by Joey W. Hill
She saw the side bar was stocked with alcohol and snacks, including chocolate, because she scented it as she turned in that direction to begin her circle of the table.
She’d debated it in her head for a quick second—turn away from Jon, so she finished her circuit in front of him, or start with him, so she could perhaps receive a reassuring brush of his hand before she began? She chose the first option, because he would be able to touch her longer, if he wished, when she completed the task.
As she tried not to rush or go too slow, she realized she was self-conscious again. That wasn’t what she wanted to be feeling. She recalled how she’d felt in front of the mirror, thinking of their regard. Her head lifted, her back straightened, and she made the most of walking in the heels over the carpet. She let her hips swing naturally, and knew the change in posture had her breasts tilted, the taut peaks on display.
She didn’t make eye contact, but she was aware of each man’s gaze upon her as she passed. It wasn’t merely the lust-filled regard that came from men appreciating a naked woman in their midst. This was the focused attention of five sexual Dominants, appraising her as a submissive, there for them, under the control of her Master.
The thought sent another spurt of arousal through her, and she faltered slightly. Her clit was pulsing in the grip of the shield, her nipples aching for attention as the chain between the clamps beat a light tattoo against her skin. The extra swing in her hips had the plug doing incredible things inside her ass, so the more steps she made, the more sensations washed through her.
Jon often called her a goddess. The last time he’d done it, he’d brought her down upon him when he was sitting in his home office chair. He’d threaded her legs under the arms, then reached up to her face, murmuring the words.
You’re a goddess.
It was hard to explain to someone, how belonging to a Master could make a woman feel like a goddess, powerful beyond description. Not powerful like politician or businesswoman powerful; powerful because she was loved, and loved so completely she knew she could do anything.
While it hadn’t been scripted, when she reached Jon, she knelt before him where he stood. Leaning forward, she touched her forehead to his knee, something she often did at home when they started a session. He touched her head, just as he did then, completing the ritual.
She remembered she was supposed to go to the door now, so she started to rise. Not unexpectedly, he put a hand under her elbow, helping her, but when his grip tightened, telling her he wanted her to stay where she was, she was more than happy to comply.
Gathering her hair up in one fist, he tugged it idly as he half-circled her, so her head was following his movements, her eyes upon him. Using his other hand, he curled his fingers on the back of the robe collar. Understanding, she rolled her shoulders back, and the robe slid off her shoulders, gathering at her elbows. He shook his head when she would have dropped her arms to let it slide completely free, so she stopped, the garment pooled at her elbows and waist, her arms bent and fingers lightly tangled together to keep it there.
He released her hair, letting it fall down her back. The strands whispered over her bare skin. He slid his palm over her shoulder, curled the fingers to trail his knuckles along the outside of her breast, then descended to her hip, beneath the robe. As he reached her buttock and caressed her there, he moved behind her and tugged so she straightened her arms and the robe fell free into his hands. He draped it over a chair and stood behind her, his breath caressing her ear and throat. He was so close she could lean back against him, but she controlled herself. With effort.
“Are you beautiful to your Master, Rachel?”
She straightened another inch, making sure her posture reflected her answer, though she kept her gaze lowered. “I am, Master. And I am beautiful to myself.”
“And to every man here.” The words came from Matt. He was across the room. His strong voice was always clear and decisive, so authoritative, it was difficult to imagine doubting any words he spoke. Especially in this environment.
“You spoke the right answer, sweet girl.” Jon curled his hand around her waist and brought her back against him with decidedly possessive force, his jaw nudging her head back to his shoulder as he set his mouth and teeth to her throat.
“I am giving you to them tonight, Rachel. To their desires and my own. When one of them tells you to do something, you obey them as you would me. But I’ll be with you every step of the way.” When she made a soft noise, both nervous and eager, he teased the pocket of her collarbone with his tongue, made her fists clench as he trailed the tip of it along the column of her throat, gently suckling her flesh with his firm lips.
