by Cynthia Dane
“To sit still.”
“Can you do that for me?”
“Yes, Master.”
The edge of the blade lightly touched the top of Monica’s shoulder. She sucked in her breath but did not move. He won’t hurt me. Thank God Jackson had never done knife play with her. She could only imagine what state of mind she would have been in right now had that been true.
The blade descended to the keyhole in her dress. Monica released her breath as the tip pierced the fabric.
“I really liked this dress on you,” Henry mused. “Remind me to get you another one later.”
Before Monica could inhale again, the knife cut into her dress and sliced away the fabric covering her breasts.
Henry did it so lightly that she barely felt it. The blade never touched her skin, as he promised, but that was partly in thanks to her perfect posture and stillness. Yet feeling the fabric pull away from her almost felt like having the edge of the blade drawn across her skin.
“My beautiful princess.” One hand wrapped around the back of her neck while the other held the knife steady against her dress. “It feels like unwrapping you after the ball. You already served me so well in the restaurant. I keep thinking of how I should repay you after such just punishment.” The knife teased her bra, but he didn’t cut it. Because he didn’t buy it for me. Anything he bought her was fair game. He could always buy her another.
“I will love anything you do, Master.”
“That’s not true.” The knife was back in her dress, slicing it down the center until meeting the top of her navel. “It’s not possible for you to like everything. Besides, half the fun is discovering what you do like. Did you like the ice earlier? I think you did.”
“Yes, sir.” It still gave her chills.
“Good. Now, this list you gave me…” The top of the knife pressed against her skin but did not penetrate it. “There are quite a few filthy things on here. I’m not in the mood for a lot of them tonight. Some of them… I’ll do my best.”
Monica shuddered inside, but held her body still against the knife.
Henry tossed it onto the floor, far away from the bed and where they would make love. He kissed her, that hand still around her neck, but now the other groping her breasts and freeing them from the front of her bra. His fingers pinched her nipples one at a time, making her groan into his mouth.
The pinching stopped and was replaced with his lips, Henry’s tongue tracing large circles around her nipple. Whenever he pulled away to take a breath, Monica’s nipple was harder and more pronounced than before.
“You were such a good girl in the restaurant.” Henry ran his tongue along her chest, pushing up to her throat and then her chin. His hot breaths burned her ear as he climbed onto the bed and held her close to him, her bound arms struggling to embrace him back. “You did exactly as I told you to do. You always suck my cock without question. You’re such a sweet, attentive sub, and you will be rewarded.”
Those words were like music dancing in her ears. Even when Henry pulled away and began undoing the ropes around her bodice, Monica remained in a state of adoration, her eyes rolling back and her sighs gentler than the air around them. The ropes dropped to the bed. Henry disappeared around the side and opened his drawer of goodies. Monica was left to stretch her arms and flex her fingers. Who knew how much longer she would have this freedom.
Not much longer.
A small pulley hung from the ceiling. Behind Monica, Henry stood on his bed and looped a stronger rope through it. Monica could lean her head back and rest it against his thighs, but when she tried this, Henry pushed her forward and grabbed both of her arms.
Within seconds she was taken back to their first night together, when her arms were raised above her head and tied to a simple rope. Henry wasn’t content with that. He had to pull harder, forcing Monica to get up on her shaky, cramped legs and stand on the bed. Her bare toes wiggled against the soft comforter.
Henry secured her before pushing his hands beneath her skirt and feeling her hips. “Did you enjoy our time in the restaurant?” he murmured into her ear.
“Yes, sir.”
“What did you enjoy?”
“What you gave me.”
“And what did I give you?”
Monica wasn’t shy about these things. For years she was used to talking frankly about sex and her desires – and her Dom’s desires. “You gave me you.”
“I did. It’s easy for men to do that.” His hands tightened around her thighs, coming dangerously close to her center. “Women, I find, have a harder time giving themselves like that.”
His fingers brushed against her slit. Monica steeled herself, hissing through her teeth.
“You’re still wet.”
“Not as wet as I was back there.”
“I can fix that.”
He kissed her neck. Monica rolled away from it, letting Henry explore the white of her throat while his hands felt her intimately, reawakening her body to the idea of lovemaking and all that it entailed. The bed had some give beneath their standing weight, but Monica was the one secured to the ceiling. It was Henry who had to check his balance.
“I want you.” His urgent voice lit a fire beneath Monica’s skin. When he tore apart the front of her dress with his bare hands, she gasped, her will crumbling.
Alphas were always such thrills. They could be kind and considerate one moment, and ripping apart a girl’s damned dress the next. Monica loved both sides equally. Especially if one naturally followed the other.
With her bodice and sleeves ripped, Henry was able to drop the dress to Monica’s feet and tell her to step out of it. Once the pile of defiled black fabric was sent to the floor, he unhooked her bra and unsnapped the straps. That soon followed the dress, and Monica was presented to her Dom completely naked.
