SIX

What? He was going to kill her, and she’d let him. Out of pure gratitude, she wouldn’t leave a single clue to betray him to the authorities. She really should have reminded Lynn where she kept the original copy of her will. Thank goodness she hadn’t adopted that dog she’d seen at the local ASPCA. The terrier mix had been a mop of hair, with soft brown eyes that promised she’d be the perfect companion, a warm body sharing the bed. Athena had instead found her a wonderful home with a family. Since she was going to expire from the things Dale was doing to her tonight, she was glad she hadn’t put that poor dog through the stress of such a temporary home.

Temporary. She’d assumed this arrangement with Dale was a temporary matter, something he kept gently—and sometimes not so gently—reminding her couldn’t be defined. She couldn’t help it, though. From bittersweet experience, she knew all things had a beginning and end, and when those experiences were wonderful, one always wished for a wider span between the two points. There was no way to brace for the loss, but it was human nature to try anyway.

Dale’s skills, however, could draw the excruciating and the pleasurable out on the same rubber band, so the mind was torn between please stop and never stop. She was caught between in a way that ensured she’d never use her safe word, no matter how strenuously she was stretched between the two points.

He carried her through the house to her reading nook. He’d turned at the appropriate points so her head or feet were protected as they moved through doorways. Now he reached under her and turned the latch of the sunporch, stepping right out into the gardens with her unclothed. There were no neighbors within viewing distance of course. It was just . . . she’d never been naked outside.

He didn’t let her down until they reached The Choice. “Turn and face the griffin. Reach above you, see if you can grab the crest of his wings.”

To do that, she had to lean full against the creature, put her forehead against its throat. Even then, she had to strain for the crest, going onto her toes. Dale came and pressed against her back to adjust her grip lower, on the slope of the wing edges. Now she was flat on her feet, but she was still stretched out. She wanted him to keep the heated strength of his body against her like that, but of course he stepped back.

“You’re going to be here awhile. I don’t want to put too much stress on your ankles or shoulders.”

Dale gripped her hair then, using that hold to lift her upper body away from the griffin and reach around her, put his fingers on the metal. When she glanced down, she saw he was testing those metal feathers, verifying they were smooth and not sharp. His questing hand was close enough that his wrist and the heel of his hand brushed her nipple, the curve of her breast. While the contact might be incidental, that, combined with the knee-weakening clasp on her hair, sent a frisson of arousal through a body that should still be depleted by her last climax. Maybe the newness of the situation, the excitement of it, was refueling her faster. Or Dale alone had that effect on her, him exercising his Mastery over her.

He returned her to a full lean against the griffin, readjusting her hands on the wings once more so her arms were stretched as far as they could go without taking her off her heels. The griffin’s chest rounded out her back, and the ridges of the feathers were a cool friction against tender skin.

Leaving her in that position, he went to his bag, unzipping it. Since he was in her field of vision, she saw him withdraw a coil of rope. Unwrapping the end from the figure eight coil, he shook it out in a deft move. Then he returned to her side and began tying her to the statue.

He moved with harrowing efficiency, binding her wrists with a knot that didn’t slip, winding the rope around the griffin and her, eventually cinching her firmly to the mythical beast in a series of cross ties and knots he lined up on either side of her spine.

It took a while and, as he did it, her body reacted as if he was stimulating her in a much more intimate way. The restraint was turning her on, every incremental restriction making her breath shorter, her heart pound, her flesh heat. She wanted him to keep tying her endlessly, more tightly. The more immobile and helpless he rendered her, the more aroused she became. Oh God. No wonder Roy had loved it when she tied him up. It held a euphoria all its own.

Dale left her backside free of encumbrance, but pulled the ropes through her legs, positioning a rough, titillating knot right against her clit before he split the rope around her labia, putting further pressure there. It increased when he began wrapping her thighs. Whatever he did pulled her legs open another inch or two, which made her grip on the wings more of a stretch, providing a feeling of suspension, even though she stayed on the ground. He brought her ankles up close to the statue, gripping her ass in one hand to guide her into a more severe C-curve over the griffin’s chest.