“There was a time, me suggesting this would have taken you to a dark place.” He stopped, but kept his lips close enough she could still feel the heat of his breath. “Cole made you feel bad about your desires, ashamed to want your Master to do such a thing. Yet now you’re trembling and wet.”
His hand descended, slid between her legs and caressed, playing with the metal piece over her clit. She caught a moan in the back of her throat. “Do you feel any shame? Any fears or dark thoughts?”
“No, Master. Yes.” She wet her lips at the contradiction and admission. His fingers stilled, so she continued, hastily. “I did in the hallway, but I told him his words have no power over me anymore. Even so…I’m afraid I’ll feel those things when I don’t want to feel them. I’m afraid I’ll disappoint you. Even though I feel nothing right now but a desire to serve you.”
“Your honesty is the second-best gift you give me. It proves your love, which is the first. So, how can you best serve me? It’s been the most difficult lesson for you to learn, but I think you’re beginning to understand and feel it in your heart, aren’t you?
“Yes, sir.” His written note immediately came to mind. “By getting lost in my own desires, since that pleases you most of all.”
“It does.” His voice took on a teasing note. “Though given the ways you could pursue your own desires tonight, I might have to choose some interesting ways to remind you who your Master is.”
“And that’s a threat, how?”
She flushed with pleasure, not only at his sensual laughter, but the sexy chuckles of the other men.
“We might have two misbehaving subs on our hands,” Ben observed. “It only took five minutes before we had to put the ball gag on Dana.”
Jon caressed Rachel’s mouth. “What would you prefer stretching your mouth, Rachel? A gag or a cock?”
She moistened her lips, catching his finger with her tongue, a quick flick. “Your cock, Master.”
“Only mine?”
He’d trapped her neatly, and she flushed again as another ripple of amusement went through the room. The intention was to tease her, she knew it, but something else went through her, something darker. Bitch in heat…
“Easy.” Jon ran his hands slowly down her arms and back up, even as he brought his body closer, which pressed his pelvis firmly against her backside and the plug. She gasped as he reached between them and manipulated it, seating it deeper. She clutched the arm that suddenly circled her waist and he spoke against her ear, his jaw to her throat. “If I gift one of my brothers with the lush pleasure of your mouth, it will be because it’s what I order you to do. Serving me pleases my sub, and her pleasure pleases me. Remember?”
“Yes, Master,” she breathed. Jon had done this exercise with her often, never allowing her to be frustrated with herself. He knew how to use targeted questions that pointed her back toward the right path.
“Would you want to do it if I wasn’t here? If I hadn’t ordered you to do it? Think it through, but more importantly, feel it. Feel the honest answer in your heart and don’t be afraid to say it.”
“No,” she said firmly. “I wouldn’t have the slightest desire if it wasn’t my Master’s will. If it didn’t give him pleasure. Or me pleasure.”
“Good,” he said, in that voice that could stroke her nerves like a son
g. He turned her to face him, hands on her shoulders. “Now, I want you to get on the table. Go to Dana, and remove her gag. I want you to kiss her.”
Her gaze flicked up to him, showing her surprise. He stroked his thumb over her lips, his hand on her face. “Can you imagine that, sweet girl?”
She could, and the idea of it had her unconsciously wetting her lips. Jon’s blue eyes lit with sparks of fire. “But that’s all you get to do. For now. You can’t touch her below the shoulders, but you can kiss and caress her all you wish within those parameters. Don’t stop until I tell you to do so.”
She realized the men were moving to take seats around the table, but when Jon turned her and nudged her toward it, she was only thinking of what he’d just told her to do. And that was a mistake.
On her walk around the table, she’d kept the right amount of her mind on her balance. Even though they were only three inches, what most women would consider easy, she didn’t wear high heels often, at least not for walking. Jon enjoyed seeing her wear them in the bedroom, while on her back, her legs raised, or on all fours, her backside in the air, the heels pointed outward over the edge of the bed. So she was mortified when she snagged the carpet and started to take a plunge.