“As pretty as you are in your ball gowns, Princess, I much prefer you like this.” Henry wrapped his arms around her, placing another kiss on her neck and then her shoulder. Feeling his soft clothing against her skin lulled Monica back into total comfort. “Now let’s see what we can do about that.” He pointed to her feet, struggling to maintain her balance on the bed.
Henry hopped down and opened a closet by the bed. Monica couldn’t see in it from where she stood, but from the way her Dom paid careful attention to what was inside… she could only assume good things were stored in there.
“Spread your legs.”
Easy. Monica had to do so in order to maintain balance. Yet she wasn’t surprised – but definitely excited – when Henry latched one end of a spreader bar to her right ankle.
Apparently she wasn’t spread enough for his liking, even though the bar was adjustable. Henry eased her legs open farther, taking care to make sure they weren’t too far apart when he latched the left ankle. Strung up, spread, and naked, Monica had never felt so delightfully vulnerable in front of Henry.
Except this wasn’t her reward. That came from a sharp, painful hit to her ass.
She yelped, her legs buckling but unable to close. The hit came again, this time harder, and the skin on her ass felt like it was about to cry from the impact.
“Oh my God!” she cried, as the pain morphed into pleasure throughout her body. She anticipated another smack but didn’t get one. Instead she saw the end of a black leather crop round her stomach and caress her breast.
“Perfect.” Henry was beside her, massaging her injured flesh with a kind hand. “Your body and its responses to what I do to it are perfect. You really are a natural at this, my dear.”
Monica managed to crack a smile through the pain. “Did you ever doubt it?”
The crop tapped her breast. “Knowing and seeing it for yourself are two different things. There’s nothing that sates me more than seeing a woman who enjoys this sort of thing.”
“I assure you that I do.”
“I know.” Henry nibbled her ear, just the way she liked. “You’re the total package.
Beautiful, intelligent, savvy… and a lover of painful pleasure.” The crop caressed her nipple, threatening to smack it at any moment. “No wonder I’m falling so hard for you.”
If Monica weren’t trapped in her position, she would melt into the bed, carried away by the sweet words her Dom offered. Most of her was more than happy to hear them. Happy to take them in and turn them into the fodder she needed to feel that holy emotion of love. But another small part of her was afraid. It was easy for men to say that they loved someone. They were so free and yet fickle at the same time. What did they have to lose? Nothing. A man like Henry Warren had nothing to lose. He could say he loved Monica and suffer no repercussions if he changed his mind later.
These thoughts almost dwelled in Monica’s head – and then the crop slapped her breast.
It stung for one blinding hot white second, and then the pleasure settled in, spreading from her nipple to the rest of her chest. “Again,” she begged, as the crop circled her stomach and patted the top of her mound. “”Please, Henry.”
Not sir. Not Master. Monica wanted all those sides of him, but it was Henry she desired the most in that moment. The caring and understanding man who knew how to hit her with a crop.
“Whatever you want, Monica.”
A shriek of pleasure took them both by surprise when he smacked her breast once more. Streaks of red appeared on her flesh.
Time slowed, then quickened, then slowed again as Henry circled her body and picked specific places to hit with the crop. Sometimes he struck the soft skin of her ass and breasts. Other times he gave a lighter smack to her stomach, the small of her back, and the top of her shoulders. When he hit the inside of her spread thighs, Monica moaned, her body on fire and ready to douse the flames on her own.
“Can you feel it?” Henry embraced her from behind, his hard cock pressing into her sore ass. “Doing this to you… seeing you respond like this… I want to fuck you until neither of us can breathe anymore.”
His hand rubbed the brunt of her mound, her slit, and the tender flesh in between. One thick finger rubbed her clit, sending waves upon waves of pleasure through her. Pure pleasure. No pain. After mediating all of her pain with pleasure, Monica didn’t know how to handle just one of those things any longer.
“You may be my sub, Monica.” Henry’s voice was becoming more ragged the longer this played out. How long until you can’t help yourself? Like in the restaurant… when his cock ravaged her, the rest of his body thrusting it into her for the pure need of it. Nothing got Monica off more than knowing her Dom wanted her so badly that he turned into a mad man. “But my desire to serve you right now outweighs everything else.”
“Henry…”
His wet finger lingered on her lips as he sank to his knees and kissed her tender skin. He’s never done this before… Monica was used to Doms who only doled out that level of pleasure once in a blue moon. Jackson definitely did not taste her often. The only lover who regularly gave her that kind of pleasure was Ethan, but he had always been the most conventional of all her lovers.
Henry’s tongue slid along her slit, caressed her clit, and massaged her folds until she was squirming in her binds. When the pleasure abated long enough for her to think again, the first thing Monica thought was I can’t believe he’s letting me watch.
