She whimpered, the sensations around her melting her insides. He would always be good to her. Always help her, cherish her, protect her. And she lived to please him. She knew it wasn’t PC, knew she should want to be independent, strong on her own. But what was so wrong with needing another person, man or woman?
The clamps tightened again, the pressure this time almost too much. He knew where her
almost
was so well and always kept her on the right side of
too much
.
“I’m going to make you want to come now. I’m going to push you hard to that edge and bring you back again. And again. But you do not come until I tell you to. This is your punishment.” And she was going to love every minute of it.
His voice lapped against her like a thousand rushing waves, wrapping her in that cocoon of safety as her mind buzzed. Nothing could touch her here except him. Not bills or responsibilities, not reality. Only him. Her Master.
He cupped her sex, rubbing his palm over and over her sensitive nub. He spread the lips of her sex wider, and she fought the urge to close her legs, to keep him out.
“So pretty,” he whispered. He licked her clit, and she moaned. He licked it again, then pressed something hot and wet against it. She screamed at the burn, her thighs spasming with the tension of holding off release. Cold pulsed around the heat, and as he moved his hand from her clit to her navel in a wet trail, she realized it wasn’t something hot, but rather an ice cube he was teasing her with. He dipped the cube into her navel, keeping her open wide to the air that rushed over her exposed clit. As the ice began to melt, he rubbed it up her body, stopping at her nipple.
He held it there, the metal freezing around her nipple as the ice burned its very tip. She started to count in her head as the seconds ticked by, and still he didn’t remove the ice. The burning pleasure centered on that one small piece of herself as her nipple turned to ice. She forgot about the pulsing between her legs in the burn of pleasure/pain surrounding that nipple. Until he flicked her clit. Once. Twice. She cried out, little rockets threatening to explode in her head.
Then the ice was gone, the nipple clamps suddenly loose and falling to the floor. He removed his hands, pulling away all sensation from her, and she groaned, frustration and pleasure warring within her. She’d started to come. At least she thought she had. When everything balanced on the edge like this, it was sometimes difficult to tell until the orgasm shattered through her body.
She counted in her head again, waiting, anticipating his return. She reached one hundred in complete sensory deprivation.
“Good girl.” His voice purred with pride, and she felt a blush color her cheeks. Something hard pushed at her entrance. “So wet,” he said, slipping the head of a dildo into her.
It tingled and burned. Oh, he’d put that gel on the dildo. The warming gel always sent her rocketing into orbit. But she couldn’t let go yet. He pushed the toy inside her sheath, and she moaned.
He left it deep inside her and spread her folds wide again. His thick finger rubbed in a small circle on her clit, sending another lick of pleasure down her spine. He pulled his finger away, pushing her folds open farther with both hands. Then the tingling began on her clit. She screamed. He slapped her on the clit, and she bit down on her lip.
Don’t come, don’t come.
But she wasn’t sure how long she could stop herself. He tapped her clit again and again, a little harder each time. He slipped his finger between her folds, letting them close around it, and continued the tap, tap, tapping in rapid succession. Then he was plunging the dildo in and out of her, slamming it home.
“Are you ready?”
“God, yes, please, Sir. Please!”
“Come for me, baby. Right now.”
He thrust the dildo deep, pounded his finger against her clit, and she cried out, the orgasm flooding her body with heat, pleasure, and more than she could handle. She screamed and pulsed and quivered until she couldn’t stand any longer and hung limp in the restraints, her body clenching and releasing. The dildo slid from her sheath, and she shuddered, another wave of pleasure lancing through her. He undid the wrist cuffs, and she crumpled into his arms. After unhooking the leg cuffs, he carried her to the lounge chair in the corner and lay down with her, holding her close.
“I kind of like it when you’re a bad girl,” he said, and she could hear the smile in his voice.
“Mm. Me too.”
Chapter Two
Liz’s hands trembled as she held the phone to her ear. She was doing it. Crap.
“Sophia Benitez,” her agent said from the other end of the line.
