Shackled (5 page)

She supposed she had it in the back of her mind that there would be lots of sex—in the dark of night with the lights off.
I think I better get that idea right out of my head.

One of the books she’d read in the last few months contained the nugget that when subs were alone with their masters, they were most usually naked.

Well, duh, didn’t he just say you were going to mostly be naked for the next week?

She looked around for someplace to put her purse, and then realized the only place to put anything at all was into Jonathan’s rather large and hopefully capable hands.

She handed him her bag and then her shoes. It didn’t take long to remove her blouse and skirt.

“You are absolutely gorgeous.”

Jonathan’s praise didn’t sit comfortably on her. Because her marriage had been full of lies, not just Tim’s lies to her but, in the end, her huge lie to him, she wanted this new relationship, for however long it lasted, to be based in honesty. “Please. You don’t have to do that. I look in the mirror every day. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want this. You don’t have to give me compliments. I’m good without them.”

Bethany didn’t know what she expected Jonathan’s response to that would be. His instant anger shocked her.

“By God, that’s enough! That is the
last
time you are going to say anything derogatory about yourself. Since I’ve already chastised you once for this transgression, back at the club, you leave me no choice but to discipline you.”

“Discipline me?” A curious combination of shivers, part excitement, part dread, began to dance through her. Jonathan took her hand and led her—no, he
pulled
her—through the house, up the stairs and down a hallway. He stopped at a closed door, closed when the others they’d passed had all been open. Inside this room were toys and tools, some of which, in the few seconds she had to take note of them, she recognized from the reading she’d done on BDSM.

Jonathan moved so fast she didn’t have a moment to think or protest. He pulled her over to a device that stirred a memory from a long-ago history class. Wooden, standing at waist height, it had holes carved in it. Oh, God, not carved
in
it, exactly, she thought as she realized what the device was.

“But…”

“Silence!”

She shut her mouth as much from wondering disbelief as from the tone of command in Jonathan’s voice. As he opened the device—an old-fashioned set of stocks—she could feel tremors vibrating through him and realized, to her complete amazement, that he really was livid.

“Why are you so angry?” Yes, he’d told her to be silent, but she couldn’t help but ask. She’d never felt more confused in her life.

“Your safe words are ‘red light’. If you say them, this stops, permanently. I give you back your clothes, and I take you to your car. Do you understand me?”

“Yes.” She’d done something wrong. She knew she had because she recognized the clutching in her belly, the sick feeling of dread. This feeling came in the guise of an old friend, for it had lived with her for most of her married life. The feeling always preceded one of Tim’s tirades, and while he’d never hit her, his words had been weapon enough. Friend this sensation truly was not, and she felt herself spiraling down into the horrible emotional hell she’d known so well for so many years and thought she’d escaped when Tim had died.

He pushed on her back and she bent over, fitting herself into the device. He closed it before he answered her. “I’m angry because you
believe
what you just said about yourself. You believe it so thoroughly that my compliments and my assurances to you earlier mean nothing. You are the one who came looking for a master. You are the one who seeks to relinquish control, to surrender everything. Well, Beth, the first thing you must surrender is this image you have of yourself that you’ve carried all these years. That fucking son-of-a-bitch. If he wasn’t dead, I swear to God I’d murder him for what he’s done to you. Surrender his image of you, because it’s
false
. Trust the image I show you, for it’s not false.”

His words jolted her, stunning her even more than the paddle he landed hard on her bare ass.

Whack
.

“Ouch!” Bethany blinked. Good God that had hurt.

“You get three more.” The words sounded terse, as if he’d spoken them between clenched teeth.

Whack
. The second smack stung as much, if not more, than the first.

And then a strange thing happened. Heat began to radiate out from where the paddle landed, warming not only the flesh of her bottom, but that place low in her belly that had come awake so recently with Jonathan’s kisses and his intimate touches.

Whack
. Bethany moaned. Tears gathered in her eyes, and moisture gathered in her cunt. She flexed her inner muscles, trying to hold the tingling sensations curling through her close, trying to make them last. She’d never experienced anything like this and didn’t quite know what to make of the fact that, apparently, being paddled turned her on.

Whack.
She heard the sound of the paddle being dropped to the floor. Then she gasped, for Jonathan began to stroke her warmed, naked ass with his hand.

“Let me see if you liked that as much as I think you did.” His fingers stroked across her slit. Then they dipped in, pressed in, and entered her.

Just like it had when he finger-fucked her in the car, her arousal shot high and fast. Unable to help herself, she pushed against the stimulation he offered, pushed and rubbed and cried out because rapture hung so very close, just out of reach, and it had been so very long since she’d experienced it.

“Poor Beth. I’ve brought you to the edge twice now. Do you want to come, sweetheart?”

“Yes, oh, yes, please!” Bethany thought she’d die on the spot if she didn’t come in the next few seconds.

“You have to ask me properly, sweetheart. You have to beg me, and call me Master.”

Beth didn’t even hesitate. “Please, Master. Please let me come.”

“Okay, baby. Here, let me help you.”

He changed the position of his fingers, moved them in and out of her even faster. At the same time, he reached under her with his other hand. She felt him tease her clit as he’d done earlier in the car.

