Chapter 2
2
I nara
The first strikes come softly, so light I barely feel it through the thin fabric of my nightie. The next blow is harder, as is the next, and on and on until heat rises on my shoulder blades and sides. He’s painting the leather tails in an X shape against my back. Every stroke lands with the precision of a master—thudding down with the perfect amount of impact. I let my head fall forward.
“All good?”
“All good.”
I’m panting hard, but not because of the impact.
He called me ‘little bird.’ No jokes about ‘swallowing’ or anything. He assumed my pseudonym referred to the bird.
He assumed correctly. Which makes me feel more naked than the fact that I’m only wearing lingerie.
My body is warm and flushed all the way through. I need touch. I long for it. But I can’t stand it.
Over the years, I’ve found the flogger is a good substitute. Like many leather fingers drumming down my back. Fingers that can hurt. Fingers that can heal. Fingers that can make me feel.
He’s stopped flogging me. He’s close to me again, on my right. His scent wafts over me—a rich and comforting musk. “Turn your head toward me.”
I do so immediately. My thoughts are coming too slowly for me to question him.
Something cool touches my lips. “Water,” he tells me. He’s holding a bottle to my mouth. “Drink.”
I tip my head back, and he gives me small sips, dabbing a cloth against my mouth when a few drops spill. The heat of his hand warms my skin, and my head rolls in his direction.
“More water?”
I shake my head.
The slow tread of his footsteps paces away, then returns. “Flex your fingers.”
I let my fingers unfurl.
“Good girl. What’s your safe word?”
Under the blindfold, I squeeze my eyes shut tighter. “Elyria.” He doesn’t know what it costs me to say that word.
The flogger snaps behind me, not touching me. The sharp sound throws me back to the place I want to be.
“More?” he asks.
“More.”
Please, gods, let this hurt.
He presses the handle to my back and runs it along my skin, igniting the warm marks. Heat pressing like a fist between my legs. I breathe shallowly in case the mere weight of my inhale makes the dam burst.
The tips of the flogger bite into my shoulder. I flinch and sigh as the pain scores my skin and digs its claws deep. He uses the flogger to snatch at my skin, unleashing a stinging rain.
A few more minutes and endorphins cascade into my bloodstream. I let myself be lifted up, up, up. And in my mind’s eye, I see him. My scene partner, my top for the night. He’s in a white button-down shirt, one so well fitted it must be bespoke. He’s every inch the civilized man, except he’s huge.
Thick dark hair brushes his brow, and he’s as fit as an Olympic athlete with giant muscles flexing under the Italian cotton. His waist is trim, but his thighs strain against the expensive wool of his slacks. He’s at ease, flogging the bound submissive in front of him. Every once in a while, he paces, letting her come down, letting tension build before he begins again.
Flogging is hard work, and he’s flushed. His skin is flushed and healthy. He has a strong nose and a hard jaw. The face of an emperor. The sort of face they’d carved onto gold coins.
I don’t know if any of this information is true. But it’s what I see. It could be my imagination, but experience tells me my imagination is dead accurate more often than not. Call it instinct. Call it psychic ability. But my mind can paint a perfect picture of something I’ve never seen.
There’s also something familiar about his presence. Which is impossible. I don’t recall meeting a man like him. And I would remember. I always request a different top, so there’s no way we’ve scened before. Is there?
The flogger snaps at my calves, and I drop back into my body. I flinch at the strikes. My breath shudders against the cross, misting my face. My forehead slips against the slick leather. I’m sweating, hot, flushed.
And my body is hungry. Too hungry to be denied.
For the first time since I’ve gotten into kink, I want a scene partner to touch me.
It’s not that I can’t take touch. As a ward of the state starting at the age of twelve and bounced between group and foster homes, I rarely got the touch I needed. And now it’s too much.
Too intimate.
It’s not the touch that hurts. It’s the attachment. Not the close feelings, but the loss of them when they’re ripped away.
And they’re always ripped away.
