by Lacey Savage
Jesse’s fingers closed around my right breast, then something clamped down on my nipple—hard.
The sharp ache sent a blast of heat to burrow in my stomach and I gasped as the sensation slid lower, warming my pussy. My channel fluttered, suddenly hungry, needy. I pressed my thighs together and prayed Jesse couldn’t tell I’d gone from slightly titillated to hotter than hell in about a fraction of a second.
I thought I was ready for the bite of the second set of forceps, but the abrupt ache rushed through me with the force of a tornado touching down on my clit. I gasped and arched my back as I fisted my hands into the crinkled paper. Heat burst up the column of my throat and into my cheeks. I kept my eyes squeezed shut, not wanting to see the look on Jesse’s face as I writhed on the examination table.
“The needle’s next. We’ll start with your right nipple. You ready?”
To his credit, his voice gave nothing away.
I bit my lip so hard I nearly drew blood, but I nodded. Every muscle in my body tensed and my pussy throbbed. Moisture seeped from my channel and slicked my panties. The silky material stuck to my labia, and I thought I could smell my arousal in the air.
Tears of humiliation stung the backs of my eyes, but I’d be damned if I’d let them fall. Despite the fact that it was taking all my composure just to keep my body under control, I somehow managed to keep the tears at bay. No point in crying before the needle went in. Jesse would think I was a lunatic.
So I gritted my teeth and waited in a state of heightened anticipation unlike anything I’d ever experienced. I was keenly aware of every part of my body. My toes, curled in my high-heeled shoes. My breasts, bare and clamped for Jesse’s professional scrutiny. My pussy, weeping and throbbing with need.
“Here we go,” he warned.
I was ready. So, so ready.
The prick of the needle sent my adrenaline surging. My body reacted instantly, heating, flaring, throbbing—even though the needle slid out again quickly and the whole thing lasted less than a couple of seconds.
I couldn’t hold back a whimper. The sound filled the room and echoed in my ears. I recognized it for what it was—pure sexual need—but Jesse must have thought I was in pain, because he mumbled a quick apology.
I braced myself for the second kiss of that needle. Jesse worked quickly, and I barely had time to anticipate it before the cold metal worked its way into my body.
This time, my entire body reacted to that sharp bite of pain. My muscles spasmed and my stomach clenched. The flurry of growing need that had been building inside me broke through the dam holding it at bay, and I came in a rush of heat and wanton surrender, quivering on the examination table as cream drenched my panties and a sharp cry escaped my lips.
Jesse didn’t say a word. As I tumbled down from my unexpected release, he cleaned my nipples with a soft cloth and inserted twin rings through the new piercings. The ache was subtle now, a mere hushed throb to remind me of what I’d been through. But the agony in my chest was utterly crushing.
I stumbled off the examination table and dressed quickly, unable to meet Jesse’s eyes. Tears fell freely down my face now, but they had nothing to do with the piercings.
I gathered up my purse and bag of books and fled down the hallway without a single word to Jesse, or to the redhead at the front of the shop. She called out after me, something about receiving after-care instructions, but I was way past listening.
The crushing August heat hit me square in the chest when I walked out, despite the late hour. I sucked in air but found I couldn’t get enough. The tears wouldn’t stop coming. They streamed down my cheeks even though there were no sobs to go with them, just a silent river that flowed and flowed, unending.
I stumbled down the San Francisco streets aimlessly, ignoring the concerned looks I got from strangers. Most people just gave me wide berth, and I was grateful no one asked me if I was all right.
Because I wasn’t all right. Not one bit.
I’d just come on a table in a tattoo parlor, at the hands of a stranger wielding a needle. I had actually orgasmed, and it had been all-encompassing and soul-shattering and mind-blowing.
I had just achieved something I’d been desperate to experience for years.
And my husband had had nothing to do with it.
