by Brynley Bush
“Beg now, and I won’t gag you.”
I shake my head. “Fuck you!”
His lips curl up in a sadistic smile. “Oh, you will.”
He forces the ball between my lips, and as is always the case, I’m both aroused and terrified by it. He takes a step backward, and although I don’t know how it’s possible, his cock grows even bigger.
“You do make me so, so ready to fuck you, sweetheart.”
“Mmmffflr.” I thrash against the bed, trying to get free.
“Do you know what it does to my cock when you fight me?”
I thrash harder, mumbling unintelligibly behind the gag. He smiles. “You’re absolutely right. The harder you struggle, the harder I get. This is your last chance before I fuck you senseless. Beg!”
Of course I can’t, which he knows full well, and he takes advantage of that fact to drive his cock ruthlessly into me from behind. There’s no tender foreplay, no checking to see if I’m wet for him, but I’m sure he already knows. I’m always wet for him. His cock thrusts so deeply into me I can feel him all the way to my center. On my stomach, with my hands and feet tied, all I can do is rock about helplessly, which only seems to add to his excitement. The plug makes me tighter, and he feels squeezed inside me. He fucks me hard, using me like the prisoner that I am, and I love it. I come before he does, my pussy contracting around his thick shaft as my world splinters. With a cry he gives one last punishing thrust and comes inside me, his cock pulsating with the force of a wild beast finally freed. With his body still braced over mine, he whispers in my ear, “Congratulations. We just completed every item on our list.”
* * * *
“So what are we going to do today if we don’t have anything else on our list?” I ask the next morning as we lie in bed.
“Just because we don’t have any more items on our list doesn’t mean I don’t have plans for you,” he says seductively.
Although I’m sore from last night, my pussy still tightens at his words. My body doesn’t know what’s good for it. Luckily Roman does, and his plans for me include taking care of me tenderly and intimately. He fills the large outdoor hand-carved tub with warm water, and we lie in it together, me on top of him, talking until the water grows cold. He insists on feeding me at every meal, and although at first it feels unnatural, it’s oddly erotic taking each bite of food from his hand. We hike through the jungle, happening upon a picturesque waterfall that spills into a crystal-blue pool, and we take one look at each other and quickly strip down, jumping into the cold, clear water to swim. He kisses me under the waterfall, and we make love on the nearby sun-warmed stones. Back at our villa, we nap together in the hammock and then take a long walk along the beach with our fingers entwined, stopping to kiss from time to time as the surf crashes over us.
Our time together is bittersweet, and I want to stop the clock. I don’t want to go back to Las Vegas tomorrow. I don’t want this to end. My heart constricts at the thought of not seeing Roman anymore, of being released from the gravitational force of his uncompromising will and the unparalleled pleasure only he can give me. I push the thoughts away, determined to enjoy these last few days with him.
“Thank you for today,” I say as we eat dinner. “I love your ruthlessness and dominance, but I like this side of you too.”
“Intimacy is more than just sexuality,” he says softly.
“Thank you for training me. I never would have made it this far in the games without you.”
“You’ve trained me as much as I’ve trained you. I may have taught you that pleasure can be found in true submission and even in pain, but you’ve taught me more. The real risk in life is being seen for who you really are. You saw me, Ava, at my best and my worst, and you accepted all of me, and for that I will be forever grateful.” He kisses me, and it steals my breath. “We have one more night together. It’s your choice tonight. What do you want to do?”
Looking into his uncharacteristically vulnerable eyes, I know exactly what I want on our last night together. “I want you to flog me.”
* * * *
Roman’s every move is a seduction, from the way he slowly peels away my clothes, layer after layer until I’m naked before him, to the sensuous way he brushes the silky scarves over every inch of my body, warming my skin with the heat of his gaze as he stretches my arms wide and secures my wrists to the posts of the king-size bed. His hands are gentle as he shifts my feet wider, attaching a spreader bar between them so I can’t close my legs. He traces his fingers over the curve of my cheek and across my slightly trembling lips reverently.
“Thank you, Avalon,” he murmurs simply.
