by Ann Jacobs
Amber reached over and took Cole’s hand. “She isn’t hurting me, Master.”
“Then why do I see tears streaming down your cheeks?”
She smiled, a soft look in her eyes. “I cry when I’m happy, and I’m very happy now because I will soon be wearing your mark and not Master Dax’s.”
Amber might be happy but Cole wasn’t. He wanted to storm the jail, find Petrone and kill him. But what he wanted wasn’t nearly as important as caring for Amber. She was numb now, but she’d be suffering agonizing pain before long—pain she’d endured mostly because of what that bastard had done but also partially because of what she felt for Cole.
He’d never felt so fucking helpless, standing by and watching as the artist transformed the initials of a madman into an equally raw but ultimately pleasing image of a graceful lily of the valley.
Just as the artist was putting away her tools, the door opened and Ulrica stepped inside. “If you wish, I can leave some medicine that will dull Amber’s pain once the anesthetic wears off.”
“Of course I wish. Why ever would you believe I’d want her to suffer?” From the expression on Ulrica’s face, Cole doubted that she believed him.
“Sir…” Ulrica spoke hesitantly, as though she wasn’t sure he wanted to hear what she had to say. “Until her wound heals, someone will need to apply the ointment I will give you, several times each day. If you’d like me to, I can show one of your staff members how to tend it.”
“I will tend her myself.” He’d consider it a labor of love, touching her so intimately yet not taking his pleasure of her while she healed. For the first time ever, Cole found that he wanted to take care of a woman, not just sexually but in every way. And not just any woman. Only Amber.
“All right. Give her one of these every four hours for the pain.” Ulrica handed over a bottle of capsules. It was the same painkiller Dax had used to try to kill Cole’s sister, he realized when he glanced at the label. “And you might put her on one of those swing contraptions that you have downstairs if she gets tired of lying here on her side or belly. Don’t let her move around much for at least three or four days, or the brand might break open and start to bleed.”
Downstairs? Was the woman crazy? Cole wasn’t about to hang Amber out for everybody who walked into No Bounds to gawk at. “Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of Amber,” he said, not ready to explore the sudden sense of possessiveness his new slave evoked. “Has my sister shown any sign of coming around?”
“No. As I told you, I don’t expect Mistress Ciel to wake up until sometime tomorrow. She’s lucky to be alive, considering the level of drugs we found in her bloodstream.” Ulrica pursed her lips disapprovingly.
Apparently she thought Ciel had overdosed herself. “You’ve got it wrong if you think Ciel would take that stuff on her own. Petrone forced it down her, probably to get her out of the way while he tortured Amber.”
Ulrica shook her head. “I hadn’t thought of that possibility. In any case, I have my rounds to make at The Leather Gallery and Pierced Princes. When you get No Bounds opened up, I imagine I’ll soon need to find a partner.”
She inclined her head toward Amber. “I’ve never understood it, not at all, folks like her who find sexual fulfillment by being hurt. It’s human nature, though, to want to lord it over another human, the way you masters want to do.” Shrugging, she shot Cole a self-deprecating grin. “I know I shouldn’t complain. BDSM keeps us medics in business.”
Cole barely managed to rein in his temper. “I don’t imagine you’ll be getting much if any business from No Bounds. I won’t allow my employees or patrons to inflict injuries that might necessitate your services.” Now, though, Cole was beginning to understand the look of fear and revulsion he’d seen in the medic’s cool blue eyes when she’d first arrived in answer to his call for help. She’d obviously gotten a warped impression of the lifestyle he’d chosen, probably back on Earth, although from what he’d seen on Obsidion, what went on at his competitors’ clubs had obviously reinforced her view. “I appreciate your taking care of Amber and Ciel though.”
“It’s my job.” Ulrica picked up her bag and headed out, but when she paused downstairs at the door, Cole saw tears glistening in her eyes. “Once the flesh heals, your slave’s brand will be a thing of beauty. Unlike mine. I will never again show myself unclothed.”