Better to connect with someone like this. A new city, a pseudonym, and a partner vetted by a club. One scene and then done. It’s too risky to try anything else.
It’s been so long since I’ve been touched softly, kindly, that I don’t know if I could take it. It might be too much to bear.
It’s not that I don’t need it. I need it too much. If he touches me, I’ll need it again and again.
So I bite my lip. No touch. He’s abiding by the rules, and so will I.
He’s still flogging me. The lick of the strands leaves a sting that feels so good. This is what I’ve come for; his touch translated into the force of a strike, a heat on my back. If I can’t have touch, I can have this, and it’s better than a hug. It’s making me whole.
I fall into a rhythm, bouncing between the beat of the flogger and the gusts of his breaths. I’m so in tune that I can guess the timing of the hits. I can imagine the rise and fall of his arm. The ache in his own trapezius as he uses his muscles and works me over.
My blood pumps through my veins. I can feel the redness rising on my back.
Then the tide sweeps over me, and I’m lost.
“Little bird,” someone is calling.
“Mmmm?”
“Are you with me?”
I nod.
“You’re doing so well.”
I smile at the cross.
“So beautiful. So soft. I could flog you all night long.”
Yes. Do it.
“But then I wouldn’t get to play with the paddle.”
The softest fur rubs up my calf. It feels impossibly good.
“There are so many implements in here. I could try them all.”
I whimper with fear, drowning in happiness.
“But I don’t want to keep you in cuffs too long. And again, I wonder. . .” He pats something firm against me, and it’s no longer the paddle. Or it’s not the soft, fur-covered one. He swats me with the smooth, hard edge, and pain blooms through me. Another strike to the sensitive crease under the ample curve of my bottom smacks the breath out of me.
Then he does something new. He rubs the paddle between my legs. Lights flash behind my eyes.
“I wonder if I could make you cum like this?”
“Yes, please.” I rock my hips forward, wishing there was something between my legs I could rub against.
“An orgasm wasn’t a part of your scene requests. Some submissives separate kink from sex. I thought you might be one. But now, I wonder if you’ve never thought it was possible.”
He’s talking too much. I can’t think. Shut up and make me come!
“Your rules say no touching, and I agreed to follow the rules tonight. Unless you want me to break them. . .”
“Yes.” The word is out of me before I can stop it.
“But no,” he continues with that godsdamned patient and amused tone. He knows what he’s doing to me. “We’re in the scene now, and you’re not in the right mental state to consent.”
“I want it.” I press myself to the cross. My breasts are swollen, sensitive, and filled with heat. I need someone to touch them with gentle, skilled fingers or the punishing strands of the flogger or even the sadistic flat of the paddle— please, anything.
“Shhhh, little bird.”
I’m making little desperate noises in my throat. “I need it.”
“Can you come like this?” He smacks my sit spots again, hard enough to jolt me forward. I whimper at the flare of pain, which is followed by the intense pressure in my sex. “From just pain? Just the paddle?”
“No. I need more. I can’t come from just that.”
“Oh, I think you can.” He strikes me again, and the fist of delicious tension in my sex pulses outward. “If I can make you come without touch, will you scene with me again?”
“Yes.” Anything.
He chuckles. “You can’t consent, so I won’t hold you to it.” Another tap of the paddle. My middle is filled with golden heat, ready to spill over. I’m so close. One brush of my clit will set me off.
The handcuff chains clink as I writhe, desperate.
“Shhhh, little bird. Calm yourself. I’ll give you what you want.”
The paddle smacks dead on the globe of my right rear cheek, then the other. Then something smooth rubs between my legs. I look down as if I could see it, but the blindfold still has me caught in this dark world. My guess is he’s using the narrow handle of the paddle. I bear down. I need more. . .
He taps the firm surface between my legs. Little sparks fly up from the contact.
Another tap between my legs and then a harder pat. Another and another as he works up to a hard swat. Each blow sends shockwaves through my sex.
