Chapter Two
It turned out that Mason lived half an hour out of the city, behind great gates, in a house at the end of a great sweeping drive that extended well into the countryside. There was security at the gate, a man in a booth, and she was pretty sure she saw some officers with dogs walking the distant walled perimeter.
“Jesus, Mav, what is this place? Feels like a fancy prison.”
“Used to be a reformatory,” he said as they swung up in front of an imposing building. “Still might be.”
“What?” She gave him a questioning look, but the comment seemed to have been in service of his own amusement rather than for her benefit.
He opened the car door for her and she swung her legs out, rising gracefully to look at the house. It was about four stories high, and built like, well, a really ornate fortress. The windows, especially on the top levels, were rather narrow and shuttered. It had been constructed by people who clearly wanted security and style in equal measure. It was built from gray stone blocks that made the imposing building seem even more solid and unmoving against the landscape.
“What kind of reformatory was it?”
“Used to be that the daughters of the wealthy would sometimes find themselves in need of a guiding hand. So, about a hundred years ago, a man named Robert J. Birch opened this facility. It was referred to as a finishing school for the wayward in its time.”
“Huh,” she said.
“I’ve updated it, of course,” he said. “Wood rots. You need steel to attach rings and restraints properly.”
“You turned out to be one sick puppy, Mav!” She laughed, but he didn’t. There was a look in his eye, a possessive, protective, commanding look that made her almost certain he was serious. Her tummy started to flutter again and she found herself biting her lower lip, smearing her makeup.
“You’ll learn soon enough.” He slid his hand behind her back. “Come in, Ellie.”
Indoors, the place had been obviously modernized. It was stunning, even by Elliot’s standards, which were high. There was very little ornate about the place; it was clean and masculine, but beautiful. The walls were slate gray with white trim here and there. Art hung on the dark walls came to fresh life, the colors more vibrant, the shapes more stunning against the shadowy backdrop. The floors were polished timber; her shoes made a clicking sound against as she walked across them.
“It’s nice,” she said as he guided her into a large lounge in which a fireplace was lit, throwing warm light over a thick, luxurious-looking room. The couches were large and of brown leather, there were side tables and bookcases and paintings that looked like they were from important artists. She’d developed a sense for that over the years, and if she was right, she was sure the room alone was furnished with more money than most people earned in their entire existences. Just one of those paintings would probably cover Aiden’s debts several times over, she mused to herself as he drew her toward the couch and bade her sit.
“Are you hungry? When was the last time you ate?”
“I’m not hungry, Mav,” she said, crossing her legs. “I’m annoyed. You’ve taken me all the way out here without telling me what’s going on. I mean, you’ve practically kidnapped me!”
“And there’s that gratitude again,” he frowned, folding his arms over his chest. “I haven’t kidnapped you, Ellie. I’ve taken you out of harm’s way. And I’m going to keep you safe whether you like it or not.”
She cut her eyes at him. “So after all these years, you’ve got me right where you always wanted me. Dependent on you.”
“Yes,” he said, with a roll of his eyes. “After all these years, my plan to have Aiden turn into a junkie and your parents be nowhere to help you when criminals show up at your door ready to do you harm has finally come to fruition. Are you really going to blame me for this, Elliot? Are you really that spoiled and self-centered?”
His words were like lashes across her soul. He was right. Of course he was right. But it was easier to make him the villain than to admit to herself that she’d been abandoned and all the money and influence she had meant precisely nothing when the underworld came knocking.
She lowered her eyes and shook her head. “I’m sorry, Mav,” she said in a soft whisper laced with the threat of tears.
He let out a sigh and sat next to her, his large hand reaching into her lap to cover hers. “It’s going to be alright, Ellie. I’m not going to let anything happen to you, even if you are a spoiled brat. Someone has to look after you.”
He was so tall, so strong. With him this close to her, she felt protected and sheltered. He’d not only put hundreds of miles between her and the people who wanted to hurt her, he’d put himself in harm’s way for her. He’d defended her, even though he didn’t have any reason to. Mason was a very attractive man with an even more attractive portfolio. She knew how women reacted to men like him. He must have beautiful ladies lined up to warm his bed. And yet he was here, with her. And she didn’t see any sign of other women. Not even a stray lipstick left surreptitiously somewhere to mark territory.
“Do they?” She shot him a glance out of the corner of her eye. “I don’t see why. And I don’t see why it would be you if it had to be someone. I’ve never even been nice to you.”
“True,” Mason agreed.
He didn’t sugar coat the truth, or make excuses for her, or pretend she was something she wasn’t. As galling as that was, she found it an attractive trait. Everyone else she knew was constantly telling her how it was fine for her to do whatever she was doing. Her friends, even her family. But Mason didn’t play that game. He was honest, even when it hurt.
“So why are you helping me?”
“Ellie, I’ve known you most of my life. And Aiden, no matter what he’s become, was good to me when I was young. Really good to me. I owe you both something.”
“So you’re doing this out of obligation?”
“No,” he said firmly. “I’m doing it because you need what I’m going to give you.”
What I’m going to give you. He said those words with a certain inflection that made her stomach do somersaults. She changed the subject as quickly as possible. “And Aiden?”
“Worry less about Aiden and more about yourself.”
“I don’t care about myself,” she said before really thinking about it. “I care about my brother not dying! Why can’t you just bring him here too?”
“Because Aiden has made his life a lot more complicated than you realize.”
“What? He’s an addict, I know, but…”
“Listen, Elliot. Your brother isn’t just a junkie. In fact, being an addict is the least of his worries. He’s a criminal. Worse, he’s a stupid criminal.”
“Aiden’s not a criminal,” she gasped. “That’s crazy. He just has some issues, that’s all.”
“Issues with staying alive,” Mason rumbled. “He’s been attempting to build an empire on the streets, and it’s not going well.”
“What kind of an empire?”
“Anything he can sell. Drugs, naturally. Women…”
“He sold women? What do you mean?”
“I mean he was running prostitutes,” Mason said bluntly.
Shocked, Ellie rejected the idea out of hand. “You’re lying. Aiden would never do anything like that.”
“Once somebody becomes addicted to something, they become willing to do almost anything to get it. Drugs and girls are easy to sell.”
“He wanted money for drugs?”
“He wanted money for money,” Mason said. “I’m sorry, Elliot. I know he’s your brother and you’ll never see him as anything other than that, but to a lot of people, Aiden is the devil. Now he’s gone missing, they’re looking to put pressure on him, and you’re a perfect pressure point.”
“You’re going to help him though, right?”
“No.”
“Please, Mason! If they find him, they’ll kill him!”
“I told you what the price is for me to help him. I’ll help you, Ellie. You can stay here and not have to do a thing, but helping Aiden comes at a price. For both of us.”
She pulled her hands out of his and stared daggers at him. “So if I want you to help him, I have to debase myself. I have to let you treat me like some worthless sex slave. I have to…”
Her tirade was cut off with a strong finger pressed against her lips. She damn near bit it, but the look in his eyes told her that would not be a good idea.
“You don’t know what I want from you yet, not really,” he said. “You’re going to be mine, Ellie. Yes, it will introduce you to the concept of shame, I’m sure. But my intention isn’t to humiliate you. It’s to give you what you need.”
“You think I need to be kept?”
His green gaze captured hers with dominant intensity. “I think you need to be owned.”
