During all of this he hadn’t let up on his assault of her body. He removed the toy and she almost lost her mind, but then his tongue was on her. She squirmed against his mouth. A few more strokes and she could come.
He backed away seconds before her release. “Well? Alone with your chastity belt, or pain and an orgasm?”
“Please… I need…” If she could manage the self control, she could be spared one more night.
“I know what you need. Answer me. Say the words. I want to hear them fall sweetly from your lips. And say please again. I enjoy how polite you are.”
“P-please, Master, I need to come.”
“So you want to move up to the paddle and the flogger then? A bit more pain?” As he spoke, he pressed two fingers inside her.
“Y-yes, Master, please.”
“I told you I could make you wet when we did this.”
They both knew it wasn’t the pain that caused her arousal, but if he mixed everything up like this often enough, would her brain and body become so jumbled that she wouldn’t know the difference? It was certainly a better outcome than simply enduring it to be with him. She thought about the looks of satisfaction and peace on the faces of the women as they left his dungeon, and wondered if that look would soon be on her own face. For the first time, it felt like a real possibility.
He removed his fingers and her heart sank into her stomach, knowing what was coming next. She gripped the edge of the table, bracing herself, but his hand stroked gently over her back. His mouth moved close to her ear. “Water,” he whispered.
She tried to focus on the music and relax as the paddle came down across her bottom. Harder than his hand, but less intimate. She was suddenly a school girl being sent in for discipline. His power over her was absolute.
After a few moments, the tears started rolling down her cheeks. She didn’t know why she was crying. The pain was greater, but she knew he was holding back, his intent not to damage or traumatize her. She cried for everything and nothing, but physical pain was the least of it. She cried for her lost little life that hadn’t been glamorous but had been comfortable. She cried for the things she hadn’t realized were such big holes until she had the facsimile of the thing—family. And love. She cried for the fake engagement she wished meant something, for her love for Leo that she didn’t think he’d ever return, for how low she’d sunk to be so desperate for him after everything—to allow him to do these things to her when he’d given her a chance to take her freedom and go. For the shame of knowing she would allow him to debase her in any way if there was some small chance he might later love her in return.
“Let it out, sweetheart. You need a good cry.” He switched from the paddle to the flogger. She jumped when the leather cords snapped across her back, and immediately her mind went to Leo’s scars, and she tensed again.
He must have guessed where her mental trail was going because he said, “It’s not a bull whip. Relax. I won’t break your skin.”
Water. The thought stole into her mind, with his voice attached. Though he hadn’t audibly said the word, she knew he must be thinking it. For this moment she felt as if she could read his thoughts, as if some magic now flowed between them and connected them in a way that made telepathy not only possible, but pedestrian.
The sting of the flogger didn’t feel pleasant, but it wasn’t a kind of pain that a person winced and pulled away from. It was a kind of pain you moved closer to, tested and pushed, more curious to experience the sensation without judgment because it wasn’t bad enough to seek to avoid right away. The hypnotic, repetitive strikes created a sense of space around her, a solitude where she could allow the rest of her tears to flow out in safety.
By the time she’d let everything out, things she hadn’t realized she was holding in so emotionally, her back and bottom were warm and almost pleasantly numb. She still didn’t fully understand the appeal—at least not in a sexual way—but it was cathartic. She got that part. And despite the fears that had lurked in her subconscious in a place she hadn’t been able to access them before, now she knew, it wasn’t like the beatings she’d taken as a child, and never could be. Leo wasn’t him.
When she realized the pain wasn’t intensifying or angry, but instead leveled out and faded, she faded with it, flowing along the sensation, allowing it to wrap around her, floating. She didn’t notice when he’d stopped until she felt the coldness of new lubricant on glass. Her body responded more quickly this time to the pleasure, grateful for it, lapping it up—desperate to please him.
He used the wider phallus again and increased the pace, pressing down on her back so she couldn’t rise up. His message was clear: he would be controlling the exact sensations she received. She would come on his terms or not at all. That realization sent an uncharacteristic flutter of something warm and electric through her stomach.
“Please… please… please…”
He stopped and untied her.
“No… please…” She thought untying meant he was done with her. Was he breaking his promise? Only teasing her again?
He chuckled but rolled her onto her back. Having the leather press against her back and bottom, stung, but she took deep breaths until it dissipated.
“Spread your legs,” he growled.
She obeyed the command, thankful and eager to have him touch her more. He fucked her with the toy as he lowered his mouth to her clit, licking and sucking on it until the dual sensations built to the point of explosion.
Faith moaned as she came against his mouth, squirming despite how sensitive her back was. He pulled away from her as her orgasm ebbed. She lay trembling from the force of it until he picked her up and carried her to the bed.
“Lie on your stomach.”
She didn’t have the will to do anything else. He rummaged through the black bag and came out with a salve that he rubbed onto her wrists and gently massaged into her back and bottom. When he was finished, he pulled her into his arms and she lay against his shoulder, sobbing.
