One Cut Deeper

by Joely Sue Burkhart

  He sighed heavily and set his glass aside. I bowed my head, trying not to groan with the agony of losing him already. This wasn’t the kind of pain I enjoyed. Not at all.

  “I didn’t intend to let you see that side of me so quickly.”

  That brought my head up. I searched his eyes, looking for the truth. The swirling darkness was back, sucking me under, promising danger and bliss and everything I’d ever wanted, though his voice was a mere whisper. “Do you trust me, Ranay? Really trust me? Do you trust me to see to your needs, whatever they are?”

  I swallowed so hard I almost choked, my throat closing off so I couldn’t breathe. He reached down and tipped my chin up. I loved this side of him, definitely. But I wanted the blazing malice of the master too.

  I couldn’t help the tears again, though at least I didn’t sob like a baby this time. “You’re too nice to give me everything I need!”

  It was an accusation, my words ringing shrilly between us.

  I never expected him to laugh.

  I mean, he threw his head back and roared with amusement as if I’d told him the funniest joke he’d ever heard in his life. Before he was done, I was drumming my fingers on my thighs and seriously thinking about using that steak knife to jab him between the ribs.

  “You probably won’t believe me,” he gasped out, finally starting to contain his mirth at my expense. “But the last thing any sub has ever accused me of being is too nice.”

  I knew it was stupid, even as I stood and planted my hands on my hips. One did not poke a bear, even if it seemed to be hibernating peacefully, and he’d ordered me to my knees. But what did I have to lose? Either he was right and he could give me exactly what I wanted, or he was wrong, and he’d already said he didn’t want a slave like me. “No, you’re right. I don’t believe you.”

  His laughter stilled and he gazed up at me, loose in his chair, fully relaxed. But his eyes had changed. They weren’t soft and molten chocolate in the candlelight any longer, though they weren’t the hard eyes of the master, either. This cold man was a stranger to me.

  “Do you trust me?” His voice was laced with an undercurrent of something not right. Not the calm, confident power of the master, or the sharper threat of a sadist, but something else. I didn’t know what it was, but that look sent a chill through me. Not fear, not exactly, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. My stomach tightened and my nape prickled with warning.

  He waited for my answer, unmoving. I don’t think he breathed, though he still looked completely natural and relaxed. “It’s not too late to change your mind. I won’t stop you if you want to leave. You ought to leave. Now.”

  Whether he intended it or not, his words had the opposite effect on me. I crossed my arms and tipped my chin up. “No. I won’t leave unless you make me.”

  I don’t know how he did it. One breath he was sprawled in his chair. The next, he was on top of me, sweeping my legs out from under me and taking me to the floor. His weight slammed into me so hard I lost the ability to breathe.

  I wasn’t hurt. He’d even caught my head in his palm to keep my skull from cracking on the floor. I blinked up at him, my whole body aching.

  The look on his face sent my heart lurching into a frantic drumming that made me dizzy. So cold, so bleak and empty that I shivered with dread. He looked at me with...

  Hunger.

  “Red,” he growled like an animal, some kind of crazed beast that had finally caught the scent of its prey. “Remember it.”

  Chapter Eight

  He fisted his hand in my hair and dragged me up to my feet as he stood. Without looking at me or speaking, he headed for the bedroom, his grip keeping me hunched and scrambling to keep up. I couldn’t straighten fully, not without losing a hunk of hair.

  He threw me toward the bed. I fell against the mattress but quickly rolled to the side, hoping to hit the floor so I could get away before he used those posters on either corner of the bed. He let me, watching with an amused little smile hovering on his lips as I jumped to my feet and backed away.

  “Good. I was hoping you might be up for a chase before the punishment. No running, though. I won’t let you get that far.”

  My back hit the wall. I thought I knew him. Charlie MacNiall. Sheba’s human. Dr. Wentworth’s client. A man with killer dimples and a sweet smile, with warm brown eyes that hadn’t looked at me with disgust or horror when I’d told him my secrets.

  But honestly, what did I really know about him?

  Evidently nothing at all, because this man smiled like the man I wanted as my master, but he was a stranger.

