All's Fair in Love and Mastery

by Sparrow Beckett

  “You need to read the room with me, little pixie. Sometimes you’ll get away with murder, but there’s a time and a place. Punishment spankings won’t be fun.”

  “Yes, Master.”

  He stood behind her, and she heard the sound of his belt.

  “No, please Master. I’m so sorry. No belt. Please no belt.”

  “No, no belt.” Something warm and velvet hard prodded at her slit. She felt his piercing as it dragged over her sensitive flesh.

  Fuck. This was Grant, naked, pressing against her nakedness, seeking entrance. All of a sudden, not having a condom between them felt important somehow, as if this meant more than she’d thought it would.

  He pried her pussy lips apart with his fingers and found wetness she would have sworn didn’t exist. The head of his cock slid up and down her entrance, slick with their combined arousal.

  “Tell me no,” he demanded, his voice guttural.

  “Please, no,” she begged, not meaning a word.

  “Too fucking bad, princess,” he crooned to her as the broad head of his cock broached her entrance.

  Oh god, he was bareback. It had been so long since anyone had been inside her with nothing between them.

  And this was Grant. Her Grant. The best friend who’d been off-limits. Fucking her over a tree limb after chasing her through the woods like they were in a creepy slasher movie. If she wasn’t in so much pain and so horny she would have laughed. Somehow the fact that this was their first time without a condom between them made him even more perfect for her.

  He flexed his hips and pushed. With Grant it was always a tight fit, but with her legs tied together it was even worse.

  “Fuck,” he whispered harshly, pausing for a long moment when he was only barely inside her. She heard him draw a long breath then hiss it out as if he was in pain.

  She whined and tried to push back against him, needing him deeper.

  “Don’t fucking move.” His voice dared her to disobey, and it made her melt.

  For what seemed like a long time nothing happened, and she could feel her body catching up with her brain, getting wet for him. The heat of his cock was almost unbearable. Between the coldness of her still-damp skin and the heat of her freshly beaten ass she was in sensory overload. When he finally moved again, she tried not to think of the bareness of his cock as it slid deeper into her, forcing her pussy wide. He felt so much bigger in this position, and by the time his hips met her ass she was gasping, her fists clenched as her pussy tried to adjust to his invasion.

  “You feel so damn good,” he groaned, stopping again either to give her a moment or calm himself down. He traced his finger around where they were joined, making her whimper, then reached around her and fought the press of her belly against her legs to reach her clit. His finger pressed and vibrated there, just as his cock withdrew a few inches then drove back in, making her squeal, her bare toes digging into the dirt and last autumn’s dried leaves.

  Without warning, he seemed to lose control. His hips pistoning, he grunted over her like an animal. She could smell his sweat, a faint, manly scent, making him more real in this surreal moment. He was more beast than man as he bowed her body to his will, taking it for his use, making her take every inch in a mad and hectic series of jarring thrusts she wasn’t sure he could control. The heat between them was impossible and electric. He played her body, using her lust and his violent passion to drive her higher and more helplessly toward the brink.

  Her body tensed around his, feeling too full and molten. Muscles tightened in her belly and thighs as a horrible storm of pleasure gripped her tightly then exploded in waves of perfect, heavenly agony, his hips slapping against her abused ass, hurting in all the right ways as she came. He snarled her name, the most beautiful sound she’d ever heard, either a prayer or an epithet. Hot jets of his come filled her, almost scalding, and as he kept pummeling into her body, the liquid heat of his release and her own dripped down to slicken her thighs. He swore, his voice breaking once and then he was slowing.

  She could feel the shaking of his legs and then he half collapsed on top of her. His hand smoothed soothingly down her back as her orgasm’s aftershocks shuddered through her body. She whimpered, feeling deliciously used. Exhaustion swept through her and his hand stroked her hair then tangled in it, giving a possessive tug close to the scalp at the back of her head. Another aftershock hit and she moaned.

  “Are you okay?” He levered himself up, and the branch under her hips gave an alarming crack. “Don’t move,” he said, unnecessarily. It wasn’t like she could go anywhere even if she wasn’t in imminent danger of falling on her face. Balanced precariously on the tips of her toes, she waited, knowing if the branch gave way there was no chance of catching herself, and yet she was having a hard time caring.

  He crouched behind her. From where she hung upside down, she could see his grim expression as he worked at the knot he’d tied in her leggings, releasing her from their stubborn hold.

  “Don’t move yet.” He rose and grabbed her by the waist, then levered her upright, pulling her back against him with a breast in each hand.

  Grant turned her in his arms, then claimed her lips with a groan of appreciation. Come dripped down her legs and she grimaced at him.

  “What?” he asked, his brow furrowed in concern. Tenderly, he brushed a lock of hair off her forehead. “Did I hurt you too much?”

  “No. I’m just . . . leaking.” She wrinkled her nose. “It’s funny how you completely forget about that part.”

  He reached between her thighs and before she could object he cupped her pussy in his palm and emitted some sort of weird growl of possessiveness.

