Bound by the Vampire Queen (Vampire Queen Novels (Quality))

by Joey W. Hill

  Troy's lips twisted in a rebellious moue, those eyes flashing again, but he complied, letting Madison hold the chair steady as he stepped out of it, his Mistress's balancing hand on him until he was free. Then she gave him a little push toward his clothes and turned toward Logan.

  "An enjoyable evening. Shorter than I'd expected, but not you, I think."

  Logan gave Shale a look that suggested he would have preferred her not to say that. From the curve of Shale's lips, she knew it. The Mistress glanced down at Madison. "Don't make it too easy on him. Isn't a woman alive who doesn't enjoy seeing him break a sweat."

  She moved toward Troy. He'd hiked his jeans back on and was about to don the T-shirt. She took it away from him, reaching up to caress his jaw before she leaned in to him for a kiss. Madison watched how Troy caught her waist. His arm banded around her as the kiss deepened. All his male strength was unleashed in a moment that was now more about the two of them as lovers, not just Dom/sub.

  When Shale at last eased back, her eyes full of Troy, Madison realized she was aching all the way down to the bottom of her scarred heart.

  "I love you," Shale whispered. "Always."

  "Same goes, Mistress," he responded. Madison thought he was oblivious to anyone else in the room. Though the session was technically ended, it was clear he was fully hers.

  Shale gave him a tap, tilted her head toward Logan, a reminder. Troy's eyes cleared and he turned toward the other Dom, though his arm remained around Shale. "Thank you for my training, Master Logan," Troy said formally. Then his gaze shifted to Madison, still folded on her knees on the floor by the child's chair. "And thank you for your discipline, Miss Fine."

  A tiny smile played around his lips, telling her he'd probably tease her about that next time they saw each other. Shale had mentioned him seeing Logan tomorrow. Madison hoped that meant Troy would still be working at the hardware store, that it hadn't been only about his training. Since he'd told her he was buried under student loans, she figured it likely.

  The couple left them, their departure covered by the air-conditioning. The fan turned on like a windy sigh, the building vibrating as it always did when the unit engaged.

  The spotlight highlighted the chairs where she knelt next to them, Logan still in the shadows. He pulled a tall stool away from the workbench, slid a hip on it, and pointed to that cushion beside him.

  Rising to her feet, she made it there on unsteady legs, sank back down, looking up at him. "At times, I thought she was really mad at him. But she wasn't, was she?"

  "No." He reached down, caressed her face. It felt right, sitting at his knee, him touching her. "A responsible Dominant would never discipline her sub physically when she's truly angry." A smile touched his mouth. "Being female, Shale has far more potent ways of punishing Troy when she's actually pissed at him. Passive-aggressive sarcasm, silent treatment, the use of those dreaded two words, 'I'm fine.' Believe it or not, the boy has a bit of a temper on him as well. He can hold his own with her when they disagree."

  She did believe it. She'd seen it in the stubborn set of his lips, that quick flash in the eyes. A couple weeks ago, that wouldn't have made sense to her, hard to reconcile with his eagerness to be treated as a submissive, willing to play a naughty schoolboy and be spanked, but after tonight it did. She just wasn't sure she could put the comprehension of it into actual words. Any more than she could the feelings inside herself.

  "Shale is a very good Mistress," Logan continued. "The cage and strap-on, she'll do. She won't put in the gag and plug all night. That was mind play only. That's too long to have something up his ass, given how sensitive those tissues are, and no Dominant would gag a sub and go to sleep, because she can't monitor his breathing."

  That smile reached his eyes. "At some point tonight, Troy will beg enough that she'll let him into the bed with her, and then she'll ride him into complete dehydration. Beyond being his Mistress, she's wildly in love with him."

  "It's obvious," she said. "Being around them is like watching a dream come true. It hurts some."

  She wasn't sure she should have put it that way, but it was true enough. Except for the "some" part. It actually hurt a lot, especially injected with the painful, irresistible hope she couldn't seem to quell inside herself, thanks to the man beside her.

  His fingers curved over the line of her jaw, his eyes becoming softer, twisting the knife such that she swallowed, dipped her head into his touch. "It's a game, Madison," he murmured. "A very serious, very real game about the things we need deep down inside ourselves."