He knew his rope suspension techniques well, because the way he’d tied her, her shoulders weren’t bearing her weight. The rope harness over her back, hips and thighs had formed a cradle, as if she was a baby bird in a closefitting sling against the griffin’s puffed chest, her knees pressed against its lower abdomen. If he cut her loose right now, she’d fall, because she was no longer in a sturdy right angle with the ground. The sense of once again being simultaneously off balance and at his mercy was overwhelming.

He hadn’t spoken throughout, and neither had she. She’d never felt such a complete lack of need to speak. The way his hands moved over her body held all her attention. As well as his even breath, the way he stopped at different times to study her face, gauge her reaction. When he tested tightness, the angle of the ropes, the stress on her joints, the functional task felt remarkably erotic. Arousal trickled down her thigh, and it wasn’t from her last climax.

He put away the excess line. When he returned to her, he cupped her bottom once more, making her moan as he squeezed her hard enough the belt marks throbbed, then he stroked them.

“I like knowing your ass will be tender tomorrow because of this. You’ll have a lot of muscles hurting you haven’t used this way before. I’ll enjoy thinking about that, too. I’m going to leave you instructions to deal with it. A hot bath tonight, a couple aspirin. You’ll rub a liniment I give you into your arms and hips. Do you have someone who can help you do that?”

She shook her head. “I can manage.”

“I’ll come by in the morning and do it.”

“You . . . could stay.”

Her earlier impulsive state had obviously been exacerbated by the climax, her aroused state. She’d babble anything right now, but the idea of him in a bed with her was irresistible. But not her bed. Not yet.

“Not yet.” He echoed her thought, which gave her a pang of uncertainty and disappointment both, but her body’s intense reaction to her bondage didn’t let it gain much traction. He gripped her hair anew, tilting her head back so she was gazing up into his unsmiling face, those piercing eyes. “Too soon. I’m not him, Athena.”

A pang of mortification speared her. Seeing it, he shook his head, taking her chin in firm fingers. “What did I tell you? Are you acting within my control?”

She nodded, then remembered. Damn it. “Yes. Yes sir.”

She was relieved he didn’t put his hand on his belt, but he might be the type of Master who’d store such infractions away, pull them out at a later time. “Then why are you embarrassed? When I first arrived, what were you thinking, sitting on that fussy little sofa in front of the door? You looked like you were about to bolt.”

“I was. I thought I might lock the door, run upstairs. Then I wondered what you’d do.”

“What did you imagine me doing?”

She couldn’t help flushing a deeper rose at that. His fingers tightened in her hair. “You’ll answer me immediately when I ask a question, Athena. No hesitation, no thinking the answer through.”

“I imagined you kicking in the door, following me upstairs and . . . pushing me down on the bed to . . . punish me.”

His eyes glowed in a way that made her ache. God, she wanted that mouth on her. Her body tensed, feeling every line of the ropes holding her to the griffin. The sculpture had been cool when he first placed her against it. Now her inflamed flesh had warmed the metal.

“If I’d done that, I’d owe you a door tomorrow. And that looks like a pretty damn expensive door.”

“What . . . would you have done?”

He stroked her hair, traced her lips. She parted them, eager to feel him on the moist inside of her mouth. He obliged her, sliding his forefinger partly inside, and she sucked on it. His gaze darkened as her tongue flicked against it.

“You’d like to be on your knees, servicing your Master’s cock, wouldn’t you?”

She nodded, hoping she’d be excused from saying “Yes sir” since his finger was in her mouth. She expected the look on her face gave him the answer, regardless.

“We’ll see whether you deserve that. I wouldn’t have kicked the door down, Athena. I would have sat on the porch, waited until you came back down. You would have gone upstairs, turned in circles, been scared, but then you would have come back down to me, because you’d know I was the one who could make it better, make that tornado happening in your head die down, get still again. Though before I did that, I probably would have tipped you over my knee and given you a sound spanking for making me wait.”

He gave her that half smile again, the one that didn’t dilute the truth of his words at all. He enjoyed giving out pain as part of pleasure. When he’d helped her up from the footrest, his cock had been a thick bar straining against denim. The way he had her tied right now, her face pressed close to the griffin’s neck, she couldn’t dip her head enough to see, but from his total attention, the way he touched her, it was obvious he was still stirred up that way.

“Time to explore these limits of yours.”

He left her, going back to the bag. She heard him rummaging, heard the unsettling clang of metal, then a rustling. When he returned, he stayed behind her, but then he deprived her of any sight at all, sliding a blindfold over her eyes. “You’re mine to look at,” he said shortly. “But you have to earn the right to look at me.”