“Hey, Soph. It’s Liz.” They’d been on a first-name personal basis for well over eight years now, and Sophia had become her agent two years ago. They were friends first, author and agent second. It was sometimes a hard balance to maintain, but they seemed to do well with it.
“Hey,
chiquita
, what’s up?” Soph asked.
Liz smiled at the familiar name her old friend used, though she wasn’t really anyone’s
little one
.
“I got your e-mail.” Dread welled in her gut. Was she seriously going to tell one of her closest friends that she would write one of
those
books? It didn’t seem right. When she put words on the page, it was like letting someone see inside her soul. She’d never let anyone see that deeply before, and she didn’t know if she could handle it. But those dreams were consuming her alive, and she already had thirty pages written and a loose plot in her head waiting to come out.
“You’re going to have to be a little less vague.”
Liz could hear Sophia’s fingers tapping on the keys of her computer. She could picture Sophia sitting at her desk in her home office, dark hair pulled high into a ponytail, manicured fingers flying a mile a minute.
“The one about the call from the publishers…for the, uh, BDSM books,” she finished in a rush, hoping if she said it fast enough, maybe Soph wouldn’t know what she was saying. Shoot. Could she do this?
“Oh, really?”
The shock in Sophia’s voice hurt, but Liz ignored it. It was her own fault. She’d made her dislike of the genre known for some time now. But if she was going to go forward with the book, she was going to go in whole-hog. She never did anything less than 100 percent. She rubbed her earlobe, thumb holding the back of the lobe as she moved the side of her finger back and forth along the front.
“Yeah. Well, I had this idea. You know how it goes sometimes. And it won’t let up. I blame you and all your e-mail calls for this stuff.” There wasn’t anything wrong with sex. After ten years out of her father’s house, she knew she finally truly believed that. But there was a distinct difference between sex and the kind of debauched fantasy she’d been indulging in.
Son of a monkey. Guilt swirled in her gut as memories flashed through her head. Her father’s ideas of sex education had been a litany of Bible verses, graphic STD photos, and making her babysit the brattiest kids he could find. It hadn’t worked. With another swipe of her ear and a deep breath, Liz pushed the past away.
Sophia chuckled. “Yeah, well, it’s a hot genre and the one the publishers are pushing pretty hard right now. I’d
love
to see it when it’s done. What are we thinking deadline-wise on your end? Because Marshall Press is doing a big release next year of a new kink line called Behind Closed Doors. It would be great if you could have it done in the next few months so we can shop it to them.”
Researched and drafted in a couple months? Definitely. Researched, drafted, rewritten, revised, and polished? Liz wasn’t sure about that. “You do love to challenge me, don’t you?”
“Kind of in the job description,” Sophia said.
“True. Uh, I’m a bit out of my element with this one, so it’s going to require some research time. I don’t know if that timeline is doable.”
“Okay. Get me a draft in eight weeks, and we’ll talk.”
“I have no idea where to start.”
Liz could picture Sophia smiling and shaking her head. “You always say that.”
“I know. Beginnings suck. But it’s more than that this time. I’m floundering in uncharted waters here.”
“Okay, I might have an idea. There’s a loop of BDSM authors another client is on. I’ll ask her to add you to it. Start there. Ask some questions. And of course I’m always a phone call away to talk knotted plotlines, character bios, and romantic subplots.”
“Thanks, Soph. I’ll get back to you soon,” Liz said and hung up the phone.
* * * *
Three weeks later
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. I don’t have time for this.” Chase glared at Dusty across his desk. He knew he shouldn’t be taking out his frustrations on his partner. He was a class-A asshole, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. Each day grew more difficult. No sub, the club in some serious shit, and now this?
Chase rubbed his temples, closing his eyes for a moment to block out the sight of his dark office that overlooked his club. The club they’d worked so hard to build and that they were in real danger of losing.
“It’ll be good for business. Every new title on the shelves that has a damned thing to do with shades of any color helps change the minds of people like that jackass senator.”
Opening his eyes, Chase shook his head. Ever the optimist, his Dusty. “People like him will never change their minds. No matter how many books are on the shelves, or movies in the theaters, or clubs like ours around the world. Some people will never get it. And whatever. We’re not asking them to join in if they don’t want to, but they have to stop trying to prevent us from doing it.”
