Red Handed (3 page)

Which is why she didn't understand how she could still be attracted to him. Trapped both by his touch and the magnetic pull in his eyes, she had no choice but to answer as honestly as she could. “I want you to train me to be a slave.”

A low hiss emitted from between his clenched teeth, and a pained expression pinched the corners of his eyes. “Do you even know what a slave is, Danielle?”

“Of course. I wouldn't be here otherwise.”

Actually, she knew very little about slaves. Was he going to tell her what to wear and what to eat? Would every move be dictated by him for her entire stay?

He relinquished his grip on her and took a step back, but she could still feel the warmth of his fingers on her skin. “And why do you wish to become a slave?”

Sensing this was a trick question, she toyed with the bottom edge of the corset, resisting her usual habit of biting her nails. “Didn't I explain it in my application?”

“Your application was vague, to say the very least.” His jaw tensed as he rounded his desk and took his seat behind it. Then he slapped down a file marked with her name. “I don't permit liars in my club or in my home. That's not what this lifestyle is about. Safe, Sane, Consensual. I need to ensure you meet those standards, or you'll find yourself on the next plane back to Arizona. Why are you here?” He didn't raise his voice, but it was tight, as if he was barely containing his anger.

Honestly, she'd prefer if he yelled. At least then she'd remember she was supposed to hate him.

“There's a man. A Dom . . . Dominant. He's asked me to marry him, but he has certain needs. He says he'll give up BDSM for me, but I worry I won't satisfy that part of him.” When Roman had proposed marriage before leaving for his business trip, she'd been shocked. She loved him dearly, but as a friend, and she thought he'd felt the same. As for the part about him being a Dom, she'd learned that bit of information one night when the two of them had gotten drunk celebrating the New Year with a bottle of vodka. Pretending to gag but secretly curious about what that meant, she'd made him promise never to discuss his sex life with her again.

Cole ran his hand over his bald head. “This isn't a job like a cashier at McDonald's. This is a lifestyle. You don't just wake up one day and decide to become a submissive. It's in your blood, your head, your heart. It's a part of your identity, and without it, you're incomplete.”

“That's me.”

His lips twisted into a semblance of a smile. “Really? I'm so glad to hear it. I have my doubts about training you. If you really want this, you're going to have to convince me.” He pressed the speaker on his desk phone and pressed a couple numbers. “Adrian. Please come into my office.” He punched off the speaker with his fist and sat back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest, smirking as if he held the secrets to the world in his hands.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“Whatever I want. Isn't that what you agreed to?”

There was a double knock and the subtle groan of the door opening a moment before Adrian entered the room looking every bit as uncomfortable as he had when he left. He paused by the desk, his arms clasped behind him. “Master. How may I please you?”

Cole pushed back from his desk and swiveled his chair toward Adrian. “I'm afraid our new slave here is keeping secrets. That deserves a punishment, don't you agree?”

Adrian bowed his head. “Yes, Master.”

Punishment? A chill passed through her, hardening her nipples and creating shivers down her arms. A heaviness settled in her chest, causing her to feel breathless. She was guessing punishment wouldn't be a time-out. Her own father had never laid a hand on her in reprimand. She'd never given him reason. Fifteen minutes in this house and she'd already earned one. How the heck would she survive however long it took to save Tasha?

The strangest part of it was her reaction was only based in part on fear. She hated that his words aroused her, and she had no idea why.

“What's your favorite color, Danielle?” Cole asked.

Shivering, she thought about home and the burning glow of the Arizona sun on Mt. McDowell at sunset, so different from the cold she'd found in Michigan. “I . . . uh . . . red.”

Adrian chuckled but covered it with a cough and a hand to his full lips. Her stomach swooped and her body tingled as though she was on a roller coaster, balanced on the top of the largest hill, facing the inevitable drop.

“She's new to this, so I think we'll start gentle,” Cole said to Adrian. “Let's try ten open-hand spankings.”

Her mouth parted to protest, but the image in her mind of Tasha being blindfolded, bound, and gagged stopped her. Who knew what horrible things were happening to her right now?

