Comfort Object (33 page)

Nell didn't bring up the stalker issue again, and we left for Bulgaria shortly afterward. I was so busy during the week we were there that I barely saw Nell, and neither of us even bothered to unpack.

We left Bulgaria for a remote and scenic area of Portugal, where we'd spend a month and a half. Instead of a hotel, I had Kyle rent a local property for us. Nell practically swooned when we arrived at the small, secluded villa surrounded by romantic gardens and lovely, rolling woods.

“Jeremy, this is the most beautiful place I've ever seen!” She ran through the tall wildflowers to the trees. “Come look. There's a lake in the woods!”

“It's November, Nell. Do you want to go swimming?”

“No, but it's—God, look! The view is beautiful! It's just breathtaking!”

Yes, it is, I thought to myself.

If I'd brought my last girlfriend here, the pouts and complaints would have killed me. I took a deep breath of the crisp fall air and then went to help Kyle bring in the bags. Let her run around and play, I thought to myself. Tonight I would play with her.

It had been far too long since we'd really played hard together. The Bulgarian shoot had been mercifully short but 100 percent wretched. We hadn't had any time to do bondage or punishment scenes, just hurried quickies and blowjobs when I wasn't too tired. But not tonight. Tonight I was going to spend time. I was going to play with my lovely toy.

Kyle cooked dinner for us, and I was reminded again why I paid him such an obscene salary. We ate the fresh chicken and potatoes with a huge appetite, even Nell, who normally ate next to nothing.

“That was really great, Kyle.” She sighed when she finished. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure.” He smiled in return.

I dropped my fork and stared at them. “My God, the world is ending. Kyle and Nell just exchanged a couple of civil words.” I made a big show of rushing to the window to look out at the darkening sky.

“He's looking for pigs,” I heard Kyle whisper.

Nell and Kyle laughed together, and it was great to see them getting along, although I figured it was a momentary truce. We were all in a great mood. New villa, beautiful surroundings, and the knowledge that we had a good, long time to feel at home.

“You,” I said, pointing to Nell with a satisfied grin. “Go in the bedroom and put on something really, really hot.”

* * *

I stood her against the wall for a long time. She'd put on the ivory corset she wore the first night she and I had played. I had her take her shoes off, because I liked when she looked shorter, more innocent. Her wispy auburn curls were a mess as usual, just the way I liked them. She stood still, patiently…
submissively
. She could be so normal and then turn the submissive on and do it better and more skillfully than any sub I'd ever known. Her lovely little nipples were clamped. I used the gentler ones so I could leave them on a long time. Every time she shifted, the delicate silver chain swung between them.

“How do you feel?” I asked.

She looked up at me shyly from beneath her lashes. “Wet. Horny.” She was silent a moment. “Treasured. The way you look at me…”

So it was that obvious. I took up the thin leather lace beside me and turned her to tie her hands behind her back.

“Do you know why I treasure you?” I asked beside her ear.

“No, Jeremy, I don't know.”

“Because you're the only one who gives me exactly what I need. You're the only one who ever has.” I turned her face to mine to give her a long, lingering kiss. “I've missed you,” I whispered against her lips.

“I've missed you too, Jeremy.” Her voice shook a little. She was so emotional, this one.

“I've been too busy to just take time to tie you up like this. To look at you, and make you do things. I hate being busy like that, too busy to play with you.”

Her eyes closed, and she let her body melt against me. “Jeremy, I'm yours.”

“I know you are.” I kissed and licked her eyelids and trailed my fingers down over her hips. “I love the shape of you, and I love how you smell.”

She shivered against me.

“Are you cold?”

“No, Jeremy.”

“Just horny? I don't want to have sex with you. I just want to tie you up.”

Her squeak of dismay made me laugh.

“Down, kneel down.”

She knelt on the floor and looked up at me with wide eyes.

“Down, Nell. You know what I mean. Be a good girl.” She leaned forward, balancing carefully with her hands tied behind her back. I nudged at her thighs to spread her wider. I knelt next to her, stroking the perfect arch of her smooth back and thrusting two fingers up her wet, hot slit.