Chapter Three
Cole wasn’t waiting for me at the airport. I wasn’t surprised. We’d stopped being each other’s airport chauffeurs after our first year of marriage. I was, however, relieved. I’d spent the entire flight fretting about what I was going to say to him. I’d have to come clean, not just about the piercing—which he’d see eventually anyway—but about what had happened on that table.
The cab ride home took a little over half an hour, which wasn’t nearly enough time for me to formulate a decent explanation. What could I say? You won’t believe this, sweetheart, but I can have an orgasm after all. So you see, it’s not me. It’s you.
Yeah. I didn’t think so either.
I paid the driver and gave him a generous tip. He unloaded my luggage from the trunk and deposited it on my driveway, then waved and pulled away.
I stood at the edge of the driveway for a minute, looking up at the house Cole and I had moved into just a year earlier. Our first home. We’d managed to save enough money for a nice down payment. Our jobs were as secure as anyone’s could be in today’s economy, and to the outside world, we had it all.
Except children, of course, and not for lack of trying. Our inability to conceive had nothing to do with Cole. I was the one who was seriously lacking in that department. The doctors had confirmed it after only a couple of appointments at the fertility clinic.
I was broken in more ways than one. I couldn’t conceive. And until two days ago, I thought I could no longer orgasm.
“Miracles have been known to happen, Mrs. McMann,” the fertility doctor had said to me on the way out. At the time, I’d thought her words hollow and cruel.
Now I no longer knew what to think.
The door opened before I could dig out my key from my purse, and Cole stepped outside to envelop me in a crushing hug. Pain flared from my new piercings, and I hid my gasp behind a sharp intake of breath.
“I’ve missed you,” he murmured in my ear. I could feel his erection pressing against my stomach.
He smelled of my favorite after-shave, woodsy with a hint of spice. I inhaled the scent and held it in my lungs, clinging to it like a lifeline. “Cole…”
He trailed kisses up the side of my throat, along my jaw and onto my lips. I dropped the handle to my luggage and wrapped my arms around my husband’s neck, pulling him closer.
I’d only been gone for four days, but in his arms, I knew I was home. It had always been like that with us. From the first time he had held me, I realized I didn’t want to be in another man’s embrace for as long as I lived. That might sound strange to some people, but I just…knew.
His tongue slid against mine, sending heat shimmering across my skin. Oh yeah, this was where I belonged. Right here. Not on some cold, hard table shaking so much from the force of my orgasm that I thought I would split apart at the seams.
“Come.” He tugged on my fingers with one hand and grabbed my luggage with the other. “I have a surprise for you.”
I stumbled in after him. “Cole…”
He dropped the luggage by the stairs leading to the upper floor and gathered me in his arms again. “You remember what today is?”
How could I have forgotten? I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “We need to talk about that.”
A shadow fell over his handsome face. “If you’ve changed your mind, don’t say a word. I spent a long time planning this surprise for you, Ginny, and I want you to see it.”
“It’s not that. When I was in San Francisco, I—”
He kissed me hard, cutting off the rest of my sentence. “It can wait.” He must have seen the stricken look on my features, because he ran the backs of his fingers along my cheek. “Look, I wa
nt to hear all about your trip, I really do. I want you to tell me every detail of the workshops you attended, the talks that you found interesting and the ones you thought were a complete waste of your time. But not now. All right?”
I smiled at the eagerness in his voice. He sounded like a kid on Christmas morning, eager to unwrap presents he’d been waiting for all year.
“What is it?”
“You’ll see.” With that mysterious remark, he led me down the second set of stairs, toward the basement.
We’d had the house built, customized to our specifications. At the time, we’d had the option to finish the basement but declined. The house was too large for the two of us as it was, and we couldn’t think of a use for the extra space. We figured we would finish it and add a game room at some point, maybe after the mortgage was paid off.
The stairs gave way to a small finished space that we’d furnished with a couple of bookshelves, which held Cole’s medical reference books. To my left was a door we always kept closed. It led to the unfinished part of the basement, which held the water heater and not much else.
