Three-Part Harmony (18 page)

“They used to hide moonshine in here,” Pennington said as he clicked the key into the lock. “During the twenties, it was a speakeasy. More recently, the owners converted it for a different kind of fun.”

Needless to say, the door didn’t lead to a closet.

After about five feet, the carpeted passageway within surrendered to heavy stone steps that descended beneath the building. Each brick plane was illuminated by an oil-burning wall sconce, plunging them from the real world into a romantic, Gothic alternative. Pennington went first, still guiding Dasha, with Kress performing rear sweep as they traveled past flocked walls mounted with portraits that looked like someone had shown Scarlett O’Hara and her friends the glories of kink. At last they passed through a drape of heavy crimson velvet, and the stairs were behind them.

While heaven opened up in front of them.

Hell.

David didn’t have to look at Dasha to read the word on her mind. He felt it in the wrench of her hand against his, in the way she stopped as if suddenly glued down. She thought he’d brought her to hell, and he figured that was exactly what he’d think too—if his first trip to a BDSM dungeon had been to one like this.

He couldn’t wait to prove just the opposite to her.

The room was a labyrinth of steel, velvet, machinery, and luxury. Muted lighting made certain corners more mysterious than others—these were the places where his favorite electric playthings resided next to padded platforms with selective hard points—while flesh-gelled spotlights directed the eye toward the more elaborate equipment: a St. Andrew’s cross, a stand-up cage, a swing with retractable pins, a spanking bench, a spreader stockade, and other elaborate pieces, all accented with red crushed-velvet cushions. On one wall, a backlit chest was filled with handheld tools of all kinds: floggers, paddles, Wartenberg wheels, clamps, canes, and a multitude of more. In the center of the dungeon, a half-dozen heavy steel rings hung from the ceiling, already prepped with red and black ropes that draped to the floor. A box of carabiner hooks waited nearby, ready to assist with the most elaborate bondage a Dom could dream up.

By the look in Kress’s eyes, those dreams were already running rampant.

Past a dropped jaw, the guy stammered, “Holy mother of…”

“Mention fruit right now and you’re a dead man,” David snapped.

“I’m already dead. That’s got to be the explanation for this.”

“Helps to know a few people in the specialty real estate market.”

“Specialty is right, you bastard. When you said a surprise, I thought you meant a couple of new toys, not a whole toy room.”

Beside him, Dasha fidgeted. He watched her stare roam over the furniture again, stopping to notice the hooks and chains on each…knowing they were meant to hold her in place while Kress meted out a punishment far beyond what
he’d
ever done with her. The conflict was evident across her face, the fear of wondering if she could take it warring with the terror of running, then never knowing what she’d passed up.

He shifted his grip from her hand to her wrist. As she looked up to him again, he hardened his face in equal proportion. Still, he murmured, “You have the option of your safe word. You know that.”

She nodded, looking on the brink of doing just that. He tightened his hold, silently making that decision a bit tougher for her. Her muscles eased, a tiny yet discernible surrender. Her gaze deepened, letting him know she was secretly grateful for the control.

“Let’s get on with it,” he told Moridian. “I’ve got a naughty girl here who’s eager to get her punishment.”

Kress stepped forward, laser-beaming her with his own regard. David’s chest filled with pride when she maintained her proud stance, despite flicking one more glance over to the exit. “Yes,” said Moridian, “you certainly do, don’t you?”

“Where do you want to get creative first?” he asked.

One end of the guy’s mouth curled up. “The wolves don’t want to terrify Riding Hood before we can eat her up. Let’s go slow. Take her to the cross, lock her in, and warm her up while I get acquainted with the supply closet.”

David arched a puzzled brow. “Warm her up?”

Kress grinned. “I noticed a TENS unit on the table next to the cross. I think you know what to do with it.”

David didn’t waste time with a reply. Locking his hand to Dasha’s, he crossed the room to the eight-foot-high, X-shaped bondage mount in the far corner. D kept dutifully quiet during the journey, but he heard her breath coming sharper. By the time he stood her before the cross, the bling on her chest cast frantic sparkles against the cross’s polished steel.

