by Henry, Jane
“Caroline, come with me,” he says. He hasn’t softened a bit. If anything, he’s grown sterner lately.
“I need a few minutes,” I tell him, as I’m still rubbing herbs and salt and pepper on the roast.
“No,” he says, in that tone that must be obeyed. “Now.”
I sigh, looking to Lydia. She quickly steps in to take my place.
“Go,” she whispers. “You do not want to anger your husband.”
But I’m the one that’s angered. I hate that he just marches in here and tells me to drop what I’m doing as if it doesn’t matter.
“I need to wash my hands,” I tell him. “You’ll have to wait.”
His eyes ignite, his body stiffening.
“Do so in our room.”
“Tomas, for goodness sakes.” How dare he just march in and order me around like this? This is my job. I’ve earned the respect of this staff, and I’m not going to just cow to him because he demands it. So I ignore him and head to the kitchen sink. “I’m not walking through these floors with germ-infested hands. Honestly!”
A look flashes across his face I haven’t seen since we got here. His brows draw together, his lips turn down, and a shadow darkens his features. “You have one minute,” he snaps. “And you’ll answer for your smart mouth.”
I stomp to the kitchen sink, feeling angry and justified,. Yvonne is standing by the sink. She’s been coming to help the past few days and is eager to learn. Her pretty eyes are wide and earnest. “Caroline,” she whispers. “Don’t push him. He got news today he didn’t like, and he’s in a mood over it.”
“Why does that give him license to boss me around?” I whisper back.
“It doesn’t,” she says. “But he’s the pakhan and you know what he expects.”
I pump soap into my hands and mutter under my breath. She only gives me a look of sympathy.
“Go,” she mouths, biting her lip. Grumbling, I dry my hands and leave. He’s standing in the doorway, glaring at me, and the entire kitchen staff continues to work in awkward silence.
“For God’s sake, lighten up,” I mutter, which might have been a stupid thing to say, because he grasps my elbow in response, spins me out in front of him, and slams his palm against my ass. The kitchen doors shut behind us, hiding my flaming hot cheeks.
“Tomas,” I say, wanting to absolutely die. I can’t believe he spanked me in front of all of them like that. “Your kitchen staff are my friends. You just humiliated me in front of all of them! I’ve worked to earn their respect.”
“Let’s talk about respect. You do not disrespect me like that in front of my staff,” he says, as if that gives him the license to publicly mortify me.
His face is a storm cloud, and he’s marching me down the hall so fast I can’t keep up.
My heart sinks. Just when I think I’m starting to love this man, to understand him, to become the wife he needs and he the husband I need, he pulls this domineering alpha bullshit. But my angry thoughts come to a halt when we reach our apartment.
Six armed men stand in front of our door. I recognize them as the strike force for his brotherhood.
Why are they guarding our door?
I’m immediately on guard. Something’s happened. What is this? No one ever flanks our door like this. It’s unusual. Disturbing, even.
But he isn’t surprised to see them. “Clear?” he asks them.
“Yes, sir,” the tallest one says. “We’re to stay here until you give us further notice, is that right?”
“Precisely.”
He opens the door and ushers me in. “Out of your clothes. Go to the bed and hold the post.”
I blink in surprise.
“What?”
Without a word, he reaches for my arm and pulls me to him. Grasping my face in his hand, he pinches my cheeks.
“Clothes off. Bed post. Is that clear?”
I’m shaking when he lets me go. Usually his dominance and my submission are a sort of dance. He leads and I follow. It’s hot as hell, and our lovemaking recently has explored the depths of where this could take us.
But this night is different. He’s serious, not at all playful, and ready to punish me.
Do I have a choice?
I go to the room and strip out of my clothes, leaving them in a basket in the bathroom, before I go to the post and grip it. What will he do?
Honestly? He could do anything.
I’m nervous as hell, waiting in here, and he takes his sweet time about it. I hear him on the phone, then he walks through the room opening windows and doors. What on earth is he looking for? My arms begin to ache, my shoulders burning from holding this position, when he finally comes in the room.
