The Gate (Dark Path Series) (16 page)

Chapter Fifteen

Something clicking must have woken her, or it could have been the deep cramping in her lower back or the soreness between her legs. Whatever it was, she was awake, but not in Max’s arms like when he carried her up to his suite after she witnessed more than her share of sex acts that would forever be imbedded in her mind. Rolling onto her back, she groaned, her muscles tensing. His side of the bed was cold. Come to think of it, she was a bit chilled. A slight breeze flew through the windows.

Opening her eyes, she blinked, bringing the room into focus. The drapes were partially open, the lower half of the window ajar. Max sat in a chair smoking a cigarette, the smoke rising over his head.

She rotated her wrists. They were still sore from earlier when he held them as he fucked her from behind in one of the observation rooms where they watched a woman hanging from the ceiling being tortured by two men. They used various sex toys on her from dildos to vibrators. Then they both took her at the same time, one in the vagina, the other in the ass. Max wouldn’t allow her to look away. When she closed her eyes as her orgasm came upon her, he struck her ass. Clutching her hair, he pulled out of her, making her get on her knees to give him a blowjob for disobeying. She did what he wanted, but he ended up coming all over her face. He wouldn’t let her swallow but rewarded her by making her straddle him as she fucked him. Afterward, she could barely move or talk. He dressed her, carrying her into an elevator that took them up to his suite. He took her again in the shower. At last, she’d succumbed to exhaustion, falling straight to sleep in his bed.

At the moment, she was wide-awake, studying her lover, who stared at her while he finished his cigarette.

“I didn’t know you smoked.” Her voice came out raspy. She coughed, her throat dry.

“I smoke when I need to relax. It’s not working.” He put out his cigarette, leaning down to grab a water bottle. Rising from the chair, he joined her on the bed. “Drink.”

She sat up, biting her bottom lip to stop from moaning, and took the bottle he offered. She sipped slowly, allowing the water to soothe the inside of her mouth and her sore throat. Her jaw was stiff, her lips chapped from the long time she sucked him off, but she’d wanted to please him.

“What time is it?” She lifted the pillow up higher to support her back.

“Early. Around three. The club is winding down.” He titled his head as if he heard the noise from downstairs.

She couldn’t, not even with the window open. Shivering, she rubbed her arms, pulling the sheet up higher.

“Are you cold?” Twining her hair around his finger, he stared out the window.

She cupped his cheek. He didn’t look at her like she wanted. His cheek twitched under her palm, and he gritted his teeth.

Something’s wrong here
. Turning his face toward her, she rested her forehead to his. She ran her fingers through his hair, around his shoulder and back. He was tense, rigid under her touch. When his hands came around her arms, squeezing, she gasped.

“What’s wrong? You seem angry. Have I upset you in some way?”

“No, you have pleased me in so many ways. Having you suck me off before was a dream come true. The way your pussy milked me dry, how you cried out for more even though you were rubbed raw and exhausted exceeded my expectations.” Releasing her, he cupped her face. “But it wasn’t enough. I need more.”

“More?” She didn’t understand. He’d climaxed twice. She had been the one to make him come undone.

“Yes. But what I want from you isn’t possible. It’s too soon and could ruin everything between us.” His voice was unsteady, hoarse.

“You can tell me what you want. I still haven’t run from the room screaming for help,” she joked.

Cursing, he looked away, his hands falling on his lap. He gazed out the window again, hunched over with his face near his knees.

Chills wracked her body but not from the coolness in the room. She palmed his hot back, rubbing his skin where it was slippery from the light sheen of sweat covering him.

“I can’t help you unless you tell me what’s going on. Did you have a nightmare? Is that why you were smoking, or are having second thoughts about us?” Her heart thumped hard in her chest.

He shook his head. “I have a million thoughts about you, and not one of them is anywhere near you leaving me or letting you walk out of my life. I’m a selfish bastard. I’m going to keep you anyway I can. That’s why I’m…out of sorts because I have an urge that won’t stop.” He gave her a stricken look. “If I ask you to help me out, you might really run away and scream for help.”

Her stomach flipped. Whatever he told her, she would remain calm. “What is it you want me to do?”

“There are some things I can keep from doing with a woman who may not be open to experiencing them. Most of the time, I’m fine with bondage, teasing a woman with toys or instruments until she’s begging for mercy. But there’s one thing I have to do to my partner or partners, and if I abstain from it for too long, I become anxious and restless. I guess you could say it’s my drug of choice. If I don’t do it, I have a reaction like an addict going through withdrawal.”

“You’ve abstained since you met me?”

“The night I met you, I spent hours whipping and strapping two women who looked like you to vent my frustration.” His nostrils flared as he inhaled. “Since then I haven’t struck a woman. It’s the one thing I have to do, sometimes twice a week. I get off on it more than sex. Once I went six months without sex, but just a week without flogging or using a strap on someone. Now, I find myself in a dilemma because of you. I want nothing more than to mark your ass and back with my strap, to hear you scream and cry in pain.” He gave a hollow laugh. “Ready to run now?”

She tried to reach out to him, but he rose from the bed, moving over to the window. Flattening his palms on the glass, he hung his head.

The next thing she said or did was important for the future of their relationship. Climbing off the bed, she approached him. He didn’t move away from her or react at all when she wrapped her arms around him from behind. Resting her cheek on his back, she discovered his skin was raised. She kissed the scarring there. Max shuddered.

“You have a scar on your back. What’s it from?” she asked, finding other scarring and bumps. Funny how until this moment, she’d never noticed, but then, every time she’d seen him naked, she hadn’t been interested in his back but more in his front.

