by Livia Grant
The flogging went on, and on, and on as he crisscrossed my body, careful to avoid my lower back. We had an audience now, a semi-circle of people who watched with murmured approval, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t hear them. I could barely see them. My eyes would not stay open as I sank deeper and deeper into the scene.
“More,” I breathed. “Harder. Please.”
I jumped at another sting of pain, my ass on fire. He delivered another lash, then another, my body slave to the strokes of his flogger.
“Della.” His voice was in my ear. When had he stopped the whipping? “Della.” It sounded as if he were far away, but I could feel him right next to me.
No Baby? My anger had vanished. I slumped against the whipping post. He stood behind me, holding me up, as he quickly unfastened the bonds, slipping the knot over the ring. “Lean against me, Baby,” he said into my ear, and this time the baby was something more. I did as he said, needing instruction now. Needing to not think. Needing to only feel.
A hum of excitement and laughter and clinking glasses surrounded me, but all I could focus on was Brayden. His familiar smell. His warm, strong hands around me as he lifted me straight up off the floor, my burning ass and back screaming against the scratch of fabric on his sleeves. I was sure I heard someone screaming out “Red”, but honestly, I couldn’t process anything right at the moment. My head dropped to Brayden’s chest. He was carrying me, but I didn’t know where, his huge steps moving us so quickly my hair whirred behind me. He was eager to get me alone.
Light vanished, and I opened my eyes. The velvet curtains hung across the entry, and though other couples were right there on the other side, the only person I was aware of was Brayden. He laid me on a padded table, flipping me onto my belly, undressing me. His focused gaze was both stern and gentle, his jaw tight as he made quick work of removing what little clothing I still wore.
When the last stitch of clothing fell to the floor, my pussy throbbed. I was bared. Whipped. Ready.
He propped me up on my knees and ran a large, calloused hand over my reddened skin. “Good. That’ll remind you every time you move over the next couple of days who did this to you.” I turned my head to face him, surprised that I no longer read anger in his eyes but something else. “Remind every fuckwad in this place that you’re mine.”
“For tonight,” I mumbled.
He didn’t respond, but leaned down to kiss the marks crisscrossed on my naked skin. His tongue lapped at the bruises and welts, then his fingers dipped between my legs, stroking my swollen clit. I shivered and moaned, my back arching, needing to climax.
“You took your whipping,” he whispered. “You begged me to punish you. Now take what’s yours.” His hand moved faster, expertly, touching me exactly the way I needed him to, with firm yet gentle strokes. My need rose and I sobbed against the table.
I’d forgotten what it felt like to be touched by him, but my body remembered. Sweet Jesus, my body remembered.
“Brayden.” His name was a whisper, a plea, sanction, forgiveness for the shit mistakes our younger selves had made.
Harder he stroked, faster. I gripped the edges of the table, and my back arched so sharply it screamed in pain.
“Come for me, Della. Come, Baby.”
I shattered, blinded at the power of my climax, writhing under his hands as he stroked me, ordering the spasms of ecstasy, commanding my body to thrill. I came once, building again with a second shattering orgasm that ripped through me like wildfire.
I slumped against the table, and he slid his hand out and brought it to his lips.
“Fucking taste you in my dreams,” he rumbled, his voice thick and husky with arousal and something more. His eyes no longer shuttered, his anger gone.
I turned onto my back and opened my legs. “Fuck me, Brayden.”
His gaze never leaving mine, he reached for his wallet and removed a condom, then unzipped his pants and removed his cock to slide it on. He pulled me to the edge of the table. I could hardly move on my own, but he manipulated me easily into position. He impaled me.
I’d forgotten how his hands felt on me.
I now remembered what it was like to have his cock in me. At the first thrust, I became undone.
“I’m sorry,” I sobbed. I wrenched it out of me the first time, but after I said it, something inside me broke. “Oh God, I’m sorry, Brayden. I’m so sorry.” I sniffed, tears coursing down my cheeks.
