by Pam Godwin
His full lips parted as he glided the shirt and skirt down her legs, his sharp silvery gaze totally and completely focused on her. No matter what kind of confrontation he'd just come from, he was here now, gifting her with the command of his concentration.
With only the bra and rope left on her body, she met his eyes comfortably and confidently. “Will you tell me about it?”
“After your punishment.” He licked the corner of his mouth, perhaps seeking the toothpick that wasn't there. “On your knees.”
She obeyed, eyes glued to the swell of his groin as he stood and unbuttoned his shirt. When he shrugged it off and tossed it somewhere near the closet, she yanked against the restraints to go after it.
He chuckled, damn him. Whatever. She'd pick it up later. Right now, she had something better to do, like take in the sight of his magnificent body.
His abs flexed with his reach for the leather belt on the floor and contracted with his stretch as he straightened. Veins ran beneath the skin of his forearms, bulging over muscle, pumping with the movements of his hands folding the belt.
Her fingers tingled to run down his chest and around his back to feel his taut muscles and absorb the smooth texture of his skin. More than that, she wanted to bask in the heat of his belt on her ass.
Dangling the strap at his side, he unzipped his pants and slid his hand inside. “Do you know how fucking hard you make me?” He removed his hand and grabbed a fistful of her hair. “Spread your knees. Arms up and elbows out. Like you're hugging a six-foot cock.”
Her mouth watered, and her pussy throbbed with liquid heat. When she assumed the pose, he stepped into the ring made by her bound arms and yanked her by her hair until her cheek pressed against his hip. The strength of his thigh supported her as he pivoted to face her, his cock hard and pulsing and tenting his slacks an inch from her face.
She slid her cheek against it, reveling in the curved shape and the way it jumped against her touch. Her arms tightened around his thigh, and she ground her clit against his shin, humping his leg and throbbing with need. “Van—”
“Who am I?”
She smiled. “The ruler over lights and porches and window shades and spectacular messes and—” The yank on her hair made her smile harder, and she answered honestly and respectfully. “Master.”
He caressed the edge of the belt over her cheek. “Describe your pussy. I want details.”
“It's wet, leaking onto my legs. And it hurts. It's clenching like crazy.” Her admission intensified the throb. “Van, I need you.”
“What does it look like?”
She choked. Dammit, why did he have to go there?
The belt whistled through the air and landed across her ass with a searing sting.
She grunted against his hip. “It's swollen.”
“More.” He swung again, hitting her other ass cheek.
Her thoughts blurred with shameful images, but she would tell him, and maybe he'd spank her harder. It didn’t matter why he belted her as long as he continued to do so. The pain was a need, a distraction, and a connection. “It's stretched, loose, chewed up, and used.”
He laid into her, beating her ass just as he'd promised. She didn't count the swings. She never did, too consumed by the fiery sensations blazing through her body, the press of his cock in her face, the exertion of his breath, and the bolster of his leg as she hugged it tighter with every stroke. The pain was binding, an extension of him, an outpouring of his very essence, his darkness and devotion, his damage and strength.
He could whip her against a tree, fuck her beneath the moon, or tie her down on the porch and mar her flesh with the cuts of his teeth. It didn't matter, because wherever he took her, no matter how brutal or dark the destination, there would always be warmth. Because he would be with her.
The belt clattered to the floor. He slipped his leg from her embrace and tackled the knots, unwinding the rope from her arms. The room spun around her, but her world was aligned. Because he was right there, his arms beneath her legs and back, his chest against hers. He lifted her and laid her on the bed.
She melted into the mattress, ass tingling, her pussy spread and soaking and aching to be filled. He stripped his pants, his erection long and thick, as he climbed over the edge of the mattress.
He wedged his shoulders into the gap of her thighs and breathed against her pussy, “I don't see anything here that's stretched, loose, or chewed up. But the last part, well...” He pressed a finger in her opening and stirred it around the edges, shooting pulses of heat through her inner muscles. “It's definitely used. I've made sure of that.”