Dusty flopped down into one of the chairs facing Chase’s desk. The leather creaked under his ass. Behind him, the barely lit club stared back at Chase through the one-way glass window of his office. Mocking him.
“She sounded cute on the phone,” Dusty said, drawing Chase’s morose thoughts back to what he needed to focus on. At Chase’s frown, Dusty shrugged. “What? She did. And maybe somewhat shy as well. Come on, it’ll be good for you. Help take your mind off things.”
They were meeting with their lawyer in the morning to go over a way to stop the injunction. The damned judge, no doubt in the senator’s pocket, had signed off on the piece of paper that said the K Club had to close its doors. That had been four days ago. The world was closing in around him, and it was getting harder to breathe.
He had enough to deal with, and he didn’t need some author in here poking around, asking stupid questions, and generally treating the K Club as a sideshow she could laugh at. But he was already faltering in the wake of Dusty’s big blue puppy-dog eyes. The guy was like his younger brother and knew that look would get him his way.
“How cute?” he asked.
“Like super cute. And very hesitant. Like she wasn’t quite sure she wanted to visit us at all.”
“Fine,” he grumbled.
Dusty’s blue eyes sparkled as he clapped his hands. “Great. She’ll be here in an hour.”
“You shithead.” Of course Dusty had already invited her to come in for a personal tour.
Dusty stood and left Chase’s office without another word, closing the door behind him. A moment later, Chase caught sight of him back downstairs by the bar.
An hour later, Chase was still buried under paperwork, scouring the consent contracts, the original ordinance he’d received from the city when they first opened five years ago, and some more paperwork the lawyer had faxed over yesterday. A loud knock sounded from downstairs, but he didn’t get up. Dusty was still down on the main floor, and he’d been taking care of whoever came knocking for the past couple days. The man was a godsend. How had Chase ever gotten on before without Dusty to look after him?
He turned his attention back to his work. No doubt it was someone else coming to inquire about the club, when they’d be back open. Their members had been so lost when he’d announced the closing of the club, even though he’d assured everyone it would be temporary. And he was damned sure going to make good on that promise. He would not fail.
He glanced through the window again when the bright light from the main door shone into his office.
Shadowed in the doorway was a tall brunette. Hair pulled severely into a long ponytail, dark, elegantly slanted eyes bordered in charcoal, a tight black top with lace over breasts and arms, combined with the long, leather-clad legs told Chase this was a Domme. Her beautiful Asian face was not one he recognized. She must be new in town, or perhaps visiting and wanting to check out the scene before hours. He and Dusty would usually extend an invitation to a visiting Domme, but since the club was under lock and key, that wouldn’t be happening. Apparently the protesters and CLOSED signs outside meant nothing to her. And instead of sending her on her way, Dusty smiled, shook her hand, and ushered her in out of the stifling Nevada heat.
What the hell?
Chase half rose from his desk to peek through the tinted windows of his office into the club beyond. His groin gave a jolt as he caught sight of their visitor’s swaying hips in the skintight leather. That gave him another
what the hell
moment. It wasn’t like him to be attracted to other Dominants. Going three weeks with no outlet had started to take its toll.
Dusty started leading the woman around the club, showing her the bar area, then the open dance floor and the bank of small seating areas along the one wall. Her face remained impassive, and Chase shook his head. That author was late for their meeting, and he couldn’t help but be glad he was now free to go and greet their visitor. He strode from his office and down the private back stairwell to meet them in the main area of the club.
“And this is where we have our shows,” Dusty was saying, leading her up on the stage.
Chase stayed in the shadow of the staircase, watching. The delicate bone structure of this woman was showcased beautifully by her dark coal-rimmed eyes, deep red lipstick, and a light blush that appeared completely natural. Her gaze was hot, stubborn, and he could almost see a flicker of flame from within. It instantly ignited an answering burn inside him, and he gulped in a few cool breaths. What the fuck was his problem today?