Hostile Takeover (28 page)

“All right then.” He’d taken out the ear plugs after dinner, so she heard the glass being set on the side table. “Up on your heels, arms out to your sides.”

She tried, and found her arms were noodles. She was losing motor control. Shouldn’t that alarm her?

“Permission to speak, sir.” She had to clear her voice, and it still came out a rough squeak.

“You have it.”

“I can’t lift them. I’m sorry. I’m trying.”

“All right.” Gripping her wrist, he drew her arm out to her side to cuff it to cool steel. The bar was laid over her shoulders, attached to her collar with a clip, and he lifted the other wrist, attached it to the other side of the spreader bar. He moved behind her then, and she heard a drawer opening and closing. She’d figured out that he kept a fairly well-stocked BDSM dungeon in this home, probably next to the room that held the massage cot.

She’d tried not to think why he had equipment here, because of course the truth of that was obvious. But she was pretty sure he’d been doing only club sessions for the past couple years. It might have been awhile since the dust had been knocked off this equipment, figuratively speaking. She’d take what she could get, hold onto the hope she was right about that.

“Easy now. Take this in.” His arm wrapped around her waist, his fingers touching her well-used pussy, guiding in a dildo. She shuddered with the discomfort and yet the desire to please. He’d lubricated it well, and when it pressed against her perineum, she realized it was a double dildo he strapped in place. Then he turned on the vibration feature. She cried out. When he came back around her, keeping his hand on the spreader bar to steady her, he was close, such that her cheek was briefly pressed against his hip. As she turned her face into the soft stuff of his slacks, the strap of his belt, she couldn’t hold back the quiet sob. She was so tired.

“We finish as we start, sweet slave. You suck me off until I come, then I let you rest.”

He didn’t move her back, such that she felt him pull off the belt, unfasten the pants, take down the zipper and the boxers beneath. She parted her lips, reaching for him. When the broad head pushed into her mouth, she sucked on it like a favorite treat, and remarkably it was like that, a pacifier. Yet that thing inside of her, depleted as it was, came to life again. Her Master was ordering her to service him, make him come, and that was what she was going to do.

He didn’t make it easy, but that was part of it, wasn’t it? He held out a long, long time, until she was crying in frustration, her tears bathing her cheeks and his cock, but it also made her even more determined, licking, swirling, sucking, biting. She made a triumphant noise in her throat when she felt the telltale convulsion of the shaft beneath her tongue, felt that first spurt against her throat. With a growl, he pulled out of her mouth, jacked his semen over her breasts. She welcomed the heat of it, the marking, keeping her lips parted to catch the stray drop splashed by the force of it.

She’d lost count of how many times he’d come, but what male could do that and not need IV fluids?

He was tucking himself back into the slacks. The rustle of clothing, a zipper, the clink of the belt being refastened. Dropping to a knee in front of her, he closed his hand over the spreader bar beside her right wrist. His other fingers touched her swollen clit, her cunt lips stretched over that dildo.

She couldn’t. There was no way. But of course Ben didn’t take no for an answer. She made a plea as his mouth closed over her left nipple, began to slowly suck. On their periodic breaks, he’d used different oils and balms to soothe the tissues of her ass and pussy, but she couldn’t come. She just couldn’t, she was so tired.

He was determined, though, teaching her that her mind could make impossible things possible when she surrendered her will to him. From somewhere low in her womb, that spiraling sensation was resurrected, leading to a quiet, shuddering detonation that had her bleating like a lost lamb as he continued to tease and suckle her nipples, squeezing her breasts throughout.

When she was done, he removed the spreader bar, eased her down to the floor, letting her lie on her hip. She was unable to do anything while he removed the double dildo, her mask and collar, the chains, all of it. When she opened her eyes, she couldn’t do more than look up at him from the floor. Straightening, he had turned to pick up wipes and balm from a side table, the things he’d use to care for her, clean her. The shirt was all the way open, pulled free of the belted slacks so she could see the appealing ridges of muscle along his upper torso. External obliques…down to the iliac furrow, that lovely V-cut of muscles that arrowed down into the groin.

