Bound and Determined

by Sierra Cartwright

  There was no response.

  She dug her fingernails into her palms as distraction. She’d learned already that no response meant no.

  She tried to crawl away from the exquisite torture, but firm hands drew her back the few centimetres that she’d moved. “Please, please, please. Please may I come, Sir?”

  There was no response, just harder pressure against her already swollen clit.

  “Begging,” she told him. “This is me begging!”

  “You may come, sub.”

  She thrust back her hips, demanding additional pressure. Whoever was there responded, inserting a couple of fingers into her pussy and licking her hard. She screamed out her orgasm, and through her tiny drinks of oxygen, she expressed her appreciation.

  “Now,” Jack said, “you’re ready.”

  Still dazed, she barely registered the first few blows. Unless she’d experienced it, she would never have believed it possible to be so saturated with pleasure that you didn’t notice the pain.

  “Please count.”

  The words registered, barely.

  “I need to be sure you’re with me, Sinead. Please count.”

  With him? She was pretty sure she wasn’t. She wasn’t sure where she was, but right here, right now…? No.

  “That was four,” Jack prompted.

  “Four,” she repeated dutifully.

  Because her body was afire, his punishment strikes only intensified the need inside her.

  He waited an interminable amount of time. “I’m ready, Sir.”

  He dragged out the anticipation. “Breathe,” he told her.

  “I’m okay.”

  “I want you fully in your body, fully aware.”

  She preferred to be floating in the ether. Even fine Irish whisky had never had this kind of effect on her.

  He crouched next to her once again.

  “I’ll die without another orgasm,” she told Jack.

  He laughed. “Not likely.”

  “You should feel it from this side.”

  “Shall we continue?”

  “Please,” she said. And she meant it. She wanted it.

  He shook out the throngs of the flogger.

  Unable to resist the impulse, she kissed his hand, the one holding the flogger, the one doling out her punishment.

  His brows knit together. “I’m going to fuck you until you scream, sub.”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  He took his time moving in behind her.

  “What number will this be?”

  “Five,” she told him, hoping she was right, but not entirely convinced.

  He landed the blow.

  Since there’d been a few minutes between number four and number five, she yelped. Now she understood what he meant about being in her body. She’d felt the nasty thud of the leather.

  He landed the next on the inside of her thigh.

  She cried out. The skin there was more sensitive, but exquisitely so. The pain receded quickly, leaving behind a blaze of passion. “Thank you.”

  The seventh landed on the inside of her other thigh. She reared up as much as the restraints would allow.

  On an intellectual level, she understood more of what he’d been telling her.

  Being warmed up was a mercy.

  Being restrained was a blessing.

  Logan had been expected to have his cock restrained and vicious weights added to his testes without struggle. The man had been expected to control his reactions whereas she was free to fight herself as much as her Dom.

  “How many more, Sinead?”

  She was expected to do maths? All she knew was that she needed what Jack Quinn was giving her.

  “Sub?”

  “However many Sir chooses.” That seemed like a safe answer.

  He was obviously far too clever for her. “How many have you taken?” he asked.

  “Seven?”

  “Is that an answer or a guess?”

  “A guess,” she confessed.

  “Next time, no climax until after your beating is over.”

  She was naughty enough, horny enough, to start grinding her pelvis into the padded bench.

  “Stop immediately.”

  As if she’d thought he wouldn’t notice? “Sir, I’m coming out of my skin.”

  “One more. And I’ll make it count. Logan, my belt if you please.”

  Belt?

  She felt his thumb on her pussy, sliding through the moistness, pressing against her swollen nub.

  “Pinch the sub’s nipples.”

  Even though she was already wearing clamps?

  In her peripheral vision, she saw Logan’s movements. He fetched the belt from a hook on the wall. Seconds later she saw him again. He moved to the front of the punishment bench and squatted. He reached for her and unerringly found her already tortured nipples. He squeezed brutally. A fraction of a second later, the belt blazed across her buttocks. She cried out. The pain was torment; it was amazingly pleasurable. “Please, Sir, fuck me.”

