A Shot in the Dark (6 page)

Carter moved to her side and slipped an arm around her waist. The smell of sun and beer clung to him. “Go slow.”

The sting from the pins and needles returning had her sucking in a breath, fighting against the chewing sensation. “God, I hate this.”

“Then you shouldn’t sit that way.”

“It was that or beat my head against a wall. I figured this would be less painful for everyone.”

Carter chuckled. “Let me know when you can walk again.”

Paige put her hand over his, holding him in place, and leaned into his side. She’d missed the comfort his physical presence offered, even if they were in constant communication via text messaging. With the life coming back to her extremities, she looked up and shrugged.

“I could go for that burger right now.”

The scowl on his face told her the distraction wasn’t going to work for long, but for the moment he didn’t push.

“Can Ian do without you?”

“He’s a bit distracted at the moment, but I think he’ll be fine.”

“The guy at the counter seems pretty taken with him.”

“If Ian doesn’t ask him out soon I think Blue Eyes will. I don’t know why they’ve been playing this game for as long as they have.”

“Probably for the same reason you’re not telling me about Mr. Asshole who showed up and freaked you out. They are scared of the consequences.”

Paige didn’t like to think of herself as being scared of anything, but in this instance she couldn’t argue with him. “We can go to my place. Only if you want.” While the last thing she would normally do was to bring someone back to her place, knowing Carter was there in case Rick decided to show up was a comfort in itself. “I’ll buy the burgers.”

“I have beer in the car.”

Paige told Ian she was leaving. “Sadie said she could come in if you need her.”

Ian gave Carter the once-over. She knew he didn’t know what to make of the fireman yet, but his reaction was already better than it had ever been toward Rick. “No problem. We’re pretty quiet here today.”

Blue Eyes remained surprisingly silent for once, though he did nod at Carter.

The entire way from the store to his truck, Carter had an arm around her waist or a hand on her shoulder. The constant physical contact was enough to help keep her from frantically looking around to see if Rick was watching. Not that she had any illusions about him coming to find her again, but he would think twice about it with Carter present.

They rode most of the way to the burger joint in silence, and Carter only filled her in on a few of the details about the happy-to-be-a-single-guy party he’d been attending. “It was sad how what we all wanted was a girl to go home to.”

“They should go out more.”

“That’s what I said, but I wasn’t about to tell them where.” He changed lanes and pulled down the side street leading to her house. “I don’t think any of them could handle going to a place like Mavericks.”

Paige smiled and twisted her hair around her finger. “They don’t know about your preferences?”

“They think I’m an overbearing jerk and they can’t figure out why any woman in the world would be interested in me.”

“I can name a few reasons.”

“Then I might bring you down to the station house and you can let them know personally. Use inches and diameter if you need to.”

That had her laughing. “Next left. Third house on the right.”

The burgers were still warm when she tossed the bag on the kitchen counter. Carter followed her right in and didn’t even check her place out. It was nice to know he respected her privacy as much as he did her body.

“I can give you the fifty-cent tour later on if you want.”

“Food first, tour later. I missed out on the steak.”

They slipped into easy conversation as they ate. Paige kept her focus on his face for as much of the conversation as she could. Carter’s blond hair was messier today and his clothing more casual than she’d ever seen him in before. He wasn’t at all self-conscious about anything, and his easygoing nature wrapped around her and helped her relax.

It was only once they’d cleared the dishes away and they’d opened up their third beer that he pulled her over to the couch and turned her to him. “Are you going to tell me what happened earlier, or am I going to have to make it a command?”

There was no malice. Paige knew he was trying to appeal to all aspects of her nature—the woman and the submissive. He would do whatever she needed to make this easier.

She slipped to the floor by the couch, spread her thighs and bowed her head. “If you don’t mind, Sir.”

The silence stretched on for several moments before he set the beer bottle on the side table with a soft
thunk.
“Paige, who showed up today?”

She licked her lips. “Rick.”

