The bruisers responded to the sound of the sirens too. One of them rushed to pull Donna to her feet and the other three backed away in a synchronized move speaking to the fact they’d done this kind of thing before. They vanished down the nearest alley. Michael wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, leaning forward to spit into the street like a commoner, and turned to stare at the limo. McKenzie shrank back, even though there was no way he could see past the darkened glass. She saw his lips move and he and Jackson were in motion. The locks snapped open. His other lackey was going to be left to deal with the police, spinning them some kind of story to cover Michael and leave her no recourse. Putting her face in her hands, McKenzie cried some more, whether out of relief or terror or resignation. She just didn’t know. The vehicle dipped under the men’s weight and the doors shut almost in sync.
“Your salary just doubled, Jackson. Smart thinking.”
“Just following orders, Mr. Webster. And I didn’t want any harm to come to Miss McKenzie. But thanks.”
McKenzie felt Michael’s hands on her upper arms, drawing her to him, against him, and he dropped his chin to rest on the crown of her head. She didn’t lower her hands and couldn’t stop the tears either. Jackson wouldn’t be affected one way or the other. He’d driven for them often and Michael treated the man as being blind and deaf, stripping McKenzie in the car and demanding anything sexual entering his head in the moment. He once had Jackson pull over to let them out on an isolated road and had the driver hold her hands through the window of the car while Michael took her from behind. McKenzie could still remember the heat of the door panel against belly and thighs and the echoing heat in Jackson’s eyes as he devoured the sight, awakening the exhibitionist in her. Michael now pulled her closer and her heart pulsed in tandem to his, the hard ridge of his cock beneath her bottom picking up the beat. They remained in that position until the car pulled over and stopped.
“Baby? We’re home. Come on, you need to get out.” Michael’s warmth deserted her as he leaned her forward. McKenzie forced her hands down to look around. They were parked front of his apartment building. She couldn’t make herself move another muscle.
“McKenzie?” Michael’s breath huffed out in obvious frustration, cradling her body against his chest again. Jackson was there to open the door and Michael transferred her to the driver so he could climb out of the limo. He then took her back, lifting her with apparent ease, telling the other man to park the car and take the rest of the day off. He set off across the sidewalk and into the building. She shut her eyes against the interested and speculative looks in the lobby and when she next opened them they were in the elevator. Michael lowered her to her feet and she saw him grimace and remembered that kick to his ribs. McKenzie came back to herself in that moment.
“I’m sorry, Michael. I can walk. Sorry.”
He looked down and her breath caught at the damage to his beautiful face. She carefully reached up and touched fingertips to one particularly nasty bruise near his right eye, pulling back at his tiny wince of pain, and catalogued his other overt injuries. The elevator doors slid open and they walked the few feet to his home without further discussion, his hand set possessively in the small of her back.
“Come to the bathroom, Michael. Let me take care of you.”
* * * *
Michael wanted to bellow. He wanted to shout. He wanted to throw McKenzie to the floor and fuck her across it as a victory statement. Feeling nothing less than a victorious warrior or maybe a bull who’d won the right to take his female. Hell, he didn’t know. But he did know he’d better not make the wrong choice this time around. He obediently followed his woman to the powder room, sitting on the closed toilet seat at her urging. Little hands swiftly unbuttoned his shirt with remembered dexterity and pulled it down his arms and off, dropping the blood dappled fabric to the floor. McKenzie’s face was swollen from crying and tear stained. His inner sadist surprisingly took a backseat once again when normally her tears were so arousing. His woman knelt to examine what now felt like a thousand ice picks drilling into his side, gently prodding his ribs, asking him to take deep breaths. Those only felt like thumping agonies, not the shards of pain she kept asking about.
“I don’t think your ribs are cracked or broken. But they’re going to ache for a while. I’ll wrap them for you.”
