Chapter 8
She shouldn’t have said anything. If she’d kept her thoughts and worries to herself, all she’d be feeling now was anticipation instead of anticipation mixed with anxiety.
Maybe the outfit would serve as an icebreaker.
Before they parted ways outside the dining room, Mara had asked Cole if they were using the same playroom.
He looked at her questioningly but then nodded.
She couldn’t help but note the little frown line between his brows, placed there by their conversation and lingering even though they were moving on.
She’d once again been lingerie shopping, and the success of last weekend—despite her worries, she considered it a wild, delicious success—had made her bolder in her choices.
The specific outfit for this evening had been decided by their choice of playroom. She was glad they were using the same vampire bedroom, because this outfit was the one she was most excited for.
Mara knocked once, then waited.
Cole opened the door, looked her up and down, and grinned, that line between his brows smoothing away.
“Come in, wench.”
“Wench?” Mara flounced in.
To be precise, she walked normally, but given the plethora of cascading ruffles on the back of the skirt, flounced was the only appropriate verb. The heavily ruffled skirt was cut short in the front but fell nearly to her calves in the back. The corset was heavy gold brocade with white piping.
“You look like a pirate wench.”
“No. A pirate wench would have the sleeves. Remember?” Mara held up one arm, then made billowing gestures around it with the other as she had last week.
“Then what is this costume?” Cole folded his arms, frowning, though his eyes sparkled.
“This is vampire supplicant.” She tapped the multistrand faux pearls draped around her neck. “And it’s not a costume. You said costumes mean role-play—”
“I said uniforms mean role-play.”
“And this isn’t really a costume. Or a uniform. It’s simply…thematic.”
Cole shook his head. “If there was ever a woman to make me change my mind about role-play, it would be you, Brown Eyes.”
She wished he wouldn’t say things like that. It made this too emotionally intimate.
“Tell me your safeword.” His voice was lower, rougher than it had been a moment ago, and the mood in the playroom shifted from light and teasing to something darker.
“Dividends.”
“Close your eyes.”
Mara did, swaying slightly. She felt him approach—from the thud of his booted footsteps to heat radiating off him to something else. Something more. An instinctive prey awareness that she was in the presence of a predator.
Cole’s warm chest pressed against her back, and Mara leaned into him, eyes closed. To her surprise, for a moment, he merely held her. His cheek on her hair, their breathing synced.
“I’m going to use you,” he warned her, voice almost a whisper. “I’m going to do depraved things. Unhinged. Unrestrained.”
A whine of fear vibrated low in her throat. He cupped her neck, hand gentle in a way that wasn’t comforting but warning. He was gentle now because later he wouldn’t be.
“I’m going to hurt you, and maybe pleasure you.
But above all, I’m going to use you, because you’re mine.
Every part of your body.” He reached into the top of the tight corset, finger scraping back and forth over her nipple.
“And your mind. I might have been gentler, except that conversation we just had told me how much you need to know.”
“Need to know what?” she breathed, pleasure curling through her from where he touched her nipple.
“How deep the dark runs.”
His hand slipped from her corset, and he gripped the back of her neck, using it to guide her. Mara went willingly, if not exactly eagerly, as his words had sparked a twisting fear to burn like a blue flame beside the white-hot heat of her desire.
The wooden spanking bench was not the modern, padded contraption she’d seen in other playrooms. This one was simple and made of dark glossy wood. It looked like the bastard child of a prayer kneeler and a sawhorse.
The only padding was two small red pillows positioned where her knees would go.
Without a word, Cole positioned her on the punishment device.
Her knees went on the pillows, her stomach braced on the upper crossbar.
There was nothing supporting her chest, head, or arms, and she couldn’t really bend at the waist due to the corset.
With a hand on her wrist, he guided her to grip onto pegs that protruded from the upright sides.
That allowed her to support her upper body, but this was far from a comfort-oriented spanking bench.
He flipped her skirt, and it was long enough that it fell over her head. Now, she was veiled by the white ruffles, unable to see anything except the floor directly below her.
She was bare beneath the skirt.
It wasn’t exactly a surprise when his hand landed on her ass. What was surprising was how hard he spanked. Maybe it was the leather gloves, or just the fact that he had big hands, but the very first spank was hard enough to make her yelp, her anus and pussy clenching in reaction.
