I stared at Zach with incredulity. Having just arrived at his house in Seacliff, he had led me directly into the kitchen and informed me, “You need to eat something.”
I was still shaking with need and anticipation of sex. Food was not what I had in mind.
“I’m not hungry.” I tried to reach for him, to wrap my arms around his waist, and was stung when he pulled away.
Zach saw my hurt expression and huffed out a breath, raking a hand through his hair. He looked irritated, which didn’t help to soothe me at all. Biting my lip, I studied the vast expanse of veined marble counter, the sleek chrome appliances, the overhanging copper pots and pans that, if I had to guess, I would say had never been used. I was forced to again focus on Zach when pulling me into his arms, he pressed a quick kiss to my forehead, then released me. “I’m not used to having to explain myself, Devon.”
Not entirely placated, I narrowed my eyes and moved out of his reach. I felt as if ice water had just been poured over the live wires of my nerves, and I didn’t much care for the sensation.
He followed me with his stare, assessing my mood. I was on edge, and met his appraising glance with one of my own.
He sighed, then slid a glass of water down the marble counter toward me. I took it after a long pause, and had to admit to myself that the icy liquid felt incredible on my raw throat.
“You agreed that tonight I would take you deeper into my world. Well, we’ve only just begun.” I coughed as a too-large gulp of water forced its way down my throat.
We had only just begun? I had expected that as soon as we got here we would satisfy the lust that had been riding me for the last week, but Zach’s words made it sound as though I was about to be led to a land from which there was no return.
Perhaps there wasn’t. I knew that I had only experienced a taste of his dominance, and I was ready to admit I craved more.
“What does that have to do with my eating?” Truly, I was so worked up that I didn’t think I could possibly swallow a mouthful. I didn’t understand why he was pressing the issue. “I’m really not hungry, Zach.”
Frustration painted his features and I watched, fascinated, as he worked to smooth it away.
“When you put yourself in my hands, I am responsible for your welfare.” I could hear in his tone that he really didn’t care for having to explain himself. Though there were so many levels on which I truly wanted to please him, in this situation I found that I liked provoking him.
I suspected that, in the end, his frustration would lead to my pleasure.
“Zach.” I wanted to move on to that pleasure right now. The stolen touches in the theater had only whetted my appetite. I wanted an entire night in which I could touch him, could look at his magnificent body, could feel his skilled hands on my own. “Please.”
“I need you to eat something, Devon.” Turning from the fridge, he slid a bowl of raspberries down the counter to me. They reminded me of the night that we had met, and my cheeks flushed.
His voice was tight, and the look on his face told me that he wouldn’t give on this matter.
“I need to know that you are going to have the strength for what I have planned for you. Now eat.”
My initial reaction was to refuse, just on principle.
“Devon.” Exasperation thick in his voice, he raked his hands through his hair again, then tugged at it. “I shouldn’t have to explain. Just do it.”
I didn’t appreciate being spoken to like a parent might to an errant child. Looking down at the bowl pointedly, I crossed my arms tightly over my chest.
“I want to know why.” I held my breath, nerves slicing through me with jagged edges. I might have just pushed him too far, and I knew it.
He had said that he wasn’t ready to share. From what I had seen, he might not ever be ready. But I couldn’t just obey him blindly. There were things I needed to know.
Things like, what did he have planned that would be so strenuous that I needed food in my belly?
Nerves danced over my skin with even greater force than before, and I eyed him with uncertainty.
He scowled. I refused to break eye contact.
Finally, begrudgingly, he spoke. “A few years ago there was a woman I was involved with. I had always been careful before her, and nothing bad had ever happened. I relaxed some of my rules with her. She wound up in the hospital, and never forgave me.”
A small sound snuck past my lips. What had he and this woman from the past been doing that she ended up in the hospital, no matter what his rules were? I opened my mouth to ask the question, and to demand to know if he had something similar planned for me, but he shook his head before the words could leave my lips.
“I’m not telling you what I have planned for you. And I’m not talking about anything else from my past.” A quick glance at him told me that he was entirely serious. Just those few simple sentences seemed to have drawn great amounts of energy from him, and I started to understand then what it cost him to visit those demons from his past.
With that in mind, I pulled a plump, juicy red berry to my lips and took a bite, holding his gaze the entire time.
