by Desiree Holt
Despite the tenseness of the situation, his mouth curved in a half-grin. “Impudent minx.”
Giving her own small smile, she threw her shoulders back to draw his eyes to her breasts.
“Holy shit,” he breathed. “You replaced the rings.”
The words were almost reverent. A warm feeling curled low in her belly.
“Of course I did. I-I wanted…” She couldn’t seem to find the right words.
Then his smile disappeared. “If you’re here this way, with me, I’m going to take it as a total commitment from you. I won’t be able to play the waiting game anymore. I want you too badly, so it’s fish, or cut bait.”
She looked at the floor again. “I’ve always had a fondness for fishing. Sir.”
He actually laughed, and for the first time since she’d concocted this plan, the ball of tension inside her began to dissolve.
“Rise, girl. Hands still behind your back. And look directly into my eyes. I demand it.”
Wobbling a little because she couldn’t use her hands for balance, she managed to get to her feet. She had one more thing to show him, if he would let her.
“Do I have permission to move my hands, Sir?” she asked.
“For the moment.”
Very carefully, she opened one of the rings and slipped it from her nipple. In all the weeks since that fateful afternoon, the piercings had begun to close, so Claire had driven her to get them pierced again. She’d taken appropriate care while the new rings were being engraved. Now she handed one to Cord, her hand shaking slightly.
“If it pleases you, look at the engraving at the bottom.”
He lifted it closer to see better and stared at the etching on the thickest part of the ring. She had chosen an inscription rather than their initials, and she waited breathlessly for him to read it.
Yours. Forever.
He closed his fingers around the jewelry, cradling it in his palm. The muscles in his jaw bunched as emotion gripped him. He bent to take the unadorned nipple into his mouth, tugging it, swirling his tongue around it. Arrows of heat stabbed straight to her cunt and her inner muscles spasmed.
With great care, he threaded the thin bar through the piercing and locked it in place.
“That means they’re never coming off,” he told her.
“Never, Sir.” She shook her head. “Not ever.”
Then, as if he’d held himself in check long enough, he grabbed her shoulders and took her mouth in a kiss that was hungry and devouring. He thrust his tongue between her open lips, dueled with hers as he feasted and sucked. Every pulse point in her body was throbbing, the need for him so great she felt consumed by it.
The kiss went on forever, as if he’d never get enough. When he released her at last, they were both breathless. He took a step back, obviously pulling himself together. She kept her gaze lifted, since he hadn’t told her to do otherwise, and watched myriad emotions chase themselves across the chiseled planes of his face.
Finally he nodded, and heat and desire flamed in his eyes.
“I see you’ve picked out your toys for the evening.” He indicated the items on the bed. “Good choices.” Then his face sobered. “Fallon, listen.” For a moment he was out of Dom mode. “I’m not sure—”
“I am,” she interrupted. “I want this. Please. I’ve had a lot of time to decide. To get past everything that happened. How screwed up I was.” She locked her gaze with his, hoping he could see all the emotion she was feeling. “This is important to me. You are important to me.”
Still he didn’t move, his indecision almost palpable.
“I know the difference now,” she went on. “What I had with—him—was a sickness. A perversion. But because he knew just how to fuck with my mind, how to seduce me into what he wanted, I was hooked.” She wet her lips. “All the therapy has helped me find answers, and now that I have them, I know the difference between pleasurable pain and cruelty. I want what you gave me. I want that again.”
Something very primal flared in his eyes. “All right then.” She could almost see the change in him. “Turn around.”
When she did, he pulled her hands behind her and looped the silken cord around her wrists, his thumbs rubbing her pulse every time he passed the length over it. When he was finished, he pulled on his handiwork and she knew he was tying it off. It was tight but not alarmingly so. Just painful enough to remind her of its purpose, which was to restrain her for punishment and pleasure. His and hers both.
