Hers To Cherish (Verdantia Book 3)

by Knight, Patricia A.

  “Yes, Dominus.”

  Ram could not have spoken words that frightened her more. For all her brave promises earlier, Steffania didn’t trust her self-control.

  “All you need say to end this is Estrella Racha and we stop immediately.”

  “And I go home,” Steffania whispered.

  “And you go home,” Ram echoed.

  Chapter Six

  Steffania felt the now-familiar sensation of rope wrapping her waist. Once again, with careful, patient movement, Ram encased her in a tight rope corset. This time, instead of leaving her breasts free, three strands of rope bound the base of each breast, thrusting them outward in a firmly constricted cone. The flesh between her legs responded to the tight constraint of her upper body. Her folds swelled and grew slick with arousal. Her breasts felt hot, swollen by the blood trapped in them. Her nipples stood rigidly erect, hypersensitive and engorged.

  She was aware when Ram moved away and returned. She heard the soft “chink” of a light chain. A warm hand cupped her right breast and she gasped as Ram’s hot mouth drew her nipple between his lips and suckled hard. She moaned softly at the spears of carnal fire that coursed to her clit. When he drew back, the cool air on her nipple ruched it harder. It pulsed with an itch she could not satisfy.

  “Sensitive nipples, sweetheart?” Ram’s low rumble vibrated in her gut.

  “Yes.”

  “Then this will probably hurt.”

  Steffania felt an excruciating bite on her right nipple that didn’t let up. She choked back a scream and started to pull away but stopped and resumed her widespread stance. She sank into the lancing pain, embracing its dark pleasure.

  “Do you know what that is?”

  “Yes. A nipple clamp.”

  “I’m going to remove the ring on your left nipple and replace it with a bar bell. It is less likely to tear your flesh. You will wear that for the next three days.”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  His warm fingers deftly replaced the ring with the straight bar and then that nipple was sucked into his hot mouth to receive the same treatment as the right. When Ram pulled her wet, tingling rosette from his mouth, Steffania felt the bite of another clamp. She sucked in a gasp of air as pain rendered her knees unreliable. Her contrary body didn’t perceive pain as others did and to her horror, she felt the slow trickle of her arousal begin a halting slide down the inside of her thigh. For a brief instant, her hands fluttered upward toward the clamps. She forced them to be still. Agonizing lances of sensation streaked through her and she welcomed them, reveled in them. It took concentration and some effort to restrain the undulations and writhing of her torso in response to the provocative agony. Her shallows pants deepened to long, shuddering inhales.

  A low, masculine chuckle filled the bedroom. “Finding it hard not to move, sweetheart?”

  “Yes, Dominus,” she whispered, uncaring that Ramsey read her so easily.

  “Imagine. And you and I have just begun.”

  Her mind reeled with the implications of his statement. She heard him step away and for many long moments, her world narrowed to the blackness of the blindfold, the binding of the rope corset and the twin stabs of discomfort from her nipples – an uncanny blending of licentious pain turned pleasure.

  “Your thighs are wet with your arousal, Steffania.” An unhurried fingertip traced the track of wetness up her inner thigh to her swollen, slick folds. The gentlest of strokes tickled the flesh hiding her inner core and then a long, broad finger slipped within and teased with a deliberate, unhurried mimicry of intercourse. The pad of his thumb leisurely circled her clit. Unchecked arousal gnawed at her control. She bit back a wanton moan. Remaining quiet under his knowing touch tested her brutally.

  “Such a needy slaaf.”

  She whimpered a protest when his fingers slipped from her. His low hum of amusement answered her and his warm breath on her thighs located him in her mind. He knelt in front of her. Gentle fingers separated her swollen folds, and pressure bracketed her clit, pushing the small bundle out from the protection of its hood. Steffania exhaled sharply as Ram pulled this focus of sensation into his mouth and suckled just as he had done with her nipples. The strong pull of his mouth and the warm swirls of his tongue on the hypersensitive nerves of her bud catapulted her to within milli-seconds of climax. “Stop!” had just formed on her lips, when he withdrew and she felt the painful bite of another clamp at the base of her clitoris.

  Her choked-off screams echoed against the walls and when she would have bent and closed her legs, Ram’s hands braced the insides of her thighs, holding her apart, forcing her to remain still. “Stay in your position,” he growled.

