Chapter 11
Parker
Wrecker didn’t tell me where we were going. He just appeared in the hall as I was stowing the micro-cam kit in my bag and jerked his head. “Downstairs. Now.”
I trailed him, my heart beating a little faster than I wanted to admit.
The main floor of the house was immaculate, but the air changed at the top of the basement steps—cooler, spiced with the tang of old leather and a faint wisp of citrus.
He unlocked the stairwell with a heavy key, opened it, and gestured for me to lead the way.
The steps were finished concrete; the walls lined with bare pine planks stained almost black. At the bottom was a steel fire door, which he keyed open and held for me.
The room beyond was not what I expected.
No cinderblocks, no low-slung pipes. Instead: a single, high-ceilinged space, painted deep charcoal, lit by a bank of recessed LEDs set to a dying-sunset orange.
Against the left wall, a long shelf over a row of hooks held things I recognized only from the darkest corners of the internet and the even darker corners of my own reading habits: floggers, paddles, cuffs, crops, ropes of every width and weave, and a row of beautifully sinister wooden canes mounted like museum artifacts.
Against the opposite wall stood a pair of St. Andrew’s crosses—one steel, one padded black leather, each fitted with shackles at every joint.
In the middle of the room was a heavy padded bench, arched like a gymnast’s pommel horse.
It had lower padded ridges with hanging straps for arms and legs to rest.
And near the far end of the room, suspended from the ceiling by chains so thick I could have hung my own body from them, was a swing.
I stopped dead. My first thought was, is this for me? And then, before I could stop myself, my wolf keened so loud a small whimper escaped my throat.
Wrecker was behind me in an instant. He put one hand between my shoulders and walked me forward, the pressure gentle but non-negotiable.
“This,” he said, “is the only place in the house where the rules don’t matter.
If you want to run, you run. If you want to fight, you fight.
If you want to cry, you cry. But you don’t get to hide. Not here.”
I took two steps forward. The smell hit me—a combination of polished steel, oiled wood, and the sweet, dark undertone of submission. It made my head spin.
He circled around to face me. “You ever done this before?” he asked, voice flat.
I shook my head.
He grinned, but there was no mockery in it. “Good. Means you won’t have any bad habits for me to break.”
The words made me shiver. My mouth went dry.
“Last chance. Head up those stairs if you don’t want this.”
I looked over my shoulder at the door to the stairway and then back into his steely eyes. I never wanted anyone or anything more in my life. I stood taller as I faced him.
“I want this. But I want you to understand that my submission only extends to the bedroom. I want and need you to be the one in charge of my body, my pleasure, and my pain. Everywhere else, we’re on equal footing. Understood?”
“I will always want to keep you safe. That might look like trying to control aspects outside of the bedroom. But yes. I understand and agree. Now. Take off your clothes,” he said.
I hesitated just for a moment.
“Now.”
I stripped. Hoodie, tee, shoes, joggers. I folded them and set them on the nearest bench, careful to keep my hands steady. I kept my bra and panties on, unsure what the protocol was, but he made a tsk sound and hooked a finger under the band of my sports bra, snapping it. “All of it.”
I removed them quickly and stood there, skin prickling in the cool air.
I wasn’t embarrassed of my body. I knew I’d lost weight, as he had so rudely pointed out.
But since I was so short, I had soft curves that I was proud of.
And I was fit. Being a wolf made our genetics predisposed to physical fitness if we gave the slightest bit of work at it.
He circled me, just once. “Good. Now over here.”
He guided me to the bench and put a hand on the back of my neck, pressing me down until my chest and belly rested on the padded leather, which made me ass high.
The bench was warm, the surface faintly tacky with whatever he’d used to disinfect it.
My thighs straddled it as my short legs caused my feet to rest on the lower supports.
He leaned over, so close I could feel the heat coming off him. “You want a safe word?”
The question caught me off-guard. I’d read about them, sure. I’d imagined using one, but never thought I’d have to make the decision for real.
“Yeah,” I said, voice tight. “How does that work, exactly?”
He didn’t hesitate with his instruction. “Many people prefer the traffic light system. Green for good, yellow for mildly uncomfortable but want to keep going, and red for stop. You give me your stop word, and I stop what I’m doing and we do not go back to it, so be certain.”
