Sweet and Dirty

by Christina Crooks

  The two women surged to Ryan, touching him, pinching. “Hey!” he slapped Black’s hand away from his nipple. She immediately slapped his face. Then pinched his nipple, twisting cruelly.

  “Whoa.” Nora froze.

  Then, as Black’s handprint rose in a palm-shaped red mark on Ryan’s cheek, he smiled at Nora. “For you.”

  “Oh, man. You don’t have to do this.” She looked at him pityingly.

  “Yeah, I do. Oh. Um.” He tried to turn the front of his body away from Nora as White tugged his pants down.

  Not fast enough. Nora gasped. “You’re hard! You like it!”

  Ryan blushed.

  As they collared and bound him, he began to look as if he had regrets, but Nora no longer worried too much about him.

  As they tugged on his leash to lead him away, she even giggled.

  “I’m glad to see this isn’t traumatizing you.” Sylvester watched her from the edge of the deck, smoothing his hand once over the railing as if calming it. She noticed the deeper silence and saw everyone else had vanished. He interpreted her gaze correctly. “Mistress Kiana is in the dungeon disciplining Little Peter. Black and White probably can’t wait to get Ryan over to the flesh hook clearing, to terrify him. Kitten is cleaning up after dinner. Master Andre hopes to spend time with you later. And I…I want to have a little chat with you.”

  “Good idea.”

  “Would you like some water?”

  “Got anything stronger?” She knew he did, the good red wine that had accompanied dinner. She licked her lips when he nodded. He preceded her inside. “Actually, you’re wrong. I am a little bit traumatized. Ryan and I dated for two years. How could he do something like this?” When offered a choice of wines, she pointed to the bottle of Cabernet. “Thanks. He and I had our problems, sure. I guess we had more problems than I knew. He hides a lot,” she said, the full impact hitting her of just how much he’d hidden from her.

  She gulped her wine.

  “Easy, there.” He glanced up at sudden movement. Master Andre flipped channels from a couch in the middle of the open room. The TV was a strangely normal sound, but it made Sylvester frown. “Come with me.”

  She did, still sipping. A pleasant warmth filled her stomach. She felt the stirrings of excitement as she followed the man down another hallway and into a large room far enough from the TV to renew the silence. Which ended when he flipped on the lights. The soft wail and steady beat of Enigma accompanied the warm, recessed-lighting glow.

  He immediately turned it down, but Nora smiled. “I’ve heard Enigma is like the national anthem for BDSM.”

  He made a noncommittal sound. Then, “I don’t invite people into my suite, as a rule.”

  “I like Enigma.” She liked him, too, but she didn’t tell him that. His reticence was kind of cute, especially paired with the commanding way he’d taken control of the situation earlier.

  He wasn’t ugly after all, she realized, trying to look at him surreptitiously. It was difficult with those eyes of his trained on her. Not ugly at all, just unusual. His dark brows made him look intense. The shaggy hair made him seem a bit wild. Masculine. Tempting, in a dangerous way.

  “So…you own this place?” She moved farther from him, sat down on a silk print–covered chair. Only after placing her drink on the low table did she realize she had a clear view of the adjacent bedroom.

  A large, four-poster bed. Of course. She caught herself squinting at the sturdy-looking posts to see if they had eyebolts on them.

  “Yes.”

  She started. “Yes? Oh.” He was responding to her question: he owned the place.

  He walked toward her. Sat in the companion chair. She felt her body tighten in reaction to his proximity. She nudged her wine away.

  “You don’t like it?”

  “I like it fine. Just need to clear my head.” He wasn’t going to carry her off to his lair, she wasn’t going to do anything stupid, and why couldn’t she look away from his bedroom? She glanced around. Bookshelves. She was up and at them in a heartbeat. She recognized many of the books, too. Favorites of hers. Disconcerting, this particular man owning so many of the same titles. Exciting how she may have found a kindred spirit. Literarily speaking.

  “How are you feeling?”

  She considered. “Healthy. Recovering. Slightly buzzed. You’re very polite.”

