Rough Play (12 page)

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Authors: Christina Crooks

BOOK: Rough Play
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“It’s that bad.”
“I’ll judge for myself.” He stepped closer, as if unable to help himself. She could feel the heat radiating from his body. She tried to wiggle her body closer to his.
“Charlotte?” He tilted her head up to his, looked deeply into her eyes. “Your fear and lust radiate on a certain, special wavelength. People like me pick up on it.” He took the tiny step closer, which effectively ended the second thoughts starting to rise in her mind. His enormous bulge pressed firmly against where she wanted it most.
“Feel, Charlotte. I know you want this, too, and everything else I can make you feel. So tell me, what is it you keep thinking that makes you frown even when your body’s begging for mine? Hmmm?” He thrust against her, once.
She gasped at the pleasure of it. She tried desperately to remain in control. “I’m not a submissive.”
“There’s no shame in being a submissive.”
“There is. Shame and danger. I don’t have a slave’s heart.”
“The ex.”
“Yes.”
“You’re my patient here, tonight. Not my slave.” He looked at her, inquisitive. “Charlotte, I’ll stop anytime you like. Just say ‘red’ and all play ends.” His body against hers managed to feel both comforting and enormously stimulating.
Then he kissed the top of her head.
Her heart thudded hard in response to the unexpected affection.
This was beyond dangerous. Betrayal, pain, degradation awaited. Most of all, the spirit-shriveling degradation.
The scar on her thigh throbbed, a reminder.
“I can’t . . .”
“Tell me.” His voice in her ear, soft as thought. She felt his smile against her cheek. “You can tell me anything. I’m your doctor.”
She had to smile at that, then gasp as he moved against her again. “It’s complicated.”
“Pleasure isn’t complicated.”
“The fallout can be.”
“Not this time.”
She looked up. There was a nearly audible click as their gazes met. He stroked her arms, her outer thighs . . . then his hand stilled. His fingers investigated the skin on her outer left thigh.
She knew he felt raised scar tissue that was almost, but not quite, in the shape of an ornate, lowercase
k
.
Her Gorean slave brand.
10
G
regory held a flashlight in each hand as he led the evening’s second tour group down into the city’s bowels.
Halloween would be the jam-packed tour. But the weeks leading up to Halloween boasted the next largest numbers of ghost hunters signing up for a late-night thrill, his predecessor had said.
Seems he was right.
Nearly a sold-out group. Gregory had had to shout to convey the spiel to all fifty people. Though most of them seemed to ignore the overview and safety instructions.
It wasn’t the juicy part.
The tour promised a “unique, once-in-a-lifetime, authentic” ghost tour.
Gregory should be happy, would’ve been happy, except, well, the undertunnels were creepy. He’d never realized quite how creepy.
Not, of course, because the old, interconnecting rooms and the pits beneath were haunted. They were just dirty and claustrophobic. Probably filled with rodents and insects. Doubtless the air quality was bad.
He breathed fast and shallow, holding one of the flashlights thrust forward, a sword of light spearing the dusty darkness. He strode farther into the forsaken rooms. They were simply neglected spaces, not pits of doom, and it was no big deal. He did a job. He explained the remnants of clothes and furniture. He told stories.
Dark fairy tales.
He listened to the murmurs and nervous laughter of the record-breaking crowd in between stops.
As Gregory reported instances of people hearing odd noises, he listened to the murmurs and laughter die down as they tried to hear the noises, too. He pointed out the remains of prison cells in one dreary room. He elaborated upon the bloody history behind the pile of rusty old bedsprings.
Oh, yes, his crowd was affected. Maybe he wasn’t half bad at this gig after all. They wanted to be titillated and scared, and he was delivering the goods.
Though there were some inexplicable noises.
He preferred not to think about them.
Gregory cleared his throat, continued the tour. The group huddled close, the occasional camera flash capturing portraits from the previous century—a small china doll, an old stain in the shape of a body, and numerous broken pieces of furniture that may or may not have been used by the abducted men and women imprisoned there.
Perhaps the ghost hunters foolishly thought the strangely random, moist blasts of air were the exhalations of disembodied spirits.
Gregory didn’t. He did, however, hold the other flashlight closer to his body. He liked the heft of it, and he really liked the beam of light illuminating the perfectly ordinary dust.
Other beams of light from other flashlights arced past him, around him, congregating on the holding cells. All the moving lights were making him feel strangely dizzy. Or maybe it was the poor air quality.
It was when they arrived at the deepest, most remote part of the tour that he heard the noise.
The distinct sound of a whip being applied to bare flesh. And, the shriek of pain on impact.
His speech stumbled.
Everyone grew silent. He let the silence stretch.
Gregory knew it was only someone inside the fetish club. Those people did odd sexual things, perverse and dangerous things, to each other. They enjoyed it.
