Woman In Chains (8 page)

Lava coursed through Dak’s body. After coming to an abrupt halt at his house, Dak pulled Rebekah out of his truck from the driver’s side. He didn’t want to take a chance of her running again, although it surprised him that she hadn’t bolted as soon as he’d cut across Doc’s path.

Why hadn’t she run? Did fear keep her bound to her spot, or had she started to believe him? At this point, he could care less. After tonight she would be gone.

Rebekah trailed behind him, tripping over his large boots that he normally kept by the front door. After locking the door, he pulled her to the bathroom.

“No more games.” As though talking to a child, he bent his knees in order to stare directly into her eyes. “You’re going to take a bath. You’re going to eat. And you’re going to go to sleep on the bed in handcuffs until tomorrow.” Dak looked to the heavens. “God willing, Steel will take you to your real safe house, and you’ll be out of my hair.”

As though he had requested her to do so, she glanced up at his head. She must have taken stock of the blood that had now crusted on his face. With a slow, tentative hand, she reached for the wound.

Not fully trusting her, Dak jerked back. “Bath. Now.” Then he leaned against the sink to watch her.

He didn’t stay out of sick perversion. With two windows in this bathroom and Rebekah’s penchant for fleeing, he had to keep a close eye on her.

“This Slave is offered no privacy?” She wrapped her arms around her body.

Dak noticed the handcuff dangling from her wrist. At the moment, Dak could care less about the security device. He stood and took a couple of steps away from the counter.

“Your hands on the counter.” He pointed to a space next to him.

“What?” She took a couple of steps back.

“I told you before that if you called yourself This Slave again that I would punish you. I’m serious about that. Put your hands on the counter.”

Rebekah stared at him, then at the counter. He heard her breathing increase to a hyper panting.

“Now!” He knew he would have to do the punishment swiftly before she could process the idea.

The more she thought about it, the more panic-stricken she would become.

“I don’t have all night. At this point, you don’t want to make me repeat myself.” Dak stepped back to give her room.

After long consideration, Rebekah approached him.

“On the counter.” Dak moved behind her and waited.

In the full-length horizontal mirror over the sink, he watched her chew her lower lip before assuming the position.

“Your feet back.” He tapped her still-booted foot with his and waited for her to take a couple of steps backward, causing her ass to stick out.

Although the baggy sweatpants did nothing for her figure, having her bend over did. Even through the unflattering garment, he saw the shape of her rounded ass. Dak’s heart pounded as though awakened after several years of nonuse.

She flinched when he placed his hand on the small of her back. Dak didn’t want to scare her. He hadn’t intended to beat her into submission. He’d given her one rule to follow. She couldn’t call herself “This Slave” while in his presence. 

“Five spanks.” Dak kept his gaze connected to hers in the mirror’s reflection.

She glared at him as though he had no right to touch her. That look made him want to punish her even more.

Rebekah acted like a wild horse that needed to be broken. With proper training, she could be amazing…for someone else.

Dak landed the first smack. The soft fabric did nothing to hide the fact that underneath hid a well-toned body.

“Count it down.” He pressed his hand harder on her back.

Rebekah grunted, mumbled something under her breath, then said, “One.”

“One what?”

She shook her head. “You are not my master.”

“Then ‘Sir’ will suffice.”

She huffed in frustration. “One, Sir.”

He reared his hand back and slapped the other cheek.

“Two, Sir.”

With the second hit, a gentle stirring churned inside of him. The dust that covered his latent BDSM needs had been blown off, showing off a shiny, new appreciation.

Dak massaged her back even as he inflicted the third strike. God, he missed doing this. The power. The control. The trust, even guarded.

“Three, Sir.” Rebekah uttered the phrase through gritted teeth.

When Dak disciplined her, a surge of power zipped through his body. Punishment shouldn’t feel this good.

“Four, Sir.”

Dak heard Rebekah’s voice breaking, which made him stop for a moment to regard her. A tear streamed down her cheek. Seeing her tears made him question his methods. Had he spanked her too hard? Should he stop now?

