Chapter 22
Sebastian
“Let’s get started, shall we?”
The words came out quieter than I intended, vibrating through my chest rather than the air.
Mira couldn’t see me. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t move more than the inch the straps allowed.
And yet her entire body answered me—back arching almost imperceptibly, nipples tightening beneath that barely-there bra, breath catching around the gag in a way that made my control slip for a dangerous half-second.
God, she was stunning like this. Bound. Blindfolded. Gagged. Trying her hardest to be still for me.
She didn’t understand yet that stillness was a choice, and she’d already surrendered it.
I brushed my thumb slowly along the inside of her thigh, tracing the edge of the leather strap. She flinched, not away. Toward. Always toward.
She was beautiful.
I tightened my grip, just enough to remind her I was in control but not enough to bruise. Not yet.
“Such a good girl,” I murmured, watching the way her breath stuttered at the praise. “Even when you panic.”
Her fingers clenched around the squeaky toy. The absurdity of it should have broken the moment, but it didn’t. It heightened it. She wasn’t voiceless, wasn’t powerless…just muted. She held the one thing that could end everything in a heartbeat.
And I knew she wouldn’t use it.
She’d push herself. Let me take her to the edge again and again.
She was perfection. Exactly what I’d been searching for, inside and outside of Sanctum. The thought hit me hard.
Would she run if she knew it was me holding the crop?
I leaned in close enough that my breath warmed the underside of her jaw. She froze. Every nerve in her body fired at once. She thought I was going to kiss her.
I wanted to. Instead, I pressed my mouth to the corner of hers, lips brushing skin and leather, close enough to promise, far enough to deny.
She wasn’t the only one being denied tonight. I'd never understood how a kiss could unravel a person until the first time my lips touched hers. Even now, restraint felt like a choice I was actively suffering through.
“You have no idea,” I whispered, “how much I enjoy you like this.”
Her breath hitched around the gag, a soft, needy sound she probably hated herself for making. I wanted to hear it again.
I skimmed two fingers slowly up the center of her sternum. Not touching, hovering a hair above her skin. She responded anyway. Her body arched into the phantom contact, chasing something that wasn’t there. My restraint thinned.
“Color,” I said quietly.
She didn’t hesitate. The gag muffled her, but the word came clear.
“Green.”
My body reacted instantly, but as I adjusted myself, I took a deep breath. My needs would wait.
She was fearless. Mira was made for this. Made for me. The thought terrified me because I knew there was no way this ended with us together.
I stepped back a half pace, giving myself room. I needed control now more than she did. If I touched her too soon, this would unravel fast, and tonight wasn’t about fast. Tonight was about stripping away the last walls she kept standing everywhere else. At work. In her life. In her own damn head.
She squirmed slightly, the straps creaking with the movement. Not panic. Anticipation.
“Hold still,” I warned, reaching for the riding crop.
The crack landed on the inside of her thigh.
Her entire body went still, beautifully, obediently still, as if the straps had tightened themselves.
Good girl.
I reached behind her head, checking the gag strap, making sure it wasn’t too tight. She shivered at the faint brush of my fingers.
She had no idea how close I was.
If she knew it was me, that the same hands that had stroked her wrist with professional distance in the office were now hovering inches from her soaked thighs, she’d break.
Or maybe, God help us both, she’d fall even deeper.
I slid a gloved hand up her inner thigh, stopping just shy of where she was hottest. Her hips jerked involuntarily.
“Easy,” I murmured. “We’re not there yet.”
Her frustration rolled off her in a trembling waves. I smiled beneath the mask.
“Color?”
She didn’t answer right away. That alone told me everything. She was weighing her options as she tested her restraints. Her breathing settled around the gag, then I heard it.
“Green.”
I reclined the chair.
She tried to jump at the movement, instinct flaring before logic of the situation caught up with her. She was trapped. There was nothing she could do.
Her body settled as gravity shifted, thighs opening just enough to make the denial sharper.
Her thighs trembled in their restraints, muscles shaking with effort and need. She couldn’t close her legs. Couldn’t hide how wet she was. Couldn’t hide anything.