He dragged a slow, torturous lick through her folds, and her hands flew to his hair, her pelvis bucking to meet his mouth.
“Fuck, you taste like heaven. I could eat you all night...after you tell me more about this hang-up. That brain-damaged prick you were married to didn't come up with his insult by looking at you. I'm beginning to think he never looked at you at all.”
The truth of his words tensed her legs around his shoulders.
He kissed her cunt with an open mouth and a swirling tongue, devouring every inch of her slick flesh. Hot, wet, “No, he picked up on your insecurity and exploited it to get his rocks off.” He lapped at her clit. “Tell me the source of your insecurity, and I'll let you come.”
His sucking resumed, his lips sliding over her, his tongue thrusting and circling. His skillful mouth smothered her with overwhelming pleasure, and just as the orgasm rose up, he pulled back. Fuck! Then he went at her again, eating and biting and pushing her toward the edge.
She vibrated with need, the urgency to come overwhelming. “He wouldn't go down on me. He...he talked about the girls who ran in my circle, about how tight their cunts must've been and how he wanted to bury his face in that.” She blew out a tired breath. “He hadn't gone down on me in years, and I...I thought it was my pubic hair so I shaved. It didn't help, so I decided there was something wrong with me.”
He looked up, his lips glistening, his eyes twin flames of silver. “His fucking loss.” Then he immersed his face in her folds and blew her fucking mind.
Her legs trembled, and her fingers twisted and yanked his hair. The attack of his teeth and tongue sent her soaring with weightless wings, the release spinning her out of control, her back arching and her toes curling.
When she landed, he caught her, shifting them to their sides, face-to-face. He pulled her thigh over his hip, his cock nudging her opening. “Your pussy belongs to me. You're not allowed to insult it. Not in your head or otherwise.”
“Okay.” She smiled, and it must've looked as loopy and satisfied as she felt.
With a finger gliding around the tip of his shaft and spreading her open, he worked himself in. His hand flew to the back of her head, and he groaned into her hair as he thrust.
The invasion was full and snug, every inch of him warming and stroking her insides. Her muscles contracted around him, all thought, all feeling, centered on where they were joined. He pumped faster, pulling her head back by her hair and taking her mouth. My God, the man could kiss. She could come just from the slide of his tongue.
She opened her eyes and found him watching her with affection and a thrilling amount of lust. He hadn't grown bored with her. He wanted this. He wanted her. Not Liv.
As he began to plow into her with intoxicating roughness, she returned to his mouth, biting his lips, her fingers tracing the ridges of flexing muscle along his torso. He slammed into her, grinding against her clit, and pulled out in long strokes, repeatedly, pushing her to the edge, teetering...
He rolled her from her side to her back and deepened the thrusts. His head dropped to the pillow, his softly-shaven cheek rubbing against hers, his breaths sharpening. “Fuck, Amber. So fucking close. You need to come.”
She clutched his ass and clamped down around his driving length. Four more grinding rotations, and she let go. “Aaaagggh, God, I'm coming.” As strong as the first, the surge lifted and carried her
through waves of drugging pleasure.
His hips jerked. “Fuck.” He buried his face in her neck, his palm covering the side of her head, his powerful body trembling through jerky thrusts. “Fuck. Me, too. Fuuuuck.”
She held him tight as he fell apart above her, his weight a crushing security and his groans quenching her undying need for his appreciation.
As his muscles relaxed and his cock pulsed inside her, a voice whispered at the back of her head. “Van? The condom?”
He barked out a laugh and rolled to his back, taking her with him and slipping out of her, his seed smearing against her thigh. “Little late for that, babe.” He reached between them, swiping a finger through the mess on her leg and sliding it into her mouth. The clean salty flavor mingled with his saliva as he kissed her slow and lazily. He leaned back, grinning.
She pinched his ass. “You have a semen fetish.”
