Bottoms Up (8 page)

His lips twitched. “You want me to make him jealous for you?” She felt his fingers slide over her back, following the knobs of her spine from the nape of her neck to the top of her ass.

She shivered. “You know how to cane?”

Johnny’s hand dipped to caress her buttocks. He nodded. “From the cradle to the cane. Do you trust me?”

Destiny bit her lip. She wanted him to Dominate her—for reasons she didn’t understand and with a strength that was impossible to explain. Her beautiful, submissive boys had never inspired the rush she had felt playing with Johnny. But did she trust him? With a cane in his hand?

She flicked a glance at the couch where Damian crouched. Anger dried her tears. Fickle, fucking pretty boy. Her first reaction to seeing him had been an instant, knee-jerk surge of pent-up longing. Desire for Damian was a habit, a dull reflex of memory. She had shaped her sexuality around his desire to submit, and her innate talent for Dominance had made exploring BDSM with Damian feel natural, logical, almost inevitable. Even after he was gone, she had continued to move deeper into the BDSM world.

Now she had discovered a whole new submissive side of herself, a side she didn’t want to deny. It had been a long time since she had taken pleasure in being on top. The night Johnny had summoned her in the bar, she’d been bored out of her skull. How long had it been since she’d felt real desire? How long had it been since she’d felt real, period?

Destiny brought her gaze back to Johnny. Perhaps her Dominant identity should have disappeared with Damian. The more she had struggled to maintain it, the more hollow she had become. Johnny was offering her a chance to recover her identity in a way she would never have considered. Her awareness of Damian, kneeling obediently at his Mistress’s feet, disappeared.

Her path was simple now, and effortless. She whispered the word, only loud enough for Johnny to hear, “Green.”

Excitement spiked his heartbeat. Destiny wanted him to cane her. He couldn’t ask for a better opportunity to show her his Dominant side.

Johnny took a slow, controlled breath. If she trusted him enough to let him do this, he sure as hell had to get his head in the right space to do it properly. Which meant he had to lose the anger that had dogged him ever since Karina had arrived with her slave.

Destiny had shriveled at his feet the minute they walked in the room. He wasn’t stupid. He’d watched her Downtown, and every sub she took out of the club looked exactly like that guy. Who was he? What did he mean to her? And why the hell was she crying?

“I’ll be right back.” He crossed the room to choose a clear Lexan cane from a stand in the corner. He would have preferred rattan, but he didn’t want to leave Destiny long enough to run back to his bedroom.

She looked luminous on the table, her petite, naked form outlined in black leather. She jumped when he brushed the hair off her shoulders, but settled under his steady caresses. He eased her black boots from her feet and began to massage them, taking as much information from her body as he could. Her calves were tense, her thighs solid bands of tight muscle, but slowly she began to unwind beneath his fingers.

His hands moved up her body. Ah, that ass, that perfect round ass. His fingers curved around her sweet spot, just above either side of her inner thigh. Glorious. He stroked one finger down the length of her tailbone, then forced himself higher, gliding over her lower back. Her ribs and shoulder blades were clearly outlined beneath her pale flesh, and he worshiped each hill and valley of her ribcage with his fingertips. He would place his strokes very carefully between her ribs and not have to worry about hurting her—well, causing damage, anyway.

His palms soothed her shoulders until her trapeziums no longer felt like handfuls of tight rubber bands and her deep, even breaths told him she was as relaxed as she was going to get.

Should he bind her? Would she hold still for him? He liked the idea of her choosing his touch, but it might be simpler for her to process being hit with a cane if he tied her to the table. The ropes would symbolically restrict her free will, just as they physically restrained her body, taking the choice away from her, making it easier for her to bear.

It was the sadist in him that refused to reach for the cuffs. Instead, he began to tap her body with his fingers. He concentrated on the area between her spine and her shoulder blade, between each rib, over her ass and her thighs—dull thuds intended to ready her for the stroke of his cane. He kept one hand on her, always, to keep her accustomed to his touch. Destiny was a stubborn one—she might not tell him what she needed, but her body couldn’t lie. He would sense any disturbances in her muscles.