He pulled me so close it hurt, and he whispered, “Baby. Della. I’m sorry, too.” A gentle thrust and he held me closer. “Forgive me.”
Two little words, and it was all I needed. All I needed to let it all go, to allow my heart to release the bitterness.
I could only nod.
With expert strokes, he held me, arousal ripping through me until his eyes shut and he grunted, climaxing in me as a third orgasm scattered through me on the heels of the second.
“Fucking yes,” he muttered, laying me back down on the table. “Need you in my bed, Della. Don’t tell me this shit isn’t real.”
I wiped my eyes and could only nod.
He leaned in and whispered in my ear. “Let’s get cleaned up. Ditch these clothes, get our own, and head out.” He helped me to my feet. “Stay there. Be right back.”
I didn’t see where he went, but he came back with a warm washcloth and a soft towel. With a gentleness I didn’t know he was capable of, he cleaned me up, careful as the cloth moved over the crisscrosses on my body.
“They hurt?” he murmured.
“Yeah,” I whispered. “But don’t feel bad. I like it.”
He chuckled. “Oh I don’t feel bad at all.”
I snorted and he helped me dress. On the way to the locker rooms to retrieve our clothes, I glanced at the clock. The night was winding down, now only a few minutes until eleven. The Roulette-matched couples would be finishing up. Who would stay together? Would anyone be interested?
Was I?
We bumped into Angie, sitting at the bar with the biggest, fiercest man I’d ever seen and she sat next to him with stars in her eyes.
She was smitten.
My heart gave a little leap in thanksgiving for her. I smiled and gave her a thumbs-up and jerked my thumb to Brayden.
She clapped her hands. “See you tomorrow?” I mouthed, and she nodded and blew me a kiss. God, I owed her a round or three. Her smug look of satisfaction was only tolerable because I knew she really wanted what was best for me. Nervous butterflies fluttered in my stomach as I followed Brayden out of the club. He nodded to a guy by the door, and lifted his chin to another guy on the way out of the psychic shop.
“They’re your friends.”
“Yeah. Like my brothers, some of these guys. You let others know a side of you no one else does, you form a bond, you know?”
Yeah. I knew. I wasn’t sure how far to let my hopes blossom, but I hoped the shared side of us we didn’t know existed would segue into something… deeper… more meaningful.
The temperature had dropped, and a brisk wind whipped through my thin jacket. “Should’ve dressed more warmly than that,” he chastened. “Always did run around half naked in the winter.”
“I’m-I’m warm blooded,” I protested, trying to hide my shiver. My teeth chattered, though.
He chuckled, and shrugged out of his huge winter coat, a dark brown hooded monstrosity of a thing that half-drowned me. But it was warm, and the gesture touched me. He always had been a gentleman.
“Your mama raised you right,” I said. “But didn’t she tell you you shouldn’t hit girls?” I teased.
“Nah,” he said with a lopsided grin. “She told me to put any girl who talked back to me over my knee. Should’ve listened to her.”
I gasped. “She did not!”
He laughed out loud. “You’re right. I’m just teasin’ you.”
He was easy to talk to, just like he’d always been. “How is your mom?” I asked. I’d loved his mom. She was a tiny spitfire of a woman who hugged fierc
ely and loved harder. It had broken my heart when I no longer saw her, and I’d hated the idea that I’d let her down.
“She’s good. Likes the warm Florida weather.”
“Sounds delicious right about now.”
“We could go see them.”
I didn’t respond at first. What were we doing here? What had happened? We’d made terrible decisions… and in the heat of the moment, whipped up with sex and pain and the dark secret of a taboo night, the truth had been rent from us, but our past hadn’t disappeared.
I shivered again at a brisk wind that rustled nearby fallen leaves, but his jacket blocked most of the cold. We walked in silence to the parking garage. “Truck’s right here,” he said, opening the door to a massive navy blue pickup truck, as big and masculine as he was.
