He turned to her. He looked at her sprawled position, took in her still-panting breaths. His erection strained at his pants. “Much too sexy.”
Charlotte gathered her thoughts. They didn’t take much gathering, as she wanted only one thing. “You said a consensual non-consent scene is edge play and has to be negotiated in advance. Let’s negotiate. Now.”
He stared at her for so long she crossed her legs, and her hot skin began to cool. Her body longed for his, but he seemed forever destined to remain aloof. It maddened her, subdued her, and excited her all at once.
The oddly exhilarating feeling was normal around Martin.
“Soon.”
She stared at him. “Soon? Just ‘soon’?”
His mouth quirked into a smile. “There’s a bit more to it. There are hard limits and soft limits. There are safe words. There’s pain and humiliation tolerances to determine, and safety considerations. It’s a lot to cover. Probably best set up for another time.”
“I don’t think so.” She straightened, belatedly realizing her arched-back, cross-legged position thrust her breasts forward. Then just as quickly, she smiled. Let her nipples signal him. Let her round breasts and the tiny glimpse of her dark triangle below drive him beyond all control.
She gave him her most challenging look. “You’re all talk and tease. A bit of strong-arming, a wimpy little spanking, and relying on sexual toys? Though that last one was admittedly pretty amazing,” she muttered. “You’re adept with gimmicks. But you’re not able to keep it up, are you? The old trouser snake gone to sleep? It’s okay, there’s nothing to be ashamed of.” She gazed at his crotch pityingly.
He choked, spoke around laughter. “You’re relentless.”
She grimly fought back a smile. “And you’re not relentless. Too bad for me.” She rose, reached for her jeans. The panties were beyond repair.
She moved to pull her jeans on, hoping he’d stop her.
He didn’t.
She buttoned the top button, looked at him with real disappointment. But she made herself speak with politeness. “Thank you for an incredibly pleasurable time.”
He paused, then nodded. “Yes. I had a lovely time as well.” He cleared his throat. “Ah, I’d promised to hook you up with a few singles of my acquaintance. Referrals for your dating coach business. Some of them are currently actively looking on fetish sites, others are older, wanting to settle down, more interested in vanilla-type dating. And there are a number of women and men who tend to use the weekly munches here at Subspace as a dating service, which is of course not the appropriate venue for such things. So you’ll really be doing me a favor.”
“A favor.” She stared at him. “You’re kind of babbling.”
“Yeah, I know.” When he slicked his hair back from his face she noticed how damp his skin was.
“Are you feeling okay, Martin? You didn’t, you know, sprain anything? While you were doing that with the chain.”
“No.” He backed away from her. “You should probably go now.”
Curiosity rose inside her. Then new awareness prickled her. He was nervous! Why?
“Martin?” she asked wonderingly.
“Just go. Get out.”
“No.”
“Just please do it.”
“That’s my line.” She began to smile. “You’d like nothing more than to do me. Embedded to the hilt. Grunting like a pig at the trough. Until I cry with pain and shame, all wriggling and bucking unsuccessfully trying to get away. Gasping and begging you to stop, please, it hurts . . . yes?”
His lips pressed together. Then: “Charlotte . . . I’m very serious. Your safety is important to me.”
“I know.” And she did. Tender feelings shot through her, circled her heart. This man, the yang to her yin, the only one who seemed to accept and understand her, was trying to protect her. “You said there are hard limits and soft limits. And safe words—mine is ‘red.’ There are pain and humiliation tolerances. My tolerances are high. No permanent damage, like scarring . . . as for safety considerations, I assume you mean condoms. I further assume you will cover that issue. So to speak.” She grinned.
“I can’t believe I’m discussing this with you now. I swore to myself I’d take it slow with you. It’s getting late. You should be basking in my aftercare. I give good aftercare.” He sounded strained.
“I remember. But, Martin. That’s not what I want right now.”
