It was wrong to be aroused by such blatant humiliation. I was made up like a doll for the pleasure of my Master, to be flaunted like a prize in front of spectators and panelists who would judge me for my sexuality, my obedience, and the gradation of my submission.
It was wrong to so easily—no—greedily submit to his domination when only hours ago I’d convinced myself I would never capitulate to his attentions again, but a small part of me knew even then how wrong I was to cast that intention in stone. An unassailable symbiosis existed between us, like the moon with the tides. Everything I was seemed tied to his will. I wondered dazedly if the fight I’d been waging against my baser instincts for the past four years, struggling to live again after years of survival, had been a hoax I’d concocted for myself. There was never any question in my heart that I would ever defy the inexorable pull of Alexander Davenport if he should call for me, but I’d thought he never would again, so I’d fooled myself into thinking I wouldn’t heed the order if it came. My body on the ground, pliant and ready as wet clay to be moulded into the shapes of his desire underscored the wrongness of my thoughts over the last near half decade.
It was wrong, but it felt deliciously heavy in my sex, as heady as a drug through my bloodstream. If I wasn’t tied down to metal spikes skewered into the stage floor, I would have drifted away into subspace before he’d even really begun to reclaim me.
No, it wasn’t the spikes that kept me secure.
It was my Master, the weight of his gaze on my body like hands at my throat and on my hips, spurring me to submit harder, please him better.
It wasn’t about The Trials, about proving to anyone else that he was the best Master and I the best slave. I still didn’t know exactly what he wanted from me outside this reunion of flesh, but I was too relieved by his dismissal of Ashcroft, too overwhelmed by my continued thirst for him to focus on anything but the rich intent in Alexander’s gaze.
Whatever his end goal was, this scene was about beginning to re-establish the expired trust between us in the most elemental way he knew how—by showing me with his cutting words and cruel hands how far he could take my body into pleasure so powerful it splintered into exquisite pain without taking me over the edge into true embarrassment and hurt.
It was a game and also not a game because his talent was a calling, and my response was as intrinsic as the natural turning of the tides. It seemed so trivial to the men watching us, judging us, but in the small bubble of close air that surrounded my Master and myself, nothing had ever felt so poignant.
I was finally back where I belonged.
Finished with his Shibari masterpiece, Alexander appeared before me, his body partially shielding me from the audience at his back. I knew it was deliberate, as was the marked absence of a blindfold. He wanted me to feel seen because the beauty of my submission to him was worthy of notice, but not be totally exposed because the sight of my intimate folds and creases was for my Master’s perusal only. He wanted me to see, but only so that I would watch the way his eyes changed from smoking gas to liquid cold waters straight to punishing stone.
He was accentuating our connection even in a room full of people I abhorred.
I stared into those pewter grey eyes and watched as his firm, full mouth pressed into a grimly pleased line.
The touch of his fingers to the outside of my groin startled me because I had been so enthralled by his gaze, and I shuddered as he drew a path down the sensitive crease where my thigh met my pubis to the tender skin of my inner leg. His skin was colder than the frigid air, as if he was carved from ice, and as his fingers slid down my inner thigh, goosebumps flourished in their wake.
I swallowed thickly as he pulled his fingers away and brought them between us to show me the way they glistened wetly in the light.
“So wet and I’ve yet to really touch you,” he taunted me as he smeared my juices against my breasts like I was a human rag. The degrading touch sent a sharp throb of pleasure through my core. “You love being used by me, but let us not forget, this is a punishment.”
Sharper than bee string, harder than a slap to the face, Alexander’s palm connected with the fragile inside of my thigh. Pain burst in small shards through my senses, fracturing then pooling in my groin.