“I like the way it tastes on our lips, and so do you.” He kissed her again. “The test results came back today. You're clean.”
She relaxed against him, draped over his body, her cheek on his chest, smiling happily. Not that she'd worried about STDs, but he'd put her on the pill when she arrived—using a no script online pharmacy—and she hadn't had sex without a condom since she'd been married. “No wonder that felt so good.”
“Mm.” He stroked her hair with one hand and cupped her ass with the other. “I went to Brent and Tawny's house tonight.”
Fucking whiplash. She jerked back and collided with his unreadable gaze. “Why?”
He forced her face back to his chest with a strong hand and held her in place. “I drove there to kill him. Decided not to.”
Her heart raced. She hadn't even considered the possibility. “You're not a murderer.”
A heavy sigh expanded his ribs, and his thumb drew restless circles over her jaw where he held her against him. “A year ago, Liv was brutally raped by a slave buyer. I felt responsible because I'd sent her to him fully fucking aware of what kind of monster he was. When I found out, I shot his wife just to torture him. Then I...” He exhaled. “You don't need to hear the details. I killed him.”
Torture. Van had no doubt brought unholy vengeance on that man. His breathing labored, and his hand loosened on her head. She rose up and searched the hard lines of his face. No remorse or horror painted in those lethal features.
“Protective till the end,” she whispered.
“The very end, in fact. I packed up after that to leave the operation for good.”
“But Liv shot you before you got out?”
He twined their legs together. “Yeah.”
“Your avenging-murder days are over?”
“We’ll see.”
Right. If someone harmed her, all bets were off. The thought filled her with a selfish kind of comfort. She slid a toe up and down his calf. “You're not going to rehang the drapes, are you?”
He laughed. “Nope.”
That was a problem she'd worry about in the morning. “What happened with Liv tonight?”
He combed his fingers through her hair and stared at the ceiling. “You were right. She's too scared to trust me. Can't blame her.” He lowered his eyes to hers. “They want to meet you. Joshua specifically. The meeting is set a month from today.” The fingers in her hair curled, pulling the strands and speeding her pulse. “In a restaurant.”
The spectacle played out in her head. A slobbering panic attack, nothing like the little gasping hiccups she'd been having outside the cabin. More like one of those spit-flinging episodes that bucked her body all over the floor and rolled her eyes into the back of her head. Patrons would gape in horror and spill their drinks. The manager would call for an ambulance. And Van would be humiliated.
A silver light focused on her, funneling her feral thoughts back to the loft, the bed, and the hard body cradling her. His eyes glowed with acceptance, hope, faith. He looked at her with the kind of love that would transcend any answer she gave.
With a trembling smile, she nodded. “I'll try.”
Amber did try. Hour by hour, day after day, Van watched her tackle her fear till her body gave out. He supported her the best way he knew how, with a commanding presence, a steady hand, and an aching yet prideful heart. But he eased up on pushing and dragging her in his usual way, because dammit, she was hard enough on herself.
Even now, five days away from the meeting with Liv and Joshua, she lay passed-out in the front seat of the Mustang, covered in sweat and dark hair tangled around her. Because she'd demanded he drive her to the edge of the two-hundred acre property.
He paced beside the open passenger door, the gravel driveway crunching beneath his sneakers. Even through muscle spasms and hyperventilation, she'd fought with white knuckles on the dashboard to remain conscious.
The tightening in his gut told him she wouldn’t make it inside that restaurant. If she didn’t, he would never hold it against her. But how well would she accept her failure?
He searched his pockets for a toothpick and came up empty. Fucking hell.
He lowered onto the edge of the seat beside her and stroked the soft, damp skin on her cheek, traced the lashes beneath her closed eyes, and pressed his thumb against her full bottom lip. He yearned to take her back to the house before she woke, but he'd agreed to her plea.
If I pass out, please don't drive me back till I wake. I need to fight through this.
