The Dangerous Hero (19 page)

She nodded, taking a deep breath. But she still jerked with pain when he attached the second clamp.

"There's a chain connecting them," he told her. She felt a jerk that stretched both nipples and caused more sharp sensations to radiate through her.

"That's kinda intense."

He made some sort of adjustment that lowered the tension in both clamps a small amount. "Better?"

She nodded. They were still hurting, but not as much.

"It'll lessen a bit as you grown accustomed to the feeling. In fact, they'll get slightly numb. When the clamps come off, though, blood will rush back and nerve signals will fire. Clamps actually hurt more coming off than going on. D'you want to see what they look like?"

He ripped the blindfold off when she nodded. She blinked; even the dim light seemed bright after several minutes with her eyes covered. She looked down at herself, her body naked and spread out, her waist banded with a thick leather strap and her breasts sticking out, the nipples hard and compressed between the two small shiny clamps.

The chain that ran between them was thin but sturdy. As she watched, Stephen held up something small and metallic that she couldn't identify. It had a tiny clip on one end, which he attached to the chain between her nipple clamps. "It's a weight," he said casually, letting it go. The cold metal dropped between her breasts and tightened the chain. The pain in her nipples increased. Watching her with a devilish glint in his eyes, he poked the hanging weight with his finger, making it swing and delivering new jolts of agony to her breasts.

"That's harsh," she whispered, even as she became aware once again of the link between her nipples and her clit, and the strange way that pain stimulated her down there, making her wetter, and building the pressure and need for more pleasure, more release.

"Don't forget your safeword. You can use it anytime. If you want me to take it easy but not actually stop, you can say yellow instead of red. I'll be monitoring you, always, but I want you to get used to the idea of having a safeword, okay?"

She nodded. "I'm fine. It just takes some getting used to."

"I know. Do you feel sexy, or is it all too weird?"

"Sexy."

"Sexy, Master," he corrected, giving the weight another tweak.

"Ow! I feel sexy, Master. Are you going to fuck me now?"

He laughed softly. "Oh no. I have all sorts of other plans for you before we get to that."

He unbuckled the strap around her waist and unhooked her wrist and ankle cuffs from the frame. "Come," he said, tugged on the chain that ran between her nipples. She gasped as she realized he was going to lead her by her breasts. She made haste to follow him. The pinch on her nipples escalated with every step he took.

He bound her in the clear space in the middle of the dungeon to chains that hung down from the ceiling. Her arms were stretched up over her head, but he left her legs unfettered. She felt sharply conscious once again that she was naked and totally vulnerable to him. He could do anything he wanted, and she wouldn't be able to stop him.

He stepped away for a moment. When he came back he had a whip in his hand. No. He had three whips. She looked on nervously. "How much do you know about different kind of whips?" he asked her.

"Um, nothing?" The three he was holding all looked similar. They had handles and a series of long tails. She estimated that the tails varied from about a foot and a half to two feet long, depending on the whip.

"One of these whips is gentle. I would have to swing it hard to cause pain with it, and even then it wouldn't hurt much. Another is vicious. If I hit you with that it would hurt like hell and leave marks on your skin. The third is somewhere in between." He paused. "Pick one."

"I'll take the light, gentle one, thank you."

He smiled wickedly. "If you can select the light gentle one from among these three, then that is what you'll get. But if you choose one of the others, I will use it on you."

Oh, fuck, one of his kinky games. She had no clue which was which. "You choose," she whispered.

"Oh, no. I'm going to make you do it. Let me show them to you." He separated a rather beautiful whip from the others and brought it closer so she could see it. The handle was made of intricately plaited leather in two colors, red and purple. The tails were narrow and long. He held the whip close to her face and she could smell the leather, a scent she had always liked. It looked like a woman's whip, and she wanted to hold it. 

He switched to the second one, which was black and shinier. It didn't smell leathery; it looked more like rubber or perhaps some synthetic. She regarded it with some suspicion, although she wasn't sure why. The third was also leather, although the hide looked more supple than the first. It was coffee-colored and the tails were a little wider than the others. Would wider tails hurt more or less? She had no idea.

One was gentle, one was vicious and one was in between. Dammit! She should have read up on whips on those web pages she'd looked at with the BDSM information.

"I don't know the difference. If you showed me something with barbs or knots on the end, I'd be pretty sure that would be vicious, but among those three, I have no clue."

"Choose," he said in a harder tone. "Now."

She was drawn to the red and purple one, which looked pretty and benign, so with her luck, it would be the harshest. What the hell. "I want the pretty red and purple. I just hope the colors don't represent blood and bruises."

He smiled. "Whip lessons: pay attention now and maybe you'll do better next time." He held up the brown whip with the broad tails. "Deerskin. Very soft." He trailed the tails of the whip over her bare breasts so she could feel how soft. "This is the gentle one. See how light and delicate the tails are? It would be hard to hurt you with this." He set the deerskin whip aside and held up the black scary-looking whip. "It's a good thing you didn't choose this one. It's not leather, but rubber. The tails are heavy and they hurt like hell. Rubber is extreme. If you had chosen that one, I'd have had to go easy on you. I wouldn't want to mark you up too badly."

As he said this, she became more aware of the phenomenon she'd noted before
—
Other Stephen was speaking. Scary Stephen. She wasn't sure what she thought about Other Stephen. Was he just Regular Stephen acting, roleplaying? Every time she caught a glimpse of that darker self, she felt a strange combination of fear and excitement. It was Other Stephen who took her to places where she'd never been with any other man. He was the one who did things these darkly sexual things. He loved whips and chains and dimly lit medieval dungeons. He shared something with Bartholomew Giles.

Stop thinking that.

"So I picked the middle-of-the-road whip?"