She found her breath coming in shallow little gasps. He was literally making it harder to breathe. Suddenly the whole world was him. She was lost in the gaze of this man who was so familiar, and yet a total stranger at the same time.
“I don’t know what that means,” she whimpered.
“I know,” he said. “Let me show you, Ellie.”
“Uhm…”
“On your knees,” he said, pointing to the floor.
“I don’t… what?” She squinted at him in confusion. “You can’t be serious, Mav.”
His hand slid around her neck, his fingers grasped a thick handful of her hair, and he pulled her from the couch, sinking with her until she was kneeling on the floor and he was crouched in front of her on one knee, his grip formidable as she attempted to squirm free.
“You’re going to need a lot of training,” he rumbled. “But this is your first position, Ellie. This is where you’re going to find yourself a great deal of the time as you start to learn what it means to be mine.”
“Mason…” she whined his name, and he shook his head firmly.
“Sir,” he said. “You’ll call me sir.”
“Why?”
“Because Mason is what you call me when you’re being a haughty brat, and Mav is what you call me when you’re being flippant. You will call me sir.”
She made a grumbling sound that was cut off abruptly when he gave her hair a little tug.
Thoroughly embarrassed and utterly uncomfortable being so humbled, she couldn’t help but squirm and complain. “Let me up, Mav.”
“No,” he said firmly, keeping her in place easily. He had her head and with it, control of her entire body. He wasn’t exerting practically anything in the way of force, but she was utterly stuck, there in front of him, her skirt riding up. It hadn’t been designed for crawling around on the floor. As far as she was concerned, she hadn’t been designed for it either. The longer he kept her in the position, the more she whimpered and squirmed to no effect whatsoever.
“Mason, come on, this is silly, let me up…”
He didn’t dignify her rule-breaking words with a reply. He quirked one thick brow at her and tightened his fingers just a little, so she felt his strength and her own weakness even more keenly.
The battle of wills went on for quite some time. He was waiting for something. She didn’t know what exactly, but she ran through everything she could think of to say, she tried every way to escape she could imagine, wriggling this way and that, pulling back, trying to squirm forward. It did nothing. He just held her until she gave a deep sigh and sat still, looking at him with an okay, what now, look?
“Good girl,” he said, his lips breaking into a smile that made him an entirely new kind of handsome. God, she just about died when he smiled. It did things to her. It made her heart flutter, and sent a ripple of excitement over her skin and through the very core of her. It made the muscles of her inner thighs tighten. It made her feel as though she’d been immersed in sparkling water all over. If he ever knew the power of that smile…
“This is just the beginning,” he said. “There’s a lot for you to learn. You’re going to learn how to serve me.”
“Serve you?”
“I know,” he said with a low chuckle. “You’ve never served anyone else in your life. It’s been a series of people catering to your tastes, desires, and whims for as long as you can remember. That’s not your world anymore.”
Instantly nervous, she wasn’t sure she was even capable of doing what he asked. The notion of being some kind of servant was almost worse than just being kept as a sex toy. Decades of being led to believe she was above the serving classes had made her certain she’d never need to do such a thing.
“I know,” he said, seeing the expression on her face. “It’s not your forte. It’s something you’ll have to learn, something you’re not going to be good at right away. Don’t worry. I’ll teach you. You might even discover there are some rewards in it.”
Thus far there were not many rewards, aside from that brief moment of being bathed in his approval, but it didn’t really matter. She didn’t have anyone besides him. All her friends, acquaintances, they would never have helped her with a criminal problem. It would become the subject of malevolent gossip and not much else.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, even after all these years, she’d known that he was someone she could turn to. The moment she got into real trouble, she’d gone running to him. And he’d taken her in. She couldn’t be surprised that he had terms and conditions. Everyone did.
“Why so sad?”
She shook her head and lowered her eyes. “I’m not sad,” she lied.
Now that the initial shock of being held up and then rescued was wearing off, she was sad. Sad that it had come to this, for her and for Aiden. Sad that even though hundreds of people clamored to go to their parties and take pictures with them, there was nobody to truly help them when it mattered. Except Mason—the one man she’d treated like dirt all her life.
“I could always tell when you were lying to me,” he said, tugging her head back a little so she had to look at him. “Talk to me.”
“Look at where I am,” she said. “Look at what you’re making me do. I’m Elliot Taylor-Chapman, for god’s sake.”
His smile had a hint of sympathy in it. “It must be quite a shock to meet the real world suddenly at the age of twenty-five, to realize that you’re vulnerable, and that bad things can happen through no fault of your own.”
“This isn’t the real world,” she said. “This is your world. You’ve got me, Mav, and you know it.”
His eyes gleamed with possession. “I do,” he said. “I’ve wanted you for a long time, Ellie. I’m not going to lie. Having you here, on your knees, where you need to be makes me happy. In time, I think it will make you happy too. See, Ellie, you don’t know what you need. You don’t know much.”
“You think I’m stupid?”
He leaned down and pressed a kiss to her forehead, a tender gesture that made her tummy flutter. “I think you’re a girl who grew up in a bubble. A lot of it was nice, but more of it was fake. It’s real out here. Things can hurt, but they can also feel good in a way I don’t think you’ve ever felt good.”
She looked at him dubiously and he let out a husky chuckle that made tremors of anticipation and excitement run through her captured body.
He released his grip on her hair and moved up to sit on the couch above her, leaving her kneeling on the floor as he extended his legs around her, keeping her corralled in the space between. He looked down at her from what felt like a great height as a chasm opened up between them. He was in control now. He had all the power, and she did not know what to do with herself.
“You know what you need?”
“What?”
“A spanking.”
Spanking. The word alone sent a rush of embarrassment through her body.
“No, Mav, no, I really don’t.”
“But you do, or you’d have called me sir. I told you the rules, didn’t I?”
She found herself squirming. “But it’s so hard to get used to, it’s impossible.”
“It’s not impossible to call me sir,” he chided, reaching down to take her by the hand. “Come here. It’s time we did this again.”
Again…
He was making reference to the most embarrassing memory in her life, the one she’d run from for years. She found herself going somewhat limp as he guided her up and over his lap. He didn’t ask, and he didn’t cajole. He simply took her by the hand and applied enough pressure to draw her over his thighs. She could have resisted him, but she didn’t. She allowed the room to spin, and for her view to become the side of the couch, and the expensive blue Persian rug adjacent to his well-heeled feet.
He adjusted her a little so she was supported by the couch, lying over his lap with her legs on one side, her upper body on the other, her cheek pressed against cool leather. The feeling of his hard legs beneath her hips stimulated a reaction she hadn’t anticipated and that only served to make her all the more confused. She shouldn’t be enjoying this. She should be fighting it, rejecting it, demanding that he did as she said. Instead she laid there as he smoothed her skirt up over her bottom and settled it in the middle of her back.
“This is crazy,” she mumbled under her breath.
“It’s not crazy at all. You’ve always needed a firm hand, Ellie,” he said, his big palm rubbing over her bottom. “But Daddy’s little princess never got touched, did she. You got away with absolutely everything.”
“Until my eighteenth birthday,” she sniffed.
“Uh huh. Until then. And you didn’t take kindly to that, did you?”
Being in this position was already triggering something like a flashback. It wasn’t difficult to remember that night all those years ago as vividly as if it was happening all over again. At the time, it had been one of the most shocking things that had ever happened to her.