Michael wondered if McKenzie would mind using those clever fingers to release his aching cock, and if she might then want to kiss it better before getting got up from her knees, but kept his mouth shut, schooling his features into what he hoped was a manly, stoic look. In truth, all the cuts and bruises were now making their presence known as the adrenaline faded, and while his ego rejoiced at how he’d handled himself in his very first street fight, Michael kind of wished cooler heads had prevailed.
McKenzie gently wiped the blood from his face with warm cloths before efficiently cleaning all the cuts with the peroxide from the medicine cabinet. She anointed them with topical antibiotic afterwards, hustling to the kitchen to make up an ice pack for his eye that was swelling to match his bottom lip. When she returned her face was different. Michael could read hope and a hint of joy. His sub was back.
“What?”
“The birds. They’re still here.”
God, what an absolute prick he’d been. “I needed to punish you, fuck with your head, McKenzie.” He stopped right there. He promised to be nothing but open and honest and not fuck things up again. Taking a deep breath he made the first attempt to put everything into words.
“I was trying to deny my true feelings for you and pushed you away. I was fighting the inevitable. I’m sorry it took me so long to give up that particular fight.”
McKenzie bit her lip and concentrated on placing the ice pack just so, and wouldn’t meet his eyes. She yanked a tensor bandage from its box and carefully bound up his aching ribs. And then there was nothing left for her to do. She eased away to lean her back against the wall.
Michael knew she took that stance to avoid sinking to her knees. The connection between them hadn’t lessened at all. If only he could come up with something to say that would be fitting. He opened his mouth and his heart did it for him, right there in the bathroom, ass on the toilet, aching in ways he’d never known in his entire life. “I love you, McKenzie.”
McKenzie’s whole body trembled but she caught herself against the sag to the floor, drawing on those reserves she’d always possessed to put up with him, to give everything to him. Ebony hair escaped the braid and hung haphazardly around her shoulders. Tears again threatened to stain her sweet face, bottom lip quivering in concert with rapidly blinking eyes. The sapphire blue was fogged behind the sheen of moisture, and she’d never looked more beautiful or enticing. Finally, “I know, Michael.”
He reached out a hand but McKenzie shook her head and tried to make the wall absorb her.
“If you know I love you, and I’ve finally come to my senses and admitted it, why are you fighting me on this?” Michael heard the acerbic bite in his tone. Even now he was being an asshole. Trying to smile, his split lip announced its presence.
Michael didn’t think McKenzie was going to answer him. A myriad of emotions chased one another across her beautiful face. “Because you love me.”
It was Michael’s turn to shake his head and it fucking well hurt. This was not going in any way as he had visualized. Didn’t McKenzie want his love? Did she only want the D/s relationship? He couldn’t go back to just that. His uncomfortable musings made him short with her again. “Quit talking in riddles, sub.”
Michael pointed to his feet and McKenzie went to her knees, although obviously against her will. Conflicted. “Answer me. Explain.”
The response came out in a rush and rocked him to the core. “You know you love me, you’ve accepted it, and you’ll hate yourself. It’ll destroy you when Andrew and Joyce are finished with me.”
Fuck, McKenzie had thought him capable. And she would have done it for him had she stayed, so had left
to spare him. That was love. Michael was ashamed, terribly guilty, and felt fucking awful. He had no right to this woman. No right to offer her his trivial self. He wanted to weep, something he hadn’t done in memory in over thirty years, and it underscored his shame, nearly making him choke. He tried, anyhow. “I would never give you to them, not to anyone again, ever. I regret sharing you with them before, sharing you with anyone. I’m an asshole. I know it now and I know why I did it, because I couldn’t let myself admit I loved you. So I acted out.”
“I want to believe you, Michael. I really do.” McKenzie raised her head to look at him, faint hope again skittering across her beloved features. “But I won’t let you do anything to harm yourself.”
Who was it who insisted subs had all the power in D/s relationships? Oh, right. Just about everyone in the whole fucking lifestyle. And when had he somehow forgotten? Oh right, just about the time he’d become a craven fucking coward. He tried harder.
