She shook her head, and he pursed his full lips. “Even so, I think I’ll just take care of getting myself hard right now.”
“Let me go.” Her voice had a horror movie rasp, and she cleared her throat. “I need to get free. I need to…please, Leland. It hurts. Inside. I hurt inside.”
“I’ve got something to help with that.” He leaned over her, pulled the strap at the corner back across the mattress. He knotted it in the ring of her collar and then eased off her, but only to flip her to her stomach, hold her there with a knee in her back as he retrieved a coil of rope from the nightstand drawer. A blink later, he’d turned her onto her hip and wrapped her wrists in the rope, brought her legs up and tied the slack around her thighs, cinching them snug against her wrists so she was curled on her side in a fetal position. She pulled against the bindings, found them fast.
She wasn’t free, but the position curled her around that empty, throbbing pain, eased it some.
“Better?” he asked quietly.
She wasn’t going to ask how he understood or knew what she’d meant. It didn’t seem to matter how he did that; just that he did. She nodded and he rose, moving away from her and into the hallway. She watched the fine flex of his ass, the roll of muscle across the wide back and shoulders before he turned the corner and disappeared. She felt an unreasonable panic about his absence, but he wasn’t far. He was in the bathroom, and her Master wanted to be sure she knew it. She heard running water and his voice. He was humming that Toby Keith ballad with a few random notes thrown in, maybe playing with the rhythm as his mind considered various possibilities concerning her. The thought made her swallow and tremble some more.
He returned with two washcloths. When he slid onto the bed behind her, he laid one against her pussy. The cloth was blissfully hot. Her fingers curled against her thighs as he rubbed her tenderly, splitting her labia to clean the damp crevices. He did the same around her rim, pressing that soothing touch against her there.
The other cloth was for her face. He stretched out on his hip behind her, leaning over her to wipe the area the gag had covered; under her nose, around her eyes, wherever stress and emotion had coaxed forth a visceral human response of tears, mucus, saliva. “This shouldn’t embarrass you,” he said. “If your Master intends you to lose control of everything, including bodily functions, that’s his will.”
It was like she was a baby again in his hands, trusting him with all of it. As he took the cloth away, she shut her eyes, hunching into a deeper ball. He passed his hand over her nape, along her spine. “I can’t go to the wedding with you,” she said.
“Why not?” His tone was reasonable, as if they’d been having this normal conversation all along, instead of a mind-shattering BDSM session.
“I have a wedding to attend that weekend myself.”
“Well, if they’re different times, we could go to both. Unless you don’t want me to go with you to yours. Baton Rouge and New Orleans aren’t all that far from each other.”
“The one I’m attending is in New Orleans, too.”
“All the better. We could drive up together.” He cupped her face, made her look up at him, his body against the back of hers. “Don’t lie to me, girl.”
“I’m not.” She tried to jerk her face away and had no luck in that at all. “I really do have a wedding that weekend. It’s mid-afternoon. It’s outside the city, at this big plantation house.”
His brow lifted. “Ben O’Callahan and Marcie Moira’s wedding?”
She blinked at him, and his lips curved. “Sounds like fate to me, darlin’.”
Leland settled in behind her, his hand resting on her hip, fingers stroking over her buttock as he nuzzled the back of her neck. Her feet pressed against his shins when he brought his legs up enough to cradle her in the curve of his body. Him carrying on a conversation while she was tied helplessly was disconcerting. But he’d somehow known tying her in this curl would be easier, suiting both their purposes.
He rolled away from her to open a drawer, then came back to her. He shifted behind her, but the strap tied to her collar didn’t give her enough slack to lift her head and look over her shoulder. When he parted her buttocks and the tip of an applicator pushed into her rectum, the question of what he was doing was answered. She twitched at the lube being squirted inside her, and his fingers replaced the applicator, spreading oil over her rim and then dipping inside with casual familiarity.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting you slick for my cock. Once I’m hard, which shouldn’t be too long from now, I’m fucking your ass again. Maybe once I’ve fucked you enough, you’ll behave enough to be released.”
“It’s not because of that. I’m not doing it because—”
“I know why you’re doing it, Celeste.” He threaded his arm beneath her head so it was pillowed on his biceps, giving her comfort while he worked his fingers in deeper. Remarkably, a tendril of arousal unfurled from that point, teasing and tickling her clit and deeper inside her pussy as well. Her nipples tingled against her bound arms.
“I should have figured out we were going to the same wedding,” he continued. “When I was looking at the articles you wrote for the business social columns, I remembered Jon talking about the snarky reporter who gave them the Knights of the Board Room name. You didn’t like them much early on, did you?”
“No. But the later articles…”
“Yeah. Something happened to change your mind about them, didn’t it?” He stopped, two fingers inside her. He was stretching her, scissoring, so her mind was fragmenting between the stimulation and the faint burning she was sure he was doing on purpose. “Your earlier articles had that sneer most reporters take toward anyone rich. Then, after that point, the tone was gone. But what’s interesting to me is how your writing started to change then, too. You had more confidence, a better voice. That was about the time you moved over to the crime section.”
