by Kit Rocha
Exhaling slowly, she forced herself to unwind. Not so difficult with Bren stroking her inside and out, setting off tiny trembles as arousal made everything bright and blurry. The next blow thudded against her back, warming her skin.
When she didn't tense, he did it again. And again.
It wasn't pleasure, not really. But it wasn't pain, either, even when the deerskin fell harder the next time, turning warmth to heat. Bren's gaze roamed her face, watching for the slightest twitch of reaction, and that made her clench tight around his fingers, impossibly turned on by being the center of so much intensity.
His chest rumbled, and he reached up to gather her hair, winding its length around his fist. "It's not the flogging getting you this wet, not yet."
"N-no--" Another thud, and her eyelids fluttered shut. She could imagine Ace behind her, as alert as Bren to the slightest hint of distress. Two people utterly focused on her, on something beyond mere pleasure. Bren was building an experience for her, managing every possible detail, and every time the deerskin tails thwacked against her skin, it reminded her how far beyond her control this moment was, and how utterly safe she still felt.
"Lower," Bren commanded, and the next blow landed across the top of her ass, teasingly light again but somehow more sensual. Or maybe it was the reminder that her ass was bare, and even with her pants clinging to her thighs she was more on display than she'd ever been.
But not for Ace's gratification. For her own, and that made all the difference.
He hit her again and she moaned, squirming on Bren's hand.
"It's illicit, isn't it?" Bren whispered, rocking his hand to slowly pump his fingers in and out of her. "That's why you're this damn wet."
The gentle friction sparked colors behind her eyelids, colors that danced as the fall of the flogger settled into a hypnotic rhythm, one she felt in her bones. "You have me," she choked out, hating that they weren't the right words, but knowing he'd somehow understand. "It's for me."
"Every fucking bit of it."
All for her. All about her, about this fuzzy feeling spreading out toward her fingertips, a welcome sort of giddiness. After so many fucking years of constant, exhausting fighting, it was bliss to close her eyes and trust someone else to give her all the things she was too afraid to reach for herself.
Bren's hand twisted harder in her hair as he sped his movements, fucking her with his fingers, and his voice buzzed in her ears. "Don't stop when she comes."
Firm and commanding and perfectly in control. She opened her eyes for long enough to meet his gaze, and the heat and intensity there were all it took.
Bren had control, so she lost hers.
Her body must have remembered her promise on some level, because she screamed when she came, and not all sexy, breathless noises. She was lost in a full-fucking-body orgasm, and the noises ripping free of her throat were loud, raw, and so relieved, like she'd been holding in a lifetime's worth of moans.
She wasn't holding anything in now.
A strong hand wrapped around the back of her neck--Bren, pulling her close to his chest to stop her writhing. "For both of us, Six." His breath blew hot on her ear. "You don't have to fight. Let me do it for you."
Let him fight. Let him--
The soft deerskin tails smacked against her skin, scattering her thoughts. It didn't matter, she didn't need to have thoughts. She turned her face to his neck, rested her cheek on his shoulder, and let the aftershocks build toward another wild peak. She wallowed in the rhythmic pressure against her back and Bren's broad, twisting fingers, and she rewarded both men with abandoned moans and whimpers.
They deserved them. They'd earned this, the only thing she'd always selfishly held back because it was the one thing that was hers. Her reactions, naked and on display--even when Bren flexed his fingers inside her and murmured a single word of encouragement. "More."
She didn't know who the command was meant for, but she was so close to the edge that she snapped. She came longer this time, deeper, wailing through the pleasure and sobbing when it started to fade only for Bren to bring it back with another turn of his wrist.
Sobbing--but not telling them to stop. Part of her hoped they never would, that she could spend the rest of her life floating in this moment, the first moment in her life made of nothing but pleasure and safety.
The rest of her only wanted it to end so she could do it all over again.
She was still trembling through the aftershocks of a hard, powerful orgasm, but she wasn't done. "One more," Bren whispered, dizzy on her pleasure, high on the fact that she'd writhed, screamed, clung to him--
But she hadn't pulled away.
