Too Much: A Loveswept Contemporary Erotic Romance (All or Nothing) (9 page)

He raised his arm and the falls of the broader flogger struck her back with a thud. Her breath whooshed out and she moved side to side, running or moving toward another strike was anyone’s guess. Maybe both.

He smiled, and power ran down his arm. Copeland let the flogger fall twice more before he stroked her back with the shorter one.

She wanted to yell; he recognized it. Her head fell back and he could see the sweat begin to bead on her brow. So much desire. So long since he’d felt this way.

“Do you like the way the flogger kisses your skin, little sub? Do you want to scream?”

She remained silent, but her breath sawed in and out of her lungs. He could feel the attention of the people above him like fingers along his spine. Sexy, but at the same time it was abomination. Nobody should know her need except him. He owned her responses. That’s where he found his freedom.

Yet, this was for her.

“They can hear us. Do you like knowing others will hear what is mine alone?”

She didn’t answer. He had to know.

“You have my permission to answer this one question. Tell me, little sub,” he bit out. “Do you like knowing others hear us?” He punctuated each word with a strike from the smaller flogger.

Her body arched and she shifted, arms pulling against the bonds, body rippling with each stroke of his toy over her flesh. She fucking loved it.

“Yes!” A sob followed the word.

How much could she take? He was about to find out. He began an infinity configuration with the floggers. He struck with the shorter one and followed it with the heavier. Pain and pleasure, biting heat and thudding lust, each strike echoing in his cock. Over and over he let the falls of his floggers touch her and dance away.

Her body tensed at one point and he wondered if she’d safe word. For long minutes her back bowed as the pleasure threatened to overwhelm her. Even in the low light his marks showed in vibrant color against the cream of her skin, and he stopped suddenly.

She sagged and he stepped close, the heat from his body a magnet hers couldn’t refuse. She tried to curl against him, but he kept enough distance that her bindings wouldn’t let her. He scratched his nails softly down her back and she hissed.

“Please,” she whispered.

He heard the plea and removed his hand. He struck her then with the longer flogger and allowed the tails to wrap around her stomach. She cried out, and he knew he’d tapped a nipple.

“For every word you utter there will be punishment,” he said in a low voice.

Another swing and the flogger’s tails wrapped around her other side, touching the other
nipple. She sank against the cross, hoping no doubt to hide her body from his toy.

“Stand,” he demanded.

She shook her head. His balls drew up. Her defiance always ramped up their play. He simply couldn’t handle it when she denied him. Copeland’s cock screamed at him to take her. He ignored it. Three years had bred a steel will into him. Not tonight.

He’d have her everything or nothing at all.

He walked to the chest and pulled out the red hood made especially for her. Its soft tooled leather would cover her head and face. There were eye, nose, and mouth holes, but her vision would be limited to him alone. She’d earned this tonight.

He set his floggers down and walked to her. He released his knots and she almost fell, but he braced her with his chest.

He took a deep breath. “Turn around, sub.”

She remained where she was.

“Turn around.” Nothing but command in his tone. She straightened her shoulders and slowly did as he’d ordered. “How does the wood feel against my marks?”

She remained silent.

“Tell me and then be silent.”

“Cool—so very cool.
Delicious
,” she whispered.

“Raise your hands.”

She did, and once again he bound her to his cross.

“Raise your head but keep your eyes closed.” He couldn’t stand it if their gazes met. He’d fuck her right now, and all this would be for nothing.

He owned her body. He wanted her soul.

Again, she did as he’d ordered, and a shiver worked his heart. He lowered the hood over her head, fastened it behind her, and stepped back.

“Open your eyes, little sub.”

Her brown orbs glowed at him from behind the hood. He reached for his cock, still covered by his pants, and squeezed. She’d take everything from him with those eyes.

“You disobeyed me. I told you to stand and you denied my command,” he whispered, yet his voice was loud even above the noise from the club above.

He ran the shorter flogger’s handle over her chest. She was panting behind the hood. Power sang through his body. He lowered the flogger handle and tapped her pubis lightly.

