by Anna del Mar
“She said on the phone that she likes the bar,” he said.
“Right away.” Eva led me to the room’s opposite corner.
Oh, my God! Eva was staying and there was little I could do about it. But even if I’d had the chance, I wouldn’t have protested. I couldn’t risk Eva finding out I was an impostor and kicking me out before I had a chance to talk to Josh.
A new beam of light illuminated a strange contraption, a horizontal bar set across two tall poles and bolted to the floor. Eva unhooked my hands from behind my back and, lifting them above my head, notched the cuffs’ rings to the bar with a sound click. I stood on the balls of my feet, fastened to the crossbar, facing the mirrored wall.
I drew in a calming breath. Think of Josh. Think of yourself. So this was going to take a little bit more effort than I had first anticipated, a little more flexing on my part.
Okay. Alright. I thought of my mother’s favorite slogan: You’ve come a long way, baby.
“So what do you think?” Eva asked.
“You did well,” the man in the shadows said. “She looks a lot like L—like she should.”
My heart revved up. I was sure he’d been about to say my name. I just knew he was thinking about me. He had to be. The only reason why he had called Rachella was because she looked like me. It was both disturbing and encouraging at the same time.
“What will be your pleasure?” Eva said.
“How about a warm-up session,” he said without a hint of emotion. “I could use the visuals.”
“What do you think, honey?” Eva said. “Are you up for it?”
Rachella’s tastes were likely to be very different from mine. I had to keep on playing the part. I nodded.
“Good girl.” Eva sauntered over the dresser and out of my field of vision. “You’re eager to please. I like that.”
My best case scenario was that Josh would recognize me within the next few moments. Surely, he would. I mean, Rachella and I had some similarities, but he had to know it was me. Right?
He’s exhausted, wiped out, completely and absolutely fatigued. Baez’s words returned to haunt me. Don’t expect much from him. He’s in no condition to face you.
What would happen if he didn’t recognize me?
Fear iced my bones all the way down to my toes.
Eva’s touch took me by surprise.
“Nice ass.” She stroked my private cheeks. “But I can make it even more striking.”
Whack. I flinched with the sting. It caught me completely unprepared. I hadn’t seen the short black crop in Eva’s hands. It didn’t hurt, not really, and yet it had me reeling all the same.
“Your skin blushes easily.” She massaged off the sting. “You’ll be so easy to rouge.”
She matched the first stroke with another whack. This time, I was expecting it. But if I’d braced for one strike, I was in for another surprise. She kept going, switching me thoroughly, until I leaned away from her, gasping for breath.
“Have some pride.” Eva’s crop struck again. “Show off your ass. Show me how brave you are.”
Brave, yes, Josh liked brave. I planted my feet apart and offered up my ass. My whole body squeezed when she struck again. I went mad with keen sensations. It was strange. Something in me rebelled against the crop, but a primal part of me reveled in the whipping itself.
“Stand up straight.” Eva landed a sharp rap. “Arch your spine, that’s better. Widen your stance. Spread out those legs, girl.”
It was hard to balance on the high heels. I had to trust some of my weight to the bar above my head. It held, thank God, although the position added strain to my shoulders and flex to my arms.
“You like that, don’t you?” Eva worked the crop up my thighs, her nipples sharp against her white dress. Her cheeks flushed with excitement and her breath came in short bursts. The scent of arousal wafted from her, as enthralling as the touch of the crop.
The sting felt more acute on the sensitive flesh between my legs. I flinched and balked a little. My teeth bit down on the gag. My mouth tasted like rubber, dry and stark. But the lewd woman in the mirror was something else, obscene, yes, but also proud, strong and beautiful.
“Does she impress you as she should?” Eva asked.
“Not really,” the man in the shadows said.
My God, here I was, strung up, whipped, flushed and needy, and yet he sounded bored.
How could his flat voice be so familiar and yet so foreign? How could his words feel so cold and lifeless when every cell in my body reacted to his voice so powerfully?
