by Livia Grant
"Did it occur to you to speak up? Say yellow, or just tell me it frightened you?"
She tilted her head to the side, resting against edge of the cross, unable to say what he wanted to hear. Not yet, she just couldn't go there yet.
His heavy sigh blew a strand of her hair onto her cheek. "Eleven more." The leather tapped her ass, and she braced herself.
Nothing could prepare her for the hot pain of the next lash, or the one after that. He wasn't giving her time to call out the counts, as he continued to rain down the leather. She hopped onto her toes, but forced herself to stay where she was.
A chill brushed her back when his hand left her. Turning her head, she watched him move his position, dropping one end of the strap to lengthen it.
She swallowed hard, catching a glimpse of the small crowd behind her. Her five spectators had increased. Past play partners now mingled with her invited guests, satisfaction written all over their faces.
“You aren’t begging.” The warning came right before a heated lash crossed her back, over both shoulder blades.
She cried out, bowing her back.
“Nine.” She whispered the number and clenched her eyes shut. She didn’t want to see the next wind up.
“No. That was for not begging. Now beg.”
Opening her eyes again and looking behind her, she took in the gleeful expressions of one particular Dom in the small gathering. Jason. She’d joked with Dane about leaving blue balls in her wake. Jason had been a real victim of the condition. Seeing a strap taken to her had to bring him some level of gratification.
“Please, sir.” She choked back a sob. “Please continue my punishment. Help me be a good girl for you.” The pleas weren’t hard anymore. Sincerity rang through them now. She wanted, needed, desperately to give him the good girl he wanted from her. To be what she was, without worry or censorship.
Without a word, he continued the strapping. Tears rolled down her cheeks unabashed as she tried to keep up with the count. Every inch of her ass, her back, and the tops of her thighs had been touched by the fire of his punishment. Only the areas too dangerous to strike were spared. Her fingers ached from curling around the cross with such fierceness, and her thighs shook with need to slam shut and protect herself.
"Fourteen!" she screamed out, and felt the nails of his hand drag up her back to press her further still between her shoulder blades. The sharpness of his nails cut through the heat of the strap, dragging the pain to a higher level, and making her body more awake to his presence.
"Last one. Ask me pretty please." His tongue ran over her jaw, licking off a tear before it dripped off her chin. To an outsider, the scene would look cruel and heartless, but to her, standing inside of it, feeling his connection, his pride for her obedience, it was everything.
She took a shaky breath and nodded. "Pretty please, sir. I was naughty, disrespectful, and a tease and I want—no—I need your discipline."
His forehead pressed against her temple. "Fuck, baby," his harsh whisper preceded a soft kiss, a quick peck really, to her cheek. "I've waited years to hear those words." She didn't need to see his eyes to know what he was feeling. She'd waited just as long to say them. To him. Only to him.
"Please, Dane, sir. Please finish." She wanted to wrap her arms around him, but she knew better. He hadn’t told her she could move yet.
"Anything for you, Riley." Another kiss, this one closer to her lips, but still too far away.
She closed her eyes and waited. His hand trailed back down then up again, soothing her, relaxing her muscles and then he struck. An upward lash that crossed both cheeks on the undersides. She yelped and let out a curse, but managed to stay exactly where she had been put.
Rolling her head to rest on the cross, she felt his lips on her shoulder. "Stay right here in this position." He draped the horrible strap over her shoulders, like he would a scarf and turned to their audience. “Take deep breaths, baby.”
She nodded, at least her head moved in a nodding fashion. He kissed her cheek again and ran his fingertips down her back to her ass, where he squeezed. “You did so fucking good. So good.” He kissed her shoulder blade. “I’m going to step away for a minute. Just stay right here for me. I’m just behind you. If you need me, you call my name.”
The fire in her back and ass kept her warm when his body no longer did. She heard him thanking the group and talking for a moment with Samuel before he returned to her. Both hands trailed over her ass.