"Yeah, you did. This one is moose-hide. Still supple, but tougher and heavier than deerskin. It is a beautiful whip, one of my favorites. It will hurt and it can mark, but it will not cause the kind of excruciating pain the rubber whip would cause. You should be able to handle it, but you'll have to be brave. Initially, it will feel intense." He looked deep into her eyes. "I want you to endure it. You can cry, you can scream, you can beg, but I am going to do this. I want you to ride the sensations. Feel them. Inhabit them. Let everything else go and just feel."

"Okay," she whispered, torn between dread and arousal.
He's going to freaking whip me.

"Do you remember your safeword?" 

"Yes."

"Use it if you need to. You ready?"

She nodded, her entire body tense as a board.

He walked around behind her, swung his arm and struck.

Chapter 18

Stephen knew how to use a flogger; he had practiced his technique for years. It was his favorite BDSM activity, and he wanted Viola to learn to like it, too. He wouldn't have used the rubber whip on her, of course; that was no beginner's implement. The deerskin whip wouldn't really have done much more than caress the surface of her skin. She might not know it, but she had chosen well. A whipping scene should feel like a whipping, but it should also feel erotic.

He didn't use any dramatic flourishes the way he might if he'd been doing a scene in a club; this wasn't a performance. He would keep eye contact as much as possible so she would have something to hang on to emotionally. He wanted her to see that he was pleased with her for enduring his scene.

He kept it light, striking her first on her buttocks and being careful that the ends of the whip didn't wrap around to the front of her body. She would initially feel more sting than thud. Although she gasped and reacted to the blows—something he loved to watch—he could tell she wasn't uncomfortable—not yet.

He was damn uncomfortable himself, though—his dick swollen and aching. Getting more distended with every stroke as her body jerked and arched. After four strokes on her ass, none of them too hard, he stopped briefly to soothe and caress the area he'd been working on. "How's it so far?" he asked her.

She tossed her head. "Not too bad. I was scared, but I feel a little calmer now."

"Your body will react by sending endorphins out. Those are powerful chemicals...they'll help you cope and they may even give you a bit of a high." He slid his fingers down into her cleft and found her wet. Passionate Viola, she was always wet when he touched her. It was one of the things he loved about her. He caressed her for a minute or so before stepping back and swinging his flogger again, switching to her upper back. "Count for me, love. I'm going to give you a dozen strokes in various locations, each one will get a little more intense."

"One," she said as the flogger landed. Her back arched away from him, and the chains securing her wrists jangled.

"Thank me for each lash," he ordered, feeling cruel, "Or I'll repeat it."

"Thank you, Master," she gasped.

One more blow across her shoulders, and this time he deliberately did allow the whiptails to wrap around to the side of her breast. She yelped, not having expected it, but managed to call out the number and the "thank you, Master."

"Handling the whip is an art. I can keep to a narrow location—" he struck her buttocks, much harder than he had at the start, "Or I can permit the tails to wrap around your body and land somewhere unexpected." As he said this, he came around in front of her and aimed a strike at her belly at an angle that propelled the tails around to slap into her buttocks with considerable intensity. She cried out more loudly and closed her eyes, her face screwing up in reaction to the stinging blow. She forgot to count, but he cut her some slack. It could be difficult to count when you were being flogged, especially if you were new to these sensations.

He struck her thighs three times, then moved around behind her again to slash a blow across her ass that left clear red lines. Those marks would fade quickly, he knew, but he enjoyed seeing them while they lasted. He did it again and she cried out and tried to get away from him. The chains prevented it, of course. She wasn't going anywhere.

He delivered two more stinging blows to her ass. Her body arched each time he struck and the chain on her nipples clamps tinkled. More red marks. He wasn't whipping her hard enough to bruise her skin. Many submissives loved seeing the marks after a scene; superficial bruises were counted by some subs and masochists as badges of honor. He thought briefly of Melanie, who had pleaded for him to use his cruelest toys on her—knotted cats, chain floggers, studded buffalo hide. She had been a true masochist, and the things she had urged him to do to her had scared him at times, pushing the boundaries of safe and sane.

He seized a large handful of Viola's lovely hair and pulled her head back. He kissed her mouth. "Okay?"

She nodded. Her face had that dreamy look he recognized of a submissive in subspace. "It doesn't hurt much now," she murmured, in wonder. "I feel all warm and tingly."

"Good," he said, and set the whip down. She'd had enough for now. He checked her nipple clamps, giving a little tug on the weight. He hadn't used anything too harsh there, and he thought they could stay on for a bit longer. He was looking forward to the surprise she would get when he jerked the clamps away. Nothing could prepare you for that feeling.

He loosened the overhead chains that were holding her wrists and lowered her arms to a more comfortable position—still up, but no longer extended. Without speaking, he showed her how to use some of the new slack to reach above her cuffed wrists and wrap her fingers around the chains, which would release some of the muscle tension that must have developed during the beating. Then he dropped to his knees on the floor in front of her and dug his hands into her burning buttocks, tilting her pelvis up to the right angle for him to tongue her mound.

She keened out her pleasure as soon as he began to lick her. Her hips, which were free to move, arched and her thighs tightened. He thrust his tongue between the lips of her vagina and sucked on her clit at the same time. His balls were aching with his own need for release, but he forced himself to ignore that for now. This was about her, his lovely Viola, who was as hot and wet and eager as he had ever known her to be.

"Oh god, oh god, oh god," she chanted, thrusting herself wildly against him. Her voice rose in a ragged scream as she crested and melted, her pulsations strong and hard against his tongue. God, he loved it when she came—loved the way she tightened and arched her spine, loved the scent of her, the taste of her, the breathless cries she always gave, the little laugh of joy that came as she began to reconnect with her soaring spirit. She was made for this, his long-lost summer love. She was made for him.