“Deep, cleansing breath. On the exhale, release any remaining tension.”
She relaxed even more after doing as he’d instructed. He spent what seemed like another ten or fifteen minutes taking her deeper into trance. When she felt as if she couldn’t get any more relaxed without falling asleep, he continued.
“When I touch or stroke your arm, you will pull out of trance immediately. You will remember everything that happens while under hypnosis.” She always did the same with her therapist, recalling everything that was said, what she thought, and every other aspect of her time in trance. The clink of a glass from the bar area jolted her momentarily. She thought she smelled candles. She needed to shut those extraneous matters out and focus on Damián and his commands. She took a deep breath and released it, relaxing even further.
Damián took a deep, cleansing breath of his own. Was he nervous? Should she be? “Now, let’s begin, savita.”
I trust him to do me no harm.
“Whenever I—and only I—tap you on the forehead, you will go deeper into trance and feel the impact of whatever implement I’m using twice as hard as the time before. With each tap, any place I touch you with my hand or any of my toys will also be that many times more sensitive than before. Are you ready?”
“Yes, Sir.” More than ever.
“Now, we’re going to try something new.” The whip certainly wasn’t new, although it had been a while. So what did he have in mind?
“Close your eyes and lean against the post to stabilize yourself.”
She took her position and waited.
Tap.
She relaxed into the wood. Waiting.
Crack!
The whip cracked in the air. She jumped before realizing that had just been for show, probably for the Wilsons’ benefit, because she hadn’t felt the sting of the whip.
But the next hiss of the bullwhip had the leather impacting against her butt with a significant sting. Nothing she couldn’t handle, but definitely more sting than he’d given her in recent months. Two more landed on various places on her butt, and she relished each delicious bite of the leather.
Tap.
Hiss.
Crack!
The air whooshed out of her lungs as this strike made contact across both butt cheeks. Dear God! He was using more force now. What would the next one be like? She didn’t have time to dwell on it before the whip struck in the same place the last one had hit, or near enough.
“Oh!” She couldn’t keep the surprise to herself and gasped before trying to prepare for the next. How many would there be? Had he said? She gripped the chain her wrist cuffs had been attached to and waited. Crack! The slicing pain of the whip reverberated to her core, followed quickly by another. She writhed as the pain registered in her brain. These were comparable to the lashes he’d given her last spring when he hadn’t held back due to her pregnancy.
There was a slight lull, and she wondered when and where the next lash would land. She didn’t have to wait long. He tapped her forehead once. The next lash cut into one of her most tender areas, where her butt met her thighs.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!
He was moving into Patti’s pain levels now. Savannah didn’t consider herself a hardcore masochist like Victor’s slave did, even though she was a bit of a pain slut. She wasn’t sure she could take another blow like that but didn’t want to safeword and disappoint Damián after he’d planned this special session for them.
Toughen up, buttercup.
With pain like that, there would have to be marks. Savannah so loved seeing the marks Damián put on her in their early days together and couldn’t wait to see these. She tried to catch her breath, waiting, but soon the heat of Damián’s body warmed her back, and the brush of his leathers abraded the tender skin of her butt even more. She held her breath, waiting to see what he intended to do next. He cupped both of her breasts before squeezing her nipples.
“Ack!” Had his hypnotic suggestion intensified the sensation there, too? They hadn’t been this sensitive in over a month.
His teeth captured her earlobe and bit down. Hard. Her knees buckled, but he caught her, his arm like a band around her torso between her breasts and baby bump, lessening the strain on her arms.
“How are you doing, bebé?”
“Fine.”
“Only fine? Perhaps I need to start over.”
“No! I mean, that was intense, and I’m loving it…”
He chuckled. “Then you’d like me to continue?”
She nibbled her lower lip. “Will it hurt twice as much as the last ones?”
“Would you like it to?”
No. Yes. “I’m not sure.”
“You know your stop and slow-down words. Use them if you need to.”
The heat of his body left her, and she heard the distinctive swoosh of the cat o’ nine. He’d never used one on her before, but she’d watched him use it on Patti. Her body stiffened, awaiting impact. She’d expected the falls to land on her back, but instead, they slashed across her butt and thighs in the same places the whip had already made raw.
“Shit!” The word came out unexpectedly. Damián’s only response was a chuckle, the rat bastard. Another slash, and she refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing he had her on the edge of falling apart. Then pain became pleasure. She’d crossed that fine line somewhere between the second and third blows of a cat o’ nine tails. The next slash of the tails robbed her of breath and any remaining thought.
He touched her forearm, bringing her out of trance in an instant. Disoriented at first, she blinked a few times. She hadn’t used her slowdown or safeword. While proud of herself for not giving in, she realized she probably should have at one point. Her response to this whipping had brought back memories of how she fought letting Gentry or Lyle know they’d hurt her. But this was Damián. And she loved when he dished out pain. He would have been disappointed if she hadn’t been able to take it. She could have taken even more to please him. She knew he needed to release some of his own pent-up frustrations and did so by throwing a whip.
