“Kiss me,” he said as he bent down touch to her lips with his.
She parted them, obliging him with the succulent fleshy edges of her mouth and a tongue that darted inside. It was a playful kiss—not something with mouths pressed together and opening. For a time she showered him with a small rain of tiny, loving ones, looking for some eager reply from him. But he remained aloof, not giving beyond the pain he was giving her now. When he backed away, the pulse of the earth at her feet and the pulse of the fire that brewed in her loins almost made her fall to the ground. Recovering, she remained his to tease with a barrage of invigorating jolts, from more shots at her nipples, to tugs at her labia, to a daring, pinching moment when he held her clitoris as he’d held her nipples and squeezed with his nails biting into the skin. All this she managed to absorb without a word of protest as she accepted his gifts to her.
When he finished, he smacked her ass rudely.
“Get in the house and be sure to wipe your feet. There’s wine in the fridge, grab two glasses and meet me at my chair.
Eden remained at Adam’s feet that evening, not an order she was told to obey, but because it felt natural to serve him. He didn’t decline her. He poured her wine. With her empty stomach, she was quickly as inebriated on the alcohol as she’d been in the garden from the sensations of earth. As she waited patiently for more, her hands grazed lightly over his feet.
“Do you mind?” she asked him.
“Mind that you want to rub my feet? Now that would be pretty silly wouldn’t it?” he said, looking down at her with a smile. “Then again, thanks for asking.”
While Adam read his evening paper, Eden massaged his feet and legs pouring lust and love and gratitude into the act. From that act of tenderness she received an abiding warmth. That he would allow her this close to him so soon made her feel like all the prayers of her heart were being answered. Yet, she wondered even as she received such sweetness, if he could complete the rest of her picture with the ruthless fervor she required. Or was dominating her something that would only be a rare treat, not an every moment act?
When he was finished with his paper he laid it on the floor next to her. She would have taken it away for him, but he stopped her.
“Sit.”
She felt like a puppy at his feet with his hand tousling her hair.
“Your kindness pleases me, Eden,” he said.
She was glad it had.
“It’s too bad I’ll have to punish you tonight,” he said.
“Punish me?” His abrupt comment caught her off guard. “But I …”
“Hush,” he commanded. “You have a lot coming, don’t add to it by getting insolent.
She gulped back all the questions she wanted to ask him, like: why, and what did I do? and have I displeased you?
“Don’t look so surprised. You’ve asked for this a dozen times, told me in no uncertain terms that you need to punished for disobeying me, punished for leaving Jacob, punished for being the basic brat of a slut that you are. I’m only fulfilling your need.” Sarcasm dripping from his lips, she saw nothing but cruelty from his eyes—something that far surpassed her remembrance of Jacob, though Adam’s was a different quality that simply didn’t compare well to rash and reckless men like Jacob. “You’ll go to the woodshed at the back of the property and wait for me. Don’t expect this sexual or easy. And since it’s a favor I’m doing you, you’ll thank me for it when I’m done. You have that clear?”
“Yes sir,” she said, hesitating to move.
“Go! Go now!” he ordered her. She scampered from the floor to her feet, through the living room, out the kitchen door then down the path to the broken-down shed behind the berry vines.
Eden’s lovely white form was seen from the window of the cottage prancing lithely in the moonlight. Unlike the night before when it was so difficult to see, this night bathed the brat’s body in the beauty of celestial illumination. Adam could see the ripples in her thighs, and the tautness of her ass cheeks that would be screaming with pain and heat, quivering uncontrollably before he was finished. She’d feel punished, chastised and beaten by the severity, and he imagined quite calm thereafter. It would be a calm to soothe her wounded spirit and heal what hurt. He’d have to remember not to be too taken in by her charm and that delightful willingness to serve him. He found that willingness not some feeling he had to manufacture in her, it seemed so delightfully natural. Sometimes Leanna served him with a sharp-edged tongue, but not this one. Once having won Eden as his submissive he wasn’t yet sure what would make this one unruly and rebellious, but he was certain that those colors would eventually show. They always did. By the end of the week, he fully expected to have her caught in her own darkest hour, pleading with him not to turn her away for some substantial error in her behavior that would suddenly leap out and surprise them both.
***
It was light enough outside to light her way down the brick garden path so she wouldn’t stumble, but the woodshed was as black inside as an inky cavern. She’d never been punished in a woodshed before. And what an awesome power that had to woo her. The minute she stepped in the door she felt something brush against her bare arm. Reaching for the thing, she discovered it was a strap, a wide thick length of leather that was nearly three feet long. That was only a guess since she couldn’t see a thing. She thought she heard the sound of a mouse scurrying away in the blackness and she shivered worried that another might dash across her feet. She hated mice. Trying to find a light-switch, or at the very least, a string attached to a lightblub in the ceiling, she found nothing. Her body turned cold in the musty atmosphere. It smelled of damp leaves, dust and old wood. The aloneness crept in around her, so a chill raced up her back, ending with a tickle at the base of her neck. He was going to punish her. Lay that strap across her ass with the harshness of an angry father.
