After that cryptic remark, she backed from him two steps. She lifted her foot from the floor and placed the point of her heel against the muscle between his shoulder and pectoral, used him as a stool to bend forward and adjust the garter fastening at the top of her stocking.
Mac lifted his hand without permission, but it was an automatic gesture to curl his arm over her leg just above her knee to steady her so she didn't fall. She appeared to have perfect balance, but it certainly gave him the excuse to feel the texture of those sheer hose and the hint of smooth skin beneath. The heel dug into his flesh as she shifted her weight forward, but the discomfort only heightened his body's response in that odd way that certain levels of pain could do.
A small frown line puckered her brow, made him want to kiss it. "This pair of hose has a tendency to roll, but I do like the color of them," she murmured, then flashed him a small smile. She straightened, lifting her foot clear of him, not dragging it down his skin. The motion gave him a quick glimpse into the shadows beneath the skirt, a fleeting image of the pale petals of her pussy just beyond the silk of the stocking and the garter. She wasn't wearing any underwear, and the brief exposure brought the scent of her arousal to him. He wanted to seize that leg, bring it back to his shoulder, bring both of them to his shoulders. He'd scoot her forward with both hands gripping her soft cheeks and hold her waist to make her ride his face, work his mouth up between her thighs until he reached the heaven he had just seen.
He knew he could, knew he was ten times stronger than the little pixie, but he also knew what happened in these rooms wasn't about physical strength, not always.
She did not tell him to lower his gaze again, so he had the full pleasure of watching her walk across the room, the shift of an ass he now knew was buck naked beneath that skirt. It had to be a stretch material, because otherwise she had to be sewn into that dress. But it was classy, the dragon pattern across the blue, the soft flutter of ribbons as she moved. She knew how to tease a man to insanity and yet keep him back at the same time. Like a goddess. A tiny fairy goddess.
She brought a wooden chair over to face him, the kind a stable hand might tip back against the wall to draw on a length of straw and catch a nap, but this one was not old and scratched. Like all the accoutrements of this room, it was a finished expensive dark wood, a valuable antique.
"Not your usual barn chair," he observed.
"Because this isn't a barn," she said. "It's a suite for thoroughbreds to be petted and pampered by their Mistresses or Masters. Or disciplined as needed."
She sat the chair less than two feet from where she had him kneeling, tethered by his cock.
"Let's take care of those hands now." Violet moved around him, touched another control, and he heard the eyebolt in the ceiling engage, lowering itself on a wire. He didn't look up, he knew better than that. This was the challenge, every time, and he had learned not to show the fear, but it was there, nipping at his vitals. He'd gotten to the point he could be anyone's sub, allow any woman he chose to play Mistress to him. To him, but not over him. The similarity of the thought to what she had expressed to him last night struck him, raised his trepidation.
"Lift your wrists above your head," she said. "And put your hands through the cuffs."
Mac obeyed, his heart thundering in his chest. She pressed another control. The cuffs tightened, a hydraulic control like the powering of a blood pressure cuff. She stepped forward, her knees brushing his back, and tested the fit. She'd got it right on the first try. He couldn't get loose, but the blood still circulated, pumping with a vengeance.
"I'm going to take you up, now," she said. "You tell me if you get thirsty, Mac."
"It won't happen, Mistress."
"I'll remind you of that when either your arms are dislocated or your cock gets ripped off."
"You won't let that happen, Mistress. You have plans for the latter, at least."
"Yes. Yes, I do." Her tone was slightly amused, in a way that made him somewhat ashamed of the desperate attempt at charm, though he didn't know where the shame came from.
"Spread your knees for me, Mackenzie. I need them about three feet apart."
He moved his legs apart, feeling the cock harness strap that ran between his legs lift and divide his balls. A moment later he felt the straps of the ankle restraints bolted onto a slide rack on the floor tighten on his flesh. She added a second set of restraints to his calves just above the knees and tied them to rings in the floor parallel to the outside of his legs, leaving just a touch of slack. He didn't have long to wait to find out why.