They hardly came to the club anymore. And sex at home had been absent for nearly the past month. Was he even interested in her anymore?
Her answer came immediately.
Grinding his pelvis against her sore backside, he ignited flames inside her as long-overdue desire licked at her body. She rubbed her butt against him, wanting him to remove the thong and bury himself deep inside her. But he wouldn’t do that in the club, not in the public area with an audience, anyway. At least, he never had before.
The throbbing in her core derailed her. When he nudged her thighs open with his knee, sawing the top of his thigh against her mostly exposed sex, she almost exploded then and there. In retrospect, she was glad she hadn’t stopped the scene. As always, Damián found a way to give her what she needed.
As if she wasn’t already about to come, his free hand pushed aside the triangular strip of mesh cloth on the front of her thong, and he ran his finger between her lower lips.
“Oh! That feels so good!”
She hadn’t expected him to home in on her sex so quickly but opened her legs wider to better accommodate him. Every place he touched was on fire.
“My good girl is so wet for her Dom.” His husky words only made her wetter.
Trying to regain her wits, she responded for his ears only, “Only for you, Sir.”
“Do you want to come, savita?”
“Oh, yes, Sir! Please!”
He chuckled before stepping away and extricating his body from hers. “I think you’ve been on your feet long enough.”
No! He wasn’t going to let her come? Savannah couldn’t keep her moan of frustration inside, which only elicited another chuckle from Damián. Apparently, he was in a sadistic mood tonight. Nothing more than she deserved after she’d been shut down for so long and uninterested in sex.
But her husband wasn’t vindictive or punitive. He understood she sometimes had her dark days, j
ust more so lately than she had been having those thoughts.
He massaged her arms and shoulders after unhooking the leather cuffs from the chains and her head lolled back as she gave into his ministrations. When he removed the cuffs from her wrists and set them aside, he took her arm and turned her toward the stage again. She glanced around, still a little disoriented, and saw that the tables and chairs were way too close to the center post for him to have been able to throw the whip.
“How did you have enough room to inflict that much pain?”
He kissed her forehead. “It was mostly in your imagination, responding to the suggestions I made as I put you in trance.”
If there had been a mirror, she’d so have glanced at her butt to see the stripes he’d placed there, but something told her she wouldn’t find any because the intensity had all been in her mind. What the ever-loving—
She caught a grin on Ryder’s face before her gaze met Damián’s again. “Impossible. I know what I felt.”
He unhooked the coiled bullwhip from his belt loop, unfurled it, and tapped her butt with it. “That’s about how hard I struck you with my whip.”
No way!
“What about with the cat? I almost screamed guacamole at one point to slow down. Just the sound of the cat-o-nine freaks me out, but when it slashed my bare butt and thighs, I didn’t think I could continue.”
“The only difference in intensity was inside your mind. I told you to expect it to grow harder each time, and it did—but only in your head.”
“Unbelievable. I thought this whipping had nothing on the first time I saw you whip Patti—and you were barely touching me.”
Damián grew serious. “There’s something I want you to tell me. If you were at or beyond your limits with the cat, why didn’t you use your slowdown word or your safeword?” When she didn’t respond, he continued. “If you weren’t under hypnosis and those strikes had actually been at full strength, I could have inflicted bodily harm to you. That’s not acceptable, Savannah. I need to be able to trust you to tell me where you are if I don’t see it myself. Now, explain yourself.”
She lowered her head to stare at his chest, no longer able to make eye contact. The heat of shame crept up her neck and into her cheeks.
“Bebé? I asked you a question.” He cupped her chin and forced her to meet his gaze. “Tell me.”
“I…didn’t…want to…disappoint you.”
“What makes you think I’d be disappointed? This is a safety issue, Savannah.” He wasn’t using one of the nicknames he gave her while scening.
She picked at the skin around her fingernail. “But I’d already been sexually distant the last month. I felt I owed it to you to at least be willing to play tonight any way you wanted to. It’s your Alive Day.” That sounded pathetic even to her ears, but she couldn’t stop there. “When you stopped before giving me an orgasm, I realized I was right. I accept that you’d want to deprive me of what I’ve withheld from you lately.”
She ventured a glance at his face. Something she couldn’t quite identify flashed in his eyes then smoldered under the surface. “You don’t owe me sex, Savannah. Servicing me when you want to is something I find fucking hot, but servicing me when you know it’s hurting you should never happen.” Damian gave her a look that clearly told her he knew about the deep-throat incident she’d thought she’d hidden so well. “Looking back, I realized what happened, although I was less than observant when your mouth was on my dick. I’m sorry for that, but please promise me you won’t ever force yourself again.”
Even though she was a master at hiding her feelings and faking it, at some point she’d have expected him to see through her façade and notice her misery. But he was her Dom, not some all-knowing demigod.
Before she could respond, he reinforced his words with, “Even if it’s as simple as you aren’t in the mood or have too much going on—which you most definitely do right now—don’t you think I can understand and accept that? How can you expect me to trust you if you won’t let me know when I’ve gone too far? I’d never forgive myself if I’d hurt you, Savannah, but I can’t read your mind. It fucking pains me to think you’d believe I’d punish you for saying no to something or having an emotional response to doing it.”
