The Punishment: The Downing Family Book 3

by Wild, Cassie

  Brooks, undeterred by my clenched legs and rigid posture, continued to work his magic inside me, wiggling, probing, seeking. Before I had even realized what I was doing, I let my legs fall apart, opening to him.

  “Daria?”

  Drugged with lust, I turned my head and stared at him.

  “Are you…” he twisted his wrist, screwing his finger deeper inside me. “Interested in a tour?”

  I swallowed a ragged moan and nodded wordlessly.

  “We’re almost there, sir.”

  I jolted at the unfamiliar voice coming through a speaker and turned my head, fastening my gaze on Brooks. A slow smile curled his lips as he withdrew his hand from my panties, from under my skirt.

  “Excellent, thank you, Steven,” he said. And the entire time, he stared at me.

  When he slid his finger into his mouth and licked it clean, I had to swallow a whimper.

  * * *

  The tour consisted of the route we took from the elevator to the penthouse, stopping in front of a massive door at the end of the hallway.

  He’d practically carried me to this very spot.

  My heart was still racing from the thrilling foreplay in the car, and I had to lock my knees to stay upright. The wetness between my thighs might have been mortifying if it hadn’t been for the fact that I was eager for him to pick up where he’d left off.

  I squeezed my thighs together as he unlocked his front door, then stepped back, waiting for me to step inside.

  Forcing a nervous smile, I asked, “Is this where you keep all your old wives?”

  “If it is, I guess you’re in trouble,” he said, giving me that wolfish smile as he clicked the light on. He quickly led me down a corridor past many closed doors and into a room that had its own special lock.

  When he flung the door open, I gasped as I looked around, trying to take everything in.

  It was a room of unmatched luxury. That was obvious from the first glance. From the fine furniture, to the gleam of the antique table in front of the couch, to the highly polished hardwood floors, it was unlike anything I’d ever seen. I eased a few feet into the room, my mouth agape.

  At first, I thought it was just a bedroom, outfitted with a sitting area and fine art.

  But then as I studied the pieces of art hanging on the walls—everything from modern, black-and-white photographs to exquisitely rendered oil paintings—I understood the motif of the room.

  Sex.

  Bold, in-your-face sex.

  A photograph of a woman on the far wall, lying back on her elbows and staring down at the head of the man who knelt between her thighs demanded my attention first.

  Then the painting. Another woman on her hands and knees, and over her, a man stood with a long, slender length in his hand. I thought it might be called a crop, but I wasn’t sure.

  Where to look next at this feast for the senses?

  I could feel Brooks behind me, his intense scrutiny boring into me, but I didn’t say anything as I entered the room.

  Another piece of art instantly caught my attention, this a black-and-white sketch of a woman’s face, her mouth open in ecstasy.

  “Where are we?” I finally asked, surprised at how normal my voice sounded. “The Modern Museum of Lust?”

  “Cute,” he murmured, dipping his head to kiss the arch of my neck. “This is my…well, I hate the word playroom. Some use the term dungeon, but it’s not exactly that, either.”

  I slid him a look over my shoulder, then went back to studying the world around me.

  “I bet you can guess what this room is for,” he murmured, pressing his lips to my ear. “Take a look around. What do you see?”

  I shivered as I took a step away from him, needing some distance in order to think.

  The huge, elaborate bed took up the far wall, the four wooden posters playing tricks on the eye. An elegant bed at first glance. But it wasn’t just elegance the bed possessed. It was also a work of sheer eroticism.

  As if standing at each corner of the bed like guardians from the Kama Sutra, four ornate, sexually explicit carvings offered up examples of erotic pleasures should your jaded imagination falter. But then I realized with a jolt that those wooden statues were for bondage, for tying a woman to the bed and leaving her open to the man’s mercy. There were nooks and crannies to use for restraining the hands and feet, but the footboard itself had also been designed for bondage. I saw five intricate openings and stared at them as my mind spun in crazy imaginings, trying to picture just how Brooks might use those devices.

  My heart hitched, and I dragged my gaze away, trying to moderate my breathing.

  I found myself staring at another piece of…well, furniture, I guessed. It looked almost like a padded weight bench split in the middle with the upper half adjusted to a forty-five-degree angle. I pictured myself sitting on it and realized with a jolt just what purpose such a piece of equipment would serve. If I sat on it, he could spread my legs open and…

  Wow.

  There was another bench, also padded with the inclined angle running down to a box. “What’s that for?” I whispered, staring wide-eyed at the hole in the middle of the box.

  “For me to play with you,” he murmured into my ear. “It’s a spanking bench, and while I have your ass in the air for my pleasure, you’re bound hand and ankle while your head is in the box. You’re my toy, there for my pleasure.”

  It should have sounded horrifying, but I found myself imagining the picture he’d painted, me with my body exposed so completely to him. Unable to move, and thanks to the box, unable to even see.

  There was a table tucked up against the opposite wall, padded again in rich velvet, with a series of rings and bars over it. “That?” I asked.

  “My torture table. You lay on it, and I bind your legs and wrists, leaving you open.” He gestured to something else, and my mouth went dry at the sight of the large dildo on the end of a piece of metal. It was a machine of some sort.

