by Jane Henry
She breathes in and out, at peace with the dangerous grip I have on her. She struggles with giving me the power. I struggle with wielding it. We both war with the exchange of power. It’s in the mutual yielding we grow our trust.
A gentler flex on her throat, and then I release her altogether, not touching her at all. I brace myself on the bed, lean down, and gently blow air across her back. She shivers. I lean down and kiss her shoulder, then move her hair off her neck and kiss her there before I slowly draw my tongue down the length of her spine, savoring the sweet, salty taste of her skin. When she arches, I slip my hand under the space between the bed and her belly, bracing her. When I reach the small of her back, I suck her flesh in my mouth, only releasing when I’ve marked her with a pink circle. There is only one place of her body sweeter than this.
I’ll get there.
I release her. She falls back to the bed with a whimper. I give her ass a sharp, approving spank, the sound echoing in the room, and she moans.
“Please, sir,” she whispers, and her voice shakes. “Bring me there.”
No further words are needed. I know what she needs from me. I lean in and kiss the sensitive skin just below her ear.
I whisper in her ear, the vibration in tune with the tenderness she evokes in me.
“You need release, doll.”
Her eyes are still shut, her chin quivering. Other women would need something else. A hug. A shot. Some time alone. But not Beatrice. She needs more than that.
I whisper against the shell of her ear. “You need me to help you let this go,” I whisper. “Take the pain away tonight.”
A lone tear slides down her cheek and to her chin.
I lean down and capture it with my tongue, empowered with the salty taste of it. It belongs to me now, her hurt and fears. Her trust.
“Make me hurt,” she whispers, a plea. And in that moment, I’d give her anything. I’d planned on keeping her on the bed in my favorite position for her, presenting herself to me, giving me full access to her full backside and most sensitive parts, but she needs something different tonight. She’ll need me to restrain her.
I move over to the bed and hear her shuddering breath once more. Sweet girl, she’s barely restraining her need to cry. I open the drawer next to my bed and take out what I need. Her lids flutter open, shining with tears, and go wide at the sight of the lengths of leather lashes bound with the long, heavy handle.
“Close your eyes, Beatrice.” I could blindfold her, but I want her to make the choice. “If you open your eyes again without permission, I’ll punish you.”
Her eyes shut tight.
I lay the flogger next to her on the bed, and take out a coil of satin binding, then a stout wooden paddle. Her brows draw together and her lips thin as she listens to me moving around. It’s rectangular, varnished, and unyielding. The element of surprise will work in my favor tonight.
I unfurl the satin, lean over her and wrap it around her wrists. Her eyes stay shut. “Good girl,” I whisper. She stiffens, but I ignore that. She’s taut, her whole body wound, but that’s okay. I need her to snap. She can’t let go until she does.
I lift the flogger and trail the soft tails along her shoulders. She whimpers, knowing this is only a prelude to what will come. I tickle her back, her ass, the tops of her thighs and all the way to her feet. “Let it all go, Beatrice,” I say. Once I begin, the pain will be her focus. Pain, and obedience.
“Yes, sir.”
I lift the flogger and bring it down with moderate force. The leather lashes strike her bare skin once, twice, three times. I ignore her cries and place my hand on her lower back to hold her in place, then flick my wrist to the left, then right, whipping every inch of her until her skin is reddened and primed. I pause, hold the lashes in my hand, and slide the handle between her legs. She chokes on a cry of surprise as I tease her clit with the handle. It slides easily in her slick folds, then I draw it back, still holding the lashes, and strike her hard with the crop-like handle. I pause between smacks of the handle, the swish and thud making her squirm and moan.
“Ow, sir,” she pleads. “Stop. Oh, God, that hurts.”
She doesn’t mean stop, though. She has a safeword, and stop isn’t it. She has to say this. She needs to beg me to stop. She needs to know I won’t. If I stop now, she’s in charge, and she needs me to control this.
“Behave yourself,” I growl.
