“I run a very busy homeless shelter, Miles. I can do two things at once.” He narrowed his eyes at her and it took every ounce of backbone she possessed to remain standing the few feet in front of him when he pushed away from the door and stalked toward her.
“Can you? I think I’d like to test that. Step on the mat.”
Hope backed up to the mat then caught the pugil stick he tossed her. Remembering the Sensei’s words, she held onto the handles and lifted the heavily padded, tube-shaped defense prop, surprised by the weight. About three and a half feet long and nine inches in diameter, it resembled a long body pillow she’d had as a teenager, only firmer. “Now what?” she asked with a touch of apprehension about what this exercise might involve, given how unhappy he appeared to be with her.
“Now I’ll come at you and you protect yourself with that.” He nodded to the pugil. “Use it to deflect my blows.” He didn’t give her time to think before he moved into her with an arm raised to deliver a karate chop.
Hope automatically lifted her arms to defend herself and his hand hit the tube just as he swung a foot out and toppled her to the mat. She didn’t know what startled her more, the sudden, jarring impact of landing face up on top of him, the blur of movement when he swept a foot out and tripped her while shifting behind her, or the feel of his cock stiffening under her butt. “What…”
“So much for being able to do two things at once.” Sharp teeth sank into her neck before he pushed her up. One little nip and her body temperature skyrocketed from pleasant warmth to combustible heat. Reaching up to rub the small sting, she kept a wary eye on him as he got to his feet. “That wasn’t fair. I haven’t learned any moves in class yet.”
“Number one, life isn’t fair, deal with it. Two, had you been paying better attention to the demonstration, you would have remembered the different ways Sensei McCallum showed everyone that an attacker could take you down. Now, try again.”
He put her through her paces, never giving her time in between to assimilate one move before he showed her another. She lost count how many times he brought her down, always there to catch her or cushion her fall. She grew winded as they parried, but every contact with his body, every brush of a hand, energized her, kept her going. The occasional, ‘good job’ or ‘good girl’ he tossed her way produced a warm glow, but she should’ve known this exercise had a dual purpose.
Holding his hand out, Miles helped her up yet again, taking the pugil stick from her and dropping it to the mat as he said, “You caught on quick, Hope, but that doesn’t mean I’ll slide on your punishment.”
Both her buttocks and her pussy clenched at the word ‘punishment’ and a frisson of excitement danced under her skin when her mind took her back to another place, another Dom and her first taste of erotic pain. “But…” She cast a quick look around the small gym then at the door. “Here?”
With a low laugh that set off a flutter of butterflies in Hope’s abdomen, Miles spun her around, swiped both feet out from under her with one leg and kept one arm braced around her middle as he lowered her on top of the large padded pole. “Here, and now,” he whispered in her ear as he adjusted her hips over the pugil, leaving her butt propped up. “Stay where I put you.” Swiping a hand over her buttocks, he squeezed one cheek. “We didn’t discuss a safeword last week because that was fun, I didn’t intend any punishment that time. For now, we’ll stick with the standard red for stopping everything; green, you’re good to continue and yellow for you’re unsure.”
Hope was familiar with the stoplight cues due to Sandie and Krista sharing a few of their scenes whenever they got together. With a hard tug, Miles yanked her gi pants down to her thighs followed by her panties. As her butt became exposed to the cool air-conditioning, and embarrassment over the ignominious position he placed her in gave way to excitement, she prayed she could remember even those simple instructions.
“Put your arms behind your back and grip your hands together,” Miles instructed as he caressed his palm over the smooth, soft skin of her lush ass. Propped up on his side next to her, he enjoyed the view of plump, lily-white buttocks elevated for his enjoyment. “Good girl,” he praised her when she obeyed without question. “You’ve got a world-class ass, Hope. I’m envisioning all kinds of things I’d like to do with it. Tell me about your one experience in a club.”
With one side of her face pressed against the mat, the one eye he could see widened in surprise. “Why?”
