Renegade (Phoenix Rising)

by Blake, Brynley

  This is getting more interesting now. I loved it when Walker spanked me—alternating the sting of his hand with a sensuous touch, each sensation enhancing the other. “Maybe I like that kind of trouble,” I say boldly.

  He fixes me with a hard stare. “You’ll no doubt feel differently once you have a taste of punishment. I don’t tolerate brats. The rules are put into place to be followed for your own peace and comfort.”

  How the hell does waking him up with a blow job give me peace and comfort? “How many rules do you have?” I ask, trying to bite back a smile. This is becoming harder and harder to take seriously.

  “It depends on the girl and what I think she needs. Your safe word will be ‘red.’”

  “Why not ‘pineapple’?”

  “Why ‘pineapple’?” He stares at me like I’m insane. “We should play a couple of times so you can see if you’re comfortable with my style and you can see what you like. After we play, we can talk more about other things, such as your training.”

  “My what?”

  “Your training. I use both punishments and praises when training a girl, and I like to teach her how I like things. I may not ever use them, but I like her to know them.”

  “Like what?”

  “How to sit properly. How to do a brandy service. How I like a blow job. I’ll usually just give you enough instruction so I can see how you put your own flair on the task and own it.”

  He has instructions for how to give a blow job? “Are there extra points for creativity?” I tease.

  “Sometimes. I’ll always be clear when you have artistic license.”

  He’s running his hands up my sides now, but all I can think about is Walker. The way he looks at me with that half smile on his full, sensual lips, like I’m the most beautiful woman in the world. The feel of his hands on my skin. His gorgeous filthy-talking mouth. Yes, he pushed my limits, but they were my limits, not his. Everything he did, he did for the sole purpose of giving me pleasure and making me feel more intensely, so I could experience the ultimate rush of placing myself in someone else’s control with the utmost trust that he would take care of me.

  Declan leans in to kiss me, and in a moment of clarity, I realize this can never work. He was right all along. The handcuffs and the blindfolds, the commands and the thrill of giving up control—it’s all just fluff. I wanted the power play, but more than anything, I wanted to give myself to someone who could love me more than himself. I wanted to be wanted.

  I hate that I’m about to lose a twenty-thousand-dollar client, but McKenzie and Charlotte will understand. I put my hand on Declan’s chest, stopping him.

  “I’m sorry, Declan, but I’ve changed my mind. I thought I could do this…that I wanted this, but it isn’t at all how I thought it would be.” Not how it was with Walker, I think to myself.

  To his credit, Declan accepts my decision graciously. We talk for a few more minutes before I walk him to the door. “Let me know if you change your mind,” he says as I open the door. “You’re a beautiful woman.”

  I close the door behind him and lean against it, taking a deep breath. The knock startles me. He must have forgotten something. I open the door. “Declan, did you…”

  Instead of Declan, Walker Kinkaid is standing in my doorway in all his gorgeous glory, looking even more badass and sexy than usual, or maybe it’s just because his raw and rugged masculinity contrasts so sharply with Declan’s sophisticated good looks. He hasn’t shaved in a few days. He looks hot as fuck.

  “Sorry, not Declan,” he says, stepping into my apartment. “Although I did see him on the stairs.”

  He sounds slightly pissed, but I have no idea why. Surely it’s not because of Declan; last night he was thrilled about how well he’d trained me for him. Whatever. I’m too emotionally strung out from my evening with Declan to try to figure out Walker’s mood. “What are you doing here?”

  “Noah and McKenzie are on their way back. I’m meeting them here tomorrow. I want to collect on my bet tonight.”

  “What?” I step aside as he swaggers into my apartment the way only Walker can.

  “Our bet.” He flashes me that quintessential Walker grin that makes girls’ clothes fall off, but it has a dangerous edge to it tonight, a wildness that I don’t quite understand. “We made a bet last night. You lost. I’m here tonight, and I want to collect. Unless you have plans with Declan.”

  “Um, no. He just left.”

  “Good.” He crosses the room and slings his backpack onto the couch before turning to me. “Come here.”

