Truly Helpless: A Nature of Desire Series Novel

by Joey W. Hill

  Regina rose, the banter continuing, and bade Marius rise to his feet. He followed her, any teasing disappearing from his mind as he watched the sway of her hips in the leave-nothing-to-the-imagination latex, the brush of her hair on her shoulder blades, and inhaled her scent. His heart leaped as she took him down the hall to the private rooms. That was what he wanted, too. Just her.

  When she stopped in front of Room 11, he opened the door for her. Her eyes warmed in approval. She preceded him in and he followed, closing the door behind them.

  There was no equipment in the room, though there was a cabinet he was sure had some toys in it. She might have stashed some of her own there. On the floor was a cushioned mat. Multiple embedded rings with attached cuffs were at the corners and sides of it.

  “Take off all your clothes and lay on your back on the mat. Cuff your ankles and one hand, and lay your other hand in the last cuff.”

  He stripped The Zone T-shirt and his jeans, shoes and socks. She hadn’t let him wear underwear tonight. He felt the telltale quiver in his fingers as he obeyed her. It didn’t matter that they’d been together for months now. She had this effect on him every time she exercised a Mistress’s rights. As the counseling did its work on his head and heart, it was only getting stronger. Sometimes he thought he was going to explode with all the things he wanted to do for her and with her.

  And the “with her” part was becoming just as important to him. They’d taken Dot to get spayed last week. The two of them, concerned pet parents, had watched over her the night she came home glazed and groggy. He’d held her in his lap, Regina cuddling Magenta as they watched TV and didn’t do much else, wanting to keep an eye on her. It was what a family did.

  But his identity as her sub, her property, was an equally big part of who he was for her. They both liked it that way, and the second she actively exercised it, his mind shifted into that mode, like now.

  As he locked the wrist cuff onto his arm, he was stretched out on the mat, naked and under her view. Straddling him with her mile-long legs, she looked down at him from a standing position. He felt like he was looking at one of the vintage soft porn pictures that offered a straight-from-the-ground shot of a woman, an erotic view of her crotch, overshadowed by her tilted-up, exaggerated breasts. Only nothing was exaggerated on his Mistress. She was every inch the fantasy material she appeared to be. Her moist lips pressed together as her brown eyes slid over his body with leisurely, possessive pleasure. Bending, she buckled the other cuff to completely lock him down. She avoided the curl of his fingers, trying to caress her hands, with a short sound of reproof. Rising, she pressed the toe of her shoe into his scrotum, earning a wince.

  “Did I give you permission to touch me?”

  “No, Mistress.”

  “Hmm.” She brought a long, rectangular stool with short legs over, designed to be placed over his chest, the front legs pressed against his arm pits. She sat down on it, which positioned her so he was staring up at her above him. An adjustment of his gaze could have him looking right at her latex-clad cunt, inches away from his face.

  “I know you’re not staring at my pussy.”

  “No, ma’am,” he said immediately, snapping his gaze to her face.

  “Lying. That earns you another punishment.”

  “Can’t help it, Mistress. I want to play with it. Eat it, fuck it. It’s all I think about.”

  “I can tell. You did a crappy job washing the dishes this morning. I found a speck of egg on one plate.” She leaned forward, eyes gleaming, and he had a tempting view of her breasts, the shape all but revealed from the deep neckline. “Now you’re ogling my tits.” She sighed. “Am I going to have to blindfold you?”

  “No, Mistress. Please don’t. I love looking at you. I can make up for it.”

  “You’re trying to be good, trying to be Duncan. But I know when Marius wants to come out and play.” Reaching back, she took a firm grip on his cock and twisted, pulling a groan from him. “So stop blowing smoke up my ass, Marius. Tell me what you’re really imagining in that disobedient brain of yours.”

  He leveled his gaze on hers, feeling that aggression surge up. “Let me go and I’ll show you, Mistress. Or are you chicken?”