He swatted her ass, hard enough to jiggle the round globe. “Don’t question my demands.”
Small, white teeth sank into her plump lower lip before she replied. “I went to a club with some friends, just out of curiosity. Accepting a dare, I landed over a Dom’s lap. That’s all, not much to it. We left right afterward.”
“Then why did you tell me last week it ended badly?” He caressed the warm, red handprint his smack left behind and watched pleasure dilate her eyes. That quick, unguarded response was every Dom’s wet dream. Too bad this was a punishment scene.
“Let’s just say some people found out about it and weren’t happy with my… promiscuous behavior.” A discomfited look crossed her face before she smoothed out her features. He sensed there was much more to it than that, but he wasn’t here to delve into her secrets. Lying on the floor, his face so close to hers and with his hand roaming over her smooth buttocks, he couldn’t miss every flitting expression, even with half her face pressed against the mat.
“You’ll run into those again. A lot of narrow-minded, judgmental people out there.” Lifting his hand, he delivered a smack on her other cheek, raising an identical red mark. “I’m not happy about your inattentiveness earlier.” Another swat, this one covering the middle of her buttocks. “I’d hoped you would take it, and your safety, more seriously.” She tightened her clasped hands as he blistered her ass with a volley of spanks, his eyes staying on her flushed face as he raised a fiery hue and built up heat under his palm. “Next time you take your safety so lightly, you’ll get a taste of my belt, or maybe I’ll use the new single braided mini-whip I just picked up.”
The blow he landed on one sit spot wrenched a soft gasp from her compressed lips before she surprised him with a small, telltale lift of her hips as he aimed for the other side. “That’s it,” he murmured in approval. “Lift that pretty ass for me.”
Throbbing pain pulsed across her backside, but that didn’t stop Hope from doing as he instructed, and as she wanted. Lifting her butt, she winced at the sharp crack that struck with enough force to shove her hips back down onto the thick, oblong prop. One thing soon became clear; her response to that other spanking from another man had not been a fluke. With each slap, her pussy swelled along with her buttocks, adding to the heated moisture building between her legs. Her elevated hips left her breasts pressed against the mat, her nipples aching for attention she tried to give with subtle back and forth maneuvers Miles put a stop to with a loud, hard swat.
“Stop that.” She did, but then he dug his fingers into her sore flesh and pressed his thumb between her cheeks, right up against the sensitive area surrounding her anus.
“Miles,” she groaned in frustration when he glided his thumb down and pressed between her labia. Hope shuddered from the tiny sparks of pleasure that light touch set off. Her copious juices eased his way inside her and he unerringly found her clit, the calloused pad of his thumb against the sensitive bundle of tissues turning the sparks into flames.
“That’s Master C,” he reminded her. “Wet and swollen. You get off on a little pain.” He teased her bud with a few flicks of his nail, just enough to urge her toward a climax before dragging his now damp digit back up between her buttocks.
Hope’s automatic reflex was to shift away from the ‘too personal’ touch that surprised her with the pleasure to be had from that taboo part of her body, but his command, “Be still,” snapped out in his hard, implacable voice, kept her in place. “Not a fan of anal play or new to it?” he questioned.
“Ne
w to it, so I don’t know…” She bit her lip as Miles returned his thumb to her pussy, dipped inside and teased her clit again. “Mi… Master C, please.” The desperate note behind her plea would have embarrassed Hope if he didn’t have her in such an acute state of need.
“Good catch, and I like hearing you beg, but have you forgotten this is a punishment?” She peered up into his black gaze and knew she’d be taking her frustration home with her. His eyes never left her face as he again trailed his wet thumb back up to her anus, this time pushing past the tight rim to barely penetrate her virgin orifice.
“Oh!” Hope’s breath whooshed out on the surprised exclamation as pleasurable tingles hinted at the possibility of even more pleasure to be gained.
