Divine Solace: 8 (27 page)

Moving across the floor, Lyda stood where her knees
practically pressed against the crown of his head. “You will answer me, Noah.”

He tilted his head to the right, his jaw tight. And stayed
silent.

“You don’t like hearing I’m your warden?” Lyda demanded.
“Your babysitter?”

His gaze snapped back up to her at that. Was Lyda
deliberately baiting him? Gen bit her lip. She was about to stick her nose into
something she likely didn’t understand. But she remembered Noah leaning over
her on the beach, the tilt of his head toward the sun, that half-smile.

“He thinks that’s all you consider yourself.”

Now two sets of eyes came to her. Noah’s showing dismay, as
if he’d have preferred her not to say it, and Lyda looking like she’d stated
the obvious, making Gen flush. The silver eyes had frosted at the interruption.

“It’s always intriguing, how subs tend to protect one
another, even when they both crave their Mistress’s attention,” Lyda said in a
deceptively casual tone. She turned her gaze back to Noah. “She can already
give voice to the preferences you can’t, Noah. Your own personal Cyrano de
Bergerac. With a much nicer nose, though big enough to interfere when she can’t
help herself.”

Lyda didn’t say it in a mean way. There wasn’t even any
mockery in her tone, but the pain Gen saw grow more stark in Noah’s face,
something he couldn’t seem to voice, awoke something inside her, something hard
and ugly. She should retreat, leave the cubicle. This kind of behavior was
likely a deal breaker for her. But she couldn’t make herself move. Any more
than she could stop the words that sprang to her lips.

“Have you ever told him how you feel about him?”

Lyda’s gaze flickered back over to her. Gen could tell she
was about to tell her to back off, and she couldn’t handle that. She had to get
this out, because all of a sudden it was filling up her diaphragm like an
explosive device.

“It seems so little to ask, but it’s everything,” Gen said.
“Seeing it in someone’s eyes, that you matter…more. It helps everything else
make sense, every other problem seem solvable.” Her eyes locked with Lyda’s.
“You said being a Dom is about really knowing what the other person wants and
needs, but what does it mean when you hold back on that, not for them, but to
protect yourself? How is that different from being a cruel bastard who can’t
put down the cable remote and make you feel for one goddamn second like you’re
more special than a fucking golf match?”

Lyda shifted forward. Noah went to a half kneel, as if he
might get up, but Gen stepped back, holding up a hand. “It leaves you hating
yourself, you know,” she told Lyda. “If he’d just done that, given me those two
precious seconds, I’d have felt like the queen of Egypt. Such a little thing.
Maybe that’s why he didn’t give me that. Because if that’s all it takes, then I
didn’t expect a lot for myself. I was giving him permission to treat me like I
was nothing.” Her attention shifted to Noah, came back to Lyda. “But I don’t
have it in me to demand. I never thought I’d have to demand to be treated
special by someone who loved me. I always thought he’d want to do that.”

She swallowed. “Can you do something like that for Noah
right now? Nothing elaborate. Just one gesture, so I can believe this isn’t
just another version of the same place I keep finding myself whenever I get
pulled into a relationship?”

Lyda pressed a hand into Noah’s shoulder, a nonverbal
command to stay where he was as she stepped away from him. Gen backed up into
the cubicle wall, but Lyda kept coming. She cupped Gen’s face, drew closer
until Gen’s nose brushed her jaw, her forehead against Lyda’s prominent
cheekbone, all those sculpted angles and fragrant skin. As Lyda’s fingers
slipped around to the back of her neck, holding her, Gen’s throat was burning
with a dry-eyed pain, the worst kind, like a desert where life had been burned
from it.

“Ssshh,” Lyda said against her ear. “It’s all right, rabbit.
It’s all right. Okay.”

Lyda had said she wasn’t a nurturer, and she wasn’t, but
maybe that was what made a comforting touch from her so potent. There was a
strength to the woman, like a tree. Gen knew she should push away, but it felt
so good to be held against her. When Lyda at last drew back, her gaze was
thoughtful. “All right, Gen.”

She pivoted, shifting so Gen could see Noah as well. He was
still on the one knee, quivering with the effort of self-restraint. His gaze
was on Gen, showing concern for her, yet still holding onto that wary pain he
and Lyda had stirred up between them. Then Lyda snapped his attention back to
her with one sharp question.

“Noah, would you go into my home and piss on my expensive
rugs?”

He looked startled. “No Mistress.”

“Set fire to items that have great sentimental value? And
yes”—she shot a glance at Gen—”despite reports to the contrary about what a
hardass I am, I do have those.”

“No Mistress.” His brow creased. “Absolutely no.”