She got five swift, hard spanks on each ass cheek. There was a surface sting, but most of the sensation was a deeper heat that lingered longer than the sting.
After ten, he left, and thanks to the skirt, she couldn’t see where he went. From the sounds, she was fairly certain he’d opened the black armoire he’d inspected yesterday.
“This will hurt.” His words lay over the top of the sound of his returning footsteps.
He proved himself right with the first strike. She wasn’t sure what it was, but it laid a line of fire across her bottom, striking both cheeks.
She screamed in both pain and surprise at how big that pain was.
Then he struck her again. Another line of fire, this one in a different spot than the first and a slightly different angle, but once again catching both cheeks. It wasn’t something stiff; she was sure of that. Not a paddle. Maybe a belt. Or a cane.
The fourth strike made her scream—a real scream—and she nearly jumped up. She was gripping the pegs so hard, her fingers were going numb, and it was only that desperate grip that kept her in place.
There was no physical pleasure in this, only pain, and a true pain rather than the malleable pain of having her nipples pinched. There was pain that could change and morph like a flock of birds twisting and changing direction in the air. That was unchangeable and rooted deep like a tree.
Twice more he struck her, making it clear that this was the second kind of pain. Pain for pain’s sake. Pain because he wanted her to hurt. He could give her pain or pleasure, and right now, he chose pain.
After the sixth blow, something thumped onto the floor and then his hands were on her, kneading and rubbing her sore ass.
Her skin felt raw and hot, like she’d suffered the worst sunburn of her life on her ass and upper thighs. His hands forced that heat and pain deeper into fat and flesh of her ass as he kneaded.
She wasn’t sure when she’d started crying, but her sobs slowed as he continued to knead her. An odd form of aftercare that brought its own pain.
He spread the cheeks of her ass, holding them open.
Then he spit on her, rubbing his saliva into her puckered anus.
The humiliation of that made her blush, and she closed her eyes as if that could hide her from the embarrassment. Embarrassment he couldn’t see, given that her flipped-up skirt covered her entire upper body and head.
The plug he pressed to her rear entrance was slick and cold. Except maybe it wasn’t the plug, because as he pressed, there was no gentle invasion indicating a taper. She felt her anus indent before finally giving with a pop, her asshole expanding around the wide blunt thing.
He shoved it in with one firm push. It was a plug, given that her muscles were able to close onto the narrow neck. The part of the plug that was inside her felt huge. Invasive.
When he finally helped her stand, Mara turned into his chest, rubbing her tear-damp cheeks against the leather of his vest.
“Please,” she whispered, plucking at a vest button.
He eased her away, stripped off his vest, and then pulled her back into his arms.
She shivered and shook in his hold, the abused skin of her ass throbbing in time with her heartbeat, her rear entrance so full of the toy that it was impossible to ignore or forget.
Cole remained silent as he turned her, his arm around her shoulders as he guided her not to the bed but to a blank stretch of wall.
Mara whimpered when she saw the leather cuffs dangling from thin gold chains.
Cole backed her against the wall, then buckled her wrists into the restraints. Her hands were at ear height, her arms relaxed rather than taut, elbows bent.
He silently went to work on the corset, undoing the front hooks.
“Cole?”
He raised his gaze to hers, though his hands kept working.
“You’re…quiet.”
“I am.”
“You weren’t before. You called me a needy slut and a fuckdoll.”
“Is that a complaint, or are you asking for more of the same?”
“I just want to know why it’s different tonight.”
“Because tonight is different.” Cole peeled the corset open, taking a moment to admire her bare breasts. One finger stroked the faint seam impression just next to her nipple. “Last weekend was the most fun, and the best conversation I’d had in a scene in a while.”
He tossed her corset to the side. “And if we make it through tonight, we can have that again tomorrow.”
“But tonight is different,” she echoed.
He nodded, reached back, and pulled the handle of a flogger from his pocket.
Mara’s gaze jumped to his face, but Cole was studying her tits as he warmed up his wrist. The flogger had red falls and looked soft enough, with no obvious hard edges.
That didn’t stop her trembling.
“Arch your back, present your tits,” he barked.