There had to be a story there, Cole thought as he watched Ulrica make her way outside and down the street, past the businesses between No Bounds and The Leather Gallery. There was something about the healer, something that made him want to know her secrets and keep her from harm, even though she made it clear by her attitude that she wanted no protector. He couldn’t help thinking that Ulrica had once been hurt as Amber had, and that in the healing process she had lost much of herself.
Cole wouldn’t let that happen to his beautiful Amber. He did have a problem now, however, because there was no way in hell he’d put her to work as a club sub the way she apparently expected him to. No way in hell would he stand by and watch customers sample the woman who belonged exclusively to him.
When he went back upstairs, he paused at the closed door to Ciel’s room. Amber insisted that his sister had no claim on her, that they were only friends who had sometimes participated in the same BDSM scenes. But Cole wasn’t so sure. Not that he doubted Amber. He trusted her implicitly.
Still, he had a feeling that his sister might harbor some very proprietary feelings toward her friend.
* * * * *
Amber woke slowly, focusing first on a mural opposite the bed. Excellent artwork, it depicted lovers—a Dom on his knees, pleasuring his ecstatic slave. The drapes that covered her breasts and belly were dark blue, like the midnight sky back home on Earth. Like the incredibly soft bed linens beneath Amber’s seeking fingers. Everything about this room bespoke luxury and privilege—a taste for beautiful surroundings.
No one had needed to tell her Cole had put her in his bedroom. She glanced toward the open window and saw a wrought iron balcony lit by the three brilliant moons for which the planet Obsidion was famous.
Sounds of moving feet and low-pitched voices drifted to her ears, comforting signs that she wasn’t alone, that life and business went on around her as she lay and healed. She fantasized that Cole would be with her but for the pressing needs of readying No Bounds for its grand opening.
She hadn’t gotten more than a glimpse downstairs as Cole had brought her here, but she imagined that the club must be a beautiful place, much like the one he’d talked about long ago. She’d thought at the time that his dream was only idle conversation in Earth’s new world order, where such places were forbidden.
But he’d done it. He’d made his youthful fantasy come true, here on a formerly barren planet light-years away from home. Now she was here with him, longing for the day when Ulrica would pronounce her healed—ready to serve Cole as her master.
Pain crept over Amber after she got up and took a shower, small stabbing sensations around the brand that moved outward, inward and all around. The sensations seeped through her veins, invading every muscle, every cell of her body. She welcomed every twinge, each of them a reminder that she’d survived this latest assault on her body.
She’d survived and won another round against the demon within her that wanted to die, wanted her to kill it and herself in retribution…
For what? For having lived when her parents and sister had died? For having been a constant reminder to her grandparents that they had lost the opportunity to reconcile with the daughter they’d disowned? For the first time in her memory, Amber fought the pain deep in her heart. She fought it with dreams not of death but of life…a life shared with a master. Her master.
Cole Callender. A beautiful man, tall and rugged, strong enough to protect her against all comers. For years she had watched him grow from a gangly boy who’d teased her and Ciel with cicadas and snakes to full, masterful manhood. Closing her eyes, she visualized his wavy, dark-brown hair, his
smiling blue-green eyes and sensual lips that smiled more than they frowned.
Memories of his powerful muscles rippling against her flesh when he’d carried her from the transporter, of the gentle touch of his hands, of his deep voice full of concern, flooded her mind, blotting out the physical discomfort that centered in the brand.
Amber didn’t know where she’d ever found the courage to say she wanted him as her master, but she’d never take back the words. While he might hurt her, which she surely would beg him to do while in the throes of passion, the knowledge that he’d also protect her even from his own desires warmed her.
The certainty that he would shield her from harm alleviated the constant fear in her that someday she would beg a Dom to go too far. That she’d entice him to finish the job that the plane crash that had killed her family had left undone on her.
She crawled back into bed, settling onto her side instead of her belly this time. Ouch! She winced at the sharp pain no amount of sublimating could suppress. When Cole strode in and sat beside her on the edge of the bed, she managed a tight-lipped smile for him.