“Jesus, you don’t play around with your wheels, huh?” I teased, as he slid into his seat.
He shut the door and cranked the engine. “I don’t play around with anything.” His tone brooked no argument, and my teasing tone sobered.
He’d just spanked me thoroughly. I still had the marks to prove it. My heart skipped in my chest, and I looked down shyly.
“I’m sorry about what I said out there, about visiting my parents. I don’t know what—”
“I want to go.”
Silently, he put the truck in drive and pulled away from the curb. After a moment, he spoke up. “Do you?”
“Yeah.”
“You want to travel. With me?”
I looked out the window. “Tonight was amazing, Brayden,” I whispered. “I don’t think I could have… gotten to where I did… if deep down inside me, I didn’t trust you. It was the stupidest thing I ever did, leaving you. Not a day has passed since then that I haven’t regretted it.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me that?”
I looked out the window. “Too damn proud.” My voice caught.
“Then why were you so angry in there? Why the hostility?”
Tears swam in my eyes. “Because you didn’t come for me. You didn’t fight for me. You didn’t fight for us. You let me go, and I’ve hated you for years for that.” I swallowed hard. “I see now how foolish that was.”
“Hey.” His voice was low and deep. “It wasn’t just one of us who made a mistake, Baby.”
He reached for my hand, his larger, rough hand warming my smaller one. “I was young and pissed at the world, and my own damn pride held me back.”
We drove in silence for a bit, and I liked this, holding his hand. My ass still stung, and I suspected it would for days. I hoped it would. I didn’t know where the night would bring us, and I felt victorious having taken what he gave me like that. I’d faced serious pain and overcome it. The memory of what he’d done to me made me clench my thighs.
“What are we doing here, Della?”
I shook my head and looked away. “I don’t know. I figured we’d… just focus on tonight.”
Grinning, he pulled down a small dirt road, his truck tipping from side to side as he drove. “You’re not done tonight? I was thinkin’ it was time to give you a nice hot shower, smooth some arnica on you, and put you to bed for the night.”
My belly warmed, my heart fluttering briefly. “Get your mind outta the gutter! That’s exactly what I was thinking.”
“Suuuure.”
“Hey!”
“You haven’t done that thing you do with my cock yet—”
“Brayden!”
“Della!”
I humphed, but he’d done it. A pulse throbbed between my legs. “What’s arnica?”
“Pain relieving cream. Will help with bruising.”
I looked out the window as he put the truck in park. “You know a lot about this shit.”
“I do.”
“I’m not your first…” What did I call myself? Sub? Partner?
“No,” he said quietly.
It was ridiculous to expect that he’d not had partners all these years. But the thought of him doing what he’d done with me back there… it was intimate. I wanted it to be special.
“If it helps, I never dressed anyone up like a French maid before.”
I snorted. “You didn’t say anything about the police officer uniform.”
“Well, that isn’t a first. I may own one.”
“You don’t!” I snorted louder.
“I don’t,” he said. “I forgot how easy it is to laugh with you.”
I sobered then. No one ever said I was easy to laugh around. ‘Uptight’, ‘control freak’, and ‘too serious’ were more apt expressions. I didn’t respond but just looked out the window.
He lightly smacked my thigh. “C’mon, let’s go.” He left the truck and my hand froze on the handle of the door, about to open it. He liked to be the one to open it for me, and I’d grant him that. I waited.
He opened the door and took my hand. “How’re you feeling? Sore?”
“Sore as fuck,” I mumbled.
He chuckled in a low rumble. “Good,” was all he said.
“Proud of your skill?”
“Fucking right I am.” He opened the door to his house and ushered me out from the cold. I entered, wondering if I was making the right decision.