  “Ah.” He nodded, and before my eyes, he changed. With one shrug of his shoulders, he became Charlie again, not the stranger who’d body slammed me to the floor and dragged me around by my hair. He smiled at me wistfully, one big hand gripping his neck. “It’s okay, Ranay. I understand.”

  “What?”

  “This isn’t want you expected. It never is. It’s okay. Thanks again for helping me with Sheba last night.”

  My mind floundered for a moment. I ached. I might have some bruises tomorrow, but that’d never been a problem for me. He’d scared the shit out of me. I’d never had a man take me down like that, let alone so quickly.

  He didn’t need a whip. Not when he carried this kind of violence inside him.

  This was still the same man who’d wooed me so gently for months and months every time he brought his dog to the vet. Charlie stood before me, rubbing his neck sheepishly. He’s embarrassed, I decided. The same way my need embarrassed me.

  He tried so hard to be unfailingly nice. I never expected this much danger lurked beneath his polite exterior. It was strange and scary and risky, but also exciting. My heart still thundered, my hands shaking with the aftereffects of adrenaline.

  He scared me.

  And that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

  It dawned on me that maybe he’d orchestrated that whole take-down scene on purpose to illustrate how rough he could be. A last-ditch effort to warn me off. If that’s the worst he’s got...

  I cleared my throat, drawing his gaze to me. “I thought you said you were going to punish me, not throw me around.”

  He arched a brow but made no move to close the safe distance I’d put between us. “I don’t want to scare you, Ranay.”

  “Yes, you do,” I whispered.

  The fragile, breathy quality of my voice made his eyes darken, and yeah, he was aroused too much to hide the bulge in his jeans. It all started to make sense to me.

  He wants me scared and struggling before he hurts me.

  And I want him to hurt me.

  I laughed, but it sounded too high and jumpy, exactly like my stomach was pitching around right now. “What a pair we make. I’m a fucked-up slave and you’re a—”

  “Fucked-up sadist who tries to masquerade as a safe-and-stable dom. I don’t let this side of me out very often, Ranay. No one’s ever been able to deal with it for long.”

  “So what do you want, exactly?” I didn’t try to hide the quiver in my voice. I watched his big hands flex at his sides, as though he couldn’t wait to wrap those hands around my throat and squeeze the life out of me.

  “I want to hurt you. I want to scare you. And then I want to fuck you so hard that I’m hurting and scaring you all over again.”

  His words made my nipples so hard I couldn’t stop the little sound of arousal. My fingers were numb, fumbling as I unbuttoned my jeans.

  “Ranay—”

  “It’s okay,” I broke in, hopping awkwardly to get my boot off. I should have taken them off first. If I wasn’t careful, I’d end up sprawled on my ass, tangled up in my own clothes. “I’m up for that.”

  “You can’t possibly mean it.”

  Giving up on trying to look sexy, I finally sat on the floor, tugged off my boots and socks, and pulled my ruby sweater—yes, I owned two that weren’t black—over my head. “I do mean it. I want you more than anyone I’ve ever wanted in my whole life.�
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  “But you’re scared of me now.”

  He said it regretfully, as if he’d relished the fact that I hadn’t been scared of him before. I tipped my head back, studying him. He was still trying so hard to look like the everyday sort of guy who drove a beige Buick, not the wild man with a nipple ring who dragged me by my hair to his bed. The plain cotton shirt hid the tats. The jeans said he was just a man who preferred his comfort, good food and nice wine, not some ex-military commando who could sweep my legs out from under me before I could even blink.

  “Yeah,” I whispered. “But I kind of like it.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Kind of?”

  I smiled broadly and stood up to shimmy out of my jeans and underwear. God, my panties were drenched. My body wasn’t confused about what it wanted from him, not at all. “Maybe. A little.”

  He studied my body, and it was like he didn’t see me for sex, not exactly. He was categorizing all the different ways he could mark my body, with his hands, his teeth, whatever other implements he preferred to use.

  “Whatever happens,” he said in that rough voice that made me tremble, “if you say red, I will stop. I promise. I’ll give you what you want, everything you need. I swear it. I’ll hurt you like you’ve never been hurt before. If...”