Nudging her along, he pushed her toward the bed. Pulling back the comforter and sheet, he helped her up and onto her knees.
“Forehead down,” he ordered. “Full submissive pose.”
Her heartbeat accelerated again as she complied. She knew that voice. He was in Dom mode now, in charge of the situation and of her. His hands pressed against the insides of her thighs to separate them and his fingers probed her pussy, rubbing the slick inner walls.
“Wet,” he acknowledged. “Soaked, as a matter of fact. You must want this very badly.”
“I do, Sir,” she whispered. “Very much.”
He thrust two fingers inside her again and when he withdrew them, rubbed her juice on the tight puckered ring of her anus.
“You’ve already showered. Good.” He pressed his face to one cheek of her ass. “I love your scent.” He drew a tiny circle on her skin with his tongue. “But now I need to clean up too. So you stay just like that and think about how you’re going to make it up to me for leaving the way you did.” He bent over her and put his mouth close to her ear. “And, girl? You’re going to love every minute of it. I promise.”
She stayed in position, as commanded. She heard every move he made and imagined him taking off his clothing, baring that incredible body. She could almost see that long, thick cock, erect in anticipation, the head swollen and darkened. When she heard the shower running, she visualized his skin glistening with soap and water.
It seemed forever before he padded back to the bedroom. She knew when he stood behind her, the cologne he used tickling her senses. She wanted his touch so badly. Anywhere on her body. However he wanted to touch her. She craved it more than she’d ever wanted anything in her life, and it satisfied her that every vestige of need for Brian had been wiped away, replaced by a hunger only for this man.
“I think the first thing we need to do is make sure you repent for your disrespect of your Master. That is why you took out the flogger, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” She tried to nod but it was impossible with her forehead pressed to the mattress. “It is, Sir.”
He rubbed her buttocks with one hand, long caresses on each cheek. Fallon was glad she’d waited all this time to come to him, long enough that every last hint of Brian’s abuse had faded from her skin.
“I won’t be gentle. I can’t be. But it won’t be more than you can bear.”
She heard movement and from the corner of her eye, saw him lift the flogger. She’d had some reservations about choosing that particular instrument but she wanted it to have meaning between them, one that erased the bad memories clinging to it. With Cord, the pain would bring pleasure, but the kind that warmed her and transported her, not the kind so extreme she could hardly bear it.
“Ten strokes. And I want you to count them out loud.” The short leather straps stung as he applied the instrument with force. “That’s one. Let me hear you say it.”
“One.” She tightened her fingers into her palms.
“Keep counting.”
She did, as each stroke fell harder and harder, one cheek then the other, even the insides of her thighs—high enough that the strands just barely touched the exposed lips of her pussy. By the time she yelled out, “Ten,” her ass and thighs were on fire and tears were running down her cheeks. But she welcomed the pain as cleansing, purifying. Because Cord applied each stroke with love and desire, not cruelty. And just hard enough that her cunt was now dripping and her clit throbbing with need.
“There’s so much I want t
o do to you.” His voice was rough with desire. “I want to see you standing naked, hands over your head, while I stripe every inch of your body. I want you on your knees, sucking my cock the way only you can do it, until I come so hard the top of my head might fly off. I want you next to me at the dinner table, thighs apart, cunt bare so I can reach between your legs and play with that little clit whenever I want to.”
She heard a faint buzz and knew he’d turned on the vibrator.
“But tonight I can’t wait for all that. Tonight I have to fuck you before I lose my mind. Don’t move. Stay just like that.”
In the next moment the vibrator, already in motion, slid into her pussy, and Cord’s fingers adjusted the little extension to fit on her clit. A jolt of lust shot through her, the muscles of her body tightening with the intensity of it.
“I’d love it if it was my cock in there,” he growled, “right in that tight little pussy. You don’t know how much I’ve missed it.” One hand cupped her lips at the base of the dildo. “I should have given you ten more strokes just for the nights I was alone in this bed, imagining your wet silk around me, having to settle for my fist.”