Miles’ lips curled at the corners before he withdrew and stroked back down to her sheath. After another teasing pinch to her clit, he jumped to his feet, bringing her with him. Red-faced, she stumbled against him when he reached down and pulled up her panties. “From now on, don’t wear underwear when we’re together.”
Hope was too flustered from being left teetering right on the cusp of arousal with an abruptness that made her head spin to question him or her response to that order. The amused look on his face told her he expected her to balk, so she didn’t. Needing to put some space between them, she pulled her gi pants up herself and stepped back. “Okay,” she answered, her breathless voice giving away what her simple, agreeable answer didn’t; the idea excited her.
Nodding, he took her arm. “I’ll walk you back to the shelter.”
Chapter 6
Miles took his time walking back to the gym after escorting Hope home, wondering how long he was going to torture himself. He hadn’t begun this relationship intending to put his own desires on the back burner, but after seeing how she took to his commands, and the pleasure she’d reaped from them the other night, he discovered he wanted more of those unguarded responses before losing himself inside her. Tonight, when he caught her keeping a part of herself off-limits to him, he realized he wanted to unearth more about her, including her secrets. That had never been the case with any other woman. He gave them what they needed, ensuring they ended their play sated and happy, and walked away from each of them without wanting to know anything else about them.
With Hope, the opposite appeared to be true. The more he saw her, spent time with her, touched her, the more he itched to know. If he had any functioning brain cells left, he’d end this fast, walk away and not look back. His temperament, the anger over arriving home too late to save his mother, still simmered like hot, bubbly lava ready to erupt at any time. He wasn’t a good candidate for the long haul, not out of fear of unleashing his temper on an innocent person, but on someone who might threaten anyone he cared deeply for, as he had for his mother.
He’d always preferred his own company, or that of his friends and Ed, to spending time with women that wasn’t sexually motivated, but the more time Miles spent with Hope, the more he craved. Mentally shaking his head at the incongruous situation he found himself in, he turned the corner of his building into the alley leading to the back entrance and switched his focus to his surroundings. One thing that hadn’t deserted him over the years was the sixth sense that alerted him to possible danger he’d picked up while running the streets. Besides the twitch between his shoulders hinting there were eyes on him as he walked down the alley, a shadow splashed across the lighted entry of the back door of the gym. Amused at the ineptness of whoever lay in wait for him, and irritated at the delay to turning in for the night, he strode forward as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
Prepared to take down whoever came at him, Miles was let down when a young man bearing the signs of habitual drug use stepped out of the shadows. Bracing his feet apart and crossing his arms in a belligerent stance, the idiot thought to intimidate him as he sneered, “I hear you’re trying to keep my little brother from me.”
Ah, Mateo, Joaquin’s older, abusive brother. Pleasure swamped Miles. This was one confrontation he relished having. Mimicking Mateo’s stance, he drawled with blatant sarcasm, “There’s no trying about it. I am keeping Joaquin from you.”
Unperturbed, Mateo nodded toward Miles’ gang tattoo. “You may have been a badass a long time ago, asshole, but not now.” He advanced two menacing steps and tried to intimidate Miles again. “I want my brother.”
Miles shrugged with a taunting curl to his mouth. “Tough.” The disbelief on the kid’s face would have been comical if Miles hadn’t tired of his presence already. “He’s safe from you, and that’s where he’s staying. Deal with it.” Stepping around the punk, he made it to the door before Mateo’s next words waved a red flag in front of his face.
“How would you like it if someone close to you paid the price—”
He reacted so fast to the veiled threat, Mateo didn’t have time to finish it before he found himself pinned against the rough brick building with Miles’ forearm braced against his throat. Applying enough pressure to make the kid’s eyes bulge and bring his hands up to claw at him, Miles delivered a soft, threatening warning of his own. “You don’t want to ever threaten me, or anyone I care about, you low-life fucker. I’ll leave you in so many pieces, no one will be able to recognize you. Got it?”
Mateo struggled against him and his face turned white as a sheet, but it was Ed’s soft voice behind him that defused Miles’ rage. “Let the boy go, Miles.”
