“Lie down on the stage,” Cam said to her now. “We’re going to suspend you upside down for this particular exercise.”
Whatever she had expected, it hadn’t been that! Cam had suspended her in their dungeon, but never upside down. The prospect excited her, as she loved the feeling of erotic helplessness being suspended engendered in her. Being upside down would only make it that much more intense.
She lay obediently on the stage. Cam wrapped a large leather belt around her waist. It had built-in wrist cuffs on either side, and he placed her wrists securely in each cuff. Next he wrapped thick, sheepskin-lined cuffs around her ankles and clipped them to long chains that had been waiting in a neat row at the back of the stage. Tony handed him up a small stepladder, which Cam opened by Marissa’s feet. Taking the lengths of chain, he climbed the small ladder and secured them to sturdy hooks that protruded from a winch apparatus in the ceiling. Climbing down from the stepladder, he closed it and set it aside.
Crouching beside Marissa, he kissed her lightly on the lips. “Ready, sweetheart?” he asked softly.
Marissa nodded. “Yes, Sir.” Her heart was beating in a slow, steady rhythm and she felt unexpectedly calm.
Cam slipped his hands supportively beneath her as Jack pressed the button on the wall unit that activated the winch. Marissa’s legs were slowly lifted as the chains wound around the winch wheel. Cam supported her as her body was hoisted into the air, until only her hair was brushing the floor of the stage.
Leaning between her still closed legs, he plucked at the pink satin bow and eased it from her labia rings. She heard the whir of the winch engine as the chains were separated, causing her legs to spread wide.
“I’m going to blindfold and gag you, and put plugs in your ears,” Cam said in a voice designed to carry. “Your sole focus should be on my touch. You have advance permission to come. We will show our friends that my slave girl withholds nothing from her Master. You will give of yourself as you have never done before.”
“Yes, Sir,” Marissa managed, the calm of a moment before slipping a little, though her resolve had not.
Cam slipped a cloth gag between her teeth and tied it behind her head. He tied a second sash over her eyes and then pushed earplugs gently into her ears. The soft sound of her heartbeat was like listening to a seashell, and in the darkness and the silence, she found herself relaxing once more. She knew if she panicked for any reason, she had only to flex her hands into fists, but she also knew she had nothing to fear with her Master. She trusted him completely. She trusted him not only with her body and her heart, but with her very life.
It was impossible to tense in her position, but she liked to think she would have remained relaxed no matter the circumstance as Cam pressed a lubricated anal plug into her ass. She had come to enjoy the full feel of the plug, especially during intercourse, and she welcomed it now. She waited in the silent stillness for whatever would come next.
His fingers startled her at first, their touch light as feathers moving over her already swollen clit and labia. He slipped a finger inside her and drew out the moisture, gliding his fingers in an intensely pleasurably swirl of sensation over her cunt. He was standing close to her, and she could smell his masculine, woodsy scent and feel the press of his hard body against her side. He pushed two fingers deep inside her, and she groaned against the gag, a shudder of raw pleasure spasming through her frame.
As her Master rubbed and fingered her, she swayed gently in the dark, sensual silence of her chained and suspended captivity. It wasn’t long before the orgasm sparked like a fire in her belly, and her entire body trembled as a long moan of pure lust rose in her throat. She began to thrash as the orgasm continued to pummel her senses.
It was perfect, perfect, perfect, and then… Oh god, too much, oh stop, oh please, oh yes, don’t stop, not ever. I want to die like this. I will die like this. Oh god, oh Sir, oh Cam, save me, take me, claim me, I am yours, yours, yours…
She was sliding down a long tunnel into the perfect darkness, which enfolded her into its velvet arms as she slid peacefully away.
Marissa blinked against the light. She was lying on the stage and the chains had been removed. It took a moment to orient herself, and then she saw Cam’s handsome face looming over her, and it all flooded back like sunlight.
Cam smiled. “There you are. We lost you for a minute there. Where did you go?”
