by Vonna Harper
Eyes widening, she nodded. “Or you’d be dead.”
Yeah, that.
“I told you some of what happened but not everything.”
“I realize that.”
Stop already. You don’t need to do this. “Uncle Clark and I were about to call it a day and look for a place to spend the night. We were next to a rocky outcropping with a meadow within sight. We’d seen some elk in the meadow.”
“Did you take pictures?”
“Yes, but because of how far we were from them, the pictures weren’t much. One thing...”
Damn. No matter how many times he’d relived his life’s defining moment, it always caught him. He knew not to linger too long on this part but some things couldn’t be rushed. Besides, he was drawing her in by exposing himself. Once he fully had her, he’d know everything he needed to about her.
“We were on the lookout, mostly for wolves. Where there’s grass eaters there’s predators.”
Her frown made him think she was a step ahead of his story. A wolf hadn’t been responsible for his marked flesh.
“We debated going another mile or so, putting more distance between us and the elk, but the way wolves travel, that might not be enough.”
“You didn’t have much choice.”
“Not really.” He wasn’t sure whether he wanted her input or for her to remain silent. “My uncle was looking right while I watched things on our left. We took turns checking behind us and staring ahead.”
Sweat coated his palms, and now her chest wasn’t the only one rapidly lifting and falling. Nightmares seldom bothered him these days, but he knew they weren’t done with him. Might never be.
“I saw the cougar first. No time to yell, to warn. She was on my uncle before either of us could aim.”
“She? You knew it was a female?”
“Yeah.” He wasn’t ready to get to that part. “Big. Over a hundred pounds and in her prime. She hit my uncle so hard she knocked him down. He covered his head with his arms, and she went after them.”
The sight, hell, the smell of blood hit him as intensely as the cougar had struck his uncle. In his mind, Uncle Clark’s screams were as loud as they had been back then.
“I got out of my backpack so I could reach my rifle, but I didn’t dare shoot her for fear I’d hit my uncle. I yelled, fired into the air, picked up a stick and struck her with it, but she kept attacking him.”
“It was just the two of you,” she whispered.
“That’s right. She sank her teeth into his right forearm and started dragging him up a hill. Her power—it was as if he weighed nothing. He tried to go after her eyes with his free hand. I followed them, hitting her until the stick broke. I wanted to use my rifle like a club but was afraid I’d ruin it.”
“What about your uncle’s rifle?”
Damn her for being able to picture everything. “He’d lost it and his pack in the struggle. I didn’t think about it until we were too far from it. I tried using another stick, but she knocked it out of my hand.”
“Because you were still holding onto your rifle.”
For all the good it had done him. “When she let go of my uncle, I knew she intended to get a better hold on him. That’s when I—I dropped my rifle and charged, tried to wrap my arms around her neck.”
The way she stared at him, he guessed she’d lost the ability to speak.
“It was a stupid move. She shook me off and swiped at me. I turned from her. She caught my back.”
Her mouth sagged, and she pressed her hand to her forehead. Go on, her expression said.
“She knocked me to the ground, sank her fangs into my neck.” He concentrated on getting oxygen back in his lungs. “My uncle yelled at me to play dead so I did.”
“I don’t know if I could have done that.”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
She stared at him as if she was trying to convince herself he was alive. “No, you didn’t.”
“When I didn’t move, the cougar left me. Returned to my uncle.”
“Oh, no.”
“He tried to do the same thing, not move. But he was hurting too much. She—it got pretty bad.”
As long as he kept his eyes open, he’d get through this and ‘get through’ was the operant phrase. He only had himself to blame for painting a vivid picture of the attack for her. Now that he was deep in it, he couldn’t remember why he’d thought he needed to do this.
“She was killing him. I had no choice but to take a chance on hitting him.” He couldn’t keep air in his lungs, couldn’t remember how it was done. “I grabbed my gun and fired over their heads. She let go of him and stared at me. I fired again.”
It all came back, the moment when nothing moved and the shot’s echo shattered everything. For several seconds, the cougar and he had stared at each other. Then a red tide bloomed on her side. She started toward him and he fired for the third time. She collapsed, her legs kicking at nothing.
“You did what you had to. You had no choice.”
“Yeah, well.” He clenched then relaxed his jaw. “The way she’d fallen I saw her swollen breasts.”
“She had cubs. That’s why she attacked, because she was protecting them.”
“Yeah.” He had to stop saying the word, give her more but what?
“Did you look for the cubs?”
Shaking his head brought him closer to the here and now. “Uncle Clark and I were in bad shape, him a lot more than me. Her fangs had hit an artery in his arm. I used my shirt for a tourniquet. I had to leave him long enough to retrieve my pack. My cell phone was in it. I was afraid we were out of range, but I got through.”
“How long did it take for help to arrive?”
Too long. “An hour, maybe more.”
Her nod said she understood how hard it had been to keep track of time. “I don’t know what to say.”
“There’s nothing.”
