Own Me

I can’t deny that the thought of that sends a dangerous thrill through my body. My pussy tightens, imagining exactly what he might do to me…

“Lie down on the bed, Corbella.”

“Yes, sir,” I respond, unable to hide the quiver of desire in my tone. Obediently, I climb onto the bed, then lie on my back, looking up at him. I love watching him study me; the way his eyes crawl over every inch of my body, hungry and devouring, makes me feel so fucking sexy it’s unreal.

“I’m going to enjoy teaching you…” He crawls onto the bed over me, pausing for a second to gaze down at me, almost in wonder. Or lust. Then he twines his fingers in mine, and spreads my arms out wide, to my sides.

He doesn't try to distract me this time. He lets me watch, so I know what's coming. I see the chains he pulls up from one side of the bed, wraps around my wrist, before he turns to see to the other. I tug gently against them as he slides down my body, his lips caressing my skin all the while, until he reaches my ankles and does the same to them.

I'm spread-eagled before him now, naked and exposed. He has me right where he wants me, to do whatever he wants. I don't know what to make of that, except to feel nerves flare in my stomach. What did he mean, earlier, about the things I don't know...?

"Maybe it wasn't fair of me not to explain this sooner," he says, leaning over me. Reading my mind, answering the unasked question that hovered on my lips. "But I couldn't help myself around you, Corbella. I want you. All to myself. You are so perfectly..." He trails a finger down my chest as he says this. Between my breasts, circling my belly button. "Untrained. Innocent, almost, which seems strange to say of a whore." His eyes flash to mine, full of amusement, lightening the sting of that word. "That's what made me need to have you. To taste you."

His finger is still trailing over my skin, tracing every inch of me, one limb at a time, until all the hair on my body stands on end. "I want to break you, Corbella, precisely because you are so beautifully delicate." He leans in close and kisses my neck just below my ear. Trails his lips down my skin, until he reaches my shoulder. All the while he is gentle, so gentle it seems a forced opposite to the dark desire in his tone. "I want to teach you about pain and pleasure. About the spaces in between. I want to train you in pleasuring a man. In pleasuring me. Because that's the other thing."

Now those dark eyes flash with danger. "I want you to myself. I cannot abide the thought of sharing you, not with anyone."

Shit. Boundaries, Corbella, I remind myself angrily. But before I can even open my mouth to protest, to point out that eventually I will need to take other clients–that I'm doing this for a reason, much as I may hate it–he interrupts.

"I'll make it worth your while. I will see to it that you are compensated for your loyalty–beyond even what I'm paying you now."

I think about the $3,000 a day retainer he paid me to wait for him. More than that? I swallow hard, my throat feeling tight. There's no way I could possibly say no to that kind of money, and Giovanni knows it. Part of me is a little worried by that. The way that he knows exactly how to get what he wants, and goes for the jugular to do it.

But another part of me is turned on by that. He's exactly the kind of man who knows what he's doing. There's something alluring about that; and about his promise to teach me, train me. He's already taught me things I never knew about myself. Like the fact that I can climax from my G-spot alone, or the fact that I actually kind of like pain, being tied up, being dominated. I never imagined that that kind of play in the bedroom could be this fucking hot.

And then there's Gio himself... like something straight out of one of my wet dreams. All solid muscle and perfectly sculpted jawline and those dark, penetrating eyes... Yeah, I could get pretty damn used to sleeping with this guy exclusively. And if he wants to pay me so I can get out from under the mountain of debt I have with my stepfather at the same time, then all the better.

I don't know why I'm even hesitating, except that a tiny part of my brain, the danger sensor, the one that tries so hard to keep stupid me out of crazy situations, is blaring full-force now. Screaming that this is exactly the kind of line I don't want to step over. That this feels way too much like a relationship, suddenly.

A relationship where my boyfriend wants to tie me up and do unspeakable things to me, no less.

When I glance up from my thoughts, Gio is still watching me intently, studying my face, as though he can read my thoughts like an open book. Who knows? Maybe he can.

