Taking Her Down

by Vonna Harper

  “I can’t…can’t explain.” Pleasure seeped into every inch of her, to silence her strained muscles and abraded skin. She imagined herself floating on a cloud, one capable of turning dark, dangerous and exciting at any moment.

  His hands cupped her breasts and he massaged them. “Stay with it,” he whispered. “Embrace everything and let this become part of you.”

  Part of her? Was he saying these feelings might last forever? Even as the small still-sane piece of her mind that remained insisted that wasn’t possible, she wanted it to be wrong. Living the rest of her life drunk on sex?

  “Thank you, Master,” she got out.

  The wave was starting to flatten, but she remained aware of the hammering inside her. Before long she’d start to drown again. Master’s gentle fingers on her breasts felt so good, a wonderful contrast to what he’d been forcing them to endure earlier. She lifted her heavy head and tried to lean toward him.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I want to kiss you.”

  He took a long breath. “No. Damn it, no.”

  “Why not?” She didn’t try to hide her begging tone.

  “I’m not going to let our relationship take that turn. You’re my slave, nothing more.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “What are you doing?”

  The naked woman angled her body away from the window and looked at him. She showed no sign of wanting to leave it. After freeing her from the chair and removing the blindfold, he’d again restrained her hands behind her and told her she could use the toilet. He might not have thought about her needs in that department if he hadn’t needed to pee himself. Wanting to see what, if anything, she’d do when left alone, he’d ordered her to leave the bathroom when she was done. He’d kept the door open while urinating in case she tried to run but she hadn’t taken a step toward the living room.

  Instead, like him, she wanted to see the still-raging storm. She didn’t seem reluctant to present her face to the rain-drenched wind. He told himself that, maybe, she was hoping rain would wash off some of her sweat, but the explanation didn’t go deep enough. She undoubtedly wanted more than to be clean.

  “I work in all kinds of weather. Most of the time I don’t think about it, but it’s different today. There’s something about this storm. Maybe it’s the island.”

  It is. He studied her slight but strong frame. Being denied use of her arms hadn’t reduced her in the ways that counted. Her legs were widely spread, undoubtedly because her pussy was so sensitive. Seeing how reddened her breasts were surprised him. He couldn’t remember everything he’d done to them.

  Acknowledging that he’d briefly—it hadn’t been long, had it?—blacked out alarmed him. At the same time, he couldn’t fathom ending what they’d begun today.

  “I don’t know what I’m supposed to say.” Her attention stayed on his cock. “I-I was led to believe I’d be directing much of the, ah, action. So far that hasn’t happened.”

  She swayed a little. He again tried to pull up the details of what had happened between them, but there were too many blank spaces. There wasn’t an inch of her that didn’t speak of what he’d put her through. Any man who wanted to be able to look himself in the mirror would have already ended things, handed her back her freedom.

  He wasn’t that man.

  “Come closer,” he ordered, slapping the mattress he was sitting on.

  He thought she might fall but she caught herself before he had to decide whether he’d help. Judging by the strain in her shoulders, she was testing the strength of the ropes wound around her wrists.

  “Now. Damn it!”

  Most men probably wouldn’t have seen the truth behind her uplifted head, but he knew things about women they never would. She wasn’t resisting the command. Rather, the conflict was with herself.

  “Tell me what you’re thinking,” he said.

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” she snapped. “It isn’t enough that I’m naked and tied up, you expect me to spill my guts.”

  “You want to.” He wasn’t sure where that insight came from, let alone what he might do with it.

  She licked her lips. “Maybe,” she muttered. “It’s—”

  “Not yet. First, you’ll obey my command.”

  Watching her close the distance between them until his cock was only inches from her had him fighting not to take her here and now, but he refused to fuck her before she begged for it.

  “What do you want from men?” he asked to get her started. “What would it take for you to consider a man marriage material?”

  “You want me to tell you—?” She closed her eyes. “I don’t know if I can.”

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Oh, she knew all right, damn her. Time to dig into her corners and lay her bare in ways she couldn’t have anticipated. He had only one goal, to turn her into something the beast had use for.

  Even if it meant destroying her?

  Desperate to kill the question, he ordered her to open her eyes. When she did, he noted that they were glittering.

  “What,” he asked, “is the one thing you hoped no one would ever know about you?”

  She shrank away. “Not fair,” she whispered. “I don’t have to—”

  “Yeah, you do.” He gave weight to the words by grasping her hips and pulling her into the space he’d created by spreading his legs. He clamped his thighs around hers. After several seconds, she rewarded him with a strained moan. He backed off the pressure but made it clear that she’d pay for it if she tried to move.

  “Everyone has secrets. Things they’ll never tell anyone. What gives you nightmares?”

  “Nothing.”

  She was lying. Hell, maybe he wasn’t the only one who feared the dark side would win. He could beat the truth out of her, whip and stimulate her until she didn’t know what was happening, but he’d already taken her down that road. It was time for another approach.