  My mind finally put it together, and I said, “That’s set up to…um…”

  “The words you’re looking for are fuck you. It’s set up to fuck you.”

  Face burning, I turned to him. “How many women have you brought here?” I demanded.

  “Only a couple,” he said, reaching up to caress my face. “And I’ve replaced all the pads, all the toys. A few of these things, I’ve never even used. I guess I was waiting…for you.”

  He slid his hand down and cupped my right breast, teasing the already stiff nipple.

  “Tell me, Daria…are you ready to play?”

  Nerves and fear licked inside me, but the look in his eyes drove me beyond reason. I nodded and whispered, “Yes.”

  * * *

  If my heart beat any harder, I thought it might explode out of my chest.

  Out of all of the things Brooks had in his room, the one item I hadn’t taken much notice of was the hook affixed to the center of the ceiling.

  I sure as hell would never fail to notice it again. I was bound to it with a cord around my neck, one that was affixed to a padded collar set into a piece of wood outfitted with openings for my wrists. There were also supporting cords attached to the tethers on my wrists to relieve the pressure at my neck.

  Brooks told me it was a stock.

  As he fitted various restraints into place, he talked to me, explaining each piece and how he’d use it, including the band he put around my left thigh, complete with a hook that let him draw my ankle up until my foot was almost touching my butt.

  I had never been so helpless or so exposed.

  I might have been afraid as Brooks approached me once he’d finished attending to all the hooks and ties. He held a crop in his hand, one with slender tassels dangling from the end. My breathing ratcheted up as I wondered what he planned to do with it.

  He slid the end of it up the inside of my right thigh, sending shivers of sensation through me.

  “You remember your safe word?”

  I nodded and wondered i
f this time, I’d have to use it.

  “Good.” He flicked his wrist.

  I cried out as those velvet tassels slapped against my exposed folds. I braced for pain, but that wasn’t, precisely, what I felt. There was an edge of pain, yes, but as the tip of one tassel hit my clit, it sent a rush of intense heat shuddering through me.

  He did it again, and again before leaning into me and hooking his hand around the back of my head. He kissed me roughly while prodding me between my thighs with the blunt end of the crop. I gasped as it penetrated me, sagged until the pressure of the stock at my neck and wrists forced me to lock my knee to stay upright.

  He thrust the crop into me, and I arched my spine, whimpering.

  After a few more thrusts, he pulled the crop out and backed up, flicking his wrist again so that the tassels lashed my cunt.

  When he went back to fucking me with the crop, I thought I just might pass out and die from the pleasure of it, but he stopped just as I hovered on the edge of climax.

  Before I could process what he was doing, he freed the cords that kept me locked in position there in the middle of the floor, all but dangling from the hook in the ceiling.

  He then freed my bound leg and swept me up, carrying me over to one of the various padded benches, placing me on my back. He released my neck from the stock and brought it forward, hooking it into place on poles that went up on either side of the padded bench.

  I whimpered as he restrained my legs, both of them brought straight up and guided into place on the knee rests for this particular bench. He adjusted a few things, and I gasped as the knee rests slowly moved apart, spreading and opening me.

  He stared down at me, a feverish hunger in his eyes.

  I cried out as he swatted me with the crop, right on the exposed folds of my pussy.

  He did it again and again until I was thrashing in the restraints, burning up inside with the need to come.

  He stopped, and I cried out, but a moment later, the sound was already turning into a moan when he pushed something between my thighs. I craned my head, trying to see and realized it was the mechanized device that sported a dildo at the end.

  Slowly, it pushed inside me, and I whimpered, shuddering in both fear and arousal. It picked up in rhythm until it was practically battering me, and I was helpless against it.

  Brooks moved around the table, and I felt my head drop. He caught the back of my skull and guided it down. Now, my head hung upside down, and I gulped in a breath of air as I watched him unzip his trousers and free himself.

  He pushed something into my hand. “If it gets too much, drop that, and I’ll stop,” he said.

  I squeezed down reflexively and felt my fingers tighten around something squishy and round.

  I opened my mouth to say something—and he penetrated my mouth with his cock,

  At one end, I was being ruthlessly fucked by the toy he’d put into position, and at the other, he was fucking my mouth with his cock.

  Something flicked against my clit, and I realized he was using the crop, just as the pleasure arced through me like lightning.

  It was too much. Way too much. I almost dropped the ball he’d given me.

  But then he groaned out my name, both hands coming up to cradle my head.

  His voice shook as he rasped my name.

  I was bound and helpless, but he was the one with the plea in his voice.

  As the dildo rammed into me, as Brooks pushed himself all the way to the back of my throat, a sense of power flooded over me.

  I started to suck on him, working his dick as best I could from this angle.

  Soon, he was cradling my face with one hand and using the crop to spank me between the thighs with the other.

  A scream built inside me, trapped in my throat as he used me for his pleasure. Knowing I couldn’t hold it inside any longer, I dropped the ball.

  He thrust inside my mouth one last time, then withdrew, breathing hard.

