O is for... Page 5

  Sarah watched enviously as the man’s fist tangled in his partner’s hair. He tugged, arching her body backwards over the hand he’d placed in the small of her back.

  Watching them, Sarah’s jealousy hollowed out her middle, making her feel empty. Her throat was tight. She forced herself to breathe.

  “Sarah,” Dev’s voice yanked her attention off the couple. “Wait here until I get back.”

  “Don’t tell me to wait like I’m a dog.” She snapped out the words without thinking, the jealousy masked by the much easier to handle anger.

  Dev toyed with the coiled whip he still wore at his hip. “I wasn’t speaking to you the way I would talk to a dog, and you know it.”

  “Fine. Then don’t talk to me like I’m stupid.”

  Her emotions had been a mess all night, but right now she had enough clarity to know that the anger was a cover for other, less easy to handle emotions, like jealousy and feelings of worthlessness. On top of that she was pissed with herself for doing something stupid.

  And she was angry with the men who’d shown her, taught her, that she was easy to ignore and forget.

  With effort, she got herself under control.

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “Being talked to like that…”

  “I won’t do it again.”

  His easy acceptance made her throat tight with emotion.

  Tell him. Tell him everything. It’s not too late, and he would understand.

  And he might. The part of her that was advocating for being open and truthful might be correct that Dev would understand and still want to scene with her.

  But what if she was wrong?

  What if, when she told him that she’d been pretending to be someone else, and followed up by explaining why she’d started that pretense, he realized that she wasn’t worth it?

  What if he ended up treating her the way the others had? After all, he didn’t really want her. He hadn’t chosen her.

  “Sarah.”

  She whipped her head around to look at him.

  “Will you have a seat?” It was phrased as a question, but the inflection was pure command.

  She sat.

  Dev braced one hand on the arm of the couch and leaned in, looming over her. Her breathing was shallow as she tipped her head back to look at him. Their gazes met and after only a few seconds she was fighting the urge to look away. There was something so intense in the way he looked at her, as if she was the focus of his world.

  “Spread your legs.”

  The command touched her like a physical caress, wiping away her uncertainty and indecision. The moment to confess had passed.

  Silently, she inched her knees apart. Dev kept looking at her face, never glancing down to check if she’d obeyed.

  “Open your mouth.”

  Arousal pooled low in her belly and Sarah licked her lips before parting them. Dev brought one hand out from behind his back. He jiggled his water glass, which he still held, the ice clinking against the sides. She blinked in surprise, not having realized he’d brought it, before returning her attention to his face.

  He pressed the rim of the glass to her lower lip and then tipped it. A thin stream of water poured into her mouth and she swallowed.

  “Take an ice cube,” he said.

  Sarah sucked one out of the glass.

  “But,” he warned. “Don’t bite. When I come back, I expect there to still be an ice cube in your mouth.” He bent low, whispering in her ear. “Even if it’s a little ice cube because that hot mouth melted it.”

  He backed up several steps, and she got a good look at that sexy, diabolical grin before he was turning and walking away. She watched his ass in the leathers. It was a very nice ass.

  With her attention on his very fine backside, and her body’s own reaction to him—her nipples were now hard, thank you very much—Sarah unthinkingly shifted the ice cube to the side of her mouth between her teeth. She was a split-second away from crunching down when she remembered that she absolutely should not do that.

  What followed next was an inelegant bit of sputtering as she shifted the ice cube back to the middle of her mouth, but half-choked on the little trickle of water that had made its way to her throat.

  The couple at the other end of the couch looked over, the Dom raising his eyebrows in question. She smiled around the ice cube and then, because as always she was awkward, Sarah gave them a double thumbs up. The sub’s lips twitched while the Dom merely nodded in acknowledgment of her silent answer to his question.

  The minutes ticked by slowly, but the ice cube, and making sure she didn’t chomp down on it, occupied her time.

  She was watching for Dev, expecting him to return from the same direction he’d headed. When a hand closed over the back of her neck, Sarah yelped in surprise and almost spit the ice cube out. Still holding onto her, Dev circled around to face her. When he dropped into a crouch, his hand slid around her neck, then down the center of her body, ruffling the fabric of her halter top before coming to rest on her thigh.

  “Show me,” he ordered.

  Sarah maneuvered the ice cube to the front of her mouth, holding it between her teeth and smiling.

  “Good girl.”

  Silently, Sarah pointed to the ice cube.

  Dev’s lips twitched. “Go ahead.” Sarah chomped the ice cube, the crunch deliciously satisfying. The cold water sliding down her throat and shards of ice on her tongue were a sharp contrast to the warm press of his palm against her bare thigh.

  Dev rose and held out a hand. She wrapped her fingers around his palm and let him pull her up. They didn’t go far, only walking to one of the small stages set up in the courtyard, but with every step they took, Sarah’s arousal increased. Her sex was wet. She could feel her pussy lips rubbing gently back and forth against one another and her nipples were so hard and tight that even the minute shifting of the fabric over her breasts was stimulating.

  When Dev laced his fingers through hers, giving her hand a small squeeze, a different feeling, a different sensation shot through her.

