Falling Hard (Billionaires in Disguise: Lizzy, #1) (20 page)

Lizzy opened her eyes and panted. The
medieval dungeon door was still closed in front of her. The lack of
pain spun her head like the neon colors of euphoria.

Behind her, Mannix murmured, “Beautiful.”

Her legs quivered with exhaustion. Her thighs
and calves ached.

By her ear, his voice rumbled, “Thank
you.”

Her back burned.

Mannix pulled the rope around her wrists. The
knot collapsed, freeing her. Her arms fell, her knees gave out, and
she fell but Mannix caught her around the waist.

He lifted her and cradled her to his chest.
“You’re so brave.”

The air around her cleared, like the blood
was returning to her arms, legs, and head.

He laid her on padded bench, and the sweat
from her skin spread on the leather and stung the abraded stripes.
God, she hurt. Her whole body hurt. Every inch of her skin
throbbed. She could smell her own fearful sweat and arousal on her
skin.

Pain was weakness leaving the body.

Her leg slipped off the side of the narrow
bench and fell. She was too exhausted to pull it back up. Fire
burned deep in the skin on her back and the backs of her legs.

Mannix’s hands slid up the insides of her
thighs.

She could feel the warmth of his hands and
the calluses on his fingers scraping her skin. Her flesh trembled
as he ran his hands up, nearly tickling, more like massaging.

She could feel every sting and caress.

His thumb slipped inside the folds between
her legs and pressed her clit.

Pleasure arced through her like a spark of
taser lightning, as blue as his black-lashed eyes watching her
face. Her gasp was higher, harsher, and she clutched the sides of
the bench. She was glowing red hot, everywhere.

She could hear him breathing, slowly, so
measured, like he was conducting music.

His thumb moved, sliding the hard bead under
her skin.

Her body seized, going rigid with
torment.

He slid one finger inside her, rubbing slowly
along the top of her entry. Her wetness slid over his hand, and her
hips lifted off the bench, wanting more.

God, oh God,
she could
feel
him.

Mannix pushed his thumb harder on her clit,
rubbing, and something smooth plunged inside her pussy, stretching
her.

The fire on her back reached the hot pleasure
between her legs, combined and swirled and blew her apart.

Her body arched off the bench, and now, Lizzy
cried out.

Wave after wave of fire crested from his
thumb on her clit, up her spine, spreading through her mind like
she was engulfed in flame. She cried out as each one roared through
her body.

The rolling ecstasy slowed, then faded.

Her body quivered under his stilled thumb,
still burning, still alive.

The shaking subsided, and she sucked a huge
breath of air into her body. When she blew it out, she felt her
breath returned to her on her lips.

She opened her eyes, and Mannix was there,
above her, watching her.

She touched his face with her fingers,
startled that he was so close. His soft, full lips touched hers,
kissing her slowly.

“Thank you,” he murmured against her mouth.
“Thank you for allowing me to do this to you and for trusting me
enough to let go.”

Lizzy nodded.

When she opened her eyes to look at Mannix
again, his light blue eyes were still blazing for her, but his
breath wasn’t ragged. His calm was more frightening than any raging
passion that might break someone’s control.

He stepped back and slid a dildo out of her,
smiling a slight but pleased smirk. One tendril of his black hair
curved over his chiseled cheekbone. “So it is pain that does it for
you.”

Lizzy swallowed hard, still trying to
breathe, and laid one arm across her face. Even the dim lights in
the gloomy dungeon burned her eyes.

Mannix said, “Let’s keep going, shall
we?”

“
More?”
She pushed herself up to her
elbows on the bench because she should be horrified, right? She
kind of wasn’t.

Mannix smile widened. “It’s only been a half
an hour. Scenes with me usually take two or three hours, if you can
bear it.”

Sounded like a challenge. “Well, what are you
waiting for?”

He smiled. “Lizzy, you’re a very special
woman.”

Mannix unbuttoned his white shirt, stripped
it off, and threw it over by the door. Tattoos scrolled over his
musclebound chest and back like his skin was an illuminated
parchment from the Middle Ages. Lizzy had studied the Book of Kells
in a medieval lit class, and some of the woven Celtic crosses
looked familiar.