No. A weaker Dom would stop the punishment. For all he knew, Rebekah could have been tricking him again like she had before when she’d asked for a towel, then cleaned his clock with the lamp.

At the last blow, Dak left his hand resting on her ass. He’d punished her hard, but a feeling deep inside of him screamed that she’d needed this for a long, long time.

Dak moved in behind her. With one hand on her waist now and the other on top of her hand on the counter, he crowded her space. He knew after such a strict punishment that aftercare had to be administered. He had at least remembered that.

“I’d like for you to sit down with me so that we can talk about what just happened.” He kept his tone low and even yet commanding.

Rebekah’s breathing slowed to a steady rate. Then she glared at Dak’s reflection. Without a word, she slipped her hand from under his and moved away from him.

“Don’t walk away from me.” Dak reached for her.

Rebekah started to strip out of her clothes. In a blink, she shed her top and tossed it on the floor. Next to go were his clunky boots, which she left toppled in the middle of the floor. As much as Dak should have wanted to look away when she removed the sweatpants, he couldn’t.

When she turned her back to him, Dak saw how red her ass cheeks were from his punishment. Rebekah stepped into the claw-foot bathtub that sat in the middle of the room.

“Rebekah, we need to—”

“You’re a hypocrite.”

Her assessment caused Dak to blink. “What did you just say?”

“A hypocrite. That or a liar. You’re supposed to save people, and you give a punishment like that to a person you believe has been abused?” She shook her head and gazed down into the water.

Dak dropped down next to the tub to address her. He wanted to make sure that she understood every word he said to her.

“What I did just now was not abuse. Had I not warned you before that the spanking was coming, I would agree with you.” He reached for her hand that rested on the side of the tub.

As soon as he touched her, she slipped her hand into the water. “Master Blade does the same thing, but you call it abuse.”

Dak shook his head. “Blade is a monster. If you were honest with yourself, you would see that.”

She brought her knees up to her chest and hugged them.

The dig of comparing Dak to Blade made him feel gutted. He couldn’t get rid of Rebekah fast enough.

“Tell me your name.”

When Rebekah remained quiet, Dak moved to the other side of the tub to gain eye contact with her. She turned her head the other way to avoid him.

“Are you going to talk to me?”

Her body stilled at his inquiry. Instead of answering him, she began bathing herself.

“Fine. I’ll be right here waiting until you’re done.” He leaned against the counter again and watched her.

Dak had never gone through so much for one person before. In the short time he’d been with Rebekah, she’d drawn out his dominant side and made him question his skill. She had more power than she realized. For that reason, he would happily see her on her way.

After her bath, and after she refused to eat anything, Dak dressed Rebekah in another one of his T-shirts, then cuffed her to his bed again. He sat guard at the doorway in a chair to make sure she didn’t try to escape. It had been a long night. Thank God, it’d be ending soon.

****

Dak felt something soft, like a feather, glide over his lips. He opened his eyes and found Rebekah hovering over him. Although he should have been startled, he felt calm.

He studied her face, from her soulful brown eyes to her button nose to those kissable full lips. He licked his own in response.

Her hands rested on the arms of the chair as she straddled him.

“How did you get out?” he asked.

She smiled, and her angelic face beamed. “You freed me, remember?”

As a way to thank him, she planted kisses down the side of his face and over his neck. The feeling erected every hair on his body. Grabbing her hips, he pulled her closer to him. Even though he knew she wore nothing underneath the T-shirt, Dak wanted to see her body.

He yanked the garment off her as she let her hand travel down his body to his jeans.

“What would Master Dak like?” she asked as she undid the button on his jeans, then pulled down the zipper.

“You know what I like.”

As though they had done it before, Rebekah lowered herself onto his hardened cock and rode him, slowly at first, but eventually increasing speed. He felt her slick inner walls surrounding his shaft, tightening on him until he wanted to come. Dak’s heart pounded so hard it scared him.

“Oh, God! So good!” Dak raised his hips to meet her gyrations. “Just tell me your name. Trust me enough to tell me your name.”

Rebekah leaned forward, placing her mouth right by his ear. He felt her hot breath warming the shell of his ear.

