Playing the Game (26 page)

“Y-yes.”

“Good?”

“Yes.” Her answer was firm this time. She stopped trying to see the end of the bed to speak with Henry.

Jay stared at her with rounded eyes. His teeth gripped his bottom lip. This introduction for her had to be some sort of demonstration for him, too. Maybe he wasn’t–

Pain scrambled her brain.

A slap stung the left side of her ass in a broad circle. The sharp crack heralded pain rolling out like ripples in a pond. Rolling still as the pain came again, on the right, now. Her body shifted forward, pressing into the pillow, away from the pain. The hairbrush or the paddle. She couldn’t tell and it didn’t matter. It was just pain. Twice more, quick, short slaps, and her backside throbbed.

Blinking wetness from her eyes, she pushed down the whimpers rising in her throat. A heated rush of blood rang in her ears. Her pulse, merrily thumping along, surprised her with its presence when the next slap jarred her and pumped her hips deeper into the pillow. Her clitoris rubbed against the soft fabric. She sucked in a breath at the unexpected pleasure, a sensation as powerful as the waves of pain still rolling through her.

No more slaps came.

“Your feelings, Alice? Quickly, now.”

“Pain, but…good, too.”

She forced her eyes to stay open, to look at Jay though it was Henry who spoke.

“How is it good, Alice?”

“A rush…my heartbeat…my hips, the pillow…” God, why couldn’t she think? Was she even making sense?

“Not the pain itself, then, not the sting of the paddle?” Henry’s question seemed to intensify Jay’s stare.

“No, I don’t, I don’t think so.” The sting hadn’t aroused her, but it had made her open to feeling the rest. Made it possible.

Henry’s hand, familiar warmth and calm and excitement at once, slid between her thighs. He stroked her lips, and she sighed at the comforting touch. He stayed away from her clitoris. Maybe he was checking the level of her arousal. Not much, yet. Damp, but not ready.

She smiled at Jay, a lazy, happy smile, but he seemed too intent on whatever he considered his task tonight to return it.

Henry’s fingers went away, and the feathers returned. Teasing caresses on her back. Sweeping strokes pushing aside what had gone before. A palate cleanser. Her breath came faster. Expectation ticked its way down her spine and settled between her legs as the feathers swished across her thighs. What would he choose next?

“Ah!”

Her right thigh burned with a sharp sting. The left as well, a short, snapping pain. Even the forward motion of her hips against the pillow, the soft nap of the fabric against her spread lips, wasn’t enough to make the pain pleasurable. The sting came twice more and stopped.

“Your reaction, Alice?”

“No. It’s no.”

“No, you didn’t like the riding crop, did you?”

“The sting is too sharp. It just hurts. I don’t…I don’t want to try it again.”

Something in Jay’s face relaxed as she spoke. She wanted to ask why he’d stayed when his discomfort had been so obvious.

“Thank you for your honesty, Alice. I’m pleased you don’t feel the need to lie in a misguided attempt to please me.”

Jay winced. She had to be missing some subtext tonight. Had Jay lied?

The idea horrified her. Henry depended upon their honesty. She trusted him to always be guided by what was in her best interests. She wouldn’t make his dominant role more difficult by lying. The machine would only be perfected with accurate data input. Form and function in harmonious motion, striving for a single goal.

“Did you trust that I would stop, Alice? And did I, quickly enough to suit you?”

“Yes, of course. One stroke wouldn’t have been a large enough sample size, but four told you my reaction wasn’t likely to change.” Thinking was easier now, when her arousal had ebbed, when she knew this night was somehow a lesson for Jay. “If you’d kept going, I would’ve said my word. But I knew I wouldn’t need to.”

“And how did you know that?”

“Because you know me. You can read my reactions. You…care about me when I put myself in your hands. You’d never keep going if you thought you were truly hurting me in a way I didn’t like.”

Was Jay crying? He blinked, rapidly, and she didn’t think he had something in his eye.

Henry’s voice softened. “Jay, you may step outside if you need to, my boy. But I believe it would be good for you to stay. Perhaps we’ll find something Alice likes. That will be better, hmm?”

Jay nodded, his head rustling against the comforter. “Yes, Henry.” His voice was hoarse, almost silent, with disuse and whatever emotions choked him. A rush of aching compassion tightened her chest.

“Good boy.” A pause. Feathers floated across her back. “Shall we start again, dear one?”

“Yes, please.”

The fading sting in her thighs left less of an ache than the paddle had on her backside. The feathers traveled up, slipping across her shoulders and pulling her attention away from the lingering memory of pain. She let her eyes drop shut as the feathers danced.

Oh!

A heavier touch, but still soft, a waterfall of fabric on her left shoulder. It dragged, and disappeared, and thudded again, on the right this time, and dragged. The suede, smooth and slow and warm.

She moaned. Her shoulders flexed with the motion. Her nipples pressed into the comforter, and she arched at the friction as they hardened. The suede was good. Very good. She lost track of the thudding strikes. Everything was sensation, and sensation was
good
.

The suede’s rhythm encompassed her entire back. A solid
thud
on her shoulder that made her jump. A slow drag downward as she trembled with anticipation. A soft series of back-and-forth slaps across her backside that set her body rocking, pressing upward to greet the fall and downward to rub her pubic mound into the pillow, which seemed an insufficient pressure.

The pattern repeated at different speeds, different strengths, every variation heightening the intensity. The ends delivered a sting on the faster strokes, but it wasn’t the painful sting of the crop or the broad sting of the paddle. She welcomed this sting, a sting that sharpened the weight of the straps falling across her skin, a sting soothed by the soft drag of suede.

