Lust Plague (Steamwork Chronicles) (18 page)

With her face still pressed to his trousers, she felt his erection stir at the same moment the tip of the belt tickled her. He trailed a meandering course along her slit and back. His arm and the weight of his chest flattened her and her hands where he held them. Inserting his boot between her knees, he shoved her legs apart. With a wiggling motion, he pressed the tip inside her, pulled it out, then teased her clit with the dampened leather. Around and across her, the belt went and pumped up the tiny center of her pleasure.

“This is telling me something.” He pressed his fingertip to her clit as if checking his aim, then tapped it with the belt tip. Each torturous though tiny blow made her jump. His hand adjusted around her wrists. “What is it telling me, Kaysana?”

The belt slapped onto the full length of her slit. She squeaked. Three, four, five times, he whacked her, and each time she flinched and bit her lip. Exposed as she was, the blows rocked through her like a crackling fire. They seemed to mark her.
His
. Trapped beneath his chest, she could only tremble and gasp and take what he gave her. His weight lifted. The echoing heat of his blows thrummed into her, spreading, deep and delightful.

“Kiss.” The belt arrived at her mouth, wet with her juices. She kissed it. “What does this tell me?” Then he reached down, smoothed his wide hand over her bottom, onto her folds, angled two fingertips into her entrance, and plunged them slickly in, spearing her, stopping short.

“Umm.” Her eyelids coasted halfway shut. Fastened down at both ends.

He thrust a smidgen farther. The sensation tripped up her words. “Well?”

An answer? She curled her tongue tip over her lips, wetting them, tasting herself. “That…”

“Yes?”

Another slow thrust made her groan and writhe.

“That I want you to…”

“Say it.” He buried his mouth in the hair below her nape, blew warm air onto her sensitive skin. She scrunched her neck, shivered.

Like a woman peering under the crack of a door into hidden, dark desires, she buried her
self
, became nothing, and found the way in.

The words squeezed from her. “Fuck me. Please. The way you want to.” She’d said the same words at the shop. This time was different.

“I’m going to, dear.” He picked up the haversack from the floor, put it over his shoulder.

The belt went around her wrists. Then he stood and led her by the free end over to the little bridge connecting their rooftop to the one where the airship was anchored. Into the darkness. She couldn’t help noticing Emily staring, her eyes bright and wide with reflected light.

Being made to follow him across the dark earth of the roof, like servant or slave, the leather digging into her wrists…it was humbling. Emily wouldn’t talk, and somehow knowing she observed made Kaysana’s body heat up even more. Her head was so messed up.

Her eyes adjusted slowly to the moonlight, sifting objects from the darkness. Sten turned. The distance between his hand and her bound ones was only inches.

The fat armored balloon of the
Emshalley
was close on their left. The links and fine skinline chains encircling her twinkled with gleams of fire and moon.

“Kneel for me, girl.”

The distant tone, the dark pits of his eye sockets sent a tremble to her legs.

“Eyes down.” Sten loomed over her. A jerk pulled taut the belt.

She flexed her fingers, then knelt, her legs stiff from…fear? Did she fear him? Why? Some shift of power had left her stranded.

“Sir?” The
sir
came easily.

He slipped the belt from her wrists. “That sounds nice from your mouth. Put your lips to my boots. Kiss them also. Ask me for the belt on your pretty ass.”

He wants me to…beg him to hit me?
Her clit poked up high outside its hood. Her lower lips were swollen…and not just from the way he’d slapped her there.

“Please, I need…I…”

No. I can’t say this
. Desperate, wanting, yet she stared at his feet. “I can’t…”

Feeling as if she’d sealed some dreadful fate for herself, she lowered her body, craned forward her neck, and kissed his boot. Dust and grit on her tongue and even here, she inhaled his scent.

“Well.” Disappointment radiated. “That’ll do then,” he said quietly, so low she almost missed the words. “Remove your clothes.”

Hands shaking, she pulled off her top and, at his nod of permission, rose and shimmied off the little leather skirt. Her boots joined the pile. The cold sent goose bumps running across her skin.

“Hands at your back. Clasp them together. Kneel again.”

The position made her breasts push out, and her nipples might have been metal, they’d turned so hard. If he bit them, they might shatter…she might shatter.