The least Danielle could do was endure a harmless spanking. How badly could it hurt?

“Take off your panties and bend over my desk. Let's see if Adrian can turn your ass your favorite color.”

She sucked in a large breath and slowly let it out, gathering the nerve to bare herself to these men. They'd already seen most of her, and she'd survived.

She sighed. “I should've said pink.”

Adrian didn't suppress his laughter this time. Cole, on the other hand, didn't appear amused, his lips tightened into a straight line. “I'll pretend I didn't hear that, but in the future, back talk will result in additional punishment, brat.”

A brat? Her? He really didn't know her at all. No one here did.

And that's when it hit her. Here at Benediction, she was a blank slate. She could be whomever she wanted. For the first time in her life, it was safe to surrender to her secret desires.

She rose from the chair and crossed to stand in front of the fireplace. As the fire warmed her skin, she slipped her fingers under the waistband of her panties and dragged them down her legs. Both men tracked her movements, making her feel as though she was on display.

Hanging the scrap of lace on her finger, she waved it back and forth before it fluttered to the carpet. Cole and Adrian stared at her hairless pussy with lust in their eyes.

Infused with a sense of power she'd never known, she stepped out of the shadows of the fireplace and moved to the desk. She laid her chest on the desk, the position making her hyperaware of the restrictive boning of the corset. With her ass to Adrian, she rested her cheek on the cool, smooth wood so she could still see Cole.

His gaze burned into her. “Danielle, I want you to count each spank out loud.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, hoping she wasn't supposed to call him Master.

Anticipating the first blow, she held her breath and closed her eyes. Adrian settled his hand low on her spine and pressed as if holding her in place. As soon as she realized that was exactly the point, he smacked her left bottom cheek, the force of it sliding her forward and the sting of it causing tears.

“One,” she whispered, her voice cracking. No way could she take nine more of these without bursting into tears.

“Danielle,” Cole said softly. “Look at me.”

Compelled by the gentleness in his voice, she opened her eyes. Cole's pupils swallowed his brown irises, giving him the look of a man who was about to lose control.
Because of her
. She didn't know how or why. All she knew was she liked it.

Cole gestured to Adrian, and the slave slapped her again, this time on the right side.

“Two,” she said, maintaining eye contact with Cole. For each subsequent blow, she counted, her voice steady and strong. It still hurt. Her ass and upper thighs stung like she'd sat on hot summer asphalt. Clearly, she wasn't a masochist. But rather than focus on it, she watched as Cole's eyes grew hooded. Watched as his breathing turned shallow and rapid and his throat worked over a swallow.

And in turn, he watched her equally as intently, as if he saw straight into her soul.

Her pussy throbbed, her vaginal muscles clenching and releasing, a pressure building low in her belly. By the time she counted to ten, her entire lower half pulsated with heat.

“Adrian, check if she's aroused,” Cole said almost in a growl.

The slave slid his hand down her ass and all too briefly brushed his fingers through the folds of her pussy before removing his hands from her body altogether. “Yes, Master. She's extremely wet.”

“Do you want an orgasm, Danielle?”

“Yes, sir. Please,” she begged, her hips canting backward in a shameless attempt to cajole Adrian into touching her.

“Bring her to me,” Cole ordered, the deep timbre of his voice almost bringing her to climax.

With a hand on her waist and one on her shoulder, Adrian led her to Cole.

He yanked her down to his lap, facing her outward, and then banded one arm above her breasts and one arm around her middle, securing her to him. “Spread your thighs and hook your feet behind my legs.” Without a thought, she obeyed, exposing her pink, swollen folds to the blond slave who stared at her with sexual interest as he licked his lower lip. “Adrian, on your knees. Hands clasped behind your back. Use only your mouth. For every minute it takes to make her come, I'll tack on another minute to your cock torture.”

Adrian dropped in front of her, his blue eyes narrowly focused on her sex. Her heart beat in tempo with a pounding between her thighs. She'd never felt so wanton. So alive. But it wasn't Adrian who made her feel that way. It was the man underneath her. The man whose rock hard thighs pressed into the softness of hers. The scent of him, as if he were fresh from the shower, surrounded her, making her mouth water for a taste of his skin.

