Rae had changed back into her street clothes—a sundress with a billowy skirt—because Wulf told her to.
She waited on the blocky couch in Play Room Five, which Wulf had called the Blue Room. The stand lamps threw light on the ceiling and glared off the marble end tables, exposing everything in the room to harsh light. The fake candle sconces in the medieval dungeon rooms were more forgiving of a person’s flaws.
Rae’s skirt had drifted up when she sat down, and the scratchy couch upholstery irritated the backs of her thighs.
Her leg trembled at being back in the same room where her cousin had tried to assault her, but she admonished herself that the room wasn’t the problem and to stop being silly.
The vanilla candle had half-melted in its jar. The flame cast a shimmery glow up the far wall, and the room designed for sexual deviancy smelled like cookies.
The candle flicked, and she couldn’t check her phone for the time or play a game to pass the time because Wulf had once again forbade phones, so she sat on the couch and waited.
She scratched at the nubbly fabric, waiting.
The candle sputtered, and its glow on the blue wall above it sparkled. The flame settled back down to a steady burn.
Still waiting.
Maybe Wulf was trying to turn her into a Bella.
During some particularly stupid drunken banter at the party last week, the night she had met Wulf, Rae had insisted that she was not a Bella but a Katniss because she loved her family more than anything and because she could bowhunt.
That had gotten his attention. She was pretty sure that their conversation had interested him more than her screwing him against the wall in the bedroom with only inches of drywall separating them from the partying crowd.
Wulf seemed to be trying break down Rae and turn her into someone who would interest him less. That manipulative tendency to damage and dump, if that was what he was doing, suggested that smoke and emptiness swirled under his mirrored shell, just like Georgie and Lizzy had told Rae, and the very definition of a psychopath.
You know, maybe it was a really good idea that she had stopped having sex with Wulf. Besides protecting herself, Rae suspected that her opinion of the girl in the mirror would change fundamentally if she betrayed a friend. Lizzy was already in thrall to Wulf.
If anything, Rae had to rescue Lizzy from his influence, though she had no idea how to do that.
The brass doorknob clicked, turning, and Wulf strode in. He had taken off his suit jacket and was rolling his white shirt sleeves up to his elbows. Even the man hair on his arms was blond.
Rae hadn’t seen his chest, just his back, when she had stripped off his shirt in the training session last weekend, she realized. She had been standing behind him and pulled his crisp shirt down around his elbows, revealing that terrible, twisted gunshot scar on his back, perilously near his spine, and the tattoo around it, but she hadn’t seen his chest.
From across the room, he asked, “Do you submit?”
She knew this routine. “Yes.”
“Safe word?”
“Macbeth.”
He waved up at the black security sphere in the ceiling then flicked his hand like he was dismissing it. Had he told them to turn it off, like he had when he had screwed her from behind that very first “training” session? If he teased her again until she was desperate for him, Rae was not confident in her willpower to say no.
Wulf kicked the door closed behind him and twitched one pale eyebrow, a nifty trick. “Have you been a bad girl?”
Rae wasn’t going to be a Bella for him. “No.”
Wulf’s blue eyes flared, and his smile turned ominous. “You know what you’ve done wrong.”
Oh, Rae had done so very many things wrong, and guilt sat on her shoulders for all of them, starting with screwing a guy who her friend already had feelings for. She stared down at her sandals sinking into the blue shag carpeting.
He said, “Yes, you do. Come here.”
Rae plodded over to him, still not looking up.
“How naughty have you been?”
Rae was betraying Lizzy right at that moment, though he had said they would stop having sex. She had lost her scholarship due to her own negligence. Working in The Devilhouse opposed every one of the values she had grown up believing.
She whispered, “Very naughty.”
She heard him chuckle low in his throat. “That’s better,” he whispered back.
It wasn’t better.
He stepped toward her and reached around her to her back, pressing himself against her body. He flipped her skirt up in back and grabbed her ass. “Since you’ve been very naughty, you’ll need a bare-bottom spanking.” He snapped her underwear elastic and then shoved them down. The cotton fluttered around her ankles.
“Remember,” she said. Her lips were near his shirt collar. “We shouldn’t.”
“I won’t,” Wulf whispered. His breath trembled on her temple. “No matter how much you want me to.”
