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This is uncorrected advance content collected for your reviewing convenience. Please check with publisher or refer to the finished product whenever you are excerpting or quoting in a review.

New York   Boston

Grace looked at the dark red leather outfit he was holding in his right hand, noticed the rings and straps and felt her flesh tighten with a mixture of fear and anticipation.

“It’s only a body harness, plus one small extra,” said David. Looking at his right hand she saw that he was holding what looked like a matching leather cap. “I don’t think I want to do this now,” she said nervously. “Not with tonight’s trial coming up.”

“I thought I’d already made it clear that everything that happens here this weekend is part of the trial,” he said impatiently. “You should be grateful. I’ve chosen something that will help you tonight.”

Grace wasn’t certain that she believed him, but had no choice other than to obey or leave. As she had no intention of leaving, she walked slowly toward him, remembering to keep her head up high, and with a few deft movements he soon had the body harness on her.

The leather rings encased her breasts, and the strap that was attached to the leather collar ran from the back of her neck down her body, then came up between her thighs where it divided. The division left a gap over her sex lips, then closed again so that it was like an open crotched bikini bottom. Leather straps also supported the cheeks of her bottom, and more straps shaped like a triangle joined a metal ring in the middle of her stomach.

After studying her thoughtfully, David tightened the strap between her legs until she felt it pressing hard against her vulva. Her breath snagged in her throat as tingles of pleasure throbbed beneath the strap, and he nodded to himself. “That’s better,” he murmured. “Now for the hood.”

Standing in front of him, silent and unblinking, Grace tried to stop herself from shaking as he pulled what at first seemed like a tight-fitting red leather cap over her head, releasing a few tendrils of hair so that they fell to her shoulders, making her jump nervously. Next he pulled hard on the leather and when it covered her face she began to panic. Terrified, she moved back, hitting herself against the foot of the bed.

“Keep still, Grace,” said David sharply, and instinctively she obeyed him. “That’s a good girl,” he murmured, his voice now gentle as he pushed the edges of the hood back into place. His change in tone confused her, and it was a moment or two before she realized that now her eyes and nose were free again, but the lower half of her face was totally covered except for a gap over her mouth.

The leather was tight, and she was more afraid than she’d ever been, but she didn’t know why. Although her ears were covered, she could still hear David’s muffled voice, and she was able to see and speak. It was the pressure, and the realization that this, combined with the body harness, had taken away her sense of self. It was as if she, Grace, no longer existed. Instead she was simply a helpless plaything, for David to use as he liked.

She wondered how she’d ever let it come to this. How she, Grace, a well-respected theater director who’d been in the
Sunday Times
list of most promising new directors the year before, had allowed herself to be in this position. Tears of humiliation and disbelief filled her eyes.

“What’s the matter?” asked David quietly. “If you want this to stop now, all you have to do is say so. That one word will end it all. Say ‘stop’ and it’s over, Grace. You must choose to do this yourself.”

“For us,” she replied, struggling to regain her composure. “This is for us.”

“But the choice is yours. Now, do you want to stop?”

Grace shook her head.

“You have to say it.”

Her tongue moved over her dry lips. She hadn’t come this far to be defeated now. “I don’t want to stop,” she said clearly.

“Excellent. Walk around the room for me. I want to watch your body as you move.”

She did as he’d commanded, feeling the metal-rimmed leather rings encasing her breasts as they moved, while the tight leather strap between her legs pressed on her vulva, and every movement meant all the tiny nerve endings beneath tingled and sparked.

“I think one thing is missing,” murmured David, putting out an arm and pulling her toward the window as she passed him. He made her stand facing the garden, caught in a ray of bright June sunlight, while he opened the bedside drawer again. After a few seconds she realized that there were couples walking in the garden, and some of them looked up at her, pointing her out to others walking by.

She knew she couldn’t move, that she had to wait. “That was very useful,” said David, fastening small rubber cones with hanging tassels on them over her rapidly hardening nipples. “Seeing you like this should help get everyone in the mood for their own tasks tonight.”

The rubber cones fitted tightly, but weren’t painful. For a few more minutes Grace continued to walk around the room, while David watched closely. Then he sat on the side of the bed and pulled her onto his lap. One hand went between her thighs, and he slid two fingers inside her. “You’re certainly ready for me,” he remarked, and she felt her cheeks go hot with shame. His other hand touched one of the hanging tassels, squeezing a tiny bulb on the end. At once the cones tightened on her nipple, and then he relaxed his grip and the pressure released again.

Working his fingers around her inner walls, letting the pad of his index finger glide over her G-spot every few seconds while at the same time pressing and releasing the bulbs on the tassels, David teased her already jangling nerve ends.

She could feel her whole body tightening now, and drew in her breath sharply as her stomach muscles began to bunch up ready for her climax. Immediately David stopped and laid her facedown on the bed. Grace turned her head to one side, as the effect of the hood was increased by the soft coverings on the bed. She was gasping now, partly out of fear and partly because her whole body was so tight that she longed for some touch to trigger the moment of release.

