Ice Queen (Nature of Desire #3)

Chapter Three

His visit to the tea room on Thursday had been an enlightening trip. Tyler had never been in Marguerite’s place. He supposed he’d been honoring an unspoken code not to come without invitation into the territory of a Zone Domme. He’d expected it to be a well-run establishment. He hadn’t expected the experience to include art, culture, spiritualism. A return to a time romanticized in memory that she’d made fact with the environment she provided, the knowledge she demonstrated, the offerings she had collected and shared. A complex and very intelligent woman.

He smiled at himself, at his infatuation with Marguerite Perruquet which had only increased the more aloof she made herself toward him. At times he thought she was doing it deliberately to goad his interest and perhaps she was, even if unconsciously. For he knew without a doubt he had an effect on Marguerite, no matter her usual coolness toward him. He wouldn’t classify yesterday’s attempt to spear him to her table as dispassionate. Or her body’s reaction to his lips on her soft throat.

As he drove into The Zone parking lot on Tuesday, Tyler didn’t have to see her black BMW to know she was here. When he got inside, he didn’t even have to see the crowd of club attendees clustered around one portion of the glass floor. He felt her.

Marguerite had become his obsession. She couldn’t draw breath without him feeling the loss of oxygen in his own lungs.

He didn’t know how or when it had happened. He’d known her for some time, admired her techniques at The Zone. What had intrigued him first was the way she never met anyone’s eyes. Not as though she was avoiding confrontation. It was as if she perceived people with a sense other than sight, so sight was unnecessary to her to establish a connection, communication or acknowledgement.

Certainly the man in the room with her tonight, restrained in such a complex layer of straps that Tyler doubted there was any muscle capable of free movement, was not feeling neglected. Brendan had waited months for the pleasure of serving the Ice Queen for the second time, because she almost never took a sub to a private room twice.

Tyler fully expected she would break Brendan down until each cell of his body was attuned to her every movement, every blink or shift of her weight, every aspect of her existence. She was right, what she had said at her tea room. In two hours she achieved more than most people might in a relationship in which they’d invested two years. For her subjects, he suspected she was the trip of a lifetime. They planned, hoped and dreamed for this short moment.

She would take them to a point where they would die for her, for the simple touch of her hand. When she was done with them, she would walk away without even a glance over her shoulder. He could count on one hand the number of times she’d allowed her subjects to believe they’d brought her to climax, one of the many reasons she’d earned her title. Never with their hands, definitely never with their cocks. Fully underscoring the slave’s status. Only with his mouth could a sub serve her. As he took a seat, Tyler recalled one of those rare times, when he’d considered himself fortunate to be present.

It had been about six months ago. She’d been straddling the chosen man’s face while he was restrained on a bench that had been tilted at a forty-five degree angle, his head toward the floor, his feet in the air to increase the sense of helplessness. She hadn’t removed her clothes; she rarely ever did. However the tight lace bodysuit in a shimmering black had allowed the sub ample ability to feel the soft lips of her pussy rubbing in slow circles against his mouth.

When she’d lifted her head, apparently in the throes of the climax, her gaze had locked with Tyler’s through the glass ceiling, where he sat in the upper mezzanine watching. She’d shuddered, fighting something, her head bowing back down so her face was in shadow. He’d watched a flush spread across her neck, the line of her cheek. Something shattered, so distinctly he was surprised to still find his drink dangling loose in his fingers. The shattering was within himself. He couldn’t describe what he felt. He just knew something had happened between them in that brief eye contact. As surely as he knew that she’d been faking that orgasm until she looked up at him. Somehow that had pushed her into a place she hadn’t intended to go.

Look at me .

He wanted to see it, wanted to see her lose control. She gave her subs mind-blowing orgasms, so totally focused on their pleasure they seemed to overlook that she herself remained cool and unflappable through the process. Like she was a guru guiding them to spiritual enlightenment. For spectators, it increased the sensual mystery, but he had sensed the heat beneath it, as if it were stifled and unable to find expression.

A compulsion he could only thank God for had made her look up at him again. As she fought to stay fully in control of the situation, of herself, barely moving, he’d formed the words with his lips, not thinking, just acting.

Come for me .

A gasp broke from her lips. Despite the obvious struggles of her mind, so vibrant he could see the swords clashing in her eyes, her moist lips parted and a sound escaped. The audio was not on but he guessed that sound would have been small, plaintive, like the cry of a dove cut short.