“Good girl,” he says. “Still feel like mouthing off?”
I frown and shake my head. I don’t understand why I’m here. Did I push it too far? But I hardly did a thing.
“Good,” he says. “I’m not in the mood to fight you tonight.”
Walking around to the bedside table, which I’ve since learned houses a variety of kinky things, he takes out various items in black and red. He has so many things in his hands, I can’t differentiate any. He tosses them onto the bed and comes to my side.
“Close your eyes, little detka,” he says. I obey. He pulls something scratchy but soft over the top of my head, and it takes effort not to pop my eyes open. “This is a lace hood,” he says. “It will keep you quiet and humble, and it’s very pretty.”
I try to open my mouth, but the fabric presses up against my lips. “I should’ve known you’d want to cover my face,” I mutter petulantly. I don’t think he’ll actually hear me, because he’s playing with the other toys on the bed, but to my surprise he responds.
“On the contrary, Caroline,” he says. “There is no one whose face I’d rather see. But tonight, I want you deprived or your senses so you can focus.” I gasp when cold nips at my breasts, but I can’t see what he’s doing since I’m still wearing the hood.
“I’ll tell you everything I use before I use it,” he promises. “This is a lace sensory deprivation hood. Next up, a pair of cuffs.”
My wrists are quickly secured.
“And a pair of nipple clamps.”
I freeze, but there’s nowhere to go. He’s putting… what? On my what?
Standing in front of me, he holds something in his hands that between the pattern of lace on the mask, looks like a metal chain with little clips at the end.
Over the past few weeks, he’s been almost gentle with me. Our lovemaking is intense, and he occasionally slaps my ass, but he’s been gentler.
I wonder if it’s odd that I miss his dominating me.
But it looks like that’s about to change. Now, for some reason, it looks like he might’ve pulled out all the stops. I stop breathing for a moment when the cold, painful metal anchors on the most delicate part of my body. “Oh God,” I moan. “Ohhhh.”
But he quickly replaces the pain with pleasure when he gently tugs the chain between the two clamps. It hurts, but my pussy pulses with need, aching for release and pressure, just from the heaviness of the clamps.
“How does that feel?” he asks.
“Painful.” I’m gasping, writhing, the hood blocking my vision but letting me breathe, and it’s all a little much.
“Good.”
Good? He thinks it’s good that I’m in pain?
“Tomas…” but my words fade when something wet and slick glides along my ass. Oh my God. I gasp when he pushes a plug through the tight ring of muscle. I’m instantly full, and it’s as if someone’s pushed a button that makes me submit. I couldn’t defy him right now if I tried.
My hands grasp the wooden edge of the bed post, my grip tightening when he moves behind me. He’s clamped and plugged me. The hood allows me to breathe, but I can’t do much more than that. My vision’s blurred, my ability to speak muted.
I can see him pacing around me. He’s shrugged out of his suit coat and stands in front of me with his shir
t sleeves rolled up to the elbow. He holds something in his hand obscured by the lacy hood. Running it along his palm, he paces around me.
“Beautiful,” he says. “You’re simply gorgeous trussed up like this.”
I wonder what’s happened that’s pushed him to control me. Does he gain something by acting out his sadistic impulses? He must. He already looks calmer, even through the limited vision the hood affords. I know without him having to tell me, that he needs to master me. Dominate me. That whatever’s happened today has pushed him to this.
Fortunately for me, I love when he does just that, even if I fight it.
“You’ll be punished for disrespecting me in front of the kitchen staff,” he says.
“You disrespected me!”
He brings back his hand and the implement he’s holding flies. I hear the sound of the falls before I feel them, a whistling sound that warns me this is going to hurt. I gasp when the leather falls of the flogger lick my skin. He’s used this on me before, but it was for foreplay, not punishment.
“I expect you to obey me,” he says tightly, before lashing me again, this time the falls landing across my breasts and shoulders. It stings and burns, and I can’t stop him. Walking around to my back, he flogs me with the leather, my ass lighting up underneath the stings of the falls. “Did it ever occur to you that it was imperative you come right away? Hmm?”