“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.”

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.”

Gen had the additional pleasure of fitting the tip to his
head, rolling it over the engorged shaft. The way his muscles tightened, she
could tell he wanted to thrust into her hand. She teased him, rubbing him,
squeezing him. He let out a quiet oath, closing his eyes again.

“We all have some sadist in us,” Lyda observed with quiet
amusement. “I think you’re in for an interesting night, Noah. Two women who
want to use you until you’re drained dry.”

“I think he’s up for the challenge,” Gen said. His eyes
opened to half slits at that, what she saw there making her stomach jump in
delicious anticipation.

“Doesn’t matter if he is or isn’t,” Lyda said. “It’s what
we’ll demand of him.”

His cock jumped under her hand at the sensual threat. Gen
felt a hard contraction between her own legs at the way the woman was looking
at
her
. A potent reminder there was only one alpha bitch in this room.

“You said you wanted to take his punishment, Gen. Last
chance to change your mind about that.”

Lyda removed a flogger from the wall. It wasn’t the soft
flogger with wide straps she’d recommended to Gen. This one had thin, rolled
strips. When Noah saw her choice, he shook his head.

“I’ll take my punishment, Mistress. I don’t want Gen to take
it.”

“I wasn’t aware your opinion mattered,” Lyda said. “So shut
up while the women are talking, unless you’re told to speak.”

Her tone was casual, but the look she sent his way was pure
ball-busting Mistress. It jolted Gen, sending a wave of uncertainty through
her, mixed with a heavy dose of pure lust. For both of them. For what might
happen in here.

Noah’s jaw got that set to it again, but he shifted his gaze
back down. The look he sent Gen first was clear, however.
Don’t do this.

It bugged him, a lot. But Gen thought of how Lyda had looked
at her when she suggested that Gen take Noah’s punishment. Lyda had told her to
follow her instincts and they told Gen that was exactly why she
should
do it. Even though what Lyda was proposing put Gen in a subjugated position, a
position of punishment, when she met the Mistress’s gaze, Gen felt like the two
of them were in collusion about something vital to Noah’s well-being. To what
he needed.

Gen wanted to give him what he needed.

There were a lot of things she didn’t understand in this
room, about the many ways she reacted to both of them, but the less she thought
about it and the more she followed those instincts, the more
right
it
all felt.

“Where do you want me?” She stroked Noah’s thigh as she
asked it, the light layer of dark hair.

The flare in Lyda’s eyes gave Gen a thrilling sort of fear.
“Face forward against his back. Take off the skirt and top first so I don’t
damage them. I want to see you wear that outfit again. Leave on the underwear
and heels.”

A purely female consideration on the clothes, and a stirring
compliment. The way Lyda stroked the whip tails through her curled hand as she
said it had the same effect on Gen that the cuffs had seemed to have on Noah.
Gen was starting to accept that the two of them could keep her in a constant
state of arousal.

Usually Gen took off her clothes in front of a lover as
though she were in a dressing room, quick and functional, even a little
self-conscious. Now she drew off the top in a way that arched her back,
displaying her breasts and that soft skin Lyda claimed to like. Draping the
sparkling top on Noah’s shoulder, she turned away from both members of her
immediate audience. Unzipping the skirt, she shimmied out of it, bracing herself
against the wall to step out of it without snagging the heels. As she dipped
down to pick up the skirt and pulled the shirt from Noah’s shoulder, she could
feel his stare. Placing the clothes on the seat of the chair, over Noah’s
clothes folded on the floor beneath, she met Lyda’s eyes.

She’d seen lust in a man’s eyes before, those instances
where it was clear he had sex first and foremost on his mind. Seeing it in
Lyda’s gaze, coupled with the intent to possess the object of her desire, made
Gen’s stomach flip-flop in a new and exciting way. Her knees trembled.

“Bitch tease,” Lyda murmured. “It’s going to be a pleasure,
getting a little-girl squeal out of you.” Using her boot, she hooked a
footstool in the corner and sent it in a controlled slide and spin across the
small space, so it bumped against the back of one of Noah’s metal boots. “Get
up on that, put your arms around his chest, your face against his neck. Your
tits should be pressed between his shoulder blades.”

That knee-weakening reaction spread. No, she wasn’t a
submissive like Noah, but Gen wanted to be commanded by Lyda, taken over. Like
taking a tandem jump out of an airplane, trusting the experienced skydiver to
carry her on an exhilarating journey.

Noah started to speak. “One more word out of you,” Lyda
said, “and you’ll be gagged. Suck it up.”

Gen saw his jaw flex, the flash in the dark eyes. She
wondered what he’d do if he was loose. It was a shivery thought.

