Suddenly I realized it was getting hard to breathe. Oh crap, my nose was stopping
up and I had a penis in my mouth. I needed to stop crying, stat.
A hand reached down and unzipped the lower part of my hood, releasing the gag. “You’re
okay, sweetheart—just take a few deep breaths.”
Colin rubbed my back and I burst into tears again.
“Colin,” I sobbed, shaking in my restraints. “I love you so much, and I was so blind.
Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you needed to see it on your own. You needed to see
me
. And did you?”
I nodded emphatically. “Yes, Sir.”
Kneeling at my side, he tipped my chin up.
When he pressed his mouth to mine, I sobbed even harder and tried to pull away. “I’m
all snotty!”
“I don’t care.” He kissed me again with his mouth open, sucking on my upper lip. “Everything
about you is mine now, Rachel Anne. Even your snot.”
A choked laugh escaped me. “You never did have any limits, did you?”
Colin didn’t smile. “None, where you were concerned. I craved every particle of you
from the first time I saw your sweet smile. I wanted to hold you, own you…absorb you
through my very pores. I needed to be the one who made you tense with submissive wariness
whenever I was in the vicinity. But you wanted nothing to do with me.”
Sniffling, I cringed. “I’m sorry!”
“You should be.”
“Well you have to admit you acted like kind of…”
“An assmunch?”
“Yes! You even said as much.”
“That didn’t make me crave you any less. And I don’t think I was acting like an assmunch
when you left me in Montaneva.”
“I wasn’t leaving
you
,” I started. Annoyed by the leather obstructing my vision, I shook my head around.
“Would you please take this damn hood off and let me out of here so I can see to talk
to you?”
“I don’t think so,” he said flatly. “And excuse me, but you did leave me. You packed
your shit and walked out without even talking to me.”
“I talked to you! You’re the one who didn’t talk to me.”
“Because Julian wouldn’t
let
me, or believe me, I’d have had a few things to say about your letting Dirk and Vince
top you. I sure as hell had a few things to say to them after you left.”
Blinking hard, I froze. “Really?”
A hard slap landed on my butt and I squeaked.
“God dammit, Rachel, yes, really! You’re mine!” he roared.
“I’m sorry! I didn’t know!” I shouted back at him.
He took a deep breath and then said in an eerily calm tone, “You will after we’re
done here today.”
Well he certainly made me tense with submissive wariness now. “What do you mean?”
He stood up and walked away.
“Colin, talk to me, please,” I begged.
“Settle down, I’ll be right back.”
That was enough to calm me for the moment. I took a few deep, shuddering breaths and
tried to relax. Colin loved me, and he’d loved me for years. He wouldn’t hurt me too
badly…would he?
Though he certainly had pinned my wrists so that Julian could beat my butt until it
was bruised. And he’d caned Julian black and blue.
A fine tremor passed through my bones. Now that I knew he was my Dom, Colin was suddenly
an enigma to me, an unknown quantity, and it threw me off balance. I loved it, and
I hated it. He was safety and danger all rolled into one gorgeous, frightening package.
And Jordan though
he
was FrankenDom’s monster.
“Well if that isn’t a sight for sore eyes.”
I twitched. Julian was here. And he was looking at my stuffed rear end.
“I thought you weren’t coming home until this evening, Sir.” Then I remembered he
wasn’t my Sir anymore. “I mean Julian.”
“Sir is fine, Rachel,” Colin said. “Now that you and I have sorted out who your owner
is, you may address all Doms as Sir if I’ve given you permission to speak to them.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“And Julian’s home because things came to a head between us a lot sooner than I expected
and I wanted him to be here to protect both of us.” The buckle at the back of my neck
was unhooked and he started unlacing the hood.
“What do you mean, to protect us both?”
“I mean, you need to be punished for letting Dirk and Vince top you, but I’m so angry,
I’m afraid I’ll go too far. He’s here to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
The breath rushed out of me. How could I feel better and yet more frightened at the
same time?
Colin squatted in front of me, looking serious but not furious as he took off my mitts.
“Rachel, I’ve got all the implements that they used on you and I know exactly how
many you took from each. Julian and I discussed it, and I’ve decided to give you a
choice. You can take everything they gave you times two, only I’ll probably hit you
quite a bit harder with everything except the canes. Or you can take a simple caning.
