The Laughing Assassin [Assassin's Diary] (Siren Publishing Classic) (20 page)

“Jaden, place your hands above your head, palms up, please.”

This time she complied, though there was a slight hesitation yet again to follow his directives. That was something they would have to work on heavily in the upcoming weeks.

Yet Jonah knew that by the time this was over, he would have earned her trust and gained her willing submission so long as he was careful with her each step of the way.

When her hands were appropriately positioned, Jonah used the soft attached wrist bonds to secure her to the cushion. She was strong enough to break them, if she truly desired, but he was betting on the fact that she would not
want
to escape his domination.

She shook slightly, as if preparing for horrible torture. Jonah planned for her to feel tortured, but she wouldn’t have to carry a single mark from her punishment. He massaged her body at first, just allowing her to become acclimated to the senses of her own flesh. After she was loose and limber, he clasped her ankles and finally fastened the restraints at the base of the cushion around the trim joints. Perfect.

If anything, the addition of the second set of fasteners seemed to make her even more nervous. She tugged at the bonds as if she were testing out the best way to escape them. But then she stilled, and he knew that she was finally resigned to her state of entrapment. Jonah trailed his lips up her flesh, starting from the tips of her tiny toes as he bathed her skin with his tongue.

After he reached the apex of her thighs, he licked over the slickened seam of her slit and tasted her personal spice. She quivered, and he licked again as if she were a frozen treat that he was forced to quickly enjoy in the hot sun before the cream melted under the direct heat of the day. He tongue bathed her, laving her flesh with each probe of his seeking mouth. There was time given to every iota of her slick cunt flesh, but even with the excess of sexual pleasure, he only gave her enough to drive her mad.

There was never enough to make her come. He wanted her to beg for the orgasm, wanted her to need his flesh. When she became too squirrelly to contain her gyrations under his lips, he stopped.

Her very breaths seemed to complain to him, each inhale a labored huff and exhale a puff of unabated desire.

“Is there something you want, Jaden?” he asked just to be an asshole. He knew exactly what she wanted. Her body spoke even louder than her groans did. “If so, you have the permission to ask for it.”

But she remained silent, if he excluded the gasps she made long after he stopped touching her.

After she backed away from the orgasmic plateau, he resumed his tongue lashing. Jonah refused to stop until she quivered uncontrollably and every fiber of her being clamored for the impending peak. He wanted to see her give in to the unending pleasure that racked her frame until she didn’t care where his will and her body ended or began.

“A woman like Jaden needs to be pushed hard with pleasure. She is well acquainted with pain and can endure more than you would want to mete out.”
Stein’s words during their first training came back to him in a rush, and everything made sense now, so much more than before.

But he wasn’t going to let her come just yet. Jonah could see that she was so close to orgasm that even a careless breath could spark her fire. That was the perfect time to release her ankles and then hands from the cushion.

“Jaden, come here.”

“What?” she asked as if she were snapped from a deep sleep.

“Don’t make me repeat myself.” The lost look in her eyes was that of passionate drunkenness, and if the circumstances were different, he would have replaced it with the gaze of satiated satisfaction.

She scrambled upright then climbed off the firm cushion. He could see the denial of her orgasm hurt as she gasped when her knees touched the floor. That was what he was looking for, what Stein was training him to see and capitalize on. Her body would be his best ally, even when her brain begged to her rebel against his mind fuck.

After another hour of giving her arbitrary commands, he could see the droop in her shoulders from sexual tension combined with physical fatigue, and he decided to end their session.

“Jaden, when your training is complete for the day, I will tell you,
as you were
and you can go back to whatever you were doing before we began. We will take longer periods of time as we go along, until we are able to wear this façade for twenty-four hours straight.”

She made a face, but didn’t speak on it. Jaden walked away and could see her tug the front zipper down no sooner than she cleared the bedroom door. He knew she would hate the outfit, but if she only understood how delectable she appeared in it then she might forgive him for extending their training for an hour longer than originally planned for day one.