Being the extreme book nerd that I was, I settled on different words. “Okay, I’ve chosen my own words.”
“Of course you have. Let me have them. And be sure they are not words you could accidentally say, because I will take them to heart and follow them.”
“Dumbledore, for everything is good. Snape, for I’m unsure if I like what you’re doing. And Voldemort, for stop, I don’t like this.”
He patted my head. “Little bird, just when I thought you couldn’t surprise me, you come up with something like that,” he chuckled. “Those are good. I doubt you’d accidentally say any of those words.”
I watched as he walked to the wall of implements.
He’d removed his shirt and was only wearing a pair of low-slung jeans.
His body was a fucking masterpiece. He turned and walked back after choosing a flogger from the rack.
He held it up so I could see—long tails of suede, soft and flexible, nothing harsh.
“First time, so we start light.”
He walked over to me and lowered the bench.
He pulled me back a bit, so I was no longer straddling the bench, but bent over at the hips, my feet on the floor.
With no more warning than the slow sound of his breathing, he laid the first stroke across my ass.
It stung, but more than that, it woke up every inch of skin.
I gripped the sides of the bench with both hands.
He worked methodically, covering the tops of my thighs, then the curve of my hips, then the arch of my lower back. The sound was less a crack than a heavy sigh, the tails biting and then fading to warmth.
After a few rounds, I realized I was clenching my jaw so hard I thought I might chip a tooth. He noticed too.
“Relax,” he said, and ran his hand down my spine, then over my ass, the touch more soothing than sexual. “This isn’t punishment, Wren. It’s calibration. I need to know what you can take.”
He kept going, the rhythm changing, sometimes slow, sometimes two quick strikes in succession.
At first, I tried to count the strokes, but I lost track after ten or twelve.
The pain blurred into heat, the heat into something I couldn’t name.
My eyes started to water. Not from pain, but from the tension that had nowhere else to go.
He stopped, and for a moment, the only sound was the hiss of the air vents and my own ragged breathing.
He set the flogger aside and cupped my ass with both hands, kneading the muscle like he was testing the dough of a loaf he was about to bake. “You’re shaking,” he said, almost curious.
“Am I?” I asked, but my voice gave me away.
He stroked the backs of my thighs, his fingers tracing the patterns he’d left. “Are you wet?”
I blushed so hard I felt the heat at my hairline.
“Let’s find out,” he said, and slipped his hand between my legs. His fingers found the slick, and he hummed low in his throat, a sound of approval.
I thought he’d take me right then, but instead, he stood, wiped his hand on a towel, and walked to the far end of the room. He fiddled with the chain on the swing, adjusting something in the rig, then turned and beckoned.
“Here.” He pointed at the ground in front of him.
I stood, my skin alive with pins and needles, and walked to him.
Heavy straps dangled from the ceiling, each one anchored by a quick-release carabiner.
The swing was made of two wide strips of thick, padded leather; one to support my shoulders and one for my ass.
There were two loops for my legs to fit through up to my thighs. Two arm supports swung freely.
He turned me gently and helped me up. “Just lean back. Feet through these loops.” He guided my legs apart, slipped each thigh into a support.
With my shoulders cradled by the top padded strap and my ass resting on the bottom, the feeling was strange.
My body weight was supported at my lower back and under my knees, arms held out and up by the angled cuffs.
It felt less like bondage than like a surrender to gravity.
He adjusted the swing so my hips were level with his waist. He bent over, his face level with my cunt, and inhaled deeply, like he was breathing in the best air in the world.
He licked me once, flat and slow. The swing rocked just slightly under the motion.
I gasped, then caught myself. “Oh, that’s—”
He looked up, face serious. “Good?”
He licked me again, slower this time, then circled my clit with his tongue. The swing’s micro-movements amplified every sensation. He hooked his hands under my knees, holding me open, and went to work.
My head fell back at the sensation.
“Look at you. My little bird, your cunt is so perfect for my mouth. I could eat you all day.”
I was already sensitive from the flogging, every touch was almost too much. He didn’t let up. He alternated between sucking, flicking, and tracing slow spirals. When I tried to squirm away, the swing just rocked me back into him.
“You can’t fly away, Wren. There’s nowhere for you to go, anyway.”