Playing Hard to Master (17 page)

Everly whined, feeling her sense of self slipping. She nodded her agreement. At that point he could have asked her anything, and she would have done it for him. He played with her gently, teasing, making her quiver and shake. Begging noises came, and when they won her no mercy, she fell silent, other than her breathing, which was loud in her ears. His fingers drifted to the cleft of her ass and followed it downward to her bottom hole.

She whimpered and went up on her toes, but he just followed her movements and did what he pleased, sending jolts of electricity zipping through her. He dribbled something down her ass, and he slicked it back and forth then played there. Something was pushed patiently up inside her, and when it was in, he patted the end of it. It felt like a plug. He fiddled with it, and the damn thing started to buzz deep inside her.

“Oh!”

He chuckled in her ear, and she squirmed, trying to find him with her needy body. Stubbled cheeks grazed her thighs, and a tongue flicked over her slit. Fingers opened her wider there, and his tongue sought out her painfully stiff clit, brushing over it with short, teasing touches, toggling her clit ring until her breaths were ragged gasps. When she’d gotten the damn thing, she’d never realized how much evil a man could do with it.

Just a little more . . . If he would just latch onto her clit and suck for two seconds . . .

Then he was gone, and she shrieked in frustration.

“What’s the matter?” His rough voice growled in her ear. “My toy sounds like she’s suffering. But I’m not hurting you, am I, slave?”

“No, Master.” Her words were garbled but understandable.

“So what, then? Do you need to come?”

Fuck, she’d never had to come so badly in her life. “Yesss,” she hissed around the gag. “Pleeeeease, Master!”

“That’s too bad,” he sighed with mock regret. “At one point I thought I could give you multiple orgasms, but you convinced me I was wrong. Now I may not even be able to give you one.”

Fuck
. Okay, well, maybe she deserved that for having said it in a bratty moment, but she’d learned her lesson. Really!

The soft touching started again, and she began to scream and cry. She shrieked in frustration, and he laughed out loud.

“Do you think your little tantrums are going to change my mind? You’re my toy, so that means we’ll play
my
games. Maybe I won’t let you come at all. Do you think you deserve to come, or have you been a bad, bad girl?”

Desperation seized her. He wouldn’t let her come at all? He couldn’t be serious. But what if he was one of those Dominants who got off on days upon days’ worth of orgasm denial? They’d never really discussed it, and she hadn’t marked it on her list of limits, because she’d never thought of it as a serious possibility.

“Please, please, please . . .” The begging turned into a high-pitched cry, and more sobs.

“My poor little princess. What do you need, sweet girl? Do you need me to leave you alone so you can think about this?”

“Nooooo! No, no. Need to come.” She could feel her hot tears prickling, soaking her blindfold, dripping down her cheeks the way wetness was dripping down her thighs. The thing in her ass was gently buzzing away, as though it had all the time in the world. She was so fucking horny her ovaries were blue. Fuck blue balls. Blue ovaries were ten times worse.

What if this wasn’t even turning him on? What if he was just watching the effects of what he was doing and laughing at her responses?

Master was cruel, and this wasn’t fair. He could fix everything and he chose not to.

As he played, her mind started to haze over. That line of thinking snuffed itself out.

Was it her place to question what Master wanted to do to her? Maybe she
was
a bad girl. Did she deserve to come? She had said terrible things to him. It had been a joke, but maybe goading him so far had consequences she needed to remember.

Master had said he loved her, and he never lied to her. Not like the other men she’d been with. This one told the truth.

Always.

Clinging to that, she let go of everything she thought he should do, and instead accepted what he chose to do. Her body was his. If she believed that—truly believed it—she needed to learn to leave the choices to him.

She relaxed, letting him replace her will with his own.

“That’s right,” he whispered. “Let go and let me take care of you.” She heard some
click
s. Was he taking pictures?

Calm had spread over her mind, and she let him make that decision. Another buzzing noise started. He nipped her bottom lip and she opened her mouth, feeling his fingers probing it, feeling her teeth and tongue. She tried to suck his fingers, but the gag was in the way.

The buzzing thing touched one of her nipples, and she jerked away then pressed toward it. A vibrator—strong enough to sand off her nipple if he kept it up. Instead, he used the thing to draw a path down her body, like a swarm of kinky bees attacking her.