* * * *

But when all was said and done, the week was at an end and Jonah was amazed at how well she took to his directives. She had become so good at it that he would have thought that this was her preferred lifestyle. Even Stein admitted his surprise at how well she took to commands at the end of the first seven days’ testing.

That Saturday evening, Stein walked in the front door as if he owned everything he saw, and Jonah knew this was the master at work. Normally, he was such an easygoing person that the man he looked at now was a one-eighty. For someone of Stein’s size, being seen as demure or unassuming was difficult, but it was all in the demeanor.

Stein hadn’t spoken as usual, but his carriage was different, the look in his eyes was different, and that was what Jonah was attempting to emulate. Jonah needed to learn how to be dominant without a word being spoken. He needed to learn how to be that man and adopt the persona that Stein wore with ease.

Preferably, he thought, without the use of verbal cues to substantiate his claim of expertise as the top, and as a dominant. Although, Jonah noted in his research thus far that most tops were not 24/7 within the lifestyle and could enjoy vanilla sex just the same as the more kinky forms of sexuality.

Stein took a seat on the couch. “Call Jaden and put her through her paces. The ones we learned about last week will be fine.”

Jonah had her wait in the bedroom after she finished dressing. “Jaden, my pet, come here.”

She walked out almost immediately. But she dropped to her hands and knees when she reached the living room to slowly and sinuously gap the remaining distance between them. When she reached his side, she stopped and sat up, placing her hands on her thighs. Her mien was perfect. She looked at the floor and made no movement, save her perfectly patient waiting for the next command.

“Jaden, Master Stein is here and would like to see you put through your paces.” She kept silent, and he began to give her the most arbitrary of directives. But that didn’t matter as she was on point with each one. He didn’t question it, yet the fact that she had worked so hard, despite her personal misgivings, made him extremely proud.

It wasn’t until he was done that Stein threw a monkey wrench into the works, and he was sure that Jaden was going to fail.

“May I?” Stein pointed at Jaden. When Jonah nodded once, Stein smirked and looked at Jaden. “Slave, I wish to see how well you take to spanking. Since you have not been trained for this yet, I will show you several positions that are perfect for this form of punishment.” Stein took Jaden’s hand and helped her into position number one, a variant on the waiting pose, with her forearms to the floor and her ass high in the air. The second was her on her hands and knees, and the third pose was her standing, but bent at the waist with her hands on the floor.

“The pose for your spanking today will be the last one I showed you.” Jaden adopted the position with no hesitance, and quickly to boot.

Stein didn’t move a muscle, nor did Jaden. She didn’t even ask why she was to be punished, and Jonah was absolutely enthralled with this version of her. He adored her strength, but loved her ability to yield as well. It was just another facet that he got the chance to appreciate.

He had to take the time to touch her, although his hands shook slightly when he moved them and his palms were damp. Jonah swept his left hand over the proffered curves of her taut hip as he listened to her quickened breathing. To anchor her into the posture, Jonah grasped the bows along the back of her corset in one fist. The extra pressure made the bodice tighten, and he could hear her measured breathing as she inhaled in tiny gasps for oxygen.

First he started out slowly, but by the fifth stroke he was unable to hold to the warm-up pace of the prior swats and let his hand fly. He smacked her from every angle, the left, the right, up, and down. Before he knew it, his own lusts heightened as he watched the way her backside jiggled from every caress smacked upon her skin.

The only reason he stopped was Stein.

Stein clasped Jonah’s shoulder and shook his head as if the gesture meant “no more.” He felt irritated at first, but when he looked down, his hand was beet red and stung. And at some point Jonah had lost count of how many times he’d smacked her. After he realized how heavy handed he had been, he felt guilty. Jaden hadn’t made a word of complaint, but he could see the corporal punishment had gotten to her. Her frame shook slightly, and Jonah was grateful that Stein stopped him when he had.