The gears whirred, and the cable above him began to retract, taking his arms up higher and drawing his upper body into a straight, stretched line. He'd obeyed her orders and made sure he was back far enough from the ring in the floor that there was little slack in tether between his cock and the harness, so when she anchored his legs to the floor and began to raise him up, the line between cock and floor became even tighter. His knees left the floor a half inch, pressing against the knee restraints, and he grunted despite himself.
The switch locked him into position, and she came around and ran her hand over his scrotum and bound cock, testing the tension of the line between the harness and the floor. It was taut enough to cause him apprehension, but not painful. With his ankles spread and shackled to the floor behind him, his body suspended in the air by the ceiling tether, his calves bound and his cock tethered to the strap pulled taut to the eyebolt in the floor, he was counterweighted on all sides. Gravity would not twist or pull him in any direction that could injure him. However, the position itself was excruciating and left him vulnerable, and there was a knot of tension low in his gut that he had not experienced since his first time being trussed by a Mistress. He was also hard as steel and getting harder, his desperate lust and the emotions she was somehow driving in him giving him one of the most enormous hard-ons he'd ever had. In odd contrast, she was methodical, gentle in the way she touched him, her fingers brushing his naked body lightly as she passed him, fondling his shoulder, his throat. He tried to nip her fingers as she passed, but she just smiled at him and went back to her chair.
She sat down like a lady at tea, crossing one ankle over the other, folding her hands in her lap. She took a long moment studying him, erect and suffering.
"I know making you sit there and do nothing while I look at you may not do much for you," she observed. "Men aren't very psychological when it comes to stimulation. Suggest the erotic to a woman in a voice rough with passion, or on the written page, and she'll become wet. But a man needs visuals." She uncrossed her ankles, and inched up her skirt with a finger following the line of her thigh, tracing the garter. She put the middle finger of her other hand to her mouth, wetting it. He followed that finger as if it were the last crust of bread for a starving man. Her knees spread wider, displaying those soft pink cunt lips again. With barely a hesitation, she slid the wet finger deep inside herself, up to the last knuckle, and he heard the sucking sound of her eager pussy, soaked already, taking her in and craving more. Craving something he would kill to give to her.
She drew in a deep, shuddering breath, her gaze still on him. "Now what are you thinking, Mac?"
He stared at that finger, wet his lips as it came out and went back in. "How much I want to fuck you."
"How crude, Mackenzie. Where's that polish? Your control? The charm you wield so easily?" Two of her other fingers got involved, started rubbing her clit in slow circles. Her hips lifted, accommodating her, starting to move in sinuous circles, building with her reaction.
"I think I might just keep doing this until I come. Would you like that?"
"No, Mistress."
"No?" She arched a brow. "You don't want me to feel pleasure?"
"I want to give it to you, Mistress." He bit back a groan as her finger came out, glistening with her juices. He could smell her strongly now, in his nose, in all his senses, coursing through him like the effects of an illegal street drug. Mac struggled to sum
mon a rational thought. "I can give you far more pleasure, Mistress. With any part of me you desire."
He'd rip someone limb from limb just to win the right to put his smallest finger inside her, feel that heat and silk clamp down on him. He gasped as the harness buckle bit into his cock, ruthlessly pinching the engorged flesh between the stiff strap and the metal.
"Mackenzie -" Her sharp eyes went from his face to his cock. "Ask."
"Let me make you come, Mistress."
Her pretty jaw flexed. "Stubborn son of a bitch. Ask."
He shook his head. His Mistress stood, withdrawing her hand from herself and straightening her skirt with a quick shimmy of her hips. She raised her fingers high, brought them to his eager mouth. He latched onto them without hesitation, drawing them in, sucking her taste off them and making sure he made it enjoyable for her too, taking care to slide his tongue smoothly along the line of her knuckles, the tender web of skin connecting her fingers, rather than slobbering over them like a Saint Bernard like he wanted to do.
