by Livia Grant
Abby threw herself backwards, fighting with all she had to scramble off his lap and failing so catastrophically that she barely budged his restraining limbs.
“God, damn it!” she exploded, only belatedly attempting a laugh to mask her growing aggravation. It didn’t work. Not only was Newton not stopping, but now the DMs were looking their way. She lowered her voice, something damn near impossible to accomplish with the fluttering of his fingers, tapping out a seductive morse code against her g-spot. “You c-can’t do this!”
“Can’t I?”
“This isn’t our scene!” Her back arched as both his fingers and thumb began to thrust. Her toes scraped the carpet.
“Our ‘scene’ started the moment you became my submissive for the evening and it won’t end until either you call the safeword or we complete the contest. If, however, by ‘scene’ you mean our roulette wheel designated activity, then we were only required to do that for thirty minutes to get credit for accomplishing it. I tickled you for thirty-one, but it’s not really my thing, so I stopped. This, however…” Two fingers abruptly became three, winning a full-throated shout from her as he shoved them deep inside. When he pinched fingers and thumb together, she groaned. “This is exactly my thing. No revenge required.”
“Bullshit!” she spat, her brain in full revolt but her hips—oh!—and her pussy grinding down on him, riding his hand as if he were the love of her life. “You ass! You absolute ass! You know what? Fine! I didn’t just think you were going to take your revenge out on me, I knew it! And I wasn’t wrong, was I? You’ve been an absolute dick, just as expected! Are you happy now?”
“Not particularly, but what did you expect?” He slammed his fingers deep, twisting his hand around, searching until he pressed and every muscle she owned suddenly seized up in a convulsion of pleasure too intense for her to bear. Newton smiled at the gutturalness of her groan. “You’ve gone out of your way to make me miserable practically from the day we met.”
She arched up, twisting back as far as she could to shoot him a scathing glare. “You’re damn right, I have! What do you expect after what you called me?”
“What I called you?” His hand stilled between her legs, then his eyes narrowed. “What did I ever call you?”
“As if you don’t kn—” Abby broke off with a shout when his fingers suddenly lashed out, flicking that same spot inside her again. The jolt was near electrical, a pleasure so brutally intense that it felt as if he’d just whacked her funny bone. Only it wasn’t funny, and that wasn’t where she kept her elbow.
“Try again,” Newton said in a tone that would brook no disrespect.
“You called me weak, sir!” she spat. Her stomach flipped, but her pussy—already so lost in a confusion of feelings she never should have felt for this of all Doms—convulsed when she twisted back far enough to see the fierceness of the glare he locked on her.
“I. Never! Said th—”
“‘Gee, Terry!’” Abby erupted, casting his voice in as deep a tone as she could muster and she did not skimp on the audial retardation implication. “‘What are you doing? She’s half your size!’”
“Number one, I don’t sound like that,” Newton fired back. “And number two, I don’t say ‘gee’ or ‘golly’ or ‘wowie kazowie’ or whatever other Scooby Doo phrases you’re about to put in my mouth next.”
Abby forgot about the crowd of tables around them, or the people watching the argument unfold with, no doubt, all the same amusement they’d use later when they repeated her words for the entertainment of every kinkster not present to hear all of this themselves. She forgot everything except the heat in her bottom, and in the palm of his hand as it mashed against her labia, and in the blaze of awareness that laved her clit from the inside out in a wash of sensation every bit as tangible as a physical mouth. Just not Newton’s mouth. Because he was an ass, and they didn’t like each other, and as soon as she got up off his lap her pussy was going to remember that fact and stop this stupid, empty, aching, maddeningly distracting throbbing!
“The words you used don’t matter. You said I couldn’t handle it,” she accused. “That means the same damn thing!”