I licked my lips, letting my thumb brush the very edge of her heat. Her whole body jerked at that single touch.
I swallowed my own groan.
Tonight was going to destroy us both.
I picked up the clamps from the table and leaned over, drawing the lace fabric down, releasing her breasts. Her breath caught as I drew one hard nipple into my mouth, the smell of peaches grounding me. My teeth grazed her peak as I stood and settled a clamp in place.
Her jaw tightened in anticipation and I knew she expected the same treatment on the other side, but instead, I smacked her nipple with my gloved hand.
She cried out, pulling against the restraints before forcing herself still again. Only then did I attach the other clamp. When they were in place, I stepped back, admiring her.
She was flushed, doing her best to breathe through her nose.
I took her in, committing the sight of her to memory, knowing I’d never be able to forget this. She wasn’t the first I’d had here, but this was different. The more I knew, the more I tasted, the more I wanted.
Circling the chair, I swatted her thigh, then immediately soothed the same spot with my palm. I kept her guessing. Some strikes, others gentle. When my hand brushed her ribcage, she twitched, a soft, startled sound slipped free, that she hadn’t meant to allow.
She was ticklish. That surprised us both and something I’d make sure I remember for later.
I set the crop aside and stepped between her thighs, my hands sliding up the insides of her legs, following the slow line of muscle to the tops of her stockings.
When I reached her center, I snapped her garter belt once, deliberately, watching the red bloom against her skin.
I lingered there, letting the sting settle.
I stayed there, close enough for her to feel the heat of me without giving her what she wanted. My hands slid back down her thighs instead of higher, thumbs pressing lightly where she needed them most, then retreating.
She shifted, testing, chasing a sensation. I rewarded the effort with another slow pass, never lingering long enough to give her any satisfaction. A touch here, a pause there. Pressure, followed by none.
“Patience,” I murmured, more for myself than for her.
I let my fingers trace the inside of her leg, then pulled away entirely, leaving her with nothing but the ache, her breath uneven, body begging while the restraints held her exactly where I wanted her.
I wanted her right there. Wanting. Waiting. Balanced on the edge of a cliff I had no intention of letting her fall from, at least not yet.
She went rigid when I tugged her panties free, the fabric giving way in my hands. The evidence of her surrender clung to her, and I smiled at just how deeply she’d given herself over to the loss of control.
I tucked the torn scrap into my pocket, a keepsake, then squeezed her thigh once, grounding her. My other hand followed, drifting deliberately to her folds.
Her moan slipped out before she could stop it.
My index and middle finger ran up one side and down the other, circling her clit as she tried to move closer but the restraints did their job and held her in place. She was trying so hard to be good, to be silent.
She was so wet that my fingers met with no resistance when I thrust my fingers into her slick core, my attention fixed on her face.
I watched every breath, every tremor ripple through her as I pushed her closer, then eased back again. She bit down on the gag, muffling the sound she was trying to contain, and the sight of it was satisfying in a way I hadn’t expected.
There was a rare power in watching someone surrender so completely.
She knew she couldn’t come without my permission. I knew her well enough to take her right to the edge and keep her there.
She was close. I knew that, but instead of doing what she wanted, I stopped and withdrew my hand completely. Her body sagged as she sobbed. As soon as her body settled, I thrust three fingers back in, watching as her head fell back and she started to climb again.
My cock pushed against my zipper, pleading to bury myself inside her, but it would wait. My hand gripped her thigh while the other one thrust into her at a brutal pace again before I eased up.
I was pinned between want and restraint. Never in my life had I ever wanted anyone so bad and it was threatening my control.
Pulling out of her again, my hands clutched her thighs and I watched her muscles relax again, her body glistening with beads of sweat. Her breath began to slow until the edge dulled just enough to hurt.
“Please,” she sobbed, around the ball gag.
In the office, she met me head-on. She didn’t flinch when I raised my voice. She didn’t shrink when I pushed. She argued back, sharp and unafraid, eyes bright with challenge. She made me work for every inch of ground.