  Ka-thunk. My stomach drops at his simple command, and I slowly walk across the small living room and stand in front of him, my breath suddenly coming a little faster. How does he have this effect on me?

  “You owe me one more night,” he rasps. Then he’s kissing me, and I’m kissing him back like I’ve been starving for days and he’s the only thing that can satiate my hunger. He pulls away reluctantly. “Don’t move.”

  He turns on one small lamp and then turns off the rest of the lights before coming back to where I’m standing and slowly removing my clothes. I should feel self-conscious standing in front of him completely naked while he’s still fully dressed, but the way he’s looking at me leaves no room for that. The authoritative but downright ravenous look in his eyes leaves no room for anything but what he wants tonight. And what he intends to collect. Oh, God. My head is feeling thick and fizzy at the thought, as if I’ve drunk too much champagne.

  “My God, you’re beautiful.” He doesn’t touch me; he just looks at me with that heat in his eyes that sets my body on fire. He turns to his backpack and pulls out the cuffs. “Give me your wrists.”

  With my heart thundering in my chest, I stretch my arms out to him like an offering. He buckles a cuff on each wrist and clips them together before bending down to fasten the other set around my ankles. The air feels thick and warm. He hasn’t even touched me and I’m quivering with desire.

  He grabs the ring where the wrist cuffs are joined and leads me over to the couch.

  He strips off his T-shirt and then takes off his jeans, and I can’t help but lick my lips as his gorgeous cock springs up as he removes his underwear. I want a taste of that. He sits on the couch, slightly reclined, his knees apart, and nods to the space on the floor between them.

  “Kneel.”

  Thank God he’s a mind reader. I lower myself to my knees, my sex growing wetter by the minute at this even more dominant version of Walker. Never tentative under regular circumstances, tonight he has an air of deliberate and unwavering authority. And I love it.

  “I figured we’d just get this out of the way from the start this time,” he says with a half- smile.

  I smile back, grateful again for how he understands my need to regroup and prepare, and glad for this one moment of having the upper hand, knowing he’ll take it back when he’s good and ready. But I quickly realize he doesn’t intend to give me an ounce of control tonight. As soon as my lips touch his cock, he grabs my bound wrists and holds them over my head as he places his other hand on the back of my head. He controls my every movement, at times allowing me to swirl my tongue around his shaft teasingly, and at others pushing my head down until his cock slides all the way to the back of my throat, holding me there until I start to gag and then pulling me up as he tells me how hot that is.

  When he’s had his fill of my mouth on his cock, he stands and lifts me to my feet, pulling me around to the side of the couch. He unfastens my wrists so I can thread my fingers through his hair as we kiss with an edge of violence, our teeth nipping at each other and our tongues tangling together with raw need. When we stop, he smiles faintly, rubs my cheek with his thumb, and then draws my hands behind my back and secures them there.

  He turns me so I’m facing the arm of the couch and then, with a firm hand between my shoulder blades, bends me over it. I don’t move, but I watch him from out of the corner of my eye with curiosity as he steps away from me and goes back to his b
ag, pulling out a shiny metal bar about eighteen inches long with rings attached to each end.

  “What’s that?” I manage to ask, my voice sounding like a squeak.

  “It doesn’t matter really, does it? Any toy in my bag, remember?” He shoots me a lascivious grin. “You’re at my mercy tonight, sweetheart.” He crouches down and attaches the ends of the bar to each ankle cuff so my legs are held apart. With my feet cuffed to the bar and my hands behind my back, I’m completely immobilized. Oh, God. Why does that turn me on so much? He runs his hands over my body possessively, pausing his exploration to pinch my nipples until I gasp before stroking my skin again. He stops at the ticklish spot at the small of my back and I instinctively try to squirm away, but I can’t move very far.

  “This is your fault, you know.”

  Bent over the arm of the couch, I have to turn my head to the side to see him. “Why? Because I lost the bet?”