David released her hand and circled behind her. As he dragged his hands down her sides, willing his strength into her skin, he leaned in and kissed her nape.

“What are you feeling?” he asked. “Complete honesty, D.”

“Terrified,” came her whisper. “Sir,” she amended after a gulp.

“But you’re willing to do this anyway.”

“Y-yes.”

“For me?”

“Yes.”

He gave her neck another kiss. Then a hungry bite. “You make your Sir very proud.” As shivers raced down her body, he added, “And his cock very hard.” He raked his fingers along her shoulders, the sadist in him flaring to life, needing to feel her tremble for him again. He reached down and slipped two fingers into her tight core, hoping to encounter her wetness. Oh yeah, there it was. Her walls dripped and pulsed against him. He adored her. He worshipped her.

“I can’t wait to fuck you tonight, D. I’m gonna do it hard and long, until you come apart beneath me.”

“Yes…”

This time, she said it with much more passion. That was his cue to bind up the balls and get to work on prepping her for Kress. He wiped her juices along her ass, then gave it a quick swat. “For now, you’re up on the cross, sweetheart.”

After guiding her legs onto the footrests and locking her in, David spread her arms along the upper beams, snapping the restraints on both sides there too. So much for giving the balls a take five. His sac throbbed by the time he finished even that. As he stepped to the table and fired up the TENS electrical box, his cock merrily joined the party. “Warm her up,” he said, forcing his gaze past the probes and insertable attachments, settling on a set of fingertip electrodes instead. “Warm her up. That’s
all
.” He attached three, to each of the middle digits of his right hand, while leaving his left free to adjust the voltage knobs on the box.

After clicking the knob to a three, David returned to Dasha. Then went to work.

“No peeking,” he admonished softly, coaxing her head to settle into the padded chin rest in the cross’s apex. Less than a second later, he raked her from shoulder to ass with the live current. So much for the chin rest. Her head snapped back as a high keen broke from her lips.

So much for any remaining inch of softness in his pants either.

He swiped her three more times, covering new skin with each stroke, reveling in the intensified cries he got each time. Finally, he couldn’t resist going for her backside and thighs too. Both had bunched and flexed while he’d focused on her back, and he wanted the chance to feel them flinching under his power before Moridian took over.

“Shit!” Dasha yelled as he first ran his fingers down her delectable ass crack. The way both her cheeks quivered gave him an idea for a game change. He pulled off two of the electrodes, leaving only the nodule on his index finger attached. Using his other fingers, he spread her flesh back, exposing the tender, tiny hole into her back passage.

“So sweet,” he crooned, caressing the narrow canyon with his other hand. “You’re so sweet and gorgeous here, D. Relax for me…just relax…that’s it.”

The whimper she gave him pitched into a scream as he pushed the electrified finger into her ass.

She bucked, but David pushed his free hand against the small of her back, locking her in place as he worked the nodule in deeper.

“Relax, baby.” He made it an order now. To be honest, the steel spine of his tone surprised even him—mostly because he barely controlled the urge to replace his finger with his cock. “Calm down and take it, D. I know you can. For me, remember? Breathe, and let me in.”

Her body sagged as she finally submitted to the treatment. But after just a minute, her choked cries took on a different cadence. Her whimpers pitched more with need and fell into a sighing song he loved more than any sound on earth: a submissive learning she actually
liked
a new torture. David exchanged a pleased glance with Kress, who now arrived bearing a large wood tray loaded with his toys of choice. As David had suspected, the guy had a healthy taste for the BDSM smorgasbord. He wondered if the man planned on using everything he’d picked, though that certainly seemed his intent as he started running a hand across the cheeks that still clenched rhythmically against David’s finger.

“Beautifully done,” Kress stated.

“Warm enough for you?” The man’s hands traveled up, assessing the fading trails along D’s back. “A little pink, a little shaky, still tied up and whimpering for more. Not a bad way to start things.”

David grunted approval to that and then carefully pulled his finger out from Dasha. As he expected, her head jerked like she’d just been roused from a nap. Her spine stiffened again, and her fingers curled anew around the tops of the restraints. Though her trepidation sent new blood to his cock, part of him shared her anxiety. Kress had been right; his lack of history with her would let him push limits David wouldn’t.