  "She said you expected this session to be short." She frowned. "Did you think I'd chicken out, or not have the stomach for it?"

  "The latter, but not in the way you're thinking. It's not a failing or shortcoming, Madison. Some switches are as much identified with both sides of the whip as I'm a Dom or Troy's a sub, but a great many more of them are merely sexually adventurous. They don't need to be only one or the other to find soul-deep fulfillment with someone."

  "But you do." That much was clear. It shed a different light on their earlier discussion about where this might be headed. If she wanted to be with him, if she wasn't as much into the submissive side of things as he was a Dominant, could it work?

  "Do you remember what I said about bringing your choices and preferences into the decision of where we're going?" he asked.

  She nodded.

  "You wanted to try the other side, and you enjoyed it." A rueful look crossed his face. "I won't say it was enjoyable for me to watch you touch another man, though I did enjoy watching how you had fun with it, the revelations you made. But at a certain point, you crossed the line between fun and something deeper. I saw the click. You not only picked up on the deeper layer of what this means to Troy, but what it means to you. If it was just all fun and games, just a sexual adventure, you could have seen it through to a different end, but you sensed there was something more there. And that was what you wanted, wasn't it?"

  At her silence, he touched her chin. "I know you feel like I'm infringing on your sense of choice when I state something like that, so I'll make it a question."

  "Versus a statement of the obvious?" She gave him a narrow look, and he chuckled.

  "Let's pretend I'm asking it as a question, to save me from a possible dose of female silent treatment. You made your choice, didn't you?"

  As she wrestled with her answer, he slid a finger along her collarbone, hooked her bra strap. With gentle pressure, he brought her back up onto her knees, bent and put an arm around her waist, sliding her and the cushion closer so she was between his knees, one of those effortless shifts using his upper body strength that made her stomach tilt pleasantly. In this position, she could settle her palms on his thighs to balance herself there, and she did so.

  "When you made that decision and came to me, wanting to kneel at my feet, it took all I could do not to send them packing right then. Everything in me said 'mine.'"

  The look in his eyes, the way her heart leaped at his words, told her the only thing she was struggling with was her pride. Yet the possible truth made her want to skitter away like a rabbit. He laid a hand over hers on his knee, holding her in place.

  "I don't want it to scare you away, Madison. Until you say it back, and truly mean it, want it with all your heart, then it's not any obligation on you, you understand? We're each responsible for our own feelings, no matter how much they overlap or tangle."

  "I want to believe you. I just have a deficit of trust in . . . everything."

  "Do you want me to help you with that?"

  She swallowed at what she saw in his gaze. Promise, threat. Change. "Yes. But I'm scared. A little bit in some ways, a lot in others."

  His expression became tender, making that twist in her chest even tauter. She expected it was a unique look for him, one he didn't often bestow on a woman. Else he'd have a line of groupies outside his front door every morning. "I know the feeling."

  "Nothing scares you."

  "
Spiders make me scream like a girl when they jump out from between the boxes in the storeroom. Troy has to do the catch and release."

  "Liar." She aimed a punch at his midriff, which he blocked, capturing both her hands and bringing her to her feet. Molding his palms over her buttocks, he drew her up against him.

  "Why, Miss Fine. You're wearing a thong. That's as much against school regulations as Troy not wearing any underwear at all. When an authority figure breaks the rules, their punishment is twice as severe."

  Fun and games. He would start her off with fun and games, understanding how she liked to role-play. All she had to do was take the bait, with full knowledge that he'd ultimately take her far beyond the amusement park, into the dark workings beneath it.

  She held his gaze, the two of them caught in that stasis, waiting for her decision. Then she lowered her gaze, plucked at a button of his shirt as she gave him a coy glance through her lashes. "Is there anything I can do to get out of it . . . Superintendent?"

  "Are you offering me a bribe, Miss Fine?" His disapproving look made her toes curl. He was really good at this. She wondered if he'd done role-playing as a child as well. Pirates, Captain Kirk, cowboys.

  "A sexual favor, actually." She moistened her lips, glanced down significantly. "I have excellent oral communication skills. I've heard you have a rather large . . . need in that department."