She’d thought she’d been done. She didn’t know where more tears had come from, or why. There were too many feelings and emotions to name. She was beginning to see why this appealed to those women, why Leo being like this had appealed to them. The feeling of complete helplessness and fear followed by a rush of endorphins and safety activated some primal code that made no sense to her but worked with the same reliability as the rising and setting of the sun. It was the code that activated bad boy attraction and the desire for the most inappropriate and doomed romance to work.
He stroked her back while she cried and continued to hold her when she was finished.
“You did very well, sweetheart. I’m so proud of you.”
She flushed at his words and knew she really had walked through the door this time. Though it hadn’t physically hurt as much as she’d thought it would, it had overwhelmed her. And these were the baby steps. The beginning. She shuddered in his arms at that thought, and he held her more tightly.
After a few minutes of silence, he helped her stand and guided her across the room. When he removed her blindfold, she was in front of the mirror. He stood behind her, his hands on her shoulders, urging her to take a look. Her face was like the faces of those women. Serene. Older. Wiser. Peaceful. Satisfied.
He turned her body to show her the marks he’d left: mostly redness with a few light stripes from the flogger. She ran her fingers over the still-warm flesh and stared, mesmerized. She felt his absence when he stepped away to turn off the record player, but was grateful to feel his hand in hers again as he wrapped her in the blanket from the bed and led her up the stairs.
What if Demetri or other members of the household staff were lurking around? They would know what she and Leo had done. It was obvious she was naked under the blanket. Why else would she be wrapped in it? But their trip to his bedroom was uneventful. It was late and the staff had retired to their part of the house, and Demetri with them. Most of the electricity was off, with only a few strategic lamps left on to light th
eir way.
When they reached Leo’s room, he took the blanket off her and helped her into bed, tucking her in. He kissed her lightly on the forehead. “I’ll be right back.”
She nodded.
The way he looked at her… she resolved she would allow him to do anything he wanted without complaint if it meant he would always look at her like that. She’d seen desire in his eyes before. She’d seen kindness and anger and sadness. But she’d never seen this look he had now. She didn’t want to be foolish and call it love, but it was a strong fondness and affection, the kind that made her melt inside at being the recipient of such a gaze.
Leo returned a few minutes later, the cats and Max slipping in behind him before he shut the door. He held a tray with water and some cheese and crackers and fruit. He got in bed and shoved the food toward her.
“Eat something. It will help you feel more grounded.”
The light snack did help to bring her back to reality and the world of solid three-dimensional things. He set the tray on the table beside the sofa, undressed, and climbed into bed with her. She assumed they would sleep, but he was erect again—no doubt from everything they’d done in the dungeon.
He guided her down the length of him, and she took him into her mouth again, pleasuring him until he was satisfied.
Chapter Eighteen
Leo’s erection had grown physically painful, but he’d gagged her and wasn’t ready to replace the gag with his cock yet. Tears streamed down her face as he laid down lines of welts across her ass with the cane. He needed to make her cry more. She had to earn her pleasure with tears. Enough time had passed for that to be the price.
The gag frightened her, still, which drove him harder to use it. She needn’t fear. He knew when enough was enough with her. He’d been careful and exercised restraint. Each time the cane came down, she winced in a way that both made him want to comfort her and hit her again to watch that reaction… the intense expression of pain on her face, the tears that rolled down, and the lovely welt as it bloomed so quickly into those sharp red lines with the groove he loved to run his tongue along.
He knew what the cane felt like. Though, used properly, it didn’t often break skin, the hard rap of a thin dowel of rattan or steel always left a profound impression on the recipient. It was a kind of pain that bound them more tightly together each time he utilized it. He wasn’t sure if she realized how she’d grown softer toward him, more happy to please him, more relaxed outside the dungeon, more natural in all of their interactions, as if she’d been born and shaped in the fires of creation to be his slave.
If he could read her mind, every thought would be of him and how to please him. Something in these exchanges made her so vulnerable that even while he was crushing her, he wanted to preserve and protect her. He’d destroy anything that came between the two of them. Anyone. His obsession toward her was of a character unlike what he’d felt with others. Even Mei Lin. Mei Lin was a wonderful sub and a masochist, but the chemistry between them was nothing like the chemistry that came alive when he touched Faith and she melted beneath him.
They’d been together like this for months. The snow had melted and fled as winter had edged into spring, and spring was beginning to be oppressed and wilted by the heat of the coming summer. Faith was on the phone with his mother nearly every day as June loomed nearer.
She was still less than excited about the wedding. Did she see him as a monster, forcing her to marry him on threat of death or horror? She’d said she loved him. Wasn’t marriage what all women fantasized about? Wasn’t he giving her the right things? She’d promised to stay with him; what difference did jewelry and a piece of paper make? Maybe she didn’t want to lose her identity inside his as Jacobson was exchanged for Raspallo. After all, he’d never allow her to keep her name, or hyphenate. She was his, and she’d wear his name like a brand across her flesh.
