by Desiree Holt
He kept the pressure on her neck as his hand roamed over the curve of her ass and back down through the cleft. She was so aroused he could smell her scent. Lifting one hand, he let the flat of it land with a resounding smack on one cheek. It wasn’t any little slap, either, but a hard, punishing spank. Red bloomed on her skin.
“Ow!”
Automatically her body flexed against the stinging contact, and Wade pinched the cheek hard. “You can scream all you want to, little girl, but you’re going to take your punishment. When I’m finished, sitting down won’t be that easy for you.”
But she didn’t ask me to stop.
His hand landed again, this time on the other cheek. Then his hand moved faster and faster, one side and the other. He didn’t hold back or make it easy on her. The more she jerked against his touch, the tighter he gripped her between his legs and the harder he applied the flat of his hand. Her skin from her waist to her thighs was a deepening shade of red. She gasped with each strike, her breathing ragged, and the liquid from her pussy seeped out.
He stopped himself before he really hurt her. Her skin looked as if someone had taken a match to it, and when he cupped her face, he felt the tears on her cheeks. He lifted his hand from her neck and eased her upright.
“Tell me thank you,” he ordered. When she didn’t say anything, he pinched her nipples harder than he had that afternoon. “I can’t hear you.”
“Th-thank you,” she stammered, still trying to catch her breath.
“Get down on your knees,” he ordered. “Head bowed, hands behind your back.”
She looked at him, frowning.
“That is the submissive pose, Zoe. If you don’t want to do it, just say so.”
She licked her lips as she drew in yet another shuddering breath. “I want it.”
“Good. I like an obedient sub. You may move your hands and remove my boots and socks. Now,” he snapped when she didn’t appear to move fast enough.
She tugged off the boots, then the socks.
Wade rose from the chair and stripped off his clothes. Before dropping the pants, he removed his wallet and took a condom from it. Then he lifted her from the floor.
“I’d make you walk over here, but I’m in a damn hurry. I’ve been hot to fuck you since this afternoon. Paddling your ass made me so hot I thought my cock would explode in the chair.”
The house wasn’t that big, so he didn’t have to guess which room was hers. He stripped the covers back from her bed and placed her roughly on the mattress, the cheeks of her ass resting at the edge.
“I should have brought clothespins,” he told her, stripping the condom out of its foil packet and rolling it on. “It would be damn hot to see your nipples all pinched like that, streaks of red running through your breasts while I pounded into you. Too bad I wasn’t prepared.”
Then he was through talking. He lifted her legs, arranging them wide and staring at her drenched pussy for a long moment. Then, spreading the lips with the fingers of one hand, he used the other to guide himself to her opening. No slow and easy entry for Wade Cameron. The moment the head of his cock touched her body, he drove into her to the hilt.
“Oh!” Her eyes widened and breath whooshed from her lungs.
For two nights at Rawhide he’d played hard and given his subs a great deal of pleasure. But he still had yet to have his release. Both times with Crystal, he was disturbed when an image of Zoe blasted into his brain and he couldn’t make himself let go.
Damn!
But now he could and the sensation of being inside her was more exquisite than he could possibly have imagined.
His eyes narrowed as he watched his shaft disappear into her body. “You can take it. But shit, Zoe, you’re tighter than a miser’s fist. Holy fuck.”
He held still for a moment, giving them both time to adjust to the conjoining of their bodies. Had she ever been fucked by anyone whose dick was larger? Gave her more pleasure? Aroused her more?
He was driving himself nuts again. He’d started this to turn her off, and instead they were both so turned on he wondered the air around them didn’t spontaneously combust.
Quit it!
Sucking in a deep breath and holding her legs up and wide, he pounded into her with the force and speed of a jackhammer. He drove harder, so powerfully and for so long he lost any sense of where they were, of time and place. Fire streaked through him and every pulse throbbed with such power it reverberated throughout his body.
Wade bent his head and took a nipple in his mouth, biting down on it hard. She hit the peak and tumbled over it, taking him with her, a giant fist shaking their bodies. She shuddered over and over again, the walls of her pussy gripping and spasming around the hot cock pumping into it.
When the force of the orgasm subsided at last, Wade eased himself from her body. He headed into the bathroom to dispose of the condom and turned on the taps to fill the tub. When he spotted jars of bath salts, he opened one and dumped some into it. One thing Wade Cameron was damn good at was aftercare.
“Come on.” He lifted her from the bed. “We need to take care of that hot ass of yours.”
He was sure she’d have protested, but she was obviously wrung out from her climax. He climbed into the tub with her, bracing her against his chest and carefully bathed her. A strange emotion crept over him, a sense of tenderness that he didn’t know what to do with. For the first time since he’d left Big Spur for good, his famous control was fraying and he was the victim of unfamiliar feelings.
He didn’t know whether to embrace them or run for his life.
After he dried her, he carried her back to the bed and stretched her out on her stomach. “Relax.”
He poured lotion into his palms, warmed it, and slowly massaged her skin with it. When he finished, he bent his head close to hers. “If you still hurt tomorrow, let me know. I can recommend something to you.” He caught himself before he could kiss her, and he covered her with a sheet. “Go to sleep. You need it. Next time don’t stick your hand in the fire, little girl.”