She basked in the trailing drag, waiting for the fall. The right cheek next. She tilted her hips, eager for suede’s sweet kiss. The suede slapped between her legs instead, against lips swollen and flushed and thumping with her heartbeat. She gasped and trembled on the edge of release.

The suede slipped away. She whimpered, a protest, a plea. Her fingers tingled where she gripped the comforter. Her legs tensed, a breath away from shaking.

Henry’s fingers pressed inside her, curving forward, rubbing her inner flesh as they thrust. Her eyes flew open as she came, face-to-face with Jay’s dilated eyes and panting breaths. Henry drew it out, prolonging her orgasm with his fingers until she slumped against the bed and her knees buckled.

Her eyes slid half shut. Her thighs fluttered with electric shocks, muscle twitches beyond her control. She couldn’t quite get her feet under her, and she didn’t care. If Henry wanted her to move, he would move her.

Her mind bobbed along, disconnected, floating despite its heaviness. As though she drifted in a dark sea. The rumble of Henry’s voice was a pleasant rocking sensation. She may have swayed with it. Or not. It was hard to tell, and she couldn’t be bothered.

“…think she heard you, Henry.”

“…enjoyed herself, hmm?”

Movement. A shadow on her face. Her eyelids twitched open, an uncontrolled jerk.

Jay kissed her, his mouth grazing her forehead, her cheeks, her lips.

Her eyes drifted shut.

“…still not here with us…”

“…fine. Let her bask…steady…left a few marks.” A hand traced the outside of her left thigh.

Her arms and legs moved, though she didn’t think she’d caused it. Probably not. Could she make them move? She couldn’t recall how. Her body lifted, weightless. Her head came down on a pillow.

“…crash soon. Stay with her, Jay. I’ll be…”

She burrowed deeper into her cocoon, her mind insulated from the noise, her body welcoming the warm press of another.

Jay, murmuring in her ear. “…amazing. I’m glad I stayed. You were beautiful, Alice. Happy. Trusting. I hope I can get there again. You’re floating, right? Like there’s this bubble around your mind and nothing can touch you. No worries. No pain. Just peace.”

She mmmphed in agreement, wiggling to press her face to his. He stroked her hair and kissed her cheeks. She rocked as the bed dipped to her other side, her eyes opening.

Jay gave her mouth a final kiss before his head moved away. “She’s a little more aware, I think, but still pretty out of it.”

A hand rested on the center of her back, over her spine, where the toys had never touched her. Henry’s hand, warm and reassuring.

“Alice, sweet? I need for you to answer me in words, dear one. Are you well?”

She fought to find her voice, to recall how to use it, to respond to the gentle demand in his tone. “M’good.”

“I want you to have a sip of juice, Alice. Jay?”

Her body rolled and turned, until her head lay in the cradle of Jay’s neck. Henry’s intent stare made her giggle, thinking it a reversal of earlier, when Henry had been behind her and Jay had watched so intently.

Henry smiled. His hand insistently raised a glass to her lips. “Drink, Alice.”

The juice tasted sweet and just a bit tart. Pineapple? The chill spread all the way down as she swallowed, and she shivered. “S’cold.”

“It’s the crash, dear girl. The euphoric state only lasts so long.”

He made her drink again, while his other hand rested against the side of her neck. He’d undressed. When had that happened? He set the glass on the nightstand and pulled her toward him, chest to chest, leaving her back exposed to the air. He slid down until they lay on the bed, her body draped over his.

His right arm wrapped around her back with care. Clasped above her waist, between the areas on her shoulders and her bottom where aches were just making themselves known. His left arm rotated below her. Outward. He leaned left, tilting her with him, though his right hand held her steady. Where was Henry going?

Jay’s breath washed over her shoulder, his face inches away as he rolled toward them. Oh. Not going. Just pulling Jay against his side. Tucking him into the circle of his arm.

She reached for Jay’s hand and brought it back with hers, curling them both between her breasts, above Henry’s steady heartbeat.

The three of them lay in silence. Henry would eventually want to talk. Want to analyze their reactions. She wasn’t there yet. She was hardly even at thinking. He seemed to know it, had probably expected it.

And Jay. Jesus. She had no idea what had prompted his reactions. She squeezed his hand, and he nestled closer, jostling Henry.

Her eyes blinked open. Jay’s head rested against Henry’s shoulder, nearly touching her own on his chest. Did Henry mind being used as a mattress for them both? A careful stretch let her kiss Jay’s forehead and then Henry’s jaw.

“Thank you. Both of you.”

Henry clasped her more tightly. Jay squeezed her fingers.

Henry’s chest rumbled beneath her ear when he spoke. “All right now, Alice? Feeling more yourself?”

She nodded. He was too polite to hint, but she was probably getting heavy. Monopolizing his chest. And his attention. How long had she been lying on him, cuddling up to him like he was her personal sleep aid? “Yes, Henry. My brain’s working again. It wasn’t for a while there.”

“Did you enjoy that feeling? The silence in your mind?”

“I…yeah.” She wouldn’t lie to Henry, but saying the words made her uncomfortable. There was something not right about wanting that. Wanting to not be herself. Her thoughts made her who she was. Made her a unique person, one in charge of her own life. Gave her control. A way to organize and categorize her life.

Why would she want to get away from that? And why would pain give her that? Why would it make her feel good? She shifted, restless, her feet rubbing against Henry’s.