She watched him swallow visibly. “Very well, Charlotte. I tried.” He paced. “I didn’t count on the anticipation making a mush of my brain where you’re concerned.” He took a deep breath. Exhaled. “All right. You forgot one thing though. Hard limits and soft limits. Do you know what those are?”
“I could guess. Hard. Hmm, let me see . . .” She smiled, lascivious.
“No, it’s not funny time right now. I’m quite serious, and you should understand. Limits define the boundaries of what each person is willing and unwilling to do within a scene. Limits apply to activities, roles, intensity of dominance and submission, time duration, and physical activities such as bondage, whipping, or penetration.” He stared at her. She had the feeling he’d assumed a teaching role, and it made her shift with impatience.
He continued. “Hard limits define something absolutely not okay with you under any circumstances. Soft limits mean boundaries that should be respected, but possibly pushed. Charlotte, what are your hard limits with me?”
The words burst from her. “A little late for those soft limits, don’t you think? A lot of those things, we already did.”
“You had a safe word.” He sounded defensive.
“You got carried away.” It was a revelation. “You wanted to play with me enough to bypass those formalities.”
“You’d provoked me into it,” he retorted. “And you had me at your mercy initially.”
“Doesn’t matter. Master Martin, owner of Subspace, skipped your ‘quite serious’ discussion of limits until now.”
“When we need them most. Tell me what they are. Or, I leave.” He meant it. She’d pushed and prodded him into leaving, still sporting an erection that tented his pants into a mighty mountain.
“Yes, Martin.” She smiled. She’d won! Exhilaration and lust surged and broke throughout her body, leaving her trembling with eagerness. Finally. Oh, finally. “My hard limits? No blood, no brands, no broken bones, no multiple partners, no unsafe sex. And as I’d already said, no permanent damage.” Her hand crept toward her scar.
His hand went to her arm, stopping her. His smile was as warm as his honeyed voice, but his grasp all but ground the small bones in her wrist. “Don’t even begin to consider I’d mar your beauty that way. Now. Keep your clothes on. I’m going to leave the room. Sit before the mirror and brush your hair as if you’re the only person in the building. When I decide to, I’ll come in. There will be a struggle. I will rape you. Is this acceptable?”
Her mouth went dry. Could she really do this?
His grip tightened. “I won’t be merciful,” he whispered. “Or kind. I’m going to fuck you in every possible way, and you will cry. You’ll feel me shoving it all the way to your belly, pounding away, and I’ll enjoy your struggle.”
“Maybe I won’t struggle.” She realized she’d whispered, too. She spoke normally. “Maybe I’ll enjoy it.”
“And maybe you won’t.” He smiled. She shivered.
He released her wrist.
“So. I’m, what? The innocent victim of a home break-in?” She made her voice deliberately light, uncaring. “Completely oblivious, until I suddenly see the man who has invaded my room?”
“That will do.” Already distant, he turned and crossed to the door. Opened it. Left without another word, which was somehow the most chilling of all.
“Oh my God, I’m really doing this.” She paced for a moment, then sat down. The lump in her pocket reminded her of the phone she carried. Good thing it hadn’t rung during the chain adventure.
Charlotte flipped it open, glad for the fami
liar routine as she glanced down at it to check for messages. Nothing more from Gail. Of course. Gail was otherwise occupied now.
Probably.
Charlotte frowned. Unease pierced the seductive haze. Gail’d said she was tired, but clearly she’d had company. And yet, she hadn’t sounded hot and bothered during that last call, Charlotte realized with the memory of her own response to Martin fresh in her mind. She’d sounded exhausted rather than satisfied.
Charlotte should make one last quick call to make sure of her. It would probably piss Gail off, but now that the worry had entered her brain, Charlotte couldn’t shake it.
Charlotte dialed, already impatient. She’d leave another message when Gail didn’t pick up, then maybe her nerves would give her some peace. They had better things to do, Charlotte remembered with a return of her heat.
Finally, Martin would fulfill his role as her fantasy man.
Gail’s number rang, and rang.