“Time for your medicine.” Reaching into the drawer of the night stand, Cole fished out the bottle of pills and handed her one along with the glass of ice water he’d brought in. “Down the hatch.”
“Yes, Master.” Just having him there beside her chased away the pain. “I’m glad to be here. I’m getting very anxious to get well enough to take a tour and see what Obsidion looks like.”
Cole gestured toward the window, where light from three moons illuminated the darkness. “That’s the most unnerving sight you’re likely to see—Obsidion’s three multicolored moons. Otherwise, the planet reminds me a lot of a desert back on Earth, except that the soil is reddish-brown clay instead of white sand. Some people are experimenting with irrigating and fertilizing large blocks of land so they can grow familiar plants commercially. When you’re able to get up, I’ll show you the organic garden I’ve started out in the courtyard.”
His wistful expression reminded her that he’d had to come here because of rescuing Ciel and her over a year ago. “You know, I haven’t told you how sorry I am about my part in the situation that got you shipped off up here.”
“It’s nothing. At first I felt disoriented, away from everything I’d known, but now I’m looking forward to making No Bounds a success. I want to see Obsidion develop into a showplace pleasure planet that will attract the best elements from Earth. Already we’re working on establishing all the services—hospitals, utilities and so on—that will make it easier to attract immigrants.”
He paused, lifted a stray lock of hair off her brow and smoothed it back into place, his touch gentle and reassuring. “Having you here with me is the icing on the cake.”
Amber couldn’t help smiling. No one, not even Ciel, had ever made her feel as though she were the center of his world the way Cole did. She could hardly wait to serve him the way a slave should serve her master. “Thank you, Master.”
“No thanks needed. It’s I who should be thanking you. It’s true. I want to know all about you. Where you lived, what you did before you moved into our neighborhood.”
Like all Cole’s orders, this one was couched as a request, but Amber knew he meant for her to talk, to re-live that difficult time. “Before I came to live with my grandparents? My parents traveled. Most of the time I went with them, but they decided I needed formal education and left me at boarding school before they took my baby sister and went on that last trip. Their plane crashed.”
It still hurt to think about it. She’d never be able to forget the sad look she’d noticed on the headmistress’s usually jolly face that day when she’d called Amber into her office and told her the news. What had hurt worse was the obvious reluctance of her elderly grandparents to take in the child of their own daughter, whom they’d disowned because she had chosen to live a BDSM lifestyle with Amber’s father.
“So you came to Scarsdale?” Cole prompted.
“Yes. I’d never felt so lonely before. Never. Not that my grandparents didn’t feed and clothe me, but they never talked. Until I met Ciel, I had no one. No one at all.” Older, street-smart Ciel had taken her under a well-manicured wing, introduced her to the world of bondage and domination. She’d called Amber the perfect submissive, one who found the ultimate pleasure in pleasing others. Perhaps she was. Back then, she’d wanted nothing more than to make those around her happy, because evoking a smile, a snippet of praise, had meant everything to her.
Cole had been a playmate, a friend, someone who helped her with homework when she had trouble with concepts she’d missed learning during the time she’d traveled with her parents instead of attending school. As they’d grown up, she had developed a crush on him, but he’d never seemed to see her as a woman—only as a childhood friend and his sister’s confidante.
Now all she wanted to do was please Cole in every way. She longed to feel his punishment as well as his desire. She needed that to break deep-seated past feelings of guilt and worthlessness. Maybe with him she could reach a sexual peak, but that had never happened without the pain.
She had no doubt that he would treat her gently, because that was how Cole was. She knew, though, that she craved the humiliation of being on public display for others’ amusement, the adrenaline of fearing this time would be the last. She had to have that arousing fear that the Dom of the moment would someday take her past the point of no return.
If only she were certain that Cole truly wanted her and all her hang-ups. She hoped she wouldn’t become a liability to his political aspirations here on Obsidion, just as he had become one to his father back on Earth when he’d protected her and Ciel from harm. “Please take me, Master,” she said. She needed reassurance. Needed him.
