Darkest Fire (24 page)
22
S
he’d waited so long for this day. Waited, hoped, despite everything that had happened, even though more than once she’d feared this day would never come.
he’d waited so long for this day. Waited, hoped, despite everything that had happened, even though more than once she’d feared this day would never come.
She was ready to finally face all the pain, to cleanse her soul, and break down the walls she’d built around it. She had realistic expectations; she knew D/s wasn’t a replacement for therapy. Yet she’d read the stories online, in which people described very powerful, tangible benefits from exploring BDSM. Were there other ways she might get the results she was looking for? Perhaps.
Perhaps not.
She wasn’t afraid as she dressed, as she rode to the dungeon with her husband, or as they walked side by side to the room. She wasn’t excited either. She was at peace.
After they entered the room, Drako told her to take off her gown. She removed everything, draped her dress over the back of a chair, and set her G-string on a table next to it.
“Remember, Yellow means slow down, Red means stop.” Drako guided her to a kneeler and positioned her on it. “I’m here to help you, to guide you. Use me.”
“Okay.”
He blindfolded her. And in that dark space, she found herself focusing on her other senses, monitoring Drako’s movement around the room by the sound of his footsteps, the occasional draft of air caressing her bare skin, the scent of his skin growing stronger as he neared. As she waited for him to move her into position and secure her arms and legs, she started wondering what would happen. Would she recognize that moment, when she slipped into “headspace”? Would it be as life-changing as she’d read, or a complete disappointment?
“Are you ready?”
“Ready.” She liked being bound, being completely under Drako’s control. There was no doubt she trusted him. Perhaps that was why she wasn’t worried she couldn’t move, couldn’t signal to him, couldn’t see what he was about to do to her. Rather, the bindings felt like extensions of him, his fingers curled around her wrists and ankles, holding them in place. His body supporting her stomach as she rested against him. She felt safe, cherished.
No, she felt free. Free from responsibility, from obligation and duty. She couldn’t step into his place and take over for him, like she had with her mother, over and over again. That alone was enough to make her want to weep with joy.
The first sensation was soft and tickly, something soft cascading over her shoulders, pattering across her back. There was no pain, but the sensations still made her warm and relaxed. She breathed in slowly and evenly, enjoying every minute, knowing it was only the beginning.
A part of her wanted to move on to the next thing already, the next pleasure, but she trusted Drako to know when the time was right. She knelt bent over a padded support and fought to concentrate on what she felt right now, this second, rather than wondering what was coming next.
The next tool he used was the bristle brush, and ohmygod, it felt good. The bristles scraped across the skin of her shoulders, easing the tickling. He followed the line of her spine with the brush, scrubbed over her bottom, leaving her skin burning and tingling. It was easier to focus now, the sensation was a little stronger, and she noticed when he stopped for a few moments, she was breathing a little faster and shallower than normal.
She hadn’t reached that magical plane yet, at least she didn’t think she had. “Drako, is it working?”
“Patience, love. Concentrate on the sensation. What do you feel?”
“My skin is burning a little. It’s a good burn.”
“Are you ready for more?”
“Yes, please, yes.”
She heard a sharp smacking sound before the pain registered. When it did, it sent the air rushing from her lungs, and she had to gulp in a mouthful to reinflate them. Where he’d struck her, the skin burned hotter, a slightly more intense tingling heat than what had followed after the brush.
The second strike, on her other buttock, didn’t surprise her as much. Still, she spent a second or two in a breathless state in which time seemed to crawl at an impossibly slow pace, where fractions of a second lasted an eternity. After the third and fourth time, she felt like she was sliding deeper into herself. All thought swept from her mind and she just was, existed, the pain more a part of her than her own mind.
Behind her closed eyelids, colors swirled and took form. She saw her grandmother, her mother, and Lei, but they were younger. Lei was barely out of diapers. Their voices echoed in her ears. Laughter.
When had there been laughter in their family?
She looked into her mother’s eyes and saw something she couldn’t ever remember seeing—the glimmer of happiness in their dark depth. She didn’t remember her mother this way at all. She’d been hard, cruel, detached.
Rin wanted to ask her what had changed, why she’d turned her back on her children, but something stopped her. There was a touch, gentle but firm, on her back. The whisper of words she couldn’t quite understand in her ears. A voice calling.
When she blinked against the light burning through her eyelids, Drako was holding her cradled in his arms and was kissing her cheeks, eyelids, nose. The blindfold was gone. She wasn’t bound anymore either. “What happened? Did I pass out?”
“No, you were awake. You responded when I asked you questions. You don’t remember?” Gently, he stroked her hair back from her face.
“No.” Feeling a little odd, like she’d just woken up from anesthesia, she glanced around the room. They were still in Drako’s suite. Drako was sitting on the love seat, holding her.
“How do you feel now?”
“I feel . . . like I want to laugh and cry at the same time.” She dragged her hand across her face. Her hand was damp.
“That’s exactly what you were doing.”
She wiped her face again and sat up. “Oh, God, how embarrassing.”
He ran a knuckle up the side of her cheek. “No, Rin. I’ve never seen anything more beautiful, and I’m grateful to have witnessed it.” He brushed his mouth across hers, and it felt like an electric jolt jumped between their bodies. He looked deeply into her eyes now, and for the first time, she felt as if his defenses had crumbled. He was as vulnerable as she. “Please let me make love to you.”
“Yes.” She started to climb onto him, but he stopped her with a soft touch on her shoulder.
“No, not here. Home. In my bed.”
His bed.
