by Laura Kaye
“God, please,” she said.
“Tell me how bad you need it,” he said, forehead pressed to hers.
Her gray eyes pleaded. “My pussy is aching so bad, Master.”
Fuck, there was that name again. “Tell me you want me to take care of you, to give you everything you need.”
“Yes. God, yes, Sir. You. I want you.”
Christ. He couldn’t wait another second. Without warning, he scooped her into his arms and gently laid her on the mat. When she cried out in surprise, he chuckled. “This is only the beginning, little one.”
He left her there, needing a moment to center himself. Because he was about to suspend her from the ceiling, and that meant he needed to make sure he was following every step and procedure. Using a switch on the wall, he lowered two chains attached to a spreader bar using a motorized pulley system in the ceiling until the bar reached the floor.
Even from where he stood ten feet away, he could see Kenna’s chest rising and falling faster, so she was aware of what was about to happen.
Kneeling at her feet again, he used high-capacity carabiner clips to secure the spreader bar to the knots. And then he crawled up her body, exploring her along the way with his tongue. Against the insides of her knees. The insides of her thighs. Along the ropes between her legs that pushed her lips together.
He paused there, helpless to resist, and plunged his tongue between her folds, teasing her clit and tasting her slick arousal over and over. Kenna cried out and tried to arch, but the ropes were so intricate upon her body that they held her prisoner.
And, God, he fucking liked that. He liked it a lot.
But he also knew that lying on the knots he’d tied all across her back would quickly become uncomfortable, and that he didn’t want. He crawled up further to place a soft kiss on her mouth. “Slow and steady, little one. Ready?”
“Yes, Sir,” she whispered.
He stepped away from her and pulled a remote control from his back pocket, and then the low whirr of the motor sounded out and slowly lifted Kenna’s legs into the air. And then her torso. And then her head and shoulders. Until she was hanging upside down by the spreader bar, her head maybe three feet off the ground.
Coming up behind her, he collected the length of her hair into his fist and then wrapped it in a hair band to keep it from falling in her face.
“Christ, you are a vision,” he said, walking around her as she slowly spun. “I’ve got half a mind to photograph you like this. Are you okay?”
“Yes, Sir. Green. It’s really intense...after so long,” she said.
Which was why he was diving right in. “I know, Kenna,” he said, unzipping his pants as he came to stand in front of her. “But I’ll take care of you. If you start to have concerns, speak freely or hum three times if your mouth isn’t free. Understood?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Good. Then suck my cock.” He freed his erection, aligned perfectly with her face, and pushed his jeans down past his hips. With a moan, she opened her mouth and sucked him in. He had to grit his teeth to keep from shouting out, because being inside her after all this time was blowing his mind—and reducing his restraint. “That’s it. Move your head. Suck me good.”
She did. Damnit all to hell, but she did.
It was so good that he couldn’t hold himself still. He grasped the ropes near her breasts to leverage their movements as his hips started to move. And then he was fucking her mouth, sinking deep, making demands of her that she was meeting like a champ.
“God, Kenna. Take me. Take all of me,” he ground out as he buried himself in her throat and grasped the back of her head to stay there. “Hold it. That’s it. Hold it, baby.”
Finally, he pulled out, and she gasped for air, but she was also smiling and licking her lips. “More, please.”
“Okay, I’ll give you more. But don’t you fucking come until I do. Got it?”
“Yes, Sir. Please, Sir.”
He got up close and penetrated her mouth again, and she immediately swallowed him down, and then he embraced her body and planted his mouth between her legs. Licking, rubbing, sucking. She screamed around his thrusting cock as he plundered her pussy with his lips and tongue and teeth. Wrapping his arms around the backs of her thighs, he added his fingers to the sensual torture, holding her open with one hand and fingering her with the other. When his fingers were slick with her arousal, he moved to her rear opening and pressed in.
She unleashed another garbled scream.
“Don’t you fucking come, Kenna. Not before you drink mine down. Do you hear me?” he growled, his finger sinking deep into her ass.