Then he squeezed the tiny nubbin between two fingers, pinching it. She cried out as her orgasm exploded out of her, an explosion so fierce she couldn’t control it, couldn’t contain it. The climax rolled over her and through her like a runaway train.

The force shook her, amazed her, and she could do nothing but ride it, try to hold it, and shout as the ecstasy consumed her. This orgasm made every other one she’d ever experienced, even the few she’d given herself, seem like nothing.

Her heart raced, and her breath hitched. Jonathan picked her up. Had he released her from the stocks? When had he done that?

Then every coherent thought disintegrated as a sob, a deep and powerful sob, erupted from within her. Totally unexpected and just like her orgasm, the sob seemed outside of herself and outside of her control.

“Shh, it’s all right, baby.” Jonathan’s croon comforted her even when she didn’t understand what was happening to her. He apparently did. “Let it all go, now, sweetheart. Just let it go and cry it out. I’ve got you, and I’ll keep you safe. Everything’s going to be all right from now on.”

The thought flashed that no one had ever kept her safe. Then that, too, gave way as she dissolved into the deepest, most bereft crying she’d ever experienced.

* * * *

Jonathan cradled Beth as he would a small child. Resting his cheek on her head, he made comfort sounds even as he rocked her.

Women were such amazing creatures. In his experience, they were capable of incredible strength, incredible endurance. Yet they’d been fashioned with a built-in fragility some mistook as a sign of weakness.

From time to time, women, all women, needed to have a really good cry.

Jonathan bet it had been a long, long time since his Beth had allowed herself the luxury of a really good cry. So he held her and paid attention to her, and the moment she began to fidget, the moment he sensed she’d become embarrassed by her emotional storm, he sat her up so she could meet his gaze.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me,” she said, her eyes searching his.

“It’s called an orgasm.”

Beth laughed, a surprised kind of sound. Then she shook her head. “No, I mean the crying. I’m not one to just burst into tears.”

“Which is a damn shame if you ask me,” Jonathan said. “I envy women the cleansing ritual of tears.”

She looked at him as if trying to figure him out.

“Don’t apologize for feeling, sweetheart.” He wiped a tear from her cheek. “And don’t apologize for crying. Both are totally normal and completely real.”

“You confuse me.”

“I know. Your honesty in telling me so pleases me. Do you know what I want to do now?”

“I really haven’t a clue.” She managed that with a straight face, even though he knew she could feel the ridge of his very erect cock pushing against her.

Her dry wit made him smile. “I want to shower with you. Then I want to bring you to my bed. I want to hold you, and caress you, and have you do the same to me. And then, my sweet sub, I want to fuck you until you beg me to stop, or we fall asleep. Whichever comes first.”

“I won’t beg you to stop.” Her words came without hesitation.

Jonathan kissed her, a gentle brushing of his lips on hers. She’d never been loved properly, never been cared for properly. These things he knew. Whether or not she would be able to allow him to provide her with these two and all they entailed would remain to be seen. Because she looked as if she expected an answer, he said, “We’ll see.”

“I guess we will,” Beth agreed. She put her arms around his neck. “In the meantime, I seem to be the only one naked here. That can’t be right. Can it?”

Jonathan smiled. “Sweetheart, if you want me to get naked and fuck you, all you have to do is ask.”

“Am I supposed to call you Master when I do?”

“If you like. After I’ve seen to your immediate need for cock, your training will begin in earnest. You’ll learn that when we’re engaged in sex play—what we call scenes—you can properly grovel as a good slave should.” He added just enough arrogance to his tone to get a rise out of her.

Instead, she tilted her head to the side, the expression in her eyes both calm and serious. “I’m ready to grovel now. Please, Master, get naked and fuck me.”

“That’s my plan, for the rest of the day and well into the night, sweetheart.”

Chapter 5

My first shower with a man
.

Bethany sighed as Jonathan’s soap-covered hands caressed her body. The sensation of slick hands cupping and smoothing over her breasts, then down across her belly, and stroking over her slit shot her to the very edge of orgasm. It amazed her she could become aroused again so quickly. Orgasms had always been a rare experience for her. She’d never had two in one week, let alone two in one day. Earlier, as her tears had subsided, a part of her had believed she couldn’t possibly want any more pleasure. She’d been wrong. The heat of Jonathan’s body, the sensation of the water and the soap and him aroused her to even higher heights than she’d already soared.

She wanted to come again very, very badly.

“Place your hands on the wall and lean forward.” His voice, deep, commanding, added another layer of excitement.

She didn’t understand why Jonathan thought she’d need much training. The words had barely left his lips and her body moved to comply.

“Spread your legs, shoulder width apart.”

Again her body responded of its own volition. She couldn’t hold back her moan of pleasure when Jonathan’s hands stroked back and forth over her pussy. He found his way between her folds so easily, as if he’d touched her there a thousand times before and knew exactly where to stroke to give her the most pleasure. When he used his fingers to rub back and forth against her anus, the spike in arousal came so unexpectedly, she gasped.

“Oh, baby, I’m so glad you like that. One of the things I’ve been dreaming of doing to you is fucking your ass. What do you think of that?”

“Oh, God.” That would be yet another first for her. She’d have sworn the idea held no appeal for her, but she’d been wrong. Having done a lot of reading in the past couple of months, she wondered what other sexual firsts she’d soon not only experience, but crave.