He swatted me again and then jammed a different spot in my other hip, making me jump in the opposite direction. Two swats, another pressure point. Three. Then a delicious pull on my nipple that made me groan. He kept the rhythm uneven, unexpected, so I never knew when the pleasant warmth and the growing pleasure would be jarred by the blaze of nerves. In just a few minutes, he had me sweating and my legs trembling.
He touched that wicked thumb below my ear in a spot that made me flinch my head around toward him. “There it is.” Lazily, he swatted me again, stroking his palm over my heated flesh.
I knew what he meant. My head was fluffy, stuffed with clouds of cotton. He ran his hands over me, soothing and slapping and stroking, spreading sensation through every nerve, and it was all I could do to hold myself up. My head’s going to float away.
He gave me an amused smile. “No, it’s still very much attached.”
I hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but sometimes when the bliss and pain began to blend together, the walls in my head came down too. The doors and shutters and locks that society insisted we keep in place because we’re so civilized flew open. “It’s dark in here.”
The light was very much on in the room, but he nodded solemnly as though he knew exactly what I meant.
He caught my clit between his fingers and squeezed. Pain blossomed, a colorful explosion that words couldn’t describe. Most men didn’t have a clue how to touch me, but he drove the pain higher, unafraid of my response. He knew it would hurt.
And he didn’t flinch away from it right before it got good.
Heat, liquid fire, sweet molasses, the pleasure poured up through my body until I could taste it in my mouth. I shuddered with release, riding the waves so high I didn’t know if I could ever come back.
I didn’t want to come back.
* * *
I’d lost track of time and place. It didn’t matter any longer. My arms and shoulders throbbed with the effort of holding myself up. His hands roamed my body, lifting me up, dropping me low, drawing out a scream, a sob, a plea.
“I didn’t know it could be like this.”
I thought I said it out loud, but he didn’t respond. Was he still there? Had he slipped away, or had I fallen asleep?
I struggled up through the waves trying to suck me under. Awake, alert. I opened my eyes and groaned. God, I hurt, I hurt all over, a glorious symphony that pulsed through my veins with every heavy throb of my heart. He held my chin in his hand, squeezing so hard I could almost feel his fingerprints in my bone.
“There you are.” He relaxed his grip on my chin, but kept my face up so I could see him. I don’t think I could hold my head up without him and I wanted to see.
See what?
I blinked, trying to remember, trying to focus my mind through the fog.
He jerked on my hands and my arms suddenly fell free, heavy like a ton of bricks. I would have sunk to the floor without him. He gathered me up in his arms, cradling me against his chest, and I snuggled against him, happy and content.
Gently, he lay me on the bed and I smiled up at him. Now, at last, he was going to take me. I’d have him inside me, moving in me, claiming me. I’d endure the pain, come so many times I didn’t think I’d be able to move from this spot even if a tornado threatened to take the roof off the house. I probably won’t be able to walk tomorrow.
I snickered, trying to decide how I’d explain that to my family.
But instead of lowering his body to mine, he attached my wrist to a chain. I followed the silver links over to the corner poster, watched as he pulled it tight enough that I sure wasn’t going to move from this spot. Then he did the same to the other wrist, spreading me flat on my back.
“What’s so funny?”
I tried to remember. Oh yeah. “I was thinking about trying to explain to everyone tomorrow why I’m walking funny.”
He chuckled, leaning down over me so I could see the flash of his teeth. He fluffed the pillows, carefully adjusting them so I was propped up enough to see down the length of my body, although my shoulders strained when I leaned up too far. “Do you think you’ll actually be able to walk?”
“Probably not.”
He rubbed his mouth against my lips, sharing his breath with me. “That’s what I thought.”
All too quickly, he left, leaving me to groan with loss. I was starting to feel each ache and dull throb of stretched and used muscles. Coming down was always hard, and no one had ever taken me as high as he had before. I wanted his arms around me, his chest against my face, his cock buried inside me, the final pulse of his release spreading through my body. It didn’t matter how many times I’d come tonight—the master still hadn’t, and I felt that lack sorely.
It’s never over until the master has come.
My stomach flipped over with the first sense of unease when he chained my ankle to the bottom of the bed. I lifted my head and watched him walk around the foot of the bed toward my other leg. He spread me wide, to the point of strain if I tried to move too much. I could bend my knee a little and shift my foot against the mattress, but that was it.
He stood back to admire his handiwork. “There. Now that’s what I saw in my mind when I came home this morning and found you asleep with Sheba.”
Was that only this morning? It felt like years, a lifetime ago.
For the first time, I noticed that he was still completely dressed. My mouth fell open and I stuttered, “Y-You still have your clothes on!”
He laughed and came to the side of the bed, close enough to smooth my tangled hair off my forehead. “All in good time. I’ll be right back—I need to go blow out all those candles before we burn the house down. I’m going to bring Sheba in to sit with you, all right? You won’t be alone.”
I didn’t want to ever be alone again. More, though, I didn’t want to wait another minute to have him inside me. “I’ve done what you wanted,” I whined, trying not cry. “Why—”
“No, you haven’t,” he broke in, still smoothing my hair from my face. “I did what you wanted.”