She moaned in response. It was all she could do.
All she could do except suck him for all she was worth. Which she did until he was squeezing his eyes shut and thinking about every unsexy thing he could just to hold back.
But, fuck, he’d never been good at resisting her ability to deep throat. And she kept impaling the back of her throat on the head of his cock and holding herself there.
He was a goner.
On a shout, he came. He came so hard that his grip on the rope might’ve been all that was keeping him on his feet.
“Swallow, baby. Take everything I give you,” he rasped. When the most intense part of his orgasm ended, he withdrew from her mouth and said one word, “Come.”
He went at her ferociously again, sucking her clit into his mouth, strumming it with his tongue, and finger-fucking her tight hole. Kenna came almost instantly, gasping and then crying out, her muscles clenching around his thrusting finger. Her whole body seemed to spasm, making the suspension spin. Griffin wiped his face and tucked his semi-hard cock away. “Yes, Kenna. Yes. I’m gonna need more of that from you, little one.”
And he knew just how to get more, too.
“Thank you. Thank you, Master Griffin,” she said, her voice dreamy again.
“Such a sweet, little sub,” he said, moving to the cabinet to grab what he needed. “But you can wait to thank me...” He turned on the vibrating wand. “...until you’ve come again.”
He placed it against her clit.
Her whole body flinched, as if he’d struck her with a Taser. “Oh, God, Sir. It’s too...it’s too much.”
“Where are you right now?” he asked.
“Green. I’m green, Sir. But—”
“Then take what I’m giving you,” he said in a stern voice. “And come again. As fast as you can.”
Holding one of the ropes to keep her in place, he rubbed the circular head against her clit in a firm back and forth that had her moaning and babbling and shivering.
“Master, I’m going to...God, I’m going to come.”
“Give it to me, Kenna.”
A low keening cry ripped out of her and turned into a guttural moan. The orgasm made her whole body flinch and jerk.
“I bet you can give me another,” he said, pinching a nipple as he reapplied the vibrator.
“No, no, no, no, no,” she moaned. “Oh, fuck.”
He’d always loved when she’d start cursing, because it was usually an indicator of how far gone she was. “That’s right, baby. Give your Master more of your come.” He stepped in close and wrapped a hand around to hold her by the ass, and then he sank his teeth into her thigh. Not hard. Not deep. But just enough.
She came again, this time so hard that the cry that tore out of her sounded like her teeth were chattering. “Master, please...it’s so...good. No more. Oh, God, I...I...I...can’t take it.”
He really wanted another, but he needed to know. “How is your arm right now, Kenna?”
“I...I...can’t,” she mumbled.
He crouched down and put his eyes in line with hers, which weren’t quite focusing.
“Can you tell me what color you are, baby?”
“I...um...I...green. Sir.”
Nope. She was too far gone to give him a good self-assessment, which might not have mattered as much if she didn’t have the amputation. But
he had no idea how it might impact her limb to be held upside down for a while. And by the count of the clock, she’d already been that way for twenty minutes.
He hit the controls on the remote that lowered her again, and went to his knees so that he could cradle her head on the way down. “I’ve got you. Just relax and I’ll get you out of this, okay?”
She smiled up at him, but those eyes weren’t quite tracking. “‘Kay.”
God, she was fucking beautiful. And he wanted her to be his so bad he could barely breathe.
When she was down, he made quick work of removing the spreader bar and the ropes on her legs, and then he gently lifted her to sit up against his chest so that he could work the releases on the bindings around her upper body and arms. After a few minutes, they sat amidst a pile of scattered rope, and even something about that was beautiful to him as he held her back against his chest, her body cradled between his knees and thighs.
And then she drew up her knees and shifted to the side so that she was curled into him. “Thank you, Sir,” she said, her voice no more than a rasp.
He kissed her hair and lifted her limp body into his arms. “You were perfect, Kenna.” In the adjoining lounge, he laid her in the middle of the couch, and then he grabbed water and a blanket and shot off a quick text to Master Leo at the bar to have some food sent to them.