  With muted keens at the clamps’ teeth biting the most sensitive parts of her, she stood trembling, legs outspread, hands at her sides compulsively rubbing up and down her upper thighs. Tears soaked her blindfold at the pain but her contrary, treacherous body again responded and the wetness rolling down her inner thighs increased. She jigged in place but stopped immediately when the clamps swung, intensifying her torment. She stood immobile and whimpered softly as the roiling pain escalated into hopeless arousal.

  A broad hand caressed her cheek. “You are doing well, sweetheart,” Ram murmured. He took her hand and held it to a stone-hard erection. “Feel how much you please me.”

  Her hand closed on his cock and she started to stroke him. She desperately needed him to fill her, to assuage the clamoring want he’d created. A choked, “Please,” gusted past her lips.

  With a small laugh, he pulled her hand away. “Hmm. Later. For now, stand where you are and be still. I am going to sit in this chair and enjoy the sight of beauty suffering.”

  Stand where you are and be still. He had set her an impossible task. Deprived of vision, legs outspread, her clit pounding with painful intensity, her nipples throbbing with their own separate life, Ram could not expect her not to move, not to touch. Failure loomed.

  “Dominus?”

  “Yes?”

  “Please, gag me…at least bind my hands.”

  “No. This is a lesson in self-control.”

  She sobbed softly for several minutes with her palms firmly pressed to her thighs, trying not to panic. She heard him sigh.

  “Steffania.”

  “Sir?”

  “It’s only for ten minutes. I’m certain you can do ten minutes.”

  She sniffed repeatedly. “Yes.”

  “I will push you, sweetheart, but I won’t ask you to do the impossible. You can trust me.”

  Her smile was a little wobbly. Strangely, she did trust him. She nodded mutely.

  “You have nine minutes to go, vixen.”

  They were the longest nine minutes of her life.

  Until Ramsey released the clamps on her nipples and clit. Standing motionless for another fifteen minutes while her abused nipples and clit pounded viciously with returning blood? Those were the longest minutes of her life.

  The entire while, proof of her extreme arousal trickled down her leg in an ever-increasing flow. The smell of her musk perfumed the room, announcing her state to the most uneducated. When it came to dominant sex, Ramsey didn’t have an uneducated bone in his body. Steffania had no doubt he knew her precise condition.

  His warm mass stepped into hers and Ram removed her blindfold. “Your time is up, vixen. Come here.” Ram motioned to the low chair he had been sitting in. “Lean over and brace on the armrests. Arch your back and raise your ass. Spread your legs.”

  With a tremble of craving, she did as he asked, still confined in her movements by the roping she wore. Ram moved behind her. He kicked her legs further apart. A cool waft of air hit the pulsing flesh between her legs and she shuddered slightly at the vulnerable sensation of being so open, so exposed. A pull on her hair bit into her scalp and he wrapped her ponytail around one strong hand, taking control of her head.

  His hard cock filled the crease of her buttocks and descended in a taunting slide to stop, nestled at he
r opening. His shaft nudged the gateway to her channel, stretching the blood-rich flesh, penetrating a scant, tantalizing inch. The heavy weight of his muscled thighs inside of hers held her completely open to his invasion. He bent his knees. His hips pulled back and the fat head of his cock slipped up and down in her body’s lubrication, teasing her clit and then returning to the entrance of her inner core.

  “You are very swollen, very wet, sweetheart. I think you enjoyed our brief session.” He slammed into her with no further warning, momentarily lifting her off her feet.

  She grunted at the detonation of pleasure within her as Ram ruthlessly penetrated, hilting himself in one violent surge. “Ramsey!”

  Soft shudders wracked her as his thick cock rubbed an exquisitely sensitive place high inside her. She couldn’t contain her mewls of gratification. Ram began a regular, surging thrust and then a long, slow glide out. Her tender breasts bobbed with each plunge. Her nipples throbbed in time with each bounce. He shoved her off a cliff of sensation and the free-fall to climax built with astonishing speed.

  “You are not to come, Steffania. This is for my pleasure, not yours. You are being punished.”

  She panted as he thrust forward over that same place. “Then I must tell you, your cock...oh, god...your cock hits someplace incredible.”