  "Rumors get exaggerated." His eyes danced, but then they lost all humor, his mouth firming. "But as tempting as your favors might be, your behavior requires punishment. You won't manipulate me, Miss Fine."

  Rising from the chair, he took her arm, accentuating the difference in height and weight with that one shift. He drew her over to something that looked like a wooden pup tent. The six-inch-wide padded spine was flanked and supported by polished planks. Buckled cuffs were mounted on tracks, spaced horizontally along the planks.

  The potential of such a piece filled her mind as he turned her to face him. Yet when she glimpsed his face, she realized he'd turned her back to the equipment to make it clear she had only one focus in this room. Him. Her Master.

  Before she expected or could brace herself against the act, he'd laid hold of the neckline of her shirt and jerked. One strong movement ripped it open down the front, sending buttons scattering. She choked on a gasp but he didn't even pause, smoothly pulling it off her shoulders and down to her elbows, so her arms were caught against her body.

  He could become intimidating in such a breathtaking way, so quickly. His gaze coursed over the lace bra, the way her breasts were displayed in the cups. When he caressed them, a plea hummed in her throat, but he wasn't done undressing her. He stripped away the skirt and thong beneath so she was standing before him, her lower half naked. With him fully dressed, it only highlighted the power difference. She'd had a sense of that in the Catholic schoolgirl uniform on movie night, him in his sports coat and jeans, but after everything else tonight, the feeling was even more pronounced.

  He lifted her, making her straddle the beam. The slick vinyl cover pressed against wet, swollen tissues. Rows of golden tacks held down the vinyl, their rounded heads providing bumps of friction against her pussy, her clit.

  Capturing her throat with one strong hand, he held her immobile for a demanding, heated invasion of her mouth with his. When she automatically reached for him, trying to clutch his arms for balance, he broke the kiss.

  "Hands behind your back. You haven't earned the right to touch me."

  She did it, arms trembling as her fingers clung to one another. He resumed the kiss, taking his time with it, but there was nothing leisurely about it. He lashed at her tongue, demanded she open even wider with the pressure of his lips. If she'd been standing, her knees would have buckled. He put his other palm against her back, and he'd placed her close enough to the end of the sawhorse her breasts were against his chest. Her legs weren't long enough to reach to the bottom of the tent piece, so they dangled, her calves brushing the empty cuffs.

  As he kissed her, he found the back fastener of her bra under the torn shirt and released it. Then he pushed the shirt off her shoulders, took the bra away, all without breaking that hot, wet connection. He lifted her again, his arm a line of heat against her bare skin as he slid her back on the beam, pressing her down on her stomach. Her body lay along its length, her cheek resting against the six-inch expanse of vinyl. He reached beneath her, making her wetter as he gripped her breasts and adjusted them so her cleavage was widened, the inside curves of her breasts against the planks on either side.

  He cuffed her ankles and just above each of her calves so her legs were drawn up into a bent angle against the surface of the planks. Pulling her hips to the back edge of the beam put her pussy in a highly exposed--and accessible--position. He adjusted her wrists and elbows like he had her knees and ankles, only in the opposite direction, so her upper arms were clear of her breasts, giving him clear access to them. She realized she looked somewhat like a jockey riding a racehorse running full out. Her heart was racing like one.

  Being vulnerable and helpless to Logan shot her arousal up to a level that eclipsed even the most intense climax she'd had before she'd met him. When he took advantage of her helpless position, bending over her to take a solid grip of her breasts on either side, she gasped and moaned as he fondled her nipples, squeezed the curves. He pushed himself against her exposed cunt, rubbing his steel cock beneath his jeans over the moist lips, making her twitch and squirm, trying to rub back. He drew back before she could get any measure of pleasure out of that.

  "Already hot and slick. I think it's a good thing I recognized you as a discipline problem, Miss Fine. Your shameless teasing corrupts innocent, hormonal boys like Troy."

  Because she couldn't resist the impudent eye roll, she won a firm, sharp slap that made her buttocks wobble and her hands ball in the cuffs. "Every time I strike," he said, "I expect you to say 'I'm a bad girl, sir.' If I don't feel certain you mean it, I'm going to use something that hurts more."