It had happened at the Mirabello Resort, which her family owned. A hundred acres of rolling upstate country upon which a sprawling resort and ranch was placed. She usually liked being there, but not on that particular evening. It was her birthday, but that was largely incidental to the proceedings. She’d been greeted with great ceremony and then ignored by the bulk of the guests who were there to socialize with one another and suck up to her parents. Eventually, she’d snuck away from one boring conversation after another and curled up in the corner of the cloakroom with a bottle of vodka she’d stolen from behind one of the bars.
It wasn’t glamorous, and it wasn’t particularly fun, but it was a chance to slip her shoes off and escape some of the scrutiny that came with being the only daughter of Nigel and Sophie Taylor-Chapman. Before she could get too deep into the bottle, before she could really get properly started, the door had squeaked open and she’d held her breath while stifling a little giggle of pure rebellion. There wasn’t really any reason for anyone to come into the cloakroom, it was a warm evening and most of the guests would remain for many hours to come, but apparently someone either wanted a coat or was tired of theirs.
She’d seen his shoes first, well-polished but still worn. Worker’s shoes. Because he was a worker. He was below her and she would never let him forget it, not for a single second. She didn’t recognize them at first, but as they walked between the rows of coats, she curled up tighter, stifling her laughter with her hand over her mouth. She kept waiting for the shoes to stop, but they came toward her inexorably, back and forth, up and down the rows until they rounded the corner and she looked up to see…
* * *
Seven years earlier…
“Ellie? What are you doing?”
Mason was twenty-three years old and already devastatingly handsome. His face was narrower than it would later be, his body not quite as broad, but he had the bearing and the elegance of a well-bred man despite being from a poor family. His skin was tanned from his other job and that green gaze locked on her beneath thick dark brows with an authority he really shouldn’t have had any claim to. He wasn’t at the party as a guest, he had been employed as a waiter. He was in post-grad something or other and he needed the money. Her parents had been kind enough to give him a job. She wondered how he could take the shame of serving a lot of the people he’d been through school with, but she supposed he was used to it.
What she absolutely was not used to was being questioned by an employee. She gave a shrug and took a sip of the vodka, stifling the cough that followed as the liquid burned her throat raw. The bottle was largely concealed beneath one of the furry coats, so he couldn’t really see what she was doing, but he got the idea fairly quickly.
“What is that?”
“Nothing,” she lied. “Get out of here, Mason. Go back and finish serving everybody their soup.”
He put his hands on his hips and looked down at her from his rugged height. She didn’t appreciate his attitude. Being a pretty, rich girl meant that she was used to attention from boys, and even some men. They complimented her and told her what she wanted to hear. Mason had never done that. Mason treated her like his best friend’s snotty kid sister, and she hated it.
“Why are you back here, Ellie? Waiting for someone?”
His interrogation grated on her very last nerve.
“No, I’m not waiting for someone,” she snapped. “There’s nobody here under fifty now except you. I’m just entertaining myself.”
“Are you drunk?”
“No,” she giggled. “But I’m working on it.”
“Give me the alcohol.” He snapped his fingers at her impatiently.
“You can’t tell me what to do, Mav. You’re a servant. Go away and leave me alone.”
“To what? Give yourself alcohol poisoning? I don’t think so,” he insisted, pushing his hair out of his eyes. Even as she stared daggers at him, she had to admit that he looked cute in the server’s uniform. The baize green jacket could have made him look like a walking poker table, but it didn’t, and his long legs made the dark pants look good too. He was even managing to pull off the goofy bow tie they all had to wear.
“You’re not the boss of me, Mav,” she semi-slurred. “I’m your boss, and I’m telling you to fuck off.”
The look he gave her made her feel suddenly sober. It was a hard look, the look of a man who is not at all amused. She’d seen that look on her father’s face before, usually aimed at Aiden. She’d never felt the full force of such a stare before, and it utterly paralyzed her.
“Give me the bottle. Now.”
It was an order she knew she would regret not following, but she had to defy him. She tucked the bottle further back behind her, the open top spilling vodka over the fine furs of the ladies who were enjoying an evening’s entertainment on her account, and shook her head at Mason.
“I’m not giving you anything,” she said. “And if you try to take it from me, I’ll scream.”
“Oh, you’re going to scream alright, little girl,” he growled down at her. Two swift steps took him to her. He reached down, clasped her by the arm, and pulled her up to her feet in a swift motion. She let out a shriek of outrage as he turned around and pulled her out of the cloakroom. She didn’t realize at first where he was taking her. She thought maybe they were going to see her father or mother, which would have been funny as they wouldn’t have done anything anyway. But it quickly became apparent that he was not taking her toward the party, but away from it.
He headed across to a small gazebo where a lot of the pre-event staging had been done. It was still packed with boxes and crates, and he put his leg up on one of them before swinging her over it in one smooth motion. She let out another cry as her dress went flying up over her back, revealing her thong-clad rear.
“You’re too young to be drinking,” he lectured her as she tried in vain to escape his grasp. She tried to push her skirt down, but he grabbed her hand and pinned her wrist to her lower back, leaving her totally exposed and utterly helpless. “And you’re too good to be talking that way.”
“I’m not too good to tell you to fuck off, Mason,” she hissed. “My father… oww!”
He cut her off with a hard slap to her bottom. It came like a bolt from the heavens, so utterly unexpected that she did not know what to do. She had never been punished in her life. The concept of physical discipline had not established itself in her brain, so at first she didn’t even know what was happening. She knew her bottom hurt, that the sting from the slap remained long after the slap itself was over. She knew he was holding her down and swatting her, that there was nothing she could do to stop him.
“Mason!”
He kept spanking her. He didn’t stop when she screamed, or when she swore, or when she promised him money, or when she told him she’d have him kicked out of college, or when she said she’d tell her father. Nothing stopped him from lighting her rear up with merciless slaps that made her bottom burn like all hell.
“Mason! Please! Stop!”
She hadn’t actually drunk as much alcohol as she’d pretended to. Straight vodka wasn’t exactly palatable, but sitting in the cloakroom with the bottle had felt subversive and rebellious. She wasn’t feeling either of those things now. She was feeling very sore, and very sorry for herself.
When he was finally done, and her butt felt as though it had been stung by a thousand bees, he tipped her onto her feet, her hair falling into her tearstained face, sticking to her cheeks. Her hands went back to her bottom immediately.
“I didn’t like doing that, Ellie, but…”
“Liar!” She yelled the word at him, suddenly furious. Her butt hurt, but the embarrassment was worse. She’d never been so humiliated in all her life. “Liar! I hate you, Mason! I fucking hate you! Don’t ever talk to me ever again!”
* * *
The memory made her flush with fresh heat.
That was the last time they’d talked before this very day. She’d stormed off across the grounds, found one of her father’s subordinates, and demanded they take her home. From that point forth, she’d made a distinct effort not to be in the same room as Mason Malone again. Her ego couldn’t handle it, and after a while avoidance got a whole lot easier anyway. Aiden and Mason went their own way after college and he stopped coming around.
Now his hand was smoothing over her rear, rubbing over the panties that protected her from his gaze. She was wearing much fuller briefs now, always had since that day he’d spanked her and she’d discovered a reason why having her rear be effectively bare could be a problem. Unfortunately, the thin silk didn’t really do anything to make her feel less vulnerable. She could feel the heat from his hand through the material, rubbing slowly over her cheeks. How had she ended up back here? She’d sworn she’d never let this happen to her again.