Rae stepped out of her underwear, and they lay crumpled in a white lump on the carpet.
“Better.” Wulf grabbed her bare ass again and pulled her against him.
Rae jerked her arms to her chest, and her arms ended up wedged between their bodies.
“So naughty.” Wulf whirled her around, and she was startled with how easily he twirled her because she was no frail little girlie-girl. He ended up perched on the edge of an overstuffed paisley armchair, with Rae standing before him.
He pointed to his lap. “Down.”
Rae bent her shaking knees and lowered herself over his thighs, her ass in the air. Her stomach rested on his hard legs. She grasped the arm of the chair and held on, ready for it to hurt.
Wulf tossed her skirt up to her waist, baring her ass. Cool air drifted over her butt cheeks.
Her thighs started to shake, and she lowered her head onto her arms. Here it came.
“Such tension,” Wulf said. “How shall we relax you?” His left hand rested on her spine and warmed her back. With his other hand, Wulf touched her ass cheek, and she jumped, thinking that this was it.
His one finger glided over her haunch. His touch almost tickled because Rae had been so ready for a slap. She grabbed the round arm of the chair and held on.
He stroked her other ass cheek with just one finger, slowly, just a feathery line over her backside.
On her spine, his hand massaged her lower back, kneading the tension away.
He brushed the skin on her butt, one cheek and then the other, alternating. “Such a lovely bum you have.”
That was pushing it. “It’s fat.”
He laughed. “Utter rubbish. Your bum is velvety, like a luscious peach.”
She’d never thought of her ass that way before.
However, he was going to bruise that peach in just a minute, and she tensed again.
The soft brushes of his fingers strengthened, and he caressed her backside.
Rae held onto the tapestry-upholstered chair arm with her fists, ready for his first strike.
His caresses with both hands deepened, pressing her flesh on the small of her back and her ass. He worked the stress out of her body. Considering her behavioral psychology exam yesterday, her childhood development test tomorrow, the cognitive dissonance invoked by signing that dang Devilhouse contract a few hours ago, and her cousin discovering her here and then trying to rape her, stress tied all her muscles in BDSM knots.
His hand dipped behind her, and he massaged the backs of her thighs.
Rae turned her head to sneak a peek. The look on his honed face seemed interested, like he was studying her skin, and intent, like he was playing a cello. She laid her forehead back on her arms.
His hand rubbing her back slipped farther down, past the small of her back and to her bottom. He stroked her backside with both of his hands, grasping and palming her ass and thighs.
Rae sighed, relaxing into the massage. Her legs sagged, and her body rested on his thighs.
His thumb grazed her pussy, sliding just inside the soft folds and sending a wave of pleasure up her spine.
“That’s not spanking,” she gasped.
“I’m the spanker, here,” Wulf said. His bass voice rumbled. “I’ll decide what is spanking and what’s not.”
“We said that we wouldn’t.” When he slipped one finger delicately along the lips of her pussy, her voice squeaked.
“And we won’t,” he said. “But you should enjoy your first spanking.”
So he was still going to spank her. He just hadn’t yet. Rae put her head down on her arms.
He kneaded her flesh more, palpating her bottom, and he slipped his hands between her thighs and eased her legs apart. She felt her legs open, and she wanted him to touch her there again. She knew that she shouldn’t let him touch her, shouldn’t allow him to get her all sexed up until she couldn’t help herself, but she shifted her weight, and her legs parted. It felt like her mind had no control over her thighs opening to him.
His hands gripped her, and his fingers slowly explored her plump butt cheeks. He neared her center again, and one of his hands continued to massage her hips and thighs while his fingers just grazed the lips of her pussy.
This wasn’t spanking at all.
A small part of her brain that wasn’t reeling in desire for him wondered if he had ever intended to spank her or if his plan had always been to drive her mad so that she would screw him again. She started to push up on her elbows—whether to run out of the play room or to unbutton his pants and straddle him, she wasn’t sure,—but he shoved her back down, and that was when he slapped her ass.
The sting shot through her, and she gasped.
“Don’t move,” Wulf said pleasantly. His hands caressed her sore flesh, kneading the hot skin.
She clutched the rough arm of the chair, bracing herself for another spank that must be coming, but his hands massaged her thighs and ass cheeks as if he had never spanked her.