Charlotte saw the door swing open and Martin enter stealthily, but he’d forgotten to turn off his own phone. She grinned as he fished quickly for it, backing out of the room again to answer it.
Rapeus interruptus, Charlotte thought wryly. How modern they both were with phones to their ears. She couldn’t blame Martin a bit. It might be his sick mom. It might be . . .
Her phone clicked as Gail picked up. Charlotte started with surprise. “Hello?”
“Yeah. Disguising your voice won’t help.”
It wasn’t Gail. It was a guy.
Charlotte was too surprised to do anything but listen.
“I need more time.” A male voice. A familiar voice.
“Hello,” she tried again. “I’m calling for Gail. Who is this?” But by then she’d placed the voice. Her body became rigid with shock. “Martin?”
The door swung open. He stood there, Gail’s phone to his ear. He slowly clicked it off. Tucked it into his pocket. His features had turned to an inscrutable mask of granite.
The nauseating panic that surged through her made her realize how much she’d been simply playing at fear. Even when she’d been at Cory’s mercy, she hadn’t felt this level of betrayal. That was mere toying with dominance and submission and pain, compared to what she’d been about to do with Martin.
Martin, Gail’s abductor.
He was the real deal, and it scared the shit out of her.
She leapt to her feet, her lips and her body numb. “You!”
“Charlotte. Sit down.”
“I’m leaving.”
“No, please. Not yet.”
She bolted. She half hoped it was some horrible misunderstanding, that he’d let her go.
Right up until he moved to block her at the last moment. She ran straight into him, but the soft floor didn’t give him the best leverage. She used his slight overbalancing to push him farther in that direction as she leapt the opposite way, out of his reach.
But he was quick, and as she jumped over him toward the door he grabbed her ankle, yanked.
She fell to the cushioned floor.
He threw the full weight of his body onto her. “Charlotte, stop. You don’t understand.”
She struggled. “You’re crushing me.”
He was. She had to fight for breath.
Easing up slightly, he began to speak.
She inhaled deeply, then shouted. “Red!” She struggled harder. “I said ‘red.’ Do you hear me?”
He nodded.
“Then get off me!”
“Not yet. Not until you understand—”
Her fears were true, all true. The Martin she thought she knew would’ve respected her safe word.
With tears in her eyes, she slumped ever so slightly, to lull him into raising his body off her a little more.
Just enough.
She brought her knee up, hard and vicious between his legs.
The wounded sound he made tore unexpectedly at her heart.
She still shoved him away, then crab-crawled out of his range as fast as she could force her limbs. She dug her nails into the soft wall to pull herself to her feet.
Then she ran.
22
As Amethyst ground her high heel into Richard Corvine’s wrinkled, flabby neck, she yawned.
She looked down at the fully clothed executive and decided she’d quit the pro-domme business after this session. Desperate older men, like Richard here—she pressed down until he whimpered—who paid her to spank and humiliate them, gave her less and less joy.
At first, of course, the easy dominance had been the whole point. After Kartane, she’d needed to reestablish her sense of feminine power. That bastard and his corrosive sexist philosophy had left her shaken.
What galled Amethyst in retrospect was her willingness to participate for as long as she had. A few more weeks of Kartane’s brainwashing about women having slave hearts, and she might’ve actually started to buy into it.
She placed her hands on her latex-clad hips as she posed before the kneeling man. She nudged his face with the toe of her boot. “I stepped in dog shit on the way here.” She reclined on the hotel room’s single chair, crossed her legs. Her boot stuck out. “Lick it off,” she commanded.
“Yes, Mistress.” Moaning with eagerness, Richard slobbered onto her thigh-high, lace-up stiletto boots. There wasn’t really any dog shit on them, but he didn’t know that. Or care about anything but his fantasy.
Amethyst pictured Martin’s face when she told him about Richard Corvine’s sexual predilections. It would be even better when she showed him the evidence of them. Martin had had too much bad luck lately, with his mom’s illness and now the blackmailer.
How nice she could help out her friend in her own modest way. How nice that helping Martin helped her, too.