“And who is Rick to you?”

“He is…was my Master.”

“Your…what?”

She took a breath. “He told me to refer to him as my Master. He was my first serious partner and Dom when I was young and naïve about the lifestyle. At the time, I didn’t understand there was a difference between being submissive and being a slave. Pain for pleasure, instead of pain for…” She shrugged.

Carter’s fist tightened where it rested on his thigh. “Did he ever cross the line with you?”

She snapped her head up. “I didn’t even know there was a line. I figured being submissive meant I had to take everything he dished out. I liked pain, but he didn’t always know when to back down.”

“Did you safe word out a lot with him?”

“I didn’t know what that was until over a year of us being together. By then, it didn’t seem important. He wouldn’t have listened to me anyway.”

The muscle in Carter’s jaw twitched and his breathing grew shallow. “What happened? You left him?”

She nodded. “I came home late from the office one night. Everything we ever did was normally easy to conceal. The marks from the flogger, the riding crop, his belt, they were all on my back or ass. But when I was late…”

The events of that evening weren’t as clear as she would have liked. The nurse at the hospital had told her it wasn’t uncommon for head injuries to cause problems with the victim’s memory. The woman had tried to get Paige to admit she was being abused, but she couldn’t come to terms with it to admit the truth. She’d asked for the pain, got off on it, yet Rick never knew when enough was enough.

She hadn’t left him that night. It had taken her two weeks to build up enough nerve to get her things and get safe.

None of this could she adequately put into words to tell Carter. She knew he’d react the way Ian would if she’d ever told him. Shit, the only person who knew the truth was Sadie, and she’d been ready to set fire to Rick in his sleep.

“You were late?” Carter relaxed his hand and laid it flat on his thigh. Paige wasn’t fooled into thinking he wasn’t still furious.

All she could do was tell him what she remembered as plainly as possible. “I was late and it had ruined Rick’s plans. He’d had tickets to something and we weren’t going to be able to make it. He punched the back of my head and knocked me out.”

Carter somehow stiffened more. “I’ll kill him.”

“You’ll go nowhere near him. Rick has been out of my life for a long time now. I’m a different woman from the girl I was when I was with him. I know more about the lifestyle. I know what my rights are, what I like and what I don’t like. I have a voice and I’m not afraid to use it. I’m not weak.”

“No, you’re not. But you’re not over this either.” Leaning down, Carter framed her face with his hands and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “If you were, going to Mavericks wouldn’t have been as traumatic for you.”

“I was scared he would find out I was getting back into it and would show up.” She chuckled, the sick feeling in her stomach threatening to come back. “Guess I was right.”

“He won’t lay a finger on you.”

In that moment, Paige believed Carter was capable of doing bad things to a person.

“I swear I’ll do everything I can, talk to everyone I know to make sure you can go wherever you want without this fucker bothering you.”

Normally, such a statement Paige would either brush off as being optimistic or foolhardy. But by the combination of absolute belief and the quiet steel in his personality, Paige knew Carter could live up to every single promise he made her.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

The kiss came out of nowhere. One moment they were staring at each other, and the next he had her pulled against his chest, his mouth devouring hers. Her body ignited as his hands roamed down her back to cup her ass and pull her onto his lap. Carter shifted to kiss a path across her jaw to her throat and down until he reached her collarbone, where he nipped her.

“I swear no one will touch you.” He licked the hollow of her throat and cupped her breast. “You can walk out of my life tomorrow and I’ll still make sure no one ever hurts you again.” He pulled back, brushing his nose against hers. “Let me prove it to you?”

“Okay, okay, yes.”

P
aige didn’t know what Carter had in mind when he carried her to the bedroom. She couldn’t speak, even to give him directions, leaving him to push every door open with his foot until he found the right one. When he dropped her on the bed he pointed at her.

“Stay.”