“Yes sir.” She liked how he said “mine.” She wanted to wrap herself around it like a dragon guarding treasure. She knew what was happening to her, because she’d seen it happen to other subs. They might come in nervous, jittery, overly chatty. Then their Master or Mistress would start to bind them, and with every cuff wrapped or rope cinched, that negative tension would start to leave their bodies, their expressions getting both more vacant and focused . . . vacant of anything but their total focus on their Dom. When the physical chains were put upon them, the mental chains they wore outside the club dropped away.

Maybe she hadn’t expected it to happen to her so much the same, or so easily, but she’d always been a submissive. Now that her subconscious had released that news flash to the rest of her mind, every cell was embracing this. They’d just been waiting for her to make the step into that room. No, not a room. An endless amusement park, or a quiet meadow on the planes of Paradise where she could simply . . . be.

She thought of how she’d struggled with this throughout the week, her conscious mind clinging to the paradigm she’d always had. Would it return in full force when she was untied? She was starting to understand how someone could have a split personality.

His hand dropped, sliding between her thighs, tugging on the knot over her clit. She whimpered, hands opening and closing in the bonds. When his fingers furrowed between her labia, she tensed; she couldn’t help it. Every woman felt trepidation when a man first started probing her more tender crevices. Would he know how to do it right? Would he thrust his fingers in too fast or at the wrong angle? She had no way of stopping him except by calling out the safe word, and doing it before he even tried wasn’t very sensible.

She needn’t have worried. He eased in slowly, feeling his way, and she was so slick with arousal he burrowed into her cunt like he’d been there before. He withdrew, then slid back in again, setting a slow rhythm, emulating coitus. Her hips shifted, jerked, tried to move with his movements despite her restriction.

“Good. Hot and eager. You’re ready for this.”

When his fingers came out this time, the blunt head of an inanimate object replaced them. She had no time to worry about it, because he eased it in as smoothly as he had his digits, despite the fact it was a much thicker dildo that stretched her out as it pushed in deep. She’d used her vibrator inside herself periodically, and now she was glad she’d done so, else her channel would have been much tighter from lack of use.

As the dildo reached a certain depth, another piece, a smaller shaft, pressed against her anal rim. His fingers parted her buttocks, allowing it access. It didn’t go inside, merely putting delicious pressure on that sensitive ring. He slid his hand to her front, then down her abdomen to adjust another curved piece over her clit. He tucked it beneath the rope knot, the soft gel of the device pressing into that nerve bundle. A series of straps were used to keep all of it in place, and when he tightened them, she moaned, rocking forward. He popped her buttock, a hard smack on one of the belt marks. The pain startled her.

“No moving until I give you permission.” He wasn’t messing around. It was his way or else. “Just feel it, Athena.”

She nodded quickly. She’d be still. Still as a mouse. But it was so hard. She was quivering all over, and a fine sweat had broken out on her limbs. Another hard smack made her yelp. “Yes sir.”

“God, you have no idea how fucking gorgeous you look. Maybe I’ll sit on that bench over there and jack off, make you my personal pinup fantasy.”

A noise of protest was on her lips before she could stop it, and he seized her hair again, his heated breath against her lips. “You don’t like that, Athena. Why not?”

“I want . . . to see you. And you said, if I was good, I could do that . . . for you.”

“So I did. We’ll see. That’s a vibrator in your cunt and against your ass. I’m going to turn it on now. If you want to earn the right to suck my cock, you can’t come. No matter what. Got it?”

“Yes sir.”

She could do it. She would do it. But when he turned on the vibrator, she realized there was no way in hell she could stop herself from coming. It started with a low hum, but a building wave pattered against her clit with increasing strength, to the point she felt she was right on the cusp of an immediate, hard climax. Then it ebbed, starting over again. It was a diabolical rhythm, but she reevaluated, thinking that strategic ebb might keep her from climaxing, even as it destroyed her sanity.

The rope, the hard metal, the vibrator, it was all-powerful, physically overwhelming, but the higher she got, the more she noticed something missing. Visualizing Dale watching her helped, but it wasn’t enough. When he’d spoken to her, everything had become more intense. Better. She needed him. She needed his touch to be part of this, so that the emotional reaction building in her chest, her stomach, her mind, bringing an ache to her throat, a sobbing gasp, wouldn’t shatter her when her body shattered.

