Chapter 13 #2
He would allow me no distractions. No way out. But he couldn’t command my thoughts. He couldn’t read my mind, so I mentally counted the ticks.
One…two…three…four…
His finger brought me back with a devious crook, pressing that spot just right. I launched his name from my lips with a painful groan.
“Who am I, Kayla?”
“Master,” I choked.
Counting…
God, where was I?
Eight…nine…ten…eleven…
Another come-hither crook. Another concentration break. I whimpered for more, even as I relaxed my muscles and hurtled every thought and feeling away from the rush of heat building in me.
Away from his vicious tongue.
“That’s right, baby. Come for me. You know you want to.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “No…please. Stop!”
Another flick of his tongue, followed by a snicker. “You’re drenched. There’s no stopping this, so let go. Come on my tongue.”
He went in for the kill, intending to rocket me into deep space. I shook my head, chanted no, no, no in time with the incessant ticking that brought me one second closer to freedom.
The freedom to jump off the ledge. God knew I clung to it until the last possible second. Cried in disappointed anguish as his lips and tongue and devious fingers sent me plummeting head first.
Spiraling.
Screaming.
Shattering.
“Gage…” I held on to his head for the ride, squirming underneath him, back arching. Mouth gaping.
His triumphant moan vibrated to my core, making me claw at his shoulders.
“Oh God!” A week of denial had primed me for the ultimate surrender, and another body spasm bent me to his will. I succumbed to his tongue with everything I had, turned to lava, flooded his greedy mouth.
More.
There was only more.
By the time I slammed back to Earth, my body drenched in sweat and utterly spent, I was malleable flesh in his hands. Easy prey. Too susceptible to his guile.
He almost had me—had almost obliterated me beyond thought or reason. But I remembered to glance at the clock, and a slow grin stretched across my face. “It’s four minutes past midnight.”
His gaze swerved to the instrument that would ultimately be his downfall, because I had no intention of letting him get out of this.
“So it seems,” he said with a frown.
“I want your control.”
He shot a hand out and squeezed my nipple. “I’m still your Master. Don’t forget that.”
“Please, Master?” I fluttered my lashes at him.
He shook his head with a sigh, but something about the way his mouth twitched gave me hope. He almost seemed…amused. Last year, he hadn’t believed I had it in me, and he’d been right. I’d tested the waters of making him submit, but I hadn’t gone after it with purpose. With absolute bravery.
With the obsession that ran through my veins now.
A year had twisted my psyche into something beyond innocent. Not only did I want to watch him writhe, but I wanted payback.
“A deal’s a deal,” he said.
My pulse thrummed in anticipation.
“Under one condition.”
Of course there was a condition. Gage specialized in the language of contingencies.
“What do you want, Master?”
“I want you to remove anal as a hard limit. Give me your tight little ass whenever I please, and I’ll give you what you want for one night.”
“That doesn’t sound fair. How about a night of anal for a night of your submission?” I countered.
“You’re lucky I’m negotiating at all. I can do what I want, whenever I want. That’s what owning you means, Kayla. That’s what it means to be a slave. You yield to me—not the other way around.”
“Why are we having this discussion then? Take what you want. Force me. Hold me down and show me what it means to be a man.” My voice rattled with scorn. “Hurt me. Make me cry. Is that what you want?” I was on the verge of tears again.
Something in my tone must have gotten through to him. The severity of his expression softened. “I want you to give it to me.” He slid a hand under my ass and teased the spot he was dying to penetrate. “Don’t make me force you.”
“Don’t make me beg you not to.”
He dropped his head between my thighs, his sigh of concession a feather on my skin. “Remove the hard limit. In return I’ll give you what you want every year on our anniversary.”
It was more than I could have hoped for. More than I thought he’d ever give.
“Promise?”
“I swear on my love for you.”
“Will you be gentle?” He’d been gentle in Vegas, but I sensed a restless energy in him that scared me.
“Always.”
I chewed on it for a few moments, bottom lip pulled between my teeth, and nodded.
“Since we’re laying our cards on the table,” he said, bracing himself above me on his forearms, “your volunteer work at his hospital is ceasing yesterday. Do you understand me?”
“Gage—”
“Don’t even think about arguing with me.”
I clamped my mouth shut.
“You may volunteer at any damn place you want, but if you ever set foot in that hospital again, or talk to him, or touch him, you will not like the consequences.” He grabbed my chin with the harshness of the pre-marriage Gage, who was not only a controlling and sadistic bastard, but a psychotic, controlling, and sadistic bastard.
There was definitely a difference.
“I don’t share, least of all with him,” he said. “Are we clear?”
I nodded, my throat too constricted to speak.
“Good. Now enough of this bullshit. My cock is in desperate need of your mouth.” He climbed to his knees, unbuttoned and lowered his zipper, then moved to perch on my chest. Prepared to take.
I shot a hand out and placed it against his abs. “You said a deal’s a deal. It’s our anniversary, so I believe it’s my turn to call the shots.”
He dropped his head with a laugh. “You wicked, wicked woman. You might have the world fooled with those I’m-innocent eyes, but I’m on to you.”
I veered upright and shoved him back. He dropped to his haunches, his dark hair a sexy, disheveled masterpiece. I rose to my feet and crossed to where he’d set a single duffle bag next to the couch.
Gage’s bag of tricks.
For the next 24 hours, it would be my bag of tricks. I felt his attention on my back as I unzipped it. Glancing over my shoulder, I found him in the position I’d left him.
“I’m going to miss that hair,” he said. “But I’ve got to admit the short length is not without merit. You’re gorgeous no matter what you do.”
My fingers caressed a buckle. “Are you trying to sweet talk me, Mr. Channing?”
“Maybe just a little, Mrs. Channing.”
Spending time with him like this—with the air full of laughter and love and happiness—was amazing.
As I pulled the cuffs from the bag, I realized how harrowing our lives had become.
But maybe that was the cost of harboring such intense passion.
We felt things deeply. Loved with depth, lusted with insanity, angered with the burn of an inferno, hurt with the force of a blast.
We were both a little insane.
I carried the cuffs to him, but instead of restraining his wrists, I dropped to my knees and let them crash to the floor.
I launched myself at him, much like I had the first time I’d gone to him of my own accord, free of coercion.
My hands ended up in his hair, our mouths melded together, and his arms circled my waist, pulling me closer.
I wasn’t sure who was submitting—seemed like we both were.
We were submitting to something bigger than the two of us.
“Do I have to call you Mistress?” He was nowhere near taking this seriously.
“I don’t care what you call me, as long as you get naked and let me cuff you to the bed.” I rose, picked up the restraints, and sauntered toward the bedroom, not bothering to see if he would follow.
I knew he would.