“Remove everything, including your cuffs, and kneel beside the desk, please,” Master R said. He waited, eyes on her, overcoming her hesitation with his certainty she’d obey.
Her hands had gone numb, her mouth dry, but she did as he ordered, folding her apron and dress, removing her stockings, and setting them on the coffee table. She knelt on the glossy hardwood floor in his preferred position, hands behind her back, knees parted. She lowered her head reluctantly.
“You may watch, gatita,” he said quietly.
He pulled a sturdy square table from the corner to beside the desk. Supplies came from the filing cabinet drawers. A wooden skewer with a ball of gauze wrapped around one end came from his bag. Three more followed. He poured a clear liquid into a high-sided metal bowl. A fat candle went into another heavy metal dish.
When he lit it, a shudder went through her. She gritted her teeth and looked down.
“Did you use lotion after showering as I asked?” His voice was casual, like checking if she’d added pepper to the seasonings.
“Yes, Sir.”
“Excellent. It’ll keep your skin nice and moist.” He soaked a bath blanket in the sink and wrung it out. That, a pitcher of water, and a fire extinguisher went on the floor at the far end of the desk.
“You going to set the place on fire too?” As well as me? Her voice came out a high whine.
“It’s a corollary to Murphy’s law. If you’re not prepared, bad things will happen. If you are, nothing goes wrong.” He pulled a fabric-covered pad out of the cabinet. It was so thick it raised the top of the desk to his waist. He smiled at her. “And this material won’t burn, gatita. Now come here.”
I’d rather not. “Yes, Sir.” She rose, striving for poise, since three people had already gathered outside the window. She’d never felt less like putting on a show.
He followed her gaze, then grasped her waist and set her on the desk. The material was cold against her butt, the foam soft. “People will watch, and it’s nice to know they enjoy what we do, but this scene, Kimberly, is only between you and me.” He kissed her lightly, and she inhaled the faint scent of his cologne, the one she thought of as sea mist and testosterone.
After walking behind her, he pulled her hair to the center of her back and…
“You know how to braid hair?” she asked, recognizing the tugging feeling.
“Mmmhmm. I used to brush and braid my mamá’s hair.” He was actually humming along with the music, and she realized it wasn’t the Goth band playing on the dance floor. The room had its own sound system, and this was a Secret Garden album. One of her favorites. Soothing.
“You’re trying to calm me down before setting me on fire.”
A sharper tug on her hair. “This will not hurt you…unless I wish.” He pinched her arm, a sharp nip. “That’s as bad as it should get.”
She breathed out. “You’re sure?”
“I have been doing this for many years, sumisita.” He tied a string around the end of her hair and stepped in front of her, taking her face between his hard palms. His eyes were so serious and caring and yet…stern. She might be afraid, but this was what they were going to do. He wouldn’t back down—and why did that seem as reassuring as it did terrifying? Sometimes she didn’t make any sense, even to herself.
“This is about trust, cariño, as so many scenes are. Human instinct is to fear the flame. Now we shall see if your trust in me can overcome it.”
Oh, when he talked like that, she knew he’d never hurt her. “I trust you,” she whispered.
“Brave gatita,” he murmured. “I know you do. Now I want you on your knees, ass high, leaning on your forearms.”
What? He planned to set her butt on fire first?
Once she was positioned, he ran his hands over her, rubbing firmly, waking her skin, waking her, darn him, as he moved from her shoulders, to her waist, and slowly down. He fondled her bottom for a long while, never touching anything, until all her anythings throbbed, needing to be touched. Her fingers tightened on the foam as she realized he was deliberately arousing her.
As he pushed her legs slightly apart, she felt her wetness dampening her inner thighs. A second later, he pressed open her folds with his fingers, and he gave a satisfied hum.
Dammit, after the past few days, he knew just how to turn her on, and her body roused for him at a finger snap anyway. Too easily. Her head bowed, and she shut her eyes tightly. Slut. I’m a dirty—
The sound of a hand hitting flesh was simultaneous with the shocking sting on her bottom. “Ow!”
