“It’s too big, Sir,” she blurted out.
He smiled, and her heart thumped harder. “Trust me. If it hurts too much and doesn’t give you pleasure, what do you need to say?”
“Salmon.”
“That’s right,” he said, and his focus centered on her aching cunt. “But I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. I want to make it feel good.”
She didn’t think he was going to be able to do that. The dildo was massive, and she hadn’t had sex in years. The idea that—
His tongue slid over her clit; she couldn’t breathe or think or speak. His hot mouth devoured her, driving her pulse to a crazy level. The need to come washed over her, and she twisted helplessly. “Oh, oh.”
Then he moved the dildo inside her slick channel. It only dipped inside and stretched her, but she couldn’t stop the involuntary thrust to deepen its penetration. His tongue lashed her, and she fought the impending orgasm. Then he slid the dildo deeper and twisted it inside her. Pain streaked through her, but it was intertwined with the pleasure of his mouth. She jerked back and forth between intense desire and agony. Her hips rotated, wanting the dildo to fill her, to complete her. It was like death and life and need.
His tongue flicked faster across her nub, and she sensed her control leaving her. Now he fully seated the dildo inside her, and the anguish of its possession increased the pleasure. Her orgasm wasn’t a gentle wave of stimulation but a tsunami that destroyed everything in its path.
She screamed and arched toward his mouth. He nipped her with his teeth, sending shards of pain/pleasure careening along her nerves. When she flew over the edge again, she bit the inside of her mouth. Oh God! Oh God! Her body trembled from head to toe as she came down from a high place. Slowly, he eased the dildo out of her pussy, but his tongue continued its drugging torment. Then he removed his mouth and slid her dress back down. As he rose to his feet, he shook his head. “You disobeyed me, Anelda. I’ll have to punish you again.”
She was crumpled up on the couch and turned sideways, still shaking. “Okay, Sir.”
Chapter Four
For months Mark had planned his sexual seduction of Anelda Armstrong. He’d wanted to show her the pleasures to be had when a submissive surrendered to a Dominant. What he hadn’t considered was the sheer need she would inspire in him. In his planning, he’d thought of her, of what she needed, of her reactions. He’d neglected to consider his own reactions. The raging hard-on was a minor inconvenience compared to the surprising strength of his feeling of ownership and possession.
He immediately recognized that he was going too fast. She was vulnerable, her walls torn down at his insistence. It was up to him to regain common sense. Yet as he stared at her disheveled hair and her trembling limbs, he wanted to forget sense and drown in pleasure. It was compelling, this sensation of being the first to own her, the first to experience her submission. Like a man who was tasked with giving a virgin her first sexual experience, he felt both the animal satisfaction of her innocence and the heavy responsibility of her well-being. It would be a simple thing to bind her to him, to make her believe that she only needed him for her very existence. The temptation was overwhelming, and he was surprised by its force.
He took a deep, shaky breath and closed his eyes. Dependency was not what he wanted. When he’d called this a “first date,” he hadn’t been kidding. A man like him needed a woman who understood kink. Instinctively, Anelda did. Her whole demeanor was to serve. She lived her life sacrificing for others and received none of the advantages from the exchange. Mark was going to teach her another way.
And he had to be prepared for the day when the student went out on her own. He knew he was in trouble when that thought made him tense. It took effort, but he forced his fists to unclench.
Until that time, she was his. Enjoy the moment. “Time for your punishment, Anelda.”
She sat up straight, her gaze narrowed on his face. He raised his eyebrows, and she caught the hint, dropping her focus to her bare feet.
“I’ll let you choose the instrument of your punishment.”
“But—” She rattled the cuffs. He gave her a wicked smile and reveled in the way her hazel eyes darkened.
She tightened her lips and rose unsteadily to her feet. When she approached the coffee table, he suppressed a grin as she made her choice slowly, with purpose. She chose the leather flogger, not realizing, perhaps, that it was vastly different and maybe more painful than the other two.
Gracefully, she bit the handle and straightened up. With a little flourish, she stuck her chin out until he took the flogger, then glared at him briefly before she dropped her gaze to the floor.
“Why did you pick this one, Anelda?” he asked her.
When she shrugged, he used his open hand to swat her ass. She jerked and then froze. “I-I thought it would…give me the right sensation.”
“And what sensation is that?” he asked. Had she thought about it? Had she fantasized?
“The rubber strands would be too stingy. My butt is sore.” She cleared her throat and shot a nervous glance at his face. “The suede would be too soft. The leather, I thought, would be in between.”
“Very good.” He pulled out one of the chairs from the table by the window. Then he unlocked the cuffs. “Bend over the chair.”
She rubbed her wrists and frowned. “How?”
“I want your breasts to hang over the edge. I want your knees on the floor. I want your ass in the air.” He tried to breathe normally, afraid he’d lose control just from describing the position he wanted.
And he required her to do it all willingly. He wasn’t interested in a partner he could manhandle and force into his will. He wanted her eager, hungry. As he waited, he noted that she became more agitated.
“Well?” He put a sharp edge on his tone, and she jumped.