  Oh no. She was not stupid enough to catch feelings for this guy just because he held her hand. Was she?

  His thumb caressed the side of her wrist, and goosebumps rose all along her arm.

  Yep. She was definitely stupid enough.

  “Up.” He motioned to the small stage with a tip of his head.

  She hesitated, still thinking about catching feelings.

  Dev misinterpreted her pause and held up a hand. “I’m sorry, I forgot for a moment. No one-word commands, because you are not a dog.”

  “Thank you, Dev.”

  “If I didn’t know better, I would think that you’d had some shady tops,” he said while smiling. “But I know my boys here at Las Palmas wouldn’t do that.”

  Not on purpose, they wouldn’t. They did it thoughtlessly, because I’m not worth thinking about.

  And that made it so much worse.

  Sarah stepped up onto the stage. Though the courtyard was mostly open to the night sky, pergola-style beams covered in creeper- and vine-species of drought tolerant plants created a ceiling in a few places. This particular stage was under a section of beams and there were several large O-rings bolted into the wood.

  A wide, short piece of leather strapping with mountaineering clips at either end was hooked to one of the O-rings above.

  Dev fished something out of the black duffel bag he’d apparently dropped off before coming to get her.

  He hooked a simple metal ring, about the size of a dinner plate, onto the dangling carabiner. He stepped back, glancing between the ring and her, his gaze assessing.

  “Grab hold of it.”

  Sarah wrapped her fingers around the cool metal. The bottom of the ring was level with her forehead, which meant her arms were bent comfortably, her hands not higher than her head.

  “You have a choice. Take off the robe or pull it up and tuck it out of the way.”

  Sarah stripped off the robe, letting i
t flutter down around her feet. She grabbed the ring once more. There were heat lamps placed all around the courtyard, and that, combined with the southern California climate meant, even nearly naked, she wasn’t cold.

  As she settled her grip and spread her legs shoulder-width apart, the shiver that worked its way down her body had nothing to do with being cold.

  “We’re going to warm up with a flogging,” he said. “Nice and easy to get us both where we need to be.” He hopped off the stage, crouching beside the duffel once more. The flogger he pulled out looked soft and well used.

  Even in the dim light she could see shiny spots on the wrapped handle where the buckskin-colored leather was darker and worn smooth due to contact with his hand.

  “I don’t expect you to stay still,” Dev said. “In fact, I want you to move around. Don’t worry, I’ll be watching. Learning what spots on your body make you react.”

  Sarah inched her feet apart to give herself a more balanced stance. Turning her head to the side, she leaned her temple against her knuckles, resting her head on the ring.

  “And when you find those sensitive spots, are you going to avoid them or hit them a little harder?” she asked.

  Dev grinned, but it was a quick flash of emotion. He was working the flogger in a figure-eight motion, warming up his arm. He was focused and intense, his very nice arm muscles flexing.

  It was a good thing she was watching him because her only warning they were going to start was when he stopped whipping the flogger through the air, rolled his shoulders, and then hopped up onto the stage, all in the same moment.

  He was surprisingly silent. She might not have heard the very soft thump of his footfalls on the wood.

  She would have figured out it was “go time” very quickly when the flogger smacked her ass.

  The first contact was a solid thud on her right ass cheek. The tails of the flogger clung to her skin for a moment, a minute caress, before they fell away.

  She sighed, her eyes closing in relief. Relief that she was finally getting what she needed.

  Another thump, this time the blow landing along the outer edge of her left thigh.

  The flogger made a soft sound as it passed through the air, back on her right side, this time upper thigh, below where the impact had last kissed her skin.

  A few more thwacks on her ass, the sides and backs of her thighs, and then he really got going.

  It took him a minute to find his rhythm, and that was partially because he was distracted by Sarah. Distracted by the way she seemed to melt and soften with those first touches of the flogger.

  Another piece of the mystery that was this woman. He’d expected it to take longer, for him to really have to work her over before she was able to let go, but based on her body language right now, she was already feeling her submission.

  He should have known she wasn’t going to be that easy to figure out.

  Dev rolled his shoulders and settled in, finding his rhythm. He opted for a slow, steady side-to-side motion, rather than the more complicated figure eight. His forearm and wrist controlled the motion of the flogger, while his footwork brought him closer to her—which increased the intensity—or put space between them so only the soft ends of the tails touched her.

  Outer left thigh, outer right thigh, left ass cheek, right ass cheek.

  He worked her over systematically, and when a flush appeared on her skin and she was shifting her weight foot-to-foot he pivoted, standing at an angle to her, so that now the forehand strike was hitting the back and inside edge of her left thigh, while the backhand swing brought the flogger into contact with her quads.

  He added some force, the next blow striking that soft spot where thigh met ass. She yelped, picking up her left foot and curling her leg, her foot almost touching her ass.

  He eased back, shifting to gently strike her right thigh while she got herself under control.

  When she dropped her foot, he returned to that side, striking her sit spot again.

  Sarah cried out, pushing up onto her toes, the strong muscles in her arms standing out in stark relief as she pulled hard on the ring.