He smacked her ass, one flat slap on each cheek. Fallon welcomed the sting and almost asked for more. Each sharp touch made her juices flow harder. The vibrator, even on low power, was sending a steady charge to every nerve. The dark rope of an orgasm coiled low in her belly.
“But tonight, girl, I am going to do what I’ve missed almost more than anything else.” He pressed his lips to the places on her buttocks where he’d spanked her. “I’m going to fuck that sweet, sweet ass of yours so you’ll know just exactly who your Master is.”
Tears were still running down her cheeks: the combined effect of the flogging, the stimulation of the vibrator, and the need to control herself until he told her she could succumb to the arousal. Yet she had never been happier in her life.
Fingers touched her anus, spreading lube around the opening before thrusting inside and rubbing it into her hole. In seconds her entire channel tingled and she tried to clench against the sensation.
“Like that?” Cord’s voice had that deep Dom quality to it now. “Something new I picked up that I hoped we’d get a chance to try. Something special, just for us.” He knelt behind her on the bed, the mattress dipping under his weight.
When he touched the lips of her pussy again, pushing gently against the vibrator, she cried out at the effort it took to maintain control of her body.
He kissed the cheeks of her ass once more. “I love taking you to the edge like that. I’d keep you there half the night if I didn’t want to make you come so badly. Hold on, girl.” The tip of his cock pressed against her rectum and with a slow, steady push, he thrust inside her. “Breathe. Deep breaths.”
But it was so hard to breathe when her body was on fire from the punishment and from pure lust, when the vibrator was doing its dance inside her cunt and on her clit. And when Cord’s thick shaft filled her channel to capacity.
He caged her with his arms, running his tongue lightly down the length of her spine. “Next time we’ll see just how long I can keep you from letting go. Maybe with your arms over your head and your feet barely touching the floor. Jesus, I could come just from thinking about it all.”
Shifting his weight, he gripped her hips, pulled out of her slightly and drove back in hard. Again. And again. She wanted to beg him to go faster and harder but it was all she could do to keep herself together. And then, as if he’d heard her silent plea, he set up a rapid rhythm, pounding into her over and over, his balls slapping against her thighs.
Soon, soon, soon, she chanted silently to herself.
And then her Sir tightened his body, tightened his grip and shouted, “Come, girl. Come with me. Right now!”
They exploded together in a cataclysmic release, bodies shuddering as if in some uncontrolled erotic dance. Fallon knew she was crying again, even as her body spun off into places she’d never been, into a space she’d never inhabited before. A place of dark mutual desires and an orgasm that shook every bone in her body.
Carefully, his breath seesawing in and out of his lungs, Cord slid from her, reached down and turned off the vibrator, and slipped that from her as well. She collapsed, her body so overstimulated that she was left with uncontrollable trembling.
Hands loosened the rope around her wrists and eased her arms to her sides. She heard Cord padding into the bathroom, probably to dispose of the condom, but then she heard the soft cascade of water as he filled the tub. In a moment he was back, easing her arms out, massaging her muscles, kissing the side of her neck.
Her breathing slowed, as did the thundering of her heart, and she lay there, protected by his body while he rubbed and caressed and eased. When he was satisfied he could move her, he carried her into the bathroom. The water had just reached the perfect level so he turned off the faucets and stepped into the tub, still holding her, lowering himself then placing her carefully between his muscular thighs.
With a soft cloth he bathed her face, wiping away the traces of tears and cooling her skin. He said nothing as he did the same to every inch of her body, being extra careful where she still felt the aftereffects of the flogger and the few spanks. Then he leaned her back against the hard wall of his chest and gently massaged her shoulders and neck until she fell into a kind of lethargy. Her eyes closed and she let his strength seep into her body.
I belong here. I belong here. I belong here.