  Her lips curved, the gleam in his eyes matching it. At one time, he would have turned and twisted a Mistress’s feelings with that aggressive feeling, taking the scene in a wrong direction. She accepted his aggression and they explored it together, in some fucking memorable ways. She was more than a match for him. Far more, most times. Even when she wasn’t, he could never hurt her. He’d throw himself off a bridge first.

  Rising, she moved to the cabinet and came back, holding a hood. Though he fought to pull his head away, she had it down over his head in a blink, tying the drawstring so he was plunged into darkness.

  She moved the bench over his knees. When she touched him now, he bit back another groan. She’d donned a pair of vampire gloves, the silver barbs embedded in the fabric probably catching the light as she clamped both hands on his sides, hard enough the barbs dug in.

  “Fuck.” He cursed and shuddered as she dragged them downward. Regina was cleared for blood play, because Marius could take it, absorbed it. Ate it up.

  He breathed through the thin fabric of the hood that increased the sense of heat and enclosed space around him. His pulse crashed against his throat. “Chicken, hmm?” she mused. “Good thing I have a big, strong man to protect me. One I can tie up and make helpless whenever I wish. Can’t I?”

  “Yes, Mistress. Fuck, yes.”

  “No editorializing. Just yes or no.”

  “Yes, Mistress, argh…” He strangled on it as her hands moved down to his hips, and then one was circling his cock. Oh, crap…

  His hips jacked up as she closed her hand on him, letting those tiny barbs dig in all over his rigid member.

  “No words. Be silent,” she said sharply. “Take it. Take it as long as I want to do it. You serve me, don’t you?”

  He nodded, obeying her mandate.

  “My sub. My slave? My property?”

  He nodded again, emphatically. God, so much violent need surging up in him, hard and throbbing as his dick. This was a simple scene, straightforward, but that was all he wanted and needed. It was more about how it was between her and him than elaborate plans. He was good with anything as long it was with her. He was going to break free and fuck her. He strained against the bonds, all his muscles called into action.

  “Did you want to fight as my champion in the gladiator fights? Take down some big strong male and fuck him at my command, showing your dominance over him, your submission to me?”

  He quivered at the idea of it, the two sides of him warring over it. Yes and no. He knew it wouldn’t be good for the shit that lurked inside him. But though he’d gotten somewhat better at the hard limit thing, anything she asked of him, he wanted to do. His mouth confirmed it.

  “I’d do anything you command, Mistress.”

  “I believe it,” she said, but with a mild rebuke in her tone that told him, as usual, he couldn’t get anything past her. “I won’t command you to do that. Because I know that’s not good for my sub. But I do like the fantasy. It gets me stirred up. I know you could take down almost any male sub in this place, subjugate him to your will. Except maybe Mac. That would be an interesting fight.”

  Yeah, because Mac would have to be unconscious, his head beaten into pulp, before he’d let a live dick anywhere near his straight ass. But what made Marius hot was hearing how the fantasy turned her on. She’d be so wet, watching him shove some guy to his hands and knees, hold his neck in one hard hand as he shoved his cock into him with the other. It ached in the hold of the vampire glove. Fuck, it hurt. And yet he was so fricking hard…

  She released him, scratching his upper thighs with the gloves, causing another little shudder. Standing, she moved the bench off him. When he heard a rustling, he didn’t dare hope, not until she’d straddled him again and confirmed she’d removed he
r clothes. She was still wearing the gloves, though, making him bite back more curses as she curled the barbed fingers around him again, goading him as she guided him into her pussy and sunk down on him.

  Putting both hands on his chest, she dragged them down over his pectorals, snagging his nipples. He snarled, writhed and bucked at the stimulation and discomfort while she rode him, clutching his cock with her slick muscles.

  She was killing him.

  She rode him hard and long, and kept tormenting him with the gloves throughout, pushing out his climax farther and farther. He was growling, lifting his hips to push into her, being just as aggressive as she was. He wanted his hands free and fought his bindings, which she didn’t release.

