Zurlo, Michele - Two Masters for Samantha [Awakenings 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (36 page)

Stefano rolled to the edge of the bed, snagged his robe, and put it on. He faced Sammy as he finished securing the belt. “Time to get up, honey. We’re going to dress you up pretty for Lex.”

His dark blue eyes were unreadable. Samantha rose from bed without his assistance, her emotions in turmoil. Either she successfully hid it or he chose not to see it, but Stefano didn’t react to her uncertainty.

She followed him to her door, stopping suddenly when he turned and paused at the threshold.

“Go clean yourself off. Is it all right if I come in to dress you, or would you prefer to meet me back in my room?”

Sam studied his fathomless eyes. Even when he dominated her, his eyes had always retained a hint of something—hardness, humor, surprise,
something
. “Who are you right now?”

One brow lifted. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that you’re not acting like yourself. Did I do something wrong?”

Stefano crushed her in his arms and kissed her forehead. “No, honey, you did everything right. I screwed up.”

Samantha was glad he held her so tightly against his chest. She didn’t want him to see the way his admission hurt, but she couldn’t stop the jerking of her body. It was a natural reaction to rejection.

He loosened his hold, but he didn’t release her. Now there was something in his eyes when he looked at her. She wrenched free of his hold, wanting his sorrow and his regret as much as she wanted his rejection.

“Just tell me what I should wear for Alexei. I’m not a doll. I can dress myself.” She wished she wasn’t naked at that moment. However, it didn’t stop her from standing proud and tall, and it didn’t make her hide the fury roiling through her veins.

His jaw dropped and his lips moved as if he hoped to stumble on the right response.

“Never mind. I think I can figure out what he would like.” One step put her inside the room they had given to her. As she slammed the door in his face, she wondered if he would rethink the idea that this was her sanctuary and he couldn’t enter without permission.

She jerked the knob to turn on the water, not caring that it was cold. The icy temperature helped to jolt her away from hurt and resentment. She couldn’t take this to Alexei. This was between her and Stefano. It wasn’t fair to punish Alexei for something Stefano did.

Alexei deserved her best. He had been everything in a lover and in a Dom she could want. She would be everything in a lover and in a sub he wanted.

The soft knock on her door could only be Stefano. She opened it slowly in case Alexei had awakened and sought her out.

Nope. It was Stefano, dressed in slacks, a white shirt, and a tie. He was missing only a jacket. She shook herself away from admiring the way he filled out a suit. Stefano held out a box. Samantha recognized the box that held the Smart Balls, but she focused on the regret in his eyes.

“Sammy, please let me explain.”

She didn’t slam the door in his face. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to hear what he had to say. Then Alexei’s voice whispered in her head, repeating snippets of conversation about open and honest communication. Stefano had also echoed that idea.

Her nod was curt.

“Can I come in?”

She repeated the movement. Two steps put him inside far enough for her to close the door. He didn’t stray too far into the room.

“Look, I’m sorry. I should have talked to Alexei before I said anything to you. I mean...I didn’t expect...Sammy, you’re special.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked at the floor. Samantha didn’t move. These were break up words. She waited for him to continue.

“I mean, I always knew you were special. That’s why I wanted to be with you. That’s why I hounded people for your phone number until I got it. I didn’t expect to feel this way about you, not so soon. I thought I would have time to discuss it with Lex first. We agreed that if either of us developed deeper feelings for you, we would talk about it and decide what to do.”

Sam stared at him. He fidgeted, a nervous movement out of sorts with the suit he wore and the confidence that usually coated him like a second skin.

“Let me get this straight. You were going to discuss this with Alexei to decide what to do with me. Was I even considered for having a vote in my future?”

He smiled that grin that crooked a little higher on the right side. “Sammy, the final decision is always yours. But he’s my brother and my best friend. I owe it to him to be honest. What if he also has feelings for you?”

Reality slammed her and it wasn’t the nice kind. Society might look away when a woman engaged in casual sexual contact with two men, but it would not countenance them if they wanted more together. Look at how she chickened out when telling her mother about them.

Samantha was very close to both of her parents. The idea of fighting with them, of disappointing them, of doing something they couldn’t tolerate, of not having them in her life, that idea terrified her.

“Would you…would you not have told me anything if Alexei didn’t approve?”

Stefano shook his head. “I wouldn’t have kept this from you, Sammy. Secrets are destructive in a relationship. I don’t want to blindside him. I know he’ll want to keep seeing you, but I don’t know his exact feelings. Maybe he’s already fallen for you, or maybe it’ll take him a little while to realize he has feelings for you. I don’t know.”

Or maybe he would never develop the same kind of feelings for her.
The thought made her chest ache, but she wasn’t sure exactly why.

“You want me to keep this from Alexei until you’ve had a chance to talk to him.”

Stefano nodded. “I don’t like not telling him, but I think we owe this to him. I’ll talk to him as soon as you leave tomorrow.”

“All right.” She didn’t want Lex to be hurt. She didn’t want to be the cause of that hurt, and she didn’t want to come between them.

