by Joey W. Hill
“Ella, when you visit his house, I’m going with you. Give me your word that you’ll reach out to me and let me know. Don’t make me divide my attention between securing the club and keeping track of you.”
Her expression shuttered, that chin setting further. “I really don’t need you to do that. I appreciate it—”
“You’re acting like I’m offering you a favor. Listen to what I’m saying, Ella.” He put enough reproof in the tone that her attention snapped to him like a taut fishing line. “Tell me what I’m saying.”
Her lips pressed into a firm line. “If you’re not going to be my Dom outside Club Atlantis, then why would you get involved in this?”
“Because I’m learning that, remarkable as it seems, you’re even more prone to trouble outside the club. I will be the first vampire with post-turning gray hair.”
That made her smile, but his serious tone meant business. “I’m expanding the geographical boundaries. For now, I’m your Dom, period.”
She gazed upon him, and he held the look. “For now,” she said quietly.
“For now.”
Not surprisingly, he saw the leap of hope that it eventually might lead to more. But he didn’t have to add any caveats to head that off, because almost immediately, she squelched it herself.
Don’t make too much of it. Just accept it as it’s offered. She nodded. “Okay. Yes, sir.”
While he could tell himself such acceptance served her own interests, her desire to be around him, she wasn’t a self-serving person. She knew he enjoyed being around her, and didn’t want to take that from him by asking too much. Another way she could serve her Master.
She might just kill him with kindness. Fortunately, she still had that stubborn set to her pretty chin, a cue that she was going to think of other ways to dissuade him from joining her on this particular quest. Which just emphasized how much he needed to be there.
“As your Dom it’s my decision how best to care for you. Even if you disagree,” he reminded her. “But if you don’t like the limitations I’ve put on our relationship, you have one choice. You can choose for me not to be your Dom.”
In the vampire world, a servant has one choice. Whether or not to be a servant. After that, all choices belong to the vampire.
He really didn’t want vampire canons popping up conveniently in his head right now. He squelched them.
If she didn’t want him as her Dom, that was fine. He’d still be going to the old boyfriend’s house as her friend. That was a given.
Trepidation flashed across her face. “You want…to give me a choice?”
“It’s not my preference, no, but I’d like to hear your answer.”
A tiny smile reappeared on her face at his irritable response. “I want you to be that,” she said. “I just don’t want to pull you into things that I can handle myself.”
“Which is a very typical service sub reaction, but not always healthy, because you should be able to have expectations of others for yourself. Especially when you’re as special as you are, to me, and lots of others.”
That got her attention. She lifted her gaze to his. She wasn’t wearing the contacts, so the brown pools drew him in. “So,” he said, resisting the urge to be distracted. “You will let me know when you are going, and you’ll go at night. I want to hear your promise, because I know you’ll honor it. And then I’m going to make sure you remember it.”
Her lips pressed together. This unexpected stubborn streak was making him harder. While his insistence wasn’t sexually motivated, her reaction was turning it in that direction. Then a puzzled look crossed her face. “I’m not trying to question you—”
—which she totally was—
“But I was thinking of going in the morning, because he’s usually hung over and less with it. Is there a reason you want me to go at night?”
“I’m sure if you think it through, you’ll figure it out.” He gave her a steady look while she sifted through her thoughts, then he saw the light bulb go off. The obviousness of it produced a sheepish smile on her face.
“Oh. I really haven’t ever seen you during daylight, have I?”
“Not unless you remember seeing a ball of flame shaped like me.”
“Yeah.” She wrinkled her nose, a self-deprecation. “Sorry again. I was a little slow there. The whole nighttime thing for vampires. Check.”
He shook his head. “Could you get any more adorable?”
She made a face at him, stuck out her tongue. He was going to spank her for that specifically. As well as a few other things. “I still haven’t heard you promise,” he reminded her.
“I promise,” she said reluctantly.
“Why am I making you promise?”
“Because you want to look after me. Make sure I’m safe.”
“Yes. Why?”
She got stuck there, but he gave it to her in his head, a hint and a reminder.
Because you are precious.
She pinkened, but then he grasped her wrist, taking the cloth away. “Open your mouth.”
When she did, he rolled the washcloth into a bit shape and put it there, a temporary gag. He liked the idea of her inhaling the scent of his release, tasting the lingering essence of it. “Hold it there. I don’t want your neighbor calling the cops, thinking you’re being murdered in here. Hand me my belt.”
Her eyes widened, but after only a brief hesitation, she complied. She lifted his jeans, gripped the belt and slid it out of the loopholes. When she brought it to him, she was all big eyes, lots of soft hair. Her lips were pressed into the terry cloth gag, shirt around her thighs over a body that wore nothing else. The picture she made tightened things inside and out of him, made him hurt, ache and want. The sub in her craved the punishment. She was already getting wet again. Yet he saw her recognize his determination, realize the next few moments might be memorable in a way that wouldn’t be entirely pleasurable.
Good. It might impress upon her that, no matter how run-of-the-mill her words had been to her, to him, her being around a guy who thought it was okay to beat her, throw her out of his house and steal from her was not ‘just the way things are.’