“You need to come don’t you?” asked David, his voice deceptively kind. The words alone were enough to increase her arousal. “Answer me.”

“Yes,” she moaned, wanting to feel his fingers inside her again but knowing that it wasn’t going to happen.

“This will help,” he promised her, and she wished she could see what he was doing.

Suddenly she felt the cold touch of the end of a whip on her upper spine. She wanted to cry out in protest, but managed to stay silent. The cool, slender cord trailed gently downwards, lingering over every disc until she could feel the bed shaking she was trembling so much. Trembling not with fear but with a desperate need for release from the sexual tension that was being so cruelly heightened.

“Not long now, my darling,” he murmured, letting one hand stray over her buttocks, his fingers warm and reassuring. When he let his hand stray to her sensitive hipbone she felt the pleasure build still more, and a moan escaped her.

“Yes, you need to come,” he whispered, and again his words aroused her more than anything else could have done, keeping her poised on the brink, frantic for the hot waves of pleasure to engulf her.

The tip of the whip trailed down the backs of her thighs until, without any warning, David brought it down sharply right across the middle of her buttocks. With a scream of shock and pain her body jerked violently, and she was about to shout at him to stop when suddenly the pain changed, turning into a hot, liquid sensation that spread through her whole body, triggering the most intense climax she’d ever experienced.

She shook violently from head to foot as wave after wave of muscular contractions swept through her. As she shuddered and cried out, she felt David lying naked on her back, his erection hard against her buttocks.

“Stay with me,” he murmured, reaching under her and pulling back the hood of her clitoris so that he could continue to stimulate it lightly with one hand. Swirling two fingers of his other hand round in her juices he then inserted them into her rectum. She made a sound of protest as a sudden pain seared through her, but his other hand continued to play skillfully between her thighs until she was almost out of her mind with the conflicting sensations of red-hot pain and exquisite pleasure.

“I can’t wait any longer,” he said thickly, as slowly and carefully he eased himself inside her tight second opening.

She felt too full. It was too much to bear, and she wanted to cry out and tell him to stop yet at the same time she didn’t want to lose this new sensation that was filling her with a dark, forbidden ecstasy.

David moved very carefully inside her, his own gasps mingling with hers, and then he tapped one of the fingers that were between her thighs against the side of her pulsating clitoris. With a scream of relief she came again, and as all her muscles contorted and tightened she realized that she was tightening around him as well and with a muffled groan he spilled himself into her while her whole body was still in the throes of her third orgasm of the afternoon.

For what seemed a very long time he continued to lie on top of her, as she waited for him to move. He was heavy against her trembling flesh, but at that moment she felt closer to him than she’d ever done before.

“You see,” he whispered in her ear. “There are many pathways to pleasure.”

When David eventually moved, he pulled her up off the bed and removed the harness and hood. “Time to take a bath and then change your clothes,” he said briskly. “We’re due down to dinner in just under an hour.”

Grace looked at him, longing to hold his naked body against hers, to smell and touch him. “I’ve never…” she began.

“It’s all part of your trial, we can’t discuss it,” he said abruptly.

She could have wept at the change in him, but these days she knew better than to let her feelings show during a trial. She was also coming to realize that this change actually increased the eroticism of the sex during the tests.

With the marks of the harness still imprinted on her skin she walked past him and down the few steps to the luxurious bathroom that she loved. When she came back, David had already showered and changed in another part of the Club.

“Here’s your dress. I think you’ll like it,” he said, handing her a floor-length, split-front, peach-colored asymmetric dress, with one strap over the right shoulder and a thin silver chain belt that emphasized her slender waist. “No underwear tonight,” he added.

Slipping it on, Grace discovered that the split at the front was so high she would have to be very careful how she moved if she didn’t want to reveal everything to all the diners tonight.

“Perfection,” he murmured, when she was ready. “Let’s just pull your hair round so that it falls over your left shoulder. It makes you look sophisticated and yet wanton. My favorite look.”

“Then I’m happy too,” she replied quietly.

David’s eyes widened for a second, as he tried to work out whether she meant it or not, and that helped give Grace the courage to face what lay ahead of her. If she’d come so far that she could take David by surprise, then nothing was going to stop her tonight. “Shall we go down?” she asked him, and with a nod he held the bedroom door open for her. The final stage of her last trial was about to begin.

By the time they entered the dining room, all the other tables were full, and several people turned to watch as Grace walked to table four. She kept her back straight and her head high, the feel of David’s guiding hand in the small of her back giving her some badly needed reassurance. No matter how much she tried, she couldn’t forget Amber’s words earlier, and the thought of being hooded and bound terrified her.

She saw several men glance at her appreciatively as she passed, but concentrated her gaze on Andrew, who was already sitting waiting at table four. He smiled warmly at her and stood up as David pulled out her chair.

“You look stunning,” he said appreciatively.