There wasn’t the malice she’d grown used to over the years, a simple command and the promise of pleasure. Paige let her head fall back against the mattress as he moved around the room. Scarves she hardly ever wore were scooped up from their home in her closet to be deposited beside her on the bed.

“Safe word?”

Unlike their first time, Paige knew she had to give him a real answer. “Apples.”

“No chance you’ll be calling that one out mistakenly.” He picked up a blue silk scarf and ran it over his palm. “Strip.”

The shirt came off with ease, though her jeans caused her grief. She managed to toe off her socks before pulling her underwear down and her bra off. Being naked in front of Carter was easier this time. Whether it was from the expression on his face as his gaze slipped down her body, or the way he relaxed as she spread out on the mattress, arms above her head near the headboard, only to be rewarded with a soft growl, Paige wasn’t sure.

“How could anyone…?” Carter snapped his mouth shut and moved to wrap the scarf around her wrists. “Let me know if this gets too tight.”

“I will.”

“I mean it. I don’t want you feeling any discomfort that I’m not expressly giving you. You’re in control here, Paige. Never forget that.”

Once he’d finished the knot, he placed the ends of the scarf in her hands. She thumbed the binding. The knot was loose given he’d used silk. If she didn’t struggle too much, it shouldn’t be a problem.

Carter yanked his shirt off and let his pants fall to the floor. He stood there in his boxers, prominent erection tenting the front.

“Someday I would love to gag you. I hope that’s not a hard limit for you.” He leaned forward and draped the second scarf across her mouth, letting the soft material tease her as he trailed it over her face. “There’s something sexy about the moans a woman makes when she’s gagged. Begging without words, using your whole body, and I have to figure out exactly what you want. Not today, though. Right now I want to hear every sound. I want you to scream and beg and moan until your throat is raw.”

He moved the scarf down to brush the peak of her left nipple. The silk caught on the tip, causing goose bumps to rise down her arm and over her chest. Paige bit down on her bottom lip, not wanting to give in to what he wanted yet.

“I could kill you with kindness if I wanted. Have you ever had someone tease your body to the point where you want to come, but you can’t? That orgasm is a hair’s breadth out of reach for long enough that you think your body is going to explode or you’ll die from the denial? Because when you do come, it’s like your whole world has been rewritten.”

Paige couldn’t stop either the full body shudder or the moan he wrenched from her when he pinched her nipple. She scissored her legs and bucked her hips up, trying to get him to touch her where she knew he wouldn’t. Not for some time.

Carter slapped the side of her thigh. “Settle down. I’m not ready for that yet and neither are you.”

The sting was like a hot balm on sore muscles after a ten-kilometer run. It helped settle both her body and her mind, pulling her back into herself until she focused on nothing but Carter.

She could tell he was watching her carefully, evaluating every move, moan and sigh she made. Canting her hips, she hoped to encourage him into action. He narrowed his gaze, evaluating what she needed. Paige bucked her hips again, hoping he would understand even when she didn’t.

Paige was surprised when he reached in and slipped the silk scarf beneath her leg, to tie it high up her thigh, where the limb met her body. The material was constricting, applying pressure in a way she wasn’t used to. Shifting on the bed caused it to pull hard, chafing the skin and putting in her hands all the control over how much or little she wanted the pain to be.

With a sigh, she relaxed into the mattress and let herself float.

He understood.

“There is so much I want to show you.” His fingers teased her nipples, pinching and twisting the skin. “Can I, Paige?”

The sting of his forefingers on her nipple was a blessed relief, as was the thrust of his fingers into her cunt. Rick had never done this for her, turned her on until she questioned her sanity. Carter could take her higher if she let go and trusted him.

With a groan, she made sure he knew he had her full attention. “Yes.”

Much as he had back at the club, an expression of awe and respect echoed over him, before the control of his Dom self wiped the emotions from his face. “Don’t move. I need to get a few things.”

