Raphael laughed. His blue eyes were heated with lust; the straight-laced attorney had been replaced with a man who seemed much younger, much more carefree. “That’s for security reasons. Nothing to do with money. Strip.”
They pulled her forward as she untied the belt of the dress. It tumbled to the floor, forgotten.
The rest of her dress met a similar fate on the far side of the bridge.
Ethan removed her silver chain and slipped it into his pocket.
Now wearing only her knee-high boots and sheer bra and panties, Maisie couldn’t help putting a hand over her relative nudity.
“You’re not shy,” Trent said.
“It’s just… It’s bright enough to operate in here.”
Ethan’s stare was unrelenting, and Maisie awkwardly lowered her arms.
The men led her through the next door.
She was expecting another windowed, bright room, but instead found herself in a dark hallway. Crimson and blue lights seeped out along the edges where floor met wall.
It belonged in an exclusive nightclub, not a private home.
“Do you plan to host a lot of parties?” she asked Ethan, though she couldn’t imagine him dancing.
“Generally, no,” Trent said. “But we expect we’ll entertain clients here sometimes, and we wanted someplace exclusive and private to bring them.”
“We?”
He nodded. “This condo is being rented to the law firm. The landlord’s a bit of an ass, but the location can’t be beat.”
The comment made all three men laugh, and Maisie wondered which of them owned it. She was starting to think Ethan wasn’t the only one who was exceedingly rich. Trent had a full-time driver, and something about Raphael suggested old, old money.
Ethan pulled her toward him as they neared the end of the hall. The heat of his body warmed her; she was shivering and hadn’t even noticed.
But he had noticed. That had to mean something.
Unless it didn’t.
With a sigh, she settled against him.
Together, they entered a dark and foreboding room. It was so poorly lit that she couldn’t see the furnishings.
If there were any.
She was able to make out curtains, though. Graceful, long ones that pooled on the floor and didn’t allow in even a sliver of light. Under her feet, the floor was hard and uncarpeted.
As Ethan approached a wall, a long drawer emerged automatically. On it was a wooden valet stand, where he hung his suit jacket.
Trent followed her puzzled gaze. “We’re five minutes from the office,” he said. “Easy to pop over, have a little fun, then get back.”
“I’d be a lot more excited about that if I hadn’t been fired,” Maisie said, smiling, but when she looked at Trent, she saw that he wasn’t.
The sick, jealous feeling, the one that had started at lunch, came back with a vengeance. This was only temporary. A bit of fun. It couldn’t last.
She needed to remember that.
Trent strode toward the black curtains and yanked them back. But instead of looking out a window, Maisie found herself staring at an assortment of medieval torture devices.
That was the description that first popped into her head, and as her eyes discerned the outlines of the monstrous wooden pieces, she realized that her first impression had been accurate.
She didn’t know what most of the objects were.
But two of them she recognized immediately. The rack—there was no mistaking the massive wooden slab, long and sturdy enough to support a person’s weight. She couldn’t tell, but it seemed there might be a series of wings that could be extended and retracted.
What made her certain that she’d correctly identified it was the giant wheel at the head. Coarse, hay-colored rope wound around it like an enormous spool.
That rope was for stretching the poor victim.
The only other piece she thought she recognized wasn’t as scary. It looked like a set of stocks, but it was unfamiliar. There was only a single hole, and it was far too large to imprison a head.
The other thing that puzzled her was that it was built over an arch, not unlike a barrel turned on its side.
Then she realized: the hole was to imprison her waist, leaving her unable to see what was happening to her lower body, and unable to interfere with her hands. And the arch?
Perhaps to put her body into a better position for sex. It would be perfect for doggy style. Altogether, the device would leave her imprisoned, her lower body available for fucking and her upper body helpless.
Shivering, she wondered if she could request trying it out.
But maybe there was something better. Her eyes had adjusted, and she scanned the other items. Sawhorses, thick wooden pillars… She became aware of an enormous cross. She’d thought it was part of the wall, but now she recognized it.
And next to it, an iron maiden. She’d almost mistaken it for a small wardrobe.
The longer she looked around, the more frightening the objects became.
13
Raphael nuzzled her neck. “I guess you like my little collection. Your expression right now is making my cock so hard.” He pressed that fabled cock against her.
Her eyes slid half-closed, then quickly opened again. “I don’t want to be stretched on the rack,” she whispered.
“Then that’s where we’ll begin.” Ethan’s smile was so cruel that for a fleeting moment, Maisie actually wondered if she should leave.
Not that she knew where the exit was in this place.
“Ah,” he said. “You’ve done the math. No one knows you’re here.”
She swallowed hard and licked her tongue over her dry lips. “I guess not.”
Ethan approached her. He was rolling up his sleeves, revealing his strong forearms. It reminded her that underneath their suits, her bosses were muscular men. Virile men.
Whatever she didn’t want to give them, they could take anyway.
A whimper escaped her throat. She’d told them before that she wanted to play, to pretend she didn’t want them, that she wanted to fight.
“I remember my safe word,” she said, managing a nervous smile.
“You won’t need it today,” Ethan said.