A pair of strong hands immediately caught her. Two pairs. Peter and Ben had both moved quickly. It couldn’t help but make her blush, give her more butterflies. Their rapid response spoke to their obvious close attention to her every movement.
“We were hoping you would do that,” Ben teased her. “Give us a chance to be chivalrous. I don’t know how you women walk in those things at all. But God bless you for wearing them.”
“That drag queen down in Texas offered you the chance to wear her boots,” Lucas reminded him from the other side of the table. “She said you two were the same size. I was looking forward to that.”
“Yeah, because you like to stare at the swing of my ass,” Ben retorted.
“It’s so cute and tight, how can we resist?” Peter said dryly.
Rachel hid a smile and Ben tugged her hair, his other hand still resting on her lower back. “Hey, no disrespect of a fellow Dom in front of the subs. Else I’ll have to be all the harder on them to make them behave.”
“That’s exactly what you’re hoping,” Jon said.
“Damn right.”
Jon’s hands took the place of Peter’s on her opposite hip. Ben’s hand slipped away, though the lawyer’s response had added exponentially to the lingering heat of his touch.
“Rachel, I told you where I want you,” Jon said. “And you know I don’t like repeating myself.”
“Yes, sir.”
Figuring out the best way onto the table took only a second, because the question was answered for her. Jon turned her toward him and lifted her onto it, putting her backside on the cool surface. He pushed his body between her legs as he gave her another brush of his lips. “Turn over and go to her on your hands and knees,” he instructed.
“Yes, praise God,” someone murmured. Possibly Ben.
“Once you get to her,” Jon continued, “sit up on your knees, and have her do the same. She has cuffs on each wrist. Draw her arms up so her wrists are behind her head, and latch them to the back of her collar. I want your bodies close, so press your knee against her cunt, your other one to her hip on the outside. Mind the heels on the glass.”
“Yes, sir.” As he backed off, she shifted, pulling her legs up onto the table in a fold and then rolling from there to her knees. It was an easy enough move to do with her yoga experience, but she didn’t usually walk on her hands and knees. However, a glimpse of glittering male gazes became a weighted blanket of heat. It helped her add sinuous grace to the movements as she made her way to the center of the table.
The cut size of the mat meant her knees were immediately pressed into the cushioned support, no chance of her having to handle the unyielding surface beneath.
These men could be hard on their subs. Every one of them had a ruthless side. When the ladies met for their monthly girls-night, they shared stories with one another freely. But those ruthless moments were always, always balanced with notes like this, ways to protect and care for them. Any discomfort or pain was the kind that led to pleasure, a mindless surrender, a letting go, to simply be this.
Theirs.
She reached Dana and inhaled the woman’s scent, so familiar to her. Perhaps because of what they were, the women were frequently physically affectionate with one another. At those female get-togethers, they often retired to Cassandra’s sun porch with glasses of wine, and Dana liked to sit close to Rachel, her fingers playing in Rachel’s hair. Sometimes she laid her head in Rachel’s lap.
Now they had permission to take physical affection, the bond of friends, subs, family, even further—to sexual enjoyment and indulgence. It gave the caress she feathered over Dana’s cheek a different, lingering feel. Either because she was already heavily aroused or because she sensed it, Dana turned her face into Rachel’s hand, brushing her cheek and nose against her palm.
Rachel unbuckled the gag, sliding it out, stroking Dana’s nape as she did so. Dana had dark hair, soft and wooly, closely shorn so it emphasized the shape of her skull, her swanlike neck. Rachel had seen a couple of pictures of Dana before the explosion that had taken her sight, and she’d had sharp cheekbones. The IED had done a lot of damage to one side of her face, but the brilliant cosmetic surgeon had compensated, so that her cheeks weren’t as well defined, but they had a soft line to them that drew attention to her lush lips and firm but feminine chin.
The gag had been wrapped in a cloth to absorb the saliva, and there was a small silver tray next to the woman, with a tube of lubricant sitting on it, ready for further use. Rachel put the ball gag there.
