Yield (20 page)

I blinked away water.
Keep you
sounded as if I would have to be killed, if I kept fighting, or sold off to others. I’d known resisting might have terrible consequences.

“I do. I want you to keep me.” I swallowed past a throat burning from trying to breathe when there was nothing worthwhile breathing. “I won’t fight you again.”

I shut my eyes.

“Good. Don’t close your eyes to me, Wren. Never, unless I say you can. You hide in there and I won’t have that.”

I made myself open my eyes.

The look that awaited me was fierce, with the promise of pain. I ceased to breathe, to think, for a few long seconds. He’d dislocated thought and numbed me to all that existed, except us...

When he only hauled me from the pool, and carried me across to the patio, to attach me to the columns, I was relieved. Each wrench and knot of the rope said I was alive. My arms were tied to a rafter above with a rope through the central link on the wrist cuffs. My ankles were tied to either side, to the base of the columns, spreading my shaking legs.

“I need to punish you.”

Oh.
I’d only heard him say the words. His boots moved past, squelching. I saw his hands as he pulled the shoes off his feet and set them aside.

He’d made the big square tiles slippery with pool water. More water dripped from the twists of my hair onto my breasts and my thighs, and ran down my legs to my feet. I hung my head and let myself simply inhale, exhale.

There was nothing I could do to stop him. For now, I accepted that.

Then he simply walked away and disappeared inside the house. Minutes later, he returned, carrying a bag.

By then I’d roused, my muscles bruised but my mind reset from the battering I’d received. I’d lost to someone stronger and he hadn’t killed me. Glass half full. Hadn’t killed me, yet.

I whipsawed back to that time. Those few seconds had lodged in my memory. I’d lost badly, and fast. Even remembering devastated me. I’d be in rewind forever over this.

I needed to push this aside, but pieces of it had lodged in me, that blurred and panic-strewn moment where I looked up through the water at him – I was dying and he was leaving me there.

So evil. So him.

I’d never fought anyone for my life before. Never been hurt so deliberately and with such force. Sparring in a martial arts hall or with Hugh – those meant nothing in the face of this man’s willingness to do whatever it took to make me...just plain give in.

From the overnight bag he’d deposited on the table, he pulled objects I recognized from previous days. He lined them up and, as I saw each one, it chilled me to my soul to think of what he might be planning to do after my little rebellion. Because, it wasn’t so little. I snagged my lower lip between my teeth, wishing I were still strung out from the fight. I was too tough for my own good.

Cane, crop, paddle, belt, coils of thin rope, a leather flogger, the butt plug...
Fuck, what else?
I couldn’t see. Then he moved, brought a chair over near me, front and center, and sat. My gaze was drawn to the table as slickly as a cobra might attract a mouse before it becomes dinner.

A lick of cold unfurled in me. Goose bumps prickled into being.
Metal.

A whip where the nasty end was a shower of shiny strands of wire.

A row of curved metal crescents whose use I couldn’t fathom.

The last staggered me.

Knives.

Edges sharp enough to cut the light.

The air jarred with viciousness. A knife harvested blood and pain like nothing else.

It caught my breath in its serrated fangs.

The ropes held me there, tight, in his gaze, while I struggled with my fascination. My toes kneaded the tiles and I wrapped my fingers in the twisted rope above, swaying a little and feeling the ache in my muscles.

Not fair. The man was a voyeur on his own perversions.

What was he thinking?

Whatever it was, I needed to be careful and not defy him. Not after what had happened. When my head was straight, I’d figure myself out.

My courage was all used up.

Moghul

If only Chris knew who I had back here. The man was patiently waiting for me in the upstairs lounge. He thought I had some ordinary submissive in my ropes. Knowing he was close, gave me ideas. I’d love to show her off but there was no one I trusted. Not even him, with all the dirt I had recorded. All those vids of him fucking, flogging and tying up his two women with that friend of his helping. The police would be not be amused to discover a local accountant had a thing for kidnapping.

I leaned forward in the chair, rested my forearms on my thighs, and tapped my fingers together, thinking. Wren would be my undoing. What was the fun in a slave no one knew you had?

