Call Me Killer (45 page)

"Me, too. You are so freaking hot. Where'd you learn all this stuff?"

She could feel his body shaking as he laughed. "God knows. Now stop giggling and fuck me. I've been holding back an orgasm for so long that my balls are gonna explode."

"Aye aye, sir," she said, grinding against him happily. She didn't care if she came again...she was pretty tired anyway. But she wanted him to have his much-deserved release.

Amazingly, he lasted long enough to take her up again. Waves of pleasure filled her when she felt him jerking at her breast chain.

"I'm going to pull these off now," he said in his dark voice. His mouth was at her throat as he plunged inside her once again. She moaned, very close to another peak. "It will hurt," he crooned as his fingers played with the slender chain between her breasts. "The blood will rush back into your nipples and the sensation will be intense for a couple of seconds. Are you okay with that?"

She nodded. Nothing, she thought, could hurt her now. "Do it."

She felt a jerk as he dragged hard on the chain. The nipple clamps came off, and, for a second, nothing, then there were a powerful surge of feeling in both her breasts. She gasped, and her eyes snapped open. It felt as if every nerve ending in her nipples had fired at once.

Stephen's face was suspended over hers, his eyes slits of green, his mouth sensual and cruel. He arched his hips and drove hard into her, his body stiffening, his voice harsh and strange.

"Scream now for me," he said.

Then he closed his eyes and groaned as he reeled into his orgasm.

Viola felt him pulsing, heard his cry of pleasure and satisfaction, but she was losing focus. Something dark had seized her and spun her, messing with her mind. A naked woman stretched on a rack with a monster leaning over her, slashing her howling body with a barbed whip. The image slammed into her mind, and then, in a flash, her body reacted. She stiffened, but not with pleasure. There was something wrong.

Scream now for me.

A red mist descended on her, and she had no idea what was happening. Panic raced along her nerves, sending her heart into a scampering beat and driving cramps through her belly.

She twisted violently, jerking with her arms, which she couldn't free, and her body, which was imprisoned beneath his. She was trapped. Her heart hammered even harder. She vaguely remembered that there was something she was supposed to say, but she couldn't seem to find the word.

"Viola!" Stephen's voice had shifted back to normal. No. Not exactly normal because he sounded alarmed. He knew something was wrong.

"Red," she gasped, remembering her safeword.

"I know. Hang on." He had already pulled out of her. How he regained rationality in the throes of orgasm she couldn't imagine, but he had. "You're okay, you'll be free in a moment."

He loomed up over her, reaching for the place where her cuffs were clipped to the ropes running from the bed frame. She felt the tension ease. "Your arms are no longer bound. I'll remove the cuffs in a moment, but you're free to move. Your legs aren't bound." He stroked her hair very gently. "It's okay, sweetheart. How d'you feel?"

"My pulse," she gasped, frightened by its loud, rapid pounding. Was there something wrong with her heart? She felt as if she was about to die. Whoa. What the fuck was going on?

"Are you in pain?" He had rolled off her. As she got out from under him, she accidentally kicked out at him, one knee striking his shoulder. He ignored it. "What's hurting? Your chest? Your back? Are you having trouble breathing?"

She tried to focus. Figure it out. She didn't think there was any pain, apart from some soreness in her nipples. She shook her head.

"Headache? Is your vision okay?"

"I guess," she managed to say, her voice shaking.

"Have you ever had an asthma attack?"

"Um, no."

"Are you short of breath?"

She shook her head. "It's mostly my heart. Thumping."

"And there's no medication you're supposed to be on, right? You told me you didn't take anything."

"I don't."

"Have you ever had a panic attack? Do you know what they feel like?"

"No. I don't think so." She'd felt panicky a few times during the divorce, but nothing as dramatically physical as this.

"I want you to try breathing from your belly. Can you do that for me? Slow and even."

She tried, but it was difficult to control her breathing when her body was in such a state of high alert.

"You'll be fine, love. I promise. Let me hold you."

At first, she fought him, but he kept talking to her in a low, soothing voice, telling her to breathe slowly. He turned her on her side. The leather cuffs were still around her wrists and ankles, but the ropes were gone. The muscles in her arms felt tired from being held in one position. But she was glad to notice that, since it took her mind off her racing heart.

Stephen cuddled her from behind, his arms around her, his face pressed against her hair. She felt his fingers on her throat, and realized he was taking her pulse.

"Quick but strong. You're sure you've never had a panic attack?"

She shook her head. "Is this how they feel?"

"Pounding heart, feelings of doom, sick feeling in your belly, limbs all weak and floppy?"

"Yes. All those things."

"It's adrenaline that does it. Fight or flight response. It will pass."

It did seem to be passing. She no longer felt trapped now that Scary Stephen had vanished. A panic attack. Okay. Given her past, maybe that wasn't a surprise.

"So it's just panic? If that's all it is, I feel like a wimp."

"You're not. I’ve had a couple of them myself." His voice was low and comforting. "Very nasty. Adrenaline doesn't surge for long, though. When it stops flooding your nerves, your heartbeat will slow. Keep breathing slowly. Let the air out nice and slow. Good girl. You're doing fine."

He was being so sweet! She had ruined his scene, aborted their lovemaking, just as he was coming, too. He must think she was crazy.
Was
she crazy?

No, she realized, as her mind began to work a little more rationally. She wasn't crazy. He had said the same thing that his horrible character Bartholomew Giles always said to his victims as he tortured them. She hadn't imagined that, surely? He had said, "Scream now for me."

Master Torturer Giles loved those screams.

Her heartbeat wasn't as frantic now, but the thoughts that crowded into her brain were no more welcome. What the hell was she doing in this freaky place? This medieval dungeon. It was just like the one in his books. Bart's dungeon.