Hearing the words coming from his mouth brought him fully back to reality, and her. Feeling trapped, he cast around for a way to change the subject.
“Knowing her cubs didn’t stand a chance has a great deal to do with why this exists.” He made a sweeping motion designed to encompass the acreage all around. “Cougars aren’t endangered in a lot of places, but other predators are. I won’t let happen to them what happened to those cubs.”
“Luna will do his best.”
Grateful because she’d picked up on the direction he needed the conversation to go, he told her he expected his uncle to come tomorrow.
“I’d like to meet him, if that’s all right with you.”
“I haven’t decided.” Much of anything.
“Are there outward signs of his injuries?”
“He can’t hide what happened to him.”
“Does he talk about it?”
An Other had no right to ask something so personal about an Elite, and she should know it. “Don’t bring it up.”
The way she rubbed her knees, it was as if she was trying to reconnect with herself. He felt the same way with his need to focus on who he was increasing by the moment.
“I won’t, Master.”
Master. Maybe, like him, she was ready to retreat from what had been an intensely personal conversation, at least for him.
“Don’t tell anyone anything, not even your family.”
She didn’t immediately reply. When she did, she didn’t meet his gaze. “Yes, Master.”
“What is this? You’re thinking there’s no way I’d know if you told your parents and siblings?”
“Not that.”
“Then what?”
Her attention went to the window. “Nothing.”
“The hell it isn’t.” He didn’t understand why he was angry. “I treated you like a pet because you needed to understand I’m in charge. You’re submissive to me.”
“Yes.”
Irritated because she’d answered without looking him in the eye, he grabbed her shoulders and propelled her backwards to the nearest wall. “Yes? I
s that all you have to say?”
“What have I done wrong?”
Damn it, an Other didn’t confront him. “You think because I told you something in confidence it changes things between us. You’re wrong. Our relationship hasn’t changed.”
“No, Sir.”
What had happened to Master? “If I didn’t need you out there keeping an eye on the pregnant panthers, I’d put you in the cage and lock it.”
Judging by the tightness around her mouth, she was trying to keep her emotions to herself. He wasn’t sure how he felt about his ability to read her moods. Granted doing so helped him remember which of them was in control, but he wasn’t used to feeling connected to an Other. Of confiding in one.
“How do you feel about being my pet?”
Still flat against the wall even though he’d released her, she looked around. Surely she understood she couldn’t escape.
“I don’t know.”
“But maybe you enjoy it?”
“I don’t know, Sir.”
“Stop calling me that. My name is Master.”
Hurt flashed in her eyes. A blink later she’d buried the emotion. “Yes, Master.”
“That’s better.” Telling himself he was back in control, he patted her cheek like an owner might pat a favored pet. “However, you need to be reminded of your place. Now is as good a time as any.”
Confusion, concern, and what might be anticipation warred for prominence in her expression.
“It pleases me to have a pet. A docile Other serves as the opposite to the creatures I’m responsible for.”
He thought she might say Yes, Master. Instead she continued to avoid his gaze. Whether she fully embraced her role or was pretending was something he intended to resolve.
“I revealed a great deal. Now it’s your turn. You didn’t react when I warned you not to share what I told you with your family. Why didn’t you?”
“I won’t. Isn’t that enough?”
He’d stumbled upon a sensitive subject, one he could use to his advantage and more important take her thoughts from what he’d revealed.
“What are you hiding?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re lying.”
She stared at the floor.
“Last chance. What don’t you want to talk about and why?”
“It has nothing to do with my doing my job here, Master.”
She was probably right but that wasn’t the point. She wore the collar he’d placed on her. More important, some of his sperm was still inside her.
“You could lie,” he taunted. “Come up with something. I wouldn’t know if it was truth or not.”
Her response, not that it was one, consisted of squaring her shoulders. If she was using this disagreement to push him to demonstrate his dominance over her, she was about to get her wish.
“Follow me to the discipline room,” he ordered and reached for his shorts. After slipping into them, he led the way. Covering the essentials while she remained totally exposed further announced the difference between them. At least she knew enough not to bring her clothes.
Leaving her standing in the entryway, he turned on a lamp and went to the storage container. He gathered up several items designed for discipline and laid them out on the bed.
“I’ll let you choose. Maybe I should force you to choose.” Because he wasn’t immune to her naked body and the memories it whispered of, he didn’t look at her. “That’s the last thing you’re going to have a voice in.”
Her posture as she joined him spoke of defeat and something he couldn’t define. She’d had her chance, pushed his patience too far. Now she’d either regret it or get what she secretly wanted. Either way, he wasn’t going to second guess his decision to discipline her.
“Your mind’s made up,” she whispered as her hand fluttered over several whips and floggers. “A line drawn.”
“You only have yourself to blame.”
“I know I do.”
At least he’d give her credit for honesty, not that he intended to grant her a pardon. As she closed her fingers around the base of a black leather flogger, he told himself they’d come to the same conclusion about their relationship. It needed to return to what they both understood, not venture into unknown and potentially dangerous territory.
