“Transparency is hard for me,” she whispered.
“I know. But you’re the one who likes pain.” Oh, her smile was adorable. He reached up and placed his palm over the base of her neck. Her pulse beat, hard and strong. “I don’t like collars much. I know you’ve worn one for a long time.”
“You won’t collar me?” The disappointment in her tone was edifying. As mixed as her signals were, on some level she apparently wished to belong to him.
“I don’t want your submission to be something you can take off and put in a drawer.” He slid his palm down to rest over her heart. “If things work out between us, the bondage will be here. You understand?”
“Yes, Sir. I think I do understand. But you’re right,” she said slowly, studying him. “You and Vincent couldn’t be more different.”
“We’re alike in some ways.” He went back to teasing her clit. She arched again, a wanton, aroused creature in black stockings tied to the bed. His cock throbbed. He wanted to hurt her. He wanted to fuck her. “Vincent didn’t let you come without permission, did he?”
She shook her head, a strained look on her face.
“I won’t either. You can come when I tell you to come, and when you don’t have permission, I don’t want you so much as touching yourself.” He smiled, working her pussy with questing, slickened fingers.
“Daniel,” she whispered. “May I please come now?”
“No.”
“Please.” She squirmed under his touch.
He leaned over to lick one taut nipple. “I don’t want you to come yet.”
She sighed, somewhat irritably.
“Careful, Wednesday. Don’t get petulant with me. Let’s see how much control you have. Be a good girl.”
“Do you really want me to be good? Or do you want me to be bad so you can punish me?”
He pinched her nipple hard, naughty slut. “You can be a good girl for me. Mostly good and a little bad. I won’t have to treat you like shit to get off on it all. Your happiness will be enough for me.”
“My happiness?” His fingers circled her clit, and she sighed.
“You want someone to please, someone to be a good girl for. Be a good girl for me, and I’ll make you glad. And Wednesday…don’t come.”
She shook her head as if that settled things, as if by her will alone, she could obey. But his wicked will was involved too, and he couldn’t wait to give her some pain. He lowered his lips to suck first one nipple, then the other. He thrust his fingers up inside her hard, in and out, rubbing over her G-spot. She made breathless, muted noises of denial and panic. He felt her hips move, felt her shiver—and felt her walls contract around his fingers. He had to give her credit. She’d made no obvious sound or indication, but he’d felt it, and her guilty eyes met his.
“I remember,” he whispered conspiratorially. “Your secret orgasms. I remember them well. You’ll never fool me, though, so don’t even try it.”
“Daniel, I want to be a good girl for you.”
“You will be. Don’t worry, I’ll help you learn.”
He untied her and retied her on her tummy. God, her ass was criminally tempting, framed as it was by the straps on the lingerie she wore. He pulled his belt out of his pants and doubled it over, then looked down at the beautiful girl on the bed, so willing to take his pain.
“I’d like you to count, Wednesday. To twenty.”
Ouch! Jesus!
She thought he
spanked
hard. His fucking belt was even harder to deal with.
Ten. Eleven. Twelve
! Vicious, aching sting. She hadn’t taken a spanking in over a month, so yes, she counted for him, but it wasn’t easy. She cried and yelped between numbers, but the blows kept raining down in noisy, stinging slaps of fire. By the end she was truly struggling to hold it together, even thinking the words
Untie me, Daniel
. But no, she didn’t say them. It wasn’t really a safe-word moment. It was just a spanking that had come when she was far too relaxed and loose.
To be truthful, she wanted it. She wanted him to call her his good girl, to punish her and correct her, then hold her and make everything okay. She wanted to feel like she couldn’t take another second of pain, then have to deal with more anyway.
Thirteen, fourteen
… So much pain! Pain he wanted to give her, and pain she wanted to take. After fifteen he put one hand on the small of her back, and the rest came in a ruthless volley that had her straining at her bonds. Her numbers tumbled over themselves.
Eighteen, nineteen
! At twenty, as promised, he stopped. He left his hand on her, caressing her ass lightly with the belt he’d used to punish her.
“Okay. Too hard or too soft?”
He was asking her? When she hesitated, he gave her another small crack on the back of her thigh, above her stocking. “Answer me. Too hard or too soft?”
“Just…just right. It was…” She was having trouble talking as the belt continued to circle her ass cheeks. She wiped the tears from her face against the smooth sheets beneath her. “It was perfect.” The words probably would have sounded more convincing if they hadn’t come out in a sniffling sob.
“Be honest. Don’t tell me what I want to hear. I don’t know much about your limits yet.”
“You could…well…probably go a little bit harder.”
“Look at me.”
His voice was sharp. She craned her head up to meet his assessing gaze. Did he see it, everything she felt? The happiness, the sadness? The excitement and dread of her own vulnerability? He was still holding the belt. It dangled from his hand, a material symbol of his power over her. She wanted to lick it. He tightened his grip on the leather and buckle.
“Thank you, Sir, for punishing me,” she whispered. “I’ll try not to come without permission again, if that’s what you want.”
“Yes, it’s what I want. All your orgasms, for me alone. No masturbation. Not even any touching. Do you understand? Mine.”
