Bind and Keep Me, Book 2 (13 page)

Ah. I blinked. I didn’t know what he intended, but if the alternative was him hurting Steph. That bothered me. “I can take it.”

“Good girl. You were wrong, yes, and I’m going to use you as an example for her. Be brave.”

“Sure.” I sucked in my lip. The familiar zing of excitement had me. Pain…I liked him doing what he wanted to. Even if it hurt me more than I wanted.

“First.” He held up two fingers and his mouth curved in a cautious smile. “Two things I see here. Good things. If you’re sure she didn’t mean to hurt you, that’s a step forward. Sounds like she was trying to help you after even.” I nodded. “And what happened in the shower…Jodie, I think you have some switch in you. I wish I’d been there to see that.”

I lowered my shirt then added shyly. “Yeah, I think I do. I got
such
a rush.”

“Whatever it is you did to make her like you, keep doing it.” With his hand over my shirt material, he smoothed the bandage, eyeing me in a calculating way. “Ready?”

I trembled a second then caught it. “Yes.”

“It’s the rattan cane. I’ll have a quick shower then we’ll do this. Remember, be brave.”

I wasn’t sure what he meant to do. He often strung me up by my wrists and beat me since he liked seeing me squirm.

This time…once we entered the room, he barely acknowledged Stephanie where she obediently knelt. He took me to the wall, made me strip all except for my bra, and used leather to strap me to the wall, flat and spread-eagled. I studied the gray paint before my nose—shade of mountain peak, I recalled. I could move my fingers and my head and my toes and not much else.

“I need you still, Jodie. If you move too far, I might injure you badly.”

Eep. Be still, or else, huh?

He started with taps of the cane to warm me up to the pain, which was more considerate than I expected. The way I was bound, my mound was pressed against the wall and, as the familiar buzz from the pain insinuated into my body, I couldn’t help grinding forward a few times. I half-expected him to tell me to stop but all he did was step to the other side of me and begin the pummeling of my lower ass in earnest, with a few landing lower on my thighs. The hurt rose, the effects fuzzed my head, but he still hadn’t gone to anything super intense. This was just my speed. I gasped and swore softly as three swift strokes surprised me.

“Four more. Hard ones.”

I curled my toes, but made sure to stay relaxed as those four seared my skin. I screamed on the fourth strike across my buttocks and at that, he stopped.

“Done.”

I turned my head in disbelief. Though his gaze was fierce, he stepped aside to lay the cane upon the chair. For some reason the colors impressed on me. White shirt, black pants, golden brown cane. From the way my skin shrieked at me, I’d have good bruises.

As he undid the straps across my back, he kissed the sweat on my neck. “Thank you. I went easy on you today, for her. Okay?”

I shuddered out my words. “Thank you, Sir.”

Again, his words were quiet. “Another day, I want to try the barbed wire flogger. Not today. It would freak her out.”

Oh fuck. He’d never used that. Though it wasn’t strictly speaking barbed wire—because Klaus had decided real barbed wire was impossible to clean in the twists of wire—it was a nasty steel flogger with tiny spikes.

God. I wanted to know what I could take. That would surely make me bleed. I wanted to drift into subspace to the sting, but, yes, another day, another time when Klaus was ready and so was I. Before he released all the straps, he checked my skin and massaged in ointment.

When I was free, he let me dress again in my white panties.

“Steph.” He crooked a finger.

Though she shuffled on her knees, she didn’t get up.

Uh-oh. There was terror in her eyes.

I was busy drawing my underwear gingerly onto my ass. If asses could talk, mine would’ve been screaming,
don’t
.

“Klaus, you need to tell her what you mean to do…that you aren’t doing to her what you did to me. Remember? Sir?”

Rationality slowly surfaced in his eyes. “Of course. Jodie is in charge of your punishment.”

I am?

He waited, looking at me speculatively as if wondering whether I’d sprout horns or wings.

Fuck. I didn’t know which either. The chair looked good.

I removed the cane from the chair and gave it to Klaus, feeling like I was handing him something that might bite me at any moment. He smiled and took it away.

The chair. I inhaled, shakily.

“Over here, Steph.” To my rising delight, once she scrambled to her feet, she almost jogged to the front of the chair.