Eva circled around then stood before me with her feet braced apart and her hands on her hips. “How about a little more passion?”
With a sudden slap, the crop’s leather tongue landed on the skimpy strip of lace covering my pubis. I reared with the smack. Eva struck again, and the rap reverberated through my body in tiny explosions. The heat in my sex kindled with every slap. My clit swelled. My sex moistened. I resisted the impulse to close my legs, giving in to an incomprehensible urge to stick out my hips.
“Oh, yeah.” Eva cooed. “She likes it. Should we add a little zing to the tassels?”
She struck the tassel dangling from one of my nipple clamps. I gasped. The tassel swung back and forth, making little circles in the air, pulling on the clamp that tormented my exquisitely sensitive flesh.
“Nice, yes?” Eva clutched my breasts and rouged the flesh around my areola with the crop.
I whimpered. If anyone had told me that I’d be sexually aroused by an exquisitely localized whipping, I would’ve drawn back in horror. If anyone had suggested that the strike of a lash somehow belonged to the realm of pleasure, I might have laughed. As it was, I’d blundered into discovery. I flared like a three-alarm fire beneath the crop’s relentless touch.
“It’s time we took a look,” Eva said. “Let’s see how far along you’ve come.”
She slid her hand beneath my thong and tested me with her fingers. Oh, God. My crotch was drenched. I trembled with desire. Eva’s eyes widened with appreciation.
“We’ve got a steamy little cunt down here.” She lowered her voice and, leaning in, whispered softly. “You’re such a sweet morsel.” She nibbled on my earlobe. “I hope he lets me fuck you several times in a row.”
The shiver that ran through my body left me breathless. How? When? In what way? Such were the deranged thoughts that flooded my stunned brain. The closest thing to a decent thought that came to my mind was a question. Was he really going to let her fuck me?
Eva caressed my tender ass. “She’s properly rouged and ready,” she announced. “Do you want me to get her off?”
“Not on the bar,” the man said. “I’m going to need more.”
More? I gasped. What did he mean, more?
“Would you like her on the bed?” Eva asked.
“The bed’s for ladies,” he said.
“This one’s a nice little tramp for sure,” Eva said. “How about the ottoman?”
“Fine,” he said. “Maybe that’ll do the trick.”
In all of our time together, Josh had always been aroused at the mere sight of me. And now, for all I could tell from his flat voice, he could’ve been watching the news.
Frazzled by his attitude, I missed the moment in which Eva stuck strips of black tape over the mask’s eye slits and left me reeling in the dark. I stumbled, disoriented, as she released me from the bar and clipped my hands together, this time in the front. I had an impulse to run toward the dark corner and find out who was the impostor using Josh’s voice, but I couldn’t see and Eva had a firm grasp on my wrists. She led my tentative steps across the room.
“Bend your knees,” she commanded. “Sit down.”
The ottoman’s cool surface brushed against my backside. Ice met fire when I sat. The sensation was
soothing, exciting, thrilling and shocking, all at the same time.
“Lean back,” Eva said. “That’s it.”
The ottoman’s silky fabric caressed my back. The tufted buttons dug into my skin. My spine stretched on the firm surface, decompressing as Eva secured my hands above my head and my knees at opposite sides. The rustle of steps approached. My heartbeat accelerated. My whole body contracted in anticipation of Josh’s proximity.
“Do you wish to see her begging and squirming?” Eva said.
His voice sounded very close now. “Go ahead.”
Eva’s hands slid down my neck, kneading my breasts, cupping the aching flesh around my sensitive nipples, traveling over the corset to slide over my lower belly and my thighs in a relentless advance toward my sex.
The unseen restraints fastening my knees ensured that I couldn’t shut my legs or shield myself from Eva’s explorations, even if I wasn’t sure I would’ve done either one of those things. She tugged on the stiff little bow at the front of my thong and undid the upper part, unwrapping my sex as if it were a gift. Eva’s thumb and forefinger gently pulled apart the upper part of my center fold.