“But—but—didn’t—”
He shushed me with a finger over my lips. “I definitely enjoyed it, more than I’ve ever enjoyed a scene in my life. But there’s one thing left that I want very much indeed before I’ll fuck you like you want. Like we both want.”
Then he was gone, his voice at the door calling Sheba. She came to the side of the bed and hopped up enough to put her paws on the mattress. Wagging her tail, she cocked her head and looked at me with reproach, as if she were thinking, Why won’t you pet me? Why are you tied up like that? It made me laugh despite my worry.
Because I was definitely worried. What else did he want? What was I missing?
Every muscle in my body hurt, but I don’t think he’d left a single mark on me, other than maybe a few bruises from that first body slam to the floor. I could walk out of here in the morning—assuming I could summon the strength despite my protesting muscles—and no one would be able to look at me and know what had happened.
No one would know that I’d been brought to the edge of ecstasy over and over and over with nothing more than pain, until I’d almost blacked out. Other than my soreness, I had no proof that I’d spent an incredible night chained to Charles MacNiall’s bed. The very foundations of my mind were rattled and shaken, as if he’d torn down my mind and put me back together again. How could he leave such a mark on my psyche, but not my body?
I wanted some kind of brand in my flesh. A reminder that it had happened. He really had been able to bring me to release with pain not once or twice, but several times.
No one had been able to do that for me before.
No one had ever bothered to try.
And I had no proof, no lasting mark to touch.
Sheba gave a little whine and licked my hand, then she was gone. I turned my head, watching her leave. He stood at the door and whispered a command to her. Even though it wasn’t directed at me, I shivered.
Which only
made me groan, my muscles complaining at the movement.
How much longer? How much more could I endure?
He shut the door, barring the dog from the room. Then he turned out the light.
I sucked in a harsh breath, shaking. I didn’t want to be in the dark. I wanted to see him. I needed to be able to see his eyes and know what he was going to do. Maybe then I could figure out what he wanted. What he needed.
In the darkness, I strained to hear his movement. A creak in the floor, a whisper of cloth, but only silence echoed in my head. He wouldn’t have brought the dog in to sit with me while he was gone, only to leave me alone now. But what was he doing?
In desperation, I gave him the one thing I’d challenged him on from the beginning. “Charlie?”
My voice quivered like a child’s, fragile and breathy with fear.
“I’m here.” His voice seemed to come from everywhere, though, all around me. I couldn’t even see a shadow of where he was, what he was doing. “Are you afraid of the dark?”
I’d never been afraid of the dark before, even as a child, but now... “A little.”
“Good.”
I closed my eyes, concentrating fiercely on his voice to pinpoint his location. Maybe he’d gone toward the bathroom, though I hadn’t heard his footsteps. I turned my head slightly to the right, trying to hear better.
A light touch on my left arm made me squeak and jerk in my bonds. “You ought to be afraid.”
I could almost see him, a blackness darker than the closed-off room. I’d slept in here last night and hadn’t thought it was too dark. Maybe it was just his presence that made the darkness more sinister. His voice was the same, still soft and tender like Charlie’s. But I had the feeling that if I could see his eyes, they’d be cold and stark and empty again.
“What do you want?”
“Red. I want you to say red.”
“Okay,” I said immediately, “red. There. Can you please fuck me now?”
He unzipped his jeans and the sound revved my body to full-speed arousal. I moaned, relieved that I’d given him what he’d waited for. Now he’d thrust inside me, cover me with his weight, his strength, and hold me through the night. The dark wouldn’t bother me then.
“It’s not enough, Ranay.”
His voice echoed with sorrow, tinged with an aching emotion that brought tears to my eyes. I knew what that felt like. To never be enough. Never have enough. To feel like a damned freak because of that need.
The soft rustle told me he was taking his clothes off. I could imagine the lean lines of his chest against me, the hot velvet of his skin, that tantalizing cold metal pressed against my breast while he moved above me. I’d never thought about getting a piercing before, but now I wanted one in both of my nipples. It’d give him something else to tug and torture me with.
“I need you to mean it.”
“I mean it,” I protested, arching my back, though he probably couldn’t see the invitation of my lifted breasts. “I want you. I need you. Now. Please.”
“No.” His weight made the bed dip. His body brushed against my leg as he settled on the mattress between my knees. But he didn’t touch me. “I need you to mean it.”
He repeated it like I ought to know what he meant, but with him so close, I couldn’t concentrate. I strained against the bonds enough to brush my thigh against his, but I couldn’t get him to come closer. Not like this. “I don’t understand.”
“I know.” He closed his hands on my knees and pushed my legs down, taking the strain off my joints. Those big, powerful palms kneaded my quadriceps, grinding his fingertips deep into the tissue to melt the soreness away. I moaned, shifting again, trying to get more of his body against me.
His hands worked up my thighs. His breath fluttered against my skin and I gasped, arching up again. Early on, I’d had all kinds of fantasies about his mouth and all the wicked things he’d do to me while he had me tied up. But now that I’d gotten a taste of the real master he kept locked away, this didn’t seem right.
It wasn’t him.