Intimacy was needed. I stepped up to her, turned her with my hands on her hips, and gently pressed her back, so she bent over and had to grip the chair to keep from falling.

I looked to Klaus. “May I crop her, Sir?” I couldn’t help myself. Asking him was ingrained. Especially after what he’d just done.

“You can do what you like. She injured you, not me. I’m giving you this. Just make sure it hurts a bit or I might get overcome with an urge to turn her white bottom redder. Oh, one addition. After we’ve had dinner, you’re going to spank her until she comes.”

Stephanie gasped. “What?”

“No speaking unless you’re told to.” Though his voice was flat, her mouth clicked shut. “You’ve been bad, Steph. I’m letting Jodie punish you, don’t make me add my punishments. You’re allowed to speak to answer this next bit. From what you told Jodie, you’ve been through blood tests for the army’s admittance exams. Correct?”

“Yes.”

“How long ago?”

“Two weeks? About?”

“And they tested for STDs?”

She paused for a few seconds, holding onto that chair as if it were a life jacket. The front of my summer dress heaved as she took some long, deep breaths.

“Were you clear? Negative?”

Oh yes, I knew why she was upset. Klaus had just told her he intended to have sex with her. I wanted to wave pom poms and cheer, but I only tried to open my eyes and ears wider…if that were possible. I didn’t want to miss a single morsel of this exchange.

“Uh. Yes,” she said, directing her reply to the seat of the chair. “I suppose. But—”

“Shush. Enough. Jodie?”

I grinned. If she’d been fast on the take and said no, that she had AIDs, herpes and crotch rot, she’d have gotten Klaus to back off. But now…

“Jodie? Daydreaming?”

Me? “Sorry, Sir.” From the hint of amusement in his eyes, he’d guessed the gist of what I’d been thinking. My man was an evil bastard, definitely. I chugged back into gear. This had to hurt? I wasn’t exactly practiced in any of this, but I did have a mean wrist flick when playing squash. The crop was the right length for a racquet.

I went to the unlocked toy box and removed the crop, came back to her swishing the crop through the air to get a feel for the balance.

“If she doesn’t squeal at least once expect me to take over.” He grinned. “Then we will go have Chinese.”

Right. I twisted up my mouth and raised an eyebrow in query but his grin only widened. Okay. He was serious but happy. Okay. I eyed my victim’s bottom. Squealing required?

With my palm on the small of her back, I murmured to Stephanie, “Incoming. I’m giving you ten strokes of the crop.”

I lifted up the dress to expose her scrumptious ass then rolled the fabric higher to the small of her back. I bit my lip, pausing as I looked at that enticing area between her legs.

Somehow I got through those ten strokes and even, on the last two, made her hop from one foot to the other and squeal.

“Finished,” I declared.

“Oww.” She scowled back at me but it was all I could do not to chuckle. Petulant little thing. I didn’t care that she’d accidentally cut me. The darkening red rectangles and stripes on her bottom…the way she’d plain leaned over and waited for this. I was sold on domming her. Who needed crack? And such promise for the future. So much more I…we, could do to her.

As we went up the stairs, with Steph second and myself trailing last, I was still humming with residual amazement at my new power. I eyed the sway of her ass under the blue fabric. Mine. And Klaus’s soon too, no doubt.

The microwave hummed in the kitchen across the hallway. With Stephanie sitting quietly next to me on the padded footstool while Jodie heated the take-out, I had plenty of time to think and to study her.

Right or wrong, there comes a time when you have to stop second-guessing and wondering if what you do is moral. Self-preservation was a strong instinct in me.

I’d worry when or if some new aspect called to me. We had the facts. The cops were investigating. People had died. We, Jodie and I, had crossed into this murky zone of what-the-fuck-am-I-doing.

I’d have to tell Jodie about the bodies being found later on. We watched little TV and she’d not turned on the computers all day, so she couldn’t know unless she’d taken a call from someone who mentioned it.

But…the deaths, the party, were old news. After I was beaten up as teenager by a gang, I’d applied myself to getting good at judo, and months later, I’d tracked down two of the ring-leaders who’d still been bullying me. I wasn’t over-confident, I’d made sure each was alone first, then I’d beaten the shit out of them. Perhaps I’d gone too far? But I hadn’t worried about it since then. Done is done. My actions had produced the effect I’d wanted. They left me alone after that.

