Temptation’s Edge (13 page)

To do as he wished.

She realized in some far-off fashion that this was what turning herself over to him meant. And she was doing it now, no questions asked. There would be plenty of time for questions later. But for now, it was all about her and Connor and what they would create here together.

She couldn’t think even for one moment how temporary “together” might be for them.

She heard him—sensed him—stepping back, away from her, then there was a pause in which she drew in a long breath and held it. She waited, her skin alive, as though every nerve ending was on high alert. She let out her breath, drew in another. And again, she waited while the music beat a sensual cadence around her. Behind the music were the sounds of other people: voices talking in low tones, sighs, moans of pain or pleasure. The sounds that were particular to this sort of place: the quiet hiss of ropes moving, the clink of metal on metal, the slap of leather on flesh.

Still she waited for something to happen. She let her breath go, stopped thinking so much about it. Made a conscious effort to slow her hammering heartbeat. To calm her nerves. To block out the sounds of the club and look within.

Her body was simmering, a low, steady beat of desire, a thrum of anticipation so strong it felt like electricity in her veins. An acute awareness of Connor standing behind her, as if he were almost
a part of her body, so that knowing he was there did nothing to pull her back out of herself, away from this inner exploration.

She felt beautiful. Turned on to an almost ridiculous degree. Lost in need.

She let out her next breath on a long sigh. And before her lungs had emptied there was a sharp snap in the air and an even sharper sting on the left cheek of her ass.

“Oh!”

It was followed immediately by Connor moving in to cup his big palm over the sting.

He didn’t say anything, just stepped back after a moment and hit her again.

This time she was less surprised by it. More able to let her body sink into the sensation. A small crop, she thought, from the light weight of it on her flesh. He hit her again, a little harder this time, and for some reason it made her smile.

Oh, this is where we really get into it.

It was what she wanted.
Needed
.

Another stinging rasp, then another. He was picking up speed, working in a crisscross pattern over her buttocks and thighs. With each stroke pleasure rose, as though embedded in the stinging sensation itself. She was squirming just a little, just enough to absorb the impact, to ride out the surges of pleasure.

He began to hit her harder. Harder and harder, until she was breathless with it. Finally, one really hard nick with the leather tip of the crop and she cried out.

His arms were immediately around her waist, his enormous body pressing into her from behind. His hands went to her breasts. He caressed them lightly, his fingertips dragging over her skin, then circling her nipples.

“You’re doing very well,” he whispered into her hair. “Amazing, to see the way you respond. Just like this…”

He pinched both nipples with hard fingers, and she jumped, her eyes flying open.

A low chuckle from him. “Ah, I love to see that. I love to bring you pain, almost as much as I love to bring you pleasure.”

His hand smoothed down over her belly, between her thighs, where he found her clit right away. She arched her hips into his hand as he rolled the rigid flesh between his fingers.

“Tell me, darlin’, are you wet for me?”

“Yes,” she gasped.

“I’ll have to see for myself.” He slipped his hand into the wet heat between her thighs, his fingers pushing inside her. “Ah, beautiful.”

“Connor…”

“What is it?”

“I need…more…”

Another low chuckle from him, then he let her go, moved away from her again, making her groan in disappointment. She could barely stand it, his teasing of her. The way her cuffed ankles forced her thighs apart, the air cool on her soaking pussy.

He began again, a slow volley of smacks with a flogger this time—she knew by the feel of thick suede on her back. He used a crisscross motion again. It didn’t really hurt at first. It was simply a means for her to fall into a rhythm as he kept time with the music playing through the speakers. She closed her eyes again. Let herself sink into the fall of leather on her flesh. Although thinking of it as “letting” was silly, she thought from the far-off place in her head. She was helpless against it: the rhythm, the pleasure, the need for exactly what he was doing to her.

It went on for a long time, it seemed, before he began to use a faster pace, to hit harder. The thud of the flogger became sharper, the impact making her body bow. When he moved it lower, smacking her hard across the ass, she yelped. He stopped
while she stamped her feet, pain reverberating through her body like an echo: a stinging heat, a strange sort of ecstasy. And after the pain was a rush of endorphins, making her float.

“Oh…”

“Good, darlin’?”

“Oh yes.”

He let her sail on the chemicals flooding her brain for a few moments before he struck her again. Another hard hit, the flogger biting into her flesh. She handled it better this time, in silence. And again he let her ride out the pain, allowing her time to revel in the chemical rush, the pure pleasure of it. The pride in being able to take it.

He struck again, a powerful blow. Her body moved under the heavy impact, but she remained silent, even as pleasure flooded her body, surged through her.

She felt the small trickle of her own juices slip down the inside of one thigh.

He was behind her again, his hands on her, and she curved her back, pressing into his body. Felt his erection through the denim of his jeans against the crease at the top of her buttocks.

He wrapped one arm around her waist again, his hand splayed across her stomach. The other hand he used to smooth over the sore skin of her back, up and down her spine, soothing her. Then he did something that was entirely new for her. He took the soft skin at her side, just below her underarm, and grabbed it, pinching it hard.

She gasped.

“Does it hurt you, sweetheart?”

“Yes!”

“But is it good?”

Her mind was spinning, her body cycling through pain and
pleasure so quickly she could barely keep track of which sensation was which. “Yes…it’s good.”