Lots.

The way she stared at my array of toys, all those little body signs. Interesting, considering her pristine past. Was there something I didn’t know about her? The knives in particular had her mind churning. Her hands were doing stuff, her toes screwing into the floor while her face stayed in neutral – dead giveaway that something was happening in her head. Knives... I’d wondered.

Her reaction made me smile inside, though not where she could see. I preferred to appear unmoved. Unmoved was such a fucking understatement. Wren had no clue as to how meticulously I’d planned this. How much this victory meant. Inside, I was soaring.

Every night, I’d watched and heard her practice her Muay Thai. Every day, I’d seen her eye me as if wondering when to strike. It was going to happen, so I chose to make the outcome as guaranteed as possible.

The goggles, I’d ripped off after her first kick. A tiny camera in the back of the strap fed a screen on the inside of the glass. Difficult to judge distances, but enough to warn me to dodge. They were a trick item bought off the net. I’d made sure to rile her by making her do things I knew bothered her the most. I’d pretended I was the cruelest master with little interest in her as a person. I’d hated doing that. My instinct, then and there, had been to reward the behavior, even if only with a
good girl,
and not to treat her with disdain. I was cruel by nature, just not that cruel.

Wren, watching her reaction...that’d had been like watching a fire catch hold, knowing any minute it might turn into a conflagration.

I’d fed her a large breakfast, stuffed her full, then made her swim, hoping to tire my athletic little captive. If her kick had hit her target, I’d no doubt have been the one on the wrong end of that fight.

But I hadn’t been. Touch and go for a few seconds. If she’d hit me, I might not have gotten up again. What a fucking thrill it had been wrestling her down. There’d been a danger to us both, but I’d pulled my punches, used only as much force as I needed to. The padded gloves had helped.

Instead it was her who’d lost and was now strung up, naked, exhausted, and waiting for her punishment. I was going to enjoy this. My only regret was that throwing her in the pool had seemed to terrify her more than I had wanted or expected. She swam like a fish but had still panicked during those few seconds she’d been underwater. I’d only wanted to subdue her, to make her see she was never going to win. Mental domination as much as physical.

I let my gaze travel over her, savoring my victory, as well as letting my sadistic lust feed off the possibilities of her pretty body. Bruises were showing on her stomach where I’d punched her, but she had no signs of real injury. I’d felt her all over as I tied her up there, checked her color, her ribs. If there had been problems, getting a doctor involved would’ve been a nightmare....

I would’ve gone there. Surprise, surprise. I would have risked all rather than maim her.

A revelation, that.

I really wasn’t cut out for this, not owning a slave of my own. I’d become more than obsessed with Wren, I’d grown fond of her.

I stood and selected both the crop and the cane from the table then walked forward with the crop swinging by my side, as I warmed up my wrist and reacquainted myself with the weight and balance. “You will no longer practice fighting at night.”

Her head swung up and she ran her tongue along her teeth, as if disdaining my instrument or my words.

Awake and feisty again. My cock that’d been at half-mast made its way upward.

“Answer me.” I stepped over the ankle rope to get behind her then swung the crop across one ass cheek. I paused, appreciating the meaty
whack
of this first strike. The wobble of her ass was admirable.

She hissed, as if I’d startled her, her knees collapsing for a second as she rocked in the ropes.

One strike had done that.
Hmm.

The swing of any implement meant to hurt had a certain quality that thrilled me. The ambience of sadism. I swished it again, only airward. Targeting girl’s asses was fun, even when they were tied in place.

“I won’t, Sir.”

The automatic
Sir
heightened the scene, made me concentrate. Colors cranked up to full saturation. I squatted for a second and traced the red line that was appearing then placed a single kiss.

Then I stepped around to her front and asked again. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, Sir.”

A fast response, and her eyes were wide and guileless. Had I really reached her, finally?

This time I did smile. I captured her face in the palm of my hand and tilted her up to me. Then I leaned in and brushed her lips with mine. “I’m glad I’ve not broken you.”