“I said I wasn’t going to stop,” he whispered against my inner thigh. His tongue fluttered out in a light caress to taste my skin. “I said I was going to be rough.”
I didn’t think I could get any more aroused. My pussy was open and aching, bared to him, greedy and ready for anything he wanted to give me. “And violent.”
“Yes.” He ran his tongue up the crease of my other thigh. “Is this rough and violent to you, Ranay?”
“No,” I moaned, shifting my hips to get his mouth to move over a little. An inch or two. That would do the trick. And I’d go sailing off into the clouds again.
His teeth sank into my inner thigh. Hard, deep, sucking the wind right out of my lungs in a rush of pain. I howled with surprise. I couldn’t help it. He bit me harder, digging his teeth deep into the muscle, so deep I was sure he’d broken the skin. He jerked his head, pulling back like he was going to rip a hunk out of me.
I screamed again, jerking frantically against the chains, bucking against the mattress. Even when he released me and lifted his head, I couldn’t stop fighting. It took me a few moments to calm down, to realize the pain had ceased. In fact, he licked the marks he’d probably left in my skin, turning the pain to a caress.
“I didn’t break the skin,” he murmured, rubbing his cheek against my opposite thigh. The rasp of the day’s growth of beard provided another sensation. Far from pain, but it made my nerves jingle anyway. I could all too easily imagine those early whiskers abrading my inner lips if he’d only put his mouth where I wanted it. “Yet.”
He’s going to bite me so hard I bleed. My thigh jumped helplessly in response. Will he still lick the bite? The blood?
I’d never played with bloodletting either. I’d heard whispers, sure, that some people were into that kink. It was something to titillate those of us who titillated the normal people. Cutting, knife play and blood. They went hand in hand.
No wonder he’s been out of the scene for years. Why he thinks he’s too dangerous for me. For anyone, but especially me.
He bit the opposite thigh, already sensitized by his bristled jaw. My breath rushed out again, but I didn’t scream. This time he was high enough I could feel the softness of his curls against my swollen lips, an unexpected caress in the midst of the pain. I rocked my hips, trying to break the bite so I could put his mouth to better use, but he didn’t budge.
Just as he’d pinched my breast so firmly, knowing exactly how to twist to maximize the pain, he applied more pressure. Searing pain throbbed deep into the muscle. Panic began to set in, my brain shuddering with images of blood and tearing flesh. Not sexy. Dangerous. Violent. Terrifying.
Although my mind flinched away from it, my body welcomed the pain with open arms.
I clenched my fists, every muscle clamping down in release. My toes curled, my legs cramped, my head throbbed, and yes, my thigh hurt so bad, his teeth digging into me like he was going to gnaw his way clean through.
At the peak, I didn’t care. He could have ripped my leg off in the middle of that climax and I wouldn’t have felt anything but bliss.
Panting, I came back to awareness. His tongue played between my thighs, lightly tracing swirls in the sea of wetness he’d created. Not to give pleasure, not exactly. But to remind me of what I wanted most.
“There’s a reason I made red your safeword.”
He looked up at me, his eyes flashing in the darkness. I still couldn’t see more than the vague shadowed outline of his shoulders, certainly not the expression of his face. His light, careful voice told me nothing. He’d talked like that while I screamed. He wrapped his hands around my thighs above my knees, keeping me pinned to the mattress despite the play he’d left in the chains. His hands weren’t punishing, but I remembered the way those fingers had sought out each and every well of pain all across my body.
“Are you starting to understand now?”
I nodded, but since it was so dark, he migh
t not have seen. “Yes,” I whispered. “Master.”
“I’m going to warn you one last time. The only way to end this is to give me your safeword and mean it. I’m going to take you to the very threshold of what you can endure, and if you don’t stop me, I’ll go beyond it. You’ll bleed, and I won’t care. In fact, I’ll love every minute of it. Do you understand? There’s nothing to stop me but you.”
My lips trembled, mumbling my answer. “Yes.”
“The only way to get me to fuck you is to give me that word in the middle of the pain. For it to mean you’re going to die if I don’t stop. Then I will.”
Chapter Ten
I couldn’t cry anymore. I didn’t have any tears left. My throat was hoarse, my lips raw. I tasted blood in my mouth.
So does he.
Every bite throbbed in my flesh, building in crescendo. Each one was a bonfire, lighting the way up my body, a trail of fire and agony that he dotted and crossed without end. My thighs. My stomach. My breasts. He’d pinched the skin low on my belly, just above my pubic hair. I’d heard about the root chakra before, but I honestly had no idea. The sting of his teeth there had almost done it. I’d almost given him what he wanted.
But now I knew the danger I hadn’t understood before.
I’d always known I was broken. I simply hadn’t realized how badly. Or rather, I thought I’d healed those splintered bits of me after I’d moved back home. In fact, I was stronger now. Those shards had fused back together and given me a new life. I was in control, with a job I loved. I was thinking about going back to school to earn my certification as a vet technician. I had friends and family who loved me.
But lying chained and bleeding in his bed, I wanted to throw it all away. Part of me wanted to simply lie there and let him bleed me dry. I’d even enjoy it.
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