She didn’t know if he knew it, or if it was just miraculous timing, but when her emotional response was close to overtaking the physical, giving it a sharp, painful edge, he stepped up against her, so she was no longer alone in the darkness. He put his hands on her hips, then moved up to her breasts, teasing the nipples.

The downside was that her body shot up toward that cliff edge as if his touch were rocket fuel. The rhythm of the vibrator no longer mattered. She couldn’t resist her need for him.

“I can’t . . . I’ll . . . sir . . .”

“Call me Master, Athena.” His voice was rough against her ear as he put himself full against her, pressing the rope into her flesh. “I want to hear you say it. Convince me you’re all mine.”

His. His slave. There were those at the club that called themselves that. For some, it meant a functional thing, a different form of service from a submissive. For others, in the way they said it, it was a desire to prove their devotion to their Master or Mistress with the strongest word possible. His harsh tone said he might be experiencing a need just as primal.

“Master,” she gasped. “I’m so close . . . I can’t . . .”

“You can. You won’t. I want you on your knees, sucking my cock, Athena. Are you going to deny me that by disobeying, by giving in to your climax?”

She shook her head, hard, even as her body was jerking, screaming at her to come. She clung to his command like the word of God. She could do it, she could make it through, even if the damnable man seemed to be trying to force her failure. He captured her taut nipples in his long fingers, beginning to roll and tweak, tug.

“Master.”

He molded himself against her curved body, forcing his erection against the crease of her ass. The weight of it pushed that piece deeper against her rim. She wanted him inside her. Wanted him in her mouth, her cunt, her ass . . . she wanted him to fill her everywhere.

She tried, she fought, she screamed in frustration, but then that scream became something else as the climax rolled over her. With the vibrator pulsing against her clit and her body immobilized, there was no reining it back, no easing the pulse or pressure. As the intensity built, she was crying out, begging for a mercy she knew she wouldn’t be given. She was flying, crashing, fragmenting. Tipping her face the small amount her bindings allowed, he captured her lips in a hot, demanding kiss. His tongue plunged into her mouth, absorbing the vibration of her screams. She sobbed harder, tears streaking her cheeks as her body bucked in tiny movements, telling him what it craved, even if they weren’t joined together.

He was kissing her. She recognized it after the fact, that she hadn’t tensed but had instead opened her mouth to him, welcoming the invasion, needing the strong stroke of his tongue, his teeth clashing with hers, as she moaned against his flesh.

It went on for quite a while. With the vibrator still going, she was writhing in her bonds, gasping, eventually begging for mercy again because it was too much, her clit pulsing and overly sensitive, her inner tissues clenching to try and shield her against the strong vibration.

He slid the blindfold off her head but backed away, his fingertips grazing her flanks. When he moved into her field of vision, it wasn’t to rummage through his bag. He sat down on the bench, his expression that of a man who was hungry for a woman’s cunt. But it also reflected his terrifyingly fierce control over himself, his complete command of her.

“Please . . .” She pressed her forehead against the griffin’s throat, her eyes clinging to Dale. She thought about how the creature’s head was tipped back, roaring to the sky. Perhaps that roar was his claim that, regardless of whether or not the man killed him, the fantasy would endure. That the man’s reality would always be a mere shadow, chasing the fantasy . . .

She’d closed her eyes, her wet lashes a reminder of her sobs. When Dale put his hand on her face, telling her he’d returned to her, she turned her lips to his palm in fervent plea, her emotionally raw state taking away any reserve. Had it always been possible for her to achieve this, or was it something he brought forth in her? All those months she’d sat in Club Release, and it wasn’t until she’d seen Dale that she’d had the will to reach for this.

Some tiny corner of her mind was sensible enough to realize she was overwrought. But he’d said within his boundaries she could be anything she wished. So she kept kissing his hand, his wrist, as the tips of his fingers caressed her brow.

“Time to untie you.” He removed his hand, stepped behind her and began to loosen her bonds. She didn’t want him to let her go. Was that usual for a sub as well? She realized she hadn’t really plumbed Roy’s mind on these things. She’d notice if he needed to take it slow, sitting up after a climax, sipping water, leaning against her as he came back to earth. Disorientation was part of subspace, but she didn’t really know what thoughts and feelings he had experienced.