His fingers drifted inward again, and he traced the soft folds of her pussy as if deciding what to do.
Rae breathed hard, controlling the desire to run or to turn. She lifted her head and stared at the stainless steel St. Andrew’s cross, silver against the blue wall.
If he tied her up, she would be able to relax, but only Wulf’s strong arms and the threat of spanking held her across his knees. She clung to the armchair’s upholstery with all her might.
One of his fingers glided between the lips of her pussy, stroking her sensitive nub. Rae arched her back as pleasure tightened. He smoothed his other hand down her thighs, and she opened more to him.
He slipped his thumb inside her wet center, and her body squeezed around him. She wanted his cock to pound into her like when he had taken her hard on his desk last week and, without thinking, she pushed herself up.
He smacked her again, harder this time, and pain sparked through her body. “Ow!”
“I said, don’t move.” He massaged her stinging skin with one hand. His other fingers brushed her clit, tracing slippery lines down her center, and his thumb slid inside her.
“I want to move. I want you,” she admitted.
“Stay where you are.” His thumb pressed inside her, pressed down on something there, and drove another shock of pleasure through her.
Her arms slipped off the chair and she grabbed the chair arm to keep from falling off. “I’m sorry. I was wrong. Please let me sit up.”
“That’s my naughty girl.” He spanked her again, and he grabbed the sore skin of her ass cheek and rolled it under his palm so that her core rippled around his thumb, rubbing her inside. She revolved around that spot of pleasure between her legs.
Another spank, and he slid his fingers over her clit, and pleasure rippled up her spine. The skin on her ass was so sensitive from the slaps that every brush sent a jolt through her.
Another sharp slap, and he pushed his thumb deeper inside her, rubbing the tender rim and stroking her clit with his other fingers.
Rae’s body squeezed, clenching his hand. Her vision of the candlelight flaring on the wall narrowed. She gasped, and he circled his thumb around that nub.
One more sharp slap stung her.
The tight need in her body vibrated and burst.
The pain of the spank got all mixed up with the pleasure that ricocheted through her body. She clung to the arm of the chair as wave after wave of frenzy rolled through her. Every time he slapped her ass and stroked her clit, a pulse rose and roiled from her pussy to her head, rocking her, and she cried out. He did it again and again, spanking her and grasping her pussy and clit as he squeezed another and another and another burst of fire through her.
Then he was massaging her again, and running his hands over the trembling muscles of her pussy and inner thighs. Cream ran out of her pussy and down her legs.
Rae gasped for air. “What did you do?”
Wulf flipped Rae over on his lap, juggling her until he cradled her in his arms.
Tremors shook her body. Her pussy clenched like a heartbeat, and aftershocks pulsed through her.
She hadn’t known orgasms came in so many forms. Before the last week, the only orgasms that she’d ever had were a kind of half-hearted throbbing. She said, “If that’s how I’m supposed to spank the clients, I’ve been doing it all wrong.”
“The particulars are not the lesson. The point of today’s training is that the Dom’s will is paramount. Yes, we established parameters and a safe word; however, I took control. When you resisted, you were punished. Your decisions, your will, were irrelevant. Do you understand that?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
“Now,” he said, “this part, afterward, is what about half of our clients come here for. We have finished the contractual obligations, and many of the clients enjoy talking with the girls for the rest of their time.”
Rae could barely concentrate on what he was saying. His body warmed her, and she slipped her arms around his neck. “Oh?”
“For the half of our clients who are low on the Scoville scale, so to speak, I suspect that the real attraction of The Devilhouse is a girl who will listen to them. The fact that many of our girls are half-naked or clothed in fetishwear while they listen only adds to the attraction.”
“Yeah?” Rae curled up and burrowed her face into his chest. Inside his white shirt, his chest smelled like cinnamon and a wild meadow and clean, warm man. She wasn’t really listening to what he was saying. Her body hummed.
“But we can discuss that another time,” Wulf said. He rested his arms around her and leaned back in the chair.
If Rae were a good friend to Lizzy, she would stand up, thank Wulf for the training session, and leave.
She really should do that, any minute now.
Under her weight, Wulf heaved a sigh, and his strong arms tightened around her. His lips moved against her hair.
Yep, any minute now, Rae was going to stand up and leave.