  He grunted and bent his knees more, changing the angle of his thrusts, no longer pounding against that intensely gratifying spot. Her fierce arousal didn’t abate, but her climb to completion halted and she hung in a tortured limbo of unappeased flesh. After some minutes, his slamming penetration became choppy and with a low growl, Ram surged forward and ground his hips into her buttocks. Warmth flooded her insides. Her swollen pussy gloved him so tightly Steffania felt the heavy jerks of his cock as he released. Her inner flesh twitched with sympathetic, involuntary spasms. Ram stilled for long moments. His heavy pants washed the skin on her shoulders with hot breath. Steffania’s threatened orgasm quieted to the all too familiar, smoldering frustration.

  Wetness ran from the corners of her eyes and soaked into the chair cushion as his organ shrank and then slipped out. He left her empty, aching. Her pussy pulsed with small fibrillations protesting its vacancy. She desperately needed to come. It would take so little – just a breath, a finger stroke. In the past, she’d been tortured for information by those skilled in their craft. For the infliction of unresolved agony, she’d place Ramsey at their head. If this was only the beginning of what he had planned for her, she gave herself little chance of lasting three days. The man fed every carnal fantasy she possessed. He sat her lustful appetites before an array of the finest of delicacies, ordered them to feast, then commanded, “Don’t swallow.”

  She felt his hands working the rope at her back and several strands came loose.

  “There, I have undone several of the knots. You should be able to get yourself out of it now. When you have all of the rope off, coil it neatly. Make sure there are no kinks and replace it in my bag. Then we will have something to eat and end this night.”

  She nodded and straightened slowly, resigned to the firestorm of abandoned desire devastating her body. Wretched, with eyes downcast, she began to unwind the rope corset and recoil it neatly. Her throat thickened and she blinked rapidly, trying to dispel the treacherous tears that welled in her eyes.

  “Steffania.” Ramsey cupped her face and raised her chin. “Give me your eyes.” She gazed into crystal blue eyes that held some emotion she couldn’t define. Gratification? Tenderness? She didn’t know. He leaned in and gave her the sweetest of kisses, then murmured against her lips, “I am immensely pleased with you, vixen.”

  At that moment, she would have done absolutely anything for him.

  ~ ~ ~

  Of course, the feeling didn’t last. She lay in bed in the early dawn hours cursing the day she had ever set eyes on Ramsey DeKieran. The bastard had sprawled in the bed and pulled her to him, nesting her against his hard body. Sometime during the night, he had rolled over and tucked her underneath him and she had lain immobilized, desperate to relieve the growing pressure in her bladder. What to do? She waited for him to shift position, but finally her situation became critical.

  “DeKieran.” She nudged his hip gently with no response. “DeKieran. I need to pee.” She nudged him again. She tried to wiggle out from underneath him. “Ramsey! I need to pee, bad. Let me up or I’ll wet the bed.”

  With a sleepy grunt, he raised himself just enough on his elbow to permit her to wriggle free and flee for the bathroom. He lay propped on some pillows when she returned, stroking a rather impressive erection. “Come here.”

  She crawled cautiously onto the bed and obeyed the firm push on her shoulders that directed her head between his legs.

  “You know what to do.” Afterward, he pulled her up to his chest, tucked her under his arm – and promptly fell asleep.

  She lay there in the early dawn and catalogued her aches and pains. Practically dislocated jaw? Yes. Nipples so tender she couldn’t sleep on her stomach? Yes. Clit so sensitive even the stupid thong would be intolerable? Yes. And this was only the first twelve hours. God damned horny bastard.

  Chapter Seven

  Ram studied the fighter in front of him. Standing well over eight feet, with legs the size of tree trunks and arms like cannons, the creature was huge, barely fitting the definition of humanoid. On Khlossia, the gravity was twice that of “Earth-normal” and over the centuries the original settlers had mutated into massive goliaths to endure the constant pressure. Unfortunately, unlike most beings that large, this one was fast. Well, I’ll just have to be faster.

  “Verdantian.” The behemoth nodded at Ram. He held his sword loosely in one hand and made a ‘come and get me’ motion with the other.