She drew in a deep, shuddery breath, and nodded quickly. She couldn’t have said another word without breaking into abject begging for his body, his cock. For that hand, holding that belt so carelessly. She was a solid, trembling vessel of need. Just an iota, just a hair, she pressed her hips forward. Vincent would have punished her for it. For willfulness and putting her needs before his instructions. Did it count as masturbation? Yes. She sobbed into the bed, making fists.
“Please, Sir…”
The belt dropped. She heard his clothes fall to the floor and felt the bed dip as he crawled onto the mattress behind her. She was still tied, hand and foot. She would have launched herself at him if she could have. She ground against the bed in earnest. All she cared about was that he fuck her again, right there, right then, right
now
. He chuckled and grasped her hips, holding her still.
“I can already see you’re going to be a hard one to control.”
Hard to control? He already controlled her; that must have been plain enough for him to see as she tossed around under him like a wanton whore. He already had her completely under his thumb, under his heel, wrapped around his little finger. All those trite expressions—she was all of them and more. She waited, her pussy throbbing, her ass tingling with afterburn as he rolled on a condom and then slapped her flanks a couple more times.
“I like you all sore-assed and horny,” he said against her ear as he positioned himself. “I like you just like this, eager to please me.”
Please, please, please.
“Do you want my cock, Wednesday?”
“Yes, Sir! Oh yes, please.” Her hands strained at the cotton strips that held her tethered to the bed, and her legs pulled at the bonds around her ankles as she tried to arch back to him.
“Shhh, okay. You’ll get what you want. Here, baby…” His thick cock parted her, driving inside her while she panted. His warmth and solid length replaced the craving she felt. He filled and split her. He braced his arms on either side of her head. She stared from beneath the prison of his body, fascinated by the light freckles and the dusting of fluffy blond hair on his forearm and the veins that ran up to his elbow.
A whole new world, a whole new lover to discover. She wanted to touch him everywhere, but she couldn’t. She squirmed under him, contacting him wherever she could. Her pussy gripped his cock as his hips surged forward again and again in an undulating, snapping rhythm. Each stroke was hot, sliding friction. Her pelvis was swelling, filling with the aching pressure for release. She lost track of her room, her name, her very history. There was only her body and his and the powerful, humbling experience of being taken by him.
“Daniel!”
“Come on, baby. Yes.” He grabbed a handful of her hair and fucked her harder, faster. She was taken and overtaken. The pressure in her middle burst wide, and she clenched her teeth against the intensity of the orgasm he gave her. Waves of heat and feral animal release and his cock inside her, centering her as she clamped down on his power. Her last thought as the orgasm spun her world upside down was that it was fortunate she was tied to the bed.
When she came back from the place she’d gone, Daniel was lying beside her, alternately licking her neck and her shoulder. She stretched against him, still securely tethered.
“I suppose I have to untie you now,” he whispered.
“At some point.” She looked over into warm blue eyes. “Although I enjoyed being tied up by you.”
“I had a feeling you did.” He started working the first knot loose. She flexed her wrist with a smile, studying this man who had just dominated and possessed her so effortlessly. He was little more than a stranger, yet she felt almost painfully connected to him. His teasing gazes were already familiar. She already knew the feel of his chest hair against her skin and the bronze color of the freckles on his forearms.
She realized with a shock that they had only kissed once.
It seemed a terrible oversight. They ought to have kissed a thousand times by now. But he wasn’t kissing her; he was untying her. It felt equally intimate in her mind. He moved next to the ties at her ankles and had to use his teeth to get those undone. It was playtime suddenly as he chewed at the fabric scraps, leering at her then biting her calf.
She laughed and squirmed, feeling totally new. It was like he untied her from the old Wednesday, from her old life that had tethered her to some dark space. Fun in bed, what a novel occurrence. She’d never laughed in bed with Vincent, not once in five years. She’d cried and come for him, but laughed like this and played?
Daniel crawled up her body to untie her other wrist. He looked down at her while he worked at the knot with his hands. She shivered from the look he gave her and the strong, unfamiliar feelings in her heart. Warning bells were going off.
You’re falling in love already, Wednesday. You’re falling in love.
But Daniel had given her no ultimatum about not loving him. He actually wanted them to be lovers—true lovers, romantic and sweet. He didn’t understand that Wednesday was afraid to fall in love, and she didn’t want to tell him. He would think she was weird. She
was
weird. She was terrified of loving, of needing someone. She’d seen what love did to her father. After her mother died, he was never the same. Then there was the way Vincent had crushed her when he left her.
“What? What’s wrong?” he asked as he undid the last tie and set it aside.
“Nothing.”
I’m just freaked half out of my mind right now.
“I’ll buy you new sheets tomorrow, I promise. I’ll send them over.”
She laughed. “No, it’s not the sheets. I have plenty of those.”
“What, then? Tell me.”
She thought a minute, framing protests and confessions.
Don’t expect me to love you. Can’t we slow things down? God, help me
. In the end she said, “Would you like to spend the night?”
His smile was blinding.
God, help me. Please.
* * *
When Wednesday woke, morning light was filtering into the room. Daniel stirred beside her, reaching out to enfold her in his arms. It was an unfamiliar feeling, this morning coziness. Vincent had usually woken her with a thrust of his cock. But Daniel turned her to him and kissed her and stroked her arms.