“My name? You want to know my real name?” Her sultry voice turned his spine into pudding.

“Yes! Yes! Tell me!”

“It’s—”

Another pounding sounded in Dak’s ears, muting what Rebekah had said. Then he heard it again and knew the pounding didn’t come from his own heartbeat.

In an instant, Dak opened his eyes, finding Rebekah asleep and bound to his bed, and the constant pounding coming from the front door.

Jesus H. He’d never had such a vivid dream like that in his life. Dak sprang from his chair, trying hard to hide his apparent erection. Rebekah had already accused him of physical abuse. He didn’t need her classifying him as some sort of sex-crazed pervert.

Another forceful knock pounded on the door again.

“Yeah, yeah! I’m coming.” Dak opened his door, assuming on the other side would be his savior, Gordon. “It’s about fucking ti—”

Seeing their mutual friend Moira didn’t sit well with him. Gordon usually sent her when he couldn’t deliver bad news. Besides the fate of their dear mutual friend fighting his terminal condition, the worst news Dak could get right now involved the woman cuffed to his bed.

His eyes widened. “No, no, no!”

Chapter Five

“Whatever happened to ‘Hi, Moira. Welcome to my home’?” The petite woman stepped into Dak’s house.

“You know exactly why I’m saying no. Where the hell is Gordon?” Dak closed the door behind her. Although way out in the country, he knew no one would be driving by his home.

“How do you know Gordon sent me and that I’m not here just to check up on you? We
are
friends.” She tucked her short, black hair behind her ears, then crossed her arms over her chest. She looked like a pint-sized executive in her gray skirt and crisp button-down white shirt.

Dak didn’t have to verbally respond. He cocked his head as he stared at her.

“You’re right.” Moira shrugged. “I just wanted to know how you knew.”

“Unbelievable. What’s his excuse this time?”

“Gordon had to go out of town for personal reasons. He didn’t tell me what they were, so don’t ask.” She sat her purse on a small table by the front door.

Dak stormed past her. “Coffee or tea?”

“Tea would be great.”

He filled a kettle and placed it on the stove. “I guess he’s told you what’s going on, right?”

“You did another save.”

“I was
forced
into doing the save.”

“He held a gun to your head?”

“Fine. Coerced, Miss Semantics. Now I’m stuck with her.” He arranged two mugs on the counter. “You’re a shrink.”

“Wow, that label didn’t hurt.” Moira took a seat at the table.

“Sorry. Psychiatrist. Can you check her out?”

“I could. But it looks like you could use some help yourself.” She pointed to Dak’s head.

Touching it, he’d almost forgotten about the bandage he’d had to fashion after Rebekah had knocked him over the head with his lamp.

“That was courtesy of our frightened guest.”

“What did you do to her?”

Dak’s jaw unhinged. “Why would you automatically assume that I did something? All I did was offer to bathe her and feed her dinner. She is doing this annoying thing of calling herself This Slave instead of her real name.”

“Oh, no. Not one of those.”

Dak nodded. “I’ve renamed her Rebekah. She almost got tangled up with Doc last night. But she told him that her name was Rebekah, so she might be getting used to it. If not, I’ll make sure she gets used to it.”

Moira rutted her eyebrows at his statement. “What do you mean by that?”

The kettle whistled and Dak removed it from the blue flame. When he’d left the real Rebekah, not the woman who had appeared in his dream, she still slept. He would keep her that way for as long as he could.

“I mean that if she doesn’t do things my way, I’ll have to discipline her like I did last night.”

Moira rose from the table. “What?”

Dak didn’t fear much. He’d been in combat during Desert Storm. He’d even done some bounty hunting when he got out of the military. The glare Moira shot him forced him to avert his gaze.

After swallowing hard, Dak replied, “I told her not to call herself This Slave in front of me again. She did. So I spanked her.”

When Dak gained enough strength to look at Moira, he saw her jaw flex. If he listened closely, he probably could have heard her teeth grinding.

“Have you lost your mind?” Moira braced one hand on the counter. “You don’t take a woman who has been physically traumatized and subject her to more physical punishment.”