Yeah,
that
was what a
Dom
should look like.

Lizzy’s elbows slid out from under her, and
she curled down to lay on the bench.

Mannix wove the silk ties and bound the girl
to the frame. He was efficient, methodical, but not overly cruel.
He didn’t want to scare her off. The lemon tang of air freshener
drifted, mixing with the girl’s floral perfume.

His spine was a column of fire, radiating
pain down his arms and legs, but it was less than before.

When Lizzy had come to orgasm with just the
lightest stroking after he had flogged her, he knew that she was a
true masochist, which was what he needed, though he was not a
sadist.

A sadist enjoys inflicting pain. A sadist is
aroused to see another person’s pain.

Mannix never thought of his scenes that
way.

He thought of himself as a vampire. His pain
transferred to the women, and he drank the women’s strength.

He shouldn’t whip Lizzy on her back or the
backs of her legs again. The flogging had left her skin red and
swollen. She wouldn’t bruise too badly, he hoped, but she had
delicate, pale skin. She might turn all the colors of a dark
sunset.

He could admire her skin tomorrow.

He whispered by her shell-pink ear, tasting
the salt of her sweat in her hair, “I am going to use a small
signal whip on you now. The pain will be more intense.”

She nodded.

“You’re so small.” He ran his hand down her
tiny arm. The bones under her muscle were delicate, and she was so
light that he almost believed that her bones were hollow like a
dove. “I’m afraid I might break you.”

“I’m the toughest woman you’ve ever met. I
can take anything,” she said. Her gray-blue eyes looked straight at
him, and she said in her raspy little voice, without hesitation,
“You can’t break me.”

He liked that she didn’t have a sweet soprano
voice. That rasp sounded tough.

“I don’t want to break you,” he said,
trailing his fingers down her arm. Goodbumps rose on her skin under
his fingertips. She smelled like jasmine and female sex. “I want
you to be strong. Pain will make you stronger.”

Her breath filled her, like she had almost
gasped. “Yes,” she said. “Pain is weakness leaving the body.”

Mannix nodded. “I can make you strong.”

Lizzy drifted through the dark pink fog of
sub space, the same color as her closed eyelids.

Pain slashed her back but didn’t touch
her.

Again.

The world burned with ice-blue fire, and
Lizzy floated through the flames, of the fire but not in it.

The fire crept inward, and every stroke felt
like a caress.

Her legs, tied spread-eagle, trembled.
Something vibrated there, against her knee, against her thigh,
upward.

Her flesh around it rippled. It pressed
higher.

Her skin felt raw like a deep sunburn, and
every jiggle of the little thing reverberated from her leg through
her torso to her fingertips and the top of her head.

It dragged up her leg, nearing the apex.

Lizzy began to surface.

The buzzing slid across the top of her
pussy.

She gasped.

It slid down her other thigh, circled, and
rose up her leg again. This time, it slid through her folds. The
buzzing expanded like a ball of force exploding in her. Her back
clenched as she bowed backward, gasping.

It left her pussy for just a second this
time, just a second of tease and rest before it rose to fill her
slit and press her clit and slide into her.

The vibrations shook her apart. She blew to
pieces and fell back together and exploded again.

She was a phoenix, born anew out of the
flames.

Then it was gone, and she sagged against the
silken restraints.

She was gone.

The recessed lights coalesced out of the
fiery fog like eight suns set in the sky in two rows. Green and
woodsy scent filled her nose, and she smelled the warm man under
the cologne.

She fell, like dreaming about sinking in
water, but she was buoyed up by strong arms.

She settled on the bottom, her limbs wafting
down beside her.

Warmth enclosed her, and she pried open her
eyes.

Mannix held her cradled in his strong arms,
wrapped in a velvety blanket.

She gasped, still trying to breathe.

He was murmuring something to her. She tried
to listen.

“So strong,” he said. “You’re so strong.
Thank you.”

No, she wasn’t strong yet.

But she would be.

His bass sing-song murmurs slowly brought her
to life.