Triumph filled him, and more. Sudden, raging desire, so primitive that he did not have the rationality to question the fury that rose in him, wanting the sub’s lips off her cunt. He wanted his lips, hand or cock there.

Yes. His lips moved again, his eyes burning.

When her lips drew back from her teeth, her throat contracting, he had a sudden uneasy moment, thinking her fight to deny the natural reaction of her body would cause her to go into a seizure. A hard convulsion jerked her on the man’s mouth, taking her to an almost painful culmination, everything in her resisting the pleasure, the inevitable.

As he returned to the present, Tyler acknowledged that it was problematic. The Ice Queen was a Dominant. No. THE Dominant, the Domme of all Dommes. She didn’t belong to anyone, though her lovers, temporary though they were, belonged to her for all time. He suspected that like a sorceress, after leaving her emotional mark on them, she could summon them back to her with a spell as an army to do her bidding.

Even more ironic to him was that the women who had always drawn him, intrigued him, were acknowledged submissives. But that one look, that one connection and he knew that he wanted Marguerite Perruquet with a hunger that couldn’t be called anything else or explained away.

He knew there was a whole spectrum of psychological analyses on the BDSM culture and its adherents. Much of it judgmental, colored by the moral biases of the researchers and some abhorrent excesses of their complicated lifestyle. He had understood a long time ago that BDSM was a faith you had to feel to understand. Many of those who felt it even then denied its pull on their senses because it was so counter to what was considered normal sexuality and political correctness. He took pleasure in unexpected responses in himself but watching her climax had exceeded pleasure. It was pure, predatory need and it was growing stronger, telling him he had to have her.

He settled into his favored spot in the mezzanine where he would have the best view of the room she had reserved for the night and ordered a drink.

* * *

Marguerite stood in the corner, motionless. She was to Brendan’s right. He could see her with some eyestrain. For the moment she was letting him struggle for it, though she kept her own gaze forward, focused on the air, focused on her own breathing. Nothing existed outside her and Brendan, just the heat and life of their two bodies. The glass above displayed Brendan well to a couple hundred attentive people, clustered around the opening. The Doms would watch from the upper mezzanine. Jeremy was in the room with her, The Zone employee and trained paramedic who was here to assist. But all of that was just a buzz of blurry sensation around the sharp clarity of Brendan’s naked body, bound securely on his stomach on the spanking bench. His knees and calves were strapped to the floor so he couldn’t move, his muscular ass tense. The bare back gleamed, the canvas she would mark. A permanent reminder of her presence in his life for all time.

She wondered how many people carried similar brands inside where no one could see. At least this was a brand that would not be susceptible to infection forever, as some internal brands were. Wounds that never healed, that could always be torn by something as simple as the persuasion of a man with amber eyes. When he’d arrived she’d felt his presence through the glass as easily as if she could see him the way she saw Brendan now.

She didn’t freeze up. Accepting that her clarity would include three rather than two tonight, she let the thoughts of him pass through and out her consciousness.

When she moved at last, she stepped out of the shadows in supple thigh-high white boots with lacings up the back and four-inch heels. She’d perfected the art of sauntering in them, heel, toe, heel, toe, pause, one heel digging into the floor as she idly let the toe rock back and forth in the air. She ran her hands over the grips of the three irons, resting at the moment in a bed of glowing briquettes. Lifting one iron, she noted the hue of the metal, set it back down. Not hot enough yet. The safest brands were ironically third-degree burns, because they cauterized the wound, deadened the nerves forever.

She would be doing a trio of brandings across the small of Brendan’s back, just above the rise of his buttocks, using strike irons not cautery pens for the maximum amount of pain. The design would be a fleur de lis with two decorative elements on either side of it.

“Not quite ready yet, Brendan.” She dipped her knees to trail her fingertips up the back of one of his thighs, felt his shudder. From talking to other Dommes who sought more real-life information from their subs than she did, she knew that he was an amateur swimmer who removed all his body hair when preparing to compete. Tonight he’d done it for her as well. It felt odd, the way his leg was smooth like a woman’s but so much harder from the lean muscle tone. She wondered what threading her fingers through the hair on Tyler’s leg would feel like, combing through the coarse strands, feeling his muscles shift under the heat of her palm.

Turning abruptly on her heel, she paced away. Became motionless once again just outside Brendan’s view. Breathed. Closed her eyes. Breathed. Yes, there it was. The center. And it again told her that the thoughts of Tyler must be accepted, allowed to flow and mingle with this moment’s impressions. By actively trying to shut them out, she would drain the energy she intended to provide to Brendan tonight, to make him capable of attaining a level of focused devotion that would cause any Domme to crave him for her own.

