Dominating Anna: A Fantasy Fulfilled Novella (6 page)

Next, Zee brought the
webbing up to her throat. A moment of panic made Anna’s breath catch. What if
he did it too tightly? What if she couldn’t breathe? Air felt suddenly
difficult to get into her lungs, and he’d barely used any pressure at all yet.

“Look at me,” he said
brusquely.

She did.

He said, “You’ll be
able to breathe.”

Her fine trembling
slowed.

“But you’ll be bound.
I’ll be in charge. Of everything, at all times. Your pain and your pleasure are
mine to command. Trust me.”

Anna nodded, once, and
then lifted her chin so he could fasten whatever it was he was doing there. She
didn’t trust him. The only thing the man had really done to her was fuck her on
a night he wasn’t supposed to. But there was something in him that allowed her
to release her breath, knowing that she’d be able to take another deep one, because
he said so.

So far, the bindings
were only from the waist up. She was trussed from her wrists to her breasts and
neck. Her feet were still free. She could bolt if she wanted to. She knew the
back door opened with a push to the bar across it—she could do that with
her hip. It would take about two seconds to flag down a cab or someone passing
by outside. Maybe a few more seconds to convince whoever she found that she
wasn’t crazy, that she needed help out of the bindings and something with which
to cover up. Anna thought about it for several long seconds.

Then she let it go.

She didn’t want to
run. She’d put herself here. She’d been the one who’d called, insisting that
Zee had gone above and beyond the call of duty to make her more comfortable
with their agency, saying that she wanted to meet with him again, their first
aborted attempt notwithstanding.

And the whole time
she’d been talking to Corinne on the phone, she’d been remembering the shape of
Zee’s cock, the weight of him on top of her, the way his mouth had tasted.

Now he stood in front
of her. He seemed to be judging his work. He tested a strap by pulling on her
arm. She stumbled sideways. “Good,” he said. “You’re not getting out of that.”

“No,” she said,
agreeing with him.

“Huh.” He rocked back
on his heavy motorcycle boots. “The slut speaks. Did I say you could? Did I ask
you a direct question?”

Anna bit her bottom
lip and shook her head. She should have known better. And good God, what was
with her? The way he said slut, the word heavy with his accent, made her wet. A
boyfriend who called her that? She would have tossed him out on his ear. This
man? She wanted to hear more. She wanted to
be
that slut he thought she
was.

Zee’s dark eyes locked
on her mouth. “There’s only one way to deal with a whore like you.” He rummaged
in the box at his feet, bringing out a red ball gag.

A slight trembling
went through her as he fastened the gag around her head.

“Have you ever worn
one of these?”

Was she supposed to
answer? Would she get in trouble?

Holding the red ball
in front of her mouth, Zee snapped, “Answer me when I speak to you.”

“No.”

“A gag virgin. My
favorite. Open wide.”

She did. The rubber
tasted bitter and smelled like rubber bands. Zee pushed it so far back she felt
a gag reflex. He waited, holding the ball in place. Anna swallowed hard,
blinking back the moisture that rose to her eyes.

“Good. Breathe through
your nose.”

Anna pushed down the
panic that beat in her chest. It was okay. This was fine.

“Remember your safe
word?”

Her eyes flared.
Banana.
How could she say it now?

“And remember what to
do if you can’t talk? Shake your head five times in a row.” His voice was
kinder now. As if he actually cared how she felt. “We’ll stop whatever you
don’t want to do. Got it?”

Anna nodded, her lips
stretched around the ball.

“Are you cold?”

A shiver ran through
Anna as she realized that yes, she was freezing. She nodded again. She couldn’t
hunch her shoulders for warmth because of the bindings that drew her arms back.
The heater seemed to be putting out no warmth at all, though it rattled and
clacked behind Zee.

“I couldn’t hear you.
I said, are you cold?”

“Mmph,” was all she
could manage.

“I can’t hear you.”

“Ymmph.”

Zee frowned, and his
face, caught in the half-light from the front window, was frightening in its
intensity. “I thought I’d made myself clear. You answer me when I speak to you,
and not until then. Are. You. Cold?”

Anna tried as hard as
she could to force the word around the gag. “Yssmph.”

Zee shrugged, one
large shoulder going up and dropping. “Now you’ll find out what happens when
you fail to follow such a simple instruction, whore.”

From the box, Zee
extracted a whip. Short-handled, it had many longer black leather strips
hanging from it. He slapped the whip gently against his jeans. The
thwack
it made startled Anna. If that’s what it sounded like, and he wasn’t even
hitting anything...

“Turn.”

She did, as fast as
she could.

He laughed at her.
“Jumping to my command. I like that in a whore. Now. Hold your breath. It will
make the first blow hurt less.”

It came hard and fast,
landing on the backs of her legs. The pain sliced through Anna, a direct and
instant agony that felt like nothing she’d ever experienced. And he was wrong,
holding her breath
didn’t
help. It made it more intense.

She closed her eyes,
blocking out the front window, blocking out the large empty room. Breathing
heavily through her nose, she waited for the next strike.

God help her, she
wanted it.

Zee was in so much
trouble.

The one thing he was
good at was hurting people. He knew how hard to push them, knew instinctively
where their edges were, knew where the line between tolerable and intolerable
lay. It was a good job. He enjoyed it. He’d lucked into it, really, and at
least once a year, he thanked Jake for giving him a job that finally suited his
talents, which had been wasted on the security jobs he’d had before. A bouncer
only got to really
bounce
a few people before he had to look for another
gig.

But this girl...