The bonds loosened, the ropes tumbling off her, forming coils at her feet. Dale turned her, and she was a limp doll as he lifted her off her feet. She felt him pause, shift, and realized he’d had to make an adjustment in stance. This wasn’t the first time he’d carried her tonight, but should he be doing that at all with his leg? He had fabulous upper body strength, but even so . . .

“Should you . . . Can I . . .”

“No.” His forbidding countenance silenced her. “Don’t do that. If I require anything of you, I’ll tell you.”

She was to rely on his strength, his control. That was part of the deal. Perhaps that was part of what he desired and needed, as much as she desired and needed to feel it, a perfect meshing. But the edge in his voice told her she’d struck a nerve. Even in her muzzy state, it was a reminder that Dale was more than the role he was playing for her. She frowned. She didn’t like that term, role-playing. Being a Dom was an integral part of him. Obviously. She might as well say he played at being a SEAL, or she played at being Roy’s wife. Maybe they were all roles, but they were vital parts of their personalities as well, like being happy or sad.

While she was rolling over those thoughts, he’d carried her to her reading nook, to the easy chair there. Because it was a large chair, it was a comfortable size for Dale and her together, especially with her in his lap. He worked the afghan she kept draped on the chair around her. Then he wrapped one arm around her back. Her head was on his shoulder, his other hand beneath the covering, stroking her bare hip, the line of her thigh. “Part your legs,” he said. “You always keep your thighs open around your Master.”

Of course. She should have known that, but her experience was with a male sub, where leg parting wasn’t so much an issue. Her thighs loosened. She sucked in a breath as he pushed two fingers inside her slick cunt without hesitation, resting them there, while his other fingers stroked the outside like he might stroke a favored pet.

She listened to his heartbeat, inhaled the clean, male scent of him, pressed her face into his neck. She realized she was making little humming noises when she breathed, some form of self-comfort, a way of balancing. He shifted his arm so he could support the back of her head, tilt it back.

He met her gaze. “This time I kiss you and you accept it honestly, Athena.”

She knew what he meant. The previous ones had been heat of the moment. He kept his eyes open, watching her face, watching her for any sign of tension. She wanted him to kiss her, needed him to kiss her, and that made her throat thick with emotion. It was hard to accept this sign she’d let another man into her life, that he was in the intimate territory that had been Roy’s alone for so long.

But it was okay. The kiss was a long, slow fall, swirling in a soft wind. Everything steadied, the humming dying away. It went on for some time, him exploring her lips, her tongue; fingers caressing her face, her neck, catching tendrils of her hair around her face. When she lifted her hands, he made a negative sound in his throat, an obvious command for her to stay in place, not to touch him. Though she was trembling under his touch, she was otherwise required to stay still, not expected to do anything other than obey him, allow him to take his pleasure. As a result, the warm ball in her stomach expanded. The anxiety was still there, but it changed composition, became a different kind of urgency.

He pushed his fingers into her a little more firmly and her lower body responded. Aroused wasn’t the right word, not exactly, because that suggested a progression from a nonaroused state. She’d gone straight from an orgasm into a state of . . . readiness. Her body was on a low hum, like what had escaped her lips.

“So you climaxed when I told you not to do it.”

He’d intended her to do so. The satisfaction about it was in his voice. He wanted to be able to punish her. She remembered the belt, the spatula, and wondered if this punishment would be discipline or pleasure. For her, that is, since either kind brought him pleasure. Of course, she’d come so violently from all of it, maybe it was the same for her. Even so, her sore bottom was hoping for a gentler discipline. Regardless, Athena knew she’d accept either from his hand, which was kind of disconcerting.

“You tried like hell not to do so, though. I like that. You don’t brat on purpose for punishment. You wanted to suck me off. I could punish you by denying you that, but I think you’d like to earn that reward, wouldn’t you?”

The body she’d thought was too exhausted to do more than lie in his arms, slack and open to his desires, prickled with heat at the thought of it. Kneeling before this chair, going down on him, feeling his seed jet against the back of her throat. When she sat here later in the week, reading, daydreaming, she would remember his big body here, his cock thrusting into her mouth.