  “Politeness is desirable.” Sylvester sounded amused. It pulled her away from her head-tilted review of his book spines. “Common courtesy goes a long way toward avoiding misunderstandings and preserving people’s feelings. Would you like to talk?”

  “Yes, please.” She strode back to her chair and folded herself into it with a sigh at how comfortable it was. She smiled at him, more relaxed than she should probably feel. Just being in his presence was at once stimulating and soothing. At the moment she didn’t care to examine the pleasant new feeling too closely, but after all she’d been through in the past hour she appreciated it greatly.

  He looked at her without expression. “Just because sexual conventions are freer here doesn’t mean social conventions aren’t used.” He placed his own glass of wine gracefully opposite hers. “Your Ryan’s actions appalled me.”

  “Me, too. That checklist. He made me sound like a perverted slut.”

  “That’s not what I found appalling.” Sylvester smiled at her for the first time. “I don’t judge people’s kinks. Even when I strongly don’t share them….”

  “Such as golden showers?”

  “A fine example.” He sobered, stared at her seriously. “What do you want from the next three days? You expected something quite different, I realize that. It’s my hope you don’t wish to leave.”

  She felt her heart leap, a little. He didn’t want her to leave. “Well, that’s good. Because I don’t want to leave.” She thought about it. “I honestly don’t. I find this environment very interesting. Foreign in the extreme, but interesting. The slaves bowing to Mistress Kiana, for example. And those two women—Black and White. Ryan’s in for a wild ride, isn’t he?”

  She searched herself for jealousy but didn’t find it. She wondered what that meant. Maybe she was still in shock.

  “You’re not involved in the local BDSM community.” It wasn’t a question. “But you’re curious. Okay. Let’s find out what sorts of things interest you.”

  “What are you, some kind of…” Pimp, she was going to say, but that didn’t sound right. Or polite. “Facilitator?” she finished.

  His raised eyebrow let her know he’d tracked her thought. “I bring together like-minded people, and make sure no one gets hurt. I host the party. I had this property built on twenty-one secluded acres to create a big retreat center that’s sex positive but not sleazy. Guests are usually friends of friends in the local leather and fetish community, real free spirits—I don’t have the inclination to host an overnight just for some businessman who wants to check in for a spanking. I enjoy watching. I like the diversity. But now it’s your turn to talk. What are your fantasies, Nora?”

  “Well, you get right to the point, don’t you?” And yet she felt the warm glow in her belly expand to heat her nether regions as well. The way he looked at her, as if he knew her dirtiest secret, made her hot as hell.

  But she wasn’t going to repeat the mistake of telling someone her biggest fantasy.

  “I’m curious about bondage.” There, that wasn’t so hard. But she felt her face heat with embarrassment for admitting it out loud like that.

  “Giving or receiving?”

  “Receiving…Maybe a little giving, too.” It could be interesting to have someone all tied up and at her mercy. Maybe someone like Sylvester. She gave him a flirtatious smile.

  His expression didn’t change. “What else?”

  “Um. I heard flogging could be sort of fun. And being blindfolded. And, uh, nipple clamps.”

  “What else?”

  She blinked. “I’m not sure there is anything.” Except the Chase and Capture rape fant
asy specter she couldn’t evict from her mind. The very idea of something so violent was abhorrent, and yet, just knowing it existed as one of the possible fantasies made her wet.

  “This is fun,” she told him, admitting that much at least.

  “Negotiating is supposed to be.”

  “We’re negotiating?” Her breath came faster.

  “That’s what it’s called in the scene when you discuss play limits.”

  “Oh.”

  He stared hard at her. “Let’s go down a checklist of things, the way you normally would have before you arrived. You can tell me a number between one and five to indicate how you feel about that activity: one means no way, five means it’s a wild turn-on for you. Are you ready?”

  “Who would I be…playing…with?”

  “That depends on your answers. And their wishes, too.”