Well, beat her the wrong way, for the wrong reasons, that is.
Yeah, he was sure that was a sound bite that would go over like a lead balloon in most vanilla venues, but that wasn’t the world that reigned in this room right now.
Clasping her wrist, he tugged and brought her down over his knees. He kept her elbows and upper torso on the bed while he centered her hips over his lap, her feet off the ground, dangling.
“No trying to hide thoughts, no lies by omission, no holding back any information from me. It’s up to me to decide what’s relevant to your wellbeing, not you. When I’m done, I’m going to ask you a question. If you respond to it correctly, I’ll stop. If you don’t, I will do it all over again, until you get it right.”
Hell, he liked this, a lot more than he wanted to admit, being able to be inside his sub’s head while he took care of her, disciplined her.
She was wondering if she should argue about it, point out that having a Dom in her head was new territory that maybe needed to be discussed, negotiated. She was absolutely right—if they were still in the human realm of things. The vampire in him had only one thing it wanted from her right now. Obedience.
He rubbed a hand over her round backside, pulling the shirt up to give him a clear view. He had already checked when he took her earlier, but he wanted to make sure he saw no lingering evidence of the explosion that would make this the wrong kind of pain.
The second mark had done its job. There were some hints of the bruises, but none in the area that would be receiving his attention. He ran his hand up and down her thighs, warming her up, registering every shiver as he trailed his fingers between her buttocks, close to the exposed lips of her cunt. When he was done, he was going to work his fingers in there, feel the soaking wetness. She responded strongly to discipline.
He was starting to ge
t a picture of key portions of Ella’s life. She’d never had anyone completely in charge of caring for her, not since the fire had taken her family. She had a hunger for it, so painful and deep that she’d shut off that avenue, barred the way with extreme danger signs, knowing it was a vulnerable place that the wrong person could take advantage of if she let them.
She was fiercely independent, something many might miss, because she so enjoyed revealing the vulnerable sub within. She yearned for a Dom’s care, and she did such a good job of communicating that, people at the club did exactly what she’d pointed out. Treated her as if she were something fragile, in need of protection, watching after her before she did something foolish. All while depending on her to be there when they needed her, because she was. She anticipated what they needed, and supplied it, as a sub, as a staff member, as a person.
It wasn’t an act. She was that vulnerable sub, a young woman with a remarkable combination of resilience and fragility. But he doubted she’d ever leaned on anyone a hundred percent in her life. She’d learned not to do that, and she’d learned why the hard way.
He’d brought her too close to that dangerous emotional edge. She did something very out of character for her usual behavior. She started to struggle off his lap, dropping the gag out of her mouth. “Wolf, I don’t think we—"
He held her fast, leaned over her, retrieved the jeans or, more specifically, what was in the front right pocket. A length of cord. He sometimes worked on rope-tying knots at dawn, while waiting for sleep to claim him. Or at the club, while people-watching and not in session.
In the time she’d spoken those five words, he’d pulled out the cord, picked up the cloth, straightened and put it back between her parted lips, pushing it in securely. He ran the cord between them as well, tying it in place with a firm cinch that she felt pull at the corners of her mouth. Her eyes got wider, but he felt the little spike in her mind as he took control.
What about a safe word?
Her mind was still agile enough to figure out another way to talk to him. A sign of the right kind of emotional panic, trying to talk at all when he was so obviously done with that form of communication. He reminded her of it with an equally short response.
Vampires don’t believe in them.
What question did he want answered? She’d been strapped with a belt before, loved it. It was her favorite Dom tool of punishment, but that was in-scene, with a Dom who was…temporary. Wolf was temporary. He’d made that clear from the get-go, yet she was reacting to him with an anxiety as if his expectations were going to matter to her well beyond this moment.
“We’re not negotiating anything, Ella. This is punishment. I want to make sure you remember everything I’ve told you.”
He ran his fingertips over her bare backside again, trailing along the seam, down to her exposed cunt. He pushed his thumb inside her, finding her heated and wet. He held her thighs closed so she couldn’t spread them, and worked his thumb in there, sending spirals of sensation out through her buttocks and lower belly.
Then he withdrew his thumb slowly, painting the moisture on her labia with easy caresses. He touched her entirely for himself, for the pleasure of how she felt to him. As she became more aroused, she was giving him a gift that he himself had created, with his total attention upon her.
She couldn’t afford this. While on the surface it didn’t look much different from scenes she’d done at the club, every Dom and sub knew that the most powerful triggers were emotional ones. He was leaning on a door she kept closed. Truth, she was afraid he was already halfway over the threshold.
“Put your head down, sweet girl. Grip the covers. Both hands. Make fists, squeeze them tight. Don’t let go. No matter what.”
She obeyed. Through integrating her breathing and arousal, she knew how to manage pain, to make the experience more ecstatic for her. She focused on that, trying to leave the rest behind.
He started with a few light slaps, just warming up the skin, mixing it with rubs and squeezes, where he grunted his appreciation of having her ass in his possession.