Stepping up on the stool, she started to slide her arms over
Noah’s shoulders. Lyda stopped her.

“Under his arms, Gen. I don’t want you cutting off his air
and not realizing it. He’d let you strangle him if he thought it would
interrupt your pleasure or mine. Dumbass.”

Noah started to retort to that, and Gen dug her nails in,
not wanting him and Lyda to engage again. “Fun and pleasure,” she whispered.

He subsided with a grunt and she adjusted her arms as Lyda
had directed, banding them around Noah’s chest, the widest part right under his
armpits. She stroked his chest hair as she overlapped her forearms. With the
way the boots were positioned in relation to the frame, his upper body was
tilted forward, allowing her to lean. She wasn’t sure how much of her weight to
rest against him. She also wasn’t sure if Lyda wanted her to have that full
contact. Those questions were quickly answered.

Lyda drew closer and rolled the flogger down Gen’s thigh.
Gen made a startled noise when Lyda pressed the rounded handle between her
buttocks, pushing the silky fabric of her panties against her anus. Lyda
rotated the handle, stimulating her rim through that thin barrier. Gen squirmed
against Noah, arms constricting over his chest.

“You like having your ass played with. That’s good. Are you
a virgin here?”

No. But she might as well be. The experience hadn’t been
pleasant. She knew it was all the norm, even for teenagers these days, but it
hadn’t been as popular when she’d started dating, and only one husband had
wanted to do it.

Lyda gripped her hair, pulled her head back. “I asked you a
question.”

“No, ma’am. Once.” She wondered if she should say she didn’t
want to do it, that she hadn’t enjoyed it, but maybe it would be different with
Lyda. Just the whip’s touch had set off an explosion of sensation she hadn’t
experienced during anal play before.

“All right.” Lyda released her hair, removed the prodding
touch of the whip. “Take your legs off the stool, wrap them over his knees.
Brace your heels on the lip of the metal boots. Like you’re riding him
piggyback, only a little more spread out. Don’t worry about his back or legs.
He’s strong as an ox, but I’ll know when it’s time for you to move off him.”

There was a smooth curved lip to the front of the boots,
wide enough to make the position tenable, maybe even designed for that or other
restraint options. As she complied, Lyda tucked the flogger under her arm and
cupped a strap under Gen’s ass. Threading the ends between Gen’s thighs and
Noah’s, Lyda wrapped it around him so when she buckled it, it cinched Gen’s
mound against the top of his buttocks. The seam between put friction on her
clit, making her squirm the small amount the strap allowed.

Smack!

Lyda stung her ass with her palm. “You’ll be moving soon
enough, dancing from the whip.”

She put a set of cuffs on Gen then, so her arms were locked
together over Noah’s chest. Lyda slid her hand between his back and Gen’s
front. The nonverbal cue had Gen hollowing her back so the woman could caress
Gen’s breast. She gave her nipple a quick flick before she descended, following
the line of Noah’s lower back and hips, her knuckles gliding along Gen’s skin.
Her body yearned toward more of that touch. However, when Lyda shifted,
followed that same track to his shoulders, Gen realized she was gauging the
stress on his joints and muscles.

“I’ll think you’ll be good for as long as she’ll be able to
take it.” Lyda disappeared from view with a deliberate tap-tap of her boots.
Gen wondered if she’d made a mistake. The woman could single-handedly unload
young trees from her truck, root ball and all.

“Breathe,” Noah rumbled. “Accept the pain. Don’t tense. It
works better that way.”

He let out an oath, and Gen jumped at the pop, realizing
only after the fact it hadn’t touched her. Whatever Lyda had used had licked up
between Noah’s spread legs and sent an admonishing sting to his testicles. The
passage of air beneath her own spread legs, as well as his flinch, told her the
target. It also reminded her how vulnerable her own genitals were to such a
strike.

“I can gag you or give you one of those every time you talk
out of turn, Noah. Which will it be?” Lyda’s voice was scary pleasant.

“The lash, Mistress,” he gritted out.

She tsked. “Exactly why it should be the gag. But I’m in a
benevolent mood.”

When he let out a fierce, whispered curse at the next one,
Gen squeezed him. “Sshhh,” she said. “Don’t talk.”

“As I said, subs do tend to try to protect one another, even
as they crave the pain. I’ll let you use the softer flogger on him later, Gen,
but here’s a taste of it.”

When the blow from the flogger landed, Gen had tensed, she
couldn’t help it. Though it stung a bit, it wasn’t bad. It was almost
pleasurable, the stimulation of the wide straps licking at her buttocks, her
back, falling away from between her shoulder blades like a stroke from Lyda’s
hand.