Safeword Quinacridone (47 page)

He put the flogger down, picked up two with knotted rawhide falls, and stepped behind her, swinging them in a Florentine pattern. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew he never left her in this position for more than fifteen or twenty minutes, to keep her arms from falling asleep, but it didn’t matter. There was no logic in this moment, only the pain. Right right, left left, right right, left left. No time to recover, the knots surely raising welts as they hit.

It was all Cara could do to draw breath between the screams.

Her upper back and ass on fire, she was beyond remembering to breathe through the pain as she desperately fought her restraints through the frenzied lashing.

When the floggers finally stopped, her screams continued for several long seconds.

In her haze she saw him pick up the bullwhip and walk to her.

“What’s your safeword?”

“I... ummm. Quinacridone.”

“I love you Cara. Can I hurt you some more?”

“Please Travis.
Please
.”

“Tomorrow I plan to ask you to marry me. Don’t answer now. Just be prepared for the question. I know you probably won’t remember this, so I guess I’m asking this part of you now, as practice for proposing to other part of you later.”

Cara rose a tiny bit above the fog and out of her subspace just enough so the first impact of the bullwhip near her right shoulder-blade made her scream. A thought floated through her mind that the screams didn’t sound like her — she wasn’t even sure they sounded human. She heard him walking towards her, felt his hand a few inches above the strike. Heard herself crying. She didn’t know how many times he planned to hit her and she didn’t care. She didn’t want it to stop.

The next lash struck like a lightning bolt as fire slashed across her skin and into her core. She heard the screams again and sensed the tears running down her face, some trailing down her neck and the center of her chest, others splashing off the end of her jaw and landing on her breasts.

He stepped in front of her, like a mirage
. His hands came
towards her as if out of a funhouse mirror
,
and jerked
both nipple clamps, yanking them off. She screamed in agony and fought her restraints, frantic from the pain.

He turned and fiddled with the dials until electricity surged into the plug and she writhed helplessly in her bondage as the current rocketed through muscle, nerves, and flesh.

The expanding swarms of writhing agony finally faded, but she knew he’d likely programmed a sequence and she’d feel it again soon. He walked behind her and she heard the whip and felt the impact on her right ass cheek, immediately followed by another jolt that travelled up her rectum and into her colon as well as across the skin and muscles of her bottom. He gave her time to deal with the pain, but not enough, and suddenly her left ass cheek exploded in agony, instantly pursued by another shockwave to her ass. The current coursed through her rectal muscles, spasmed around the plug, and traveled through her tissues so they seemed to come out of her clit this time. She needed to squeeze her legs together, but couldn’t.

It happened twice more, right cheek, left cheek, and then he disconnected the wire but left the plug in her ass. She felt him release the ankle cuff tethers and unhook the spreader-bar from the wench above, her head too heavy to bother looking up. He walked her to a horizontal bar, bent her over it, and clipped her ankle cuffs to the spreader-bar still holding her wrists apart. She couldn’t move, with her head near the floor, arms and legs spread, and the world upside down behind her. She closed her eyes to block it out.

And then he was in her pussy, the hard steel plug still in her ass as he slammed into her for what seemed an eternity and she must’ve come dozens of times before she was begging him to stop, to give her a rest, but he kept hammering, ceaselessly fucking her like an engine, on and on and on. When he finally came she was just a rag doll draped over the bar, a pussy for him to fuck.

He disconnected the spreader-bar and helped her to bed before removing her wrist and ankle cuffs and arranging her over a cushion from the base of her ribcage to her hips. A large pillow supported shoulders and head, so her breasts had a canyon to rest; and a bolster supported her ankles, allowing her knees to bend and relax. His fingers gently probed her back and ass and she figured there must be some bleeding when he gently wiped her with a cool washcloth and liberally sprayed antiseptic. He took his time cleaning her up, getting his cum off her and situating a towel under her to catch what leaked out before tenderly rubbing cooling gel into portions of her back and ass. He cleaned her pussy again, changed the towel, and then just lay with her until she drifted off to sleep, floating somewhere in the clouds, anchored to earth only by the warmth of his body beside her.

Chapter Thirty-Three

When Cara awakened the next morning she was lying on her side with one leg and one arm thrown over Travis, who was flat on his back. She sleepily raised her eyes to his face to see him watching her.

“Good morning. How do you feel?” he asked.

She blinked a few times, trying to clear her vision. “How long’ve you been awake?”

“A while. I didn’t want to disturb you.” He smiled
,
his affection naked in his eyes. “I like watching you sleep.”

“And you’ve got an idea for some new application and needed quiet time to work through all the possibilities and ramifications, anyway.

He grinned, caught. “Yeah, that too. But I really do love to watch you sleep, and I asked you how you feel.”

“Fine, but I haven’t moved yet so the jury’s still out. To be honest, I’m afraid to find out, but I’ll have to soon. The bathroom calls.”

“Go slow, give yourself time. Your arms and shoulders always hurt after a long painting marathon, so you’ll have a whole lot of aches and pains when you start moving. My masseuse will be here tomorrow
.
I’d have had her come this afternoon but I think you need at least a day before you’re ready for her.”

Cara nodded her agreement. She’d been horrified the first time he wanted his massage therapist to work on her when she had welts and bruises, but the woman’s a Domme and perfectly comfortable massaging around the marks.

She moved her head, tensed her arms and shoulders, and said, “Yeah, the pool usually helps too. What do you have planned for the day? I don’t even know if it’s the weekend or not, are you going to the office?”