Amethyst checked on her client. Generous with his spittle, he tongued the leather until it shined. He glanced up at her face from time to time.
She didn’t have to fake her look of contempt.
“I like your new mask, Mistress. It’s very sexy.”
“Did I ask what you thought? Lick.”
“Yes. Anything, Mistress.” He licked.
Once, she looked at the mirrored closet. The left slider door wasn’t completely shut. She gave a nod to the sliver of darkness.
Richard’s slurping sounds covered the faint hum of the video camera.
“You were right to come here.”
Kartane picked up one chair, nestled it one on top of another. He moved on to the next.
Charlotte paced back and forth in the large conference room. She avoided the furs. “I just didn’t know where else to go. It’s a good thing you’re so close to Subspace now, only a few blocks away. I’m glad to have a friend like you to trust with this sort of thing. It’s so unbelievable.”
She stopped against the wall, clutched at it for support. “He has her phone. He took her. He took Gail, and maybe others. He almost had me.” Her hand fisted against the wall. “He lied to me. He has her phone!”
“You’d mentioned that.”
She moved again, the tension within her making it impossible to remain still. “I trusted him.” This was the most appalling thing, to her. “I believed him. When Martin claimed you went off with Gail, I should’ve known better.”
From the far side of the room, she heard Kartane drop a chair.
She reached the end of the conference room, started back. “Sorry about all the walking back and forth, I’ve just got all this adrenaline.” The aftereffects of both Martin’s pleasuring then the shock he’d given her made her feel nauseated.
Kartane waved that away. He gave her a strange look. “Martin said I abducted Gail?”
She frowned. He’d left the chair where it had fallen. “Well, no. Not exactly. It was more what he implied. That you were crazy, a crazy Gorean, and therefore Gail had probably rejected you pretty quickly. I guess Martin figured I’d buy that you were the last one seen with Gail. Conveniently clearing him of being a suspect.” She smiled a little. “Of cours
e, you were kind of a crazy, once upon a time. And you are a Gorean. But you’re not a crazy Gorean. You already got the woman-abducting out of your system.”
He stared coldly.
She blinked. “Um, it’s just a joke. At my expense, in a way. No offense.” The florescent light of the large conference room gave his familiar face an unhealthy pallor. She looked at him curiously. “Are you okay?” His blue eyes were narrowed with the kind of concentration she hadn’t seen since she’d lived with him. Since he’d tried to reach her libido via binding, torture, and branding.
She felt her flesh creep. She blamed it on Martin. If only he’d taken no for an answer. At least Kartane wasn’t like that anymore, even if he was staring at her strangely.
She approached him, touched the fallen chair with uncertainty. “Hey, Martin’s the bad guy. It’s just that you know you have certain ideas about women . . . well, never mind. It doesn’t matter. Martin despises you and Goreans both, which makes you a convenient target. He probably attacked Gail right away to subdue her. She doesn’t put up with much male high-handedness. I hope she’s okay.”
At his continued cold stare and his perfect stillness, she spoke, defensive. “What? She doesn’t. And I don’t blame her one bit for it. Maybe she’s difficult, but she doesn’t deserve that fate. Oh, God, I’m talking about her as if she’s dead. What if Martin actually killed her? She doesn’t have any friends or family who know where she went. I have to go to the police, make a report.”
His nostrils flared. “What? No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“They might search Subspace. And all around it, maybe.”
She stared at him. “Yes. That’s kind of the idea.” She fidgeted, impatient, ready to go make the police take her seriously this time. Then she’d put all this behind her and start over again.
“Can you give me a ride to the local station? The one near my apartment will do.”
He finally bent to the fallen chair. With slow, deliberate movements, he placed it with the others. Then he moved to the furs. He picked up a gilded velvet cord. Probably used on the evening’s entertainment, Charlotte thought with curiosity. It intrigued her how some women could accept such servitude as a way of life. For play, maybe. But as a lifestyle? It boggled her mind. But, to each their own.
Rough Play Page 21