  Logan slowly released his grip on her nipples although he left the clamps in place.

  It was seemingly forever before she felt Jack’s sheathed cockhead at her entrance.

  With the plug up her rear hole, his cock made her feel impossibly full. It was a wonder she could take him at all.

  She wriggled back, straining against her bondage.

  He took pity on her, holding her hips steady, pulling her back as he filled her cunt again and again.

  “May I come?”

  “No need for permission this time,” he told her. “Come as often as you want.”

  She surrendered to her baser self. Between the plug and his engorged flesh, she was lost. He filled her completely, driving balls-deep, pulling out, thrusting in to the hilt again.

  She came over and over as powerful waves of orgasms threatened to drown her.

  By the time he spilled inside the condom, inside her, she was shaking, spent.

  “We’ll get you off the bench,” he told her. “Slowly.”

  His voice seemed to come from a great distance.

  But now that the endorphins were receding, she was aware of the pain in her nipples and the discomfort of her muscles, the itch of the plug, how swollen her pussy was and the fact she couldn’t draw a complete, full breath.

  Her Dom—she couldn’t yet think Master—withdrew from her throbbing pussy.

  “Easy,” Logan coached as he released her right wrist.

  At the same time, Jack released her left side. They both tended to her, rubbing her skin. Jack’s hands were smooth. Logan’s were work-hardened. But both men were gentle.

  As if by unspoken accord, they released her knees.

  She winced, becoming aware of how cramped her thighs were. It wasn’t just from the restraints, she knew. It was from the way she’d unintentionally gripped the sides of the bench with her muscles, as if holding on for life.

  “When you’re ready, put your feet on the floor,” Jack told her. “Lie there as long as you like.”

  She’d thought she would get up immediately, but she didn’t. She was fit from all her years of dancing. But this muscular fatigue was different from anything she’d experienced before, as emotional as it was physical.

  Minutes later, she moved. Logan helped her to sit up.

  “I’ll remove the clamps,” Jack said. “There’s no easy way to do this. I’ll take them both off at the same time. You may want to take a deep breath before I do.”

  She nodded. If he gave her advice, she’d follow it. He hadn’t been wrong yet.

  He unclamped her nipples.

  The breath she’d sucked in was expelled as she swore. “Damn it!”

  “I’ll let that one slide.”

  “You really are a beast.”

  “Completely.” He smiled and took all the heat from the words.

  Circulation returned to her nipples and the slicing pain vanished in only a second or two.

  “Not so bad, was it?” />
  Honestly, she’d enjoyed it. Not that she’d confess that to him.

  Jack uncapped a bottle of water and handed it to her. “Only a little sip,” he cautioned. “Then later you can have as much as you want. Logan, fetch a robe for Sinead.”

  “Aye.”

  The man moved away.

  She met Jack’s gaze.

  “Not because I want you covered up,” he explained. “But because you’ll be chilled. You’ve permission to shower and then join me for a whisky in front of the fire.”

  Maybe her brain hadn’t started functioning properly because the idea of a shower and a drink sounded divine. She didn’t even squabble with the idea that he’d granted permission for her to do that.

  Logan returned and helped Sinead into the robe. Then Jack offered his arm as she lowered herself from the bench to the floor and tested the resiliency of her muscles.

  “You did well,” Jack told her.

  He kissed her forehead. She could have soared. Mentally she did.

  “Now I’ll see to Logan. I imagine you’re ready to have that cock ring removed,” he said to his manservant.

  “If it pleases Master.”

  She all but rolled her eyes. No way was she capable of that kind of submission.

  Logan placed his hands behind his neck. He remained stoic as his Master handled his testicles and cock, never complaining even though it couldn’t have been comfortable.

  “You have two minutes to masturbate or you can save it for when you’re inside Sinead. Your choice.”