  “Let me go. I want to fuck you. Bite your nipples. Make you scream.”

  “Bite my nipples hard?” she whispered, bending down to bite his ear. She drew back when his teeth snapped close, trying to return the favor.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well you don’t get to do that, right now. You’re mine, and you’ll serve my pussy as I say, not you. Right?” She snagged his nipple again and he swallowed another creative curse.

  “Yes, Mistress.”

  She rode him as she wished, taking him up and back, up and back, until he was crazed with animal need. “Go,” she said.

  Insane as he was, he knew it was a trap. She’d done it before, a playful mindfuck. He shook his head. “Not before my Mistress. She’s taught me better than that.”

  “Yes, she has. But it may take her awhile. She’s enjoying her ride too much to cut it short. So let’s use this…”

  She snapped the cock ring around him, having to push and pull on him some to make it work, since he was already so erect. He grunted his discomfort, and then she was back to rising and falling upon him, speaking to him in a breathy voice that morphed into long, low cries as she came, her orgasm gushing over his cock.

  God, yes… He was dying, his balls and cock throbbing like a damn toothache. “Fuck…please…”

  “Please what? You want to come?” She was breathless, bouncing on him, pushing down hard, slapping her clit against his pelvis. “Spill all that messy seed of yours inside your Mistress?”

  “Please…I’ll clean it with my mouth.”

  “You bet your ass you will.” She unsnapped the ring, and intense pleasure flooded her tone. “Come for me, sweet boy.”

  Sometimes he thought he might explode from the force of the climaxes she could pull from him. He punched up into her, again, again, her sharp gloves digging into him as his climax jetted forth. He shuddered and convulsed from the intense pleasure of it, the pain of the barbs, the indescribable bliss of her cunt holding him.

  It went on endlessly, and yet was always over too soon. When his mind stopped spinning, he realized she’d removed the gloves, and was running soft fingertips and palms over his abraded chest and legs. “There we are,” she murmured. She straddled his face. “Clean me through the hood. I don’t think you’ve earned using your tongue directly on my flesh. I’ll have to take you home and teach you some more manners before you get that reward.”

  If he could have forced his tongue through cloth he would have. For now, he was just thankful the hood was thin enough he could smell her arousal, feel the wet heat of it soaking through as he licked and sucked on her cunt through the fabric. She quivered and jerked, still sensitive after her climax, so he gentled his touch. When she at last removed the hood, he found she’d turned off the light, so it was the two of them in darkness. He wanted to see her beautiful body. She laid down upon him, though, her hips between his spread thighs, the energy around them becoming even more weighted as a result of that darkness. She freed one of his cuffs so he could curl an arm around her, hold her tight against him.

  “I love you, Mistress,” he said quietly against her hair. “I hope I pleased you.”

  “You do, and you will continue to do so. Else I’ll take it out of your hide.” There was a smile in her voice, and tenderness…and love. “I meant it, Duncan. I would never make you fight in those fights. You never have to fight again.”

  He was silent as her fingers stroked him, her lips moving against his flesh. He closed his eyes, savoring it, feeling the twist in his heart and his gut. She was smart, his Mistress. She knew what happened in his head, what his silences meant.

  “You don’t agree. Speak to me. Tell me what my sub is thinking.”

  It took him a few moments, but he answered her, though the words came slow because they weren’t easy. Nothing important was. “I do have to fight again, Mistress. Every day, against myself, and whatever else comes along. To serve you, to keep earning your love.”

  She slid her arms fully around him, held him even tighter for a long pause before she answered. “You know, all that time, the wonderful, charming things you said? They don’t hold a candle to how you make a woman feel when you’re speaking straight from your heart. So mind you only say such things to me, unless you want to be in big trouble.”

  It was a teasing though serious warning, one that made him smile, content. “Don’t want to say it to anyone else.” He paused, the humor disappearing. “All those years I was teaching myself to fight, thinking it was to go up against my father if ever he tried to make me helpless again… Sounds stupid and obvious, but it’s only lately I realized that wasn’t what I was fighting.”

