“I don’t know,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “I... I’m scared, Luka. I’m really scared. And I don’t want to do this.”
“That feeling, that emotion you have right now is what makes the difference between games and true submission. Discipline in a BDSM relationship is about changing your behaviors and your attitude and obeying me without question, not about getting off or taking a gentle, playful spanking. You will learn this lesson, once and for all.”
He snapped his fingers and pointed to the floor. She knelt, spreading her legs to reveal her pussy that glistened with an unmet need that she still didn’t understand. She expected him to run his hands through her hair and leave her unfinished in front of their witnesses, but Luka stepped away, speaking in Russian to Slavic, who moved to stand in front of her.
Luka spoke to her. “You will take his cock, koshka, and Yuri will help him. If you thought it was difficult to not come in Dallas, now you will come in front of all of us.”
Slavic snapped his fingers, drawing her attention away from Luka and toward his unsmiling face. His slightly accented tone was just as deep and as foreboding as Luka’s. “Unbuckle my belt.”
Faced with an impenetrable wall of power and darkness emanating from her four men, she struggled to take a full breath. She’d spent a lifetime living behind closely guarded walls that protected her from herself, her emotions, and the dangers of the world all around her. In ten minutes, they’d defeated those barriers, leaving her defenseless with a brutal certitude.
Trembling, she undid his belt and slid it through the loops to hand to him. When she unfastened his pants and opened his zipper, she leaned back to sit on her heels, and he used his foot to spread her legs even wider. Yuri, big and powerful, knelt behind her, tying her hands behind her back with a length of rope that rubbed uncomfortably against her wrists. He nudged her off her heels so he could take her breasts in one hand and stroke her wet pussy with the other.
Slavic freed his cock, running his hands along its length. He moved his erection to her lips, grabbing her hair and delivering his shaft with the same demanding force Luka had used in Dallas. Her face burned with mortification and huge tears left the room blurry. As Slavic started to move inside of her, Yuri stroked her pussy, the scent and sounds of her own sex intermingling with taste of Slavic’s cock.
The physical ache embraced the mixture of pleasure, pain, mortification, and need. The muscles in her legs throbbed from her widened stance, and her knees objected to the hard floor, but the men continued to pull from her an arousal that magnified with every invasion of Slavic’s cock and stroke of Yuri’s hand.
Human nature had long since decreed vulnerability to be a weakness, an emotion to be avoided, but without her self-made walls to defend her, the adrenaline rushed through her core and ignited a firestorm of primal need. Her over-sensitized clit begged for an end, but she fought the growing pleasure even as Slavic continued to fuck her mouth, holding her hair so she couldn’t escape. To release in front of them would mean destroying the last of her resolve, putting her into uncharted territory with no definitive goal.
“She’s fighting me,” said Yuri with a hint of exasperation. “She needs to come so badly, she’s going to explode, but she’s not going to make it easy.”
Luka came to her side, his scent and presence bringing a welcome familiarity. The close proximity of all three men further trapped her, but she remained steadfast in her battle to flee from an endless orgasm. He rubbed his hand along her inner thigh, speaking with a growl. “Now, koshka. You will come now.”
Yuri pinched her clit, a painful sharp fury that warmed her entire body to create a single demand, and the spasms broke the last of her resistance. From a deep, private place, she cried out as her body ceded everything she had to their control. The spasms continued, one after another, as Slavic released his seed, pulling even harder on her hair.
She was still lost when Yuri untied her hands and moved away from her. Sitting back on her heels, she took huge choking breaths and tightly closing her eyes so she didn’t have to view her shame through their expressions, her wet response still evidenced by the staining along her thighs. Her release had left her even weaker and more defenseless than before she’d come, increasing her dependency on their decisions.
Without Luka’s protective strength, all she could do was wish for a quiet corner to sob, but her master wasn’t done. He removed the belt from his jeans, a shiny, new black leather strap she hadn’t noticed.
“Put your ass over that chair, and we’ll finish. I am not going to restrain you, but if you move, we will begin again. Repeat back to me my instructions, so I know you understand your role.”
She desperately wanted to win back Luka’s pride and approval, but she was unprepared to go another step. She choked on her tears and stumbled as she stood. Luka caught her before she hit the floor, his face full of concern, and he gently brushed the hair out of her eyes.
The glimmer of her gentle master after so much turmoil was too much. Pulling away with dramatic sobs, she found the strength to run, up the circular staircase and down the hall to the bedroom where Anton had been taken the night it had all begun. She went to the bathroom and locked the door, falling to the floor to sob, as far away from all of them as she could get.
* * *
His cousins had left without saying goodbye, but they’d understood his need to punish her. They were powerful doms who’d taken many submissives over the years and would have done the same if faced with abject disobedience. Honesty and integrity was nonexistent in the rest of the world, but it was the essential foundation to his private one. It was hard, brutal even, to see her so upset, but as the master of their relationship, it was his duty to settle this.
It was a big house and, like a child’s game of hide and seek, it wasn’t easy to find someone who didn’t wish to be discovered. He checked each room, calling her name with the understanding she would never come to him willingly. On his second run through the house, he started to look through closets and under the beds and within twenty minutes, he’d found her locked in the upstairs master bathroom.