Otherwise, he may have taken their game too far. When he released her, Jaden was barely able to stand any longer, and her knees knocked together. But she was too stubborn to fall down, and Jonah wouldn’t let her feel weak due to his own weaknesses. He picked her up and carried her back to the bedroom. He sat her on the sore buttocks on the cool edge of the bathtub and stripped her of her slave garments before he ran her hot water with vanilla scented bubbles.

Jaden never even made a sound to condemn or vilify him, and her silence seemed make the albatross of guilt heavier.

She was washed gently before he massaged her damp skin with oil and left her facedown in bed beneath the ceiling fan. Jonah squatted down beside the frame of the platform and kissed her forehead. With the way he had treated her, he deserved nothing less than a head butt for his selfishness. But she didn’t injure him, only lifted her head into the soft kiss above the eyebrow.

But when he finished caring for her, he said the only thing he could.

When head lowered again, Jonah peered into her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

He knew the words weren’t enough. What kind of man was he to enjoy giving a child’s punishment on a grown woman? And not only enjoy the sight of it, but relish in giving it? Jonah never imagined once he would be a sadist, not in the three decades he’d been alive.

But she looked at him and smiled. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not. I’m not that kind of man.”

“Yes, you are. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be having this discussion now.”

Jaden was always quick on the trigger, and there was nothing that he could do but agree. “You’re right. But I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Did I sound like I was being hurt? Did I ever say I was hurt?”

“No.” Actually, all he heard were moans.

But, I was so into her that I could have been imagining things.

“In fact, what really hurt is the idea that we went together a place that only we could go to, and you are embarrassed about it. I didn’t know that it could feel like that. That you could send me outside my own body and make me forget myself.” Jaden was normally a closed-off woman. If she could be honest, he could, too, and her truths forced him to take another look at the situation.

“You’re not alone there. I forgot myself, too. But the last thing I want is to make you think that I want to abuse you.”

“It was consensual. Believe me, if I wanted to stop you, I could have.” Jaden smiled and closed her eyes. “Go and talk to Stein. I’ll be here. In two and two.” She tossed up a peace sign and flipped her hand around once, then giggled, and the hand flopped lazily onto the mattress.

Jonah couldn’t stop the laugh that burst out at the motion. He closed his eyes, and finally, the weight was lifted from his shoulders.

Jaden’s reminder about Stein forced him to walk into the living room, even though he didn’t want to. Jonah couldn’t hide like a child in the bedroom until the man went away either. He almost didn’t want to speak on what had just happened. His shame was still raw, even with the absolution that she had just given him with her admissions.

But Stein was the type of man that when he spoke, anyone with sense would listen, so Jonah sat down on the love seat and faced his friend.

“You were a bit tough on her, not that she can’t take it, but she hasn’t learned how to process those sensations yet.” Stein was right, and that was the issue. Jonah had to be in control and not just of Jaden. He had to control himself as well, and that was the hardest part.

“You’re right.”

“That’s the problem, Jonah. I’m not.” Stein smiled, just a quick flash of teeth.

“I don’t understand.”

“That’s the other problem.”

“Well how about you explain that to me then?”

“First of all, Jaden is your slave. Not mine or anyone else’s. You alone are to determine what she can or cannot handle. Secondly, you determine what she can take solely by trial and error, and based on her reactions. You learn what makes her weakest and make it her strength. She loved what you did to her, but you were so lost in how good the control felt to you that you forgot to pay attention to her. Every slave has cues that tell you when they are truly in pain or if they are in need of more. In a situation like this one?” Stein shrugged. “No harm, no foul. But in another scenario? You could have hurt her by not fulfilling her emotional and physical needs. Jaden is a woman in class of her own. She is in the ninetieth percentile for cunningness, strength, and skill. A woman like that craves an outlet to be weak, at least every once in a while.” Stein’s voice was gruff and dry, as if autumn-withered leaves rustled in his throat.