“I’ve accomplished so much over the past couple of days as I watched you work, I’m good to take a few days off. I’m learning how to judge your marathons and I told everyone yesterday I’d probably be unavailable till the first of next week. You have me all to yourself,” he grinned apologetically, “Though, tomorrow if you’re up to it I’d like to get your input on some designs for a new project, but... Sorry, no shop talk today. Let’s get you up and to the bathroom. If you want to swim we can skip the shower. I’ll have Deb bring breakfast out to the pool; your one-piece suit with the skirt should cover the marks.”

* * * *

Cara awoke later in the evening to discover she’d fallen asleep outside and Travis had erected a temporary awning over her to block the sun. He’d also situated a fan to blow a gentle breeze over them, and he reclined in a lounger beside her reading an ebook or — more likely — a tech magazine or specs for a new gaming device.

“You spoil me.”

He looked up from his e-reader, smiling. “Of course I do. It’s my job. Hungry?”

“Thirsty. Maybe a little hungry. Actually, yeah. I’m starving.”

He stood, stretched his lean body, and walked a few feet to a cooler and pulled a bottle of water out, opening it as he stepped back. “Deb put some steaks and giant portobellos in to marinate before she left, and put baked potatoes in the warming oven. I’ll fire up the grill and we’ll be eating before you know it.”

Cara thought she remembered him asking her to marry her last night but it was hazy and she wasn’t sure how to bring it up. She let him fuss around her, grilling the steaks and huge mushrooms and setting the table on the screened in porch. It was during their dinner conversation she finally blurted, “I think I may have been hallucinating last night, while in subspace.”

He smiled at her and she instantly knew she wasn’t delusional and her stomach leapt into her heart.

“Ah, so you do remember. Don’t answer just yet. I’d planned to ask you after dinner. Give me a sec.”

He stood and walked into the house, returning with a velvet jewelry box. He stepped to her and dropped to one knee, saying, “When you moved in with me you told me you had no interest in getting married. I love having you here and I thought it’d be enough.”

His eyes held hers, the emotion almost overwhelming as he continued. “But the truth is I want you to be my wife. You’re so much more than a girlfriend, and I know it’s cliché but it really is as if you complete me. It’s more than just a piece of paper
.
I want us to have the legal protections marriage will give us. I want your name on the house, and you in a safer car; and if something happened — a car wreck or illness — I’d want to talk to the doctors and make decisions if you couldn’t. And the same if I were hurt, I’d much rather you make medical decisions than my parents. Please Cara, please at least consider being my wife.”

“You’ve put a lot of thought into this.”

He leaned forward and rested his forehead on her knee. “Yes. Please don’t torture me.”

Cara ran her hands through his hair, waiting for the second part, as she knew him well enough to know there’d be more. After a few moments she finally said, “Let’s have the rest of it. You’ve put this much thought into it, what else is there?”

“The next part only comes into play if you say yes to the first question. How’d you know there’s more?”

“There always is with you. Anything big comes in multiple parts.”

He was quiet a moment as he considered her words, then shrugged, “Okay, maybe it does. Will you marry me?”

“I meant what I said before
. O
ur love shouldn’t need a piece of paper for proof. However, I hadn’t thought about the doctor thing, and I know how you are about legal stuff, so I guess I can sort of understand why it’s more important to you than me. All of your hacking and retaliation managed to play out without the police questioning us, but I know your safety plan, if they’d started asking questions, was to try to get me to marry you so they couldn’t insist I tell them about your activities.”

She shook her head, glad she’d been able to convince him to do only a few things outside the legal system. She’d approved of him sending the hundred grand to an offshore account, with the idea it would eventually go to David’s son to pay for college. Connie ended up facing criminal charges and civil lawsuits for recording people without their knowledge or consent, and though she didn’t do jail time, her legal costs, fines, and other assorted expenses were in the tens of thousands of dollars. As for the tabloid owner, information surfaced proving he’d illegally hacked cell phone towers for information, and his bail agreement forbid him from deriving an income as a journalist or photographer. He still faced numerous criminal charges and civil suits, and was currently making deliveries for his sister’s florist shop with no hope of paying his mounting debts and every reason to believe he’d go to prison when his attorneys could no longer postpone his trial.

She grinned, thinking of how much nicer the paparazzi were to her now. She was still followed, but from more of a distance, and while a picture from twenty yards away with a zoom lens may look the same as one taken from five feet, it felt less intrusive when the flash went off.

Cara looked at him a moment, considering whether she truly wanted to take this step. Smiling, she said, “I’m earning enough to buy myself a different car if I want one but it’s only three years old and I like it. When I need another I’ll buy my own car, married or not.”

He growled in frustration. “Forget the car then, it’s not a condition. Will you marry me, Cara Jamieson?”

He was so serious, and this so important to him, how could she turn him down? She really did love him more than she’d ever thought possible. She put her hands in his hair on either side of his face and bent forward, enjoying the rare occasion to take control physically. She kissed him until he was breathless, and sat up, rather proud of herself. “Yes, but no big ceremony. Maybe we can make a quick trip to Vegas or something, and have it over and done with before the gossip catches on.”

“Really? You’ll marry me?”

“As long as I don’t have to walk down an aisle with a bunch of people looking at me, or have to deal with nosy questions from strangers before the wedding.”

Travis put the ring on her finger, stood, and pulled her up to him, wrapping his arms around the small of her back where there were no bruises or welts. “I love you so much,” his lips descended on hers, another of those soul shattering make-your-knees-go-weak moments and she was glad he held her. His kisses to her were so much better than hers to him.