Her Troika (28 page)

Earlier this weekend, Derek had been sure he’d walk away from this place and never come back. Now, part of him wasn’t sure if he ever wanted to leave.

Lino winked. “Yes, I think we will see you again.” Then he gave Kurt a nod, and walked off with nothing more than a parting wave of his hand.

“What the hell is this ... trail?”

Apparently, the rabbit hole went deeper still.

Kurt took up his wife’s lead. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

Chapter Twenty Two

F
ire slashed across her ass, startling her, and she lunged against the harness, the straps wrapped around the traces groaning at the sudden strain.

“Slow walk, Breanna,” Kurt said behind her. “You’ve got a long way to go yet. Don’t want you getting worn out, do we?”

She looked up ahead, and her heart sank. It seemed to be all hill.

They’d walked her to the back of the property, farther than she and Kurt had ever walked … before she’d been reduced to something less than a woman.

The farm’s site nestled against the base of a complex of foothills and buttes at its northern edge, and at this boundary, a narrow dirt track had been cut into the earth. Blue-gray sagebrush, deep green scotch broom and dormant yellow scrub grass dominated the land, with the occasional buzzing bee flitting between the few bright flowers that dotted the landscape here and there.

The men followed the trail, urging her along, not saying a word either to her or one another. Derek walked on her left, the feel of his body close by a comforting, and vaguely disconcerting presence. His gaze never quite met hers as they walked, though occasionally he would reach out, palming the heat of her punished buttocks, or slicking fingers through the sweat dripping between her breasts.

Kurt, opposite his friend, held the reins close, each movement of his arm imparted directly to her sensitive lips by the rubber coated bit. She’d stopped trying to collect the saliva at the corners of her mouth, and occasionally some would escape, coating her chin, a sheen slickening the bouncing breasts that the stiff posture collar ensured she could feel, but not see. It was mortifying to her, and she felt sure it made her ugly, but when her husband’s cool eyes looked upon her, disgust was not what she beheld in the depths of his gaze.

It was lust.

That he could still desire her, even in this degraded,
subhuman
state, was something she could never have hoped for, never have considered as something even within the realm of possibility. This was a part of the fantasy that most discomfited her, this reduction, to something less … but something more.

In her mind’s eye she always saw the pleasure, envisioned the sex, the pain, the rough, even callous, treatment of her helpless body. But it was the degradation of her human status that both most fascinated, and most disturbed her. Why had she always dreamt of this? Of course, she’d asked herself that very question countless times. Was it to experience that which she’d never felt in her “real” life? A successful lawyer, a respected legal mind, and a tough-as-nails opponent. Those phrases would describe her in her daily life. But was it really her? Did those accomplishments, those credentials, really mean anything to her? To the woman, to the being, she felt she was inside? Why did all the letters after her name leave her empty, but the simple act of men treating her like an animal speak to her in a visceral, instinctive,
vital
way?

Was it even possible for that high-powered, liberated career woman to exist in the same body with this person who felt this need, this pull, to explore the deepest, darkest waters of her sexuality? Could it be that her sexuality was the very reason she’d conquered everything else she’d sought out to do in life? She’d always marveled at the paradoxical nature of submission; a woman choosing to relinquish power was committing an act of
supreme
bravery, something not at all for those more timid creatures of this world. Yet, as she trudged onward, utterly subject to these two strict men, she was feeling anything but brave.

More like disturbingly aroused, slut.

Another stinging flick of the whip put her up on the balls of her feet, her ass beginning to feel the effects of the strokes each of the men had laid down across her buttocks as she’d run that track. The path turned up the hill, the bunched green boughs of two giant Ponderosa pines reaching over the trailhead, their shadows throwing a hush over the trail as they passed below.

As they hit the first incline, the weight of the cart began to tell, and she had to lean into it, pulling harder. She couldn’t imagine having to do it with one of the big men in the cart behind her, laying agonizing strokes across her bottom, imploring her to
pull
.