He slips the blindfold over my eyes, and my breath catches as I’m thrown into darkness, my body straining toward him. His fingers dance across my skin as they caress and arouse, stroking and igniting my passion. I’m tense with apprehension, every nerve ending at attention as I wait with a mix of fear and nervous excitement for the first sting of the whip, my nipples hard little peaks. Somehow he’s found a sound system, and classical music—something haunting and beautiful—fills the air.
“Only pleasure, Avalon,” he says as he begins to run the soft and supple leather strands unhurriedly across my sensitized skin, swirling the fronds over my heaving breasts. Then, with his hand fisted in my hair, he tells me in raw and carnal words exactly what he’s going to do to me—how he’s going to whip every inch of my skin until I’m pulling against my bonds in pure, unadulterated rapture, how the leather tips will caress my breasts, and how my nipples will tighten into hardened buds of need in response, how the leather will feel like a hundred angels kisses as it strikes my wet and open pussy. His voice transfixes me with sinful seduction.
The first bite of the whip hits my belly, and I gasp in surprise more than pain. It doesn’t exactly hurt, but it tingles. The leather strands flick lightly over my pelvis and hips and across the tops of my thighs, slowly warming my skin. He settles into a rhythm as he moves the flogger deliberately over my skin, the fronds now raining down over my shoulders and back and ass and the backs of my thighs in a cascade of pleasurable sensation. The flogger glances lightly over my breasts, and I feel them tighten, straining toward the sweet kiss of the next stroke. I don’t know what I was afraid of. The light thud of the strands against my body is like an erotic massage.
The leather strokes sensuously across my increasingly heated flesh as I begin to relax. He slowly picks up speed, the flogger striking me harder as he moves it over my body. It’s starting to hurt a little now, but I don’t care. I want all of Roman—his pain and his demons along with his sweet tenderness. He must have a different flogger in each hand, because the blows alternate between heavy and soft, each lick of the leather strands taking me deeper into the dark recesses of my own mind as my body surrenders to the exquisite agony of pleasure and pain. He strikes across my breasts again, harder this time, and I suck air into my lungs as I sag against the scarves that hold me arched and available for his torture.
“Each stripe I give you makes me harder,” he whispers in my ear. “I crave your pain.” My pussy responds to his confession with a flood of heat and wetness. He drags the leather across my pelvis. “Tell me to stop, Avalon. Tell me to stop now, or I’m going to take you all the way into the darkness with me.”
I shake my head. I don’t want him to stop. I’ll follow him all the way to hell and back. I’m his for the taking. I need the darkness as much as he does.
“Take me there with you,” I beg breathlessly. “I want you to tear me apart and put me back together again like only you can do. I want to be unequivocally and wholly yours. Your total domination for my utter submission. Make me yours, Roman!”
He groans as his mouth closes over mine, bruising my lips with barely restrained violence and lust. His finger sinks into my wet heat, and I pulse around him.
“You like being whipped,” he whispers in breathless wonder.
I’ve been afraid of the flogger, but I’ve never been afraid of
Roman, and I realize that makes all the difference. The leather strikes me again, and the sharp ends graze over my hard nipples with an intoxicating bite of pain that quickly turns to heat. I jerk in the restraints, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t aroused by being bound naked and available to him, at his mercy. He beats me harder, the increasingly stinging blows somehow igniting my body with pleasure. He brands me with each kiss of the whip, each welt he raises making me unmistakably his.
It’s sweet agony, and I fight to keep my equilibrium, but it’s no use. He won’t settle for less than everything. I respond to the pain as if to a lover’s touch. My body softens as the blows rain down, and I surrender fully to him. The tears begin to flow as he works the whip over my body harder, each sting taking away the hurt and pain I’ve held inside me for the past two years. I can be completely out of control because he is completely in control. He doesn’t stop, and the blows keep coming in a steady stream of sensation—pleasure mixed with pain, vulnerability swirling with trust and surrender—until the room fades away and it’s just me and Roman and the bite of the whip, tearing away every last shred of my composure.