He began to rub her back with the cane, visiting all the places he had readied with his hands. He bounced a light blow across her shoulder. She didn’t move. Perfect. He continued lightly, testing each stroke, more flutter than sting. A soft sigh broke from her lips.

Last weekend, he had learned her body with a flogger and a crop, but a cane had a lot less give to it. He would take the time to learn her limits again. Destiny liked pain with her pleasure, but he had two things working against him—she’d never been caned before, and she had some sort of major headfuck going on tonight. He had to work her slowly, gradually increasing the intensity of each blow. Best-case scenario, she’d fall in love with his cane. Worst-case scenario, she’d get stiff as a board and he’d have to end the scene or risk hurting her.

He stroked her lightly, working his way down her body, waiting for her muscles to turn to taffy under his hands. He planned to drive her so firmly into subspace that her body became an extension of his will. By the time he was finished with her, she would have so many endorphins flooding her system, she’d take any stroke he dished out and beg for more.

Destiny giggled as he landed a flurry of soft taps right in the middle of her butt, making the softly muscled globes jiggle. He focused his attention on her responses, completely blocking out everything but the slight weight of the cane in his hand, the distance between their bodies and the force and speed with which his arm swept through the air. He aimed lower, near her sweet spot, making her gasp. It wasn’t a high-pitched sound of discomfort—more a squeal of surprise.

He continued to land blows on the lower curve of her buttock, watching carefully. When he saw her hips arch into his movement, then flex toward the table, satisfaction made his cock throb painfully against the leather confines of his pants. He ignored it. He’d been ignoring his erection for so long that the sting at the base of his spine was his new normal. He switched to the other side of her body and started at her shoulders again.

She was so calm and accepting of his touch that he felt Godlike. He had to force himself not to rush down her body to reach her soft ass again. He wanted to stroke it with his cane, over and over, sending vibrations straight into her pussy. He wanted to see what would happen to her when he did, but first, he was going to draw it out and make them both wait for it. She trusted him to give her what she needed, and he was going to make it unforgettable for her.

Johnny was careful not to hit her hard enough to leave lasting marks. The bright red stripes on her skin would not be there tomorrow. For now, though, she was a pretty piece of work. He labored to keep the lines symmetrical, pacing himself, waiting for her ass.

He was almost there and already her hips were moving again. He caught her rhythm and matched it with the cane. Destiny’s eyes were shut and her mouth hung softly open. Breathy, guttural moans drifted from her lips in time with the beat of his cane. She was totally under, tuned in to the sensations he was giving her, and as unaware of her surroundings as he was. He didn’t give a crap about Karina and her boy toy anymore. He was going to make Destiny come with his cane.

Her breath hitched, became a pant. Was she falling or coming? Her muscle tension increased across her thighs and buttocks. Johnny made a snap decision and vibrated the cane on the lower curve of her buttock as quickly and lightly as he could, catching the bounce and sending the energy back into her body.

She was definitely coming.

He switched sides and gave her other buttock the same treatment, finishing with a series of gradually lessening strokes on the fleshiest part of her ass. She was breathing deeply, almost as if she had fallen asleep, and her hips still rocked slightly, tempting him to climb onto the table and crawl inside her.

He leaned down to brush a kiss on her temple.

“Good?”

She rolled over and stretched her arms above her head in a gesture of pure female enticement. Her thighs fell open, and just like that, it was no longer possible to ignore the demands of his body. He needed to get inside her. Now.

He levered one knee up on the table. “Say green,” he demanded.

Destiny blinked, unseeing, pupils black and wide.

The noise of the room hit him like a body blow and brought him to his senses. Johnny cursed, using the harsh invective to restore his self-control. He pulled Destiny to a sitting position, and then quickly to her feet, mindful of the fact that her ass was most definitely sore. She slid off the table, eyes downcast, hands clasped behind her back, waiting for his command.

His heart swelled, only slightly less than his cock. She was so perfect, so responsive. So his. He’d made her come with a goddamn cane. She was fearless.

The thought incited a burst of anxiety that torched his nerves.

Fearless wasn’t good. It was reckless. Careless. Destructive. Johnny shook his head, trying to clear the haze of panic. Ten seconds ago, he’d been half in love with her for her incredible submission, and now he was angry because it was so easy for her? The whole point of coming here tonight was to prove himself a worthy Master, to make her submit to him again, properly. And he had. So what the fuck was his problem?