“Oh.” Disappointment swam over her.
Trent stepped forward. He had something in his hands, and then Maisie saw it was a black rubber ball gag. “You don’t need it, because you won’t be able to speak.”
She started to say that it looked like fun, but Trent slipped the harness over her head.
The ball was smooth on her tongue. It didn’t have a taste or odor, though she could smell the metal parts connecting it to the harness.
He fastened it snugly on her. “Strip,” he said. “Everything except those boots. Then get on the floor like we practiced yesterday.”
Her fingers couldn’t unhook her bra quickly enough. She let it fall, then shed her panties and knelt on the floor, knees apart, hands turned up on the tops of her thighs.
“Wider,” Ethan said.
Maisie worked her knees apart. The skin was still tender from crawling around yesterday.
“Wider.”
Maisie pushed them as wide apart as she could and felt her folds separate wetly. It made her wince a little in embarrassment, and she glanced up at her bosses.
The three men stood in a line before her. They had all removed their jackets but were otherwise dressed. Too bad, because she was dying to see their erect cocks jutting lewdly.
Trent walked to a heavy wooden table that Maisie hadn’t paid much attention to. He picked up something… a paddle. The broad, flat surface was the size of a table tennis racket, but the handle was easily three times as long.
She stared at it as he returned to her. “Bow your head,” he ordered, and when she did, he caressed her hair with the paddle’s flat end. It smelled of unvarnished wood and put her in mind of furniture stores.
Her hair tumbled free of its bun. The aromatic scent of rose shampoo filled the
air.
“Let’s take a walk, like yesterday. But you don’t need a leash, do you?”
Maisie shook her head, even though it hadn’t been a question.
She fell forward onto all fours and hoped the floor was clean, because her curls were sweeping over it. Trent walked briskly toward the assembly of medieval equipment. She had to work to keep up with him, and she wondered whether she looked sexy or ridiculous to her other bosses.
Trent didn’t seem to be heading toward any particular piece of equipment, but as they neared the rack, Maisie began moving slower.
“Bad girl,” Ethan said. His voice was close enough that he had to be right behind her. “Hand me the paddle. I almost wish she wasn’t gagged.”
Maisie glanced up to see Trent’s lips settling into a firm line of annoyance. For a moment, she thought he was going to tell Ethan to go to hell, but instead he said, “What if we make it a competition?”
“Even better,” Ethan said. “We’ll all take turns spanking her.”
He walked to the wall and pushed a button, turning on dim lights.
“I know how to decide the winner,” Raphael said, a lustful gleam in his eyes. “Whoever makes her run toward the rack.”
14
Raphael’s proposal sent an icy chill down Maisie’s spine. She eyed the hateful rack and its austere angles.
The crank scared her most. It seemed to be imbued with a malevolent personality, a solemn executioner without remorse or pity.
“Stand. Hold out your arms,” Trent said, tucking the paddle under his arm.
When Maisie did, he pulled off his tie and looped it around her wrists. He did this to her fairly often, and it usually made her shimmy with excitement.
But not today.
He took the paddle in hand and dragged the curved edge down between her breasts and then forward until it butted against the knot of her binds.
When he tugged, Maisie couldn’t help but take a step.
At least he wasn’t leading her toward the rack. In fact, he was turning her, and within a few steps the rack was out of sight, but she could still sense it behind her, watching and waiting.
Toward the far side of the room, a large and dull silver hook hung from the ceiling. It was the sort that butchers used to hang slabs of ribs. Maisie shrank back and collided with a hard chest.
Rough hands pushed her forward. She didn’t know which man it was, and it didn’t matter. In this, they were united.
Trent pulled the meat hook lower and slid the curved end between her wrists. The surface was ice-cold, and she could smell its rainy, metallic scent.
“Ready,” Trent said, and Raphael walked to the side of the wall and pressed something Maisie couldn’t see.
A whispery whirring noise filled the air, and the hook began to retract toward the ceiling.
She whimpered and danced as her arms lifted. She was balancing on her toes before the hook stopped moving. She shook her head but couldn’t communicate other than in frantic grunts.
She still had her safety gesture. If she snapped her fingers, the men would stop what they were doing.
But if she did that, they would end the scene. At least when she had use of her mouth, she could warn them when she was uncomfortable.
Right now, it was either everything or nothing.
Maisie wasn’t sure she could handle everything, but she knew she couldn’t handle nothing.
From deep inside, she found the strength to endure. She was stretched tall, the muscles of her legs lengthened, her arms almost painfully extended overhead.
A large, male hand slid over her rump.
Startled, Maisie jumped, then lost her balance.
She swung on the hook. Her legs separated, then kicked wildly for a moment, and a desperate strangled sound squeezed out around the gag.
“Calm,” Ethan said.
He was in front of her, but in her panic, she couldn’t even see him except as a blur as she twisted.
“Calm,” he said. “Stop kicking. You could hurt someone with those boots.”
The order didn’t register fully, not consciously, at least, but her body miraculously began to relax. The swinging slowed, and the arches of her feet cramped painfully as her pointed toes struggled to reconnect with the floor.
