by Livia Grant
“Warmup has to start somewhere,” Noah replied. The way he was looking at her, even before he winked again, made the tingling intensify. The winking confused her, though. Why was he acting as if they were conspirators in some kind of con. “And the rules do say, if there’s something we need, we should ask a DM.”
He spread his hands, laying the invitation in Garreth’s lap. An invitation to participate in a scene, not specifically with him, but with her.
Should she object? She really didn’t want to. Part of her wanted to scene with Garreth, and had wanted it for some time. Ever since that first party after she’d left Ethen when she so desperately wanted to find her footing in the community again, but everything felt so strange. She felt so strange. Like she didn’t belong among the other submissives and everyone who looked at her knew it. She’d wanted to play so badly, just to prove she could go through it and come out whole again on the other side, but the only dom who didn’t send her into hyperventilating fits was Garreth and she could never bring herself to approach him. In fact, every time he approached her, she panicked and avoided the whole thing. Because what if the problem wasn’t Ethen after all, or anything he had done? What if the problem was her?
She wasn’t tingling any more. Edging away, Hadlee put an end to the accidental brush of their knees.
“What exactly do you want me to do?” Garreth asked, seeming not to notice.
“Ever flogged a sub before?”
Garreth puffed a soft laugh. “Of course.”
“Ever used two floggers at once?”
“Enough to hit where I’m aiming.”
“That’s all anyone could ask. You take one side of her, I’ll take the other. We’ll give her a good warmup, and them a good show.” He waved in the general direction of the crowded tables around them. “And when we’ve got her flying high in the proper headspace, where the bite of the whip’ll test but not break her, then I’ll fulfill our obligation. Twelve strokes, if she can take ‘em. No more than that; and not even that if I even halfway suspect she’s having trouble taking it.”
“I can handle it,” Hadlee interrupted, not at all liking that anyone would make that decision for her. Both Noah and Garreth looked at her, as if they’d forgotten she was there. “I can handle anything you can dish out.”
Garreth gave her a look.
Noah didn’t exactly lose his smile, but there was definitely a flicker of the dom within, rising to the challenge she’d inadvertently issued. “I’m sure you can, luv. But that’s not what we’re doing tonight, are we? You and I, we’ve never played before and you’ve drawn a tough scene to take. Not everybody can, you know.”
“So you’ve said.” She hiked her chin. “I—I…” She caught herself and forced a little steel into her tone, killing the unwelcome stammer. “I’m not everybody else.”
“If you can’t take it…?” Noah paused, pointedly staring until she realized he was waiting for her to fill in the blank. There was only one way for a sentence like that to end.
“I’ll say my safeword,” she promised.
“Good girl,” he warned. “Because I won’t scene with someone I can’t trust.”
A warm flush moved through her. It was amazing, the power of those two little words, even coming from a man she didn’t know. The only thing that would have made it better was if those words had come from Garreth.
Chapter 4
This was a dream, that’s what this was. He ought to pinch himself, but he’d waited such a long time for this, no way did Garreth want to wake up now.
“How does that feel?” he asked, checking the cuffs on Hadlee’s wrists. The hoist bar was at her nose level right now, with each of her wrists encased in faux-fur-lined restraints and clipped to opposite ends about two feet apart. The ‘buckles’ were Velcro for a fast release, if necessary. That was his idea; they were also his cuffs. He wasn’t sure if Noah had noticed his restraint choice yet, but even if the Aussie whip-master said something about it, Garreth would stand by his decision. He wouldn’t tell him why. That was no one’s business but Hadlee’s and his. But, to the best of his recollection, Garreth was sure this was her first time in bondage (at least on Black Light property) since her split with Ethen. Past ghosts had a way of reasserting themselves in times of stress and pain, and the whip would quantify both. If Hadlee had a problem, he wanted to make sure he got her out of the cuffs, possibly even out of the dungeon proper, as fast as possible.
