Divine Solace (Nature of Desire 8)

"Would you let anyone else do it?"

He shook his head. Stepping forward and catching his chin, Lyda jerked up his head, roughly enough Gen winced. "Then why do you consider yourself different from my other possessions?"

She bent down, stared into his eyes. "You are a gift. One of the finest submissives I've had the pleasure to own. Yet until I break into that flawed part of you and tear the guts out of it, I won't give you an inch, Noah. You'll get no tender moments from me. Not as long as I know you'd let someone treat my prized possession like shit. My most prized possession."

As she spoke, the agony in his eyes increased, but Gen saw the moment those last four words registered. Pain transformed into shock, then confusion, as if he wasn't entirely sure how to process such a statement. Lyda's delivery had been a backhanded compliment, but Gen realized there'd been a power to it that a simple, sentimental offering would have lacked. This fit the dynamic that existed between the two of them. And maybe not only the two of them. Lyda straightened, eyed her.

"Your desire to protect him makes me think you should take the punishment he's begging for, Gen."

"No." Noah spoke up, adamant.

Lyda ignored him, attention staying on Gen. She sensed a message being passed to her, something important. "What if I let you sacrifice yourself for him, protect him, then let you fuck him, while I fuck you? You'll get a taste of being both top and bottom, and maybe you'll figure out where on the scale you really want to be." A faint smile touched her lips. "Your place, as you said."

When Lyda shifted to the side, Gen saw Noah watching them both. Conflict was written on his face, his fingers curled on his knees. A moment ago, Lyda had bid him stay where he was. She'd recognized correctly that Gen could only accept comfort for this situation from Lyda herself. A Mistress. Gen touched on the idea tentatively, thinking about what Lyda had said about subs wanting to protect one another...yet both craving punishment from their Mistress.

The Ferris wheel lever had been pushed again, taking them up to that top, teetering point, where everything of the world fell away but the three of them. And though Gen was conflicted over the last few moments, she realized Lyda and Noah had brought her back on the ride with them. Proving it, she opened her mouth and said the words a dark and swirling part of her told her to say.

"Yes," she said. "I want to take his punishment. Then...do what you said. Try that."

Lyda cocked her head. "All right. We'll take it a step at a time. Noah, look at me. She's fine now."

Lyda ran her thumb over his bottom lip, a tender act of truce. "Get your ass up. Gen's going to chain you up exactly the way she wants, and you're going to let her do it."

Chapter Nine

Lyda extended a hand, inviting Gen to proceed. Emotional outbursts must be part and parcel of D/s sessions, since Lyda seemed to have taken Gen's in stride. Being unbalanced in a good way seemed to be contagious. Even Noah looked like he felt better.

He'd moved to the frame. Gen paused at Lyda's side, joining her in sheer female appreciation. Noah, naked, his arms bent at a ninety degree angle above his head and palms braced against the padded horizontal bar. He'd threaded his wrists into the open hold of the loose cuffs already dangling from the top padded bar. As her gaze slid down over his tattooed back, she wanted to touch, to taste. He adjusted his feet inside the boots, ass shifting in delightful counterpoint, lean muscles of his thighs flexing.

She hesitated, looked toward Lyda. Lyda brushed a knuckle over Gen's face, increasing her confidence. "Have fun with it," the Mistress murmured. "Let your mind loose to play. It's all wonderland now."

Gen could fall down the rabbit hole. Lyda had called her a rabbit, after all. At first, she'd wondered if Lyda was calling her too timid. But maybe Lyda had been a fan of Watership Down, where the rabbits could be fierce fighters among their own kind, as well as fleet of foot and staying alert in a world that considered them food.

Fun. Okay, good with that. Gorgeous, naked male to play with. She could just hear Chloe-- You go, girl! Go tap that fine ass!

Suppressing a smile, she moved forward. But though things seemed smoothed out, she hadn't forgotten the distress in Noah's expression. So first she pressed herself against his back, the rise of his firm buttocks, and dropped a kiss on his shoulder. "I'm okay," she murmured. "You okay?"

He gave her a nod, bending his head so she could see a dark eye through a fall of silky hair, the tug at his mouth. "Sorry," he mumbled.

She laid another kiss on his shoulder blade. Then she straddled his thigh, giving a sinuous little wriggle as she used the extra few inches of height it allowed to reach up and cinch the first cuff tight enough around his wrist he couldn't pull free. The look he gave her then had a different tone to it, one she answered with a playful lift of her brows, a shift of mood and energy.

Lyda was right. As she buckled that first cuff around his wrist, she experienced a distinct tingle in her loins.

"Feel his cock, Gen."

No need to tell her twice. Sliding an arm around Noah, she closed her fingers over him. He was already hard. That tingle between her legs intensified and spread.

"Now do the other wrist and grip it again."

She did it, watching his fingers twitch, a ripple go through his arm muscles. When she took hold of him once more, he was noticeably thicker and harder. She stroked him, leaning against his side. His eyes were closed, internalizing what she was doing to him.

"The more you restrain him, the more aroused he gets," Lyda said. Her voice had that tone that caressed Gen's nerve endings. "Because he knows he can't stop anything you want to do to him. He has to let go of all control. Adjust the boots so he can't pull his feet out of them."

Her own breath was a little fluttery, her reaction to the proof of what Lyda was describing. With Lyda's guidance, she figured out how to adjust the steel framework so the band around the ankles and just below the knee were cinched enough he still had circulation, but he couldn't remove his feet from the boots. Lyda tested the cuffs as well, running a finger beneath them to verify they weren't too tight.

Gen had knelt next to the wall to work on the boots. Putting her hand on his thigh, she looked up the length of his body, at a very prominent, pleasing erection. He was staring at what she was doing, his brown eyes filled with an enticing fire.

"Here." Lyda tapped her shoulder with a wrapped condom. "Put this on him so he doesn't make a mess."