It’s too much. It’s just enough. My inner muscles cramp.
He rubs the smooth paddle handle between my legs. At first, it’s just through the lingerie, the gossamer fabric rubbing against my swollen sex, rough and slippery with my essence. But then the handle itself pushes against my clit, angled right where I need it. I rock my hips forward, and he holds the handle still.
He’s still right behind me. So close, if I push backward as far as my binds will allow, I’d be leaning against him. Instead, I press against the cross and chase my orgasm, grinding down on the paddle.
I’m so close. . . just a little more. . .
He gently taps the handle on my sex. The blow makes me try to jerk my legs together, but I can’t move them. He rubs lightly and then taps again. I’m teetering on the edge now, and he’s applying the perfect amount of pressure with the paddle.
It’s like he’s reading my mind. Or my body. He’s taking note of every sigh, every cry, every flinch, and every shiver.
I go over the edge, keening. He keeps rubbing me, pushing it further, driving me on. I strain against my ankle cuffs, trying to close my legs around the pressure. His touch lessens immediately, leaving me to shake in unbearable ecstasy against the cross.
My chest heaves, rubbing my breasts against the apex of the X.
I’m boneless against the cross. Completely undone. He’s cracked me open with this scene in a way that no one has before. He’s flayed and lain me out before him, poking and prodding at my insides. My heart’s a black and poisoned thing, an oozing, open wound. The only way I can bear it is to make my outsides hurt as much as my insides. Let the pain bleed through to my skin.
It’s perfect.
“Good girl. Beautifully done,” he murmurs.
I wish he would touch me. I wish I could bear it.
If I weren’t broken, he could take me down himself and carry me across the room in his strong arms. He’d lay me down and tuck a blanket around me, then tuck himself around me. I’d let my head fall on his chest and fall asleep to the lullaby of his soft breathing.
I want that more than anything.
But I fear it more than anything, so I don’t dare risk it. If I could accept a normal human relationship, I wouldn’t be seeking anonymous partners to flog me raw. I wouldn’t need it to hurt on the outside so much to ease the pain throbbing in my veins.
With a harsh ripping sound and a gust of air at my ankles, I can tell that he’s undone the Velcro cuffs at my feet. Just the warmth of his hand hovering close to me is enough to unravel me further.
“You okay?”
I nod, still leaning against the cross. His presence is a giant warmth against my back, all-enveloping.
For a moment, I just relax into it, letting his nearness enfold me like a blanket.
He’s still behind me, hesitating.
My requested scene clearly states, “No aftercare,” but a good top won’t leave until he knows I’m okay. I can sense him wanting to help me. I want that too, but. . .
No . I’m in control. I’m good. I’ve got this. I can take care of myself.
I have to.
“Do you want my help getting out of the handcuffs?”
In answer, I strike the handcuff’s flimsy hinge at just the right angle against the padded leather. It takes me two tries for my left wrist, but eventually, both cuffs spring open.
I lower my arms and shake them out.
“Show me your wrists,” he orders. I don’t think to disobey. I turn, still blindfolded, and offer them up. It’s such a submissive posture my skin tingles. He’s so close. If I took a few steps forward, I could press against him.
Whatever he sees on my wrists makes him tsk. “No more handcuffs,” he says. “If we scene again, I’ll use rope to tie you.”
I nod, still not making a move to pull off my blindfold. It’s safe here, in the darkness.
“Thank you,” he murmurs. His voice is a sweet, potent whiskey that makes my senses swim. “You did well.”
Again, the sense of deja vu washes over me.
I sense him pacing to the opposite side of the room. The door opens but doesn’t close right away. He’s paused there.
“Goodnight, Inara,” he murmurs. Then the door clicks shut.
He’s gone.
I wait a few seconds and pull off the blindfold. The low light disorients me, and I lean back against the cross. That was the best scene I’ve ever had.
It’s not until I’m dressed, out of the club, and into a cab that I realize he called me by my real name.