Enslaved (20 page)

He loved not only the warm, enfolding clutch of her tongue and throat muscles against his throbbing cock, but also the exhilarating rush of power he got from using her in that way. She became his vessel, the place where his cock went. She existed at that moment solely to pleasure him, to serve him, to submit to his whim and his lust.

He stroked himself faster, closing his eyes and letting himself pant. The sheet fell over the side of his face as he shifted and for a moment he thought it was Rae’s silky hair. He pressed his nose into the soft, lingering scent of her skin on the sheets as he pushed himself toward a climax. He came suddenly, several small, shuddering, unsatisfying spurts of spunk onto his stomach.

He lay there a while before reaching for the edge of the sheet to wipe it away. Had she been there, he would have had her lick it up. No. Had she been there, he wouldn’t have been jerking himself off.

He looked around the room, the place that had been Rae’s world since he’d brought her home. She’d spent all her time in the dungeon, save for the occasional trip to his office, where for the most part he’d kept her on her knees between his legs.

Why had he never brought her up to his bed?

Because she was a sex slave, that’s why. She was there to be punished, not adored. And he’d punished her, all right. He’d knocked that sassy, willful arrogance right out of her. He’d molded her into a willing, compliant slave girl, all in the space of a few steady weeks of constant stimulation, training and erotic pain. He’d even had notions of making her his permanent slave girl, bound not by the terms of his blackmail, but by mutual consent and desire.

What a joke. His own secret longing had blinded him to the truth. She’d brought him sharply back to reality, that was for damn sure. The venom in her tone when she’d snarled:
There is no us
. She’d just been playing the game, pretending to submit, doing her time. And who could blame her?

He’d been so sure of himself and of her—telling himself she was only denying her true impulses, rejecting them because they didn’t fit into her image of herself as a modern, independent woman. Under the guise of the thirty-day punishment, he’d planned to show her the potential power of true submission. He’d been confident he would be able to guide her and train her to accept and embrace her true nature.

Arrogant bastard. Who the fuck did he think he was?

Letting her go was the one right thing he’d done since this whole mess started. He would move on, put her out of his mind.

“If I never see Rae Johansen again, it will be too soon,” he said aloud to the empty room. Even before the words were out of his mouth, he knew they were a lie.

~*~

Rae woke up with her fingers buried in her cunt, the scent of her own sex ripe in the air. She let her legs fall open, lingering on the sensual feelings brought out by the dream that was already fading from her memory.

As she came fully awake, she jerked her hand away with a small cry and reached for the sheets. Sam might be watching on his closed-circuit TV! He’d punish her with a trip to the cage for touching herself. She hated the cage, hated being left there and ignored, unable to move or get comfortable until he decided she’d had enough.

Then she remembered.

She wasn’t in the dungeon. She was home, alone, free. She could touch herself as much as she wanted. There was no one watching, no one who gave a damn if she came without permission, or if she came at all.

Licking her fingers, she returned her hand to her pussy, ignoring the light throb of the cut on her palm, determined to rub herself to orgasm. It was
her
cunt,
her
body. She could do whatever the fuck she wanted.

She closed her eyes and willed the image of Johnny Depp, so sexy as the anti-hero in
The Libertine
, his liquid brown eyes mesmerizing her as his hand moved, buried in her crotch beneath her silk and taffeta as they rode toward London in their carriage…but it was Sam’s face she saw, with his blue-grey eyes flashing as he commanded her to come… C
ome for me…do it… now…

She is bent facedown over the padded sawhorse, a butt plug nestled fully inside her, the Hitachi wand whirring at her spread cunt. Her nipples throb from the clover clamps, weighted with lead teardrops. The wand is removed. She feels a lubricated dildo pressing its way inside her, sliding against the plug buried in her ass, separated only by the thin membrane between anus and cunt.

The wand returns, sending vibrations in concentric circles radiating from her clit into her full orifices, making her shake as the orgasm rises. She’s been tethered to the sawhorse for hours, teased nearly to orgasm again and again, always denied at the last second. This time, she knows, she won’t be able to hold back.

Don’t stop, she begs silently, don’t stop.

He doesn’t stop, but keeps moving the ball of the wand in teasing circles over her labia, flicking it lightly across her clit until she is panting and nearly faint with need.

“Please, Sir, may I come?”

Rae dropped her hand, her orgasm receding in the shock of realization at what she’d just done. Though he’d set her free, or if she were going to be more honest about it, kicked her out, Rae had just begged the man she was supposed to despise for permission to come. The man who had cut her with a knife, who had carved demeaning words on her body, who had raped her while she was bound and gagged.

Stop it
, she told herself.
Don’t dwell on it. It’s over. You’re free.

If it felt like she’d been abandoned and kicked unceremoniously to the curb, it was only some kind of weird Stockholm Syndrome reaction. She’d been conditioned to crave what he offered, trained on a diet of constant stimulation and deprivation. She wasn’t yet herself. She just needed time to recover. Time to put him and the whole sordid ordeal behind her.