  Logan looked at Sinead.

  Impossibly she felt a tendril of desire uncurl.

  Jack had hinted that the two men might take her and fill her, but the impending reality slammed her with anticipation.

  “I’ll wait, Sir, if it’s all the same to you.”

  “Indeed. ‘Twill be better for the waiting, I’ll wager.”

  Belting the robe tightly around her waist, she headed for the door.

  “Sinead?”

  She froze and turned to look back at Jack.

  “Take out the plug while you’re in the shower.”

  She nodded.

  “I don’t need to remind you to leave the door open.”

  “No, Sir.” She walked towards the bathroom, a hundred emotions churning in her. Never had she expected, at that pub in Denver, that Jack Quinn would turn her life upside down like this.

  He was the answer to everything she’d always desired. Yet he was the one man she couldn’t let close.

  Steam billowed on top of the shower curtain, and the heat felt good on her muscles.

  She stayed in the shower until the water ran cold. She was reluctant to join the men again and even more reluctant to face her internal demons.

  Goosebumps rose on her skin and she turned off the water and dried off her body before she started to shiver.

  Her teeth all but chattered as she wrapped herself in the oversized robe.

  She heard the murmur of voices. Despite herself, she was drawn into the living room, towards Jack.

  A strong wind blew off Clew Bay. The windows rattled with the howl. Under other circumstances, she might have said the sound was the Banshee.

  Rain threatened.

  Jack was stoking the flames. And when he heard her, he looked up. “You’re beautiful, Sinead.”

  She flushed. She’d never been called more than pretty. But there was no lie in his eyes or his voice. To him, maybe she was beautiful.

  While she’d showered, a plate of meats and cheese had been put up, probably by Logan. The man was handy to have around.

  “Whisky?” Jack offered.

  He poured three drinks. He offered one to her, another to Logan, then took one for himself. For a moment she could almost believe this scene was normal. Logan was dressed once again in trousers and a dark sweater. A black T-shirt snuggled Jack’s broad shoulders, and dark slacks hung perfectly on him, as if custom tailored, which, she realised, they probably had been.

  It could have been a normal country scene except for the fact she was wearing a robe and her arse was reddened from a flogger. And if Jack commanded either her or Logan to their knees to suck his penis, they would.

  She accepted a small glass and tossed it back in a single gulp.

  “Easy, lass.”

  Her nerves slightly settled, she picked at a few pieces of cheese.

  Within a few minutes, rain lashed the house, suiting her mood. Pent up feelings clawed at her, and she had no idea what to do with them. She needed to get away, and in this weather, she never would.

  He poured her a second drink. It went down as smoothly as the first.

  “Sit,” he told her. “We’ll talk.”

  “I’ll be in the kitchen,” Logan said.

  He took a seat in one of the chairs near the fire, legs outstretched and crossed at the ankles. “You look as if you’re ready for battle, much like your ancestor, Bridget,” he told her. “Who are you fighting, Sinead? Me? Or yourself?”

  She wished she could answer that.

  “If you were to set aside the fight, for now, what would you do?”

  She sank into the other chair.

  “With the weather, we’re stuck here with each other.” He rolled his glass between his palms. “Tell me you hated it.”

  “You know I didn’t.” The whisky warmed her from the inside out. “But that’s what I hate.”

  “Is it the submission you dislike? Or is it me you despise?”

  She looked at him squarely. “You.”

  He nodded, seemingly not offended in the least. “We’re good at the submission and Dominance?”

  She nodded reluctantly.

  “Yet you hate me for being the same man who you want to dominate you.”

  She stood and paced in front of the fire. “I don’t like being bossed around, Jack.” Outside of a scene, she refused to call him Sir. Leave that to his manservant. “I don’t like you showing up uninvited in my life and demanding I marry you. I have my own life, things I like to do. Touring. My drums. My dancing. My music. My passions.” She remembered how Donal wanted her to grow up and quit playing, be a wife and mother.