  He struck again, harder, and she yelped. "I'm a bad girl, sir."

  And again. "I'm a bad girl, sir."

  And again.

  "You're just not repentant enough, Miss Fine." He moved to his workbench, rummaged through it, came forth with a wooden dowel. "This should help."

  "Please . . ."

  "Not one of the words we discussed." He brought the dowel against her hindquarters again, and fuck, it definitely hurt more. She wondered if the ruler she'd used on Troy's flesh was comparable to this. Then Logan hit her again and she realized she hadn't obeyed his command.

  "I'm a bad girl, sir!"

  He kept doing it, and she kept saying it. It was supposed to be a game, right? So why was it, every time she said it, every time he made it more painful, more emphatic, a lump grew thicker in her throat? And she didn't want him to stop, even though it hurt like hell. There was a moment of Oh, fuck, please stop, followed by No, don't stop. Don't stop . . . Then the really crazy one: Make it hurt more. Until she was begging for mercy.

  Somewhere along the way, she wasn't saying she was a bad girl. Not exactly.

  "I'm a bad . . . I'm bad . . . bad . . ."

  Things started to unfold in her mind. Alice dying. Leroy leaving. Every time a man had walked away because she'd failed him. Actually not so much him at all. Herself. She'd failed herself. Over and over and over again. Because she couldn't figure out how to get it right.

  I'm so bad . . . I failed . . . I was wrong . . . I'm sorry. Sorry . . .

  She was saying the words whether he was striking her or not. When he switched from the dowel back to his hand, every impact resounded through her like the bell of a church. It vibrated through her feet, her chest, a call to salvation, to redemption, to damnation, regret and unforgivable sin.

  "I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry . . ."

  She remembered holding her sister's thin hand as life slipped from her, and now Madison was crying, her fingers clutched into fists in the cuffs. Her heart clenched up the
same way. And yet, as he punished her, her sex was as wet as her eyes. If he were a magician and had sawed her in half, she couldn't be more divided.

  She was lifting into his strikes, because she craved his hand more than the dowel, his heated palm smarting against her flesh. He paused, and she heard his belt being unbuckled. Was he going to hit her with his belt? Given the power and strength he had in his hand, the idea made her quake . . . and yearn. She could use her safe word. She could, even if saying Alice's name right now might literally tear her heart open to bleed out inside the rest of her body. But she wanted this, wanted all the punishment he could dish out. She wanted to immerse herself in the pain of redemption and paying for her sins, for the hope that on the other side of it she could come out clean. Deserving of love.

  He didn't use his belt, but a weapon far more potent. He leaned over her, rough jaw brushing her cheek. "You aren't bad, Madison. Just lost. We all get lost."

  A sob choked her, and he pressed his jaw harder against her, making an incoherent, soothing noise. "I'm going to fuck you now, make it all better. Would you like that?"

  She nodded, feeling the scratch of his five o'clock shadow against her fairer skin. She needed him to make it all better.

  "Then ask me."

  "Please . . ." She swallowed, tasted the salt of her tears. "Please, Master. I need you . . . I need you."

  She was supposed to say "Please fuck me," but that was all she could get out. Fortunately, Logan seemed to realize it meant the same thing.

  She was vaguely aware of the ripping noise of a condom. Then the head of his cock was against her cunt, spread and flushed for him, the juices sucking him in so that she let out a deep, shuddering sigh as he slid into her, worked his way deeper, all the way to the hilt, so his thighs were pressing against the back of hers. He hadn't taken his jeans all the way off. He was still wearing everything, underscoring her nakedness, his total control of her and the situation.

  She dug her fingers into the polished wood beneath her, her eyes closing so her wet lashes fanned her cheeks. He didn't move, didn't start to thrust as her quivering tissues anticipated. Instead, he laid his body over hers and gripped her wrists above the cuffs, his fingers tangling with hers. With a muffled sob, she clung to them so hard she was afraid she might hurt him, but he didn't draw back. Instead, he placed a long kiss on her nape, bared because her hair had slipped down over either side of her neck. Then another kiss on the top bump of her spine. Each touch of his mouth was full of quiet meaning that broke her open further.