Cole placed one hand on the door handle. He suddenly couldn’t meet my gaze. “Look, if you hate it…” His lashes flickered down to hide his eyes. “You’re going to hate it.”
Had he hired a crew to finish the basement without consulting me? My chest tightened, and I started calculating numbers in my head. We couldn’t afford the twenty thousand dollars it would cost to do that job properly, and Cole knew it.
I tried to smile but it came out shaky. “Just show me.”
Cole inhaled sharply. He looked torn, as if he might decide at any moment to grab my hand and walk back up the stairs the way we’d come. But when he released the breath he’d been holding, he looked as if he’d come to a decision.
He pushed the door open without a word.
I had to step past the threshold to see inside, and when I did, my heart stuttered in my chest. I gasped, unable to make sense of what I was seeing.
“Do you like it?” Cole asked.
My mouth dropped open but no words came out. What had been a perfectly ordinary suburban basement three days ago was now some kind of dungeon.
Cole hadn’t hired someone to finish it after all. The walls were still bare, the gray concrete a perfect match for the pipes still running along the open ceiling and down to the floor. But the rest of the place was unrecognizable as a part of my home.
My gaze slid over metal shelves filled with jars, instruments and toys I couldn’t even name. In the center of the room sat a low bench padded with a red leather seat. To its left was some kind of wooden apparatus in the shape of an “X” that looked taller than I was. Beyond those items were half a dozen other furniture pieces I didn’t recognize.
A finely woven rug now ran along the length of the floor, its deep red color matching that of the bench. The only light in the space shone from the same unadorned bulb that had come with the house. It now hung just above the padded bench.
But by far the strangest sight in the room wasn’t an inanimate object. It was the muscular, half-naked man who stood in my basement as if he had every right to be there. He held a whip in his right hand.
I gaped, taking in the sculpted muscles of his bare chest, the low-slung leather pants that showed off his hip bones and the trail of hair arrowing toward his groin. That tempting sight led me to peer between his legs. The leather hugged his cock and testicles, bringing the entire package into sharp relief.
Heat flared in my cheeks and I snapped my gaze up to his. He had blond hair that skimmed his shoulders in loose, sun-bleached waves. A hint of stubble marred his otherwise flawless face, and his blue eyes shone with mischief.
“You must be Virginia,” he said, coiling the thong of the whip around one large palm. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”
* * * * *
“What is this?” The blood drained from my face. The urge to run reared up, growing stronger the longer this man watched me. He didn’t look at me like a stranger looks at another. He looked at me like a predator considers his prey, with a hunger born of instinct and raw need.
I took an involuntary step back. Cole’s hand on the base of my spine both steadied and surprised me. I’d almost forgotten he was in the room.
“This is my surprise for you. My anniversary gift.”
I gaped at the makeshift dungeon. My scrutiny lasted only a moment before my gaze returned to the man standing before me. “And him?”
“My name is Erik Newcombe.” His faint accent sounded Scandinavian and the deep intonation of his voice matched it perfectly. “Cole and I play hockey together Thursday nights.”
I shook my head, unable to make sense of any of this. “Why are you here?”
“I…” Cole cleared his throat. His hand on my back started moving, his fingers tracing small, nervous circles over the fabric of my shirt. “I hired him.”
An incredulous laugh escaped my lips. “As what? A prop?”
A smile tugged the corner of Erik’s lips. I felt an answering pull in my midsection and did my damnedest to ignore the heat spreading through my belly.
“Not quite.” He uncoiled the whip, set it down on the bench.
My lungs constricted. I couldn’t take my eyes off the leather thong. I could picture Erik wielding it. I imagined the sound it would make as it rent the air. I could see the tip clearly in my mind’s eye as it struck pale flesh, knew the raised impression it would make.
I gasped as memories flooded my thoughts. The woman in the woods. Naked, tied to a tree. A man standing behind her, fully dressed, spanking her bare ass with a branch stripped of leaves.
A moan bubbled in my throat and I swallowed it down. I hadn’t thought about that night in years, yet now the memories came flooding back as though they had always been there, waiting for me to summon them.