“Spread your legs.”

She hesitated and he leaned in, taking a nipple in his mouth and grabbing the ring between his teeth. He pulled gently and she inhaled sharply. Her legs spread immediately and he rewarded her by releasing the ring.

Methodically, he swung the flogger and its tails just brushed her pussy. She almost, almost, closed her legs. Oh, her eyes were on fire. He heard everything she didn’t say aloud and threw back his head, laughing joyously. Her submission was always hard won. It was fucking hot to know he pushed her even as she did the same to him.

“I heard that,” he said in a hard voice. “And I have to say, I like the way your breath breaks as my tails hit your pussy. You want to come, don’t you, little sub?”

He swung harder this time and the tails slapped the front of her thighs, but some snuck between her legs, tapping her pussy again.

“Keep your legs spread or the come you’re wanting will never happen,” he threatened.

Then he began working her again. The broader-tailed flogger thudded over her belly and thighs endlessly. Occasionally he would sneak in a strike over her stomach and breasts with the shorter flogger. She would hiss, and it was a symphony in his ears.

He could smell her arousal, and it made him made ache with need. She shifted from foot to foot endlessly, her body begging for release.

“Tell. Me.”

Her head rose, and from behind the mask her eyes burned him.

“Give me our word,” he taunted her now. “Tell. Me.”

She breathed heavily, chest heaving, the front of her body deliciously red. Need wound through him, hot, volcanic.
Please
, he thought,
give me the word.
“You want to come, little sub? Give me the goddamn word.” It was so important he’d had it tattooed on his body.

“Everything,” she whispered.

That was all it took. He threw the floggers aside and unzipped his pants, allowing them to fall as he stepped to her. Copeland lifted her legs and let her wrap them around his waist.

“Is this what you want?”

“Everything,” she said, and though her voice was muffled, her need was loud and clear.

He rubbed his cock through the opening of her body and between one breath and the next, seated himself deep. Her head dropped back against the cross.

“Look at me while I fuck you,” he demanded. “Look at me while I take this body and make it mine.”

She raised her head and Copeland ripped off the hood, desperate to see the passion there. He wasn’t disappointed. Her lips were swollen from where she’d bitten them trying to hold in her screams, and her cheeks were as flushed as her body.

Her gaze pierced him, a demand in them his body begged to answer. His cock flexed inside her and her eyelids closed. She was on the precipice. Her body squeezed him, milking, threatening to take all he was from the tip of his dick.

“Say it again,” he said, and pulled out of her body.

“Everything,” she said.

He set loose his lust, surging back in deep and hard. Over and over he pounded into her receptive sheath. He held her lower body and she used her legs’ grip on his hips to leverage against him, utilizing everything at her disposal to achieve release. Her mouth opened on a wordless scream and her abdomen rippled.

“Come!” he commanded, and her body convulsed on his.

He followed her, unable to stop his release. He threw back his head, everything going black for a moment. Then he slammed back into his body and realized he was grasping her hips so hard he’d likely leave marks.

Her back was supported by the cross, but he continued to hold her hips in his hands. Her legs threatened to uncross and he remained embedded deeply in her body, aftershocks of the most intense orgasm of his life hitting him one after the other.

It took him long moments to pull his flesh from the grasp of hers. She moaned, keeping her eyes closed, but a small smile curved her lips.

“Open your eyes,” he said.

She did, and what he saw stopped his breath. He unlatched her legs and slowly lowered them from his waist.

She remained silent. Copeland pressed his body against hers, keeping her upright at the cross as he unlaced his knots and allowed the rope to fall to the floor. Her head fell to his shoulders and when he picked her up in his arms, she hissed.

He’d used her body hard tonight. His marks were all over her torso and back. He’d care for her now, rub those marks, ease their sting, and kiss every single one until she moaned again.

He moved out of the Black Dungeon and into a different room off the opposite wall. This was his room. Well, hers, really, because he’d built this entire dungeon for her. This room had never had anyone in it. It was for them alone.