Waiting nervously in the dark she was afraid to touch anything, afraid her hands would find that mouse peering at her with his night-seeing eyes. In her imaginings she thought of Adam striding down the path to perform this ancient rite between master and slave, father and child, husband and wife. She imagined herself in all three submissive roles with a master/father/husband about to make her miserable, in the end washed clean of the guilt from her gross misdeeds.
She wondered what she’d be punished for this time, there were so many things. To have informed her that he actually planned to take her up on this desire for atonement was startling. But then, why didn’t she trust him to perform? Had he been too kind? Did his style of dominance seem too easy so far? It was hard to decide.
When Adam burst through the door, Eden jumped back. She thought she heard the sound of another mouse running for its life, but she couldn’t be sure. In this atmosphere there were ghosts and varmints leaping everywhere. Turning around, she looked surprised to see her lover standing in the entrance with a lantern in his hand. He hardly looked like himself with the strange gleam of light shining on his face.
The change in him was astonishing, and she almost did a double-take. While he’d been barefoot, dressed in worn shorts and a T-shirt while they’d worked in the garden that day, he was now dressed in a pair of rugged blue jeans and old cowboy boots. He looked so much larger and more powerful than he had any other time. His broad shoulders seemed more muscled and his flesh more tanned in the glow from the lantern. She could hardly imagine him in a pinstripe suit, walking with an easy gait into a courtroom where he’d do battle in polished surroundings. Perhaps he did battle well in that sphere because he had this strength at the foundation of his character.
Staring at him in awe, his face exuded that distinctive darkness she’d grown to know well, though he seemed all the more severe with the task before him. He was so extraordinarily large in her eyes. She felt so small.
“You know what you’re being punished for?” he asked her.
“Perhaps you’d tell me,” she replied meekly. “There is so much.”
“We’ll begin with what’s personal
to me. If I ever get on to the other things isn’t really important, since I really couldn’t care less about Jacob.”
That seemed fair and reasonable, she thought, though she didn’t say a word.
“We’ll start with the first lies to me about your name and withholding facts that required me to undo half my work. If you can take enough tonight, we might get on to your foolishly letting Jacob get under your skin again. Now turn around.”
Quivering with fright, Eden turned to present her naked bottom for his view. Before her was a pile of wood—yes this was a woodshed with all the appropriate requirements.
“Bend over and spread your legs,” he ordered. “I’d suggest you brace yourself because this is going to take some time. I will tolerate some protest. But if you scream like you’re dying, I will gag you. It hurts my ears and I think it’s a little much when you consider that this is exactly what you asked for.”
“I’m not sure I asked for this,” Eden admitted sheepishly looking back over her shoulder. She didn’t make the remark to be flip, but she caught a look in Adam’s eyes that suggested he didn’t appreciate even that much boldness.
“You get what you get from me. You surrendered yourself, you really have no choice. Now bend over.”
The woodpile was conveniently a perfect height, as though someone had arranged it that way. Initially hitting her where her thighs meet her torso, she could lean over on top of it to secure herself. The wood rose from the front to the back, so she was only three-quarters bent. For a punishment she could be in no better position, though from Eden’s point of view it was hardly comfortable. The wood dug into the skin of her thighs, scratched her belly and breasts, and then when Adam told her to reach forward with her hands to keep them out of the way, the bark clawed at her palms as she tried to hold on to a hefty wood log. To think that he’d strap her ass like this. She pondered the thought just a moment, but she didn’t have much time for such consideration since the first strike of the strap landed while she was still settling in.
“Yeeeawww!” she let out a fine wail, though she tried to squelch the next. The punishment was paced to last a while—Eden could tell that right off when he allowed some seconds between the strikes. This was hardly like what had happened the night before when he was brisk with the riding crop, and more interested in an erotic outcome. She quickly understood the difference between the two states of torture in Adam’s mind. There’d never been quite the demarcation between the two with Jacob. With her former lover, everything seemed punishing, everything erotic. And he was so arbitrary about his punishments, none of them really made sense.
Adam Cady was not arbitrary, but calculating. And how it hurt. Brandishing the strap for minutes on end, she took a regular beating of her butt, one that readily strayed to the tops of her thighs, but always returned to the center of her cheeks where the hottest, if not the most stinging strikes, landed. For as long as thirty seconds at a time, he’d back off and let the fires cool, but at least a half dozen times he started in again, making her wonder if he’d ever stop. The heat from her bottom was searing, her whole body beginning to throb from it. Each renewed round of strikes sent a strong wave through her system so she didn’t think she couldn’t take anymore. And yet she wanted more, she wanted some absolution. Her soul required it. As often as he’d stop, she beg him in her heart to continue on.
Three times before what would be the end, Adam stopped and asked her if she wanted more. She replied the first two times with a steady “yes”, the third time she finally said “no.” He really wasn’t asking her to make the decision, however. Continuing, he laid on the strap with the same fierce intent until he sensed she was truly beyond handling more.