"What do you say, Corbella?" His voice is a low murmur, and he reaches up to brush my hair back from my forehead. "Is it 'when' yet, or are you willing to try this with me?"

I already know what I'm going to say. Warning nerve flares in my gut aside, there's nothing else I could say now. My stupid lust-driven sex drive and my rapidly pounding heart won't let me answer any other way.

"Yes, sir," I murmur, barely a breath. A breath that's a promise and a plea at once. "Let's try this."

"Are you sure?" Those dark eyes search mine deeply. A little crease appears on his forehead as he gazes at me. "I won't ask again. After you agree, I'm going to let you see who I really am. The side of me I've been hiding for fear it would scare you away."

Studying that handsome, sexy, vulnerable expression of his, my first thought is, you can't scare me away. There’s nothing that I imagine he could do to make me stop wanting him. The desire that pools in my belly, and slips wetly between my legs, is too intense to ignore.

So I lift my chin and meet his eye with a searching gaze of my own. "Bring it on. Sir," I add, belatedly.

At that, his smile widens. Darkens, too. "As you wish, my sexy little slut," he replies. Then he pushes off from the bed and disappears from my line of sight for a second. I turn my head, trying to follow him. He must not like that. Next thing I know, he's emerged from the closet with something soft and velvety and dark in his hands. He wraps it around my forehead gently, fixing it over my eyes.

A blindfold.

I can't see anything now, so I have to rely on my other senses to follow what's happening. I listen to his footsteps retreat once more, and for a moment all I can hear is the sound of my own breathing. I feel the rough dig of the cuffs around my wrists and ankles, the soft caress of the velvet blindfold. I feel my heart pounding in anticipation.

The longer the silence stretches, the more I begin to worry. What if he's leaving me here?

Finally, the sound of his footsteps approach once more, and I relax against the bed, letting my wrists go limp in their bonds.

That turns out to be a bad idea. Before I can even start to wonder what might be coming next, there's a rush of cold, right at my clavicle. My whole body tenses and arches off the bed, and I gasp, teeth clenched. He's placed an icicle right in the hollow of my throat.

"A lot of people think BDSM is all about pain," he says, his voice low and throaty, somewhere to my right, close to my ear. I turn my face toward him, instinctive, but of course it doesn't help. I can't see anything he's doing. "I disagree. It is about pain and pleasure, yes, but those are two opposite sensations." I hear a soft clicking sound, followed by a faint crackle. My nose catches a whiff of ozone, and I frown, wondering what on earth is coming next.

"There are plenty of opposing sensations that can be combined into something richer. A sensual experience, like nothing you've ever felt." The ice starts to move. He must be pushing it, down my collarbone, past it...

Oh god. I tighten against the bonds, tense again. But that doesn't slow him down. He circles my chest, slowly, lazily. Then loops back around to trace the freezing block around my breasts, one at a time. With each loop, he circles closer and closer to my nipple. My whole body is tight, arched in anticipation of the next moment when that freezing cube will come into contact with my extremely sensitive, already hard nipple.

Then I'm distracted from even the thought of that by a sudden sharp burst of warmth at my belly button. The confusion between the two, trying to process both hot and cold at once, does strange thing

s to my body. My hands feel tingly, and I'm suddenly very aware of all the nerve endings in my breasts and along my stomach.

Without warning, Gio clamps the ice directly over my right nipple at the same time there's an explosion of heat at my hipbone, just beside my smooth mound.

Wax, I realize. That was the sound earlier, and the ozone smell–him lighting a candle. I squirm a little beneath him, but I'm determined not to react, not yet.

After all, I know he's only just getting started.

"You like that, my slut?" There's a smile in his voice, right as another drop of wax hits the top of my mound, just above my clit.

I suck in a sharp gasp through my clenched teeth. It feels no worse than the wax I've gotten in preparation for a bikini wax, and yet, in combination with the ice cube melting against my nipple, not to mention the position I'm tied up in, there's something sharper about it, more intense.