“Yes sir.” She met his gaze. “I want that.”

“Good.” He withdrew his fingers, though he caressed her thighs with the slickness he’d drawn from her. As he did, he studied her with his unusual eyes. “I want to take you out on a date.”

She blinked. “Now? Naked? Is that going to be my punishment?”

He chuckled. “No. I just thought of it. Separate issue.”

“Segues,” she suggested, her heart rate settling down from a panicked flutter. “You need to work on those.”

“Sorry. It feels like you’re in my head.”

That, too, was unsettling, in a pleasant and scary way. “I’m not into public humiliation,” he continued. “I’m also not real enthused about other men seeing you like this.” His hand slipped to her buttock, gave it a firm squeeze.

He hadn’t seemed averse to playing publicly with Willow, but then Willow embraced exhibitionism.

“Is that . . . I’m sorry, may I ask a question, sir?”

“You may. You learn fast, girl.”

“Not letting other men see me. Is that your preference, or are you doing it because it’s what you think I want and need?”

“To a good Master, they’re one and the same, Athena.”

“I know, but . . .” She was simply too fumble-tongued to figure out how to say it respectfully, but she needn’t have worried.

His hand had been resting on her thighs. She gasped as it shifted, those fingers pushing back into her, a deep and demanding thrust, making her shudder, bite her lip. His eyes heated on her response. “Yes, Athena. I want to keep you to myself. That’s my preference.”

She liked the idea of him stating it that way. So blatant. Maybe it was only because of that uncontained flood of emotions she was experiencing right now, but that was okay. She reminded herself once again he’d said she could be any way she wished. Tomorrow, when he was gone and she had to handle her day as usual, that would be the time for rational thought. This was her moment, her fantasy, anything she wanted it to be.

“I meant I intend to take you on a real date,” he said. “After the date, you can tell me whether or not it was a punishment.”

She smiled at that. “As long as it’s not a fancy, expensive dinner where the menu’s in French and there’s valet parking.”

He frowned. “Athena, I can afford to take you out to a nice dinner.”

“No. It’s not that.” She lifted a shoulder, trying to marshal her thoughts. It wasn’t easy with his possessive hold on her, inside and out. “I like diners,” she managed. “Roy and I . . . we used to get up in the middle of the night, and drive until we found one we hadn’t tried. One night, we went all the way to Baton Rouge, didn’t get back until past dawn. We’d get a meal if we were hungry, but most of the time, it was pie and coffee. It’s best late at night.”

“Of course.” He slid his fingers from her, stroked her bare flank with his knuckles as she gave him a half smile.

“After he was gone . . . I didn’t sleep well, not for a long time, so I kept doing it. At first it was hard, feeling like he should be there, but I’d take a book or something like that . . . and it was just me there, amid all these other late-night people . . .” She trailed off at his steady expression. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I brought that up.”

“It’s the type of thing that’s hard to talk about. It’s like . . .” He paused. “There was this day we were monitoring a river, and a group of targets started crossing. They were coming to join the insurgents, the guys trying to kill us. Well, the boat was an old rickety wooden thing. There they were, paddling across. We had kill orders to take them out, and the sniper team I was with could do that without breaking a sweat, but instead they did target practice on the boat, blowing holes in it until it was foundering. Then they picked off the guys when they jumped in the water. One guy made it to our side, tough bastard, but they put him down once he reached dry ground.”

He met her gaze. “I tell most people that story, they’d think we were bad guys, making a game of something as serious as taking another person’s life, but it’s different when you’re in it. When every day you’re dealing with people who want to kill you, who hate you without even knowing anything real about you. And sometimes even the people you’re trying to help turn on you, too. So you figure out ways within the boundaries to blow off steam. The rest you have to deal with later, when you wake up in your bed back home and think, ‘God, that was fucked up.’”

The stories were entirely different, but in essence, the same. An experience carried that couldn’t be shared, because of the difficulty of conveying what it meant, or why it was so important. She touched his face, sliding her knuckles down his jaw. She did it without thinking to ask this time, but he didn’t tell her not to touch him, so she kept doing it, fingers moving up to the soft hair at his temple. He’d been hard beneath her when they sat down. During their conversation, that had died back a bit, but now, when she slipped her hand down his neck, she let her nails dig into his flesh, just a bit, and shifted her buttocks against him in deliberate provocation.