He let himself out the door and trudged up to the ranch house.
Well, Cameron, you’ve really fucked yourself up this time.
****
When Zoe’s cell phone rang the next morning, waking her, she couldn’t believe it was ten o’clock. She hadn’t slept this late in years. She reached out to grab the offending instrument from the nightstand where she usually left it only to grope for air. Damn! Then she remembered it was in her wristlet that was still in the living room. When she pushed herself to a sitting position and went to swing her feet to the floor, muscles she didn’t know she had screamed and fire licked at the skin of her ass.
Last night!
The memory hit her with the force of a sledgehammer. When Wade told her he liked his sex rough, he wasn’t kidding. And she had a feeling that last night was merely the tip of the iceberg.
Easing off the bed, she made her way to the living room and dug out her phone, which had stopped ringing. The ringtone sounded next for a text message, and she opened it.
Looked at yr stuff. Hv some ideas. Call me. Mickey.
She tried to quell her excitement as she punched in his number.
“Tell me,” she said as soon as he answered.
“Not even hello?” He chuckled.
“After.” She nudged an afghan onto the couch and sat down on it slowly, flinching when it came into contact with her abused buttocks.
“Something wrong?” Mickey asked, his voice full of concern.
“No, uh, just sore from riding,” she fudged. Well, it wasn’t exactly a lie. She just didn’t say what she’d been riding. “So what have you got?”
“Well, I think I’ve come up with some alternatives here for you. Can you come to San Antonio and meet with me?”
Not today. I’m not going anywhere today.
“Zoe?”
“Yeah. I’ve, uh, got some stuff to do here today,” she began.
“Well, my immediate sugge
stion is you let us loan you the next payment against your account here. That gives you extra time to figure out your options. You can come into town, and we can look at the different avenues that might work.”
She nibbled her lower lip. Borrowing against her account meant she could be left owing more money if this didn’t work out, but she wasn’t giving up on Big Spur without a fight. “Let’s do that and set a time next week to meet, okay?”
They worked out the details and set a date for the following week. Wrapping the afghan around herself, she slowly made her way into the kitchen to start the coffee going. She was sore, she ached, her skin burned, as if she’d been bitten by ants, but she didn’t remember ever feeling this sexually satisfied in her life.
She knew Wade had done it because he was angry she’d followed him and because he wanted her to understand they had nothing in common. Not the Spur and certainly not sex. But she couldn’t make herself do that. The whole BDSM idea excited her beyond belief, and she wanted more than last night’s little taste. She wanted to explore things she’d only read about so far.
With him.
She wanted to learn what turned him on, what pleased him. And prove to him she wasn’t a little girl anymore.
She was probably going to get her heart broken in this whole process, but she’d wanted him for years. This might be her only chance. She knew he’d be heading back to Rawhide tonight. And she’d be waiting by his vehicle to go with him whether he liked it or not.
****
The day had not been one of the best. For a man who considered himself immune to emotions, Wade had an overload of them. He could not stop thinking of Zoe, of the feel of her skin, the taste of her, the warmth that invaded his body when he touched her. Some might say what he felt was the first stirrings of love, except he didn’t believe in love at all. At least not for himself.
He did, however, have a conscience. And he knew he’d acted like an ass from the first day he set foot on Big Spur land again. Zoe should not have to suffer for the pain in his life. Max Cameron was dead. The time for revenge was long gone, and he needed to put things right. Last night, he finally realized that Zoe deserved more than the backlash of his attitude, and he planned to take care of that.
Some phone calls he’d been waiting for came in. If things worked out the way he expected, he’d be rid of the damn place once and for all. Zoe would have money and his conscience would be clear.
Right, asshole.
That was why he hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind all day long. His dick had utilized its own brain and reminded him every hour how hot the sex had been. And…something else. Something intangible he didn’t even want to think about. He’d better get the fuck out of here before he really got himself in trouble.
His hand still stung from the spanking he’d administered, and the touch of her soft skin beneath his fingers plagued him all day. The taste of her nipple. The feel of her wet cunt as it closed around his dick. He had tried in vain to block all the memories, but they plagued him like some devilish spirit sent to torment him.
He’d spent more time wrestling with his conscience than he could remember. He’d been rough with Zoe last night, more than he’d intended to be. It wasn’t just the anger that had driven him. He didn’t want to admit, even to himself, that he wanted her as much as she wanted him. Just physical, he assured himself during the day, over and over. No way could he feel anything else for Zoe Hampton. She was a pain in the ass about the ranch, had no concept of how he felt about it, and he’d be out of here any minute, anyway.
Then why couldn’t he get the image of her naked body out of his mind? Of her ass, a lovely shade of red, exposed to him for his use as he bent her over his lap? He wanted more of that. Of a lot of other things, too. An image flashed in his mind from the other night when he had Crystal tied to the St. Andrew’s Cross and, as he applied the little whip to her body, it was really Zoe’s face he saw. She was like a drug he couldn’t get out of his system, and if he didn’t find a cure, he was going to be in major trouble. No woman had ever invaded his mind the way she did.