Eva pressed her lips to my clit. Her hyperactive tongue glided over the tight knot until I groaned and squirmed like a fish on a hook. But it was she who seemed hooked on my clit, feeding on my fat little knob, drawing all the blood in my body to that excruciatingly sensitive spot.
I arched my back and rolled my head, pleading, for what, I wasn’t sure.
I should have been embarrassed for him to see me like this, and yet I wasn’t. In fact, a new impulse had set in and I had no control over it. The thought of him watching excited me beyond belief. I felt daring, bold and audacious, powerful, because even blind and bound, my body was the room’s centerpiece. So what if I was lewd and indecent? Wasn’t that what he’d always wanted from me?
As Eva’s tongue curled over my clit, a stern hand turned my head. I was in the middle of a feral moan when the gag abruptly left my mouth. Unrestrained, my moan echoed in the room. The gag’s absence took me by surprise, but before I could speak up, a new presence claimed my mouth, a blunt, malleable tip, a familiar flavor.
In the midst of my body’s frenzy, it occurred to me that I hadn’t really come here to talk to Josh. I’d come to make a point and that required more than words. If I was going to have a fair shot, if I was going to get through to Josh, I had to speak his language. Otherwise, I was going to lose him for good.
In that moment, it hit me. Life was not about absolute color, but rather a play of shadows. The brilliance of light sprang from the purest darkness. The genius of darkness was light. At last, I’d mastered the nuances and embraced the shadows within. And for the darkness, I was grateful.
The fear lifted. I was no longer scared. My lips tightened around his limber shaft. My tongued cradled his cock against my palate, eager to please. I went at him with the same erotic enthusiasm that Eva spent on me.
“Relax, beauty,” she mumbled. She continued to lick my clit as she peeled off the rest of my thong and slid her knuckle into me.
Her fingernail clicked against glass.
“Oh, my,” Eva said. “What’s this?”
“What?” the man said.
I might have said something if my mouth hadn’t been so full with his cock.
“She’s got a little surprise stowed in there.”
She dug out the little string, which was hidden from view because it had gotten trapped between my cheeks. She pulled. My pussy held on, but when Eva tugged again, I widened, yielding the load in two small releases.
“What beautiful ben wa balls.” Eva deposited her discoveries on my belly. “Custom made, I’m sure. Look, they have a pair of initials etched on them.”
“Jesus Christ.”
The cock in my mouth straightened into a solid beam. The color blue, cobalt blue, overtook my mind’s darkness. Josh Lane had finally arrived.
Chapter Forty-Four
Josh
Mayday, mayday, mayday. I recognized those glass balls. I recognized the initials on them as surely as I now recognized the woman lying before me. My mind spun like a chopper about to crash. My body, on the other hand, knew exactly what to do. My cock hardened to steel. I could have come on the spot.
“What the hell?”
I withdrew my cock, tucked it in my boxers and fumbled with my pants, zipping them up in utter confusion. I wanted to do something I’d never done before: I wanted to bolt. And yet my legs wouldn’t move, my erection tightened and my eyes were glued to the extraordinary sight before me.
Lily?
It couldn’t be.
The woman on the ottoman was lewd, sexy and provocative, willing to engage in the decadent practices I’d resorted to in order to erase Lily’s loss in a way that Lily herself would never condone. Strapped to the shimmering ottoman, with her blushed ass and her lustrous sex glimmering beneath the chandelier’s silver lights, this woman was hot, all the way to her erotic scent. But she couldn’t really be Lily. Could she?
Was I hallucinating?
Yes, hallucinating, that had to be it. Or maybe I was drunk. My mouth tasted sour with whisky. My stomach burned with the sting. But no, I wasn’t drunk and I knew it. I hated the taste of alcohol. I’d only taken a couple of swigs to punish myself. So what if my liver shut down? I needed the heat to counter the chill claiming my soul.