“I’d like my punishment now,” she murmured. “So I can have my reward.”

“You might have some brat in you after all.” His eyes sparked with humor. “And I might just be glad about that. Go get me that spatula, and the clip magnet on the fridge. Keep it to a walk, but hurry. I want to see your tits bouncing when you come back.”

The crudity didn’t dismay her as she’d expect. Not the way he said it, with that voracious growl in his voice. She scrambled off his lap, with him helping her to her feet. She hurried out of the room, through the house, past the dining area where she saw the reflection of her pale body in the marbleized mirrors above the beadboard. In the kitchen, she plucked the spatula from the counter and the clip from the fridge, dumping the recipes it had been holding into the fruit bowl. As she returned, she had to remind herself to walk, since part of her wanted to fly. When she glimpsed herself in the mirrors again, she could tell her hair was loose and swirling around her face, her body flushed, nipples taut, clit still swollen from her climax. She looked wanton, sexual . . . appetizing. She glowed. She couldn’t wait for Dale to punish her. She wanted to take his cock in her mouth, to serve him . . .

“Athena.”

The bark of command catapulted her into motion again, and she was smiling, she couldn’t help it. When she hurried down the breezeway from the dining area, she was in his direct line of sight. She’d left the door to the reading nook open and her blood ran hot at the way his gaze coursed over the movement of her naked body, his eyes full of lust. He’d be hard again now, she was sure of it, and she moistened her lips, thinking of his salty taste against her tongue.

There were two steps at the doorway of her reading room, since it was on the same grade as the sunporch. She jumped down, rather than using the stairs. The decision gave her breasts a healthy bob of movement. As she straightened her knees she saw laughter in his eyes, as well as deliciously dangerous things.

“Careful. You keep doing things like that, I’ll make you jog in place. Come here, woman.”

He bade her stand at the arm of the chair and took the spatula and clip from her. “Spread your legs.”

When she did, he clasped the lips of her sex in firm, sure fingers, compressing them before he opened the three-inch-wide clip and slowly let the jaws come back together, holding on to her clit and labia. The compression was uncomfortable, but it also jammed all those aroused nerves together, making dense sensation arrow up through her core.

“Bend down, toward my lap.”

She did so, and he took hold of her hair, wrapping it around his fist and guiding her all the way down so her mouth was pressed, blissfully, on the straining denim over his erection. She could smell the heavy, musky scent of it, knew he’d likely spilled some milky precum against the fabric of his shorts. She wanted to taste him more than she’d ever wanted to taste anything. His hand tightened in her hair. “Fold your arms beneath your breasts. Press your knees against the side of the chair.”

It put more of her weight forward, so her forehead was pressed to his opposite thigh. Her fingers dug into the chair cushioning as she adjusted her knees so her thighs stayed open.

“Good girl. You learn fast. This will help you remember what happens if you come before your Master orders it.”

The spatula strike made her jerk. He’d said there was a difference between discipline and a punishment for pleasure, but he didn’t seem to hold back on either. Her capacity to absorb the pain seemed greater now, though, her ass lifting toward it, wanting more, even as every strike made her cringe and think, Ow ow ow . . .

He didn’t tell her how many he was going to do this time, and by the time she was trying hard not to writhe, her ass singing with pain, she was about to beg. Her clit was pulsing beneath the hold of that clamp, her pussy tingling. When he dropped the spatula and pulled the clip off, she cried out at the painful rush of blood back to the area. It was mitigated by his touch, the clamp of his fingers over her clit, worrying it, making her hips lift up to him again. Please . . . oh God . . . It feels so good.

He pushed her up, shifted her so she was down on her knees between his feet. She watched with eager desire as he opened his jeans, adjusted them and the boxers beneath enough that he freed his cock, levering it out to stand tall and thick before her gaze. Roy had been a good size, more than capable of filling a woman, and Dale was the same. Her gaze coursed over the thick vein along the base of the shaft, the hint of the heavy ball sac still nested in his shorts.

“Hands behind your back, Athena. You’ll suck me off with your mouth alone.”

She desperately wanted to touch him, learn him with her fingers, but she was starting to understand his diabolical strategy. The tighter he held the reins, the more powerful the wanting became. The more she wanted, the more it turned him on, a closely intertwined strand that drove them both.