But even as he smiled a showman’s smile, wanting to feel smug, Gregory felt a chill crawl up his spine and freeze his rehearsed speech. The fetish club should be too far away to hear so clearly.
The crowd of ghost hunters marveled at the acoustical emanation of tormented souls.
The whipping had stopped. The sound of a woman crying—a desolate, heartbreaking expression of grief—could clearly be heard.
It sounded real.
It sounded . . . haunted.
His crowd milled uncertainly. Gregory could feel panic in the air.
He suddenly realized they might stampede, hurting each other. Hurting him. Definitely hurting his business.
Gregory improvised desperately. “The century-old ghost of an abducted woman, named Lilli, is rarely heard. It seems she has, she really has revealed herself to us.” Gregory licked his lips. His voice trembled, but that only enhanced the tale. “Once captured and bundled away from daylight and everyone she’d ever known, Lilli refused to submit to her captors. They tried the usual tactics employed in breaking a woman: withholding food, leaving her in isolation and darkness, applying dreadful indignities to her person. Still she rebelled, until they decided to make an example of her.”
The room was silent except for the ghostly echoes of a woman sobbing.
“The most evil of the crimpers, a man named Dunthor who prided himself on the creation of docile prostitutes, stripped her naked and bound her facedown to one of those mattresses.” He pointed to the pile of rusty bedsprings, which was all that remained of the beds. “He proceeded to whip her mercilessly with a very cruel weapon, a cat o’ nines embedded with sharp slivers of glass. An inappropriate tool to use on even the most mutinous of shipboard louts, he used on her poor flesh until skin and muscle was nothing but raw hamburger.” Did they have hamburger back then? Gregory didn’t know, but he could hear the shocked gasps of women in the group and figured it didn’t matter.
He aimed a beam of light at the ceiling, at a square of old wood. “The brave, spirited Lilli didn’t have a chance. But though she screamed herself hoarse, she never broke. Rebellious to the end, she cursed Dunthor. He finally gave up. Furious and humiliated, Dunthor dumped her body, still alive, down through the trapdoor you see above, into a pit. Into this pit, as a matter of fact.
“In time—no one knows how long—she succumbed to her injuries. But her ghost lingers.”
Gregory felt a strange tightness in his throat and nausea in his belly. He’d made it up, every gruesome detail. The trapdoor was real, but everything else pure invention. And yet his body quivered with panic and an enormous sadness. It felt as if he were channeling something real, some insistent soul’s story . . . which was ridiculous! There was no Lilli!
The crying woman had finally fallen silent.
“I’m sorry, Lilli,” he whispered. His words echoed.
Thoroughly unnerved, Gregory pushed through the group, which parted in silence.
“The tour is completed,” he announced. He spoke over objections, launching into the closing spiel and cautioning them to watch their heads as they ascended steps under low cement blocks and exposed pipe. “There will be another ghost tour tomorrow night,” he concluded. “And, of course, the extraspooky Halloween tour. Tell your friends.”
He knew they would.
The whipping and crying had sounded real.
Gregory held two flashlights before him, twin lightsabers of reason. When the last of the group departed, he shook his head and all but ran up the narrow staircase leading to the fresher air above.
11
C
harlotte remembered the smell of burning flesh, fragrant like a kind of meat. The skin on her leg had sizzled, the hot iron brand hissing. The kiss of pain progressed relentlessly, penetrating with each microsecond into deeper and deeper agony.
She remembered screaming.
Helpless in Cory’s ropes, knotted tightly like an animal, she’d still managed to jerk away from the hot brand.
Lodged within her flesh, the iron had ripped her open, ruining the brand’s precise edges.
She’d been marked for life.
White with shock, Cory had apologized. He’d helped her to the bathroom to vomit. He’d held her as she’d choked and sobbed.
When she asked for a divorce, he’d let her go without the fight she’d expected. He said he was sorry he couldn’t give her what she needed sexually. He’d said he forgave her for being the way she was.
He
forgave
her
.
Martin tapped his finger on the raised flesh. “What is this?”
She felt her lips thin and tighten. “What does it look like?”
He gazed at it. “Like . . . a two-headed kangaroo in quicksand? No?”
“This isn’t a Rorschach test.”
He heard her tone. “I know it’s not. I’m just trying to minimize what appears to be its tense-making effect on you.” His thumb caressed her. “Where’d you get the scar, Charlotte? I really want to know.”
She couldn’t help smiling a little as she threw his words back at him. “It’s good to want things.”
He gave her a stern look. “You trust me, but not completely. It won’t do.”
He moved against her, ever so slightly. “I’ll just have to distract you.” The length of him throbbed against her. She leaned into him as far as the thigh restraints would allow. He felt so good.
“I will get to the bottom of you.”
She shivered at the promise in his words. Her body yearned for his despite her vigilance. He’d seen her gruesome scar and he wanted her anyway. Impossible to disbelieve; his erection pushed at her.