Dark blond hair scraped her thighs as Henry kissed her nether lips. Occasionally his deep blues looked up and met hers, but it wasn’t the look of a submissive that Monica was used to seeing from someone in this position. It was that intense, claiming gaze of a man leaving yet another mark on his woman.
Henry Warren wasn’t lowering himself beneath Monica. He was reasserting his role in her life – a harbinger of pleasure who wouldn’t let her go until he was good and ready.
And he was clearly a man who had plenty of experience in this realm of love, for the way his tongue, his lips, and his breath all came together to pleasure her was like someone who wanted to please. So while he was her Dom and purely in control, Henry still had that romance inside of him. “Relax and enjoy, Princess.”
Monica closed her eyes and eased into it. Within seconds she was moaning into the open air, her eyes trembling but unable to close. Not with the spreader keeping her thighs far apart and granting Henry all the access he wanted to her innermost places.
He brought her to the brink of orgasm and then pulled away, teasing her thighs with his tongue and the tips of his teeth. Monica shuddered again, her arousal to the point that even she could detect its scent in the air. Henry growled against her, pushed himself up, and touched her with his fingertips.
“Relax,” he whispered into her ear, one hand stroking her below while the other spread across her back. “Give yourself to me.”
Monica knew what he meant. “On your bed?”
“It’s fine.”
His touch drove her forward again, yanking on the rope above her head and straining against the spreader. With her slit opened to him, Henry had no problem sliding his fingers into her and tempting the inner recesses of her body. A man with long and thick fingers is either an angel or a demon. An angel would take her to orgasm – a demon teased her until she cried in frustration.
Henry was a demon.
“No, don’t stop,” Monica begged whenever Henry pulled his fingers out, wetter than before. Her legs were wet for a second time that night, and it had nothing to do with him or ice. It had everything to do with what her body was capable of. “Please, Henry…”
“What was that?” His fingers hovered near her entrance.
“I’m sorry. Master… please…”
“Not until you give me what I want, Monica.”
The only way for that to happen was to completely surrender, allowing Henry to do whatever he wanted, stopping when he wanted, and trusting that he would give her the ultimate pleasure when he was damn well ready. Monica bit her lip and felt him enter her again, this time with a third finger pushing its way in while his thumb rubbed against her clit. The rest of his body surrounded her, the silk and cotton of his clothes comforting Monica as she collapsed into his embrace and let out breathy cries of impending orgasm.
He stopped.
The sound coming from Monica’s throat was pure frustration. There was orgasm denial, and then there was this. She was so pent up that she was about to burst right on his hand – especially when he pulled his shirt open and pressed their skin together, his belt coming undone and his zipper dropping. His stiff cock brushed against her back.
And his fingers reappeared inside her.
“Come if you want,” Henry said, both of his hands working her until she was likely to scream his name. “Just give me what I want in exchange.”
Between his touch, his words, and the heat of the situation, Monica began to orgasm. Yet before it hit her like a meteorite crashing into her body from the heavens, she gave Henry exactly what he wanted: enough wetness to slide his cock into her even at that angle, and enough wetness to mark the comforter beneath her.
“That’s it, lovely,” he said with a gruff tone. His fingers shook within her, filling her deep and sending her eyes to the back of her head. “All over my bed. Give yourself to me.”
It seemed like a fair trade. Him in the restaurant, and her in the bedroom.
Of course, Monica would prefer to have him yet again.
When her orgasm dispersed within her, she opened her eyes to see Henry unlocking the spreader and freeing her legs. He waited until the spreader was off the bed before untying the rope and catching her in his arms.
Henry laid her down, her head touching the nearest pillow. He continued to loom over her, his clothing coming off as Monica prepared to take him one last time.
“Are you ready for me?” He eased her legs open again and hovered between them. Although he did not thrust into her, Henry lowered his lips and kissed her cheek lightly. More kisses meandered down her throat and then back up the other side. “Don’t tell me I wore you out already.
”
Monica wrapped her arms around his shoulders and brought him closer, their lips melding together until she had to answer again. “Never,” she mumbled against his mouth. “I always want you again.”
“Good.” With that, Henry entered her, his lips taking over hers once more.
Although she was not tied up, bound, or otherwise immobilized, Monica still felt the crushing weight of his body on top of her. Muscles moved beneath her grasp as Henry thrust into her, his groans of pleasure as he took her echoing between Monica’s ear and the pillow. There was no pain, aside from the ache in her thighs. All Monica was aware of in those moments was her body, Henry’s, and the bed they made love on.
I feel so liberated. He held her down, and yet it was for a union of their hearts and minds, not just their bodies. Truly, it was impossible for them to achieve this sensation on their own. Monica needed him as much as he needed her. And the way he kissed her, as if he were so famished that she was the only vessel for replenishing his spirit? I can barely stand it.