The words played over and over in her head as Cord continued to soothe and attend to her. She felt at last as if she’d fallen into a warm pile of goose feathers that had no bottom. She protested mildly when he flipped the handle to begin draining the water from the tub. He rose with a fluid motion, then helped Fallon onto the padded rug next to the tub.
His hands were extremely gentle as he dried her body with a big, fluffy towel, warm from the heated towel rod. He sat on the vanity and arranged her across his lap, his cock still semi-erect and prodding against her stomach. Still not saying a word, he applied a soothing lotion to her skin from her waist to her knees, rubbing it in with small circular strokes. At last he rose and carried her to the bed, depositing her gently on the sheet, plumping the pillows behind her head.
“Don’t go to sleep yet,” he whispered, molding his lips to hers in a kiss so tender she again felt tears in her eyes.
“But you made me so relaxed,” she murmured. “You take such good care of me, Sir.”
“And I’ll take care of you as Cord, too,” he reminded her. “We’ve been through hell, both of us, but never again. You hear me?”
She nodded.
“You don’t know how I felt when I walked in tonight and saw you waiting for me, submissive pose, gloriously naked. There is no greater gift you could have given me.” He slid into bed next to her and reached into the nightstand drawer, pulling out a slim, flat box.
Fallon roused herself from her drowsy state and sat up. “A present? You have a present for me?”
He nodded. “A special one. I’ve had it for a long time.” He placed the box on his lap, studying it for a moment. “I bought it before—before everything happened. Something made me hold back from giving it to you. The timing wasn’t right. Something was off.”
“I was off,” she told him.
“Yes,” he agreed, “but let’s not point fingers anymore, okay? Let’s just move ahead.” He looped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her against him. “I love you, Fallon. As my woman and as my sub. You’re the one I want to spend the rest of my life with.”
Her heart trip-hammered as happiness flooded her. “Oh, Cord. I feel the same way.” She tried to turn to him but he held her in place.
“I’m not done.” He chuckled. “Actually, with you? I’ll never be done. Anyway, hold still.” He opened the box so she could see what was inside.
Fallon sucked in her breath, stunned. Nestled on white satin was a gold choker only a little thicker than the rings in her nippl
es. It fastened with a tiny lock and key, the latter of which she knew Cord would keep in his possession.
“A collar,” she whispered.
“I might get you a ring, too, for our vanilla friends. But this means far more than that. I love you, Fallon. I want to marry you, and master you for the rest of our lives.”
“Yes, yes, yes!” Ignoring his attempt to restrain her, she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tight, showering his face with kisses.
He laughed before easing her slightly back. “We’ve been through hell but that’s all behind us. I will care for you and protect you forever. Count on it. And count on this.” He lifted the collar so she could read what was engraved on the back.
Owned. Mastered. Loved. Forever.
Fresh tears began to flow. Cord rubbed them away with his fingers then turned her so he could fasten the collar around her neck. When he wrapped her in his arms and kissed her, Fallon knew this was where she belonged. Where she was meant to be all along. And where she was meant to be forever.
The End.
Desiree Holt
Desiree Holt is the world’s oldest living published author of erotic and spicy romance. A graduate of the University of Michigan with double majors in English and History, her earlier careers include agent and manager in the music industry, public television, associate vice president of university advancement, public relations, and economic development.
She is three times a finalist for an EPIC E-Book Award (and a winner in 2014), a nominee for a Romantic Times Reviewers Choice Award, winner of the first 5 Heart Sweetheart of the Year Award at The Romance Studio as well as twice a CAPA Award winner for best BDSM book of the year, a USA Today Bestselling author and winner of the Holt Medallion for Excellence in Romance Literature.
She has been featured on CBS Sunday Morning and in The Village Voice, The Daily Beast, USA Today, The (London) Daily Mail, The New Delhi Times, The Huffington Post and numerous other national and international publications. She is also the Authors After Dark 2014 Author of the Year.