  He slipped his forefinger through the ring dangling from her collar and pulled down until she bent over at the waist. She widened her stance a bit, in an attempt to keep her balance, which was exactly what he’d intended. He kept her bracketed between his legs.

  “I won’t abide lies from you.” The sense of power that had climbed inside him as the storm exploded returned. He didn’t know this slave’s name and didn’t care. She was simply a means to an end.

  His end?

  “I know you won’t. The thought of something happening to my business so I can’t pay the bills sometimes keeps me up nights.”

  “Is that possible? Things aren’t secure?” Where had the questions come from, when he’d told himself he didn’t care about who she was when she wasn’t with him?

  “It’s better than when I was starting out, but there’s always competition. I can’t control the weather. I’ve been stiffed by a few people I’ve completed jobs for. Even if I don’t get paid, I have to pay my employees.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?” She tried to lift her head. “They have families to feed.”

  And their ability to do so is important to you.

  Taken aback by what he’d just learned, and what the knowledge meant to him, he tried to distract himself by running his free hand over her hip. She sighed and shuddered. For several seconds, he wasn’t aware of anything except the vulnerable and lovely young woman standing helpless before him. With his ropes on her, she was dependent on him for so many things and she knew it. No matter what she might think of him, no matter that she might have labeled him a bastard, she knew not to antagonize him. She’d do whatever she believed she needed to, in order to keep him from abandoning her.

  As if he would.

  Had it come to that, he pondered, as he stroked her flank and thigh. This nameless woman was more than an object, more than the means to sexual release? Somehow, she’d slipped past his defenses, past the beast, even to something basic and real.

  No!

  He di
dn’t know where the denial had come from, just that he needed to heed it and make that his reality.

  By doing what he was so good at.

  “You will not climax. If you do I’ll punish you, understand?”

  She tried to nod but it was nearly impossible because this man, who’d once again become her Master, still had hold of the collar’s ring. She remained bent over, as if bowing before him with her breasts dangling. She’d briefly lost sight of their declared relationship but he’d thrown it back at her in a way she hadn’t seen coming.

  His fingers on her hip had been a kind of music, a cooling breeze during a hot afternoon, and she wanted it back, not this.

  Master’s hand was between her legs. His fingers flicked over her labia and came within a whisper of her clit. She’d been aroused even before he’d made his intentions clear and that had contributed to her downfall. His earlier bold handling of her had brought her to this place where self-determination was a lie. She wanted to loathe him for it. Instead, she was seeping into a world of helpless pleasure.

  “Keeping secrets from your Master isn’t allowed.” He slid a finger inside her where it lingered for several seconds.

  She swayed. “I don’t have nightmares, if that’s what you want to know.”

  There was nothing warm about his chuckle. “No, it isn’t,” he said. “I don’t give a damn about what wakes you in the middle of the night. What you’re going to tell me is what keeps you from falling asleep.”

  She couldn’t imagine what he was talking about, couldn’t push her mind past the warmth pressing against the inside of her left thigh.

  “You’re sexually unfulfilled.” His fingers drummed her flesh. “You wouldn’t be here if you were getting what you need.”

  He was right. She slipped into that hot and welcome place where nothing except sensuality mattered. Master’s hand was at the only place she wanted it to be. He’d taken her where she’d hoped she’d be led. There’d been more pain and bondage than she’d anticipated, but did it matter?

  “Did any of your lovers scratch your deep itches?” He punctuated the question by pushing a finger deep inside her. “Any of them ever tie you up?”

  Oh, God! “No.”

  “Why not?”

  Keep your finger there. Fill me with your essence. “I, ah, didn’t ask them to.”

  A second finger joined the first.

  “Why not, slave? Why did it take my collaring you to get you to admit what you need?”

  The question was too complex. If he wanted openness from her he’d have to give her room to breathe.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I don’t believe you.” He bent his fingers so the tips touched a hot and hungry part of her core. “Damn it, you know who and what you are.”

  Did she?

  “Master? What do you want from me?”

  “Your soul.”

  Feeling as if he’d struck her, she tried to straighten, but his grip on the collar’s ring made that impossible. His legs imprisoned hers and the fingers lodged in her said he had every right to claim that part of her. Even if she broke free, she couldn’t go anywhere except out into the rain-battered world the island had become.

  “None of your lovers touched your secret places.” His invading fingers dove deeper. “That’s where I’m headed. How am I doing? Getting close to the truth?”

  Yes, she silently declared, even though she wasn’t sure what he was talking about.

  He pressed against the front of her channel. “Talk to me, slave. Spread yourself open to me. Maybe I’ll give you what you need.”

  She needed to come again, but he’d ordered her not to let loose until he gave her permission. Thoughts of how he might punish her if she failed him had her fighting to find her way beyond her plundered pussy. “Everyone thinks I have my—my shit together,” she managed. “My family’s so damn proud of me it scares me.”

  “Why?”