“I didn’t know, McKenzie, that you’d left to save me from myself. I thought I’d driven you away. I didn’t think you’d take that threat of giving you to the twins seriously. Or probably I did and I was still being an asshole to fuck with your head. Fuck me, sweetheart. I’d come to my senses by then. Saying that was a last ditch effort to push you away again. Honestly it was. I was on my way back to ask you to marry me when...” He couldn’t continue anymore, so slid down to crouch beside McKenzie on that cold tile floor, easing an arm around her, pulling her against him, reveling in her feel and smell. He was aghast at how thin she’d become, and terrified she’d still reject him, thinking to save him from himself.
“Sweetheart?” Fuck, she was crying again, silent hot tears dripping to the floor. Michael turned her face into his shoulder and those tears damn near boiled his bones.
McKenzie hiccupped and sobbed once. “Promise me. Promise me. No contract, just a promise. Say you won’t ask anything of me that will end up hurting you.”
Once again she shook him to his core, although why he should be surprised he really didn’t know. His woman was one of kind and she’d been his and could be again. “I promise.”
“All right. I’ll stay.” It was a measure of the depth of McKenzie’s love for him she simply accepted his word. Michael was humbled to the ground before it.
Standing awkwardly in the small space, he winced against the discomfort in his ribs and McKenzie instantly rose to stand beside him, to support him. He carefully pressed a kiss on her hair, trying not to reopen his split lip. Damn those bodyguards of hers. Fucking his woman was going to be a tad uncomfortable and not just for her. He had some emotions to express on McKenzie’s ass if only he could lift his bruised and tired arms. Maybe it could wait.
Chapter Eight
Michael stood back and surveyed his handiwork with deep satisfaction. McKenzie was secured, face down, to all four posts of the bed, hips elevated on a specially designed pillow allowing him access to her pussy and ass, preventing her from sneaking an orgasm. He knew her colon was squeaky clean from the anal douche he’d insisted upon earlier, and that there wasn’t one stray pubic hair anywhere on McKenzie’s delectable cunt. He had once again overseen the waxing, denying McKenzie release despite the erotic torture by the aesthetician and his help with a little vibe. He’d planned this night for a long time. It wasn’t every day a Dom got to celebrate his wedding to the sub he loved more than life itself, and she would wait for her climax.
Drifting his fingertips from the nape of her neck down the ridge of her spine Michael smiled as McKenzie shivered in response to his touch before relaxing again in utter trust. Trust. Trust in his promise.
Picking up the specially designed butt plug he’d ordered in time for the honeymoon, a marvel of size and texture and the option of filling it with cold or hot water, Michael opted for cold, the better to make his wife shudder. He drizzled lube over her little rosebud and teased the opening with his finger, pushing in slowly, in tiny increments until into the second knuckle, then pulled out and shoved in again hard. McKenzie gave a tiny gasp and subsided. More lube and two fingers, stretching her. He pulled out and watched the ring flash pink and close, smiling to himself. The plug was going to sting.
Fitting the end to her back entrance Michael pushed the toy in with one controlled shove, the interesting ridges and swirls catching and dragging against all those nerve endings. McKenzie gasped much louder, pushing back as the plug seated deep inside. He watched as she began to adjust, only to feel the cold. She moaned, hips jerking. He thought maybe he’d pack the plug with ice chips the next time. It was damn near big enough for whole cubes, and was going to make McKenzie’s cunt nearly impossible to fit inside. But he would manage. After he tormented his sub some more. The scent of her arousal filled the room like some exotic aphrodisiac and Michael was transported.
Flicking on the remote the butterfly on her clit whined to life. “You are not to come.”
“Please, Michael.” Her plea didn’t move him, McKenzie hadn’t meant it to, but the use of his name did. She didn’t call him Master anymore, not when they scened, not even in the bedroom. He was Michael. No artificiality. Sometimes Sir Michael, which never failed to make him laugh. But always he was Michael. The warmth it elicited washed over him, soothing, all encompassing.
