by Angel Payne
“Do them,” she returned. “All of those wicked things.” She swallowed hard. “If you’re going to Hell, then take me with you.”
His grip curled harder against her scalp. He leaned in closer, now pressing the prominent ridge in his leathers into the space between her lower ribs. “You need to know everything you’re asking for, sunshine.” He firmed his jaw and locked his gaze with hers. “I haven’t fucked Bella this week.” He acknowledged her surprise with a sweep of his free hand, grabbing hers and pushing it against the erection that throbbed heavier with each minute. “But if you beg me to dominate you again, if the word yes leaves your lips one more time,” —he turned her to make her look at the bondage bed, with its hooks and chains and shadows— “then I will be inside you tonight…probably in several different ways.’
His promise filled her with as much fear as it did arousal. Looking at the bed, practically seeing the scene his mind painted for her in it, was daunting, terrifying…and wholly irresistible.
He’d control her. And she’d let him.
He’d penetrate her. And she’d permit him.
He’d hurt her. And she’d adore him.
Her mind spun. Her body trembled. She took one last breath of sanity then let it out, giving into the madness with a grateful whisper.
“Yes.”
For a long moment, Ethan didn’t move. He kept one hand braced on her hip, the other wound in her hair. His body remained a powerful but motionless tower behind her.
Ava gulped, unsteady and unsure. Was she supposed to do something else now? Drop to her knees? Call him Sir? Say some weird submissive oath of fealty?
“Ssshhhh.”
His admonishment came so softly, she almost thought it was a rush of wind against the building. She frowned and tried to pivot her head around. “Wh-what?”
He seized her harder, keeping her locked in place. “Sssshhh.” It was a harsh slice off his lips now, released into her ear before he ran his teeth along the length of her lobe. “Quiet it all down, baby. Your thoughts are so loud you can’t hear your feelings.” His hands finally relaxed, the top one kneading her head, the bottom caressing her stomach, her breasts, her hips. Again into her ear, he coaxed, “There’s no right. There’s no wrong. There’s only you, surrendering to me. Everything. All of it.”
He curled his fingers, scoring her skin with his nails, dissolving her insecurities into dust. “Yes, Sir,” she finally said on a sigh.
He clawed her harder and charged, “No. I don’t expect your Yes, Sirs tonight, either. I expect your obedience, without hesitation or argument. Call a red light if we hit one, but other than that, you will simply be.”
While her mind was a tornado in her attempt to comprehend that, she managed a little nod. “Yes, S—”
He bit into the flesh just below her ear. “That protocol begins now, sunshine.”
It was the hardest damn thing in the world to simply still herself, to let him take over. And mierda, he did just that.
Though maintaining his position behind her, he widened his stance and pulled her tighter back, pressing her into the frame of his leather-clad legs. The ensuing minutes were torture and paradise combined. There wasn’t any inch of her arms, her breasts, her stomach and her thighs that he didn’t explore with worshipful slides, glides, and strokes, setting her skin ablaze with steady purpose.
That was the utopia part. The damnation came every time he got anywhere near the juncture of her thighs—and passed over it with nothing but feathery touches to her pubic curls. By the time he did that for the tenth time, she nearly bucked against him in frustration, chewing her bottom lip to stay dutifully silent.
Ethan’s beard stubble grazed her nape as he settled his lips against her ear again. “Go to the bed now,” he directed. “Get in the middle, facing the headboard, and kneel for me there.”
At this point, she would’ve done it even if the bed was lined with hot coals.
After eagerly climbing onto the firm red leather, she took the pose he’d ordered. Through enough of her dabblings into the nature of submission, she remembered that subs often honored their Doms by turning their hands upward, resting atop their thighs, signifying their willing acquiescence to the dynamic. Doing it now made her feel strange and yet peaceful…exactly where she was supposed to be, with the man she most wanted to be here with.
