The Dangerous Hero (29 page)

"Good girl. But I refuse to make this easy for you. I will give you exactly the punishment I promised you. No." He laid two fingers over her sweet, sweet lips. "You are not to speak without my permission. This is not a discussion anymore. This is me giving you orders and you obeying. And right now I'm ordering you to shut the fuck up unless you need to call a safeword." He stopped, waited. "Use your safeword right now if you want to back out."

She looked up at him, her eyes wide, but there was no doubt in those eyes. She was not going to use a safeword.

Reminding her anyway, he went on, "You can always use it. No matter what's happening. I will always respect your safeword. Okay? You may answer."

"Yes," she said. "Okay."

He jerked her hair, hurting her. "Yes what?"

The hint of a smile quirked her lips. "Yes, Master? Sir? Your Jedi Knightness?"

"Master will do," he said, trying not to laugh. He wasn't much for honorifics, truth be told, but there was a certain ritual to be followed. "Now come with me."

When she saw where he was taking her, she broke her orders. That, he decided, would result in another whack of the cane. "Stephen, no."

He was not leading her upstairs to his bedroom, but around to the back door. The door that led out to the dungeon.

"Did I say you could speak?"

"I can speak to use a safeword."

"Yes, you can. However. Let me remind you that a few minutes ago you trusted me enough to fall blindly back off my deck. I will always catch you, Viola."

She swallowed hard. Her heart was beating fast again and her palms had begun to sweat.

"Remember the old advice about what you do when you fall off your horse?"

"You get right back on again?"

"It's good advice, love. Otherwise, you begin avoiding things. Before you know it you're not afraid of whatever you're afraid of, but afraid of being afraid."

"But it's so strong. My dread, I mean. I never knew fear was so strong and so physical."

"I know, but fear can't harm you. You're young, you're healthy, and your body will eventually self-regulate. Trust me on this. I have suffered from panic attacks myself."

"What could you be frightened of?"

He laughed shortly. "The usual. Failing. Fucking up. Rejection. Success. Being judged. Sucking. You think men don't get scared? We just learn at a young age to hide it."

"I guess we all learn to do that."

"Right now I'm terrified that I'll fuck up again with you and that you'll give up on me."

She stopped short, briefly forgetting about the dungeon. "You didn't fuck up! I did. And no way am I giving up on you!"

"Likewise. Now do as I told you and follow orders."

She nodded and made no further objection as they crossed the threshold of his dungeon.

It was cool inside. He must have started the air conditioning. He had planned this. Despite what was coming, she felt a twinge of amusement. Boys and their toys. He loved his kinky creation.

He took her to a corner of the dungeon she hadn't yet seen. There was a wooden contraption shaped like a narrow table covered with a leather mat. It was a whipping bench, she realized.

He stripped off all her clothes and slapped the leather cuffs on her wrists and ankles, and then he made her stand at one end and bend forward from the waist so her upper body was lying on the table. Her wrist cuffs were hooked to a ring at the far end of the bench, while her ankles, well-spread, were attached to the table legs where she was standing.

Her ass was now a prime target, she realized, wriggling a little in her bonds.

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

No answer.

"Master?" she hastily added.

"As I told you, I'm going to punish you for lying to me. I will not tolerate lies, especially when they impact your safety and well-being. I asked if you had ever been raped or abused. That was a critical piece of information for your dom to have, but you denied it to me."

"I'm sorry, Master. I shouldn't have lied."

"You're about to be a good deal sorrier."

"Yes, but how are you—" Her question was cut off by a ferocious impact across her ass. It was a shock because she hadn't expected it to happen so quickly; she'd thought she would have a moment to prepare. It was worse than any spanking he had given her before—pure pain that resolved into a thin burning line that cut across both her ass cheeks.

"It's a rattan cane," he told her in a calm voice while she gasped for breath. "I only use this particular implement for punishment. It's not intended to arouse you or get you off. It is intended—" he paused long enough to blast her with another vicious stroke, one that made her cry out "—to hurt like hell."

"Forgive me, Master," she gasped again. "I shouldn't have lied."

He struck. She was flailing in her restraints, trying to get away even though there was no place to go. He had made sure that she could do nothing to avoid the blows. "And you won't ever do it again, will you?"

"No," she mumbled. The sound turned to a keening cry as the cane descended again, leaving a trail of fire in its wake.

"No what?" he growled.

"No, Master!"

"Good girl," he said, and brought the cane down again.

The pain was agonizing. She thought of using her safeword, but she realized she didn't want to stop it. Not because she liked the pain—this was too extreme to like; it wasn't making her wet. But the pain was—oh god, he did it again—another stinging lash of fire, all of them in the same general area of her buttocks—the pain was a relief in a way. It blocked out everything. There was no fear, no guilt, no desire. All she knew was that sharp, burning sensation. She could let go of everything else because there wasn't room for more in her mind, not with this going on.

Again. She was screaming...and she let herself scream...she allowed the air to explode out of her lungs. Once, twice, and again, until all she could hear were the slashes of the cane and her own breathless cries.

Dimly, she recalled him saying that it was safe to strike the buttocks. She also realized that one reason she'd been so traumatized by Derek's attack was that he had struck her in places where he could do serious harm. Indeed, he had tried to kill her when he'd throttled her and cut her with that chunk of glass.

Stephen was not harming her. He was hurting her like hell, but there was no harm here.