The air jittered with tension and stank of smoke. Every step he took, every action he directed sent her spiraling deeper, wrapped her around him in some aeon-old ritual. He unslung the haversack from his shoulder, stuck his hand in, and pulled out a glittering spiderweb of fine cables.

She stared, unblinking, remembering them. From the ship, and from when he’d first…
Yes—then.

The wires, the little evil-toothed clamps at the ends hypnotized her. He dropped to one knee, yet even so he was above her, taller, bigger, meaner.

Her breasts swayed when she shifted. “Please…”
Flee or stay?

“You won’t move, girl.” The jaw of the first clamp opened, ready to bite. He grasped her whole breast, slipped his fingers to the peak, and pinched her nipple, pulled it out. “You’re brave. You’ll take this. First one.” It bit her. Fire twined, screwed in, leaped into her flesh.

She hissed in air, clenched, unclenched her hands, but Sten put his hand to her throat, pressed his fingers and thumb a quarter inch into muscle, steadying her with the small, violent act as he made her keep still.

“How’s that?”

What?
Looking up at him…he seemed as far away as the moon above. He loomed. He watched her. Waited.

“I…” She shut her eyes, felt the pain as it blossomed and wove into her, and she opened her eyes again. “I’m okay.”

His smile strengthened her. “Next.” Another hot bite at her nipple. Panting helped. “The last.”

When he searched out her clit and shuffled his finger and thumb about until he pushed up the nub of flesh, she keened and stiffened. Then he placed the clamp.
Bite
and
sear.

“Aaah.” Openmouthed, she breathed out through the pain. He thumbed the furrow of her neck, soothing her until the arch of her back softened and she opened her eyes to his gaze.

Neatly he wound the wires together in front of her. She followed the lines to where he held them, fascinated, awed at the feel. Metal directions to her sex, amplifiers of her need.

“Up.” He tugged, and she got her feet under her, swayed, then padded after him to the airship. “Press up close.”

The skinlines of the ship crisscrossed and formed a grid of fine chains. Hand flattened on her back, he set her standing so the skin of the balloon touched her breasts. The cold leached in. Sten stretched the wires from each of her nipples to either side, wrapping them about a skinline chain. To the left, then to the right, he adjusted them, checking the tension.

The little teeth were sunk in deep. She wouldn’t forget them. But the wind might pick up… “If the ship moves.” Though she’d said it quietly, her voice ruptured the silence.

The belt slapped on her ass, and the wires yanked at her. Kaysana came to a shuddering halt. If dragged off, those teeth might scratch her badly.

“Don’t. I have the anchors set. Trust. Remember.”

Trust? Did she? Saying and doing were different. Though she’d not grabbed the wires, her hands were splayed on the balloon. She turned to set her cheek on the cool skin, striving to breathe.

“Yes, Sir.”

Rope encircled one wrist, then the other, interlacing with the chains and tying her more thoroughly to the balloon. The rough handling rocked her, and the metal teeth tugged at her nipples. She shivered. She was spread-eagled across the airship and at Sten’s mercy.

“The last is this.” He buckled the collar around her neck, knelt behind her, brought the wire leading to her clit up between her legs, and connected it to the collar.

“If you move, these will bite, Kaysana.”

At her nape, he gathered her hair, used it to hold her neck back at an angle while he, one by one, untangled strands of loose hair from the collar. With more rope, he tied the ponytail together. Then he leaned on the balloon on either side of her, covering her hands with his. His weight crushed her into the balloon, tweaking the clamps. He nestled into her neck.

“If you cry at all, I stop.” His left arm lifted off her; then his palm curved into her cleft. One finger entered her, dipping in as slowly as tears cruising down a face.

“If I don’t?” With his face near hers, the sounds seemed soft and muffled, intimate.

“You will.”

Her hot breaths and his mingled.

Cry?
Of all the signals he could choose… She curled her hands. The sound of her nails scratching the canvas centered her. Crying was for girls.

Then he stepped back, and struck her.

The sound of the belt hissing through the air over and over, the slap when it met her ass, her skin, became a recital of pain. Over and over, back and forth, one side, then the other. He didn’t speak. He didn’t care. No one cared. Her skin vibrated with endless fire; her lips slipped and made moist tracks on the balloon. Her sweat ran in burning paths down her back and splattered the air with each hit. She didn’t…she didn’t…she never…cried.