He coiled the silk scarf on her stomach, the end slithering over her side to tickle the skin. She didn’t have a lot of equipment here at the house, not anymore. Carter would need to be creative. Paige closed her eyes to better focus her hearing, to see if she could figure out what he was doing. The fridge opening and closing and the rattle of cups and cupboard doors echoed in her too-quiet home. His returning footsteps elicited a shiver through her.

Paige opened her eyes when Carter entered the room and tried to see what he’d brought back. She frowned at the sight of the bag of frozen peas.

“I wasn’t planning on needing these today.” He tossed a handful of condom packages on the bed beside the peas. “But I’ve been carrying them around since our meeting at the club.”

He ripped open the first condom package and began to fill it with the frozen peas. Paige moaned and tried to twist away from him.

“Stop!”

She complied without thinking.

Carter leaned over her body, but didn’t touch her skin. “You want me to show you?”

Eyeing the condom, she nodded slowly.

“Then stay still.”

“Yes, Sir.” She hated that her voice lacked her normal confidence.

Carter went back to ignoring her, to focus on his preparations. When the condom was three-quarters of the way full, he tied it off, resealed the peas and returned them to the kitchen. Paige could feel the cold bleeding off the condom by her leg and shivered at the idea of where exactly he was going to be putting it.

“I’m going to use another condom to make sure we don’t have any accidents,” he said as he walked back in.

“Where are you going to put that, Sir?”

He chuckled. “Where do you think? Right into your hot little pussy, Paige. It’s going to feel amazing to have all those cold little balls rubbing against all those hard-to-reach places. Won’t that be fun?”

Can I shove it up your ass?
“Yes, Sir.”

“I can tell you’re excited about it. But I think we’re going to start with this first.”

The small drinking glass was one of the ones she used for juice in the morning. Paige flexed her fingers around the scarf holding her hands in place as Carter took her cooking oil and poured some into the palm of his hand.

“I can tell from your reaction you’ve never done anything like this before. Have you?”

“No, Sir.”

“Have you ever heard of cupping?”

Paige shook her head, her gaze locked onto the barbeque lighter he’d dug up from her junk drawer.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to burn you. I only need to heat things up a little bit.” Igniting the lighter, Carter held the flame just inside the cup. He moved it around without touching the glass, which fascinated Paige.

“It’s not going to scar, is it?” Rick had threatened her with a lighter once, but thankfully he’d never followed through.

“Nope. I’ve seen too much of that shit at work to get off on doing it to someone. No, this is all about heating the air to get a little suction going.”

Carter moved over her and, before she had time to realize what he was about to do, he pressed the cup directly down on the top of her breast. Paige cried out at the immediate, intense suction, and the skin inside the cup turned red.

“The ancient Chinese used this as a method to help heal infections, working it alongside acupuncture. Of course, people in the lifestyle soon figured out there was a whole lot more you could do with it.”

With care, Carter slid the glass down her breast until he reached her nipple. He stopped shy of the sensitive spot. “Look at me.”

Paige found it hard to lift her gaze from the glass, and it took Carter’s hand on her chin to break the spell and allow her to comply with his command. She was panting, the air making her lips dry as she tried to fight through the sensations unleashed upon her.

“Keep looking at me, Paige. I need to see your eyes.”

She nodded, wanting desperately to see her skin as he reached out once more and slid the glass over her nipple. The suction sent a bolt to her cunt, making her gush as her orgasm threatened to come. The bastard hadn’t even touched her yet.

“Too much. Fuck, Carter.
Sir
.”

“I have the perfect thing to make it better.”

He abandoned the cup and reached for the condom. How she’d forgotten about it, Paige didn’t know. Carter slipped a second condom over the first and tied it off.

“I don’t want anything breaking and having to take you to the hospital.” Lifting her leg, he slipped between them, placing her left ankle on his shoulder. “Don’t you dare move.”

Paige’s entire body shook as she thrashed her head. “Too much.”

“You’re doing amazing. This will help.”