“I’m okay,” Hadlee said, giving her wrists only the most perfunctory wiggle. She stood before him, so small, stripped of that luscious black negligee that had so beautifully showcased all her best curves. That lacy undergarment was now folded on top of Noah’s playbag, now pushed up against the same post where the hoist’s operating buttons were attached. Her bra and even her underwear, both as skimpy and black as her negligee, were folded up on top of it. She still had on her thigh-high stockings and her garters, and her high heels. In a minute though, he was about to raise the hoist. Not all the way to tiptoes, but if her knees buckled at any point, at least she wouldn’t fall.
“Comfortable?”
Her eyes flashed to him and she gave a startled laugh. “Yeah, I guess.”
He didn’t smile back. He didn’t caress her cheek either, and God knew his hand itched to do that. “I won’t let anything happen,” he promised.
Her tentative smile faded. “Neither will I.”
Good girl. The words stuck in his throat. Words like that belonged between doms and subs who were in a dynamic together. They weren’t that.
We are for tonight, his subconscious whispered.
But they weren’t, and the rest of him knew better. He was a stagehand, at best. Noah could just as easily have asked for help from anyone else. That he’d asked Garreth was a gift, but it didn’t come with special privileges.
Well, all right… that wasn’t completely true. It came with a few. It was Noah’s scene and he’d chosen which side of Hadlee they both got to play on. He’d opted for Hadlee’s back, so when he was done with the floggers he could move seamlessly to the whip—a four-foot, black and beige braided snake-whip, still neatly coiled but hanging from a peg on that post. Not only did Garreth have a front row view of her gorgeous breasts, the budding nipples of which were stiff as peaks atop twin creamy mounds, but it was as if in her nervousness they were reaching to him for reassurance. Her soft, trim belly quivered, her thighs were tense. He was trying really hard not to gaze his fill of the shadowy vee in between. Only perverts and horn-dogs did that. And really, it wasn’t like he’d never seen a naked woman before. He’d seen plenty in the time that he’d been working here. Hell, he’d strung up his fair share, beating, flogging, and even fucking a few on the nights he got to play. If you can’t be with the one you love and all that, right? He wasn’t a saint and he sure wasn’t a monk, but he was supposed to be a friend.
A friend with a front row view of the most beautiful woman he’d ever known, a gorgeous submissive who was trying to find her way again. One he would kill for the privilege of seeing kneel before him, offering all of herself only to him. He would do it with a flogger in each hand and, if he did it right, he’d soon have her dancing in those timeless undulating writhings that were only part pain. The rest would be overwhelming pleasure, the kind he’d happily amplify with the occasional caress. A lash across her belly, a brush of his hand to follow it. A slap to the round perfection of her breasts, the wandering touch of his lips and fingers to make it all feel better.
His mouth watered.
“Are you ready?” From behind her, finished with his preparations, Noah swung his floggers in slow practice arches meant to stretch his arms and reacquaint himself with the heft and weight of his implements. Garreth wasn’t fooled. The whip-master had probably used those floggers so often they felt like extensions of his own arms.
Garreth didn’t feel that way about his own. They were fun tools, but tools just the same. He preferred over-the-knee and those implements supporte
d by the close intimacy that OTK could bring. He couldn’t count the number of late-night fantasies that had put Hadlee in that vulnerable position, across his knee, hugged to his hip, with her legs spread apart because he’d locked one in the vise of his own, leaving the other to kick free, feeding him those hungry peeks of her sex as his hand painted the canvas of her pale bottom bright pink and the trickles of her arousal grew more and more pronounced.
“How would you like to start?” Garreth asked, the pulse of his heart thumping through his eager veins, traveling through him until all he could feel was the focus of them centered in the crotch of his pants.
Noah slipped directly behind Hadlee and Garreth fought hard not to feel anything when he saw her stiffen. He wasn’t used to jealousy and this wasn’t the first time he’d shared a submissive.
“Are you ready?” Noah whispered in Hadlee’s ear.
She breathed in, her gaze seeking out the reassurance of Garreth’s before she nodded.
Noah looked at him too, but his look said something different. Raise the hoist, glittered in the depths of those blue eyes. Follow my lead.
