Chapter 25 #2
Lorien massages my back and I release the breath I didn’t know I was holding.
He’s slow, careful, patient even, and I’m so damn glad because I need him to be.
He’s seen my discomfort and he’s responded, and this, this small moment where he’s softened for me, means more than any grandiose gesture or ostentatious gift.
“You’re going to hold the headboard. Head down, ass up.” He presses my back down, easing me into the position he wants. The one that makes me vulnerable. “I’m going to hurt you enough to make it feel good, and you are going to stay exactly like this. For me.”
His hand rubs my ass and I know what’s coming. I know this will hurt but part of me wants it, certain that it’ll make the pleasure more intense.
“Stay,” he says.
His weight moves off the bed and I hitch a breath, wondering if he’s leaving me again. Wondering if this is some cruel joke or humiliation he’ll derive pleasure at my expense.
I count the seconds I’m alone, each one a moment of doubt that threatens to overcome me. And when he does return, his touch sets me alight.
“Good boy.” He draws something over my back and the feel of it is alien. “This is a flogger, Jude. You’re going to mark so fucking beautifully.”
I wriggle as the touch turns ticklish and Lorien flicks his wrist, landing a short and stinging blow to my ass. I jump and he swipes harder, swatting my other cheek with enough force to bite.
“Stay still.” He exhales. “This ends when you trust me and you’ve learned the lesson I want you to.”
And he begins.
Strike after strike lands, each one measured, each one sharp enough to sting but not to break. The quick succession of blows sets my skin alight, the pain blooming before I can catch my breath, before I can stop myself from trembling beneath his hands.
Lorien doesn’t speak as he works, doesn’t pause to let me catch my breath.
Each strike lands with precision, not cruel, but unyielding, a steady rhythm that makes my skin burn and my pulse hammer.
The pain is sharp, then dull, then sharp again, a cycle I can’t escape, can’t control. And maybe that’s the point.
I bite my lip, trying to swallow down the sound threatening to slip free, but Lorien knows. He always knows.
“Don’t fight it,” he murmurs, his fingers tracing over the heat blooming beneath his touch. “Don’t hold back from me.”
I shudder, the mix of pain and pleasure coiling in my stomach, sinking its claws into me. His hands are everywhere, striking, soothing, claiming. I don’t know how much longer I can take this. I don’t know if I want it to stop.
My breath catches as his palm lingers, pressing against the heat he’s left behind. His touch is possessive, firm, and when he finally speaks again, his voice is softer.
“Tell me you trust me.”
I clench my fists, nails biting into my palms. It’s not that I don’t. It’s that trust is terrifying. It’s that surrender has never come easy.
But Lorien is patient.
Lorien is relentless.
Lorien is heaven and hell, and all that exists in between.
He leans in, his breath a whisper against my ear. “Say it.”
“More, Master,” I rasp.
I hear him suck in a harsh breath and something darker, deeper. Then—God help me—he laughs, low and satisfied, the sound curling around my spine like smoke.
“Babe,” he purrs, his fingers trailing down my back, teasing, tormenting. “Now you’re learning.”
And then the next strike falls, sharper than before, a delicious ache that makes my breath stutter. He doesn’t stop this time, doesn’t hesitate. Each blow is a lesson, a demand, a promise.
I surrender to it. To him. To us.
The next strikes land, sharper, searing, and I gasp from the rush of it than the pain. My body is alight, trembling with the unbearable push and pull of sensation. Lorien’s everywhere, even when he’s not touching me, even in the spaces between each measured blow.
He hums in approval, his fingers skimming over heated skin, soothing and cruel all at once.
“You take it so well,” he murmurs, his voice all smoke and silk. “Like you were made for this. For me. Fuck, you mark so beautifully, babe.”
I turn my head and his hand fists my hair.
His breath fans hot over my cheek, his grip tightening just enough to make me shiver in all the right ways.
And then the next strike lands, then another, and another, each one an unspoken claim, branding me in ways deeper than the skin.
My body sings with it, with the heat, the rhythm, the exquisite tension that coils tighter with every touch.
There’s pain laced with pleasure, sharp and intoxicating, heady and invigorating.
Each strike sends a shiver down my spine, an ache that turns into something unbearable and exquisite all at once.
The sting makes me gasp and tremble, but the thrill beneath it makes my body arch into his touch and beg for more.
It’s too much.
It’s not enough.
It’s everything and I want more.
Lorien leans in, his mouth a breath away from my ear. I feel his heat against my shoulder, the way his chest rises and falls, ragged.
“I could do this forever,” he murmurs. “Watch you shudder for me, writhe for me. Give yourself over so sweetly.” His lips graze my jaw, feather-light. “You are so fucking beautiful like this.”
A whimper catches in my throat. “Please.”