Her hand sneaked inside his shirt, and she could feel his strong heart beating under his soft undershirt and the heavy muscles of his chest. She wondered how close the bullet had come to his heart.
Small hairs peeking from the top of his undershirt were soft under her fingers. As she played with them, the candlelight glinted dark gold on them and his skin. She traced the strong cords that ran from his jaw down to his chest. His scent—like exotic tea and springtime and natural man,—that rose out of his shirt, and she turned her face inward.
She wasn’t planning anything. He just smelled so good, and breathing him in made her head spin.
The tip of her nose brushed his neck. Wulf stretched just a little, exposing more of his throat.
She took advantage and kissed his neck, then lower.
Wulf shifted in the chair under her, adjusting his legs.
She lipped his neck, tasting his warm skin. The faintest tang of salt touched her tongue, but the scent of cinnamon and tea from his cologne filled her mouth.
He cleared his throat. “One of us has not just had a spanking.”
She slid her hands around his torso, pressing her breasts against him. She pushed her face against his neck and opened her mouth, sucking on his neck. Tasting his skin on her lips and tongue and feeling his body, even through his clothes, under her palms and fingers quickened her breath.
His hands gripped her arm and hip more firmly. His muscles hardened with tension. “You’re learning cruelty quickly, aren’t you?”
Rae mouthed his neck, following his bulging tendons to his chest. She tucked her chin into his undershirt and kissed an extra inch of his skin. His scent was muskier there, filling her mouth and nose.
His strangled sigh breathed on her hair. “I am an adult man. I do not lose control.”
Making him lose control, someday, might be incredible, and a shiver rushed through her, even though they weren’t going to have sex any more. She slid one arm around his trim waist, running her fingers over the ripples of muscle under his clothes.
He shifted again in the chair and cupped her head with his hand, pressing her harder to his neck.
She tucked her legs under herself and slid down his body to the floor. Her face pressed his white shirt, which was so smooth that it felt like silk on her cheek but so crisp when it rustled that it must be cotton. She kneeled between his legs, still breathing in his scent through his shirt, and began unbuckling his belt.
Wulf covered her hands with his. “You said that we shouldn’t indulge. You should stop.”
“I don’t want to stop.” Her voice broke when she panted.
“You said we should not indulge in such things.”
“This doesn’t count. It’s just heavy petting, right?”
He gazed down at her, and his tortured blue eyes belied his calm expression. “I don’t want to argue with you.”
“Then don’t.”
“I desperately do not want to argue with you. I want nothing more than to sit back and not argue with you. Every fiber of my body is insisting that I not argue with you, but I think you’ll regret this.”
“I won’t regret it.” He was as tempting as a big slice of blond cheesecake on a white plate, and now that she had nibbled his neck, she wanted another bite, and another, and she wanted him in her mouth, on her tongue, and in her throat.
“Must I say my safe word?” His strained voice seemed squeezed.
“Please don’t.” She splayed her hand on his chest and nudged him back in the chair. “Let me do this.”
He stared at the ceiling like something up there would rescue him, and he inhaled a deep, measured breath like he was preparing to lift something heavy.
Rae glanced at the white, popcorn ceiling, but the security camera was mounted on the other side of the room, and Wulf was only staring at a recessed light bulb.
He said, “I don’t have a condom.”
She unlatched his belt and slid the leather strap out of the buckle. “I don’t care.”
“I can find one.”
“Don’t move.”
He clenched his hands around the chair’s armrests, but he didn’t stand up. “You’re telling a Helvetian to disregard rules.”
Maybe she could make him late for his next appointment, too.
Since he had said that he was Helvetian, which was what he said when he meant that he was Swiss, so the security camera must be off.
She unhooked and unzipped his suit pants. His cock strained against his underwear, pushing it up.
Okay, Rae had never actually done this before, and the haze of desire in her mind parted to let just a little of that insecurity pierce through. She should have done an internet search on how to blow a guy.
Yet, he had teased her plenty. She should be able to figure this out.
Her mouth was hungry to taste him, and she rubbed his thighs just to feel his strong legs with her hands. His pants’ fabric caught in the calluses on her palms like it was spun from spiderwebs, though it felt like wool, only thinner, finer.
She pulled out his shirt tails and pushed them out of the way. Her hand strayed over his underwear, and she ran her fingernails over the tented cotton.