While Garreth raised the hoist, bringing up her arms to the verge of taking her weight, Noah gathered Hadlee’s long brown ponytail up, folding it in half so the long tail wouldn’t get caught in his floggers. As he bound it up, he whispered in her ear. Garreth wasn’t close enough and the room was far too loud for him to overhear, especially right now when there seemed to be some sort of altercation at the entrance. Garreth had no idea what it was about, but he recognized the member shouting for another member, Hannah, who was a submissive observing tonight’s event. Several DMs were already hurrying through the crowd to deal with the matter, along with Silas, one of the participating Doms, everyone blocking the man’s path. Either way, Garreth wasn’t about to leave Hadlee to attend the matter. He was exactly where he needed to be right now, with her wide brown eyes locked on him, begging for reassurance while at the same time nodding along with whatever Noah was whispering.
That should be him behind her, Garreth thought. It should be his fingers in her hair and his breath whispering last minute instructions in her ear. His gut twisted to see her responding to Noah this way. He had to keep reminding himself that she wasn’t his and this wasn’t his scene. Garreth hung up the button controls and forced himself to stay back, to be the damned stagehand when what he really wanted to be was the dom that rode in to save the damn day.
“Follow my lead,” Noah said aloud, and Garreth shook himself back into the moment. He tried hard not to hate Noah as he backed away from the post, stepping out into the open in front of Hadlee while Noah stepped back behind her.
Whatever you do, you better make it feel good. Garreth locked his jaw, refusing to say as much out loud, but Noah was staring right at him and seemed to hear it anyway. He smiled, but the good-natured humor of it felt flat and his eyes were hooded. When he let his arms dangle, a flogger in each hand, shaking out the tails, Garreth followed suit.
Softly, Noah mouthed, and Garreth tried not to bristle. He wasn’t new. He knew how to give a warmup. But glaring at him meant glaring past Hadlee, and she was dealing with enough of her own ghosts that she didn’t need his crap on top of it all. Already she’d twisted her hands in the cuffs so she could grip the hoist bar, and he could tell she was trembling. The last thing he wanted was for her to think he was glaring at her, so for her, he masked his irritation.
“Ready?” he asked.
She nodded, a little too fast and jerky. Her right knee was wobbling just a bit. It made the soft flesh of her thigh shiver.
“Breathe in,” he said, letting his grip on his floggers relax, letting them become extensions of his reach. “Breathe out… slow and steady, baby.”
Behind her, Noah was nodding encouragement, even as he turned, swinging back his arm. A smooth and gentle movement, one that Garreth was only vaguely aware he was mirroring.
Most of the floggings he’d given had started with a warmup that consisted of steady pats to the target area. Across the shoulders, down the meat of the back, away from the spine and high enough not to risk potential damage to the soft organs. Just the back, and sometimes the ass. Garreth was on the wrong side of her for that. He had the front of Hadlee—her belly, her breasts, the beauty of her thighs and the femininity of everything in between. This time, when Noah struck, it was little more than a soft brush of flogger tips sweeping from right to left across Hadlee’s ass only a half-second before Garreth’s soft brushing stroke swept the opposite direction across her pubis. Her belly flinched, more from the anticipation than any sting he might be imparting. He hadn’t struck hard enough to evoke a sting, and he knew Noah hadn’t either. Something Hadlee just as quickly realized and when she did, the tension in her small body eased.
Using only one flogger, Noah orchestrated a gentle tempo. Right to left, right to left. Following the same direction every time, with the same tender caress brushing across her ass while Garreth attended her front. Her stomach tensed. At the first few strokes, she tried to turn. Not away, not exactly, but her gaze stayed glued on him. She barely blinked, and she never looked away. And before the first half dozen gentle strokes had fallen, gentle swishes that connected no more than the tips of his flogger falls to the flesh of her hips, low abdomen and the mound of her smooth-shaven sex, she ever so subtly began to melt into the rhythm of it. It happened in increments—shoulders first, then her arms, then the shiver in her thigh faded to little more than twitches.
Backswing, Noah mouthed, and switched his tempo. Still one flogger only, still gentle as hell, but now it was a steady assault, back and forth, steady as a metronome keeping time with the seconds. And Garreth did the same, not just following his lead but falling into sync until the whispered ‘thwaps’ of both floggers struck as one.