“You don’t think those nasty thoughts about my sumisita, Kimberly.” Another ruthless swat made her grimace as the pain shot through her.
His thick finger touched her pussy and pushed firmly into her. She gasped. Her need to wiggle was stopped by the heavy palm on her ass. He slid his finger in and out and chuckled. “I think if you stay with me much longer, we should have a few spanking sessions just for fun.”
Her no was contradicted by the way her pussy contracted around him.
“Spread your legs more,” he said, and as she opened, his other hand traced a path between her labia, spreading wetness upward. When one calloused finger grazed over her clit, slick and rough at the same time, she moaned at the excruciating jolt of pleasure.
“Feel, gatita. This is ‘A.’” His finger slid up and around her clit in an odd pattern. “B.” A different pattern. “C.” Swirling touches over her clit. Never the same place twice. But with each new letter and the slow thrust of his finger, in and out, her need steadily increased.
“G…”
No. Stop. She could feel the blood swelling her tissue until her lower half pulsed in time with her heart.
Two fingers slid into her, filling and stretching. “L.”
“I don’t want to come. Please, Master. No. Not here.”
“This time you don’t have a choice, cariño,” he said levelly. He never slowed, actually pressed deeper. “O… But since you don’t want to share with our audience, then you will come without moving or making any noise…or I’ll spank you some more.”
Oh God, that just made her more frantic—and he knew it. Drown him. Her fingers gripped the edges of the foam pad as her willpower started to disintegrate, leaving her unmoored, floating away on the tide.
“R.” After kissing the hollow of her back, he nipped her bottom, and the zing of pain sent a tremor through her.
Don’t move; don’t make noise. She trembled, trying to hold still, needing to wiggle, feeling how her vagina tightened around his fingers as she got closer. No, I don’t want to. Her world narrowed to his slow tracing of the alphabet until each nerve around her clit quivered in anticipation of his touch. Oh God, she needed more. More. Her pulse hammered in her ears and between her legs. As her muscles tightened, her ass tilted just a little more.
“V.” He chuckled, a low sound that almost sent her over. And then, to her shock, he added another finger, thrusting hard. She gasped as every muscle contracted around him, increasing the sense of fullness.
Her body gathered; her breathing slowed to nothing. Almost. Oh please.
“We should try clamping this someday.” His words made no sense…until his fingers firmly pinched her clit.
Oh oh oh. Explosion. Mind-shattering pleasure blasted outward as every nerve in her body fired at once. She shuddered—don’t move—and her immobility intensified everything until her skin itself pulsed with the sensations. She shoved her hand into her mouth, trying to stifle the cries.
“Pretty sumisita.” As he chuckled and released her clit, the blood surged madly back into it, and the rush of sensation seized her body, shaking it out of her control.
He slid his fingers out and gripped her hips, holding her firmly. Her heart thudded against her ribs as she gasped for air.
“I heard too much noise, and you definitely moved,” he said. Before she had a chance to regain her breath, four more stinging swats landed on her bottom.
Her insides clenched as the sti
ng somehow engulfed her clit in another rolling wave of pleasure. She tried not to moan. Who knew what he’d do?
His sure hands rubbed her stinging cheeks, soothing the burn. Soothing her. Her breathing started to slow.
“Down you go,” he said, pulling her legs out straight and flattening her, stomach-down, on the pad.
Oh God. Her butt throbbed, and her body still jerked from coming so fast and hard. Now more? I don’t want to do this.
He dangled her braid off the side of the desk, laid a damp hand towel over her hair, and pulled the sturdy table of torture toys closer. When he lit the candle, it flamed up like a torch, scaring her spitless. With a grunt, he took something from his boot and snipped the wick. Making the flame shorter. Flame.
She closed her mouth over a whimper.
He returned the tool to his boot, then leaned over the table, his hand on her back. With a squeeze on her shoulder, he kissed her cheek. She saw the stern set of his jaw. His dark, dark brown eyes looked into hers. “Do you trust me, cariño?”
