Yield (34 page)

“Whatever method they used, it was not mine. I’ve given you enough leeway. Calm down.”

There was a rawness in his voice that I’d never heard before – not just anger. Sadness and anger? Didn’t
matter
. He was a sanctimonious bastard, trying to dodge responsibility.

“Yes, I wanted you. I made mistakes.” He laughed, bitterly. “Most of them lately were because of you. I need you in my life and I’m not letting you go, Wren. I’m also going to care for you. I’m the only man who truly understands who you are.”

Sheer goddamned arrogance.

“You? You! Hah!”

I held my breath. After his last instruction I would surely be punished for that, but nothing happened. Something was holding him back.

“I noted that on my list, for later.”

“Oh.” Survival mode kicked back in. “Sorry, Sir.”

“You will be.”

“Oh.” Damn. He was only inches away and looking happy at the prospect of torturing me.

I wrenched my thoughts into line. What did he know? Was I right to fear myself, after all?

Fuck him.

“How,” I ventured. “You’ve barely talked to me. Glass knows me, understands me, not you.”

“Glass?” He chuckled and his eyes narrowed. “You think he’s wonderful? Glass was there when your father died. He led the team that assaulted my House. He may have fired the shot that killed him.”

“What?” I blinked, dumbstruck.

“What I said. Glass is not who you think he is.”

Glass? My man, my hero? I stared at Moghul’s chest, at his nipple of all things. I couldn’t get my head around this. Yet it made total sense. It explained why Glass had first come to me, the unease I’d felt when he led me around town. That feeling he was concealing something.

“True?”

“Doubting my word?”

“No. I don’t.” I stared down at my breasts, avoiding his eyes.

Glass might’ve lied to me, I’d even suspected that something was wrong, but what he’d done since, it meant more. If he was in front of me, sure, I would question him, and I was sure he’d confess. Probably on one knee, before upending me and flip-flopping my butt. He was still my man.

“You think telling me bad news about Glass will somehow make me like you instead?”

He wrenched my chin upward. “Apologize. Now.”

I gulped, paralyzed, as always, by him staring me down. His rules, his house. I was dancing on the edge, talking back to him.

“I’m sorry, Sir.”

“How many apologies is that now? You’ve forgotten how I expect you to behave. I can be fair. That doesn’t mean I’m weak.” His fingers tightened and he held me there a while longer. My angry self drained away, second by forceful second, until all I could fixate on was Moghul looking at me.

“I’m sorry.” Repeating that had slipped out.

His smile was mean. “I think it best I go on to the next step.”

I shivered.
Next step? What is this?

Nothing I would like.

Confused and frightened of what was coming, I said the one thing that might stall him. “I’m pregnant with your child.”

“I know. It’s why I decided I had to have you, little Wren.”

“Then you can’t punish me. It might make me lose the baby.”

“This next isn’t punishment. Think of it more as a test. I’m going to be careful. You can stand this because without this we will be
nothing
. I don’t want to be your nothing, Wren. I want all of you. And I will do anything. Fucking anything to make it come true.”

And then, I glimpsed that part of him I’d often seen, the Machiavellian sadist.

This was the man I’d tried to knife only days ago. I could still see the scratch on his neck when I looked. Why wasn’t he afraid I’d do it again? He wanted to be everything to me.

A weird notion arrived, front and center. Did he think he was in love with me?

That would be almost too sad. My brow wrinkled as I tried to think through that.

Bad was good. Good was bad. Hugh was
dead
. My mind up and dumped me into a swamp where none of my ideas would come to an end.

Forget. Think.
Dwelling on my misery wasn’t going to help.

“Look at me, Wren.”

On cue, I raised my head, the sofa upholstery rasping against my ear as I did so, and locked my gaze on him. It was easy to do, far easier than disobeying. As I looked into his eyes, at the darkness of his gaze, I sank thankfully into that waiting space. I knew I was doing it, recognized the feeling. The carousel of gibbering that had filled my head only seconds before died away. Maybe I was best not thinking.

I needed this.

“Put your wrists at your back.”

I hesitated.

A familiar transformation had come over his face. That omen of sadism:
I want to do things to you that I’ll like, though you may not.

I realized I wanted to pain. Needed it.
He’ll do it to me anyway.

I could struggle crazily, maybe get hurt in the process, or I could let myself go. I wasn’t going to win and I could feel that submissive mindset, just a breath away, like I could cocoon myself there and lose the anger, the sorrow, just for a while.

“My baby?” I whispered.

“You’ll be fine. Trust me. Be good.”

Trust? That was the problem.

While I was debating with myself, he grunted then manhandled me onto my stomach and locked my wrists together. I’d barely resisted. This close, I knew I couldn’t win.

“Forgetting how to obey? It’ll come back to you soon. Very soon.”

I was already breathing easier, slipping into calmness. This would happen. I guess I trusted him with my body, even if he had the morals of a rat.

Moghul stood and pulled me to my feet.

I could see what he intended, now. The ropes hanging from some sort of block and tackle affair beside his pit, the steel table, the row of hooks, the bottles and swabs. I swallowed.

Oh. Oh fuck.
Maybe I had energy left for fear, after all.