“You’re learning.” A relieved and self-satisfied smile curled Zach’s lips, and in response I threw a raspberry at him, deliberately trying to lighten the mood. He was only too willing to move on, and he caught it in his mouth, drawing a giggle out of me.
Things between us felt so light, so blessedly normal, that I couldn’t believe it had only been hours earlier that I had been convinced we were done.
I bit into another berry. Zach’s stare followed the movements of my lips, my tongue, as I chewed and swallowed.
“Did you enjoy what we saw tonight?” Walking—no, he stalked—across the kitchen toward me, he pulled my fingers from the bowl of berries and fed the next one to me himself. I made sure that my tongue swept across the pads of his fingers as I accepted the fruit, nodding as I chewed and swallowed.
“You are amazing, Devon.” I shook my head when he lifted another piece of red fruit. With him standing so close, I could smell that essence that was so uniquely him, and I had tightened all over with need.
I didn’t want any more food. Not one more bite. I wanted him.
Shoving the bowl to the side with barely restrained excitement, Zach bent at the knees and swept me off of my feet, quite literally. My arms curled around his neck with barely restrained glee as his arms tucked beneath my knees and my butt.
He may have meant it as a display of power, but it made my heart stumble in my chest. I tried to swallow down the feelings that blossomed under his tender touch, knowing that he wasn’t in any place to reciprocate them, and only just succeeded in hiding them.
At the moment, I would take any part of this man that I could get. And if it meant hiding away the fact that I was starting to care for him, really, truly care for him, then that was what I would do.
Kicking open the door to his bedroom, he strode across the carpet before depositing me gently on his meticulously made bed. I thought of how he had awakened, tangled in nightmares, in that same bed, and felt a frisson of uncertainty.
No matter how I felt about him, at the core I knew next to nothing about him. Whatever was about to happen, I was placing a large amount of trust in him.
I looked up to find him watching me with a shuttered expression.
“You can still decide, Devon. Yes or no.” His face revealed nothing. “But once we begin, you need to trust me. That trust is the basis of this entire relationship. You will have your safe word, but you have to have faith that I am not going to push you past what I know you can handle.”
This was it, the decisive moment that would decide the path of our future. I could say no, could turn around and walk back into my calm, normal life.
The life that had felt like it belonged to someone else. The life that couldn’t hold a candle to what I had experienced since I met Zach.
“Yes.” It was all that I needed to say. Before my eyes I watched Zach channel the dominant aspect of himself. He seemed to grow taller, stronger, more arrogant, and yet at the same time I felt myself relaxing into his presence.
No harm would come to me around this man. He would protect me with his own life. I was sure of it.
He stared at me, unblinking. I held his gaze and found it intensely uncomfortable—it agitated my soul. I found that what I wanted to do was sink to my knees on the floor at his feet, but the little voice in my head that hadn’t completely surrendered argued against that notion. As a compromise I folded my hands in my lap, and stared down at the place where my fingers became tightly entwined.
“Very good.” His voice was benevolent, a king speaking to his subject. He went further, leaning forward and catching my chin with his finger, tilting my face up and giving me permission to look him in the eye.
“Devon, I am going to go retrieve some objects that I wish to use with you. When I return, you will have shed all of your clothing except for your panties. You will be sitting on the bed exactly as you are now, your hands folded in your lap, your eyes down.” Without pausing to see if I had heard or understood, Zach left the room. I blinked after him, my heart racing, then hurried to do as he had said.
My fingers trembled as I undid the waist ties of my scarlet blouse. Not having the patience to fold it neatly, I still caught it before it fell to the floor and draped it over Zach’s massive wooden dresser. My skirt followed, and then my bra.
By the time I sat back down on the cool sheets, clad in nothing but the thin cotton of my plain white bikini panties, I was shaking with nerves.
Everything that Zach had introduced me to so far, I had thrilled to. I knew, however, from his earlier indications, that he was about to take me deep, far deeper than my mind could currently contemplate.
I tried to slow my breaths, which were huffing from my chest. My fingers, which were laced together in my lap as he had commanded, were icy cold and slick with sweat.
I started to look up when I heard Zach return to the room, but caught myself halfway, certain that that would earn me a reprimand. I stayed still, tracking his movements in my mind’s eye as he moved around the room this way and that, finally returning to stand before me.