Of course any Domme would count herself fortunate for that privilege now. Brendan was bisexual and beautiful, living with a male lover who was also into the submissive scene, was likely part of those in the audience tonight. With glossy dark hair that fell to tanned shoulders, Brendan had an ancient Greek athlete’s physique and green eyes so pure in color they were like smooth jade stones. His body was unmarked, not a single piercing or tattoo. But he wanted her mark. Had begged for it.

* * *

She’d had her night with him and she never went with a sub twice. Regardless, two months ago, he’d knelt before her, where she sat at a table at The Zone with two other Dommes.

He’d waited, kneeling at her side for a good ten minutes until she’d given him permission to address her. Brendan never crossed lines. His pleasure was in absolute service, not rebellion, so his manners were impeccable. She’d heard that he taught drama at the community college, which she suspected explained how effectively he adopted a courtly demeanor in all his interactions with Mistresses at The Zone.

“Please, Mistress Marguerite. I know your rules and I would never offer any disrespect to you, but I’ve thought about this long and hard since our night together.”

“And gotten long and hard while thinking, I’m sure,” one of the women said, observing the crotch of the gray dancer’s tights he wore. It was his only article of clothing except for a collar with several hooks in it to accommodate the tethers of a Dom or Domme who chose to seek him out this night. He was popular, so he’d come to her early, apparently to put in his plea before he was chosen for the evening’s games. The Dommes watched him, their hungry gazes recognizing the precious treasure of devotion like pirates with a pleasure yacht in their sights. Marguerite knew that when he was done with his entreaty, one would likely choose him for her games that night.

“It’s difficult not to get hard when thinking about Mistress Marguerite.” He bowed his head. “I ask, if ever you would consider it… Please, I wish to be branded by you. With the fleur de lis, the mark of a prisoner, for though I know I’m not your chosen, I would declare myself as yours whenever you desire me, even if that should be never. Even if I’m just a worshipper at your temple who never gets to touch the Goddess or hear her sweet voice anywhere other than in my own mind again.”

“Goodness, Marguerite, you do make an impression,” the other Domme commented, the amusement in her voice not quite able to obliterate the not unpleasant expression of envy.

When Marguerite continued to say nothing, simply sipping her drink, he bowed his head even lower. “Why should you honor me with your mark when I’m undeserving even of putting my lips on the sole of your shoe? I’ve taken up enough of your time, Mistress, Mistresses. Forgive my presumption. I ask your leave to depart your company.”

“You don’t have it.” Marguerite made a noise in her throat as his surprised gaze almost lifted. He dropped it immediately. “I’ll determine if you’re deserving or undeserving, presumptuous or unpresumptuous.” Straightening her knee, she extended her foot gracefully. She left it in the shoe, no intentions of giving him the excessive liberty of touching her flesh.

Bending, he pressed his lips hard to the bottom of the black heel. His eyes raised briefly to take a hungry snapshot of her face, showing her those clear, pleading eyes she could not find it in her to resist.

It twisted things inside her, his words, his expression, the beautiful power of his body, so eager to please, to rut, to fuck if a woman commanded it of him.

No teasing came from the other Dommes now. There were moments a sub could humble his Mistress with his devotion. While Brendan did not belong to her, he was offering her that exceptional level of loyalty based on their one session together. She knew what they said about her, that her reputation deserved such responses, the things she was able to pull out of a sub in such a short time, like this. It didn’t mean that the gift did not affect her.

“I’ll think on what you said. In the meantime, prove how much you want my mark. Until I tell you to cease, every Friday you will submit to a session with Master Tiberius.”

Master Tiberius was a pain administrator the Inquisition would have envied, bringing subs to orgasms so interlaced with agonizing physical strain that they did not know how to separate pain from pleasure. And she knew Brendan was deathly afraid of him, of having the walls shattered that pain could destroy.

“Yes, Mistress. Gladly.”

The lack of disagreement or hesitation startled her. She lifted his chin, allowing herself to stroke his smooth cheek with her fingers. His lips were soft, pale pink, but then all the subs she chose had that quality, innocence still preserved in their features despite the transition to full, fine manhood.

“You’re not afraid.”

“I fear Tiberius but I fear your displeasure more, Mistress.”

“Go then and do my bidding this week. And the next, and the next, until I’m satisfied and tell you to stop.”