I could picture the angry red lines blossoming across her pale flesh every time the switch hit her bottom. I even remembered the way her cheeks trembled with the force of each blow, and the trickle of moisture running down her thigh.
And I remembered Ben’s voice, filled with disgust. Filthy pain slut. Is that who you are? Is that who you want to be?
A trembling shudder ran through my body.
“Are you all right?” Cole asked, pressing closer to my back.
“Fine,” I snapped, but I wasn’t. Not really. “Get on with the explanation.”
Erik shrugged. “I have a rather… nontraditional day job.”
I raised an eyebrow, waiting for him to continue. I thought I heard Cole snort, but he may have just been sucking in a breath.
When Erik didn’t offer any more information, I sighed. “Let me guess.” I gestured around me with a flick of my fingers. “You’re an interior decorator.”
He laughed this time, and the rich cadence of the sound traveled swiftly through me. My clit throbbed. I gritted my teeth and did my best to ignore the unexpected sensation.
“Not an interior decorator, no, but I admit most of the pieces in this room are mine. I’ve allowed Cole to borrow them. I’ll explain everything in detail, but please, sit.” He indicated the padded surface of the wooden bench. “You’re making me nervous.”
It was my turn to snort. I didn’t think anything had ever made this man nervous in his life. He could have been staring down a herd of stampeding elephants, and I doubted he’d have done more than flex his arms and raise an eyebrow in mild disbelief.
I crossed my arms over my chest but didn’t budge.
Erik cast a glance over my shoulder. Something registered in his eyes, an unspoken exchange with my husband, and I bristled at being left out.
“One of you better start talking in the next three seconds, or I’m out of here.”
Cole moved to stand in front of me. My heart skipped a beat as I tilted my head to look him in the eyes. The look I saw there mirrored Erik’s. That same carnal hunger, the same feverish intensity, the same need. I nearly took another step b
ack, but forced myself to hold my ground.
“Erik is a professional Dom,” Cole said, his voice deceptively soothing. “I hear he’s somewhat of an artist. I’ve hired him to teach us the art of BDSM.”
“An artist, huh?” Erik chuckled. “I don’t know about that.”
“I do.” Cole’s eyes never left mine. “I think we could learn a lot from you.”
My pulse had been steadily picking up speed, and now it pounded like the beat of a drum in my ears. “BDSM?” I echoed. “As in, whips and chains?”
“Among other things,” Erik said. “BDSM is mostly psychological. It’s all about relinquishing control to another person. Pleasure through pain is only one component of that.”
My body’s reaction to his words stunned me. What started as a mild shiver exploded into a tremor deep in my muscles, until I had to dig my nails into my palms to keep from quaking. A brief memory of the flash of pain I had experienced on the True Tattoo table flooded my field of vision. My nipples pebbled instantly, drawing a sharp ache from my still-tender piercings. A flush traveled swiftly through my body, setting my nerve endings on fire.
And then there was Ben again, his voice as crystal clear in my mind as the day he’d uttered the words. Only whores beg to be whipped, Virginia. Good girls are satisfied with a man’s cock. Come here, let me show you.
I stumbled back a step. Cole reached out to steady me then pulled me close. “Hey, easy there. What’s going on?”
I shook my head, banishing the voice from the past. My college boyfriend hadn’t been a part of my life for seven years, yet he still relentlessly haunted me. The therapist I’d seen briefly said Ben was a part of my sexuality because he was my first, and apparently he’d influenced my feelings and ideas about sex. She also said I had to let him go. I told her if I knew how to do that, I wouldn’t be paying a hundred and twenty dollars an hour to sit in her office.
“You’re crazy, that’s what’s going on.” I spat the words at him, overcompensating for my emotions by unleashing my anger on Cole. “Why would you do this? You know about…” I swallowed hard. I couldn’t even bring myself to utter Ben’s name aloud. “My issues,” I finished lamely.