She made a choked noise, small and wild, and her fingernails bit into his shoulders. Ace met his gaze over the top of her head, giving Bren a moment to anchor Six against his body before landing another gentle blow with a practiced flip of his wrist.
"Harder." She was spinning, off in the clouds, and gentle--from either of them--wasn't going to cut it anymore. "You can take it now, can't you, sweetness?"
She panted, hips twitching restlessly as her pussy clenched tight and sweet around him. "Yes, yes. Yes."
Ace nodded and adjusted effortlessly, increasing the strength of his blows in small enough increments for Bren to judge her response by her strangled breathing and trembling limbs, and the noises--Christ, the noises. He'd never known she could make so many sounds.
They only intensified as he waited for Ace to lift his arm. Just as the flogger was coming down to strike, Bren pressed his thumb to her clit in a hard, slippery circle.
She cried out, the sound cut off abruptly when she twisted her head and bit his shoulder, sparking a different sort of pleasure. She came like that, muffling her screams against his skin as her pussy soaked his hand, tight but so damn wet he could have easily worked a third finger into her.
Instead, he eased her through shudders that didn't end, not until he fell still and then carefully slid his fingers free of her body.
But she was still shivering, so Bren petted her and kissed her temple while Ace dropped a blanket around her bare shoulders.
Afterward, he settled on the couch beside them, the flogger resting across his knees. "Gotta admit, brother, I wasn't quite expecting that."
"Which part?"
The corner of Ace's mouth twitched up. "Maybe you wouldn't see it. You're as stone-faced as she is...usually."
Usually. "I'll give her anything she wants. All of me."
Ace absorbed that as Six murmured and pressed closer. But she didn't lift her head, and when she nuzzled her face against Bren's throat again, Ace smiled. "Dallas said I'd be laying ink on her soon enough."
"Her cuffs." It was too soon to talk about marks--too soon to think about them, especially when Six could still feel trapped if he moved too fast. "Plenty of time for the rest of it, right?"
"Plenty of time for what?" Six mumbled, her lips tickling Bren's throat.
He tilted her head back and couldn't help but smile at her flushed cheeks and sleepy eyes. "To find out what else you might be into. Pain might not do it for you, but plenty of other things do."
"You do it for me." Her gaze flicked to Ace and back. "And I still want to see what does it for you."
She already knew--all the bites and scratches, every time her eyes had darkened at his indrawn breaths. But the look in her eyes said she wanted to see it taken further, as far as he would go. "Not the deerskin," he murmured. "I like something heavier. Something that stings."
Ace was already rising, but Six ignored him, tracing her finger along Bren's lower lip instead. "Tell me what it feels like for you."
"Heat." The word escaped him without thought. "That adrenaline rush you get when it starts to hurt? It's like a green light. Everything gets going."
She pulled back and clutched the blanket around her shoulders. "Show me?"
Bren swallowed--hard. So far, she'd seen him relish only the tiniest hint of pain, and what he craved was nothing like the c
areful blows Ace had rained on her back.
The moment of truth.
He climbed off the couch and reached for his belt. "It's not always pretty, sweetness. Not like you were just now."
Six tilted her head back and lifted her hands, nudging his out of the way to work the supple leather of his belt. "If I wanted pretty, I'd be fucking Ace or Mad. Pretty doesn't get me hot."
"Poor Ace. He can hear you, you know." The skin just under her chin was soft, so soft, and Bren stroked it with the backs of his fingers until she slid his belt free of the loops.
He took it out from her hands and stepped back, all the way to the heavy steel frame on the other side of the room. It had built-in leather shackles, but Bren ignored them and slung his belt over the top of the frame instead.
"The braided bull hide," he told Ace, who was hovering by the racks, waiting on the instruction. The leather was heavy, with edges sharp enough to sting.
With a nod, Ace retrieved the flogger and gave it a few lazy test swings before slapping the tails lightly against his palm. "How much warm-up do you want?"