“Undress me.” His voice was coarse, almost cruel in its intonation. I looked up, into his face, and he hissed in warning, but not until I saw and recognized that he had become a completely different person. No, that wasn’t entirely correct. The Zach that I knew was still there, but in this situation, he was also . . . something more.
I had experienced enough with Zach to know what he was capable of, even when he wasn’t fully channeling his dominant side. And wondering what was to come now made me instantly wet.
“Start with my shirt.” I stood and lifted my fingers to the top button of his dress shirt. He had removed his tie himself at some point, and I was thankful, because I wasn’t sure that my trembling fingers could have dealt with a Windsor knot.
The small buttons running down the front of the shirt were enough trouble. I fumbled, slipping several times and having to retry. He said nothing, his patience infinite, despite the lack of grace to my movements, and finally the shirt hung open, revealing the glorious, tawny expanse of his chest.
I ran a palm over one of his pectoral muscles, and a fierce noise issued from his throat.
“I have not given you permission to touch me, slave.” I reared back at the title. Slave? I wasn’t sure I was into that at all. Glaring at him, I took my hand away, daring him to say it again.
“Only when you accept how sexually submissive you truly are, Devon, are you going to find what you’re looking for.” Irritation began to burn in my fingertips, traveling up my arms and out to the rest of my body.
Much as I didn’t know him, he didn’t know me, either.
I stepped back, hesitating. I knew that I could end this at any time. I had my safe word.
Zach watched me calmly, his face unyielding. I pinched my lips together and told myself to get over it.
Did it really matter what he called me? It didn’t change the fact that I wanted him, wanted him badly.
“Good girl.” Zach spoke as the tension left my shoulders, my decision made. I thrilled to his praise, happy to have pleased him.
“Remove my shirt from my body. Then my pants.” Tentatively I resumed my work, unbuttoning the cuffs of linen that bound his wrists and peeling the fabric from his torso. His skin, naked and glowing in the fading light revealed by the great panes of glass in the walls and ceiling, made me sigh and long to touch.
“Zach.” I dug my nails into my palms to keep from reaching out for him. He glared down at me, his brow furrowed, and I knew that I had done something wrong.
“While we are in this bedroom, you will call me ‘master,’ or ‘sir.’ Do you understand?” I stared at him, my mouth parted in surprise.
Was he serious? What did it matter what I called him? But each time his dominant instructions brought me up short, I realized anew that it didn’t do anything to lessen the desperate want I felt toward him.
In response to my hesitancy, Zach reached out and gave a quick slap to my left hip, hard enough to sting. I jolted, shying out of his reach, but he followed, staying too close for me to relax.
“I asked if you understood me. Answer.” He wasn’t joking. There was no hint of levity on his face at all.
I stuttered twice as I tried to reply.
“Yes . . . sir. I understand.” Sir I could swallow. I wasn’t about to call him master.
Wary now, I reached out for his waistband, half expecting to be scolded for that, too. But he had given me permission to remove his pants, and so he said nothing as I unbuckled and removed his belt, then unzipped his trousers and sent them tumbling to the floor.
“Pick them up.” Bending at the waist, I retrieved the garment, folding it neatly and placing it on the dresser with my own clothing. I coiled the belt on top of it, shuddering with a mixture of pleasure and wariness as I remembered his use of it on me days earlier.
“Come here.” Nervously, I crossed back to where Zach still stood. He was now gloriously naked, completely bare before my eyes, but I wasn’t allowed to lift my eyes from the floor.
When I reached him he turned me, sliding his hands over my shoulders and down my rib cage, brushing the sensitive sides of my breasts as he stroked his way back up my body.
Trailing his fingers delicately over the nape of my neck, he wrapped his hand around my long ponytail. As he tugged gently, I could feel him tying the length in a knot, ensuring that the abundance of hair was completely out of the way.
“Now, let’s discuss your punishment.” I gasped as he drew me back against him sharply, using his hands to press my hips back against him. His cock, which was erect if not completely hard, nestled in the crevice between my buttocks, and I fought the urge to grind myself back against him.
“My punishment?” I was truly puzzled. I was trying to follow his orders, I really was.
“Though some of your recent activities leave much to be desired, there is only one thing that you are to be punished for tonight.” His lips brushed over my ear and I shivered involuntarily, even as my gut clenched at his words.
