He released her mane, and she tossed her head. She gave herself over to the mindlessness and bucked against him. He grasped her hips and pounded harder. His thighs slapped against hers, a solid reminder that he was in charge. When he smacked her ass, she surged back and came hard. Cries full of desperation and ecstasy wrung from deep in her chest. His shout followed hers, and he bathed her insides with his seed.
He released the cuffs on her hands and collapsed onto the blanket. One arm was flung above his head, and he rested the other on his stomach. His eyes were closed. “Untie yourself, Samantha, and come lay next to me.”
The use of her name took her completely out of pony mode. With shaky hands, she removed the spreader bar and cuffs from her legs. “Should I leave the tail in or take it out?” She liked wearing it, and though she wouldn’t be able to sit, laying down would be easy.
The smile on his face grew, but he didn’t open his eyes. “Take it out. If you have the energy, you can go wash it off. If not…” He lifted his hand and let it fall to indicate that it wasn’t a big deal.
Samantha frowned. Lex had never once skimped on the aftercare. She trundled over to the pool and rinsed the toy before returning it to its bag. Lex shifted his arm so that she could snuggle on his shoulder.
“Lex? Are you feeling okay?”
He kissed her forehead, but he never opened his eyes. “I’m fine. You just rocked my world a little more than you normally do. Now talk to me, honey. What do you think of the equipment?”
“Well, I love the tail. It makes me feel pretty. The bit was okay. It tasted like strawberries. I don’t know how you managed that.” And at the time, she had been too wrapped up in the experience to consider the smaller details. True to form, Lex hadn’t forgotten them. “The grooming was intimate, like aftercare, and of course I loved the breeding part.”
He nodded, and she wished he would open his eyes. “As we play more, we can try out the other tails, and there’s a lot to the training that you might like. I’m going to send you links to some websites, and I want you to come up with a list of wishes and limits.”
Over the years, he’d sent her links to things he’d wanted to try out, and then they’d discuss his suggestions when he got home. Stef did it, too, though not as often. He liked to describe things in detail over the phone and make her masturbate as he talked.
“Tell me more about how you feel.”
“I love you, Lex.”
He rolled, trapping her under him. “I love you, too, but I really need to know what it was like for you.”
In her mind, she went back to the first moments of play. “I liked it. A lot. It was freeing. I didn’t have to think. I got to subspace so quickly.”
“No thinking? Are you sure? I thought I saw you struggling to behave.”
Samantha shrugged as best she could with his weight resting on top of her. “I wanted very badly to misbehave. I felt wicked and then a little guilty. That urge confused me. I’m not a bratty sub, and I wanted to be. But then after you groomed me, I settled down.”
With infinite affection, he brushed her hair away from her temples. “Maybe part of the reason you want to be a pony is for the brat aspect. You’ve mentioned it several times. I kept waiting for you to misbehave, but you didn’t.”
“I know how much time and effort you went through to set this up. I didn’t want to ruin it for you.”
He shook his head in a what-am-I-going-to-do-with-you manner. “Always so thoughtful and giving. Samantha, I love that about you. How about if we use pony play for you to explore this new need you have to be bratty? When we discuss your wishes and limits—and I have some on my end as well—we’ll put together a punishment agreement. I saw tails with e-stim butt plugs online. We might explore those as a punishment option.”
She wasn’t sure she considered them an option. They hadn’t explored electrical play, though Lex had indicated an interest in it before. “So you’re saying you want to keep the punishments inside the pony play time?”
“Yeah. That’s fair, and besides, we’ve agreed to do away with physical punishments. These will be play punishments—nothing too painful and maybe some things that are actually fun.”
This was the first time they’d played outside their usual sandbox, and Lex was embracing the possibilities. She ran her fingertips up his bare back. “I’m glad you came here, Lex. I haven’t seen you this relaxed in far too long.”
Using his knees, he urged her legs apart. His lips hovered an inch above hers. “I think it’s time to make me even more relaxed.”