Emotions coiled up tight in her chest as she once again remembered her playful teasing with her pre-med roommate. Also known as the Adonis belt, a result of low body fat and tight internal obliques pulling on their origin, the inguinal ligaments highlighted the lower rectus abdominis and external obliques. Tempting the female tongue to trace them down, down… God, she never stopped wanting him.

She managed to roll to her elbow. If he moved back even a step, she wouldn’t make it, but he didn’t. She sensed him turning his attention to her, stilling. Waiting to see what she was about to do. Pulling herself over those few inches, she pressed her mouth to his foot, a hard, fervent gesture. She forced herself back up onto her wobbling knees, slid back into a slave’s posture, hands behind her back, head bowed, breasts thrust out, knees spread. The way she’d begun.

“Thank you, Master,” she said.

I saw your society date for the Spring charity ball on the NOLA online edition. The only thing made in nature on that woman was her cotton underwear.

Don’t be too harsh, brat. We all start out made by nature, but we have to build other faces to survive in this world. Plus, I’m pretty sure she wasn’t wearing underwear. At least, that’s what I heard.

Letter exchange between Ben and Marcie, her sophomore year

Chapter Nine

Having broken subs down to the deepest level, Ben had seen them do a lot of very emotional things, things which fed his need to make them that vulnerable, to prove, at least in that moment, that they trusted him utterly with their naked, shivering souls. He cherished those times, even as he didn’t hold onto them. The point was getting them there, a catharsis for them and pure, undiluted satisfaction for him as a Dominant.

He’d given Marcie an incredibly intense workout, fueled as much by his own lust as her desire to learn what it was to serve a Master. Somewhere along the way, he’d gotten immersed in it, so he was no longer teaching as much as he was actually striving to take her deeper and deeper into her head, have her give more and more of herself to him. Fuck, what had he been thinking?

She’d told him he held himself away from his subs. He’d told her that was the way he wanted it, that it was intentional. Then he’d stepped across that line, gotten as deep into this as she had.

Watching her perform that remarkable act of obeisance, when she could barely sit up straight, when he knew every muscle in her body was shaking from stress, when her ass, pussy and nipples had to be sore as hell, it took the floor out from under him. For that one second, there was no rational thought. He wanted to fucking own her, make her follow him around naked, wearing nothing but those stilettos she’d mentioned and a diamond and emerald collar and leash he’d have made especially for her.

She’d do it, would strut proudly, sweet sassy thing that she was, letting that ass swing and breasts jiggle, and give him that challenging smile that told him she could handle anything he could dish out…even if it killed her.

Though he always asked club subs for their safe word, he took them far past where they’d have the sense to use it, so his intense scrutiny during a session had as much to do with their well-being as his own immersion in it. As he’d told Lucas and Matt, she was the type of sub who’d get so lost in her head she’d happily allow a Master to kill or permanently injure her, and smile all the way to the last breath.

A lot of Masters wouldn’t touch that kind of sub, because it was too damn much responsibility. Twisted bastard that he was, she was exactly the kind of sub he considered a treasure. She’d trusted him more than any sub he’d ever had, no hesitation in obeying anything he demanded.

Fuck. He went to one knee, caught her as she toppled. “Easy,” he murmured. She clutched his arms, opened her eyes to look at him. That hazy subspace disorientation was like crack to a Master. But her brown eyes were also full of devotion, care, a lot of things that made his chest tight.

“I need you,” she said. Her voice was hoarse, words drunkenly slurred. “Stay with me? Sleep with me? Please.”

In answer, he lifted her in his arms. She bowed up against him like a baby, letting out a little sigh. “First a bath,” he said.

“Too tired.”

“Tough. You need to soak before you sleep.”

“Will drown.”

“I won’t let you drown. Unless you provoke me.”