Here, she was stripped bare in a different way. No armor. No arguments. Just trust laid open in her hands.
My grip tightened on her thighs, not to punish her, though I knew there would be bruises tomorrow, but to steady myself.
I lowered my head, closing my eyes, forcing my breathing to slow. Grounding myself in the reality of her. The woman who challenged me in daylight and yielded to me in the dark, hidden behind a mask.
But I didn’t truly have either of them. Not with the noncommittal clause in our contract hanging between us like a quiet warning.
She whimpered.
The sound cut deeper than her plea ever could.
I lifted my head, resolve settling back into place, heavier now, weighted with something that felt dangerously close to care.
Slipping the condom out of my pocket, I slipped it between my lips before I eased my zipper down, releasing my straining cock from its confinement.
I sighed, quickly tearing the wrapper and slipping the rubber on before I ran it through her folds, her moans going straight to my dick.
My fingers dug into her hips as I pushed into her warmth, knowing I’d already pushed my control to its limits and this wasn’t going to last as long as I wanted, or needed, but she needed release as bad as I did.
Why did the woman feel like coming home? Her walls were tight around me as my pace quickened, my thumb running over her clit.
There would be no more edging, no more push and pull, the only thing left was to lose myself in her, and I knew as she started to spasm around me. Her body tightened, trembling as she fought the orgasm that was closing in on her.
“Come for me.”
I watched as the words shattered her. In the second that followed, I tugged off the nipple clamps before moving my hands back to her hips.
A few more thrusts, she tightened around me like a vice.
Her body tensed before she spasmed around my cock and I collapsed on her, as the aftershocks rolled through us both.
I stayed there longer than necessary, my breathing slowing as I came down from the best climax I’d ever had. When I finally shifted, I was careful not to hurt her.
Quickly disposing of the condom and redoing my pants, I moved to the head of the chair, undoing the gag. She took a shuddered breath, her body still spasming.
“Easy,” I said as I loosened the restraints one by one. When her wrists were free, I circled them gently with my thumbs until the feeling returned. When she was free, she lay there exhausted, spent. Beautiful.
I took the squeaky toy from her hand and set it on the table before scooping her up into a bridal carry, her body pliant now, spent in a way that had nothing to do with strength and everything to do with release.
She clung to my shoulder as I carried her into the next room, her fingers twisting into the fabric of my shirt like she was afraid the ground might disappear again.
When the door closed behind me, the room went completely black.
That was when she broke.
It started as a shudder, her breath hitching against my chest. Then the sound came, muffled, the kind of sob that came no matter how much she didn’t want it to. Her body curled inward, shoulders shaking as the tears spilled over.
I laid her gently on the bed, staying close, one hand at her back while the other steadied her thigh.
I didn’t rush her. This was something that couldn’t be rushed and I was happy I’d planned to take care of her afterwards instead of handing this part off this time. This mattered and I wanted to be here.
The room was simple. I’d seen it before, it was lit just enough but I knew where everything was. Several of the play rooms had these adjacent and they were all set up the same.
A moment later, once I blew out the only candle illuminating the room, I removed her blindfold.
She blinked against the darkness, tears tracking down her temples. I felt the heat of her skin beneath my palm, the tension in her jaw, the way her breath hitched open and raw against my chest, and something in me tightened.
I touched the bottle of water to her lips.
“Drink.”
She obeyed, taking a few shaky swallows before the sob caught again, her breath breaking apart as the tears returned harder this time. I kept the bottle there, until she finished and turned her face into the pillow with a helpless sound.
“That’s it,” I said quietly, caressing her cheek. “Let it out.”
I laid next to her and pulled her to me. She gripped my shirt and buried her head into my chest.
I stayed with her through all of it, until her breathing slowed and her body finally began to settle.
Only then did I adjust the blanket around her shoulders, bringing her back to the here and now.
“You’re safe,” I said, lowering my voice as I did.
Her response was small, but it tore at my heart. She nodded against my skin, a simple whisper, “Yes, Sir.”
And that was enough. Except—was it?