Hear Me

“Do you?” His voice lowered. “So you’ve got a place of your own. A family?”

“Something like that. A job, anyway.” A sterile apartment. Shallow friendships.

His gaze sharpened on the floor. He approached, not looking at me, and knelt before it. The collar lay discarded on the floor. He picked it up with a reverence that made my heart pound.

I thought… I hoped…

His head was bowed. “How did you know what was in here?”

“I’m sorry. I looked in there when you were out. I know I shouldn’t have.”

He sighed. “You don’t belong here.”

“No, please. Don’t send me away. I don’t know… what’s going to happen with all that. But I know I care about you.”

A coarse laugh escaped him. “You care about me. That’s not exactly what I want from you.”

I knelt beside him, staring at the collar in his hand. “What do

you want?”

“I want you.” His fingers curled around the worn leather. “But what about your life out there?”

I bent at the waist until my cheek rested on his knee. “I’ve been gone for weeks. For months. It can wait for one more night.” His hand stroked me hair, giving me the strength to continue. “I know I have to go back, but show me what it would be like to be yours.”

He ran a hand through his hair. “I’m not sure I can do it like that. I’m not sure it will be enough for me.”

Proving I could be just as selfish as any man, any master, I said, “Then do it for me.”

I had been so sure that this was it, that I would be happy here forever, if he only wanted me. But my memories were a siren song, thoughts of what might have been a sweet and sudden obsession. Like Odysseus, I wanted someone to tie me to the ship, to help me resist because I was too weak to do it on my own. I wanted Sam to keep me, to tie me down and fuck me, if only for tonight.

Chapter Eight

I lay on his bed, face down. There were other places we could have played: the spanking bench in the workroom, since presumably it wouldn’t be a gift for his brother anymore, or even the beach where we had played before. But his bed was soft, his scent soothing.

With my ears plugged and eyes blindfolded, I was adrift before he even touched me. But when he did—ahh, I was oversensitive but with a desperate, almost painful need for more. More, harder, deeper, and that was only his fingers on my sex, sending waves of silky pleasure through me.

Even when his hands were gone, I floated on the echoes—perfect. And the first light thuds of his palm on my skin were even better. He took his time, warmed me up, built my arousal so hot and so sharp that all I knew was wanting and all I could think was more.

I strained against the bed, searching for that rhythm, that extra bit of pressure that would push me over. A sharp slap on the inside of my thigh put a stop to that—the light sting reminded me that what I felt wasn’t really pain, that this wasn’t a beating, not really.

Despite his self-proclaimed status as a sadist, his assertions that he was just as bad as those other men, I knew he was just like me. I was submissive, and he dominant, but we both wanted this frenzy. For us sex wasn’t a train but a roller coaster, and the fear as we approached the top only made the drop sweeter.

There was a wash of cool air on my burning skin before the kiss of a flogger touched me. He was thorough, marking me with heat, branding me with sensation. Please, oh please.

After a pause, he started the whip. At first it was an extension of what came before, a continuation of feeling and arousal, but slowly it grew, turned harsh. I tensed, but that only made it worse. Each slash ripped into my skin, tore tears from my eyes because this wasn’t meant to be sexy. It was supposed to hurt, and it did, and what had I done wrong? Should I have been more still, more quiet… no, I had been silent, all this time.

Maybe he wanted some noise from me, a symbol of my slavery, proof of my pain. Was this the payment for this thing he hadn’t really wanted to do? Or punishment for leaving him after all?

In the end, it didn’t matter. The cruel bite of the whip pulled soft cries from me, until soft kisses rained down on my forehead, my cheek, washing away the sting of betrayal. The props were the same, the choreography familiar, but Sam didn’t open my skin and leave me in a cell. He was different, wasn’t he? He had to be different.

The bed dipped, soft flesh pressed my lips. In the universal command of a man to a woman—please me, and I’ll take care of you. More primitive, more painful: please me, and I won’t hurt you. I answered him in the only way I could, with the flick of my tongue and the heat of my mouth and the tears that leaked out of my eyes, dampening the fabric of the blindfold.

He stroked my hair but didn’t stop his slow slide in and out, validating my feelings but rendering them irrelevant. This was what I wanted, to feel low and cherished at the same time. He tasted like lust and violence, like salt and sweat. His cock was thick in my mouth, hard and soft and powerful, and I filled with a special kind of joy that only came from service.

Then he was gone, and there were hands on my back, the tender flesh of my ass, my sex. He was everywhere, he surrounded me, and how, how could I leave him? How could I give this up, when I had only just learned its comforts?

His knees nudged my legs apart, a heavy hand on my hips tilted me back.