“I couldn’t believe how long you sulked about that, Ellie,” he said, his voice a deep rumble. “I don’t think you’ve ever forgiven me.”
“No,” she admitted. “I haven’t. And I won’t forgive you if you do that again.”
“I’m going to do it again, and you’ll do more than forgive. You’ll thank me for it.”
“Mason, you must have lost your mind… ow!” she protested as his hand clapped against her butt, catching both her cheeks in a solid swat. “Mav, that hurts!”
“It’s going to hurt a lot more if you don’t remember to call me sir,” he growled, repeating the treatment again.
“Okay! Sorry!”
“Sorry, what?”
A third slap landed hard on her bottom, sending the sting to another level. She did not like being spanked, not one bit. The pain was so foreign to her, and being held over his lap and punished was still as much a blow to her ego as it was to her bottom—but she knew she had to start playing his game, or it was going to hurt a lot more.
“Sorry… sir.” Her voice was gritty and small, but loud enough for him to hear.
“Good girl,” he said, rewarding her with a slow rub that soothed much of the worst of the sting instantly, leaving her with the warmth sinking through her bottom. “It won’t be like it was last time. I stopped too soon that night. I won’t make that mistake again, I promise you that.”
She craned her head around and tried to glare at him, without much success. “You didn’t stop too soon! You started too soon! You just grabbed me and started hitting me, what did you expect me to do?”
“That’s true,” he admitted. “I didn’t prepare you for what was to come, and you didn’t give me the chance to make it better afterward.”
“I guess we both made mistakes,” she smirked down at the carpet. Her sense of smugness was very short lived as he swatted her rear with a sharp little tap that got her attention, even if it didn’t outright hurt.
“Don’t start getting an attitude with me,” he said sternly. “You’re not out of the woods yet, Ellie. Not by a long way. We started something all those years ago, and I intend to finish it.”
“We did? What did we start?”
It was very difficult to have a conversation while trapped over a man’s lap, but Mason seemed intent on keeping her there, addressing her pantied bottom and the back of her head.
“Do you know why I spanked you that night?”
“Because I was going to get drunk, and because I was rude to you, I guess.”
“Those would have been good reasons, but they weren’t the main reason.”
“What was the main reason?”
“You need this,” he said, caressing her rear slowly. “You need someone to take care of you, to give you some kind of guidance. You need someone to correct you when you’re wrong, and provide consequences for you. You’ve lived a life without them, and that’s not healthy.”
“What do you mean? I’ve had a wonderful life. I’ve never wanted for anything.”
“Mhm. Ellie, I watched you grow up and I saw how unhappy you were…”
“I was just a snotty teenager, like every other teenager is,” she interrupted.
“No, you weren’t. You were neglected.”
She snorted. “Mason, I had six ponies and a Ferrari by the time I was sixteen. I wasn’t neglected.”
“I’m not talking financially. I’m talking emotionally. I don’t think I saw you ever talk to anyone other than Aiden. And I know Aiden barely had anything to do with your parents either. They were never around and when they were, they were dressing the two of you up like dolls and playing happy families for the benefit of their friends. I’m not surprised Aiden has a drug habit. I am surprised you don’t.”
She bit her lower lip, thinking back to the conversation with her mother that very morning. Mason wasn’t wrong, but she didn’t want him thinking he was right either. “It wasn’t that bad. They were just busy people. They had careers, Mav.”
“I know that’s what they told you over and over again. But careers aren’t a reason to take separate holidays from your own children, or have them taken care of by staff that change every few months. Aiden didn’t even know your mother was his mother until he was about five.”
She was silent for a while. Mason knew far more than she’d given him credit for. She supposed she’d been stupid to not realize how much he’d known. She figured he’d focused mostly on Aiden, and Aiden never complained to her about anything, but that was because he was a good brother. He used to be, anyway, before all this.
“He talked to you about a lot of this stuff, didn’t he.”
“When he got high,” Mason said. “He didn’t say much most of the time, but I was around your family, or lack thereof, for a long time, Ellie. I saw how things worked, or didn’t work. I saw what you two got away with.”
“We did get away with a lot,” she grinned, then gasped as he laid another swat on her ass.
“You did,” he agreed. “But not anymore. That’s over. You’re in my care now.”
His care. She liked the sound of that, even if she didn’t look forward to being punished. The last hours and days had been terribly frightening, and it was a relief to know that she wasn’t alone in it anymore. Mason had the power, the contacts, and the money to keep her safe.
“At a price,” she said, squirming. It would have been much easier to have this conversation sitting up, face to face, but Mason wasn’t about making things easier. Never had been. He was making every single part of this as difficult as possible, and she could only imagine what he had in store for her.
“Everything comes at a price,” he said, rubbing her bottom gently. She held her breath as she felt his fingers splay over her cheeks and then curl in the back of the waistband of her panties. They took hold there and then he began to ever so slowly peel them down over her cheeks. She felt the fabric leaving her skin slowly, rendering her bare and vulnerable as little by little the twin rises of her cheeks were stripped of the last vestige of propriety.
She was his. He had barely touched her yet, but she was beginning to know it in the very core of her. Only someone who owned her could do this, put her over his knee and take her panties down. Her hips began to sway back and forth, her breath catching in her throat as her panties began to travel down between her thighs. She was more exposed now, her sex bare to him. Could he see how she looked there?
“You wax.”
He could.
She put both her hands over her face in a totally futile gesture, covering entirely the wrong part of her anatomy. She felt him parting her legs, and she knew he was looking. More than that, he was inspecting what he now owned. His fingers stroked her inner thigh lightly, moving toward the apex, but staying clear of her sex. He wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction, not yet. He wanted to draw the whole embarrassing thing out, of course. He was enjoying this all far too much. She could only imagine how long he’d wanted to have power over her like this.
He swatted her lightly, once, twice, three times and then his fingers slid back between her thighs and found her clit, circling around it slowly. She sighed softly and stretched out on the couch. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. It had been too long since she’d been with a man, and Mav was very, very attractive. He also knew how to touch a woman, judging by the way his fingers were grazing over her pussy, teasing her into a state of aroused relaxation.
“You’re about to discover that the world is very different than you think it is,” he rumbled as he caressed her gently, taking his time. She had half expected him to ravage her, but he was clearly in no hurry to seal her undoing. She laid there, taking his touch, drawing his scent into her lungs and feeling herself start to slowly melt in mind and body.
She felt his fingers between her thighs, spreading her legs even more. She cursed his long thighs as he spread her wide in a way that could only be described as lewd. His hand came down against her raised cheeks, reminding her of his ability to punish her as he saw fit. The pain bloomed again, but this time it was not so intense, nor was it entirely pain. It had become something else, something new. It made her feel warm in the very core of her belly.
He spanked her again, the slap sharper this time, more intense. She didn’t know what she’d done to deserve it, but soon his palm fell again, and again, until her bottom started to tingle and sting and her hips could no longer stay still across his thighs, but instead danced, her bottom gyrating beneath his green gaze as she rutted against him, her clit finding his thigh over and over in short little motions that made her shamefully aroused.
Soft little moans escaped her lips as his hand branded her bottom harder and harder, bringing her to a peak of intensity that probably would have hurt if not for her bare pussy rubbing his thigh. She couldn’t really feel pain anymore. All she could feel was sensation, untethered from normal understanding. The arousal and the heat and the intensity combined to make her hips move of their own accord, moving with a primal rutting motion that left no room for dignity. She was fucking herself like a horny little bitch in heat, humping his leg with animal desperation.