He got to her pussy, but lightened the pressure on the thing, holding it just far enough away to make her crazy.

“Show me,” he rumbled.

Show him what?

“Get yourself off with it, slave. I’m not helping, except to stand here and hold it.”

Nooooo. This was too embarrassing. But she needed to come so bad! He might decide not to let her come at all.

“Show me how you come, sweetheart. Is your greedy pussy going to drip all over my hand?”

Oh fuck.
Two more fucking words. She wouldn’t even need the vibrator.

She stood very still, but that wasn’t what he wanted.

His hand went to her ass, toying with the plug vibrating there. Her body tried to get away from the weird sensation, and her hips shot forward. Clit met vibe, and she screeched, overwhelmed, tried to back away, only to have him fuck her ass with the plug. She tried to save her ass from him again, and pressed hard against the vibe a second time. She pinballed back and forth between the two, helpless to stop.

“No, no, no.” The orgasm had built up too far, and now she was afraid. He tugged the gag down and the blindfold up, then crushed the vibrator against her clit.

She shrieked, her whole body seizing up and holding there, as though the orgasm was too big and didn’t know how to get out. Her mouth hung open, and all there was for her was bright lights and buzzing.

“Ohh, that’s a good girl,” Ambrose murmured. “That big one is trying to come out, isn’t it? Come on, baby, come for me.”

Her body listened to his voice, and the orgasm rolled out like it had a mind of its own, holding her hostage while her body throbbed and trembled and spasmed. Pleasure of a painful intensity overloaded her, and her legs gave out. He pressed her back against the pillar, pinning the vibe between his thigh and her pussy, while he untied one of her wrists, then her ribcage. She came again, the second orgasm wringing out more than she’d thought she had left. Dazed, she didn’t protest when he laid her on a chaise and pushed her thighs back, exposing all of her tender parts to his gaze.

He lightened his touch with the vibrator, and crouched over her, sucking and biting her nipples. A third orgasm was his reward.

“Oh God!” She’d lost all jurisdiction over her body. She didn’t want to come anymore, but he didn’t seem to care.

“I’m not a God. Just your Master. The master of your body, for now, at least. I wonder if I’m the master of your mind yet?”

“Yes, yes, Master.”

His smile was fearsome.

He tugged on the buttplug, removed it, lubed her again, then, just when she thought he’d take her, he coaxed a bigger plug into her. She hissed, trying to stop, but the vibrator and the pressure in her ass had her screaming with pleasure again. He fucked her with the plug, holding her down, while she weakly tried to escape.

“Do you feel this plug in your ass?”

He set it to a slow throb. How could she not feel it? It was huge.

“I’m going to fuck your sweet little cunt while this vibe is still in your ass.”

“No,” she whimpered. “It’s going to hurt me, Master.”

“It probably will, a little. Can you imagine how full you’ll feel? How mine?”

“No, please, Master.” She begged, her face itching from the tears and drying drool and mascara she could feel smeared down her face. Master was watching her like she was the most beautiful toy he’d ever seen.

“Okay,” he conceded. Was he shaking too? “I’ll put the smaller one back in before I fuck you. But if I do that, you have to come for me again.”

“I can’t!” she squealed, exhausted. It felt like someone had jellified all of her bones.

He used his mouth, teeth, and the bigger plug to show her that she most definitely could. The pitiful, weak cries when she came sounded pathetic, even to her. She lay under him limply. There was no point in struggling. She was going to orgasm again if he insisted on it.

The smaller plug went back in, and he folded her legs back again, until she was practically bowed in half. He stood over her and angled his cock downward into her pussy. He groaned and gritted his teeth as he convinced her body to take him. The tight fit intensified the buzzing in her ass.

“Fuck. Fuck. What the hell was I thinking?” His teeth were clenched, and his fingers dug cruelly into her flesh. “You’re so fucking tight. And the vibe . . .” He moved cautiously until her body relaxed around him, then fucked her hard and fast, his face right above her now, his gaze locked on hers. “Fuck, I’m going to come, baby. Do you have another one for me?”

“No!” she lied.