Furious, she reared, shoving backwards off his lap, and he was just startled enough by her outburst that she almost got her feet under her. But in a flash of piqued temper, his left arm hooked around her waist and his right hand grabbed, missing her leg altogether and catching hold of her pussy instead. When she lurched back, he heaved forward, and down she went in flailing arms and kicking feet that he quickly locked down. Back went her legs into the squeezing vise of his thighs. He caught her free arm, wrenching it up against the small of her back when she slapped at him.
“Ow!” She bucked and thrashed, but he was bigger and stronger and she simply could not find the leverage to break free.
Angry as he was, Newton held himself frozen, letting her fight until exhaustion drowned out her revolt. Eventually, she collapsed under the fury of her own struggles. Panting, swearing and glaring at the floor, she lay drooped over his knees while she waited for his inevitable argument.
“You’re right,” he said, startling her instead. “I don’t remember saying it in those words, but you’re right. That’s what I was thinking. I didn’t believe you could handle fighting off someone Terry’s size and if it had been me Topping you that night, that scene absolutely would not have gone the way it was when I walked into the club. However—” The weight of his arm across the small of her back disappeared. Catching her wrist, he pulled her up to sit on his knee. “—I wasn’t the one Topping you that night, I wasn’t part of that scene, and I had no business saying or doing anything that might have been construed as me passing judgment over you. So for that, I am sorry.”
Except for the raggedness of her breathing, Abby didn’t move. He had one hand braced upon his thigh while his other burned heat into the small of her back. Ass though he might be, Newton had sexy hands. She tried not to look at them. The last thing she wanted was to feel mollified enough to forgive him or worse, find any part of him sexually attractive.
When she refused to answer, Newton caught her by the chin and forced her gaze to his. Unsmiling, he leveled a stern look on her. “I interrupted your scene,” he said again. “I made a rude comment, but I never thought of you as weak.”
Unsure if she believed him, Abby looked away. He chased her chin, catching it between fingers that smelled strongly of her own feminine arousal.
“Truce?” he coaxed.
Her mouth flattened in stubborn defiance. Ever so slightly, his curled into the smallest of smiles.
“All right,” he agreed, a steely-edge creeping ominously in among his words. “Either we agree to a truce right here and now, or—”
“Or what?” Abby countered, hiking her chin a little higher. “You’ll give up like the quitter you are and walk out on me?”
Something in Newton’s dark eyes changed, growing, heating, vanishing in a blink before she could get a solid bead on exactly what she’d been seeing. She touched a hand to her stomach, unsure why it suddenly felt as tight and hard as a brick.
“Or,” Newton continued with exaggerated patience, “I can put you back over my knee and paddle your bare ass until you scream your surrender to the ceiling rafters.”
And just like that, Abby realized what had been lurking in the hardening of his stare. It had been intent—the iron-clad will to do what he thought needed doing without any regard at all to how she would hate him for it later on. She sat stiff and unmoving, barely breathing, upon his knee, and in no part of her being did she think he was lying. Or joking. Or even exaggerating. Oh no, as she stared soul-deep into his threatening stare, with one of his hands heavy on her back and the other braced against his own thigh, in every fiber of her being Abby knew he meant exactly what he’d said: either she gave in, or he’d bust her ass until she did. And she had no recourse but to take it.
Or call ‘red’ and prove to everyone, including herself, that she really
couldn’t take it. That everything she had done these past two years had been a joke. That she really was not just weak, but useless too.
“Truce,” Abby said through gritted teeth.
Just like a jackass to try and rob a girl of her best grudge right when she needed it most.
Chapter 4
“Here you go,” Newton said with all the cheerfulness he could muster as he handed her a plastic water bottle, followed by a plate of sandwich meats and cheeses. “The menu isn’t varied, but they do have protein.”
Swaddled in a soft blanket, Abby set the plate on the cushion beside her and went back to hugging her knees. That she kept hold of the water bottle surprised him a little, but she made no move to drink from it. Instead, huddled in a corner of the couch exactly where he had parked her, she picked at the blue and white label and refused to look at him. At least she wasn’t shouting anymore. He took that as a good sign, though she was still angry. In fact, the longer he stood watching her the more certain he became that she was deliberately hanging onto her anger. As if it were the only available lifejacket on the sinking ship this evening had become. Despite his apology, she clung to her long-standing grudge as though her life depended on it. As though she needed it.