This was not something that I was going to like. I was somehow certain of it. Still, the brush of his fingers, following the trail of warm breath along my neck, told me that I would like anything he told me to.
“What have I done?” A sharp pinch on the nerve that lay in the tender spot where my neck met my shoulder reminded me that he hadn’t given me permission to speak. Grinding my teeth together with frustration, I quieted, though I didn’t want to.
“Your former lover placed his hands on you.” Shock whipped through me and I tried to turn, to confront him over the unfairness of his comment. His hands had come to rest on my waist, holding me still, and I was forced to speak while looking away from him.
“That is not at all fair. I didn’t invite Tom to San Francisco. And I certainly didn’t ask him to touch me!” Surely Zach wasn’t serious. He couldn’t be.
He squeezed my waist, his touch firm.
“You placed yourself in a situation in which he was able to lay his hands on you.” I jolted forward, twisting this time until I did break free from Zach’s touch. As if he had been expecting it, he said nothing, simply eyeing me contemplatively.
“We went for coffee, Zach. Coffee. And I managed to get some closure. So what’s the problem?” I found that I was angry, truly angry now. Somehow, I had thought that these games that Zach and I were playing would be based upon honesty, and this seemed like a ruse.
I was humbled by his next words. “You didn’t consider how it would make me feel, seeing you with another man.” I opened my mouth to retort, then closed it quietly when I realized that I had nothing to say.
By telling me this, by punishing me for this, he was opening a part of himself up. He had just told me that I had the power to hurt him. And that seeing me with another man, someone I used to date, had hurt him.
It made me want to please him all the more.
Still . . . “Haven’t you already punished me for this?” I thought of the pain wrought by the supple leather of his belt, and something red and slick rolled over in my gut.
Zach shook his head slowly, and I caught the glint in his eye that told me that he was thoroughly enjoying this.
“A quick fuck in an elevator is not proper punishment for how you made me feel, Devon.” Gesturing across the room with his right arm, he motioned for me to look. Turning, I saw a large wooden post positioned by the glass wall, so that if someone leaned against it, they could peer out at the raging waves of the sea at the same time.
Coiled on the floor at the base of the post was the whip that I had held in my hand before. I felt my heart skip a beat, then resume its pounding, double time.
I knew, without a doubt, that the whip was not about to be used on me.
“You said that you would whip me, if I still wanted you to.” The expression in Zach’s eyes was flat as he looked at me. The need for him to be punished ran deeper than I had ever imagined.
I tried to hide it, because he wouldn’t have appreciated it at all, but sympathy washed over me in a wave. What was it that clawed at his soul? What made him crave such punishment? “Zach.” Before, his request to be whipped had seemed to be a knee-jerk reaction, something to help scrub away the residue of his nightmare. Now, I could see how deep he truly craved it. I could also see that it wasn’t fully about him.
He knew that I was uncomfortable with this. Therefore this was the punishment for my flagrant disregard of his feelings. I wished I could explain to him that I hadn’t been intentionally careless with what he felt.
Rather, I hadn’t had any clue that I was capable of making him feel anything at all.
Humbled, my head reeling, I crossed the room and picked up the whip. My fingers were cold, numb, and they felt clumsy as I wrapped them around the thick length of the handle.
I couldn’t speak. But I could give this to him. Starting to tremble with the knowledge of what I was about to do, I looked up at the beautiful, complex man before me and nodded once, sharply.
“Good girl.” He wasn’t as joyous as he might have been, having won this battle. As he crossed the room to the post, and I saw the stiffness in the lines of his frame, I began to see how deep the connection between his need for pleasure and pain and his nightmares ran.
“Do you remember how to do this?” He twisted, looked back at me before positioning himself at the post. I let my mind run back to the sensation of his hand over mine, swinging through the air, the tail of the whip cracking as it landed on the floor.
I shuddered, and not with pleasure, before forcing myself to nod.
“I remember.” What I was about to do, I did entirely for Zach.
I watched numbly as he positioned himself against the tall wooden post. Lifting his arms above his head, he pressed a cheek against the smooth, pale width and widened the stance of his legs.
“You are going to give me five blows.” His voice told me that there would be no arguing. “And I will know if you are holding back.”
I watched as he closed his eyes. He was completely on display as he leaned against the post, the twilight shadows casting interesting art on the glory of his body. I found myself pondering the dichotomy of a being so perfect on the outside, and so twisted and scarred within.