Master stopped, then started to fuck her slow, but so hard that each thrust rattled her teeth.
Oh fuck.
He hit her G-spot and the hazy, befuddled subspace glow grew, making her thoughtless—helpless. Her clit was being squeezed by rough fingers, and her body rose up higher to meet his pounding rhythm. She came when he did, yelling in her ear, beating her into the chaise with his body. She took all of it. His fingers clenched convulsively on her abused clit, and she came again, her whole body a throbbing, sticky ache.

The last orgasm sent her off into a hazed, blissful world.

She was His. And she never wanted to wake up.

Ambrose sat in the passenger seat and tried to slow down his heart. Banner’s car crunched along the snow-packed streets far too slowly. He was tempted to tell his friend to pull over and let him take the wheel, but that would probably just end up with him getting a speeding ticket.

“If you’re that nervous, maybe it’s too soon,” Konstantin grumbled from the backseat.

Fucking Konstantin.
“I know you don’t get it, but I’m not in the mood for advice right now. Besides, I’m not about to take advice from a guy who’s planning to marry a complete stranger.”

Kon chuckled. “Everly is hardly more than a stranger to you. You’ve known her what . . . four months?”

“So? Sometimes these things happen.” Ambrose’s hands linked together, fought each other. He didn’t know what to do with himself. Being a passenger always made him antsy, but today was worse. “I knew she was mine the first day I met her. If anything, I feel like I’ve been dragging my feet on this too long. Sometimes you have to do the right thing, even if it seems crazy.”

“Is lying to her ‘doing the right thing,’ too? Odd,” Konstantin mused, his voice sardonic.

Ambrose frowned out the window, but said nothing. He didn’t want to think about that.

To take his mind off things, he contemplated the details of the new contract he’d signed right before the guys had picked him up, and wondered if he should tell his HR rep to hire a few more drivers. Drivers for other companies checked in regularly, hoping to get their foot in the door with Langly. Thankfully, having a good reputation as an employer meant never being short-handed.

A million years later, Banner pulled into the driveway of a modest brick bungalow and put the car in
PARK
.

“Here?” Ambrose raised an eyebrow. “It looks so . . . normal.”

“And what? We don’t?” Konstantin leaned over the seat and looked Ambrose up and down. “Hey, Master Ambrose, who let you out of the house without your leather pants? And where’s your whip?”

“I’ll show it to you later.” Ambrose winked at him, and Kon rubbed the top of his head affectionately.

Banner shook his head. “I can’t take you two assholes anywhere. Now be polite.”

“Speaking of assholes, did Everly give hers up for you yet?”

Ambrose glared at Konstantin. He wasn’t about to share the intimate details of his relationship with her.

“Ow. Enough with the ‘fuck off and die’ eyes. I just wanted to know when you’re going to share her with me. You like DP, and you always share girls with me.”

An unfamiliar jealousy gnawed at him. It was true that he and Konstantin usually thought nothing of sharing girls, but Everly was a different story. “You touch her and I’ll kill you.”

“Calm the fuck down.” Kon grimaced at him. “Like I’d touch her without your permission,
suka
.”

They got out of the car and walked to the door, both of them in a sullen silence.

Banner was trying to swallow his amusement.

“What’s so funny?” Ambrose grumbled. “Other than that bitch calling me a bitch?”

“You. This must be serious, if you’re not willing to share.”

“Being in love makes you grumpy and selfish,” Kon said. “I won’t bring it up again, but if you change your mind, I’m more than willing. She’s got curves in all the best places.”

“Don’t look at her,” he snapped.

Now they both laughed at him. Banner gave him a playful shove, and he stepped partially onto the snow-covered lawn. His instinctual reaction was to grab a handful of the fluffy stuff and give Banner a face wash, but he wasn’t in the mood. Now there was snow melting in his shoe, and he was excited and irritated and overwhelmed.

“Like a dog with a bone.” Konstantin shook his head.

Banner rang the doorbell, since he’d been there before. A sixtyish-year-old woman answered the door. Her short-sleeved T-shirt revealed a multitude of faded tattoos on her arms.

“Hi, Della.”

She smiled and stepped back to let them in. “Heya, Banner. Come on in. Just toss your coats on the rack there.”

The house was warm and smelled of bleach, like they’d interrupted her cleaning the bathroom.

“So which one of you lucky gentlemen is Ambrose?”

Konstantin grabbed Ambrose’s shoulder and moved him forward, then slapped his back.