  His calm, aloof demeanor both set her at ease and excited her. She thought of the other men at the dinner table, evaluating them. Master Andre seemed cute. Little Peter seemed harmless. Sylvester attracted her the most. “I guess I’m ready.” She returned his stare, feeling bold.

  “Spanking.”

  “Okay.”

  He waited.

  “Oh. Four?”

  “Tickling.” “Three.”

  “Branding.”

  She cringed. “One!”

  “Electrical torture.”

  “Isn’t that the same as branding?”

  Sylvester shook his head. “Not at all. For example, Mage has an elaborate muscle stimulation kit, with attachments I’d never seen before. And he has an astonishing number of other electrical toys. It can be quite sensual.”

  “Do you know this from personal experience?”

  “We’re not discussing me right now. A number, please?”

  Her curiosity spiked again. Damn but this conversation was making her want to try everything…with him. “Four.”

  “Threesome.”

  She considered. “One. Well…it depends. Two guys, maybe a three.”

  “Feathers, fur, food.”

  “Four.”

  “Hair pulling.”

  “That doesn’t sound fun. Two.”

  “You’d be surprised. Role playing.”

  “It depends.” In her fantasy, the man stalked her, then had his way with her. Should she tell him that? She felt tempted, then pushed the fantasy back underground where it belonged. “Could you give me an example?”

  “Doctor/nurse. Teacher/student. Boss/secretary. Torturer/ prisoner.” He looked at her. “Predator/prey.”

  “Could you…explain that last one?”

  He was quiet for so long she wasn’t sure he heard her. Then, “One of the most common role-playing fantasies for women is to be taken against their will.”

  The air in the room seemed to turn electric, plucking at her nipples, teasing her intimately until she felt short of breath. She tried to hide her reaction. “Yes, I’ve heard that’s a common one.”

  “Give it a number.”

  “I…can’t.”

  His stare burned her. “You can’t? I think you can.” He gave her a fierce smile, showing teeth. “Is it being kidnapped and used as a sex toy? Or chased and brought down and brutally fucked? Maybe a date rape, or a home break-in, or a cruel ravishing while tied to a pirate ship’s mast.”

  Her mouth went dry. She wanted to dash from the room, and yet she sat rooted, unable to even look away. She felt her eyes widen and her nipples stand erect, no doubt clearly outlined under the tissue-thin material of her dress. She tried to remember how to be the coolheaded, knowledgeable person she was at work. People consulted her, looked up to her for her experience, her capable management, her enthusiasm for researching anything she didn’t know. But nothing she’d encountered in the workplace or elsewhere prepared her for this sensation of willing helplessness under his gaze. He was talking her language. If he wasn’t careful, she’d…she’d what? Beg him to rape her?

  To calm herself, she reached for her glass of wine. “I’m not sure that’s…” To her horror, her hand was shaking. She set the wine down abruptly.

  “Some men have the same violent desires. To take, to dominate a struggling victim. As a fantasy only. Nora? Nothing here happens that isn’t consensual. You’re safe, I promise.”

  He looked off into the distance. Then, “Some men mistakenly believe a woman doesn’t care who stars in her fantasy. Of course she does.”

  He referred to Ryan. He believed she was still affected by Ryan’s foul trick on her, she realized with relief. He had no idea what dirty thoughts played in her mind.

  Or did he?

  She went on the offensive. “Do you have those fantasies, Sylvester?”

  “We aren’t talking about me.”

  “We’re talking about fantasies. You’re explaining them so well. Do you dream of torturing your helpless victim, then spreading her legs and plowing her as she struggles underneath you? Do you fantasize about stalking a woman, capturing her, and forcing her to perform degrading acts on your filthy body? Does it do it for you, having a woman naked and whimpering while you press her up against the slick walls of her shower, begging you to stop and crying when you push your big cock up between her legs?” Oh god, talking about it was getting her way too hot. She decided to throw caution to the winds. “Do you want to force me, Sylvester?”

  Sylvester found himself on his feet, looming over Nora. The woman clutched the edges of her chair as if afraid, but her fast breathing made her obviously hard nipples thrust up at him like pointy little invitations. Which they weren’t. They weren’t.