“Devon!” It sounded as though he spoke through gritted teeth. I cringed, then lifted the hand holding the whip.
I would do this quickly, and get it over with.
Every muscle in my body was tense. But despite myself, I could sense his need for what I was about to do to him. With my hand lifted in the air, I froze, not sure if I would be able to follow through.
Then I looked at the man standing in front of me. I had asked him to open himself up. Though this was not at all what I had imagined, I had gotten my wish.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I sent the whip flying.
I knew before it landed that I had missed, the tip hitting the floor inches to the right of Zach’s foot.
He said nothing, no chastisement, no further encouragement. I watched his reflection in the glass. He waited, his eyes closed, his expression blank.
Pure sensation crashed over me as I watched him standing there. Feelings that I hadn’t wanted clenched around my heart with needy fingers and squeezed tightly.
In that moment I would have done anything for him. And so I lifted the whip again, and this time brought it home.
• • •
The moment the fifth lash had been administered, I collapsed on the floor, my knees no longer able to support me. Though my throat felt besieged with emotions, my eyes remained dry as I watched the man in front of me unfurl from his position at the post, his back striped liberally with red, and one small cut of crimson where the lash had dug too deep.
“I’m sorry.” My heart pounded, the blood that rushed through my ears sounding like the hooves of a horse in full gallop. “I am so sorry. Please. Please forgive me.” I began to tremble, icy cold spreading over my skin.
Zach knelt on the floor next to me, and began to rain tender kisses over my face, my shoulders, my neck.
“You darling girl, don’t be sorry.” He seemed lighter than he had since I had met him, as if the blows of the whips had chased away some of the demons that haunted him. “You have helped me so much. You’ve done so well. It is time for your reward.”
I sniffled, determined not to cry. I watched with wide eyes as he stood and then helped me to my feet.
Heat began to rain down over the chill that permeated my body when he danced his eyes over me, looking his fill at my naked flesh. His cock rose as he stared intensely at the damp heat between my legs, which was still partially hidden by the thin white cotton of my panties.
“Take those off.” He was again in full control. I felt as if a piece of myself that I used to know had been bulldozed to the ground, and I didn’t have the strength to argue or to question.
Hooking my fingers in the elastic at my hips, I pulled the cotton down until it dropped to the floor. Unabashed, Zach drank in the view of my naked pussy with greedy eyes.
“Sit on the end of the bed.” As I moved to obey, he brought a large bag over to me. Reaching inside, he removed two objects, one of which I recognized, one that I didn’t.
He handed me the one that was unfamiliar. It was composed of four connected beads that were graduated in size with a ring at one end. I couldn’t imagine what it was for.
“You liked watching the two men fuck at the club, didn’t you?” As he spoke, he unscrewed the lid from the object that I did recognize—a tube of lubricant.
Heat spread over my skin as he drizzled a stream of thick, clear gel over the string of beads that I held in my hands.
“You know I did.” What had turned me on even more was that the entirely masculine Zach had been just as into the scene as I was.
“Anal play feels good for both men and women.” Closing the tube of lubricant, Zach reached over and rubbed it into my fingers. My entire body tightened with excitement.
“You’ve given me pain tonight, and now I want to share in the pleasure.” He turned away from me, my eyes level with his trim waist, and I could feel my clitoris pulsing with the heat of extreme arousal.
This was not something I could ever have imagined, but I was so, so into it.
“What . . . what do I do?” I felt again that he was allowing me to be empowered, even though he was the one telling me what to do.
I had never before in my life felt so in control, and I relished the sensation.
“Rub some of the lubricant over me.” I did as he said, placing my slick hands on his flesh, massaging the liquid in.
Fully aware of the ultimate goal, I held my breath and trailed one finger up to the entrance of his ass. When I pressed against the pucker of his anus, the tip of my finger breached his flesh, pulling tightly at me.
He hissed in a breath, then moaned long and slow.
“Now take the beads.” I removed my finger from his heat, shuddering with need. “Hold them by the ring, then press the smallest bead right where your finger just was.”
I did as I was told, my every nerve on fire. I placed the smallest bead against his anus, then pushed, slowly.
Zach let out a strangled moan and pushed back against me. The first bead slid inside his flesh.
Perspiration dotted my brow, and yet I felt myself grow wetter between my thighs.