Fifty strokes from the rattan and ten from the Delrin, plus a warm-up.”
My mouth fell open.
Fifty?
Oh. Crap.
My mind worked feverishly, trying to remember how many strokes I’d taken altogether,
but it was no use. I was a wreck when I let them top me. All I remembered was that
I’d taken eight from the Delrin. Ten was only two more than that. Surely I could take
that. But
fifty
?
Then I frowned. “Wait, warm-up? What kind of warm-up?”
“A bare-handed spanking. Without it, the caning will be a lot harder to handle, Miss
Tenderbottom.”
Oh God, now I was really scared.
Colin took my face in his hands. “Rachel, look at me.” When I did, he said, “Not a
punishment spanking, like the one you got from Julian—just a warm-up, something to
build on. It’s like exercising—if you do it without warming up, you’re more likely
to perform poorly and get hurt.”
Taking a deep breath, I nodded. “Okay. Caning, Sir.”
“Good girl.” Dropping to one knee, he wrapped a hand behind my head and gave me a
Colin-kiss, long and involved and emotional. I was a quivering mess by the time he
pulled away.
“I’m sorry, Sir,” I said unsteadily. “I shouldn’t have let them top me and I think
I knew it. You’re right to punish me. I’ll feel better. Eventually.”
He grinned. “There’s my girl. And yes, you will feel better. We both will.”
“And you’ll forgive me?”
“If you’ll forgive me.”
“Always, Sir.”
“Then let’s get to it.”
When Colin moved away, Julian sat down in the chair in front of me, wearing jeans
and a dark gray tee shirt. “Hello, beautifully bound slave.”
“Hello, Sir.”
“It feels better like this, doesn’t it?” he asked. When I looked at him quizzically,
he said, “Colin being mine and your being his. There was something not quite right
about having to divide my attention between the two of you. I couldn’t do either of
you justice that way.”
“I think you’re right, Sir.” I swallowed and said, “Thank you for saving him for me.”
He leaned down and kissed me. “It was my pleasure, little slave.”
When Colin removed the dildo and tail, I was surprised to feel
too
empty, and even more vulnerable. As if they would have been any protection at all.
“All right, Rachel. Time to warm up.”
“I’m ready, Sir.”
He started out lightly enough that I was almost impatient. I thought he must have
been kneeling behind me, using both hands all over both cheeks until they started
to feel warm, and then hot—and I started to feel hot, too. I wouldn’t mind if he did
this all day.
Of course, the minute I thought that, he stopped and stood up.
“Okay, now the rattan,” he said, laying a hand on my low back. “I’m going to start
lighter and faster, in bursts of five strokes, so they’re easier to take. The last
ten will be the hardest, and I’ll give you more time to process them, all right?”
I took a shuddering breath. “All right, Sir.”
The first five taps scattered over my left cheek made me hiss. They weren’t as bad
as even the first one Dirk had given me on the front of my thigh. The second five
on my right were about the same, and I relaxed a bit while he rubbed both sides. Maybe
it wasn’t as bad as I remembered.
The third five and the fourth made me whimper and writhe, especially after the pain
had time to blossom and mature. “Ow, ow, ow!”
“Almost halfway there, Rachel,” Colin said, rubbing my cheeks again.
“Yay,” I said in a tremulous voice.
Julian smiled and stroked a tendril of hair away from my face.
“I’m going to move to the other side to change my angle so I don’t keep hitting the
same spots, Rachel,” Colin warned me. “No more bursts. You’ll need time to process
these.”
Frightened, I nodded. From there on, I flinched and hummed after every stroke, keeping
my eyes closed and trying to let the pain go through me instead of trying to stop
it. By the time he reached forty, I was straining against my cuffs and collar, sobbing
quietly, but I’d managed to keep from screaming. Colin’s hand on my hot, swollen flesh
was almost more than I could take, and I cried out, “Sir, please!”
“Shh,” he said, rubbing. “It’s almost done, Rachel. Your ass looks amazing. I think
you’ll be very pleased.”