“I had to learn what it was like to be a submissive. Curtis and Irene taught me so much. All before I was even legal to drink.” Snorting, he turned. He took her hands, setting her palms on his chest. His nipples pebbled under her touch.

“You know what it feels like to be whipped?”

“And flogged, caned, smacked, hit, punched, and anything else someone threw at me. My favorite is the strap. I still have the one Curtis gave me for my twenty-first birthday. Instead of a bottle of expensive alcohol he gave me a tool to dish out punishment.”

His face lit up, and she relaxed a bit. Whenever he talked about the Wells or Catherine, he was open, peaceful. She loved this side of him.

“What does your strap look like? Can I see it? Did you give it a name?”

He laughed, pulling her in close, his palms on each one of her ass cheeks. “You’re too much. Did I give me strap a name? Like I would give my penis?”

She wiggled her eyebrows. “You can tell me the name of your penis if you want. Maybe then I’ll tell you the name of my hoo-haa.”

“A hoo what?” He looked taken aback, and she giggled. “Is that what you call your lady parts?”

She circled her palms over his chest. “It’s just a silly euphemism for the vagina.” Balancing onto her toes, she pressed her mouth to his. “Show me your strap.”

He stiffened. His tongue came out and licked her lips. She opened her mouth for him to kiss her, but he stepped back. He studied her through narrowed eyes while he gnawed on his thumb.

“Just to show, Miss Walsh?”

She wanted to go back to his bed and ask him to make love to her. But she needed to come to terms with whatever they had, that for however long it lasted, it would never be normal. She could end things, tell him she wasn’t interested in his sexual kinks and grill him about Page. But she was tempted, so very tempted to see how far she could push him. How far she could push herself. She just hoped she didn’t lose herself in the process.

She held out her hand. “Show me how you use it.”

***

The room he took her to wasn’t like any other in his suite—there was no carpet. It was more like a rumpus room with exercise equipment and a few cabinets. There was a chair, a small couch, and a table in the middle. Various hooks hung from the walls, and the ceiling was covered in mirrors.

“Is this your kink room?” she joked.

He smiled briefly. “My playroom. I don’t use it all that often, but I like having it as another possibility if all the rooms downstairs are taken.”

“Have you had many people in here?” Her stomach somersaulted. Those men or women he’d invited must have been remarkable because Max seemed picky with the company he kept, including those he shared his…hobby with.
What does that mean for me?

“Still with me?” He tweaked her chin, and she gave him a brave smile to hide her nervousness.

She counted to ten in her head, an exercise a doctor taught her to do when an attack came on. She could leave at any time or use her safe word if things became too much. “Yes.”

He went over to one of the cabinets, unlocked it, and took out a leather belt. It was wide and much too short for someone to wear around their waist.

“So this is it.” She wished she could be more impressed, but the strap was very simple looking.

He stroked the leather much like he did when he played with her breasts or studied her inner thighs and pussy. She forced her legs together to stop the building pressure there. But he didn’t appear to have noticed, too involved in caressing the strap with his palm.

He kissed strap then held it out to her. “Feel how soft it is.”

She wanted to hide her hands behind her back, but didn’t. Taking the belt between two fingers, she rubbed. It was smooth like velvet. How could something so supple inflict such pain on a person?

“How do you use it on someone? Do you just slap them across the back?”

He continued to stare at the strap with near reverence. She wished he would look at her the same way.

“Perfect for the back but mainly for the ass. Also in the front, across the legs. In between them. The sting is the payoff then the numbness sets in. It all depends on how fast and hard the person dealing as to how the strokes feel.”

“And you want to use it on me?” Her voice came out squeaky. She bit down on her bottom lip.

“Oh sweetheart, you look like you’re ready to faint. We don’t have to do this. I’m not going to force you.” He caressed her cheek with the back of his hand.

He was giving her a choice. Just like everything else he did to her, she was the one who must accept. Not once did he make her do anything she didn’t want to do. For the most part, she was in charge when it came to their sex. Was she willing to take the next step to see where it led?

“I’m not going to lie, I’m a little nervous. But I’m interested. If I want you to stop, all I have to say is my safe word and you will?”

“You just say the word ‘stop’ and I will.” Circling an arm around her waist, he kissed the side of her head.

She nodded. “Tell me what you want me to do.”

***

Her arms were stretched out along the wall, attached to the hooks. He didn’t use scarves or a rope, but fur-lined wrist cuffs. He left her legs free but ordered her to keep them spread. She was naked and on display, her cheek resting on the wall.

Max moved somewhere behind her, and music filled the room. He chose Pink Floyd’s
The Wall
album.
Comfortably Numb
played through the speakers. She almost broke down in giggles.
How appropriate.

His hands landed on her shoulders, causing her to flinch. Shushing her, he rubbed her muscles there, loosening her up. She dipped her head when he squeezed the nape of her neck, digging his fingers into her spine. He traveled down her back then around, cupping her breasts.

“Are you aroused, Erika?” he whispered in her ear.

“I-I think so.” She couldn’t describe what she was feeling, but it was much like when she was ready to have sex with him. She was slick and warm, her body achy and itchy at the same time.

“Hmm, you are, just by the way you’re trembling, how heavy your breathing is.” Sliding his hand down her stomach, he petted her mound. She moaned when he spread apart her folds, circling a finger between them. Twisting upward, he stroked her clit hood.

“Oh! That feels….” She pressed her forehead into the wall. He teased her, but didn’t enter her.

“You’re primed and ready to go. This will make it easier for when I begin. Don’t be surprised if after the first slash you grow even wetter or come.”

“Has anyone ever lost their…um….” She was at a loss to explain what she meant.