After he covered her, he settled into the corner cushion and placed a pillow on his lap, and then he encouraged her to lay against him. Her movements were sluggish and halting, but she managed to settle herself on him with her face snuggling in against his stomach. She was close enough to touch, so he gave into the need to stroke and caress her arm while she drifted in and out of consciousness.
When the knock came, Griffin gave the low command to enter. The female submissive saw Kenna dozing and gently placed the tray on the coffee table.
“Thank you,” he mouthed. She nodded and ducked back out.
As he stroked Kenna’s hair, he studied the arm that’d been injured. Her skin above the prosthetic was marked by scars, some that appeared surgical and others that appeared more haphazard and jagged. In fact, the closer he looked, the more little scars her saw—on her neck, on the side of her breast just visible underneath the blanket, even on the side of her face. And now that he thought of it, there’s been pale white marks on her right leg as well, as if something had impacted the whole side of her body.
What the hell?
Suddenly, Kenna stretched and arched, and she looked up at him with a small smile. “Sorry,” she whispered.
He shook his head. “Don’t be. You achieving subspace fucking rocks my world.”
She rolled onto her back, looking away just a little, but not enough to hide that his comment had made her smile even more.
“How is your arm feeling?” he asked, still concerned from earlier.
“Pretty good,” she said, but there was a hedge in her tone that nagged at him.
“But not all the way good?”
She sighed and peered up at him. “Master Griffin, I feel phenomenal, which is why I seem to be boneless right now.”
He gave her a little smile. “I’m glad to hear that, Kenna, but I need to know about your arm so that I don’t hurt you. Because it would kill me to do so. So I need you to tell me.”
Her expression seemed to debate for a moment. “The suction of the socket acts as a kind of compression sock, so mostly, being upside down didn’t impact my arm too much. But the pins and needles sensation from the blood returning now that I’m right-side-up again is kinda intense. Honestly, though, knowing that sensation is actually real makes it much more manageable than the phantom pain I still have where my arm and hand used to be, so I don’t mind.”
She had phantom pain? In the forty-eight hours since he’d last seen her, he’d tried to educate himself on amputations, treatments, and any other special considerations, so he’d done enough reading to know that phantom pain was one of amputees’ most frequent—and troubling—complaints.
His gut dropped, and all those questions came rushing back. “Kenna, will you finally tell me what happened? Because it’s killing me not to know.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Okay,” Kenna said, sitting up. She supposed they had a lot of things to lay out on the table, and there was no sense putting it off. She shifted to sit up, and Master Griffin allowed her, although he kept her on his lap.
“Are you hungry?” he asked. “I got us some snacks.”
She gazed at the tray—and her heart squeezed. It was all her old favorites. The chocolate chip cookies for which someone in the kitchen should receive the Nobel Peace Prize, a bowl of ripe berries, mini-cheeseburger sliders, and a glass of orange juice thick with pulp. “You remembered,” she whispered.
“Everything, Kenna.”
She turned to him.
“I remember everything.” His expression was a mask of emotion, only she didn’t trust herself to read what was there. It looked like things she might once have wanted—only she wasn’t sure she could have them now. Or deserved them anymore.
Kenna ducked her chin and nodded. “I am hungry,” she managed.
Reaching around her, Griffin grabbed the burgers and berries. He held a raspberry to her lips. They were her absolute favorite, and he’d remembered that, too. And damn if that wasn’t doing funny stuff to her chest, stuff she wasn’t sure she liked.
I wanted to feel less, not more.
Can I handle more?
She didn’t know. She really didn’t.
They each took one of the sliders, and she devoured hers, much to his amusement and pleasure. And then she brushed off her fingers, hugged the blanket to her chest, and started talking, cutting right to the chase. “I lost my arm two years ago in Afghanistan while I was serving with the Marines. One of the guys in my unit tripped an IED on a routine patrol. He and one other died instantly. And I eventually lost my arm.” On a deep breath, she met his gaze.