He brushed a kiss across her cheek, but that was all the contact he chanced. Backing away, he gestured toward the white, painted chest of drawers. “Can I dress you, Sammy?”

She followed him to the other side of the room and peered into the drawer he opened. He lifted out a set of tangled leather straps. Shaking them out caused a torso shape to form. Stefano held it at arm’s length, turning it around until he found what he wanted to find.

“Step into it here,” he said, indicating what Samantha could now see were openings for legs.

She did, and he pulled the straps up her body. The feel of the leather scraping her skin sent pleasant shivers through her body. Weakness, the kind that had gripped her the night before when Alexei had dressed her, invaded her shoulders, hips, and knees.

Stefano arranged the straps so that they ran in flat lines parallel to the slit of her pussy. Those straps connected in the front and back with bands that encircled her waist. More straps circled above and below her breasts. A strap ran between her breasts, and two more ran on either side, forming a box around the round globes that were growing heavy with need.

The straps between her legs ran all the way up in back, becoming shoulder straps once they reached high enough. Any movements she made with her shoulders pulled on the straps teasing just outside of where she wanted some friction.

Next, Stefano buckled thick leather cuffs around her wrists, thighs, and ankles. His clinical manner did nothing to quell the rising desire and the sense of peace that permeated her body. Finally, he put a high, stiff collar around her throat. The padding of the smooth, stiff plastic softened the constricting feeling the leather collar had made her feel. There were no rings to hook anything to it, but it forced her to stand with her shoulders pushed back, her chest open, and her neck held high.

“It’s a posture collar,” Stefano said. He slipped his smallest finger between the collar and her throat. It barely fit. “Can you breathe?”

Samantha tried nodding, but vertical movement was impossible. “Yes.”

Her words drew his gaze to her lips. The tip of his tongue darted out, moistening his own. For a second, Samantha thought he was going to kiss her. Then the indecisiveness vanished. He stepped back.

“Turn around slowly, Sammy. Let me see you.”

She did as he asked. The outfit hid nothing. Her breasts and her pussy were exposed to his view and to his touch. The straps served only to emphasize that nothing touched her where it would do any good. It teased and tantalized. Samantha wondered what Alexei had in store for her. He was certainly a master when it came to teasing.

When she again faced Stefano, the box he had been holding when he entered the room was once again in his hands. He opened it and dumped the balls into his palm. “When you lose these, Lex will punish you”

As he spoke, he reached between her legs and inserted the balls, one after another. The way the straps between her legs were situated, they forced Sam to stand with her feet spread shoulder-width apart, providing all the access he needed. She gripped his shoulders for support, wrinkling his dress shirt under her palms.

“When?” He seemed to expect her to fail. Maybe he was right. Her voice was already quivery.

“You are forbidden from telling him they’re there until he asks or until he tries to put something else there.”

Stefano didn’t seem interested in her reaction to his edict. Given the tumult of sensations and emotions whirling through her, Sam wasn’t sure what kind of reaction she was showing.

“Isn’t that not fair to me?”

He smacked a kiss on her cheek. “That’s the price of having two Masters, Sammy. Some additional torture for you is a test for him. Will he notice your discomfort? Will he address your needs in time?”

She exhaled her ire over being an instrument in their sibling rivalry. “Stefano, this isn’t fair to Alexei or to me.”

“I know.” He grinned as he twisted and pulled at one of her nipples. “It’ll be interesting to see you at dinner tonight.”

Sam wanted to ask him where he would be for the afternoon, but all thoughts fled as he stretched her nipple so far she gasped and moved toward him to relieve the pressure. He pulled something from his pocket that looked like tweezers on a chain. Keeping her nipple taut, he placed the pincers on either side. He released the fingers on her abused nipple and used them to slide a tiny hoop up the tweezers. He moved it by degrees, pausing to gauge her reaction.

When he and Alexei had whipped her, the sharp sting dissipated into a general, pleasurable tingle. The nipple clamps provided a completely different sensation. It was the sharp pinch of when he sucked hard multiplied by a thousand. There was no variation of pressure, no relief to be found by arching or wiggling.

Pain and pleasure combined to send so many sensations winging through her body that Samantha found it impossible to try to rationalize the complex feelings.

Stefano secured the clamp on the other end of the chain to the other nipple. The chain linking them wasn’t made from tiny, delicate links. It was thick and heavy, dragging at her nipples. The cool links hung down to brush the skin between the leather straps of her bodice. The light touch of the links served in direct contrast to the constant ache that reduced her breasts to nothing more significant than her nipples.

She whimpered.

Stefano stood back. “Where are we, Sammy?”

It took her a second to focus on his question and even longer for her to figure out how to answer. Yes, this hurt. This was different from the things they had done to her so far. Part of her understood that Stefano was upping the ante. The bondage, the submissive poses, and the whipping were merely the beginning. The nipple clamps were a challenge. Used together with the Smart Balls, it required her to keep focused when she wanted nothing more than to slip into that blissful place that hovered just out of reach.