You’re going to make it, Commander, the corpsman’s voice screeched in my mind. Do you hear me? You’re going to live.
And to think at this late junction, dying still figured like a tempting alternative to living without Lily.
God, but I was tired. I could barely keep my thoughts straight. I’d made a huge effort to function through the last few months, but returning to Boston required a total break with Lily’s ghost. There was only one way of getting over the hardship of her loss. There was only one way to survive. I had to go back to being the person I’d been on the day I met Lily, the callous son of a bitch who’d kept me going for so many years.
That’s why I had called Rachella as soon as I landed in Boston. That’s why I had come to this place. That’s why I dragged myself out of the leather chair where I’d been witnessing the erotic spectacle with cold indifference.
Moments before, as I’d stood above the ottoman, watching the action, I’d known the problem wasn’t Rachella. The problem was me. I had latched onto the only woman who could destroy me with her pity. And now, all my plans went astray because madness had overtaken my senses and Lily’s ghost had materialized before me.
“Josh?” It was Lily’s voice, I was sure. “Josh, is that you? Please, don’t leave me here. Please?”
The tone of her voice. The sight of her snared on the ottoman. The craving in me. The pain in my heart. I was useless. My feet wouldn’t move. For all I knew, I was down for the count.
“Is there something amiss?” Eva said.
Damn it. Eva had no idea of what was going on. She stared at me while still toying with Lily, licking her plump little clit as if it were fashioned out of caramel.
What the hell? That was Lily she was touching, my Lily! Shock, fury and jealousy coursed through me in a surge of raw emotion.
I growled. “Leave.”
“As you wish.” Eva’s face betrayed disappointment, but she got up promptly and marched out of the room.
My thoughts scattered in all directions. Lily was here. On the ottoman. Eva had been fondling her just a moment ago. She’d whipped Lily. At my request. Christ, what had I done? I’d called Rachella but it was Lily who came.
“Josh?” Lily said.
I took a tentative step in her direction and then another. I reached out and removed the sequined mask. The sight of those indigo eyes struck me like a bullet to the heart. I staggered.
I
forced the words out of my throat. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I came to find you,” she said.
“You came to find me?”
Those eyes, they never lied. “Yes.”
“How the fuck did you get in?”
“Um, I—well—I kind of, um, borrowed Rachella’s card.”
“You did what?”
“I stalked Rachella, followed her here, told her I was your assistant and stole her membership card right before I sent her home.”
I had to close my mouth. “Have you gone crazy?”
“Um, no?”
“Goddamn it, Lily, the things you do. This is no place for you.”
“It is if you’re here.”
Her words hit me like an IED. For a full ten seconds, I didn’t know what to do.
“Could you...if you want...could you maybe...um...release me?”
What the hell was wrong with me?
I went to my knees next to the ottoman and groped with the cuffs until I managed to unclip them. My hands fumbled clumsily as I tried to undo the rest. “Lily...” My heart burned with fresh pain. “You need to leave this place.”
“I’m not leaving without you,” she said, massaging her wrists.
“Forget me.” I unfastened the knee straps. “Forget I ever existed.”
“And you?” She sat up. “Did you forget me so easily?”
She might as well have gutted me with a blunt kitchen knife. No. I had tried to forget her, but all my efforts had been for naught. Tired. I was so damn tired. My leg wobbled and my knee hurt like hell. I pushed away from the ottoman and sat down on the bed. I couldn’t deal with this, not right now, not when I was so shell-shocked and confused.
“Be smart, Lily,” I said, wearily. “I’m not good for you. You get hurt when you hang out with me. You get mad too. I’m bad news. Look at what happened to you at the cove.”
“What happened at the cove wasn’t your fault.”
She seemed so sure of that.
“Look at you now,” I said. “Look at what Eva did to you. This is my fault too.”