The question melted whatever resistance remained after his demonstration of how easily he could control her body. “I do,” she whispered.
He waited.
“I do, Master.” He’d showed he owned her body; now he wanted her soul as well—and he had it. God help her, he did.
His knuckles grazed down her face, over her lips. “You please me very much, gatita,” he said softly.
Oh, she wanted to, so very badly.
He moved away to lower the lighting in the room until it was like dusk after a sunset. Then he leaned on the desk, close enough she could feel his body brush against hers. “Breathe, Kimberly, and listen to the music. I picked this for you.”
As his calloused hand stroked up and down her back, her muscles relaxed, flattening into the pad. Her breathing kept pace with the rhythm of the song, the slow sweep of his hand.
She felt something different—a cool streak and a flashing warmth almost simultaneously, and his hand slid over the same spot. Again, and again, and she realized there was no pain, just a touch of cool, then heat following and disappearing under the rough stroke of his hand. A circle around her bottom. Down her legs and up to her back. His rhythm was the lapping of water on the beach, not quite regular, but so natural. Warmth, stroke.
Her eyes were open, and she watched the shadows dance on the wall with the flash of flame, then die down to darkness again. She could hear, dimly, the sound of people outside the room, their voices like seagulls in the distance.
The heat intensified, nipping at her skin, yet her worry slid away as her body and her mind grew too heavy to stay focused.
His low baritone broke into her calm. “You’re being such a good girl, mi pequeña sumisa. Time to turn over.”
How did he make his voice tug at her like a strong current? His firm hands rolled her over, and cool air washed over her front. He arranged her arms at her sides and pulled her hair over the end of the desk again.
“Do you want to watch the flame, gatita?” he asked in that soft, smooth voice. “I love your accent,” she said, unsure if she was dreaming.
How strange a thing to say, but his eyes crinkled, and he simply repeated, “Do you want to watch?”
“Sure.” Her back didn’t hurt, not at all, except for her bottom where… “You spanked me,” she told him.
“I did.” He lifted her shoulders high enough to push a wedge pillow under the pad. “And I enjoyed it very much. You have a very spankable ass, no?”
Her giggle sounded odd. She felt like a bubble rising up out of the ocean, heading for the surface.
He turned, a little skewer with the white gauze burning like a minitorch. He ran it down her thigh, the streak of flame almost gone before the stroke of his hand erased it completely.
“Oooh, that’s so pretty.”
The flash of his smile was just as pretty. Then the rhythm came back, the blip of coolness, the flash of the flame, his big hand wiping it out so the touch of fire stayed only warm…or sometimes with little teeth.
He changed out the skewer thing for another, giving her a slow kiss between, making her happy that her mouth was available. He worked his way across her stomach, upward toward her breasts.
She knew she should worry, only her fear never quite surfaced before her breast lit with the dancing flame and, like magic, was gone. Her skin tingled, her nipple contracting as if unsure if it was supposed to get aroused. He held the torch away and stopped to lick that peak.
Then he closed his lips over her other nipple in a reversal of the order—hot mouth, cool air. The flame.
Around the outer sides of her breasts. Down the center. Flames danced across her body…
He smiled at her, his eyes holding the heat of the fire, and she realized the flickering was gone from the room and only his hands were left, his hands on her breasts, his mouth over her clit, and her arousal coming up and breaking over her like storm waves over a rocky shore.
Chapter Ten
He’d never had a submissive climax so sweetly or trust him so completely. Raoul hadn’t shaken off the exquisite ache of tenderness…until he turned and saw the window.
He’d been so far into topspace during the scene that he hadn’t noticed when the Overseer had arrived, but the cabrón stood there now. Raoul nodded at him.
Dahmer tilted his head toward the clubroom, then strolled away. Displeased he’d had to share anything with the bastard, Raoul frowned. Time to finish talking and get Dahmer out of the Shadowlands, which meant subjecting Kimberly to his presence again.
Of course, without Dahmer, he and Kimberly wouldn’t be here at all. Or together. She was worth it.