More of her doubts slipped away. She focused completely on listening to Ethan, who now shifted in the room behind her. He opened the cabinet against the wall and gave a number of approving hums. She heard items clinking together, the whoosh of leather through the air. She visibly shivered and he audibly chuckled. Gorgeous, sadistic bastard. Did he think he could mess with her mind by making her listen to him play with the toys behind her back?
It was working.
Her heart thudded harder. Her womb clenched tighter. Her pussy dripped wetter. If she could draw any reassurance from the horny mess, she realized that at least he couldn’t see any of those things—or take advantage of them.
Or so she thought.
He moved up behind her again. Climbed right up on the bed, grazing the back of her head with the ridges of his abdomen, nudging her neck with the tight mound at the front of his leathers. She barely resisted the temptation to turn her head, press her lips against that prominent swell, and beg him to unzip so she could taste his flesh once more.
In hindsight, maybe that was exactly what she should have done.
Ethan reached around and took hold of both her forearms, totally ruining her pose. He pulled until she was in an upright kneel instead of the butt-on-ankles position in which she’d just been. More significantly, he didn’t stop lifting on her arms until she looked overhead, suddenly realizing his purpose. A two-in-one leather cuff dangled from a chain suspended between the bed’s support beams. He didn’t hesitate about cinching her into it, the middle strap serving to tighten the clasps for both her wrists.
Her mind immediately went for some snarky Spanish slang, countering her massive uneasiness at being so suddenly exposed for him. With a deep inhalation, she quelled the outburst. Though she was still unnerved, she also found herself immersed in a strange peace. She made her living being worried about how things looked all the time, about how elements got placed, lighted, presented. She couldn’t remember the last time none of that was a concern. It freed her senses to actually experience details, instead of analyzing them. The cool air against her nude skin, tickling the insides of her thighs as she widened her knees for better balance. The smell in the air, redolent with steel and smoke and sex. The rough soughs of Ethan’s leathers as he moved again, swirling his hands across all the planes of her body as he examined her from every angle with those dark, wild eyes.
“Goddamn,” he murmured, tracing the edges of her ribcage with the tips of his fingers. “You’re so beautiful like this. So perfect.” He bent and kissed the hollow between her breasts. “So mine.”
She hoped he heard the heartbeat that crashed beneath his lips…the Yes, Sir she yearned to exclaim until it filled every corner of this room. She willed the force of it into her gaze as he looked back to her face, his own features gripped with such intensity, he made her pussy wetter just by looking at him.
Of course, the man discerned that fact nearly before she did. With a rogue’s quirk to his lips and a demon’s glint in his eyes, he glided a hand to the tissues that were so available for his touch now. A slow hum prowled up his throat as he explored her moist folds, then finally slipped a finger into the depths of her vagina.
“Ahhhh,” she keened softly. It didn’t count as a word, did it? Dear God, how she wanted to say more. Beg him for more. Plead for more of the tantalizing strokes he gave to her intimate walls, drawing out more of her moisture and heat. She kept it all back by clenching her teeth, a visible battle that earned her his wicked half-grin.
“Somebody likes bondage,” he murmured. “A lot.”
She narrowed her eyes, showing him the taunting touches were fast mov
ing past arousal and into sensual torture.
“Your body feels like it wants to come, sunshine.” After she managed a jerking nod, he went on, “But I want to see it throb for its reward.” Though he kept teasing her tunnel with his finger, he rotated so his body bracketed hers from the side and he could start exploring her spine, ass and thighs with his other hand. “I want to turn it pink, then red. I want to mark you with stings and screams…to hold your thoughts and your will in my grasp until I give them back, letting your body take mine.”
Vaguely, Ava felt her head rolling forward. It was almost like she nodded but felt more like falling under a beautiful, sexual spell. But a wince fell from her when he pulled his finger free, robbing her of the steady pressure that her deepest caverns craved. He trailed her own nectar up the midline of her body, until letting her breathe in her own arousal as he tucked that finger beneath her chin and lifted her face toward his again.