She brought back
feelings he had no right feeling. The image of Keren’s face flashed into his
mind. She’d been a redhead, too. That flaming fall of hair was bringing it
back—the way Anna’s ponytail blazed in front of him was a reminder, that
was all.

He’d just have to work
harder on doing his job.

Concentrating, he drew
the whip back again. He knew exactly the weight of blow a novice needed. You
couldn’t hit them too hard or they’d run and never come back. You couldn’t hit
them too softly, either, or they’d miss the whole endorphin rush, the best part
of the whole scene. He understood the addictive part of the game, and had paid
a female Dom more than a couple of times to tie him up, to whip him senseless,
so he could remember how that kind of pain felt. It was worth it. Swimming
through the pain as it came, holding oneself up, breathing into the next blow,
it was all worth it. Made you a better person. And if you were really lucky, it
made the person holding the whip a better person, too.

Then why the hell was
he having such a hard time raising the whip against her? Jesus, he was
weak.

With an inaudible
curse, he let the whip land again on her legs. The first stripes were just
beginning to rise, lovely pink against creamy white.

Anna stiffened. She
gave one muffled cry around the gag and then swallowed the noise.

She was doing well.
Zee watched as she shrugged her shoulders as much as she could, as if testing
the bindings. Then her head lifted higher, her long red ponytail swinging
against her pinned-back wrists.

Another blow. This
time she hardly moved and gave no cry at all. The welts grew. Zee longed to
touch them, to run his fingers along them. For one insane second, he imagined
kissing them, rubbing lotion into them later.

This was incredibly
fucked up. What the hell was happening to him? With his free hand he rubbed his
eyes. As if that would help.

With impeccable
timing, the front door opened. Thank God for Corinne. He needed backup, though
he’d die before admitting it to her.

“Saved by the bell,
whore,” he said, his voice feeling rusty. He cleared his throat. “Who’ve you
got there with you, Corinne?”

Corinne led four men
into the room. They hung back a bit, as they always did at first. They moved in
two pairs, the taller two on Corinne’s heels, and the shorter two in back, near
the door, bobbing on the balls of their toes.

“These guys were down
at the bar. I bought them all a round and asked if they wanted to see a pretty
slut getting a workout.”

“Turn around, slut,”
said Zee. “Meet your new audience.

As Anna slowly turned,
bringing her naked body into full display, the guy farthest back laughed and
said, “Oh,
ho
, now. Damn.”

Yeah, it was sinking
in. Zee knew their type. Hell, he’d been one of them, ten years ago. He’d been
picked up by another one of Jake’s assistants, Samantha. She’d found him at
closing time at the bar he was working at, shrugging into his jacket. “You
wanna see something nice, big guy?”

Not that he wasn’t
offered ass almost every night of the week. Being a bouncer had
some
perks. But there was something in Samantha’s voice, a spark in her eye that
made Zee nod and follow her three blocks away to a warehouse in the meat
packing district. There, he’d witnessed one of the prettiest sights he’d ever
seen: a small blonde strung up, hands over a hook, spreader bar at her feet,
getting the tar beaten out of her, screaming that she wanted more of it, and
harder. Jake
,
perhaps recognizing something
in Zee, had allowed him to try out his belt on her.

It was what he’d been
looking for. He was only good at hurting women anyway, might as well be the
best one in the business. Might as well get paid for it. Might as well do it
right.

But while he
remembered that little blonde as outrageously pretty, the woman in front of him
had just stolen his top-ranked spot. There was something about the set of her
shoulders, the way her soft lips looked around the ball, and the way her green
eyes looked at the new guys—damn, she got to him.

And for one unbearable
second, Zee didn’t want the men to touch her. He didn’t want them to even look
at her.

Hell, no. That
wouldn’t fly.

Go harder, then. Go
deeper. Always the answer.

He struck Anna with
the whip across the belly. She made that garbled noise around the gag again,
and he saw a fine trail of spit dripping from the ball. Good. She was doing it
right. One of the lashes of the whip tangled around the binding at her waist,
and as he tugged, she took a step forward.

“Did I tell you to
move?”

She shook her head. He
waited, to see if she’d shake it five times, but the motion was clear. Once.

She still wanted this.

He’d give it to her,
then.

There were four of
them, four men she’d never seen before. In the interview, Corinne had made it
clear that they might bring other people into the scene, men or women who might
be professional actors. Then again, she’d said, “Sometimes we find some rather
enthusiastic amateurs. And we won’t tell you which they are.” Anna had agreed
to this. Now she stared at them, breathing carefully around the gag as she
fought back the pain from the last lash. The blow they’d watched had made their
faces shift—they’d gone from amazed and astonished to frankly lustful in
the space of a second. Were they professionals? Paid to act this way? Or were
they just working men Corinne had rounded up from a bar somewhere?

Zee spoke powerfully.
“She is mine. Only I say what happens to her in this space.”

God, would Zee whip
her more in front of them? She tried to decide what level pain she’d been at. A
six? Maybe a seven? She could take more, she knew she could. She
craved
for Zee to take her to nine. He knew where nine was, she knew it.

He went on. “I’m in
charge, do you understand?”

Heads nodded. The
redheaded tall man blinked as if to clear his vision.

“But,” said Zee, “I’m
good at sharing. Who wants to touch the whore?”

“I do!” There was no
hesitation on the part of the shorter, black-haired man. He wore a trucker’s
cap that said, “Eat Play Shove,” and had two days’ worth of growth on his chin.
Stepping forward, he said eagerly, “I wanna touch her.”