Leo let the cane fall once more, this time going across the tops of her thighs, which made her jump as if he’d sent a bolt of electricity through her. Some day. He hadn’t yet been able to bring himself to use the violet wand. Electrical play could be scary. She wasn’t ready, and he wouldn’t risk damaging her trust in him again. They had all the time in the world together to get there.
She cried around the gag, nearly spent, almost at the breaking point that might send her into insanity if he didn’t stop soon. He set the cane on the tray and went to the medical bag with the salve. She whimpered as he rubbed the cool cream into her skin.
He tried not to go this intense every day, certainly not across the same expanse of flesh. Sometimes he was softer with her, more gentle. Some nights it was about humiliation, devising ways to make her uncomfortable for the sheer joy of watching her obediently carry out his demands. He’d used toys of every stripe: vibrators and dildos and anal plugs, gaining great amusement when he made her wear a plug for hours during the day. He’d enjoyed watching the blush come over her face when she’d encountered Demetri or another member of the household staff, afraid someone might realize there was a smooth, lubricated piece of glass being held between her cheeks.
He had slowly moved up in the size of the plug… preparing her body for a use he knew she was smart enough to know was coming. Each time he went up a size he could feel the anticipation that hummed through her as she closed her eyes and took slow, even breaths. Each time the toy inched in, an expression of pleasure lit her face.
He’d been shocked by her pleasure. Not every woman reacted to it that way.
And yet, he’d held back. He had to be sure he wouldn’t damage her physically or emotionally when he did it. Since the night he’d had to atone for, the night he couldn’t think about too long, or give the ugly name that he knew the event deserved, he hadn’t penetrated her in the normal way. He wouldn’t fuck her until she begged him for it, and so far, she hadn’t. He’d contented himself during that time with the use of her mouth and her tiny hand wrapped around him, jerking him off when he demanded she join him in the shower.
Some days he tied her up and tortured her in other ways—with teasing and orgasm denial. Sometimes he used the clamps on her nipples and on her labia, adding small weights until she couldn’t take it anymore. She’d obeyed him in everything, her body slowly becoming as confused as he’d known it would until her nerve endings responded to his cues instead of those coming from her own brain.
He slipped a finger inside her to find the wetness he’d known would be there. He doubted she would ever be a true masochist, but the desire to please him had transmuted into physical arousal like lead into gold.
He had thought the catalyst for her body’s full capitulation would be more physical pleasure, but desire was desire, and her need for his approval had moved between her legs to express itself in the way she knew would gratify him most. It was more sweet than if he’d only plied her with pleasure.
He continued to finger her as her body rocked to keep rhythm with him, then he replaced his fingers with a vibrator until she came screaming around the gag. He pushed her beyond the point of pleasure and waited patiently for her second and then her third orgasm before finally allowing her the mercy of a space without sensation in it.
Leo left her tied down as he removed the gag. She remained quiet, the tears sliding silently down her cheeks.
“Are you all right, sweetheart?”
“Yes, Master,” she whispered.
But she wasn’t all right. He raised her chin to look into her eyes and was struck by the painful sadness he found there. He was ruining her. And yet, her body responded. She was desperate to make him happy. If he offered her freedom again, it would only upset her more. She was addicted to him, unable to be without him but clearly disgusted with what she’d become at his hands. He was disgusted with the things he’d done to her. And yet… he couldn’t stop. The more disgust he felt, the more desire, the more unyielding the urge to keep going and never stop.
He’d planned to use her mouth, but couldn’t now, not with so much pain and
sadness in her eyes. This wasn’t the cathartic crying of a good session. It wasn’t the bittersweet pain that melted back into pleasure. It was genuine distress. He untied her and rubbed the salve on her wrists and ankles, then sat on the table with her, holding her in his arms.
Leo was glad for the integrity of the furniture that allowed them both to use it at once. He stroked her hair and fought the urge to cry with her.
“Do I make you that unhappy?”
“N-no, Master.” Her voice was muffled against his shoulder, but he heard her. And he didn’t believe her. Part of him wanted to punish her for her lies, but the sadness was so deep that to punish her further might break him past the point from which he could recover.
“Can you stand?”
She nodded and got off the table.
“Let’s go have a shower,” he said.
Faith was shaky as she walked. He stayed behind her, guiding her so she didn’t fall.
In the bathroom, he laid out towels for them and turned the water on, waiting for it to heat to the right temperature. “Would you be happier if we called off the wedding?” His family would give him hell for it, and he’d have to hide her during the holidays… but they wouldn’t be happy with the lack of children produced, either. And frankly, none of it was their business in the first place. This had all gone too far. He wouldn’t sacrifice Faith to keep his family relations humming along.
“No! D-do you want to call it off?” She looked so fragile and broken, as if he were doing anything but trying to find the right thing to do to take away the pain. As if he would call off the wedding to hurt her in some way or to use as emotional blackmail to keep her in line.
“No,” he said. “But with how I feel about the sanctity of the institution, what it means to the Church… to force you into marriage… whatever our arrangement otherwise, I can’t do it if it’s going to torment you like this.”
She looked away, her eyes studying the black and silver pattern on the shower curtain. “Please don’t call it off.”