“I need to know you want it too, Ava.” His stare fell to her lips like a starving man beholding a feast but he sustained his distance. “I need to know you’re ready for this part of my dominance. I’m not going to put fancy words on it, either. I’ve wanted you like this since the first time I kissed you. That means I’ve been thinking about it for damn near eight months now. I can’t guarantee how gentle I’ll be, or how—”
Unable to use words, she shut him up with a kiss. Just lunged her face up, sealed their lips with hard, needing urgency, and prayed it would be enough to prove he wasn’t the only one who’d been dreaming about this for all those months.
From the way he bared his teeth in a look that was half grin and half snarl, it looked like he finally got the point.
The moment after that, he slipped off the bed and into the shadows.
The immediate effect of that was a shocking hit of weirdness. For a moment, pure fear washed over her. She was suspended, nude, and alone. No…not alone. As if they were bound to each other with invisible filaments of energy, she felt Ethan’s presence flow back to her, into her, his silent acknowledgment of the trust she’d placed in him. He verbally communicated as such too, letting her hear his approving growl when he came to stand directly behind her.
“You’re fucking exquisite.”
She looked up a little. His shadow played across the wall, framed by the bed’s heavy posts, as tall and carved and defined as his magnificent body. As she took in the sight, her stomach twisted and her breath stopped.
At the ends of his shadow hands, there were now shadow floggers.
Before she could start breathing again, he gently draped the leather falls of one down her spine. “Ohhhh,” she moaned. The thin strips were supple and cool, making her pussy tighten as he swished them over her backside and upper thighs. He repeated the treatment with the other flogger. She duplicated her blissful exhale.
Until he sliced it short by bringing the first flogger back down on her.
Hard.
Okay…wow. She blinked, trying to gauge if the heat across her skin was pleasure, pain, or both. Before she could sort it out, he wielded the second blow. Then the third. Then at least a dozen after that, each just a few seconds apart, until her eyes drifted shut and her body began to fall into a strange, syncopated rhythm with the strikes. This was actually a little relaxing…
An extra-hard smack reared her out of the reverie.
“Mierda!” she protested. “Hijo de puta!”
He did it again.
“Ethan!”
She heard him rest the floggers. Of course, that also gave him the chance to lean in and rub a hand across all the skin he’d just enflamed, ending with the tender flesh that dipped between her thighs. “Is that your version of a red light, sunshine? Are we stopping now?”
His tone was only half serious. He’d reserved the other section for that self-sure man in the dress blues who’d first pinned her to a tree in a Northwestern forest—and knew she’d like it. The sadist in him was openly baiting the masochist in her, knowing that girl wouldn’t give up the game this early.
“No,” she snapped. After a deliberating breath, she added, “No, Sir. I—I want to go on.”
His own assessing pause made her tense back up. “Even though I’m going to switch toys?”
She gave a scoffing snort. “What, as ‘discipline’ because I spoke?”
“You spoke up because you had a genuine concern. Why would I discipline you for that?” If his temperate tone wasn’t a hard enough pill to take, he moved next to her again, bracing a large knee just inside her left one. “When I ordered you to silence, it was because I knew you wouldn’t comply any other way. I was also sure that once you tried to let go, you’d like the mental freedom.”
She flashed a penitent glance as he brushed the hair off her face. “Oh.” And ugh. He was completely right. She’d liked it. A lot.
“Your smart-ass attitude right now, though—that’s a different issue.” He shoved his leg in harder, stretching hers out so his thigh rubbed directly on her pussy. She shuddered as waves of heat and arousal flowed from the contact, tightening her thighs, clenching her abdomen, flooding her body in waves of heat and need. The torment got worse as he reached and palmed her right butt cheek. He wasn’t as tender with his touch this time, gripping her with the same ferocity that had reclaimed his face. “Baby, if you were really my subbie, there would be a lesson involved for that. A nice, healthy chunk of that—what’d you call it?—hmm; yeah—‘discipline.’”
She had no idea, aside from the man’s quadricep grinding her kink curiosity into overdrive, what possessed her to lick her lips and blurt out, “Discipline…like…how?”