  His voice broke and he averted his face, running his hand through his hair again. This time he gripped his own curls in a fierce tug that jerked his whole head, as though he was going to settle for hurting himself if he couldn’t get his hands on me.

  If I trust him. My gift to him.

  “Charlie,” I said to draw his attention as I neared. I took his big, powerful hand in mine, pressed a kiss to his palm and then lifted his hand to my throat. “Merry Christmas, Master.”

  Chapter Nine

  No matter how much I wanted him, it still took more courage than I thought I had to let him approach me with that thick collar and shackles. This time, I knew he was going to put it all on me. He was going to make me as helpless as possible.

  It’s what we both want.

  But that didn’t make it any less scary. I couldn’t stop shaking, even though I tried not to look too afraid. If he senses how close I am to breaking into a dead run, then he might let me keep running.

  At least this time he put my wrists in front of me instead of the small of my back. He wrenched the cuff tight on my left wrist while he talked. “I still remember the first time I saw you at the clinic. You’d made the appointment for me, so I knew Dr. Wentworth had hired someone, but I didn’t expect a pretty little thing like you at the desk that day.”

  To hide how nervous I was, I snorted. “I’m not—”

  With two fingers, he squeezed the fleshy juncture at my thumb joint and my knees almost gave out. Pain shot up my arm, my fingers spasming into claws. “I don’t like to hear you say negative things about yourself.”

  He let up the pressure and began tightening the other cuff.

  Sucking in a hard breath, I nodded although my mind whirled. I’d never experimented with that kind of pain before. When he said punishment, I’d thought he meant whips and paddles. Spankings. Maybe uncomfortably tight bondage in unique positions.

  My mouth went dry, I broke out in a sweat, and my pussy was embarrassingly wet considering he hadn’t touched me sexually yet.

  “With all that wild, curly hair, huge, mossy-colored eyes and the shy, careful way you have of looking at people, you reminded me of a fey maiden who’d wandered out of her forest and gotten lost in the world of men. As soon as I walked in, you stiffened. Your internal radar went off. You knew exactly what kind of predator had come strolling in, and I don’t mean Sheba.”

  He hooked my wrists together and then began wrapping the leather collar around my throat. I couldn’t help the moan that escaped. He hadn’t tightened it yet, and I was so wet, so ready to be his, helpless and bound and crying out in pain.

  “Yes.” That whisper carried a sharp edge like a blade, making me shudder. “With one glance, you saw through all of my disguises. You saw me, the real me. I thought for sure you’d run for the hills, but you surprised me that day. When you thought I wasn’t looking, you kept stealing glances at me through that curtain of hair. And your eyes, Ranay. I saw things in your eyes that no one has ever wanted from me before. You saw what kind of man I am even when I’m just Charlie.”

  He jerked the leather tighter, making me cry out again. I bit my lip, trying to control myself. I wasn’t scared, not exactly. Not like before. It was adrenaline, hope, joy, terror, all fed by aching need. I wasn’t normally so noisy and whimpery.

  “That sound,” he whispered against my ear, his breath hot and heavy. “I want to hear it. If you jam your fist into your mouth trying to stifle your cries, I’ll redouble my efforts to make you scream at the top of your lungs. If you bury your face in my pillow, I’ll rip it to shreds. I want to hear you sob and wail and beg and whimper and curse. I want it all. I’m going to be rough and violent. I won’t stop. Not until you say red.”

  My brain insisted this was the stupidest thing I’d ever done. My body was jumping up and down begging for the torture to start already. I’d never needed a safeword before, never even thought about it.

  But I’d never had a man like this prowling around me, making that vicious sound of raw need and barely leashed violence. I opened my mouth and he jerked to a halt, head low, eyes iced with that cold dead look that had creeped me out before. I’m sure he thought I was going to wimp out. Part of me desperately babbled red in the corner of my mind.

  “Master.”

  He lifted his right hand, spreading his fingers wide as though measuring whether he could palm my head. “What do you want from me?”

  My teeth were chattering but I managed to get the word out. “Pain.”