She met his gaze, her eyes wide. “Will you catch me if I fall?”
There was more to that question than the words, and he knew it. She wanted to know if he was going to keep her safe, if she was more than a body with a blank canvas on which he would paint his own desires. Could he address both the spoken and unspoken question she asked? He wanted to write off his need to possess her as a trick of sexual arousal, but he didn’t seem to be able to do it. He needed more from her, something that was permanent, involving a collar and late dinners and talking.
Where the fuck did that come from?
It should be just sex, just kinky, mindless sex, not this deluge of his emotional shit.
To answer her, he moved behind her, put his hands on her hips, and placed his lips on the back of her neck. He used his weight to bend her over the chair, and the handle of the flogger dug into his palm as he pressed her down. She wobbled, unable to keep her balance, and he steadied her. Maybe it was his imagination, but he thought she twisted slightly to increase their closeness, to slide her body against him.
When she was in position, he gently backed away and flicked the flogger out. “I like when you count. Count them, Anelda.”
He swung his arm, not giving her full power but making those strands spread over her ass. She jerked forward, and her voice was hoarse. “One.”
Though he wanted to see the marks on her skin, he refrained from lifting her dress. She liked it when her ass was bare. There was plenty of time for that later. His next strike was harder. She’d have to learn to breathe. “Two,” she choked out.
“Breathe through it, Anelda.”
“How many, Sir?” she finally asked. He’d wondered why she hadn’t questioned him sooner.
“As many as I want,” he answered in a hard tone.
When he struck her again, she cried out, and it took her a minute to say, “Three.”
The way her body squirmed, her hands clenched and unclenched, and the desperate catch in her throat all settled into his heart and mind until he was insatiable for more. Again, he felt a connection, a link between them as if he experienced the pain with her. The sensation both surpris
ed him and aroused him. It took every ounce of control to remind her she had an out. “Do you want the punishment to stop?”
She inhaled, a shuddering breath that seemed to travel through her body to his. “No, Sir,” she said in a very quiet, small voice.
He whacked her ass again. “I can’t hear you,” he demanded.
“No, Sir,” she shouted.
“How many is that, Anelda?” he asked her.
“Four.” Tears streamed down her face, but when he brought his arm back, she arched toward his next blow.
This one was full strength. She shouted and twisted against the chair. “Five.”
He placed the flogger on the coffee table in her line of vision where she could see it and know this punishment was over. She sobbed and blinked up at him. “Five,” she whispered.
With a brutal jerk, he gripped her hair and lifted her head to face him. “And why were you punished?”
“Because I came without permission, Sir,” she said, her voice husky, and her eyes wet.
Efficiently, he helped her to stand. “You are so beautiful when you cry, Nell.”
At the sound of her shortened name, her head snapped up, and she stared at him. “Are you finished?”
He led her to the couch and pulled her into his lap. “For the moment. What did you think?”
“I-I…“ She closed her eyes and relaxed in his arms. “I’ve never been like this.”
No, she never had. He sensed her need for closeness, and for once, he enjoyed the aftercare. She was relaxed and her body was limp as he laid her facedown on the cushions. When he rose from the couch, her hand caressed his thigh, a stolen touch that made him smile. With tender care, his lifted the tight skirt of her dress to reveal her reddened skin. He rubbed ointment over her ass and reveled in the way she leaned into his touch. When he wiped his hands with a towel from his bag, she watched him, a drowsy, seductive stare that made his cock twitch. When he sat beside her, it seemed natural to wrap his arms around her and pull her onto his lap. As he stroked her hair and cuddled her against his chest, he had a moment of sheer panic.
Women had always been an open book to him, an easy gain for pleasure. This seemed more substantial, more solid. He wanted to shove her away from him and run like hell. A committed relationship, something involving a collar and more, might be for some people, but not him. Yet Nell was everything he’d always wanted for himself. She was a submissive and accepting of his kink. The idea of having everything—a submissive sexual partner and work companion—was terrifying. It meant revealing himself, uncovering his secrets to someone else, and sharing his life. Just the thought made his blood freeze.
Her hand rested over his heart. “Your heartbeat has gone way up.” She lifted her head to gaze at him. “What did I do wrong?”
Under the pretext of holding her hand in his, he moved her fingers away from the center of his terror. Fuck. He was a risk taker, a man who understood the rush that came from appropriating companies and playing in the dangerous monetary game of business.
This kind of fear was alien to him.
“You didn’t do anything wrong, Nell.”
Apparently, she had put her own spin on his reaction and his soothing tone. She reared away from him, putting space between them.
“I’m not stupid, Sir.” She snapped his title, and her eyes narrowed to slits. “It’s not like I’ve never heard the whole ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ speech.” She twisted away from him. “Spare me.”
“Nell—”
“The scene is over, right?” She pulled the hem of her skirt down to her knees. “Thank you. I need a moment.” She flipped her hair over her shoulder and stalked toward the bathroom.
If he hadn’t been completely infatuated with her before, he sure as shit was now.
* * * *
The mirror mocked Nell. She stared at her striped ass. Well, what had she expected? Romance? Love? The “punishment” had heightened her awareness of him, made her completely in tune with his rhythm. So much so that when he withdrew, she sensed it immediately.