Marissa sat up slowly. She was at once energized and deeply serene. She felt, in a word, amazing. “Where did I go?” she echoed, unable to wipe away the goofy grin that slid onto her face. “I went to heaven. You took me there.”
Cam gathered her into his arms and pulled her to her feet. Someone had placed a stool nearby, and Cam helped her gently onto it. Marissa looked out toward the room, surprised to find it was empty.
“Hey,” she said, confused. “Where did everybody go?”
“They went to the outer room. I told them I needed a moment alone with you. We’ll join them in a minute.”
Marissa frowned, a pinprick of worry stabbing through her serenity. “Is everything okay, Sir? Did I do something wrong?”
“No, oh no, not at all. You were spectacular. I was as proud as I’ve ever been.”
“Then…?”
“There’s something I wanted to ask you in private.” He faced her with an earnest expression. “Marissa, here in the inner room is where we truly found each other. I know how scary it was for you—to take the initial leap of faith. You trusted me enough to be vulnerable and exposed about secret desires you’d always kept close to your heart. You were strong and brave, just like you are in every aspect of your life. You found the courage to move forward, even when some really tough stuff happened.” His face darkened a moment, and Marissa knew he was thinking of Phil Mitchell. But he shook away the thought with a toss of his head, and Marissa was glad.
Cam took her hand, his voice softening. “There’s something you need to know. You didn’t just learn what it is to submit with grace and courage. You taught me, Marissa, what it is to trust my heart to another human being. Each step of the way, you were my shining example of what love can truly be.”
To her astonishment, Cam knelt in front of the stool. Reaching into his pocket, he took out a small box. “Marissa, you are not only my sub girl, but my best friend. I love you with all my heart, and I want you always in my life.”
He opened the box, revealing a diamond ring nestled in the satin. He looked up at her, his brilliant blue eyes shining hopefully. “Sweetest Marissa, will you marry me?”
Marissa felt her heart swell with such love it actually ached. Tears filled her eyes, while at the same time joyous laughter bubbled from her lips. “Oh, Cam!” She held out her hands, and Cam took them, rising to his feet.
Marissa stood and wrapped her arms around her Master, her partner, her best friend. “Yes, my love. I will.”
No Refusal
When the Master wants you, you can’t refuse...
When Jordan Heller applies for a job as resident Mistress at a BDSM club, she meets a roadblock…Master Donovan Cartwright. To qualify for the position, she has to show him she can not only give it, but take it…
Though she’s an experienced Domme with a stable of sub boys to prove it, something has always been… missing. But Donovan sees things in Jordan she barely understands and doesn’t want to admit.
Jordan can’t refuse a challenge, but she might have bitten off more than she can chew. Master Donovan is used to taking what—and who—he wants, and he won’t stop until he gets it…
Previously titled: The Master
Chapter 1
Whips brushed bare skin, the cracking sound punctuated by breathy sighs and moans. Jordan Heller, staring down into her glass as she sat hunched on the barstool, barely noticed. She wasn’t in the right headspace for BDSM play tonight. She should have gone straight home after work instead of coming to the club.
Her briefcase, bulging with loan documents and financial report
s, was crammed into a locker in the women’s changing room, along with her corporate outfit of navy blue jacket, crisp white blouse, tailored skirt, annoying pantyhose and sensible pumps. She’d changed into her favorite black silk blouse and leather pants upon arriving at the club, and brought her gear bag with her to the juice bar, but her heart just wasn’t in it tonight.
A tap on her shoulder made her lift her head. There stood Ryan Holcombe, model-perfect, a broad smile on his handsome face. Jordan knew what he wanted, even before he held up his favorite single tail, his expression puppy-dog eager. Before he could speak, she shook her head. “Not tonight, Ryan. Sorry.”
As he melted back into the crowd, Betsy appeared beside Jordan. Betsy Hanover was the owner of Betsy’s Bondage Bar, a trendy BDSM club located in New York City’s Greenwich Village. Though Betsy was almost old enough to be Jordan’s mother, Jordan considered her a friend.
“We need to talk,” Betsy informed her in her no-nonsense tone.