Clasping the base of his cock in one hand, he brought her down on him.

Steel and velvet, musk, salt. Lust and heat. She savored that first contact between the cushion of her lip and the broad head, the dampness of his slit. He kept total control of her movements, pushing her down deep on him. He did it slow, so she had time to adjust, but he still went all the way up against her gag reflex, making her fight not to choke.

“Relax your throat. Take all of me. There you go. That’s my sweet girl.”

She sucked that salty-musky taste, reveling in it, and when he let her slide up, she worried his slit with the tip of her tongue, sucked on the ridges of the corona, and then she was pushed down again. She worked within what his grip would allow her, flicking her tongue along his length, sucking on him so hard she hollowed her cheeks as she did it.

“Fuck, you’re good at this. I might keep you on your knees all the time.”

How crazy was it that she loved hearing that? She redoubled her efforts. She wanted him to come in her mouth, wanted to swallow his seed. She was wet and throbbing yet again, ready for another climax. It was exhilarating, terrifying, the way her body responded to this, to him. But would he allow her that? Or would he leave her hot and wanting, because he was immersing her in what it was to be a submissive? His kind of submissive, commanded by the inexorable will of her Master.

His thigh muscles were starting to flex and twitch in that way that told her the climax was close. His grip showed that as well, as if men lost an awareness of their own strength as they reached that crest. Or perhaps they realized getting rougher was something a woman craved, feeling his loss of control in that aggressive power. She sucked and licked even more ardently. She wished her hand was where his was, wrapped around the base of his cock, so she could feel that vein pump when the seed started to come through.

With a groan, he thrust up hard into her mouth. His ejaculation flooded her throat, several long, strong spurts that kept her swallowing frantically, trying to make sure none of it escaped her lips. Her chest heaved with the effort, her throat fighting against that gag reflex.

His animal noises of release kept her working to please him. When his touch finally eased, her scalp was stinging from his grip and her eyes were watering from the effort, but all she wanted to do was keep at it. Instead, she did the next best thing. She started to clean him, licking more gently, absorbing with pleasure the postclimactic shudders of his body, the way his fingers stroked her hair, yet also paused to do short, quick pulls, a pleasurable discomfort to her scalp. Then he had her under the arms, dragging her into his lap to grip her neck and hold her to him for a hard, deep kiss. The zipper of his open jeans bit into her sore ass, his damp cock mashed against her pussy, and she loved it, the visceral, sticky perfection of it all.

Pulling back, he stared into her face, caressing her lips with a knuckle. He caught the edge of his T-shirt, dabbed at her eyes and wiped her nose with it. During the tender gesture, her hand naturally fell on his abdomen, the ridges of muscle. When she stroked him, taking advantage to slide her palm up to his chest and curl her fingers in his chest hair, doing her own tugging, he gave her a mildly reproving look, but the indulgent light in his gaze said he wasn’t going to tell her to stop.

He’d said they’d be more than a club session. What he was doing now, giving her free rein with a natural intimacy, confirmed it. This was a different emotion from what they’d shared a few moments ago. Softer, a lot of need behind it. Overwhelmed by it, she lowered her gaze.

He put his hand on the side of her head, guided her to settle back down in his lap, her temple pressed to his shoulder as she continued to stroke his chest.

“How about lunch on Wednesday?” he said at long last. “And it won’t be a fancy French restaurant or a diner. We’ll picnic in one of the parks. Wear sneakers. I plan to push you on the swings and make you hang from monkey bars.”

The man really wasn’t going to work on those segues, but then she remembered how often she and Roy hadn’t needed them, following the track of one another’s thoughts like they were on the same meandering garden path together.

“I’d like that. Just don’t put me on the merry-go-round. I get nauseous.”

“Roger that. No hurling from the merry-go-round.”

She closed her eyes, content to be held. Even so, an uncertain thought managed to creep in, the idyllic moment ironically summoning it. This wasn’t in a club, but she was still pursuing the fantasy in the dark of night, in isolated scenarios. Was that because she knew it wouldn’t survive the light of day, the daily demands of her life, the expectations of others?

She’d held on to control too long to believe that she could leave it all in Dale’s hands from beginning to end. At some point, she’d have to make some decisions and choices. But not tonight.

Tonight, this was enough.