“Unlock the door, koshka. We need to talk about this.” He listened carefully, catching the small sounds that assured him he’d located her. Banging a second time, he added, “Open the door, or I’ll break it down.”
Wrapped in the oversized white robe from the back of the bathroom door, she obeyed. Her eyes were red and swollen, and her hair was tangled from where Slavic had pulled at it. The belt he’d carried through the house didn’t seem to be the easy answer he’d thought it would be. Despite his commitment to finishing her punishment, he had to fight the urge to take her into his arms and kiss her sadness away.
“Do I really need to teach you how to pick a bathroom lock?” She sniffled, keeping some distance between them by maneuvering to the chairs in the small sitting area. “It’s not hard, you know. I learned when I was, like, seven.”
The sass relaxed him, but he needed to maintain his authority. “You ran away before I was finished. You understand there will be additional consequences.”
She nodded, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. “I know. I’m sorry. For all of it, lying and deceiving you. And downstairs, I... I just didn’t have the strength you thought I did. I’m sorry I disappointed you.”
“Disappointed? That doesn’t begin to explain what I’ve gone through. Do you have any idea what it does to my heart when you’ve been exposed to danger? And I thought we’d settled the rest of it. Why didn’t you spend the money, and why did you lie about it?”
“I... I don’t know,” she stuttered. “I just... I’d never seen ten thousand dollars in one place, and I started dwelling on it from the very beginning. It was easier to convince you that I’d been spending it all along than it was to actually open the bag and confront it. How did you know, anyway? I bought the bedroom set and the new stove with my credit card, and I thought you’d never figure it out.”
“You aren�
��t very good at deception, koshka. Besides, now is probably not the time to tell you, but I put an extra five thousand dollars in the envelope. Even if you’d never counted it, sooner or later you would have realized it wasn’t running low as quickly as it should have, but I am no closer to understanding what happened.”
She curled into a small gray chair and drew her knees to her chin. “At first, it was just too much, but the longer it sat there, the less I could deal with it. Finally, I got it into my head that the money didn’t represent the best part of me. Of us.”
“Because of the potential legal ramifications,” he finished for her.
“No, although I admit that’s hard, too, but I’m one of the last people in the world who should critique you for following an alternative set of rules. Money, or rather the lack of it, was such a deep influence to my childhood that it’s hard to separate from it emotionally, and when you came along, it became the part of you I don’t understand.”
“But you agreed to this discipline,” he insisted. “I never lied or misled you.”
“You’re right,” she said miserably. “And honestly, what happened tonight was pretty amazing from a sexual experience, but emotionally, it was rough.”
“One doesn’t happen without the other, koshka. Giving up that those defenses exposed your sexual vulnerability and granted you access to a deeper release. It is one of the advantages for a sub in this type of relationship.”
“It’s also a lot of opposing factors to deal with at one time. Just like you. There is the kind, gentle master who cares for me and explores a kinky sexuality that I embrace, even the discipline part. But other days, like today, that mess in the dining room wasn’t about discipline. To me, it was about a man who exists behind a wall. It’s the same man who disappears for days at a time and was with Anton the night he got shot.”
“Today was about punishment, not discipline. They are two very different things. But I am not as complex as you are describing. I told you before we started this relationship that there is nothing more to me than my dominance. You chose to seek something that isn’t there, but I admit I have felt the same complexity with you. Some days, you are a natural submissive who embraces this lifestyle, and other days, you fight me for dominance.”
“You’re right,” she repeated. “You’ve given me exactly what you promised, and I was wrong to expect more. I feel guilty pushing us into this corner, and I’m sorry I haven’t been a better submissive. I understand if you want to end... end all of this, but I can do better, I promise.”
Luka showed her the belt still resting in his hand. “If you are willing to continue, I will finish what I started today because that is the foundation of our relationship. You deserve this spanking, and you know it. We will both feel better when it is complete.”
“Can... can you just promise to hold me when you’re done?” she whispered, closing her eyes as she stood, slipping the robe to the floor and revealing her stunning nude frame. “And I don’t think I can accept that cage tonight and not crumble. Please. I’m begging you. You can do anything you want to me, but don’t leave me alone. Please, ser.”
He nodded, wrapping the belt around his hand. His new leather would leave a lasting reminder of who her true master was and settle this unrest, once and for all. Pushing her tummy against the side of the bed, he ran his hand over her perfect, beautiful bottom, and she noticeably trembled under his palm. Her face buried into the mattress and her sobbing started in earnest, increasing in strength and sadness before he’d delivered a single stroke.
With the full understanding that he’d brought her to this place of misery, his heart broke for her and for himself. He dropped the belt to the floor and gathered her into his arms, pulling her onto the bed and holding her tightly. She collapsed into tears and sobbed on his shoulder, ceding a mountain of emotions that destroyed his ability to dominate her.
