Riven #2
Silence settles, but I never remove my eyes from Thayla’s. There’s so much trust in her stained-glass irises. She looks at me like there’s never been a question in her mind whether she could trust me with something like this or not.
“If it isn’t the same, what is it? How do you even define the desire to do this? From either of us,” I ask, quieter now.
“Controlled intensity between two consenting people. Sexual trust,” he says simply and my fucking face flames.
“What is it?” she asks as soon as she notices the color on my cheeks.
“I’m struggling with that.”
“The sexual trust part?”
I nod.
“Yeah. I don’t know where that fits in. I don’t want you to think I’m aroused by the idea of whipping you. That’s not…I’m not.”
“I know you aren’t. That thought never crossed my mind.”
I release a heavy breath.
“Riven, why don’t you try telling her exactly what you imagined doing in that moment you said anything.”
“Exactly what I imagined?” I ask.
“Yes.”
My eyes roam up and down her as I think back to that magical night, and what ran across my mind.
“I imagined her naked on her knees with her wrists chained and arms spread out beside her.” I gulp as that image collides with the one Obsidian made me see.
I shake it away and get back to the real thing.
“The whip I’d use isn’t like a normal whip you’d use for punishment, but for pleasure.
The end isn’t sharp or crafted in a way that’d break the skin. It’d just leave a little mark.
“I’d flick it against her ass then lick away the sting.
She’d never know when or where my next strike would land, but after each one, I’d tell her how good she was doing while I dragged the handle across her pussy.
Just as she tried to grind herself against it, it’d pull it back and flick it against her flesh once again.
Over and over again until she begged me to fuck her. ”
My mouth parts as I plan to continue on, but I snap it shut when I notice how red and bright her face is.
“Well then.” Amick clears his voice and he shifts on his feet. “At no point did it sound like you planned to bring her any harm, so I’m not sure what your reservation still is.”
“My reservation is, I don’t know why I want to do this to her.”
“I think you’ll figure it out once you do it,” Thayla says with eagerness in her tone. She catches the sound of her excitement as well. “That’s, of course, if you want to do this.”
I don’t want to feel like I’m…them when I do this.
“Tell me what you actually want from it,” I say.
Plead maybe.
She breathes in once, steady.
“I want to feel in control while giving that control to you,” she says. “I want it to be my choice, every second of it. I want to know I can stop it and you’ll stop. And I want it to feel…intentional. Not like anything that was done to me before.”
My chest rises and falls, more uneven than I’d like.
“If you want this, I need you to be honest about exactly what you mean by it.”
Her face softens in a way I don’t understand. “I was just honest.”
“I know. I just needed to clarify that again.”
That gets me a small nod.
So I keep going.
“No punishment,” I say first, making it absolute before anything else can blur it. “That’s not what this is. And it never becomes that.”
She doesn’t hesitate. “I agree.”
“And no expectation that I’ll use my Harmony or Chaos or anything like that,” I add. “If something feels off, we stop. No questions. No convincing. No powers coming out to play. It just stops.”
“I agree,” she says again.
“And it’s not about pushing past limits for the sake of it,” I say. “It’s about control. You choosing the experience. Me staying aware of that the entire time.”
She gives me a small smile as she strolls up to me and cups my cheeks. My skin shivers.
“I agree, Riven.” Her power flows across my body and I slump as the agreement locks in place around us. “And just as important, you agree too, or that wouldn’t have worked.
My soul twitches in my chest.
“I do agree. With everything in me.”
She lays a kiss to the corner of my mouth, and backs away from me slowly. She holds my gaze as she unknots her towel and lets it fall to the floor.
“Where do you want me?”
Fuck.
I swallow.
“In the middle of the bed. On your knees, facing away from me.”
She nods, and Amick moves to the edge, holding her hand as he helps her up. Once she’s situated, he dips his head at me and steps somewhere behind me.
I’d smack him if he tried to help me up there.
My body crowds behind hers, and my hands trace down her arms.
“This is the only time I’m calling my power up,” I tell her as I grip her wrists.
“Okay,” she mumbles breathily.
I raise her arms and allow my Chaos to flow free.
Chains link themselves around her wrist, then stretch around the beams that hold up her canopy. The second they’re in place, she pulls against them.
“Is that okay?” I ask.
“Yes. That’s perfect.”
I hum and stare down at my hands.