“You hear me well, Eden Rose,” he jumped into the midst of her last agonized cries. She’d become much more vocal and less stoic as time went on, and it took a few seconds for her to calm enough to listen to his lecture. “I do not tolerate lies, prevarications or fibs. Even evasiveness pisses me off. I will be honest with you, you will be honest with me. Are you clear on that?”
“Yes, sir,” she shot back readily.
“You lie to me that violates trust. It violates who we are and what we will be. You hold back from me, you threaten anything we might have together. You understand that?”
“Yes, sir,” she quickly answered.
“As far as I’m concerned, lying is the worst thing you can do. When I ask a question, you tell me the truth. And if you’re ever in doubt that I need to know something, you tell me. You keep nothing from me. That is a direct order, a rule, a given between us. You tell me everything, every thought, every feeling, every dream. You’ll do all that or there will be nothing between us. Do you comprehend?”
“I do, sir,” she replied.
For a second and only a second Adam placed his hand on her hot bottom and squeezed. Otherwise there was nothing hands-ons about this moment.
“Get up and go to bed. I’ll be there to fix your collar and chain.”
Turning about, she saw much less pain in his expression, even some warmth. Though he didn’t smile, she believed that things would be okay between them. He would be hard on her, but that was what she needed. He’d fulfill all he promised and with that realization, she smiled at him affectionately.
***
Eden slept each night of the week tethered to the bed. A locking collar was affixed around her neck, then attached to a leather leash, locked in place and secured to the headboard. Unlike the tight bonds she slept with her first night as Adam’s slave, this bondage was much less confining, though it served to remind her that even in her dreams she belonged to Adam Cady. He alone had the key to the locks. His last act with her every night was to fix the blindfold around her eyes. Though she was at liberty to remove it, her hands left free, the thought wouldn’t cross her mind. If it pleased him to have her so contained in the nighttime, then it pleased her. As though he locked her away in another world for those hours, there was nothing important to do from darkness to dawn but be his chattel—to sleep, and to think of him.
A regular as a clock, Adam was there every morning to bring her out of her sleep. He sat beside her on the bed and sometimes stroked her cheek, sometimes whispered to her until she was roused. Taking the blindfold from her, he always warned her to watch her eyes. Once uncovered, she slowly opened them to stare into his face. There was love in her heart so she hoped he’d see that love in her eyes.
They spent their days in the garden. It was a the season to plant and enjoy the tranquillity of the country. In the morning Eden exercised her body far beyond anything she was used to, working side by side with Adam until he sent her inside to write music. In the lush afternoons they basked in the heat, listening to her songs, sometimes being deliriously lazy reclining on the chaises sipping tea or beer. Their nights were filled with Adam’s whim and fancies. Because there were bruises on her bottom and thighs after the first night, he didn’t get rough with her again for several days. He would demand she obey him, follow the letter of his laws and do what he asked without question. Small infractions he treated as serious mistakes, like forgetting to ask permission to eat, or sounding even the least bit annoyed with an order. He was swift to punish her, though sometimes that decision seemed arbitrary. Where some days he might laugh at an acknowledged fault, other times he cast her stern looks or snapped off a nasty retort, but on many occasions she was summarily spanked hard with the palm of his hand so that her ass cheeks were smarting. The end of their days remained the same, she in her bed, tethered, Adam retreating to his.
Eden remained naked morning to night, despite what activity they might be engaged in. So exposed to the elements, the feel of her skin against itself made her feel more natural and easy with her body. Leanna’s sundresses hung unused in the closet leaving Eden to wonder if she’d wear those wondrous beauties again. Then one day they disappeared altogether and she assumed she’d never see them again.
The third night after her trip to the woodshed, Adam began
the evening innocently, so she was certain that it would be as the last two had been, easily handled by a well-practiced submissive. They were sitting serenely on the patio, both exhausted from a long day turning ground for a new flower bed, when he spoke.
“I was thinking about that night you took off for the dance club and practically landed in Jacob’s lap,” Adam said—her first clue that this night might be quite different than what she expected.
“Yes,” she replied to him cautiously, recalling that night.
“I’m deciding on a decent restitution, one that would impress on you how pissed I was with you that night.”
She could think of nothing to say, then of course it wasn’t necessary to answer. When Adam didn’t speak for some minutes, Eden’s anxiety mounted. She could feel something churning in him that seemed entirely dark and forbidding. Making her shudder, she tried to control the sensations and look exceedingly submissive as if that might impress him.
“You’re afraid of the woodshed, aren’t you?” he asked her.
She was instantly horrified. The mention of the woodshed striking like lightening appearing out of a clear and sunny sky.
“Perhaps you need to spend some time there in the dark?” he speculated.
Inside she shrieked to hear the idea, hopefully that shriek didn’t escape from her lips, but by then, her heart was pounding so furiously she couldn’t be certain.
He stared at her a moment, then pulled from underneath his seat a heavy leather collar. This was not the one she wore her first submissive night with him or when she slept. That one was sleek, and though broad, it was made of a supple leather that easily conformed to her neck. This new one was an ugly fat one, studded with thick rings, closing with a weighty buckle.
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