Fortunately, though relentlessly uphill, the dust sometimes rising up into her face as her boots dug into the dirt, the slope was relatively gentle, the trail stretching like a ribbon across the face of the hillside.

“Come on girl, keep going,” Kurt said, pulling on the reins. “We’ll rest at the top — and we’ll put you to some different work.”

“How long have you been working on this?” Derek said. “This must’ve taken forever.”

“Couple months, at least.” Kurt pulled on the reins again. “Lino’s had a couple crews just on this hill, but a bunch more on the rest of it.”

“You mean there’s more than this?” Derek cursed under his breath.

“Oh yeah, quite a bit more — and it might be expanded soon, if things fall into place. This thing runs all the way around the northern lot line, then back down through the farm proper. There’s a spur line they’re working on too. Stretches miles northeast up into the hills. This part has the best view though.”

“I didn’t see any horses back there.” Derek looked back toward the farm. “Hiking trail?”

“Of a sort,” Kurt said, with a wink.

Her breath rasped around the bit, sweat now sluicing down her body, wetting the top of the harness, the cruel saddle strap between her legs slick with it. Mercifully, it lent a modicum of lubrication to the otherwise galling strap.

Kurt slapped her flank with the ends of the reins. “Just a little further, girl. I can see we’ve still got a lot of work to do here though. You aren’t even carrying us, and you’re winded.”

“We ran her ass ragged around the track for half an hour, dude. Then made her drag this cart up a hill.” Derek patted her belly. “I think she’s doing just fine, all things considered.”

She caught the quick, sharp look Kurt shot Derek, but wasn’t sure what to make of it.

“I think she should be whipped.”

Breanna stumbled, her husband’s tight grip on the reins pulling her up short. “Do you disagree with that idea, girl?”

She shook her head, knowing the correct answer, whether it was fair or not. When she’d agreed to this, she knew she wasn’t signing up for
fair
. And maybe that was part of the appeal. She’d have to analyze that one later — when she wasn’t toiling between the traces of a pony cart, led along by reins like an animal.

Breanna, what in God’s name have you gotten yourself into here?

What a stupid question that was! She’d signed up for anything, and everything. She’d wanted everything taken away, no choice left to her — yet to still feel safe. It hadn’t ever seemed possible before, that is until she’d met Kurt those many years ago. The desires weren’t even fully formed then, but she could see the general outline of them, feel that there was much more just below the surface. And now? Now, she’d dived so deep she wasn’t sure which direction was up anymore, lost in the lust, the fantasy world her husband had helped her realize. And somehow, having Derek there with them, seeing how he’d changed, feeling how he was discovering things about himself as they went along, somehow that added a whole other delicious level to what was happening, three journeys converging, merging into a single course. She didn’t know where it ended, how it ended, but taking a chance was worth it, knowing that the journey itself was just as important as the destination.

The possessive grip of Derek’s hand squeezing her bottom brought her out of her reverie. “She’s obeyed us, hasn’t she? She’s tried to do what we’ve told her — at least it looks like it to me.”

“Oh sure, she’s obeyed. I still think she should be whipped though.”

Breanna’s breath caught in her throat. A thickness had crept into Kurt’s voice, one she was very familiar with. She felt her nipples tighten into stony points.

“Why, Kurt?”

Kurt slowed his pace, glancing at Derek. “Because I want to whip her. You don’t have a problem with that idea do you?”

“I didn’t say that.”

The rumbling tone of Derek’s voice told her that any hopes she might have entertained about him gallantly rescuing her from a skipping were gone.

Thank God.

“Okay, but I’m wondering,” Kurt said, his hand tightening on the reins. “After all this, you still wouldn’t like to just whip her, make her cry out, simply because you liked it?”

“I didn’t say that either.”

Kurt’s chuckle was rich with pleasure. “I knew this was a good idea.”

Oh, shit.