She let out a little snuffle at that, perhaps a chuckle. But she was in a half doze, completely dependent on him, no fight left…for the moment.

He set her on the padded wicker lounge in the master bath while he ran the Jacuzzi, added the salts. Then he turned to consider her. She was on her side, and her arm had fallen toward the floor, fingers half curled. She was boneless at this point. It would have made him smile, if it didn’t make other things hurt, just looking at her. Taking off his clothes, he put a decanter of whiskey and a glass next to the tub. Then he lifted her once again, set them both down in it, putting the jets on a low boil. She didn’t wake, merely shifting so her cheek was pillowed on his chest, her arms loosely around him. He slid his own arm around her back, resting his palm on her hip.

He’d doused the lights, only a street light outside casting a dim illumination up into the bathroom. Laying his head back on the tile, holding her, he took a swallow of the whiskey, swirling it in the glass with his elbow propped on the side of the tub. Fucking hell.

He passed his palm gently over her buttock under the water. Those marks would be there for a little while. He should be ashamed, but all the thought did was stir his cock back to life. Again.

No
, he told it sternly.
Give her a break, you sadistic son of a bitch.
That one was directed at him, not his cock. His cock wasn’t sadistic in the slightest. It just wanted pussy. Mindless beast. Actually, not quite so mindless, because right now he had no desire to turn his mind to any other woman available to him. Just the one in his arms.

He tried, thinking of some of the most beautiful, hardcore and willing subs he’d had the pleasure of enjoying. As he did, his cock started to deflate.
What the hell?
He pointed his mind back to the abused ass pressed against his inner thigh, the feminine breath stirring his chest hair, and his cock rose again.
Fuck.

It didn’t mean anything. She was real and in his arms, while the others were pale visions in his head. Guys were simple that way. When he pressed his lips to the crown of her head, she made a sweet noise of contentment, her fingers sliding along the small of his back, resting limply against the upper rise of his buttocks.

He liked that noise, liked the way she felt in his arms. She’d given his dungeon equipment a workout tonight, and it was about time. When he bought the townhouse, he’d liked the way it felt, except it never seemed right when he was there by himself. He’d cooked dinner for some of the guys and their wives a couple times, hosted a few business parties, but when he was alone, he preferred the Warehouse District apartment, which was really just an extension of his office with better kitchen facilities and a great flat-screen.

For a time, he’d kept most of his high-end dungeon equipment there, but he’d moved it here a couple years ago. There were two or three larger pieces at the other place, hidden behind a heavy plastic construction curtain he’d covered with decorative dark wood screens, since the Warehouse apartment was an open loft. At this house, he kept the high-end equipment behind a closed door. Both measures were to prevent the uninitiated from wandering into those areas.

That’s what he told himself. It wasn’t that he didn’t like coming to either place and seeing the equipment waiting for something he didn’t bring home to it anymore.

He had a discreet maintenance service that came in and kept everything cleaned and oiled, ready for use at any time. It was probably a waste of money, since he had access to Progeny’s equipment and that was where he went now when his cock needed a workout. But questioning costs was Jon and Lucas’ area, not his. He could wallpaper the house with Ben Franklins if he wanted. So he spent the money. Tonight he was glad he had, because he’d put all of it through its paces, testing Marcie far beyond what he’d expected her limits to be.

When it was all over, she’d put her mouth on his foot, called him Master. And for one fucking insane moment, he’d thought,
You bet your sweet ass I am
.

Jesus. He finished the whiskey, set it aside. Didn’t let himself pour another.
You’re in charge of a beautiful girl tonight, buddy.
No getting shit-faced. He’d save that for sunrise, when she was going to hate his guts.

He got her out of the tub, summoning a tight smile at her sleepy grumbling. He made her stand while he dried her off one-handed, since the other arm had to stay around her waist to keep her from oozing back to the tile. Guiding her arm around his neck, he lifted her once more. It was ridiculous, how much he liked just carrying her.