Then he started striking her with more force. Breath left her, and her fists squeezed tighter, released. Her buttocks quivered, and she made a conscious effort not to tense them, to accept everything he wanted to give her. That was the gift to her, and she never wasted a second of it.
He kept strapping her, up, down. He had an excellent technique, never staying in one place too long. Then he gripped both buttocks in one broad hand, used pressure to pull the weight of them up, more toward her spine, exposing that tender valley where the thighs joined to them. Then he went after that area with the belt. Hard.
It was a different level of pain, one she thought she could take, but she’d never been strapped by Wolf. He cracked it down on her flesh, again, again. She started quivering, her fists clutching, unclutching. She had to move. Goddess, she needed to writhe or wriggle like a child trying to escape punishment. She didn’t do that unless that was what the Dom wanted. Wolf wanted a question answered, one he hadn’t even yet asked.
She bit down on the terrycloth gag, tried so hard to stay still. His hand was moving, pinching, squeezing, and the belt went back to the round part of her ass, which was a blissful relief, until he began startling her with an occasional crack back on that more sensitive part, and would stay there for three or four licks before moving back to the other.
She wasn’t moving, but she was screaming against the gag, her fingers locked on the covers.
“Spread your legs.”
No, no, no, no.
Do you think you can refuse me, Ella? Say no to me?
No, she wouldn’t. Only in her head. She’d only ever say no in her head, but he was there, and he’d heard it. That rattled her. She struggled to part her thighs, though her sense of self-preservation fought her, asking her if she’d lost her fucking mind. He was scary, because he was setting and breaking all the rules as he deemed fit, all of it up to him. He was possessing her, saying she was his, totally.
Somehow, she managed to override her mind and spread her legs. He went back to work on her backside, but as he did, he pushed fingers inside her cunt. The feeling was indescribable. With the pain, he’d opened up a new well of feeling inside her. When he fucked her with his fingers, that well spilled over into her lower belly, flowed into her chest, her lower back.
Having his fingers inside her didn’t change the force or direction of his blows. Maybe that was a vampire thing, excess agility and strength, no matter the awkward position of the throwing arm.
Then his hand withdrew, but he held her up easily, one palm flat on her lower belly and mound, holding her above his knees, in the air, legs dangling loose and open, and strapped her more.
Whap, whap, whap…crack.
She arched, breath hissing in between her teeth. He’d hit that one on the joining part of thighs to backside again, on flesh now already smarting and angry. He kept doing it, and it really, really hurt. She cried out against the terry cloth and let go of the blanket. She tried to get away, tried to fight him, and she couldn’t. He was literally too strong. She was held down again, his elbow pressed into the middle of her back, her flailing feet held by his other forearm as he flexed it, worked the strap.
When she was sobbing against the gag, he finally stopped. Her body went limp, even as it throbbed. Her pussy had drenched her thighs, and she wanted…everything. Needed him inside her, his cock thrusting just as relentlessly as that belt fell. To remind her that he’d punished her because he cared about her.
He rubbed her throbbing buttocks, pinching a tender spot occasionally, making her flinch. Then he moved to her head, stroking her hair. As his strong palm and fingers moved under her chin, bringing it up to caress her, the tears that were already falling increased. He made a soothing noise before moving his palm to her sternum, spreading out his wide palm to lift her upper body, hold it arched in his lap.
“Yes, I do care about you, Ella. Very much. My girl. Reach back, grip you
r ass. Squeeze and rub yourself, digging your fingernails into the sorest points. Hard as you can, no holding back. When you’re dug in as deep as you can go, stop and hold it there.”
She complied, and fire lanced through those striped places. She kept squeezing, at his ruthless encouragement, until her arms shook with the effort. It was far easier to have him administer pain to herself than to have her do it. She knew that was why he did it.
“I have three questions for you to answer,” he said abruptly. “‘What can you expect of me? What do you expect of me? What do you want to expect from me?’”
Fuck. She couldn’t form worms. Words. But she struggled for them in her head. Only one answer fit all three.
What you want to give me.
“A nice response. Straight from the heart. And a total lie.”
Chapter Nineteen
“You like pleasing Doms. Like telling them what they want to hear. For the right reasons, because it gives you pleasure to please them. It’s a true response, but it’s not an honest one. Honesty doesn’t make anyone feel good. Not usually. It’s why we bury it way down.”
He paused, and ran his hand over her smarting buttocks. “You know, a second mark is not as resilient as a third mark. But those two marks do give you greater healing ability than none. Still, when I’m done, you won’t be able to sit for about half a day. Riding that bike of yours is pretty much going to be torture. But the lesson needs to be reinforced. I want you thinking about how you can’t sit, because of me. Guess that’s a Dom thing, that sadistic pleasure in the pain a sub has endured just to please him. Makes me feel like fucking you all over again, because I know you’d come, even through the pain, and that mix of pain and pleasure, both coming from me? It’s a fucking drug, Ella. You’ve had a taste, but I don’t think you’ve ever gotten the full dose.”
He turned her over in his arms, cupping her face. His silver eyes were glowing, his face set in that stern, uncompromising expression. Every word held her mesmerized. She was helpless, and it made her quake.