After a half-hour, when she could stand on
her feet without her knees shaking, Mannix asked, “Shall we
continue?”

Lizzy nodded.

Mannix tied his hair back at the nape of his
neck, and his smile slipped away.

~~~~~

Mannix stood over Lizzy after tying her arms
above her head to a Gothic-looking bench. “I will tie you,” he
said, holding a soft, white rope. “Then I will have you.”

She nodded, still exhausted, but she was
going to see this through.

He wrapped the cord around her ribs and waist
tight enough to constrict her like a corset, but she could still
breathe.

Lizzy had heard about breath play, where a
Dom controls even when you are allowed to breathe, and it scared
her.

Fear is weakness. Pain is weakness leaving
the body.

Knots decorated the front of the bindings
around her torso in a perfect
S
-curve. The ropes skimmed
around her small breasts like a cutout bra.

She could still breathe. She was all
right.

Mannix layered the cord around her arms,
tying them tight and hard until the rope reached halfway down her
arms like manacles.

He twined the cord around her ankles, bent
her legs up and back, folding them up and out of the way, then
bound her knees beside her waist. She was utterly vulnerable to
anything he did to her.

He leaned over face. His tidy, black ponytail
slipped over his shoulder and dangled above Lizzy’s eyes. He
whispered, “You’re very flexible.”

She nodded. Yep, she was a bendy mutant that
could take any pain.

Mannix said, “I’m going to take you now.” His
voice, always deep and dark, had fallen to a rumble. He said,
“Don’t come.”

“I don’t know if I can help it.” Lizzy’s
hoarse voice was exhausted. The skin on her back and ribs was so
sore that she could feel every fray on the soft rope. Her whole
body was raw, and she thought she might come again just from
thinking about how much she could
feel.

“Don’t,” Mannix said.

Frustrated tears leaked out of her eyes and
ran down the sides of her face into her sweaty hair.

Mannix positioned himself between Lizzy’s
tied-back legs. His zipper grated as he unzipped his pants. She
heard the crinkle of a plastic packet being torn open and the small
snap of latex.

He used his fingers to open her pussy,
pressed himself against her opening, and stopped.

Lizzy wanted to press down to push herself
around him, but the ropes didn’t allow her to even squirm. They dug
into the raw skin on her back, hurting, burning.

If she could feel the ropes burning, she
should be able to feel more.

Lizzy drew a shallow breath, panting, and
another one.

And again.

And still Mannix didn’t move.

Her moan was low and under her breath, and
she tried to wiggle closer and onto him, but she was pinned
tight.

The head of his cock rested just inside her
folds. “Please!”

“Be quiet,” Mannix said. “No talking, or I
won’t fuck you.”

A sob cramped in Lizzy’s throat.

He pushed inside her a little at a time, so
slowly, stopping with each breath.

Her back arched as much as the ropes would
allow, which wasn’t enough, not nearly enough.

He inched himself inside her and kept going,
pushing inside her, filling her, farther and more.

She whimpered and pleaded with him, “Please,”
and tried to keep breathing. Her back stung as the ropes abraded
the raw stripes, and yet somehow, his dick pushing into her rubbed
everything inside,
everything.
“I think I’m going to
come.”

“Don’t come.”

Mannix slowed down more, dragging himself
backward and then pressing in, while Lizzy stared at the ceiling
and tried not
feel
him.

His cock rubbed all the way through her,
igniting nerves that she had thought were torn and gone forever,
shivering pleasure up her body.

The ropes caressed her like they were his
hands, holding her just how he wanted her. Her body rocked against
the ropes with his thrusts, breathing him in and out, and every
brush on her so-sensitive clit spiraled tension into her, winding
her body more tightly. Her body compressed, hurtling her toward the
edge. She gasped, and she balled her fists as he fucked her with a
rhythm that pushed her harder and harder.

She squeezed her eyes shut, but he rubbed a
glowing stripe of pleasure inside her. Her body swelled, clamped
down, and she held her breath but his hard body forced her over and
she fell, throbbing hard with him
still
pushing inside
her.