She didn’t speak as she handed the flogger to him, but her faint trembling gave her away. She wasn’t into pain. Then why had she pushed him if that’s what her refusal to answer had been about?
Hell, it didn’t matter. Only doing what the Society expected of him did.
“Lean over the bed. Ass in the air.”
Chapter Eleven
Carefully not looking at Master, Sir, Mr. Dalton or whatever he wanted her to call him, Callie did as he’d commanded. She deserved to be spanked. In fact, she half believed he was right. She should have said more, told him at least a little about her childhood, but the words wouldn’t come. They never had.
Only partly aware of what she was doing, she positioned herself as he’d ordered. The night up until now had been the most amazing of her life, but it hadn’t been real. This was.
Given the bed’s height, she had to bend her knees to do as he’d commanded. She stretched out as far as she could placing her ass on display and accessible to him. Nothing about the position was comfortable, but at least this way she didn’t have to look at him.
She thought he’d start by making a point of the reason for what he was about to do. As a result she wasn’t ready when the first blow landed. The flogger’s strands stung, causing her to yelp. She strained to look behind her. He delivered another blow, sharper this time.
“Ah.”
“Don’t make a sound. I want you to focus on the why behind this.”
As if it could be any other way. She tried to keep her butt muscles loose. She managed to do so through another two blows, but the next landed so hard she tensed.
After that she let it happen. As well as she knew him, or believed she did, she had no trouble picturing him. He stood over her with just enough distance between them so the flogger landed exactly where he wanted it to. The stinging sensation grew and deepened. Surely her ass was getting redder by the blow, something he’d have no trouble seeing.
“Ah,” she gasped. “It feels so—”
“So good. Yeah, that. But don’t speak.”
Waiting for correction, she held her breath. Instead, he rubbed where the strands had landed then returned to his task.
She was being punished because she couldn’t lift the curtain to her childhood. The truth was beyond her—unless Master drove it out of the recesses of her mind and into the light.
No. Please, no.
Groaning under her breath, she ceased trying to understand herself. She was being spanked. Hard. By an angry man. A man determined to force her to reveal everything.
But she couldn’t. Wouldn’t.
If pressured to say how many times the flogger landed on her increasingly sore backside, she wouldn’t be able to answer. What mattered, maybe the only thing that did, was how she was reacting.
It hurt. A lot. But there was something else, a crawling, growing need to feel him inside her. Her nipples were so hard they throbbed. She couldn’t relax her stomach muscles, couldn’t do anything to divorce herself from the strange unnerving hunger.
Master had control of her, of everything, of her body’s need most of all. Heat and desire gripped her entire being, compelling her to move her buttocks about. The harder the flogger landed, the deeper her desire dove. She didn’t care who she was, why she was here, what was happening. Only one thing mattered.
Needing to come. To climax. To wrap herself in pleasure.
“Please, please, please,” she chanted. Her spine caught fire and something stole her breath.
“Please what?”
“Make it—let me...”
“Are you saying what I think you are?”
“Please, Master.”
“Not until you deserv
e it.”
She had no idea what he was talking about, but what did it matter? It felt as if she’d crawled deep inside herself to where nothing but anticipation waited. Any moment now, please, he’d tap into her need. He’d slide his fingers or cock—it didn’t matter which—deep into her. Her muscles would clamp down and he’d know as he’d never known anything else that he had her.
That she needed him.
“Please,” she sobbed and struggled to lift her ass off the bed.
He placed the flogger on her back and stroked the side of her neck. “What do you want?”
“You, please!”
“Why?”
“I’m yours. Everything—my world is about you.”
“You might regret it. Hell, we both might.”
Before she could make sense of what he’d said, he took a backward step. She prayed he was taking off his shorts. His hard cock touched her lips.
“Yes,” she sobbed. “Please.”
When he didn’t move, she wondered if she should have called him Master.
“You liked the pain?” he asked.
“I don’t know but—something happened. I’ve never felt...”
“Yeah. I understand.”
How could he talk now? Maybe she should be afraid of a man with so much self-control.
“Fuck me, please, Master.”
“Hell, yes.”
He pushed into her, driving hard and fast as if angry. She pressed back, fought to take him deep. Her world revolved around him and his power over her.
“Go inside yourself,” he continued. “Think, if you can. Experience. Find the truth if you can.”
The only truth she was interested in was her need to climax. Her need for him. She vaguely acknowledged he shouldn’t have so much control over her, but right now it wasn’t important.
He kept after her, his thrusts rocking her. Nothing mattered beyond this, beyond him. And her hunger.
“I’m in charge. I give.” He shuddered, let go. “You—receive.”
Yes. His words and her response swirled around her, caught her and threw her into a place without form or meaning. Her body tightened then expanded. Crying out, she clung to what was happening to her, fought to make it last.
Thanked him for the gift.
* * *