“About?”
“Let’s go sit in a booth.” Without waiting to see if Jordan followed, Betsy headed toward a private booth at the back of the room.
When Jordan slid onto the padded leather seat across from her, Betsy said, “I saw you send Ryan away just now. What’s going on with you, Jordan?”
Jordan shrugged. “I don’t know. Rough day at the office. The usual shit, I guess.”
“It’s more than that,” Betsy asserted. “I’ve watched you over the past few months. It’s almost like you’re just going through the motions. When you scene with these sub boys, I can’t help but get the feeling you’re meeting their needs, not yours. Have you ever considered playing the other side of the fence?”
Jordan looked up at her friend, incredulous. “What? Are you out of your mind? I’m a Domme. You know that.”
“I know you walk the walk and carry the whip, but it’s not always so clear cut, my dear. Have you ever let yourself be truly vulnerable? Have you ever experienced what you give your sub boys? Even if you’re primarily dominant, completely surrendering your will to another person can be intensely powerful. If nothing else, it can be an incredible stress release.”
Jordan snorted. “No way, Betsy. I’m not hardwired that way.” Even as she said this, Jordan felt a sudden frisson of—what? Fear? Anticipation? Desire?—move along her spine.
“I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss it out of hand, Jordan. I have some insight into you, you know.”
“Oh stop,” Jordan said, not liking this line of conversation. “It’s just work. That’s the problem. It’s always the problem. I have this loan presentation on Monday and I can’t even stand to open my briefcase, much less crunch the stupid numbers. I wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, bursting from a nightmare like I’m crashing through a pane of glass. It’s always the same—me standing naked in front of the loan committee with no idea about the deal I’m supposed to be presenting.
“When my alarm goes off at the crack of fucking dawn so I can make the commute into a city I could never afford to actually live in, my head is already pounding. Before I even get to work, Aiken’s sent me seven emails and four text messages informing me of the massive pile of shit he’s already dumped on my desk, berating me for the latest string of fuckups he claims I’ve made or clients who need their hands held, and threatening me about how the bank’s tightening its belt and a pink slip isn’t just something I wear under my skirt.”
“He actually said that?” Betsy laughed, shaking her head.
“He did. And that’s the sanitized version. Bob Aiken is worse than one of those movies about the boss from hell.” Jordan sighed. “I hate my fucking boss. I hate my fucking job. I hate my fucking life.” The words came out with more vehemence than Jordan had intended, but she knew they were true. And this cold, hard reality hit her like a fist in the gut.
Taking a deep breath, Jordan looked down at the table. Tears were burning behind her eyelids and she blinked them angrily away. Betsy put a hand on her arm. “Jordan, honey. Look at me.” Jordan looked into the kind face of her friend and found more tears threatening. “Life is too short to keep on the way you’re going, babe. You need to make a change.”
“Tell me about it,” Jordan retorted. “I just found out I make ten thousand less than the jerk who sits next to me and has been at the bank for two years less than I have, but he has this big advantage, at least in Aiken’s eyes—he has a dick.”
“We need to get your boss in here. A few hours spent bound in the stocks with a large dildo shoved up his ass might adjust the old boy’s mindset.” Betsy flashed an evil grin.
Jordan groaned. “Please, the thought of him naked is enough to make me puke. Though it would be good for him to indulge in a little role reversal. We could dress him up in a corset and heels, put him in a wig with full makeup and make him bend over for twenty licks with the paddle.”
The image of Bob Aiken, with his wobbly jowls, small, piggy eyes and pug nose heavily made up with pancake foundation, rouge, lipstick and false eyelashes made Jordan shudder in amused horror. “Do you know what he actually had the audacity to say the other day, after reaming me for like twenty minutes in front of the other guys, ‘If you can’t take the heat, Ms. Heller’—he says Ms. like it’s a curse word—‘get back in the kitchen where you belong.’”
Betsy’s mouth fell open. “Oh, my god. He actually said that? Aren’t there laws against that kind of thing?”
