Beyond Pain (27 page)

And the smug bastard knew it.

Footsteps sounded behind her, and she tensed again before twisting to peer at Ace. He'd lost his shirt somewhere, revealing that the tattooed sleeves covering his arms spilled onto his shoulders, though his chest was smooth and bare of ink.

But he didn't meet her eyes. He was too busy looking at her back.

At her scars.

She tensed, but before she could do more than part her lips, Ace raised his gaze to hers. She'd braced herself for pity, and was unprepared for the flash of fierce anger that disappeared beneath another of his easy smiles. "Scars can change how this feels, but yours aren't so severe, and everyone's different. I'm only going to ask you for one thing, fighter-girl."

Nervousness pricked her at his uncharacteristically serious tone. "What?"

He twirled a finger in the air. "Keep your eyes on Bren, and don't try to hide what you're feeling. Because I know your type, sweetheart. You're like Lex, always wearing some kind of mask, and this won't work if you hold back."

It was the longest she'd ever heard Ace go without profanity, and that was a stupid thing to realize when she was mostly naked and shivering at the sensation of Bren's fingers inside her, but Ace was watching her so intently, waiting for her promise, and that was when she realized how very, very seriously he took what they were about to do.

A hazy memory surfaced, from what felt like a lifetime ago even if it couldn't have been more than a handful of weeks. Standing with Bren, watching Ace whip a woman for a captivated audience. Struggling with the mixture of fascination and horror.

At the time it had seemed so casually obscene, the sort of unrehearsed show you threw together with a girl who was willing to fake it and a guy who could make swinging a whip look good. But nothing about this was careless.

That was what would make it good.

She nodded once, turned back to Bren, and braced both hands on his shoulders. "No hiding," she whispered.

He rewarded her with a quick twist of his fingers, one that rocketed pleasure through her body. "Show me how it feels, sweetness."

"Oh God, it feels--"

Leather brushed her back. Softly, so softly, just a tease that kissed her skin. She tensed against a blow that didn't come, not until she'd relaxed again. That was when the deerskin slapped against her skin, the sound startling her more than the sensation.

"Easy." Bren steadied her, rubbing her hip soothingly. "Ace knows better. He won't land a blow if you're dreading it. Let it come."

Exhaling slowly, she forced herself to unwind. Not so difficult with Bren stroking her inside and out, setting off tiny trembles as arousal made everything bright and blurry. The next blow thudded against her back, warming her skin.

When she didn't tense, he did it again. And again.

It wasn't pleasure, not really. But it wasn't pain, either, even when the deerskin fell harder the next time, turning warmth to heat. Bren's gaze roamed her face, watching for the slightest twitch of reaction, and
that
made her clench tight around his fingers, impossibly turned on by being the center of so much intensity.

His chest rumbled, and he reached up to gather her hair, winding its length around his fist. "It's not the flogging getting you this wet, not yet."

"N-no--" Another thud, and her eyelids fluttered shut. She could imagine Ace behind her, as alert as Bren to the slightest hint of distress. Two people utterly focused on her, on something beyond mere pleasure. Bren was building an experience for her, managing every possible detail, and every time the deerskin tails thwacked against her skin, it reminded her how far beyond her control this moment was, and how utterly safe she still felt.

"Lower," Bren commanded, and the next blow landed across the top of her ass, teasingly light again but somehow more sensual. Or maybe it was the reminder that her ass was bare, and even with her pants clinging to her thighs she was more on display than she'd ever been.

But not for Ace's gratification. For her own, and that made all the difference.

He hit her again and she moaned, squirming on Bren's hand.

"It's illicit, isn't it?" Bren whispered, rocking his hand to slowly pump his fingers in and out of her. "That's why you're this damn wet."

The gentle friction sparked colors behind her eyelids, colors that danced as the fall of the flogger settled into a hypnotic rhythm, one she felt in her bones. "You have me," she choked out, hating that they weren't the right words, but knowing he'd somehow understand. "It's for me."

"Every fucking bit of it."

All for her. All about her, about this fuzzy feeling spreading out toward her fingertips, a welcome sort of giddiness. After so many fucking years of constant, exhausting
fighting
, it was bliss to close her eyes and trust someone else to give her all the things she was too afraid to reach for herself.

Bren's hand twisted harder in her hair as he sped his movements, fucking her with his fingers, and his voice buzzed in her ears. "Don't stop when she comes."

Firm and commanding and perfectly in control. She opened her eyes for long enough to meet his gaze, and the heat and intensity there were all it took.

Bren had control, so she lost hers.

Her body must have remembered her promise on some level, because she screamed when she came, and not all sexy, breathless noises. She was lost in a full-fucking-body orgasm, and the noises ripping free of her throat were loud, raw, and so relieved, like she'd been holding in a lifetime's worth of moans.

She wasn't holding anything in now.

A strong hand wrapped around the back of her neck--Bren, pulling her close to his chest to stop her writhing. "For both of us, Six." His breath blew hot on her ear. "You don't have to fight. Let me do it for you."

Let him fight. Let him--

The soft deerskin tails smacked against her skin, scattering her thoughts. It didn't matter, she didn't need to have thoughts. She turned her face to his neck, rested her cheek on his shoulder, and let the aftershocks build toward another wild peak. She wallowed in the rhythmic pressure against her back and Bren's broad, twisting fingers, and she rewarded both men with abandoned moans and whimpers.

They deserved them. They'd earned this, the only thing she'd always selfishly held back because it was the one thing that was hers. Her reactions, naked and on display--even when Bren flexed his fingers inside her and murmured a single word of encouragement. "More."