It looked like he was getting his second wind. Samantha breathed easier. “Anything you want, Lex.”
He slid home. “You, Samantha. I want you.”
She surrendered to her Dom, giving herself over to his masterful loving, and when the urge to climax pressed hard, he gave her the permission she sought.
Chapter Nine
It came as no surprise that Lex slept in the next morning. Samantha showered and dressed, and he didn’t stir at all. She was tempted to wake him up, but then it would be more difficult to talk about him to Stefano.
Stef was in the kitchenette with his back to her when she came out. The fresh scents of coffee and cinnamon rolls filled the air. She sat on a high stool at the counter and pulled the bowl of fresh cut fruit closer. “Good morning, Stef. Did you sleep okay?”
He turned suddenly, pulling an earbud from his ear, and she realized he hadn’t heard her approach. He had a butter knife in one hand and a little jar of frosting in the other. “Good morning yourself, sunshine. I slept great. I love when you kiss me goodnight.”
After dinner the night before, they’d hung out and watched a movie. Stefano had spent the day arguing with someone in New York, and they were all tired. He’d bid her an early goodnight—it had been Lex’s turn to sleep with her—and headed off to his room at nine. She’d followed and made sure he was truly exhausted.
She grinned. “Get some coffee in me, and I’ll kiss you good morning.”
He slid a mug across the counter and leaned over to give her a side of smooching.
When he went back to finishing with the cinnamon rolls, she said, “When is the last time Lex had a physical?”
Twisting at the hips, he half turned back to her. “Did he not satisfy you yesterday?”
“No, I mean, yes, he did, but he was very tired afterward. He had me untie and clean myself and the equipment.”
Stef frowned. “He didn’t give you aftercare?”
She shook her head. “He just laid on the blanket with his eyes closed until I finished up. To be fair, we only did B&D play, so it’s not like I needed arnica or anything.” After a particularly rough scene, one of them always used arnica to ease any bruising that might happen.
“Still,” Stef said. He scooped a dollop of frosting and spread it over the next roll. “That’s not like him.”
She frowned as she thought about their encounter. Perhaps the grooming aspect of the scene was meant to count as aftercare? Then she shook away the thought. Under normal circumstances, Lex wouldn’t let that stand as the sum total of the aftercare. “I’m worried about him. He’s so tired, and he’s sleeping way more than he usually does. I just showered and walked around that room naked, and he didn’t move at all. He’s never been much of a morning person, but I wasn’t very quiet. He usually wakes up and stares or makes some kind of suggestive comment.” Or he’d issue an order that had her back in bed with him.
“When we get back to New York, we’ll take him to see a doctor. It could be that he’s just exhausted. We’ve been burning the candle at both ends, Sammy. This deal is turning out to be a nightmare. I spent all day yesterday putting out fires that never should have been lit.”
Samantha stared into her coffee. That deal had turned sour for her a long time ago. “Maybe it’s time to cut your losses. It’s not worth Lex’s health.”
Stef set a plate down in front of her with two cinnamon rolls on it. “It’s not worth our re
lationship with you either. You’re right to be upset with us, honey. We have been neglecting you. Did you speak with Lex about moving to New York with us?”
They hadn’t really discussed it. Samantha licked the icing from her fork. “I thought that was a foregone conclusion. Having me stay home to work while you’re off in other parts of the country isn’t working, so where you go, I go.”
“That’s quite a turnaround from what you said before.” He sipped his coffee, but he watched her over the rim of the cup.
She couldn’t live without them. Having them here, especially with the effort they’d both been making to spend quality time with her, had opened her eyes to what she really wanted. “I’ve been miserable without you, and it’s not realistic for me to expect you to completely abandon your company. I do expect you to curtail your activities. I know I’ll see you less in New York, but I still expect to see you more than I did before. You and Lex have shown me that you’re willing to schedule me into your life. That will continue.”