He dropped his arm as if burned and Mateo doubled over, wheezing as he struggled to catch his breath. Miles turned to face his mentor, every muscle still tight with residual anger. Unperturbed, Ed just raised one brow in question, a small smile softening his craggy face. “Get under your skin, did he?”
“You could say that.” Miles blew out a breath as the tension eased from his shoulders. “I wouldn’t have hurt him.” At least, he didn’t think so. But the fast way Hope’s face popped into his head when the kid mentioned someone he cared about left him wondering if he wasn’t already involved with her to the point of no going back.
“Of course you wouldn’t, but you also don’t want to jeopardize the trust Jake has in you.” Ed nodded to Mateo, who thought to slink away.
Without turning around, Miles tossed over his shoulder, “Stay away from my place, and my people, Mateo. I only issue a warning once.” Holding the door open for Ed, he glared at the older man as he stepped inside. “Why are you still up?”
“I’m not so old I have to be in bed by ten every night,” Ed growled.
It was only 10:00 p.m.? Miles shook his head. It seemed much later, or maybe it was the unfulfilled lust still beating at him that made it seem like the evening had gone on longer than it had. “Sorry,” he said as he locked the door then slung an arm around Ed’s shoulders as they strolled toward his rooms. “I seem to have my head up my ass.”
“Women will do that to you,” Ed drawled. “And, you’re forgiven.”
He always was, no matter what he did. Miles knew that not even the lessons he’d learned during that three-month, body-taxing, eye-opening counseling camp would have kept him on the straight and narrow if he hadn’t had Ed—and his faith in him—to come home to. It was something he never forgot or took for granted.
“Well, you may not be tired, but I’m beat. I’ll see you in the morning.” He rode the elevator up thinking about the long week ahead before he saw Hope again. As he fell into bed and pictured her there, on her knees, that perfect ass raised for his hand and open for his penetration, Miles knew he wouldn’t get through until then without another hand job.
Hope didn’t need this aggravation, not after the past week of never-ending plaguing thoughts and lingering arousal. The slur, whore, spray-painted on the side of her building was nothing she hadn’t dealt with before and could have been directed toward any number of women currently in the shelter, or some nameless, faceless person who had pissed off the perpetrator. Now she was going to be late for the self-defense class, and Miles would think she wasn’t coming and get all pissed
again. And why did she care if he did? She should be mad at him for the way he’d left her hanging last week after arousing her to a feverish pitch with that spanking. The pain and humiliation fed her arousal just as it had the first time she’d felt a man’s hard hand connecting with her bare bottom, only this time the Dom hadn’t gifted her with an orgasm when he finished. But what really got under her skin was the way she had refrained from finding the relief she desperately needed herself.
During the past six years, the only climaxes she’d attained had been by her own hand, so it didn’t make sense she’d suffered needlessly. “He’ll just have to be mad,” Hope muttered under her breath then almost groaned aloud when a frisson of excitement shook her hands at the thought of being on the receiving end of his irritation with her again. Climax or no, she couldn’t deny she enjoyed his painful retaliations as much as she had the fun motorcycle ride and its conclusion.
Eager now to get to the gym, and Miles, she aimed the spray paint can at the large, offensive word and squeezed the nozzle. Covering the bright red letters with black would have to suffice for now. Traci had already left for the day and it hadn’t been until she’d stepped out back with the trash that Hope saw the graffiti. She could leave it for Bobby, but she couldn’t stand leaving knowing it was there. Her business came first and dealing with crap like this was part of it.
By the time Hope entered the gym, the wall clock told her the class had only five minutes left. There was no one behind the counter, but several men left carrying gym bags as she stood there and debated whether to change first or go find Miles and explain. The decision was taken out of her hands when an older man came out, his face splitting in a wide smile as he came toward her.
“You must be Hope.” He held out his hand in greeting as he introduced himself. “I’m Ed Tarrington. My boy’s been looking out for you.”