  “Daria?”

  I came, twisting and writhing around the sex toy that continued to plunge inside me.

  “Shit…fuck…”

  I opened my eyes and lifted my head for a few scant seconds at the wet, rhythmic sound.

  Brooks was pumping his fist up and down.

  A few seconds later, a hot stream of his cum splashed across my torso.

  * * *

  “I ought to spank you,” Brooks murmured against my hair almost an hour later.

  After his orgasm, he’d freed me from the restraints, and we’d gone into the shower tucked behind one of the doors in his playroom.

  My bones were all but mush, even now, cradled together in bed. I had to force myself to crack one eye open so I could study him. “Why?”

  “Because you break my control, almost every time.”

  Amused, I craned my head back over my shoulder to look at him. “So, it’s my fault your control breaks?” I snorted. “Just like a man.”

  He shifted upright and rolled me onto my back, settling between my thighs. “Are you making fun of me? If you are…” He pressed a hot, open-mouthed kiss to my neck. “I just might have to punish you again.”

  “If you think that’s going to dissuade me, Brooks…” I laughed and shook my head. “I’m not at all dissuaded.”

  “That makes me think you enjoyed being punished, baby.”

  I grinned up at him. “Maybe I did. Does that mean I get it again?”

  He was the one to laugh this time. But I couldn’t help but smile as he pressed his mouth to my lips. “I have absolutely no doubt that you’ll do something to merit that kind of…punishment again.” Then he moved back to my side and tugged me up against him. “For now, though, I’m damn tired. What about you?”

  Twenty-Four

  Brooks

  I heard the phone ringing.

  There were only two of the old-fashioned “bbaahhh-ring…bbaahhh-rings” before the noise was silenced, though, and I was tired as hell. The past few weeks hadn’t seen a lot of sleep for me. When the annoyance didn’t continue, I slid back into slumber.

  I was vaguely roused by the low murmur of Daria’s voice, and even more disturbed by the sharp rise in her tone.

  I cracked one eye open and looked around.

  She wasn’t in the bed with me, or anywhere in the room. I bolted up, shoving my hair out of my eyes as I took another look around.

  No Daria.

  Shoving out of bed, I grabbed the pants slung over the footboard and pulled them on before heading out of the room.

  Even before I opened the door, I heard the low, unsteady sound. It sounded like somebody was crying.

  And there was only one person in the condo with me.

  Daria.

  I practically threw the door open as I processed all of this. Still half-asleep, I stumbled over the first few steps as I rushed into the living room.

  Daria sat there, huddled up in the corner with her knees drawn to her legs and her face pressed against them. As I watched her, another sob escaped her trembling form.

  “Daria?”

  She flinched at the sound of my voice, straightening immediately as she swiped at the tears on her face.

  It did little to hide the fact that she had been—and was still—crying.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, rushing to sit next to her. I wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her up against me.

  She shook her head, and I closed my eyes, tucking her head up under my chin. “You and I, we’re together. That means we share things, Daria. That means you don’t go through things alone. We share things, baby.”

  She sniffed.

  “Come on, Daria,” I said, pressing my lips to her forehead. “Talk to me.”

  “It was Nadia,” she whispered. For a long, long time, she was quiet. Finally, she tipped her head back and looked at me. “She told me not to bother coming back to the school, told me she’d kicked me out, and since I was no longer abiding by the terms set out when I got my education visa, she had reported
me to INS.” She took a deep shuddering breath before looking up at me. “I’m going to be deported, Brooks. She’s already made sure of that.”

  Anger pierced me, but I throttled it down. Anger wasn’t what she needed from me. I pulled her onto my lap and guided her face up to meet mine. “You’re not going to be deported, Daria. I’ll handle this.”

  She pressed her face to my chest, and I lapsed into silence, just holding her.

  She started to cry again, the sobs quiet and broken. Fury chewed into me with nasty, jagged teeth, and I wanted to hit something, break something. Although I typically had rules against dragging women into things, the first target that came to mind was that catty bitch, Nadia.

  I stroked a hand down Daria’s spine.

  I was still waiting for the storm to pass. She’d been holding back tears for a long while, I thought, and I had no doubt she needed to get them out.

  Every sob that escaped her, every ragged breath, every shudder and tremble of her body kicked up the anger inside me.

  By the time the storm did pass, I was waging war with the fury rising inside me.

  I had no doubt that one of the Castellanos had pulled Nadia’ strings. She was so deeply involved in this, those strings might choke her if she wasn’t careful.

  She’d already put herself on my shit list just for being hooked up to the plan that had trapped Daria. Now, though, by screwing with Daria’s mind and her life, Nadia was someone I’d most certainly extract revenge from. With relish.

  Daria sighed and stirred in my lap, wiggling around until she could press her face up against my neck. “I’m sorry for falling apart like that. This…” She swallowed. “I’ll figure out some way to handle this.”

  “No.” I caught her chin and tugged her face up to meet mine. “You’re not doing this alone—any of it. We’ll deal with the Castellanos, then deal with immigration. And we’ll do it together.”

  Her eyes clouded. “And what if INS comes for me before that?”