“Now the next one.” It was harder to get the bigger bead in, for his flesh fought the intrusion. Finally all four beads were buried tightly inside his body, the ring snugged against the hard planes of his ass.
Zach turned then, and I saw that his cock was engorged to what had to be the point of pain. Fisting his hands in my hair, he brought me just close enough to reach out and flick my tongue over the semen that had pooled at the tip of his shaft.
“One day soon I’m going to fuck your ass with my cock.” I whimpered, then closed my mouth over the tip of his cock. He allowed me just a taste before positioning me back on the bed and flipping me so that I lay on my stomach.
One finger stroked down the trail of my spine, skirting my ass and delving into the slickness of my pussy. Using my own wetness to ease his path, he pressed his finger against my anus and pressed until he breached the firm ring of muscle.
I cried out, pressing my face into the cool, crisp covers of the bed. With just the tip of his finger he fucked forward and back, just teasing me with a sample of what he must have been feeling at that very moment.
“You’ve been so very patient, Devon.” Pulling his finger from me, I felt him reach for the bag that had held the anal beads and the lubricant. What he removed this time sounded metallic, and I lifted my head, trying to see.
“Be patient just a little bit more, little minx.” Pulling at my hips until my pelvis and legs hung off the bed, he placed his hands between my thighs and shoved them far apart.
“I want your legs as wide open as they can get.” I felt him kneel behind me on the carpet. “I’m going to be deeper inside of you than anyone has ever been.” He placed one hand on my inner thigh. With the other he shoved a finger right into my waiting cunt, moving back and forth several times in quick succession.
My hips bucked against him, my movements hindered by the bar.
“I’m going to fuck you until you are sore. Tomorrow, every time that you move, you’ll think of my cock, deep inside of your cunt.”
“Zach.” I shifted restlessly. I wanted—no, needed—his touch.
“I’m not done yet.” Only then did he let me see what he had pulled from the bag. It looked like nothing so much as a thin silver clothespin. Its twin joined it, and I eyed them warily, fairly certain that I wouldn’t like what was about to happen.
“That’s going to hurt.” My arms were still free, and I covered my breasts with my hands. An arch look from Zach had me dropping them again, albeit reluctantly.
“I promised that I wouldn’t take you further than you could go.” Before I could say another word, he began to roll one of my already-erect nipples in his hand, pulling and pinching until it was a hard point. I arched into his hand involuntarily, and with experienced fingers he had the nipple clamp in place on the tip of my breast.
“Ouch!” I shook, hoping that it would fall off. He took advantage of my distraction to clamp my second breast. I inhaled sharply as a painful sensation burned its way over both globes of my heavy breasts, spreading to my collarbone, my rib cage, and making it hard to breathe.
“Once more.” I was lifted yet again and twisted, my front again pressed into the bed, my ass presented fully. The pain from the clamps on my nipples eased a bit when I rested them on my bed, but I could feel blood rushing to the spot where the metal pinched into my skin, and found that the tips were becoming quite numb. It was an incredibly strange mix of sensations.
“Now.” Zach pulled one final object from his magic bag of tricks. He held it out so that I could see, and when my eyes took in the pale wood of what was unmistakably a paddle, one side polished to a shine, the other covered with some sort of fur, I shook my head vehemently.
“No way.” I just wanted him to fuck me already—was that really too much to ask? I’d whipped him, I had clamps on my nipples, and he had told me that I wasn’t permitted to close my legs. I didn’t think I could handle anything else.
Zach stilled, and his face when he looked down at me was deadly serious.
“Do you truly mean ‘no,’ Devon?” His eyes searched my face for the truth. “Are you safe-wording on me?”
I opened my mouth, then closed it. If I used my safe word, then this—this entire strange, sensory, emotional journey—was completely over.
No. I wasn’t going to end things now.
Inhaling deeply as I thought of that paddle smacking against the bare skin of my ass, I buried my face in the covers, waiting for him to do as he would.
“We’ll only do ten blows tonight. You’ve been through a lot.” I choked on my own saliva at his pronouncement. Only ten blows?
Shit.
“Count for me, Devon.” This was the only warning I had, and then the hard side of the wooden paddle was smacking against the flesh of my right ass cheek. I cried out as fire spread across my skin.
“One.” I sucked in air as I waited for the second blow. My ass burned against the cool air.