Switch, Noah mouthed.
They switched arms, but not targets, back and forth, steady as a clock. Both men moving as one in a smooth dance that involved their feet as much as their arms.
Shoulders. Noah moved up, so did Garreth. They struck in synchronization, still soft, still gentle. The falls of Garreth’s floggers whispered over Hadlee’s breasts, back and forth, the milky white globes turning pink but barely flinching. He was losing himself in the rhythm. Losing himself in the tightening response of her nipples and the subtle bounce of her breasts as she arched, offering them to his teasing side-to-side strokes.
Rest, Noah mouthed.
They both ceased.
Hadlee breathed in, slow but shaky. Her gaze stayed locked on Garreth as both he and Noah stepped in close to her. Her breathing stopped altogether when Garreth shifted his floggers to one hand and caught her breast in his other. He rolled her nipple, still not close enough to hear what Noah whispered to her. He heard Hadlee’s relaxing exhale, though, and he saw it when she nodded. Inside him, his pulse thundered through his veins. She was aroused. He could see the mildly disoriented smokiness of it in her eyes and in the flush of her face. God, he could smell it.
“Yes,” Hadlee whispered to whatever Noah was saying, but her gaze was still on him. Always on him. If he could shut Noah out completely, Garreth would have. This isn’t your scene, that voice in his head whispered.
Escalate, Noah mouthed, and damn if his feet didn’t carry Garreth back into position when the other dom stepped back as well. He took up his floggers in both hands, letting his arms fall, relax, and shake out the falls in preparation of starting again.
One, Noah mouthed.
They struck together, still light, but not as gentle as before. Back at hip level, side to side, back and forth in pendulum swings that mirrored one another. Hadlee’s eyes closed, her head tipped back.
Two.
Garreth kept the one flogger swinging steady at her hips, but for the first time struck her breasts with the other. Still light, but the mutual ‘whap’ as both he and Noah connected—one to her back and one to her chest—made her eyes fly open again. Her lips parted. Her back bowed, offerin
g her breasts for more.
Switch.
Garreth switched dominant arms, the breast flogger going to her hips, the other rising to lash her chest. She gasped.
On three.
The tempo changed—two light strokes, with a solid thump of impact delivered on the third. Garreth had no trouble following Noah’s lead. This was a gentle dance. It was one about sensation, not discipline, or testing limits, or even about pain itself, although Hadlee did jump at the severity of the last stroke. Her brown eyes rounded. She stared at Garreth as if he were her only lifeline in a storm.
Gentle, gentle—hard! Gentle, gentle—hard! With that third stroke landing solidly in ever changing places. First at hip level, then her right breast while Noah thumped her back, then the left. Hadlee squirmed, the perfect undulation of enjoyment just warming up.
Free for all, Noah mouthed, releasing Garreth from the mirror of his movements, although neither broke tempo or synchronization.
Whap, whap—thwack!
She squealed, jolting up on tiptoes, heaving against the hoist as Noah swung that third stroke directly up between her legs. God, the look on her face. The pleasure. The shock. The jolt that shook through him because her eyes stayed locked with his, pleading to him for more with such a hunger sparking to life inside her as if he’d been the one to put it there.
Striking in tandem, they no longer mirrored one another. Garreth took the gentle strokes of his floggers down the front of her thighs. Whap, whap—he lashed between her legs now too and she surged in her bonds. Ribs lifting, offering her breasts, her parted lips begging to be kissed. Her breasts were blushing, the nipples swelling. When he whipped between her legs again, Garreth breathed in the alluring scent of her arousal and caught his first confirming glimpse of wetness glistening on the falls.
Hadlee snapped her legs shut on the flogger, briefly hugging it to her sex. Nothing was more beautiful than watching her hips riding his falls as he dragged them up through the folds of her sex and back out into freedom. His blood pounded, in his temples, in his cock. He felt… so strong. Empowered. With every stroke of the floggers, his euphoria grew. Echoes of it could be felt in every undulating twist of her body as Noah whipped her ass, two hard strokes now for every single soft one. He saw the smoky, misty evidence of it in her unfocused stare as subspace crept in to take over.