Maybe she did.
Snagging an available chair from the nearest table, he thunked it down in front of her. She quickly moved her toes when he sat so they wouldn’t accidentally touch. He noticed, but said nothing. A master at picking his battles, Newton got comfortable in his seat before marching head-on straight into her preferred war. “You going to drink from that bottle, or just pick it apart?”
Her mouth twitched, a grimace rather than a smile tugging at the corners. “I’m not thirsty.”
“I’m not playing with a dehydrated submissive,” he said flatly.
“This isn’t my first play party,” she answered in the same tone. “I’ve been hydrating for this for two days. Thank you for the water, but I’m fine.”
“You were over my knee,” he reminded her. “You were kicking, fussing, thrashing, working up a sweat and leaking down my arm like a damn faucet.” The alluring musk of her could still be gleaned from the fingers he held up for her as a reminder. Her face flushed when she saw them. She flushed even brighter when he, tempted beyond his inclination to resist, sampled her lingering flavor. “Tasty,” he murmured, just to watch that play of mortification dance across her features before she slapped her angry mask back into place. “If you want to give up now, that’s fine. But if not, then stop acting like a naughty brat and drink your water.”
“You’re not my master, my Dom, or my father,” she muttered, still picking at the label. “I might have to listen to you out there on the floor, but I don’t have to do a thing you say when I’m sitting on this couch.”
He sat back, eyebrow arched, half tempted to laugh. “Is that so?”
She met his gaze evenly, neither frowning nor gloating, and sure as hell not drinking. Just staring at him and waiting. ‘For him to react,’ gut instinct whispered. Every inch of her was set in the familiar mold of a rebellious submissive, pushing and prodding and working tirelessly to provoke a disciplinary response. Submissives like that were exhausting. And yet, while Newton had seen more than enough of those to recognize the one squaring off in front of him now, something about Abby’s defiance didn’t quite fit that overall bratty mold.
He studied her through narrowed eyes, carefully picking through a minefield of verbal responses. “Do you want me to make you? Because to be honest, in all the times I’ve watched you play, I’ve never seen you do this with any of your other partners.”
“The night’s half over, so don’t worry. You won’t have to deal with it for too much longer.”
Something in the way she said that struck him like a challenge. He had to lock his jaw to keep from chuckling. God knows, the last thing he needed was for her to think he was laughing at her. “Do you think I can’t deal with it?”
“Oh no, you’re doing great so far.” Sarcasm. Definitely a challenge, then.
“You remember what I said about how much I enjoy making my submissives give me extensive verbal affirmation about the things I make them do and say, right?” he countered.
“Stop threatening me,” she snipped back.
“If you don’t like it, then stop asking me to threaten you.”
She snapped her mouth shut, frowning.
“Oh no, no,” he told her, pointing a stern finger right at her. “Stop right there. You started this. In the interest of honesty, I’d like to set the record straight now. I’m not your master. Personally, it’s not my favorite role. Twenty-four-seven, all year every year is a helluva lot of responsibility. I’ve done it enough to know which aspects I like and which I don’t, and that while I am a very dominant presence in my personal relationships, I don’t want a slave. I am, however, a very good Dom, and Daddy Dom is right up my alley. I suppose because it tickles so many of my own private triggers. Like, for instance, extensive verbal affirmations. Would you like to see first hand just how hard I get off on having Babygirl stand before me, blushing and stammering while she struggles to get through her punishment phrases? Daddy, please spank my naughty bare bottom. Daddy, I’ve been a bad, bad girl. Fuck my bottom, Daddy. Teach me to be good again. Daddy, please, please punish my ass with your cock, hurt my naughty bottom, and I will drink my water and eat my protein and be a good, good Babygirl for you.” Unblinking, he held her gaze. “Do you want to say that to me, Abby? Do you want to say it over and over again, first while I spank and then while I sodomize you? Do you want me to hurt you so you can be free to kick and fuss and cry, and maybe… just maybe, finally let all this festering anger go? Because I can do that. I can make you take the pleasure and the pain. I can make you take as much of both as you can bear, until you just can’t anymore. If that’s what you want. Or what you need. Is it?”