He did it again, fast, aggressively, grabbing and pressing handfuls of skin in his big hand, letting go, moving down and doing it again, then up again, until she was squirming hard against his arm, unable to hold still. She was panting as the pain got worse. And just when she was certain she couldn’t take any more, he stopped, his hand slipping around her to massage her aching, swollen clitoris, flooding her with pure pleasure. At the same time he placed soft, tender kisses at the back of her neck, the top of her spine, between her shoulder blades, making her body, her heart, melt.

What was happening to her? Not the pain—she understood that on some very primal level. But her heart—how had that become involved?

The idea was so vague in her dazed mind she could barely hang on to it. She was too far gone to be really frightened by it. All she knew was a sense of wonder. A sense of alien unfamiliarity.

Later…

Yes, everything else later but what was happening
now
. What she needed. What
he
wanted of her. The driving need to please him that had been growing since the moment they’d walked into the club.

He was really working her clit now, exquisite sensation pouring through her, making her writhe, only the cuffs and Connor’s strong arm around her keeping her on her feet.

“Connor…”

“What is it, my girl?” he murmured into the back of her neck.

“I need—” She gasped as pleasure arced through her like a thousand-watt jolt. “I need to…”

“Come?”

“Yes!”

He worked her swollen clit harder, making it hurt, pinching and tugging. He lowered his other hand and used it to pinch her pussy lips painfully. It was exactly what she needed.

“Oh!”

“Come then, my darlin’ girl. Come in pain, come with pleasure. Come into my hands.” His voice grew stern with command. “Do it now.”

Her body exploded, sensation lightning hot. Electric. She arched hard into his hands, cried out. Came so hard she shook with the force of it, her body shuddering with wave after wave.

Still he worked her clitoris mercilessly, the lips of her sex, then he plunged his fingers inside her, curving them to hit her G-spot. And before she was really done coming another climax ripped through her—or perhaps it was simply more of the first. She didn’t know. It didn’t matter. Nothing did but his big hands on her. Bringing her pain and pleasure so intertwined there was no way to tell the two apart. It all merged in her system, in her head, shattering her completely.

She was sagging against the cuffs, against his arms around her, the weight of her as sweet to Connor as her scent. Her damp, perfumed flesh. A faint scent of come in the air. He breathed it in, held it in his lungs for a long moment. Then he reached up and uncuffed first one delicate wrist, then the other. He checked them for circulation and was satisfied with their color before bending to release her ankles, then he carried her to the chair behind the cross and laid her on his lap.

She weighed nothing. She was fucking beautiful.

He could feel the heat of the welts across her back, her buttocks,
even through his jeans. He’d been careful not to break her skin, to damage her tattoos. All that was left was this lovely heat, the gorgeous flush on her skin. The pink of the welts from where he’d flogged and cropped her. The pretty pink on her cheeks, her breasts. The deeper red of her nipples that were almost as beautifully scarlet as her lush mouth. The indescribably luscious pink of her shaved pussy resting against his thigh.

He tore his gaze from her body to look at her face. Her eyes were a blue glimmer from beneath half-closed lids, her long lashes resting against her high, rounded cheekbones.

Christ, but she was lovely, this girl. In every possible way. His cock was a raging hammer of desire between his legs, the pulse-beat of need driving into his belly. But the need was more than the desire to push inside her body, to fuck her as hard as he could, although that was certainly there. He wouldn’t be human not to feel those things right now. But it wasn’t just the sex or the power play. It was Mischa.

He gently pushed a stray strand of pale hair from her face. Her expression was dazed, serene. She was full of endorphins. Which was a good thing because he needed a moment to get his racing pulse under control.

Control.

That was the key. He’d come to know it early on, long before his first forays into the BDSM scene. He’d known it even as a boy, when he didn’t yet have enough of it to stop his father…

Don’t think of him now. Don’t let him ruin this.

Ah, but ultimately, he’d let his father ruin everything, hadn’t he? His childhood, his mother, every relationship he’d ever had. Which was why he no longer had them.

Why, then, was his God damn traitorous heart telling him
this
woman was meant to be his? Not even a full week he’d known her…

“Connor?”

He heard the doubt in her voice.

“Yes?”

“Are you…Did I do well?”

And damn it, he’d let her see some expression, some scowl, that had let her think he wasn’t pleased with her.

“You were amazing. Perfect.”

He stroked her cheek again. Not because there was any hair there to push away, but simply to feel the satin of her skin beneath his fingertips. To see the smile it brought to her face.

He kept her there, lounging in his lap. Kept his hands on her: her face, her shoulders, her stomach. He was still hard, so hard it hurt. But the sex didn’t seem to matter as much as just doing this did. Watching her come down from her endorphin high. Watching over her.

He always felt protective with any of the girls he played, but with Mischa it went to a whole other level. It was more than him doing his job as a good dominant. It was more than a sense of responsibility. It was, in the simplest terms, what he most wanted to do at that moment.

Insanity.

Yet he was still doing it. Still wanted to.

She was shivering the slightest bit, and he pulled a blanket off the back of the chair and wrapped it around her shoulders, massaging her arms. She sighed, leaned her head against his chest. And soon she was asleep.

He stayed still with Mischa on his lap, watching her sleep as he had when they’d been in bed. When a dom unknown to him approached, whether to ask if they were done with the cross or simply to introduce himself, Connor warned him off with a long, hard glare. They were still in scene, as far as he was concerned,
and he wouldn’t allow anyone to intrude. No one was going to disturb his girl during aftercare. No one.

He looked down at her face once more, and realized how fiercely he felt the need to care for her.

Hell, he
did
care for her.

There was no way he could bullshit himself out of this one.