Cole couldn’t resist Amber any longer. He didn’t want to resist. Not when she begged him to take her and not when he sensed her lack of confidence, her fears.
He stood and looped his fingers into the waistband of his jeans, unbuttoning them and shoving them and his underwear down in one quick jerk. Taking his cock in one hand, he moved close enough to feel her warm, damp breath on its throbbing head, then put his knee on the bed and positioned himself, his cock in easy reach of her soft, sweet lips.
“Kiss me,” he growled. When she swirled her pink tongue around the slit at the tip of his cock, he skimmed his free hand over the rich, pale fall of her hair, along the gentle curve of her spine, being careful as he did not to touch the healing but still-tender brand.
“I wish I’d killed him for hurting you.” When he spoke, she sighed, then sucked his cock head into the wet cavern of her mouth, her teeth grazing him, making him want more. “Yes, baby. Like that. Take it all. Deep-throat me. I want you to make me come.”
God yes. Because it was Amber sucking his cock, swallowing him, licking along the vein that pulsed along the underside, he felt stronger sensations than any he’d experienced with any of the other subs who had pleasured him, whether here or back on Earth. “Take all of me. Oh yeah. Don’t stop.” He was coming and there was no way he could hold back.
He came in staccato bursts. Every constricting motion of her throat around his cock head triggered another wave of sensation so incredible that he could barely believe the feelings. He grasped the headboard, steadying himself, determined not to move until she’d wrung him dry.
He rose, bent and licked his essence off her swollen lips. “I owe you a climax now.”
“Have I your permission to come, Master?”
Though he’d heard it hundreds of times from dozens of women, the title “Master” still sounded strange coming from Amber’s lips. Cole framed her cheeks between his palms and smiled into her eyes. “You may assume you have my leave to come anytime you like, unless I tell you otherwise.”
“And I want you to feel free to use me in any way that gives you pleasure.” When Amber laid a hand on his thigh, his cock sprang back to life. “Would you like to fuck me now?”
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��Oh yeah. I’m going to take you, ram my cock into your sweet cunt. I’ll fuck your ass too. But later. Today I want to taste your pussy. Nibble your clit and make you feel good.” For the first time in his life, Cole felt an irresistible urge to fasten his collar around a submissive’s neck, claim her for himself alone and flaunt his ownership.
Not of just any submissive. Just Amber. He wanted to tell the world she was his to protect, to love, to master. That was what the collar meant to him, in addition to staking his claim of ownership for all other Doms to see and heed.
He bent his head and nipped her just below the pink shell of her ear. The light floral scent of her hair surrounded them, ensnared him in her as surely as any Dom’s restraints could. He stroked along her flank, murmuring an apology when he came too close to her wound and felt her tremble.
“Roll over on your belly. Carefully. Lay your arms out over your head.” When she complied, Cole cuffed her and secured her wrists to one of the rails in the headboard. “That’s good. Now spread your legs and let me in.” The sight of her face down, ass up, her legs apart in invitation, humbled him. Such trust, so soon after Petrone had misused her…
But was it trust or just the hope she always seemed to harbor in her expression, the hope that a master would truly take care of her? She apparently wanted that feeling of belonging so desperately that she was willing to be tortured, as if trying to prove she could endure anything for the promise of such care and love.
Starting right now, Cole would show her that she should expect her master to care for her always, never to cause her the type of pain Dax had inflicted on her—or the sort of psychological tortures he imagined Ciel had visited on her. “There, let me slide this pillow under your hips.”
“Thank you, Master. Please…” Her voice trailed off, as though she was afraid to ask for what she wanted.
“Please what? Do you want me to eat your cunt?” Cole ran a finger along her damp, warm slit, then cupped her plump mound in his hand. “I like that you’ve shaved, like a good sub.” Too many of the women he’d interviewed in the past few days had shown up with hairy cunts, something he was certain he’d never have seen on applicants for club jobs back on Earth.