  She didn’t know what she was asking for.

  He should know better than to be taunted into a lather by a hot-talking woman. Know better than to believe such words at face value. He had, once upon a time. It had ruined his life.

  He looked down at her. No denying she wanted something. Possibly him. Probably an effect of her rebounding emotionally from her boyfriend’s betrayal. This had to be put into perspective.

  Throttling back his own lust along with the agonizing memories she’d inadvertently evoked, he shook his head. “What I want isn’t relevant at this time.”

  Knowing his erection tented his pants, and that there was nothing to be done about it, he slowly returned to his seat. “This isn’t about me and my list of fantasies. It’s about yours. What you want.” He saw her heat undiminished, and marveled at her. Tempting. Refreshing, brave, desirable. In other words, extremely bad news for his hard-won equilibrium.

  “It’s just a fantasy, right Sylvester?”

  “For some, yes.”

  “For you.”

  “Irrelevant. Taking me out of the picture, what does Nora Sabine want?”

  “I want the world,” she declared. She seemed surprised by her own answer.

  Truth rang in her words. Struck by her hunger for life, even after the trick that was played on her, made him admire her more than a little bit. Then again, she might just be tipsy from the wine. “You’ll have to narrow it down. ‘The world’ might be a tall order, even here.”

  “Do you generally participate in the playing?” She pulled off her high heels, wiggled her toes. Then stood. He knew there was no misinterpreting the challenging look on her face.

  “As the resident dungeon monitor, I try to keep an eye on things. I need to be ready to help out when and where needed.” Her scent, an alluring floral scent of light musk and the soap he’d chosen for all the showers, reached him. It made him blink slowly, savoring. He stared at her. “If the help is welcome.” Now why did he say that? She looked at him, clearly wondering whether to “welcome” him further. He nipped it in the bud. “Ethics forbid involvement.”

  “Ethics? Or fear?”

  He felt stung. Was she suggesting cowardice? She had no idea who she was talking to. “Let’s talk about you,” he repeated. “You’re curious. You want to play. You seem to have an interest in playing with me, but that’s not something I wish to discuss tonight. Y
ou’ve met the other guests. Who’s choice number two? How about Master Andre?”

  After a moment in which he was certain she’d storm out, she merely shook her head. “Arrogant, much?” Her lips twitched with suppressed laughter. “What can he do to me that you can’t?”

  Nothing, he wanted to tell her. Instead he said: “Master Andre’s an accomplished dominant. He has a solid reputation, and is well known for his Florentine flogging style.”

  “Dominants like submissives. I’m not a submissive person.”

  He looked at her, evaluating. Maybe she wasn’t. But she wanted to be conquered, was begging for it.

  The way she held herself, like a prize bitch daring him to take her down, kept him hard. She really had a sexy body, her curves and muscles in all the right places, her movements graceful as she moved about his room, stretching out. Making herself comfortable. Burning off excess energy? He’d like to help her with that. She would be more than a firecracker, she’d be an explosion of sensuality. The pinnacles to which he could take her. The delights they could share. His mouth filled with saliva at the idea of her welcoming his rougher attentions.

  But she wasn’t for him. That fantasy was too dangerous. He stood, prelude to escorting her to Master Andre.

  As if reading his mind, she pivoted and stepped against him. He didn’t even have a chance to protest. He couldn’t move for a moment. The shock of her warm body so unexpectedly fitted to his sent sensual forks of lightning all through him. “I want you,” she said in a demanding growl that he felt as well as heard. She grasped his hard cock through his pants. It would have taken a stronger, kinder man to resist the temptation to pull her closer, take what she offered…and he was neither.

  He grabbed the cheeks of her ass and hauled her onto his hardness. “You want this? No?” he asked as she recoiled from his size. “Too late,” he said as she suddenly struggled against his obscene thrusting against her. He could rip off her ridiculously thin dress so easily. He could almost hear the tear of fabric, and see her cowering to hide her nakedness, ashamed, but not really…