  He nodded. “What else?”

  “I don’t believe in curses, but I do believe in bad blood between our clans. We can be friends, let bygones be bygones. I’ll shake your hand, you can shake mine.”

  “Marriage between us makes perfect sense,” he said steadily. “Curse or no, joining our family holdings makes sense. Your family is struggling needlessly. The lands are fertile and rich, and we can cultivate them.” He paused, looked at her, then continued, “You’re single. So am I. Children will cement the future for the family holdings. From a business standpoint it makes perfect sense. People have done this since the beginning of time.”

  He was right about that. But she was to sacrifice herself for a business decision?

  “We’re compatible sexually, or we will be once you learn a few more manners.”

  She stopped her pacing at stared at him, aghast.

  “That was a joke, wombat. Nothing more.”

  “I won’t give up who I am, Jack.”

  “Every business decision has negotiation.”

  “I won’t negotiate.”

  “Come here, lass.”

  When he got that husky note in his voice, she was helpless to resist. She put her empty glass on the mantelpiece while he slid his onto an end table. She crossed to him. She wouldn’t marry him, but she couldn’t resist the tug of his sexual allure.

  He grabbed her upper arms and dragged her on top of him, her knees on either side of his hips.

  He was all man, muscled and tight. Their gazes met, locked. “I’m going to kiss you.”

  Kiss?

  It was one thing to fuck, another entirely to be intimate.

  He claimed her mouth, and she tasted the burn of the alcohol. He intoxicated her. He gently met her tongue. He coaxed and tested rather than dominated.

  Undone, she respond
ed.

  In him she’d met her match. He wasn’t intimidated by her. He knew how to read her. He knew what she wanted.

  Emboldened, she dug her fingers into his dark hair, the locks curled from the humidity. A fine specimen, if she did say so. There could be worse things than bedding this Irishman.

  His hand was on her cunt. Instead of pulling back, she leaned into him. She thrust her tongue into his mouth.

  He stroked her clit, then teased it a bit harder. Even though he’d wrung multiple climaxes from her, she was on the edge again. “Jack, Sir—”

  “Don’t,” he warned softly. “Don’t come.”

  “But—”

  “Fight it. Ride it.”

  Her breaths were short little bursts.

  “Not yet.”

  “Then, don’t…dinna d—” She moaned. “You’ll have to…stop…” She was there, almost there, ready to explode—

  “Take it. Take everything I offer.”

  She rode his hand, grinding herself against him. She couldn’t believe she was doing this. Since she’d met him, she’d clearly lost her mind. Clearly, totally, without question lost her mind.

  “Come for me, Sinead.”

  With a whimper, she shattered.

  “You’re one hot woman,” he told her.

  “There’s something about you…”

  “About us,” he corrected. “Takes two.”

  “Damn you, Jack.”

  “Someday, you’ll remember to call me Sir.” He nipped her ear. “And one day, you’ll call me Master.”

  Ordinarily she’d take that bet. But if he insisted on being called Master before he allowed her to come, she was afraid he’d win.

  Chapter Ten

  The music, she knew well. She should. She’d written the tune.

  She blinked, bringing the world into awareness. She felt disoriented in the big bed, all alone. Having a man in her bed was unusual, so why did the absence of him feel strange, rather than comfortable?

  It all returned in a series of snapshots.

  Jack Quinn.

  The island.

  The beating.

  Their time together.

  Her exhaustion, mental and physical. She had a vague memory of him kissing her, giving her an orgasm then carrying her to bed.

  The last few days, since she’d taken the stage in Denver, had been dizzying. A hurried transatlantic flight, meeting his grandmother, being bound and beaten, then stolen away to an uninhabited island, so close to the mainland, so close and an eternity away felt surreal, like stepping into an Andy Warhol painting. She was herself, who she’d always been, and yet she felt entirely different, as if she’d never again be the same.