Carter probed her with his fingers, opening her lips and spreading her wide. At the first touch of the cold condom, Paige cried out and bucked her hips. Carter’s large hand on her stomach forced her still as he slipped the ice cold pea-filled condom deep inside her pussy.

“It’s too much. Too much.” She moaned and squirmed, trying to get away from the cold rush and hot suction.

“No, it’s not, or you’d be safe-wording out. Relax into it. Let the feelings wash over you.” He reached up and moved the cup, shifting the suction from her nipple to the side of her breast. At the same time, he pumped the condom in and out of her, rubbing the frozen bumps against her G-spot.

Nonsense words spilled out of her like water from a tap. Everything around her disappeared into nothing, and her entire existence consisted of the pressure and cold.

As quickly as he’d penetrated her, Cater pulled the condom out and set it out of sight. Reaching up, he slid the tip of his finger underneath the lip of the glass and broke the suction. Paige let her head drop back against the bed and tried to slow her breathing.

“Look at you.” Carter ran a finger along the now-purple skin, sending another surge of pleasure through her. “I could spend all day marking your body. You’re beautiful.”

The suction of his mouth on her nipple was completely different after the pressure from the cup. The skin was more sensitive than she’d ever felt in her life. She tried to pull her hands free, wanting to push his head away, but the silk scarf held her tight. Fuck, she needed to come.

Releasing her with a pop, Carter sat back and reached for the barbeque lighter once again. “Ready for some more?”

He didn’t wait, drizzling some of the cooking oil on her stomach before grabbing the cup and heating the air once more. The pressure on her stomach was different from her breasts. The pressure bordered on agony as he got close to her ribs, only to back away before he hit the bone.

It was different from the sharp bite of a flogger across her ass or back. The pain burned and stretched, pushing her to the edge of her limits before Paige found herself relaxing into it. She lost the ability to focus, and the blessed numbness of her brain allowed her to simply let go. There was nothing beyond the sensations. Nothing beyond what Carter would give to her.

“Paige, look at me again,” the voice was asking her, but she was slipping away from it. Fingers on her chin and the feeling of her head moving. “Paige, still with me?”

Somewhere in her head she knew she should answer. But it was too perfect, the pain and pleasure all jumbled together in her body.

The pop of the cup being released from her stomach gave her a jolt. She sucked in a deep breath, as if she’d been holding it for hours. Carter rained kisses across her face, muttering words she no longer had the capacity to recognize.

She needed to come. Needed it badly.

“You will, baby. I’m going to make you come now. But I need to know if you can handle this? Can you take more?”

“Please.”

“
Look
at me.”

She found his beautiful hazel eyes and did her best to hold on to his gaze. The smile on his face shone up into his eyes as he pressed a kiss to her lips. “I want you to come when you can. Understand? Don’t hold anything back.”

“Y-yes, S-s-sir.”

He spread her pussy lips wide, pausing only for a moment to finger her gently, before he pressed the cup with the heated air to her clit.

Paige screamed. In her mind’s eye she could see the sensitive skin turning bright red as the blood rushed to the surface. It was stronger than any man’s mouth had ever been, creating a glorious pressure she couldn’t escape. The press of the cold condom once again into her pussy had her orgasm crashing over her.

Carter fucked her through her release, rubbing the frozen balls in the right spot. Her body convulsed, muscles tightened, and her throat went raw from the unending screams pouring out of her. Finally, the cold was gone and the suction was broken, leaving her completely lifeless on the bed.

She didn’t realize she’d been crying until Carter took the orphaned scarf and used it to dry her face. The silk holding her wrists had to be cut off—she’d twisted and turned it tight, and now her hands were getting cool from lack of circulation. Carter moved each of her arms down, massaging her shoulders and biceps, helping the sensation return to them.

Paige wanted to help, wanted to sit up, shift around, anything to move, but her body wouldn’t cooperate.

Once he’d fixed her up, freeing her body, Carter stretched out beside her. “Better?”