  “I finally get breeding fetishes.”

  She laughed and raised her hands to shove him affectionately away, but the throb of her ass gave her pause. No smacking. She’d have to remember that unless she felt like living with the consequences.

  He sat on the ground and pulled her down on top of him, then lay back. She sprawled over him, feeling small and protected in his arms. He nuzzled her hair and she sighed in contentment. Lazily, through half-lidded eyes, she watched the waves, as she slapped away the occasional mosquito, her back pleasantly warmed by the sun while her battered ass complained about the heat. His chest was hard and sexy, and she found herself eavesdropping on the beat of his heart as it gradually slowed to normal. Idly, she played with his nipple, the small pale bud puckering under her toying fingers.

  “I think we need to get up,” he said eventually, his voice more percussion than sound under her ear.

  She lifted her head and looked down at him, propping her chin on her hands so she could see his face.

  “But I’m comfy,” she complained.

  “I’m getting bitten by something. I’m guessing ants. If we stay like this too long they might decide to move their new colony into my asshole, and that’s a kink even I haven’t heard of.”

  “I’m sure it’s a thing,” she insisted, not budging even as he winced. She giggled, and he arched a disapproving brow. He was too much fun. And the best part was it was her kind of fun.

  “Get up.”

  “What will you give me if I show you mercy?”

  In one swift movement he sat up and had her sprawled awkwardly over his lap. He gave her five sharp spanks then dumped her on the ground and stood, brushing the backs of his legs with his hands.

  Before she could even process what was happening, he’d plucked her from the ground and swung her to her feet. He kissed her then, long and sweetly, wrapped tightly against his chest, making her wish they could stay like that forever.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Let’s go.”

  After a shower and the shortest nap in history, he was dragging her off again. He packed a few things into a backpack and led her down to the boathouse.

  “It smells like fish in here,” she grum
bled, still sore and half asleep.

  “We’re just grabbing life jackets and then we’re going canoeing. I’m not walking all the way back to the big boat to get those jackets.”

  She groaned in dismay. “Do we have to go canoeing? Now?”

  “I want to see if we have any close neighbors.”

  “They didn’t give you that information when you bought the place?”

  “I never really talked to the owners. My attorney made all of the arrangements.”

  Grant tested out a few life jackets on her, knowing far more on the subject than she would have given him credit for. After browsing through the canoes on one of the racks outside, he handed her two big wooden paddles.

  “How are you going to get that thing down to the water?”

  “I’m going to carry it.”

  “By yourself? Do you even know how?”

  “I know how. They showed us at summer camp, but I was too scrawny to do it alone. I always wanted to try this but I stopped going before I got big enough to do it.”

  “Did you go to some sort of summer camp designed by survivalists?”

  “No, the last summer camp I got sent to was designed for troubled boys. They were tough on us, but decent.”

  He hefted the canoe out of the rack and almost overbalanced but then caught himself. She had to admit that this may not have seemed like a good idea initially, but having seen him, biceps flexed and abs showing where his T-shirt rode up, she pulled out her phone and snapped a few pictures. Drooling, she trailed after him, admiring the figure he cut in such an outdoorsy environment. His jeans hugged his ass and muscular legs in all the right ways, and the sun made his hair a burnished copper.

  The dock shifted under their feet as they walked along it, and Dex had a disconcerting moment where she thought she’d fall in. It wasn’t deep off the dock here, but the idea of getting another dunking while fully clothed didn’t appeal to her.

  Grant held the canoe steady while she got in, and she was proud she only squealed once when she’d thought the whole boat was going to tip over with her in it, and once when her aching ass settled against the seat. Without any help from her, Grant got in, agile as a cat, barely even rocking the narrow craft. He reached onto the dock, grabbed the paddles, and handed one to her.

  “So what exactly qualified you as a troubled boy?”

  “This may surprise you, but I had a bit of an attitude problem in my early teens. Earlier than that even. My father sent me away for the summer so that I wouldn’t be underfoot, and I think it was the best part of my childhood. I’ve never felt like the kind of man who belonged in the city.”

  “Really? That’s so weird. Up until the point that you bought this place I had no idea you even liked the outdoors. Why don’t you ever talk about camp?”

  “Have you ever heard me talk about my childhood?”

  “We’ve known each other for a few years. I remember all sorts of stories about scrapes you and Will got into.”

  From her position at the front of the canoe she couldn’t see his face. He was just a disembodied voice floating from behind her. The lake was clear and as smooth as glass, the only ripples made by the canoe as it slid across the expanse.

  It was beautiful here in a way she’d never realized was missing from her life. It was so quiet, and yet not. The sounds were just different. Less demanding. A breeze ruffled her hair and she turned her face toward the sun, closing her eyes and drinking it in. Between work, the club, and the house, sometimes she forgot what it was like to be outside if she wasn’t just running to her car.

  “Those stories all came from Will, not me.”

  Two gulls circled high overhead, their cries the perfect match to the sound of water lapping the sides of the canoe. She’d never actually been in a canoe before, and it was strange to be so close to the water and yet not in it. If she reached out a hand, she could skim her hand across the surface of the lake.