Moghul

I led Wren over to where my equipment waited and made her climb onto the table. As her stomach met the cold stainless steel, she winced. I smiled. That was the least of her worries.

“Keep your eyes on me. This is
not
punishment. I think you’ll like this. However, if you take your eyes off me, I will be displeased.”

“Yes, Sir.”

I wanted her focused, absolutely, on what I did, not on what might happen in the future. The now was important. Despite her recent rebellion, that softness came over her that submissives often showed when they were in their happy place.

I ducked to her eye level. “That helps?”

It took her a moment, but she answered. “Yes.”

“Good. You know I like hurting you, but this, though it may hurt, I think you’ll like it. If I’m wrong, your screams will tell me.”

“Screams?”

“Yes.” I straightened. “Good screams.”

Though I’d researched this, done needle piercings, and even tried using one of these big seven gauge hooks on a sub, I was no expert. Which was partly why I’d opted to fill my pit with water, and why I planned to take some of her weight with ropes. I didn’t expect this to fail but adding in fallback safety mechanisms was always worthwhile.

The pit had other uses too.

Slow and steady.

The four hooks shone where I’d lined them up on the tray.

“Be very still while I place these.” I swabbed her back with alcohol and drew an X on the places I intended to pierce her. High on her back. A common place for suspensions. As I worked I filled her in on what I was doing.

“Hook suspension has quite a history. The Mandan tribe used it as part of their Oh-Kee-Pah ceremony.” I went on, steadily doling out the info, in a bass voice, making it a rhythmic thing so she could sink into the moment.

I was pleased at how well she was responding. Her slow breathing and the lack of focus in her eyes, all said she’d hit subspace already.

“Here.” I found the poster of the young woman at a suspension convention being suspended from four back hooks, unrolled it and hung it from the railing surrounding the pit. “Look how happy she is.”

“Incredible,” she whispered.

“Keep looking at me. Nothing exists but you and me. Remember that.”

Wren was going to love this. My final act before the test begun. This was something that compelled me. Wren was never going to commit herself to me unless I forced the choice. Once she decided, she’d mentally be prepared. I’d push it, make it a habit. I’d make her see she should be mine.

If I was wrong, so be it. All or nothing. Life was meant to be lived, not sleepwalked through.

The water in the pit was so still it looked like glass. Once I suspended her over it, there might be blood, when I played with her. Blood was such an odd liquid, a symbol of life as well as death.

I’d not told her all I meant to. That would have to wait. She’d seemed too unsettled and angry for me to tell her about her fiancé and his death. It was a devastating piece of information and what I was about to do would be devastating enough by itself. From the reports sent to me of her psychiatric evaluation, I needed her calm before I told her.

Later, when I knew she was one hundred percent mine.

“I’m pushing in the first.”

“Mmm.” She grunted, once, as I pierced the skin with a needle in preparation for the hook.

When I popped that hook through her shoulder blade skin, and out again, she reacted so beautifully it took my breath away. The way her breathing altered, the flush on her face, the little wriggle she did against the table. This had aroused her. The woman was such a masochist.

Wren

When he said, “I’m pushing in the first,” the room paused. I tensed, feeling connected to the table by the pressure of the most sexual points of my body, as if they bore all my weight.

My blood seemed to pulse stronger, and I became aware of the erotic...undertones of this act.

Moghul, shoving metal into me, while I was bound.

I needed to stop fantasizing. My arousal shocked me.

The thick hook sinking into my skin beneath my shoulder blade sent a wave of pleasure cascading through me so quickly I gasped, and I was almost coming before I grasped what was happening. I bowed my head and shut my eyes, feeling him push it out the other side, determined not to show any signs of how this affected me.

“Hmmm.” He stopped before me, stared a moment, then retrieved the next hook.

On the second hook, I gritted my teeth, but not from the pain, from the effort of concealing my reaction.

The third made me arch a miniscule amount before I caught myself, and I squirmed to relieve the building tension. My clit seemed ready to electrify the table. If it swelled more, if there was more pressure. I gasped and put my forehead to the cool table.

Three in me.
God. Why was I getting off on this?

“Last one.” He pinched up a fold.

Fuck.
The metal was inside me already. I keened as it penetrated further, arching my back despite him leaning on me. Then the hook popped out the other side, and I was coming before I could stop myself. Full-on shuddering and gasping.

Controlling the aftershocks was harder to do; not panting, even more so.

I found him before me, once more at eye level. “Did you just climax?”

I blushed hot, wanting to hide.

“Wren, answer me.”

“Maybe. I guess...yes?”

“Ahh. Good. I was right.”

“Arrogance was always your best feature,” I mumbled from where I lay, recovering, trembling, reminded of the presence in my back of something foreign.

He chuckled. “Now I just have to tie your legs and hoist you into the air over my pit.”

I managed to think that through. “Above the pit?” That thing was deep.

“Don’t worry. I filled it with water.”

So now I only had to worry about drowning if I fell in as well as my body hanging from hooks.

I squeezed shut my eyes.

“Wren. Look at me.”

I snapped them open.

He tied my legs with rope, as he’d promised, doubling them over, and attached the rope above, then linked more red rope to the eyelets on the hooks. He hoisted me up from the table. I was still in that stomach-down position, with my body taking the strain where the hooks entered my back and the rope bound my legs.