  Something in his tone got through to her. Even with sexual hunger clawing at her, she wanted to come clean. “I get tied in knots thinking I might fail. They don’t know about the times I had to get high-interest loans to make it through the month, my fear no one would want my services.”

  “You wanted your family to believe you were a roaring success coming out of the chute?”

  “It wasn’t that,” she hurried to say, even as she acknowledged he was right in too many respects.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  Why was she so tired? Yes, her body was on overdrive with desire chasing through it so she thought she might drown, but under that was a soul-deep weariness. She hadn’t felt this exhausted for maybe a couple of years, not since the last time she’d feared she was in over her head.

  As she hesitantly replayed the mix of anger and anxiety that had consumed her because a businessman she’d done a large project for kept delaying a much-needed payment, she acknowledged the common thread in both experiences. Too much was out of her control, so much at stake.

  “You’re trapped,” Master said. He allowed her to straighten while continuing to invade her pussy. “You can’t close down your business and hire on with some other landscaper or get an office job any more than you can pretend you never wanted to come here. Never asked to be treated the way I’m treating you.”

  Despite everything, she caught the continued note of genuine interest in his voice. Gathering resolve from a place outside her body, she studied him. His eyes had lightened a little, become less dangerous. More sane.

  “No, I can’t,” she admitted.

  He nodded. “And you knew that even before you embarked on either experience. Down deep you knew you were a submissive.”

  ‘Submissive’. Such a simple word. Simple and unbelievably complex.

  “What about you?” she asked, to keep from blurting out the truth. “How long have you known about your need to dominate?”

  “No you don’t.” His tone turned harsh. “We aren’t going there.”

  He’d retreated again, gone to a place she couldn’t reach. “I can’t make you say anything you don’t want to, but—”

  “No, you can’t. So, this is my take on you, little slave. You present a public face to the world and your family. They see a confident and competent kick-ass woman. They know nothing about your secret need to turn all responsibility over to someone—to a man who takes what he wants.”

  They’d already had a similar conversation. If only she could remember how it had played out—or whether she’d admitted how right he was.

  Maybe it didn’t matter.

  “Not many people you’d want to see you like this, right?”

  The contract she’d signed had assured complete privacy. Had she been a fool to blindly believe it would be honored?

  “One more time,” he said. “You’d rather die than have pictures of how you are right now make the rounds, right?”

  “No.” She started to back up, only to stop. If she took another step, his fingers would slide out of her. “I mean you can’t— I’ll sue.”

  “Sue who or what? Besides, you don’t want the notoriety.”

  He was right. Once the pictures became public the damage would have been done.

  “Please don’t,” she whispered as she returned to where she’d been.

  He didn’t respond as he settled his fingers more firmly inside her, studying her as he did. Something in his expression warned of more to come. He could hurt or pleasure her at will, both at the same time if he so desired. His erection served as the only sign that arousal was a two-edged sword.

  “Quite the day of revelations, isn’t it?” Fresh pressure against her labia made deciding whether he expected her to respond impossible. “You never thought there’d be so much mind fucking.”

  A third finger slowly made its way into her already stuffed channel. Her thoughts locked on the hard invasion. She heard herself pant.

  “You can leave if you want to.” He placed his free hand on her hip and pressed his fingers aga
inst her ass cheek to anchor her in place. “Turn around and walk out the door.”

  “I can’t.” She arched toward him, moving her upper body about so her breasts shook. “You have— I can’t.”

  “Yes, you can. Go on, back away.” He removed his hand from her buttock, holding it up so she could see it out of the corner of her eye. “I’ll slide right out.” He made his point by withdrawing his fingers a little. “All you have to do is make the decision.”

  “My arms—they’re cuffed.”

  “Don’t let that stop you. Don’t forget, the moment you say you’ve had enough someone will get you out of the mess you’ve gotten yourself into.”

  He was right. “What do you want me to do? To say?”

  The hint of a teasing expression she’d spotted, while he was challenging her, died. “Listen to yourself? You’re asking me what you should be thinking.”

  He was right. Down in her bones right. Exhaustion again threatened to take over. “Yes,” she admitted. “I’m so tired of— I don’t want to think anymore.”

  “Another layer exposed.” He patted her flank. “More honesty held up to the light.”

  But it was all one-sided because he’d said so little about himself. Somehow, she pulled energy from some deep place. Careful not to dislodge his hand, she bent at the waist and brought her face close to his. His exhaled breath dampened her lashes.

  “Kiss me,” she whispered. “That’s what I want, for you to kiss me.”

  The change in his expression reminded her of a dog going from being remote to on the verge of attacking. Shock froze her breath.

  “That’s not the way things work here, slave.” He gripped her chin. “This is no damn romantic getaway.”

  “Then what is it?” she snapped. What the hell just happened?

  “What I need it to be.”

  Not ‘want’ but ‘need’. The longer they stared at each other the more convinced she became that he wasn’t in control of what he was experiencing. Granted, this wasn’t the first time she’d thought that, but now she believed they were getting closer. That she was catching glimpses of the man who existed beyond this place and this storm.