She didn't know who the command was meant for, but she was so close to the edge that she snapped. She came longer this time, deeper, wailing through the pleasure and sobbing when it started to fade only for Bren to bring it back with another turn of his wrist.

Sobbing--but not telling them to stop. Part of her hoped they never would, that she could spend the rest of her life floating in this moment, the first moment in her life made of nothing but pleasure and safety.

The rest of her only wanted it to end so she could do it all over again.

She was still trembling through the aftershocks of a hard, powerful orgasm, but she wasn't done. "One more," Bren whispered, dizzy on her pleasure, high on the fact that she'd writhed, screamed, clung to him--

But she hadn't pulled away.

She made a choked noise, small and wild, and her fingernails bit into his shoulders. Ace met his gaze over the top of her head, giving Bren a moment to anchor Six against his body before landing another gentle blow with a practiced flip of his wrist.

"Harder." She was spinning, off in the clouds, and
gentle
--from either of them--wasn't going to cut it anymore. "You can take it now, can't you, sweetness?"

She panted, hips twitching restlessly as her pussy clenched tight and sweet around him. "Yes, yes.
Yes.
"

Ace nodded and adjusted effortlessly, increasing the strength of his blows in small enough increments for Bren to judge her response by her strangled breathing and trembling limbs, and the noises--Christ, the noises. He'd never known she could make so many sounds.

They only intensified as he waited for Ace to lift his arm. Just as the flogger was coming down to strike, Bren pressed his thumb to her clit in a hard, slippery circle.

She cried out, the sound cut off abruptly when she twisted her head and bit his shoulder, sparking a different sort of pleasure. She came like that, muffling her screams against his skin as her pussy soaked his hand, tight but so damn wet he could have easily worked a third finger into her.

Instead, he eased her through shudders that didn't end, not until he fell still and then carefully slid his fingers free of her body.

But she was still shivering, so Bren petted her and kissed her temple while Ace dropped a blanket around her bare shoulders.

Afterward, he settled on the couch beside them, the flogger resting across his knees. "Gotta admit, brother, I wasn't quite expecting that."

"Which part?"

The corner of Ace's mouth twitched up. "Maybe you wouldn't see it. You're as stone-faced as she is...usually."

Usually. "I'll give her anything she wants. All of me."

Ace absorbed that as Six murmured and pressed closer. But she didn't lift her head, and when she nuzzled her face against Bren's throat again, Ace smiled. "Dallas said I'd be laying ink on her soon enough."

"Her cuffs." It was too soon to talk about marks--too soon to
think
about them, especially when Six could still feel trapped if he moved too fast. "Plenty of time for the rest of it, right?"

"Plenty of time for what?" Six mumbled, her lips tickling Bren's throat.

He tilted her head back and couldn't help but smile at her flushed cheeks and sleepy eyes. "To find out what else you might be into. Pain might not do it for you, but plenty of other things do."

"You do it for me." Her gaze flicked to Ace and back. "And I still want to see what does it for you."

She already knew--all the bites and scratches, every time her eyes had darkened at his indrawn breaths. But the look in her eyes said she wanted to see it taken further, as far as he would go. "Not the deerskin," he murmured. "I like something heavier. Something that stings."

Ace was already rising, but Six ignored him, tracing her finger along Bren's lower lip instead. "Tell me what it feels like for you."

"Heat." The word escaped him without thought. "That adrenaline rush you get when it starts to hurt? It's like a green light. Everything gets going."

She pulled back and clutched the blanket around her shoulders. "Show me?"

Bren swallowed--hard. So far, she'd seen him relish only the tiniest hint of pain, and what he craved was nothing like the careful blows Ace had rained on her back.

The moment of truth.

He climbed off the couch and reached for his belt. "It's not always pretty, sweetness. Not like you were just now."

Six tilted her head back and lifted her hands, nudging his out of the way to work the supple leather of his belt. "If I wanted pretty, I'd be fucking Ace or Mad. Pretty doesn't get me hot."

"Poor Ace. He can hear you, you know." The skin just under her chin was soft, so soft, and Bren stroked it with the backs of his fingers until she slid his belt free of the loops.

He took it out from her hands and stepped back, all the way to the heavy steel frame on the other side of the room. It had built-in leather shackles, but Bren ignored them and slung his belt over the top of the frame instead.

"The braided bull hide," he told Ace, who was hovering by the racks, waiting on the instruction. The leather was heavy, with edges sharp enough to sting.

With a nod, Ace retrieved the flogger and gave it a few lazy test swings before slapping the tails lightly against his palm. "How much warm-up do you want?"

The fingers on his right hand were still slippery from Six's pussy, and he rubbed them over the leather as he gripped it. "Not much. My dick already fucking hurts."

"Yours and mine both, brother," Ace drawled good-naturedly as he moved to stand behind him. "Say the word."

Six watched them, fascinated, from her perch on the couch, and a rumble rose in Bren's chest. "Now."

The first hit was slow, a heavy thud that vibrated through him until his teeth clacked together. The second was just a little bit faster. With every swing, Ace sped his arm until the flogger whistled through the air to strike with stinging precision.

Bren had to close his eyes against the rush. Not pleasure, not exactly, but arousal of the most primal, primitive sort--his body preparing itself to engage the most instinctive of drives.

Survival. Sex. For him, in these moments, they were the same damn thing.

Sweat broke out on his lip, his forehead. It sheened his back, and the stinging intensified as it mingled with leather falling on existing welts. Not cuts--Ace was too careful for that--but just enough abrasion for the salt to burn.

Bren drew a shuddering breath and jerked with the next blow. He'd never hit the wall this fast, careening straight to the plateau where the pain swirled around him in a heady rush.

Ace's voice broke through the fog, low and careful. "How about a breather, brother?"