She inhaled a shaky breath. This was supposed to be a sexual education, an adventure. It felt like more than that, and Nell was terrified. No one had ever stripped her mask away so quickly and so thoroughly. She’d been willing to do anything, be anyone, if it made him happy.
The minute he’d said he was Mark Conners, she should have run like fucking hell. Hadn’t she researched him? Hadn’t she run into a blank wall after he graduated from high school in Los Angeles? She shook her head. No photos of a man who clearly had some serious business chops, yet she hadn’t been able to locate what college, if any, he’d attended.
The only thing she knew for sure about him was that his parents no longer lived in the L.A. area, that he had “gone out East” according to his friends, and that he had an uncanny ability to remain out of the public eye.
He and his buddy, Fedders, who remained behind the scenes pulling the strings and making the money, hired others to charm the press. Yet Nell had discovered something about Mark when he was still M. Conners and when his high school teachers, friends, and associates called him Junior Conners. His father had been involved in several Internet start-ups in Southern California. And he had failed spectacularly, losing millions of investors’ money, and ended up as a lowly accountant for a cellular company.
Until his father’s fall, Junior Conners had been in football, student government, on the fast track for college. Then he’d disappeared, and from everything Nell could see, he’d cut off his family.
There was little resemblance in the confident man to the serious boy who had stared back from his high-school portrait. Nell hadn’t discovered very much before her company came under siege. Ernest had tasked her with finding out who the men were behind ConFed. He was gone before she could use anything she’d found out.
Now she was having a wild weekend of pain and pleasure with Mark Conners and beginning to wonder if she’d lost her mind. No one connected with the photograph of a boy who was now a man and the sketchy details on a written report. No sane person anyway.
Yet that picture had tugged at her sympathy. Her sources had said his senior picture was taken shortly after his father’s meteoric descent complete with a media frenzy and the family’s entire personal life splashed all over the news.
The haunted sadness in Junior Conners’s expression had touched Nell in places she’d ignored for years. Her own loneliness, brought on by her need to succeed, had been reflected in his face. Had she detected that same expression when she’d first seen him and read more there than she should have?
Probably.
It’s not like she hadn’t guessed who he was before he told her. Who else would have been able to convince her to stay? She’d been intrigued the minute she’d spotted him, and nothing had changed. The clause in her employee agreement just made it easier to give in.
Contract or no, he hadn’t promised her romance. He’d promised her sex, kinky sex. The kind she’d been too afraid to find for herself.
She squared her shoulders. It was time to grow the fuck up.
He knocked on the bathroom door. “Nell? Your suitcase is here. I’ll leave it outside the door.”
She opened the door, prepared to apologize for being an irrational fool, but his back was to her. “Sir, I-I’m sorry I walked away,” she said and then held her breath.
He stopped, but he didn’t turn around. “No, Nell. I’m sorry. You weren’t wrong. I should have been honest with you.”
“Yes, but—”
“We’re good, Nell. I promise.”
Words froze in her throat as he continued out of the bedroom. He hadn’t elaborated, but he’d admitted she was right. She had to conclude that he wanted distance between them. After all, just because he was kinky and dominant didn’t mean he wasn’t all man.
She sighed, not brave enough yet to march into the next room and confront him. Instead, she opened her suitcase and wondered what the hell she should wear. Finally
, she pulled out a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. It was the weekend after all.
But first, a shower.
As the hot water ran over her skin, she let herself think about what had already happened. In the past, she had been inhibited in bed, keeping control, never losing herself in the moment. She had longed for a man to sweep away her objections and smash through her walls. Orgasms were occasional and unsatisfying. Mark had given her more in those short minutes than she’d been able to get from any man before him. It wasn’t that he made her come; it was that he gave her the right amount of pain that kept her in the moment. The release she had experienced under his hands was much more intimate than she ever had before.
It had hurt, and not in a good way, that he would react in such a predictable, male fashion. She had sensed his fear, his need to pull away from her after a spectacular connection. Even lost in arousal, she knew he had felt the same link.
She dried off and traced the stripes that glowed on her skin. They fascinated her. She smiled as she remembered the first time she’d asked one of her boyfriends to mark her. He’d been shocked and appalled. That disaster hadn’t lasted much longer.
As she clicked on her hair dryer, she sighed. That summed it up. Disaster after disaster had occurred until Nell had given up on having a love life at all. She lived vicariously through her two friends, who seemed to date incessantly.
The warm air flowed through her hair, and she flipped the strands over her face to dry the underside. One hand on the dryer, the other crept over her nipples. God, she was horny. Maybe it was the marks, or maybe it was the way his hands had gripped her body, but Nell wanted to fuck.
As if her fantasy conjured him, Mark was there at the door. “Nell, are you hungry?”
That was a loaded question. Her earlier doubts seemed irrelevant. Perhaps he didn’t feel the same intimacy between them, something that went beyond sex. But that didn’t mean he didn’t want her. How could she let him know that she wanted the mindless escape he seemed to offer? She turned off the hair dryer and opened the door naked.
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