“Two!” This was hit against the other side of my butt. It burned just as much.
Three, four. Nine, ten. I screamed out the last number, the paddle on my already-burning flesh just too much for me to handle. Tears leaked out the sides of my eyes as I clutched my fingers into the sheets, gasping as I tried to catch my breath.
Behind me I could hear that Zach’s breath was labored, as well. I knew that if I turned around, I would find him as hard as he had ever been, ready to plunge himself into my waiting heat.
First, something soft pressed against the heated skin of my rear. I winced and shied away from the touch until I realized that he was rubbing the fur side of the paddle over my abraded skin.
Though strange at first, I finally arched into the sensation, which was cool and refreshing and oh so soft.
Then the paddle went away. I heard it hit the ground and braced myself, knowing what was coming.
It was still a shock when Zach grabbed my waist, pressed my scorched behind to his pelvis, and seated himself inside my pussy in one rough thrust. I couldn’t hold back any longer and screamed as I felt myself filled to the edge of discomfort.
He wasn’t gentle, and he was big. He held me open with the hard muscles of his thighs. I couldn’t close my legs against the onslaught of sensation, and as such had to take his entire length and girth into my body, which fought against the intrusion.
“Aah!” He was so incredibly big, and I had nowhere to move to alleviate the sensation. As he began to thrust, his strokes deep and fast and rough, the pain tore an intense excitement from my very core, and I felt myself beginning to shudder around him.
“Not yet.” Sliding his hands between my torso and the bed as I began to tense in anticipation of climax, Zach’s fingers found the tips of my breasts and, in one quick movement, tugged the clamps off.
“Fuck!” Blood rushed back into the numb tips, making them so incredibly sensitive that the sheets dragging back and forth over them sent me over the edge. I screamed long and loud as my climax shattered my world, my body racked with the pleasure that Zach had introduced me to.
“No more.” He drew his erection from my drenched heat and rolled me onto my back. Stepping in between my splayed legs, he pressed back inside of my pussy and at the same time, bent and sucked a still-burning nipple into his warm, wet mouth.
I felt myself beginning to climb again. As he suckled my breast, he began to roll my clit between sure fingers.
The pleasure slammed back through me, and it rolled on and on. Dimly, as if from a distance, I heard Zach shout at me to remove his beads.
As if pushing through a fog of pleasure, I reached behind him and fumbled for the ring. Tugging as hard as I could while my own pleasure continued to crash over me, I felt the first bead give way, then the second, then the final two at once.
He pulled his cock out of my heat as I ripped the beads from his body. He shouted, his voice hoarse, and then I felt semen splatter wetly across my skin, scalding the tender flesh of my stomach.
I closed my eyes, wanting to savor every nuance of sensation. When I opened them again briefly, I saw Zach standing over me. Those incredible eyes of his regarded me with satisfaction, not a little bit of pride, and something else that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
I smiled up at him sleepily, then closed my eyes again, wanting to hold on to the bliss that was drifting throughout me.
For the first time in a long time, I felt at peace.
• • •
The first rays of morning light were washing over the bed when we finally settled down to sleep. I basked in the lemon yellow sunshine as I lay beside Zach on the bed.
I was wearing one of his T-shirts. He was wearing nothing. The covers had disappeared off of the bed and onto the floor sometime in the night, and so I snuggled into his side for warmth in the chilled early air.
I couldn’t remember a time when I had felt happier, really truly happy, not like I was just pretending.
After Zach had tenderly rubbed an ointment made of arnica and crisp-smelling tea tree into my tender bottom, he took me into his massive bathtub and washed off the traces of our passion with warm water and kisses. After an hour of soapy groping, we had fallen into his bed and made love again.
My little minx. He had whispered the words into my ear as he soaped my skin, and I couldn’t help but wonder if he realized what he had said. Either way, the tender endearment made my heart flutter and my insides melt.
Even without paddles, anal beads, or nipple clamps, he took to me to places that I had never even dreamed existed.
I was exhausted, but it was wonderful. It seemed like it was too good to be true when Zach spoke.
“Let’s go to Cambria.” I propped myself up on an elbow so that I could look down at his face. He seemed to be serious, and I felt my heart clench in my chest.
“Why?” My feelings had intensified during the night, to the point that I would go anywhere he asked me to.