“If I tried to do anything about it, I’d be told I’m not a team player. They’re big on team players at the bank. We’re all part of a team. Let’s get out there, team! Let’s hump it, people! Let’s go, go, go!” Jordan felt her blood pressure rising and took a deep breath, willing herself to relax. “When he says that, all I want to do is go, go, go, right out the door and never come back.”
“Why don’t you?”
“Huh? Why don’t I what?”
“Why don’t you go and never come back?”
Jordan stared at Betsy, confused. “You mean leave? Quit the job at the bank? Just like that?”
Betsy nodded. “Just like that.”
Jordan smiled ruefully. “No offense, Bets, but not everyone has the options you do. Especially in this economy.” Betsy had family money, as she called it, and had never had to scrabble to make ends meet like most of the rest of humanity.
“Everyone has a choice, Jordan. You’re what, twenty-six?”
“Almost twenty-seven.”
“That’s old enough to know what you want, and what you don’t want. That’s old enough to say, I’m done being miserable. If I hate my fucking boss and I hate my fucking job and I hate my fucking life, I’m going to fucking do something about it.”
Jordan grinned in spite of herself. “Yeah, like what? Like give Aiken the proverbial third finger salute, climb in my car and just start driving? Don’t think I haven’t thought about it.”
“Yes!” Betsy said, hitting the table between them with her fist. “That’s it exactly.”
~*~
Jordan left the club soon after, taking the train back to her New Jersey suburb and hurling her stuff into the back seat of her car once she got into the station. She parked as close as she could to her apartment building, slung her duffel bag and purse over her shoulder and grabbed her overloaded briefcase. At the building, she entered the code on the keypad to unlock the thick glass doors at the entrance.
While struggling to open her mailbox, she dropped her briefcase and it sprang open, spilling piles of papers and files onto the floor of the foyer. With a groan, Jordan squatted and collected the mess, shoving it back into the briefcase, along with the junk mail from her mailbox.
The ancient elevator lurched as it lifted her to her third floor apartment. There was a thick white envelope taped across her door. Curious and a little alarmed, Jordan pulled the envelope free and unlocked her door, entering the apartment and dropping her briefcase and duffel just inside.
Collapsing onto the sofa, she tore open the
letter, which was addressed to “The Tenant in Apartment 3B.”
“What the fuck,” she breathed, as she scanned the official looking letter from a law firm that purported to represent the real estate holdings of the building owners. It was an eviction letter, basically. Well, not if she could come up with a ridiculous sum of money by the end of the month. The building, it seemed, was being turned into a co-op. The owners of the building were magnanimously allowing her the option of buying this cramped, overpriced dump of an apartment, or she could get her stuff out by the end of the month, per the terms of the lease, which allow for such a contingency, blah, blah, blah…
With a sigh, Jordan hoisted herself from the sofa and went over to her laptop, waking it up. As it booted to life, she heard the ping of incoming mail on the email server from the bank. Knowing in advance she would regret it, she couldn’t resist her morbid impulse to check the mail.
There was an email was from Dennis O’Brien, the one guy on her team she could tolerate. The subject read: Collateral Analysis Update, which was their code header to throw nosy techies in the bank’s IT department off the track. It was established lore at the bank that the techies had the ability, if not the authority, to read anyone’s email, and even if it wasn’t true, why take the chance.
Jordan opened the email.
I just got word from Brenda over in the EVP’s office. Our overall profit numbers this month weren’t high enough for the Talking Heads in corporate. Aiken’s on the warpath. He’s going to call a meeting right after loan committee and tear us all a new one. Oh boy, can’t wait. I hear you have a shit deal to present. Better figure out how to fudge those numbers. Have a great weekend. Ha ha. Dennis
Walking dejectedly into the bedroom, Jordan took off her clothing, intending to pull on her sleep T-shirt and get ready for bed. Instead she found herself dressing again, this time in a knit shirt and her favorite jeans. She pulled on socks and her hiking boots, adrenaline kicking in as she realized what she was going to do.
BDSM Club Series Box Set Page 43