He couldn’t deny it. But he just couldn’t seem to trust himself or his reactions around her.
He had to get out of here or he’d drive himself crazy. Away from Zoe. Who, by the way, he had deliberately managed to avoid all day by hiding in the house. He needed Rawhide and a sub to help him get past this. Maybe Crystal would be there tonight, and he could work her pretty good.
Coward.
Better a coward than an idiot.
Grabbing his keys off the counter where he’d left them, he headed out the back door. He wasn’t paying much attention to his surroundings so he was shocked when he reached his SUV to see Zoe leaning against it. She was wearing another little nothing dress like the one from the night before, hair tumbling down to her shoulders, the fading light catching the burnished highlights.
No, no, no. He had to get away from her before he did something stupid again.
“You need to get out of my way,” he growled.
She planted herself in front of him. “I’m going with you.”
“What?” He blinked. “Like fucking hell you are. Now move out of my way.”
He tried to move around her, but she sidestepped in front of him.
“I am going with you, and you can’t stop me.” She skimmed her tongue over her lower lip, a habit she had that drove him nuts and made his balls ache. “I liked last night. I know why you did it. You thought you could scare me away, but surprise! I want more.”
“You know nothing about what you want.” His jaw tightened. “Last night didn’t even scratch the surface. If I took you with me tonight, you’d be getting into things that—things that you’re better off staying away from.”
“Why am I better off and not you?” she challenged.
“Because I’m wired that way and you’re not. Now get out of my way.”
“Don’t be so sure,” she told him. “Are you afraid to take me, Wade? Afraid I’ll like it too much? Or maybe you just don’t want to see me doing things with another man.”
“Fuck.” He spat the word. He only had so much willpower. Maybe if he took her to the club and dumped her in the deep end of the pool, he could shock her out of his life. He would handle her with responsibility—that was who he was—but sometimes an overdose could cure a disease.
“Stay right there,” he warned. “Don’t move. If we do this, we’re doing it my way. Start to finish.”
“Do whatever you want.” That edge was back in her voice. “You don’t scare me with your big bad act.”
He leaned forward, caging her with his arms, his face scant inches from hers. “That’s too bad. You might be better off if I did.”
The look she gave him was so penetrating it unnerved him. “That’s a matter of opinion. I’m an adult, Wade. Not a little kid anymore.”
And wasn’t that just the fucking truth.
He pushed himself away. “Like I said before, you come along with me, it’s my show. I’ve been doing this for a lot of years, little girl. You may be biting off more than you can chew.”
She lifted her chin. “Bring it on. Whatever it is.”
“Whatever?” he repeated.
“You heard me. Whatever.”
Damn!
He hadn’t expected to get so aroused, much more than he usually did. It wasn’t just having a new sub, either. The fucking truth was, it was Zoe Hampton and maybe the way she challenged him. When he arrived here from New York, he never expected this. Certainly not with her. Now he couldn’t stop thinking of all the things he wanted to do with her. To her.
Training her as a submissive would take all his skill and patience, but a craving growing deep inside his gut told him it would be worth it with her.
Anticipation threaded through him, and despite digging for control, his pulse rate amped up as he walked into the barn. In the tack room, he found what he was looking for, a bandana and a long length of rope. He was damn thankfu
l all the men were gone for the night. They didn’t need to see what he was about to do.
“Are you going to tie me up again?” she asked from the doorway. The excitement in her voice ramped up his own.
“Damn straight. But this first.” He folded the bandana and placed it across her eyes.
She tensed at first when he knotted it at the back of her head. “You don’t want me to see?”
“I want you to feel. Take away one sense and the others become sharper. You said you liked what we did. Let’s see how much. And how far you’ll let me go.”
He could tell Zoe made a conscious effort to steady her breathing as he pulled her hands behind her and tied them with the rope. Then he walked back to the SUV, placed her on the passenger’s seat, and climbed into the driver’s side. Exultation coursed through him at the realization she had obeyed him without any objections. Not even to the blindfold.
“Sit there and don’t say a word,” he ordered.
“All right. Yes.”
If he wasn’t so pissed off at himself, he might have smiled. He just couldn’t scare the feisty out of her. This might be better than he thought. “And while we’re at it, the correct form of address is Master. Some men prefer Sir but not me.”
“Figures.” Although she whispered the word to herself, he heard her.
“What was that?” he snapped.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing who?” he prompted in a harsh voice.
“Nothing, Master.”
He swallowed a tiny smile and pulled out his phone. When Clint Chavez answered, he explained what he wanted to do in in a way that hopefully Zoe would not catch on.
“You’re sure this is what you want?” Clint’s voice had a touch of reservation in it. “That’s a pretty harsh initiation you’ve spelled out.”
“Yes, I’m positive,” he answered the man. “It’s fully consensual. I just don’t think she realizes what she’s getting into. I need to find out before this goes any further.”
Before what goes any further, dickhead? You’re giving her what she wants and then walking away, right?
“One more time. You’ve thought this all through, right?”