A voice screamed, you have to be kidding, screw that! but it was a small, far-away voice. She arched her back, bracing her head and throbbing ass against the cool wall.
Thud.
The flogger struck her left breast, one fall striking her nipple in a way that made her teeth clench…and pussy throb.
There were a few more experimental blows, and then Cole settled into his rhythm. The soft flogger was gentle at first, even pleasurable when one of the falls kissed or tweaked her nipple just right.
But he didn’t stop. Cole kept going past the point of gentle warmth to a burning, aching heat. Now, each blow felt hard. Harsh.
She risked one glance down at her breasts, saw the pink flush and a few darker pink lines, and closed her eyes, pressing her head hard into the wall.
And still he kept going.
Mara’s breathing was uneven, though she wasn’t crying the way she had with the flogger. She twitched and flinched with each blow, a few times making the chains rattle as she instinctively tried to cover her sensitive breasts only to be brought up short by the bondage.
Her thoughts were muffled, her mind almost foggy as he continued to strike her soft, vulnerable tits. Tits she thrust out and offered up. After each flinch that made her shoulders hunch, she’d return to the position he wanted—back arched, chest out, pink, aching tits on display.
She was panting, each exhale a whimper, when he finally stopped. She sagged in relief, but he caught her chin, raising her face to his.
“Not done yet.”
She tracked him as he went to the armoire, putting away the flogger and grabbing out something much smaller.
When Cole returned, he held it up for her to see. A short leather slapper. It was a simple but effective toy, about twenty inches long and only two wide.
“Sir, please,” she whimpered as he carefully positioned it with the tip level with her nipple.
“Please what?” He paused, waiting.
She searched his face for mercy, and there was none.
Good.
“Please use me,” she whispered, even as his image blurred, tears filling her eyes in anticipation of the pain.
Instead of flicking or swinging the slapper, Cole held one end steady, pulled back the other, and then released. The leather snapped forward, striking her nipple with devastating precision.
Mara screamed, twisting as far as she could while also trying to rub her burning, stinging nipple with her elbow. Her ass clenched hard around the plug, and her pussy…
Her pussy was wet.
Cole caught her by the throat, forcing her back flat to the wall and adding just enough pressure to her neck to make her very aware of how helpless she was.
“I’m sorry, Sir,” she whimpered when the pain had faded enough for her to speak.
“Don’t apologize. I should have bound you tighter for this.”
Tucking the slapper into his pocket, he adjusted the chains, taking up all the slack and forcing her arms up and out.
He struck the slapper against his palm several times, each echoing snap making her flinch.
Then he struck her other nipple. Once more, he positioned the slapper with one end less than an inch in front of her nipple before pulling it back and letting it snap forward.
It felt like fire, a terrible burn so acute her body hummed with it. It went on and on, and she was desperate for him to touch her, to ease the ache.
“One more on each nipple and then I’ll soothe them.”
More?
“Sir,” she whimpered.
He paused, waiting, but she said no more.
Snap. The slapper struck her nipple and she danced in place, sobbing at the sharp pain. He didn’t wait, but struck her again, precise and cruel.
Then the slapper was gone and leather-covered smooth fingers and a soft wet mouth were on her nipples, soothing away the throbbing pain.
The acute sensations became a pleasant, throbbing warmth that made her hyper-aware of her tits, just as she was aware of her spanked ass and the plug inside it.
The plug should have been a clue. She shouldn’t have been surprised when he took nipple clamps from his pocket.
The clamps were a circle of metal with two flat bars inside, the screws protruding out through the circle. The bars could be screwed down as much or as little as wanted.
Cole carefully applied each clamp, tightening just enough to keep them on. It wasn’t bad. She could handle that.
Cole tipped her face up, studying her. She wondered what he saw in her expression.
Whatever it was, he reached down and tightened both the clamps, not unbearably but enough that she felt the pinch rather than merely pressure.
Finally, Cole released her, letting her cuddle into his chest, though she tucked her arms to create space between her clamped nipples and aching tits and his body.
“One more,” he said, stroking her hair. “Just one more place you need to take the pain.”
Then he hooked his thumb in her skirt, easing it down over her ass to let it pool on the floor.
“Time to punish your pussy.”