CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
MY OWNERSHIP
PRESENT
For a long time, after the shooting, I couldn't sleep through the night.
Bianca slept like a baby most nights, like she never had before, like every worry she'd ever had had disappeared with the death of her father.
But not me. I was more restless than ever. A miracle had saved her, not me, and I felt helpless because of it.
It was not a feeling that fit me well.
In fact, it made my skin crawl in discomfort. In anger.
It had been months since the attack. She and Stephan were healed physically, and, it seemed emotionally, but I felt the wounds as though they were fresh. What had almost happened haunted me. I was a man that needed control, and I'd been shown, in the starkest way possible, that I had none.
I sat scant feet away from our bed, watching Bianca sleep. She was nude, with not so much as a sheet covering her. I'd seen to that. I watched her lithe form shift on the bed, one long leg hitching up to give me a glimpse of the pink between her legs.
I felt like a fucking stalker.
In fact, I was one, watching her for hours on end, night after night.
I tensed when I realized she'd roused. It disturbed her that I couldn't sleep, when she deserved peace more than anyone did.
She sat up, and I watched her heavy breasts swaying with the movement. "James." Her voice was the softest utterance.
"Love," I answered, feeling the dark mood that had overtaken me lift in an instant. Just having her eyes on me could do that.
She crawled across the bed toward me. She'd always had an uncanny ability to do exactly the thing that would drive me the most wild, and she'd only gotten better at that over time. She didn't hide her body from me as she moved. In fact, she posed for me, even the exposure of her body an act of submission. As though reading my thoughts, as though even those were a command, she paused on the edge of the bed, parting her legs to let me look my fill before she rose, approaching my chair.
I stood to meet her, my body drawn tight, my cock throbbing as though I hadn't come, buried inside of her, just hours before.
I was a statue as she leaned up to my ear, my brows drawing together in a question. Her lips touched my ear as she spoke.
"Hurt me," she whispered raggedly.
My eyes shut tight, my jaw went slack, and a shudder wracked my entire body.
I'd avoided all of the rough stuff since she'd been injured, but God had I missed it.
"We don't have to, Bianca. It's not necess—"
She gripped my hair, pulling my face down to her injured cheek. She dug her jaw into me so hard that I knew it must have hurt her badly. It was nearly healed now, but I knew it was still tender.
"I need it," she rasped into my ear. "I'll never stop needing it. Please."
I pulled back, and my hands trembled as I cupped her face in my hands, my eyes searching hers desperately for what I wanted to see. Need. Yes. She needed this as much as I did. More so.
"Get on the bed," I told her thickly.
She obeyed, backing away from me, keeping her eyes on me the entire time.
"On your back. Spread your legs. Wider. Arms above your head."
We were at the Vegas property, no fourth floor in sight, and so I only had to walk to a dresser to find what I needed.
I was uncharacteristically clumsy as I bound her to the bed. I wanted so badly for everything to be perfect, to the point that I was nervous about it.
Her arms went directly above her head, drawn together, and knotted to the headboard.
Her feet I drew wide apart, spreading her legs until I stretched her. I ran a finger across one tautly drawn inner thigh, shuddering in pleasure at the way it made her quake under my hands.
I bent and kissed the spot briefly. "So sensitive here," I murmured into her skin. I knew just where to start.
I stood back and watched her when I'd finished with her restraints, my lids heavy, my blood pounding.
Every ounce of nervousness left me at the sight. The sight of her bound both soothed and enflamed me.
She gazed back at me steadily, her body shifting restlessly, hips tilting, breasts heaving, pink flesh wet and exposed.
I chose a simple leather flogger, a delicate cat o'nine, to break her back in again.
I propped myself on an elbow between her legs, dragging the flogger's thin tails along the sheets, teasing it across her inner thighs.
Abruptly, I snapped it up and back, watching her face as I struck the bed.
She jerked, giving me wild eyes when she realized I hadn't touched her.
I gave her a smile that made her squirm, back to dragging the tails against her sensitive flesh, back and forth, from knee to groin.
The torment of anticipation was every bit as sweet as the bite of the whip.
My cock pulsed, my heart pounded.
With a wicked grin, I snapped the tails against the bed again. Hard.
She gasped, hips circling.
I trailed the flogger up her leg, passed it briefly over her sex, moving it toward her belly.
I met her eyes as I flipped it, suddenly and abruptly, whipping it back to lash her inner thigh with a quick flick of my wrist.
She jerked and moaned.
I swung my wrist again, catching her other thigh, then slowly, almost lazily, I began to whip it back and forth.
I never rose off my elbow, never used my other hand as I slowly tenderized her pale flesh.
It was not a punishment. We had worked beyond that. This was so much more than the usual game of bondage and submission.
Bianca was a purist of the form, a masochist that enjoyed being dominated sexually.
We needed no artifice, no little lines to justify the things we needed from each other.
I looked down at her thighs, watching the whip as I set to work on her in earnest.
Her inner thighs, from a few inches above her knees to just below her groin, were pink with lash marks by the time I finished.
Even so, she didn't want me to stop. She moaned out a protest when I so much as paused.
I shot her a chastising look as I leaned forward, shifting until my mouth hovered over her slick flesh.
With a soft groan of my own, I bent down and started sucking hard on her clit.
She was primed already and came screaming with a few rough pulls of my mouth.
I'd reached my limit, as well.
I rose from my lazy elbow, climbing up her body. I left her bound while I fucked her rough, sucking her tongue while I drilled my hard length into her soft body repeatedly.
I pulled back to watch her face as her cunt began to clench around me, I shoved harder into her, rocking my hips from side to side to jar along her walls.
I came hard.
I rocked into her roughly and shot deep inside, rubbing out every bit of my seed, letting her milk me to the last drop.
She'd be sore tomorrow; every shift of her body would remind her how I'd taken her repeatedly through the night. Remind her of my total ownership of her body.
It was only fair. After all, she had claimed complete ownership of my soul.
It was minutes later, when I'd caught my breath that I got off her and went to the closet.
When I came back, I paused to take her in for a long time. She was still bound, body limp, eyes sleepy but on me.
I opened the large jewelry box in my hands, watching her face.
She gasped.
I took her delicate collar out, approaching the bed. I climbed between her legs, to hover over her prone form, propping myself on one elbow, setting the collar against her chest with the other.
"Are you ready to wear this again?"
Her eyes were pure liquid on mine. Enough so to drown in. "Always," she said, with relish. "I never wanted to take it off."
I hadn't wanted that either. They'd cut it off, in fact, in the hospital. I'd had to have extensive repairs done to it, but it was as beautiful as ever.
I moved up her body to straddle her, using both hands to fasten it, my fingers smoothing over it.
"Aren't you going to lock it?" she asked.
That warmed my chest. Her willingness. Her enthusiasm for a thing that had once intimidated her.
I smiled into her eyes. "Of course, love."
I had to untie her to get at her nape. She bent forward eagerly, flipping her hair out of my way.
A shiver of delighted relief ran through me as I locked it into place.