The next blow felt even more painful than the others, perhaps because it slammed across the already-burning stripes of earlier welts. It made her lose it altogether. Her body convulsed and she began to sob. At first, she didn't even know she was sobbing. She was just reacting to the impacts. She moaned out her agony in great gasping cries, her face pressed into the mat that covered the whipping bench. But her mind was flying free. It was almost the same mental sensation she had felt when she'd fallen back off the deck into Stephen's arms.

She wept loudly and noisily, as tears flooded down her checks, just letting it go. Letting everything go.

It was some time before she noticed that Stephen had stopped striking her. He was massaging her shoulders and the back of her neck. Then he undid the restraints and raised her from the table. She felt a little dizzy and her legs didn't seem to want to hold her, but it didn't matter because he lifted her into his arms. He carried her gently to the bed in the alcove and lay down with her, adjusting her limp body so she was on her side instead of putting any weight on her flaming ass.

She made no resistance. She just clung to him and bawled.

It was the first time she'd cried since Derek had assaulted her.

Why hadn't she let herself cry?

It was a long time before she was able to speak. Stephen didn't seem to mind. He held her, his hands moving tenderly over her hair, her arms, her shoulders, her upper back. When the pain in her ass had settled into a dull roar and her tears had finally stopping flowing she asked, "Am I bleeding?"

"No. You'll have some bruises though. You might find it a little uncomfortable to sit down for a few hours."

"How did you know?"

"How did I know what?"

"That I needed a good cry. I haven't cried since that night." She found somehow that she could speak of it now. "Since the night Derek attacked me. I swore that bastard would never make me cry again."

"He didn't. This bastard did."

A surprised laugh burst out of her. It started as a smirk, then a chuckle, then it turned into a full-fledged shout of laughter. "Fuck you!" she cried, hugging him. "You are going to teach me how to do that safely and then I am going to return every goddamn stroke until you cry, too!"

"Well, hey. I'm not opposed to switching roles, maybe once in a blue moon or so."

"The whole punishment thing is messed up. Like who made you the adult here? I'm not some wayward kid whose behavior you can correct."

"Hah. I'm older than you, remember?"

She snorted. Her objection wasn't serious, though. She knew it was part of the D/s dynamic, and that somewhere there must be a hidden vein of psychological truth, because she sure as hell felt better.

"It's silly," he said, "but it works sometimes. I guess we all have a naughty little kid inside us, who knows he's done something he shouldn't have done and that one of these days the strap is gonna come crashing down."

"I almost safe-worded at one point."

"Yeah, I thought you might. I would have stopped."

"But then I decided, fuck you, I wasn't going to ask for mercy."

"No mercy here, babe." He put her hand on his erect dick. "Does that feel like mercy to you?"

"You got off on it."

"Guilty as charged. I was freaking out at the same time, though. I really don't want you to get scared of me and run."

"I'm not running."

"I'm not kidding about the truth telling, though. Don't lie to me again. There are more canes where that came from."

"Does anybody actually
like
being hit with that thing?"

"Sure. I could have propped a strong vibrator between your legs while I was doing it. That would have confused the hell out of you. Ow, it hurts. OMG, I'm coming. We'll try that sometime when you're an old pro at this stuff."

She chuckled again. "You are so twisted, Stephen."

"I know. I am going to fuck you now. I'll be sweet and let you lie on top of me to take some pressure off your tender bottom."

"How kind. I don't think I'll be able to come. I'm too sore." But even as she said this, she noticed that the burning in her ass seemed to be transforming into a more pleasurable feeling, as if the heat in her butt cheeks was spreading forward to engulf her genitals. She already knew how sensual her ass was, and how much she enjoyed spanking. Now that the extreme pain was subsiding, the rest of her seemed to be coming alive.

"Oh, you'll come for me, Professor," said Stephen, who clearly knew the physical effects she was feeling. "If you don't I'll just have to punish you again until you do."

But that, of course, proved to be entirely unnecessary.

Chapter 29

Viola completed teaching her last class of the spring semester, and ended up with a small group of students gathered around her, inquiring about term papers and the likely content of the final exam. She was chatting affably with her students, answering their questions and feeling generally more positive about teaching when she saw, in her peripheral vision, a tall, bespectacled male approaching her. Stephen's hands slid around her waist in a possessive gesture and drew her back against his body. "You smell wonderful" he whispered, his lips against her hair. "I need to get you home and fuck you. Hard."

She giggled and tried pull away. He held on. Her students also laughed as they watched, fascinated by this evidence of their professor's humanity.

"That's it," she said to the few who were left. "Email me if you have any more questions. See you at the exam."

There were a couple of good-natured groans as they filed out, leaving her alone with Stephen. She twisted around to kiss him. "Hello! I didn't expect you today. How's the novel going?"

"It's done."

"You finished it? Awesome! Good for you, Mr. Author man! So you're taking a bit of a break at last?"

"You got it, babe," he replied, slinging an arm around her shoulders as they left the classroom and walked down the hall to her office.

"You're in a merry mood, aren't you? Well, damn—I still have papers to read and an exam to prepare. A week or two from now when I'm free for the summer, you'll probably be hard at work on your next book."

He groaned with mock despair. "And never the twain shall meet? We're going to have to do something about this crazy schedule of ours."

"I know. It kinda sucks. You don't live
that
far away, but it's far enough."

"I've missed you," he said, sidling up against her again and running his lips gently over the line where her hair met her forehead. "Better get me home in a hurry, mate, or I'll rip off your clothes and take you against a blackboard."

"Humph. I haven't seen a blackboard in decades. You're gonna get us arrested," she said, her lips curling in a smile.