His chuckle is pure sin. “Please, what?”
I don’t know what I’m begging for. More. Less. Everything. Him.
And then, finally, he stills. His hands map the lines of my body, soothing where he’s marked me, and I sense it—the shift, the pull, the inevitable gravity between us.
He presses a kiss to my shoulder, soft, lingering. “I’ve got you.”
And God help me, he does.
“Do you understand now?” he asks, his mouth trailing over my sweat-slicked skin. “I will never hurt you intentionally, not unless it’s bringing us pleasure. Even when I punish you, I will not harm you. Never, Jude. Even if it hurts me more to take another path.”
My eyelids flutter shut and he pulls me up, lifting me until there’s no space left between us.
“Say it,” he whispers, his teeth grazing against my shoulder. “Say you’re mine.”
I am. I always will be. And I can’t imagine belonging to anyone else.
“Yours, Master,” I whimper.
“Again,” he orders, quieter this time.
“I was always yours, Master.”
His groan is sinful, reverent, and before I can take my next breath, he’s shoving me down and moving behind me. His arm locks around my waist and his other hand runs over me, and I melt, yielding to the firestorm he’s unleashed inside me.
“Perfect,” he mutters as he drags the tip of his cock over me. “You’re perfect.”
I mumble incoherently as he pushes into me and I gasp a little as the burn begins to increase.
Lorien hasn’t given me much warning and even though I’m aroused, I’m struggling to accommodate him.
He doesn’t slow but he reaches around, grabbing my dick and the pleasure eases the pain, as my ass stretches and his thick, hard cock sinks into me.
“Gods, you’re perfect.”
Lorien thrusts in and out of me, his chest resting on my back as he fucks me hard and slow, playing with my cock as he pumps in and out of me.
My hips move with him and he quickens his pace, still fucking me hard enough that every thrust sends a shudder through me.
The smack of his hips against me sounds out and the heat from the flogging burns hotter, each sensation heightening the others until I’m moaning without shame, practically begging to be allowed to come.
I hear his slight grunt of his breathing as he moves behind me and his fingers dig into me as he moves faster again, starting to drive towards climax. My core’s on fire, already hot from the pleasure and pain sweeping into me, and I want more.
My cock throbs and Lorien fists it harder, pumping faster as he pushes me toward orgasm.
The heat from the lashing, the burn from his cock and the pleasure coursing through me have me on edge, and it would be so easy to crash into oblivion.
But he holds me there, right on the verge of orgasm, achingly close to the pleasure I want yet unable to get there, held back by the pain as he makes me wait.
Makes me take more of him.
Makes me earn it from him.
“I’m so fucking close, Master.”
“I know, Jude, I know.”
He feels so damn good inside me and I’m frantic, desperate to come, pleading for this agony to end.
And Lorien loves every moment of my suffering, playing me like I’m an instrument he’s spent years mastering.
I writhe and bite the pillow, clinging on as the pleasure becomes an undeniable torture, hoping he’ll let me come when he’s ready.
Lorien’s cock feels bigger, harder, impossibly so, and my groans deepen as his rhythm becomes deranged and he fists my dick so damn hard it almost hurts. He’s close and now he’s driving for his climax, consumed with his own pleasure and my fingers whiten as I pray he doesn’t lose control.
“Fuck,” he roars as his cock jerks inside of me.
He’s coming and the cry of his climax echoes around the room as his hand twists around my cock and the sensation is more than I can take. My orgasm breaks, hard and fast, spreading through me like a goddamn tidal wave, destroying everything in its path as the heat consumes me.
I sink into the mattress, oblivious to the come I’m lying in as I pant and try to cool. Lorien purrs behind me as his hands run up my back and he carefully withdraws, peppering kisses over my back before he lies down on top of me.
We lie in silence, his arms around me, and I wonder if this was what he wanted to happen.
My heart pounds from the orgasm and the anxiety, leaving me worried I broke a rule and might have undone any progress we just made.
My thoughts spiral and then Lorien nips my shoulder, and the sting of the pain rouses me from my thoughts.
“I would tell you if you did anything other than what I wanted.”
I roll over and he’s smiling, completely content, his eyes full of an emotion strangely like adoration.
My breath catches, and his smile widens.
He’s looking at me like I’m precious, like I’m irreplaceable.
It’s the way the tide worships the moon, drawn inescapably closer with every passing second, while the moonbeams kiss the gentle waves that rise to meet them.
It’s how the ocean cradles a ship sailing on its waters, both dangerous and protective, willing to carry or consume—and I want both these things with him.
“You’re overthinking,” he murmurs, trailing his fingers down my spine. “Just give yourself to me. Stay here. With me.”
I swallow hard. “I’m here, Master.”
His smile deepens, slow and satisfied. “Good. Now, we can begin.”