  He slapped me with such exquisite control that I barely turned my face with the blow. All I felt was heat on my skin.

  “Is that the kind of pain you want from me?”

  I wriggled my cheek, testing to see if it was sore. It wasn’t, though I still felt the imprint of his hand. “It’s all right.”

  “Hmm, not quite the response I’m looking for.” Grinning, he winked at me. “Would you rather have something other than my hand striking you?”

  “No. I love your hands.”

  He took my elbow, I thought to guide me toward the bed. He did start to lead me there, but his fingers tightened incrementally, rubbing deeper against my skin until pain zinged down the tendon toward my hand.

  “There are a lot of ways to hurt a person without leaving a single mark. Or would you rather have the bruises to admire later?”

  I nodded rapidly, resisting the urge to jerk away from that punishing grip.

  “We’ll see,” he said lightly, as though I’d asked him to take me out for ice cream later. He twisted his finger so that my whole arm jerked in his grasp. “It’s an instinctual flight response. There are some spots on your body that I can use to drop you to the floor practically unconscious.”

  My breathing came faster, until I was afraid I might pass out without the aid of any pressure points.

  Instead of slinging me across the bed again, he raised my shackled wrists and latched me to a hook he’d embedded in the corner poster at the foot of the bed. It was high enough to keep my arms up above my head, but not so I had to strain or stand on my tiptoes.

  Smiling, he flashed the dimple again, but Charlie’s warmth was gone. “The benefit of having a shorter master. I know exactly how it feels when someone a foot taller sets the limits.”

  I’d never had any idea that he could speak so reasonably about where and how to hurt me.

  That big hand gripped my nape, his thumb digging in enough to make me turn my head and look at him. “Nope, it’s not there yet.”

  My pulse was hopping around in my throat. I wasn’t sure if he was the kind of dom that didn’t want the sub to speak without permission, but I decided to risk it. What worse punishment could he give me when that’s exactl
y what I’d asked for in the first place? “What’s not there?”

  “You can speak,” he said in that imminently reasonable voice. “You can scream. I’m looking for that haze in your eyes that your other master didn’t like.”

  Before, the pressure of his hands alone had been enough to make my body slip into that eager compliance, hoping I’d get exactly what I needed. But this time... “I think I’m a little too scared for endorphins to kick in yet.”

  “I didn’t say it was a bad thing.” He leaned closer, playfully bumping noses with me. “I like the big doe-eyed look of fear too.”

  “And you like chases.” I pushed a little, trying to get a handle on exactly what his kink was. “You like struggles.”

  “Sure.”

  “Rape fantasy?”

  He cocked his head, still smiling with those empty eyes. “Is that what you want?”

  It made me doubt everything I knew about him. Eyes like that belonged on a serial killer. Not a nice, unassuming man who helped disadvantaged people all over the globe and hauled a big dog to the vet every month. “No,” I whispered hoarsely. “But that wasn’t what I asked you. I know what I want.”

  “You know what I want too.”

  He trailed his fingers down my spine. I shivered, waiting for the pain. He wouldn’t have me bound and helpless only to flirt and talk. He pressed his mouth to my ear, his voice as light as his fingers. “Fear, but trust at the same time. That’s what I want. See me in all my gory detail but still beg me to touch you again. Even if it’s only going to hurt.”

  The anticipation built in my muscles, releasing in little twitches I couldn’t control. Small gasps of my breath that I couldn’t contain. When he finally brought his hand down on my buttocks, it was a relief, though disappointing. He gave me several swats, spreading his fingers wide so I could appreciate the breadth of his palm, the strength in his arm. He made a satisfying pop, and yeah, my skin started to heat a little. But if he thought he could spank me long enough to get me off, he was going to be as sorely disappointed as me.

  “A little slap,” he whispered. Then he dug his thumb into my hip, hitting a bundle of nerves that screamed with sensation. I arched my back and sucked in a breath, surprised at the intensity. “A little tickle.” His fingers slipped between my thighs, and I pushed myself onto his hand. A little more, and I’d come so hard I’d probably pass out. “A little pleasure.”