He encouraged her with a steady stream of slaps that fell faster, but not harder. He seemed to have found precisely the right level to keep her on the verge of orgasm, her hands gripping at his leg as she gasped and moaned, his name panted on her lips over and over as she started to get dizzy with her need. The orgasm was building, focused on her clit, but drawing power from every part of her body. Tingles were starting in her fingers and toes, zipping toward the center of her. She didn’t feel like a person anymore. She didn’t feel like anything besides a series of impulses desperate for one thing: release.
And then he did it. The thing that put her over the edge. She heard a soft sound, like a finger between masculine lips, and then she felt him touch her in one place she’d never allowed any man to touch her ever. The pad of his thick middle finger found the bud of her anus and pressed there, circling without urgency as she ground her greedy pussy against his thigh.
It was as if he’d found the button that activated the most intense orgasm of her life. Elliot let out a scream of climax as every single muscle in her body became tight, her breath stopping for a second as her voice hit a pitch beyond hearing. She found a peak she had not ascended before, a pure pleasure in which she floated, utterly free and totally satisfied.
Mason spanked her through her orgasm, his palm raining lighter slaps over her heated cheeks as she squirmed over his lap.
Only when her hips stilled and her moans turned to whimpers did he stop and rub her bottom. “Better?”
“Much better,” she sighed. “So much better.”
The stress of the last few weeks was suddenly gone. She hadn’t realized how much it had been weighing on her. Aiden’s antics and hospitalization, subsequent discharge to rehab had been like a series of stones piled ever higher on her until she could barely breathe.
By baring her bottom and spanking her soundly, Mason had given her an escape from that concern. She could finally set the responsibility that was all too much for her aside and simply be herself.
She let out a little sniffle as tears she hadn’t realized were gathering in her eyes hit some critical mass. Before she knew it, she was crying. She didn’t understand it; they weren’t tears of sorrow, or rage, or even pain.
Mason seemed just as confused as he helped her up still naked from the waist down as he settled her on his lap in such a way her stinging bottom was somewhat supported, though she couldn’t be spared all of the discomfort as she sat there, trying to hide her face in his neck.
He didn’t let her. He took her chin between his thumb and forefinger and gazed into her teary eyes with an expression of such deep concern and care it made her cry all the more.
“Did it hurt too much?”
“No,” she sniffed. “I mean, maybe, but I’m not crying because it hurt. I’m crying because I feel good.”
She was certain he wouldn’t know what she was talking about, but a second later he drew her into his arms, wrapped her tightly in a snug embrace, and rubbed her bottom better.
“It’s okay,” he murmured against her ear. “You can let it out, Ellie. I’m here.”
She buried her face in his neck and cried. She cried for herself, for Aiden, for everything that had happened and would happen. She cried because her bottom was sore, because she had been spanked, because she’d been so lost for so long and suddenly she was found and she absolutely did not know what to do with that.
Mason was the last person in the world she’d expected to take care of her, and here he was, taking time from his business, from his other social obligations, from his own leisure time to simply cuddle her as she cried.
“Why,” she sniffled against his neck. “Why are you helping me, Mav?”
“I’ve told you already, and I’ll tell you again, but I don’t think you’ll understand. Not yet. It’s too soon.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ellie, I can tell you I care about you a hundred times, but until you feel it, you won’t know why I’m helping you. Maybe you’ll never know. It depends whether you come to feel as I do.”
“You’re talking in riddles, Mav.”
“You mean to say, you’re talking in riddles, sir,” he corrected gently.
“Sir,” she mumbled, burying her face in his shoulder again. The tears soon began to settle, and the afterglow of the orgasm became the dominant feeling in her body. She felt as though she had been cleansed by the tears and what remained was just… good. It had been so long since she felt good that at first it was sort of unsettling, but as he held her, she began to simply enjoy being comforted. It had been so long since she was hugged. She couldn’t even remember the last time she felt safe in a man’s arms.
“I forgot what this feels like,” she murmured.
“What being spanked feels like?”
“No, what cuddling after coming feels like,” she said with a little snort. “Most people don’t go around spanking me, Mav.”
“That’s a real pity. You’d probably be a lot happier if they did.”
She shook her head with a little giggle. The deep words came rumbling through his chest, going straight to her heart. Now that the anesthetic of orgasm was staring to fade, she could feel the effects of the spanking a little more. It didn’t hurt, he hadn’t been that rough with her, but she could feel the warmth and tightness of her skin tingling against his thighs as she shifted on his lap.
“I do have a question for you,” he said. “I know it’s probably a sensitive subject, but I need to know.”
She risked a little glance at him under her lashes. “What do you want to know?”
“What happened to your engagement?”
Her stomach plunged and twisted, as her cheeks colored with embarrassment of a very different kind. “You know already,” she said. “Everyone knows everything. Eric practically broadcasted our dirty laundry across every billboard in Times Square. Why are you making me tell you?”
“I know the rumors. I want to hear it from you.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said, turning her gaze away from him. Eric had managed to humiliate her more thoroughly than Mason. Mason was treating her like a spoiled brat, but Eric had treated her like a disposable vagina.
At first glance, Eric was going to be the perfect match. His family was as rich as hers. They made their money in Silicon Valley, but they spent it on the East coast. Eric was slick and handsome and smart and everyone loved him. He was the blue-eyed, blond-haired boy who made panties drop whenever he walked into a room. And that was the problem. Most of the time, the panties weren’t hers.
“He was fucking every other girl in range,” she said bitterly. “And before we got married, it turned out that his family had lost most of their funds. Easy come, easy go. He was going to marry me for the money and go on sleeping with other women.”
“So you left him?”
“No,” she said, gritting her teeth as she confessed to the worst decision of her life. “I loved him. I was stupid. I thought that maybe, even though he’d been sleeping with other people, he still loved me too. But when he realized that the family money is in trusts to stop people like him getting access to it, when my father told him he’d never see a cent he didn’t bring into the marriage himself, he left me. Three days before our wedding.”
“I’m sorry, Ellie.”
“Don’t be,” she shrugged. “I could have been married to him my whole life and not known what he really was. I guess you never really know who anyone is. I thought I knew who Aiden was… and look what he’s turned out to be.”
Mason gave her a look that might have been sympathy, or pity. Either way, she didn’t like it very much. There had been far too many of those looks coming her way in recent months. She’d gone from being one of the most popular faces on the social scene to being something of a pariah. People stopped talking when she walked into a room, and when they did talk to her they told her how sorry they were with sorrow that didn’t reach their eyes. Her betrayal had been public entertainment, one of the biggest scandals of the year. Upon hearing the news, her parents had immediately taken a cruise to Panama. That was their way of dealing with difficult times. No news was so bad it couldn’t be drowned out by miles of ocean between them and it.
“That man was a fool,” Mason said softly, taking her hand and her attention in one smooth motion. “He didn’t know what he had.”
“What did he have? Just a spoiled rich girl, right?”
“You’re much more than your money,” he purred. “You don’t even know what you are, that’s the real pity. All that wealth and no idea what you’re worth.”
It was a cute play on words, but it was the look in his eye which made her wonder. What exactly was he seeing in her? She knew she was attractive, but so were a lot of other women. There was no reason for him to be this interested in her. Their connection must still mean something to him—though she could hardly imagine she had ever been anything other than a total irritation to him.