Breanna’s mouth went dry, despite her bit. Was she nervous because she was definitely about to be punished, or because apparently, the very thought excited both of the men? How did she feel about that? That both her husband, and this new, wonderful man, might actually harbor the urge to hurt her, sexually?

The stirring deep in her belly and the throb of her swollen, saddle strap inflamed clit answered that question. Her body shuddered even as she trudged onward to the relentless pull of Kurt’s arm.

Finally, they reached the crest of the hill, and the trail widened out into a sort of turn-about, a cluster of tall Ponderosa pine offering blessed shade. A small wood-framed structure, about the size of a phone booth stood on one side of the turnabout. The sun-faded trunk of a huge tree, long denuded of its branches, lay along the edge of the trail, the Breanna stood, drinking in the dramatic view even as her chest heaved, lungs working like a bellows.

“Damn, now I see why you guys went to the trouble,” Derek murmured, leaning an elbow on the trunk to look down the hillside. He slapped a hand down on the weathered bark. “And I can see why you didn’t bother moving this big bitch. Unreal how the tree fell this way.”

“The old owner said it blew down in a windstorm in ‘81,” Kurt said, stooping to unwrap the straps of her harness from the traces. “Said he couldn’t find a crew who wanted to tackle hauling it away. Too dangerous — yet there it is still, all these years later.”

“Um, care to tell me what you’re doing, Kurt?”

Breanna lurched forward on rubbery legs, following the tug of her reins as he pulled her free from the traces.

“Come over here and help me get her arms loose.”

Oh yes, please!

The thought of getting her hands free was appealing indeed; her arms were already growing stiff, and she knew she’d be feeling this in her shoulders in the morning.

Their strong fingers worked at the straps that bound her arms, and finally she was able to straighten them, the regained freedom blessed to her.

“Any tingling? Pins and needles?” Kurt’s brow furrowed, his eyes boring into hers.

She shook her head, her lips trying to form a smile through the enforced rictus of the bit. Amazingly, other than a little surface numbness where the straps pressed tightest, she didn’t have any trouble at all. Whoever manufactured that harness definitely knew what they were doing.

“Get on your knees, Breanna.” Kurt undid his belt.

Whoa, what?

Derek came up behind her, gripping her shoulders. Thankfully, he helped her kneel, her legs leaden with fatigue. A hard twig dug into one knee, but she ignored it — even with the discomfort, kneeling was far superior to standing now.

She watched Kurt’s big hands open his fly, then reach out to caress her chin. She looked up at him, the hard glint in his eyes making her breath catch, her clit thrum.

Yes...

“I’ve been waiting too long today, Breanna,” Kurt said, glancing at Derek then back down to her. “All day we’ve watched that pretty ass jiggling, those hips swaying, and those big tits of yours bouncing. We got to see how your flesh took the whip, how the color deepened, the marks darkening. What do you think should be done about that?” Kurt’s head tilted. “Do you think there might be a way to provide me some relief from that torture?”

God, yes…

She lifted her chin, and nodded, her gaze locked with his.

“Good,” Kurt said, with that quick smile of his that made her tingle. “Then we understand one another.”

“You’ll relieve both of us,” Derek said into her ear, his hands pulling loose the straps at her nape. “You’re going to show your husband how thankful you are for this. You’ll be a good girl — then you’ll thank me too.”

The bit slid from between her lips, a long, glistening string of saliva following, then breaking to leave a line of moisture down the side her chin. The heat flared in her cheeks, and she dropped her gaze.

Despite everything that had been done to her, despite kneeling between them, in the dust, she still felt shame at appearing dirty or unclean, still worried that her degraded status as a ponygirl somehow lessened her value in their eyes. She knew it made no sense to crave the humiliation, the objectification, but at the same time feel in danger of losing her personhood. But she trusted her husband when he’d told her there wasn’t a single thing they could do together that would make her any less in his eyes, make her anything other than the love of his life.