Della smiled kindly. “Do you know what you’re looking for? Depending on how complicated the design is, I might be able to finish it while you’re here. If it’s fussier, it might take a few days.”

His heart felt like it was thudding in his throat.

“Uh, I don’t know. She’s a brat. She’s fun and funky and drop-dead gorgeous.” And she deserved the best collar anyone could make.

Della snorted. “You let the girl you want to take as a slave be a brat?” She shook her head. “The beginning of the relationship sets the tone, Ambrose.”

A girl in her late twenties padded into the room, dressed in a 1950s-pinup-girl dress. She went directly to Della and curtsied, her gaze politely downcast.

“The leather swatches, please, Misty.”

“Yes, ma’am.” She curtsied again and left the room. Pretty little thing, but she didn’t hold a candle to Everly.

“See? Now, Misty would never give me sass. Maybe she had some fight in her when we met, but I fixed that quick.”

Misty was back in a moment and knelt at Della’s feet, offering up a stack of leather in different colors. Della ignored her.

“So is this collar for play or daily use?” She went to the sofa and arranged herself comfortably. Misty knee-walked to her and waited, the swatches still offered up to her mistress.

“Probably for play. I’ll get her to help me pick out something subtle for wearing in vanilla contexts.”

Again, Della looked nonplussed. “I’ll make something sturdy. If she needs a lot of training, the collar you put on her might need to take some abuse. Now, do you want something like lace or bells on it? Is she a baby girl or a kitten?”

A montage of Everly in costumes and situations they hadn’t explored together yet started playing in his head. So many perverted things he wanted to do to her.

“Something neutral is good for now.”

“Spikes? Decorative chain? Something hand-painted? Her slave name?”

Suddenly, the room felt too small and sweat sprung out on his forehead. Banner never said this would be like playing Twenty Questions. Of course, he could always buy her more collars later, but none of the others would ever be this important first one—the meaningful one—that spoke of his commitment to her.

Della took the swatches from Misty. “Go get drinks. This looks like it might take a while. What about a metal O-ring or a D-ring to attach a leash to? Do you want one? Two? Three?”

Finally, easier questions. How had Banner come here alone for Kate’s first custom collar? Ambrose might have fainted if the guys hadn’t volunteered to go with him.

“Just one.”

“How wide do you want the collar? As wide as a posture collar?”

“No. Wide enough to make her feel owned, but not wide enough to restrict movement.”

“How big is her neck?”

Shit.
How was he supposed to measure for something like that?

He looked at his hands and thought about how her neck felt when he had them wrapped around it.

“Show me.”

A little creeped out about having this conversation with a strange woman, he made a circle with his hands, remembering instinctively how much his fingers overlapped.

Banner and Konstantin both chuckled, but Della waved a hand at them.

“Oh, like you were any better, Banner.” She rolled her eyes. “The first time you came, you had to bring me that ugly sex-store collar you were using on Kate to show me her size.”

Misty brought them coffee. Ambrose was coached through picking colors and embellishments, and hoped he’d chosen things Everly would like.

The design of the collar was important, but whether she’d accept it was still a mystery. Sure, they’d said the
L
word to each other, but that didn’t mean she was ready to accept him as her Master in a more permanent sense. Maybe it was “I love you for now,” or “I love you based on what you’ve told me about yourself.” Maybe having a collar made for her was premature, considering how much he was keeping from her.

Della focused on cutting things out and stitching them together, and the guys settled in to wait. Banner was getting a kick out of pointing out the subtle and not-so-subtle kink renos that had been done, just in the living room, even though Ambrose spotted most of them before he said anything. When you were into kink, you never assumed the O-rings in someone else’s ceiling were for missing swag lamps or plant holders. Almost every piece of furniture had been adapted so restraints could be easily attached. Della was hard-core, and Ambrose felt like he’d been invited into the home of a kink Jedi.

“So when are you going to come clean with her?” Banner asked, grimacing. “You shouldn’t offer her a collar until you two have that conversation.”

Ambrose sighed, his hope sinking. Things were going so well. Did he have to tell her?

Of course he did, but he wished he would have found a way to tell her sooner. The longer it dragged on, the worse all of his rehearsed explanations sounded in his head.

