Chapter Sixteen #2
Once more, my toes scrunched into the carpet’s fibers as my embarrassment swelled.
A grown woman shouldn’t need assent from another.
She shouldn’t need to beg for pleasure, yet where I’d come from, women had to do much worse for much less, a fact that only fortified my aroused shame.
Whether Fortorus had fucked me up and created the sexual submissive who got off on begging or crawling, or whether she’d always been hiding inside me but hadn’t been lured out to play until Harper had swept me off my feet, I might never know.
I only knew there was no coming back from the dark, sordid places we’d discovered together.
“You’re being spanked,” he replied brusquely as he came to stand by the bedstead. “Why would I let you come now?”
Because I’m going to go fucking mad if you don’t?
The answer bounced around in my head, forcing me to draw in a sharp intake of air before I trusted myself to speak. Insolence at that moment would have guaranteed my continued frustration and likely have provoked a far greater penance.
“Because I swear I’ll be a better footrest next time, Sir.” My knuckles whitened as I held onto the end of the bed. “And I really, really need the release.”
My reply hung in the air like the hopeless entreaty it probably was. Futile, fruitless, and yet sexy as fuck.
“Oh, you really, really need it?”
My eyes squeezed closed at his sarcasm. “Yes, Sir.”
I forced out the whisper, unable to meet his conceited expression, which I knew would be waiting beside me. “Please, Sir.” Steeling myself, I turned to meet his gaze. “I know it’s not up to me, but I’m so fucking horny.”
“And you’re so fucking delightful when you’re horny.” Reaching for my face, he stroked my cheek. “And I want to keep you this way.”
“Please.”
Scarcely even mouthing the word, my focus fell to the wooden post between my blanched knuckles as his fingers moved to my right breast. Stripped and exposed, there was no part of me he couldn’t help himself to, and I groaned as he cradled the tissue, his fingers tugging at my vulnerable nipple as if to reinforce the point.
He makes the rules.
“I’ll be good.” The needless vow escaped unthinkingly. Of course I’d be good. I’d probably have agreed to call him Master of the Universe if I thought it would mean him consenting to my climax. “I’ll do anything, Sir.”
“Yes, you will.” His tone was matter-of-fact. “You’ll do as you’re told whether I let you come or not.”
Taking my bud between his thumb and forefinger, he pinched until I gasped.
“Are we clear?” His voice sounded distant somehow, as though it was coming from another part of the house, although that couldn’t be right. I could still sense his digits at my nipples, tormenting and exciting me in equal measure.
“Yes, Sir.”
I would do anything he told me, not only because I was desperate for the pleasure I knew he’d bring, but because I wanted to obey him.
Aside from the distressed ashes from which it had risen, the most fucked up part of our union had been discovering just how much I enjoyed my compliance when he demanded it.
Damn him. I pulled in air, my focus on surviving the next moment, then the next, and the next. My entire world had been reduced to the wet, wanton vessel he’d created. Damn him, and damn me, too.
Why couldn’t I have rejected his illicit power play in favor of more conventional romance? Why did I long for his authority and my subjugation?
What difference does it make?
I swallowed back the pain as, releasing my bud, he slapped at the side of my breast. Reveling in the feeling of the strike, I leaned into the pain.
If I’d rejected his need to dominate me at the beginning and not allowed myself to enjoy the submission, then he might never have taken a shine to me at all.
I’d still have been stuck in Gamma block under the vile Commander Mitchell’s jurisdiction, and one day soon, the man I had fallen for would have been given orders to cull me.
Surely, that would have been the worst outcome of all.
“You’ll suffer for me until I say so.” His voice was softer, or maybe that was only how my tortured mind interpreted it. “Do you understand?”
Suffer?
The word pinballed around my overwrought body.
I’d suffered hideous penances at Fortorus and watched others endure far worse, and in the wake of those dreadful events, I’d assumed I’d never know joy or hedonism again.