"You really do have a nice plump ass now. I love it. And it marks fucking great." Fingertips trailed over what she assumed would be welts, and she hissed when he pushed hard on them. He pulled her arms down to her sides and turned her around.
She looked up at him, feeling the tears heating her cheeks, unable to stop them from falling.
"So beautiful." He whispered and wiped them from her face. "So fucking beautiful."
And then he kissed her. No peck, no brushing of his lips, but a breath-stealing, mind-bending kiss.
Holy fuck, she tasted like ambrosia. Every memory of ever touching her flooded back to him, more vibrant and alive than before. His body pressed against hers, his hands wandered through her hair, over her shoulders, he couldn’t get enough of the feel of her beneath his touch.
When he finally pulled away, giving her a chance to breathe, those dark eyes of hers were wide, dilated. Tears stained her smooth features, her eyes held a tinge of red. She’d never looked so fucking beautiful.
Something changed with her punishment. Not just the glossed expression, or every telltale sign that she was aroused, but something in her expression, in the way she leaned into him now without the tension she'd had at the beginning of the evening.
He'd have to tread carefully, losing her to her fears now would break him.
"You spank harder than before." She broke the silence between them with a wobbly grin.
He laughed. "I've had more practice, and the little boys you've been playing with wouldn't know how to really handle you."
She nodded. "You're right on that point. I don't think I even knew what I was doing, not really. Somewhere in my head I probably had it all figured out, but I just kept thinking I was laying out my limits." Her eyes wandered down to her arm, to where that ugly lie was written. Failure. He wanted to strap her all over again for even thinking that about herself.
He grasped her wrist and held up her arm. "This is bullshit. Being afraid is not failure. Staying inside your comfort zone because you don't trust your partner to walk with you outside of it, isn't failure. Quitting a job that gives you nightmares and makes you question if there's any good left in humanity isn't failing. All of those things you did, you did to protect yourself, to take care of yourself, because you didn't have anyone there to do that for you or with you."
She opened her mouth, ready to argue, but then closed it again. She was listening, finally listening to him.
"Topping from the bottom, that shit doesn't make you happy and you know it. Just now, when you did everything I asked, when you took the strapping, did the begging, it didn't just make your pussy wet." He reached down with his free hand and swiped his finger through her folds, collecting her juices and rolling his wet fingertips over her clit, delighting in watching her lose her composure enough to let her eyes roll back and her lips part. "And it does make your pussy wet. Fuck, Riley."
Pulling his hand away from her, he laughed at her little pout, and when she started to complain, he shoved his fingers into her mouth. Her lips wrapped around them, and he could feel the suction of her mouth. It was his turn to groan in sexual frustration. If he didn't get his cock in her mouth or her pussy soon, he was going to burst in his jeans.
"Enough of that." He yanked his hand out. "I have something else for you to suck, then we can continue this conversation. On your knees." He pushed on her shoulders until she was kneeling in front of him.
She placed her hands flat on his thighs and looked up at him, mouth wide open. Fuck him, he'd never last. At
least their audience had gone back to their tables. He really wouldn’t last if he watched Riley suck him off with a crimson blush covering her face.
Undoing his cargo pants in record time, he pulled out his cock, stroking himself and bringing it to the brink of her mouth.
"How do you ask, Riley?"
"Pretty please, sir." Even her tone of voice was sexy, heavy with lust, matching her expression perfectly.
"Ask that way and you'll always get what you want." Before she could retort, he shoved his cock past her lips, over her tongue and to the back of her throat. Her hands flew to his thighs, pushing him, but he held her in place by gripping her hair and holding her down.
"Aggh, fuck!" He finally released her and gave her a second to sputter and gasp before he shoved right back in and began to fuck her throat. "Open your mouth, wider, relax… oh fuck… relax your… ah, yes, like that." Her throat muscles gave way and further down he went, her teeth lightly scraping him at the base of his dick.