“Jesus, Kenna. You’re a Marine? That’s...that’s fucking amazing,” he said, raking a hand through his dark hair.
“I was a Marine,” she clarified, grabbing a few raspberries.
“Bullshit,” Griffin said. Her gaze cut to his. “I know some guys in the Corps. Once a Marine, always a Marine. That’s what they say. Nothing can take that away from you.”
Her throat tightened at the passion in his words, at the way they resonated down deep inside of her. There was truth in them, she knew there was, but that truth was so hard to grab on to when she felt so guilty that she’d survived when others hadn’t.
“Yeah,” she said. After a moment, she went on. “One of the people who died was my best friend. Her name was Georgia, Georgia Kern. Although everyone called her George. So we were George and Ken, which the guys all thought was hilarious.” She chuffed out a little laugh, memories reaching for her. “It was pretty funny.”
“Damn, I’m so sorry for everything you’ve been through, Kenna. But I’m proud of you, too.” Master Griffin leaned in and kissed her forehead, his gaze suddenly too observing, too seeing.
All at once, she needed to change the subject. “So what about you?” she asked, grabbing the cookies. She handed him one and took a bite of her own.
His brow arched. “What about me?”
Her mind searched and then landed on something. “Tell me about...your tattoo.” Butterflies whipped through her belly, because she’d been desperately wondering what it could mean.
He tilted his head, and his eyes...God, his eyes were almost too much to look at. “It’s you, Kenna.”
Her stomach did a little loop. “Well, yeah. I guess I figured that. It’s just...why?” she asked.
For a long moment, he didn’t say anything. And then he wrapped her prosthetic hand in his. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again. And I wanted to remember.”
“Remember what?” she asked, the air between them suddenly filling with a gravity that made her chest feel strange.
“The wo
man I’d loved and lost.”
“What?” she blurted. Wait. She shook her head. Loved? “I’m, uh...what?”
“I think I was pretty clear, Kenna.” He gave her an open, searching look.
“But.” She shifted off his lap to the couch beside him and wrapped the blanket around her, and his eyes tracked the movements as his lips slid into a little frown. “You were clear. You were very clear. When you told me that you cared about me but didn’t want a committed relationship with me, in response to my telling you...” She shook her head, unable to say the words. Not now. Not like this. “So, I’m sorry, but I still don’t understand.”
“I was young and stupid and reckless. I didn’t mean to be. I guess I was just too immature to realize what we had. What it meant. It didn’t take me long, though. Within a few weeks, I knew I’d made a terrible mistake. I called and went by your house, but you were gone. And I couldn’t find you. A year later, I got the tattoo and—”
She rose abruptly, his words tilting her world on its access.
Kenna rounded the coffee table and paced in the narrow space. It was too narrow. Too confining. She suddenly felt like a caged animal yearning to run free.
He’d changed his mind. He’d changed his mind and come for me. He’d loved me?
“Oh, God,” she said, her mind all jumbled, her heart painfully racing. Everything might’ve been so very different. All the heartache. All the loss. All the pain. It all would’ve been different.
Master Griffin rose, too, a wariness in his posture and his gaze. “I’m sorry that I hurt you five years ago, Kenna. I’m sorry that I made us miss out on what we might’ve had.”
She shook her head on a halting exhale, and finally sat heavily on the other couch. “I can’t believe this,” she said.
He sat right in front of her, close enough that their knees touched. “What? That I loved you? The only thing I can’t believe is that I didn’t know it the minute I felt it. I didn’t recognize and appreciate it like the fucking precious thing it was.”
Loved. Past tense. Was that what he meant? And did it matter? And why was she so pissed at him right now? Because she felt like she might vibrate out of her skin, and she wasn’t even sure her anger was justified. Just that she felt it. “God, and I was sitting in boot camp trying not to cry my eyes out.” She gave a little humorless laugh.