Hell, there had been moments so bleak that I doubted humanity still existed, let alone love and lust. That was until he had come along, the commander general, and in the frenzy of our love affair, he’d changed everything.
Lifting my head, I compelled my gaze to find his, my breathing coming hard and fast when our eyes collided, and what I saw there anchored me.
He was everything. So much temptation, joy, and frustration wrapped in the most devastating package.
There was so much power in his handsome pair of hands, the power to pluck me to safety, to free me, to suspend me in whatever clouded purgatory state I was currently freefalling in, and one day, when he decided it was time, the power to pleasure.
Harper retained all the power in the world.
“Yes, Sir.” I hardly recognized the sound of my voice anymore, unsure if the throaty, needy tone meeting my ears was truly mine. “I understand.”
All I wanted was to come, but my hope of that high was fading, drowned out by the ballooning ache in my lower back. If he wasn’t going to release me from my prison of denial, then I might as well accept it as best I could and fast-forward to whichever outcome saw his climax instead.
“You suffer so beautifully, Caroline.” Releasing my breast, he skimmed a hand over my cooling shoulder and along my back. “You’re so very easy to adore.”
I bit back on the snarky retort threatening to rise at his so-called praise.
If I was so adorable, then he needed to let me come, but there was nothing to be gained by telling him so, especially when we both knew the truth—I had no idea how I’d have been able to survive without the crushing weight of his authority.
Whoever I’d been before I’d been rounded up and brought to heel, that woman was long gone.
“Thank you, Sir.” My gaze shifted between my hands, and I wondered how long I could hold onto the wood before my fingers cramped.
“And the color red really suits your tempting backside.” He chuckled, my belly tensing at the sound. “Let’s make sure it remains that shade.”
“Yes, Sir.”
After weeks of subservience at his quarters, I was used to the sadist inside Harper having fun at my expense, but that side of him had rarely been on display since we’d arrived abroad.
Fleeing from mortal danger had brought out a softer, more tender side of him, a version that protected me as well as sought to pulverize.
The slow, dulcet tone of his voice then, though, reminded me of that crueler man, the one who’d enjoyed ordering me to travel naked in front of his subordinates at the camp and used me for blow jobs beneath his desk while he worked.
I’d had no choice but to obey in those days.
To refuse him would have been tantamount to suicide, but repositioning my feet at his side then, I did have options.
I could have straightened and told him no.
I could have spat in his face and stomped out of the room.
I didn’t dare, though. Didn’t even consider defiance.
His sadist was as scintillating as every other version of Adam Harper, and captured in his post-Fortorus universe, his will was all I could contemplate.
If he wanted to spank me and keep my ass red and sore, then I wouldn’t argue.
If he wanted to use me as his fucking table while he watched television, then I could get on board with the idea.
All I needed was him, and God willing, a fucking orgasm.
“How long has it been now since you came?” His fingers trailed over my lower back before gently swatting my left cheek. “Four days? Five?”
“Not since before we arrived here, Sir.”
Since he was the one who’d instilled the command of denial and enjoyed rubbing it in my face every day since, he knew damn well how long it had been, and in all that time, he had pumped his cum in and over almost every single part of me while insisting I receive no rewards.
The thrumming sense of injustice ratcheted my desire to untenable levels.
Bastard.
I should have despised him, should have wanted him to feel even an ounce of the pain he’d inflicted on me, but the truth was, his ability to dominate only insisted I crave him more. The paradox had me tangled up in knots.
“Poor Caroline.” He crooned the feigned sympathy, each syllable seeming to drum over my untouched clitoris. “This must be so hard for you.”
The sound of his zipper lowering suggested that wasn’t the only thing that was hard, and without looking, I imagined how big and swollen his cock was.
“Yes, Sir.”
My head rose at the thought of the compromise. I deserved the orgasm, but if I couldn’t come, then I could still enjoy his hard shaft. That was something, and in recent days, it was all I’d been allowed.