She arches her back and pushes up onto her palms. “No!” Her voice is a garbled mixture of emotions. Tears run freely down her cheeks. I slap her ass and push her back down onto her chest. I’m not angered by her defiance. It’s natural to push a little. I bring back the flogger and give her three rapid, wicked lashes, criss-crossed tiny welts raising along her skin. I drop the flogger, raise my palm, then smack my hand, hard, against her ass.
“Chest down,” I bark. “Speak again without permission and you know what happens.” Punishment could be anything I choose. I spank her with my palm once more. I’ve got an arsenal of implements at my disposal, but I need the flesh-on-flesh contact, and so does she.
She quietly weeps into the bed, but I’m not the one making her cry. This is what she needs, this cathartic release.
I reach for the paddle, hold it firmly in my grip, and whack the underside of her thighs. She screams in surprise, but I don’t give her time to settle. I spank her again, and again. My stomach clenches and my cock lengthens. I could take her right here, right now, but she needs more. I paddle her with firm, deliberate strokes, alternating where and how I strike her. She’s crying softly now, but she no longer flinches with the smack of the paddle. She’s primed, floating into her submission, the place where I can take her deeper and further away from her pain. I give her another, harsher stroke, and she barely moves. A second, and a third. Minutes pass, and the only sound is the smack of wood on skin and her heavy breathing.
I place the paddle down on the bed and massage her inflamed skin. She hisses at the touch of my palm raking across her punished ass. I pat her rounded bottom in approval. “Stay there,” I instruct, moving back to the drawer and taking out a riding crop. This will be practically play after what she’s taken, but it’s the varied sensation she needs tonight.
One snap of the crop and she moans, a second, and she whimpers. One after the other, I lay stripes across her ass, the little square of leather marking her already pink skin. Rounds with the crop give way to another with the flogger, then another with the paddle. Time ticks on and I’m careful not to hurt her, never striking her lower back, watching the rise of color carefully. Sweat breaks out along my brow, and I’m panting from the exertion. I’ve primed her well enough not to hurt her. It’s a thorough session she’ll feel, but she won’t be harmed.
“You’re brave, doll,” I approve, running my hand along my artwork.
She mumbles something incoherent. It’s what I want to hear, a signal to me she’s entering subspace.
This is where I take complete control.
Chapter 11
I could weep with thanksgiving. Hell, I think I might be. I feel something split wide open in my chest and the dark emotions that have held me in bondage break apart when the pain permeates my entire being. I crave this, but I fight it. I have to. Even when I screamed and pled with him to stop, he kept on, beating my ass, my bruised and welted skin tame compared to the ache I feel in my heart and chest. I’m not even sure I want anything else but to crawl up on his chest and soak in every bit of the aftercare he gives me. I can’t think. My mind is swirls and colors and jumbled thoughts I can’t hold, but I embrace this freedom.
Sometimes I need to feel pain to bear it.
Free. Flying. I’m flying.
“Baby,” I hear but he’s speaking in a tunnel somewhere in the distance. I nod, needing more somehow, and when I feel his fingers plunge in my core I know yes. I need that final closure on my release. He lifts me in his arms and kisses me fiercely, the prickle of the whiskers that line his mouth sharp and tingly, his
hold strong, his skin damp with perspiration. He places me down on a pile of pillows, and my eyes close, enveloped in his strength, his scent, his command.
“God, I wanna fuck you,” he growls in my ear. “But ladies first.”
He props my scorched ass up with a pillow, then bends down, drawing my hardened nipple into his mouth.
Yes. God, yes.
His powerful tongue laves at the sensitive bud, then suckles and nips. I’m flying. Soaring. Seconds ago, all I could feel was euphoria, but at the feel of his hands on me I need so much more. He releases my breasts and moves along the bed, leans his beautiful body down, and lifts my pussy to his mouth.
Please, my mind begs, but I can’t say anything, my body almost completely out of my control. His scratchy whiskers scrape along the sensitive skin of my inner thighs, and God, I fucking love it, just before he pulls my clit into his mouth with a fierce suckling. I buck and writhe, and he eats me out until my body tenses and I writhe beneath him, He pins me down, rakes his tongue up the length of my slit once, twice, and I’m so primed, at the third stroke, I shatter.