From now on…I shifted on my chair and observed Stephanie some more…I’d only concern myself with her and us. Because she was the weak point in this.

She wasn’t talking to me, but I figured she was scared of me. I had to lessen that somehow, without making myself seem made of sugar and sunshine. Though, considering I’d just caned Jodie and made her scream, I doubted she’d ever see me as quite that kindly.

I smiled. Which was good. As a sadist, I had an image to uphold.

Besides, Jodie had done something incredible today. Something I hadn’t expected and it seemed as if Stephanie had been, to some degree, her willing victim.

Jodie came in with the last of the plates, set them down and waited. I eyed Stephanie, and her. I planned to play this mealtime like a game of cards or chess. Whatever hints I was given, I’d use those to decide the next step. My balls tightened. This was more exciting than anything I’d done for months. Even BDSM had become slightly…less exhilarating.

When one door closes, another opens…how apt that might be.

Move one.

I kept my voice at a monotone despite how intense the mood had become. “Stand up and take off your clothes, Stephanie, then give them to me.”

I zeroed in on that tiny clench of her throat when the rest of her had frozen. This new opening door had great possibilities.

“I…” She looked to Jodie.

I leaned over and touched her chin, then moved her head so she was facing me. “No. Me, Stephanie. Not Jodie.” Though she trembled, she obeyed.

“Good. No talking from now on. If you have something you desperately need to tell one of us, you may pat our leg. Pat, not smack or tap. Use your palm only and be soft.”

I had her utter attention. Such pretty lips on this woman. Fuck. Already I was seeing the onset of blue balls tonight. “Nod if you understand.”

Though she cleared her throat and frowned, she nodded.

“Good. If you break those rules, I will be putting a gag on you.”

The image of an underwear gag wedged in those lips arrived in my mind. A standard ball gag just would not meet the grade tonight. If she spoke at all, I was going to be on that one in a flash.

Please, whatever gods are listening, make her talk when she shouldn’t.

“Now. Undress.”

Slowly she stood then reached to either side of the dress. Before she did anything else, she glanced at Jodie. I caught the slight nod and smile Jodie gave her but let it pass because a few seconds later she was pulling the dress off over her head. Interesting.

The tantalizing reveal of female flesh and the unintended undulation of her hips as she tugged at the cloth had me stiffening in more ways than one. I adjusted my pants.

Once she was fully naked I put out my hand for the dress. Her fingers brushed mine and I swear I heard a sharp little intake of breath.

“Stay there.” Though she screwed up her mouth as if something tasted bad, I took my time studying her body—travelling from her neat little toes up to her breasts, where the perfect pink-brown circles of her areolas had me lingering. Her hair tumbled darkly past her shoulders like a waterfall of night. Such an innocent-looking face. An angel turned bad. “You’re beautiful, Stephanie. Isn’t she, Jodie?”

Those neat toes scrunched up.

“Yes, she is.” There was a strange harshness in that word. Jodie was my true partner. Was I overstepping what she could handle?

I glanced across and almost chuckled. No. That was barely concealed lust on her face, not jealousy.

“Sit.” I took Jodie’s hand and drew her to sit in the chair next to mine then squeezed her fingers. “Our captive is going to stay under the table while we eat. And since we can’t trust her with a knife and fork, she’s going to eat with her fingers. Happy with that?”

“Yes. Sounds good.” Where I’d rested her palm on my pants leg, she curled her fingers and dug nails into my thigh. I smirked. The number of times she’d done this for me—eaten at my feet—and now she got to do it to a woman. My little Jodie definitely had hidden potential.

The stew of frantic emotions sweeping Steph pulled me up fast. Tears threatened. Her mouth quivered. Anger sparked deep in her eyes. I sensed an oncoming impasse. I’d given her no direct threat of spanking or pain if she didn’t obey, but I didn’t want to do that to gain her compliance. This,
this
very moment was so important. She’d undressed in front of us before, or at least we’d undressed her. If I could get her to take this next step without me…without us directly threatening her, it would be a whole new ball game. It would be like her handing over a part of herself.

Giving her some facts might help? Yet I’d silenced her. She couldn’t ask questions.

I sat forward. No threat. No growling. I wanted to see her cave in, apparently, all on her own. So she could see, feel, taste, her defeat against a nothing background.