The tense core of tightness inside her relaxed further.
She wanted more of him. All of him.
At the moment, she wanted Martin to unzip his pants and shove his cock inside her. Just like the movies of the two of them together. Was that too much to ask? She looked at him under lowered lids. “I’m very sick, Doctor. I think you’ve realized I like men who are rough with me. I’m not sure we have time for a pill. You’d better give me an injection.”
“Self-diagnosing is frowned on in my office.” But he leaned in for another teasing fabric-covered thrust. His dark pants were wildly tented now. “You’re being a very difficult patient.”
“Cure me,” she invited. She tried to thrust back at him, but the restraints held her by the legs.
“Naughty Charlotte. I think it’s time you remembered who’s in charge here.”
With economical movements, he fetched a small blue jar from the counter. “This should help you focus.” He held it before her.
“Vicks VapoRub?”
He opened the top of the jar, dipped a large finger in, scooping out a small amount of pungent white jelly.
She began shaking her head. “Oh no you don’t.”
“Oh yes I do.” He rubbed his forefinger and thumb together, spreading it thin. Then without further words, he applied it between her legs.
At first, the slippery sensation electrified. Then it ratcheted up to a turn-on too quickly. “Oh!”
“Your mind’s in the right place now, isn’t it?” His fingers were deft, stroking, massaging all around her clit without quite touching it. She trembled, every inch of her yearning for him. Her belly felt deliciously fluttery as he continued above, below, in sensual circles that made her sigh and gasp with pleasure.
The menthol scent and Martin’s devious smile seared itself into her memory. He’d somehow managed to relegate her scar, and all it represented, to unimportance. She knew that whatever else happened between them, she’d cherish this moment for the rest of her life.
Her heart softened further toward him. A need beyond the physical craving spread through her body. He’d awakening an ache of longing inside her that encompassed more than sex.
Distracted by it, she suddenly realized the stimulating sensations had ignited. Everywhere his fingers went, the coolness heated. Heat on heat. Almost burning.
“Oh.” She shifted, unsettled. “That’s . . . wow.”
He tapped his now-empty fingers on her leg. “Yes. Where were we? I was asking you where you got this scar.”
“Oh, that’s intense.” She shifted again. It felt like liquid fire. Not like the brand’s agony. More like a prickly sunburn. Charlotte shifted. Martin was correct. Her mind was now quite focused on the fire between her legs.
“I’d also like to know why you abandoned me to hang in my shackles. The first woman I play with in ages, the first woman I’ve
ever
let lock me onto a St. Andrew’s Cross, and she runs scared the moment I mention she’s a natural submissive. Now why might that be? Charlotte?”
“What?” She shifted again.
“You aren’t paying attention.”
She bared her teeth at him. “So punish me.”
He grinned back. Then lowered his head. And blew on her.
She squirmed at the sudden icy chill in her nether bits. “Oh, no! Cold! It’s cold!”
“Yes. That’s without putting any directly on your clit. If I have to take an extreme therapy method, I assure you I will do that, and more.” He lowered his head, but instead of a cool blast of air, she felt the warm, moist tip of his tongue touch her where she was most sensitive.
She shouted. How had he managed to bring her right to the brink so quickly?
“You’re not playing doctor, you’re playing inquisitor!” she accused when she could. She considered. “Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.”
He laughed. To her great mortification, she realized she could feel new wetness between her legs. Her muscles clenched involuntarily. The sight of his head between her legs, his tongue so near, had her aching. “Oh, come on!”
He stood up instead, watching her with a mocking smile. “Tell me what you’re afraid of,” he suggested. “Why’d you run from me? Does it have to do with this?” He leaned to the side, caressed her scar with his tongue. The raw eroticism made her catch her breath. The tenderness tugged at her heart. She could feel his mouth’s heat.
“Please,” she whispered.
“Please what?” His voice, a low whisper. His fingers drifted across her thigh to her center, grazing lightly. In their wake she felt the flare of menthol. When his thumb began to gently circle her clit, a steady glide that teased, she moaned.
“You know what,” she finally managed.
“Say it.”
“You. I need you.”
“You need what you fear.”
“Yes.” The tickle from a single rivulet of sweat ran down her chest to her belly, disappearing into the narrow shaved triangle of her pubic hair.
“But I haven’t given you anything much to fear.” He smiled. “Yet.” His gentle tone didn’t alter, but she shuddered, her pleasure spiking.
He lifted his thumb immediately, moved his hand to her throat. Then stroked down, his hand trailing sensuously over her throat, across the expanse of her chest, up the swell of a breast to rub her nipple slowly and rhythmically between thumb and forefinger. “At my mercy. But guess what?” He leaned in, sharing the nimbus of his warm scent and the hint of musk already so familiar to her on such short acquaintance. “I have none.”