Newton held her stare and neither one moved, apart from each of their breathing. Hers, he noticed, was a little shallower and faster than normal. It was the only glimpse she allowed him of what real emotion lurked under the faintly scarred mask that her too-pale face had become. He took her silence as an answer.
“Are you sure?” He braced his elbows on his knees and leaned in closer. “Because there is no phrase half as beautiful to me as those three little words: Daddy, hurt me.”
Her breath actually caught a little. He could see the pulse of her heart beating in the hollow of her throat.
“Drink your water,” he ordered, his voice soft and silken but an order nonetheless, “so I know your body is replenished for our next activity. Eat your food. You need protein to keep your blood sugar from bottoming out. Those sorts of things don’t have anything to do with you liking me or me liking you. It has to do with playing as safely as any play in a BDSM dungeon can get.”
Her mask slipped. Newton caught just a glimpse of the vulnerability that lived beneath before unscrewing the top off her water bottle, Abby downed half the bottle. She ate too, but something told him she did it so she wouldn’t have to look at him. Easing back in his chair again, Newton hid a smile behind his own sips of water and he watched until she’d emptied her plate.
“Do you need to use the bathroom?” he asked, taking both her empty bottle and the plate from her lap.
“No.” She frowned. “I’m not three. I don’t need reminder cues as though I were.”
“Suit yourself.” Stretching sideways, he left the remnants of their meal on a nearby table to be picked up by someone from the bar. “Let’s go spin the wheel again. Maybe this time we’ll get something really fun.”
As they crossed the dungeon toward the stage, he saw her gaze drift over the roulette wheel and in a rare moment of agreement, she said, “Flogging, maybe. Are you any good at fireplay?”
“Not bad,” he said modestly. “Unfortunately for you, you made me walk three blocks from the overflow parking. I’m rooting for waterboarding.”
One foot on the bottommost step
, her hand on the stage steps railing, Abby stopped long enough to snap him a look. She didn’t start walking again until he swatted her butt and thumbed for her to climb the stairs. He waited until her back was to him before smiling. She’d given him enough shit tonight. Let her wonder a while if he was joking or not.
“Ready for another scene?” Chase asked as Abby stepped up to the wheel. “I saw the tickling. Got to admit, I’ve never seen it done with spiked gloves before.”
“Whatever makes the submissive ticklish,” Newton said, more cheerful than he was defensive.
“I’m not normally,” Abby added. “Ticklish, I mean.”
Chase passed her the ball and gave the wheel a spin. “Here’s to hoping your next scene is more to your liking, then.”
As she gave the ball a gentle spin on the roulette track, Newton bent down to whisper for her ears alone, “Come on, waterboarding. Oo, or butt stuff. If we draw butt stuff, I’m going to make it last the rest of the night.”
Abby elbowed him in the gut. A touch of red stained her cheeks though and he could see her breasts rising and falling in that fast, shallow pattern again, so Newton let the elbowing go. He chuckled as the ticking of the wheel slowed even more. It was hard to hear over the low murmur of whispering voyeurs and the off-tempo cracks of multiple impact tools finding their targets. Newton didn’t look. His attention was caught on the drop and bounce of that little white ball as it finally came to a rolling stop within a labeled activity slot.
“Cell popping,” Chase announced. “Have you ever done it before?”
“Yes,” Newton admitted slowly, staring as the wheel crawled into its last complete turn but mentally poking through the contents of his playbag. “I haven’t done it in a long time though. In fact, I’m pretty sure I don’t have my kit in my bag.”