“No. If you do I’ll make you wish you hadn’t.” The scented response from her pussy at his dark threat had him reaching to shove two digits up her, the passage eased by her copious cream, seeking her Gspot.
She wailed, begging him to stop or let her come. Michael feathered one last touch over the spongy surface and withdrew, smiling again as she huffed and squirmed. “You’ll wait.”
That hint he wouldn’t withhold forever settled McKenzie. It was visible in her body language, so of course he decided to ramp things up, choosing the paddle, the one with the multitude of holes drilled into it for optimum sting. He went for the gusto, wielding the implement with abandon, laying accurate, measured swats on her ass until the velvet skin pinked wildly, the color deepening into a lovely shade of crimson. She cried and sobbed and gushed her need until his cock couldn’t be denied. Michael crawled between her widespread legs and pushed the pillow until she was humped high, sweet ass in the air, stretched taut at all four corners of the restraints. He notched himself at her opening and began the battle for territory, stroking against the big plug taking up so much space, feeling the little vibrations of the butterfly and hearing his wife whimper and plead. McKenzie took him to the hilt. He didn’t give her any time to adjust, but thrust and shoved and muffled his groans the best he could to better hear hers. Sensing his climax warn at the base of his spine, his balls practically sizzled. Somehow fumbling the remote onto the fastest speed he dropped his weight on McKenzie, the plug and his cock meeting high in her body, and she came at his command. Michael vaguely heard his wife scream of release and then there was the spasming and clenching of her channel around him before his brains boiled out the end of his cock. Fuck.
It took a few minutes, but he managed to push up and give McKenzie an opportunity to breathe, then released the binds. She lay spent, crucified, flawless skin coated with perspiration, rosy ass glowing around the plug, and his cock actually twitched as if in preparation for another round. Lifting his wife’s limp form, Michael staggered into the bathroom, the Jacuzzi tub softly foaming in the corner. Getting them both inside without dropping her, he held McKenzie close to kiss first her eyelids and then her mouth. Fuck, he’d forgotten the butterfly. Adjusting her body so he could ease it off, Michael dropped the vibrator onto the tiled floor where the toy vibrated its last. He carefully extracted the plug, setting the glass item on the ledge where it couldn’t fall and shatter, finally settling back with McKenzie in his lap, her head tucked against his shoulder. She snuggled in with a deep sigh.
“Happy wedding night, wife.”
“Mmmm.”
Michael picked her left hand up out of the water and gloated over the blue diamond above the thick wedding band, then t
urned his attention to the ones decorating the new platinum rings in her nipples. He knew without looking the bigger one on her clit hood would be glittering against McKenzie’s pussy folds and thought he’d have her play with it for him later. He too wore a band around the ring finger on his left hand, as significant as the one McKenzie accepted from him. He felt claimed and well loved. Michael Webster belonged to someone.
They drifted together in the huge tub. The wedding had been fairly contained by Michael’s society standards. He solved the numbers issue by arranging a secret destination wedding and providing transportation to those invited at the last minute so as to avoid the press and the hangers on. It was his biggest gift to McKenzie he knew, thrilled to have given it. Well, maybe not the biggest gift. He accompanied her to the drycleaners once she’d gathered up courage to face her rescuers.
The human heart never ceased to amaze Michael, having discovered he actually possessed one. Not one of those people judged his woman. They looked searchingly at McKenzie, then him, and the large woman, Donna, the one who’d nearly taken his private detective down, moved first. She gathered McKenzie close, speaking quietly in his woman’s ear.
“I’m fine. He figured it out.” Michael heard McKenzie’s clear, certain answer, and his body went slack with relief. There would be no shame or doubt for his woman. She’d smiled brilliantly and turned into his arms. He had said what was in his head and heart.
“You’re all invited to the wedding.”
McKenzie shivered in response and no matter how much Michael wanted his woman to serve him forever, he so wanted to continually please her and feel that delight for the rest of his days.
The Right Thing Page 8