The Architect (Nashville Neighborhood 3)

I was left struggling to catch my breath, a trail of saliva hanging from my lips as he retreated and picked up the vibrator. As soon as it made contact with my clit, its buzz sent pleasure pulsating through my center. It dragged a grateful moan from deep in my chest and got my orgasm back on track.

The basement wasn’t cold, but a shiver glanced down my spine. There hadn’t been any pain tonight. No stinging cracks from a paddle, or lines of fire created across my skin with the thin plastic cane Clay sometimes wanted used on me.

Dark anticipation welled in the bottom of my stomach.

He had something else planned, I just knew it. Clay didn’t give pleasure freely. I liked how he made me earn it. So, as the tingles of my approaching orgasm crawled along my skin, I held my breath and waited for the other shoe to drop.

The tension inside me grew until it was tight enough to snap.

“I’m gonna come,” I gasped.

“No, you’re not,” Clay growled. “Stop.”

A frustrated whine seeped out of my mouth as the vibrator was ripped away and its buzzing went silent. God, I’d been so close. I tried to shift and twist in my bindings, searching for something to press against. My ankles were attached to the bar by my feet and my knees were held open by another spreader bar that E had pulled from his bag of fun. It meant I couldn’t close my legs and squeeze against the pleasure humming in my body.

Clay’s smile was wicked as he watched me squirm against my restraints, and his voice was patronizing. “Did you need something?”

“Yeah, the vibrator back where it was.”

I was a half-second too late to correct myself. He wouldn’t like my tone, and E’s hand was quick to deliver my punishment. The pinch of his fingers on my nipple wasn’t all that bad, but he used his grasp to pull hard, lifting the weight of my breast away from my body. It was a delicious shot of pain. As soon as he let go, my breast snapped back, and he slapped his fingertips across my distended nipple.

It wasn’t cruel, but it wasn’t nice either, and I liked the way the discomfort ricocheted through me. I enjoyed it so much, I considered giving Clay some more lip so it’d force E to do it again.

“You don’t need the vibrator,” Clay’s tone was pointed, “you just want it.”

“Yes,” I said.

It was sexy and infuriating how he sat on the other side of the screen looking smug and powerful. “Well, that’s too bad.” He took off his glasses and proceeded to polish the lenses with the bottom hem of his shirt. “You had enough orgasms yesterday. I don’t think you need any more tonight.”

The word echoed through my head, but E said it out loud. “What?”

His eyes were wide and his posture stiff. It announced this wasn’t part of Clay’s plan—at least not the one E had been told, and he wasn’t too happy hearing about this change.

Clay slipped his glasses back on and gave a hard look to the man who was his surrogate, and—holy crap. This flex of power was just as much for him as it was for me. A few sessions in, I’d determined that while E liked dominating me and carrying out most of Clay’s orders, he much preferred giving me pleasure.

Now it’d been taken off the table.

Was this punishment for missing the session last night . . . or something else?

Clay’s voice dripped with condescension. “It’s called denial. Have you not heard of it?”

E’s eyebrow lifted sharply. “I know what it is.”

The mood in the room devolved and became fraught with tension. The men typically didn’t speak much to each other during a scene, and when they did, it had always been cordial. They were teammates working toward the same goal.

For the first time, they were two predators fighting over the same kill.

Clay was determined to make clear he was the alpha. “Great,” he said dryly. “That’s what I want to do with her tonight.”

His declaration didn’t sit right with E, and he stepped in between me and the camera, blocking my view of Clay and forcing my gaze up onto him. It was clear he was considering how to proceed. Did he bow down, or make his stand?

This isn’t what I want to do, I imagined him saying to me.

I didn’t know what to tell him, or how to convey my thoughts without words. Of course I didn’t want to be denied, but . . . playing with these two men had awakened something inside me. Plus, I trusted Clay. He’d given me so many amazing experiences, the biggest of them all being E. He’d broadened my sexual horizons. He knew what he was doing.