She would start fresh. She would reinvent herself in a new city, maybe a new state! There was nothing and no one holding her in Manhattan. She’d burned every bridge. She was well and truly alone. And that was fine. Rae Johansen needed no one to feel complete. She was better off on her own. She didn’t need some man telling her when to pee, when to come, when to eat, when to think.

If she never saw Sam Ryker again, it would be too soon.

Rolling to her side, she ignored the trickle of tears sliding onto the sheets. Pulling the pillow over her head, she waited for exhaustion to pull her into sleep.

Rae touched her collar, which for some reason she still hadn’t removed. She’d even worn it when she went out for groceries and no one had batted an eye. This was, after all, Manhattan.

Opening her laptop, she went to her email, just in case he’d written.

Nothing.

She herself had typed several emails to Sam, hitting delete each time, the words all wrong. She told herself she should just let it go. Move on and put Sam Ryker and the whole strange experience from her mind.

She tried to tell herself he was a power hungry madman, a sadistic bastard who had blackmailed her into submission, but she knew that wasn’t true. Maybe at first he’d just been intent on getting revenge, but things had shifted between them. She wasn’t entirely sure how or when the change began, but it was real. And she couldn’t forget it. Her age-old tactic of stuffing things down and ignoring them was no longer working.

She could still hear his voice, ragged with pain and emotion as he tended to her cuts after the dangerous knife play.
I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
As odd as it was, even to her own ears, she’d fallen in love with him in that moment and she had no idea what to do about it.

It was that man she needed to reach, to tell. Even if she couldn’t have him, Rae felt she owed Sam at least something of the truth. Girding her courage, she tried again.

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

Subject: Sir

I don’t really know how to begin, so I guess I’ll do my usual and just dive right in, leaping before I look. When this whole thing started, I mean, when you busted me and offered your terms, I figured this was just your perverted way of getting into my pants again. You had backed me against the wall. I felt I had little choice.

Before I say anything else, I want to say how sorry I am that I stole from you, that I didn’t trust you enough to seek another solution. I can’t undo that, but I still plan to pay you back, no matter what else happens (or doesn’t) between us.

Back to these past weeks. I hated you at first, Sam. I guess you knew that, as I didn’t try to hide it. I was shocked and terrified to be held in your dungeon, chained and at your mercy. My god, who wouldn’t be? I’ve had a lot of time to think things over, both when you left me alone in the dungeon, and these past two days since I’ve been back at my place.

One thing I’ve realized is I have spent my whole life running as fast as I can to get away from myself. I know that sounds odd, but it’s true. I think somehow I figured if I kept moving, accomplishing things, making my way in the big bad world on my own, I wouldn’t have to slow down and realize how lonely I was, or that I really had no idea what I wanted or needed in my life.

I’ve never been in a committed relationship, not one where I really gave of myself, where I allowed myself to be vulnerable. I went to a shrink for a while in my early twenties—trying to figure out why I was unable to really click with anyone. Why I never felt that rush, that thrill that my girlfriends all seemed to feel when in the throes of a new relationship. The therapy didn’t go too far—I felt like I was being lectured and I just bagged it. I told myself I was too strong a woman to fall in love. Love was for weaklings, for women who needed to lean on a man to feel complete.

I never told the therapist I felt broken inside. Is that the right word? Like there was a connection missing, something that caused a short circuit every time I got close to a real feeling, to being vulnerable.

When we went out that time last year, the one time, the circuit was completed, maybe for the first time in my life. You told me I was hiding from my own feelings when I rejected the bondage and dominance you offered, and my reactions to it. I told you that you were just egocentric and used to getting whatever you wanted with a woman, and that we’d be better off being just friends and business associates.

But the truth was, I was terrified. Which is ironic, given that I’d always been seeking that kind of intensity of connection. But when you appeared, offering it, I ran for the hills! My therapist would have said it was me denying my real feelings so I could continue to stay safe from getting hurt. I was like this person encased in an impenetrable plastic bubble. Nobody was going to get in, period.

These past few weeks—I don’t know how to say this, but you managed to find a way in. I’m honestly not sure anyone could have reached me, not the way you have. Yes, your measures were drastic, even extreme. And yes, I know I’m supposed to be outraged and horrified at what you did to me—keeping me chained and enslaved, using me like an object, your personal property, your sex slave…

I
was
outraged and horrified. That wasn’t an act. But beneath it. OMG, Sam, beneath it, you were finally, for the first time, piercing the bubble I spent a lifetime building around my heart and soul. You reached me, that secret, vulnerable little girl place inside where I hide my true feelings and needs. You pulled away the curtains and tore down the walls.

You brought out feelings and desires I never knew I possessed. You showed me, whether you meant to or not, that at my core I am submissive. That I need what you gave me. I long for it. I miss it.

I want it back.

Remember when I said there was no
us
? I was lying. For the first time, I find I am part of an “us”, or at least I was, for those few weeks we spent together.

And now it’s gone.

And here I sit. Alone again, not sure how to find my way back to what I used to be. Knowing in my heart I don’t really want to.

Rae stared at what she’d written, not ready to send it, but not quite willing to delete it either. Without hitting the send button, she logged out of her email and closed the laptop lid.