Destiny’s eyes flicked to the side as she sneaked a peek at the couch in the corner, where Karina and her boy were still watching them. Johnny’s confusion morphed into anger. He’d completely forgotten about the crowd, but apparently, she hadn’t. She had let him cane her to make that blond slave jealous, not because she trusted him or because she wanted to be his. Her submission hadn’t been for him, after all.

God, he’d never learn. Last weekend, he’d behaved like a besotted boyfriend, not a Dominant training a new submissive. Tonight, his caning technique had been flawless, but he’d gotten caught up in the scene and forgotten they were putting on a show. What would it take to make her respond to him, the real him, the Dominant?

Johnny stalked away from the table. He motioned for Destiny to follow him down the hall toward his bedroom. Alone, in his room, without the distraction of the crowd, he would push her to her limit. He would find her boundaries. Somehow.

Chapter Seven

Destiny kept her eyes on the hall rug and her jaws clamped shut to stifle her grin. Holy shit! Exquisite sensations, one on top of the other, had scrambled her brain. She was high as a kite, ready to rock, stark-naked and chasing a man who had just beaten her senseless down a dark hallway where she hoped like hell to receive more of the same treatment.

Johnny was a Master, no doubt.

The old Destiny Blake, the one who had wasted all that time with a flogger in her hand, who had racked her brain for untold hours dreaming up punishment for boys who loved to take it, had been kidding herself. That girl had made herself into something she wasn’t to please a boy who had left her anyway. That Destiny was
so
gone.

Johnny had brought her life into focus with a flick of his wrist. Well, several, really, and it had actually felt more like he was using his whole arm, but there was no going back from the knowledge that he had changed her forever. She couldn’t imagine being anywhere but on the bottom anymore. She was no longer on vacation—she was living the dream, baby. With him.

She giggled quietly. Shouldn’t she be shaking and weeping by now? Done in by an endorphin rush? Instead of crashing, she was spiraling higher, going crazy with the need for more. She danced down the hall and into Johnny’s bedroom, ready to beg him to touch her again.

As soon as she cleared the door, he slammed it and flipped her around, forcing her palms high with one hand. His other hand skated roughly down her back, setting off pleasurable aftershocks.

She thrust her ass against him, moaning as his leather pants chafed her tender butt. He pressed harder.

Suddenly, the bedside lamp clicked on.

She shrieked and tried to cover her nakedness, but Johnny held her wrists above her head.

“Nice work, Master.” Destiny heard a low whistle from the bed.

“You remember Matt, right?” Johnny asked sourly. He dropped her hands. Destiny hid behind him as he turned to glare at his friend. “What the hell are you doing here? Wait. Let me guess—your little brother is having another wild party and you wanted to crash somewhere quiet. Naturally, you came Downtown. Nothing going on here tonight.”

“It’s cheaper than a hotel, and your soundproofing is excellent.” Matt sat up. His chest was bare, and she wasn’t sure what he had on under the sheet as it slipped toward his waist. He yawned. “You usually make nice with the customers all night, John. Sorry for crashing
your
wild party.” Matt aimed an apologetic grin in her very naked direction.

She nodded, frozen.

“I’ll— Uh— Just—” Matt thrust the sheet aside.

A knock on the door broke the awkward silence.

“Jesus Christ, is this Grand Central Station?” Johnny pulled her away from the door and opened it. “What?”

“Hey, Boss, I just wanted to tell you—” The gorgeous black man stopped speaking to take in the scene.

“Yeah, I got the message.” Johnny’s voice expressed more irritation.

“Sorry, I tried to catch you. You jetted pretty fast, Boss.”

“Thanks, Lex. I’ll slow down next time so you can catch up.”

Destiny knew she was staring, but holy shit, Lex’s cheekbones were spectacular. The Upstairs bouncer uniform seemed to be shirtless with jeans, and, face it, that never got old, especially on a guy built like him. She had been halfway to orgasm before Matt turned on the light, and the fact that three men were looking at her naked was turning her on even more.