He grimaced as he remembered drawing up the plans. He’d had no surety this would ever happen. She might have never returned to him, but in his heart he knew he’d have sought her out again eventually.

Between them was a depth of emotion that bound them as surely as the rope that had held her earlier.

He crossed the bedroom and entered the large bathroom. He set her gently on the vanity. Copeland wet a soft washrag in warm water and moved to her. Beginning with her face, he wiped in gentle strokes, over her forehead and cheeks, down her neck, over her breasts and abdomen. He rinsed the rag and began again. Over her hips, down her thighs, over her back, he kept his strokes light.

Almost more than being inside her body his aftercare of her warmed him, settled all the
rough places and allowed him to breathe. Her trust was implied in her consent. It was his duty, his honor, to care for this woman who had just gifted him with her submission.

He had dominated her, but in the end it was always Copeland who was dominated by her submission.

“Spread your legs, little sub.”

Once she’d done as he asked, he wiped her down, mourning the loss of his seed from her body but realizing that soon, he’d replace it. His lust for her never eased. He’d want her until the breath left his body and they lowered him into the ground.

He threw down the rag and stepped between her legs. She relaxed against the mirror behind her and he rested his forehead on her chest. Her hands rose and she buried them in his hair.

He wanted to weep. How long since she’d touched him this way? In love and release? He remained there for a long moment and remembered he needed to care for her back. Though his strikes with the flogger were always given carefully, the marks they left could sting.

“Come on,” he said. She wrapped her legs around his waist and he picked her up, carrying her to the bedroom. “Lay facedown,” he instructed as he placed her on the bed.

She obeyed him and his throat clogged. He was the luckiest bastard on earth. He grabbed the Tiger Balm from the bedside table and uncapped it as he pushed her heavy hair to the side. Copeland took his time rubbing the balm on her back, occasionally pausing to lick at a particularly deep welt. She moaned frequently and he noticed her buttocks flexing.

He put a hand on her ass, stopping the movement. “Nobody brings you release but me,” he ground out.

“That I want you again so soon should piss me off,” she said into the pillow.

“And still nothing and nobody brings you release but me. Now stop pressing into the bed, little sub.” He patted her ass softly and she hissed.

“I need you, Jeremiah. Please ease me.” It was a plea from her soul.

His own recognized it and his hand paused in its journey over her back.

“What do you need?” he asked.

She rose and looked over her shoulder, her chocolate gaze spearing him to the spot. “You—taking away the pain.”

Copeland closed his eyes against the need in hers and took a deep breath. He had to open himself up wide and pray she did the same.

He opened his arms wide and said, “Here I am.”

Daly sighed. “Hold me, Jeremiah. Tonight, that’s what I need.”

He had taken her higher than he’d ever done before. Like flying too close to the sun, she’d burned and almost incinerated. He’d worked her effortlessly, commanding her body and pulling her heart up from hiding. Now she needed the comfort of his arms around her, his heartbeat against her ear, and his lips under hers.

Even if it was a false promise he’d made, she needed it tonight. Because Daly was very much afraid she’d given herself to him all over again. It was impossible to separate the woman from the sub when he played her. He demanded everything from her and wouldn’t have stopped until she gave it to him.

His reaction was instantaneous. He scooped her up, careful of her back, and turned her into his arms, tucking her head into his neck. He leaned his back against the huge, mahogany headboard and she curved her body into his, stealing his heat and relaxing.

She rested her head on his chest and gazed out the enormous bank of windows in the bedroom. Somehow she knew he’d designed this entire room for her.

“Why?”

He grunted, not even bothering to question what she was referring to. “I had hope.”

“I didn’t,” she said, but followed her statement with a kiss to the area over his heart.

His hand came up and cradled her head, rubbing her scalp, soothing. “Do you hurt at all?”

She glanced up at him and shook her head. “I wear your marks proudly.”

He took her mouth then, as she’d known he would. As his words dominated her in a scene, hers took him where only she could outside of it. She was his submissive, and yet she hadn’t realized until tonight how much power that position held.