Her fingers pressed into his thighs, but she wasn't fighting him. Again, he pulled her off, and drool slipped down her face and toward the floor, making a mess. He clenched his hands tighter in her hair and pulled her right back on him, fucking her face even harder and praising her for taking it so well. "Oh fuck, Riley."
Finally, he yanked her off, holding her head back so she was looking up at him. All wild-eyed and red-faced, her own spit covering her chin, dripping downward.
"What a dirty girl you are." He grinned, using a free hand to gather up her drool and smear it across one cheek. His cock twitched at the flash of arousal in her eyes. He took up more in his palm and ran it over her mouth and her other cheek. By the time he was done painting her with her own spit, her face was completely covered.
He crouched down, bringing himself to her eye level. "Tell me, Riley. What do you feel right now?"
Her lips clenched together and her eyes narrowed. "Now?"
"Right now, with your drool all over your face, my cock having just pounded your throat, what do you feel? Anger? Resentment? What?"
She swallowed a few times, her throat would be sore for a little while after he'd been so harsh.
"None of those things." She put her hands back on her thighs and straightened her back, looking the proud slut he'd always known she wanted to be for him. "Something new, something I can't explain."
"All these people just saw me face fuck you."
"Good." She smiled. Actually, grinned at him, a devious little upturn of her lips. He needed to fuck her, really hard, and at that exact moment.
"Is fucking good with you?" He hated that he had to ask. He hadn't thought to check that earlier, it wasn't planned. A blow job or hand job fine, mutual masturbation maybe, but not fucking. But he hadn't planned to spin her name either.
"Oh yeah." She laughed.
"Not here. I want you to myself." He stood up, pulling her up by her arm. "Do not wipe your fucking mouth." He ordered when her hand started to head that direction. He marched her to the semi-private rooms, completely oblivious to all of the scenes going on around them as they walked past.
Chapter 5
Saliva dried on her face as she was escorted into the semi-private room. Once the curtain closed behind her she realized how loud her surroundings had been up until that moment. She hadn't noticed any of it, the whippings, the cries of ecstasy or pain, all of it just blended into white noise behind Dane. Even now, everything just hummed beyond the curtain.
He'd quickly become the center of her focus. The more devious, the more humiliating the activity, the more he became the only person in the room. Everything else faded into the background. If someone had told her signing up for the party would lead her back into Dane's arms, she would have burst out laughing. Yet, there they stood, in the room all alone.
The sudden image of him walking away across the parking lot to his own car and away from her flashed through her mind and her stomach twisted. Everything felt different, but what if nothing had really changed? What if after the party was over, he just kissed her cheek and said see ya? She couldn't lose him, not when she'd finally come to her senses.
"Someone's over thinking." His charming grin pulled at his lips as he leaned against the wall. "What's got you scared?" He made no move to close the distance between them, or touch her, and she wanted his touch.
"I was just thinking about when tonight ends." She shocked herself with her admission, not having meant to actually spew that out here. But now that it was out, she couldn't take it back. His eyebrows raised towards his hairline and his lips parted, but he said nothing. "I'm killing the mood, I'm sorry." She looked at the floor.
"And your thoughts about what happens after tonight?" His soft question came laced with a hint of insecurity. Could he be just as nervous as her about how they’d ended things?
It wasn’t her nakedness that made her feel vulnerable in that moment. No. This was the moment she would have to admit she'd fucked up by walking away from him all those years ago. That she'd been searching for him, or a version of him, and always came up short.
"I- I don't know." She shrugged.
"That strapping didn't make much of an impression on you, I guess." He pushed away from the wall and stalked over to her, grabbing her hair and pulling her to him.
His mouth crashed down over hers, knocking the breath from her. One hand held her in place, while the other ran down her arm, coming to rest on her breast. Her nipple became his target as he pinched it and twisted.
"Agh!" She tried to yank away, but he wasn't done with her. He lowered his head and took the now sensitive nipple into his mouth, grazing his teeth over the nub until she sucked in her breath with another wave of discomfort. Her breasts had always been super tender. He knew that and was using it to his advantage.