  She nodded against his chest. “What was it, sweet boy?” Her voice was a whisper in the darkness. He closed his eyes.

  “It was my memories, my anger at my father. So much futile shit, stuff I was fighting against. But the night they tried to hurt you…”

  His arm constricted around her, an automatic reassurance to them both that that horrible moment was a memory, well in the past. He still had to take a steadying breath before he could continue. “That night was the first time I’d ever fought for something. The difference was the difference between choking and breathing. That’s the one kind of fighting I’ll do now and forever, Mistress. Always for you.” He took another breath. “And for myself. The right way.”

  When she released the other cuff, he sat up in the darkness, and gathered her to him. She didn’t mind being treated like a girl, his Mistress, and when he had her cradled in his lap, his arms surrounding her, she rewarded him, both for his care and the words.

  “I’ll hold you to that,” she said quietly, stroking his chest, his jaw and throat. “Because I think I’m keeping you forever. I may even marry you.”

  “Do I have any say in it?” he asked.

  Her voice had a smile in it. “Not a damn bit.”

  He sighed. “Thank God.”

  The End

  Author’s End Notes

  As I mentioned in the Acknowledgements, a lot of random research goes into a book. This time, there was one piece I could not fact-check. The discussion between Regina and Marius in the Florida State Prison parking lot was a key scene, so I left it as it was written, with him concluding the conversation and walking from the car to the main building to be escorted to the witness gallery.

  However, the actual procedure by which family members of death row inmates arrive at, and are escorted to, the witness gallery for the execution is confidential, for security purposes and to protect the family members. Respecting that, I did not dig for further information after the kind and patient folks at the Florida Department of Corrections advised me of that precaution. So, if the information is incorrect, there are very good reasons, and my apologies.

  On a more uplifting note, often my characters from other books make guest appearances in subsequent stories. You probably noticed a few of these in Truly Helpless. In case some of you aren’t familiar with their stories (but wish to be), I’m listing them below. A full list of my titles in series order is available at the end of this book.

  Ice Queen/Mirror of My Soul – Tyler and Marguerite

  Branded Sanctuary - Chloe and Brendan

  Divine Solace – Lyda, Gen and Noah

  Honor
Bound – Peter and Dana

  Unrestrained – Dale and Athena

  Afterword

  Did you enjoy reading this? Was it a true pleasure to spend time with Joey’s characters? If you feel it was, then she asks that you do one simple thing in support of her future work. Please share that experience with at least one other book-reading friend who hasn’t read her. Or mention her on a Facebook page, at a book club meeting or online forum, on Twitter, in an Amazon or GoodReads review, or wherever you feel comfortable. You, the pleased reader, are the best marketing strategy an author can have. If you do just one of those things to spread the word about her work, she will be very grateful! And thank you again for taking the journey with her characters.

  Ready for More?

  Check out Joey’s website at storywitch.com where you’ll find additional information, free excerpts, buy links and news about current and upcoming releases for all of her books and series.

  You can find free novellas and shorts that revisit her series characters on her website. Just look under the Books drop down menu and choose the Cantrips series page. While the Cantrips volumes are compendiums of her vignettes you can purchase, if you scroll beneath the volumes, you will see the free standalone titles, available in all the popular download formats.

  Want to know all the places you can talk to Joey, Joey’s fans, and find more free content? Visit storywitch.com/community or click the Community link on the website menu. You can also review current and past editions of her monthly newsletter for information on upcoming releases, book signing events, contests, and more.

  About the Author

  Joey W. Hill writes about vampires, mermaids, boardroom executives, cops, witches, angels, housemaids...pretty much wherever her inspiration takes her. She's penned over forty acclaimed titles and six award-winning series, and been awarded the RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Award for Erotica. But she's especially proud and humbled to have the support and enthusiasm of a wonderful, widely diverse readership.