She’d stopped over Tiberius’ favored room at times during the next couple months, breaking her pattern to come to The Zone on several Fridays. Not to play, just to see Brendan and how he was doing. Gagged, nipples and scrotum clamped, his anus stretched with plugs of impressive size, balls forced through cruel stiff straps, Tiberius’ flogger leaving red marks on his flesh until Brendan screamed and came, again and again. And he would risk the Master’s wrath to look up, find her and bow his head to show he would endure anything for the chance to bear the mark of her servant. Even though he would be a servant that he knew and she knew would never be called to serve her.

* * *

She hadn’t made an idle choice. After two months of Fridays, Brendan was ready for what she would do to him tonight. He could not only bear the pain; she intended that he would find pleasure in it.

She knelt at his face, cupped it in her hand and touched those soft lips. She’d let him kiss her pussy in that first and only session, she remembered. It had been through her clothes and just the press of his lips. She’d made him remain completely still with his mouth on her clit for several minutes, his nostrils flaring to take in her scent, his jaw tense to keep him from moving as ordered, though it was obvious he wanted to disobey with his whole body. Even that still touch was a liberty she didn’t often allow those she took into the private rooms. Once, she’d allowed a sub to fuck her with a dildo strapped around his jaw while he serviced her clit with his mouth but she hadn’t repeated the experience. It had done too many strange things to her, things that had kept her from coming back to The Zone for a month. Intimacy was too dangerous for her.

Taking down the front zipper of her snug bodysuit one set of teeth at a time, she revealed what she had cradled between her breasts. A lifelike phallus, warm with the heat of her skin. She put it into her mouth to lubricate it with her own saliva. It was not particularly large. After the sessions with Master T, she knew Brendan could easily take it.

“Shall I put this in you, Brendan? Up that sweet, fine ass of yours?”

“Yes, Mistress. Please.”

“Did you clean yourself for me?”

“Yes, Mistress. Thoroughly. Tim helped me.” He referred to his roommate and live-in lover. “But I mean, we didn’t… I saved myself for you tonight, Mistress.”

She nodded, rose, this time walking the length of his body so closely that her thigh brushed his side. She noted that just that brief contact raised fine gooseflesh on him. Stepping over his anchored calves, she positioned the dildo in both her hands before her hips as if it was attached to her in the way it was attached to a man and guided it in. She’d had Jeremy grease him up further, so even with her saliva, it was a smooth glide. She put her pubic bone against the base once she had it started down the passageway and let go. Gripping either side of his buttocks, she used her carefully balanced forward weight to push it slowly inward, her hips brushing the inside of his quivering thighs. She made a mental note to thank Master T for his thorough work, though he’d already sent her a dozen long-stemmed pink roses for the gift of Brendan these many weeks.

Brendan moaned his pleasure.

Running her nails down his cheeks, she watched the red marks rise up on his flesh, then slid one finger in the crevice and caressed the stretched rim of him around the plug. When he gasped, she saw his testicles tighten between his spread legs.

“Are you hard for me, Brendan?”

“As steel, my lady.”

She liked the improvisational title. “But you won’t come.”

“Never without your permission, Mistress.”

She reached down, cupped his balls, found the rigid line of his cock up against his belly with one straightened finger. Rubbing her fingertip idly over the pulsing vein in its center, she watched his ass clench in reaction, his tiny jerks as he involuntarily tried to thrust into her touch.

“My apologies, Mistress.”

“You don’t displease me, Brendan. I want you to hold nothing back but your seed. When I put the iron to your flesh, you will not make a sound or movement. Do you understand?”

“I…I understand. I can do that.”

“I know you can.” Tiberius would have been sure to train him that screams could command greater degrees of pain. She would use the lesson to show him how euphoric the internalizing of intense sensation could be.

She savored the feel of him in her hand another moment. The hard length, its heat, the pulsing want it conveyed. She wondered how Tyler would feel, his size and thickness, how his heat would taste in her mouth.

She stopped a moment. That was an unusual thought. She’d certainly tasted a sub’s cock before, usually when he was strapped and turned upside down on a wheel so he could stare at her pussy while she enjoyed taunting his erect member at her eye level. But that wasn’t what she imagined with Tyler. In her mind, she moved down his body to her knees, taking him in her mouth while his hand came to rest on her head, tightening in her hair, driving her down on him.

Good Goddess… She straightened abruptly, stepped back, paced away to collect her thoughts. Did another circle of the room. Deep breaths again. Accept. Analyze later.