"Fuck, still so responsive." Wrapping his arms around her waist, he hoisted her in the air and carried her to the long, padded table in the center of the room. So many uses, but for the moment, she only cared about one.
He plunked her down on the table, and she scrambled back until she was completely on it, leaning on her elbows and watching him as he shucked off his clothes. The shirt flew across the room, and his cargo pants were forgotten on the floor as he climbed onto the table with her. So many more tattoos than she remembered from years ago, and a few more muscles to boot. And scars. She didn't remember his skin being so marred.
"Lie back," he ordered, and grabbed her knees, spreading them apart. "Fuck." He groaned. "Fucking perfect." He scooted himself down, until his legs were dangling off the table, and his face lingered over her wet sex. He inhaled deeply. "Intoxicating." He grinned.
She looked down the length of her body at him, while nibbling on her lower lip. Too long since a man had been in that vicinity, and she wasn’t sure how long she could hold out if he touched her.
"Just for the record, I already know what's going to happen after we are done here tonight." Using his thumbs, he pulled apart her lips, revealing the swollen clit to the cool air of the room. The tiny breeze alone sent shivers through her body, when he leaned further down and licked her she cried out. "Been a while, has it, Riley?" He laughed and went back to licking her entire sex. From entrance to clit, then sucking on her enough to drive her mad. Arching upward toward him with such need she almost didn't hear him chastise her.
"Down, girl." He slapped her pussy hard when she didn't immediately obey him. How could she? She was dying, and he held the life raft out of her reach. "You're so fucking wet, Riley." His fingers trailed her sex again and she clenched her hands into fists, telling herself to let go, to leave it in his hands.
When she looked back down at him he was grinning, and when she opened her mouth to ask what he found so amusing, he thrust two fingers into her passage. Her hips bucked up all on their own, because she could no longer control the need to have him inside of her. "Dane! Please." She moved her hands, gripping the edge of the table.
"Almost, Riley. Just a little more." He bent lower aga
in, and his teeth grazed her thigh as he nibbled his way back to her clit where he sucked it into his mouth. She squirmed and squealed but he continued his relentless torture. Thrusting his fingers in and out of her as he licked and bit at her clit.
Her orgasm teetered before her, but if she let it happen, let herself steal what wasn't hers anymore, he'd punish her. It's what she needed from him, and what he needed to give her. It was their new dance.
"Dane. Please, I can't wait." She reached down grasping for him, but coming up short as he shifted again. His lips far from her mound, but his fingers still drawing her closer to an edge he wasn’t going to let her fall over yet.
"Almost, baby. You can do this, you can wait for me, right? You can be my good girl now? Just a little more."
"You want to torture me." She pouted, sucking in air as he curled his fingers inside of her, teasing a never-before stroked area that nearly spiraled herself out of her body.
"Yes." He grinned, the right side of his mouth upturning higher than the left. "I do. And you want me to." The wickedness of his words, of his tone, didn't help keep her orgasm at bay. If anything, it pushed it closer to her, teasing her, tantalizingly just out of reach.
"Oh, God. Please Dane! Please." She tried to scoot back, away from his sensual touch, but he had only to lay his hand on her stomach to keep her in place.
"Remember this word?" He reached up to dig a nail into the NAUGHTY written on her stomach. "You don't want this one to be true right now, trust me." And he winked. Winked!
Her breath came too quickly. Her throat was starting to dry out from all of the heavy panting he was causing with his delicious fingers.
"Oh, God! Oh, fuck!" She was almost there. Almost. There. The pressure was building until, permission or not, she was going to burst!
"Nope. Not yet." And just like that his fingers were gone.
If Riley could see the pissed off expression mixed with shock that covered her face, Dane had no doubt she'd find it to be as amusing as he did. However, he couldn't blame her. Poor girl had been just about to explode with what he figured was going to be an earth-shattering orgasm. But he couldn't have that, not yet. Not without his cock buried deep inside her when it happened.