He grinned, one of those sublime smiles he gave her when she said or did something that affected him deeply. “It will. You have my word on it, Sammy. Just think—you’ll be walking funny in major cities all over the world.”
She couldn’t really laugh at that because he meant it. “What about painting?”
“And photography,” he added. “You’ll need to choose an apartment in New York that has studio space in it or nearby.”
There were advantages to living in New York that couldn’t be found near Miami. The Big Apple could provide more opportunity to make contacts, and the proximity would allow her to establish relationships with gallery owners that could lead to more showings.
“How much are you looking to spend?” The idea of house shopping was beginning to appeal to her. She started in on her second roll.
“We, Sammy. How much are we looking to spend. It annoys the shit out of me when you do that.”
Being corrected like that was maddening. “I’m not the one with the millions to spend on a third home.” In addition to the one in Miami, they had a vacation home near Jackson Hole that sat empty. Samantha had convinced them to turn it into a rental property. It brought in a significant income, half of which was deposited into her savings account each month. She insisted on keeping their finances separate, and so Lex had insisted she earn a commission. He didn’t listen when she insisted that a commission was a one-time payment.
He took the stool next to her. “Marry Lex and you will.” Stef didn’t bother with a fork. He tore off a piece of his roll and dropped it into his mouth.
She was momentarily distracted by the sight of his luscious lips sucking traces of cinnamon from his fingers, but then she shook it away. “Did you just offer me money to marry you guys?”
“Money, clothes, jewels, luxurious homes—anything you want.” His eyes sparkled with mischief as he regarded her with a crooked smile.
She sighed. “Stef, I just want you. I want more time with you and Lex. That’s all. The rest is incidental.”
He chuckled. “Spend as much as you want. Interview realtors, give them the specifications of what will meet our needs, and then when you find something you like, Lex and I will look at it to determine what we’ll offer.”
“So if I find a place I like and it’s twelve million, you’ll buy it?”
“Twelve million isn’t unreasonable for New York, but for that price, it better have a studio on site. If you find a place you like for six million, you’ll probably need to purchase separate studio space. There are also options of getting two apartments and remodeling them into one.”
She was feeling pushy. “So I can redecorate and remodel to suit my fancy?”
He rubbed his hand up and down her thigh. The motion soothed her. “I don’t know why you get so upset about spending money on a solid investment. We trust you, Sammy. You’re picky and demanding.” His hand slid upward to stop over her abdomen. “Just make sure there’s room to grow our family.”
At thirty-three, she wasn’t sure she was ready to have kids. Her career was taking off. When she’d checked her messages the night before, she had three from private collectors who had been at her San Diego showing.
Stefano must have noticed her introspection. “I’m not saying it has to happen today or even in the next five years, but I think eventually we’re going to want to take that step. By that time, you’ll have a ring on your finger and your last name will be Morozov.”
She pushed his hand off her stomach. “I’m not changing my name. I’ve worked hard to publicize my works as Samantha Spencer.”
“You can keep your professional name. It doesn’t have to be the same as your legal name.”
She could see that he wasn’t going to be flexible on this issue, so she opted to drop the topic. It wasn’t like they were planning a wedding. “How are we going to get Lex to see a doctor?”
Alexei could be stubborn when he didn’t want to do something, and spending time at a physician’s office was never high on his list of priorities.
Stefano tore another piece of his roll. “Lie to him.”
Samantha put her foot down. “I’m not going to lie to him.”
“Then you’ll need to use your powers of persuasion. He’ll do anything for you, Sammy. I mean, you wanted him to try pony play with you and he did.”
Did she detect a hint of jealousy or derision? She tilted her head and studied his profile. “I can be a pony for you, too.”
Stefano shook his head. “Pet play has never appealed to me, not even a little bit. Sorry. That’s between you and him.”
“You disapprove.”
“I don’t disapprove. I just don’t get it. When I look at you, I see a beautiful, intelligent, creative woman, not an animal. I won’t interfere with what you guys decide to do, but don’t expect me to join in.”