Then, suddenly, they did.
Maisie was still, her muscles taut, her chest heaving wildly. She became aware of her bosses again. The three men were forming a semicircle in front of her.
Trent stepped forward with the paddle. “Would you like one of us to hold you?” he asked.
She nodded frantically. Yes, that was exactly what she wanted, because while being restrained and helpless turned her on and fed her darker fantasies, swinging around, out of control, was awful.
“I’ll do it,” Raphael said. “I’d rather feel her shuddering in my arms, anyway.”
Maisie’s eyes met his, and she was shocked by the intensity burning in their blue depths. His hair, normally combed neatly out of his face, had gotten messed up, and dark strands drifted across his forehead, brushing his sculpted cheekbones.
He stroked her neck and dragged his fingers toward her mouth, stretched wide around the ball gag. Leaning forward, he licked the corner of her lips.
She whimpered, then groaned as heat erupted in her core. No men had ever turned her on before like her bosses did. Around them, she couldn’t help getting wet.
Around them, an orgasm never seemed to be more than a couple of heartbeats away.
He licked again, and she closed her eyes, desperately wanting his tongue—or something else of his—to penetrate her mouth.
“You’re driving her crazy,” Trent said, and Maisie felt Raphael smiling.
“Open your eyes,” he said, his lips tickling her cheek. His arms went around her, and he gathered up her mane of hair and pulled it over her shoulder, letting it cascade over her breast and to her waist.
Then he brought her against the wall of his chest, his muscular arms holding her close.
Or maybe trapping her.
A sigh shuddered out of her, and Raphael brought her even closer. His arms were hot against her upper back. Now the insistent hardness in his pants was pressed against her stomach.
She hooked a leg around him and slid her heel up his calf. She would have wrapped both legs around him, but he grabbed under the knee and pinned it against his waist, leaving her unbalanced, dependent on him.
“Hold this,” Ethan said, pushing something into her hand. “When you want to be released from the hook, drop it. If you want to end the scene, sit on the floor after we release you. Otherwise, we’ll continue spanking you until you reach the rack.”
She shook her head. Tears filled her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.
“Do you understand? Look at me.”
She turned her head to look into Ethan’s gray eyes and nodded.
“Good,” Trent said impatiently, and she knew by the way he said it—
Wind whistled; the paddle slammed into her ass.
Raphael’s embrace was the only thing that stopped her from flying forward. An animal grunt vibrated in her chest.
The paddle slammed into her other cheek.
Oh, the paddle hadn’t looked so dangerous, just a piece of carved wood. If anything, the thick handle had seemed the more worrisome part.
But as fire spread over her buttocks, Maisie reevaluated the situation.
This paddle could do some real damage. So what were her options—
She grunted as the next blow fell. More tears gushed down her cheeks, and Raphael kissed them away.
Maisie was out of her mind. Fear and desire warred, carrying out an epic battle inside her.
“Yeah,” Raphael said, grinding his hips against her as another blow sent her pressing into his arms for refuge. “Feel how fucking hard I am.”
She felt it, all right, but she couldn’t appreciate it. She wanted to drop the cloth, but she didn’t dare, not when her only solace would be the rack.
<
br /> “You’re beautiful like this,” Raphael whispered into her ear.
The paddle connected with a loud crack, and Maisie’s ass burned.
“Please, please, please,” she tried to say, but it was muffled beyond recognition.
Another punishing visit of the paddle. Her pussy clenched, and she tried to move away, but Raphael was too strong.
She couldn’t handle it. She wasn’t tough enough.
Yet her fist only clenched the cloth harder.
Trent sighed. “Your turn,” he said quietly.
“Thanks for warming her up.” The soles of Ethan’s shoes scraped across the floor as he drew closer.
There was something about his stoic manner that scared her senseless. She liked Ethan.
No, she loved him.
But he frightened her. He made turning off his emotions seem as simple as twisting a handle and shutting off a faucet.
What if he could turn off his sense of responsibility just as easily?
Cold sweat covered her brow. She had stopped crying, but only because she was hyper-alert, listening for the whistling harbinger of that first wallop.
15
The silence stretched out, a vast desert of nothingness.
Maisie was trembling from head to toe. Thank goodness for Raphael, who held her close. But his comfort wasn’t stronger than her terror of what was soon to come.
The anticipation grew to intolerable proportions, and she couldn’t take it any longer.
She released the cloth.
She felt it graze her buttocks as it fluttered to the floor, and she tried to surge forward, her instincts telling her that perhaps Raphael could protect her from the fresh round of pain.
But of course there was no fresh pain, because Ethan hadn’t hit her.
“I have to say, that’s a record, even for you,” Trent said.
“I know.” Ethan’s footsteps receded, and Maisie could only pray that he was going toward the wall and soon she would be released from this uncomfortable position.
It’s probably a million times more comfortable than the rack, she thought, suddenly realizing the predicament she was now in.
The hook descended, and her aching arms lowered in relief. Her calves and feet felt better, too.
Triple Jeopardy (Lawyers Behaving Badly Book 2) Page 8