The fingers on his right hand were still slippery from Six's pussy, and he rubbed them over the leather as he gripped it. "Not much. My dick already fucking hurts."
"Yours and mine both, brother," Ace drawled good-naturedly as he moved to stand behind him. "Say the word."
Six watched them, fascinated, from her perch on the couch, and a rumble rose in Bren's chest. "Now."
The first hit was slow, a heavy thud that vibrated through him until his teeth clacked together. The second was just a little bit faster. With every swing, Ace sped his arm until the flogger whistled through the air to strike with stinging precision.
Bren had to close his eyes against the rush. Not pleasure, not exactly, but arousal of the most primal, primitive sort--his body preparing itself to engage the most instinctive of drives.
Survival. Sex. For him, in these moments, they were the same damn thing.
Sweat broke out on his lip, his forehead. It sheened his back, and the stinging intensified as it mingled with leather falling on existing welts. Not cuts--Ace was too careful for that--but just enough abrasion for the salt to burn.
Bren drew a shuddering breath and jerked with the next blow. He'd never hit the wall this fast, careening straight to the plateau where the pain swirled around him in a heady rush.
Ace's voice broke through the fog, low and careful. "How about a breather, brother?"
Don't stop. He didn't realize he said the words aloud until he heard the harsh grind of his own voice. It brought some things rushing back into sharp focus--the bite of leather around his hands, his unsteady breathing--
And Six.
He opened his eyes. She'd kicked free of her pants at some point and was curled inside the blanket, watching him with flushed cheeks and parted lips. When her gaze locked with his, heat greeted him, heat and wonder and need.
She wet her lips and shifted to her knees, ignoring how it made the blanket gape wide. "Can I touch you like you touched me?"
The lash at his back, and her mouth-- "Get over here."
Her eyes sparked with something fierce as she rose and stalked to him, utterly naked and not the least bit vulnerable. She stopped so close she had to tilt her head back to meet his gaze, but she didn't touch him.
She waited.
If she had her way, she'd already have her hands on him--he could see it in every trembling line of her body, in the way her hands flexed at her sides.
But she didn't have her way. She had his.
"Suck my cock," he rasped. "I want to fuck your face before I fuck your pussy."
Six folded her knees, sinking to the floor without looking away. Her hand came up, fingers curling hot and firm around his shaft, and she stroked him once before leaning in until her breath shivered across his cock.
"You dirty fucker," she murmured, the words hoarse with approval.
Then she sucked him into her mouth.
His head swam with dizzy pleasure that redoubled when the flogger whistled through the air again. He'd had just enough time to settle, for the nerves in his skin to stop singing, but the sharp strike of leather brought them roaring back to life.
Six drew him deeper, slowly at first, but as Ace resumed his pace she began to match it, sucking hard in the stinging aftermath of a strike, watching his face as if riveted by his reaction.
Arching away from the wicked leather tails thrust him farther into her mouth, harder. The first time she gagged, the sound twisted up with the pain and the pleasure and the moment, jolting through him like a shock. She'd asked for this, watched Dallas choke Rachel with his cock and begged for the same damn thing.
He couldn't hold the back of her head, but he leaned into the thrust, lingering instead of drawing back. She pushed into him, gagged again, and only then asked for respite with a soft brush of her fingers against his hip.
It sent him spinning, that single, gentle touch, and Bren groaned as the heat and pain melted into something else entirely, something warm and vague. It crashed over him like a storm, loud thunder and gusts of sensation that threatened to blow him off his feet.
Enough. This time, he couldn't hear the word through the pounding in his ears, wasn't sure he'd managed to say it at all.
But Ace knew. The flogging stopped, and he spoke a moment later, quiet words Bren barely registered. "Give him a few seconds. He doesn't like to go too far up."
Her touch vanished, only to return as a warm cheek pressed against his hip.
Bren let go of one end of his belt. It slithered off the frame, and he swayed at the sudden release of the tension in his arms, his body. Ace and Six both steadied him as he drew in one deep, bracing breath after another.