Dana’s cochlear implant helped her hearing considerably, but she still missed things, and Rachel suspected her friend hadn’t heard Jon’s specific instructions, murmured against her ear. She expected he’d kept his voice low specifically so they could enjoy hearing her repeat his instructions.
Rachel stroked Dana’s mouth to ease the strain of the gag. “Our Masters want us to kiss. Sitting on our heels, your knee pressed against…between my legs. Mine the same with you.”
Despite the arousal that still gripped her, her body reacting with twitches under Rachel’s touch, a tiny smile appeared on the black woman’s face. “Can’t say pussy aloud, girlfriend?” she whispered.
Rachel tugged her earlobe playfully, then delivered the rest of the instructions. “You need to sit up, so I can put your wrists behind your neck, attach the cuffs to your collar.”
Dana nodded. Rachel steadied her as she sat up, and when Dana spread her knees, Rachel confirmed what she’d concluded earlier. Dana’s sex was wet and swollen with arousal. It was the first time she’d had the pleasure of viewing another aroused woman this close. Though she’d had her fantasies, Rachel was still surprised at her strong urge to reach down and stroke Dana there, feel a slick, aroused…pussy, that wasn’t her own. She bet Dana’s clit beneath the metal piece was throbbing just as hard as her own.
But her Master had been clear on what was allowed, and Rachel knew punishment would result for disobedience. Another surprise—while she wasn’t sure what form that would take here, she had a very unwise desire to find out. She suspected Dana already had, and the gag and paddle had been the consequences of her actions.
While Rachel liked having the Dom/sub undercurrent between her and Jon plugged in 24/7, even if they weren’t actively in session, Dana was currently the sub among them who enjoyed the most extreme punishments. A paddling from Peter wouldn’t have been love taps. If he’d given the honor to Ben, rumor was he could make a hand spanking as extreme as a wood paddle. With sharp cutouts.
She swallowed. Might be best not to risk the deep end too soon. Instead, Rachel focused on the immediate requirement.
In the mainstream world, requirement implied an obligation, a chore. In the BDSM world, it was a gift. Because it was servi
ce. Which meant the pleasure of doing as a Master bid one to do. In this case, there was definitely nothing onerous about doing that bidding. She stroked her hands down the sides of Dana’s face and slid an arm around the woman’s waist, a brief contact to help her align with Rachel’s body, hopefully not perceived as a breaking of the rules.
Dana adjusted with her. As her knee pressed against Rachel’s core, bone pressed against wet, soft flesh. Rachel bit her lip, absorbing the sensation. Her reaction was heightened by seeing Dana have a similar response, as Rachel’s knee made the same contact. Dana’s sex was a damp cushion against which Rachel wanted to press harder, because she knew exactly how the increased pressure would feel to her.
With her other knee aligned with Dana’s hip, she settled for squeezing Dana’s folded leg between her thighs. It was meant as a confirmation that they were in the correct position, but the reaction was explosive, sending another dizzying wave of arousal through her.
She was aware of the men’s silent regard the way she was aware of Jon’s arms around her when he was kissing her. A cocooning that shut out everything else but what was happening immediately between their bodies, their souls. Someone had dimmed the lights so she and Dana were almost spotlighted, the lights of the city a jeweled background at her peripheral vision.
She curled her hands into half fists so she could trail her knuckles down Dana’s toned arms, over her elbows, to her forearms and then her wrists. When she closed her hands around them, she thought of how she felt when Jon did that to her, and her grip tightened, just as his did, restraint and possession.
Dana’s unfocused eyes still managed to convey intensity, her lips parted and wet. Rachel wanted to kiss them. Wanted to explore her mouth. But first she had to prepare Dana as she’d been commanded. Lifting Dana’s arms over her head, she gave Dana time to follow her guidance, the woman bending her arms so her elbows were pointing upward, her wrists crossed and at the base of her neck. Dana’s fingers rested on the backs of her shoulders. The shift in her body language suggested this was a very familiar servant pose for her, a trigger that took her deeper into her submission.