“Why are you even doing this, Mav? Did I just annoy you into wanting me?”
He laughed. “Maybe that’s part of it,” he said. “You were always a handful, Elliot. But I knew I could handle you—if I was allowed to.”
She bit her lower lip, looking at him with curiosity. “How long have you liked me, Mav? You know we used to think you and Aiden were… you know.”
“You’re supposed to call me sir,” he reminded her. “And yes, I’m aware of the content of the rumors. They were not entirely accurate. Half true, really. His half. Not mine.”
Throughout high school, Aiden and Mason had hardly dated, for very different reasons. Aiden had been deeply conflicted and repressed, whereas Mason had simply not had the time. Every minute he wasn’t at school, he was working. He’d worked harder as a teenager than most grown men worked—and it had paid off. The rumors had not been so kind though. Practically every time the student body saw Mason and Aiden, they were together, and coupled with their common refusal to date, talk started that did not stop until they went away to college and things started to change.
“You’re avoiding the question,” she insisted. “How long have you had a crush on me… liked me… whatever?”
He stayed silent, and for a second, she was sure he wasn’t going to tell her.
“Please, Mav,” she said softly. “It matters to me. I can’t give myself to someone else who never even liked me. I can’t do that again… I can’t…”
“Alright,” he relented, his thumb rubbing the back of her hand comfortingly. “It was the night of your eighteenth birthday party. You came out with your father and I didn’t recognize you at first. I thought he’d divorced your mom and gotten some young trophy wife…”
“You did not,” Elliot snorted.
“Oh, I absolutely did,” he replied with a chuckle. “Then I got a better look and I realized it was you. You’d grown a lot. Changed a lot.”
“I got my braces off,” she said with a smile.
“Mhm, and then some,” he said. “That was the first time I saw you for you. You weren’t Aiden’s little sister anymore. You were a very attractive young woman. Then, later on, I had you in my arms for a few minutes and that was it. I knew I had to have you. Even when you were screaming at me and cursing me out.”
“So you waited seven years? You never tried to get in touch with me? You never…”
“I’m a patient man,” he said. “You weren’t going to be with me back then. I knew that. I didn’t have anything you needed, Ellie. I didn’t have any stability, any power. A woman like you needs a man who can match her and then exceed her.”
“So you went out and exceeded me,” she said, looking at him with wonder.
“I had plans for my life, Ellie. You’ve been part of them for quite some time.”
“But you didn’t call me, ask me on a date, you didn’t…”
“You’ve been engaged for the past two years,” he pointed out.
That was true. Eric had wanted to get married quickly for reasons that had seemed sweet at the time, but weddings took time to plan, especially Taylor-Chapman weddings. Two years was practically the bare minimum amount of time it took to arrange the flowers and the catering.
“I could have gotten married before then. I could have had a gaggle of brats by now.”
“Gaggle or not, you’d have been mine in the end,” he said with a supreme confidence that made her wonder how he could be so certain.
She shook her head. “You’re something else, Mav.”
“I know how the world works,” he said calmly. “I know that preparation is everything. And I know that you were made for me.”
There was a certain something about the way that he spoke that sent a tingle down her spine. She was an innocent in his lair, and though he was safer than the men who had first come to her door with their guns and threats, that didn’t mean he was safe.
“You’re tired,” he noted as she stifled a yawn. “You need some sleep.”
“I could sleep,” she agreed. The spanking had tired her out, and sitting here, curled up with Mason, she felt her eyelids getting heavy. It would be nice to snuggle up with him, close her eyes, forget all this being owned stuff… it was silly and she was sure he didn’t really mean it.
“Come on,” he said, slipping his hand over hers. “Come with me.”
She followed him from the couch, through the halls of his home. Everything was so perfectly Mason. A lot of newly rich people tended to splurge their money on gaudy accessories, festooning every surface in sight with gold. His home was solid and understated, but every part of it was quality, from the soft wool carpets beneath their feet to the angular crystal light fittings above their heads. Contemporary, minimalist style was everywhere, somehow managing to avoid feeling cold and barren with placement of modern, yet quality artworks. Whoever had done the interior decoration certainly must have really understood Mason as a man.
The place was far too big for just one person to be living in, though she imagined he must have guests and entertain frequently. The house didn’t feel empty though, it just felt calm and quiet, like a sanctuary.
His bedroom was on the top floor, up several flights of stairs. He led her through double doors into his private sanctum, a room larger than many people’s entire homes. It was beautiful. There was a bed big enough for six and a window to the north with rolling country views across land she knew must be his. She could have stared at everything for hours, but the silk gray coverlet drew her eye and made her want to sink into its soft embrace.
“That bed looks so good,” she sighed. “I can’t wait to lie down.”
“Not so fast,” he said, turning her around by her elbow. On the other side of the expansive room, taking up most of the corner was a semi-circle of steel bars fastened from ceiling to floor surrounding a small round mattress of some kind. “That is where you’ll be sleeping.”
Elliot stared at it, then at him. He appeared to be serious. There was no humor in his gaze, just determination. She looked back at the… cage. That was what it was. A fucking cage. It wasn’t all that large either. In fact, it looked like she’d only just be able to lie down and stretch out in there.
“Mav… why do you have a cage in your bedroom?” She could barely believe she was asking the question. It sounded surreal coming out of her mouth.
“I told you. I like to be prepared.”
“To cage women?”
“Some women like to be caged,” he smirked.
Fresh suspicion flared. He couldn’t have done all this on her account. “Are you with someone?”
“No,” he said. “There’s nobody else.”
“But the cage…”
“It’s yours.”
She looked at him, realizing that this had been planned. She didn’t know how, she didn’t know why, but the preparation was obvious. He was ready for her. Which could mean…
She turned to him, her expression fierce. “If you had anything to do with Aiden getting into trouble…”
“You’ll what?” He smirked at her. “Are you going to whine me to death?”
“You asshole!” She aimed a slap at his face. He caught it before it made contact, shaking his head with a small tutting sound.
“Naughty girl,” he drawled. “That’s not very nice.”
“You tricked me! You set me up!”
“I did nothing of the sort. I saw where things were going with Aiden. I knew you’d need somewhere to go.”
“So instead of helping out, getting in touch, stopping Aiden—you built a cage for me… you’re sick, Mav.”
He kept hold of her wrist, and it was a good thing too, because she absolutely would have tried to slap him again. She tried to lift her arm, but there was no struggling against his strength. He kept her subdued easily, his eyes locked on hers as he explained his dark machinations.
“I’ve been thinking about you, Ellie. For a long time. I thought about coming to tell you what was happening with Aiden, but I knew you wouldn’t listen. I knew you wouldn’t come to me until it was almost too late. And I knew by the time you did finally put your pride aside, you still wouldn’t have learned anything you needed to learn. This cage is yours. You’ll come to like it soon enough.”
“If you put me in there, Mav, I swear to god…”
He shook his head and put a finger to her lips. “Shh, Ellie. Your threats will only lead to tears.”
“I’m not going in there.”
“Of course you are,” he said, as if there was no argument to be had on the subject. “You agreed to my terms. You agreed to be mine. My girl sleeps in her cage.”
“I hate you so much,” she hissed through her teeth. She couldn’t believe this was happening. How sick and twisted was he? How could she have allowed herself to believe for a single second that he had her best interests in mind? He was taking advantage of her just like Eric had.