David kissed her nape while caressing the area he’d just penetrated, again willing some strength to her through touch. He had a feeling she was going to need it. But damn it, she was due for a breakthrough in this lying-by-omission game she’d been playing with the senator. It wasn’t right or healthy for either of them—not to mention where things were going in his own relationship with her. “Sir?” she asked, though dutifully keeping her head lodged in the proper place this time.

“I’m right here.” He moved to the back of the cross so she could see him. “I’m not going anywhere, D.” He cupped a hand around her face, lifting it so their gazes met. “I’ll help you through this, but I’m also here to remind you why I’m letting Kress push boundaries with you tonight. Maybe you want to tell me why?”

Her slender lips pressed together. “Because this is a real punishment.”

“And…?”

“Because I chicken-shitted on the conversation with Dad. And being more honest with him will help me be more honest with you.”

“Not more honest,” he returned. “
Completely
honest. This journey we’re on…it involves more than your body. I need your head too, sweetheart. I can never doubt that you’re telling me the total truth. I can never think, for an instant, that you’re holding back to spare my feelings.”

She nodded a little. “You’re right. Okay. Complete honesty. Thank you, Sir.”

“That’s an ideal reflection to begin with,” said Kress from the other side of the cross. David recognized a tease in the tone, a deliberate tool to relax their girl—just before he brought on the meat of her punishment.

Kress selected a swivel flogger to start with, a pearl-handled beauty strung with thin rubber strands designed to impart a sharp, severe sting when wielded at full strength. For now, the guy only brushed her ass and back in a graceful figure eight, intending to get D used to the sensation. David wasn’t sure she understood it the same way. From the first stroke, her gaze went wide, and she locked it on David as if trying to suck the strength from his body into hers. He kept holding her cheek but regulated his voice to a dominating timbre.

“Close your eyes,” he ordered. “And accept it.” There was no use giving her the “relax and breathe” mind-fuck again. She wouldn’t heed it, and it was likely best that she expected the pain—because it was coming.

Kress cracked that fact home the next second. Though he varied his intensity for just two passes, the strokes were given at the man’s full strength.

“Ohhhh!” Dasha wailed. David lost his grip on her head as she flailed back. He reconnected by raising his hands and locking them into hers instead.

She repeated the cry as Kress gave her another two strikes at full force, but those were the last words she voluntarily formed through the better part of the next half hour. She spoke only when David directly addressed her, and he did that only when Kress paused between one instrument and the next.

After the rubber-tail flogger:

“How do you feel, D?”

“Horrible, Sir.”

After the riding crop:

“That wasn’t so bad, was it, sweetheart?”

“Fuck you, Sir.”

“Give her another ten with the crop, Kress. Then use the cowhide.”

After the cowhide flogger:

“Are you ready to tell me how you really feel now, darling?”

“It’s…hot. So hot. And it hurts, Sir. Please, it—”

“Who’s in charge of this punishment, D?”

“You. You and Sergeant Moridian, Sir.”

“That’s right.” He didn’t know where that Sergeant bit came from, but he liked it. “Use the paddle now, Sergeant. The one with the holes. And don’t give her a ramp-up on pressure.”

She broke completely after three whacks with the paddle. The sobs came, shaky and sloppy, through the next three blows. David watched her closely as she slipped into tight silence after that, her ginger lashes fluttering, her face taut…yet oddly at peace. He lowered his touch back to her cheek. She leaned eagerly into his hold and readily sucked in his finger when he offered it to her lips.

He looked over to Kress, who’d stripped off his sweat-soaked shirt a few minutes back and now cocked a confident smirk. “I take it we’ve achieved subspace, my friend?”

David tried not to think about how incredible her tongue felt, swirling and pulling at his finger. And Christ, her face. The sight of it intoxicated him deeper. Her skin gleamed, her eyes were glassy, her nostrils flared in cute little spurts. To less-enlightened people, she was totally wasted. To him, she’d never been more beautiful. Her body and brain were currently the property of subspace, the happy, frothy, better-than-drugs pinnacle for every submissive on the planet.