His murmur, paired with his clever fingers, made her shudder again.
He brought his other hand into play, on her other nipple. He tweaked it, bringing a gasp from her. “Just testing the nerve endings of your breasts. Pressure. Pain tolerance.” He pinched hard with both hands for a long moment, and she cried out.
“Normal.”
“No. I’m not.” Her twisted fantasies couldn’t be normal, or healthy. But she was here. She wasn’t saying “red” despite his sadistic touches.
“Let’s try something new and exciting, Charlotte. Well, exciting for me.” He opened a drawer nearby, brought out two small clips shaped like the heads of reptiles. “They have little teeth, see? Like an alligator. I like to make my toys unique.” He snapped one onto a nipple with practiced ease.
She yelped.
“A little painful, isn’t it? Like the little creature has your teat in its tiny jaws. It won’t damage you, the tension’s adjusted . . . but you can say ‘red’ anytime if this gets too much for you. Personally, I think you can take a lot more. You need a lot more. Don’t you?” He snapped the second one onto her other nipple. The sharp, sweet pain shot through her body like lightning.
Her brain began to feel pleasantly buzzy. “I need . . .”
“Let’s focus on symptoms, shall we?” His professional tone and the sudden coolness on her perspiring skin brought her back. He was fetching a stainless steel tool from the counter. Something sharp? She craned to look.
“A Wartenburg wheel. A legitimate medical tool, not one of my creations. See? Just a small, spoked wheel with needle-sharp points. Professionals like myself use it to test skin sensitivity.” He ran it up her leg from knee to groin. She jerked, then stilled. Ticklish.
“You’re thinking it tickles. It’s supposed to. But the more firmly I press, the stronger the sensation. See?” This time he pushed it harder and moved it more slowly, letting her feel each one of the sharp points as it traveled down her thigh. “Hold still,” he commanded when she squirmed.
She did her best.
Something he said sank in. “You make these? Fetish toys?” She craned to look at her nipples. The unique clamps and delicate chains glittered like jewelry. “Cool.”
“Thank you.” He flicked the chain, punctuating his words with more biting sweetness. The ache between her legs grew to a desperate yearning.
The tiny wheel’s needles didn’t rest in any one spot long enough to truly hurt, but they pricked her with rapid-fire stings as Martin rolled it down her body. The more she tried to block it out, the harder he pressed, the stingier it got. A sweet itch seemed to spread from each point, pain turning to relief turning to pleasure. She lost herself in contemplation of the sharp sensations, examining the tiny hurts as if they were something outside of her.
She wondered anew how Martin could call her normal. A normal person would be screaming bloody murder for the discomfort to stop, not analyzing it. Certainly not transmuting the little pains into pleasure.
He stopped. “Normal.”
She hissed with frustration.
He laughed again, opened another drawer.
With a deft flick of each wrist, he withdrew and slipped on black gloves that clung like a second skin. He presented his palms: an array of small sharp points sprouted from each glove.
“This is one of my latest toys. When I release your leg restraints to turn you on your side, you will not resist or struggle in any way.” He did, and as he turned her onto her side, she felt the glove’s pointy nubs.
The clamps tugged at her nipples. The slippery skin between her legs ached. She’d lost all will to resist. Floating in a kind of euphoric daze, she merely waited for the next sensation.
The table’s paper bunched up under her body. “This may pinch for a moment. Or possibly more than a moment.” He proceeded to spank her.
Though his stroke wasn’t hard, the sting was fierce.
She struggled. He immediately pinned her with his left hand. “No.”
Yet when he started spanking again, the tiny spikes drilling into the skin of her buttocks, the pain had her howling within moments.
“Are my vampire gloves too much?”
“Too much?” She panted, lying on her side. Her ass blazed its pain. And something more. Her vision was blurred, her eyes hot and wet. It took her a long moment to realize they were wet with tears. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything. You can’t hurt me. Nobody is supposed to hurt me.”
“Hurt you? I’m trying to help you.” He waited a moment, then spanked her harder. She groaned helplessly. “To reach you.” He used one hand on her ass and brought the other up to her chest to tap her breasts, jiggling the alligator teeth.
Between the bite of the clamps and the tiny needles of the gloves pricking her breasts, and the rough spanking, she felt enfolded in pain. Then nearly overwhelmed by it. “To solve the mystery of you, Charlotte.”
Though she tried very hard not to cry out, the spanking soon had her gasping, her tears flowing freely.
“Would you like to be helped, Charlotte? Are you ready to talk about it? Will you tell me why you ran from me? Will you tell me how you got this?” His sadistic glove scraped her scar lightly.
“No,” she breathed, desperate, full of a delicious tension. She didn’t want it to stop. She was wetter than she’d ever been. She felt inflamed and fierce with a desire to shock him, rock him, provoke him.

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