She melted into his hold, becoming one with him, her body his puppet to command. Her darkest teenage fantasies brought to life by the man she'd dreamed of every time she'd rubbed her clitoris to orgasm. In none of them had Cole sat like a king on his throne, summoning his subjects to do his bidding. No, in her dreams, he'd touch her with his own callused fingers she'd imagined he got from spending hours in the gym lifting weights to maintain his muscular physique. He'd lick her with the tip of his tongue, circling her bud until her thighs shook from the impending orgasm. Then he'd pin her down with his weight and drive his cock into her again and again.

In her wildest fantasies, she couldn't have conjured this situation. Yet it was as if he knew her better than she knew herself, because something about Cole demanding Adrian to pleasure her made it a million degrees hotter than if he did it himself. The muscles of her pussy fluttered in a mini-orgasm, evidence of it trickling down her thigh.

She moaned, lost on a tumultuous sea of aching need that threatened to drown her. Cole's chest, pillowing the back of her head, rose and fell in rhythmic pulls of air, and she found herself synchronizing her breathing to his.

Adrian's face dipped closer to her pussy, his blond hair tickling the inside of her thighs. She silently pleaded for him to relieve her of the coiling spools of need before she lost her mind.

His tongue darted out to tease the hood of her clit, barely more than a whisper of contact, but it was enough to make her body tense and jump.

Cole grabbed her before she bolted, one arm settling under her breasts and the other on her collarbone. “Shh, pet. I'll keep you safe. Let Adrian make you feel good. Unless you'd rather rescind your application?”

It didn't matter what the application allowed him to do to her. She'd do it. For more reasons than she could name.

“I'll stay.” She rested her head on his chest and turned herself over to his command, the heat from his hold searing into her. And that wasn't the only thing she felt. The hardness from his erection prodded her lower back.

Before she could regain control of her senses, Adrian resumed his position between her legs, lapping at her slit with the tip of his tongue. Mindless from pleasure, she ground her ass into Cole's cock, savoring the solid muscles beneath her back and the attentions of two men. But only one really mattered.

She twisted her neck to look up at Cole and froze at the heat in his eyes. Could he actually want her? Or was she just one more slave for him to command?

Adrian sucked her clitoris into his mouth. A moan she didn't recognize as her own tore from her chest. She'd never experienced anything like the pleasure that swarmed her. It burned, almost like standing too close to a flame. Her legs trembled. Every muscle coiled tight as she waited on the edge of the cliff for the final push that would make her unravel.

“Come,” Cole mouthed silently to her.

And she did, the climax slamming into her with the force of a tsunami, the erotic wave starting from deep inside her core and flowing outward, washing away everything in its path. Bursts of colors blurred her vision, and she shut her eyes, powerless over the pulsations wracking her body.

Cole slipped his hand under her knees and pivoted her so she sat sideways on his lap. She rested her head on his shoulder, the adrenaline she'd been running on the last couple days depleted. “I'm not even sure how to count that, Adrian. I suppose it warrants an immediate removal of the cock ring.”

“Thank you, Master,” Adrian said.

She tried to thank him for the orgasm, but she was too tired to speak. Cole shifted his position in the chair and smoothed his hand over her hair. The door clicked shut, and she sighed, relaxed for the first time since she awoke to find the kidnappers in her room.

The scent of chocolate brought her back to reality, and she lifted her head, opening her eyes.

“Have a piece of candy and drink some water,” Cole said, holding a bottle and a chocolate square in front of her face. “How do you feel, Danielle?”

She blinked, suddenly aware of the subtle ache of her naked behind, which was currently resting on Cole's legs. Her cheeks—the ones on her face—heated, and she dragged her fingers through her hair to cloak them.

How did she feel? Confused. Embarrassed. She'd never thought she was the type of woman who would enjoy a ménage à trois. But no way in hell was she going to tell him that. “Fine,” she said, snatching the water, then slipping off his lap.