“You didn’t,” she whispered. “Can’t.”

A small defiance?

I almost told her of my fear that I’d terrified her in the pool but held back. Some fear was good, and it wasn’t right for me as her Master to say that. Besides, I saw no great fear. Just those pretty blue irises, searching my face. Tired though, she could barely focus.

What if I read her wrong?

Damn. Where had these doubts come from?

I needed to shut up. I wasn’t her Dom. This wasn’t a negotiated scene. Showing weakness, today especially, was wrong.

“Good.” I kissed her again, unable to resist, pleased at how her eyelids sifted closed. My thumb found the corner of her mouth as I caressed her and I sneaked in my thumbtip. “Open for me, Wren.”

She did, and even better, her eyes softened and I felt gentle suction and the stir of her tongue as she tentatively licked me.

That always got to me. Subs did it all the time, but for Wren to do it, better.

“Pretty girl.” I swept some damp, tangled hair from her eyebrow.

Best visual, ever. Those lips and absorbing eyes. This captured girl, bound, legs spread, in my ropes. Her breasts with their enticing nipples, moving with each breath. I nudged my thigh between her legs and grabbed one ass cheek, clawing my fingers, pulling her into me. Her quiet moans warmed my thumb.

This didn’t bode well for me not coming in my pants.

I released her and took a sharp step back.

Wren wasn’t broken. Hallelujah.

Fucking her was on my to-do list with a vengeance but I’d promised to punish her and keeping my word was important.

I hit her ass, thighs and upper back, a neat twenty times, with crop and cane, switching hands when a line appealed more than a rectangle, or just to surprise her. When she jerked and tried to dodge, I grasped a handful of breast or gripped her neck to remind her to be still.

She quivered even more when I did so. “Good girl,” I would whisper. The woman was showing her submissive side so well.

I’d chosen the right path.

Wheals blossomed into being on her paleness like carnal scripture.

There was a beauty in putting designs on her skin. Crisscross. Parallel. The cane was better for bruising. A flogger would let me work on more of her, so I fetched that and wove more prettiness on her.

Only so much skin could take...a woman could take. Now it was more a massage with force.

Wren became redder in places than pink, with a smattering of blue as punctuation. When I walked in and ran my hand between those spread thighs, I found her wet and swollen. I could give her pleasure, if I chose. No rules stopped me.

“Are you a naughty girl?” I murmured, sliding one finger into her, deep, fucking her nicely.

“Nooo,” she breathed, though squirming on that finger.

I laughed. “Does any of this punishment turn you on?”

Her downcast eyes said she could still be embarrassed. Good to know.

“Some.” The word slurred, trailed off. She was cruising in subspace.

“Uh-huh.”

I stepped away, then smacked in some strikes so the falls of the flogger curled along her slit. Her squeal and jerk was as much a reward for me as her. From then on, I played with her pussy and breasts with the flogger and the crop. I tapped, I brushed lightly. I did some thuddier hits. I inserted the handle of the flogger and fucked her.

Mostly, she crumpled at the knees and moaned.

I made her come, at least once. I could tell it surprised her from the way she eyed me afterward, mouth open, drooling a little. Poor thing.

I smiled for a while after that.

It was all fun, even the pain. The screams had been the icing before her moans and wriggles.

I went up and down on my toes. Maybe I should get a few more screams from her?

The wire flogger waited for me, alongside the knives and the hooks. Using wire too harshly would be the work of a sadist without boundaries – a tantalizing idea.

Decisions, decisions.

So many instruments of pain, and only Wren to use them on. I had more than today though. She wasn’t leaving me.

What was punishment if it didn’t hurt and make her pee herself, just a tad? I grinned and fetched the wire flogger.

I circled her again, walking outside the columns she was fastened to, my bare feet padding on stone. A rainbow lorikeet swooped through the columns then outside and across the sunlit pool to a flowering tree. Birds already squabbled there.

I don’t think Wren saw what I carried.

When I lashed out and struck the back of her thighs and butt, she screeched and tensed, grabbing at the ropes for dear life, dancing as much as she could.