In not using her safeword, she’d actually caused him to be profoundly disappointed in her, the very thing she wanted to avoid. Tears stung her eyes. “I’m…” She swallowed past the lump in her throat. “I’m sorry, Sir.” While lying about and hiding her emotions had served her well in the past as a coping mechanism, she could see that it wouldn’t work in a healthy relationship.
“We can’t play again unless you promise me you won’t withhold something like this from me in the future. ¿Comprendes?”
She nodded her head vigorously. “Yes, Sir. I’ve learned my lesson. I promise to let you know when I’m nearing my limits, and I need you to point it out anytime you think I’m hiding my emotions. It can take up to six weeks to correct or change a behavior, so I might not be aware I’m doing it at first. But I assure you I won’t put myself in a dark place again with my misguided sense of what a wife and submissive should be doing to please her man.” She gave him a lopsided grin. “I do have a tendency to want to please people, especially you.”
“That’s your submissive nature and when your heart’s in it, I want nothing more than having you serve my needs, just as I find great pleasure in doing the same as your Dom. But I’m holding you to this promise, savita.” His Dom stare sent flutters through her stomach. “And the repercussions next time will be severe, including depriving you of all scening and orgasms for an extended period of time so you won’t forget yourself again.”
“Thank you for loving me and for protecting me, even from myself sometimes. I am honored to be your submissive and your wife.” They leaned toward each other as if drawn by a magnet, and the kiss they shared was so tender tears welled up behind her eyelids. After the kiss ended, she unabashedly brushed them away. He smiled as he brushed a stray one off her cheek.
While her actions—and inactions—had jeopardized any hope of achieving the orgasm she so desperately needed tonight, she wanted to share one more thing. “Sir?”
“Sí, savita?”
“That scene under hypnosis was incredibly hot. For the first time in a long time, I was on the verge of exploding. After a month of not even wanting to be touched, much less have an orgasm, it felt so good to get that close again. Thank you for your persistence. I hope we can try that again—soon.”
His smile brought enormous comfort to her. “Who said this scene is over?”
That was it? He’d already forgiven her? She loved how he didn’t bear a grudge or hold onto disappointment or anger but simply explained where he was coming from and how they could move forward.
She needed to be more like Damián and let go of her hatred and fears. He’d certainly had reason to hate Julio, the insurgents who blew away his foot, and Lyle and Gentry for what they’d done to them both. But he didn’t allow them to consume him or make him into some cowering, bitter creature.
He took her hand. “Come. Time for a test ride.”
As they approached the stage, she asked, “I hope that means what I think it does.”
Damián chuckled but didn’t say anything more.
Chapter Eleven
Savannah’s focus turned to the stage area as he led her back there. Once again, she wondered what could possibly be under the blue tarp and whether it was meant for her.
Without leaving her to ponder much longer, he lifted the tarp away to reveal a padded chair with another covering on it in the middle of Karla’s stage.
“Dad and I just bought this earlier this week for the club. You’ll be the first submissive to try it out.”
A massage chair? The bigger the boy, the bigger the toy, with Doms being some of the most impatient to try them out on their submissives and bottoms.
Savannah had never sat in one before, although she’d seen one in her OB�
��s office building lobby. She actually was honored to be the first. As one of the newcomers to the club, she often felt like a novice with everything. Besides, after the stress she’d been under the past few weeks, not to mention how tightly coiled her nerves were at the moment, the idea of a massage sounded like heaven.
While she’d prefer he take care of her need for an orgasm first, she knew not to ask or push for one. He’d let her come when he was ready.
After readjusting the protective covering, he helped her into the seat. “Lean your head back and relax your entire body into the chair. ¿Comprendes?”
“Yes, Sir.” Sinking back against it, the leather squeaking, she found the chair even more comfortable than expected, so much so that she could have fallen asleep in it.
Damián shook out the tarp, laid it on the floor, and slid it underneath the chair to the base. Between the chair’s covering and the tarp, she wondered what kind of mess he expected her to make. What did Damián have in mind? Perhaps something more than a simple massage.
His body blocked the view of her from their audience, well, except for Mistress Grant, but she was busy wiping down the center post. Damián must have asked her ahead of time to help him with that so he could keep the flow of his multi-faceted scene going.
Her comfort was short-lived when Damián spread her knees apart as he positioned her legs into the calf massagers. Self-conscious of her nearly naked pussy, she must have resisted him a little.
“Open wider for me, mi mariposa.” It wasn’t a request.
Savannah forced herself to relax her thighs and let him minister to her the way he wanted, the imagery of a butterfly spreading its wings flitting through her mind.
“I know you would keep your hands where I place them, but I think you might enjoy the feeling of helplessness these restraints will give.” Without waiting for her response, as if it would matter, he secured her arms to the horizontal hand and arm massagers using a fancy Shibari tie he’d probably learned from Adam.
Somebody’s Perfect Page 11