He smiled to see she hadn’t roused, was still tranced out. He ran his fingers over her skin, feeling only a dry heat like a sunburn, but no blisters. Good. After using the damp blanket to wipe down her skin, he applied aloe lotion and tucked a fuzzy blanket around her. As he put the room to rights, he stopped every minute to stroke her gently as she slowly returned to the real world.
A tap on the door attracted his attention. The little cleaning woman waited in the doorway. She pointed to herself, then the room, indicating she’d take over the cleanup. Z had probably sent her.
Raoul nodded, wanting to have Kimberly in his arms. He wrapped her in the subbie blanket, picked her up, then glanced at her folded clothing.
Peggy whispered, “I’ll leave them and your bag at the bar for you, Master Raoul.”
“Thank you.”
Kimberly’s eyes opened, still a little glazed. She smiled at the woman, echoing his words, “Thank you.”
Peggy beamed.
“Ah, you are coming back to me now, gatita?” Raoul kissed the top of her head.
She rubbed her cheek on his chest like a sleepy cat. “I like when you hold me.”
Dios, she was going to break his heart. “I like when I hold you too.”
He walked out the hallway and into the main clubroom, wincing as the music of Alice in Chains hammered into his head. Club members who’d watched the fireplay gave him a thumbsup. A few started to talk, realized Kimberly’s still sleepy state, and changed it to a quiet, “Great scene.”
He nodded and smiled. Near the bar, he spotted Dahmer and Sam at a table, watching a suspension scene. Back to reality. But they looked engrossed enough that he could take time for Kimberly to rouse further. He caught Sam’s eye, then chose a quieter area, knowing they’d join him when the scene wound down.
A pretty submissive appeared and set a beer and bottled water on the table. She murmured, “From my mistress.”
Raoul saw that Olivia had taken over the bar. She gave him a small salute and returned to mixing drinks.
Kim felt…wonderful, everything open and loose and melty.
“Gatita.” A deep, resonant voice sounded as strong as the arms around her. She blinked and smiled up into dark chocolate eyes. Her heart swelled, filling with
warmth, an infinitely stretchable balloon. Her arm didn�
�t want to move, but the need to touch surged inside her, demanding action. She put her palm on his cheek and felt how it creased when he smiled.
“Are you with me here?”
Always . She opened her mouth to tell him how much she loved him, but a movement from the corner of her eyes silenced her. People. She stiffened, a shard of ice jabbing through her relaxed muscles.
“No, look at me, Kimberly,” Master R murmured, pulling her gaze to him. “You were wonderful, sumisita, and I am very pleased with you.”
Warmth flowed back into her, a returning tide. God she loved him so much. “But we’re not alone. We’re still in the Shadowlands, and the other two men will join us shortly. You must stay very quiet.” He nuzzled her cheek. “I hadn’t intended to send you so deep, and I’m not going to leave you alone.”
Stay quiet. “Yes, Master.”
His lips curved. “Good girl.”
As he held her, she rubbed her forehead against his muscular chest, wondering fuzzily when she’d come to feel so at home in his arms.
“That was an excellent scene, Raoul. Exactly what I need for the auction.” The approaching voice was horrible, greasy, making her feel wrong…ugly…as if she wanted to run. Run and hide. The Overseer.
She made a sound, and Master R’s arms tightened. He pulled her up slightly, setting his chin on the top of her hair. She pressed her face into his neck, breathing in his clean scent, like a wind off a stormy sea. Masculine. Safe.
The voices continued to talk around her. She turned her head, determinedly not looking at the slaver. Resting her cheek on Master R’s shoulder, she watched the people and play areas.
In the closest one, an olive-skinned dom was caning his male sub. The next—a black domme used vampire claws on two subsmissives, male and female, who were wiggling with pain and pleasure.
Then a six-foot rope spiderweb had a pretty brunette sub tied to it. When she wiggled a foot loose, her face lit with laughter, and she said something—undoubtedly sassy—to her older dom. Without warning, he viciously slapped her face, snapping her head around. The sub turned back to him, her lip bleeding, expression holding pure, horrible shock. And she started crying.