She lifted a flirty brow. “Not even for the breeding scenes?”
He shook his head.
She finished the last bite of her cinnamon roll. “Well, you’ll regret that when I become a unicorn. Those are incredibly horny animals.”
He choked on his coffee. She got him a glass of water, but she left off the side of sympathy.
She and Stef had loud sex in the living room, and Alexei didn’t join them. Afterward, she shot Stefano a worried look. “You spanked me and made me scream. He couldn’t have slept through that.”
Stefano pulled on his boxers and took her hand in his. “I agree. Let’s go wake him up.”
Since they were remodeling the buildings with ocean views first, their room only overlooked a swimming pool. Stefano opened the heavy curtains, and Samantha crawled onto the bed next to Alexei. She hadn’t bothered to put on clothes, and she knew that under the sheet, he was also naked.
She stroked a path up his bare chest. “Lex?”
He inhaled sharply and flung his arm over his eyes.
She lifted his arm and dropped it onto the pillow next to his head. “Alexei, it’s almost eleven. Time to get up.”
“Gimme another half hour.” He turned onto his stomach and buried his face in the pillow.
Stefano stood next to the bed with a frown on his face. He snagged Lex’s pillow and smacked the back of his head. “Now, little brother. Sammy wants to spend the day with both of us.”
“Okay,” he mumbled. “In a half hour.”
Stefano sat down on the bed, bouncing it hard enough to jostle Lex and Samantha. “A gorgeous naked woman is in bed next to you, and you’re asking for sleep. Have you suddenly gone old man on us?”
Alexei cracked one eye and gave Stef a bleary glare. When his brother didn’t budge or change expression, Lex sighed and sat up. Though he’d slept for almost twelve hours, he didn’t appear rested. “You guys suck.”
Samantha felt his forehead with the inside of her wrist. If anything, he was a little cold. “Lex, are you feeling okay?”
He scrubbed his hand over his face. “Just tired. Not everybody is a morning person.”
/>
“It’s almost afternoon,” Stefano said. “You look like shit, Lex. Sammy is worried about you.”
From the way he tried to turn his sharp tone into something teasing, Samantha knew that Stefano was troubled as well.
“Coffee,” he said. “Shower.”
His requests weren’t out of the ordinary, but they usually came after sex. Samantha rubbed his back. “Want me to shower with you?”
“Yeah.” He pushed the sheet down. She moved so he could crawl out of bed on her side. “Bring coffee.”
They watched him disappear into the bathroom, and Samantha looked to Stefano, her eyes brimming with questions. Stefano shook his head. “I’ll make the appointment while you two are showering. This might mean we have to get back to New York early.”
She slid off the bed and got to her feet. “Whatever it takes, but I want answers.”
* * * *
Alexei started the shower. Steam rose from the water and fogged the mirror by the time Samantha had returned. She handed him coffee, and he gulped it down. The caffeine did a lot to help him shake away the lethargy that enveloped him.
He handed the mug back. Lifting his arm caused a twinge in his chest, so he rubbed his left pectoral muscle. The backpack he’d carried the day before must have been unbalanced, or else he’d done something else, but it felt like he’d pulled it. “Thanks. Come wash me.”
The water felt good on his shoulder. Samantha joined him. “Are you okay?”
“Fine. I pulled a muscle. No big deal.”
She frowned and poked at his chest. “It’s not swollen, and I can’t find a knot. Let me massage it for you anyway.”
Nobody in their right mind would turn down a naked massage from a beautiful woman, and Lex was firmly in his right mind. As she worked on him, the tight feeling went away.
“Thanks, honey. It’s feeling better there, but now I have another problem you need to take care of.”
She grinned as she wrapped her hand around his cock. “This is one of my favorite problems to solve.” Rubbing her thigh against his, she purred, “Do you have a preference on the method I use?”
Two Masters for Samantha 2: In Their Hearts [Awakenings 7] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 11