"Ask," she said in precise, angry tones. "And I will let you make me come with your tongue, let you bury your face in my pussy and eat your fill."
As bribes went, it was the best he'd ever been offered, but there was more at stake than that, a wall he didn't dare go over. The pain was lessening the size of his erection. Not much with her scent so close, her taste in his mouth, but enough to give him some focus.
"Please, Mistress, let me bring you pleasure." He met her look, aware that his own was defiant, challenging, but there didn't seem to be anything else he could do. The fear was pumping too hard behind it. It was the last defense he had.
Violet moved across the room from him, to the wall. She chose a braided crop and threaded it through her fingers, her back to him. She put it down, chose a cat with metal tips. She shook it out, testing its weight on her arm, nodded to herself.
Mac waited, his breath clogging in his throat, thick with the fury of a cornered, dangerous animal and the lust of a powerful man. He wanted loose. He wanted to bend her over the chair, take her ass with hard thrusts that would have her screaming for mercy and more. He didn't want her beating him.
Violet turned, walked back to him. She left the cat on the chair, squatted, unsnapped the leash holding his cock tethered in its harness to the floor, giving him some relief. Then she moved around him, removed the ankle shackles, lowered the taut line holding his wrists above his head, loosened the cuffs on his calves.
"Free your hands."
If she was thinking of walking out on him again, she'd have been smarter to leave him bound. Knowing he wasn't thinking rationally, but unable to help the violent bent of his feelings, Mac nevertheless remembered to stay where he was, though he wanted to struggle to his feet and seize her. His cock ached like fire, screamed for release on a couple different levels. His back, shoulders and thigh muscles had hours of tension in them, and yet he was sure sinking into her body would make all of that go away.
She stepped away from him, in front of him, four steps past the chair. She kept her back to him and he watched, stunned, as she shrugged the clinging material off her shoulders. With the black wig in an upswept style, it exposed her nape, emphasizing the beauty of her bare upper torso, the sweeping line of her shoulders, arms and back. Her back was smooth and golden, the spine a shallow valley drawing his eyes down to the beginning rise of her buttocks, visible because she pushed the dress low on her hips. He saw that tiny mole on the inside of her shoulder blade.
"Mackenzie?" She tilted her head so he could see her profile just above her right shoulder.
"Y-yes, Mistress?" He cleared his throat. Why had he thought she was green? Because she didn't have much experience? He had forgotten the wisdom that all subs knew, that great Mistresses were born, not made, and the really great ones relied as much on intuition as training to do what needed to be done.
Most Mistresses had respected his boundaries, would have good-naturedly moved past the sticky point of his pride and gone onto something they both found pleasurable. Not this one. She wasn't here for recreation. She wanted to crawl into his soul, or rather make him crawl into hers. Hadn't she as much as told him that?
"Mackenzie?"
He froze. He'd done the unthinkable. "I'm sorry, Mistress. Can you repeat that?"
Her lips curved, but he wouldn't have called the expression a smile.
"I said, pick up the cat, and lash me with it. Ten strikes."
Chapter 6
This time he bit down on his tongue before he asked her to repeat the question. He had heard her clearly enough, but shock made him want her to rewind, play it once more.
"I'm waiting."
"Mistress. I can't."
"Did I or did I not just give you a direct command?" Her tone sharpened.
"But I'll hurt you. Forget it. I won't hurt you." He felt his loins tighten along with his heart as she turned her body several degrees, showing him the curve of one bare breast. The silver ring of the nipple chain glittered in the light. A small tassel of sapphires and silver beads hung from it, beneath the stiff peak.
"Then I'll show mercy, and reduce the count. You will strike me once, and put all your strength behind it, or this will be the last time you'll ever see me. You'll leave this club and never come back to it. Do it."
She turned away from him again, folding her arms at her waist in front of her.
Mac closed his hand on the handle of the cat o'nine. Nine lash ends, all tied in knots with a fringe of tiny pewter tassels, a variation of the metal-tipped cat some favored here at The Zone. He'd been lashed before by Mistresses, but had never done it himself.