It wasn’t enough for Mason to take her in and look after her. He had to turn it into some weird kinky shit as well. He had to humiliate her and imprison her and… she didn’t say another word, but the loathing was pouring from her gaze, she was sure.
“Hate me all you like,” he said, taking her chin firmly between his thumb and forefinger. “But do as I say.”
His eyes bored into hers, their green intensity overwhelming her in an instant. He meant it. He wanted her in the cage, and there was no way to fight him. She could feel her bottom tingling in anticipation of what would happen if she didn’t do as he told her to.
She looked back at the cage, shaking her head. “No. You’re going to give me a proper room and I’m going to sleep in a real bed, and you’re going to stop being so fucked up to me just because you can… ow!”
He grabbed her by the back of the neck and slapped her butt hard enough to reignite the earlier sting.
“You’re going into the cage, because you’re mine and you’ll sleep where I say.”
He swung the door open and gestured for her to enter. There was no way that was going to happen. She stood outside the cage, her arms folded over her chest, shaking her head furiously. This was so far beneath her. It was beneath anybody. And he expected her to accept it.
“What the hell is that?” She pointed to a silver bowl on the floor that had suddenly caught her eye.
“You must know what a water bowl is, Ellie.” His drawl was amused.
“You expect me to drink from the floor?” She looked at him, utterly shocked. “Mav, every second you get more fucked up than you were the second before.”
He smirked, unashamed. “You’ll earn everything in this house. Even simple things, like glasses and cutlery. Until you start adjusting your attitude, you’ll eat and drink from the floor.”
“Fuck that,” she said, her temper flaring. “Take me home. I’d rather take my chances with some gun-slinging madman. I’ll hire my own security. I don’t need your help.”
“True,” he said. “You could hire your own security. You could even hope that they’re not working for the same people looking for Aiden. You could hope that the men who came to your place with guns, who somehow walked right past the security in your building, haven’t paid off every other group in the city. You could leave here right now, if you wanted. I’m not going to stop you. You and Aiden can take your chances without my help, but Elliot, if you want my help, these are my terms.”
Fuck. He held all the cards and he knew it. She was entirely at his mercy.
“You know, Mav, you better hope that I never get the upper hand,” she swore. “Because everything you do to me is going to come back double. I promise you that.”
“Into the cage,” he said, ignoring her threats as he swatted her skirt-clad rear hard enough to make her take a step forward. She grabbed at the bars on either side to prevent herself from actually going into the cage, and wedged her feet on the outer bars too.
“You realize this makes you more like a naughty animal than ever, right?” He smirked again and took advantage of her splayed legs to deliver a firm swat not to her bottom, but between her thighs. His fingers caught her bare pussy under her skirt, the sudden sting on her lower lips making her leap and close them. Another hard slap landed on her butt and she was in the cage and the door was closed.
“Let me out!” She turned and made the strident demand as he stood outside the cage, his arms crossed over his chest, a satisfied smirk on his handsome face. She wanted to slap him so badly she could feel her palm itching.
“You’re going to learn that only one thing will work with me, Ellie,” he drawled. “And that’s submission. The sooner you settle down and accept your place here, the quicker you’ll enjoy some sort of freedom.”
“You’re fucked, Mason,” she growled back at him. “When I get out of here, I’m going to call the cops on you.”
He reached into his pocket and took out a phone. “You want me to call the police for you? I’ll call them if you like. You can tell them that you’re being held as my little fuck toy and spanked for misbehavior in return for my help keeping your drug addict criminal brother alive. I’m sure they’d be very interested to hear everything you’ve got to say on the subject.”
Fuck. He’d called her bluff again. Going to the police wasn’t an option because criminals weren’t the only people looking for Aiden. The police were too, and thanks to him being a flight risk, she knew he’d never get bail. Once they caught him, he’d be sent straight to jail, and Aiden wouldn’t last in jail. She didn’t know if he’d last on the outside either.
“You haven’t done a thing to help him since I got here,” she complained, changing the subject. “All you’ve done is torment me.”
“Now I have you nice and safe, I can start to do something for him,” Mason said as he put the phone away. “I don’t want to hear any more threats out of you. You agreed to this, remember?”
“I didn’t agree to being kept in a cage…”
“You agreed to be mine,” he said. “And you are. Now you stay there and get some rest. I’m going to get some work done.”
With that, he left her alone in the room, locked up and imprisoned. Elliot swore furiously under her breath, and then louder, but it didn’t help. She was captive, and it wasn’t fair. She hadn’t done anything wrong. Aiden was the one who had gotten into trouble and here she was paying the price.
She resisted sitting down for as long as she could, but her legs were starting to get tired and eventually she sat down. The mattress was a few inches thick, enough to make the floor slightly less awful to lie on, but hardly comfortable. There were two pillows and a blanket, which she pulled over herself just to block out the view of the bars.
The worst part of all of it was that she was agreeing to this. He’d told her she could leave. He’d even offered to call the cops on himself. And she was here, allowing this to happen to her. Maybe her parents had the right idea. Maybe she should have hitched a cruise to Jamaica and waited for this all to blow over one way or another. She could be lying in a hammock sipping a piña colada and watching handsome pool boys stroll by, their burnished bodies exposed to the sun. Instead she had Mason glowering at her, spanking her, even her pussy. She reached her fingers down and rubbed the spot he had slapped. He’d left her bottom, her sex, and her pride all stinging, and there was nothing she could do about it but wait until he came back, and hope that he kept his side of the deal.
* * *
She must have dozed off, because when she opened her eyes again the room was only dimly lit. Mason had come in quietly, she supposed, and was getting ready for bed. Elliot stayed where she was, tucked up in the blankets, watching him through the bars. He stripped the suit from his body and she saw him naked from the waist up first, his torso powerful, probably from working out, or maybe from forging steel bars for his latest cage. She wouldn’t have put it past him. Mason had always been practical… oh, god.
He slid his pants down and twin muscular rounds came into view. He was ripped. Probably from all the years of manual labor he’d done to support his mother, though she doubted he had to haul hay anymore. He had long powerful thighs and muscled calves. Every part of him rippled when he moved. His iron discipline obviously extended to himself; she could only imagine how much work it took to maintain that physique.
Mason had an incredible body, and suddenly she hated the cage for a very different reason. Not because it was keeping her in, but because it was keeping him out. She bit her lower lip and pressed her fingers between her thighs. She was wet, tormented both by her captivity and her need for him.
Finally, she couldn’t stand it anymore. She sat up and moved toward the edge of the cage. She couldn’t believe she was about to beg him, but desperate times…
“Sir, please… let me out,” she whimpered softly through the bars.
“Go to sleep,” he said as he got into his bed. He slept naked, apparently. She instantly hated the blankets that obscured him from her view. “Tomorrow you can start earning your place in my bed.”
She let out a little growl under her breath. She’d lowered herself to call him sir and the gamble hadn’t worked. He was going to make her stay in there all night, and she couldn’t believe it. This wasn’t going to happen. She wasn’t tired, and she wasn’t willing to be some calm little prisoner.
“Mason, please… I’ve been in here for hours… let me out…”
He didn’t respond. She frowned to herself. Was he ignoring her? There was nothing she hated more in the world than being ignored. It was social death, and she would not abide it.
She rattled the bars, testing the door. They made a clanging sound, but the door didn’t open, of course.
“Settle down,” he growled from the bed. “If I have to get up and get you, you’re going to be sorry.”