As he whips me, he touches me with more than just the leather. He touches me with his heart and his soul and his love, and with each kiss of the flogger, another piece of the shell I’ve built around me falls away until I’m entirely exposed and vulnerable, my soul marked by him as surely as my skin is.
The flogger strikes my open, wet pussy three times in hard and fast succession, and I come apart with a keening wail as the dam breaks and the flood of sensation takes over, sweeping me up in the torrent. My heart and mind and soul and body splinter as I’m hurled into the stratosphere, torn apart by the brutal pleasure of the orgasm that’s as uncontrollable as it is strong.
Then Roman is there, lifting me as I wrap my legs around his waist. My skin is on fire and so sensitive that the touch of his hand is enough to send me into sweet spasms again. He lowers me onto his hard and throbbing cock, and I throw my head back in ecstasy. He pushes into the swollen and still sensitive tissue of my sex, and I relish the feel of him inside me, claiming me. With one hand he pulls the blindfold from my eyes, and I’m gazing into his stormy ones.
“I want to see your eyes when you come this time. I want you to see me claim you, to know you are now mine in every possible way.”
His body is taut with restrained need, his eyes hooded with desire, and I can tell he’s aroused from flogging me. The air between us crackles like an electrical storm brewing, the clouds building as the sky darkens. I want him more than I have ever wanted anything in my entire life.
“Take me,” I beg. “Finish it.”
He needs no other encouragement. He drives into me brutally, giving in to the ravenous hunger that rages beneath his ironclad self-control, and I greedily take all of him. I gasp between thrusts as little stars flare and streak through me, making every wish my heart has made come true. We come together in a clash of desperation and longing—hips pumping, tongues tangling, hearts pounding—until we hurtle over the edge together into oblivion.
“Avalon!” He utters my name as he explodes inside me, and in that moment, I reclaim the name that Anthony stole from me. Roman has made everything it stands for meaningful again.
He holds me close, crushed to his chest long after his cock begins to soften inside me. My body is striped from the flogger, and he traces the markings with reverence.
“You’re crying,” he says with wonder, his finger tenderly tracing the path of my tears. His eyes are sad as they meet mine. “My brave girl who never cries. Perhaps I broke you after all.”
I smile at him, feeling stronger than I’ve ever felt. “You broke me open so I can finally feel again. You set me free.”
But by setting me free, he’s also destroyed me. Somehow over the past six weeks as I gave him absolute control over my body, I also gave him my heart and soul. I’ve fallen in love with Roman. And I have no idea if he loves me back.
* * * *
We arrive back at the Helix the following afternoon, and over dinner with Roman and me and Emmett and Rebecca, Logan details the plan for the next few days. Tomorrow the hotel will be full as the media, industry professionals, celebrities, and all the former contestants of the games arrive for the show’s live finale tomorrow evening.
“The finale will be held tomorrow night at seven o’clock in the Diamond Lounge where it all began,” Logan says with a smile. “We’ll be broadcasting live in front of a sold-out studio audience, so dress accordingly. The winners of the Power Games will be announced, along with the runners-up. If either of the winners is unable or unwilling to serve as the official Helix Dom or sub anytime during the year, the runner-up will take their place. Then the brand-new Helix Dom and sub will preside over the ribbon-cutting officially marking the opening of Club Helix.”
Logan looks around the table at all of us. “Regardless of which of you wins, all four of you will be walking away with a substantial cash prize tomorrow, and you have earned it. It’s been quite a journey for all of us, and it has been a pleasure to get to know all of you. Good luck tomorrow.”
Roman makes love to me that night against the backdrop of the glittering lights of Las Vegas, and it’s tender and raw and soul-shattering and beautiful. Afterward, he pulls me back against his chest one last time before the games end, and although I don’t think I will, I fall asleep almost immediately, safely wrapped in his arms.