"Put your back into it," she said quietly. "Like an overhand throw."
"Mistress--"
"Mackenzie. Do as I tell you." Soft words, but steel underneath.
She would leave and he would never see her again. Did she get off on being whipped? He'd not heard of a Dominant who did, though many did it as training for themselves to learn how it felt, how to do it without hurting their subs in irreparable ways.
"Just do it, and it will be over. Three seconds. Now," she snapped.
Mac jerked forward, and put his strength behind the strike, though everything in him told him not to do it.
He had misjudged her height. The lashings struck her shoulder in a sparkling fan and then curled over, the metal tips slapping her front sharply, so that he felt the tug of her flesh as he reflexively jerked back.
He knew the signs of pain, heard it in the cry she bit off, the indrawn breath through her teeth, the tightening of her shoulders and buttocks beneath the dress.
He dropped the flail and lunged forward, catching her by the shoulders and turning her around. "Ah, Jesus."
The metal tips had bitten into the soft upper curve of her right breast, leaving tiny tracks of welts, nearly half of which were welling up blood. But the ones that horrified him most had struck and drawn blood on the areola of that beautiful mauve nipple.
"Violet, what the hell were you thinking? Fucking Christ, I've never flogged anyone in my life. I didn't know--"
She reached up, put her hands around his neck, and brought his mouth down to her lips.
He was quivering with fury at her, and she played havoc with his senses, bringing softness and sex into the equation. His hands slid to her bare waist, brought her closer, groaning as her thighs pressed against his still-harnessed cock. Due to the circumstances, it had lost some of its power, but her moist lips drove it back to painful rigidity almost instantly. She was in his arms, her body all his, and she was as small and delicate and precious as she looked. But even though she trembled with the pain he had caused, he felt the core of strength she possessed beneath it all.
He gladly would have stood forever with her there, his tongue stroking hers, his hands holding her waist, itching to go lower, grip that round beautiful ass and squeeze her, hold her tight against his cock, make her feel his need, his desire to possess and be possessed all at once.
r /> She pushed him back a little and he sucked in a breath. "I could break your stubborn little neck," he growled.
"I could say the same for your big thick one." She touched it with her fingertips. "The way you feel at this moment? That's how you make me feel when you let me hurt you. I can take care of you, cherish you, and not consider you weak." Her gaze was hard, at odds to the softness of the mouth and body he had just sampled. "I know you're a strong man, Mackenzie. Everything about you fairly screams it. But you're vulnerable to me, no matter how hard you play a game to try and pretend you're not. You won't play games here. This place isn't about games. It's about getting past the games."
She reached down, unbuckled the harness. Mac stifled a groan of relief and winced as she gently peeled back the straps. He was torn between lust and pain as she traced the deep red marks ringing him.
"You're tearing me into pieces, sugar."
"And I'll know how to put them together," she returned. "But now I hurt, and I want you to make it better."
She rebuckled the harness, restricting his cock again, though one notch looser than before. Before he could orient himself to the surprise of that move, she put pressure on his shoulder, and he understood what she wanted next. Mac dropped to one knee, putting his face level with the damage he had inflicted and that pretty areola, marked with a purple welt and swelling for all the wrong reasons. He placed his lips over it gently, with no sucking pressure, and simply laved her, like a wolf giving succor to his mate's wounds, offering soft caresses with his tongue. His hands at her waist gripped flesh, the softness of her dress, his thumbs sliding across the hip bones he knew were bare of panties beneath the skirt.
Violet closed her eyes and he felt her relax in his grip, let him take over, take care of her. Emotion swelled in him, surpassing even his physical reaction. He moved from one welt to another, tenderly offering his mouth to soothe her needs, and her quivering lessened. It told him that the marks had to hurt like a son of a bitch, even now.
"You should get those tended," he said at last, staying on his knees before her. "With something topical."