  For a few minutes Grant explained simple paddling techniques and soon she was able to help him move the small vessel rather than simply sitting at the front like a prow maiden.

  “So your brother talks about your childhood and you don’t?” she asked, bringing the subject back around to him. “I know you had a falling-out with your family—fair enough. That’s not my business. Some of the stories Will has told me make it pretty clear you guys had money growing up.”

  He grunted noncommittally, so she went on.

  “It doesn’t sound like your father was very involved, but I just can’t figure out why you’d walk away from stability and put yourself in the position you were in.”

  “It wasn’t really a choice,” he said slowly. Could he tell she was hanging on every word? “Will got kicked out. He was the only person in our family who gave a shit about me, so when he left I went with him. We were partying a lot by then. You know how it is. Bored, privileged white boys with more money than we knew what to do with, angry at the world.”

  She really wanted to ask him why Will had gotten kicked out. Will was always so levelheaded it seemed strange that it was his fault instead of Grant’s.

  “We didn’t even get in trouble for the drugs, the booze, or the steady stream of girls. It was the kink that got him tossed out. I couldn’t let him go alone.”

  “That was noble of you.”

  “No. It was more that I couldn’t let him go and leave me alone. I didn’t have anyone else.”

  Grant was steering them toward the distant shoreline of the mainland, where there was nothing but water and rocks and trees as far as the eye could see. Hopefully Mr. Outdoorsman would know how to get back to their island.

  When had his island become their island? No, it was definitely his. Just because he’d brought her there first didn’t mean she had any claim to it.

  “What about your father, your stepmother, and your sister? You didn’t have any grandparents or anything? And you guys never talk about your mother.”

  For some reason it was easier asking all of these questions she’d always wondered about while they were laboring together toward the same task, all alone in the middle of nowhere. It was like they were in their own little world and the rest of their lives seemed distant—the real world, the past, none of it seemed to matter as much. Even the situation with Nigel and Mia seemed more like a bad dream. She didn’t even know them anymore.

  “Our mother left one day and never came back. For a few years Will and I had a theory our father murdered her and covered it up.”

  Whoa! If they’d believed that, it said a lot about their father.

  “One of the first things we did after Catacombs started making money was hire a private investigator to find her.”

  “And? Did you get answers?” she asked, feeling vaguely ill. What a thing to have to wonder about for years.

  “She lives in Washington with her husband and new family and doesn’t want anything to do with us.”

  Oh . . . shit. No wonder they never talked about her. How hurtful would that be? Her heart ached for both brothers. No kid deserved that, even if they were grown. Her mother’s death had been brutally hard for her, but at least her mother had no choice about leaving her. Even now, thinking about her brought feelings of warmth and love with the regret. Grant didn’t get anything but . . . what? Betrayal? Hell, he probably felt abandoned—maybe that it was somehow his fault she left?

  “We hadn’t wanted to go charging back into her life or anything, if that wasn’t what she wanted. We just wanted to know she was okay, or have our father charged if she wasn’t. She told us that she’d found out our father was sleeping with Kim and she just . . .” He shrugged. “Packed a bag and left us three kids behind without looking back.”

  “Were you close to her before that?”

  “No. She was busy keeping up appearances. Tennis, golf, charity functions. We rarely saw her. Will has a theory she
was pressured into having us and never really liked parenting. I can’t say I blame her. I am an asshole.”

  Well, sometimes he was, but not moreso than a lot of other men she knew.

  “What about your father? Were you close to him?” She assumed no, considering their first guess when their mother had disappeared had been that their father had killed her.

  “He was always busy with work,” he said simply. “We were mostly raised by nannies. Then he married Kim and moved her into the house, and the next thing you know I was at Greystone during the year and at camp during the summer. Kim couldn’t stand me, so our father—who’d never been very fond of me anyway—basically got rid of me.”

  “That’s awful!” she said so vehemently that the canoe shook.

  “It’s ancient history, pixie. No need to get your little wings in a bunch.” He said it flippantly, but there was an undercurrent of resignation that broke her heart. Like being thrown away was just normal for him. How did someone become such a cocky, well-adjusted guy after that?

  The far shore was already looming. Although it was improbable, the entire area gave Dex the impression that no one had ever been here before. There were no signs of human activity anywhere.

  “So you loved summer camp. Did you love Greystone too? At least it got you out of the situation at home.”

  There was a protracted period of silence where she thought he’d tell her to mind her own business. How bad could it be? It was ancient history, and compared to what she’d told him about Mia and Nigel, surely it wasn’t asking something too personal.

  “It’s not a fun secret,” he warned.

  “I want to know,” she pressed, and she did. It seemed really wrong that she didn’t know everything about him.

  “It was . . . shitty,” he finally said. She waited for him to say more, but he didn’t.

  “In my head I always thought of it like Hogwarts.” She wondered if turning around to look at him would make him less comfortable talking. It would probably just tip them both into the lake.