“Perhaps you do merit something for the effort you’ve maintained these last few days.” Squeezing my right ass cheek, his shoe tapped my right ankle wider, the gesture raising my hopes of some kind of reprieve. “A reward for your obedience and stamina.”
“Yes, please, Sir.”
I held my breath, waiting for the punchline when he revealed he was only jesting, or the feel of his crown as it nudged between my legs to show what his idea of a ‘reprieve’ was.
He’d toyed with me so many times before, I couldn’t believe in the possibilities coming from his tempting lips, but I wanted to.
“But then, I did bring you here for a punishment.” Releasing my cheek, he swatted it lightly. “A penance for being a shocking footrest, and why would I recompense your poor form with pleasure?”
That was, I assumed, a rhetorical question.
“Decisions, decisions, decisions!” He practically sang the conclusion. “Do I put you out of your misery or not?”
“Shall I beg, Sir?” I glanced his way, knowing I was likely to do so again, whatever his verdict.
Orgasms, it seemed, were not vital until one was denied them.
I had gone without pleasure for months while held at the state’s leisure, and given how heinous those days had been, the thought of a climax had never even crossed my mind until I’d stumbled into Harper.
But meeting him and learning there was such desire in capitulation had heightened my every fantasy and made the idea of continued refusal too much to bear.
The female body wasn’t designed for continuous arousal.
My head was fogged with the weight of my desire, and my thirst was never-ending, no matter how much water he insisted I drink.
“I do so love to hear you plead.” He ran a digit along my sex. “But I think I’ve heard enough.”
My hips bucked backward at his caresses, a reflexive response to the sudden potential of pleasure.
“I’ll do anything, Sir.” The words cascaded from me like water from a rocky mountainside. I’d told him before, dozens of times, yet there never seemed to be a wrong time to reiterate. “Please, I just need to—”
“You need to get on your knees and polish my cock.” His digits were gone in an instant, their teasing only brief, and yet somehow, the bitterest ruse yet. “If anyone’s going to be coming, little girl, it’s me.”
I sank to my knees with a groan, still gripping the bed with one hand as I shuffled to face his eager erection. As expected, the organ was enormous, every inch as excited by my denial as I was, but unlike me, it expected to be satiated.
“Open.” He clicked his fingers, and my lips parted to accept his dick, which rushed past them to graze the back of my throat. “I’m so fucking hard for you, Caroline. Get me off fast and I’ll consider that reward.”
Surrendering to his will, I ignored the way his cock choked me and blinked away the growing tears as he fucked my face.
There was still no guarantee of my prize, but his words were the closest thing to an offer I’d received for days, and caught in his dark web, they were all I had.
Offering my throat, I slid my hands to the small of my back—the place he seemed to prefer them—and enjoyed the taste of him as he filled up my senses.
He called out as his pleasure peaked, and I wasted no time when his cum erupted over my face, lapping at his shaft and accepting everything he had to offer.
Then, as he perched on the edge of the bedstead for support and ordered me to clean him up, I lapped him up diligently, ensuring all remnants of his deposit were where he wanted them—inside me.
“Very good.” He wrenched me back by the hair, forcing me to meet his eyes. “You always were good at that.”
No one had ever made the deed hotter than Harper.
“Please, I gasped, leaning in the direction his hand demanded. “Please let me come, Sir.”
“It’s been a while since I had you polish my shoes.” He signaled to his feet as though I’d forgotten the debasing tasks he’d had me perform so many times at Fortorus. “Maybe we can kill two birds with one very horny stone here.”
“Sir?” Desperation was etched into my voice as I tried to meet his eyes. “I don’t understand.”
“Sure you do,” he taunted. “You’ve proved your mouth is useful, little girl, so now prove to me how useful my pussy can be.”
I stared at him in disbelief as his demand continued.
“Squat over my shoe and rut against it.” The sound of his self-satisfied laughter rang out around me as the horror at what he was suggesting fell into place in my mind. “If you can make yourself come before I tire of the delightful show, then the orgasm you want so badly is yours.”