Still a little unsteady after her first real experience in the dungeon, as well as emotionally all over the place, she swallowed a little sob and nodded. “I’d like that very much.” Her bottom burned as she put her gown back on, the smooth material chafing it just enough to make her breathe a little sharply and smile as the memory of those wonderfully intense moments played through her mind. Her head felt a little foggy still, but it was a pleasant feeling. Overall, she felt a lot like she did after a really long, hard cry—but without the inevitable migraine afterward. It was as if she’d emotionally purged her soul.
That had to be what made people come back, over and over. That sense of being at peace. Her mind seemed to be working slower. The tension was gone. And she was content to simply be. To live. In this moment. With Drako holding her hand, sweetly.
Out they went, into the evening. Across the parking lot to the car. Drako asked her several times if she was feeling okay as he drove them home.
She was. Better than okay.
A mile or two from home, he stopped asking.
She heard voices as they entered the house. Male voices. And one female. Lei was talking to Drako’s brothers, laughing. The sound made Rin’s heart soar. They’d all endured months of pain after the attack. Rin, as well as both Talen and Malek, had gone through emergency surgery and rehab afterward. Drako’s brothers were still recovering. Their injuries had been more serious than hers. And although Lei had been spared the trauma of a physical injury, she’d still suffered. She’d been in too delicate a condition to handle almost losing Rin. They’d all had to adjust to a new life, with new names and a new home. In one way, it was good leaving the past behind and moving on. In another, it was surprisingly difficult.
It was good to hear her laughing, to hear them all laughing. Finally, it seemed things were getting back to normal, that the horror of that awful time was behind them.
She smiled at Drako, slipped her hand in his, and followed him down the hallway, past her room and Lei’s. Past Talen’s room. Malek’s. They stopped at Drako’s closed door. He swept her up into his arms, pushed open the door.
“I never carried you over the threshold. What kind of husband am I?” he joked as he set her gently on a bed big enough to fit a small village.
“You’re the very best kind of husband.” Her bottom burned as her weight settled on the mattress. Her gown gently chafed the warm flesh as she leaned back, letting the pillows and headboard support her upper body.
He stood there for a handful of heartbeats, just looking at her as if she was the most incredible, miraculous thing he’d ever laid eyes on. “No, I haven’t been the best husband, but it wasn’t because I didn’t want to do better. I did.” His sigh was heavy and full of regret. “No excuses. I don’t deserve you.” He lifted an index finger and a tiny yellow flame flickered on its tip. He used it to light the candle on his nightstand. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to this.” He blew out his finger. “I wish I knew how it works. At least I’m getting a little better at controlling it.”
“That’s good to hear. Accidentally igniting the curtains once is more than enough.” Laughing, she extended her arms to him, took his hands in hers, and pulled until he was sitting next to her. He was facing her, his ass next to her knees, a hand flattened on the mattress, on the opposite side of her legs, trapping them. “Now, to get back to what we were talking about. You most definitely deserve me.” She hooked her hand around the back of his head and pulled him in for a little kiss. “You’re my hero. You saved my life. My sister’s. I understand what it means to be bound by duty. Of all people, you must know I get it.”
“Thank you.” He kissed her cheeks, her eyelids, her chin and nose. Finally, he kissed her mouth, and it was like no kiss she’d ever experienced before. It started a little shy and uncertain, which surprised her, but in the span of a few shaky breaths, it changed, turning desperate and full of raw need. His hands, trembling, started at her face but gradually moved down her neck, over her shoulders, and down her arms. His fingertips traced tingling lines as they traveled over her skin. When he broke the kiss, leaving her breathless, he looked like he was on the verge of tears. “I love you, Rin. More than life itself. And I promise I won’t let a day go by without showing you how lucky I am to have you as my wife.”
This moment was almost too sweet to feel real. She cupped his cheek and dragged her thumb across his cheekbone. She had no doubt she’d ever grow weary of gazing upon this face. Even when his strong jaw softened and his skin grew creased, the dark stubble and eyebrows turned from deep brown to gray and then white.
She helped Drako out of his clothes, each garment removed revealing more of his beautiful body. When he was nude, he lay back and let her explore, with hands, lips, tongue. She flicked her tongue over his hard little nipples, tickled the sensitive skin on the inside of his upper arms and along his rib cage with light touches, kissed a path from the center of his chest down to his hard cock, jutting out and tempting her with a droplet of precum on the tip.
Just as she was about to lower her mouth, to swipe that tempting pearl of moisture with her tongue, he shuddered and whispered, “Please, Rin. I can’t wait another minute.”
She could appreciate the hunger and desperation she heard in his voice. She’d been in those shoes once or twice. But where he’d been cruel—in a strictly good sense—she would be kind. She didn’t have the patience, the stamina, or the discipline to make either of them wait.
“You, my dear, are lucky. I can’t wait either.” It didn’t take much effort to get herself out of her dress, especially with Drako aiding her. Once she was nude, he forced her onto her back by crawling on top of her, raining dozens of kisses all over her stomach, chest, neck, face. His hands skimmed along her rib cage, the touch so soft it felt like a warm summer breeze.
Their mouths met again, tongues stroked and caressed, lips tormented, breath mingled. Drako was absolutely intoxicating, addicting. Rin just knew she would cry out when he took that sweet mouth from her. And his touch, which was growing bolder with every heavy beat of her heart. What were once soft, tickling brushes of his fingertips became firmer caresses and then hard possession. His fingers curled around her wrists, locking tightly. He lifted her hands up over her head, like he so loved to do, and murmured against her mouth, “Don’t move.”
She was quite happy to oblige him, even when he snatched those delicious lips away from hers. Down, they traveled, accompanied by tongue and teeth, along the side of her neck, over her collarbone, between her breasts. He pinched her nipples, both of them, applying just the right amount of pressure. Sharp little blades of pleasure-pain shot through her chest. As they zipped down her body, the pain lessened, the pleasure increased. And by the time the sensations reached her pussy, they were 100 percent glorious delight.
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