The power of my climax is so hard it almost hurts, every muscle spasming while ecstasy courses through me. I can’t speak.
Zack.
I love you.
I climax so hard and long it feels never-ending until I finally collapse. He’s on top of me, then, holding his large, muscular frame just barely controlled over mine. “Fucked you with my mouth,” he says in my ear. “Need to take this pussy. Jesus, doll, watching you come like that almost made me lose control.” He quickly unfastens the bindings at my wrists.
I beam at him, though I can’t talk. Almost. He won’t actually lose control.
I spread my legs wide, smiling in anticipation of being filled by him. He holds himself just at my entrance, captures my wrists, and his mouth kisses my neck at the same moment he plunges into me. He thrusts and moans and I rise to meet him, sated now that I’m being filled by him. My master. My sir. My love. Frenzied, rapid pulses between my legs and he’s grunting, groaning, then the deep growl emanates from deep within me as he climaxes. He releases my wrists and without thought, my arms encircle his neck and his forehead drops to mine. No one understands what I need like he does.
He pulls out of me and I know he does something to clean me up, but I don’t know how he does it or how long he’s gone, I just know that I’m clean, marked, naked.
Safe.
He climbs into bed and holds a cup of water to my mouth. I start shivering, and he pulls me up to the side of his chest, my skin flush against his, the little hairs on his chest tickling me, and his arms wrap around me. I crook one knee up, my arm draped around the expanse of his chest, and kiss whichever part of him I can reach. His chest, his shoulder, and then my eyes are too heavy to keep open. I float, drifting off into a dreamless sleep.
I wake the next morning and find myself wrapped all up in Zack. Our legs are entangled, my hair all over the place, and his eyes are still closed. Is he awake?
There’s one way to tell. I slide my hand under the blanket until I can find his cock, ramrod straight and ready for action. I giggle.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” I whisper. “Come on, buddy. I wanna play.”
His lips quirk up and he snorts, his voice gritty with sleep as he rumbles, “Did you just seriously call my dick buddy?”
“He’s my best friend,” I murmur sleepily, squealing as his hand snakes down and gives my ass a punishing squeeze.
“Oh shit am I sore. Shiiiiiit. God, you worked me over good.”
He opens one eye and nods. “Mhm.” He sobers. “You needed it.” I remember, then, why, and a touch of my post-subspace bliss vanishes.
“I did,” I whisper. “Any news today?”
He shakes his head. “Haven’t gotten me and my buddy out of bed yet,” he says, and though his lips twitch, his eyes are more serious.
“What time is it?”
“Time for a round two,” he says, rolling me over. Good thing I’m naked, because it sure as hell makes things a little quicker. He’s in me already, and my ass screams a protest against his soft sheets, but it feels so good to have him in me like this that I’m already pulsing with need, my breasts swelling, and in record time, we both topple into climax, bedhead and all.
“Mmm, tiger,” I say, running my purple fingernails along his back. “You’ve got quite the appetite.” His body weight presses against me. God, it feels good, like the comfort of a weighted blanket, and his head nuzzles against my breasts. I twirl my fingers in his soft brown hair and I can’t help but give it a little tug.
“You may’ve just fucked me boneless, but I’m still your dom, brat,” he growls.
I bite my lip and my heart flutters.
My dom. My boyfriend. He wants more than that, though.
To so many right now, he’s my fiancé.
Why can’t he be that to me?
“Yes, sir,” I say. I run my fingers along his scalp, gently at first, then weaving through the thick, honey-colored hair, then down to his neck. He sighs, and my hands go to his shoulders, tracing along the edges of the stark black tattooed wings that spread along his back.
“What does your tattoo mean?” I whisper. He has many, but this is the one I want to know about. I feel his whole body tense atop mine. Then he breathes in deep and lets out a deep, shuddering breath.