But Luka had nothing to offer her that would fill the gap. Without his dominance, he couldn’t protect her. Without his control, he had no way to communicate with her. With no plans to let her go, he had no idea how to move forward. He pulled her closer to his chest, murmuring the soft Russian lullabies that had brought both of them comfort in the past and held her.
Chapter Sixteen
From the moment she’d left the dining room, she’d understood that restitution was inevitable. She’d defied him, lied to him, and run from him when he’d tried to discipline her. No matter how complicated he was and no matter how confused she’d become, his word was the cornerstone of his character and his character was the key to her security.
When he’d dropped the belt to the floor and taken her into his arms, she’d melted in a combination of relief and comfort, but as the days wore on, the guilt never subsided and the unspoken conflict remained hidden behind their polite conversations. He’d returned to her both the money and the jewelry, but with no conversation about their past or plans to define the future, she stashed them back into their hiding spots. Luka asked about her day and her family. He sent thoughtful text messages when he was out of town. They went to the occasional movie and out to dinner, and those nights they were lucky enough to spend together, he filled her with gentle lovemaking.
There were no games, no kink, and no trips to the lake house. It was as though that side of their relationship died that night, fracturing an integral part of what had defined them and leaving her lost.
They’d spent almost three weeks in that void when Luka told her to pack a bag. “Pavel and Zoya wish for both of us to stay with them for the Fourth of July. New York is a beautiful city, and I will enjoy showing you around. They set off fireworks on Coney Island we can see from their deck, and Zoya is an excellent cook.”
Wearing lightweight dress slacks and a navy blue polo shirt, he picked her up in the Mustang with the top down, but she made him wait an extra fifteen minutes while she changed into a green sundress with bright yellow flowers. Luka was impatiently tapping his fingers against the steering wheel when she arrived, but she scolded him. “You didn’t tell me this was going to be a dressy thing. You even shaved, and I think I’ve seen you do that, like, three times in five months.”
“Zoya hates my beard,” he dismissed, backing out of the driveway. “Shaving is easier to stop her nagging, but in Russia, I’d go for months with nothing more than a good trim.”
It was a holiday weekend, and the traffic was heavy on the New York State Thruway. They filled the six hours with easy chatter on every topic imaginable from US and Russian politics to their favorite songs and television shows, but their unresolved past remained taboo.
She’d thought Dallas was a big city, but navigating into Manhattan was a totally different experience than driving through the contemporary Texas city. Aged infrastructure surrounded by an industrial skyline wound along the gray Hudson River. Thousands of people moved in as many different directions at every intersection and sidewalk, and she struggled to see how any car could negotiate the streets without running somebody over.
She took tons of pictures during his impromptu tour: Times Square, the Empire State Building, the headquarters of NBC and the Tonight Show, and the magic of Central Park with horse-drawn carriages waiting to take people on romantic drives. Crossing the iconic Brooklyn Bridge whose hundred and fifty year old stone arches and steel cables changed the face of the city gave her a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty before they wound their way to Brighton Beach.
After passing miles and miles of apartments, stores, and office buildings, they approached a small strip of single family homes, and she got her first ever view of the ocean. Luka pulled into the driveway of a house with a well-maintained garden in the front yard and a big porch filled with red and white geraniums, lush green hanging ferns, and well-pruned fuchsias with a trail of bright pink and purple flowers. The two-story house was modest in size, but with the ocean in its back yard and the island of Manhattan as a close neighbor, the property was probably worth millions.
He’d barely turned
off the car when an exotic, curvy woman in her early forties wearing a long navy blue tunic and white capris came to the driveway. Her dark curly hair was cut to her shoulders, and her oval blue eyes sparkled to match a large silver necklace.
Luka got out of the car to give her a hug. “Thank you for inviting us, Zoya. We are both looking forward to this.”
“Luka,” called out the man who’d followed close behind her. “It is good you’ve brought your friend to us. Welcome to our home, Mia. I am Luka’s uncle, Pavel Petruskenkov, and this is my beautiful wife, Zoya.”
Pavel was a good fifteen years older than his wife, but there was nothing about his appearance that made him an old man. Incredibly handsome with taut muscles and thick gray curly hair, Pavel’s commanding presence exceeded that of his sons.
“You look like Slavic,” Mia said, taking his hand. “I can see him in your eyes.”
“That is a true compliment,” said Zoya, her beautiful laugh matching her elegance. “I’ve always told Pavel that Slavic has beautiful eyes. Please, come to the deck. You’ve had a long drive, and we have lunch waiting for you.”
Arm in arm, the older couple led the way into the house, but Mia pulled back, yanking on Luka’s shirtsleeve and whispering conspiratorially. “You never told me she was stunning. I thought she’d be like, maybe, some middle-aged woman wearing a housedress with a little hair on her upper lip, not somebody who could have been Miss Russia twenty years ago.”
“Talk about stereotyping,” he said with a laugh, “but I wouldn’t tell her any of that if I were you. Zoya has a temper only Pavel seems to control. I’ve been coming here since I was a young man, and I’ve never seen her look anything less than perfect. Don’t forget, she’s Georgian, not Russian. She gets upset when somebody mixes that up. They are their own country with a centuries-old unique language and culture.”
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