Several more lashes of the flogger fall, and I’m whimpering now, my body pulsing with need but still desperate to stop the pain. It isn’t the worst spanking I’ve gotten by far, but it hurts like hell.
“You could’ve just said that,” I say through gritted teeth.
“No,” he snaps, whipping the flogger across my ass harder than he has yet. “I shouldn’t need to give you an explanation. When I give you a command, you obey me, no questions asked.”
I’m so angry and this hurts so badly I throw my head back, an animalistic growl escaping my lips. “Yes, master,” I toss out sarcastically. “Whatever you say, sir.” My voice drips with sarcasm. I hate this. I like it so much better when I’ve earned his approval rather than his anger.
I hate this.
In silence, he continues the lashing, with steady flicks of the falls to my skin, until my whole body is on fire, laced with cuts of the flogger. The flogger is far from a harsh implement, but the pain builds in intensity with every cut of leather.
“Need to mouth off to me again?” he asks. I watch through the hood as he places the flogger down and lifts something else into his hand. I inwardly cringe, even as somehow, against all reason and rational logic, I want him to continue this. To bring me to the point of submission I don’t readily grant, the relinquishment that has to be wrestled from my grasp bit by agonizing bit.
Because I like when he’s in charge. It fills me with pleasure to earn his approval.
And why haven’t I lately?
“Say you’re sorry, Caroline,” His stern voice is laced with warning. I bite my tongue and say nothing.
Thwack. I yell out loud when something solid and painful whacks against my ass. I try to look to see what he’s using, but I can’t see anything but black in his hand.
“Say it.” Still, I refuse.
He spanks me again, harder this time. I whimper and try to move but I’m in this position, and there’s literally no escape. The cuffs hold my wrists in place, and every movement of my body’s inhibited by something. A plug in my ass and clamps on my nipples, and behind me, that awful thing he’s using to punish me. It’s got to be some type of wooden paddle or something. I’ve been through enough with him to recognize the feel of wood when it’s being used on me.
“Say you’re sorry,” he commands a third time, and when I don’t, he smacks me again. I choke on a dry sob. It hurts so badly, and yet somehow this is what I need. I brace for another stroke, but it doesn’t come. Instead, I feel him at my back, working the plug with one hand while he tugs the chain between the clamps with his other.
“Ahhhhh!” I’m half-screaming, half-moaning, not knowing what to do with myself. Then his fingers are between my legs and he’s working me hard and fast, until I’m rocking on his hand, dying for more. The spanking’s heightened my senses, the clamps and plug putting me at his total mercy. He’s stroking, circling, tugging, working me to the point of utter bliss, and when my body tenses just before I collapse into total ecstasy, he stops.
“Say it.”
I am dying to come, but I clamp my mouth shut and whimper to myself. I’m not ready. I breathe in deeply through the lace. Unable to see clearly, my senses are intensified by his unapologetic mastery over my body. I’m so close to coming, I’m trembling when he slides his fingers inside my core while he palms my ass, stroking the plug. I’m on the brink of coming, on the very cusp of pleasure when he stops.
He doesn’t need to command me this time.
“I’m sorry, sir. Tomas, I’m sorry. Please, sir.” I don’t recognize my tight, needy voice, begging him to grant me pleasure.
“That’s a good girl,” he says. But he doesn’t make me come. First, he takes the hood off. I breathe in deeply, the room suddenly bright. I squint in the sudden light, when his mouth captures mine. He kisses me, and my body ignites. His lips are the softest part of him, so tender and gentle I sigh into him. But as he kisses me, both of his hands find my breasts, each one palming and weighing the fullness, but there’s no more tugging the chain. Instead, he removes it. Blood rushes to the abused flesh, and my breasts swell, tingling with the relief it brings. The best part about the clamps are their removal, the way the flow of blood makes my breasts ache and my body teem with pleasure.