Didn’t. Won’t. Never cry. Never.

The slap of leather echoed in the distance. The balloon she leaned on gave like a newly made bed—soft, comfy, big. The air grew warm. The reflected light of the moon bubbled and shimmied. Nothing mattered. Nothing…at all.

The feel of his hands on her made her smile.

“There. Almost there,” he said.

Things undid, went. He freed her. Laid her on the ground and kissed her lips until at last she kissed him back. His hand smoothed her hair away from her forehead.

“There. You’re okay. I’m here, Kaysana. I’m here.” Moisture fell on her face.

“I…don’t cry.” She put her trembling hand to his face and found tears. Frowned. “You?”

“Me.” His fingers touched her cheek. “And you. You’re crying, Kaysana. You screamed and I stopped, but you’re crying too.”

“Me?”

It was true. Her face was wet with her own tears. And her ass burned like it’d been dipped in a fiery pit in hell. “Damn,” she said quietly. “Damn.”

“Who do you cry for? Tell me.” Those big eyes of his searched hers as if she had some wonderful secret.

Inside her, a tension that’d been there for a million years collapsed in a rush, like a dam made of mud washed away in a storm, the dirt swirling away forever. “Mingzhu.” Too quiet to be heard—he frowned down at her, and she dredged up her courage to say it louder. “Mingzhu.”

“Who is that?”

“My little sister. She died, long ago.”

His frown deepened. “Then leave her there, in the past. Let her be.”

“Don’t know if I can.” A knife seemed wedged in her throat.

“You will. This might help.” And he removed the silver wolf pendant from around his neck and placed it about hers. “There. He can guard you. My friend’s.”

The gift stunned her. She recalled his friend—this must be the one who’d died. “His name?”

For a while she thought he wouldn’t tell.

“Abrian.”

“Abrian. Thank you.”

She fingered the cool metal of the medallion. She was lying on her back, naked, under Sten. He’d spanked her with his belt.
Cao. Hell
. Her nipples stung, and so did her bottom. Every time her heart thumped, her clit echoed the beat like a tiny synchronized engine. She tongued her lip…and he noticed.

“And thank you for telling me.” Then he cupped her chin and kissed her, said softly, “Now I’m going to make love to you.”

That sounded gentle. And so not Sten, not the man she wanted. “Make love? Sounds…” She swallowed.
Dare I?
“Sounds…tame.”

“Does fuck sound better?” Sternness hardened his face, wrapped her chest in cold bands of steel, froze her breath.

Fear shivered through her.
Big man. Small me.

“Umm.”

He sat up, grabbed her hips, and flipped her onto her stomach. Squirming made the cold earth rub on her sore flesh, cooled her, made her feel alive.
Yes.

With his knees, he spread her legs. Then he held her down, inserted two fingers into her cunt, and pulled them out. “Wet. Yes. I think I’ll fuck you. Making love is for pussies.”

She bit back most of a giggle. Not that she ever giggled. That too was for girls.

“But first…” He whipped leather around her wrists, cinched it up the middle between her hands. She twisted and wriggled her hands but couldn’t get loose. Cloth wrapped across her face, blindfolding her, pressing in on her eyes. Blackness descended.
Ah. This is different
. The pulse in her temple pounded madly.

He might do anything with her. Her trembling was equal parts trepidation and anticipation. “Sten—”

Another cloth wound around her at mouth level. She pushed with her tongue, swallowing, trying to shake her head but not succeeding, while he knotted it.

He growled just behind her, inches away, lodged his fingers on either side of her throat. “Tame, am I? Be still or I’ll do this in front of the fire. You wanted to be fucked my way.
This
is my way.”

The way he lifted her so easily up to his chest, as if she was no heavier than a pillow, made her feel tiny. She guessed she was compared to this massive man, and it made her so goddamned happy, in a scary way. She lay on her back in his arms—one arm under her shoulders with his palm cupping her breast, the other beneath her bottom where her ass curved into her thighs.

“You can’t see me, but I see you, beautiful.” His mouth encompassed the peak of her breast, sucked her areola into the wet cave where his tongue played with her at his leisure. Lapping, sucking, teasing the nipple over and over. Biting,
hard
. She squeaked but couldn’t stop what he did, or stop herself arching up into him.