“How do you feel?”

“Vulnerable. Desperate.”

“How desperate? What will you do for me to make you come? How far will you go?”

“I'm yours, Jeremy.”

“I want to use a cane on you.”

She tensed. I didn't move my fingers.

“Do you trust me? Do you trust me not to hurt you?”

“You will hurt me.”

“I hurt you all the time,” I said. “Now I want to hurt you this way, and I want you to let me because you trust me.”

She was quiet. I let her think it over. It was something I'd wanted to do for a long time, not because I wanted to hurt her, but because she'd told me she couldn't. She wouldn't. I wanted her to, for me.

“How many?”

“Ten. No more.”

“Just this once?”

“I can't promise I won't ask again. But I do promise I won't gag you, no matter how noisy you are.”
No matter how much you scream
, I had almost said. “We're not in a hotel now. You can be a loud as you want, as loud as you need to be.”

“I want to, but I'm scared.”

I stroked her back. “I know. I know you are. But I want you to do it for me anyway. It's your hard limit, Nell. You have to tell me it's okay.”

She was already crying. I don't know why I was asking her for this. Because it was as far as she would go, I supposed, and I wanted to take her there.

“Afterward, Nell, I promise, I'll make it all better.” I withdrew my fingers and smoothed them over her clit. “I'll make you feel so good, baby.”

She sniffled loudly, and then she whispered, “Okay.”

I took a deep breath and stood to get the rattan cane I'd brought along, just in case. I stood behind her. She was shaking.

“You can take this, Nell.”

“Yes, Jeremy.”

“You remember the safe words?”

“Yes, Jeremy.”

“Either one will work.” I tapped it on her ass. “Count each one for me, Nell. And don't brace.”

As soon as she relaxed, I gave her the first stroke, and the second shortly afterward, while she was still experiencing the fire of the first. She gasped, sobbing. On the third, she jerked with a yelp and nearly broke her stance.

“Okay?” I said. God, I was a sadist. She was crying terrible tears. She buried her face in the carpet and stilled herself again.

“Four!” she said, nearly a scream. I took my time, letting the fire of each stroke run its course before laying on the next one.

“Five! Six!” She managed to count although she was breathlessly crying. “Seven!”

The eighth was the hardest one yet, and she did scream then, loud and long. “Please! God, Jeremy!”

“Two more, baby. Two more.”

“No. I can't!”

“You can. You're doing it.” I waited for a safe word, but it didn't come.

“Nine!” she screamed. The marks on her ass were absolutely beautiful: straight, thin, pink welts that would fade into lovely red lines as time went on.

Ten was the hardest, and that scream was the loudest. She went limp before the last echoes of it faded in the room. I looked down at her, watched her collect herself and catch her breath. I would be able to look at those marks for a week or more and remember that she took them…for me. I crouched down and placed the cane next to her, in front of her face. Her eyes were tightly closed. Her mouth looked tense, and her chin trembled.

“Open your eyes.”

She opened them and looked at the cane, then shuddered and raised her face to me. Her gaze was still dark with the memory of the pain she'd endured.

I had to be inside her. I fumbled with the lace binding her hands, untied it, ripped it off, and flipped her over, taking her down to the floor.

“Put your arms around me,” I growled, roughly parting her legs. She sobbed as I entered her. I grasped her striped ass roughly in my hands to pull her closer to me.

“I own you,” I whispered in her ear. “I own you.” My voice sounded harsh and strained. She felt so unbelievably perfect. We fit so perfectly when I took her this way, held close, her legs wrapped around me, her arms clinging to my neck. She may have only been mine because I was paying her, but at times like this, I thought I would never, ever let her go, if I had to pay her for an eternity.

“Jeremy, Jeremy.” She moaned. “God, Jeremy, yes.”

“Yes, I want you to come for me. I want to feel it; I want to feel you come.” I tugged at the chain torturing her nipples, so she arched and gasped. “I love how it feels when you come, when I'm inside you—”