  “No.” He takes a step closer and, holding my head to the side with his fingers fisted in my hair, he kisses me brutally, his hunger voracious and all consuming. “You’ve unleashed something in me, Gemma. Something savage that I didn’t know was there. When I push you past your comfort zone, you look at me with this expression in your eyes that just makes me want to push farther, to demand more, to see where your breaking point is.”

  I remember what he said last night, and some intractable stubborn streak takes over. “You won’t get me to say my safe word.”

  “I know, sweetheart. I don’t want you to anymore. I just want to be the one to push you past your boundaries, to explore everything with you for the first time. I want to find your breaking point, because that’s how I will prove to you that you’re safe with me. But I don’t want to break you. I want set you free.”

  He reaches for the blindfold he’d laid next to me, and my breath catches as he gently covers my eyes with it, so close to me that I can smell the clean masculine scent of him. I lean into him as much as my position and the restraints allow me to, craving the touch of his skin, my body drawn to his like metal to a magnet. But he steps away, leaving me feeling uncomfortably vulnerable. Suddenly enveloped in darkness and left alone, a tiny flicker of anticipation licks at me as I realize I can’t see what he’s going to do next. Without my eyesight, every other sense is heightened. I strain to listen to his movements, wondering what he’s going to pull out of his toy bag next.

  The unmistakable feel of multiple leather strands trailing across my back leaves no doubt what he intends to do next. The flogger. I stiffen, twisting away from him as much as I can with the spreader bar holding my feet apart. He yanks me back unceremoniously, holding me firmly in place this time, as he drags the soft leather down my back, over my ass, and up the backs of my thighs, then across my ass again. I whimper slightly, awaiting the sting of the small whip I’d told him scared me. But somehow, I’m not feeling scared right now. It’s Walker, and I realize I trust him to know what I can take, and even, maybe, what I need.

  “Shh.” His fingers stroke across my hypersensitive skin for a minute, and then are replaced by the strands of the flogger. “Don’t make me gag you. I want to hear you scream.” His voice in my ear is a sultry whisper.

  I should be terrified, but I’m not. Apprehensive? Hell yes. But even that is mixed with more than a tinge of excitement. This is Walker. He has a way of taking the array of sensations only he seems to be able to create and swirling them together in an exquisitely conducted orchestra of heat, vulnerability, and desire—each balancing and enhancing the other until my body sings a symphony of passion.

  He gathers my hair into a ponytail in his hand and lifts my head, holding it up. “But more than anything, I want to see your face,” he says softly.

  I brace myself for the blow of the flogger. Instead, I feel the stiff leather handle push into my wetness, and I gasp as he slowly moves it in and out, fucking me with it until my inner core is throbbing. Only after I’m moaning does he pull it out and smack it against my ass. It doesn’t hurt at all! Instead, the thuddy kiss of the leather against my sensitive skin sends desire spiking through me. He flicks it up between my legs, the strands hitting my sex, and I instinctively try to close them, but of course I can’t. The spreader bar holds me open for whatever he desires. He does it again, but instead of being painful, it has the opposite effect, and I realize I’m precariously close to coming. He pushes it back inside me, pumping in and out a few times before removing it again, and I whimper with a primal longing. I’m desperate to be filled, desperate to come. I can smell my own earthy essence mixed with the unmistakable scent of leather as he pushes the handle between my lips. He replaces the leather handle with his tongue, and I can taste my love for Walker in the kiss. He’s in my bloodstream. I can’t live without him.

  But I have to. We can’t keep doing this. I have the sudden certainty that if I surrender everything to him tonight, I might never get my heart back. Tonight he wants everything—he wants my complete vulnerability and trust, he wants to push past every boundary that keeps me intact. But once I’ve given my all to him and he’s given everything he has to give to me in return, there’ll be no going back. There’s no intimacy greater, and I know that my heart can’t survive. I have to stop this before it goes too far and my heart is irreparably damaged.

  I catch my breath as his lips feather over my jaw, gripping my earlobe between his teeth. He growls, and it reverberates straight to my sex, making me long to feel him there one more time.

  Come on, Gemma.