But he'd told her he wasn't like his character, right? So what
was
this place? Kinky was one thing, but this was, well...this was extreme.

Why had she given herself to a man who was capable of looking at her that way, speaking to her that way, taking his pleasure while he hurt her, just as his fictional creation did?

And why had she been enjoying it so much? Not even the panic had erased the liquid feeling of lust that resided in her belly. She had been on the verge of climaxing yet again, and it hadn't been the surge of sensation in her breasts that had stopped her. She had liked that. It had been powerful, but it hadn't felt like bad pain.

No, what had freaked her out had been his voice, reminding her of the reality that she had been endeavoring to forget: men were capable of hurting her. Even men she cared about, men she trusted. What was wrong with her that she allowed them to do it? That she even took pleasure in it?

As these dark thoughts shuffled in, she pulled away from him. She sat up, feeling chilly. She snatched at the sheet and tried to wrap it around herself. The cuffs were still on her wrists. She tore at one of them, trying to get it off her.

"Let me," he said, taking her hand in his.

"Don't touch me," she said, then instantly felt sick for saying it. What a bitch, she thought, as her stomach lurched. "I'm sorry! I don't know what I'm saying."

His voice remained calm. "I won't touch you if you don't want me to. But if you put your wrists in my lap, one at a time, I’ll release those cuffs for you. Can you do that for me?"

She could. One by one, she put her hands in his lap and watched dully as he stripped off the leather cuffs. Her hands were shaking slightly. He rubbed them gently, took her pulse again, and then he drew up the blanket from the end of the bed and wrapped it around her while he bent over to remove the restraints from her feet.

She was shivering all over now, and she felt her throat choking up. For a moment, tears pricked her eyes. Was she going to cry? She hadn't cried since the night Derek had attacked her. No, she decided, rallying her inner strength. Dammit, she would
not
cry.

She didn't. She stiffened her spine instead. "I'm sorry for freaking out. You told me your books didn't come to bed with you. But you spoke to me in Bartholomew Giles’ voice."

He made a hoarse sound. "I don't know why I did that. It wasn’t intentional." He was shaking his head, looking puzzled. "I’m pretty sure I’ve never done it before."

Her heartbeat had slowed considerably, but she still felt dizzy and a little sick. The aftermath of panic?

"And this place." She flicked her eyes around at the dark dungeon. "It's not just kinky..." her voice trailed off.
It's sick,
she was thinking. But no, that was too strong. It was intense, yes. "I mean, I didn't know it would be so realistic."

"I'm so sorry, Viola. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I should have trusted my instincts and not shown you my playroom yet. It is realistic, yeah. I used to do theater in college—did I ever tell you that? That's how I met my friends Kate and Jeff. I was into set decoration and design before I turned to writing. I guess I used some of that when I set up the dungeon. I should have warned you."

He paused, and then added, "Role play of this type can sometimes go wrong. There are emotional risks when you allow yourself to feel so intensely. We expose ourselves, our deepest feelings and fantasies, and that can be scary."

It had been scary, all right. What he didn’t know, of course, was that she was sitting on a minefield of explosive emotions linked to the way her marriage had ended. She should have warned him about that.

"It was my bad," he went on. "This kinky stuff is new to you. How are you feeling? A little better now?"

She nodded. Again she thought, he is being so nice. Why is he being so nice? Derek wasn't nice when he hurt her. And unlike Stephen, he didn't stop when she panicked.

He lay back down on the bed and patted the space beside him. "I won't touch you if you don't want me to, but you're shivering. Will you lie down beside me and get warm?"

"You can touch me. I shouldn't have said that. Forgive me. I didn't mean it."

"Come here, then."

She lay back down beside him. He drew her close, and she snuggled into his warmth. She felt uneasy still, but it was undeniable that there was something comforting about being in his arms. Chemistry. Not even panic could dull the physical affinity that made her body want to merge with his. "I’m confused," she admitted. "As if I can’t trust what my own body is telling me. I mean, one minute I’m all—you know, aroused and excited, and the next I’m climbing the walls trying to get away."

"That’s why we have safewords and quick-release restraints. You need to know that you can trust me, even when everything goes to hell."

Keeping up the slow, steady breathing, she tried to relax. "Thank you for responding so quickly. It must have been hard for you."

"If I couldn’t trust myself to respond to a safe word, I wouldn’t play these games. I’m sorry I didn’t notice sooner that you were upset."

"It was sudden. I was fine, until—" she stopped.

"Until I started getting literary? I didn’t realize I took my own silly dialogue so seriously." In a lighter tone he said, "Should I be flattered that you have passages from my novels memorized? How did you even know that was one of Bart’s lines?"

"It was in the scene you were writing last night. And I think he says it in more than one book."

"You're right. He does. It's his signature I'm-going-over-the-edge line."

"Right before he tortures somebody to death."

"Well, yeah." He sounded rueful now. "But I—I wouldn't, I mean, I am never going to—"

"I know," she said, squeezing his hand. "Stephen. There's something I haven’t told you." Her heart started to beat faster again. Was he going to be angry? He had asked her about this, and she hadn't told him the truth. "I should have mentioned it before, but I didn't even want to think about it. I thought I was over it."

He had gone very still. "Somebody hurt you, didn't he? Your husband?"

She swallowed hard. "I thought I'd owned it. Banished it. I guess I was wrong."

"Tell me."

"It was my husband, yes. Derek." Her own voice sounded strange to her, and she realized she was close to weeping. She made an effort to contain it. No self-pity, dammit. "I divorced him because he tried to kill me. That's why Bart's attacks on women freak me out so much."