I’m a bundle of nerves the next day, and Roman looks almost relieved when Tessa and Rose show up after lunch amid squeals and hugs, insisting I get ready for the finale with them. The three of us spend the afternoon at the Helix Spa talking and laughing, and I fill them in on Costa Rica and everything that’s happened since we’ve seen one another. In turn, they’re full of news about the outside world. Apparently The Power Games has been a much bigger hit than anyone expected, and all of us are household names. I also find out the show has been a source of major controversy with a contingent of right-wing activists, spearheaded by none other than senator and presidential hopeful Anthony Sanderson.
The mention of my stepfather’s name, coupled with my nervousness about tonight’s finale, has me feeling suddenly claustrophobic, and I would give anything right this minute for a hard, punishing five-mile run to clear my head. Unfortunately since I just spent an hour and a half having my hair and makeup done for TV, that’s probably out of the question. I catch a glimpse of the gardens out the window as we leave the spa; the solitary quiet of the outdoor garden is better than nothing.
“I’m going to walk in the gardens for a while,” I say to Tessa and Rose. “I’m so nervous I just need to clear my head. I’d go to the gym, but then I’d ruin all this.” I smile, gesturing to my TV-ready hair and makeup. “I’ll come up to your suite in a few minutes to get ready.”
The gardens are empty, and I walk aimlessly through the lush foliage, the gentle sound of the fountains soothing me as I think about the past six weeks and what the future holds. I find myself in the maze, remembering when I’d walked here with Roman. I smile to myself as I also remember what happened afterward. I’m near the center when a familiar and unwelcome figure steps in my path.
“Avalon, I’ve been looking for you.” The rich, cultured tone of Anthony’s voice makes me nauseated, and I have to swallow back the bile that rises at the sight of him.
“Don’t ever call me that again!” I say venomously. “You don’t have the right.” I look past him hopefully. “Is my mom here?”
“Of course not. You know how much she hates to travel.” He frowns at me. “Besides, I’d never have allowed her to come and see how you’ve ruined your life and possibly hers and mine in the process. I’ve managed to protect her from your sexual exploits so far. It would break her heart if she knew what a slut her daughter has become.”
I laugh mirthlessly. “Yeah, I’m a slut. Not such a good thing for a presidential candidate’s stepdaughter who prides himself on being antipornography,
is it?”
“That’s what I came to talk to you about.”
“Oh, I’m sure you did. But I have nothing to say to you. Everything I have to say I’ll say on national television tonight. I only came on the show to expose you. I think the nation will be interested to know that the man who wants to be their president, the senator who champions women’s issues and campaigns against pornography, is actually a sex trafficker.”
He pales, but his thin lips flatten into a hard line. “No one believed you when you made your accusations two years ago, not even your own mother. You were suffering from posttraumatic stress; your mind had transposed the events to try to make sense of them. The psychologists all agreed.”
Psychologists he’d paid to protect him and make me think I was crazy. But I know the truth, and so does he.
“What makes you think anyone’s going to believe you now?” he asks with a sneer.
“They may not.” I shrug. “To be honest, I don’t care anymore. But maybe it will cast enough doubt so that you’ll lose any chance you have of winning the primaries. Even if they don’t believe me, the fact that I’m a finalist in the Power Games will probably be enough to crush any dreams you have of the presidency. Your stepdaughter is the Blindfold Girl. Pictures of me naked and blindfolded are plastered everywhere. I’m the face of the most talked-about new BDSM-themed resort in Las Vegas. And there’s nothing you can do about it,” I say triumphantly. “It’s done. You don’t have any hold over me anymore.”
I’ve dreamed of this moment, and it’s every bit as sweet as I’d imagined. Then he grabs my arm, and I’m hurled back in time, standing outside the derelict house on a side street near the Seattle waterfront, his hand on my arm exactly as it is now, urging me inside the house. I’d balked, some sixth sense warning me to give him the papers I’d come to deliver and get the hell out of there. But it hadn’t worked out that way.
My stepfather and I had disliked each other from the beginning. I resented him taking my mother from me, and he resented my presence altogether. That summer my mom had browbeaten me into taking a summer job at his law firm to earn some extra money for college, and when his secretary had asked me to take a contract he’d forgotten over to a property he was closing on, I had stumbled upon his sex-trafficking ring instead.