“Let me out, or we’ll both be sorry,” she said, standing up and rattling the bars more. There was no way she was going to stay in this cage. No way at all. If he thought he could just put her in the corner and make her live like an animal and she wouldn’t so much as complain, he’d lost his mind.
“There are seventeen other bedrooms in this house,” he said, sitting up to glower at her. The sheet fell down, revealing the muscular plane of his abdominals and his broad chest. She was almost distracted enough by the sight alone to ignore his growled threat. “I can leave and you can bang all you like.”
In the low light of the room he was more handsome than ever, the dark scruff of late night shadow enhancing his rugged jawline, his annoyance only serving to make him look sexier.
I’d bang you all night, she thought to herself as she shook the bars again. God. She hated him so much, but she wanted him just as bad.
“Elliot! Enough!” He snapped the words so forcefully she stepped back from the bars. He let out a sigh and laid back down, but his relaxation was premature as she looked around and saw opportunity for something a little more persuasive.
The bowl. The one he expected her to drink out of. She’d see about that. She waited for a few minutes, long enough to let him start to relax, perhaps even start to fall asleep. Then she acted. She smirked to herself as she picked the bowl up and tossed it at the bars of the cage. There was a clang as it hit the steel and then water cascaded out and onto one of his expensive rugs.
“Oops,” she said with a little giggle.
“What the hell was that?”
The sound brought him out of bed, but he didn’t know what she’d done until his foot hit the rug in front of her cage with an audible squelch.
He made a sound of irritation that made her giggle again, then turned away and grabbed something. She couldn’t quite see it properly in the low light, but it looked like some kind of short leathery thing.
Suddenly, she wasn’t quite so pleased with herself. She scrambled to the back of the cage and started stammering how it had all been a complete accident, and how she hadn’t known, and how she… it didn’t matter. He opened the door of the cage, reached in and grabbed her by the back of the neck. She whimpered as he pulled her out on her hands and knees, pushing her face to the floor to make her ass rise. The leather in his hand made contact with her cheeks in a harsh stroke that made her cry out against the floor.
He was ruthless, punishing her thoroughly with stroke after stroke of the leather implement, the multiple strands whipping across her cheeks, leaving blazing trails in their wake.
“When you’re in your cage, you stay quiet. You do not complain. And you definitely do not throw your water or anything else out of it,” he lectured. “I am not playing a game with you, Elliot. This is as serious as anything that’s ever happened to you.”
His powerful hands tore her clothes from her, rending her utterly naked in seconds as seams and clasps disintegrated under his ire. The leather kept landing on her bottom, punishing her sternly with lash after lash as she writhed beneath his hand. She lost track of how many times the strap found her rear. All she knew was that it hurt, her bottom swelling with the heat, welts making sensitive little spots where it was much worse every time a fresh cut landed.
She had thought the spanking he’d given her when she was eighteen was bad. This was much, much worse. This was a thrashing given to a disobedient adult, and apparently he’d refined his technique over time. That lash of leather licked her bottom in every sensitive spot it could find, the curve of her rear, the soft skin where bottom met thigh, the crevice between her cheeks that was exposed as she squirmed, they all received his treatment until she was crying at his feet.
And still he was not done.
He used the grip at the back of her head to guide her up and onto the bed until she was halfway on and halfway off, his foot spreading her legs to expose her pussy. Her hot tears soaked the coverlet as his fingers worked between her legs, a thick digit sliding into her pussy. She was soaked. His finger pushed inside her, a second joining it on the next thrust.
Her bottom was sore as hell, but the second he started plunging his fingers into her pussy, she started to moan. He was being rough and mean, but her body was responding to it in a way she didn’t understand but couldn’t resist.
Tears evaporated on her cheeks as her fingers curled at his silken covers, her thighs spreading of their own accord. Her clit rode against the smooth fabric beneath her as she got closer and closer to a rough orgasm…
It evaporated as he pulled his fingers free and slapped her bottom again. His hand was still at her neck, keeping her in place as she let out a whine of complaint.
“I’ve tried to make this a gentle transition for you,” he growled. “But you’re not making it easy.”
The second the pleasure stopped, the ache in her bottom re-asserted itself. She was so very sore, and knew she would be for a long time, but all she cared about was having his touch return. She arched her hips and lifted up, offering herself to him shamelessly.
“I don’t know how,” she moaned.
“I’m going to have to break you in,” he breathed against her ear as he leaned over her, pinning her to the bed. She felt something long and hot and hard press up against her slit and her eyes rolled back in her head as he stroked the length of his cock along her soaking pussy.
“You want this?”
“Yessss…” The word escaped her in a hiss of desire. She wanted this bastard who’d caged her and whipped her. She fucking craved him. Her inner walls were already pulsing with anticipation, arousal running through her blood like fire.
There was nothing between them as he pushed his bare cock inside her, claiming her in one stroke. He was so deep she could feel his heavy balls swinging against her pussy, slapping as he started thrusting in and out of her, fucking her with rough dominance.
In an instant she knew that everyone who came before him had been a pale imitation of a man. She’d never had sex like this before. Fumbling, rutting, grunting, yes, but she’d never experienced a fucking so hard and so thorough it made her spiral into a new dimension of pleasure. He held her down on the bed, pounding inside her, his cock raw and hard, their juices mingling with each and every stroke.
Her pussy lips gripped his cock desperately, trying to stop his every withdrawal, and embracing him with every surge. He may have had her pinned, but her body was doing its best to capture him in return. She could hear his breath rasping against her ear, his hips pounding against her ass over and over, slapping her sore bottom with the hard plane of his thighs.
Mason’s rod throbbed inside her, his thick meat stretching her inner walls so wide she became hypersensitive, feeling every twitch and pulse inside her. She could feel his bare flesh so hot against hers, not so much as a sliver of latex between them. Somewhere in the midst of the erotic madness, a single thread of sanity made its way through.
“I’m not on the pill,” she gasped. “I’m not…”
He growled and thrust deep and for a second she thought that he might come inside her. The idea made her pussy clench him harder, her thighs spreading, her ass arching, her body inviting that virile seed into her womb.
In spite of her desperate efforts to milk him, he pulled out and with a roar of orgasm he came on her sore bottom, thick ropes of cum landing across her punished cheeks. She was left empty, still on the verge of orgasm, smelling his seed on her skin. She wanted to come so badly she could barely stand it. He held her in place, his hand tangled in her hair, keeping her trapped against the bed, far back enough that she couldn’t even grind her pussy against the cover. Her hips gyrated in the air, finding nothing to satisfy her.
“Please… Mason… please…”
“You’re not going to come,” he growled as she writhed beneath him, her pussy begging for that final touch that would send her over the edge. “You’re going to go to bed, you’re going to go to sleep, and tomorrow, you’re going to earn that orgasm.”
She could almost have come from his words alone, the way they rumbled through her flesh, touching her in places his cock never could. But it wasn’t enough. Not alone. She needed more of his touch. She needed his permission. Her body would not release her until he gave the command.
Mason eased her from the bed and walked her across the floor on her hands and knees, his hand scruffed firmly at the back of her head. He was controlling her like an animal and she was responding like one, scurrying in his wake as he put her away in that wet, wanting state, his cum drying on her aching ass.
“Good night, Elliot,” he said as he closed the cage door.
Whipped and sore, and aching with need, Ellie snuggled into the blankets and looked at him under her lashes, replying in a soft, husky voice.
“Good night, sir.”