“Just tell her the truth. What’s the worst thing that could happen?” Konstantin punched Ambrose’s shoulder and then leaned on him. “If it’s that much of an issue, then it’s best to find out now. You can only keep this game up for so long.”

“What’s that?” Della asked, looking up from her work. “Have you been lying to this girl?”

Ambrose nodded, ashamed to have to admit it.

“Well, fuck. Even the newest of Masters knows that’s no way to start a relationship.” Della frowned at him, and he felt like he was in the principal’s office. “You can’t give this to her until you lay all of your cards on the table. So what’s the big secret? You have another girl on the side who she doesn’t know about?”

“No.”

“You’re fucking pretty boy there?” she asked, flicking a finger at Konstantin.

Konstantin chuckled and shifted closer, throwing an arm around Ambrose’s shoulders.

“No,” Ambrose replied. “He wishes.”

Banner grinned and sat on Ambrose’s other side, joining in the group cuddle.

Della rolled her eyes. “So what, then?”

“She doesn’t know he’s rich and he’s too chickenshit to tell her.” Konstantin barked a laugh. “Poor girl. She’ll be so disappointed to find out you want to take her to Europe.”

“How on earth do you hide something like that?” Della asked. “Do you want a regular buckle, by the way, or a locking one?”

“Regular.” He moved to put his empty mug down on the coffee table, refusing Misty’s offer of another refill. She whisked his mug away almost before it touched the wood. He had a hard time imagining Everly being a service sub like that, but they could always hire a maid.

“He rented a crappy apartment in a crappy part of town and everything.” Banner nudged him companionably. “To be fair, he still dresses the same as he always did.”

“She has an enchanted pussy,” Konstantin confided. “Banner and I can’t think of any other reason he’d be doing such crazy shit.”

Della whistled. “It might seem ridiculous, but lying is lying. How can she trust you with her submission and her safety if you’ve been lying to her?”

“But if I’d told her right away, she never would have given me a chance,” Ambrose explained. Della’s words made panic rise in his chest. “She hates rich people.”

“Then that would have been her choice, and maybe her loss.” She shrugged. “If you really love her, though, lying is a craptastic way to show it.”

Even mousy little Misty nodded her head in agreement.

Damn.
That was the same thing Kate had said. And his mom, when he’d told them not to mention it when they were there for dinner.
Fuck.

Christmas was in two days—then he’d tell her. Afterward, so that if she hated him forever, at least he didn’t ruin the holiday.

It had seemed like such a harmless lie of omission in the beginning. Like any woman would care
that
much that a guy had money? But he’d been so wrong, and now the best thing that had ever happened to him was hanging in the balance.

*   *   *

“You okay?” Everly looked at him. He loosened his grip on her hand, realizing he’d probably cut off her circulation.

The strains of Gene Autry’s Christmas album filled his parents’ living room. Usually the songs brought him back to Christmases as a kid, but the tension from the past few days was making him edgy.

Knowing they were going to visit Everly’s mom tomorrow was freaking him out. His relationship with Everly was based on a lie, so his relationship with her family was going to be a sham. The thought had kept him awake all night, staring at the ceiling. Only Everly using him as a pillow had stopped him from pacing the house.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine.” He smiled at her, wondering if she’d be smiling back at him a few days from now, when he told her. Waiting until after Christmas had been a stupid idea. He’d thought it would keep the holidays from being ruined. It was too late now. “I’m just thinking I should check on the turkey.” Plausible excuse, since the turkey smelled amazing.

She frowned. “That’s a pretty serious frown for turkey.”

Awkwardly, he patted her. He rose and went to the kitchen, leaving Everly alone with the festive music and his parents’ obnoxiously decorated tree. As long as she didn’t look at the thing too closely, she might not notice that the ornaments were all hand-painted by him and Augustine when they were little. Classy, his family was not. Although the apple hadn’t fallen far from the tree.

In the kitchen, his parents were whispering to each other.

“What’s up?”

His mother turned to him, her lips pursed. “Well, since you’re asking,” she whispered, “I’m not at all comfortable with you involving us in this big mess of lies. Everly is a lovely girl. Even if she forgives you later, what is she going to think of me for agreeing to keep my mouth shut?”

“It’s not like he’s hiding a mistress or something, Jody,” his father mumbled back, keeping an eye on the door. “Is hiding something good really that big of a deal?”