  Again, he gave her time to settle, gently tapping her calves with the flogger.

  He could hear the catch in her breath, but when she finally relaxed down onto her heels, she changed position, and not in order to protect her abused flesh.

  Still holding the ring, she bent at the waist, so her upper body was hanging off of it, her head was resting on her upper arms, her forearms perpendicular to the ground.

  Dev’s cock, which had been semi-erect, went rock hard in his pants. There was something so damn sexy about a submissive offering themselves up even as the sound of her breathing and the slight whimpers that occasionally escaped told him that the flogging hurt.

  Keeping up the rhythm, though the tails of the flogger were just barely tapping her calves, he ran his other hand over her sweet ass, palming the left cheek, which was hot to the touch. He slid his fingers under the edge of her leather underwear, pushing it up and in, exposing a bit more flesh. The material was too stiff for him to do much more than that, but she shivered in reaction.

  Dev squeezed her butt, then stepped back. Bringing the flogger up to waist height once more, he gave her a few soft blows on the front and back of her thigh, watching carefully to see if she was going to be able to take what he wanted to give.

  If she could accept what he wanted to do to her.

  She held still, her breathing now calm.

  Dev smiled, but he wondered if, had there been a mirror in front of him, would it have shown an expression better categorized a snarl than smile.

  Dev pulled back the flogger and brought it down on her ass with a savage intensity.

  CHAPTER 5

  The heavy, hot impact of a thudding flogger strike against already sensitive skin reverberated through her.

  For a split second, shock and the pure intensity of sensation—feeling that was neither pleasure nor pain, but just was—held her in stasis.

  And then that crystalline moment shattered, the searing heat-laced pain making itself known. Sarah cried out, her body tensing, every muscle tight.

  Dev was there a second later, slipping one arm under her midsection, supporting her weight as she released the tension that had her body taut, her arm and calf muscles screaming as she dangled from the ring and pushed up onto the balls of her feet.

  “Well done. Beautiful. You took that so well.” He murmured soothing words as she shivered and absorbed the sensations he’d given her.

  Sarah let her upper body weight rest on his arm, giving her arm muscles a break.

  Her left thigh and ass were throbbing…as was her pussy.

  The pain was already gone, leaving behind the heat and that sweet throb. Sarah wanted to inch backwards, until his arm, braced under her belly, was instead touching her breasts.

  When Dev leaned low, his words little puffs of air on her temple, a fierce desire skittered through her. But it wasn’t just a generalized arousal. She wanted him.

  “Are you ready to continue?”

  Sarah whipped her head to the side and stood up, her lower back and leg muscles protesting slightly. Dev kept his hand on her, cupping her waist.

  If she said “no”, would he move on to something else? She was greedy for more, part of her frantic to get everything she could out of this scene. To push him to fill up the seemingly bottomless well of her need, fast, fast, fast.

  Before a better, more interesting sub came along, and he forgot her.

  His hand slid up her side, almost but not quite brushing her breast, before cupping her neck, thumb pressing against the underside of her jaw.

  “Talk to me, Sarah.”

  “Yes,” she breathed. “I’m ready.”

  Dev’s gaze flickered briefly to her lips, and she wondered if he’d kiss her.

  But then he let her go and stepped back. She twisted her upper body, watching as he took up position on her right side. Compared to t
he heat and ache of her left leg and ass cheek, her right felt rather unloved.

  Standing straight for now, since it was easier on her back, Sarah kept her hips straight but twisted her shoulders and neck so she could watch him.

  She watched him look her over, his gaze skimming down her body. Again the word that came to mind was intense. He was so focused on her that it might have been easy to imagine that she really mattered to him.

  Dev raised the flogger, landing a gentle strike on the back of her right thigh, then the front.

  Sarah tensed her leg muscles, and when the next blow landed there was a sting of pain. Not because he’d struck her harder. No, he was warming up this leg as he had the other. It hurt because she’d tensed her muscles.

  She needed that shock of pain to help her mute the feelings that blossomed when she looked at him. The sting of pain went with the internal voice that pointed out how utterly pathetic it was to be emotionally attracted to this man who hadn’t chosen her.

  Sarah closed her eyes, leaning her forehead on her knuckles where her hands gripped the ring.

  Loosening her muscles, she let herself fall into the warm, buzzy feeling of the flogging. The rhythmic thwack, thwack sound was almost hypnotic. Coupled with the soft rhythmic thuds of the flogger she found herself so relaxed that, while not sleepy, she entered a sort of twilight wakefulness, similar to what she felt when she got a deep tissue massage—physical sensation causing good pain as muscles were worked, skin massaged, all of that leading to relaxation.

  The flogger moved, tapping gently against her calves. She knew, remembered, what came next, but she didn’t tense up. When his hand slid over her ass, shifting her leather panties and baring another inch of flesh, she moaned in need.

  “Would you like something to rub against?” Dev murmured.

  “Yes, please, Sir,” she whispered, eyes still closed.

  The taps against her legs stopped, and then something long and hard pressed up between her legs. Sarah looked down, saw the butt end of the flogger’s handle protruding from between her legs, the long shaft of it hard against her crotch.