The cuffs come next and my wrists swing free. I reach for him, but he pushes my hands away, bending to lift me in his arms, so close to his chest I’m drowning in his scent. He lays me on the bed, spreads my legs, then drops to the floor. I’m still plugged, now aching with need and throbbing with the pain of the brief, brutal session, when he buries his face between my legs.
One, two, three strokes of his tongue, and I spasm with pleasure. He probes my channel with the very tip, while working my clit with his thumb, and at the third stroke, I fly into ecstasy. I come so hard against his face I whimper and shake, my body tense with contracting muscles chasing utter ecstasy. And just when I’m coming down from the first earth-shattering orgasm, so intense I’ve lost my voice with screaming, a second builds on the first. Sweeter. Harder. Impossibly more intense.
“Oh, God, Tomas,” I groan, as a second orgasm wracks my body. I’m still wrapped in ecstasy when he pulls his cock out and lines himself up at my core. I grasp his shoulders, needing to anchor myself, just before he impales me with his full, hard cock.
I swear and writhe and hold onto him as he slams into me before pulling his hard cock all the way out. All the way out, then slamming into me again, over and over. “Tomas,” I moan. “I’m sorry.”
He thrusts in me one more time, bringing his mouth to my ear. “My love, I am, too.”
I soar into climax when he does. We’re gripping each other like we’re the only two survivors in a world of destruction, desperate and aching for oneness.
He’s never called me love before. Not once. And he sure as hell has never apologized.
He lowers his body, his forehead touching mine.
“I needed that,” I tell him. “God, Tomas. I may regret saying this later, but I need that intensity sometimes. I don’t even know I do until you deliver, but I can’t enjoy sweet sex like that. Am I crazy?”
His forehead still on mine, he breathes in, like he’s inhaling my very scent and essence.
“No more crazy than I am,” he says. “I was pissed and needed to regain control. So I went to you.”
“I know.”
He lifts his forehead off mine and looks into my eyes. “Do you, love?”
“Yes. I could sense it, that you needed to control me. Are you ready to tell me what happened?”
His eyes cloud over again, and for a brief m
oment I regret asking him. I like the sincere conversations with him, when we’re just two lovers, and neither of us shields ourselves from the other in an effort to self-protect. “Let’s get cleaned up.”
He pulls out of me and we’re messy and sticky. I’m aching, throbbing from what he just did, but blissfully satisfied.
“Bath,” he whispers. He’s stripped to his boxers when he holds a finger up to me. “Stay here until I call you.”
He walks to the bathroom, then seconds later I hear the sound of a bath being drawn. Right now, I couldn’t disobey him if I wanted to. When he strips me down like that, fucking me and spanking me and dominating every inch of my body, I surrender fully. Eventually we’ll play the game again—him needing to control me and me fighting until he breaks me down in surrender. But for now, I’m his little detka.
“Come, Caroline.”
I walk to him, every step making my body ache. My ass throbs, my breasts tingle. But God, that bath sounds good.
I take his hand and let him help me into the tub. The warm, fragrant water envelopes me, the scent of vanilla calming me. To my surprise, he follows, sitting at one end of the tub and drawing me onto his lap.
He washes my hair and lathers me up but doesn’t say a thing. I don’t push him. He’ll tell me when the time is right.
When my body’s clean and my hair wrung out, he turns me to look at him.
“I’ve had a man on Andros since I married you,” he says. “Every fucking day. We were tailing him, with the intent of acting when the time was right. We were ready to strike. Ready to punish him for what he did to you.” He takes in a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “But as of this morning, he’s gone.”
Even though I’m fully submerged in warm water, I shiver.
“He’s gone?”
If he’s gone, he could be literally anywhere.
“We’ll find him,” Tomas says.
A loud knock sounds at the door. “I swear to God, if that’s Nicolai again…” but his voice trails off when the knock becomes more insistent.
“I’ll be right there!” he shouts. He helps me out of the tub and towels me off, but I can tell he’s doing this quickly. He wants to know who’s at the door. Still draped in a towel, he grabs a gun from the bedside table and heads to the door. “Do not move, Caroline.”