He sighed and closed his eyes.
She peeled back his underwear, tugging the elastic down and under his dick.
Freed, his long cock bobbed with his heartbeat. No wonder it felt like he slid inside her forever.
She trailed her fingers over the top, and it jumped like it was trying to get her.
His shaft was paler pink than other ones she had seen, but Wulf was lighter than most guys. Long veins ran like purple cords up the sides to the rosy cap.
A bead of precum emerged from the top and shimmered in the lights. She touched it, and the sticky drop clung to her finger. It tasted a little salty, a little sweet, and almost like nothing.
She slid her hand down the length of his cock, and Wulf shifted in his chair. His knees bumped her shoulders on both sides.
The curly fuzz at the base of his dick was a darker shade of blond. Skin gathered near the head.
She leaned forward and slid her lips over the head of his cock, taking his velvety hardness into her mouth a little at a time. The muskiness from his body was stronger as her face neared his groin, more like the dark scent of chocolate or coffee, though the cinnamon and cloves from his cologne still wafted around her.
He gasped and arched under her.
She sat up. “Did I hurt you?”
His eyes were closed, and he pressed himself back in the chair. “No. Your mouth is so hot. It surprised me.”
Okay, she knew that Wulf had had blow jobs before. Lots of them. From women whom Rae knew. Nothing should surprise him.
She dipped her head and lowered her mouth over his dick again.
He reached for her hair, his fingers grasping her ringlets.
She sucked his cock in, filling up her mouth, sliding it over her tongue to her throat. Inside her mouth, his cock pulsed, pushing against her tongue. He tasted like a hint of salt and the warm scent from his body.
Above her head, Wulf groaned again. His hips moved under her, like he wanted to thrust but held back.
She wrapped her hands around the lower part of his cock that she couldn’t take into her mouth and pushed him farther down her throat. She didn’t gag, but his cock pushed everywhere in her mouth, stretching her jaw open.
She was doing it.
Inside her mouth, she licked him, undulating her tongue against his shaft.
Wulf’s body was so coiled so tight that it felt like he was going to spring out of the chair.
If she teased him a little more, she bet she could make him groan again.
She licked up his cock, pressing the flat of her tongue to the hard ridge up the front, and then sucked it into her mouth.
He grunted, and his body flinched.
That was close to what she wanted him to do, but more stimulation might make him actually cry out.
She pressed down, taking as much of his cock as she could into her mouth. Rearing up, she ran her tongue around the plump head and then plunged down on him again.
Wulf grabbed fistfuls of her hair and, without hurting her, guided her head up and down a few times until his whole body went rigid and his cock pulsed hard in her mouth. He shouted a wordless cry, and his fists clenched in her hair. The salt of his cum ran over her tongue and down the back of her throat as he spurted. She swallowed it all.
He was gasping for breath as she sucked up the shaft, releasing him. Her lips felt raw, and her throat, stretched. She arranged his clothes over him because he wasn’t even sticky or anything. That was a pretty cool benefit. She crawled up his body to his lap and curled up in his arms.
That had probably gone okay. He didn’t seem injured. If he had liked it as much as it looked like he had from his half-closed eyes and ragged breath, she must have done a halfway good job.
Under her hand that lay on his chest, his heart hammered through his shirt.
It was silly of her to be so proud of herself, to feel such an effusive glow for forcing him to lie back and then doing something so wild to him.
Yeah, to him. Not with him. To him.
It was kind of Dommish of her, and she kind of liked it, if she were to admit such a thing.
She snuggled in closer to his warmth, feeling his heartbeat and listening to his breath in his lungs. She could lie here for hours.
“Dine with me,” Wulf whispered. “Saturday.”
“Okay,” she said, sleepy with afterglow. “After Saturday night here?”
“Yes.”
“Should I meet you at the restaurant?”
“No,” Wulf whispered over her head and settled his arms around her, cradling her to his chest. “We’ll go to my place.”
“Okay.” Rae yawned and rested against him, admiring the muscular curves and toying with the soft blond hairs that peeked through his unbuttoned shirt collar.
It was only later, when she was lying in her narrow dorm bed, listening to her cousin Hester snore, that Rae’s eyes popped open in the dark because Wulf had invited her to his home.