He gentled his grasp on her ass but bore his gaze into her by several ruthless degrees. “Like doing something that pleased me more than you.”
Despite the position in which he’d trapped her, she huffed. “That’s impossible, then.”
He cocked his head. “Oh?”
Despite her state of hot, bothered, and beyond agitated, she gave him a soft smile. “Because if I pleased you, I’d be happy.”
“Happy,” he repeated, like she’d just told him the earth was square. “So happy and discipline don’t go together?”
“That’s the point, isn’t it?”
He adjusted his position a little. Not only did he ram his thigh harder against her crotch, he angled his hand deeper into the crevice of her backside…now running a slow finger around the delicate rim of the forbidden entrance there. “It’s an interesting theory. Perhaps it needs to be tested.”
All the air in her body shorted out. Ethan filled the taut pause by pressing his finger into the first sensitive inch of her anus. She mewled and pulled a little at the cuffs, alternately panicked and enflamed. Being touched there was so sinful, so intimate, a border she’d never wanted to cross with anyone…before now. “Per…perhaps,” she finally uttered.
Ethan’s reply was just as rough yet thoroughly male. “Your ass has filled my dreams since I first laid hands on it in that wine cellar.” With his stare locked to hers, he eased a second finger in, stretching her illicit opening even more. “And it would make me very happy to claim it in every way I can.”
Her senses careened. Her skin cells were a million bursts of electricity. Her muscles bunched and quivered, struggling to keep still beneath burst after burst of arousal. Her nose filled with the leather-and-pepper smell that was only Ethan…this man who’d torn into her spirit like no other, who made all her erotic fantasies come true…including the one he proposed right now.
With that resignation, she returned his gaze, pulled in a long breath, and whispered, “Tell me what to do…please, Sir?”
Chapter Nineteen
He was going to hate himself for this. Some crazy protester marched through his brain still screaming that, but Ethan wrapped a mental fist around the asswipe’s neck and squeezed hard. He was tired of the screeches. Exhausted from the voices that kept pep-talking him through a pretense he hated, in the name of an op that had just gotten e
ven crazier.
He was weary of the logic that decreed the insanity of caring for Ava Chestain, let alone touching her…especially like this.
But right now, the only thing that felt sane was her. The only thing that felt right was this. He had no idea what was going to happen in the next hour, much less the next day, but if fate was offering one more moment with her like this, he wasn’t going to insult the bastard. He was going to grasp this with every grateful bone in his body, and make it incredible for her, too.
Her beautiful plea clung to the air between them. Tell me what to do. After giving her a reassuring kiss, he decided to show her instead. Wordlessly, he unclipped the cuffs from the chain overhead. This kept her wrists bound, which he guided downward by hooking a finger in the leather loop between them. He pressed on the space between her shoulder blades to indicate he wanted her upper body to follow. It took little effort to find a rig point in the headboard, to which he clipped the cuffs in order to hold her in that position.
He let a hand slide over her bowed head and lowered shoulders, then up the sleek line of her back and finally atop the buttocks that were now raised and ready for his pleasure…his use.
“Perfect,” he murmured.
Ava responded with a deep sigh. “It’s all yours,” she said, her tone so silken and sweet, he knew she was headed into a nice subbed-out zone again. He almost hated shattering that. Almost.
“It’s stunning,” he told her, swiping both his hands across the golden-skinned globes that topped the graceful curves of her thighs. Christ, he could spend days in veneration to her ass alone. But he had maybe an hour here at best. Time to get on with things. “I love the pink we’ve already painted across this canvas. But now it needs something more. Are you ready for my new paintbrush, baby?”
He watched the chocolate waves on her head glisten in the light as she nodded. “Yes, Sir. Ohhh, yes.”
He’d brought over a nice leather dragon’s tail from the toy closet but then noticed Hudsy left the crop from the photo shoot in a convenient hook on one of the bedposts. The woman, being the perfect hostess that she was, also left the cup next to it stocked with lube and a beginner’s anal plug. And people accused him of being part psychic?