“Have you put in for your detective’s badge, Sergeant? Or stalker membership card?”
“As if you haven’t looked me up on the police blotters to see what busts I’ve been on, how long I’ve been with the Baton Rouge PD, and everything else you could find, down to my scores at the academy.”
She sniffed then let out a strangled sound as he did something…interesting. “Oh.”
“Yeah. Don’t give me attitude, darlin’. I’ll make you suffer for it.”
“Are you there as a friend of the bride or groom?” she asked, her breath short.
“Groom, though I know them both. Well enough to know he's getting far better than he deserves. He wouldn't disagree. You?”
He set his teeth to her shoulder, nipped a bit more sharply than was comfortable and sent electricity running down her spine. His fingers were still working in her ass, a slow thrust and retreat that had her thighs moving restlessly. Thinking was getting more difficult, not that she’d had a lot of brain cells to scrape together after the last orgasm.
“Uh…Marcie and I did MMA class at the same gym when I was in New Orleans. But um, the way we met… Well, Ben's boss, Matt, helped me get the NOLA crime beat job.”
He lifted his head. She felt his gaze sliding along her profile. She was usually much better at obscuring the truth without lying. To say she was off her game was a massive understatement. She was hell and gone from the stadium and off in the weeds somewhere. Regardless, she wondered if he’d ever done interrogation, because that stare could peel every layer back to find the truth. He’d already proven that earlier, and she was still feeling way too exposed.
“Celeste. I know they didn’t buy your good graces with a job.”
“No.”
“That night that was too good to be true. Who was the Dom?”
Damn. Bull’s-eye. She couldn’t stop herself from stiffening and he added a third finger, thrust firmly. When she whimpered, her pussy creaming anew, he curved his hand over the collar, tangling his fingers in the tether. “I know what they are, darlin’. Every one of Ma
tt’s executive team is a Dom. I’ve played with them on rare occasions. You aren’t betraying their trust if it’s one of them.”
“Ben. It was Ben. Please…”
“I like hearing you beg. It’s getting me worked up again. Gotta make sure I’m just as big as last time, because I want you to feel every thrust. Knowing what I know about Ben, I may be the only one with a dick big enough to compete with that freaking circus act he carries around in his pants.”
Startled by the dry humor, she strangled on a laugh against his grip. He kissed her temple. “Tell me how it happened.”
“No.”
“Yeah. Else I’ll go get that dragon tail.”
“You wouldn’t.” But she knew he would. He was teasing her, yet there was an edge to his tone that said he was still very much her Master right now. He was coaxing things out of her she inexplicably did want to say to him, though she knew she shouldn’t tell him so much, give him so much. Yet her lips parted, and she started to speak. Finding her throat dry, she cleared her throat, but he stopped her before she could start.
“Wait.”
He withdrew his hand, the mattress dipping as he left the bed. Again that mouthwatering view of him going out the bedroom door. She heard him go into the kitchen, open the fridge. As he came back with a cold bottle of water, she saw he had no self-consciousness about his nudity, showing no shame at his erection, which was recovering just as he’d promised and threatened. A twinge between her legs told her she was anticipating it, a senseless reaction given her body was already being wrung out to its last drop of energy. But that wouldn’t matter to him. Or rather, it would, because that was the point. Unlike his body, which required a certain state to perform, hers was a receptacle for the desires of his, and he would take her until he used her all six times.
The harrowing thing was how he was approaching it. Receptacle or not, she was sure he’d be making her come just as often. He wasn’t allowing her to detach from any of it. Making her climax over and over was part of claiming every ounce of her will and energy. Though she automatically strained against her bonds at the thought, it was knee-jerk resistance. She hadn’t used her safe word since he’d removed the gag, had she? Probably because she already knew he’d discarded that as useless, a message he’d sent with the gag. Her well-being was entirely in his hands.
He freed the collar from the strap, and shifted her into a cradled position in his arms so she could comfortably drink, holding the back of her head as she leaned against him. When she’d managed several healthy swallows, her tongue swiping the moisture across her lips, he laid her back down on her hip, reattached the collar. She could tell him he didn’t need to do that, but in truth it gave her a more complete sense of security. She couldn’t go anywhere without his say-so. He’d left her no easy way to fight.
“Yeah, I think we can do this now.” She made a surprised noise as he probed her rim with his fingers to test how lubricated she was. Another tearing sound as he rolled on a new condom, which she knew would also be pre-lubed, and he pressed his cock against her rim. “I’ll get even bigger inside you. Press against me and let me in, Celeste.”
She bit her lip as the sphincter muscles released. He sank into her, deep and full. Laying his palm on her stomach, he held them close together as he slid his other arm under her head again and captured her breast once more, tweaking the nipple, rolling it in strong fingers. She laid her head back against him.
“Tell me about that night,” he prodded.
“You’re making that difficult.”
“I know. I like hearing you try to focus when I’m getting you all hot and wet again. Talk, or I stop and go get the dragon tail.”
“Asshole.”
“Yeah. I can be mean as a snake when you need it, darlin’. Did he put that monster dick inside you?”