My sobs ebbed and I opened my eyes with a frown. Why in God’s name did that make me
feel excited?
“Badges of courage,” Julian told me.
“I don’t feel very courageous, Sir,” I mumbled wryly, “but I’ll take it.”
“Last set,” Colin warned. “Don’t try to hold back, Rachel. You need to let it go this
time. Nothing you say will be grounds for punishment or hurt feelings. If you need
to scream you hate me and want to rip my balls off, do it. Whatever you have to do
to get through. Got it?”
Oh God. “Got it, Sir.”
Molten fire streaked across both sides of my butt at once and I jerked hard in my
restraints, growling through my teeth, “Son of a bitch!”
My language went downhill from there, and I probably ground quite a bit of enamel
off my teeth, but I made it through without screaming—and Julian was covering his
mouth with his hand and trying not to laugh.
Colin felt no such compunction. “I knew there was a seasoned sailor in there somewhere,”
he chuckled, touching my twitching, flaming flesh again.
“Hands off my
ass
!” I ground out.
He started rubbing with both hands. “I don’t think so, slave. In fact, I think I’ll
leave off the Delrin and get right to fucking this beautiful ass. What do you think,
Sir?”
Startled, I looked at Julian and he raised his brows at me. “What do you think, slave?”
I knew I’d probably kick my own ass for this later, but I said, “No, Sir. I want the
last ten.”
After a long pause, Colin said, “Rachel, I’ve forgiven you. There’s no need to go
any further.”
“I disagree, Sir. You deemed fifty and ten a suitable punishment and if I don’t get
them, I’ll feel like I still owe them. I don’t want them hanging over my head.”
He rubbed circled on my cheeks. “If I give you the last ten, I probably won’t feel
right fucking your ass.”
“I’ll have no problem fucking yours, though,” Julian drawled.
“That,” I said immediately. “I want to see that, Sir. Please.”
He sighed. “Rachel, I—”
“I had a one-night stand on my dive trip.”
Colin gave a bark of laughter. “All right, my slave. I already knew that, but you’ve
just convinced me you do need the last ten.”
“Yay.” Wait, why the hell was I cheering? I was going to get ten strokes from the
horrible, mean cane across my already blistered butt. And how did he already know
that?
“Prepare yourself, Rachel—the eight you took from Dirk were on relatively unmarked
flesh. This time your ass looks like a checkerboard. These are going to bruise you,
and it’ll hurt like hell, so I’m not going to drag it out. You were still holding
back on the last ten, but don’t do it this time. Let it fly.”
It was all over in twenty seconds, but it was the longest, most intensely painful
twenty seconds of my life. I started screaming and crying and trying to get away,
and I didn’t stop even after they’d released me from the stockade and Colin had taken
me in his arms. He kissed streaming my eyes and my open mouth while I held my butt,
writhing and howling like an animal caught in a bear trap.
“I love you, I love you, I love you,” he murmured. “You are so good, Rachel, so beautiful.”
“Make it stop,” I sobbed.
“Soon,” he promised.
As promised, soon cool cloths were laid over my traumatized tush, pulling out some
of the pain along with the heat, and I fell into another world.
* * * * *
I had one of those cognitive leap dreams, where you think you suddenly understand
some complex idea normally beyond your reach, like the molecular structure of peanut
butter or how your car’s engine really works. But then when you wake up, it all slips
away.
When I awoke, I was startled to find myself in my bed from Bangenschloss. It was dark
except for the dim bedside lamp and I realized I must have been out for hours. I mean
truly out—there was a wet spot on the sheet where I’d drooled.
“Pretty,” I muttered, rolling to my side. I winced when I sat up. My butt still felt
like it was twice its normal size but the pain wasn’t too bad.
The bathroom wasn’t as opulent as my bath at Bangenschloss, but it had double sinks
and a whirlpool tub big enough for two people. After using the toilet and washing
my face and hands, I used the hairbrush on the counter make myself halfway presentable
and then went looking for something to put on.
Then I remembered slaves didn’t have clothes and sighed. Guess I’d have to wander
the house naked. If Colin planned on this being a permanent state of affairs when
we were home, I was going to have to negotiate a robe or something to leave downstairs
in case I had to answer the door.