Ace murmured something else, and Six wrapped both arms around Bren. Wood scraped across the carpet, and one of the padded benches bumped the backs of his legs. "Sit," Ace advised, managing to make it sound like a suggestion instead of an outright order.
"Too wobbly," Bren muttered, then laughed and dropped to the bench. Of course he was--weak as a newborn, shaking like a leaf. He'd taken it too far and almost slipped into the gray haze beyond pain.
"Wobbly, but still amazing." Six's fingers smoothed over his forehead, brushing his hair back. "You're better than pretty. You're...everything."
"I can't stand up straight."
"I know." She laughed and leaned down to kiss the top of his head. "That's why I'm being all mushy, Donnelly. You better enjoy it."
A little high on endorphins, maybe, but not helpless. He drew her down across his lap, smiling when his erection nudged her hip. "I enjoy it. But I'm not done with you yet."
Her breathing hitched as she pressed her forehead to his. "You mean getting me off a million times wasn't enough for you?"
The truth was stark, blunt--and there was no going back from it. "It'll never be enough."
She stilled, silent for long enough for his head to clear. Her lips parted, and she whispered two words, soft and shy, like an offering. "Me too."
Her mouth was hot and open beneath his, and he fell into kissing her. Even when Ace touched him again, smoothing cool gel over his back and shoulders, Bren took his time lifting his head.
"I can stick around for a while if you need me," Ace offered as he finished his work. "You were pretty cranked up, brother."
The dazed rush had already begun to fade. "It's all right." Bren turned his head to meet the other man's gaze. "I'm solid now."
They both understood the rules, but this was one where Ace was unwavering and more than willing to overrule Bren. The artist studied him in silence before nodding abruptly. "If you need anything, I'll be in my studio."
Presumably after he'd made a detour to take care of his sexual frustration. "I owe you one, man."
"Not even a little." Ace winked at Six. "It was our pleasure, wasn't it, fighter-girl?"
She refused to laugh it off. Her voice still husky, she said, "We both owe you one."
Ace snorted and shook his head. "Have fun, you two." The door slammed behind him.
Bren rose, Six still in his arms, and crossed to lock the door again. "Did we answer your questions tonight, sweetness?"
"A lot of them." She locked her ankles at the small of his back and hissed in a breath as his cock ground against her pussy. "My flogging didn't really hurt, but I don't know if I'd have wanted it much harder. But for you..." She tilted her head back to look at him. "Do you really think Ace would teach me?"
"In a heartbeat."
"Then I'll learn." Her legs tightened as she lifted herself high enough to catch his mouth in a quick kiss. "I mean, I'll suck you off while he's beating you if that's your favorite thing, but I'm a possessive bitch. I want to be the one who makes you wobbly."
She already did, with every smile and wondering touch. "You might find out that you like it."
"Of course I will. It'll get you off." Her mouth found his ear. "And I'll look badass with a whip."
"Smartass."
She laughed and bit his ear. With his entire body sensitized, the nip made him shudder, and he gripped her hips harder. The sharp edges of her teeth vanished, replaced by the soft press of lips. "Will you bend me over something and fuck me already?"
Flippant words, but there was a very real plea behind them. So Bren stopped by the end of the couch and let her slide slowly down his body until her feet hit the floor. As soon as they did, he turned her and bent her upper body over the padded arm.
She went up on her toes, nudging his erection with a groan. "You've got too damn much self-control."
He bent over her before answering, sliding his cock against the small of her back. "You love it."
That earned him a snarl as she slammed her head back into his shoulder. "Do not."
He shifted his hips so that his cock slid between her legs this time, against the slick heat of her pussy. "Feels like you do."
"Bren."
It was worth waiting to hear that desperate edge in her voice. "Yeah? You want something?"
She panted and let her head fall forward, baring the back of her neck as her hair swung down to shield her expression. "I'm the one who's already gotten off. I can outlast you."