  I waver as he plants tiny kisses down my spine.

  You have to protect yourself.

  “Pineapple!”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Walker

  I freeze. “What?”

  “Pineapple. I can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry.” Her voice wobbles.

  “Because of Declan,” I say flatly. I knew it was a long shot coming here this way, but after she left, I knew I couldn’t let the best thing that ever happened to me walk away without a fight. But I’d been a damn idiot thinking she would want me.

  I quickly unclip the cuffs holding her wrists behind her and remove the spreader bar. I don’t take the time to unbuckle the cuffs, because before I walk away from her—maybe forever, since I have probably irreparably fucked up our friendship—I have something to say. I’ve spent a third of my life protecting Gemma, and old habits die hard.

  She might not want to be with me, but I’ve got to try one more time to talk her out of Declan. I turn her so she’s facing me and pull the blindfold off. Those eyes of hers that I love so much are filled with tears. It guts me. “Fuck, baby. Don’t cry.” A lone tear spills onto her cheek and I wipe it away with my thumb. “I’m sorry. We don’t have to do anything. I just thought—”

  I just thought we might have a chance. That she might love me a fraction of the amount that I love her. But she doesn’t need to hear that. “Look, Declan’s not right for you, Gemma. I know at first I didn’t think you were cut out to be submissive, but you proved me wrong. You took everything I dished out with spunk and such passion and responsiveness that it made me want to push you more, just to see how far I could take you. There was such intimacy in taking you to the edge and back. It was fucking amazing. Amazing enough to make me think that with a woman like you, I could totally buy into this dominant shit and not just pretend to be one.”

  Her eyes widen. “What do you mean?”

  I might as well come clean with her. “Those pictures you saw on my laptop…I was just doing research so I’d look like I knew what I was doing at the Dominion. I’m not really a dominant. I should have told you, but you were so excited, and you wanted my help—I’ve never been able to tell you no. But more importantly, I didn’t want Declan to hurt you, and I thought if I helped you explore what he wanted safely, you’d see he wasn’t right for you. He might be a great guy, but he’s old enough to be your father! He shouldn’t be preying on some gorgeous twenty-five-year-old with her whole life ahead of her. But it was more
than that. That checklist he sent you? That’s bullshit. He doesn’t want a submissive; he wants a doormat—someone meek and mild-mannered who looks up at him in adoration and does everything he says. You’re the most amazing woman in the whole fucking world, but that’s not you!

  “You shouldn’t be tamed. Ever! It’s one of the things I love the most about you—your strength and your passion and your fire. A real man—a man who’s worthy of you—will appreciate the beauty in a strong, badass woman giving herself to him. He’ll revel in the challenge, in the banter and the pouty looks, in the thrill of the chase and the struggle for power and the way she challenges him. And it will mean all the more to him when she gives that power and control over to him, because he’ll know she’s choosing him. That’s how you made me feel. Like a goddamn hero.”

  I tuck a lock of her hair behind her ear. “I’ll be honest. In the beginning, I was trying to get you to say your safe word so you’d admit you didn’t have a submissive bone in your body and give up on Declan. I didn’t want him to hurt you. But the more we explored, the more I realized I was wrong about you. I don’t know if you’re submissive or not. But I know you are so much more than the box he wanted to put you in, and I’m not going to allow it.”

  She gives me that oh-really look that I love.

  I trace her cheek with my finger. “I’ve always said you were a storm.”

  There’s a hint of a smile on her lips. “I remember. You used to call me Hurricane Gemma.”

  I nod. “Sometimes you’re a storm that needs to be unleashed—when you have all that passion and energy brewing and it just needs an outlet and somewhere to go. Sometimes you need to be tamed—to know that there’s someone who’ll brave the thunder and the lightning and step inside it with you, someone who’s strong enough to subdue the wind and hold you tight when the storm rages. And sometimes you just need someone to dance in the rain with you. Some men are afraid of the storm. But I fucking love it. I love you.” The words are out of my mouth before I realize it, but once it’s done, there’s no taking it back. I might as well tell her everything.