Now that I’ve broken the ice, I’ll ride down from my place and we can visit.” Pulling her to him, he bent and brushed his lips over hers, a friendly kiss that still sent waves of desire coursing through her body. Then he stepped aside so she could pass.
God, how she wished they could turn back time.
Then, as if he had every right to do so, he reached out and pulled her to him, bent and kissed her, hard. The gesture was simple, deliberate, almost casual, but it sent waves coursing through a body she’d thought minutes earlier would never feel desire again.
When he lifted his head, she met his gaze and saw the brief flash of intensity in his eyes. Before drawing away, he caressed her at the waist with huge, gentle hands. When he stepped aside, she felt a magnetic pull that wanted to propel her back into his embrace.
Chapter Two
He’d set out to become a Dom because that’s what he’d thought Diana would want. It had shocked him to see her in the club last night, playing Mistress to a sniveling one-hundred-fifty pound weakling who obviously preferred being fucked by other men.
It hadn’t surprised Matt at all that the chemistry that had nearly made them do foolish things when they were kids was alive and well. At least for him. For her, too, he thought, recalling the way her breathing grew ragged and her eyes glazed over with desire when she stared a second too long at his exposed genitals while he was playing the scene with a sub and a rancher he often paired up with for threesomes.