In my palms, a small whip forms and I trace my fingers down the material. The handle is sturdy, wrapped in leather, but the actual rope is a smooth suede. The last thing I want to do is break her skin.
“Okay, angel, I’m going to—”
“Four,” she says, cutting me off. “I only want you to whip me four times.”
Her spine moves with her heavy breaths.
“Okay.”
I lean forward, laying my lips across her back. Each scar, old or newer, I kiss.
“Are you ready?” I whisper into her neck.
“Yes.”
I flick my wrists as soon as she says the word and hold my breath as she gasps and freezes.
A small, short, little, red mark immediately blooms to life on her right ass cheek, and I bend down, doing exactly as I promised her I would. My tongue heats from her skin.
“Was that okay?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I don’t think so, Thayla. Your words.”
“Yes, that was okay. Better than okay.”
Something uncoils a touch in my chest, and I flip the whip over until I’m gripping where the rope of suede meets the leather. She jumps the smallest bit as I run the handle between her thighs.
I don’t immediately go to her pussy, but around it. Just enough to get her used to the feeling.
The second it finally does touch her, the chains rattle from her tremble.
“Yes,” she breathes.
I instantly pull it back, but don’t strike. I drag it across her back, over her ass, her thighs. Just as her breaths turn to pants, I lash her on the other ass cheek a little harder than the first time.
Her back arches and I swallow rougher than I was prepared for.
I wait for it. The rejection, the word stop, for her body to lock up and brace. It never comes.
She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t retreat.
As my tongue traces the new red line, she pushes herself the smallest bit into me. I let my lips linger as I circle her clit with the butt of the handle.
The evidence of how she’s feeling speaks for itself when I pull the whip back and run my fingers over the wet leather.
That undoes me in a way I didn’t expect.
The air in my lungs rushes out of me, and I flick the whip a little higher where it lands across her entire ass at one time. The sting echoes around the room and so do the husky sounds that come out of her.
The sensation I was prepared to feel doesn’t come and reality slams into me as she slings her head back and calls out my name.
Every reaction, every breath, every shift in her body anchors me in the present instead of the past.
Something inside me loosens. Not all at once but piece by piece. I realize, almost abruptly, exactly why I wanted to do this to her. What I wanted both of us to get out of this.
I crowd her and plunge my finger inside of her as I lower my lips to her ear.
“Tell me you feel it. Tell me this was everything you were hoping it was going to be.”
“No,” she mumbles and the blood in my veins turns to ice. “It’s so, so much more. I didn’t expect to feel…”
“Free,” I breathe.
“Yes. Free. Even chained. I’ve never been freer.”
I kiss her neck and back away from her slowly.
“Amick,” I say once I reach the edge of the bed. I don’t look at him as he approaches my side, but his gaze is weighing on my face. “Get up there and get beneath our Binder. Give her what she wants.”
He hesitates only for a second.
Thayla’s cry of ‘please’ crumbles his restraint. She slams herself down on him as soon as he’s underneath her, and both of our names pour from her sweet mouth.
My chest expands as I inhale deeply, letting everything I just dissected in myself settle. A low laugh pulls from my chest, and I close my eyes as I shake my head.
Why I wanted to do this to her is so clear now.
At Seductions, my power was taken from me, yet I still held power over others. Just like so many people there, her choices were taken from her. I was the one taking choices away as the Empowerer.
I wanted to prove to myself—
My answer seems too simple to be comfortable. It’s not complicated or layered. Just honest.
I wanted to prove to myself that I could stand in the exact position where I once felt powerless…and not become the thing I hated. That I could hold control over someone else and still remain safe with it.
Still remain me.
That I could be trusted with power being placed in my hands and not turn it into harm.
Because part of me has always wondered if what happened to me changed something permanently.
If being on the receiving end of it meant I would never be able to exist on the other side of it without repeating it in some way.
And she was the answer I didn’t know I was looking for.
Not as someone to take from.
But as someone who chose me while I was standing exactly where I feared I couldn’t be trusted.
That’s what I was trying to prove.
That I wasn’t broken into the shape of the people who hurt me.
That I could hold power over someone I love and still choose differently. I was trying to prove I could be in a position of control and still be safe for her to trust.
Now I understand it.
My gaze slides down to the whip in my hand, then back to her. My stunning little burden is about to fall off the edge and take my brother with her. A smirk crosses my lips, and I breathe.