Though I knew that I shouldn’t, I couldn’t squelch the hope that maybe, just maybe, he had feelings for me, too. Feelings that went beyond sex and his compulsion to dominate me.
I watched Zach shift uneasily under my scrutiny, and bit my teeth into my tongue. He had been so carefree, so easy during the long night. I didn’t want to remove all of that amazing progress by saying the wrong thing.
“I love Cambria. You love Cambria.” Rolling slightly, he pillowed his head on his hands. “A whole weekend in which I get to pleasure you however I want to, in a place we both love. Sounds like a good idea to me.”
My fingers itched to trace over the scarlet line on his back, the contusions where the whip had cut through his perfect skin. I knew that if I did, it would remind him of all of the shadows that had led him to demand that I rain those blows down on him.
Once again, I bit my tongue. I just wanted to enjoy the pleasure of his company, this easy togetherness, while it lasted, and I didn’t think that that was too much to ask.
“Sounds like a good idea to me, too.” Unable to resist, I feathered my fingers through the silk of his hair, inhaling the scent that rose from the touch.
As I eased myself back down beside him on the bed, he burrowed into the mattress, trying to get comfortable enough to sleep. Before he nodded off, he raised his head, something to tell me before he forgot.
“We’ll sleep as long as we want. Then Charles can drive us out.” Content, he lay back down, leaving me frozen and unhappy.
“Um, Zach. Can’t . . . can’t we just go ourselves? Just the two of us?” I had found that I liked Charles, I truly did. But he in no way factored in to the picture I had of Zach and me away from the city, a chance to work past that shell that he held around himself so tightly.
Beside me, I felt Zach stiffen. Though he didn’t move, all vestiges of sleep were gone from his voice when he spoke.
“Charles has to come, Devon. I don’t drive. We’ve talked about this.” He rolled more fully onto his side, indicating that the conversation was now over.
The idyllic peace that I had felt was gone, burnt away in that one quick moment. Agitation filled me up, anger that he had such ridiculous rules about his life—rules that were affecting me, too—but that he couldn’t, wouldn’t offer me an explanation. Or even compromise the slightest bit.
“I can drive, Zach. Then it will be just the two of us.” To me this sounded entirely logical—in fact, it made far more sense than having someone who was not a part of this relationship drive us all the way out there, only to spend his time waiting until we decided to go back again.
“No.” He still didn’t sit up, and I felt like thumping him over the head with a pillow. The issue wasn’t closed until we both agreed, and I didn’t agree.
“Zach, this doesn’t make sense. I can drive. I have a valid license. Please.” My voice became softer. I wasn’t going to beg, but I found that I wanted this time away with him quite desperately. “I want to be alone with you.”
Finally Zach sat up, and when he twisted on the mattress to face me I felt as though cold water was slowly trickling down my body. His face was set in a cruel sneer, and his eyes looked like black ice.
“This isn’t a relationship where we give and take and talk things through, Devon.” Standing, he looked down at me with a ruthless expression, and I suddenly felt silly to be wrapped in his oversized gray gym shirt, like a high school teen with her boyfriend’s letter jacket.
“What is it, then? Why don’t you tell me, exactly?” I stood, too, determined to meet him on equal ground. I could already feel my heart breaking yet again. The look on his face never led to anything good for us.
“I’ve told you all along that there are parts of my life that I won’t share. I live my life the way that I do for reasons that are my business and no one else’s. It’s how it is, and you can take it or leave it.” The expression on his face told me that he didn’t particularly care which option I chose.
At one point, I had been convinced that I meant something to him, something more than sex, even if he had no idea how to handle a traditional relationship.
But we had gone down this road so many times already in the brief time that we had been in each other’s lives. It began to dawn on me that I was being a fool, and I couldn’t even blame him for stringing me along.
He had told me what he did and didn’t want, had been completely honest the entire time. I had chosen not to listen, to read into things, to build dream castles where nothing at all could stand.
Damn if I would let him see how much he had affected me. I was stronger now than I had ever been, and if nothing else, Zachariah St. Brenton had shown me that I was worthy of a lot of things.
I deserved someone who wanted me the way that I wanted him.
I stood there in his T-shirt as the man I wanted so desperately walked away, shutting himself in the bathroom, shutting me out as he had done so many times before.
Yes, I deserved someone who would give me everything I wanted. The problem there was that all I desired was Zachariah St. Brenton.