Chapter 7
Brayden
It felt nice bringing Della back to my house. I’d called in favors from friends, and fixed it up. A large, rambling ranch with a huge, fenced-in backyard surrounded by pines and maples, I had a small brook that ran around into the trees in the back. I’d only made small changes to the interior, keeping the same layout we’d always had—an open floor arrangement with a huge fireplace in the living room, built-in bookshelves lined with my favorites, and a large master bedroom on the left. The basement was furnished, everything clean and solid and welcoming.
“I always thought this place should be on the centerfold of a magazine.”
“It was.”
She spun around to look at me. “Are you pulling my leg again?”
I snorted. “No, dead serious. Featured in Homes a year ago. Redid the woodwork,” I said with a shrug. “Shit like that.”
“This is amazing,” she breathed, and pride stabbed at my chest. I had no idea how much her approval meant to me until she’d said that.
“Thank you. Hey, it’s late. You want a drink before bed?”
Della
“Please.” My nerves were jittery and I hoped a good drink would help quell them.
“You’re shaky, Della. You sure you want another drink?”
I nodded. “Please.”
“You cold?”
“No.” I wasn’t cold; I was nervous.
No. I was scared shitless.
He tossed his keys in a basket on the coffee table, then came back to me and took his heavy coat off me. Colder now, I shivered again. “Sit over on the couch under the blanket,” he ordered.
I walked over and did as he suggested, pulling the knit afghan off the back and slinging it over my shoulders. And then it dawned on me. He’d been like this before. Bossy, and handsy, and a bit arrogant. Confident. Before, it angered me. But after being driven to my knees back at the club, I could see the appeal. He was a chest-beating alpha, who in his younger years drove my idealism crazy, but now… now things had changed. I’d made my way in the world. My bank account was heavily padded, my apartment a sweet, decked-out place of luxury I’d furnished to the last perfect detail.
But I was alone.
And I was tired of being alone.
When I blew a tire or got sick, I was the one who handled it. I was the one who put myself to bed. I took care of myself, and I was damn good at it, but it wasn’t until I was with Brayden did I remember how nice it was to be taken care of.
None of this was new. None of this was even surprising. It was exactly who he was; I’d just never appreciated it before. Tired, nervous, and weirdly emotionally overwrought, it felt nice to lean back against the couch and sigh with relief.
“Drink? White Russian good?”
“Mhm.”
I heard the clink of ice and the sound of liquid pouring. A moment later, the couch sagged underneath his weight as he sat down next to me. I opened my eyes and took the drink, nodding my thanks.
“This is delicious,” I said.
He shook his head. “What’ve you been doing the past six years? All work and no play? You know what they say about that.”
I shrugged. “Work is easy to control. Easy to get lost in.”
He reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “Yeah. There are other things that are easy to get lost in, too,” he said softly. I sighed and nodded, taking a sip of the cool liquid.
He took a swig from his bottle of beer, downing most of it in a few hard, fast gulps.
My chest warmed, my fingers even more limber now as the liquid coursed through me. For one brief moment, I asked myself what the hell was I doing. Then he placed his bottle on a sturdy wooden table—with no coasters—I would not control. Would not! And pointed to my drink. “Take another sip and come here.”
I nodded. “Yes…” I shot him a grin. “Master.”
He gave me a cocky smile. “Here, you can drop the master.”
“Oh?” I felt a flicker of disappointment.
He crossed his arms on his chest. “Here, it’s just Sir.”
I choked on my drink, sputtering, but quickly getting myself together. He took the drink from my hand and put it on the table.
“No coasters,” I croaked as he prowled closer. I laid back and he slid on top of me.
“Fuck the coasters.”
“It’ll leave marks!”
“I’m the one who leaves marks.”
“Holy shit!”
“You’re fucking lucky I don’t spank for swearing.”
“You swear like a truck driver!”
He was fully on top of me now, holding me beneath him as he gazed into my eyes, his own heated. “Didn’t say I didn’t. Just sayin’ you’ve picked up a potty mouth.”
“Hm. Being alone will do that to a girl!”