The phobia was so deeply worked into her mind it felt more powerful than the two of them combined. But she had made progress. She'd conquered the uncovered windows within one week. Hell, she didn't even mess with her hair anymore when she passed by them.
The bulimia seemed to be subdued because she didn’t obsess over her body image anymore. She never tried to cover her body from him, her appetite had grown to a healthy level, and a few times, he’d caught her looking at her reflection, not with disgust, but with approval flickering in her eyes.
The OCD had become a trivial thing. She still counted and popped her knuckles when she was upset, and she would always be an orderly little neat freak. But it didn't control her life. Not like the agoraphobia. Not like him.
Her eyes fluttered open, flicking over the surrounding windows, groggily orienting. Her fingers curled in her lap, and her breathing hitched.
He cupped her face to direct her focus on him. When their eyes locked, he was transported back to the first time they met. On her porch, him with his dick in his hand, her all dolled up for a date with the mailbox. Her brown eyes, round as saucers then, had been so terrified.
The very same terror stared back at him now. He tensed, and the surrounding timber stilled, too, waiting for her reaction.
Her breathing tightened, followed by the usual shaking, wheezing, and sweating. Her choking sobs wrenched at the air and weighted his stomach with lead. He crawled into the driver's seat, closed the doors, and sped back to the house, his heart stumbling all over itself. This wasn't working. Nothing was working.
After he fed her lunch, she sat at the kitchen table, staring at the remnants of oyster bisque in the bowl. Her shoulders slumped, her head lowered, and she wouldn't maintain eye contact.
He wore a path on the tiles around her chair, his muscles stiff and his throat tight. Joshua had given him a chance to win Liv’s trust. Would this meeting be his only chance? It seemed like an all or nothing kind of opportunity, to prove to Liv he had a girl who wasn’t coerced or enslaved.
But her dejected posture made his stomach sink. “Fuck the stupid meeting, Amber. We can attempt another one at a later date. Whenever you're ready.”
Her chin hardened. “Where's the man who broke into my house and fucked with all my stuff? Stop being gentle with me. Van. You're the only person who has ever given enough of a shit about me to shove me out the door.” She stood, fire sparking in her eyes, and pointed a finger at him. “I need you to shove me across the porch on my face if you have to.”
His heart banged against his ribs with furious agreement.
> “We're doing this.” She squared her shoulders. “I'm doing this.”
But she was doing it for him and only because he would be there. If she failed, her devastation could be self-damaging, and he couldn’t allow that to happen.
He pressed his lips together and rubbed his forehead. She was a stunning, naturally-submissive, housebound, consensual slave. He should've been out-of-his-mind ecstatic. But if he had one regret in their two-month relationship, it was his stupid, selfish fucking mission to be her obsession. If he hadn't come into her life, maybe she would've lost her house. But more than likely, she would've landed on her feet because she was bullheaded and strong as fuck.
None of that mattered now. He'd fed her, protected her, controlled her every damned move, and in doing so, he'd robbed her of her self-reliance and replaced it with an unhealthy dependency. Him.
She blew out a breath and cocked her head, her eyes suddenly bright and mischievous. “I have an idea.”
Just like that, she brought a smile to his face. “Does it involve bleach and scrub brushes?”
She tapped her chin. “Hmm. I'm thinking gasoline.” Her eyes glimmered. “And fire.”
An hour later, he stood beside a well-fueled bonfire roaring twenty-paces from the cabin. The heat from the flames and the aroma of wood smoke had an old-fashioned way of fortifying the spirit and moving the psyche into a place of deep contentment.
He looked up to find her leaning against the doorjamb, just inside the back door. Her arms wrapped around her torso, her expression strained with panic. No doubt she wouldn't be stepping over the threshold. But beneath the fear lay a softness in her eyes, a kind of peaceful resolve.
She'd said the fire could burn away the past, melt the painful memories, and make room for transformation. It was worth the try.
He gave her one more questioning look, arching his eyebrow. Are you sure?