  “Khlossian.” Ramsey grinned and shook his head. His only chance with this opponent was to tire him and then try to find a vulnerable spot. Grappling with him head-on would be suicidal.

  An hour and one-half later, Ram was still trying to find that vulnerable spot and the Khlossian showed no signs of tiring. With a grunt, Ram blocked a thundering blow and backed up. The shin greave that had threatened to abandon him minutes earlier gave up and slipped off, tripping him. When Ram sprawled in the sand of the ring, the Khlossian picked him up like a victor brandishing a trophy and held him overhead with a roar of triumph. Turning rapidly in circles, the Khlossian flung Ram through the air like a shot put. Ram landed three rings over, flat on his back in deep, soft sand. Shit, that fucker is strong.

  The two astonished fighters, whose combat Ram had landed in the middle of, stood dumbstruck as he sat up, then stood. Dusting himself off, he looked around for his sword. It lay in the sand several feet away. He picked it up, and saluted the two fighters. “Gentlemen. Sorry for the interruption.”

  Hiking his pants up, he looked around for the Khlossian. The beast was lumbering out of the ring chuckling. Ram walked toward him. About forty feet from the hulking creature, Ram sprinted all-out. “Khlossian!” he shouted when almost upon him.

  The huge being turned as Ram launched himself into the air. With a blood-curdling yell, Ram smashed the hilt of his heavy sword down upon the creature’s head. Backed by the velocity of Ram’s sprint and the weight of his body, the blow took the Khlossian down like a felled tree. He lay, stunned, staring into the sky. Ram went sprawling in a sliding confusion of tangled arms and legs. He sat up with his legs spread in a vee before him, too disoriented to move.

  The Khlossian rolled over and stood up, rubbing his head. His boar-like eyes narrowed. His head swiveled and slowly scanned the immediate area. The hulking beast locked on Ram, sitting a few feet away in the dirt. He opened and closed his massive fists with an audible crack of knuckles. With a gap-toothed snarl, he started toward him. The ground shook with every ponderous footstep.

  Ah, shit. I’m just going to fucking sit here and die. Ram wearily watched the colossus approach and stop in front of him, eclipsing the sun. An enormous hand extended down toward him and
the great beast’s lips twisted in a crooked grin. “Verdantian. Hee, hee, hee. Good blow.”

  With a chuckle, Ram took the proffered hand and his opponent pulled him to his feet. Ram staggered beneath two friendly pats on his back and the enormous being laughed again. In a low rumble that sounded like boulders grinding together he said, “I am Tok. Drink with me, Verdantian.”

  Ram shrugged. “Ramsey DeKieran. Why not? I could use a drink.”

  He thought for a moment about Steffania. She’ll follow me.

  Still dressed in their practice armor, still stinking of sweat and wearing the grit of the rings, Ramsey and Tok sprawled in sturdy chairs at a substantial table in a dark corner of “The Spangenhelm,” a bar, that throbbed with lively music and throngs of patrons at all hours of the day and night. The place had the effrontery to proclaim “Best brew in the galaxy served by the most fetching wenches, whatever your species!” in a radiant red holo-screen above the door. From the nostril-numbing smell of rancid, fermented grain, Ram assumed much of the brew covered the floor.

  Their arrival was greeted by a humanoid with a chirping, “What’ll ya have, gents?” piping out of its translator.

  “Two Vxloncian ‘special’ ales,” Tok rumbled. “My tab. Keep it coming.” When their wait-being sauntered away to get their order, Tok turned to Ramsey with a grin.

  “So, Verdantian. Do you know a man by the name of Eric DeStroia? I encountered him some years ago on Vortus. He was looking for a woman....”

  As Ram listened to the Khlossian describe his encounter with Eric DeStroia, Tok’s public façade of “massive, dumb, behemoth” morphed into “observant, intelligent, over-sized alien”. His conversation transitioned from words of two syllables to complex sentences and the vacuous, antagonistic expression Tok normally wore transformed into pleasant, good humor.

  When their drink order arrived, Ramsey hoisted the mammoth mug holding a toxic-smelling chartreuse-green liquid and took a cautious sip. Ram eyed the unlikely looking drink and held it up with an approving, “Good stuff,” and then gulped several deep swallows. He thumped the mug down and regarded Tok. “You are not what you seem, Khlossian.”