“I got that tat on my eighteenth birthday.” In my mind’s eye I envision Zack, with the same deep brown eyes and serious-stern expression on his face, maybe totally clean-shaven and a little slimmer than he is now. I’ve asked him about the tattoos before, and he’s always shrugged and told me he’d explain some day. It seems that day is now. I listen reverently, knowing that somehow this moment is sacred.
“It’s in memory of my older sister.”
I open my mouth and almost speak what immediately comes to my mind. He has one sister, Tia, and she’s younger than he is. He doesn’t have two sisters. But thankfully, reality dawns a split second later and I realize what he’s saying. I close my eyes briefly, a lump forming in my throat, then flutter my lids open. If he’s brave enough to tell me, I’m brave enough to listen.
“She died my senior year in high school.”
“Zack,” I whisper. My voice is ragged, not asking for anything, but telling him I’m here. I’m listening.
“She got involved with the wrong crowd. My parents knew she was doing shit she shouldn’t be when she was a junior, and they tried to get involved, but they’re older. They didn’t get married until later in life, so by the time they had us, they were already much older than most other parents who had teens. So anyway, when Alicia told them she wasn’t doing anything wrong, they believed her. Well, I knew better. But what could I do? I was her kid brother.”
He lifts his head from my chest and lays both hands beneath his chin, still resting on me, the beautiful expanse of his muscled shoulders reminding me he’s all man, but the boy who lost his sister still kindles in his eyes. “Her boyfriend was into drugs, just pot at first. His friends were into heavier shit. When she began college, she partied on the weekends, and by then she was too far gone. She OD’d.” He looks away for a minute and I watch as his Adam’s apple bobs. His voice comes out in a hoarse whisper. “I was the one that found her. I went out looking for her when she didn’t come home one night, and my mother was frantic. She’d been trying to make it home, they think. But she didn’t.”
I don’t try to wipe away the tears that fall unchecked. I can picture her, a feminine version of the man now in front of me, long hair, and those beautiful brown eyes framed with longer lashes.
He takes in another shuddering breath. “So, on my eighteenth birthday, I got this tat. Wings for Alicia. Her initials scrolled underneath.” He chuckles. “My mom was furious. Thinks tats are some kinda mark of the devil.” He shrugs. “My dad, he got it.” He pauses, and his brows draw together. “Never told anyone before.”
“Why not?” I ask.
He looks to me with a sad smile on his lips. “No one’s ever asked, until you.”
He puts his hand on my chest again and I squeeze him, so hard it almost hurts. He looks up at me and his eyes grow serious. “Beatrice. I’ve wanted to take things deeper with you for a while.”
“I know,” I whisper.
He reaches his fingers to my chin, his index finger lifting it up just enough so I can’t look away. “It’s time, doll.”
I have no words and can only nod. His phone rings, a ringtone I’ve never heard before, and he knifes up in the bed.
“Need to take that.” And he’s gone, pulling on a pair of boxers with one hand while grabbing his phone with the other, and I watch as he leaves the room. I can’t hear a word he’s saying, and I want to, but as I push myself up in bed, the only thing I feel right now is pain. He’s whipped me good, two days in a row, but for some reason I love it. I close my eyes and slide back down on his sheets, feeling the deep throb in my ass, similar to the familiar, rewarding ache I get after I’ve worked out hard at the gym.
He’s marked me as his.
I look around his room while I hear him talking in the other room, his voice rising and falling. He seems a little angry about something, but he’s a detective, so I know there are things that get under his skin from time to time.
How can I have been with him for so long and never been here before? It isn’t because he hasn’t asked me. But until very recently… I simply wasn’t ready. Not ready to let down my walls and show him who I really am, and my entire life I was the spoiled princess. It wasn’t until college that I realized no, it wasn’t who I was, I would not marry some rich, pompous asshole or even a rich nice guy. I never could decipher who wanted me for money, so when I went off on my own I was determined I would be me. Beatrice Ann Moore. Yoga instructor, loyal friend, and hairdresser extraordinaire.