The segue was unexpected but thrilling as she detected the obvious edge in his voice, punctuated by a deeper thrust of his hips, a thickening of that shaft inside her. “Yes.”
“Yes. What?”
She let out a grunt of reaction as he was more forceful about it this time. “Yes, sir.”
“Your ass, your pussy, your mouth?”
“Ass…mouth. Not between my legs.”
“You cuss as good as any of my men. But you’re shy about saying pussy in the bedroom, darlin’, aren’t you?”
She flushed a little. “So?”
“So, it’s sweet. I like that about you.” He started a slow rocking rhythm that had her cunt clenching on empty space, jealous of the fullness in her ass. “So how did it happen? Tell me a story.”
The man was evil. Christ.
While working business social news in New Orleans, she’d developed an intense dislike for the executive management team of Kensington and Associates. She hadn’t really analyzed the why of it too much. She’d given them the mocking name “Knights of the Board Room”, because she didn’t want to believe Matt and the other four men were what they presented on paper. Five outrageously handsome, irritatingly alpha dominant males who were not only extremely successful in business, but who were some of NOLA’s top philanthropists. They’d upgraded one of NOLA’s battered women’s shelters and provided aid and hands-on volunteer help during Katrina. Those were only two bullet points on a long list of charities who’d benefited from their time and money, most of them organizations dedicated to protecting the most vulnerable members of society.
But it didn’t stop there. The five men were reputed to be devastating to a woman’s senses, such that business rivals never sent women negotiators to meetings where they wanted to keep the upper hand. Though in truth, very few competitors outmatched Matt and his team regardless of gender. At the time, Celeste had ignored that, though. She’d been offended by everything they were and unwilling to turn the mirror on herself to find out why she took their existence so personally. Always on top of their world, successful, in control, with what she’d viewed as patronizing, overly protective behavior toward women.
Because of a tip from an irate business competitor, she’d suspected Matt and his team were into some “freaky S&M shit,” as she’d put it to Valerie, her roommate at that time. She’d decided to pursue a freelance scandal piece on the executive team. The lead she’d been given had brought her to Club Surreal, a place the men frequented.
She’d only been able to afford a three-visit guest membership. On her third visit, she’d been nursing her drink at the bar, feeling pissed off. She hadn’t witnessed them doing anything beyond viewing the public play, not enough to get her reluctant editor on board to skewer them as sexual deviants. Then she’d been approached by Ben O’Callahan.
He was the lawyer of the team. He’d challenged her to go behind closed doors in one of the private rooms and try a Dom/sub session with him. See what it really was all about. The carrot he’d held out had been the agreement to tape the session with her face masked and his revealed. She could have the tape and do what she desired with it. She’d have on tape a K&A executive beating a woman, restraining her, all the proof she’d need to run a scandalous article that would have all of NOLA buzzing. It would put her squarely at the top of the heap at the paper, because the story would make front-page news. Maybe national.
As she relayed the story to Leland, she hesitated over that part, but she wouldn’t let herself shrink from it. “At that time, I was no better than any of those reporters you love to hate. Just looking for the sensational angle, a way to rip someone else apart to make my career. I’m not proud of who I was then.”
“You learned from your mistakes. Got better. That takes character.” His fingers rolled her nipple again and she pushed up into his hand, which impaled her ass deeper on him. Her clit was spasming on open air. She was hot and bothered, just as he’d said, needing him to touch her there, but he wasn’t in a giving mood.
“What about the tape? Do you ever watch it?”
God, had she ever. Yet as the experience became further distant and nothing in her current life or
attempted relationships matched it, watching it hurt and put her in an angry place, so she’d put it away. “Not in a while.”
He set his teeth to the sensitive skin under her ear, nipped it so she drew in a gasp. “One day, you’ll give me that tape, Celeste. I’ll watch it with you sitting at my feet, and you’ll show me every reaction you have to it.”
She shook her head, but he wasn’t in the mood to argue either. Instead he slid his hand down her front, threading his fingers into the small triangle of space her tied-together thighs provided. He dipped into the wetness in her pussy, pushed up to find her clit to circle and tease, worry that swollen bud.
She rocked against him, then moaned in protest as he withdrew from her ass, stripped the condom and tossed it. Leaning over her, he caught her face, made her look up at him. “Truth, Celeste. No one since the last physical? And never without protection?”
Her heart leaped eagerly as she deduced why he’d asked. She gave him the gift she wanted for herself as well. “And I’m protected from pregnancy. Can you…”
“Yeah. No one for me in the past couple years either.”
She liked hearing that, and it showed enough that his eyes glinted. “My sub has a possessive side.”
So did he, enough that it had things fluttering all up inside her chest. Hearing about another man having intimate knowledge of her body had changed the nature of his touch and his tone. Noticeably more caveman, in a very sexy, thrilling way. But while Ben had gotten inside and shone a mirror on her, making her face some hard truths and emotions, Leland was just inside her, period, every side of himself a mirror that reflected back and forth between them, so she couldn’t figure out how to separate herself from what he was doing to her.
Soul Rest: A Knights of the Board Room Novel Page 20
